Aiba had had a pretty okay weekend. He'd spent it with Sho, enjoying the time they would get to spend together before the week started again and Sho's work took over once more. They had come to a consensus about his deal, the two of them. It was now on Aiba to do what he needed to do.
He still wasn't really thrilled about it, but at this point, Aiba just wanted to get it over with.
He was just finding the strength of energy to head downstairs, because Misono was waiting on him, he had to take over for her. Hey, maybe a potential deal would walk right into the shop! Hard to catch it if he wasn't down there manning the counter like always. He was ready to get moving when he felt a familiar force of warm and golden and sparkling and Aiba knew what that was, the feeling of it. Misono was getting him lucky
( ... )
She wasn't sure how lucky she'd got Aiba--her magic still resisted going to him and it was hard to measure out when she was working against it. More than ten minutes, probably less an hour. She trailed off at the end, forgetting to try to keep track of it because Aiba was stumbling down the stairs.
He didn't look very much different than he had when she'd last seen him and seeing him stumble wasn't that unsusual either. But something about him and the fact that he was taking the stairs instead of just popping through really threw her. And though he'd kind of almost told her to go home, she trailed him to the couch, dropping to sit beside it so that they were on a level and face to face. She reached out and brushed his hair away from his face, the sunny blond soft under her fingers. Then she laid her wrist against his forehead, feeling for a fever or some sort of clue as to what was going on. "What's the matter, Aiba-chan?"
Maybe Aiba's luck would include keeping out customers this evening so he wouldn't have to deal with them. Normally Aiba loved customers! Not to mention, he kind of needed them to keep the shop afloat, but...just this one night, Aiba begged that it would be quiet.
If he was really lucky, maybe it would help him find a deal and get through it with a minimal amount of complications.
Aiba sighed a little and a single strand of pale hair that had escaped Misono's brushing flew up from his face. He seemed to consider Misono a moment, and decided he needed to talk to someone about this. Keeping it all bottled up inside was really only making it worse. Once he started talking though, it was all flying out.
"It's...my deal," he began, chewing his lip anxiously. "I need to make one. Like right away. I'm already overdue. I have to find someone who needs something bad enough to make a deal with a demon for it, and then I have to have sex with them. And I talked to Sho about it so I think we're okay, but I still...I have to do it, and this
( ... )
Misono kept up with Aiba's explosion of words easily, stroking at his hair while he talked. She knew demons had deals in order to stay 'on Earth'--that they were tasked with certain jobs. She even knew that an incubus dealt in exchanges. But she wasn't used to thinking in those terms and the fact that he hadn't done a deal in all the time she'd known him hadn't registered.
"I should have noticed that you were at your limit," she sighed, smoothing her fingers over Aiba's hair again. "But--does it have to be something they really need? Couldn't it be just any thing they want?" But that... "But maybe that's no good. If it's the first time...for Sho-chan, maybe it'd be better if it was something really meaningful to that person. Something they couldn't get any other way, huh?"
She touched the faint frown line wrinkled across Aiba's brow. "It's too bad I can't do the deal with you."
"If I have to it can be just something they want. I just- usually I'm careful about that, you know? Cause there's the price. I don't like making people pay for things if it turns out it wasn't something that was really important to them."
Aiba tilted his head at the touch to his forehead, peering at Misono with a sad sort of half-smile. "If you were human," he pointed out. "Then we could."
His gaze returned to the ceiling of the store, clean still from the refurbishing of the store, the cobwebs that used to occupy the edges long gone. "It would probably be better, if I felt like I was doing something worth the trouble, yeah?"
Aiba's distant gaze and sad half-smile was heartwrenching. Her poor Aiba-chan. She scrunched her fingers in his hair, the way she sometimes pet Kitty von Catcat. "If it was something important to somebody, that would make everybod feel better," she agreeed softly. "It would mean something instead of being something empty." She stroked his hair. "Because Sho doesn't want to share you but if he has to then it should be a good cause. It should be a good deal
( ... )
Misono hit the nail on the head, and Aiba agreed with her in nods and small smiles, his eyes closing a little because Misono was petting him and the comfort was really something special. It couldn't entirely make him feel better about things, but it was big step in the right direction
( ... )
She could barely pay attention to the way Aiba said 'of course' he didn't mind her having a sleepover, poor company or not. Her mind was too busy racing along possibilities and chances and...
"Aiba-chan," she said in her most careful voice. "Aiba-chan, maybe I can help. Sort of." She kept petting Aiba with one hand but fisted the other in her hair, pulling slightly to keep herself on track. "Your deal--I know kind of how it works, right, but I don't know about it practically. Like payment. Tell me about that part." If it was too much or too dangerous she couldn't really say anything, could she? But she knew that both the incubus and the person had to live through the deal--Aiba's magic couldn't kill Yesung or in any way cause his death
( ... )
Aiba's face pulled into befuddlement as Misono began to speak. He was obviously open to any help he could get, but he didn't see she could. Aiba listened closely.
And though he didn't really know why she was asking, Aiba answered to the best of his ability.
"Payment...can be all kinds of things. Basically the magic decides what in a person's life is equal in payment for whatever they're asking for. It could really be anything. Usually it's losing something but sometimes it's gaining something bad. Or something bad happening. It all depends on what they ask for really."
He paused, reaching a hand up to scratch at the side of his nose. "As far as I know it has to be something directly related to the person, sometimes it could effect people in the household, but it's always something from the person making the deal." And really, Aiba could not help himself, even if it felt like a shot in the dark. "Why? How- what can you to do help?"
Turning possibilities over, Misono quit petting Aiba and instead bit absently at the fuzzy cuff of her sleeve. It would have to be Yesung who bore the brunt of it. That seemed only fair, even if she would rather take the payment herself. You didn't get something for nothing, after all.
"Is there a way to know what it is--what the payment is--before you make the deal?" It was important to have a way to back out if it was too much. But she didn't want Aiba to get his hopes up only have her and Yesung crash them down on him. "Is there stuff you can't make a deal for?" She thought there was. A dim, fuzzy sort of sense that you could not trade a magic away but her lessons had centered on humans and not other non-humans. Still, they didn't need the wolf gone even if they wanted it that way. They just needed it to behave.
And Aiba was looking at her with a glimmer of hope in his eyes. "I can't help but maybe...maybe Yesung could." And you could help us, she thought.
Slowly, Aiba shook his head a little. He wished often that it did work that way. That everything could be known ahead of time, and the person would know ahead of time what they would be giving up. If he was more powerful, maybe he could do that, but Aiba didn't have that ability.
"Sometimes, other magic conflicts, then it doesn't always work. The only way to know for certain is to try. It depends on the magic, and the request..."
For several long seconds Aiba stared at Misono blankly. Yesung? "Y-Yesung!" he said after a moment, sitting up rather abruptly before his gaze returned to Misono, wide. "He- t-that would work. He's a werewolf but he's not the first one I- I. But I don't- What kind of wish would it be? How big?" Could this really be a possibility?
No way to know for sure what it would be--no safety net under their feet if they went for this. Misono trusted Aiba with Yesung, with neither doubt nor hesitation...but this was Aiba's magic and there was no way to know what it would choose
( ... )
"It's usually fair," Aiba murmured back to her. Of course, in his many years he had seen things go horribly wrong, but for the most part, the price paid was usually always equal to the gift given. He was on edge, his mind spinning a mile a minute trying to figure out if there was any downside to this suggestion
( ... )
"I don't care if the wolf wants to eat other people," she told Aiba earnestly, kneeling with her back straight in unconscious manners. "As long as he doesn't want to eat me I can keep him away from everybody else and protect Kitty von Catcat. As long as it's that..." As long as Yesung would be satisfied that he wouldn't hurt her and she could stay, it was fine.
She reached out and put her hands over his. "I trust you all the way. I know you can do this professionally and make Yesung feel comfortable talking about it and everything!" And if Yesung could be made comfortable then he coudl think clearly and then he could decide to go for it. Maybe. Because this was good. This would solve their problem AND Aiba's all at once. This would actually help"Phone!" she recalled suddenly. She had to pull it out of her top but she was pretty sure that if Aiba looked it was just because he was excited about the phone. Yesung was the top of her speed dial, their home phone just below it. "I'm just going to--" she stopped as the phone
( ... )
Yesung had been off work approximately sixty seconds when his phone rang. He immediately knew it was Misono, because she'd set herself a flightly, bubbly ring tone a few days before when she realised all his ring tones were bland. And like usual, she didn't given him a chance to even say hello. He felt himself smiling when she launched into speech.
Fix things for the moon? At Come Again? What? But then again, Misono was more aware of magic and magical people, so maybe someone had stumbled in with the answers written on their hands. Or maybe she'd been reading.
Okay. Then he'd go to Come Again. And luckily, he wasn't going to have to try and remember how to get there, because he remembered the street it was on, and the cab driver zipped him up 53rd.
He wondered what the cab driver must think when he was standing on the curb, looking sheepishly at the door. Well. Here goes nothing.
He pushed his way into the store. "Hi Misono, Aiba," he greeted them when he spotted them on a couch.
"Yesung!" Misono dropped Aiba's hand to go to Yesung's side. She slid both her hands around one of his and tipped her head back so she could look into his face. "Yesung..." This was going to be strange, no matter how it went. At least at first it would be. Wouldn't it be best to jump right in?
"Remember how I told you that Aiba is an incubus? He can make deals, exchanges. He's got to if he's going to stay, you know! Anyhow, deals. If you wish for the wolf to stop trying to eat me or anybody he can make that happen. Almost certainly make that happen. There's no way to know until it's done but--and you'd have to pay. His magic will pick a payment. Something you lose or a bad thing that happens or something. There's no way to know that until it happens, either."
She twisted and looked back at Aiba. "Should I leave the process up to you or do you want me to tell him about the--" she stopped and looked up at Yesung. "It's seriously okay, this part." More or less, right?
He still wasn't really thrilled about it, but at this point, Aiba just wanted to get it over with.
He was just finding the strength of energy to head downstairs, because Misono was waiting on him, he had to take over for her. Hey, maybe a potential deal would walk right into the shop! Hard to catch it if he wasn't down there manning the counter like always. He was ready to get moving when he felt a familiar force of warm and golden and sparkling and Aiba knew what that was, the feeling of it. Misono was getting him lucky ( ... )
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He didn't look very much different than he had when she'd last seen him and seeing him stumble wasn't that unsusual either. But something about him and the fact that he was taking the stairs instead of just popping through really threw her. And though he'd kind of almost told her to go home, she trailed him to the couch, dropping to sit beside it so that they were on a level and face to face. She reached out and brushed his hair away from his face, the sunny blond soft under her fingers. Then she laid her wrist against his forehead, feeling for a fever or some sort of clue as to what was going on. "What's the matter, Aiba-chan?"
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If he was really lucky, maybe it would help him find a deal and get through it with a minimal amount of complications.
Aiba sighed a little and a single strand of pale hair that had escaped Misono's brushing flew up from his face. He seemed to consider Misono a moment, and decided he needed to talk to someone about this. Keeping it all bottled up inside was really only making it worse. Once he started talking though, it was all flying out.
"It's...my deal," he began, chewing his lip anxiously. "I need to make one. Like right away. I'm already overdue. I have to find someone who needs something bad enough to make a deal with a demon for it, and then I have to have sex with them. And I talked to Sho about it so I think we're okay, but I still...I have to do it, and this ( ... )
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"I should have noticed that you were at your limit," she sighed, smoothing her fingers over Aiba's hair again. "But--does it have to be something they really need? Couldn't it be just any thing they want?" But that... "But maybe that's no good. If it's the first time...for Sho-chan, maybe it'd be better if it was something really meaningful to that person. Something they couldn't get any other way, huh?"
She touched the faint frown line wrinkled across Aiba's brow. "It's too bad I can't do the deal with you."
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Aiba tilted his head at the touch to his forehead, peering at Misono with a sad sort of half-smile. "If you were human," he pointed out. "Then we could."
His gaze returned to the ceiling of the store, clean still from the refurbishing of the store, the cobwebs that used to occupy the edges long gone. "It would probably be better, if I felt like I was doing something worth the trouble, yeah?"
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"Aiba-chan," she said in her most careful voice. "Aiba-chan, maybe I can help. Sort of." She kept petting Aiba with one hand but fisted the other in her hair, pulling slightly to keep herself on track. "Your deal--I know kind of how it works, right, but I don't know about it practically. Like payment. Tell me about that part." If it was too much or too dangerous she couldn't really say anything, could she? But she knew that both the incubus and the person had to live through the deal--Aiba's magic couldn't kill Yesung or in any way cause his death ( ... )
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And though he didn't really know why she was asking, Aiba answered to the best of his ability.
"Payment...can be all kinds of things. Basically the magic decides what in a person's life is equal in payment for whatever they're asking for. It could really be anything. Usually it's losing something but sometimes it's gaining something bad. Or something bad happening. It all depends on what they ask for really."
He paused, reaching a hand up to scratch at the side of his nose. "As far as I know it has to be something directly related to the person, sometimes it could effect people in the household, but it's always something from the person making the deal." And really, Aiba could not help himself, even if it felt like a shot in the dark. "Why? How- what can you to do help?"
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"Is there a way to know what it is--what the payment is--before you make the deal?" It was important to have a way to back out if it was too much. But she didn't want Aiba to get his hopes up only have her and Yesung crash them down on him. "Is there stuff you can't make a deal for?" She thought there was. A dim, fuzzy sort of sense that you could not trade a magic away but her lessons had centered on humans and not other non-humans. Still, they didn't need the wolf gone even if they wanted it that way. They just needed it to behave.
And Aiba was looking at her with a glimmer of hope in his eyes. "I can't help but maybe...maybe Yesung could." And you could help us, she thought.
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"Sometimes, other magic conflicts, then it doesn't always work. The only way to know for certain is to try. It depends on the magic, and the request..."
For several long seconds Aiba stared at Misono blankly. Yesung? "Y-Yesung!" he said after a moment, sitting up rather abruptly before his gaze returned to Misono, wide. "He- t-that would work. He's a werewolf but he's not the first one I- I. But I don't- What kind of wish would it be? How big?" Could this really be a possibility?
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She reached out and put her hands over his. "I trust you all the way. I know you can do this professionally and make Yesung feel comfortable talking about it and everything!" And if Yesung could be made comfortable then he coudl think clearly and then he could decide to go for it. Maybe. Because this was good. This would solve their problem AND Aiba's all at once. This would actually help"Phone!" she recalled suddenly. She had to pull it out of her top but she was pretty sure that if Aiba looked it was just because he was excited about the phone. Yesung was the top of her speed dial, their home phone just below it. "I'm just going to--" she stopped as the phone ( ... )
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Fix things for the moon? At Come Again? What? But then again, Misono was more aware of magic and magical people, so maybe someone had stumbled in with the answers written on their hands. Or maybe she'd been reading.
Okay. Then he'd go to Come Again. And luckily, he wasn't going to have to try and remember how to get there, because he remembered the street it was on, and the cab driver zipped him up 53rd.
He wondered what the cab driver must think when he was standing on the curb, looking sheepishly at the door. Well. Here goes nothing.
He pushed his way into the store. "Hi Misono, Aiba," he greeted them when he spotted them on a couch.
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"Remember how I told you that Aiba is an incubus? He can make deals, exchanges. He's got to if he's going to stay, you know! Anyhow, deals. If you wish for the wolf to stop trying to eat me or anybody he can make that happen. Almost certainly make that happen. There's no way to know until it's done but--and you'd have to pay. His magic will pick a payment. Something you lose or a bad thing that happens or something. There's no way to know that until it happens, either."
She twisted and looked back at Aiba. "Should I leave the process up to you or do you want me to tell him about the--" she stopped and looked up at Yesung. "It's seriously okay, this part." More or less, right?
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