Chapter Text
Back in Enji’s day, humans were grateful to have the help of demons. Ignorant of the price they would have to pay, they pledged their souls willingly in exchange for power, wealth, and fame. Wars were won through demons, and families survived extinction due to sacrifices made by contractors. The more suffering the soul endured, the better the price you’d get for it. This helped balance power between the wealthy and impoverished; after all, they say a poor man’s soul is worth twenty times a rich man’s.
Of course, that was before all the fucking lawyers got involved.
As more and more contracts were made, humans got better and better at negotiating their terms. No longer were deals made in desperate attempts to save their loved ones—now contracts were planned years ahead, every little condition argued and bargained over endlessly.
Needless to say, Enji consumes a lot fewer souls nowadays.
But the one he’ll be collecting today should be powerful enough to sustain him for several decades, if not centuries. Fifteen years ago, he’d struck a deal with the Commission on behalf of their ward—a dead-eyed, malnourished boy with blonde hair whose soul bore the wounds of abuse and abandonment, but still held a core of hope so strong it made Enji’s mouth water. An incredible delicacy, and one Enji had been promised in exchange for gifting the boy demonic abilities for fifteen years. He could only imagine what the additional years of work under the Commission had done to an already woeful soul.
Some humans would say Enji was terrible for taking a soul promised by someone so young; Enji would tell them anyone who’d suffered that deeply so young deserved to have their soul eaten, their existence wiped away. They’d finally know peace that the human world was unable to give them.
Stepping inside of the noisy bar he’d followed the source of his contract to, Enji wonders what kind of person his target had grown to be. Probably beaten down, exhausted from years of his human body trying to accommodate demonic powers and the inevitable discrimination from other humans that contractors always had.
Hopefully, he’d be ready to leave this world. Enji hates having to chase the regretful ones down.
He ducks under a low hanging chandelier, forcing his way through the tightly packed crowd to the back of the club, where he can feel the echo of the power he’d gifted so many years ago. He spots his charge from several steps away, blood-red wings handing over the top of a large, circular booth. A woman beside him leans over and tousles his messy hair, and he laughs loudly, grabbing her hand and kissing it before she can pull it back. She swats at him, and he grins wider, leering.
Well. This doesn’t exactly look like the sad little boy who had quietly signed his soul away all those years ago.
“Keigo Takami?” he asks, voice loud enough to be heard over the pounding music and buzz of conversation. Gold eyes dart towards him, narrowed and calculating.
Takami turns his head just like the rest of the table, pretending to look for the person Enji asked for. “Sorry, man. Doesn’t look like anyone with that name is here. Looks like you got the wrong table.”
Enji grits his teeth. If he has to, he’ll jerk the man out of his seat by his hair. “Really? Do you think you could help me find who I’m looking for then? He owes me something, and there’ll be trouble if I can’t collect.”
Takami’s grin sharpens, and he starts to shuffle his way out of the booth, wings folding tight against his back. “Sure, I’d love to help you out. You’ll have to tell me a little more about who you’re looking for though.”
“Should be in his early twenties.” Enji says as they make their way towards the side of the club. “Last time I saw him he had blonde hair and gold eyes, but he’s supposedly a mutant now.” Takami hums in acknowledgement and leads him to a door beside the bathrooms. Enji opens it to see a dark alley with a large dumpster covered in graffiti and brick walls covered in old vomit. The door slams shut behind them.
“He should have bright red wings and black marks around his eyes,” he finishes, staring flatly as Takami shuffles his hand through his pocket, pulling out a pack of cigarettes.
“Wow, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were looking for me!” Takami knocks the pack against his hand a few times before pulling one out and sticking it between his teeth. “Got a light?”
Enji steps forward, summons a small flame at the tip of his finger and holds it to the end of Takami’s cigarette. He whistles in response before taking a deep exhale. “Demon, huh?”
“I’m pretty sure you already knew that. What game are you playing here?” Enji watches the smoke filter up into the air above them. The tobacco does little to mask the acrid stench of rotting food in the alley.
Humans are disgusting.
“No games. Just had to make sure you are who I thought you were. Plus, I didn’t really think the whole soul-eating thing would go over well in the middle of the club. Lucky for me no one knows me by the name you used, so I could just pretend I had no idea what you were talking about. Really, I should be the one angry here. I’ve kept my name a secret all this time and here you come shouting it for everyone at the bar to hear.”
“I don’t care about your secrets. You’ll be dead in a few moments anyway.”
Takami winks at him. “Maybe. Gotta give me a sec to finish my smoke first.”
What the hell did the human think he was playing at? God, Enji really hopes he doesn’t try to run. He doesn’t feel like doing any chasing. His knees aren’t what they used to be.
Takami takes one last inhale from his cig before dropping it and grinding it into the concrete with the heel of his boot. He stretches his arms above his head, groaning loudly as they pop. His wings shake behind him.
“Alright, I’m ready. Try to make it quick, okay? I don’t want anyone to see an old guy in an alleyway all over me right before I die. I’m supposed to have higher standards than that.”
Enji steps forward, caging him against the brick wall of the bar. Takami grins up at him, rocking back and forth on his heels, uncaring of how much closer the motion makes them. When Enji shoves him backwards with a hand to the chest, he only gives a small oof as the breath is knocked out of him.
Human bodies are filled with emotions, spilling out of nearly part of them. They’re constantly overloaded with feelings, the source of which is their soul. Takami, on the other hand, is eerily empty, only faint echoes of what should be feelings present.
“You stupid human,” Enji growls, steam rising from his mouth as his anger swells. “You think you can break a contract with me and not suffer the consequences? I’ll take you straight to hell before you can take two steps if you don’t tell me where you hid your soul.”
“Well, you see, that’s kinda the problem. I don’t know where it is.”
“You don’t know where your soul is ?!” Enji’s yelling now, and he knows his human voice is slipping, giving way to the deeper, echoing sound that usually makes humans quake in fear. Takami seems unaffected though. “It’s not something that is easily misplaced .”
“Um, judgemental much? Some people lose car keys, I lose my soul. We all have our flaws.”
Enji slams him against the wall once before releasing him, breathing heavily as Takami straightens his shirt and inspects the damage to his wings.
“I will ask you one last time to be honest with me. Otherwise, I’m cutting my losses and you can experience for yourself what an infinity of torment in hell feels like.”
“Geez, way to make a guy feel special.” Takami huffs. “Look, I’m not really sure myself. It happened a few months ago, and my memories of it are kinda hazy. All I know is, I was investigating the Trigger case that’s been giving the police such a hard time. I got into a scuffle, someone hit me in the head, and next thing I know I wake up on the ground with my soul missing. I’ve been looking for it ever since, but no dice so far.”
“And why didn’t you just explain this to me in the first place? Before I wasted all my time and energy dragging you out here?”
Takami shrugs. “Honestly, you just look like the kinda guy that’s easy to screw with. No hard feelings, it just makes me laugh when steam shoots out of your nose ‘cause you’re mad.” Enji tries to control his temperature, but judging from how Takami’s smirk widens when he breathes out, he’s not successful. “ So , since I’m no longer in possession of what you’re looking for, I guess I’ll be on my way.”
“Wait.” Takami stops from where he’d been walking towards the street, tilting his head back over his shoulder to look at Enji. “It’s still your responsibility to fulfill your contract. You owe me your soul.”
Hawks turns around and runs a hand through his hair, sighing. “How about this: help me investigate the Trigger case, and I’ll help you look for my soul as we go.”
“I’ve fulfilled my end of the bargain. I don’t have to help you do anything.”
“Then take me to hell to burn for all eternity, I really don’t care. Just do something besides standing in this alleyway glaring at me. I know I’m pretty to look at but this is just ridiculous.”
Enji doesn’t want to be stuck in the human realm for any longer than he has to. The air here is foul, and the place itself is filled with bad memories.
But.
He’s hungry. Few humans are willing to make a contract with him nowadays—his name is too infamous—and the years without food have begun to take a toll on him. He’d most likely be fine; after all, he’s one of the strongest demons in hell for a reason, but he’ll still end up weaker than he usually is.
He better not be screwing around.
“Fine. I’ll help you with your case Takami, since you’re obviously not capable of handling it on your own.” Takami snorts. “But you will tell me every detail of what you remember before you lost your soul. Anyone following you, anything strange that happened earlier that day—I need to know all of it if we’re going to have a hope of tracking it down.”
“I’ll do whatever you want me to, partner. ” The combination of the innuendo and the reminder that he’s working with a human nearly makes Enji cringe, but he reaches his hand forward to shake Takami’s anyway. “First order of business, though—call me Hawks. No one knows me by Takami anymore.”
“Alright.”
“Second order of business—I’m starving and a little drunk, so we need to get some fast food before I can be helpful.” He starts to walk out onto the road, whistling with his hands clasped behind his head. “You coming?”
Enji sighs. “Yes.”
If worse comes to worse, he can always search for another human to seduce into a contract while he’s up here. Preferably, one that isn’t such a brat.