fic for death_note13 (1/3)

[formation_akame]

Title: In the Mind's Eye
Author: becroberts
Pairing: Kame x Jin
Word count: 25,470
Rating: PG
Notes: My thanks go to M and L for taking a look at this for me. Sorry there's no crime in here, Lisa, but there's music and magic so hopefully two out of three will suffice! ^_^

Summary: It's not safe to turn your back on a demon - but it's far more dangerous to look him in the eye.



In the Mind's Eye 1/3

Jin hated it when teenage girls came to the store. When he'd started working at Family Mart, fresh out of high school and with neither the money nor the inclination to go to university, he'd enjoyed their visits - they gave him something pretty to look at in between sweeping the floor and unloading crates of sandwiches.

Three years later, the girls were just as pretty but Jin was getting sick of tidying the magazines on the rack. Every time one of their precious idol groups featured on the covers, they flocked in to buy. Even the foreigners were at it now. Somewhere out there, there had to be someone who just wanted a TV guide for the listings rather than the latest news on a bunch of sparkly popstars, but clearly they shopped at a different branch.

He looked up from the magazine racks as the chime signalled the arrival of another customer, reminding him to join the staff chorus of "Welcome!"; he hoped it wasn't another teenage girl desperate for the latest Arashi pictures in TV Pia. He only had another twenty minutes left till the end of his shift and there was a limit to how many times he was prepared to rearrange the magazines in one night.

The customer didn't look like he'd be interested in buying magazines. He looked like he should be on the cover.

Jin hid his stares behind a copy of Shounen Jump. It wouldn't do to be caught gawking by his supervisor again - the ribbing had lasted for almost a fortnight, last time. There was a definite disadvantage to working for one's best friend, especially when said friend was the only person who knew Jin wasn't picky about gender.

Elegant in his grey three-piece suit, the customer should've been browsing imported wines in a department store somewhere, not eyeing up the bottled water in a convenience store. Despite the dignity of the suit, the wearer managed to look casual - a young man in his early twenties, maybe, with reddish-brown hair ruffled out of shape by the evening breeze.

When he sauntered over to the magazines, Jin hastily averted his eyes. The guy probably wanted fashion mags, not manga.

To his surprise, the customer walked right up to him, smiled politely, and asked, "Can I have this?"

"Huh?" It took Jin a second to realise he was still clutching Shounen Jump. "Ah, it's here?" He pointed to the remaining issues on the rack.

"I'd like this one, please." The customer pointed to the one in Jin's hand.

Jin suppressed a sigh. He got that a lot, but usually from people who were more obviously jerks. This guy didn't seem like he was out to make the lives of poor convenience store employees miserable. Maybe he was just eccentric.

Either way, he was the customer, and therefore had to have whatever his heart desired. "Here," Jin said, holding out the book and bowing slightly. "Please take it."

The customer returned the gesture as he accepted the manga, smiled again, and headed for the tills. Jin peered over the top of the boxed salads to watch as he paid and disappeared out the door, not bothering with a carrier bag.

The remainder of Jin's shift passed without incident; since he didn't have a gig, he could take his time getting home. It was only eight. Sometimes he cooked, sometimes - if it had been a particularly good month - he treated himself to a proper sit-down dinner, but mostly his evening meal consisted of items bought at work. He left the store with carbonara and a couple of rolls tucked away in his eco bag, preparing for an evening alone with his guitar and notebook.

It wasn't a bad night. Light breeze, no rain, warm enough that Jin didn't need his sweatshirt to keep him comfortable on the ten-minute walk home.

His tiny studio apartment seemed tidier than usual when he let himself in. A note from his mother provided the explanation, ending with an admonishment to eat more. When he checked, she'd stocked up the cupboards beyond his usual minimum stash of supplies and left a covered plate of homemade gyoza in the fridge. His mother was the best.

She'd cleared out his laundry basket too, so he had his pick of clothes after he showered. He threw on a pair of worn jeans and a Rolling Stones T-shirt, then stood barefoot before the bathroom mirror to do something about his hair so it wouldn't drip on his pasta. He got as far as plunging a comb into the first tangle when he caught a flicker of movement in the corner of the glass.

The bathroom had no windows, the door was shut, and there was no one else in the apartment. Jin felt certain of that. It must've been the towel hanging on the back of the bathroom door. Perhaps the hook was coming loose.

He pulled the comb as gently as he could through the snarls of hair. Good thing the water drips didn't show up on the black T-shirt.

He'd almost finished when another flicker caught his eye - and this time, it didn't stop. Jin froze as the well-dressed customer from earlier materialised in his bathroom, still holding the manga and standing close enough that Jin couldn't even turn his head without brushing against his face.

"Don't move," the stranger said. "This will be over in a minute." His voice was deeper, more assertive than it had been in the store; the polite smile, nowhere to be seen.

Jin's legs might as well have been removed from his body, for all the support they offered him. He leaned on the sink, trying to put as much distance between himself and the intruder as possible.

"You followed me home? What kind of sick-"

"Shut up. I didn't follow you home - I didn't have to." The stranger held up his issue of Shounen Jump. "Now keep still."

Keep still? While some psycho - a gorgeous psycho, admittedly, but an A-grade loon nonetheless - threatened him in his own home with a cheap phonebook manga? Not happening.

Jin drove his elbow back into the stranger's stomach, catching him off guard and sending him staggering back against the door.

At least, that's how it happened in Jin's head. In reality, he got as far as thinking about moving his arm...and then found he couldn't. His limbs locked into place, rooting him to the spot. Panicked, he gasped for air, grateful when his lungs continued to function.

But he knew what it felt like to be paralysed with fear, and this wasn't it. This was something else. His brain wasn't running a constant loop of white-hot terror. He could think. Couldn't open his mouth to speak, but he could think, and he fought to keep that scrap of control to himself.

"Akanishi Jin, your soul to mine..." The stranger placed the book behind Jin's head; Jin could just about see the edges in the mirror, each one a glowing red line. "All your joy, all your despair. All your love..."

The glow intensified till the cream bathroom walls shone red. Jin met the stranger's eyes in the mirror; eyes as brown as his own but full of a hunger he couldn't name, a longing for something far more meaningful than cheap convenience store food and a plate of homemade gyoza. Those eyes could steal your soul, swallow it down like a drink of water. Jin couldn't look away, feeling a tug inside where his heart met his soul.

"...All your life!"

Three things happened when the stranger finished his speech. The manga exploded, sending scraps of paper flying all over the bathroom and killing the red light. The mirror cracked vertically, right between Jin's eyes. And both men collapsed to the floor, lying half on each other since there wasn't much space.

Jin woke up first, too disoriented to do more than register the fact that his legs didn't seem to have followed him into consciousness. He lay half-propped against the bathroom door, working on opening his eyes enough to check his lower half was still attached. He felt no pain until the fuzzy pricks of pins and needles began, and he realised he had something heavy lying on his legs.

He hadn't expected it to be himself.

Scenes from a million different movies raced through Jin's mind, a high-speed montage of out of body experiences and adventures on the astral plane. How could he have left his body? Had the explosion driven his soul out into the atmosphere, where it was destined to reside until he found a kindly medium to put it back where it belonged?

When Jin's body on the floor began to stir, the rest of him tried to pull away - and that's when it hit him that for his legs to be asleep, he must still have legs. And since the only other physical form in the room was...

He looked down at himself, took in the neat grey waistcoat and and crisp white shirt, and screamed in someone else's voice.

That woke the Jin-on-the-floor up in a hurry. He used the sink to pull himself to his feet, blinked a couple of times, and stared down in horror. Jin had never seen that expression on his own face before, never had to look at what his body could do in someone else's hands.

"What the hell did you do!" the stranger yelled at him. "This wasn't supposed to happen!"

"Glad to hear it," Jin muttered, trying to get over the shock of hearing his voice with a raspy edge to it. "I'd hate to think you kicked me out of my body on purpose."

"You were supposed to leave your body," the stranger said grimly. "But not go into mine!" He gathered up the scraps of manga on the floor, looking at the coloured paper in disgust. "Ruined. You were supposed to be in here." He dumped all the paper in the tiny bin under the sink.

"Me? In that?" Jin pushed himself up and kept flat against the door, hoping he'd get the chance to open it and escape. Clearly, he had a madman in his bathroom, and there had been some horrible mistake that he had no idea how to rectify.

"Stay still!"

Jin hadn't known his voice could sound so threatening. He raised his hands, noting as he did so that the stranger had expensive taste in jewellery. One of those rings would probably have paid Jin's rent for the year.

"I guess I can do without the manga. This is your place; you must've touched everything in here, so I can use anything for transport. Let's see..." The stranger picked up Jin's abandoned comb. "This ought to do. Akanishi Jin, your soul to mine..." He waited expectantly.

"Y-yes?" Jin stammered.

"Your soul to mine?" The stranger tried again. Still nothing. He threw the comb down on the floor, so hard that it bounced into the shower cubicle. "It's not working! It must be because your body is so useless."

"Hey!"

"I mean, you have my body right now, so you have my powers. I can't initiate the transfer without them. Your human body is no good to me."

"Then can I please have it back?" Jin asked. "I'm kind of attached to it."

"Not unless you've somehow mastered the art of soul transference, no." The stranger sighed. "It's supposed to take four months to learn. I managed it in twenty days, but I've been a demon all my life. How's a human supposed to learn that kind of skill?"

"A demon?" Jin had a demon's body? A demon's powers? He had a demon making exasperated faces at him in his bathroom?

"How else do you think I managed to appear in your home without walking through the door? I didn't magic up a key!"

"You can do that?" Jin forgot to be scared, intrigued by the mention of magic. He'd always been curious.

"I could..." The demon deflated, but only for a moment. "That settles it: I'll simply have to teach you. I can't go home like this and it's too dangerous to leave you running around in my body by yourself."

"I'm not thrilled about it either, but- wait, you're going to teach me magic?"

"Only because I need you to do this so I can get my body back; don't get excited."

Too late for that. "So because I have your body, I can make things happen just by thinking about them?"

"It doesn't work quite like that. Just...don't think about anything for a second, okay? It's safer." The demon looked at the cracked mirror and frowned. "I still need to figure out why the transfer failed. I've never had that happen before."

"I'm sure it happens to all demons," Jin said. "Why were you trying to put me in the manga, anyway?"

"It's my job - steal souls for the boss."

"Satan?"

"Johnny. He's an eccentric old guy who says 'YOU' a lot." The demon gave a little bow. "It's nothing personal; you just looked like someone he'd find tasty."

Jin couldn't decide if he was flattered or appalled, but he had no intention of becoming a snack for some creepy old demon. "So why should I help you get your body back? The second you do, you'll just steal my soul and take it away to your boss, right?"

"Because you won't survive in my body without my help, and you won't get your life back until we switch, so it's in your best interests to help." The demon stuck out his hand. "You have my word that I won't take your soul."

"Why should I believe you?"

The demon shrugged. "My kind can't lie, but it's up to you whether you believe that or not."

The concept of demons being unable to lie had cropped up in a few things Jin had seen and read, but he hadn't expected to find fiction coming to life in his own home. He left the demon waiting while he thought it over. He couldn't remain like this forever, trapped in someone else's body, and if the demon could've switched them back, he'd already have done it. He had a life of his own - not a particularly glamorous one, but it was his, and he'd built it himself. They couldn't remain like this.

"Please?" the demon said, and it was the desperate honesty in his own brown eyes that finally made Jin shake hands. He didn't look any happier with the situation than Jin, and who could blame him?

"I'll help you. But if you go back on your word I swear I'll-" Jin stopped, unable to complete the threat. In that case, there'd be nothing he could do. He'd be dead.

"You and yours are safe from me, I promise. Ah!" The demon smiled and grabbed Jin's sleeve. "Take this off and I can give you a guarantee."

"You want your jacket back?"

"No, I want you to find the tattoo on my left shoulder."

Mystified, Jin slipped off the jacket, undid the shirt cuffs and rolled it up far enough to expose a small green turtle inked into the skin.

"We all carry our names with us," the demon explained. "I'm Kame, so I chose to have a turtle."

"Nice tattoo, but how is that a guarantee?"

"Because I use it as a marker." Kame patted his shoulder. "If we brand your body with this, it means you're off-limits to other demons. We can tell if a human has been marked by someone else, and it's illegal to violate that contract. Demons are very, very big on contracts. You should see all the paperwork I have to fill in every time I bring back a soul."

Paperwork? Jin definitely didn't want to be stuck in a demon's body forever. On the other hand, he didn't fancy letting Kame take his body to a tattoo parlour, either, and said as much.

"We don't need anyone else to do this," Kame said. "I'm going to teach you. Where do you want your tattoo?"

A tattoo might go down well on the stage, but it wouldn't be too popular at his day job. Scaring customers was frowned upon. "Somewhere no one's going to see it."

Kame pulled down the left side of his jeans enough to expose his hip - or rather, Jin's hip. "How about here? I don't imagine too many people would see this."

"And this will keep me safe from demons?"

"I promise. It won't hurt, or scar, or fade...but you can't have it removed, either. It won't be on your body, not in the way you understand the word."

"Fine." Jin ran his hands through his hair, momentarily confused when there wasn't as much of it as usual. "What do I have to do?"

"Hmm..." Kame pursed his lips and nodded. "The angle's going to be awkward. You'll have to sit on the floor."

Jin had spent enough time on the bathroom floor. "I think I'd prefer the carpet."

He led the way through to the main room, with the bed peeking out from behind the curtain and the bag containing his dinner still sitting on the side. The food could wait; he didn't feel hungry anymore, wondered if Kame felt it instead. Good thing his mother had tidied the place up, though it would be silly to be embarrassed about it now.

The worn beige couch only had an arm on one side but at least Jin hadn't had to pay for it. He sat down on the carpet next to the open end with his shirt sleeve rolled up. Kame took the hint and sat on the couch, lining them up hip to shoulder.

Touching his own body without being in it felt creepy in the worst way, like running a hand over his numbed jaw after a shot from the dentist and only experiencing sensation on one side. Kame's skin didn't feel any different - but then, he looked human, and Jin wouldn't have known him for anything else if he hadn't said.

"Lesson one," Kame said, sounding far more casual than the situation deserved. "This will be good practice for you. The marker's closer to the surface than the soul but the principle's not so different."

"Is it...is it going to hurt?"

"It shouldn't, but that's the best I can promise you. I've never tried it like this before." Kame rubbed Jin's shoulder with his hip. "Every living creature has two main components: the soul, which contains personality, intelligence, self-awareness etc., and the body, which comprises both the physical elements and the concept of corporeal existence. The tattoo looks like it's on my skin, but it's actually on my body. Does that make any sense?"

Jin had looked through his brother's old philosophy textbooks a couple of times in search of lyrical inspiration. This magic stuff sounded like it was going to be way more complicated. "Kind of?"

"It's not just a physical image," Kame tried again. "It exists on a different level. What you need to do is copy it across on the same level from my body to yours."

"I guess I can't just rub it on like a transfer, huh."

Jin felt Kame's laughter where their bodies met. "Sorry, it's not that simple," the demon said. "But I'll try not to confuse your poor human brain.

"Magic is a property of the body, not the soul, or I'd have taken it with me. You need to search within yourself to find it. Look for something that feels like the best thing and the worst thing in the world rolled into one."

As instructions went, they couldn't have been more vague. Jin certainly didn't feel like a magical creature. Maybe there were supposed to be sparkles and rainbows above his head - or more likely stormclouds and lightning bolts. He'd never read anything to indicate that demons were about sweetness and light, though Kame didn't seem the fire and brimstone type either.

Mostly, he just seemed annoyed that Jin had managed to get in the way of him doing his job.

Jin had no idea what to look for or how to tell when he'd found it, so he closed his eyes, the way his last girlfriend used to do when she meditated, and took a couple of deep, cleansing breaths.

"Magic, not yoga," Kame said. "There's a difference."

Busybody demon. Jin ignored him. Residing in a foreign body meant everything felt out of place: short, stubby fingers, thicker ankles, hairier legs under the expensive suit trousers. Jin didn't have anything familiar. He decided to concentrate on one piece at a time, mapping out new territory in his mind.

He started with the smallest toe on his left foot. It wiggled inside the shiny black shoe but didn't give him any mystical insights. Then he worked his way through the rest of his left foot, then his right, feeling the blood - if demons had blood - flow through his body wherever he directed his thoughts. It didn't feel so different to be in someone else's body when he looked at it from the inside.

"This body's human, isn't it?" Jin asked, staring down at the beautifully buffed fingernails.

"Mostly, yeah. It breathes, it eats, it sleeps, it bleeds. But it does other things too, so be careful."

Demons weren't immune to arousal, Jin discovered as his mind worked its way up his body. He hoped Kame wasn't looking down. Fortunately, the sensation passed before it could cause him embarrassment.

When he reached the base of his spine, he paused. Something at the edge of his senses, a dark, thick stem leading upwards, pulsing with promise. He brushed it with a stray thought and physically recoiled, trying to pull away from himself as the tower of bone sought to draw him in.

"Found it?" Kame asked. "The spine ties the physical body to the concept of 'body', and it's where magic grows."

Jin gulped. This was starting to border on horror movie territory. "Grows?"

"It's alive in the same way a human baby in a mother's womb is alive: part of the body, connected to it, yet separate. It renews itself during sleep. Go on, touch it again. Don't resist this time."

Against his better judgment, Jin sank back into sensation, this time approaching from the top of his spine. It felt no different: the entrance to a mine, dark and dangerous, liable to trap him if he took a wrong turn. He sent a mental tendril towards it. Once again, the darkness pulled him in...but this time it felt like being draped in old, worn velvet, being bundled up and left in a corner to rot. It frightened him, choked him. Jin struggled to free his mind from his crushing shroud, seized hold of it with both mental "hands" to tear it away from himself...

...And got the shock of his life when it dissolved in his grasp.

"Where did it...how did I..." He opened his eyes to look up at Kame, who grinned down at him like an expectant father.

"Did you take it? If you take it into yourself, you can do anything with it now."

"I...I think so." There it was, an all-over tingle, sensation shimmering at the edge of his body. Power. His to use as he chose, if only he knew how. "Yeah. I've got it."

"You're half-way there," Kame praised him. "Now find the tattoo."

Jin couldn't see the turtle on his shoulder - Kame's hip covered it - so he figured Kame didn't mean to look for it on his skin. It had to be somewhere else too. He turned his gaze inward, deliberately avoiding the spinal column. He had no wish to get sucked in again. Whatever magic he'd absorbed, it had better be enough for now.

"You can't look inside your physical body," Kame said. "You could, but it takes a lot of work, and I don't think you want to see what your internal organs look like from the inside. What you're seeing is the concept of the body, where things are more or less in the right place but are shadows of those in the flesh."

"So your spine doesn't really look like a plant monster?"

"It would look the same as yours if you cut me open," Kame confirmed, slightly muffled because he was giggling into his hand at the time. "But I don't recommend it."

Jin found the trip around the body fascinating. His heart beat, strong and beautiful, a songbird inside a silvery cage. His stomach was a factory, churning and bubbling. A network of multicoloured nerves covered every inch, rainbow netting holding him all together.

But there was one place he couldn't reach. The brain hid from him, a patch of shadow he could never touch.

"Leave it," Kame said quietly when Jin expressed his surprise. "That's where the soul resides. You can't touch that yet. Find the marker."

Jin journeyed through invisible muscle, through blood, sinew and bone till he reached his left shoulder. The turtle glowed, a bright beacon in the grey. "Found it."

"Now touch it," Kame instructed. "Imagine that the magic you hold is like a sponge, and you're using it to soak up paint. You want to hold an exact replica of that turtle that you can use wherever you want."

Like a child's painting, then. Jin tried to picture it in his mind, a black sponge with a turtle print. He found keeping these abstract images in mind to be a challenge. Normally he'd set them to music.

"Take that sponge and imprint the image on my hip. Uh...your hip. This body's hip."

Jin probably didn't need to physically press himself closer to Kame, but he did it anyway. At the same time, he concentrated on holding the sponge in place, willing the image to copy across. He couldn't allow himself to get distracted. What if he dropped it? Could magic leak? What if he screwed up and left his body stuck with a blurred green blob for the rest of its life?

"You can look now." Kame pulled away, patting his hip till Jin risked a peek. The turtle was the twin of the one on his shoulder. "Congratulations! That was your first magic lesson."

As proud as Jin felt of his first magical success, the sudden exhaustion that swamped him the moment he withdrew dulled its shine a little. He leaned against the end of the couch, totally wiped out. He'd succeeded in giving himself a permanent brand to mark him as off-limits to demons. Awesome. At least he hadn't paid for it with anything except energy.

"Your body's exhausted," he told Kame.

"And yours is starving. Do you have any food around here?"

Jin didn't see any reason why he should be a good host, given why Kame had come to his apartment in the first place, but he did have a vested interest in keeping his body in good repair. "I don't know what you eat, but yeah, there's food."

"I don't like tomatoes or green peppers," Kame said, and Jin just stared up at him in amazement because he hadn't expected a demon to have such mundane food preferences. "But your body seems to approve of anything going, so I won't be fussy."

Without leaving the floor, Jin talked Kame through a tour of his tiny kitchen area. Kame tried to heat the carbonara by magic, cursed when he remembered he couldn't do it anymore, and had to teach himself how to use the microwave. Fortunately, he proved to be a quick study. Jin watched him potter around the kitchen until he zoned out, only returning to full awareness when Kame dropped down beside him with a couple of plates.

"I know you probably don't feel like eating," the demon said, "but working magic can be very tiring, and I imagine especially so for a human soul, which isn't properly equipped for it. Here." He handed Jin the dish of gyoza, which now had a small bowl of soy sauce on the side for dipping.

His mother's cooking was wonderful, as usual, but Jin barely tasted the dumplings, and the roll he ate afterwards could've been made of cardboard. Kame had the pasta and the other roll, and poured them both tall glasses of water when they'd finished. Eating dinner with a demon. So strange Jin couldn't even laugh at it. There had to be some decent songwriting material in there somewhere.

"That's better." Kame patted his stomach, now satisfied. "Your place isn't too badly stocked; I think I can find something for breakfast."

That woke Jin up in a hurry. "Breakfast?"

"That meal you eat in the morning?"

"I know that! I mean, you're going to have breakfast here?"

Kame leaned back so his head lay on the couch, staring up at the ceiling swirls. "I can't go home like this, and I can't leave you alone, either. I'm staying here till we manage to switch back."

Jin didn't want a demon roommate. He'd never even had an imaginary friend. "But-"

"And," Kame interrupted, "you can keep an eye on your body this way. I'll do my best to look after it but I'm no expert on your life. You'll have to show me tomorrow."

Tomorrow. Tomorrow Jin had work, and then...

"I'm no happier about it than you," Kame said. "I like to finish off the day with a long, luxurious bath; all you've got is a cramped little shower and you can't even magic up something bigger."

"I could do that?"

"Not tonight, you couldn't. You'd burn yourself out trying manifestation in your condition. You need sleep."

True, but there was one slight problem...

"I only have one bed." To his delight, Jin discovered Kame's body was less prone to blushing than his own.

"So? It's big enough for two. Which side do you want?"

Kame obviously didn't care if they shared a bed. Jin wouldn't have minded, under other circumstances, but he felt that bedding down with a demon, even one who'd temporarily lost his powers, wouldn't make for the easiest of nights. Furthermore, waking up next to himself was bound to be a nasty shock.

He staggered over to the cupboard to find the spare bedding he kept for when friends stayed over. "I'll take the couch."

"Fine by me." Kame was down to his underwear before Jin realised he was stripping off completely.

"What are you doing?"

"I sleep in the nude," Kame said.

Jin handed him an oversized T-shirt. "I don't."

-----

Having lost a few inches of height thanks to the bodyswap, Jin was able to spend a relatively comfortable night on the couch. He'd tried to ask Kame more questions but they'd all been lost in a haze of fatigue, and Jin had drifted off without checking his uninvited houseguest had settled down to sleep.

Morning found him fuzzy-headed, confused as to why he'd fallen asleep on the couch, why the curtain was pulled across his bed when he wasn't in it, and why he had twice as many rings on his fingers as usual. It wasn't until he made it to the bathroom and saw himself in the mirror that he remembered swapping bodies with a demon - a demon who could really do with a shave.

There were many things, Jin discovered, that were particularly disconcerting to do using someone else's body. Shaving was one of them, running his small electric shaver over the planes of another man's face, trying not to stumble over an unfamiliar jawline while looking in the cracked mirror. Using the toilet was another. By the time Jin emerged from the bathroom, he felt quite traumatised.

The curtain slid back across the runners and Kame stepped out. "I've been up for hours," he said. To prove it, he'd raided Jin's wardrobe for a pair of jeans and a plain grey T-shirt, and had his hair brushed neatly into place. "You should eat, and then we're going to work on your magic some more."

Jin looked automatically at his wrist, but Kame had no watch. He found his cell phone instead. "No time. I have to get to work. I mean you have to. Um..." He stopped, quite at a loss for what to do.

"In that convenience store?" Kame frowned. "Could you call in sick? We don't have time for this."

"I'm not going to get my body back only for it to die of starvation because I've lost my job!" Jin glared across the room at the demon. "But maybe your kind wouldn't understand that."

"Fine." Kame rolled his eyes. "I suppose I'll have to do it. Till when?"

"Six. But then I've...uh...I've got a show to do at Mouse Peace..."

Jin's heart sank. It wasn't unthinkable that Kame could fill in for him at Family Mart, but there was no way he could do the same at a live. He'd have to cancel, which meant he'd be lucky if he ever got to play there again. Ueda didn't give too many second chances.

"Worry about that later," Kame said. "One thing at a time. Just tell me what I need to do so we can get this over with as quickly as possible and get back to magic practice."

Not the best attitude for a day on the shop floor. Jin tormented himself imagining all the things that could potentially lead to him losing his job. It wasn't much, but he needed it. In the end, he decided he couldn't afford to let Kame loose on his life - he had to go too.

"People might think you have a stalker," Kame pointed out. "You can't spend all day by my side unless..."

"Unless?"

Kame grinned. "Have you ever wanted to be invisible?"

Turning invisible, in Jin's book, was definitely cooler than getting a tattoo no one was ever going to see. "Where do we start?"

Strictly speaking, Kame explained, Jin wasn't going to become invisible at all, because that would involve making changes to his biology - too complicated, at this point in time, and also wouldn't do anything to render him inaudible. "I'll always be able to hear you because we share a mark," he added. "We just need to ensure no one else can. You'll have to make a veil."

"I suppose I have to make a flowing white dress to go with it?"

"Not that kind of veil."

Satisfied that he wouldn't be asked to produce a wedding dress, Jin did his best to follow Kame's instructions for making what amounted to a barrier of "thick" air. Diving deep inside once more, he absorbed a double handful of magic and drew it back outside himself, holding it out to the atmosphere. Kame had compared it to adding food colouring to icing - icing he could shape at will, moulding it to fit his body.

"Air cannot be seen - and soon, that'll be true for you too," Kame said.

"How will I know when it's worked?"

"Look at your hands."

Jin looked down...and kept looking, straight through to the floor. Just to be sure, he tried checking himself out in the mirror, stumbling into the couch by trying to watch where he wasn't going. It surprised him when it hurt.

"You still have a physical presence," Kame said. "So be careful. Try not to walk into anyone. No one else can hear you - and not even I can see you - but you can be felt."

Delighted by his success, Jin barely noticed the slight drop in his energy, for which he compensated by eating a hasty breakfast. Watching bites of toast disappear as they entered his mouth left him resigned to being unable to eat for the rest of the day, unless in secret. A spooky sight, to say the least, though Kame seemed to find it funny.

The magic lesson had eaten into what little time they had left. Jin hurriedly dressed, managing by touch alone because once the clothing got close enough to his skin, it disappeared, and advised Kame on more suitable attire for work before they set out at a brisk pace. Fortunately, Jin's clothes were only a little too big on Kame's body, and they had the same size feet, so Jin didn't have to spend the day wearing Kame's suit.

The last thing Kame said before they left was: "Don't forget, I can't talk to you unless you want people to think you're mad." It was going to be a very long day.

They made it with a minute to spare. Jin had to walk directly behind Kame to avoid people barging into him, and even then he managed to puzzle a few by not being empty space. Kame, for his part, knew exactly where he was going, which made Jin wonder just how long the demon had been watching him. Long enough to know how he acted at work, hopefully.

"That's my supervisor, Yamashita Tomohisa," Jin whispered as they walked through the sliding doors. "The one on the left."

"Why are you whispering?" Kame muttered back.

"Sorry." Jin forced himself to speak at normal volume. "He's also my best friend; we've known each other since middle school. His nickname's 'Yamapi'. I call him that or 'Pi' a lot...except when his boss comes in, and then it's all business."

Kame shot a panicked look in his general direction and then Yamapi was upon them. Jin started to greet him but choked off, realising how ridiculous he must sound to Kame - and to Kame alone.

At least they were at work, so there were no secret handshakes. Jin would have to tell Kame about those and make him practise if he ever had to see Yamapi socially.

Jin had to move to avoid being run over by a trolley of crates, and when he looked up, his supervisor was already walking away and Kame hadn't been fired yet, so there was still hope. He talked Kame into an apron and then through unloading all the meals from the crates, stocking the fridges in preparation for lunchtime.

"The okonomiyaki here, like this." He reached for the plastic-wrapped dish, nudged it with his fingers, and had his hand brushed away by Kame after the edge of the container disappeared.

"No touching," Kame hissed, and a young girl eyeing up the karaage blushed guiltily and walked away.

"Sorry." Jin shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans so he wouldn't be tempted to move things. "After this you need to do the drinks. Don't forget to bring the cold ones to the front."

Kame grumbled something incoherent under his breath and turned away. Jin watched him work for a while till that became boring, and wandered off to see what his colleagues were up to. Novel experience, this business of being invisible. He got to watch Nakamaru reduced to a stammering wreck by a beautiful, flirtatious older woman who insisted on having him help her pick out contraceptives. Too bad he couldn't tease him about it afterwards.

He still kept half an eye on the demon. It wouldn't do to let Kame do anything to stain Jin's character forever.

Which was what was going to happen if Jin didn't figure out something quick. He didn't get to play so many gigs he could afford to throw one away. Mouse Peace wasn't the biggest live house in Shinjuku but Jin knew he had an audience there, and he couldn't stand the thought of letting them down. The show had to go on.

-----

"I know you're a singer," Kame muttered into Jin's phone, having had the bright idea to use it for cover so he didn't look like he was talking to himself. He was out back, on his break, and taking large bites from a nikuman between words. "I've been watching you for a couple of weeks."

Jin felt slightly creeped out by this, but paranoia was quickly replaced by hunger. Kame had bought two of the meat buns - with Jin's money - but until Nakamaru finished rooting around in his bag and left the room, Jin couldn't have his. "I hope you watched closely enough to learn all the songs."

"You want me to do your show tonight?"

"No," Jin said frankly, "but I can't cancel, and you've got my body. You owe it to me. It's only an hour - I'm on at seven, and there are a couple of other acts after me. Can you play guitar?"

Nakamaru left, closing the door behind him, and Kame held up the other nikuman for Jin. "I don't have much time for hobbies. I'm supposed to be playing human souls, not instruments."

"Great." Jin unwrapped his lunch and perched on the edge of the table. "You can't play, and Ueda won't accept any excuse short of death for a cancellation." He bit savagely into the steaming parcel of pork.

"How about a broken bone?" Kame suggested.

"No thanks, I'm not into that kind of thing."

Kame sighed. "I mean, if you were injured, would he accept someone else playing the guitar in your place? I sing, you play guitar, everyone goes home happy?"

"That could work - if you knew what to sing. I guess demons don't have time for that, either."

"Occasionally in the bath, but you didn't hear that from me."

Jin could work with that. "Then at least you're not completely inexperienced. Is there some way we can use your magic to stick a bunch of lyrics in your brain - or even teach you to play guitar?"

Kame wiped his fingers on a napkin and tapped the side of his head. "Not unless you want to risk frying your mind. We're going to have to do this the old-fashioned way."

It was a good thing no one else in the store could hear Jin. He spent the afternoon at Kame's heels, singing his entire planned set-list over and over again until Kame confirmed he had the lyrics down, song by song. Singing with someone else's voice felt...horrible, like trying to sing with a cold, knowing what the notes should be and hearing something so very different. Kame's voice didn't like the high notes at all; Jin felt mortified whenever he aimed for one and cracked before getting anywhere near it.

"Please tell me we can skip that one," Kame murmured, taking cover behind a magazine. "You sound like you're being strangled."

"My body can handle it fine. You try."

"Do you normally burst into song at work?"

"Um...sometimes? When there aren't any customers around."

And so, whenever opportunity presented itself, Kame had to quietly sing Jin's songs back at him to prove he'd learned both words and tune. He proved quite fast at memorising the lyrics, even the ones in English, and although he sang with Jin's voice, it seemed to Jin that Kame put his own spin on them all.

Jin loved to sing. Making music was, he was convinced, in his bones, and he'd been writing his own since middle school, scribbling down lyrics - bad ones, admittedly - in the back of textbooks, or all over his homework, wherever he happened to be when inspiration struck. Having someone else sing his songs, even if it was actually with his own voice, felt strange, and the idea that Kame, not Jin, would be singing them on the small live house stage, ate away at his pride.

But only a little. After all, wasn't that one of the goals of songwriters? To have others sing their songs, carry their message to the world?

"You should finish with that one," Yamapi said, sticking his head round the corner of the baked goods aisle. "There won't be a dry eye in the house."

Kame snapped his mouth shut on a ballad called 'Eternal', looking embarrassed to have been caught singing by his supervisor.

"Which one are you opening with tonight?" Yamapi continued. "It is tonight, right? Or am I letting you finish early for no good reason?"

"You're starting with 'Care'," Jin said. "And try not to look so alarmed. He's cool with it, okay?"

"'Care'." Kame smiled sheepishly. "Yeah, it's tonight. At Mouse Peace."

Yamapi clapped him on the shoulder. "Do your best with it. Nakamaru told me Ueda thinks you're good, even if he never says anything to you."

"Why would-" Kame began, and Jin had to interrupt him quickly.

"They're friends! They go travelling together and stuff."

"-I ever hear it from Ueda?" Kame finished smoothly. "He wouldn't want me to become conceited, after all."

"Good point. Perhaps I shouldn't compliment you either. Wouldn't want your head swelling so much you can't get through the shop door." Yamapi grinned and wandered off to help a customer.

"Next time warn me if someone's coming!" Kame hissed, and stormed off to the bathroom, complaining about how he missed his own senses. Jin thought it best not to follow him.

Kame's body didn't seem to have anything extraordinary on the senses front, but maybe, Jin thought, that was because he didn't know how to make it work. The demon might have x-ray vision, or super hearing, or something cool like that. If he spent so much time watching people he probably needed the advantage.

They didn't have too many more opportunities for Kame to practise after the mid-afternoon lull ended, so it was with a healthy amount of trepidation that Jin rushed him home, all but pushed him into the shower, and threw fresh clothing at him. He'd fought his way back out of the shower just long enough to talk Jin through dropping his veil, so at least the clothes hadn't appeared to come out of thin air.

"Do you have anything that's not so...plain?" Kame asked. "You're not going to catch anyone's eye in these." He held up the pair of worn, comfortable blue jeans and plain white T-shirt Jin had thrown at him.

"The fans are there to hear my music, not ogle me." This wasn't always true, of course, but Jin tried not to encourage them by wearing anything too clingy, and he was usually partly hidden behind his guitar. "Not like I can afford fancy stuff, anyway."

"I can see that." Despite his complaints, Kame made haste changing and preparing himself for his first night on the stage. "No time to do anything about it right now." He finished fluffing his hair and turned to face Jin. "How do I look?"

Jin shrugged, still not completely comfortable staring himself in the face anywhere except a mirror. "Like me."

"That'll do, I suppose." Kame adjusted the rainbow necklace he'd insisted on swiping from his own body and grinned. "Ready to make your debut as my guitarist?"

Jin just hoped he could still play with someone else's fingers. "I hope so. Give me your hand."

"Is this one of those team-building things where we put our hands together and chant? Demons don't really go in for that, but I've always wanted to try it." Kame held out his right hand.

"Nope, it's so I can bandage you up."

Kame offered up his left hand instead, and Jin started wrapping gauze from his bathroom cabinet around it, hoping no one who actually knew anything about medicine would get close enough to notice his hopelessly amateur work - or indeed, to ask Kame what he'd done to himself. There was no telling how long they'd need to maintain the deception and he couldn't say it was anything too drastic. No missing fingers.

Part 2