Tokyo Demons Book 1: Chapter 2

‬Jo needed a break from reality that night. Seiya had one of those new handheld consoles that played remakes of old video games, and when Jo had asked about it, Seiya had happily lent it. Seiya was obviously trying to get on Jo’s good side–Jo figured he’d get something out of it.

These things aren’t bad, Jo thought as he lay on his bed. At least they finally put a damn internal light in them. As he beat up midget villains with his midget anthropomorphic amphibian, he tried to ignore the fact that the game system reeked of pot.

The irregular thumping over the beeping music reminded him of Kiyoshi’s presence. His roommate played with his soccer ball after homework–he was attempting, rather badly, to bounce the ball between his knees. The thump of the ball on the floor was testament of his skills.

“You play soccer?” Jo asked, trying not to phrase it as You really play soccer?

“I want to. I did archery through middle school and got really tired of it.”

“Hmm.” Jo let out a breath through his nose. “That’s a pretty different skill set.”

“I know, but I’ve played soccer with friends since I was a little kid. I’m not great at ball handling,” thoomp on the hardwood, “so I’m goalie.”

“Nn.” Jo frowned as his hero stupidly fell down a pit. “You sure you should be doing that in here?”

“Huh?”

Jo glanced over his game. “Our stuff is kinda cramped for–”

As if to prove the point, the ball leapt off Kiyoshi’s knee and smashed into the bedside table. The furniture toppled as everything on top of it went spilling to the floor.

Kiyoshi cursed. “Sorry,” he murmured as he ran over and dropped to his knees. He righted the table and pushed the drawer back in. “Did I break anything?”

Jo glanced over. He deftly slipped a stolen digital camera from the floor into his sleeve.

“No.” Jo had used his last continue, so he put the game system aside.

“Sorry about the mess,” Kiyoshi said, clearly embarrassed. “I’ll clean it up.”

Jo had already accumulated some snack wrappers on the table, so he brought them to the garbage can across the room. He noticed a rotten old pencil covered in bite marks among the toppled items and brought it along.

Jo had barely reached the trash bin when Kiyoshi suddenly blurted, “Where’s my pencil?”

Jo glanced up. “What?”

Kiyoshi started sifting through the items. “It should be here,” he said nervously. “I left it right…crap, where is it?” He stuck his head and both arms under the bed to search.

Jo’s eyeballs rolled to the bitten stick in his hand. No way.

“Dammit!” Kiyoshi pushed himself out from under the bed so fast his head knocked into the frame. He cursed and grabbed the injury as he stumbled to his feet. “Maybe I…” He yanked open the drawer and started fishing through the contents. He looked so damn worried that Jo found himself asking a rather stupid question.

“Oi.” He held up his garbage. “This?”

Kiyoshi’s eyes flew to Jo’s fingers. The teenager abruptly threw his hands.

“Don’t throw that away!” Kiyoshi jumped over the things on the floor and ran over; Jo slipped the pencil behind his back and pushed against the wall. Kiyoshi stopped, surprised.

Jo raised an eyebrow. “All right,” he murmured. “Let’s hear it.”

Kiyoshi clenched and unclenched his hands nervously. “Hear what?”

Jo rolled his eyes. “Why you care so much about a piece of crap, Kiyoshi.” Jo sighed. “What is this–one of those shitty pencils they give out at tests? You don’t need a…” Jo held the pencil over the trash.

“Don’t!” Kiyoshi cried a few pitches higher.

Jo swallowed a snorted laugh.

Kiyoshi’s eyebrows furrowed. “Someone…special gave it to me,” he said after a moment. “It’s just got sentimental value, okay?” He held out his hand. “Can I please have it back?”

“Keep going.”

Kiyoshi frowned. He looked to the floor a moment, curled his hands, and mumbled, “It’s from a girl I like.”

Jo instantly knew that Kiyoshi, despite his cut body and cute face, had never touched a girl in his life. It was a bit of a surprise, actually.

“What’s her name?” Jo asked, trying not to laugh. It was hard.

Kiyoshi shook his head uncomfortably. “Jo, it doesn’t–”

“Name.” He dangled the pencil over the trash.

Kiyoshi threw his hands out. “Mai!” he cried. “Mai. She went to my junior high and lent me that for entrance exams.” He moved in. “Jo, please–”

Jo stepped out of Kiyoshi’s reach. He ran his eyes over the pencil and said, “I assume her perfect teeth made these marks.”

Kiyoshi turned red. “Shut up,” he snapped.

Jo glanced up in surprise. So his little roommate had some bite, after all. “Have you ever asked her out?” Jo asked.

Kiyoshi immediately wilted. “I…I couldn’t,” he blurted lamely. “She’d say no. I know she would.”

Jo scowled. There it was again–he saw it in classmates and housemates all the time. Completely unjustified low self-esteem. If there was one thing Jo had learned over the years, it was that self-confidence was the start of everything worth anything. It pissed him off when capable people were so shy or insecure that they ended up watching their own boring lives crawl pathetically by.

It was a pet peeve of his. He’d had a foster father like that.

“You don’t know until you ask her,” Jo argued. “Did she end up going to Fukuhashi?”

Kiyoshi shifted his feet. “Yeah.”

“Then what’re you waiting for, lameass?” Jo wagged the pencil back and forth. “Quit making out with this diseased thing on Friday nights and ask the girl to a movie.”

Kiyoshi paled. “I don’t…make out with that,” he mumbled. “That’d be gross and weird.”

Yeah, I know. It was a joke.

“Seriously, Jo…give it back. Please?”

Jo didn’t know what to say. When Kiyoshi finally looked up with his puppy dog eyes so unbelievably pathetic, Jo did the only thing he could think of.

He ran his tongue along Mai’s bite marks.

“JO!” Kiyoshi shrieked as he dove.

****************

Ayase tried to ignore the stereo next door. It was loud. Loud enough that the bass made her desk vibrate on the beat. It was already hard enough to concentrate on the assignment she’d been given–it required pages in her textbook that were badly vandalized. The book’s former owner had obscured a lot of text with drawings of knives, skulls, and knives stabbing skulls.

And her head was still throbbing. She gritted her teeth and rubbed her eyes, wishing that the rock music next door didn’t have so much screaming in it.

She thought the first knock at her door was a figment of her imagination. The second was slightly louder and certainly resided in reality, so she pushed aside her math and went to answer it.

Sachi stood in the hallway. He smiled slightly.

“Oh.” Ayase opened her door wider to let him in. “Hey.”

He still asked if it was all right to enter. Ayase felt like a lot of the formality between them had fallen away–they’d been in a fight together, after all–but she was still a little grateful that he was always doing things like that. Like…to prove that he didn’t want to make her uncomfortable.

It was sweet, in a way. Even if his closeness could be suffocating.

She checked her watch as she closed the door behind him. “Kinda late, isn’t it?” she commented. “Everything okay?”

He quickly nodded. “Fine,” he answered. “Fine. Just wanted to, uh…” He averted his eyes. “Uh…hm.”

Ayase waited.

Sachi ran a hand through his hair before meeting her eyes. “Have you seen Kiyoshi tonight?” he asked after a moment.

Ayase shook her head. “Not since the police station. Why?”

Sachi let out a breath. “I’m a little worried about him. With all this stuff that’s been going on, I think he’s just had…other stuff building up, too. And this might be making it worse.”

“Other stuff?”

Sachi gave a thin smile. “Girl stuff,” he whispered. “Everyone who knows Kiyoshi knows he’s a little lovesick.”

Ayase furrowed her eyebrows. Sachi had made it sound like Kiyoshi was genuinely sick.

She suddenly remembered that accidental kiss from Kiyoshi in the closet. Her mind had involuntarily gone back to that moment countless times since it happened–now Ayase saw an opportunity to put it more firmly behind her.

“Who’s the girl?” she asked.

Sachi waved a hand. “Someone from junior high. It’s not really important.” He sighed. “I just felt like checking on him a few minutes ago, and he wasn’t in his room. I think Jo was teasing him.”

“Is her name Mai?”

Sachi blinked. “You know her?”

Ayase tried to ignore the uncomfortable swirl in her stomach. “He mentioned it,” she mumbled.

“Then…can I ask you a favor?”

“I guess.”

“Would you help me look for him?”

Ayase let out a breath. She should’ve guessed. Sachi clearly didn’t sit around when someone could be talked to.

“Yeah,” she said, picking her keys from her dresser. “I can’t concentrate until my neighbor goes to bed, anyway.”

He smiled in relief. “Thanks, Ayase.” He tilted his head a bit. “You’re really sweet, you know that?”

Ayase stopped a moment. She had no idea how to respond to that. She’d been nothing but distant to Sachi since he’d met him, but he was still laying on the compliments? And Sachi’s smile, combined with those lazy spikes and the little bandage on his cheek, sent some unusual feeling swirling in her heart.

Ayase tried to avoid complete embarrassment by not looking him in the face as they shuffled out of her room.

Sachi had already searched the boys’ dorm, so the two of them went to check the main school building. Ayase agreed to take the top few floors while Sachi scoured the bottom three, so they chose a meeting place and separated. When she eventually came upon the stairs to the roof, she figured she would be thorough. She headed up the stairs and pushed open the door.

It was dark outside. Someone was standing by the fence along the roof edge and looking outward, but at that distance she couldn’t tell who it was. She could just make out the boys’ school uniform.

“Hello,” he said.

Ayase blinked. He hadn’t even looked at her; he still stared out into the night.

“Um…sorry,” she murmured. That definitely wasn’t Kiyoshi. “I was just looking for…”

She trailed off as he turned to her. She couldn’t see him very well, but he looked familiar, for some reason.

He smiled and cocked his head slightly. “Can I help you?” he asked.

Ayase suddenly realized she was staring. She inwardly snapped at herself and averted her gaze.

“I’m, uh, looking for someone. He’s about this tall,” she held her hand up to Kiyoshi’s height, “and has kinda shaggy hair. I think he was wearing–”

“I’m sorry, I can’t hear you. Could you come here?”

Ayase sighed and did so. As she approached him and her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she got a better look at his face. She did know this guy. But from where?

He slid his hands into his pockets and smiled down at her. “What was it you were saying?”

He smelled…good. Ayase found herself distracted by his cologne and her brain’s unconscious desire to place him in her memory. He had a small mole on his chin…

“Miss?”

Ayase stopped. “Sorry,” she mumbled, suddenly feeling really stupid. “Uh…I was just looking for a friend of mine.”

“Nobody’s been on the roof since I came up.”

“Oh. Thanks.” She quickly bobbed her head and turned to leave.

His hand closed over her shoulder. “Hey,” he said as his tone grew smoother. “Wait a second.”

Ayase froze. The hand that touched her was covered in thin leather. Black gloves.

“Are you in class 1-D?” he asked.

Her head throbbed.

Ayase nudged free of his grip, tired of being touched by every classmate she bumped into. His cologne made her feel dizzy, which worsened the headache that had bothered her all day.

“Yeah,” she blurted. “Sorry to bother you.” She half-ran to the stairs; she wanted to get out of there. He didn’t like the way he looked at her.

“I wish I could help you,” he called from behind. When she turned to glance at him, he caught her eyes with his.

And winked.

Ayase rushed down the stairs. As she threw open the door to the hallway and ran out, she crashed straight into Kiyoshi. They toppled to the floor and Ayase once again found herself on top.

Dammit! her mind screamed as she stumbled to her feet. She yanked her untucked blouse further down her thighs and tried to pretend her leg hadn’t touched his hip.

Kiyoshi, still on his back, brushed the hair from his eyes. He raised his eyebrows at her.

“There you are.” He reached for a bag of potato chips with half its contents spilled. “Aw, man…there they go.”

Ayase tried to swallow her pounding heart as Kiyoshi stood. He brushed dirt from the back of his jeans and offered the half-empty bag.

“I-I was looking for you,” she snapped. It ended up sounding like an accusation.

Kiyoshi shrugged and pushed a chip into his mouth. “I just went to the lounge to eat,” he crunched. “I bumped into Sachi and we split up to find you. He said he’s sorry he made you wander around.”

Ayase let out a breath and tried to calm her nerves. At least the roaring in her ears slowly subsided.

“You okay?” Kiyoshi asked. “You seem kinda mad. And your face’s red.”

Ayase sighed. “I’m fine,” she lied. “What about you? Sachi was worried about you.”

Kiyoshi grimaced. He looked away.

“Sachi worries too much,” he mumbled. “I’m okay. But I feel bad about hitting Jo.”

Hitting Jo?

Ayase realized she didn’t care at the moment. She muttered a good-bye and made her exit.

She tried to calm down the entire way back to her room. Her nerves still jumped when she closed her door behind her, they still jumped when she sat on her bed. Despite the hour and her remaining homework, she couldn’t get herself to relax.

I hate this. Her stomach clenched as she closed her eyes. School had started two days ago–two days ago–and she already felt like locking herself away. She’d barely talked to boys in junior high, but within 24 high school hours she’d inadvertently straddled Kiyoshi twice. Worse, she’d felt completely powerless with that guy on the roof. Why the hell had he winked at her? Who the hell was he?

Ayase wasn’t fitting in. At all. Her plan to keep a low profile was backfiring on her–the more normal she tried to be, the more she stood out. She’d come to this school thinking that it would be easy to stay under the radar. The troubled kids who ended up at Fukuhashi high would draw all the attention, right? And she could coast on a B or C average, totally forgettable and out of reach of anyone who could figure out her secret? Like she had in middle school?

But it wasn’t working. The boys were too pushy, and the girls were so cliquey that none had spoken to her–she just saw them in packs in the hallway. She was left alone to fend for herself again every boy who was drawn to her “normalness” and isolation, whether their intentions were pure or not.

Ayase fell back on her bed. She didn’t want to get to know her classmates. She’d already been forced to use her powers in the club and she never wanted to do that again. People could find out and they’d…well, she didn’t know what they’d do. Ayase clawed her hair into her eyes.

She felt that stinging throb inside her head.

****************

Jo stared into the tiny mirror. He tilted it slightly to catch more reflection, then wished he hadn’t. He sighed and rested his head on his desk.

“It’s not that obvious.”

Jo frowned in the circle of his arms. “I look like I got my ass kicked.”

Sachi went silent. That was particularly telling.

Jo sat up and angrily leaned back in his chair. Kiyoshi’s violent reaction to his pencil’s violation had left Jo with slashes along his right eye and cheek. Not only that, but Kiyoshi had knocked Jo’s head into the wall and left a bump Jo still felt. Jo had had a headache from it all morning.

“He apologized again,” Sachi said at last. “I saw him when I went to get lunch. He feels really bad, Jo.”

“Good.” Jo gingerly touched the scrapes.

“Cut him slack, will you? He’s really been,” Sachi’s voice lowered, “in love with Mai for years. It’s more than just a crush, so don’t give him a hard time about it.”

Jo rolled his eyes. What is this? he thought. Some social healing seminar? He was getting pretty sick of crazy classmates and Sachi’s touchy-feely bullshit. Fukuhashi was a government catch-all for the poor, stupid, and parentless–he expected its students to be able to handle a little give and take.

“What’s with the bruise on your chin?” Sachi suddenly asked. “Did you have that yesterday?”

Jo sighed and touched the injury. That one had gone from mild to dark in 36 hours.

“This is from the club,” he murmured. He glanced over at Zombie. The potentially disturbed classmate was once again asleep with his head on his desk. “Your happy little friend decked me when I tried to talk to him that night.”

Sachi turned to the sleeping student and frowned. “Kado?” he called gently, but received no response.

Jo twirled his candy bar in his fingers. He wanted a cigarette; he had no appetite. He wondered if his nicotine craving would overrule his desire to avoid Seiya the Stoner that afternoon. Seiya was already two for two when it came to being in the bathroom when Jo wanted a smoke, and Jo sincerely didn’t feel like talking to him.

“Girls like chocolate.” Jo tossed his candy bar at Ayase’s desk and leaned further back in his chair. “Knock yourself out.”

Ayase glanced up from her homework. She nudged the candy to the furthest edge of her desk.

Jo scowled. Oh no, he thought. Ayase Watanabe is sullen today. Like she had any other mood.

The kogal Jo had robbed the first day of school sauntered over from the other side of class. “Hey,” she mumbled around the cookie stick in her mouth. “You done with my mirror yet?”

Sachi handed the cosmetic case back. “Thanks.”

She snapped it shut and raised an eyebrow at Jo. “You get in a fight or something?” she asked. “Your face is all…wait, you’re the guy who spanked Suzuki at the club.”

Jo dropped his head on his desk. Had everyone heard that stupid story?

She slipped the case in her pocket and glanced at Sachi. “And you. Sachi, right?” She pointed her stick at him. “I think someone was looking for you this morning.”

“What?”

“He didn’t know your name or anything, but I don’t know anyone else at your height with spiked hair.” She threw a look at Jo. “Do you smoke?”

“Yeah,” Jo answered after a moment. “Why?”

“The guy was looking for a skinny smoker, too. You’ve been hanging out with Sachi lately; maybe he meant you.”

Jo stopped. Wait, he thought. Who was looking for us? That didn’t have anything to do with Seiya’s ‘organization,’ did it? Were they trying to recruit Sachi, too?

“Come to think of it,” the girl added as her eyes fell on Ayase. “Keiko!” she called to one of her friends across the room. “Who’d that guy outside the gate say he was looking for?”

Keiko pulled her chopsticks from her mouth. “Uh…I think another guy and girl. Said the girl had kinda long hair.”

“Yeah.” The cookie stick aimed for Ayase. “Maybe you, then.”

Jo’s blood ran cold. That definitely didn’t sound like Seiya’s crowd. He was suddenly glad he hadn’t eaten; he was afraid he’d be sick the way his stomach twisted.

Sachi blinked. “Um…what’d this guy look like?” he asked.

“He didn’t look like a student. He was probably in his twenties, real big, sunglasses.” The girl tilted her head slightly. “Actually, I was gonna ask how you know someone like that. He a friend of yours or something?”

Jo swallowed hard. “Or something,” he croaked around the bile in his throat.