Fic for jibunde (Part 2 of 2)
Continued from Part One
Jin wasn't one to hold grudges, and a hot shower at home did him a world of good. The chill and mud washed down the drain, and he breathed in steam feeling like he never wanted to come out from under the spray. It was a long time before he turned the tap off and tucked a towel around his waist, slinging another over his shoulders.
His skin prickled in gooseflesh when he opened the bathroom door and let the cooler air in. The past few days had conditioned him to check for a growling little dog waiting to ambush his ankles, but Koki was nowhere in sight. Good, because next time he saw a Chihuahua Jin was bagging it with a rock and throwing it into Tokyo Bay.
Thursday night, so no Yamapi. Before bothering to get dressed, Jin wandered into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of Asahi from the fridge. There was nothing to eat in there-nothing he didn't have to make himself, anyway-so he surveyed the delivery menus stuck to the door and ordered a pizza. Extra cheese. Ham. Some vegetables he rattled off from the top of his head. Thin crust.
When Jin made his way back to his room, Kame was sitting in the chair facing the door with his arms crossed. He was in dry clothes, but his hair was still wet, damp tips of reddish brown curling on his neck.
Kame, it turned out, held a grudge better than Jin did.
"You're an idiot," he fired off without preamble.
"Couldn't see that one coming," Jin muttered. He picked up a belt from off the floor and used the buckle to open his beer. The cold wash of the first swallow eased down his sore throat.
"How did Koki convince you to go along with that? Did he have to grow a pair of tits?"
Jin almost dropped his beverage and squeezed his eyes shut in horror. He ought to make Kame pay for the therapy needed for that mental image. "Don't even joke about something like that!"
"This is exactly how you keep getting into trouble. You just agree to anything." Kame had noiselessly risen to his feet and was standing in Jin's personal space, tight-lipped and glaring.
"I'm sorry I'm not paranoid like you!"
"You should be!" Kame's eyes widened a fraction at his own outburst before he closed them, drawing in a slow, shaky breath. He pulled himself inward and continued, "After what happened the first time, you should be more careful. There are plenty of things out there interested in poaching souls, and ones like yours stand out."
"Right," Jin mocked with a sourness coating his mouth that the beer didn't wash away. "Because you've already made that investment. Excuse me if I don't celebrate."
Kame grabbed the ends of the towel dangling over Jin's shoulders and yanked him that much closer. The air around them thrummed and tasted of electricity. "You're the dumbass who summoned me, and all you wanted was for me, personally, to not kill you. I could have let Ueda take your soul, and believe me, it wouldn't have been anything like passing quietly in your sleep. But your utter stupidity must be catching because I saved your ungrateful hide instead."
Jin tried to muster up the indignation of being talked down to, and it would have been easier if he couldn't smell the fresh rain on Kame's skin and the spark smoldering underneath. He found that he couldn't say anything, and it was impossible to look Kame in the eye because Jin knew how open his face was, and Kame would see it and know and do something about it. For reasons Jin couldn't articulate, he didn't want that.
The hands fisted in the towel suddenly released and Kame stepped away. Turned his back. Jin wasn't happy with that either, and his noble intentions fell away to selfishness. He unslung the extra towel and flopped it over Kame's head, rubbing at his wet hair.
"Thanks, I guess," Jin said awkwardly. And because he didn't have to be brave in front of Kame's expression, he added, "Sorry."
"Bakanishi," Kame said, muffled with only a hint rancor from under the barrier of cloth, and he let Jin tousle his hair dry.
When the pizza arrived Jin still hadn't put on pants yet, making the delivery man very uncomfortable when he answered the door. Kame didn't warn him or anything, and laughed for what seemed like the first time in days as Jin tried to play it cool while paying the poor guy. Kame picked the green peppers off his slices and piled them onto Jin's as they sat in front of the TV watching a Thursday evening drama, and Jin pretended not to notice when Kame snuck sips from his beer.
: : : :
Jin blinked in the sudden rays of sunlight as he ascended the stairs of the metro. It had been overcast in the morning when he left for class, heavy clouds lingering from yesterday's downpour and threatening to dump more rain. They'd started to clear up when he left campus, and now the sun warmed the sidewalks and the asphalt of the streets. The air was thick and languid.
"Well, well," said a voice from behind him. Jin felt the fine hairs on his arms and back of his neck prickle. His fears were confirmed when a dainty face emerged from the crowd, sporting a wicked grin that showed a mouth of teeth. "Fancy running into you again."
Running was a fine idea.
"Wait," Ueda said, dropping the grin and affecting an expression of tranquility once more. "We should talk."
"My demon told me not to talk to creepy guys who want my soul," Jin replied automatically, and loud enough to garner a few odd looks from the flow of people that broke around them.
Ueda flapped a hand-details, details. "I don't covet your soul in particular. I agreed to help Koki and that was a one-time-only deal. You probably won't see me again until the time comes to pass your soul to Kame-chan."
"Fan-fucking-tastic," Jin mock-enthused. "Well, it was great talking to you again. Bye!"
"But," Ueda went on without paying Jin any mind, "if you take Kame-chan for granted again, I might drop by."
Jin wanted to howl at the world: it's not my fault! I didn't want a demon!
Ueda shook his head as if reading his thoughts. "You're clueless. Walk with me, Akanishi Jin."
"I'm not-fine, I might be a little lost here with this kind of weird shit flying at me from all angles, but I'm not taking Kame for granted." Jin trailed doggedly after Ueda, if only to defend himself.
"You're not the worst human he's had to serve," Ueda allowed, then added, "yet."
"I think I'm a decent enough guy! It's not like I'm ordering him to-to off someone for me, or whatever. I don't want that. I really don't."
Ueda gave him a sidelong, appraising look. "Ah," he said with a note of understanding that Jin didn't get at all. "That's why you're going to be either the best or worst thing to happen to him, Akanishi Jin."
Jin hated riddles and word games. "What's with the name? It's creeping me out."
"Maybe you should ask Kame-chan." There was meaning packed into that lightly-spoken suggestion, and Jin recalled the ache of his throat after using Kame's full name. It hadn't exactly been far from his mind all day yesterday, but...
"Don't wanna." He shoved his hands in his pockets. "I mean, if I asked, he'd have to answer, even if he didn't want to."
Why that explanation put a pleased look on Ueda's face, Jin didn't know, but at least he deigned to answer, "Names have power, you had to have figured that much out. Normally, the first order someone makes to a demon they've contracted with is to give up its name. That binds the demon more firmly to the master."
"Oh," Jin said, and then a flash of memory behind his eyes-Kame under the club lights, stalling, licking his lips nervously. "Oh."
Ueda let him reel for a moment, serenity tinged with amusement. "Think about it," he advised. "And maybe I won't have to make any surprise visits."
"Yeah," Jin said distractedly, then pulled himself together before he stepped out into the middle of a busy intersection. Ueda hung back, waiting for the crosswalk to clear. "So you're a pretty good friend of his."
Ueda merely shrugged. Total understatement. A guy doesn't threaten to show up at your home and kill you-and mean it-without giving a significant damn about the friend in question. "So is Koki."
"The bastard who wanted to steal my soul from Kame? I know my friendships are weird, but-"
"Koki meant well. His loyalty runs deep." The light changed, and the two of them were swept up in the press of people hurrying to the other side. Ueda stayed close by. "They're both strange for demons. Different. Most of their kind enjoys what they do-they all do at first, or they wouldn't have Fallen. But sometimes a few will regret that choice. Koki feels the weight of it most of all."
"That sucks," Jin guessed. He still found it hard to sympathize with the guy who tricked him. "And-Kame?"
"You should ask him. Most masters wouldn't. They don't care."
"I hate being called that." Jin shuddered, remembering the shock of the first time, waking up to find a stranger in his bed.
"Mh," Ueda hummed in something that wasn't explicit agreement. He patted Jin's shoulder and Jin shuddered for a different reason. Nice talk or not, he was still unfathomably eerie. "I have some business to attend to. Keep in mind what I said, Akanishi Jin."
"I get it. I get it already." He peeled away from Ueda with relief, taking a moment to get his bearings before quickly crossing a smaller street during a break in traffic.
He just got to the opposite curb when he heard the noise behind him. A couple of screams and shrieks, short and surprised, and something else that was difficult to describe. Like a meaty thud accompanied by a bony crunch. The sound echoed hollowly in Jin's gut, and when he turned he couldn't look away. The dark blue suit of a salaryman lay crumpled on the pavement, legs and arms twisted careless like a doll's whose strings had been cut. A splash of red pooled around a misshapen head.
Ueda was nowhere to be seen-except in a flicker of an afterimage, standing over the body, his translucent figure as brief and illusory as a mirage. The wail of sirens sped closer, but the paramedics would be far too late. The man's soul had already been whisked away by a God of Death.
: : : :
"I can't seem to stop this now, even if it's not so clear, and-" His fingers waited in midair above the strings of his acoustic guitar. "Shit, I forgot the lyrics."
Kame chuckled. "Why are you the lead singer again?"
"Shut up. It's in English!" Jin strummed the previous bars again, lips moving around the foreign lines to get the feel back. "And-I'll take what I can get if you want me here."
He'd been practicing for a while, and was surprised yet pleased when Kame joined him in the chorus.
"Say anything, but say what you mean.
When you whisper you want this, your eyes tell the same.
We are gaining speed, I can barely breathe,
'cause I'm caught in suspension."
The song was interrupted again, this time by a car horn blaring noisily and repeatedly from outside. "Damnit, I just want to play through the whole thing once!"
Jin could have been using a room at school where there was plenty of peace and quiet. But the tiny soundproof boxes on campus didn't have Kame sitting by an open window with the sun on his skin and the breeze in his hair, a wisp of smoke trailing from the end of one of Jin's cigarettes that dangled between his fingers.
"Sounds good, though."
"I want to have it down for our next show." Jin plucked a few notes, but he wasn't that interested in playing anymore. He set the guitar down and scooted closer to Kame, stealing a drag from his cigarette. Smoke scratched familiar along his throat.
Warmth from the sun pooled on the floor, and Jin was content to bask in it, leaning against Kame's chair. The noise of the city buzzed crisply through the window and the lyrics to the song bounced around in his head. Say anything, but say what you mean.
"Kame," he started, and then a weight settled on top of his head. Kame was using him as an armrest.
"Hm?"
"What's it like?"
"What's what like?"
"You know. Um." Jin made a broad motion in the air, not sure if he was trying to connect his train of thought to Kame or understand it himself first. "Being a demon and all that."
"'All that,'" Kame repeated, taunting. Jin heard him sigh, and in the following pause gather himself for a response. "I don't know, it's... okay."
"Wow. Ringing endorsement."
"It's life as I know it. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. What more do you want?"
Jin bumped his shoulder against Kame's leg. "Okay, so... Hell. Should I pack with a forecast of fire and brimstone in mind?"
Kame was silent. Maybe it wasn't very funny. Okay, it definitely wasn't funny, but Jin gave himself points for trying. Then Kame knocked bony knuckles on Jin's skull. "Hey. What's really on your mind?"
Jin let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding. "Geez, I don't know! I just... talk to me. Tell me something about yourself."
"I like romantic candlelit dinners and long walks on the beach under the moonlight."
Jin had actually started to catalogue that seriously for a moment. He punched lightly at Kame's thigh. "Ass," he said, but he felt loose-limbed and mellow. At least until Kame dipped his fingers and swept them over Jin's collarbones, making him erupt in stifled shrieks.
"You are such a girl," Kame laughed while Jin held his hands protectively over his weak spot.
"I'm not the one talking about candles and moonlight!"
Kame's eyes crinkled and his lips curled in a smile around the dwindling cigarette he brought to his mouth. Smoke bloomed and dissipated in the air as he breathed out, then he ground the stub in the ashtray. "I'm happy," he said, matter-of-fact in a way so it didn't come across as slightly deranged. "You wanted to know something, so there."
"You could be happier," Jin ventured. He thought of Ueda's annoyingly cryptic words and the way Kame apologized without saying so whenever the contract was brought up. Even when he was angry about it, he was still sorry.
"That's what it's like. Hell," Kame clarified. "It's different for everyone, but for ones like me, that's what it is. Doesn't matter where we are."
"Wait a minute. Hell is not being happy?" Jin wondered if he had some reassessing to do about his situation.
"It's harder than you think. Demons like me, who've Fallen, have known Paradise. And we'll never get that back." His voice had grown wistful, gentler than Jin had ever heard it. When he stared up at Kame's profile, the angle was perfect he was haloed in sunlight. "I sort of lied before about not being hungry. I'm always starving, never satisfied. That's what being a demon is like."
Jin's hand hovered, then laid down to rest on Kame's knee. Worn denim was soft beneath his fingers. "What will happen to me?"
"For you, it will be different." He saw Kame's expression close, as obvious as any door, and it didn't matter if Jin had the key.
Jin decided he could live without knowing. And Jin was big on satisfaction, on thrills and adrenaline highs that left him sated, on the skyrocketing ups and plummeting downs of his puny mortal life. He pressed his face against Kame's leg, sighing, and then all at once surging up onto his knees with his hands on Kame's shoulders, pulling him into a kiss.
It was the clumsiest kiss Jin's ever given since junior high school, all mashed mouths and odd bumps and gaps of air. Anxious enthusiasm, no technique. It didn't matter. His fingers clutched Kame's shoulders hard enough to bruise and he kissed him like he could pour his overflowing heart into Kame's own chest.
Kame sucked on his lips, his tongue, greedily taking what he offered and it was messy and fumbling and more. It was Kame's hands on his face, palms stroking Jin's cheeks, fingers skimming back through his hair, luxuriating in every touch and texture that lay within his reach. He smelled like smoke, tasted of tobacco, and Jin breathed him in and savored his flavor again and again. Kissed down the hard curve of his jaw, the soft length of his neck.
Kame tipped his head back, a breathy moan escaping into the mild afternoon air. Jin felt his throat vibrate softly with it under his lips. He licked over Kame's pulse, pressed his mouth there where the blood pumped in an imitation of being alive. The rapid-fire beat of it matched his, and that was good enough.
They were in full-view of whoever might peek into the third-story window. Yamapi could come home any moment. Hell, one of Kame's weird friends could make a surprise appearance.
Jin didn't care. He nosed the hollow of Kame's throat, nipped at the extended wings of his collarbones-and felt every ounce of vindication when Kame squirmed at the graze of his teeth. Smiling fiercely, he slipped his hands flat under Kame's t-shirt, rucking it up just enough so he could spread his fingers out across the firm curve of his waist, thumbs stroking his belly.
"Jin," Kame murmured, skin shivering under light touches. Even if he rarely held a grudge, that didn't mean Jin didn't remember things. And he remembered, very well, the feel of Kame pressed against his stomach.
Now it was Jin between Kame's legs, kneeling in the light instead of lying in the dark, and he feathered kisses in a haphazard path to the line of his pants. "Is this all right?" he asked, he wasn't sure why, and Kame made a surprised, airy laughing sound that made something curl warm and content in Jin's chest.
"Is it?" Kame echoed back, hands curving behind Jin's head and just brushing the nape of his neck. Jin knew of the strength that was wielded in those hands, and their distinctly male shape. There was no softness clinging to Kame, just planes of lean muscle, the hips under his touch narrow and bony. No perfumed scent, no manicured nails scraping delicately fragile. Just-Kame. Sun-warm, electric-shiver Kame with his blunt, hard nails making indentations where his fingertips dragged across Jin's shoulders.
Jin rubbed his cheek against the inside of Kame's thigh and traveled upward. Clever assault with teeth and tongue popped the button of his jeans, and then he bit down on the zipper and dragged it undone with a crawling rasp. That much was familiar. The ridge of thinly-clothed heat straining outward was not-at least, not from this angle, and the corner of Jin's mouth quirked. As far as he knew, Kame didn't have anything strange or different.
He spread open the flaps of Kame's jeans, hooked two fingers in the waistband of his underwear and tugged them down, brushing the backs of his knuckles up along the darkened underside of his cock. Kame made a tight, stuttered sound, and he bunched handholds in the fabric of Jin's shirt, even now minding his strength and taking care of where he grabbed.
Jin had less reason to be conscientious, immediately curling a loose fist around Kame and testing the feel of him. Velvet-soft skin stretched and slid under the movement of his dry palm, awkward at first until his wrist found the most comfortable angle. Hot, hard weight rested in the circle of his fingers. He found that if the guitar callous on the pad of his finger rubbed just right, Kame swore under his breath and pulled at Jin's shirt. In the back of Jin's mind that recalled high school locker rooms he couldn't help but compare, and Kame was a shade lighter, had less girth, more curve.
Closer, Jin wanted, and bent his head towards Kame's heady scent, breath puffing out, and swiped his tongue over the rounded crown. Tasted skin, mostly, a little bit of sweat, and a lingering muskiness. He kissed his way down, and licked back up from root to tip, wetter now, and he collected more of Kame's taste on his tongue.
Jin gazed up the length of Kame's body, slouched as it was, from the twitch and flutter of muscles along his abdomen to the rise and fall of his chest, the blatant arch of his neck. His head was thrown back, lips parted, and Jin was the one who moaned, so pleased-so very pleased that he could make Kame look like that: open, defenseless.
One of his hands wrapped around the base of Kame's cock, the other drifted up, tracing the sharp cut of his hip, circling his navel, and it didn't matter where he touched as long as it was skin-on-skin. Then Jin took Kame in his mouth.
Kame's knees squeezed around Jin, caging him on either side in clear command. Stay. Stay right where you are. Jin was amiable to that, and proved so by sucking on the head of his cock. He'd had fingers in his mouth before, his own or someone else's, but this was heavier, hotter, in a way more satisfying, and he went for more. Tonguing the ridge and the thick, pulsing vein below caused Kame's breath to hitch. Jin took in as much as he could, and even after thinking that was the limit he found he could take just a little bit more.
It was not the best blowjob in the world, and Jin distantly cultivated a newfound respect for the girls who'd gone down on him in the past. But Kame didn't complain when teeth bumped against his shaft, or when Jin paused and withdrew to take ragged breaths in between determined licks across the leaking tip. The taste was strong in his mouth now, more bitter, not pleasant but not unbearable. In any case, it didn't deter his enthusiasm.
At some point Kame started to mumble brokenly, "Yes, yes, good..." and Jin hummed his agreement around slick hardness. He felt the cool stir of a breeze on the heated swath of skin on his lower back where his shirt had been pulled up, and his own erection ached between his legs, so hard that he fumbled open the front of his pants and sunk his hand inside to grind against himself.
Multitasking was not one of Jin's strengths. Fortunately for him, stroking himself and sucking Kame off didn't require the same focus as singing and playing. It was enough to hollow his cheeks around the cock in his mouth, fingers slippery at the base when he remembered to ripple them, and fuck into clenched heat of his other fist. Kame cupped the back of his neck and base of his skull, and that was even better, having Kame's hands on him somehow, petting through his hair and guiding his head. The bump against the back of Jin's throat was uncomfortable, but he made a low, wanting sound around the flesh sliding past his lips.
"Jin." No one had said his name quite like that before, breathed out slow and quiet like it was something beautiful and wondrous. Jin rolled his eyes up to see Kame watching him with dark, wanton desire, and in that moment he was the center of Kame's universe, the only thing he wanted and hungered for above all else.
Jin buckled with the crash that fell upon him, giving himself over and coming hard, fast, and messy inside his hand. He was still shuddering from the pulsing shocks of it when Kame squeezed the base of his neck tight, like he was going to leave a handprint there, choking half a warning before Jin's tongue met with a hot, pungent burst.
He gagged a little and withdrew out of reflex, getting a smear down his chin when Kame's softening cock was released from his lips. There was no place to spit without being majorly gross, so Jin resigned himself to the somewhat less-gross option of swallowing thickly.
"Whoa," he said past his grimace, and his voice sounded slightly hoarse. A hand twisted in the front of his shirt, dragging him up as Kame bent down to lap at the spot on his chin and kiss him. It was a much better kiss than the one before, languid and smooth with the assurance of neither of them going anywhere. Jin's knees were going to commit mutiny whenever he got around to standing, and his jaw was feeling sore, but every ache and ounce of him was so fucking satisfied.
Kame tugged at him some more, and Jin couldn't figure out why until his wrist was grabbed and his sticky hand drawn in. His breath stuttered and fingers twitched under the warm, wet strokes of Kame's tongue. It was almost methodical, more like the drowsy, contented washing of a cat than a filthy, seductive gesture.
Jin rotated his wrist until they were palm to palm, fingers tangling. He pulled and Kame slid down with him, on top of him, lying in a boneless sprawl on the floor. Kame's breath tickled across his collarbones, and beyond the red-gold tint of his hair Jin could see a patch of sky outlined in the window.
"So," he husked, shuttering his eyelids until all he could see was a faint glow behind them, and he slung an arm around Kame's relaxed, blanketing weight. "What were you saying about being happy?"
"Mh," Kame said interpretively into Jin's chest. Pressed so close, he felt every inhale, exhale, and yes, like this.
: : : :
"I'm not skipping practice again," Jin insisted into his phone, though half of his words were overridden by Ryo's scathing remarks upon his worthlessness as human being. "There was an exam, it took a while. Oh, fuck you, for your information I studied. It wasn't five minutes before!"
The background noise of the crowded coffee shop washed over him. Jin waited for his drink, sitting in a wayward chair that wasn't quite integrated with the other sets around the tables and jiggling his leg. They had another gig lined up next week, always something to look forward to. He almost had the new song ready.
"Akanishi!" the barista called.
"Look, I'm on my way over." Jin switched the phone to his other ear and picked up his iced mocha, tearing the plastic wrap of a straw and plunging it through the lid when the harried barista forgot. "I'll be there in-"
Startled cries flew up around him when the cup slipped from his hand and splashed on the floor, ice cubes skittering wildly underfoot.
"Never mind, something came up!" he said instead and ended the call.
Not caring that it was rude, he pushed past the people inside the shop and raced out the door. He didn't have to run far, catching up quickly and yanking with thoughtless, automatic intensity on a slender, white arm.
Dark, heavily lined eyes turned on him in a glare that mellowed out with recognition. "Yes?" Madoka inquired, politely unconcerned.
"You!" was all Jin managed to say on such short notice.
Madoka dropped her eyes pointedly to where he grasped her arm, but Jin didn't release her, even though he didn't exactly know what he wanted from her yet. He'd reacted spontaneously to her appearance, just a glimpse through the window, like he'd finally found the light switch in a dark room but was having second thoughts about getting a clear look at his surroundings.
"You," he repeated, moderating his tone this time and trying not to grab her too roughly. She was a witch, she could take care of herself, but nobody else knew that and people were already giving him some disapproving looks. "I need to talk to you."
Bored, maybe even slightly annoyed, she let her gaze drift elsewhere. "We have nothing to talk about."
"Then refer me to someone who knows about demon contracts, because I've got some questions."
He felt the shiver that traveled along her arm, and her attention snapped into focus on him like a solo stage light. "Interesting," she said in a low, rumbling purr, eyes narrowing with a smile.
Though he'd sworn to never do so again, Jin followed her home. It was different this time-she couldn't seem to catch his eye the same way she'd done that night, and he could tell she wasn't too pleased about that. Her excitement overrode that detail though, an inconvenience maybe, and he thought this time he might have the upper hand.
Madoka's new apartment was decorated the same as her old one, strange but not overtly occult-though Jin eyed the carpet covering the floor and refrained from stepping on it. The roomed smelled faintly of spiced incense.
"The spell-it worked after all?" She kneeled gracefully on the floor and motioned for him to do the same. He did, settling more than an arm's length away. He didn't see the knife anywhere, but he hadn't noticed it until it was waving in front of him before, either.
"Oh, yeah." No details. Jin hated gossip to begin with, but when it involved Kame... he didn't give a damn about her curiosity, this was going to be a one-way street. "Look, all I want to know is how to save my soul."
"Tell me more," she said automatically, then smiled for his benefit. "It would be easier if I understood what happened. How did you find out?"
Jin shifted through the last couple of weeks for the bare facts. "He showed up a week later. Looks totally normal, but he's crazy-strong." Crazy-beautiful in a way no woman had been, with laughing eyes squinted nearly shut when he makes fun of Jin, and the way he rivets Jin's attention without even trying.
Madoka leaned forward. "And he obeys you?"
That again. He should have expected it to come up. "Yes," Jin allowed carefully.
"Strange." Her smile took on an edge of teeth in candid amusement. Jin couldn't say he was happy about the fact she tried to screw him over in the first place, but water under the bridge and all that. More importantly, he didn't know where to find any other witches. "I don't suppose he explained why?"
"No." Jin still thought it was obvious. "But if it was my soul being offered, wouldn't it make sense?"
Madoka scoffed and rummaged through a cardboard box that she dragged out from under her bed. Jin tensed, but all she produced was a worn book. Not a huge, leather-bond tome, but more like a journal. She flipped to a dog-eared page. "No, because I'm not inept. Plenty of summonings have been modified similarly, and this one in particular has succeeded before."
"That's all very fascinating and reassuring, but about my problem..."
More pages turned. "I'll be honest, lovely. I've never heard of someone getting out of a soul trade."
"At least not in a way that's any good for them," Jin muttered bitterly, but he wasn't going to explain that story to Madoka's clearly attentive expression either. "So, what, I'm just fucked?"
"Hmm." Either she thought it added to her mysterious charm or there really was something worth reading in that book. "I'll admit-I'm good, and I'm clever, but I'm not yet wise. And I do like a challenge." Her nails tapped the open pages with a flourish, and when she raised her face her eyes were wide and animated. "Let's try a spell."
Jin didn't know why his knee-jerk reaction was hell, no. She was a witch for crying out loud, of course the answer would be a spell. But-all right, he could play this smart. For once. "What kind of spell are we talking about here? The kind where I need to sacrifice a body part?"
"It's safe for you." Her head tilted and the waves of her hair flowed across her shoulder as she assessed him, and it was more than a casual checking out, also lacking the hungry searching quality when she'd decided that his soul would make for good fodder.
He found that he couldn't really appreciate it. "Okay," he said, diverting his attention to the book and making a passing effort to comprehend it. The words were a chaotic mess of English in faded, elegant pen strokes, and more recent Japanese notes.
Madoka was digging through her box again, pulling out what looked like junk except she handled everything with the utmost care, the way a jeweler handled precious stones or a fanatic handled rare collector's cards. She placed an assortment of items on the floor: a ruddy metal bowl, stripped twigs of wood, little bundles of aromatic herbs, and-weirdest of all-a tied lock of fine, dark hair.
She didn't seem to mind when Jin dragged the book closer and bent his head down to try and decipher the writing. The flowing English script was impossible, but Japanese seemed to be miniature biographies about people who'd lived as far back as the early Tokugawa shogunate. Jin gave the lock of hair a nervous look.
"Another summoning spell," Madoka explained, coaxing a fire in the bowl from the twigs and bits of dried leaves. They released a powerfully sharp scent despite their withered state. "But for spirits only. No demons, no deals. I may not know enough, but we can try an ancestor's wisdom."
"Kokkuri 2.0," Jin laughed, a little shakily. He remembered some girls playing the superstitious game in high school. Yamapi and Ryo were complete monsters and once dragged him into it just because it freaked him the fuck out.
His voice quieted and his heart pounded louder when Madoka's lips moved around the stark Latin syllables. She dangled the lock of hair over the licking flames and let it drop. The aroma of the herbs flooded the air, earthy and fresh, instead of the burnt stench that was expected.
The fire flashed white-hot, and through squinting, watery eyes Jin could barely make out the blurry, etched strokes of a name. Then it faded, and Jin almost thought it hadn't worked, when he blinked away the spots dancing across his vision and noticed the pale, translucent figure sitting opposite from him.
Male, young, he sat immobilized like his image was a still projection, but then his head shifted left to right, taking in the flesh-and-blood woman and man sitting around the now-smoking bowl, and his long, solemn face suddenly cracked into a wide, toothy grin that made his eyes shrink into crescents.
"Iriguchi, deguchi, Taguchi desu!"
There was a hollow period of silence.
"Right," Jin said, drawing his legs up so he could press his face into his knees and slump. "I'm fucked."
Madoka thought too highly of herself to appear flabbergasted, but a muscle twitched on her face before she smoothed it out and explained in ritualistic speech why she had called upon the spirit. He listened attentively, boyish and cheerful, apparently not much put out by the fact that he was, well, dead. But who knew how long he'd had to get used to it. He was dressed in nondescript khakis and a t-shirt, the colors washed-out like the rest of him.
"What kind of demon is it?" He inquired, and Madoka looked to Jin.
"He," Jin felt the need to emphasize, "is, um, Fallen?" That was the term he kept hearing, anyway. Taguchi and Madoka both nodded, so it must have been correct.
"Powerful," Madoka commented with a smile that made Jin nervous.
"Smart," Taguchi added more thoughtfully. "And you can't kill them, not for good. Even if you banished him, the contract would remain in effect."
"I don't want to-get rid of him, kinda," Jin hurried to say, putting a splash of surprise on the other's faces. "It's just, I think we'd both be better off without being tangled up in a deal we never wanted to make."
"Demons love dealing with souls," Madoka stated with an air of authority.
Taguchi nodded. "Leading others to damnation is in their nature, and they can't resist bargaining for a good soul. They're, ah, persuasive, too." He sounded apologetic in a way that made Jin want to put a fist through his intangible face.
"Not all of them are like that," Jin insisted. When they continued to look doubtful he drew the Ace out of his sleeve. "Or are Gods of Death prone to lying?"
Madoka's jaw didn't drop like he'd hoped, but her eyes flashed-not in anger, and she almost seemed to fight down a smile. Taguchi was suitably impressed. "No," he replied, "they're not. Furthermore, there aren't many humans who've met one and lived."
"I'm just lucky like that." Jin rolled his eyes while he said it.
"Still, very interesting!" That bright smile lit up the room again, then dialed down a notch when he added, "But a bit out of my range of experience. A demon that doesn't like to deal is a strange creature indeed."
"But he will deal," Madoka said with a glint in her eye as she cast a sidelong glance at Jin.
"That's the only way to get out of a contract with a demon. Make a new one. Offer something else." Taguchi shrugged. "With the dumber ones you can trick them, but the Fallen are a whole different story."
"Then we have our answer."
"No, wait," Jin began, but Madoka was speaking over him in a flow of foreign commands and Taguchi was waving as his image became even more indistinct.
"Glad to help!"
"What help?" Jin demanded, but he addressed empty air. He switched his glare to Madoka. "How does that help?"
"Exactly as he said: we offer something else." She leaned in close, and the fire that had gone out seemed to have been transferred to her flashing gaze. "Don't worry, lovely, I know just the thing."
: : : :
"You did it again," Kame said, greatly aggrieved when Jin told him about the meeting.
"I was careful this time! Besides, nothing bad happened." He thought Kame might react this way, so he'd waited until it was late and just the two of them, wrapping around Kame on the couch like a reassuring human blanket.
Kame elbowed him in the ribs, but it wasn't enough to dislodge Jin. Stung a bit, though. "She already used you once. Come on, Jin."
"Yeah, it's probably a trap." He wasn't that dumb for Christ's sake. "But still worth trying, right? She's too spell-happy to make it a totally empty promise. I know you want out, too."
"There's no way out," Kame countered darkly, and more than a little bitter. "You know she's just going to sacrifice some other unknowing soul, right? Do you really want that?"
"You wouldn't accept that." Sudden stillness in his arms. "...But-you-"
Kame swiveled around, pinning Jin by the shoulders the way a parent did when trying to explain something of grave importance to a child, but his fingers dug in tight and the lines of his body were taut in restraint. "I am what I am. Maybe I'm not always proud of the fact, but that witch of yours is right. I'll make the trade. I did for you, and others before you."
"But it makes you miserable!"
"Did it ever occur to you that that's the point?"
"That's fucking retarded. How about not beating yourself up?" He balled his hand into a fist and thumped it, lightly, on Kame's head. Then his fingers unfurled and slid through the soft hair like they couldn't help it. "Fine, I'm a puny human who doesn't know shit. But don't you want to... go back? 'Cause what goes up comes down and vice-versa?"
Kame let his head drop forward, bumping against Jin's so their foreheads touched. His eyes were closed. "I know. But I don't know if I want that."
"How is it even a choice? If you asked me whether I wanted Eternal Torment or Paradise..."
"It's always about choice. Why do you think I Fell in the first place? I chose. And look, I'm still here, so I haven't changed my mind."
"You're just stupidly complicated," Jin complained, taking Kame's face in his hands and kissing him before he could refute the statement.
: : : :
It was not the first time Jin regretted opening his big mouth. He wanted to call it off, stand Madoka up, and find a different way-a way that didn't involve offering some other soul for Kame to take and someone else for him to serve, although Jin wasn't sure which of those bothered him more. Kame, though, was suddenly on board with the idea. Nothing short of a direct order was going to stop him, but Jin knew he didn't want to start down that path, no matter how tempted and hurt he was by Kame's willingness.
He dragged his feet on the way to Madoka's, reluctant to the point where Kame had to stop, thin his lips in disapproval, and take up Jin's hand like a haggard parent with a wailing toddler. He even sniped, "Stop being childish."
"If we get there and she has some guy chained up or caged or something, I'm calling the fucking cops."
"It's a shame we can't all have your imagination."
Madoka's apartment was on the fifth floor. The elevator was out, or so said the sheet of paper on the floor that Kame picked up after Jin had pressed the button three times.
Their footsteps echoed in the empty stairwell. "Are you sure?" Jin asked miserably over the steady boom-boom of what felt like his own death march.
"Don't," Kame warned with a jerky twitch of his head, almost looking back but stopping just in time.
"Don't what?" Jin challenged. He stood on the step below Kame. His arms went around Kame's body and enveloped him close, feeling the warmth of his back through his clothes. His chin rested on the shelf of Kame's shoulder.
Kame's jaw brushed Jin's cheek, and quickly, almost by accident, he graced a furtive kiss to Jin's temple. Jin still felt the mild puff of his breath on his skin when Kame pried himself free.
Madoka opened her door for them with eerie premonition before Jin had worked up the nerve to knock. "Welcome," she greeted, pleasant and serene.
There was not, in fact, a sacrificial prisoner being held inside, but that didn't make Jin any happier. "So here we are," he said lamely.
"Have a seat."
"If it's all right with you," Kame began with a courtesy Jin couldn't recall him using before, "I'd rather not step into that sealing circle you have under there."
Jin's eyes went to the threadbare swath of rug Madoka sat comfortably upon, but she merely lifted her shoulders in a shrug and flipped back the corner. He saw a familiar streak of white paint. "It's a protective circle actually-for myself. I don't blame you for being suspicious, though. Rather, I hoped for it."
From her lips came a single word of command, followed by a crackle and a flash so close that Jin felt the heat flare on his skin. His eyes watered from the brightness and he felt that he'd been struck by lightning-or just nearly missed. Blinking away the spots swimming across his vision, he almost collapsed in relief to see Kame still standing, only, now the air around him sparked and shimmered.
Unconcerned, Kame tipped his head up. The white of the paint had blended into the ceiling, but now the circle and whorls of writing and symbols were visible, faintly glowing. "Don't touch," he warned when Jin took a step closer to the barrier. Then to Madoka: "This isn't necessary, but," a mocking half-smile, "I don't blame you for being worried."
"I don't like this," Jin stated for the record. The barrier-it was more like a veil, hung from ceiling to floor-hummed soft and continuous.
"There's just one thing I'm curious about," Madoka said lightly. She was surrounded in her own veil, but a paler, gentle moonglow as opposed to the electric threads flickering around Kame. "Why didn't my summoning spell work? No matter how I scrutinize it, my performance was fine."
"I've wondered about it myself," Kame admitted. "I think you can blame him." The faint smile he turned on Jin was equally exasperated and amused. "He can barely handle his own lyrics sometimes-"
"Hey!"
"-a delicate spell for summoning a demon is asking for a lot. The incantation must be precise. You're lucky there was no backlash."
Madoka wore the expression of someone who had unexpectedly bitten into an umeboshi. "I see. Well. At least it was through no fault of my own." Jin would beg to differ: he was a victim, damnit, but before he could speak for himself she composed herself again. "But it succeeded in bringing you over, so the difficult part is out of the way. Let's make a new contract."
The veil prevented Jin from edging closer to Kame, and he could feel its low hum reverberate warningly when he got too near. Meanwhile, Kame made a show of searching the room with a broad, sweeping gaze. "I don't see any other available souls, unless you mean to offer your own." His dust-dry tone indicated the likelihood of that happening.
"I wasn't sure if you would accept another soul. Is that what you really want?"
Kame remained silent.
The smile on Madoka's face unfurled like a victory banner. "I could hardly believe it when I heard, but it seems that he told the truth about you. Then how about this: you serve me instead-"
"No-" Jin began.
"-and in exchange, his soul goes free. Jin gets to keep his soul, and the demon that doesn't want to damn another doesn't have to. That's exactly what you want, isn't it?"
"Except Kame isn't serving anyone else!" Jin interrupted, trampling over Kame's intended response. He glared through the sparks of the veil where Kame matched him with narrow-eyed defiance.
"Jin, shut up, I-"
"Kamenashi Kazuya, I forbid it."
The room shook and a sizzling crack sounded, filling the air with a smoke-and-metal scent. Tiny blue-white forks of lightning crawled over the portion of the barrier that Kame had hit. He hissed through his teeth, but not so much because of the blood dripping sluggishly from his fingers. "What the hell are you doing?"
Reflex made Jin swallow, but his throat felt like sandpaper and his words rasped. "You're not a fucking slave. These contracts are bullshit."
Kame's hand tightened into a fist like he was going to hit the wall again, but he only squeezed it until his knuckles went white under the red smears. "But it's fine if you make my decisions for me, is that it?"
"No! I mean-"
Madoka's laughter pierced the tension. She held a hand over her mouth, but the chuckles rolled past it and the light reflected in her dark eyes was aflame with merriment. "So selfish, lovely! Your soul or your demon, you can't keep them both."
"No deal," Jin snapped. "Let him go."
"But I insist." She spoke a command, heralding another flash and thunder crack. The shimmering veil around Kame was sucked back up into the seal, taking him along with it like gravity in reverse until he was pinned to the circle with enough pressure to make him gasp for breath. "I can't kill him," she remarked, safe behind her protection, face tilted up to regard the demon held fast to the seal. "I could banish him, send him speedily back to Hell where he would stay for a while-longer than your lifetime-but that wouldn't benefit any of us, now would it?"
"Don't," Jin said, and wanted it to be a threat but it turned into a plea when the crushing pressure within the circle forced blood to paint Kame's mouth.
"Agree to my terms."
"You...!" He looked up to Kame, not that it was easy. Madoka was keeping him flattened to the ceiling, arms and legs awkwardly bent, and the flecks of red he coughed up made Jin's eyes go wide with horror. He'd choke on his own blood but not die from it.
Yes, okay, all right, Jin was prepared to say.
Madoka waited, cool and composed where she sat with her hands on her knees while spasms shook Kame's twisted form, and the words failed on Jin's tongue.
"No," he said, more of a raw croak than an articulated word. "No. No fucking way. I don't... It's okay if he hates me for it, and I may be a selfish asshole, but you know what's not okay? You. Doing that to him. You bitch."
"How sweet," she drawled, unaffected with good reason. She was still untouchable, still in control. "Then you don't mind me keeping this up before banishing him?"
"What's a few minutes, maybe even hours, compared to eternity?" Jin shot back with more nerve than he felt. Here he was making Kame's decisions for him again, and bad ones at that, but the only way he'd agree was over Jin's own dead body. "And if you banish him I'll just find him again. See if I fucking don't. Because Kamenashi Kazuya is my demon."
He needed that blistering surge of power, to exclaim it loud and fiery the way he'd shout and sing himself hoarse during an encore, revving the audience up to go out with a bang so they'd know how much he loved every minute of it. So Kame would know.
"You make a good point," complimented a mild voice. It came from the balcony where a slight man leaned in the partially-open doorway. He wore a polite smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.
"What a show-off," added another voice, growling and familiar, and a hand shot up to grip the railing. Koki scrabbled over the edge soon after and threw the sliding door the rest of the way open.
Jin never thought he'd be so relieved to see that bastard's face again.
"Stay back," Madoka ordered, but Koki only took a menacing step closer. "I'll banish him!"
"I'll banish you." He smirked and circled the protective light that surrounded Madoka, slow and predatory at first, and then he made a lunge. It looked like hitting a wall; the light flared up from the contact, but it didn't result in any sparks or sizzling flesh. He hit again in the same spot, and this time Jin could hear a delicate, hairline crack. The protective circle had been meant to withhold against a normal human, to keep Jin helpless against her, but against a demon's strength it was no match.
She hurriedly poured more power into the spell. Self-preservation won out, and her hold on Kame weakened. Jin was just close enough to catch him when he fell.
"Kame!"
Kame coughed and spat a glob of blood onto the floor. "Stop-quit shaking me, you idiot." But all Jin wanted to do was touch him all over and make sure he was still in one piece. Did hospitals treat demons? "Nakamaru, nice timing," Kame said tiredly over Jin's shoulder.
Nakamaru's face scrunched up in displeasure. "We hurried when we felt the activated seal. I hope no one noticed the two crazies scaling the building."
A shattering crash announced the defeat of Madoka's barrier.
"Let's go," Nakamaru suggested quickly.
Jin hesitated even as he tightened his hold around Kame. Madoka was curled up and-praying, he realized, she was desperately praying.
"It's all right," Kame said close to Jin's ear, and his voice still sounded wet and thick. "Let's go."
: : : :
"Are you sure?" Jin asked dubiously as he patted a damp towel over Kame's face. "Because you really look like hell."
"I don't need to see a doctor, Jin, and stop hovering!" Kame smacked Jin's hand away and accepted the bottle of water Nakamaru bought along with the towel from a nearby combini. He sloshed some water around in his mouth first and rinsed the last traces of blood out before taking a measured swallow.
They sat under a tree in a small park-had found a bench at first, then sent Nakamaru off to the combini, but Kame's appearance didn't exactly set the mothers and children at ease. It had taken a while for Nakamaru to find them again, and he'd arrived with a disgruntled, long-suffering expression that Kame rewarded with a grateful smile.
"You demons sure know how to stick together," Jin commented, twisting the towel around in his hands and trying to think non-jealous thoughts.
Kame and Nakamaru shared an odd look. "Actually..."
Nakamaru shook his head. "I'm not a demon."
"He's an angel," Kame clarified, and carefully did not meet Jin's incredulous stare.
"Is that... allowed?"
He was spared from what was probably going to be a pithy remark by Koki's arrival. In his smug Chihuahua form. He got sidetracked by the children, happily scampering among them with little yap-yap-yaps and a furiously wagging tail. When he made it over to their tree he flopped down and put his head on Kame's leg. Whatever good feelings Jin had accumulated for the dog drained out in an instant.
"Thanks," Kame said into the air.
"I was in the area." Nakamaru cleared his throat awkwardly. "Actually, I was looking for you. Both of you." He nodded when Jin pointed at himself. "I just meant to tell you, there's another way."
Jin groaned. "I'm beginning to think maybe it isn't worth it. After all the trouble we've gotten into..."
"That you got us into," Kame corrected waspishly. He grabbed Koki's ruff when he flicked his tail in wicked amusement. "I haven't forgotten your part in it, either."
Nakamaru rolled his eyes. "Well, if it interests you at all, demon contracts only hold with demons. There's no penalty if a contracted demon sort of... switches teams."
"I told you!" Jin suddenly exclaimed, grabbing Kame excitedly by the arm. "What did I tell you? Nobody listens to me."
Kame put up with the shaking for a moment and then pushed Jin off. "And I told you, it's not that easy."
"No," Jin said, holding up a hand to forestall an argument. "I have a goal now. A lifetime goal. Kame, I'm going to save your soul." Maybe it was just as ambitious and ridiculous as becoming famous and filthy rich overseas, but about a million times better. If asked, Jin would choose living in a cardboard box with Kame over a luxury condo with supermodels.
"Sounds good to me," Nakamaru put in.
Koki didn't say anything, but he didn't snarl at Jin either.
"Whatever," Kame murmured, looking away. "You moron."
Nakamaru stood up and brushed off the seat of his pants. "If you think about it, it's only fair. You wanted to save his soul back there, too. This way is less stupid. Come on, Koki, if you keep causing commotions in the mortal world someone's going to put you on a very short leash."
The Chihuahua grumbled in displeasure, but stiffly removed himself from Kame's lap and trotted off with the other man.
"See you around."
Jin watched them blend into the crowd, angel and demon, as ordinary as the next guy or dog strolling through the park. It was a crazy world he lived in. "I don't know about you," he said, "but your friends beat my friends in weirdness. And that's saying something."
Kame snorted. "Live a couple centuries and you'll find strange people, too."
Jin didn't think he could top an angel that shopped at combinis, a God of Death that rode the train, and a Chihuahua that thought he was Cerberus.
"Koki didn't really kill her, you know." Kame played with the cap of his water bottle. "Nakamaru wouldn't have let him."
Jin nodded, relieved to at least not have that on his conscience. Whatever his conscience was worth. "Um. You're not... mad at me, are you?"
"For what?" Kame asked blandly. "You mean, letting me be tortured while you stood around talking about what an awesome greedy bastard you are?"
"I didn't mean it like that! Ow." Jin rubbed the spot on his forehead where Kame had flicked the plastic cap. It bounced off and landed in his lap. "I just. You deserve better than that. A lot better." He picked up the cap and lobbed it in the direction of a trash can, but it dropped short.
"Litterer," Kame accused without bite. He drank down his remaining water and whipped the bottle through the air with the accuracy of a tracking missile.
"Freakin' show-off."
"You, too." He covered Jin's mouth before the vehement denial spilled out. "I mean, you deserve better, too. You have a good soul, for all that you're a dumbass. Like you said, in a choice between Heaven or Hell... it's not even a choice."
Jin pulled Kame's hand away, but held onto it. "It's always about choice. And changing your mind."
"That's so indecisive."
"Fine, I'm indecisive! People live for a long time. Eternity is even longer. I can do what I want, as long as it's what I want."
"Then..." Kame curled his fingers around Jin's, smooth and comfortable. Lasting. "What do you want?"
Jin thought about it-deep thoughts, future thoughts, what he was going to do after college and whether the band would stick together, if he'd try to make it on his own, if he'd do the smart thing and actually try to get a real job and be a different kind of failure. He thought, and said, "Move over a bit."
Kame scooted around, making enough room for Jin to turn sideways and lie back with his head pillowed on Kame's lap. It wasn't soft like a girl's, but he didn't mind. It was a warm spring day and the temperature was just right in the shade, and Kame's fingers still twined loosely with his.
"This is fine. This is all for now."
Epilogue
"He's still not answering his phone! Wait, here's his voicemail... Ryo, you mega-douche, we're setting up the stage now. If you're not here in ten-no, five, we're kicking you out of the band. This is a unanimous vote." Jin shut his phone and gnashed his teeth. "Where the hell is he?!"
"Who cares, we need a bassist." Yamapi turned to Kame. "I don't suppose that's included in your bag of tricks?"
"I can play guitar, but I've never tried bass."
"And he's not fucking psychic! Stop bothering my demon." Jin pressed Ryo's speed dial button again.
"Should someone inform him that 'demon' isn't synonymous with 'boyfriend'?" Shirota wondered aloud.
"Ryo, I swear to God-"
"You!" Ryo snarled, standing in the doorway with a loud crack as the door bounced off the wall. He marched inside, ignored Jin's tirade, and grabbed a fistful of Kame's shirt. Jin's ranting switched subjects.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING, HANDS OFF!"
"Can I help you?" Kame asked with raised eyebrows.
Ryo swung them both around to fling an arm out at the young man standing behind him. "That! What the fuck is that?"
Kame took a good, long look. The man in question merely shrugged. Kame turned back to Ryo and said very seriously, "That is going to do you a whole lot of good."
Yamapi, naturally, was the first to accost the stranger. "Cool! Are we all going to get our own demons?"
"I'm actually-"
"NOTHING," Ryo shouted, red-faced. "HE'S NOBODY."
"-his guardian angel."
Pin-dropping silence.
"Oh, buddy," Jin sighed and clapped a sympathetic hand on the self-proclaimed guardian angel's shoulder. "Have you got your work cut out for you."
*the song Jin sings is "Suspension" by Mae
Jin wasn't one to hold grudges, and a hot shower at home did him a world of good. The chill and mud washed down the drain, and he breathed in steam feeling like he never wanted to come out from under the spray. It was a long time before he turned the tap off and tucked a towel around his waist, slinging another over his shoulders.
His skin prickled in gooseflesh when he opened the bathroom door and let the cooler air in. The past few days had conditioned him to check for a growling little dog waiting to ambush his ankles, but Koki was nowhere in sight. Good, because next time he saw a Chihuahua Jin was bagging it with a rock and throwing it into Tokyo Bay.
Thursday night, so no Yamapi. Before bothering to get dressed, Jin wandered into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of Asahi from the fridge. There was nothing to eat in there-nothing he didn't have to make himself, anyway-so he surveyed the delivery menus stuck to the door and ordered a pizza. Extra cheese. Ham. Some vegetables he rattled off from the top of his head. Thin crust.
When Jin made his way back to his room, Kame was sitting in the chair facing the door with his arms crossed. He was in dry clothes, but his hair was still wet, damp tips of reddish brown curling on his neck.
Kame, it turned out, held a grudge better than Jin did.
"You're an idiot," he fired off without preamble.
"Couldn't see that one coming," Jin muttered. He picked up a belt from off the floor and used the buckle to open his beer. The cold wash of the first swallow eased down his sore throat.
"How did Koki convince you to go along with that? Did he have to grow a pair of tits?"
Jin almost dropped his beverage and squeezed his eyes shut in horror. He ought to make Kame pay for the therapy needed for that mental image. "Don't even joke about something like that!"
"This is exactly how you keep getting into trouble. You just agree to anything." Kame had noiselessly risen to his feet and was standing in Jin's personal space, tight-lipped and glaring.
"I'm sorry I'm not paranoid like you!"
"You should be!" Kame's eyes widened a fraction at his own outburst before he closed them, drawing in a slow, shaky breath. He pulled himself inward and continued, "After what happened the first time, you should be more careful. There are plenty of things out there interested in poaching souls, and ones like yours stand out."
"Right," Jin mocked with a sourness coating his mouth that the beer didn't wash away. "Because you've already made that investment. Excuse me if I don't celebrate."
Kame grabbed the ends of the towel dangling over Jin's shoulders and yanked him that much closer. The air around them thrummed and tasted of electricity. "You're the dumbass who summoned me, and all you wanted was for me, personally, to not kill you. I could have let Ueda take your soul, and believe me, it wouldn't have been anything like passing quietly in your sleep. But your utter stupidity must be catching because I saved your ungrateful hide instead."
Jin tried to muster up the indignation of being talked down to, and it would have been easier if he couldn't smell the fresh rain on Kame's skin and the spark smoldering underneath. He found that he couldn't say anything, and it was impossible to look Kame in the eye because Jin knew how open his face was, and Kame would see it and know and do something about it. For reasons Jin couldn't articulate, he didn't want that.
The hands fisted in the towel suddenly released and Kame stepped away. Turned his back. Jin wasn't happy with that either, and his noble intentions fell away to selfishness. He unslung the extra towel and flopped it over Kame's head, rubbing at his wet hair.
"Thanks, I guess," Jin said awkwardly. And because he didn't have to be brave in front of Kame's expression, he added, "Sorry."
"Bakanishi," Kame said, muffled with only a hint rancor from under the barrier of cloth, and he let Jin tousle his hair dry.
When the pizza arrived Jin still hadn't put on pants yet, making the delivery man very uncomfortable when he answered the door. Kame didn't warn him or anything, and laughed for what seemed like the first time in days as Jin tried to play it cool while paying the poor guy. Kame picked the green peppers off his slices and piled them onto Jin's as they sat in front of the TV watching a Thursday evening drama, and Jin pretended not to notice when Kame snuck sips from his beer.
: : : :
Jin blinked in the sudden rays of sunlight as he ascended the stairs of the metro. It had been overcast in the morning when he left for class, heavy clouds lingering from yesterday's downpour and threatening to dump more rain. They'd started to clear up when he left campus, and now the sun warmed the sidewalks and the asphalt of the streets. The air was thick and languid.
"Well, well," said a voice from behind him. Jin felt the fine hairs on his arms and back of his neck prickle. His fears were confirmed when a dainty face emerged from the crowd, sporting a wicked grin that showed a mouth of teeth. "Fancy running into you again."
Running was a fine idea.
"Wait," Ueda said, dropping the grin and affecting an expression of tranquility once more. "We should talk."
"My demon told me not to talk to creepy guys who want my soul," Jin replied automatically, and loud enough to garner a few odd looks from the flow of people that broke around them.
Ueda flapped a hand-details, details. "I don't covet your soul in particular. I agreed to help Koki and that was a one-time-only deal. You probably won't see me again until the time comes to pass your soul to Kame-chan."
"Fan-fucking-tastic," Jin mock-enthused. "Well, it was great talking to you again. Bye!"
"But," Ueda went on without paying Jin any mind, "if you take Kame-chan for granted again, I might drop by."
Jin wanted to howl at the world: it's not my fault! I didn't want a demon!
Ueda shook his head as if reading his thoughts. "You're clueless. Walk with me, Akanishi Jin."
"I'm not-fine, I might be a little lost here with this kind of weird shit flying at me from all angles, but I'm not taking Kame for granted." Jin trailed doggedly after Ueda, if only to defend himself.
"You're not the worst human he's had to serve," Ueda allowed, then added, "yet."
"I think I'm a decent enough guy! It's not like I'm ordering him to-to off someone for me, or whatever. I don't want that. I really don't."
Ueda gave him a sidelong, appraising look. "Ah," he said with a note of understanding that Jin didn't get at all. "That's why you're going to be either the best or worst thing to happen to him, Akanishi Jin."
Jin hated riddles and word games. "What's with the name? It's creeping me out."
"Maybe you should ask Kame-chan." There was meaning packed into that lightly-spoken suggestion, and Jin recalled the ache of his throat after using Kame's full name. It hadn't exactly been far from his mind all day yesterday, but...
"Don't wanna." He shoved his hands in his pockets. "I mean, if I asked, he'd have to answer, even if he didn't want to."
Why that explanation put a pleased look on Ueda's face, Jin didn't know, but at least he deigned to answer, "Names have power, you had to have figured that much out. Normally, the first order someone makes to a demon they've contracted with is to give up its name. That binds the demon more firmly to the master."
"Oh," Jin said, and then a flash of memory behind his eyes-Kame under the club lights, stalling, licking his lips nervously. "Oh."
Ueda let him reel for a moment, serenity tinged with amusement. "Think about it," he advised. "And maybe I won't have to make any surprise visits."
"Yeah," Jin said distractedly, then pulled himself together before he stepped out into the middle of a busy intersection. Ueda hung back, waiting for the crosswalk to clear. "So you're a pretty good friend of his."
Ueda merely shrugged. Total understatement. A guy doesn't threaten to show up at your home and kill you-and mean it-without giving a significant damn about the friend in question. "So is Koki."
"The bastard who wanted to steal my soul from Kame? I know my friendships are weird, but-"
"Koki meant well. His loyalty runs deep." The light changed, and the two of them were swept up in the press of people hurrying to the other side. Ueda stayed close by. "They're both strange for demons. Different. Most of their kind enjoys what they do-they all do at first, or they wouldn't have Fallen. But sometimes a few will regret that choice. Koki feels the weight of it most of all."
"That sucks," Jin guessed. He still found it hard to sympathize with the guy who tricked him. "And-Kame?"
"You should ask him. Most masters wouldn't. They don't care."
"I hate being called that." Jin shuddered, remembering the shock of the first time, waking up to find a stranger in his bed.
"Mh," Ueda hummed in something that wasn't explicit agreement. He patted Jin's shoulder and Jin shuddered for a different reason. Nice talk or not, he was still unfathomably eerie. "I have some business to attend to. Keep in mind what I said, Akanishi Jin."
"I get it. I get it already." He peeled away from Ueda with relief, taking a moment to get his bearings before quickly crossing a smaller street during a break in traffic.
He just got to the opposite curb when he heard the noise behind him. A couple of screams and shrieks, short and surprised, and something else that was difficult to describe. Like a meaty thud accompanied by a bony crunch. The sound echoed hollowly in Jin's gut, and when he turned he couldn't look away. The dark blue suit of a salaryman lay crumpled on the pavement, legs and arms twisted careless like a doll's whose strings had been cut. A splash of red pooled around a misshapen head.
Ueda was nowhere to be seen-except in a flicker of an afterimage, standing over the body, his translucent figure as brief and illusory as a mirage. The wail of sirens sped closer, but the paramedics would be far too late. The man's soul had already been whisked away by a God of Death.
: : : :
"I can't seem to stop this now, even if it's not so clear, and-" His fingers waited in midair above the strings of his acoustic guitar. "Shit, I forgot the lyrics."
Kame chuckled. "Why are you the lead singer again?"
"Shut up. It's in English!" Jin strummed the previous bars again, lips moving around the foreign lines to get the feel back. "And-I'll take what I can get if you want me here."
He'd been practicing for a while, and was surprised yet pleased when Kame joined him in the chorus.
"Say anything, but say what you mean.
When you whisper you want this, your eyes tell the same.
We are gaining speed, I can barely breathe,
'cause I'm caught in suspension."
The song was interrupted again, this time by a car horn blaring noisily and repeatedly from outside. "Damnit, I just want to play through the whole thing once!"
Jin could have been using a room at school where there was plenty of peace and quiet. But the tiny soundproof boxes on campus didn't have Kame sitting by an open window with the sun on his skin and the breeze in his hair, a wisp of smoke trailing from the end of one of Jin's cigarettes that dangled between his fingers.
"Sounds good, though."
"I want to have it down for our next show." Jin plucked a few notes, but he wasn't that interested in playing anymore. He set the guitar down and scooted closer to Kame, stealing a drag from his cigarette. Smoke scratched familiar along his throat.
Warmth from the sun pooled on the floor, and Jin was content to bask in it, leaning against Kame's chair. The noise of the city buzzed crisply through the window and the lyrics to the song bounced around in his head. Say anything, but say what you mean.
"Kame," he started, and then a weight settled on top of his head. Kame was using him as an armrest.
"Hm?"
"What's it like?"
"What's what like?"
"You know. Um." Jin made a broad motion in the air, not sure if he was trying to connect his train of thought to Kame or understand it himself first. "Being a demon and all that."
"'All that,'" Kame repeated, taunting. Jin heard him sigh, and in the following pause gather himself for a response. "I don't know, it's... okay."
"Wow. Ringing endorsement."
"It's life as I know it. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. What more do you want?"
Jin bumped his shoulder against Kame's leg. "Okay, so... Hell. Should I pack with a forecast of fire and brimstone in mind?"
Kame was silent. Maybe it wasn't very funny. Okay, it definitely wasn't funny, but Jin gave himself points for trying. Then Kame knocked bony knuckles on Jin's skull. "Hey. What's really on your mind?"
Jin let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding. "Geez, I don't know! I just... talk to me. Tell me something about yourself."
"I like romantic candlelit dinners and long walks on the beach under the moonlight."
Jin had actually started to catalogue that seriously for a moment. He punched lightly at Kame's thigh. "Ass," he said, but he felt loose-limbed and mellow. At least until Kame dipped his fingers and swept them over Jin's collarbones, making him erupt in stifled shrieks.
"You are such a girl," Kame laughed while Jin held his hands protectively over his weak spot.
"I'm not the one talking about candles and moonlight!"
Kame's eyes crinkled and his lips curled in a smile around the dwindling cigarette he brought to his mouth. Smoke bloomed and dissipated in the air as he breathed out, then he ground the stub in the ashtray. "I'm happy," he said, matter-of-fact in a way so it didn't come across as slightly deranged. "You wanted to know something, so there."
"You could be happier," Jin ventured. He thought of Ueda's annoyingly cryptic words and the way Kame apologized without saying so whenever the contract was brought up. Even when he was angry about it, he was still sorry.
"That's what it's like. Hell," Kame clarified. "It's different for everyone, but for ones like me, that's what it is. Doesn't matter where we are."
"Wait a minute. Hell is not being happy?" Jin wondered if he had some reassessing to do about his situation.
"It's harder than you think. Demons like me, who've Fallen, have known Paradise. And we'll never get that back." His voice had grown wistful, gentler than Jin had ever heard it. When he stared up at Kame's profile, the angle was perfect he was haloed in sunlight. "I sort of lied before about not being hungry. I'm always starving, never satisfied. That's what being a demon is like."
Jin's hand hovered, then laid down to rest on Kame's knee. Worn denim was soft beneath his fingers. "What will happen to me?"
"For you, it will be different." He saw Kame's expression close, as obvious as any door, and it didn't matter if Jin had the key.
Jin decided he could live without knowing. And Jin was big on satisfaction, on thrills and adrenaline highs that left him sated, on the skyrocketing ups and plummeting downs of his puny mortal life. He pressed his face against Kame's leg, sighing, and then all at once surging up onto his knees with his hands on Kame's shoulders, pulling him into a kiss.
It was the clumsiest kiss Jin's ever given since junior high school, all mashed mouths and odd bumps and gaps of air. Anxious enthusiasm, no technique. It didn't matter. His fingers clutched Kame's shoulders hard enough to bruise and he kissed him like he could pour his overflowing heart into Kame's own chest.
Kame sucked on his lips, his tongue, greedily taking what he offered and it was messy and fumbling and more. It was Kame's hands on his face, palms stroking Jin's cheeks, fingers skimming back through his hair, luxuriating in every touch and texture that lay within his reach. He smelled like smoke, tasted of tobacco, and Jin breathed him in and savored his flavor again and again. Kissed down the hard curve of his jaw, the soft length of his neck.
Kame tipped his head back, a breathy moan escaping into the mild afternoon air. Jin felt his throat vibrate softly with it under his lips. He licked over Kame's pulse, pressed his mouth there where the blood pumped in an imitation of being alive. The rapid-fire beat of it matched his, and that was good enough.
They were in full-view of whoever might peek into the third-story window. Yamapi could come home any moment. Hell, one of Kame's weird friends could make a surprise appearance.
Jin didn't care. He nosed the hollow of Kame's throat, nipped at the extended wings of his collarbones-and felt every ounce of vindication when Kame squirmed at the graze of his teeth. Smiling fiercely, he slipped his hands flat under Kame's t-shirt, rucking it up just enough so he could spread his fingers out across the firm curve of his waist, thumbs stroking his belly.
"Jin," Kame murmured, skin shivering under light touches. Even if he rarely held a grudge, that didn't mean Jin didn't remember things. And he remembered, very well, the feel of Kame pressed against his stomach.
Now it was Jin between Kame's legs, kneeling in the light instead of lying in the dark, and he feathered kisses in a haphazard path to the line of his pants. "Is this all right?" he asked, he wasn't sure why, and Kame made a surprised, airy laughing sound that made something curl warm and content in Jin's chest.
"Is it?" Kame echoed back, hands curving behind Jin's head and just brushing the nape of his neck. Jin knew of the strength that was wielded in those hands, and their distinctly male shape. There was no softness clinging to Kame, just planes of lean muscle, the hips under his touch narrow and bony. No perfumed scent, no manicured nails scraping delicately fragile. Just-Kame. Sun-warm, electric-shiver Kame with his blunt, hard nails making indentations where his fingertips dragged across Jin's shoulders.
Jin rubbed his cheek against the inside of Kame's thigh and traveled upward. Clever assault with teeth and tongue popped the button of his jeans, and then he bit down on the zipper and dragged it undone with a crawling rasp. That much was familiar. The ridge of thinly-clothed heat straining outward was not-at least, not from this angle, and the corner of Jin's mouth quirked. As far as he knew, Kame didn't have anything strange or different.
He spread open the flaps of Kame's jeans, hooked two fingers in the waistband of his underwear and tugged them down, brushing the backs of his knuckles up along the darkened underside of his cock. Kame made a tight, stuttered sound, and he bunched handholds in the fabric of Jin's shirt, even now minding his strength and taking care of where he grabbed.
Jin had less reason to be conscientious, immediately curling a loose fist around Kame and testing the feel of him. Velvet-soft skin stretched and slid under the movement of his dry palm, awkward at first until his wrist found the most comfortable angle. Hot, hard weight rested in the circle of his fingers. He found that if the guitar callous on the pad of his finger rubbed just right, Kame swore under his breath and pulled at Jin's shirt. In the back of Jin's mind that recalled high school locker rooms he couldn't help but compare, and Kame was a shade lighter, had less girth, more curve.
Closer, Jin wanted, and bent his head towards Kame's heady scent, breath puffing out, and swiped his tongue over the rounded crown. Tasted skin, mostly, a little bit of sweat, and a lingering muskiness. He kissed his way down, and licked back up from root to tip, wetter now, and he collected more of Kame's taste on his tongue.
Jin gazed up the length of Kame's body, slouched as it was, from the twitch and flutter of muscles along his abdomen to the rise and fall of his chest, the blatant arch of his neck. His head was thrown back, lips parted, and Jin was the one who moaned, so pleased-so very pleased that he could make Kame look like that: open, defenseless.
One of his hands wrapped around the base of Kame's cock, the other drifted up, tracing the sharp cut of his hip, circling his navel, and it didn't matter where he touched as long as it was skin-on-skin. Then Jin took Kame in his mouth.
Kame's knees squeezed around Jin, caging him on either side in clear command. Stay. Stay right where you are. Jin was amiable to that, and proved so by sucking on the head of his cock. He'd had fingers in his mouth before, his own or someone else's, but this was heavier, hotter, in a way more satisfying, and he went for more. Tonguing the ridge and the thick, pulsing vein below caused Kame's breath to hitch. Jin took in as much as he could, and even after thinking that was the limit he found he could take just a little bit more.
It was not the best blowjob in the world, and Jin distantly cultivated a newfound respect for the girls who'd gone down on him in the past. But Kame didn't complain when teeth bumped against his shaft, or when Jin paused and withdrew to take ragged breaths in between determined licks across the leaking tip. The taste was strong in his mouth now, more bitter, not pleasant but not unbearable. In any case, it didn't deter his enthusiasm.
At some point Kame started to mumble brokenly, "Yes, yes, good..." and Jin hummed his agreement around slick hardness. He felt the cool stir of a breeze on the heated swath of skin on his lower back where his shirt had been pulled up, and his own erection ached between his legs, so hard that he fumbled open the front of his pants and sunk his hand inside to grind against himself.
Multitasking was not one of Jin's strengths. Fortunately for him, stroking himself and sucking Kame off didn't require the same focus as singing and playing. It was enough to hollow his cheeks around the cock in his mouth, fingers slippery at the base when he remembered to ripple them, and fuck into clenched heat of his other fist. Kame cupped the back of his neck and base of his skull, and that was even better, having Kame's hands on him somehow, petting through his hair and guiding his head. The bump against the back of Jin's throat was uncomfortable, but he made a low, wanting sound around the flesh sliding past his lips.
"Jin." No one had said his name quite like that before, breathed out slow and quiet like it was something beautiful and wondrous. Jin rolled his eyes up to see Kame watching him with dark, wanton desire, and in that moment he was the center of Kame's universe, the only thing he wanted and hungered for above all else.
Jin buckled with the crash that fell upon him, giving himself over and coming hard, fast, and messy inside his hand. He was still shuddering from the pulsing shocks of it when Kame squeezed the base of his neck tight, like he was going to leave a handprint there, choking half a warning before Jin's tongue met with a hot, pungent burst.
He gagged a little and withdrew out of reflex, getting a smear down his chin when Kame's softening cock was released from his lips. There was no place to spit without being majorly gross, so Jin resigned himself to the somewhat less-gross option of swallowing thickly.
"Whoa," he said past his grimace, and his voice sounded slightly hoarse. A hand twisted in the front of his shirt, dragging him up as Kame bent down to lap at the spot on his chin and kiss him. It was a much better kiss than the one before, languid and smooth with the assurance of neither of them going anywhere. Jin's knees were going to commit mutiny whenever he got around to standing, and his jaw was feeling sore, but every ache and ounce of him was so fucking satisfied.
Kame tugged at him some more, and Jin couldn't figure out why until his wrist was grabbed and his sticky hand drawn in. His breath stuttered and fingers twitched under the warm, wet strokes of Kame's tongue. It was almost methodical, more like the drowsy, contented washing of a cat than a filthy, seductive gesture.
Jin rotated his wrist until they were palm to palm, fingers tangling. He pulled and Kame slid down with him, on top of him, lying in a boneless sprawl on the floor. Kame's breath tickled across his collarbones, and beyond the red-gold tint of his hair Jin could see a patch of sky outlined in the window.
"So," he husked, shuttering his eyelids until all he could see was a faint glow behind them, and he slung an arm around Kame's relaxed, blanketing weight. "What were you saying about being happy?"
"Mh," Kame said interpretively into Jin's chest. Pressed so close, he felt every inhale, exhale, and yes, like this.
: : : :
"I'm not skipping practice again," Jin insisted into his phone, though half of his words were overridden by Ryo's scathing remarks upon his worthlessness as human being. "There was an exam, it took a while. Oh, fuck you, for your information I studied. It wasn't five minutes before!"
The background noise of the crowded coffee shop washed over him. Jin waited for his drink, sitting in a wayward chair that wasn't quite integrated with the other sets around the tables and jiggling his leg. They had another gig lined up next week, always something to look forward to. He almost had the new song ready.
"Akanishi!" the barista called.
"Look, I'm on my way over." Jin switched the phone to his other ear and picked up his iced mocha, tearing the plastic wrap of a straw and plunging it through the lid when the harried barista forgot. "I'll be there in-"
Startled cries flew up around him when the cup slipped from his hand and splashed on the floor, ice cubes skittering wildly underfoot.
"Never mind, something came up!" he said instead and ended the call.
Not caring that it was rude, he pushed past the people inside the shop and raced out the door. He didn't have to run far, catching up quickly and yanking with thoughtless, automatic intensity on a slender, white arm.
Dark, heavily lined eyes turned on him in a glare that mellowed out with recognition. "Yes?" Madoka inquired, politely unconcerned.
"You!" was all Jin managed to say on such short notice.
Madoka dropped her eyes pointedly to where he grasped her arm, but Jin didn't release her, even though he didn't exactly know what he wanted from her yet. He'd reacted spontaneously to her appearance, just a glimpse through the window, like he'd finally found the light switch in a dark room but was having second thoughts about getting a clear look at his surroundings.
"You," he repeated, moderating his tone this time and trying not to grab her too roughly. She was a witch, she could take care of herself, but nobody else knew that and people were already giving him some disapproving looks. "I need to talk to you."
Bored, maybe even slightly annoyed, she let her gaze drift elsewhere. "We have nothing to talk about."
"Then refer me to someone who knows about demon contracts, because I've got some questions."
He felt the shiver that traveled along her arm, and her attention snapped into focus on him like a solo stage light. "Interesting," she said in a low, rumbling purr, eyes narrowing with a smile.
Though he'd sworn to never do so again, Jin followed her home. It was different this time-she couldn't seem to catch his eye the same way she'd done that night, and he could tell she wasn't too pleased about that. Her excitement overrode that detail though, an inconvenience maybe, and he thought this time he might have the upper hand.
Madoka's new apartment was decorated the same as her old one, strange but not overtly occult-though Jin eyed the carpet covering the floor and refrained from stepping on it. The roomed smelled faintly of spiced incense.
"The spell-it worked after all?" She kneeled gracefully on the floor and motioned for him to do the same. He did, settling more than an arm's length away. He didn't see the knife anywhere, but he hadn't noticed it until it was waving in front of him before, either.
"Oh, yeah." No details. Jin hated gossip to begin with, but when it involved Kame... he didn't give a damn about her curiosity, this was going to be a one-way street. "Look, all I want to know is how to save my soul."
"Tell me more," she said automatically, then smiled for his benefit. "It would be easier if I understood what happened. How did you find out?"
Jin shifted through the last couple of weeks for the bare facts. "He showed up a week later. Looks totally normal, but he's crazy-strong." Crazy-beautiful in a way no woman had been, with laughing eyes squinted nearly shut when he makes fun of Jin, and the way he rivets Jin's attention without even trying.
Madoka leaned forward. "And he obeys you?"
That again. He should have expected it to come up. "Yes," Jin allowed carefully.
"Strange." Her smile took on an edge of teeth in candid amusement. Jin couldn't say he was happy about the fact she tried to screw him over in the first place, but water under the bridge and all that. More importantly, he didn't know where to find any other witches. "I don't suppose he explained why?"
"No." Jin still thought it was obvious. "But if it was my soul being offered, wouldn't it make sense?"
Madoka scoffed and rummaged through a cardboard box that she dragged out from under her bed. Jin tensed, but all she produced was a worn book. Not a huge, leather-bond tome, but more like a journal. She flipped to a dog-eared page. "No, because I'm not inept. Plenty of summonings have been modified similarly, and this one in particular has succeeded before."
"That's all very fascinating and reassuring, but about my problem..."
More pages turned. "I'll be honest, lovely. I've never heard of someone getting out of a soul trade."
"At least not in a way that's any good for them," Jin muttered bitterly, but he wasn't going to explain that story to Madoka's clearly attentive expression either. "So, what, I'm just fucked?"
"Hmm." Either she thought it added to her mysterious charm or there really was something worth reading in that book. "I'll admit-I'm good, and I'm clever, but I'm not yet wise. And I do like a challenge." Her nails tapped the open pages with a flourish, and when she raised her face her eyes were wide and animated. "Let's try a spell."
Jin didn't know why his knee-jerk reaction was hell, no. She was a witch for crying out loud, of course the answer would be a spell. But-all right, he could play this smart. For once. "What kind of spell are we talking about here? The kind where I need to sacrifice a body part?"
"It's safe for you." Her head tilted and the waves of her hair flowed across her shoulder as she assessed him, and it was more than a casual checking out, also lacking the hungry searching quality when she'd decided that his soul would make for good fodder.
He found that he couldn't really appreciate it. "Okay," he said, diverting his attention to the book and making a passing effort to comprehend it. The words were a chaotic mess of English in faded, elegant pen strokes, and more recent Japanese notes.
Madoka was digging through her box again, pulling out what looked like junk except she handled everything with the utmost care, the way a jeweler handled precious stones or a fanatic handled rare collector's cards. She placed an assortment of items on the floor: a ruddy metal bowl, stripped twigs of wood, little bundles of aromatic herbs, and-weirdest of all-a tied lock of fine, dark hair.
She didn't seem to mind when Jin dragged the book closer and bent his head down to try and decipher the writing. The flowing English script was impossible, but Japanese seemed to be miniature biographies about people who'd lived as far back as the early Tokugawa shogunate. Jin gave the lock of hair a nervous look.
"Another summoning spell," Madoka explained, coaxing a fire in the bowl from the twigs and bits of dried leaves. They released a powerfully sharp scent despite their withered state. "But for spirits only. No demons, no deals. I may not know enough, but we can try an ancestor's wisdom."
"Kokkuri 2.0," Jin laughed, a little shakily. He remembered some girls playing the superstitious game in high school. Yamapi and Ryo were complete monsters and once dragged him into it just because it freaked him the fuck out.
His voice quieted and his heart pounded louder when Madoka's lips moved around the stark Latin syllables. She dangled the lock of hair over the licking flames and let it drop. The aroma of the herbs flooded the air, earthy and fresh, instead of the burnt stench that was expected.
The fire flashed white-hot, and through squinting, watery eyes Jin could barely make out the blurry, etched strokes of a name. Then it faded, and Jin almost thought it hadn't worked, when he blinked away the spots dancing across his vision and noticed the pale, translucent figure sitting opposite from him.
Male, young, he sat immobilized like his image was a still projection, but then his head shifted left to right, taking in the flesh-and-blood woman and man sitting around the now-smoking bowl, and his long, solemn face suddenly cracked into a wide, toothy grin that made his eyes shrink into crescents.
"Iriguchi, deguchi, Taguchi desu!"
There was a hollow period of silence.
"Right," Jin said, drawing his legs up so he could press his face into his knees and slump. "I'm fucked."
Madoka thought too highly of herself to appear flabbergasted, but a muscle twitched on her face before she smoothed it out and explained in ritualistic speech why she had called upon the spirit. He listened attentively, boyish and cheerful, apparently not much put out by the fact that he was, well, dead. But who knew how long he'd had to get used to it. He was dressed in nondescript khakis and a t-shirt, the colors washed-out like the rest of him.
"What kind of demon is it?" He inquired, and Madoka looked to Jin.
"He," Jin felt the need to emphasize, "is, um, Fallen?" That was the term he kept hearing, anyway. Taguchi and Madoka both nodded, so it must have been correct.
"Powerful," Madoka commented with a smile that made Jin nervous.
"Smart," Taguchi added more thoughtfully. "And you can't kill them, not for good. Even if you banished him, the contract would remain in effect."
"I don't want to-get rid of him, kinda," Jin hurried to say, putting a splash of surprise on the other's faces. "It's just, I think we'd both be better off without being tangled up in a deal we never wanted to make."
"Demons love dealing with souls," Madoka stated with an air of authority.
Taguchi nodded. "Leading others to damnation is in their nature, and they can't resist bargaining for a good soul. They're, ah, persuasive, too." He sounded apologetic in a way that made Jin want to put a fist through his intangible face.
"Not all of them are like that," Jin insisted. When they continued to look doubtful he drew the Ace out of his sleeve. "Or are Gods of Death prone to lying?"
Madoka's jaw didn't drop like he'd hoped, but her eyes flashed-not in anger, and she almost seemed to fight down a smile. Taguchi was suitably impressed. "No," he replied, "they're not. Furthermore, there aren't many humans who've met one and lived."
"I'm just lucky like that." Jin rolled his eyes while he said it.
"Still, very interesting!" That bright smile lit up the room again, then dialed down a notch when he added, "But a bit out of my range of experience. A demon that doesn't like to deal is a strange creature indeed."
"But he will deal," Madoka said with a glint in her eye as she cast a sidelong glance at Jin.
"That's the only way to get out of a contract with a demon. Make a new one. Offer something else." Taguchi shrugged. "With the dumber ones you can trick them, but the Fallen are a whole different story."
"Then we have our answer."
"No, wait," Jin began, but Madoka was speaking over him in a flow of foreign commands and Taguchi was waving as his image became even more indistinct.
"Glad to help!"
"What help?" Jin demanded, but he addressed empty air. He switched his glare to Madoka. "How does that help?"
"Exactly as he said: we offer something else." She leaned in close, and the fire that had gone out seemed to have been transferred to her flashing gaze. "Don't worry, lovely, I know just the thing."
: : : :
"You did it again," Kame said, greatly aggrieved when Jin told him about the meeting.
"I was careful this time! Besides, nothing bad happened." He thought Kame might react this way, so he'd waited until it was late and just the two of them, wrapping around Kame on the couch like a reassuring human blanket.
Kame elbowed him in the ribs, but it wasn't enough to dislodge Jin. Stung a bit, though. "She already used you once. Come on, Jin."
"Yeah, it's probably a trap." He wasn't that dumb for Christ's sake. "But still worth trying, right? She's too spell-happy to make it a totally empty promise. I know you want out, too."
"There's no way out," Kame countered darkly, and more than a little bitter. "You know she's just going to sacrifice some other unknowing soul, right? Do you really want that?"
"You wouldn't accept that." Sudden stillness in his arms. "...But-you-"
Kame swiveled around, pinning Jin by the shoulders the way a parent did when trying to explain something of grave importance to a child, but his fingers dug in tight and the lines of his body were taut in restraint. "I am what I am. Maybe I'm not always proud of the fact, but that witch of yours is right. I'll make the trade. I did for you, and others before you."
"But it makes you miserable!"
"Did it ever occur to you that that's the point?"
"That's fucking retarded. How about not beating yourself up?" He balled his hand into a fist and thumped it, lightly, on Kame's head. Then his fingers unfurled and slid through the soft hair like they couldn't help it. "Fine, I'm a puny human who doesn't know shit. But don't you want to... go back? 'Cause what goes up comes down and vice-versa?"
Kame let his head drop forward, bumping against Jin's so their foreheads touched. His eyes were closed. "I know. But I don't know if I want that."
"How is it even a choice? If you asked me whether I wanted Eternal Torment or Paradise..."
"It's always about choice. Why do you think I Fell in the first place? I chose. And look, I'm still here, so I haven't changed my mind."
"You're just stupidly complicated," Jin complained, taking Kame's face in his hands and kissing him before he could refute the statement.
: : : :
It was not the first time Jin regretted opening his big mouth. He wanted to call it off, stand Madoka up, and find a different way-a way that didn't involve offering some other soul for Kame to take and someone else for him to serve, although Jin wasn't sure which of those bothered him more. Kame, though, was suddenly on board with the idea. Nothing short of a direct order was going to stop him, but Jin knew he didn't want to start down that path, no matter how tempted and hurt he was by Kame's willingness.
He dragged his feet on the way to Madoka's, reluctant to the point where Kame had to stop, thin his lips in disapproval, and take up Jin's hand like a haggard parent with a wailing toddler. He even sniped, "Stop being childish."
"If we get there and she has some guy chained up or caged or something, I'm calling the fucking cops."
"It's a shame we can't all have your imagination."
Madoka's apartment was on the fifth floor. The elevator was out, or so said the sheet of paper on the floor that Kame picked up after Jin had pressed the button three times.
Their footsteps echoed in the empty stairwell. "Are you sure?" Jin asked miserably over the steady boom-boom of what felt like his own death march.
"Don't," Kame warned with a jerky twitch of his head, almost looking back but stopping just in time.
"Don't what?" Jin challenged. He stood on the step below Kame. His arms went around Kame's body and enveloped him close, feeling the warmth of his back through his clothes. His chin rested on the shelf of Kame's shoulder.
Kame's jaw brushed Jin's cheek, and quickly, almost by accident, he graced a furtive kiss to Jin's temple. Jin still felt the mild puff of his breath on his skin when Kame pried himself free.
Madoka opened her door for them with eerie premonition before Jin had worked up the nerve to knock. "Welcome," she greeted, pleasant and serene.
There was not, in fact, a sacrificial prisoner being held inside, but that didn't make Jin any happier. "So here we are," he said lamely.
"Have a seat."
"If it's all right with you," Kame began with a courtesy Jin couldn't recall him using before, "I'd rather not step into that sealing circle you have under there."
Jin's eyes went to the threadbare swath of rug Madoka sat comfortably upon, but she merely lifted her shoulders in a shrug and flipped back the corner. He saw a familiar streak of white paint. "It's a protective circle actually-for myself. I don't blame you for being suspicious, though. Rather, I hoped for it."
From her lips came a single word of command, followed by a crackle and a flash so close that Jin felt the heat flare on his skin. His eyes watered from the brightness and he felt that he'd been struck by lightning-or just nearly missed. Blinking away the spots swimming across his vision, he almost collapsed in relief to see Kame still standing, only, now the air around him sparked and shimmered.
Unconcerned, Kame tipped his head up. The white of the paint had blended into the ceiling, but now the circle and whorls of writing and symbols were visible, faintly glowing. "Don't touch," he warned when Jin took a step closer to the barrier. Then to Madoka: "This isn't necessary, but," a mocking half-smile, "I don't blame you for being worried."
"I don't like this," Jin stated for the record. The barrier-it was more like a veil, hung from ceiling to floor-hummed soft and continuous.
"There's just one thing I'm curious about," Madoka said lightly. She was surrounded in her own veil, but a paler, gentle moonglow as opposed to the electric threads flickering around Kame. "Why didn't my summoning spell work? No matter how I scrutinize it, my performance was fine."
"I've wondered about it myself," Kame admitted. "I think you can blame him." The faint smile he turned on Jin was equally exasperated and amused. "He can barely handle his own lyrics sometimes-"
"Hey!"
"-a delicate spell for summoning a demon is asking for a lot. The incantation must be precise. You're lucky there was no backlash."
Madoka wore the expression of someone who had unexpectedly bitten into an umeboshi. "I see. Well. At least it was through no fault of my own." Jin would beg to differ: he was a victim, damnit, but before he could speak for himself she composed herself again. "But it succeeded in bringing you over, so the difficult part is out of the way. Let's make a new contract."
The veil prevented Jin from edging closer to Kame, and he could feel its low hum reverberate warningly when he got too near. Meanwhile, Kame made a show of searching the room with a broad, sweeping gaze. "I don't see any other available souls, unless you mean to offer your own." His dust-dry tone indicated the likelihood of that happening.
"I wasn't sure if you would accept another soul. Is that what you really want?"
Kame remained silent.
The smile on Madoka's face unfurled like a victory banner. "I could hardly believe it when I heard, but it seems that he told the truth about you. Then how about this: you serve me instead-"
"No-" Jin began.
"-and in exchange, his soul goes free. Jin gets to keep his soul, and the demon that doesn't want to damn another doesn't have to. That's exactly what you want, isn't it?"
"Except Kame isn't serving anyone else!" Jin interrupted, trampling over Kame's intended response. He glared through the sparks of the veil where Kame matched him with narrow-eyed defiance.
"Jin, shut up, I-"
"Kamenashi Kazuya, I forbid it."
The room shook and a sizzling crack sounded, filling the air with a smoke-and-metal scent. Tiny blue-white forks of lightning crawled over the portion of the barrier that Kame had hit. He hissed through his teeth, but not so much because of the blood dripping sluggishly from his fingers. "What the hell are you doing?"
Reflex made Jin swallow, but his throat felt like sandpaper and his words rasped. "You're not a fucking slave. These contracts are bullshit."
Kame's hand tightened into a fist like he was going to hit the wall again, but he only squeezed it until his knuckles went white under the red smears. "But it's fine if you make my decisions for me, is that it?"
"No! I mean-"
Madoka's laughter pierced the tension. She held a hand over her mouth, but the chuckles rolled past it and the light reflected in her dark eyes was aflame with merriment. "So selfish, lovely! Your soul or your demon, you can't keep them both."
"No deal," Jin snapped. "Let him go."
"But I insist." She spoke a command, heralding another flash and thunder crack. The shimmering veil around Kame was sucked back up into the seal, taking him along with it like gravity in reverse until he was pinned to the circle with enough pressure to make him gasp for breath. "I can't kill him," she remarked, safe behind her protection, face tilted up to regard the demon held fast to the seal. "I could banish him, send him speedily back to Hell where he would stay for a while-longer than your lifetime-but that wouldn't benefit any of us, now would it?"
"Don't," Jin said, and wanted it to be a threat but it turned into a plea when the crushing pressure within the circle forced blood to paint Kame's mouth.
"Agree to my terms."
"You...!" He looked up to Kame, not that it was easy. Madoka was keeping him flattened to the ceiling, arms and legs awkwardly bent, and the flecks of red he coughed up made Jin's eyes go wide with horror. He'd choke on his own blood but not die from it.
Yes, okay, all right, Jin was prepared to say.
Madoka waited, cool and composed where she sat with her hands on her knees while spasms shook Kame's twisted form, and the words failed on Jin's tongue.
"No," he said, more of a raw croak than an articulated word. "No. No fucking way. I don't... It's okay if he hates me for it, and I may be a selfish asshole, but you know what's not okay? You. Doing that to him. You bitch."
"How sweet," she drawled, unaffected with good reason. She was still untouchable, still in control. "Then you don't mind me keeping this up before banishing him?"
"What's a few minutes, maybe even hours, compared to eternity?" Jin shot back with more nerve than he felt. Here he was making Kame's decisions for him again, and bad ones at that, but the only way he'd agree was over Jin's own dead body. "And if you banish him I'll just find him again. See if I fucking don't. Because Kamenashi Kazuya is my demon."
He needed that blistering surge of power, to exclaim it loud and fiery the way he'd shout and sing himself hoarse during an encore, revving the audience up to go out with a bang so they'd know how much he loved every minute of it. So Kame would know.
"You make a good point," complimented a mild voice. It came from the balcony where a slight man leaned in the partially-open doorway. He wore a polite smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.
"What a show-off," added another voice, growling and familiar, and a hand shot up to grip the railing. Koki scrabbled over the edge soon after and threw the sliding door the rest of the way open.
Jin never thought he'd be so relieved to see that bastard's face again.
"Stay back," Madoka ordered, but Koki only took a menacing step closer. "I'll banish him!"
"I'll banish you." He smirked and circled the protective light that surrounded Madoka, slow and predatory at first, and then he made a lunge. It looked like hitting a wall; the light flared up from the contact, but it didn't result in any sparks or sizzling flesh. He hit again in the same spot, and this time Jin could hear a delicate, hairline crack. The protective circle had been meant to withhold against a normal human, to keep Jin helpless against her, but against a demon's strength it was no match.
She hurriedly poured more power into the spell. Self-preservation won out, and her hold on Kame weakened. Jin was just close enough to catch him when he fell.
"Kame!"
Kame coughed and spat a glob of blood onto the floor. "Stop-quit shaking me, you idiot." But all Jin wanted to do was touch him all over and make sure he was still in one piece. Did hospitals treat demons? "Nakamaru, nice timing," Kame said tiredly over Jin's shoulder.
Nakamaru's face scrunched up in displeasure. "We hurried when we felt the activated seal. I hope no one noticed the two crazies scaling the building."
A shattering crash announced the defeat of Madoka's barrier.
"Let's go," Nakamaru suggested quickly.
Jin hesitated even as he tightened his hold around Kame. Madoka was curled up and-praying, he realized, she was desperately praying.
"It's all right," Kame said close to Jin's ear, and his voice still sounded wet and thick. "Let's go."
: : : :
"Are you sure?" Jin asked dubiously as he patted a damp towel over Kame's face. "Because you really look like hell."
"I don't need to see a doctor, Jin, and stop hovering!" Kame smacked Jin's hand away and accepted the bottle of water Nakamaru bought along with the towel from a nearby combini. He sloshed some water around in his mouth first and rinsed the last traces of blood out before taking a measured swallow.
They sat under a tree in a small park-had found a bench at first, then sent Nakamaru off to the combini, but Kame's appearance didn't exactly set the mothers and children at ease. It had taken a while for Nakamaru to find them again, and he'd arrived with a disgruntled, long-suffering expression that Kame rewarded with a grateful smile.
"You demons sure know how to stick together," Jin commented, twisting the towel around in his hands and trying to think non-jealous thoughts.
Kame and Nakamaru shared an odd look. "Actually..."
Nakamaru shook his head. "I'm not a demon."
"He's an angel," Kame clarified, and carefully did not meet Jin's incredulous stare.
"Is that... allowed?"
He was spared from what was probably going to be a pithy remark by Koki's arrival. In his smug Chihuahua form. He got sidetracked by the children, happily scampering among them with little yap-yap-yaps and a furiously wagging tail. When he made it over to their tree he flopped down and put his head on Kame's leg. Whatever good feelings Jin had accumulated for the dog drained out in an instant.
"Thanks," Kame said into the air.
"I was in the area." Nakamaru cleared his throat awkwardly. "Actually, I was looking for you. Both of you." He nodded when Jin pointed at himself. "I just meant to tell you, there's another way."
Jin groaned. "I'm beginning to think maybe it isn't worth it. After all the trouble we've gotten into..."
"That you got us into," Kame corrected waspishly. He grabbed Koki's ruff when he flicked his tail in wicked amusement. "I haven't forgotten your part in it, either."
Nakamaru rolled his eyes. "Well, if it interests you at all, demon contracts only hold with demons. There's no penalty if a contracted demon sort of... switches teams."
"I told you!" Jin suddenly exclaimed, grabbing Kame excitedly by the arm. "What did I tell you? Nobody listens to me."
Kame put up with the shaking for a moment and then pushed Jin off. "And I told you, it's not that easy."
"No," Jin said, holding up a hand to forestall an argument. "I have a goal now. A lifetime goal. Kame, I'm going to save your soul." Maybe it was just as ambitious and ridiculous as becoming famous and filthy rich overseas, but about a million times better. If asked, Jin would choose living in a cardboard box with Kame over a luxury condo with supermodels.
"Sounds good to me," Nakamaru put in.
Koki didn't say anything, but he didn't snarl at Jin either.
"Whatever," Kame murmured, looking away. "You moron."
Nakamaru stood up and brushed off the seat of his pants. "If you think about it, it's only fair. You wanted to save his soul back there, too. This way is less stupid. Come on, Koki, if you keep causing commotions in the mortal world someone's going to put you on a very short leash."
The Chihuahua grumbled in displeasure, but stiffly removed himself from Kame's lap and trotted off with the other man.
"See you around."
Jin watched them blend into the crowd, angel and demon, as ordinary as the next guy or dog strolling through the park. It was a crazy world he lived in. "I don't know about you," he said, "but your friends beat my friends in weirdness. And that's saying something."
Kame snorted. "Live a couple centuries and you'll find strange people, too."
Jin didn't think he could top an angel that shopped at combinis, a God of Death that rode the train, and a Chihuahua that thought he was Cerberus.
"Koki didn't really kill her, you know." Kame played with the cap of his water bottle. "Nakamaru wouldn't have let him."
Jin nodded, relieved to at least not have that on his conscience. Whatever his conscience was worth. "Um. You're not... mad at me, are you?"
"For what?" Kame asked blandly. "You mean, letting me be tortured while you stood around talking about what an awesome greedy bastard you are?"
"I didn't mean it like that! Ow." Jin rubbed the spot on his forehead where Kame had flicked the plastic cap. It bounced off and landed in his lap. "I just. You deserve better than that. A lot better." He picked up the cap and lobbed it in the direction of a trash can, but it dropped short.
"Litterer," Kame accused without bite. He drank down his remaining water and whipped the bottle through the air with the accuracy of a tracking missile.
"Freakin' show-off."
"You, too." He covered Jin's mouth before the vehement denial spilled out. "I mean, you deserve better, too. You have a good soul, for all that you're a dumbass. Like you said, in a choice between Heaven or Hell... it's not even a choice."
Jin pulled Kame's hand away, but held onto it. "It's always about choice. And changing your mind."
"That's so indecisive."
"Fine, I'm indecisive! People live for a long time. Eternity is even longer. I can do what I want, as long as it's what I want."
"Then..." Kame curled his fingers around Jin's, smooth and comfortable. Lasting. "What do you want?"
Jin thought about it-deep thoughts, future thoughts, what he was going to do after college and whether the band would stick together, if he'd try to make it on his own, if he'd do the smart thing and actually try to get a real job and be a different kind of failure. He thought, and said, "Move over a bit."
Kame scooted around, making enough room for Jin to turn sideways and lie back with his head pillowed on Kame's lap. It wasn't soft like a girl's, but he didn't mind. It was a warm spring day and the temperature was just right in the shade, and Kame's fingers still twined loosely with his.
"This is fine. This is all for now."
Epilogue
"He's still not answering his phone! Wait, here's his voicemail... Ryo, you mega-douche, we're setting up the stage now. If you're not here in ten-no, five, we're kicking you out of the band. This is a unanimous vote." Jin shut his phone and gnashed his teeth. "Where the hell is he?!"
"Who cares, we need a bassist." Yamapi turned to Kame. "I don't suppose that's included in your bag of tricks?"
"I can play guitar, but I've never tried bass."
"And he's not fucking psychic! Stop bothering my demon." Jin pressed Ryo's speed dial button again.
"Should someone inform him that 'demon' isn't synonymous with 'boyfriend'?" Shirota wondered aloud.
"Ryo, I swear to God-"
"You!" Ryo snarled, standing in the doorway with a loud crack as the door bounced off the wall. He marched inside, ignored Jin's tirade, and grabbed a fistful of Kame's shirt. Jin's ranting switched subjects.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING, HANDS OFF!"
"Can I help you?" Kame asked with raised eyebrows.
Ryo swung them both around to fling an arm out at the young man standing behind him. "That! What the fuck is that?"
Kame took a good, long look. The man in question merely shrugged. Kame turned back to Ryo and said very seriously, "That is going to do you a whole lot of good."
Yamapi, naturally, was the first to accost the stranger. "Cool! Are we all going to get our own demons?"
"I'm actually-"
"NOTHING," Ryo shouted, red-faced. "HE'S NOBODY."
"-his guardian angel."
Pin-dropping silence.
"Oh, buddy," Jin sighed and clapped a sympathetic hand on the self-proclaimed guardian angel's shoulder. "Have you got your work cut out for you."
*the song Jin sings is "Suspension" by Mae