Tokyo Demons Book 3: Chapter 3, Part 1

Ayase couldn’t sleep. She knew she needed her rest–but she was too wired, too anxious. She clicked through endless hacked emails on her computer until late in the night. The thought of finding Zero and maybe finally getting a good lead on Touya sent sparks through every nerve ending in her brain.

At least it wasn’t just her. Kiyoshi sat with his own laptop on the couch, silent in the dark room as he stared through more reels of security footage. She glanced up at him and saw the glow of the screen reflected in his eyes.

She released her mouse, relieving her cramping index finger. That made her realize how stiff she was; she stood from the kitchen chair and twisted her torso back and forth.

“Kiyoshi?”

His eyes flicked up from his screen. “Hm?”

“Do you want some…tea or something? I was going to put the kettle on.”

“Oh.” He slowly closed his laptop. “Um…yeah, okay.”

“You don’t have to stop working.”

He sighed. “It’s not like I’m finding anything,” he mumbled. “And I’ve stared at this stuff so long that my eyes are glazing over. If there was anything for me to catch, I’d probably still miss it.”

Ayase filled the teakettle in the sink and placed it on the stove. She turned the gas on with a click click foom.

“That probably means you should stop for the night.”

He pushed his laptop aside and stretched out his arms. “Yeah,” he yawned. “And if we really catch Zero at that house, maybe we won’t need to do this stuff anymore.”

Ayase slowed as she pulled a tea basket from the cupboard. “I hope so,” she said quietly. “I mean…Touya’s running from Zero, too, so I doubt he just knows where Touya is. But I’m sure he’ll have a better idea than we do.”

Kiyoshi didn’t reply. As she grabbed two cups from the drying rack, she heard the faint creak of the floor as he walked up behind her.

“Hey,” he said quietly. He rested a hand on her back and gently stroked. “We’re gonna find them, Ayase.”

The touch made her automatically tense a bit, but she forcefully unclenched her muscles. She was getting used to this–all the touching. Kiyoshi was so…physical. She was just edgier than usual from the adrenaline and insomnia.

“I know,” she murmured back.

“Are you worried about storming that house? If Zero’s really in there, Daniel-san said it could get…brutal.”

“It’s probably not fair of me to say this, but I prefer the actual fights. It makes me feel like I’m making progress, as opposed to scrolling through a computer all day for information I might never find.” She stared down into her empty mug. “I feel kinda…powerless here. Like I can’t help anyone. It’s frustrating.”

“Me, too.”

Ayase frowned. “But it’s hard for Core to hurt me, so of course the fights don’t scare me. I worry about everyone else, though.”

Kiyoshi let out a breath. “Yeah.”

She paused. Slowly, she turned to look up at him.

“Are you scared?” she asked. “Of going on this raid?”

Kiyoshi’s mouth twitched, but it wasn’t a smile. “I mean…I guess so. I don’t wanna die.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t come.”

He squinted in distaste. “I’m not gonna ditch everyone like some freaking coward.”

“I get that, but…”

“No. Detective Nakajima was right.” Kiyoshi stiffly brushed hair from his eye. “Core knows I’m alive, so I have to take down Core. Well, help take down Core. That’s all there is to it.”

Ayase scowled at the memory. Detective Nakajima, back in that prison, showing off Kiyoshi’s bloated Pitch veins.

“We’re in the process of neutralizing Core and any more damage they could cause.” Nakajima’s lips had curled into a cold smile. “Consider this incentive for you to redouble your efforts.”

“She was just trying to justify selling us out,” Ayase said flatly. “We’ve been on the ground as much as she has–more than she has, even. And every time we join a raid, we’re the ones more likely to die. We’re not police officers. We don’t have guns.”

Kiyoshi smiled. “But we have something better than guns. We have you.”

A little burble of pleasure welled up in Ayase’s chest. She looked away in an attempt to hide the flush she felt on her face.

The teakettle whistled. She leaned to grab it, but Kiyoshi gripped it first.

“I got it. Which tea do you want?”

Ayase cleared her throat. “Nothing with caffeine,” she murmured. “So maybe…chamomile.”

“Sure.”

The door to the boy’s bedroom slid open. Ayase looked up, surprised, to see Zayd step into the living room.

His eyes widened. A wave of something wafted off of him–some strange combination of confusion and pleasure. Ayase felt a twinge of excitement burrow into her.

“You are both still awake?” Zayd asked. “Is Shouri-san also awake?”

“No, she went to bed hours ago. Why?”

Zayd pursed his lips. He hesitated for a minute, although the leaking excitement gave him away.

“Aisha and I were speaking. About…this fight with Zero, and how it will be very dangerous. She will stay here, but I must go.” He nervously rubbed his fingers together. “I know I have spoken to you about our marriage. How it is…incomplete, because we have not had a wedding.”

He took a breath. “We are married in the eyes of Islam–we signed a contract in Saudi Arabia. Since my family was not happy, we decided to wait until they were comfortable with our marriage, so I came to Japan to do work for God. We wanted to have a wedding in Saudi Arabia when I returned. But now…” He looked away. “If I fight Core, I will die, perhaps. She will die, perhaps. And we do not want to die before our love is…complete.”

Ayase waited, not sure what he was getting at. It was always hard to read between the lines of Zayd’s Japanese. But if she didn’t know better…

“Are you saying…you want to have a wedding here?” Ayase asked.

Zayd brightened. “Yes. Tonight.”

Kiyoshi blinked. His eyes flew to the clock on the wall.

“It’s four-thirty in the morning, Zayd-san.”

“Yes. And I apologize, but if you are already awake…” He glanced over at the girl’s room. “Eh, but I would also like Shouri-san. It is tradition to have witnesses–one man and two women. Perhaps it is too late to wake her.”

“She actually wanted to get up super early today, so it’s probably okay.” Kiyoshi scratched the back of his head. “What do you mean by witnesses? Do we have to sign something, or…?”

“The contract is finished. This is only for tradition.” Zayd smiled awkwardly. “You do not have to do this.”

Ayase wasn’t used to seeing Zayd smile. And the little tendrils of feelings poking into her–anticipation, relief–helped smooth out the ripples of anxiety that had been building up inside her. It felt…different. Pleasant.

Happy.

“I’ll be a witness,” she said. “I don’t mind.”

Kiyoshi nodded. “Yeah, sure.”

Zayd smiled again, and a new wave of happiness swept through Ayase’s heart.

For once, she didn’t try to separate herself out from the external emotion. She just took a breath, let the distracting pleasantness seep into her bloodstream, and left to wake up Shouri.

By the time they joined Kiyoshi in the boy’s bedroom, Zayd had already changed. He wore a long white robe similar to what he wore to bed, only this one had a stiff collar and buttons along the front. He wore some sort of dangling white headdress with black cords coiled around the top, like Ayase had seen in books about people who lived in the desert.

He seemed to notice her staring at him. “This is what I wore most days in Saudi Arabia,” he explained, tugging out the robe. “Most men do the same. I have been wearing Western clothes in Japan instead of this, but it makes me feel…like I am home when I wear it.”

Shouri yawned and pulled up the strap on her spaghetti strap pajama top. “Wear what you want, man. It’s your wedding.” She smiled. “Congratulations, by the way.”

Aisha was already sitting on the floor, wrapped head to toe in a black dress and headscarf. There was a pretty, silvery fringe to her dress, mostly along the collar and sleeves. She smiled up at them.

“Thank you,” she said in Japanese.

Ayase felt a little weird in her pajamas, but followed everyone else and took a seat on the floor beside Kiyoshi. Zayd took Aisha’s hand and pulled her close.

“I will say some prayers in Arabic first. I am sorry you cannot understand them.” Zayd started murmuring in his native language, the words rolling softly off his tongue like an unfamiliar song.

Ayase closed her eyes. The hour was starting to catch up to her, and her thoughts were slowing down. Zayd’s comfort rolled through her like a soothing fog.

She started to drift a bit, his voice almost hypnotic. She felt little surges of his feelings blip in her chest–the strongest by far was something she hadn’t felt in a while. Something usually tangled with anxiety into an aching ball in her chest.

Love. Well, the romantic kind–there was a passionate, warm edge to it that stirred her blood. The familiarity of that feeling started pulling memories from her brain. She ignored the tightness in her gut and let her mind open up.

“Ayase…”

She thought of Sachi. The way he’d cupped her hands, his eyes bright behind his glasses as he pulled her close.

But the image was hazy. It started to blend with other snatches of memory–of him pushing his futon near her bed, of him laughing awkwardly as he tried to find his glasses. Him sleeping in the back of Zayd’s car, his glasses slipping down his nose.

She remembered him leaning over a doorway as Kadoyuki curled against the wood. And that made her think of Kadoyuki’s smooth hands, trembling as they clutched her fingers. Of his wet eyelashes kissing her palm as he leaned into her touch.

“Watanabe-san…”

And then Zayd’s whispering smeared more pictures across her brain, like a fat brushstroke spreading a thick layer of memory. The way Kiyoshi touched her, his calloused fingers brushing her skin. He’d stroked her chitinous back during his captivity, lifted her into the air at his rescue. His embrace reminded her of Emi’s, although her arms were softer and her tumbling hair smelled like flowers. Those arms turned into Jo’s, pulling Ayase up against his shoulder as she cried her eyes out.

The mess of memories lifted her heart even as it dropped her stomach. Sachi was a piece of the puzzle, but her mind squeezed him in amongst a mosaic of others. She wanted to pick at him. She wanted to peel him from that collective and hold him, special and separate, tight against her breast.

But he kept blurring as she reached for him, his essence spilling past his edges and into the mass of everyone else. There was something depressing about that, but she was too swept away to fight it. She let him blend in with the others. And as she fell back into that mixed mass of affection, she stopped trying to dictate what she was feeling with an overactive brain. She stopped trying to justify anything, or tie it to shame or guilt or fear.

She just felt.

Zayd finally stopped praying. Ayase opened her eyes. She stared at him dumbly as he leaned his forehead against Aisha’s.

“This is Aisha Salama,” he said in Japanese. “She was once my teacher. Now she is my wife in the eyes of the world, praise be to God.”

Aisha cleared her throat. “This is Zayd Al-Shammari,” she said, her Japanese less confident. “He is my student. La… He was my student. Now he is my husband, praise to God.”

Zayd whispered something that Ayase couldn’t hear, but it started a new spark inside her. She swallowed that down as Zayd finally looked up.

“We are finished. Thank you.”

Shouri waved it off, a smile tugging at her mouth. “No problem,” she said. “The vibes we’re getting off you are…kinda fun, honestly.”

Zayd turned red, which of course made everything worse. Ayase squeezed her hands closed against her legs, fighting the fog of exhaustion and emotion that clogged up her senses. She glanced up at Kiyoshi; he was visibly tense, swallowing down a blush as he rubbed the back of his neck.

“Uh…congratulations,” he mumbled. “Happy for you guys.”

Ayase bowed her head in the same sentiment.

Zayd climbed to his feet, pulling Aisha up after him. “I am sorry to ask this, Kiyoshi-kun…but may we have this room tonight?”

Kiyoshi turned redder. “Y-yeah,” he blurted. “It’s yours. I’ll, uh…sleep on the couch.”

Shouri followed Ayase out of the room, closing the door behind her. The woman whistled and raised an eyebrow at Ayase.

“Aisha was his teacher? And here I thought those guys were so prim and proper.”

Kiyoshi shrugged, clearly distracted. “Who knows,” he mumbled. “Was probably a long time ago.”

“Not that long ago. Zayd’s not much older than you guys.”

“What?”

“Yeah, he’s nineteen. You didn’t know that?”

Kiyoshi furrowed his brow. “He acts like he’s forty.”

Shouri laughed at that. She absently pulled up her strap again, which helped cover the sizeable breasts that sagged in her dark tank top. Ayase noticed Kiyoshi look away, that flush still on his face.

A wave of sudden, warm sensation tingled up Ayase’s body.

She froze. Her eyes flew to the closed door the second Shouri’s did.

“Uh-oh.”

Something coiled up in Ayase’s stomach, and she stepped away from the invading feeling. Shouri laughed nervously and ushered Ayase and Kiyoshi into the living room.

“Ooookay… This might get a little weird. Here’s what we’re gonna do.” Shouri jerked her thumb at the closed door. “We’re gonna give those guys a little space to get laid, and we’re gonna separate until it’s over. Don’t panic, okay? This is perfectly natural.”

Ayase swallowed and tried to force down the lust growing inside her. “There’s nothing natural about this,” she croaked.

Kiyoshi’s eyebrows slanted as he looked away. He quickly tugged his shirt down over his sweatpants.

“Ayase, you can have the girl’s room. Kiyoshi, you get the living room.” Shouri walked into the kitchen. “I’m gonna spend about an hour in the bath. Fair?”

Kiyoshi grunted a protest as Shouri opened the fridge. “The living room isn’t, uh…”

“You’re a dude–just get a sock! Ladies need more time and privacy.” She pulled a beer from the fridge and winked at Ayase. “Am I right?”

Ayase wished she could disappear into the floor.

Shouri pulled the tab on her beer with a loud pssht. She took a sip and waved lazily as she disappeared into the bathroom.

As the door slid shut behind her, Ayase rubbed her hands over her face. “I’m tired,” she mumbled. “I’m just gonna go to bed.”

“Y-yeah. Me, too.”

The heat tingled in Ayase again, but her exhaustion was starting to dampen it. She breathed a sigh of relief and slid open the door to the girl’s room.

“Ayase… Wait.”

Dread sank Ayase’s stomach like an anchor.

“Can we…talk for a minute?” She heard Kiyoshi’s bare feet creak on the floor behind her.

She cringed against the door, hoping he wouldn’t try to pat her on the back–or touch her in any way. “Let’s wait until the morning,” she said too quickly. “I’m exhausted and can’t think straight.”

The footsteps stopped. After a long stretch of silence, she glanced back.

Kiyoshi stared at the floor, the panicked flush fading from his face. The crease between his eyebrows softened as a tired sigh escaped his lips.

“You’re right,” he said quietly. “Sorry.”

He almost looked…depressed. Ayase’s hand weakened on the door handle.

“G-good night, Kiyoshi.”

He shuffled back to the couch, his eyes still downturned. He gave a delayed nod and absently pulled his shirt over his head.

“Night.”

She closed herself inside her room before she could change her mind. Her mind fuzzy with fatigue and emotional overload, she crawled into her futon and pulled the covers up over her head.

She didn’t know how long she lay in the darkness. Her body sank against the mattress as if she were made of lead, but her mind kept spinning inside her skull. Half-formed thoughts sifted away as sleep snatched at them, only to reform like a fog and tumble again.

She thought of Sachi. Little visions of him licking her throat popped up–fueled by the unnatural heat she felt pulsing inside her–but then they faded to more innocuous memories in the mist. His smile. The way he bit his lip when he was nervous. A sudden memory of his face in Touya’s car rushed up, and she tightened her hands into fists under her cheek.

But that, too, faded, and her teeth stopped unconsciously grinding. She tried thinking about happy things. Happy things. The little montage from Zayd’s wedding returned, and she sighed as she let that take over her brain. That was about everyone. Touches and glances and the occasional smile–tiny connections she’d been making without even thinking about it. They were starting to feel different to her. The underlying tension of all those connections–her default since she’d been a little girl–was disappearing. It didn’t feel like a burden or a risk to try to build on those relationships anymore.

It felt like…something she wanted.

Was this how Zayd felt all the time? She didn’t know if his temperament was just leaking into her, but the sensations mixed into her own like sugar melting in tea. They became her. Love was starting to feel like the most natural thing in the world.

Heat tingled between her legs again, but she squeezed her knees together and tried to ignore it. She wouldn’t let it interfere with the strangely freeing sensation in heart. The pleasant, blooming thought of her place in the world–independent but surrounded by others, balanced and loving, growing stronger and building to…

Building to…

The tingling became an ache and her breath caught in her throat. Blood rushed to her face as she pushed the covers off her head. She was too hot. She was too…

She flipped onto her back, panting unconsciously. She blinked her eyes against her blurred vision of the ceiling.

Just finish, she pleaded with Zayd. She choked down a moan.

tap tap tap

It took Ayase a second to realize the rapping came from her door. Her eyes flew down from the ceiling.

tap tap TAP taptaptap

“What?” Ayase gasped, fighting against her covers. “What is it?!”

The door slid open.

Kiyoshi slipped in and slammed the door shut behind him.

Ayase automatically tensed, pulling the comforter against her overheated skin. But before she could say anything, he ran to her futon and dropped to his knees beside her.

“I-it can’t wait,” he breathed, a rasp to the edge of his voice. “I have to tell you now.”

Alarm seized her heart just as warmth spilled between her clenched thighs. She pulled back as he fell forward on his hands, his bare, broad chest looming too close in the dark.

“Kiyoshi,” she squeaked. “G-go back to bed!”

“We could be dead in two days,” he mumbled, his eyes fever-bright in the dark. “Zayd-san’s right. I don’t wanna walk into that fight with any more regrets.” He reached out and gently, achingly, cupped her cheek with a calloused palm.

No, her mind screamed.

“Ayase…I like you, okay? I, um…” He swallowed.

“I think I love you.”

Ayase couldn’t move. As she stared into his eyes, her voice caught in her throat, a thousand buried feelings welled up inside her–unearthed and buoyed by a geyser of unnatural lust.

She tried to speak…but it only came out as a moan.

And then he kissed her, her protests dying inside his mouth.

To be continued in Book 3: Chapter 3, Part 2

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