Soul Trade (KAT-TUN, Akame) 1/2

[lunacrescent]

Title: Soul Trade
Category: KAT-TUN
Pairing: Jin/Kame
Rating: NC17
Word Count: 21,300
Summary: Jin is a halfhearted university student and lead singer of the band Dropkick Friend. To say he gets more than he bargains for when he accidentally summons a demon in exchange for his immortal soul would be an understatement.
Notes: kizuna_exchange fic for jibunde.



As far as Saturday mornings went, this one didn't start wildly out of the ordinary. Jin yawned, part of his face still mashed into his pillow, and reached blindly for his phone. His hand landed upon it with habitual accuracy and he skimmed back sleep-heavy lids to check the display. No new messages. It was 10:43.

He couldn't quite muster up the energy to be disgusted that it wasn't even noon yet, but after a moment Jin did rouse enough to notice the warm-bodied sprawl crowding his back. That wasn't too strange either, and okay, it figured he must have had a good evening. Had there been a party? He was still too groggy to remember. He didn't feel hungover and his mouth didn't taste like something died in it, though, which was a bonus.

The body sharing his bed shifted, spooning him, and Jin started putting effort into remembering because he really wasn't the Forgetful One-Night Stand kind of asshole. After his last class of the week there'd been band practice with the guys, like usual, and then delivery for dinner when he and Pi realized they had nothing to eat at their shared apartment, not even instant noodles. Ryo had ditched them for a hot date or so he claimed, but Shirota stayed to watch DVDs until the trains stopped running and he ended up crashing on their fantastically ugly but otherwise comfortable couch.

All in all, a quiet night in, which really didn't explain the unfamiliar presence in Jin's bed. His Saturday morning just got weird.

He did not flail, exactly, but there might have been some uncoordinated arm-waving as he half-rolled and half-sat up, miraculously managing to not fall out of bed completely. "Wha-?"

Once he regained his bearings, Jin made a few observations about his companion: first, that the person was fully-clothed and on top of the bed, not in it, and second, the person in question was male. One of those things made him feel slightly better about the whole situation, and the other-well, he wasn't certain about that one. Sure, Jin would admit to an occasional alcohol-haze of kissing here, a feel there, but he'd already established this morning that no drinking had been involved and that still didn't explain anything.

"Um," Jin summarized his feelings eloquently.

The guy was skinny, but not scrawny, and not too short or too tall. The hair that feathered over his cheek shone with copper highlights. He was still curled on his side, apparently unscathed by Jin's not-flailing earlier, and his pose was so relaxed that Jin thought he remained asleep until his eyes fluttered open with unhurried calm. He regarded Jin with an aloof stare.

"About time you woke up, Master."

"What?" Jin's voice reached a pitch he was not proud of-after he finished choking, that was. He pinched himself hard. Nope, still awake. Raking a hand through his morning bedhead, he ran through last night's events a second time to make doubly sure that hallucinogens had not been involved.

Meanwhile, the stranger stretched out his lean frame with such comfortable assurance it was as if he belonged there. But from what Jin could remember, he most certainly, absolutely, definitely did not.

"Look," Jin began in his best Stern Voice, with Pointed Finger for good measure. "I don't know what kinky shit you're trying to get into here, but-but for one, breaking and entering, and attempted, uh..."

A pair of very fine eyebrows arched delicately while Jin floundered. "You're the one who called me."

"I did not!" His hand twitched for his cell to double-check, but Jin thought he would know if he had a weird habit of making booty calls in his sleep. And he still didn't know who this guy was!

"Sure you did." A wrinkle of annoyance threaded through his expression before smoothing out. Propping his head up, he caught Jin's gaze and recited something slowly, like explaining to a small child, except the language was unidentifiable.

Well, no, not totally unidentifiable. The strange, austere words sounded vaguely familiar. If Jin thought back far enough...

"That was a week ago!" he blurted, then gave a wet-dog shake of his head. Part of him wanted to cover his ears and close his eyes, too. "No. You're not-you can't be-" It wasn't flat denial that climbed spider-like into his voice, adding that faint, cracked tremble.

The demon rolled his eyes and made a waving motion with his hand to indicate he'd heard it all before. "One soul for one demon. At your service."

: : : :

As with many things, it started with a girl.

The band had just gone onstage at a local bar that had live music nights a couple days of the week. Not their first show there, so the crowd was peppered with friends and other university students who cheered when they introduced themselves.

"Hey, we're Dropkick Friend. Tired of us yet, assholes?" A good-natured rumble rolled in and retreated like a wave. "Yeah, we're sick of you, too."

The lights went down and Shirota started with a brisk, ready-and-willing drum beat that was eagerly joined by Yamapi on guitar and Ryo on bass. Jin laced his fingers together across the mic, letting his gaze sweep over the mingling hazy shapes of the crowd.

A pair of eyes stood out when they shouldn't have, not with the stage lights poured on him, but he saw them nonetheless. They caught him with snakelike charm, glittering above a Cheshire smile, and Jin almost missed his cue. He sought more glimpses of those eyes throughout the song.

Jin found her later, or maybe she let him find her, all smoky eyes and half-curved lips. She introduced herself as Madoka, written with the character for "crimson." She didn't give her family name but Jin didn't think much of it. Something about her was displaced. It wasn't her hair or clothes, or her mellow, liquid voice, but somehow she popped from the background, and when Jin got close enough it was like he stepped into her bubble, separated from the rest of the world by a fragile, translucent wall.

Madoka was a little strange, a little bit "out there," but not in a back-away-slowly sense. She didn't talk crazy, exactly, and didn't sound like a religious nut when she remarked upon spirituality in music. With a frank, admiring stare, she told Jin that she'd been impressed by his soul in the performance. Part of him thought that was silly, but the other part thought she could say whatever silly things she wanted. As the night wore on, and the more he drank, the less strange her words seemed.

"What do you say, hm? Wanna make a little trade tonight?" Madoka was a small, slight girl, only coming up to his chin. "That beautiful soul of yours for..." She let the sentence dangle as her fingers teased down his chest.

Jin breathed in her scent, something darkly promising, and was game to agree.

Madoka claimed not to be a fellow student, but she didn't live far. Her studio apartment was like the rest of her-a touch eccentric with tapestries hanging on the walls and a curtain of beads filling the doorway to the bathroom. Jin wasn't surprised to see her light incense, and a smoky-sweet aroma began to pervade the room. Already swimming in a loose haze, he felt his blood pound in his ears as she beckoned him closer.

"You ready, baby?" she murmured against his mouth, straddling his lap on the floor. He wasn't entirely sure how they got there, but decided he had no problem with it and skimmed his hands up her sides under the clingy fabric of her tee. Madoka arched into him, lips moving to form breathy, indistinct words. Not the usual jumble of noises, but something else altogether that was neither Japanese nor English.

That still didn't strike Jin as too strange until he slid her shirt over her head and she had to pause to switch the knife to her other hand.

"Oh, shit!"

On second thought, he skipped "strange" and went right on ahead to "alarmed."

Eyes startled wide, Jin fought the cloudy feeling in his head to grab her wrist and hold it far, far away. It was no stainless steel pocket knife Madoka held, though the size was similar. The whole thing was made of carved antique white material, roughly shaped but decidedly sharp along the edges.

Madoka laughed-not a psychotic, shaking laugh, but rather an amused chuckle. "Sorry. Scared you, did I?"

"Uh, a bit." Gratefully not finding himself with an armful of Banshee-Shrieking Crazy, Jin started to relax. Marginally. He continued to eyeball the dagger, hoping it was a horrifyingly realistic stage prop. "What's that for?"

"You."

Yeah, and there went the panic again. "You know, I don't think-"

"Calm down." Madoka rolled her eyes. "I'm not planning to kill you. See?" She shrugged and let the weapon drop with a hollow clatter. "You could throw me off easily, right?"

Jin contemplated doing just that, but she really was tiny, sitting there and not fighting at all. His fingers easily circled the wrist of her now-empty hand.

"I'm not going to hurt you." She leaned forward, not minding when he pulled his face away, her big, dark eyes centimeters from his. "There's something I want to do, but I need your help. It won't hurt, I promise."

"I... still don't get..." He blinked, interrupting the insistence of her stare, but the alarm was fading, sinking into velvety-warm calm. She placed her free hand against the side of his face, cradling his cheek, and crooned something in that foreign language. "What?"

"Your soul, lovely. That's all I need for the summoning."

"What?" Jin repeated, and summoned up a brittle laugh himself. He meant to push her off, gently, but when his palm made contact with her skin it merely stayed there, splayed above the lace-covered swells of her breasts.

Madoka offered him a crescent moon smile, layering her hand atop his. "Come on, humor me. It's a simple trade, see?" She nudged his hand lower, brushing her mouth against his once, twice, until he responded.

So she was strange. Eccentric. Into weird, but harmless fun. It wasn't like he'd never gotten into some weird shit before. Humor her... right. He could do that. But Jin wasn't sure if he was shivering from her touch or her siren song voice that encouraged and guided every move. Spellbound, his mind supplied helpfully through a fog that, perhaps, he didn't mind getting lost in for a little while.

Afterward, Jin had only started to find his way again when Madoka knelt on the floor, unashamedly bare with her skin gleaming in the dim lamplight, and tugged back a swath of rug. Despite the protest of his sated drowsiness, Jin pushed himself up, curious at first, but felt his mouth go dry at what lay on the floorboards underneath.

Deep, jagged grooves were carved into the floor, digging out the arc of a wide circle and intersecting lines. Thick-looking white paint or paste streaked over the scratches and formed Roman letters-Latin, Jin realized with a cold, creeping feeling, that was probably it.

He willed away the quaver from his voice when he spoke up, "Your landlord will give you hell for that."

Madoka shot him an amused look and pushed the tumble of her black hair over her shoulder. "I doubt it."

Jin wondered if he could get away with, well, getting away before things got any weirder.

"Here," Madoka said briskly with a knowing look in her eye. "This won't take long."

And he felt like he owed it to her now. Damn it.

So Jin stayed, telling himself it was like sitting through a grade school play; you went along with it and it was cute how the kids tried. Except the symbols carved into the floor were more creepy than cute, and the bone knife that Madoka held again was just this side of terrifying. Madoka herself was wildly beautiful... or maybe beautifully wild, with her smoky, shadowed eyes and reddened lips and heated skin.

He considered bolting again when she pinned him with her gaze and held him there. "Repeat what I say."

Left with no choice, Jin did his best to imitate her pronunciation. He echoed her short, bold phrases, his voice weakening and fumbling once or twice while hers grew loud and powerful. Less of a singing note and more of a thunder crack. And still, he couldn't look away.

Madoka suddenly grabbed his wrist and held the edge of her knife to his palm. The last syllable was a stricken whisper that slipped from his tongue, and with a deft flick a line of red opened up to pool in his hand. It looked like it should have hurt more than it did, and the blood dripped from the creases between his fingers. Then she was pressing the wound to the floor and Jin felt the grooves fill wetly beneath his hand. Madoka was staring intently below and he found he could finally jerk away but he didn't dare speak for a long, silent moment. Not until she shifted, and then the words flew in defensive haste.

"Okay, that's it, I'm done. Thanks, I think, but I've had enough for one night and, uh, no offense, but you know..." He grabbed his clothes and hurriedly dressed, unaware of the mess his bleeding hand was making until it was too late and he couldn't bring himself to care.

Madoka glanced up at him, and he held his breath, but it was a dull look carried by a disappointed twist of her mouth. Her eyes closed as though tired. "Yes," she said simply. "We're done."

That should have been the end of it.

: : : :

"...and so I woke up, and there he was," Jin finished, gesturing to the other end of the couch where the demon sat after eyeing the atrocious orange-brown fabric that they'd reupholstered the thing with. Ugly as it was, it was still a sight better-all right, no, it wasn't, but everyone felt more comfortable sitting on the couch if the unidentifiable stains were hidden from view, and no one asked Ryo why he happened to own a staple gun.

"Uh-huh," was all Yamapi had to say, smothering a yawn. He sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the TV, looking as sleepy as Jin would have if he hadn't woken up with demonic Hellspawn in his bed. Shirota, the lucky bastard, had already left by the time they got up.

Jin pried loose the middle couch cushion and chucked it at his friend. It made a satisfying whumph when it hit his face. "That's it? I accidentally trade my soul for some skanky demon and all you say is 'uh-huh, that's nice, Jin, have fun with that!'" He was awake enough to catch the cushion as Yamapi hurled it his way.

"Way to put words in my mouth, dude."

"'Skanky?'" the demon echoed with narrow insult. Jin wondered if they had any crosses. He also wondered if he should find a church. That gave him an idea.

"Let's hire an exorcist!"

"We'll need to buy pea soup," Yamapi put in, although how that would help was up for debate. More thoughtfully, he added, "Can you spin your head around?"

"I imagine that would be fatal," the demon said dryly. He even looked the slightest bit physically pained, but that probably had more to do with the conversation in general.

"I don't know what to tell you," Yamapi addressed Jin with a shrug. "You stuck it in the crazy and now you have a demon." He started a slow clap and managed to mostly dodge the cushion again, stumbling to his feet and weaving towards the kitchenette. "Maybe you'll feel more positive after coffee."

The demon sat up a little straighter. "Pour me a cup, too."

That finally made Yamapi pause and blink. "...Sure, why not."

"Pi!" Jin whined, trying to convey through telepathic waves, don't abandon me to the soul-hungry demon! but either Yamapi was ignoring him or he had faulty reception to BFF distress signals.

"You had no idea what you were getting into," the demon spoke up after a strained pause. Jin thought he detected a hint of apology there and seized upon it.

"So can we call the whole thing off?"

"Sorry, no take-backs." A small, amused smile played upon his lips. At least someone was happy about this arrangement.

Jin scowled and tucked himself sullenly into his designated corner of the couch. "This is completely unfair, and not even because of the fucking fine print or whatever. This is my soul we're talking about! I kind of need that."

"Funny," Yamapi said from behind where he leaned both arms on the back of the furniture. "Because I always thought youmph-"

Jin had slouched down and lifted his leg to plant a sock-clad foot on the side of Yamapi's face, making his friend recoil with a disgusted shriek.

The demon ignored the interruption with obvious effort. "It's not unfair. What do you think I'm here for?"

"Is that a trick question?" Seeing the tic of annoyance on the demon's face, Jin groped for an answer. "Uh, to drag me kicking and screaming to Hell?"

"Oh, that's for later. When the ground opens under your feet and dozens of clawed hands pull you down in the fiery bowels of the underworld-no, you dumbass," the demon sighed, halting Jin from scrambling over the arm of the couch. "This isn't a B-movie. I already told you upfront: your soul for me. I'm here so it's a done deal. I'm yours to command."

"Can I order you to forget the deal and we all go home-or stay home, since I live here-happy?"

"No."

Jin hadn't really thought that would work, it would just figure there would be Cosmic Rules against loopholes, but it was worth a try.

: : : :

The demon said to call him "Kame." Jin wasn't expecting that, but he didn't know what he was expecting. Probably not anything that involved turtles, though. In another world he might have thought it was cute.

He was determined to not be curious. Bad enough that the demon-Kame-was sticking around to live with them.

"Don't you have someplace else you can be?" Jin asked. "You can't stay here. I'm serious, you're not living with me. Not even if you help pay rent. Why don't you just stay in, uh, Hell?"

"Can't," Kame said with what appeared to be slowly mounting irritation, but he hadn't lit anything on fire or made anyone bleed yet and Jin's knee-jerk panic reaction was beginning to abate. "You brought me here. I'm not leaving until your soul is good and mine."

Jin wanted to insist, loudly, that it wasn't his fault, but the part about his soul as a commodity sort of punched through his defense. Nothing like knowing you were a doomed man to follow you like your own personal raincloud everywhere you went. And the first place he went was back to Madoka.

It seemed logical-she got him into this mess, so she could get him out, right? He remembered where she lived, though after the nightmare that occurred last week he swore to never return. Nightmares, however, were a problem when you didn't wake up.

Jin didn't know how long he stood there and pounded on Madoka's door. What began as a reasonable knock soon escalated into heavy-duty battering and a few cries of, "Open up, you bitch, it worked and I hope you're fucking happy because now I have this little problem and it's all your fault so open the fucking door!"

One of the neighbors must have complained because next thing he knew, a harried-looking man came panting up the stairs and tried to placate him. Jin refused to be placated until he heard that Madoka was gone.

"Takara-san left, oh... about a week ago. There were too many complaints about her so I didn't renew her lease. Maybe now we'll have some peace and quiet." This last was directed pointedly at Jin, who didn't care because Madoka had just up and left and now what was he supposed to do?

He stayed out as long as he could. Visited Ryo and played video games and let him mouth off about Jin's apparent lack of social life while trying to see who could mow down the most pedestrians in Grand Theft Auto. But Ryo was a smart little bastard and soon caught on to Jin's reluctance to go home. Ryo was also merciless, and stronger than he appeared, forcibly kicking Jin out when he refused to explain why.

Jin spent a few minutes standing below Ryo's window and railing at him for being a horrible friend (incidentally, this was similar to the way they named their band) until one of the neighbors emptied a washbasin in his direction. He managed to avoid a thorough soaking, but one pant leg ended up spattered around the cuff and he trudged a left-footed damp imprint part of the way home.

"M'back," he mumbled halfheartedly as the door swung closed behind him. He kicked his shoes off in the genkan like a petulant child, then noticed Yamapi's were missing. "Hello?" Jin called warily into the apartment.

No response.

Kame had still been folded on the couch with his fingers wrapped around a mug of coffee when Jin left, but there was no sign of him now. The middle cushion had been returned to its proper place in Jin's absence, and when he examined the kitchenette the mugs were clean on the drying rack. Somehow he doubted that was Pi's doing.

Stealthily at first-and then less so when he became annoyed with the idea of sneaking around his own home-Jin checked the other rooms. The bathroom was vacant, and his bedroom was just as he'd left it. No demon lolling around this time. He peeked into Yamapi's room just to make sure, but the place was well and truly empty.

"Fine, then," Jin said aloud to the unoccupied, lonesome apartment. Disappointed with how that came out, he added with more enthusiasm and a grin for his own benefit, "Great!"

He flopped onto the awful couch, dug his phone out of his pocket, and proceeded to text Ryo to inform him, again, that he was a lousy douchebag and they were voting him out of the band as soon as he consulted Shirota and Pi. Never mind that last time Jin tried voting Ryo out of the band, Ryo used a combination of threats and bribes to vote Jin out instead. They even tried performing without him, but it turned out Yamapi couldn't sing very well when Jin was in the crowd flinging Yamapi's own underwear onto the stage whereupon Ryo actually slipped on it in a glorious show of karma.

Jin's phone vibrated with Ryo's reply: a photo of his middle finger.

He was eagerly composing a new message when the front door opened. His back was to the entrance, and Jin raised his voice to announce, "Ryo's a dick. We're voting him out of the band."

"Does my vote even count?" Jin almost lost his grip on his phone when he flailed and twisted around. Kame stood in the genkan, calmly toeing his shoes off and flipping them to face the door. "Thought not," he said in a mild tone when Jin only gaped at him.

"Where-" But Jin shut his mouth when he saw the plastic bags hanging from one curled hand. They rustled when they were set on the small square of free countertop, and without any hint of discomfort Kame began unloading them. "You," Jin tried again when his mouth started working. "You bought groceries? Why?"

"You needed them."

"How?"

"Here's the receipt, you owe your friend however much everything cost." Kame pushed things around in the cupboards to organize everything, stilling in his routine for only a moment to shoot a cagey glance backwards. "Is something wrong?"

"You bought groceries," Jin repeated as if that explained all that was wrong in the world. "Are you really a demon?"

Kame paused again, shoulders sagging then lifting once more as he planted his hands on his hips, one of them fisted around a wadded plastic bag. "You want proof now?"

"No. Uh." But he was too distracted to contemplate what kind of terrifying proof Kame might demonstrate. "It's just that, you. This. I mean, did I purchase a demon or a mail-order bride?"

Belatedly, Jin realized that insulting Kame was not a wise move and he might get a demonic demonstration after all, but before he could backpedal there was a slightly damp dishtowel being lobbed at his face. He snatched it away, nose wrinkled at the smell of detergent.

"Excuse me for being a little civilized. I forgot this was a bachelor pad." Kame rolled his eyes and flicked long, copper bangs away from his face. He made such an ordinary picture that Jin found himself wanting, just for a moment, for the demon and soul thing to be a hoax and Kame really was just some guy Jin met at a party and wound up bringing home.

"You're a demon though, aren't you." Ludicrous as it was. Maybe disappointing, too.

Kame didn't insist, or try to joke. He simply agreed. "I am."

: : : :

"He even cooks!" Yamapi said to an unimpressed Ryo and disconcerted Shirota while Jin maintained a steady mantra of "shut up, shut up, shut up..." The four of them sat around a small table in a moderately crowded Starbucks-rip-off coffee shop just across from campus. Jin should have been on his way to class, but no way was he going to sit in a chair and stare at a wall while Yamapi gave the full disclosure on their new friend. Kame had cooked dinner that night, and it didn't result in food poisoning or anything. It was even kind of good. Yamapi certainly enjoyed it, but in Jin's opinion Pi was just a pig.

"So this demon of yours," Shirota said carefully, testing out the words to make sure he was getting them right," cooks and cleans and is staying at your apartment. Like a live-in maid."

"Seriously, shut up." Jin had been trying to end the conversation for a while now. He was beginning to think strangulation would be required.

"I think you two are full of shit," Ryo said, not for the first time since the start of the tale.

Yamapi snorted. "You're just jealous because you don't have one."

"Full. Of. Shit."

"He's real handy. I'm telling you, it's not a bad deal-"

"For you, maybe!" Jin interjected, rising out of his chair to put an end to the talk once and for all, but was completely ignored. Desperate times called for desperate measures. He threw himself across the table and went for Pi's throat. Ryo continued to insult them both for being ten kinds of idiot while Shirota assured nearby customers that there was nothing to worry about, they did this all the time.

Yamapi's hands stopped trying to pull Jin's hair and started doing some bizarre combination of flapping and pointing. Taking his eyes away from his friend's red face, Jin risked a look over his shoulder. He promptly let Yamapi go.

"What are you doing here?"

Kame gave him a funny look, like Jin was the strange one. "I was invited."

"I didn't-"

"I did. Yo," Yamapi greeted, hastily snagging an extra chair. His eagerness might have had something to do with putting Kame in between himself and Jin. "This is our resident demon."

Kame puffed out a little sigh and Jin thought he heard him mutter under his breath, but he took the offered seat, surrendering to the scrutiny of others. Ryo wasted no time with the derision.

"This is what you're trying to pass off as your pet demon?" He ducked as Jin tried to cuff him across the head, and while Kame's expression didn't change the rest of him tensed and seemed to coil inward.

"Ryo!" Jin hissed through his teeth with that weird squirmy-insides feeling, like he was embarrassed on Kame's behalf. Never mind that he'd been the first to joke about the domestic perks, but that had just been between him and Kame. That was different.

"I want proof," Ryo stated point-blank.

Kame sent Jin a meaningful look, like he expected Jin to have something to say to that. Jin had nothing, and was momentarily saved from doing whatever Kame wanted him to do by the barista calling, "Akanishi!"

Grateful for the escape, he all but ran to the counter where the barista-a cute girl with a pair of glasses perched on her nose-pressed a lid onto his cup. "Here you go," she said, smiling and peering up at him through black frames. "I love your band, by the way. When's your next gig?"

Jin couldn't help but flash a grin at the mention of "his" band, and he resisted sending a smug look over his shoulder to see if the others heard. "We got a performance lined up this Saturday at Theatre 7. See you there?"

"You bet." She really had the nerdy cute look going for her. Jin lingered at the pick-up counter, noting the way her fingers twisted coyly in her necklace, light catching on a pendant on the silver chain...

The girl yelped when he dropped his cup, hot coffee spattering, and the scalding spill on his hand jerked him back to reality. "Shit! Hot!"

"I'm sorry," she said, hurriedly mopping up the mess. "I'll make you another."

"No! I mean, that's fine, whatever..." Jin backed away, eyes riveted to the pentagram that she'd been toying with and reimagining the star-shaped lines carved into Madoka's floor.

Back at the table, the guys made no attempt to disguise their cackling.

"Smooth," Shirota complimented him.

"She's not that hot," Ryo sneered.

Yamapi was laughing so hard his face was red again, and even Kame wore a smirk at Jin's expense.

"She had a thing," he grumbled to a circle of befuddlement. "I mean a star-penta-whachamacallit. Voodoo or whatever. No offense?" He glanced at Kame, who was a combination of amused and vaguely insulted.

"You don't have anything to worry about from her. She's not a witch." Everyone at the table stared at Kame, some more obviously than others. He shrugged, but only looked at Jin when he explained, "From what you said, Madoka was most likely a witch. She wanted to summon a demon but in order to do so needed to sacrifice her soul. She substituted yours instead."

Shockingly, Ryo had nothing disparaging to say to that. Jin wondered what on earth Kame did while his back was turned to convert the most contrary person he knew into a believer. Or maybe he was better off not knowing.

It was Shirota who jerked a thumb at Jin asked, "So why are you with this guy instead of her?"

Another shrug, but this one was more nonplussed. Kame kept his hands folded in his lap as he mumbled, "Just worked out that way, I guess."

"Duh," Jin said, reaching out to tap his knuckles against Kame's skull. "Whose soul is on the table here? My soul, my demon. Obviously."

Kame rubbed the spot where Jin had rapped, eyes gone wide and wondering but Jin wouldn't have pegged him for stupid. What had him so puzzled?

"That means he's staying with us!" Yamapi cheered.

"Would you cut that out?" Jin growled, trying to kick him under the table. Silently, he tried to shake the feeling of expectation that settled on him whenever Kame caught his gaze.

: : : :

Jin wasn't certain when he crossed from dreaming to waking. For a while he was lost in the fog of in-between, drifting into semi-consciousness, aware of only a warm presence not quite close enough to touch. Then, as if beckoned with just the thought, a tangible heat pressed flat against his stomach with a ticklish, nuzzling sort of comfort. Jin's hand drifted downward of its own accord to encounter soft hair that slipped pleasingly through his fingers as he cradled the back of a head. The hem of his shirt was nudged up and a gust of breath fanned out across the plain of his abdomen, pioneering the trail of itinerant lips. A sudden, quick curl of a tongue teased his navel.

Jin's breath hitched, and he found himself lying awake in the darkness of his room, confused for a moment and feeling the abrupt loss of a very good dream-only to discover that the dream came along with him. His fingers twitched upon the curve of a skull and there was a soft, wet mouth sucking a patch of skin just inside his hip, waistband of his shorts tugged low.

Kame's warm, heavy weight was blanketed across his legs, licking and nibbling towards the heat and hardness between Jin's thighs, and that was when Jin ceased to be still.

"Wait, wait, wait," he stammered, though his body shuddered in opposition to the command. His fingers tightened in Kame's hair, unable to push or pull, merely holding him at the edge of an awful precipice.

Thankfully, Kame stilled. Jin's eyes were adjusting to the darkness, and when he dared to glance down he saw the frustrated spark of impatience in that focused gaze. Kame's face hovered at the indent of his hip, the tips of his hair brushing the evident bulge in Jin's shorts and he wrenched his sight elsewhere, breathing hard.

"Okay," he said and then shook his head at himself. "Okay, no. No, this isn't... What are you doing?"

"What do you want me to do?" It wasn't a flirty question, but more of a demand. The words were hot on Jin's skin and-all right, he had to move. Without looking, he pushed Kame off and Kame went without fighting, but Jin could still feel the tense lines of his body nearby.

"I don't really want you to do anything," he protested, exercising caution when settling his sights on Kame again now that it was a little bit safer.

Kame's lean form was stretched out on his stomach beside Jin, propped up on his elbows. His shoulders hunched inward and he scowled. "That's not how this works."

"I'm sorry for not reading the handbook," Jin snapped and threw what was left of his caution to the wind, because really, it's not like he even wanted a lapful of demon, either literally or metaphorically.

"You made a contract," Kame emphasized with a clinical detachment incongruous with his guarded posture. "And I'm sorry you didn't mean to, but you did. Your soul, your demon." He tossed Jin's words back at him with a tight curl of his lip, mocking but somehow bitter. "I have a duty to fulfill to you. If you're not going to bother, let me kill you and let's be done with it."

"Like hell!" Jin shot upright, hands fisting the sheets and trembling more with absolute resentment than fear. "The only thing I'm interested in is you not getting your hands on my soul or-" or any other part of me was what Jin wanted to say, but that made him sound like a quailing girl and anyway he wasn't one hundred percent sure it was true.

Kame pushed up onto hands and knees crawled deliberately into Jin's space, eyes narrowed and poisonous. "Too. Late." He punctuated the damning words with his open palm on Jin's chest and pushed. It looked like he barely exerted any effort at all, but Jin went down flat on his back like he'd been dropped from a few meters high.

"Hold it," he gasped as soon as he sucked more air into his lungs. And Kame did hold, arched like he was being kept back on the tenterhooks of Jin's command. Swift understanding hit Jin like a flood of stage lights, and he stared at Kame as if he could see him clear as day.

He was at a loss for what to do with this kind of power.

"I'm sorry," was the first thing that leapt from his mouth, which from the looks of Kame's soundless snarl did nothing to appease him. Jin swallowed and more babble drained from the swirling mess of his thoughts. "I really am. I have no idea what's going on here, and I know it's not right, and... and that's all, I guess. It just isn't right. But don't, um. Don't kill me. That's all I want."

"That it?" Kame wanted to know, still poised in a crouch over Jin. "You don't want revenge, you don't want money, you don't want fame?"

Money and fame would have been nice, but for once Jin thought before he spoke. "I thought you said this wasn't a B-movie," he pointed out and hoped it was true. People tended to die in spectacularly horrible ways in B-movies.

Kame didn't physically reel back, but his expression did. The feral intensity dialed down, transforming into something grudging and not very friendly, but no longer outright dangerous. "People don't exactly make deals with demons to do their housekeeping for them."

"Yeah, well, I'm too lazy for world domination." Jin grinned with the truth of it. "Doesn't bother me if you do the cooking, though. If you want to. You don't have to, and you don't have to do... this."

Kame looked at him for a long moment, unreadable, and then started to lower. Jin could smell him-skin and a hint of sweat, unremarkably normal and human, save for the faintest trace of something smoky and spark-setting that made him think of lightning scorch marks. They were almost touching, and Jin wondered if Kame wanted to, and whether he was okay or more than okay with that.

Then Kame rolled to the side and flopped onto his back, shoulder lined up next to Jin's. He let out a sigh that briefly seemed to fill the room.

Jin tipped his face towards Kame, taking in his profile. His eyes were closed in something like concentration. "What are you thinking?"

"That you're an idiot," Kame answered promptly.

Jin screwed up his expression, though he wasn't all that surprised. And he'd been called worse.

Before he could think of a comeback, Kame shifted to face him with a look that was trying hard to be direct instead of tentatively curious. "Is there really nothing you want?"

"I sort of wish..." The thing was, wanting and wishing were different somehow in Jin's mind. Wanting was greedy and desperate, something that was forced on others. Wishing was something you kept to yourself, or didn't expect to come true. "I wish we could have met, you know, like normal. That would have been cool. If you were-never mind. It's stupid. I'm an idiot."

Jin rolled over on his side to glare meaninglessly at the wall. Kame was a demon after all, not a goddamn wish-granting fairy. He couldn't be anything different.

: : : :

Theatre 7 was a small concert venue with great acoustics, and as a popular hangout it never failed to draw in a good crowd. Jin recognized many of the students there as he mingled and helped himself to a drink before Yamapi dragged him off to set up the stage.

The two of them had always talked about forming a band together, but didn't attempt it seriously until they met Ryo in high school. Even then, it was one step forward, two steps back when they bickered over everything. The name of the band changed weekly depending on who was asked. At one point Jin quit on the basis of "musical differences" and declared that he'd become famous on his own, move overseas and live in a luxury condo in LA where he would host wild parties with a veritable harem of supermodels every night.

Instead of a condo and supermodels in LA, however, Jin wound up with a dorm and Shirota Yuu as a university roommate in Tokyo. When he discovered that his new roommate was a drummer of some skill, Jin revived the band idea, and then it was simply easier to join forces with Ryo and Pi again to form Dropkick Friend.

"So who's having a good time tonight?" Jin asked after adjusting the mic stand, pausing to let the dull roar of the crowd wash over him. He grinned, cocksure behind a pair of Aviator sunglasses. "Bullshit, we haven't even started playing yet. Forget 'good,'" he dropped his voice into a growling purr, "we're Dropkick Friend and we'll give you a night you won't forget."

With that, they launched into their opening. Song composition and lyrics were contributed equally by everyone, more or less, and while Ryo and Yamapi sang their share of songs, it was usually Jin at the mic, working the crowd. He didn't think he would be that good of a showman at first, but standing on stage before a keyed up audience gave him a high like nothing else. Mundane things like classes and rent-and less-mundane things like soul contracts-they all fell away like ash from a cigarette. Jin gripped the mic and poured his voice into song.

The energy pulsing in Theatre 7 was amped up to max and they rode it out 'til the encore. Cheering and applause went up all around in a roaring thunder. Finally, backstage, still jittery with adrenaline, Jin polished off a bottle of water and snuck out before Dictator Ryo could start ordering him around with the packing.

The speakers now blared a hit pop song while the stage was cleared and the crowd had fanned out. Jin pushed his sunglasses up to rest on top of his head and made his way towards the bar-tried to, at any rate, since it was slow-going once people began chatting him up. He was perhaps not as amiable towards the fans as he might have been before, nervously checking for esoteric jewelry or tattoos despite common sense scoffing at his paranoia.

Relief waited at the bar in an unexpected form. Leaning against the counter with a Kirin in hand, Kame's gaze flicked over him, barely lingering, before sliding away like in casual indifference.

And just what is that for? Jin hesitated, but not for long. He sidled up and got the attention of the barkeep, jerking his head in Kame's direction. "Same as him."

That brought Kame's eyes back to him again, and this time Jin pinned the look as "appraising." He was definitely familiar with that one, and it rankled a lot less than "dismissive." He gave Kame a once-over of his own, noting the slim outline of denim-clad legs and 'v' of skin where the top two buttons of his black shirt were undone. The burnished copper of his hair gleamed under the theatre's lights, and his pose, the artful drape of it, was like something out of a glossy magazine ad.

"Huh?" Jin realized belatedly that Kame had spoken to him. The beat of his heart kicked up its tempo. "Sorry, repeat that?"

Kame's lips twitched upward at the corners. "I said, you sounded good up there."

"Hey, thanks." Jin flashed a grin, feeling a bit silly over how pleased that made him. To distract himself, he whipped out his lighter and set its bottom corner under the cap of his beer. A little leverage and it popped off.

"Here," Kame offered, holding out his own bottle, and Jin clinked his against it.

"Kanpai!"

He was unfortunately in the middle of a deep swig when Kame asked, offhand, "So what's your name, rock star?"

Jin was too cool to spray. He choked instead. Kame pounded helpfully on his back. "What?!" he demanded, whirling on him in disbelief but Kame only rolled his eyes.

"By 'rock star' I guess I meant 'space cadet.' Are you always this weird or am I just special?"

Jin couldn't believe Kame was calling him the weird one. He jabbed an accusing finger but lacked the right words to say. "I... you..."

The restrained signals of body language finally clued him in. Kame's posture didn't change, but there was a subtle rigidness in his lounge that had been markedly absent before. He raked a hand through his hair, eyes darting away, and the noncommittal line of his mouth was stiffened by tension in his jaw. Annoyance was one thing-Kame was annoyed at him often-this was more like frustration. This was like that night not too long ago that Jin tried not to think about too much and usually failed miserably.

He discreetly pinched his arm to make certain that he wasn't dreaming. Then he cleared his throat, face starting to go warm. "Ask me again."

"Are you always this weird?"

"Not that! My name, ask for my name."

Something very much like relief tinted Kame's demeanor and he resumed the role. "So what's your name?"

"Akanishi Jin." It was beyond silly, but happiness welled within him all the same. He resisted the desire to reach out and touch, to envelop Kame in an adoring hug, because that wouldn't fly during a first meeting. At least not until they were drunker. "You?"

Kame made him wait by taking a sip from his beer, lips soft and round against the bottle. The pink tip of his tongue made a brief appearance, and then he couldn't stall any longer. He drew in a determined breath:

"Kamenashi Kazuya."

: : : :

"Is that all you're eating?" Jin eyed the curry that was left on Kame's plate.

"I told you not to make so much," Kame returned peevishly from across the table, arms folded over his chest. It was always just the two of them on Tuesdays and Thursdays since Yamapi had a class in the evening. Jin had taken a liking to these nights, time spent quietly or in companionable bickering. He was gearing up for some spiel about slaving away in the kitchen when Kame followed up less pointedly, almost apologetic, "And it's not like I need to eat anyway."

This happened all the time. Jin would start to forget until reminded that Kame wasn't always in his life, and only did things like drink coffee in the morning and pick the things he didn't like out of his food just for the hell of it. "Sorry?" he tried, unsure of what he was supposed to say to that.

Kame shrugged and pushed the curry around on his plate. "It's not like it's a chore. Nutrition just doesn't mean anything to me, and food never makes me feel hungry or full."

Jin attempted to wrap his mind around that. "I can't decide if that's really weird or kind of cool in a way. So theoretically you could eat anything you want and it wouldn't make you sick or gain weight?" No wonder Kame stayed so fit without any obvious effort. Not that Jin made a point to notice. Much.

"Theoretically," he agreed. "Taste counts for something, though."

So maybe Kame wasn't picky just for the hell of it after all. "Wait," Jin said, and his tone made Kame look up. "Does that mean my cooking sucks? Is that it?"

"No, it's fine."

"But you're not eating it so it must not taste good!"

Kame huffed and deliberately scooped up a sizable mouthful.

"Oh, don't force yourself for my sake," Jin said airily, not bothering to conceal his grin when Kame rolled his eyes.

He'd just finished swallowing when a sound at the door diverted both their attentions. It wasn't the thud of a knock, but more of a muffled scrabbling. Kame responded faster than Jin, who sat there puzzling, and moved to investigate. He opened the door and emitted a soft sound of surprise.

"What is it?" Jin tipped his chair back, trying to see beyond Kame's now-squatting form in the doorway.

In response, something growled and shot into the room.

"Shit!" His chair wobbled as a tan-colored bundle on four legs darted under his feet, throwing off his balance to crash ungainly on the floor. A motoring growl sounded by his ear, punctuated by a series of piercing yaps. "Son of a bitch," Jin groaned, staring into beady eyes set under a domed skull, its sail-like ears swept back and jaws snapping. The Chihuahua looked personally affronted by Jin's existence and had no problem at all chewing his nose off.

"Koki, come here. You hungry?" Kame set his plate on the floor and just like that, the dog gave Jin one last dubious look before trotting over to scarf the leftovers.

Jin sat up, glowering as Kame gave the little monster a fond pat on its round head. "Is that thing yours? How did it even get in the building?"

"Hm? Oh, this is Koki. He's a friend."

Jin swore the dog looked smug when it raised its head and licked its chops. "It's not staying here," he said automatically. "Pets aren't allowed."

"He's not a pet," Kame said patiently, retrieving the dish once it had been licked clean and transporting it to the sink. "I think he's just visiting for a few days. He won't cause any trouble." It seemed that he addressed that last statement meaningfully to Koki, but that still didn't make Jin feel any better towards the dog. Which probably wasn't just a dog.

"He better not chew on any of my stuff," Jin allowed.

: : : :

As it turned out, Koki was more interested in chewing on Jin himself rather than any of his belongings. Jin would come home and suddenly there would be miniature jaws clamped around his pant leg. "I will kick you," he threatened, looming over the 25-centimeter menace. Koki shook the folds of denim in his mouth, then released Jin to bark and growl at him. It was a miracle none of the neighbors complained.

"Aww, he likes you," Yamapi cooed, shoving Jin to get inside. As usual, Koki ignored Pi and rounded once more on Jin.

"They eat dogs in some countries. I could make you worth your weight in yen!"

Yamapi snorted. "He weighs like three kilograms. How much are you planning to make? And I don't know any country that's known for eating demons."

"Well," Kame interjected from where he lounged on the infamous couch, flipping channels. "Our kind is occasionally cannibalistic."

"Ha!" Jin exclaimed as though he'd won. He jabbed a finger at Koki. "I can feed you to Kame!"

Koki cocked his head at Jin, unimpressed. Then he turned around and hopped onto the couch with Kame, braced his front paws on Kame's arm and leaned up to lick his face.

Jin found himself making garbled noises in tremendous and irrational fury until Yamapi smacked the back of his head. Shutting up, Jin hit Yamapi back and then stalked over to the couch. It was easy enough to pick up the Chihuahua despite Koki's snarling attempts to gnaw his hands off, and Jin did not quite toss him like he wanted, but he did relocate him and claimed the spot next to Kame.

Kame observed the sequence with obvious amusement. "It's all right, Koki," he said dryly when the Hellspawn came at Jin's ankles, ready to take a foot and bury it somewhere.

Koki whined. Jin gloated.

"Have you really eaten your own kind before?" Yamapi came around to plop down on the opposite end of the couch. He picked Koki up and settled him in his lap, much to the dog's disgruntlement.

For a moment Kame looked utterly uncomfortable, and Jin was about to say he didn't have to talk about it and Pi, you retard, shut the fuck up, but he shook his head slightly. "No, I-I haven't. It's not common."

"And you're such a glutton normally," Jin drawled, shifting his leg to tap it against Kame's. He stared straight ahead at the TV, but from the corner of his eye he saw the twitch of Kame's smile.

"Consuming another demon is about power more than nutrition. A different sort of hunger."

"Makes sense," Yamapi remarked. He was rubbing Koki's belly, who appeared mortified much to Jin's delight.

"So what's the deal with this bastard?" Jin tried to poke him but had to yank his fingers back before pointy teeth snapped shut on them. He was going to make another attempt just to be annoying when Kame's fingers closed around his own and firmly tugged it away from harassing his friend.

"Shapeshifting isn't rare."

"Can you do it?" Jin peered curiously at Kame, who returned the stare with uncertain eyes.

"Yes. Do you want me to?"

"Yeah!" Yamapi cheered.

"Umm. Hm." He still held Kame's hand loosely in his. When he felt the barest hint of movement, he tightened his grip. "No, not really. You're not bad like this."

"It isn't fair," Yamapi grumbled. "You demons only pay attention to Jin. What's so great about Bakanishi?"

Kame said smoothly, "I can't speak for Koki, but I'm under contract and it's not like I had any choice in the matter."

Jin hardly noticed the growling in his direction. "Neither did I," he muttered, sinking lower in his seat. He released Kame's hand and used it to scratch an itch, sullenly narrowing his field of vision straight ahead.

: : : :

"Aagh!" Jin rocked back, hands clutching at his hair in frustration. The webpage open in his browser displayed yet another jumble of nerdy D&D terminology. He'd tried Yahoo, Google, Baidu, and every other search engine he could think of-but all he got for "demons, summoning, and contracts" were Naruto fansites, RPG character sheets, or something about an American TV show about two gay brothers. Searching in English gave him similar results, and his attempt to look up Latin was confusing at best.

The closest thing to help he'd found was a site that described how to safely summon a demon, and the process sounded similar to what he remembered, but it didn't say anything about reversing or ending the contract.

"You're supposed to be able to find anything on the Internet," Jin bemoaned at the ceiling and spun his chair around.

He jumped in his seat when he saw Koki sitting in the doorway. The Chihuahua was not yap-yapping all over the place at him for once-just the fact that he'd wandered this close to Jin's room was strange in itself.

"Get out of here, shoo!" Jin shut his laptop, wondering how long Koki had been waiting there and how good a dog's eyesight was. They stared at one another until Jin gave up in disgust. "Whatever," he muttered and turned back to his desk.

He heard the door click shut behind him. Sending a glance over his shoulder, Jin jumped again and almost fell out of his chair.

"What the-?!"

The Chihuahua was gone, but the scrawny guy with the close-cropped blond hair and deeply scowling features somehow still resembled one. "Let's skip the niceties, just answer me this: do you or do you not want to follow through with your contract?"

"Gee, that's a tough one," Jin said, exaggeratedly rubbing the back of his neck as he pretended to think. "Damning my immortal soul for all eternity, I'm for it! Seriously, is that the dog brain talking?"

Koki's lips peeled back in a growl, but Jin had been hearing that same rumbling threat for days so despite the change in appearance it failed to terrorize. "Funny, coming from a waste of protoplasm like you. So maybe you don't want help keeping your soul-its dubious worth notwithstanding-out of my friend's clutches."

That much got Jin's attention, but he wasn't that stupid. "And why do you care?"

Koki scoffed, but he didn't avoid answering, "Let's just say I don't want Kame-chan ending up with your soul any more than you do."

Ridiculous though it was, Jin felt mildly offended. "What, is my soul not good enough for him?"

Koki's silence could have meant he agreed, or he thought the question was too dumb to answer, or he was just being mysteriously badass for the hell of it.

Jin wasn't going to get more of an explanation out of him, and truth be told he didn't much care about the details. The Internet had failed to provide-it was time to count his blessings where he could find them. "So? Talk. What's this solution of yours?"

"First we need to see an expert."

"Expert on what?" Jin asked, thinking of Madoka with a strange yawning sensation in the pit of his stomach. A witch, Kame had said. Another witch might know what to do.

"Hard to find one, but I know a guy. An expert on souls."

: : : :

Jin's phone kept vibrating in his pocket. He already told the guys he was skipping practice to take care of the little matter of his soul, but it didn't surprise him that they were going to bitch about his absence anyway. There was no pleasing some people.

"How much further?" he asked the air, ignored by the people walking on either side of him as they hurried along, holding umbrellas over their heads. A light rainfall had started up and Jin resigned himself to getting wet, tucking his hands into the pockets of his hoodie.

Koki couldn't answer his question, trotting a little ways ahead with single-minded determination that would have puzzled anyone paying attention to the little dog. He led Jin along the streets without pausing to heckle people or sniff fire hydrants. No one noticed him, not even below ground when he shuffled into a train car amid a forest of feet. Jin didn't even know why he was a Chihuahua again. Maybe he preferred it. "You're more annoying as a dog," he said once they started on their way, and then Koki tried to take a piss on his foot. Jin felt that proved his point.

Kame hadn't been around when they left-in fact, Jin hadn't seen him all afternoon. It wasn't like they were attached at the hip, but it felt weird to go off without informing him at least. If Kame had a cell phone, he hadn't told Jin the number. Jin thought about leaving a note, but that was weird, too. What would he say? "Gone to break contract. Nothing personal." The only thing worse would be saying so in person, so he hadn't waited.

Though now he wished he'd taken the time to grab a fucking umbrella. The rain was coming down harder, and Jin had no idea how much longer he'd be walking in it. Still, he tried to reason with himself, a cold was negligible compared to bigger things at stake. He just hoped Koki wasn't screwing with him. Demon or no, Kame's friend or no, if Koki was just leading him in circles Jin was going to kick the puny animal like he was scoring the winning goal for the World Cup.

"At least tell me that we're meeting this expert of yours someplace dry," Jin continued to gripe, mostly to himself. "Dry and warm. Fuck."

He didn't know what he was expecting from this so-called expert. Maybe an ancient woman in a little back room with a crystal ball in one hand and a deck of tarot cards in the other.

"Are you kidding me?" Jin's footsteps finally came to a sloshing halt at the central avenue of Yanaka Cemetery. He swiped the droplets of water from across his eyes and squinted up at the skeletal branches of the cherry trees lining the road, dark, crooked spindles against the steely gray of the clouds. They hadn't bloomed yet, but soon the park would be awash in pale petals.

Koki didn't even pause, and Jin had to follow or be left standing there. He was certain that the wretched dog made it difficult on purpose, weaving through the headstones until Jin nearly lost track of him. The vast noise of the rain filled the silence of the cemetery, and there wasn't another person in sight. Just rain-slicked monuments, naked trees and shrubs, and the empty path ahead.

A splash of color popped from the grayscale world; the bright blue, yellow, and red of crisscrossing poles that constructed the playground. The swing set creaked, a thin and high sound breaking the constant shhh of rain, one candy red seat swaying under the weight of a lone body.

Jin thought it was a girl at first, judging by the slender figure and wet sweep of dark hair clinging to a smooth, pale cheek. Normally he'd have gone over and said something without a thought, but gut instinct shivered his skin and it had nothing to do with the cold.

The face that lifted and tipped his way was pretty and serene, but despite the delicate features, the voice that greeted him was not the pitch of a female. "You brought him after all."

Koki appeared-not as a dog anymore-hunching his shoulders and blinking distractedly at the rain before ambling up to the strange young man. "Said I would," he replied gruffly, shooting Jin a sharp look. "C'mere, this is my friend. He's doing me a favor."

The guy rose gracefully to meet Jin as he approached, and something made Jin stop nearly a meter away. It wasn't that he felt dangerous, just altogether strange and unsettling. Jin suspected it wasn't just the trap-like appearance, either. "Hi," he said, attempting to adapt a casual tone like he met up with eerie people in deserted cemeteries all the time. "I hear you're a soul expert or some shit."

A wide grin split his face that made Jin feel like he was missing a joke. "Interesting way to put it, but I suppose that fits. Call me Ueda. And you're Akanishi Jin," Ueda added before Jin could introduce himself properly. "I've heard about your contract with Kame-chan."

Kame had such bizarre friends. Although Jin was friends with the likes of Yamapi and Ryo, so he probably shouldn't point fingers. "Yeah," he agreed weakly. His phone vibrated again in his pocket. It had stopped for a while, and now Jin used it as an excuse to pause the conversation, not caring about being rude. Fishing it out, he shielded it as best he could from the downpour and read the newest message from Pi.

kame wants u 2 call him. i think hes pissed. what did u do bakanishi?

Jin's fingers shook as he shut his phone. From the cold, that was all. Who was the idiot, anyway, when Kame never gave Jin his number? They weren't friends. Not really. They were stuck with each other through no choice of their own.

"So," he began, stuffing his hands out of view once more into the front pockets of his now-sodden hoodie and clenching them tight. "What's the plan?"

Koki rubbed his palms together eagerly. "Well, you see, the problem is that your soul is bound to Kame-chan. According to the contract, when you die your soul automatically goes to him. Ueda here," Koki clapped a hand hard on Ueda's shoulder but the other man didn't buckle in the slightest, "is going to prevent that from happening."

Something didn't line up quite right with that explanation. "How?"

"When a God of Death removes your soul, he can do pretty much whatever he wants with it."

"What?" Jin screeched, his heart making like a rabbit with a jolt of thumpety-thumpety-thumpety. If his soul was a physical thing he'd have been clutching it protectively.

"That's not entirely correct," Ueda was saying to Koki, apparently disinterested in Jin's outburst. "Normally I'd give it to Kame-chan, as the rules state. Goodness knows what the world would be like if we did as we pleased all the time."

"My soul isn't going anywhere!" Jin proclaimed, then turned an accusing finger on Koki. "How is this helping me?"

"Hey, I never said you'd keep your stupid soul. Just that Kame-chan wouldn't keep it."

"Deals with devils," Ueda sighed as if that explained everything.

Jin formed an 'x' with his arms. "No way. No deal. Thanks, but no thanks. I'll figure this out on my own after all."

"I know this isn't an official thing," Koki said, calmly but not very apologetic. He was fast, leg extending to sweep Jin's feet out from under him and then planting one foot on his chest before he could even catch his breath. "But you don't have a choice here."

The weight pressing down on his ribs wasn't crushing, but it was immovable. No amount of pushing and yanking could dislodge it, and Jin's struggling only got him more stuck in the mud that squelched under his back. This kind of strength was unbelievable; he'd hardly known it was like this. That Kame was like this. That one time Kame had pushed him down had been nothing. Then the way he stopped, because Jin said so, that had been everything. Rain spattered and streamed down his face, got in his mouth as he opened it to yell-

"Kame!"

Koki spat curses and clamped a hand over his mouth, but Jin kept yelling anyway. Not for help, and not hoping to be heard by visitors or caretakers of the cemetery. He screamed and called and ordered in a muffled, panicked cacophony of noise, "Kame, get over here! Oh, for-I'm calling you! Kame! Kamenashi fucking Kazuya, I-"

"What is going on here?"

The cold rain sluicing down Jin's face had nothing on that ice-laden demand.

The pressure on Jin lifted and suddenly he could breathe again, but his throat felt raw and abused like he'd just finished a long, rockin' concert from when the name tore its way out. It felt like he'd unleashed a razor-sharp whirlwind with his voice.

"How does he know your name?" Koki still stood over him on one side, Kame on the other. Ueda had backed off, but he was still there, lingering by the brightly-painted slide.

"I gave it to him." Rain dripped from the tips of Kame's hair. He didn't move at all, didn't so much as acknowledge Jin slowly picking himself up at his feet.

Koki spared Jin an angry, incredulous glare. "You just gave-"

Jin sucker punched him. He wasn't sure it would actually connect, but Koki must have been too distracted, or he underestimated a human that much. It wasn't a very heavy punch, but it caught him from the side, and Jin felt better for about two seconds before Kame turned on him with a violently disapproving look.

"Stop," he hissed, but Jin was as far from placated as he could be.

"I'm cold and wet and muddy and almost had my soul sucked out! Fuck this, okay? This, your psycho friends here, fuck it all. I'm going home."

No one stopped him. He gladly left them to it, whatever they had to deal with between them, as long as it didn't involve him or parts of him that were never meant to belong to other people. He worked off the rest of his tantrum on the long, miserable trip back.

Continued in Part Two