[kame/pi feat jin, nagase, yoko] Slow Circle (1 of 2)
Title: Slow Circle
Fandom: Johnny's & Associates (KAT-TUN, NEWS, TOKIO, Kanjani8)
Characters: Yamashita Tomohisa, Kamenashi Kazuya, Akanishi Jin, Nagase Tomoya, Yokoyama You, cameos from Nishikido Ryo and Uchi Hiroki
Pairings: Kame/Pi, Kame/Ryo, Pi/Jin/Kame BFFery, references to Pi/Uchi friendship and implied Tegoshi/Jin
Word count: ~11600
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: magic, time travel, alternate universe, probably confusing time paradoxes, urban fantasy AU
Summary: Yamashita Tomohisa is a non-wizard sports reporter at a magical newspaper. And according to time-traveler Kamenashi Kazuya, he’s the only one who can save the world.
Notes: Written for songkissed during amigo_exchange 2011. All my love to katmillia for her moral support. "Todai" is the nickname for Tokyo University.
"Yamashita, did you ever finish the scoreboard article?" Nagase called from his office.
Yamashita had, in fact, finished the article about the mysteriously exploding scoreboards all over town. They were of particular concern here in the sports department, since the story had effectively shut down half the games in the city, and Nagase got antsy when there wasn't anything to report on besides golf. Some people whispered there were new warlocks in town making trouble for mundane world citizens, but there wasn't anything to particularly point to that, that was just what people said when things seemed like too much of a coincidence. Or so Yamashita thought, anyway.
"Yes, sir," he called back, and began rooting through the pile of papers in his outbox for his hard copy of it. (He'd print off a new one, but the printer was backlogged because of Yokoyama. For the third time that week.)
He found it, lodged inside a swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated Nagase had probably stashed there at some point, and he piled both article and magazine together in his arms before he stood and trotted across the sports department to his supervisor's office.
"Here you go, sir," he said, and handed both to Nagase. Nagase grinned, broadly, and took Yamashita's offering in both hands.
Then he tossed the article into the pile that had once been his inbox, and buried his nose in the centerfold of the magazine. "Naomi-san~" he sighed, blissful.
"Sir, the article," Yamashita said, "um. We have a deadline in half an hour?"
Nagase glanced up. "What, really?" he asked, and looked at the big digital clock above his door. Then he jumped, slamming the magazine down on the table and diving into his inbox pile.
"Tell Yokoyama to bring me his golf article," Nagase ordered.
"...I thought you were writing the golf article," Yamashita said, with a slow blink, "Yokoyama-kun is doing the basketball stuff, isn't he?"
"Then what are you doing?" Nagase demanded.
"...the scoreboard article, like you asked?"
"Oh. Well. ...can you write up a summary and then I'll cobble together an article?"
"I'll just write it, sir," Yamashita said, lamenting momentarily having to put off his dinner a little longer. He didn't feel bad about offering--Nagase had been working on three different articles all evening and still needed to look through Yokoyama's article to make sure there weren't any kanji mistakes--but he was hungry.
"If you're sure," Nagase said, raising an eyebrow.
"It's not as though I'd be doing anything besides going home and eating, sir," Yamashita said.
"Thanks, Pi," Nagase said, dipping into the nickname that had been dogging Yamashita since his days as an intern in the Arts and Music department under Takizawa.
"You can buy me dinner this weekend," Yamashita said, shrugging, and left the office to go back to his computer.
He didn't haul himself through his front door until nearly midnight, eyes and shoulders heavy as he forced the door of his second-story apartment open. He sighed into the empty apartment--the place had been half-vacant since Uchi had moved back to Osaka to attend the only magical university that would take his high school grades two months ago, and Yamashita hadn't been able to find a replacement yet.
There were three onigiri in the fridge and a note from Yamashita's sister, Rina, saying 'call mom some time, Pi!'. Yamashita carried them to his tiny kitchen table with something like reverence, a smile pulling at his lips. His sister's onigiri were the best. The Yamashita family wasn't known to have much magic, but if they did it was almost certainly in their cooking. Each bite was like heaven, rice and umeboshi sliding down his throat, and Yamashita savored every single one. He tapped at the side of his glass of water, watching the surface of the water ripple, and smiled as he the glass picked up. With Uchi at wizard school in Osaka and Jin off doing whatever it was he did on assignment for the Magical Law Enforcement office (which, for the record, was still the scariest part about living in a Unified city like Tokyo--Akanishi Jin was responsible for his safety), things were quiet for him.
The glass was halfway to his lips when a shocking explosion from outside ripped through the apartment. He dropped his glass in shock, getting water all over himself and shattering the cup on the table, and he stood from his seat at the small round table. His chair toppled over backwards, but he ignored it. Warlocks? In his neighborhood? This was a largely mundane area--Yamashita had picked it because, despite living in a Unified area and working for a Unified newspaper, he liked to be able to go home and not worry about magical overflow turning him green or any of the other stuff he'd had to put up with when he'd bunked down at Jin's place.
That was when he noticed there was light leaking out from under Uchi's old bedroom door. Yamashita's heart was still racing, hammering at his ribs, and he approached the door carefully, slowly. Panicking wasn't going to get him anywhere. Yamashita took a deep breath and pushed the door open, fists up to defend himself if he had to.
To his surprise, there wasn't a warlock gang hiding out in his guest room like those guys from Bloody Monday, or whatever. Just one guy, dark haired and pale with a hat squashed low over his eyes and dressed in clothes that were familiar in style but dirty. "What the hell are you doing in my apartment?" Yamashiya demanded, which was exactly when the intruder stumbled forward and collapsed to his hands and knees in front of Yamashita.
Yamashita watched the guy suspiciously, bending down to look at him. "No, seriously, who are you and what are you doing here?" Yamashita asked.
The young man glanced up at him momentarily and opened his mouth as if to answer, and then threw up all over Yamashita's shirt.
As if that wasn't bad enough, he chose then to pass out, too.
Yamashita groaned. Just his luck. He shook the guy for a minute, but there was no response. The guy was still breathing, so Yamashita turned his attention to the shirt now sticking to his chest and stinking up the joint. He straightened, unbuttoning the buttons at the collar of his polo and stripping it carefully off. He made a face, holding it at arms length, and crossed the hall to toss it in the trash can (no way in hell he was wearing that again). He took to the task of scrubbing at his arms and chest with a sponge with aplomb, and by the time he was fairly certain he no longer stunk, at least for now, he trotted into his bedroom. He'd left a pile of half-folded laundry on top of his dresser, and he pulled the first dark t-shirt he could find from the pile and pulled it over his head.
Then came the task of dragging his intruder to the couch and laying him across the cushions. The guy was deceptively heavy, lean muscle making him more of a weight than Yamashita had assumed he would be from his size and the bagginess of his clothes, and it was more of a struggle than Yamashita would admit to drag him down the hall to the living room in the back of the apartment past his bedroom. After a moment of thought, he pulled off the guy's shoes and fetched his trash can from next to his desk. He left it in the guy's arm's reach and sauntered back to the kitchen for two glasses of water--one for himself and one for his mystery guest.
Then he plucked the hat from the guy's head and settled in to wait for the guy to wake up.
It had been half an hour by the time the guy stirred, and Yamashita leaned forward to examine the young man's face.
"Huh...?" He sat up, holding his head. "What--?"
"Here, have water," Yamashita instructed immediately, shoving the glass into the young man's hands.
"Thanks," the guy said, and after he gulped the entire cup's worth down, he looked a little better. Less green. "Oh god I threw up on you," he said, seeming to remember everything at once, "oh my god I am so sorry."
Yamashita shrugged. "I've seen worse," he said, "at least you didn't get it on my face?"
"That's disgusting," the young man said, pulling his mouth up into a grossed-out scowl. After a moment, he shook himself, and blinked large at Yamashita.
"You're Yamashita Tomohisa," he said.
Yamashita nodded, slowly. "And you're...?"
"Kamenashi. Kamenashi Kazuya," the guy--Kamenashi--said. "I'm a wizard, and I'm here... to talk to you about saving the world."
This would be the part where a drama would cut to a commercial, or something, or so Yamashita assumed. Since this was real life, there was simply a beat of silence, and Yamashita had to laugh to break it.
"I'm sorry, could you repeat that?" he asked, struggling to comprehend it.
"You know very well what I just said," the young man snapped, "I'm trying to save the world and I need your help to do it."
"No, I got that part," Yamashita said, "is that supposed to be code? Did Jin set you up to do this? Was it Uchi? I mean, save the world? Even if it does need saving--which, unless the alien sightings were true, it probably doesn't--then why are you in my apartment? What could I possibly do? I'm a newspaper reporter. A mundane."
"There are scoreboards blowing up all over town," Kamenashi began, ignoring Yamashita's questions, "slowly it moves up to... buildings. Houses. Corporations, eventually. By the time he's made it that far everyone's afraid their place is next. The mundanes move underground, which is exactly what he wants. Wizards and warlocks above everyone else. Superiority, not unification."
Yamashita knew the difference between a warlock and a wizard. His mother was a wizard, the only magic in the Yamashita family in fifty years, though of little power. She had explained the process of becoming a warlock, once, when Yamashita had been very small. The idea of gaining immense power and knowledge but losing all humanity in the process had given child Yamashita nightmares for weeks. Sometimes he still woke in a cold sweat, the echoes of strange black-and-white dreams colored by red blood still fading from behind his eyelids.
"I'm not even magic," Yamashita said, quietly, "what help would I be?"
Kamenashi's eyes narrowed. "But you are magic," he said.
Yamashita rolled his eyes. He'd long given up on any idea that he was somehow some kind of magical prodigy like Tackey or even the late-blooming Uchi. "And why do you say that?"
"That's what they told me," Kamenashi answered, his face saying he knew it was a feeble explanation, "the MLE. I mean. I’m not an agent, but they..." He picked up the trash can at his feet and hauled it into his lap. The garish pink Hawaiian flower print should have looked ridiculous against Kamenashi's dark coat and messy hair, but Kamenashi made it work. Somehow. A little. "They fund my research. It was Nagase-san who threw me back in time. Literally. That was--dimension hopping and teleporting make me sick, too." He still looked embarrassed.
"I really--Nagase knows what he's talking about," Kamenasi said. "I know you don't believe me, but you're our only hope."
"Woah, we just passed into Star Wars territory here," Yamashita joked, and sighed when Kamenashi looked lost. "You grew up in a magic household," he surmised.
"I--is it that obvious?" Kamenashi asked, wincing.
"Only if you grew up Unified, I think," Yamashita offered, "mundane kids wouldn't notice all the little magical condescending you've been doing since you got here." He shook his hand out at the windows. "There is absolutely no need to block the sound from all of my windows, is there?"
Kamenashi looked surprised. "You noticed?" he asked.
"I've roomed with wizards--or almost-wizards--my whole life," Yamashita said, "I'm still not convinced I'm magic, but I grew up sensitive." He'd always known that much; the tester from his elementary school had called him one of the most sensitive mundanes he’d ever seen. "I'll ask Nagase in the morning. If he tells me there's no way I'm magical at all I'm kicking your ass before I kick you out."
"...you're kicking me out either way?" Kamenashi asked.
Yamashita sighed. "If he says it's possible," he said, "you can sleep in Uchi's bedroom. If you agree not to do weird magical shit and set off my neighbors."
Kamenashi nodded. "I can cook and clean," he offered, "we were magic, not rich."
Yamashita thought about it for all of a minute before he nodded. "Then, um," he slowly shambled from the living room floor to his feet, and stretched. "There's a futon in the closet of Uchi's old room," he said.
Yamashita woke the next morning with a massive headache. He thought, sleepily, that he must have had too much to drink the night before and it was probably entirely Nagase's fault, but then the events of the night before came flooding back, and Yamashita forced himself out of bed and out of his bedroom to check on Kamenashi.
Kamenashi was already awake in the kitchen, singing as he slapped rice into bowls.
"Quiet down," Yamashita complained, "my neighbors can hear everything and they whine about all of it."
Kamenashi glanced at him; he was still wearing the clothes he'd arrived in the night before, his coat folded over the back of a chair and his hat tucked away on the kitchen counter. Slowly
Kamenashi's voice faded. "Okay," he said, finally, "I'm making breakfast, if you wanted to shower...?"
Yamashita nodded, brain still fuzzy with sleep, and shambled off. He remained that way through scrubbing and shampooing, through shaving and brushing his hair, and through deciding on what slacks and polo to wear to work. He decided on the pink polo and gray flat-fronts in a fit of whimsy, and when he walked back into the kitchen Kamenashi had laid out breakfast.
Halfway through his rice Yamashita remembered to thank Kamenashi, mouth so full his cheeks were expanded like a chipmunk's, and Kamenashi looked alternately gratified and grossed out. "I'm sure it isn't," Kamenashi said, waving off Yamashita's 'this is the best ever', "but thank you." Kamenashi's knee whispered against Yamashita's for a moment before they both shifted straighter in their seats, and Yamashita distracted Kamenashi with more praise for his cooking.
"I cook at home," Kamenashi said, "my roommate is busy a lot, and I have spare time as I research."
Yamashita's phone alarm--the one he set that reminded him he had to leave the house in ten minutes, useful when he was distracted staring at the innards of his empty fridge or catching up on the news--went off just then, and Kamenashi jumped, looking at the phone plugged in on the kitchen counter. "That's my cue," Yamashita managed through a mouthful of rice, and after a few more bites he was in the kitchen putting his dishes in the sink.
"There's a bento on the counter for you," Kamenashi said, quietly, and Yamashita grinned at him. Kamenashi hid a smile by scratching at his nose.
"Don't blow up my place," he warned Kamenashi as he put his shoes on, and then he began the rush toward the train.
Yokoyama was walking through the front rotating doors when Yamashita finally arrived. "Yokoyama-kun," Yamashita called, and Yokoyama stopped to look back. Yokoyama had been an intern when Yamashita had finally been made an actual reporter, a late addition to the department after spending time getting his wizarding certifications. Yokoyama’s Affinity--his specialty--was affecting luck, but it had only happened when Yokoyama was 24. To hear Yokoyama tell it, he had finally been establishing himself in the DJ game when his magic erupted and he blew up his broadcast equipment. He’d taken the insurance money and put it toward the college education he hadn’t been able to afford out of high school, resolving to make it as a reporter. He wanted to work in the entertainment section, but Nagase kept putting off the transfer. (Probably because despite being terrible with kanji Yokoyama had a way with words, and his write-ups of otherwise dull scores were interesting.) In the process of turning around, Yokoyama apparently forgot he was trying to walk through a revolving door, and he was nearly squashed before Yamashita hauled him back by the arm,
"Sorry for distracting you," he offered, and Yokoyama shrugged.
"I'm used to it," Yokoyama answered, "comes with luck magic! I really wish it didn't--really, really wish it didn't--but not much I can do about it, I guess." He let Yamashita step into the rotating door first, and followed closely after, holding his fat stuffed briefcase to his chest protectively. Yamashita led the way through security and to the elevator, too, and it was only when they were stuffed inside one that Yokoyama spoke again. He was usually quiet in the mornings, until he’d had his first cup of coffee, and then he talked all day. Yamashita took pleasure in the few minutes of silence.
"You look tired," Yokoyama said, eyes flicking over Yamashita's face.
"Didn't sleep much," Yamashita answered, "there was a--party. In my neighborhood. A mundane kind, so it was... noisy." Yokoyama nodded in understanding. Yamashita didn't understand the deep inner workings of his coworker's particular brand of luck magic, but he did know Yokoyama had lived in the mundane community for his entire childhood. He knew what it was like. Yamashita felt bad about lying, but if Kamenashi was right--if the end of the world was on its way--then he wasn't sure telling everyone a time-traveling wizard was sleeping in his guest room was a great idea.
The elevator stopped at floor fourteen, the sports and lifestyle floor, and Yamashita and Yokoyama both ducked between the law interns and the accounting department to make it out toward the lobby of their department. Nagase was standing in the middle of the office, talking to what was unmistakeably a pair of police officers. One had the patch of the MLE offices on her right bicep, and it was to her (or at least to her boobs) Nagase's comments were being directed. "So the office was like that when you arrived, then," the woman was saying to him.
"Exactly," Nagase said, "I got out late last night--three, maybe?--and I got in an hour ago to proofread some stuff before I sent it out for print. Office was a mess when I came in."
"What happened to the office?" Yamashita asked, and the officers and Nagase looked at him.
"Somebody was looking for something," Nagase summarized, "overturned my desk, got your papers everywhere, destroyed Yoko's computer..." Yokoyama whimpered, and Yamashita reached out to pat his shoulder companionably.
"We're the sports department," Yamashita said, thinking, "what could we possibly know that would be interesting?"
Nagase shrugged. "God only knows, Pi," he said, "oi, come help me clean this shit up, you two!"
Yamashita glanced at Yokoyama, and the two shared a shrug before the followed Nagase into their department. Yamashita whistled when he saw the state of his desk. Papers had been pulled from every drawer--even drawers Yamashita had forgotten had papers in them--and scattered across the floor. Nagase's desk had been literally overturned, and Yokoyama's computer had indeed been knocked off of the desk to the floor. Yokoyama crossed the room to kneel next to it, rubbing at his temples and complaining under his breath about assholes with no regard for employee property.
Yamashita glanced at Nagase. "What's really happening here?" he asked.
Nagase had the grace to attempt at looking confused. "I dunno," he offered.
"Don't give me that. The MLE is here, something is going on," Yamashita said.
"There's been some temporal disruptions recently," Nagase admitted after a moment of visible thought to himself. "We think someone came back in time looking for somebody."
Looking for me, Yamashita guessed, but he didn't say it aloud.
"Um," Yamashita said, "I had a question."
Nagase drew back, one eyebrow raised. "Like?" he asked, wary.
"Am I ma--"he was barely halfway through the word when Nagase's arm fell heavy around his shoulders.
"Pi," Nagase said, conversationally, "please. Don't."
Yamashita wiggled away from Nagase's choke hold. "Nagase-san," he complained, and Nagase messed with his hair.
"Don't," Nagase repeated, "when you need to know, you will. Okay?"
Yamashita sighed. "I'm gonna get to work cleaning this up," he said, brisk, and stepped away from Nagase to start gathering up his papers.
By the time everything was somewhere near cleaned up on his end, it was nearly lunch time, and Yamashita finally took the time to unwrap his bento. His mouth watered as he examined the spread, and he rubbed his hands together with an under-his-breath 'itadakimasu' as he waited for his computer to boot up.He had two emails. One from Uchi, a normal 'hi how are you man my professor is a douche but I'm glad I came' weekly update that Yamashita filed away to answer when he had a spare minute, and one from Jin's personal email account (jswag@magmail.net) with the remarkably astute subject line 'Pi plz read!!!'. It read: 'Yo Pi, be careful in magic areas. There's some weird shit going down. And if you hear anything about a Nishikido Ryo while you're out and about, get out. Fast. Also Costa Rica is really nice, the girls are super-hot. Jin'. Yamashita laughed, typing out an easy 'Will do.' and wondering once more why Jin even bothered to mention this stuff to him. To make him feel like he was part of the action, maybe, which was a nice gesture, if a futile one.
The sound of a chip crunching made Yamashita look up from his last bite of rice, and Yokoyama shuffled halfway toward Yamashita's desk, looking bashful. "You want to borrow my computer."
"Just for a little bit," Yokoyama said, sounding defensive, "to check my email and stuff."
"I better not come back and find you playing Monster Hunter Online," Yamashita teased, spinning his chair around and rolling himself out of it. Yokoyama made a happy noise of thanks, sliding around Yamashita and into the desk chair, his fingers moving remarkably fast for a man who had a strange tendency to misuse kanji all the time.
"I'm going out to make a phone call," Yamashita said to Nagase as he leaned into his boss's office. Nagase was in the midst of righting one of this bookshelves (how the bookshelf had even been knocked over in the first place Yamashita had no idea--it had definitely been standing that morning), but when he got it settled down he turned to give Yamashita a thumbs-up.
"Have fun," he said, as a send-off.
Yamashita ducked into the happily unoccupied break room off of the department lobby. It was a stale white affair largely characterized by the long black table that cut the room in two and the collection of appliances that crowded the corners. Yamashita skirted between the counter where the microwave made its home and the corner of the table to find the only empty corner of the room, and touched the screen of his phone.
"...hello?"
"Are you... flushing the toilet?"
"Oh, Yamashita. No, I'm cleaning the toilet."
"Kamenashi, why are you--you don't need to clean my toilet!"
"Well someone has to and you haven't stepped up to the plate."
"Listen, you--" Yamashita broke off, taking a deep breath--"you got me off track. I was calling to say my office got ransacked overnight. They're blaming however's behind the 'recent temporal disturbances'. Does that--do they mean you?"
There was a long moment of silence punctuated only by the faint sound of the toilet btush, and then Kamenashi sighed. "No," he said, finally, "that's not me. That was probably him. The warlock."
"Nishikido," Yamashita guessed.
There was a massive clatter, followed by a string of Kamenashi's curses, and then the puff of a deep breath. "Who--how did you...?"
"My best friend is in the MLE," Yamashita answered, "he told me to be careful around him. Jin is allergic to tact, so that means he's your guy. Who is he?"
"Trouble," Kamenashi said, and Yamashita could see the scowl on his face, "Look, I'm, uh. I'm going out to check on some stuff. Don't leave your office. I'll call you and pick you up, you shouldn't be alone. Nishikido will--smell you."
"...smell me?"
"Your... signature. Even people who can't use magic have one. If you know what you're looking for, you can find someone with it. Nishikido's powerful enough to find you, no problem, if he concentrates."
Yamashita nodded, slowly. Slowly the whole idea came back to him--this was stuff he'd heard about at his Unified University. 'An overview of magical skills for mundanes'--Yamashita had alternately slept and messaged Jin through the entire class, but he'd apparently retained a few things during his flurried cramming for the final.
"Where are you going?" Yamashita asked.
"Todai," Kamenashi said, too quickly. "The library. I want to see if I can't find a warding spell to keep you safe."
Yamashita wasn't sure how much of that he believed, but he let it pass. "Call me when you're heading over. And think about where you want to go for dinner."
"Everything's about food with you, isn't it."
Yamashita hung up the phone.
It took him five minutes and as many false starts on his daily article on the area basketball teams for Yamashita to open up Google. It took a moment to clarify which "Kamenashi Kazuya" he specifically meant, but after adding "Todai" to his search terms things cleared up, fast. Yamashita whistled--Kamenashi had played baseball in the magical little leagues for nearly the entire time he'd been alive, getting to the first string for the Todai team as a sophomore until a summer arm injury retired him. He--or at least the Kamenashi who lived in Yamashita's time--was a graduate student focusing on wards and runes.
The last big thing about Kamenashi--the part it took Yamashita to find between generic honor society listing--was accidental. Yamashita had clicked the link for the Todai student newspaper’s gossip column thinking there might be references to Kamenashi as a partier or something. Instead, he got a series pictures of Kamenashi with a dark-haired, short guy looking messy in loose jeans and a sweatshirt, labeled as Nishikido Ryo.
Yamashita reached for his phone and hit redial. After a series of rings, he was greeted by his own tinny voice telling him to leave a message, and he hit the ‘end call’ button so hard he was half-afraid his touch screen would break. "Damn it," he cursed. Well, time to work double-time on this article and go off to Todai.
It took him nearly an hour to peel the story he was trying to tell--the possibility of area referees being affected by bribery--out of his interview notes and dump them into the word document in a way that made sense. Thankfully, the Inkjet had been fixed overnight, and Yokoyama’s powers hadn’t ruined it. Yet, anyway. Yamashita sent it off to print after one last read-through, and the slid out of his desk to the Inkjet nestled under the only window in his and Yokoyama’s half of their cramped department office. He could see into Nagase’s office as he stood over the printer, watching it, and he could see that Nagase finally had everything (mostly) in order.
"I’m gonna head out early today," Yamashita informed Nagase over his shoulder as he flicked through the printed pages of the article and passed back to his computer to email Nagase a copy of it. Nagase looked up at him from over his monitor, and his determined keyboard pecking slowed.
"Hot date?" Nagase asked, with a cheeky grin.
Yamashita laughed. "Something like that," he said agreeably, and rolled his eyes through Nagase’s ridiculous eyebrow waggling.
"Have fun," Nagase said, aggressively cheerful to the last, "I’d say not to have too much fun, but fuck that. Just use protection!"
"Yeah, yeah," Yamashita muttered, dropping the paper copy of the article atop Nagase’s pile of papers and turning around to grab his briefcase before he left the building.
Todai was hardly difficult to get to, of course. There were other popular Unified universities in Tokyo but none were as popular and as prestigious as Todai. Strictly-magical Waseda had once been foremost among wizards and witches, but as the mundane and magical worlds began to mix, Unified schools became the most popular. Yamashita had settled on Meiji, but Uchi had aimed high and gotten into Todai, so he’d spent his time as an Undergraduate divided between the dorm room he shared with Jin and parties at Uchi’s place. Kamenashi had declared he was going to the library, so Yamashita decided to ignore the classrooms and go straight for the pond adjoining the large Todai library building.
It occurred to Yamashita when the third or fourth girl nearly walked into a pole while staring at him that he should have grabbed a coat, or at least sunglasses, and he ducked his head to stare at his phone. There were benches around the pond, to "promote viewing of nature" (the memory of Uchi declaring the entire concept bullshit two minutes before vomiting into a planter stuck in Yamashita’s memory every time he thought about the place), and Yamashita settled on one, crossing his right knee over his left. He'd have to email Uchi back when he got home.
"Ryo, what are you--give me my coat. Now."
Yamashita froze. That was a voice he knew--that was Kamenashi’s voice.
"Kame, come on, you have like half an hour before this meeting thing, and even you can’t schmooze the whole time, at least come sit. The bench isn’t gonna stain your pants, or whatever the hell you’re mad over."
Yamashita glanced up--they were three benches away, far enough that he could get away with looking at them occasionally and close enough that he could hear their conversation. He felt like a creeper, but pushed past the uneasy feeling anyway.
"You’re insane. I’m not putting my butt anywhere near that, look at the pigeon poop next to your bookbag."
This Kamenashi was clean-cut and dressed in smart slacks with a sweater versus the weathered jeans and leather jacket ensemble his Kamenashi had crashed into his life wearing. This one was younger, too, lighter around the eyes and smoother around the mouth. He looked less--tired. He was arguing with the sloppy looking guy Yamashita recognized from the gossip column--Nishikido--about the apparent cleanliness of the bench, until Nishikido hauled him down into his lap. Yamashita turned away, coloring and feeling rather obviously like an intruder. He stood in a way he hoped was unobtrusive, and crept away from them as quietly as he could manage, eyes pointedly on his phone as he walked the path back to the library.
Which was exactly the way he was walking when he walked into somebody. Yamashita’s head snapped up, and he was in the middle of an apology when he met Kamenashi’s eye under the brim of his hat. "Ah," he squawked, and grabbed Kamenashi’s forearm. "There you are."
Kamenashi eyes flicked visibly over Yamashita’s shoulder, and then his gaze focused on Yamashita’s face. "Are you an idiot?" he demanded, shaking Yamashita’s hand off and crossing his arms pointedly over his chest, "I told you to stay in your office. Where it was safe under Nagase-san’s wards."
"You’re been keeping stuff from me," Yamashita snapped back, waving his left hand up over his shoulder at the pond. "When were you gonna tell me this great warlock I need to help you defeat was your ex-boyfriend? What else are you lying about?"
"I’m not lying about anything," Kamenashi hissed, "and really, how do I bring that one up? ‘Oh, by the way, I used to date the guy we’re trying to banish back to my time!’?!"
"Yeah, actually, that would’ve been nice!"
"...shut up, they’re coming," Kamenashi said, and grabbed Yamashita’s wrist to haul him off. Between the iron grip on his wrist and Kamenashi’s determined stalk, Yamashita was hard-pressed to keep up without stumbling and couldn’t focus on much else until they came to a stop in the library, halfway behind a teetering, too-tall stack of ‘free giveaway’ books. Kamenashi’s fingers lingered gently on the inside of Yamashita’s wrist as they stood, Kamenashi looking nervous as Yamashita looked at the interior of the library. It looked different on the inside, far larger than the building seemed to imply, and there were runes Yamashita recognized dimly as magical lining every window and door.
"Are we hiding in here for any specific reason?" Yamashita asked, finally, tugging his wrist back from the circle of Kamenashi’s fingers and shoving his hands in his pockets.
"To mix up our signatures with everyone else’s," Kamenashi answered, "it won’t work forever, but he’s probably still disoriented from the time travel, and that’ll give me time to look through the books in here and come up with a ward to protect you."
"How are we even going to get in? They ask for ID, don’t they?"
"Don’t worry about that," Kamenashi answered, turning and leading the way. They were halfway up the steps to the entrance kiosk when there was a dull, huge thump. Kamenashi whirled, his coat hitting Yamashita in the face, and he looked remarkably pale.
"What is it now?" Yamashita asked, turning, and made a noise of horrified surprise. The front doors of the library were glass, so he could very clearly see the abruptly ruined fountain spewing water everywhere, and when he glanced back to Kamenashi the other man was in the midst of shaking himself out of his stupor.
"Let’s go," Kamenashi said, his hand closing around Yamashita’s bicep and hauling him along. His hand buzzed with the chill of magic being done, and it spread over Yamashita’s body in a wave.
"What are you doing to me?" Yamashita asked, shaking Kamenashi’s hand off, "you can’t just--use magic on me without permission!"
Kamenashi rolled his eyes. "It’s a misdirection ward," he explained, clearly done with the conversation, and he squawked in surprise when Yamashita shoved him away again.
"Don’t do magic without my permission," Yamashita hissed, "I mean it."
"I’m doing it to protect you!"
"How am I supposed to trust anything that comes out of your mouth? You barge into my life and decide you can just tell me what to do?"
"Woah, woah, guys, no fighting in the library!"
Yamashita answered the familiar voice on automatic. "Jin, the only thing you know about libraries is how to avoid getting caught having sex in a study room, shut up."
Then the gravity of that sunk in. "Jin?!" he said, as he turned to look. Jin was behind them on the stairs, leaning against the banister and looking bored. He wasn’t the Jin Yamashita knew--not directly, this Jin looked like he was in his early 30s, and he definitely didn’t look like he had just come back from Costa Rica--but the MLE worked outside the time stream. Yamashita had met two or three Jins that weren’t his Jin in the past few years. The good thing about Jin was that he never changed, though, thankfully. A grown-up Jin was a terrifying thought.
"Akanishi, places of higher learning usually require having a brain." It seemed Kamenashi knew Jin, too.
"Assholes," Jin said, fondly, and climbed the stairs to join them. He patted Yamashita’s shoulder and slid the back of his hand over Kamenashi’s elbow as a more personal greeting, and then leaned heavily on Yamashita. "Is he being a little heavy-handed?" he asked Yamashita.
"More than a little," Yamashita grumbled, "you know how much doing magic on me annoys me."
"I am trying to save your life," Kamenashi snapped.
"About that," Jin said, suddenly, and made a face at Kamenashi. "You don’t need to be so careful. We’ve got him on the run. Or, your Jin does, whatever, all this time travel bullshit confuses me. Anyway, definitely set up this ward--Pi, don’t make that face, come on--but don’t worry too much. All right?"
"He was just here! Just because you’re cavalier with people’s safety doesn’t mean I’m going to be."
"He was here, and we shook him off of you. Somebody is keeping an eye on you guys, all right? You’re MLE, Kamenashi, whether you like it or not, and we’re not letting you or Pi here get fucked up."
"That’s creepy," Yamashita complained, feeling tingly all over like he was being stared at.
"Yeah, well, be glad I managed to convince them not to watch you in your bathtub."
Yamashita shoved Jin companionably. "Go away," he said, "you have work to do."
Jin stretched leisurely. "Always," he agreed, and waved jauntily to them before he walked away.
Kamenashi had the grace to look abashed. "Sorry," he offered, voice muffled by embarrassment, "I, um. Yeah. Sorry."
"Just don’t let it happen again," Yamashita said, and tapped Kamenashi’s shoulder with his fist as he passed him toward the actual library entrance.
"The Todai library is only open to students," the librarian told them when they approached. She was young and fairly pretty, her eyes flicking between them curiously.
"I’m MLE," Kamenashi answered, and reached into his coat to haul out what was unmistakeably an MLE badge and ID. The woman took it and examined it for a moment, then nodded.
"Are you MLE too?" she asked.
Yamashita shook his head. "I’m just... with him," he said, tilting his head sideways toward Kamenashi.
"I’m afraid I can only let--"she trailed off when Yamashita leaned on the counter and went nose-to-nose with her, holding her gaze.
"Are you sure?" he asked, turning on every ounce of puppy-dog eyes he’d ever picked up from life.
"I--well--I suppose I--you are here with the agent, so I’m sure it’ll be fine, as long as Agent Kamenashi agrees to be responsible for your good conduct?"
Kamenashi rolled his eyes. "Yeah, fine," he said. He looked irritated under his hat; Yamashita grinned when he’d turned around, and the two of them walked through the awning that served as a gateway to the library’s wards. Yamashita shivered when they did--Kamenashi seemed unaffected, but the library’s protection wards were cold.
"Do you know were to look?" Yamashita teased, "or do I need to charm another librarian?"
Kamenashi made a noise then that sounded like a combination of a groan and a sigh, and between that and the drawn-down shape of his eyebrows, Yamashita could no longer hold in his snickering. Until Kamenashi swatted at him, anyway. "Don’t hit me," Yamashita complained.
"Don’t whine," Kamenashi snapped back, "come on, the wards encyclopedias are this way."
‘This way’ turned out to be a quiet back corner of the library’s second floor, past the ancient magical histories and spellbooks with titles Yamashita couldn’t read. Kamenashi seemed unconcerned by the by the fact that the library got more and more deserted with every shelf they passed, so Yamashita shrugged that off, but he wasn’t able to shake off the heavy cold feeling of the wards in the library. They were layering one atop another the further they got to the really heavy magical tomes, and it made him itchy.
"Here we go," Kamenashi declared quetly, and stopped, so suddenly Yamashita walked right into his shoulder.
The shelves didn’t look mysterious or mystical or anything, to be honest. In fact, most of the stark white-and-black books were of a similar size, clearly bought in a set, and innocuous. Like a dictionary, perhaps. But as soon as Yamashita followed Kamenashi into the cavern of the shelves, he had to stop to take a deep breath.
"The ward books... are wards," he said, reaching out to touch the closest spine.
Kamenashi was already glancing over titles, his lower lip pulled between his teeth. He looked up in time to see Yamashita’s outstretched arm, and hustled over to grab Yamashita’s wrist once again. "Don’t," he warned, "you need a spell to touch them, or it’ll freeze you for the librarians to come collect at closing time." He looked like he knew from experience, and Yamashita nodded slowly, letting Kamenashi pull his arm away from the shelves.
"How long did that take you to figure out?" Yamashita teased, and felt the warmth of gratification when Kamenashi colored high in his cheeks.
"Only once, thank you," Kamenashi answered, leaning closer and scowling at Yamashita.
"Really," Yamashita answered, raising his eyebrows.
Kamenashi’s color deepened, and he stepped abruptly away. "Stay there. Don’t touch anything," he admonished, and returned to sorting through the books.
"Does it have a title?" Yamashita asked, stepping neatly in next to Kamenashi until their shoulders bumped, "I can help look for it, at least."
"The one I’m looking for is the Blackwell Warding Encylopedia," Kamenashi said, glancing at Yamashita, "start at the other end?"
"Blackwell. Got it, boss," Yamashita answered, sketching a loose salute and sliding behind Kamenashi to start looking.
"Found it," he reported, after two minutes of scanning spines broken only by the whisper of his bag against his hip.
"Where?" Kamenashi asked, and Yamashita pointed out the thin black book stuffed between ‘Black City Warding Style’ and something Yamashita thought said ‘Blazimos’. Kamenashi’s magic rippled over Yamashita’s skin, and the other man plucked the book from the shelf.
Kamenashi lead the way out of the shelves, already flipping through the book. There were conference tables at the nearest wall, and Kamenashi waved Yamashita into a rickety wooden seat as he continued to scan pages. Yamashita slid his briefcase on the table and flipped it open. He might as well get started on transferring his notes on the upcoming local hockey scene to some kind of article framework while he was waiting around for Kamenashi to find what he needed.
"That book is tiny," Yamashita said, when Kamenashi slowly began turning a page.
Kamenashi glanced up. "It’s a very specialized book," he answered, "the Blackwell Bible only has wards for people. There are a million wards for houses or pets or cars or whatever, but people are harder to get a handle on. Blackwell figured out how to get a handle on magical signatures."
Yamashita nodded, slowly, and after a moment of stillness Kamenashi turned his head down, back to the book and the lists of runes.
"Here we go," he announced, suddenly, and reached out blindly for the pen in Yamashita’s right hand. "Can I--" he waved his hand at Yamashita’s legal pad of notes.
"Yeah, one second," Yamashita said, and tore his notes off the top. He slid the blank pad toward Kamenashi, and watched as Kamenashi drew up a ward, whispering quietly to himself as he flipped pages back and forth.
"Done," Kamenashi said, ten minutes later, "let me go put this back."
"And then we can go eat," Yamashita said, his smile pleasant but his eyes steely.
Kamenashi’s lips quirked. "Yeah," he said, "then we can go eat."
"I could have made a better dinner back at your place," Kamenashi grumbled under his breath as he nonetheless broke his chopsticks and prepared to dig into his ramen. They were stuffed together on a bench at Yamashita’s favorite ramen place, between a set of raucous students and an equally raucous bunch of salarymen.
"Yeah, Kame-chan, you’re right, this ramen is awesome," Yamashita countered, noodles halfway into his mouth. The courage was probably from the two beers sitting warm in his belly, and he smirked around his bite of noodles before sucking them in all the way. Kamenashi’s irritated expression slipped for a moment, to something gentler, and then it was back with a vengeance.
"You are disgusting," Kamenashi informed him before turning pointedly away and beginning to eat.
"You’re so nice," Yamashita said, fondly, and had to bite back laughter when Kamenashi nearly choked on his mouthful of noodles. He reached out and patted Kamenashi’s back with a heavy hand until Kamenashi appeared to get a hold of himself. "Don’t die," he said, helpfully.
Kamenashi ignored him.
"So what do you do--for a living, I mean," Yamashita asked, when they both had empty bowls.
Kamenashi blinked, surprised. "I work in the wards department of the MLE," he answered, "they're paying for my doctorate."
"You're studying wards?"
"Yeah. It's my Affinity, so I decided to go with what I was good at, you know?"
Yamashita nodded. "Do you like wards?" he asked.
"It's easy to immerse myself in them," Kamenashi said, a thoughtful expression playing over his face as he stared into the surface of his beer. "I like order, you know? So making sure the symbols are perfect is soothing, somehow."
"Weirdo," Yamashita said, and bumped their shoulders together.
"You got me drunk so you could do that ward on me without me arguing," Yamashita accused Kamenashi, when they stumbled into his apartment together.
"...yeah," Kamenashi admitted, shrugging.
"Remind me to throttle you in the morning," Yamashita said, pointing at the closest Kamenashi.
"I will," Kamenashi said, clearly humoring him, "now come on, to the living room. I need light for this."
"Don’t make me sleep on the floor, I let you sleep on Uchi’s old futon," Yamashita mumbled, and let Kamenashi push him down onto the thick brown carpet of his living room floor. Kamenashi stared at him for a long moment before he grabbed for the hem of Yamashita’s polo shirt and tugged it up, up over Yamashita’s head.
"Why does being around you mean I’m never wearing a shirt?" Yamashita asked.
"My overwhelming attractiveness. Lie--down! I need to do magic on you, and I can’t if you’re--wiggling!"
"I’ll wiggle as much as I want to," Yamashita answered, happily petulant in his ridiculously inebriated happy place.
Then the cold feel of magic shivered over his skin, and Yamashita’s head cleared remarkably quickly. "You stole the drunk away," Yamashita realized.
"I can still leave you with the hangover, if you want it," Kamenashi offered. Yamashita shook his head, too quickly.
"I’m okay," he said, "um. Can you--explain what you’re doing, at least?"
Kamenashi seemed surprised by the request, but he nodded slowly. "Yeah, okay," he said. He began to dig through his pockets and laid out first his paper diagram and then a paint pen on the ground at Yamashita’s hip, and then dumped his coat on the ground near his knees, leaving him in a plain white v-neck.
"The center of the ward is the rune of protection," Kamenashi said, his voice low. He picked up the paint pen and uncapped it, a loud pop in the otherwise silent room, and shuffled forward on his knees until his thighs brushed Yamashita’s hip. He leaned forward, left hand planted in the space next to Yamashita’s right shoulder, and began to draw on Yamashita’s sternum. The paint was cold where it touched Yamashita’s chest, and he drew in a long breath to keep from shuddering.
"Next is the ‘obscure’ rune, which will go at all four corners of the protection rune," Kamenashi continued. The protection rune was probably as tall and wide as Yamashita’s palm, but the hiding runes were a bit smaller, at all four cardinal points around it, and they went by much faster. "Then we fill in with the runes for ‘steal’ and ‘captivate’, which mix and become ‘distract’."
By the time all eight were done, Yamashita was focusing on breathing and ignoring the tent in his pants. The magic was already crawling over his skin, so searing cold it wouldn’t surprised Yamashita if it was leaving marks behind, and Yamashita bit down heavily on his lower lip instead of scratching at his body. "I’m almost done," Kamenashi said, and when Yamashita’s eyes fluttered open Kamenashi looked as flushed as he felt.
"Just get on with it," Yamashita managed, "it’s--it burns."
Kamenashi’s hands moved steadily but quickly after that. There was another ring of ‘protection’ runes, and then a final circle of ‘obscure’ runes. It seemed to last forever.
"Done," Kamenashi said, and then his hand drifted over the top of the rune.
The ice-cold feeling intensified for a a few seconds, dragging a cry from Yamashita’s throat, and was shortly replaced by warmth drifting over his chest. Yamashita groaned between deep heaving breaths, settling bonelessly against the carpet. Kamenashi’s fingers curled over his bicep, and Yamashita turned his head slowly to the side.
"Magic hurts," he informed Kamenashi, and Kamenashi seemed sad when he looked up.
"Sometimes," Kamenashi agreed, "you should go sleep. You have work in the morning, don’t you?"
"Oh, god, work," Yamashita groaned, "I would call out but Yoko might blow up the office again... help me up?"
Kamenashi nodded, and uncurled his body until he was standing. He cracked first one knee, then the other, and then leaned forward to grab Yamashita’s wrist and help haul him upward. Yamashita wavered for a moment when he was on his feet, and then found his balance. "Definitely sleeping," he said, eyes and shoulders drooping.
part 2
Fandom: Johnny's & Associates (KAT-TUN, NEWS, TOKIO, Kanjani8)
Characters: Yamashita Tomohisa, Kamenashi Kazuya, Akanishi Jin, Nagase Tomoya, Yokoyama You, cameos from Nishikido Ryo and Uchi Hiroki
Pairings: Kame/Pi, Kame/Ryo, Pi/Jin/Kame BFFery, references to Pi/Uchi friendship and implied Tegoshi/Jin
Word count: ~11600
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: magic, time travel, alternate universe, probably confusing time paradoxes, urban fantasy AU
Summary: Yamashita Tomohisa is a non-wizard sports reporter at a magical newspaper. And according to time-traveler Kamenashi Kazuya, he’s the only one who can save the world.
Notes: Written for songkissed during amigo_exchange 2011. All my love to katmillia for her moral support. "Todai" is the nickname for Tokyo University.
"Yamashita, did you ever finish the scoreboard article?" Nagase called from his office.
Yamashita had, in fact, finished the article about the mysteriously exploding scoreboards all over town. They were of particular concern here in the sports department, since the story had effectively shut down half the games in the city, and Nagase got antsy when there wasn't anything to report on besides golf. Some people whispered there were new warlocks in town making trouble for mundane world citizens, but there wasn't anything to particularly point to that, that was just what people said when things seemed like too much of a coincidence. Or so Yamashita thought, anyway.
"Yes, sir," he called back, and began rooting through the pile of papers in his outbox for his hard copy of it. (He'd print off a new one, but the printer was backlogged because of Yokoyama. For the third time that week.)
He found it, lodged inside a swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated Nagase had probably stashed there at some point, and he piled both article and magazine together in his arms before he stood and trotted across the sports department to his supervisor's office.
"Here you go, sir," he said, and handed both to Nagase. Nagase grinned, broadly, and took Yamashita's offering in both hands.
Then he tossed the article into the pile that had once been his inbox, and buried his nose in the centerfold of the magazine. "Naomi-san~" he sighed, blissful.
"Sir, the article," Yamashita said, "um. We have a deadline in half an hour?"
Nagase glanced up. "What, really?" he asked, and looked at the big digital clock above his door. Then he jumped, slamming the magazine down on the table and diving into his inbox pile.
"Tell Yokoyama to bring me his golf article," Nagase ordered.
"...I thought you were writing the golf article," Yamashita said, with a slow blink, "Yokoyama-kun is doing the basketball stuff, isn't he?"
"Then what are you doing?" Nagase demanded.
"...the scoreboard article, like you asked?"
"Oh. Well. ...can you write up a summary and then I'll cobble together an article?"
"I'll just write it, sir," Yamashita said, lamenting momentarily having to put off his dinner a little longer. He didn't feel bad about offering--Nagase had been working on three different articles all evening and still needed to look through Yokoyama's article to make sure there weren't any kanji mistakes--but he was hungry.
"If you're sure," Nagase said, raising an eyebrow.
"It's not as though I'd be doing anything besides going home and eating, sir," Yamashita said.
"Thanks, Pi," Nagase said, dipping into the nickname that had been dogging Yamashita since his days as an intern in the Arts and Music department under Takizawa.
"You can buy me dinner this weekend," Yamashita said, shrugging, and left the office to go back to his computer.
He didn't haul himself through his front door until nearly midnight, eyes and shoulders heavy as he forced the door of his second-story apartment open. He sighed into the empty apartment--the place had been half-vacant since Uchi had moved back to Osaka to attend the only magical university that would take his high school grades two months ago, and Yamashita hadn't been able to find a replacement yet.
There were three onigiri in the fridge and a note from Yamashita's sister, Rina, saying 'call mom some time, Pi!'. Yamashita carried them to his tiny kitchen table with something like reverence, a smile pulling at his lips. His sister's onigiri were the best. The Yamashita family wasn't known to have much magic, but if they did it was almost certainly in their cooking. Each bite was like heaven, rice and umeboshi sliding down his throat, and Yamashita savored every single one. He tapped at the side of his glass of water, watching the surface of the water ripple, and smiled as he the glass picked up. With Uchi at wizard school in Osaka and Jin off doing whatever it was he did on assignment for the Magical Law Enforcement office (which, for the record, was still the scariest part about living in a Unified city like Tokyo--Akanishi Jin was responsible for his safety), things were quiet for him.
The glass was halfway to his lips when a shocking explosion from outside ripped through the apartment. He dropped his glass in shock, getting water all over himself and shattering the cup on the table, and he stood from his seat at the small round table. His chair toppled over backwards, but he ignored it. Warlocks? In his neighborhood? This was a largely mundane area--Yamashita had picked it because, despite living in a Unified area and working for a Unified newspaper, he liked to be able to go home and not worry about magical overflow turning him green or any of the other stuff he'd had to put up with when he'd bunked down at Jin's place.
That was when he noticed there was light leaking out from under Uchi's old bedroom door. Yamashita's heart was still racing, hammering at his ribs, and he approached the door carefully, slowly. Panicking wasn't going to get him anywhere. Yamashita took a deep breath and pushed the door open, fists up to defend himself if he had to.
To his surprise, there wasn't a warlock gang hiding out in his guest room like those guys from Bloody Monday, or whatever. Just one guy, dark haired and pale with a hat squashed low over his eyes and dressed in clothes that were familiar in style but dirty. "What the hell are you doing in my apartment?" Yamashiya demanded, which was exactly when the intruder stumbled forward and collapsed to his hands and knees in front of Yamashita.
Yamashita watched the guy suspiciously, bending down to look at him. "No, seriously, who are you and what are you doing here?" Yamashita asked.
The young man glanced up at him momentarily and opened his mouth as if to answer, and then threw up all over Yamashita's shirt.
As if that wasn't bad enough, he chose then to pass out, too.
Yamashita groaned. Just his luck. He shook the guy for a minute, but there was no response. The guy was still breathing, so Yamashita turned his attention to the shirt now sticking to his chest and stinking up the joint. He straightened, unbuttoning the buttons at the collar of his polo and stripping it carefully off. He made a face, holding it at arms length, and crossed the hall to toss it in the trash can (no way in hell he was wearing that again). He took to the task of scrubbing at his arms and chest with a sponge with aplomb, and by the time he was fairly certain he no longer stunk, at least for now, he trotted into his bedroom. He'd left a pile of half-folded laundry on top of his dresser, and he pulled the first dark t-shirt he could find from the pile and pulled it over his head.
Then came the task of dragging his intruder to the couch and laying him across the cushions. The guy was deceptively heavy, lean muscle making him more of a weight than Yamashita had assumed he would be from his size and the bagginess of his clothes, and it was more of a struggle than Yamashita would admit to drag him down the hall to the living room in the back of the apartment past his bedroom. After a moment of thought, he pulled off the guy's shoes and fetched his trash can from next to his desk. He left it in the guy's arm's reach and sauntered back to the kitchen for two glasses of water--one for himself and one for his mystery guest.
Then he plucked the hat from the guy's head and settled in to wait for the guy to wake up.
It had been half an hour by the time the guy stirred, and Yamashita leaned forward to examine the young man's face.
"Huh...?" He sat up, holding his head. "What--?"
"Here, have water," Yamashita instructed immediately, shoving the glass into the young man's hands.
"Thanks," the guy said, and after he gulped the entire cup's worth down, he looked a little better. Less green. "Oh god I threw up on you," he said, seeming to remember everything at once, "oh my god I am so sorry."
Yamashita shrugged. "I've seen worse," he said, "at least you didn't get it on my face?"
"That's disgusting," the young man said, pulling his mouth up into a grossed-out scowl. After a moment, he shook himself, and blinked large at Yamashita.
"You're Yamashita Tomohisa," he said.
Yamashita nodded, slowly. "And you're...?"
"Kamenashi. Kamenashi Kazuya," the guy--Kamenashi--said. "I'm a wizard, and I'm here... to talk to you about saving the world."
This would be the part where a drama would cut to a commercial, or something, or so Yamashita assumed. Since this was real life, there was simply a beat of silence, and Yamashita had to laugh to break it.
"I'm sorry, could you repeat that?" he asked, struggling to comprehend it.
"You know very well what I just said," the young man snapped, "I'm trying to save the world and I need your help to do it."
"No, I got that part," Yamashita said, "is that supposed to be code? Did Jin set you up to do this? Was it Uchi? I mean, save the world? Even if it does need saving--which, unless the alien sightings were true, it probably doesn't--then why are you in my apartment? What could I possibly do? I'm a newspaper reporter. A mundane."
"There are scoreboards blowing up all over town," Kamenashi began, ignoring Yamashita's questions, "slowly it moves up to... buildings. Houses. Corporations, eventually. By the time he's made it that far everyone's afraid their place is next. The mundanes move underground, which is exactly what he wants. Wizards and warlocks above everyone else. Superiority, not unification."
Yamashita knew the difference between a warlock and a wizard. His mother was a wizard, the only magic in the Yamashita family in fifty years, though of little power. She had explained the process of becoming a warlock, once, when Yamashita had been very small. The idea of gaining immense power and knowledge but losing all humanity in the process had given child Yamashita nightmares for weeks. Sometimes he still woke in a cold sweat, the echoes of strange black-and-white dreams colored by red blood still fading from behind his eyelids.
"I'm not even magic," Yamashita said, quietly, "what help would I be?"
Kamenashi's eyes narrowed. "But you are magic," he said.
Yamashita rolled his eyes. He'd long given up on any idea that he was somehow some kind of magical prodigy like Tackey or even the late-blooming Uchi. "And why do you say that?"
"That's what they told me," Kamenashi answered, his face saying he knew it was a feeble explanation, "the MLE. I mean. I’m not an agent, but they..." He picked up the trash can at his feet and hauled it into his lap. The garish pink Hawaiian flower print should have looked ridiculous against Kamenashi's dark coat and messy hair, but Kamenashi made it work. Somehow. A little. "They fund my research. It was Nagase-san who threw me back in time. Literally. That was--dimension hopping and teleporting make me sick, too." He still looked embarrassed.
"I really--Nagase knows what he's talking about," Kamenasi said. "I know you don't believe me, but you're our only hope."
"Woah, we just passed into Star Wars territory here," Yamashita joked, and sighed when Kamenashi looked lost. "You grew up in a magic household," he surmised.
"I--is it that obvious?" Kamenashi asked, wincing.
"Only if you grew up Unified, I think," Yamashita offered, "mundane kids wouldn't notice all the little magical condescending you've been doing since you got here." He shook his hand out at the windows. "There is absolutely no need to block the sound from all of my windows, is there?"
Kamenashi looked surprised. "You noticed?" he asked.
"I've roomed with wizards--or almost-wizards--my whole life," Yamashita said, "I'm still not convinced I'm magic, but I grew up sensitive." He'd always known that much; the tester from his elementary school had called him one of the most sensitive mundanes he’d ever seen. "I'll ask Nagase in the morning. If he tells me there's no way I'm magical at all I'm kicking your ass before I kick you out."
"...you're kicking me out either way?" Kamenashi asked.
Yamashita sighed. "If he says it's possible," he said, "you can sleep in Uchi's bedroom. If you agree not to do weird magical shit and set off my neighbors."
Kamenashi nodded. "I can cook and clean," he offered, "we were magic, not rich."
Yamashita thought about it for all of a minute before he nodded. "Then, um," he slowly shambled from the living room floor to his feet, and stretched. "There's a futon in the closet of Uchi's old room," he said.
Yamashita woke the next morning with a massive headache. He thought, sleepily, that he must have had too much to drink the night before and it was probably entirely Nagase's fault, but then the events of the night before came flooding back, and Yamashita forced himself out of bed and out of his bedroom to check on Kamenashi.
Kamenashi was already awake in the kitchen, singing as he slapped rice into bowls.
"Quiet down," Yamashita complained, "my neighbors can hear everything and they whine about all of it."
Kamenashi glanced at him; he was still wearing the clothes he'd arrived in the night before, his coat folded over the back of a chair and his hat tucked away on the kitchen counter. Slowly
Kamenashi's voice faded. "Okay," he said, finally, "I'm making breakfast, if you wanted to shower...?"
Yamashita nodded, brain still fuzzy with sleep, and shambled off. He remained that way through scrubbing and shampooing, through shaving and brushing his hair, and through deciding on what slacks and polo to wear to work. He decided on the pink polo and gray flat-fronts in a fit of whimsy, and when he walked back into the kitchen Kamenashi had laid out breakfast.
Halfway through his rice Yamashita remembered to thank Kamenashi, mouth so full his cheeks were expanded like a chipmunk's, and Kamenashi looked alternately gratified and grossed out. "I'm sure it isn't," Kamenashi said, waving off Yamashita's 'this is the best ever', "but thank you." Kamenashi's knee whispered against Yamashita's for a moment before they both shifted straighter in their seats, and Yamashita distracted Kamenashi with more praise for his cooking.
"I cook at home," Kamenashi said, "my roommate is busy a lot, and I have spare time as I research."
Yamashita's phone alarm--the one he set that reminded him he had to leave the house in ten minutes, useful when he was distracted staring at the innards of his empty fridge or catching up on the news--went off just then, and Kamenashi jumped, looking at the phone plugged in on the kitchen counter. "That's my cue," Yamashita managed through a mouthful of rice, and after a few more bites he was in the kitchen putting his dishes in the sink.
"There's a bento on the counter for you," Kamenashi said, quietly, and Yamashita grinned at him. Kamenashi hid a smile by scratching at his nose.
"Don't blow up my place," he warned Kamenashi as he put his shoes on, and then he began the rush toward the train.
Yokoyama was walking through the front rotating doors when Yamashita finally arrived. "Yokoyama-kun," Yamashita called, and Yokoyama stopped to look back. Yokoyama had been an intern when Yamashita had finally been made an actual reporter, a late addition to the department after spending time getting his wizarding certifications. Yokoyama’s Affinity--his specialty--was affecting luck, but it had only happened when Yokoyama was 24. To hear Yokoyama tell it, he had finally been establishing himself in the DJ game when his magic erupted and he blew up his broadcast equipment. He’d taken the insurance money and put it toward the college education he hadn’t been able to afford out of high school, resolving to make it as a reporter. He wanted to work in the entertainment section, but Nagase kept putting off the transfer. (Probably because despite being terrible with kanji Yokoyama had a way with words, and his write-ups of otherwise dull scores were interesting.) In the process of turning around, Yokoyama apparently forgot he was trying to walk through a revolving door, and he was nearly squashed before Yamashita hauled him back by the arm,
"Sorry for distracting you," he offered, and Yokoyama shrugged.
"I'm used to it," Yokoyama answered, "comes with luck magic! I really wish it didn't--really, really wish it didn't--but not much I can do about it, I guess." He let Yamashita step into the rotating door first, and followed closely after, holding his fat stuffed briefcase to his chest protectively. Yamashita led the way through security and to the elevator, too, and it was only when they were stuffed inside one that Yokoyama spoke again. He was usually quiet in the mornings, until he’d had his first cup of coffee, and then he talked all day. Yamashita took pleasure in the few minutes of silence.
"You look tired," Yokoyama said, eyes flicking over Yamashita's face.
"Didn't sleep much," Yamashita answered, "there was a--party. In my neighborhood. A mundane kind, so it was... noisy." Yokoyama nodded in understanding. Yamashita didn't understand the deep inner workings of his coworker's particular brand of luck magic, but he did know Yokoyama had lived in the mundane community for his entire childhood. He knew what it was like. Yamashita felt bad about lying, but if Kamenashi was right--if the end of the world was on its way--then he wasn't sure telling everyone a time-traveling wizard was sleeping in his guest room was a great idea.
The elevator stopped at floor fourteen, the sports and lifestyle floor, and Yamashita and Yokoyama both ducked between the law interns and the accounting department to make it out toward the lobby of their department. Nagase was standing in the middle of the office, talking to what was unmistakeably a pair of police officers. One had the patch of the MLE offices on her right bicep, and it was to her (or at least to her boobs) Nagase's comments were being directed. "So the office was like that when you arrived, then," the woman was saying to him.
"Exactly," Nagase said, "I got out late last night--three, maybe?--and I got in an hour ago to proofread some stuff before I sent it out for print. Office was a mess when I came in."
"What happened to the office?" Yamashita asked, and the officers and Nagase looked at him.
"Somebody was looking for something," Nagase summarized, "overturned my desk, got your papers everywhere, destroyed Yoko's computer..." Yokoyama whimpered, and Yamashita reached out to pat his shoulder companionably.
"We're the sports department," Yamashita said, thinking, "what could we possibly know that would be interesting?"
Nagase shrugged. "God only knows, Pi," he said, "oi, come help me clean this shit up, you two!"
Yamashita glanced at Yokoyama, and the two shared a shrug before the followed Nagase into their department. Yamashita whistled when he saw the state of his desk. Papers had been pulled from every drawer--even drawers Yamashita had forgotten had papers in them--and scattered across the floor. Nagase's desk had been literally overturned, and Yokoyama's computer had indeed been knocked off of the desk to the floor. Yokoyama crossed the room to kneel next to it, rubbing at his temples and complaining under his breath about assholes with no regard for employee property.
Yamashita glanced at Nagase. "What's really happening here?" he asked.
Nagase had the grace to attempt at looking confused. "I dunno," he offered.
"Don't give me that. The MLE is here, something is going on," Yamashita said.
"There's been some temporal disruptions recently," Nagase admitted after a moment of visible thought to himself. "We think someone came back in time looking for somebody."
Looking for me, Yamashita guessed, but he didn't say it aloud.
"Um," Yamashita said, "I had a question."
Nagase drew back, one eyebrow raised. "Like?" he asked, wary.
"Am I ma--"he was barely halfway through the word when Nagase's arm fell heavy around his shoulders.
"Pi," Nagase said, conversationally, "please. Don't."
Yamashita wiggled away from Nagase's choke hold. "Nagase-san," he complained, and Nagase messed with his hair.
"Don't," Nagase repeated, "when you need to know, you will. Okay?"
Yamashita sighed. "I'm gonna get to work cleaning this up," he said, brisk, and stepped away from Nagase to start gathering up his papers.
By the time everything was somewhere near cleaned up on his end, it was nearly lunch time, and Yamashita finally took the time to unwrap his bento. His mouth watered as he examined the spread, and he rubbed his hands together with an under-his-breath 'itadakimasu' as he waited for his computer to boot up.He had two emails. One from Uchi, a normal 'hi how are you man my professor is a douche but I'm glad I came' weekly update that Yamashita filed away to answer when he had a spare minute, and one from Jin's personal email account (jswag@magmail.net) with the remarkably astute subject line 'Pi plz read!!!'. It read: 'Yo Pi, be careful in magic areas. There's some weird shit going down. And if you hear anything about a Nishikido Ryo while you're out and about, get out. Fast. Also Costa Rica is really nice, the girls are super-hot. Jin'. Yamashita laughed, typing out an easy 'Will do.' and wondering once more why Jin even bothered to mention this stuff to him. To make him feel like he was part of the action, maybe, which was a nice gesture, if a futile one.
The sound of a chip crunching made Yamashita look up from his last bite of rice, and Yokoyama shuffled halfway toward Yamashita's desk, looking bashful. "You want to borrow my computer."
"Just for a little bit," Yokoyama said, sounding defensive, "to check my email and stuff."
"I better not come back and find you playing Monster Hunter Online," Yamashita teased, spinning his chair around and rolling himself out of it. Yokoyama made a happy noise of thanks, sliding around Yamashita and into the desk chair, his fingers moving remarkably fast for a man who had a strange tendency to misuse kanji all the time.
"I'm going out to make a phone call," Yamashita said to Nagase as he leaned into his boss's office. Nagase was in the midst of righting one of this bookshelves (how the bookshelf had even been knocked over in the first place Yamashita had no idea--it had definitely been standing that morning), but when he got it settled down he turned to give Yamashita a thumbs-up.
"Have fun," he said, as a send-off.
Yamashita ducked into the happily unoccupied break room off of the department lobby. It was a stale white affair largely characterized by the long black table that cut the room in two and the collection of appliances that crowded the corners. Yamashita skirted between the counter where the microwave made its home and the corner of the table to find the only empty corner of the room, and touched the screen of his phone.
"...hello?"
"Are you... flushing the toilet?"
"Oh, Yamashita. No, I'm cleaning the toilet."
"Kamenashi, why are you--you don't need to clean my toilet!"
"Well someone has to and you haven't stepped up to the plate."
"Listen, you--" Yamashita broke off, taking a deep breath--"you got me off track. I was calling to say my office got ransacked overnight. They're blaming however's behind the 'recent temporal disturbances'. Does that--do they mean you?"
There was a long moment of silence punctuated only by the faint sound of the toilet btush, and then Kamenashi sighed. "No," he said, finally, "that's not me. That was probably him. The warlock."
"Nishikido," Yamashita guessed.
There was a massive clatter, followed by a string of Kamenashi's curses, and then the puff of a deep breath. "Who--how did you...?"
"My best friend is in the MLE," Yamashita answered, "he told me to be careful around him. Jin is allergic to tact, so that means he's your guy. Who is he?"
"Trouble," Kamenashi said, and Yamashita could see the scowl on his face, "Look, I'm, uh. I'm going out to check on some stuff. Don't leave your office. I'll call you and pick you up, you shouldn't be alone. Nishikido will--smell you."
"...smell me?"
"Your... signature. Even people who can't use magic have one. If you know what you're looking for, you can find someone with it. Nishikido's powerful enough to find you, no problem, if he concentrates."
Yamashita nodded, slowly. Slowly the whole idea came back to him--this was stuff he'd heard about at his Unified University. 'An overview of magical skills for mundanes'--Yamashita had alternately slept and messaged Jin through the entire class, but he'd apparently retained a few things during his flurried cramming for the final.
"Where are you going?" Yamashita asked.
"Todai," Kamenashi said, too quickly. "The library. I want to see if I can't find a warding spell to keep you safe."
Yamashita wasn't sure how much of that he believed, but he let it pass. "Call me when you're heading over. And think about where you want to go for dinner."
"Everything's about food with you, isn't it."
Yamashita hung up the phone.
It took him five minutes and as many false starts on his daily article on the area basketball teams for Yamashita to open up Google. It took a moment to clarify which "Kamenashi Kazuya" he specifically meant, but after adding "Todai" to his search terms things cleared up, fast. Yamashita whistled--Kamenashi had played baseball in the magical little leagues for nearly the entire time he'd been alive, getting to the first string for the Todai team as a sophomore until a summer arm injury retired him. He--or at least the Kamenashi who lived in Yamashita's time--was a graduate student focusing on wards and runes.
The last big thing about Kamenashi--the part it took Yamashita to find between generic honor society listing--was accidental. Yamashita had clicked the link for the Todai student newspaper’s gossip column thinking there might be references to Kamenashi as a partier or something. Instead, he got a series pictures of Kamenashi with a dark-haired, short guy looking messy in loose jeans and a sweatshirt, labeled as Nishikido Ryo.
Yamashita reached for his phone and hit redial. After a series of rings, he was greeted by his own tinny voice telling him to leave a message, and he hit the ‘end call’ button so hard he was half-afraid his touch screen would break. "Damn it," he cursed. Well, time to work double-time on this article and go off to Todai.
It took him nearly an hour to peel the story he was trying to tell--the possibility of area referees being affected by bribery--out of his interview notes and dump them into the word document in a way that made sense. Thankfully, the Inkjet had been fixed overnight, and Yokoyama’s powers hadn’t ruined it. Yet, anyway. Yamashita sent it off to print after one last read-through, and the slid out of his desk to the Inkjet nestled under the only window in his and Yokoyama’s half of their cramped department office. He could see into Nagase’s office as he stood over the printer, watching it, and he could see that Nagase finally had everything (mostly) in order.
"I’m gonna head out early today," Yamashita informed Nagase over his shoulder as he flicked through the printed pages of the article and passed back to his computer to email Nagase a copy of it. Nagase looked up at him from over his monitor, and his determined keyboard pecking slowed.
"Hot date?" Nagase asked, with a cheeky grin.
Yamashita laughed. "Something like that," he said agreeably, and rolled his eyes through Nagase’s ridiculous eyebrow waggling.
"Have fun," Nagase said, aggressively cheerful to the last, "I’d say not to have too much fun, but fuck that. Just use protection!"
"Yeah, yeah," Yamashita muttered, dropping the paper copy of the article atop Nagase’s pile of papers and turning around to grab his briefcase before he left the building.
Todai was hardly difficult to get to, of course. There were other popular Unified universities in Tokyo but none were as popular and as prestigious as Todai. Strictly-magical Waseda had once been foremost among wizards and witches, but as the mundane and magical worlds began to mix, Unified schools became the most popular. Yamashita had settled on Meiji, but Uchi had aimed high and gotten into Todai, so he’d spent his time as an Undergraduate divided between the dorm room he shared with Jin and parties at Uchi’s place. Kamenashi had declared he was going to the library, so Yamashita decided to ignore the classrooms and go straight for the pond adjoining the large Todai library building.
It occurred to Yamashita when the third or fourth girl nearly walked into a pole while staring at him that he should have grabbed a coat, or at least sunglasses, and he ducked his head to stare at his phone. There were benches around the pond, to "promote viewing of nature" (the memory of Uchi declaring the entire concept bullshit two minutes before vomiting into a planter stuck in Yamashita’s memory every time he thought about the place), and Yamashita settled on one, crossing his right knee over his left. He'd have to email Uchi back when he got home.
"Ryo, what are you--give me my coat. Now."
Yamashita froze. That was a voice he knew--that was Kamenashi’s voice.
"Kame, come on, you have like half an hour before this meeting thing, and even you can’t schmooze the whole time, at least come sit. The bench isn’t gonna stain your pants, or whatever the hell you’re mad over."
Yamashita glanced up--they were three benches away, far enough that he could get away with looking at them occasionally and close enough that he could hear their conversation. He felt like a creeper, but pushed past the uneasy feeling anyway.
"You’re insane. I’m not putting my butt anywhere near that, look at the pigeon poop next to your bookbag."
This Kamenashi was clean-cut and dressed in smart slacks with a sweater versus the weathered jeans and leather jacket ensemble his Kamenashi had crashed into his life wearing. This one was younger, too, lighter around the eyes and smoother around the mouth. He looked less--tired. He was arguing with the sloppy looking guy Yamashita recognized from the gossip column--Nishikido--about the apparent cleanliness of the bench, until Nishikido hauled him down into his lap. Yamashita turned away, coloring and feeling rather obviously like an intruder. He stood in a way he hoped was unobtrusive, and crept away from them as quietly as he could manage, eyes pointedly on his phone as he walked the path back to the library.
Which was exactly the way he was walking when he walked into somebody. Yamashita’s head snapped up, and he was in the middle of an apology when he met Kamenashi’s eye under the brim of his hat. "Ah," he squawked, and grabbed Kamenashi’s forearm. "There you are."
Kamenashi eyes flicked visibly over Yamashita’s shoulder, and then his gaze focused on Yamashita’s face. "Are you an idiot?" he demanded, shaking Yamashita’s hand off and crossing his arms pointedly over his chest, "I told you to stay in your office. Where it was safe under Nagase-san’s wards."
"You’re been keeping stuff from me," Yamashita snapped back, waving his left hand up over his shoulder at the pond. "When were you gonna tell me this great warlock I need to help you defeat was your ex-boyfriend? What else are you lying about?"
"I’m not lying about anything," Kamenashi hissed, "and really, how do I bring that one up? ‘Oh, by the way, I used to date the guy we’re trying to banish back to my time!’?!"
"Yeah, actually, that would’ve been nice!"
"...shut up, they’re coming," Kamenashi said, and grabbed Yamashita’s wrist to haul him off. Between the iron grip on his wrist and Kamenashi’s determined stalk, Yamashita was hard-pressed to keep up without stumbling and couldn’t focus on much else until they came to a stop in the library, halfway behind a teetering, too-tall stack of ‘free giveaway’ books. Kamenashi’s fingers lingered gently on the inside of Yamashita’s wrist as they stood, Kamenashi looking nervous as Yamashita looked at the interior of the library. It looked different on the inside, far larger than the building seemed to imply, and there were runes Yamashita recognized dimly as magical lining every window and door.
"Are we hiding in here for any specific reason?" Yamashita asked, finally, tugging his wrist back from the circle of Kamenashi’s fingers and shoving his hands in his pockets.
"To mix up our signatures with everyone else’s," Kamenashi answered, "it won’t work forever, but he’s probably still disoriented from the time travel, and that’ll give me time to look through the books in here and come up with a ward to protect you."
"How are we even going to get in? They ask for ID, don’t they?"
"Don’t worry about that," Kamenashi answered, turning and leading the way. They were halfway up the steps to the entrance kiosk when there was a dull, huge thump. Kamenashi whirled, his coat hitting Yamashita in the face, and he looked remarkably pale.
"What is it now?" Yamashita asked, turning, and made a noise of horrified surprise. The front doors of the library were glass, so he could very clearly see the abruptly ruined fountain spewing water everywhere, and when he glanced back to Kamenashi the other man was in the midst of shaking himself out of his stupor.
"Let’s go," Kamenashi said, his hand closing around Yamashita’s bicep and hauling him along. His hand buzzed with the chill of magic being done, and it spread over Yamashita’s body in a wave.
"What are you doing to me?" Yamashita asked, shaking Kamenashi’s hand off, "you can’t just--use magic on me without permission!"
Kamenashi rolled his eyes. "It’s a misdirection ward," he explained, clearly done with the conversation, and he squawked in surprise when Yamashita shoved him away again.
"Don’t do magic without my permission," Yamashita hissed, "I mean it."
"I’m doing it to protect you!"
"How am I supposed to trust anything that comes out of your mouth? You barge into my life and decide you can just tell me what to do?"
"Woah, woah, guys, no fighting in the library!"
Yamashita answered the familiar voice on automatic. "Jin, the only thing you know about libraries is how to avoid getting caught having sex in a study room, shut up."
Then the gravity of that sunk in. "Jin?!" he said, as he turned to look. Jin was behind them on the stairs, leaning against the banister and looking bored. He wasn’t the Jin Yamashita knew--not directly, this Jin looked like he was in his early 30s, and he definitely didn’t look like he had just come back from Costa Rica--but the MLE worked outside the time stream. Yamashita had met two or three Jins that weren’t his Jin in the past few years. The good thing about Jin was that he never changed, though, thankfully. A grown-up Jin was a terrifying thought.
"Akanishi, places of higher learning usually require having a brain." It seemed Kamenashi knew Jin, too.
"Assholes," Jin said, fondly, and climbed the stairs to join them. He patted Yamashita’s shoulder and slid the back of his hand over Kamenashi’s elbow as a more personal greeting, and then leaned heavily on Yamashita. "Is he being a little heavy-handed?" he asked Yamashita.
"More than a little," Yamashita grumbled, "you know how much doing magic on me annoys me."
"I am trying to save your life," Kamenashi snapped.
"About that," Jin said, suddenly, and made a face at Kamenashi. "You don’t need to be so careful. We’ve got him on the run. Or, your Jin does, whatever, all this time travel bullshit confuses me. Anyway, definitely set up this ward--Pi, don’t make that face, come on--but don’t worry too much. All right?"
"He was just here! Just because you’re cavalier with people’s safety doesn’t mean I’m going to be."
"He was here, and we shook him off of you. Somebody is keeping an eye on you guys, all right? You’re MLE, Kamenashi, whether you like it or not, and we’re not letting you or Pi here get fucked up."
"That’s creepy," Yamashita complained, feeling tingly all over like he was being stared at.
"Yeah, well, be glad I managed to convince them not to watch you in your bathtub."
Yamashita shoved Jin companionably. "Go away," he said, "you have work to do."
Jin stretched leisurely. "Always," he agreed, and waved jauntily to them before he walked away.
Kamenashi had the grace to look abashed. "Sorry," he offered, voice muffled by embarrassment, "I, um. Yeah. Sorry."
"Just don’t let it happen again," Yamashita said, and tapped Kamenashi’s shoulder with his fist as he passed him toward the actual library entrance.
"The Todai library is only open to students," the librarian told them when they approached. She was young and fairly pretty, her eyes flicking between them curiously.
"I’m MLE," Kamenashi answered, and reached into his coat to haul out what was unmistakeably an MLE badge and ID. The woman took it and examined it for a moment, then nodded.
"Are you MLE too?" she asked.
Yamashita shook his head. "I’m just... with him," he said, tilting his head sideways toward Kamenashi.
"I’m afraid I can only let--"she trailed off when Yamashita leaned on the counter and went nose-to-nose with her, holding her gaze.
"Are you sure?" he asked, turning on every ounce of puppy-dog eyes he’d ever picked up from life.
"I--well--I suppose I--you are here with the agent, so I’m sure it’ll be fine, as long as Agent Kamenashi agrees to be responsible for your good conduct?"
Kamenashi rolled his eyes. "Yeah, fine," he said. He looked irritated under his hat; Yamashita grinned when he’d turned around, and the two of them walked through the awning that served as a gateway to the library’s wards. Yamashita shivered when they did--Kamenashi seemed unaffected, but the library’s protection wards were cold.
"Do you know were to look?" Yamashita teased, "or do I need to charm another librarian?"
Kamenashi made a noise then that sounded like a combination of a groan and a sigh, and between that and the drawn-down shape of his eyebrows, Yamashita could no longer hold in his snickering. Until Kamenashi swatted at him, anyway. "Don’t hit me," Yamashita complained.
"Don’t whine," Kamenashi snapped back, "come on, the wards encyclopedias are this way."
‘This way’ turned out to be a quiet back corner of the library’s second floor, past the ancient magical histories and spellbooks with titles Yamashita couldn’t read. Kamenashi seemed unconcerned by the by the fact that the library got more and more deserted with every shelf they passed, so Yamashita shrugged that off, but he wasn’t able to shake off the heavy cold feeling of the wards in the library. They were layering one atop another the further they got to the really heavy magical tomes, and it made him itchy.
"Here we go," Kamenashi declared quetly, and stopped, so suddenly Yamashita walked right into his shoulder.
The shelves didn’t look mysterious or mystical or anything, to be honest. In fact, most of the stark white-and-black books were of a similar size, clearly bought in a set, and innocuous. Like a dictionary, perhaps. But as soon as Yamashita followed Kamenashi into the cavern of the shelves, he had to stop to take a deep breath.
"The ward books... are wards," he said, reaching out to touch the closest spine.
Kamenashi was already glancing over titles, his lower lip pulled between his teeth. He looked up in time to see Yamashita’s outstretched arm, and hustled over to grab Yamashita’s wrist once again. "Don’t," he warned, "you need a spell to touch them, or it’ll freeze you for the librarians to come collect at closing time." He looked like he knew from experience, and Yamashita nodded slowly, letting Kamenashi pull his arm away from the shelves.
"How long did that take you to figure out?" Yamashita teased, and felt the warmth of gratification when Kamenashi colored high in his cheeks.
"Only once, thank you," Kamenashi answered, leaning closer and scowling at Yamashita.
"Really," Yamashita answered, raising his eyebrows.
Kamenashi’s color deepened, and he stepped abruptly away. "Stay there. Don’t touch anything," he admonished, and returned to sorting through the books.
"Does it have a title?" Yamashita asked, stepping neatly in next to Kamenashi until their shoulders bumped, "I can help look for it, at least."
"The one I’m looking for is the Blackwell Warding Encylopedia," Kamenashi said, glancing at Yamashita, "start at the other end?"
"Blackwell. Got it, boss," Yamashita answered, sketching a loose salute and sliding behind Kamenashi to start looking.
"Found it," he reported, after two minutes of scanning spines broken only by the whisper of his bag against his hip.
"Where?" Kamenashi asked, and Yamashita pointed out the thin black book stuffed between ‘Black City Warding Style’ and something Yamashita thought said ‘Blazimos’. Kamenashi’s magic rippled over Yamashita’s skin, and the other man plucked the book from the shelf.
Kamenashi lead the way out of the shelves, already flipping through the book. There were conference tables at the nearest wall, and Kamenashi waved Yamashita into a rickety wooden seat as he continued to scan pages. Yamashita slid his briefcase on the table and flipped it open. He might as well get started on transferring his notes on the upcoming local hockey scene to some kind of article framework while he was waiting around for Kamenashi to find what he needed.
"That book is tiny," Yamashita said, when Kamenashi slowly began turning a page.
Kamenashi glanced up. "It’s a very specialized book," he answered, "the Blackwell Bible only has wards for people. There are a million wards for houses or pets or cars or whatever, but people are harder to get a handle on. Blackwell figured out how to get a handle on magical signatures."
Yamashita nodded, slowly, and after a moment of stillness Kamenashi turned his head down, back to the book and the lists of runes.
"Here we go," he announced, suddenly, and reached out blindly for the pen in Yamashita’s right hand. "Can I--" he waved his hand at Yamashita’s legal pad of notes.
"Yeah, one second," Yamashita said, and tore his notes off the top. He slid the blank pad toward Kamenashi, and watched as Kamenashi drew up a ward, whispering quietly to himself as he flipped pages back and forth.
"Done," Kamenashi said, ten minutes later, "let me go put this back."
"And then we can go eat," Yamashita said, his smile pleasant but his eyes steely.
Kamenashi’s lips quirked. "Yeah," he said, "then we can go eat."
"I could have made a better dinner back at your place," Kamenashi grumbled under his breath as he nonetheless broke his chopsticks and prepared to dig into his ramen. They were stuffed together on a bench at Yamashita’s favorite ramen place, between a set of raucous students and an equally raucous bunch of salarymen.
"Yeah, Kame-chan, you’re right, this ramen is awesome," Yamashita countered, noodles halfway into his mouth. The courage was probably from the two beers sitting warm in his belly, and he smirked around his bite of noodles before sucking them in all the way. Kamenashi’s irritated expression slipped for a moment, to something gentler, and then it was back with a vengeance.
"You are disgusting," Kamenashi informed him before turning pointedly away and beginning to eat.
"You’re so nice," Yamashita said, fondly, and had to bite back laughter when Kamenashi nearly choked on his mouthful of noodles. He reached out and patted Kamenashi’s back with a heavy hand until Kamenashi appeared to get a hold of himself. "Don’t die," he said, helpfully.
Kamenashi ignored him.
"So what do you do--for a living, I mean," Yamashita asked, when they both had empty bowls.
Kamenashi blinked, surprised. "I work in the wards department of the MLE," he answered, "they're paying for my doctorate."
"You're studying wards?"
"Yeah. It's my Affinity, so I decided to go with what I was good at, you know?"
Yamashita nodded. "Do you like wards?" he asked.
"It's easy to immerse myself in them," Kamenashi said, a thoughtful expression playing over his face as he stared into the surface of his beer. "I like order, you know? So making sure the symbols are perfect is soothing, somehow."
"Weirdo," Yamashita said, and bumped their shoulders together.
"You got me drunk so you could do that ward on me without me arguing," Yamashita accused Kamenashi, when they stumbled into his apartment together.
"...yeah," Kamenashi admitted, shrugging.
"Remind me to throttle you in the morning," Yamashita said, pointing at the closest Kamenashi.
"I will," Kamenashi said, clearly humoring him, "now come on, to the living room. I need light for this."
"Don’t make me sleep on the floor, I let you sleep on Uchi’s old futon," Yamashita mumbled, and let Kamenashi push him down onto the thick brown carpet of his living room floor. Kamenashi stared at him for a long moment before he grabbed for the hem of Yamashita’s polo shirt and tugged it up, up over Yamashita’s head.
"Why does being around you mean I’m never wearing a shirt?" Yamashita asked.
"My overwhelming attractiveness. Lie--down! I need to do magic on you, and I can’t if you’re--wiggling!"
"I’ll wiggle as much as I want to," Yamashita answered, happily petulant in his ridiculously inebriated happy place.
Then the cold feel of magic shivered over his skin, and Yamashita’s head cleared remarkably quickly. "You stole the drunk away," Yamashita realized.
"I can still leave you with the hangover, if you want it," Kamenashi offered. Yamashita shook his head, too quickly.
"I’m okay," he said, "um. Can you--explain what you’re doing, at least?"
Kamenashi seemed surprised by the request, but he nodded slowly. "Yeah, okay," he said. He began to dig through his pockets and laid out first his paper diagram and then a paint pen on the ground at Yamashita’s hip, and then dumped his coat on the ground near his knees, leaving him in a plain white v-neck.
"The center of the ward is the rune of protection," Kamenashi said, his voice low. He picked up the paint pen and uncapped it, a loud pop in the otherwise silent room, and shuffled forward on his knees until his thighs brushed Yamashita’s hip. He leaned forward, left hand planted in the space next to Yamashita’s right shoulder, and began to draw on Yamashita’s sternum. The paint was cold where it touched Yamashita’s chest, and he drew in a long breath to keep from shuddering.
"Next is the ‘obscure’ rune, which will go at all four corners of the protection rune," Kamenashi continued. The protection rune was probably as tall and wide as Yamashita’s palm, but the hiding runes were a bit smaller, at all four cardinal points around it, and they went by much faster. "Then we fill in with the runes for ‘steal’ and ‘captivate’, which mix and become ‘distract’."
By the time all eight were done, Yamashita was focusing on breathing and ignoring the tent in his pants. The magic was already crawling over his skin, so searing cold it wouldn’t surprised Yamashita if it was leaving marks behind, and Yamashita bit down heavily on his lower lip instead of scratching at his body. "I’m almost done," Kamenashi said, and when Yamashita’s eyes fluttered open Kamenashi looked as flushed as he felt.
"Just get on with it," Yamashita managed, "it’s--it burns."
Kamenashi’s hands moved steadily but quickly after that. There was another ring of ‘protection’ runes, and then a final circle of ‘obscure’ runes. It seemed to last forever.
"Done," Kamenashi said, and then his hand drifted over the top of the rune.
The ice-cold feeling intensified for a a few seconds, dragging a cry from Yamashita’s throat, and was shortly replaced by warmth drifting over his chest. Yamashita groaned between deep heaving breaths, settling bonelessly against the carpet. Kamenashi’s fingers curled over his bicep, and Yamashita turned his head slowly to the side.
"Magic hurts," he informed Kamenashi, and Kamenashi seemed sad when he looked up.
"Sometimes," Kamenashi agreed, "you should go sleep. You have work in the morning, don’t you?"
"Oh, god, work," Yamashita groaned, "I would call out but Yoko might blow up the office again... help me up?"
Kamenashi nodded, and uncurled his body until he was standing. He cracked first one knee, then the other, and then leaned forward to grab Yamashita’s wrist and help haul him upward. Yamashita wavered for a moment when he was on his feet, and then found his balance. "Definitely sleeping," he said, eyes and shoulders drooping.
part 2