Something big

Jesse’s fingers fumbled with the tab of the can he was holding, nails not hooking under like he wanted them to. It wasn’t even what he had wanted to drink, often preferring bottles of imported Belgian-style wheat ale his dad favored, but Shintaro had sworn this time that this one guy in his chemistry class’s best friend’s buddy’s girlfriend’s father said this beer was superior to all other alcohols on the market. And that guy never lied according to Shintaro. 

Jesse was on his third can of five Shintaro had thrown into Jesse’s convenience store basket, if he could get the tab open, and he already wanted to water the bushes with the remaining cans. The first can had tasted like cat piss, and the second had done nothing to change his mind about the flavor. Maybe the third would?

“I got it,” Shintaro said. There was a crooked smile across his face, the kind Shintaro often had when he was enjoying Jesse drunk and suffering but had enough mercy to put him out of his misery. He reached over and flicked the tab like an expert, the can cracking open with a satisfying snap.

“How long were you watching me struggle?” Jesse asked, taking a sip. Yeah. Still cat piss.

“The whole time,” Shintaro shrugged. He crushed his fourth can in his hand before going for the last he had purchased.

“Asshole,” Jesse muttered, but it only elicited a grin from Shintaro and Jesse found himself grinning in return.

Jesse had known Shintaro for forever. The two of them had been paired together for an activity in elementary school on the first day, and they had just clicked. It was like a match made in heaven as their humor complimented each other. No matter what their teacher did, it was impossible to separate them. Jesse and Shintaro came together as a packaged deal, and their teachers had struggled to find ways to keep them apart even when they were placed in different homeroom classes over the years. 

Hell, even when they were applying to high schools, they had strategized the best ways to stay together. Shintaro had even given up on his dream school in order to stick closer to Jesse, a fact that Jesse still found astounding to this day. The choice only reinforced their bond in his mind when they walked through the front gate together on their first day of high school. Then again, they were like two halves of the same coin, even if Shintaro was often influenced by other outside sources to consume mediocre alcohol as the clock drifted closer and closer to midnight. Being apart didn’t suit them.

Though they were together more often than separate, it wasn’t every Sunday evening they went drinking in a random neighborhood park. Jesse wasn’t the kind of university student. His parents had instilled good values in him from a young age and to always put his education first. Even with all of his laughter and jokes, often driving his teachers and professors insane, he would always buckle down and study to pass his exams. He had grown up wanting to make his parents proud of him, and he felt that warmth each time he scored well on tests and exams he had been expecting to fail.

Though he was enjoying himself, sitting on a park bench and drinking the worst beer of his life, there was still something clawing at Jesse’s stomach as he crushed his third can.

“Hey.” Shintaro nudged Jesse’s side. “It’s gonna be fine. Your mom isn’t gonna hate you for missing one dinner.”

It was family tradition at this point. Every autumn, especially since Jesse had moved out to attend university, he had come home for a special family dinner. His mom cooked all of her family’s traditional Japanese recipes, and she would tell him and his father stories from her childhood of her brother and grandparents. Jesse oddly looked forward to it even though he had heard the story of how Uncle Hiiro stole his mother’s glasses for the twentieth time. It made his mom happy, so it made him happy as well. 

Jesse had always thought it was strange, only hearing stories of these people but never meeting them. Hell, his father’s family lived in the U.S., and he had still met them a handful of times over his life. He had no idea if he had any Japanese cousins from his mother’s side of the family or not. He had tried pressing her to meet them a few years ago, but his mother’s lips had only been drawn into a straight line the more he asked. In the end, her only response being they were now “unreachable,” and Jesse had never pressed the issue further. He didn’t want to cause her any pain from whatever had happened.

The dinner was supposed to be that evening. He would have been sitting at home, hearing the same stories then spending the night and commuting to classes the next morning, but Shintaro had reached out to him in a panic as Jesse had been gathering an overnight bag. Jesse hadn’t quite understood every word out of Shintaro’s mouth. Something about how his older brother had been arrested, and his parents were at the station trying to convince the police officers to let his brother out on bail. Shintaro hadn’t wanted to wait for more news alone and had begged Jesse to drink with him to take away the nerves. And, well, Jesse was nothing but a good friend. 

Jesse hadn’t checked his phone since he sent off a text to his mother letting her know he had to be there for his friend. He already knew how she would have responded, a subtle disappointment hidden behind her kind words, but reading the exact phrasing was something Jesse wanted to avoid. He would handle apologizing in the morning.

Shintaro’s phone buzzed, and Jesse heard him scramble to check it. There was a small shout, Jesse hushing him as he managed to crack open his fourth can, and the sounds of Shintaro’s iPhone hitting the dirt beneath him. Jesse just waited, trying to enjoy what some people deemed as “beer,” until a sigh of relief came from his friend. 

“Ryutaro is fine,” Shintaro said, sinking further down on the bench in relief. “They found the guy who actually set fire to that preschool.”

What Shintaro said took a moment to connect with Jesse’s alcohol clouded brain. “Wait. Your brother was accused of arson?” Jesse’s words came out a little too loud. “Shouldn’t you have led with that when you asked me to hang out?” 

“Jesse. My buddy. My man. My dude. My half-American bro. What have I always told you, my dearest darlingest popsicle?” Shintaro said, slinging an arm around Jesse’s shoulder. His eyebrows were wiggling in a way that Jesse knew what he was about to say was incredibly stupid. “You never tell your drinking buddy your sibling is an alleged arsonist when asking them out, my dude. Mi amigo, you wait until you’re drunk off your ass to do that.” 

Jesse just stared at Shintaro until the other man awkwardly laughed, picking up that his joke had not been in good taste. “Uh, you drinking your last can?” Shintaro asked.

“Take it,” Jesse said, passing it over the unopened can. After a beat he spoke again. “I should have known it would be something dumb your brother got arrested for.”

He still remembered back when Ryutaro was a high school student. He had gotten in with a questionable crowd and had been caught smoking underage. His school had a strict no drug policy, and he had gotten himself swiftly kicked out of the establishment within hours of the news dropping. Ryutaro had managed to find his way into a new school the next year, but strings of bad luck had followed him ever since. 

A bar across the street from the park caught Jesse’s attention at that moment, and it took all of his drunken power to not snort with laughter at the name of it. rocks? Who in their right mind would name their bar rocks? It felt like the biggest joke on the planet, and he knew instantly Shintaro would love it. 

“At least Ryu didn’t open a bar and name it something dumb like that one,” Jesse said, motioning in the direction of said establishment before downing the last of his fourth and now final can of shitty beer. 

“…Jesse, what the fuck are you talking about?” Shintaro said once Jesse was done, can crushed in his hand. “There’s no bar there.”

But it was there. Jesse confirmed it with a second glance. The same all black exterior, frosted windows, and crisscrossing metal bars over the windows like Jesse had seen over apartment windows in New York City. The sign of the bar was classy, done in a cursive font that he was surprised that most Japanese people could read, but perhaps it was meant to be stylish instead of legible. There was a soft glow coming from the windows that hinted the bar was still open despite it being close to or even past midnight at this point. 

“But it's right there,” Jesse said, confusion spreading into every word he spoke.

Shintaro squinted, his eyes focusing hard on the street across from them before his gaze shifted back to Jesse. “I think you might have had a bit too much to drink,” he said. Shintaro started gathering the empty cans and stuffing them back into the plastic convenience store bag. “Come on. Let’s get back to my place, so you can sleep all of this off before school tomorrow.” 

An anger flared up in Jesse’s stomach, boiling its way up his throat and into his nose. There had been plenty of jokes between the two of them that had gone on for too long, even too long for Jesse himself, but Shintaro always knew when to cut him off before it became too much. Jesse had expected his friend to stop, to laugh and agree that rocks was a silly name. The fact that he hadn’t was becoming more infuriating by the second.

“Dude, stop pretending,” Jesse said. He grabbed onto Shintaro’s shoulder and used his free hand to point in the direction of the bar. “I’m telling you it’s right-”

“HOW DID YOU DO THAT?”

Jesse blinked. “What?”

“Jesse, what kind of weirdo psychic magic did you just do?” Shintaro said. His gaze kept flicking back between the bar and Jesse.

“What are you talking about? I didn’t do anything.”

“Stop playing with me.” Jesse could feel the fear seeping into Shintaro’s words. “I swear on my bro’s life that bar wasn’t there a second ago.”

He let go of Shintaro’s shoulder, taking a few steps back. What in the world was going on. He knew Shintaro, knew him better than the back of his own hand, and Shintaro didn’t play act like this. There was always this charm, this knowing smirk when he was pretending. This kind of fear wasn’t something Jesse experienced too often. His friend was legitimately frightened.

Shintaro blinked a few more times before he shot across the small distance between them, clinging to Jesse like a tree. “NOW IT'S GONE. WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?”

“I didn’t do anything, you idiot. Get off of me,” Jesse growled. He tried to pry Shintaro’s arms and leg from around his midsection, but it only made Shintaro cling harder to him.

“I don’t wanna die,” Shintaro all but shrieked. “I’m too young! Ghost people, let me ask out that girl from sociology before you murder me. I need to know if she likes meeeeeeee.”

“Shin, calm down,” Jesse hissed. He cupped Shintaro’s face, forcing the other man to look him in the eyes and not in the direction of the bar. “You’re gonna wake up the neighborhood at this point and get the police called on us.” 

All at once, it was like the gears started working once more in Shintaro’s head, and he freed Jesse from his clutches. “Oh yeah. That wouldn’t be good.”

It felt like Jesse could breathe again, but with the alcohol clouding his system, his brain couldn’t keep up with all of the thoughts racing through it. There was a mystery floating around them that needed solving. There was a bar in a random Tokyo neighborhood that he could see but Shintaro could only sometimes see. As far as he was aware, they were both completely and utterly normal human beings. There was no logical difference that explained it at all.

Jesse was surprised that he noticed it, his thoughts distracting him to even Shintaro’s panicking circling around him, but it was a small flash of light that drew his attention. The door to the bar had opened, flooding a bit of the street with light as a figure stepped out and closed the door swiftly behind them. They didn’t move to go home or do whatever patrons of strange bars did after leaving its establishment. Just whipped out a phone and started texting.

“Shin,” Jesse hissed before smacking his friend’s arm to get his attention. “Shin, there’s someone there.”

“Huh?” 

“Someone’s there,” Jesse hissed once more. “They just came out of the weird bar.”

They had been friends for too long. Shintaro already knew how the wheels in Jesse’s brain were turning before he even spoke his plans. “Jesse, no. It’s a weird bar in a weird park in a weird part of Tokyo. You don’t know them. You’re gonna get yourself killed.”

“I’m gonna go and talk to them.”

“Jesse, no!” Shintaro shouted in response, but Jesse was already halfway across the park. He heard Shintaro scrambling behind him, trying to gather all of their trash, before rushing after him.

The closer Jesse got to the strange figure, the more he realized how young they were. They couldn’t have been older than fourteen and hardly came up to Jesse’s chest. Not to mention it had to be after midnight at this point. Wasn’t there a curfew in place for middle school students? Where were this kid’s parents? So many questions were floating through Jesse’s brain, but his mind chose another to ask instead. 

“Aren’t you a little young to be going to a bar?” 

The kid jumped, and it was the first time Jesse got a good look at the kid’s face. He had a round face and big round honest eyes. He watched as fear consumed them before they quickly shifted to complete and utter confusion.

“How…how can you see me?” the kid asked. “You’re human, and I haven’t left the illusion yet.” 

There was an illusion on this place? But that was the stuff of fantasy. Things like that didn’t exist in the real world.

“You’re as clear as day, kid.” A thought passed through Jesse’s head. Maybe this kid was just a figment of his imagination, something he was making up. Maybe this was just a sign of his mental state completely breaking down due to shitty alcohol. Other people had lost all cognitive reason due to less, right? Maybe that’s why his mother never told him stories about the Japanese half of his family? They all suffered mental breakdowns, and he was next in line. But wasn’t that something you needed to medically disclose to your son?

But something clicked in his head at that moment. Something that the kid had pointed out that was incredibly odd to say. “Wait,” Jesse said, shaking his head. “What do you mean? Both of us are human beings.” 

“Jesse, who are you talking to?” Shintaro asked. In his hands clutched his and Jesse’s shopping bags of empty alcohol cans.

“Uh, there’s a kid here,” Jesse said, pointing at the smaller boy in front of him, but the kid just sighed.

“He can’t see nor hear me,” the kid said. “I’m invisible to him because he’s just a human.”

Jesse motioned to himself and the kid in front of the bar. “But we’re both humans.”

“No shit,” Shintaro said. “I’m human. You’re human. Everyone on this planet is human.”

There had to be a way to get Shintaro to see this kid. He had seen the bar. He had acknowledged that it existed, but what had Shintaro done in order to see it? They had sat in the park. Jesse had thought that Shintaro was joking with him. Jesse had gotten angry then reached out and grabbed Shintaro’s shoulder. Shintaro saw the bar and then-

Jesse reached out and grabbed Shintaro’s wrist, and he watched as the dawning realization hit him like a load of bricks that a teenager had appeared from thin air.

“What the fucking shit balls magic sorcery is going on here? Where the fuck did you come from you little-” Shintaro kept shouting obscenities from behind Jesse’s hand, and the kid looked at both of them with a strange expression on his face. 

“Who are you?” the kid asked. “I’ve never met a human like you before.”

“I’m just Jesse,” he said, taking back his hand from Shintaro’s mouth the second he felt his best friend lick it. Jesse wiped his hand on Shintaro’s pants.

“Well, Just Jesse, I have no idea how you can see me or rocks. I haven’t learned that much yet, but maybe the owner can help you?” The kid tapped twice on the door, and it opened for him. “Come on. I’ll introduce you.” 

Jesse looked over at Shintaro, the other man shaking his head no as if not to follow, but Jesse ignored him. He was going to learn what was happening to him or die trying. Shintaro followed not long after him, closing the door behind him. 

The inside of the bar was as classy as the exterior and was perhaps the fanciest establishment Jesse had ever seen. The interior furniture was all black with accents of gold detailing. There were a few chandeliers hanging from the ceiling with the lights burning low, giving the room a dark but moody atmosphere. Clusters of four stuffed armchairs were scattered across the floor with low tables in the center of each grouping for customers to place their drinks upon. The walls had half circle booths lining them and on the right side was a long bar, and Jesse spotted a staircase heading up to the second floor.

The strangest part was the man behind the bar, polishing tall crystal glasses. He had a small frame, but he was covered in jewelry. His neck had at least four chunky necklaces, his wrists weighed down with bracelets with at least three pairs of earrings dangling from his ears, and Jesse could hardly count the amount of rings the bartender had. His golden hair was styled into curtain bangs and cut a shorter length, and, despite the low lighting of the bar, he had sunglasses hanging halfway down his nose.

“Ren-chan, I told you your lesson was over for the day,” the man said, holding a glass up to the light to check for smudges. “Go home. Your parents are probably worried because I kept you out so late.” 

“But I think your illusion is malfunctioning, Juri,” the boy, Ren, said. He pointed at Jesse. “That human saw me through it. He can see your magic den, too.” 

Juri placed the glass down, his vision bearing down into Jesse. He whipped the towel he had been using over his shoulder as he came out from behind the bar. The closer Juri came over, the faster Jesse’s heart was beating in his chest. This was it. This had to be the moment where he would learn exactly what was going on. This Juri guy didn’t look like a doctor, at least any kind that Jesse had been to as a kid, but he had to know something.

Juri’s gaze was intense as he stood in front of Jesse, hardly a few feet in front of him. His eyes never lingered for too long on a part of Jesse’s tall frame, but Jesse had no idea what the bartender was even looking for. A mole? A scar? Some kind of abnormality on the little skin Jesse was showing? Maybe even if his posture was slightly off? He only hoped that this wouldn’t take too much more time.

“Hey, so, if you could not kill either of us, that would be great,” Shintaro said as Juri continued to appraise Jesse.

“I’m not going to kill you,” Juri said, pushing his sunglasses up to the top of his nose. “I’m not well versed in magic law, but I’m fairly certain there’s rules against killing humans. Besides,” his gaze shifted to Shintaro, “I’d get blood on the carpet. That’s bad for business.”

“Magic?” Jesse laughed. “Magic’s not real.”

“It’s not?” Juri asked.

Jesse felt someone tap him on the shoulder, and when he turned to look Juri was somehow behind him. He scrambled away. In his rush, Jesse tripped on one of the armchairs and went tumbling to the ground.

“How, you, but you were over, but, how?” the words kept flowing through Jesse’s mouth, but he could never complete a full sentence. 

“Magic is very much real, you silly human,” Juri said, stepping over Jesse’s gangly limbs so he could crouch next to him. “It’s why I’ve illusioned my bar so heavily, so I don’t have to be the one to explain how magic society can exist at the fringes of your little human one.” Juri’s long fingers grabbed Jesse by the collar, tugging him up so they were eye level. “Our stories, our history, are not little games for you to treat like novelties. Now get out-”

“I kind of like him, Juri,” Ren said, butting into Juri’s little speech and making the bartender stop. “You have to admit that he’s pretty unique for a human. No one from his kind has ever seen your magic den before.”

There was that word again. Magic den. Ren had said it earlier, but it was the first time it had really latched itself into Jesse’s brain.

Juri’s focus had shifted elsewhere, his grip on Jesse’s clothing lessening, so he took the time to free himself. He inched away from Juri’s clutches and wobbled his way back into a standing position thanks to one of the armchairs.

“But, Ren, I’m not going to be the one to explain everything to-” 

“Then don’t,” the kid said, the softest smile gracing his lips. “Don’t you have that lion line friend of yours that’s pretty powerful? You can always ask him to help. You know he would if you asked.”

Jesse watched as Juri sighed, his features softening with Ren’s words. There was a gentleness that hadn’t been there before, and there was almost the hint of a smile. Almost. It could have been a trick of the light or the angle of Juri’s face in Jesse’s vision. “But that means the two of them have to come back.”

“And?” Ren said, his expression only turning purer as he continued to speak. “Aren’t you always telling me to be nice to the humans at my school? You should practice the kindness that you tell me to have, too, Juri of the Fox Line.” 

Juri continued to crumble, the rough expression on his face melting away with every retort that Ren gave. He seemed to be fumbling for any bit of rational logic to continue to deny them but was failing at every turn within his mind. Every argument he gave, Ren had an answer for, and Jesse was cheering for the kid in his head. Luckily, Ren had an ace up his sleeve.

“If you don’t help, I’ll tell your mother you were being mean to humans,” Ren said.

Juri waved his hand and, within it, two dog tags appeared. “Do not,” he said, passing one to Jesse and the other to Shintaro, “under any circumstances bring any of your human friends here. These tags are for you and you only to get back into rocks. That’s it.” He eyes them both. “I’ll ask my friend why you can see my magic den and if he has an answer for it. After he finds the answer, I’m taking the tags back. Got it?” 

Jesse and Shintaro both nodded.

“Now get out. All three of you. I still have work to do.” Juri snapped his fingers, and the door to the bar-magic den?-opened, and Jesse wasted no time in exiting.

Once on the street, Jesse couldn’t help but ruffle Ren’s hair. “Nice going, little man. I don’t know why you did that, but I appreciate the help.” 

“That dude was so scary,” Shintaro said, and Jesse could hear the empty beer cans rattling around in the bags Shintaro was still clutching. “How do you put up with him?” 

Ren just laughed. “Juri isn’t that bad. He just likes to look scary. You’ll get used to him, don’t worry.” He gave a little wave. “It was nice meeting the two of you. Maybe we’ll see each other again one day.” 

Jesse gave the kid a wave before he blinked and suddenly the kid was gone.

“That was so weird,” Shintaro said. “I really hope this is all one big weird dream.” 

Jesse looked down to the dog tag he was still clutching, one side holding the cursive script design of rocks’ logo on it with a fox outline on the left side.

“Something tells me,” Jesse said slowly, his thumb swiping over the indented lettering, “that this is just the beginning of something big.”

Shintaro was still passed out when Jesse woke the next morning, mumbling something about flying cake when Jesse tried to wake him up. Jesse let him sleep and quickly got ready for his ten a.m. class. When he was halfway to class, Jesse would send Shintaro a text letting him know where he had disappeared to.

The walk from Shintaro’s apartment to the medicine and health sciences building wasn’t long, no more than fifteen minutes, and Jesse had enough time to pop into a convenience store for an orange juice and a package of fluffy pancakes from the bread aisle to tide himself over until lunch. Today would be fine. Everything was fine. 

Those words became his mantra as he weaved his way around his fellow university students, the events from the previous night replaying in his head. The mysterious appearance of that magic den, Ren’s confusion, and the display that magic was somehow real. He didn’t know how, but it was. When Jesse had awoken, the dog tag was still clutched in his hand, the swooping cursive writing still etched into the metal along with the fox. It was the one tangible bit of proof that everything that happened hadn’t been a dream.

The thought it could be a prank entered Jesse’s mind as he crossed the threshold of his major’s building. It had all of the makings of an incredible hoax. Shintaro could have hired both men as actors for one of his biggest pranks ever. He had done something similar in the past with much less success. Not to mention Jesse had been drinking the night before, so it could have been possible for Juri to switch positions without Jesse noticing in his drunken stupor.

But, even then, Jesse didn’t doubt his memory and the turn of events. Juri had been too far to make that leap behind Jesse. It was a blink of the eye kind of movement that even the world’s fastest human couldn’t achieve. Which meant-

Jesse shook the thought from his head as he entered his anatomy class. There was no way he could think about this right now. He needed to keep his mind sharp for today’s lecture. His professor had already hinted at a pop quiz in Friday’s class the week before, and the subject matter for today’s lecture would most definitely be on it. He needed to keep his grades up if he had any chance of getting into a good medical school. 

But a familiar hand on Jesse’s shoulder tugged his attention, the low voice of its owner sending a strange beat through his heart. 

“Jesse…are you okay?”

He whipped his head around, his jaw dropping. “Hokuto, what are you doing here?”

Hokuto had been a part of Jesse’s life since his first day at university. Jesse, Shintaro, and their high school friend, Kochi, had all moved into the same dorm building, and Hokuto had just kind of…appeared out of nowhere. He clung to Jesse’s side as if he had always been there, and Jesse didn’t see a reason to turn Hokuto away. The handsome, bookish Japanese kid seemed sweet, and, when he let his personality out, was ridiculously funny as well. No one else seemed to reject the new addition, so their trio swiftly turned into a foursome, spending lunch together more often than not. 

Hokuto settled into the seat next to Jesse on the back row, shedding his backpack and depositing it on the floor next to him. He was dressed in his signature checkerboard bomber jacket and had accessorized with magenta loafers that day. His pants had slits at the knee, so Jesse could see how they bent. “You didn’t hear me call after you? You looked a bit out of it, so I was worried.” 

Hokuto had been trying to call out to him? Jesse racked his brain, trying to pull a memory, anything, from his brain but came up with nothing. He had always prided himself on being able to pick Hokuto’s voice out from a crowd of people and not being able to remember this hurt him more than he imagined.

“Something crazy happened last night,” Jesse said. He opened his own backpack, getting out his notebook and pencil case as Hokuto got out his own supplies. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me,” Hokuto said as he stifled a yawn.

Jesse raised his eyebrow. “Are you okay? You usually go to bed so early.”

“Late night phone call,” was Hokuto’s response, and he didn’t offer any more information than that.

The statement made Jesse pause. Outside of their group of four, it didn’t seem like Hokuto had many friends. Jesse had seen his fair share of women, and a few men, approach Hokuto with the intention of asking his friend out. Even in his quirkiness, there was a beauty and elegance to Hokuto that Jesse couldn’t help but admire. But there was a firm wall that Hokuto had erected between himself and those around him, and his social circle remained small and compact. It begged the question, who had he been talking to?

A thought hit Jesse over the head as his professor came into the room, voice loud and commanding as they brought order to their classroom. 

“Wait,” Jesse hissed between his teeth. “What are you doing here? You’re a political science major, and you’re not signed up for this class.”

Hokuto only shushed him as the professor started the lecture on muscles pertaining to the leg.

The two hour class passed excruciatingly slowly, the words Jesse’s professor said floating in one ear, traveling the course of his body to his hand to be written down on the page in front of him. His brain couldn’t process the information with Hokuto sitting at the desk next to him. Jesse risked a few glances over throughout the lecture, seeing how intrigued Hokuto looked throughout the class, scribbling a word here or there in his notebook. 

The past twenty-four hours was starting to feel more and more as if Jesse had entered an alternate dimension. Ever since high school, he had known that his calling in life was to be a doctor. Jesse wanted to help people in any way that he could. His father had been thrilled, his mother not so much, but she still expressed her joy at him deciding what he wanted to do with his life.

It meant long hours of studying and more tests a month than Jesse had fingers and toes. Hokuto had often been the one helping Jesse study for his exams, Kochi and Shintaro hardly able to pronounce the complicated words on Jesse’s notecards. Not that Jesse could read them either. His textbooks were littered with his cramped hiragana above each difficult kanji. It was his process to help him learn and remember the readings of the complicated characters.

His life had been so by the textbook that these little anomalies popping up concerned him to his very soul. He would have never imagined Hokuto studying muscles next to him nor learning that magic was real. The only logical explanation to this all was he had slid into a different multiverse once the clock hit midnight, and Jesse was now living the life of another one of his counterparts. That was what had happened, and he would roll with it…somehow. 

When his professor dismissed them at noon, Jesse stuffed his belongings back in his bag before grabbing Hokuto’s hand as his friend stood up to leave.

“Now, now, dear Hokuto,” he said, lacing his fingers with his friend’s. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Hokuto smiled, giving Jesse’s hand a tight squeeze before letting it go. “I knew your major was interesting, but I hadn’t realized how fascinating it was until now. I can see why you love it so much,” he said as he melted in with the other students leaving to go to their next class or lunch. 

Jesse stood stunned for a moment before collecting himself and hurrying after Hokuto. Under any normal circumstances, what Hokuto said would be fine. There were plenty of Jesse’s classmates who would bring partners or underclassmen friends in to get a taste of what the upper level professors were like. Jesse’s anatomy teacher was the one outlier. Jesse had never known them to accept a student not on the class list. 

“How did you do that?” he asked once he had caught up to Hokuto.

“Do what?”

“Sit in on that class,” Jesse said.

“Jesse Lewis, you would be surprised at the opportunities you get when you show kindness to the people around you,” Hokuto said as he opened the door to the dining hall.

Shintaro and Kochi were already at their usual table in the corner, lunches half consumed in front of them. They were bickering about something, he didn’t care to listen to what exactly. Jesse dropped off his bag at their table before going to join the lunch line with Hokuto. They spent the better part of the wait cracking jokes if the new “stamina yakiniku rice bowl” on the menu would instantly inflate their muscles or if it still required gym time. In the end, Jesse ordered his usual fried chicken, rice, miso soup, and sides with Hokuto copying his exact order. 

The table was oddly quiet when they returned. Too quiet. Hokuto didn’t say a thing. He only pulled out a small novel from his backpack. Hokuto had always preferred to read during lunch, his books always covered by the same nondescript paper covering bookstores offered with each book purchase, and chimed into the conversation when necessary. Jesse didn’t mind. He liked imagining what sort of dirty romance novels Hokuto enjoyed while chaos surrounded him on all sides. But the lack of boisterous energy from the other two at the table was concerning to Jesse.

“Everything alright?” Jesse asked, eyeing the two across the table from him.

Shintaro spoke first. “Tell him I’m not lying!”

“Oh, come on, grow up!” Kochi snapped. “You had a drunken dream.”

“It wasn’t a dream!” Shintaro said, his voice rising in pitch with every word. “I know what I saw, and Jesse was there, too. Right, Jesse?” 

Out of the corner of his eyes, Jesse saw Hokuto do a little spiral with his chopsticks, his eyes concentrating on the food in front of him. His tongue darted out, licking his lips, before settling on which piece of chicken he wanted to eat next. 

“I need a little more context before I agree with either of you,” Jesse said. 

Shintaro leaned forward, his voice barely hissing from between his teeth. “It’s about the magic.”

“Dude, stop acting so childish for once in your life,” Kochi huffed. “Magic isn’t real. It’s the stuff of fairytales.”

Shintaro’s eyes were pleading, desperate almost, and Jesse couldn’t bear to let his best friend look like a complete and utter fool. “But Shin is right,” Jesse said. “Magic is real. We both experienced it last night.”

Kochi sighed and pushed his lunch tray forward, it bumping into Hokuto’s and sending his soup sloshing around the tiny bowl. “You’re both drunk! Or on the tail end of a bad trip or something.”

“I don’t do drugs. I’m perfectly sane,” Shintaro muttered.

“Sorry, I forgot about that,” Kochi apologized, wincing at Shintaro’s words before continuing his rant. “I know we’re all hardly considered real adults by society’s standards, but you have to learn to separate dreams from the reality of the situation,” Kochi said. “You both got drunk last night. You both obviously had some kind of weird connected dream, and you woke up convinced that magic is real.”

“But it is real!” Shintaro whined, but Jesse only saw Kochi’s annoyance continue to flare.

“It. Is. Not!” Kochi’s hand slapped the table, and Jesse felt himself jolt up from the sudden sound. Kochi turned to face Hokuto who was across from him. “Hokuto, you’re logical and a decent human being. Tell them magic isn’t real.” 

Hokuto paused in his chewing, a half-eaten piece of chicken perched between his chopsticks. If he was invested in any part of the argument, his face didn’t show it. He took his time chewing then swallowing, Jesse’s eyes following the movement of Hokuto’s neck as he swallowed before returning to Hokuto’s face.

“But it is real,” Hokuto said before plopping the other half of his fried chicken in his mouth.

For a moment, just a moment, no one said a thing. If there hadn’t been a symphony of noise around them, their fellow students talking and shouting their conversations at surrounding tables, you could have heard a pin drop amongst the four of them. Three sets of eyes glued to Hokuto as he stayed engaged with his novel until things descended into a chaotic swirl of voices all speaking at once.

“I FUCKING TOLD YOU IT WAS REAL, YOU LITTLE-”

“Hokuto, come on, not you, too! You can’t keep playing into their-” 

“Wait, why are you agreeing with us? This doesn’t make any-” 

Hokuto turned the page of his book. Jesse saw how he read a few lines, his lips mouthing the words, and at the end Hokuto gave another little wave of his chopsticks. When the movement was complete, Jesse felt something within his throat change, and, no matter how he tried to speak, not a single word would fall from his lips.

Hokuto sighed, a serene smile gracing his lips. “Much better.”

Jesse looked across the table, Kochi gripping his own throat as fear clung to his eyes. Shintaro’s gaze kept flicking between the other three at the table.

“Now, if the three of you promise to not make utter fools of yourselves, I’ll release the spell on your voice boxes, so you can speak,” Hokuto said. “I’m sure you all have a lot of questions. There’s a barrier spell around us all, so we can speak freely without being listened in on.”

When he received a nod from each of them, Hokuto waved his chopsticks once more. Jesse felt his throat release, and he could speak once more.

“What kind of weird and twisted world did I just enter?” Jesse heard Kochi mutter under his breath. 

“A magical one,” Shintaro said, earning a glare from Kochi. 

“Hokuto,” Jesse said, his voice oddly soft, “what in the world are you?”

“The same as you,” Hokuto said.

“Yeah, you’re human. We’re all human,” Kochi said, elbows on the table with his face in his hands. He groaned loudly. “When did all of my friends turn into drunken idiots? I wasn’t made for this!”

Hokuto’s voice was firm when he spoke, a fire burning in his eyes that Jesse had never seen before. His words were like flames when he spoke, each one catching onto Kochi and making the oldest of the group jump in order to avoid getting burned. “I am not human. I’m magic.” Hokuto discarded his chopsticks, the wood clattering to the tray as he continued to speak. “I come from powerful lines with seats in Shizuoka and Tokyo. The idea that my family could be anything but magic is a disrespect to all those who came before me.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Kochi said, his hands clasped together. “I didn’t mean that at all.” 

Shintaro’s eyes were practically sparkling. “So you’re, like, super powerful or something?”

“I…I am.” Hokuto’s voice sounded unsure as he spoke. “If magic lines are to be believed, I’m powerful. Compared to a squirrel or a rabbit, of course.”

The more Jesse’s friends spoke around him, the more his world continued to crumble. Hokuto had been magic since the day they met? Had he seen these pitiful people around him and only saw them as a joke? Something to pass the time? Jesse knew in his heart this wasn’t the truth. Hokuto was their friend. He had proved it time and time again over the years, but why hold onto this big of a secret after so long? 

“Jesse.” The way Hokuto said his name was so soft, so gentle. It was caressed as if it was the most precious thing in the world, and Jesse couldn’t ignore its call to him. “This doesn’t change anything. You’re still the same person we all became friends with.”

Hokuto’s words weren’t connecting to his brain. What did that mean? Of course Jesse was the same person that he was. Nothing had changed about him except the mysterious circumstances from last night. 

“I’ve been waiting years for you to realize your capabilities, and, now that it’s finally leaking out, I’m sure that there’s a lot of confusion bouncing around in your head,” Hokuto continued to ramble, but Jesse cut him off.

“Hokuto, what do you mean?” he asked.

“Jesse…you’re magic.”

The world around him seemed to fracture into a thousand pieces. Magic? Wouldn’t he have known if he was magic? From the few magic individuals that Jesse had met, they all seemed to be able to do these incredible things. Juri could teleport around a room and was training that Ren kid. So that Ren could probably do something incredible. Jesse wasn’t sure what that was, but it definitely existed. And Hokuto? Hokuto could do spells with a flick of his wrist. All Jesse could do was see strange bars at midnight in Tokyo. That couldn’t make him magic. It just made him an anomaly.

“Not every magic being can sense your power,” Hokuto said, taking Jesse’s hand in his. His light touch traced the knuckles of Jesse’s hand. “My lineage has been trained since the dawn of the ten brothers to sense the power in magic beings. Your magic has always been there, hidden behind a block, but it’s been there.” The skin of Jesse’s hand began to tingle until a red light lit up beneath his fingertips, spreading across the veins of his hands and following them through his whole body. With a wave of Hokuto’s hand, the red light died out as quickly as it had appeared. “Your magic exists deep within you, but the block bars access to you being able to use it. I sensed it the first day I met you, and I knew you would have questions the moment the block started to fade. Someone needed to explain what you were, and I knew I had to be the person to do it.”

“This is crazy!” Kochi butted in.

“It is kind of insane, not gonna lie,” Shintaro said.

“But it’s true,” Hokuto said, brows furrowed. “I’ve been waiting for Jesse to start exhibiting some kind of magical ability. Now that his magic is starting to seep out, it’s time.”

When Jesse’s voice came out, it was hardly an audible whisper. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

Hokuto bit his lip, his gaze drifting before he met Jesse’s eyes once more. “Sometimes…sometimes it’s better to spend time away from this world. It is a cruel and difficult place to grow up. I wouldn’t blame your family for not wanting to be a part of it. If I hadn’t been born into my line, I would have completely left a long time ago.” He sighed. “But now that your magic is being released, we have to move fast. If you’ll let me, I would love to teach you the side of magic society that I love and adore.”

The sentiment in Hokuto’s words made Jesse’s heart flutter though he wasn’t quite sure why.

“Let’s talk more after our classes today,” Hokuto said. “All four of us. I know a place we can go where we won’t be disturbed by humans.”

“I thought I warned you,” Juri said the moment Jesse walked into rocks, Kochi right at his heels, “no more humans besides the two of you.” Juri was dressed up compared to the last time Jesse had come into the magic den, an all black attire of slacks, button up dress shirt, and suit jacket on. He even had a tie, but his accessories still remained. He was still weighed down with enough bracelets, necklaces, rings and earrings to fund a small nation’s economy. 

“At least we didn’t double the number of us,” Shintaro said, stepping through the threshold after Kochi. “You know what they say in America! ‘Double entendre, double the fun!’”

“They don’t say that in the U.S. Don’t listen to him,” Jesse stage whispered behind his hand, earning a loud “HEY!” from Shintaro.

Jesse watched as the annoyance flared up on Juri’s features, collecting at his nose, mouth ready to form more cutting remarks, but everything faded the moment Hokuto followed Shintaro through the front door. “You’re early!”

“Early?” Shintaro asked, sliding sideways into one of the armchairs closest to the bar, legs dangling off of the arms. Jesse watched as Kochi wandered around the inside of the magic den, mouth agape at the décor. “You two know each other or something?” 

“We went to school together,” Hokuto began before Juri jumped in.

“Hokuto moved here from Shizuoka when we were young,” Juri said, and Jesse saw something—admiration?— shining in Juri’s eyes. “We studied at the same schools until Hokuto left to study at a human high school.” His nose crinkled at the word ‘human.’ “If anyone can find out why there are three stinky humans in my-”

“Excuse!” Shintaro said, hand over his heart is fake aghast. “There are only two normal smelling humans in this bar-”

“Magic den,” Juri cut in, earning a roll of the eyes from Shintaro. 

“Sorry. Two normal humans in this magic den,” Shintaro finished.

“You mean to tell me that he’s magic?” Juri asked, gesturing over to Kochi who had gotten up onto one of the low tables and was prodding at a chandelier.

Jesse raised his hand. “That would be me apparently.”

Juri stared at Jesse. He stared at him as if Jesse had spouted three heads and an additional five eyeballs scattered around his forehead. It was as if Juri had been given a thousand piece puzzle and was told to solve it only by bouncing the pieces together. The sight before him appeared to be such a confusing conundrum that, no matter how he attacked the problem in his head, there was no possible solution. 

“But-”

“Trust me, Juri. He’s just like us,” Hokuto said, coming farther into the den. He took a seat at one of the barstools, and he dropped his backpack on the floor next to him. “Jesse only lacks access to his magic.”

Juri’s rough and stern exterior cracked for just a moment and he sighed with such sweet relief. “I was worried there was something wrong with my magic,” Juri said. He raised one of his hands, stretching it up to the lighting and his gaze followed the movement. “I thought I was broken.” He sighed once more, his hand returning to the bar. “This does make things easier since you know Hokuto of the Lion Line."

“Uh, don’t you mean Matsumura Hokuto of the Lion Line?” Kochi asked. A mass of tiny light bulbs was clutched in one of his hands, the other in the middle of unscrewing another to add to his growing collection.

Juri’s mouth opened, a scornful word ready to launch in the air, but Hokuto beat him to it once more. “In magic society, we don’t have last names. It’s something we choose in order to blend in with humans.” He tapped on the counter. “Juri, my usual, please,” Hokuto said.

Juri grumbled but began to fill whatever Hokuto ordered.

“My family chose the last name ‘Matsumura’ in order to appear normal to humans, and, when I came of age, I decided to follow in their footsteps and keep that last name. Juri on the other hand,” Hokuto gestured to the bartender concocting a drink that appeared to be the blackest night sky riddled with stars, “and his family have chosen the human last name ‘Tanaka’ throughout their generations. In magic society, we are addressed by our given names at birth and which magic line we were born into.”

“Isn’t that needlessly….confusing?” Jesse asked, inching closer to the bar as Juri added a blue syrup to the drink that sent a swirl of purple galaxies through the glass. “I mean what if there are two Hokutos in the lion line or wherever you’re from. Wouldn’t a last name help distinguish one from the other?”

“These ideals and practices began when our society was small,” Hokuto explained. Juri finished up the drink with a sprinkling of red powder that, when swirled in, added the sweetest aroma Jesse had ever smelled. “It’s the tradition families continue to cling to despite the magic community growing larger each year.”

The drink was placed upon the bar, and Hokuto picked it up. He breathed in the scent of it before offering it to Jesse. “I’ve gone to countless other dens in the city, but nothing compares to the concoctions Juri creates here.” 

Jesse took the glass from Hokuto, their fingers brushing ever so slightly, before taking the smallest sip. The flavor was unlike anything he had ever tasted, a sweetness so mild but a flavor that consumed his very being. It felt as if Jesse had been ripped from his body and thrown thousands of miles in the air, his body caressed and held by a hundred stars as the planets slowly turned before his eyes.

He felt Hokuto take his drink back as starlight continued to twinkle before Jesse’s eyes. “Incredible, isn’t it?” Hokuto asked, taking his own sip. “No human drink can ever compare to one made in a magic den.” 

“Can I try one, too?” Shintaro asked, but Juri’s response was swift and cutting. 

“When you start exhibiting magical abilities, you can try my drinks,” he said, and Shintaro deflated on the armchair.

“How about me?” Kochi had claimed the low table in front of Shintaro and looked as if he was setting up some kind of checkers game, just missing the standard play mat. He threw one of the ten light bulbs he had collected, hitting Shintaro in the thigh, before motioning for Shintaro to join him on the floor.

“I feel like I’m babysitting a kindergarten full of children.” Juri rolled his eyes. “Honestly, Hokuto, how have you survived so long in the human world? I would go insane having to deal with all of these people.” 

Jesse felt himself slowly return to his body, a gentle downward rocking motion as he blinked the stars from his lashes. “Hey, we’re not that bad!” he said. “Sometimes Shin does a cartwheel and almost doesn’t kick Kochi in the face.”

“I had to see a doctor twice about the damage!” Kochi shouted. Whatever strange checkers game had started, and Kochi had claimed one of Shintaro’s light bulbs. He tossed it at Shintaro, hitting him in the shoulder.

“I said I was sorry,” Shintaro pouted, rubbing the opposite shoulder that had been hit by the light bulb. Kochi rolled his eyes at him. 

It was hard not to crack a smile at the memory, even if it had been the most stressful five hours of their lives. Jesse had been the one to dial for the ambulance, fingers trembling over each number on the touchpad of his phone as Shintaro scrambled to stop the bleeding. Only one of them had been allowed in the ambulance with Kochi, and Shintaro had taken the spot since he had been the one to injure him in the first place. They had been lucky Kochi hadn’t required any surgery. The second time it had happened a few weeks later, the doctor had stared Shintaro down, warning him to be careful of where he kicked his legs. 

Juri did a sweeping gesture at the three men not seated at the counter. “I rest my case, Hokuto. You need more magic friends. You’ve only got like two.”

Jesse perked up where he stood. He had been eyeing Hokuto’s drink, trying to make eye contact with his friend to ask for another sip, but Hokuto’s gaze never left the rim of his glass. “And one of those magic friends is me, right?” he asked, nudging Hokuto’s arm with his elbow.

“….he’s got like three magic friends,” Juri said. “And I am his friend from the fox line, so you better not end up from there. Also,” Juri flicked his wrist, and one of the light bulbs from the checkers game smacked Kochi in the chest., “that’s enough of that.” 

“But we’re almost done,” Kochi said, gesturing to the game in front of them. Kochi had two pieces left while Shintaro was doing his best to claim victory with just a single light bulb. “Give us like five more minutes and two more rounds, and we’ll put stuff back in place.” 

“Yeah, chillax a bit!” Shintaro said. He moved his light bulb to a single place, and Kochi moved his to be diagonal from it. Shintaro moved swiftly to claim it. “It’s just a bit of harmless fun.” 

“I said put those back!” Juri snapped. One of his glasses was in his hand, cocked back and ready to be thrown across the den.

“Hey, hey, relax.” Jesse threw up his hands as Kochi began scrambling to collect and put all of the light bulbs in their proper places. Shintaro helped with a few before he returned to his arm chair, flopping on it sideways once more. “I won’t be a fox if you’ll stop threatening my friends. I’ll choose something else, like a zebra, so we won’t overlap.”

Hokuto’s laugh was magic to Jesse’s ears, so low and smooth like melting chocolate. “There’s no zebra line. Your line is determined by which ones your parents belonged to. The ten magic lines are lion, wolf, hawk, snake, fox, monkey, rabbit, chameleon, cow, and squirrel.” 

Out of all of the animals, Jesse really hoped that he wasn’t a squirrel. Just from the sound of it, it felt as if that one was the weakest. He wouldn’t have minded being a chameleon or even a monkey, at least those sounded somewhat interesting. He couldn’t imagine what good a squirrel could do.

“Each line has their own special brand of magic. As a fox, Juri specializes in illusion magic,” Hokuto continued. Jesse leaned in as Hokuto spoke, wanting to soak in every word from his friend’s lips. “Lions are leaders and the most powerful casters. They say that some lion lines are well versed in blood control magic.”

A crashing sound came behind them, but it was only Shintaro falling to the floor, scrambling to get as far away from Hokuto as he could.

“YOU BETTER NOT DO THAT SPELL ON ME!” Shintaro shouted, and for a second, just a second, Jesse saw Juri contemplate throwing another glass he was cleaning at his friend. At the last moment, Juri put it down amongst the others. 

“That’s not my family’s specialty,” Hokuto said, but Jesse could see Shintaro didn’t quite believe Hokuto’s words. “Ever since I was young, I’ve been raised with the intention of taking over my mother’s family’s seat in magic society.” He gripped his glass just a bit tighter. “Once my grandfather abdicates his position, I’ll be in charge of creating spell books for magical youth.” 

Spell books seemed…a little crazy to Jesse. Not that he couldn’t believe in their existence, but it felt a little too scripted, a little too by the book for his taste. He was already having to accept that magic existed faster than he could comprehend, not to mention many of Hokuto and Juri’s words weren’t clinging to his brain the way that he wanted them to, but spell books? He wasn’t sure why, but this was the one thing Jesse couldn’t believe. 

Hokuto dug into his backpack, depositing the little novel he had been reading at lunch on the bar counter. It rested perfectly between himself and Jesse. “Juri,” he said, motioning to the magic den owner. 

Juri sighed, pushing back his suit jacket so he could lift up his dress shirt just enough to reach for a small notepad that was tucked between his pants and his stomach. He slapped the little notebook on the table across from Hokuto’s.

“These books are the physical representation of our magic. Their form is dependent on the choice of the user,” Hokuto said, motioning for Kochi and Shintaro to come closer and look. Both did so almost begrudgingly. “In order for a magic being to cast, we must touch our spell books. To maintain that kind of connection, they’re often hidden beneath our clothes, so we have constant access to our abilities when among humans.”

Memories clicked firmly into place as Hokuto spoke. Throughout the years they had known each other, Jesse had seen Hokuto read countless novels during their time together. But the more he thought about it, the more he noticed the brown paper-covered novels had never changed size or shape. The books in Hokuto’s hand had always been roughly the size of his hand, hardly three hundred pages, and Jesse was kicking himself for never noticing it was the same book the whole time. More importantly, he couldn’t believe his theory of Hokuto being a dirty romance connoisseur was wrong . 

“Can I…?” Jesse gestured towards Hokuto’s spell book. There was a second of hesitation, Hokuto freezing for just a moment, before he gave the smallest of nods. 

Hokuto’s spell book felt like any other novel from a bookstore in Jesse’s hands. It was wrapped in the standard paper cover stores would wrap around their books to keep nosy patrons on trains from seeing exactly what novel was being consumed. Even then, the pages felt soft under Jesse’s hands as if they had been read time and time again, showing the love from its owner.

The inside was completely different from any novel Jesse had picked up in his life. Each page had the words of a spell written upon it along with a small illustration hinting at its intention. There were spells for creating barriers, cleaning, and swiftly changing clothes. There was even one that took up three pages with the illustration appearing as if a book was being expelled from someone’s chest. Each page held a new discovery for Jesse to find, and he devoured each one.

He felt himself grow more and more excited as he mouthed along the words to a spell he thought involved levitation. If this was the kind of knowledge Hokuto had, he couldn’t wait to expand his own magical knowledge. There was a lot to learn, and Jesse wished that he could start studying right away.

“Just…be careful whose spell book you ask to look through, Jesse.” Jesse looked up from the page, and Hokuto’s face looked a little more red than normal. “Reading another person’s spell book is the most intimate thing you could do. It shows a deep level of trust you have for the other person because you’re letting down your defenses against them.” 

“Oh,” Jesse said simply. He could feel a blush starting to spread across his cheeks. “Sorry, I didn’t know.” He closed Hokuto’s spell book and put it back at its place on the counter.

“You’re fine.” Hokuto waved him off. “I’m sure there are plenty of people who share their spell books with their friends.”

“Not me,” Jesse heard Juri mumble. There was an odd expression on Juri’s face. He kept glancing back and forth between Hokuto and Jesse, but, if he had any qualms or worries, he didn’t say anything. He kept restocking the area behind the bar. 

“In regards to your spell book, we can’t go to my grandfather and his colleagues to make yours. It will invite too many questions.” Hokuto took a large gulp of his drink, and Jesse saw the way the stars danced across Hokuto’s pupils. How could he drink so much and yet remain so present? “But if we don’t conduct the ceremony soon, your magic will break free of the block encasing it, overwhelm you, and kill you.”

Jesse felt as if he had been shocked. His limbs tingled as his heartbeat picked up. This had all felt like fun and games since this morning. A little ridiculous adventure, a few magic lessons here and there, and Jesse would become an expert spellcaster in no time, or whatever these magic people said. The fear built in his body like a lightning strike, and Jesse lashed out.

“Excuse me?” Jesse said, pushing himself back from the bar. The stool he was sitting in went clattering to the floor. “How are there consequences to all of this now?” His blood was rushing through his veins the more he spoke, and he clutched onto the edge of the bar to keep himself standing. “You should have told me earlier, so I could mentally prepare for my impending death!”

“Calm down,” Juri snapped. “And stop talking to my friend like that.”

“He’s my friend, too!”

“And he was my friend first, you hulking excuse for magic.” Juri slammed his hands down on the bar. “We all go through this ceremony as teenagers. We all get our magic bound into a spell book because if we don’t, it’ll grow exponentially and kill us. It’s not Hokuto’s fault your parents excluded you. Now apologize or I’m kicking you out of rocks and making it so you can never return.”

Jesse couldn’t breathe. His lungs wouldn’t work like he wanted them to. He felt as if no matter how much air he took in, it wasn’t enough for his body to function like normal. How did Juri expect him to move forward when Jesse had just been told if they didn’t act quick enough, he would expire and be gone from this world just like that? It wasn’t news that anyone could properly process in minutes.

But then he looked to Hokuto, and every bit of air was expelled from Jesse’s body. The other boy was clutching onto his glass as if it was the one thing grounding him in this world. There was fear in his eyes, all consuming fear, and Jesse couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed how much Hokuto was shaking. Every emotion that had passed through Jesse, his own fear and panic, anger, and annoyance, evaporated, and he pulled Hokuto into a hug.

“I’m sorry,” Jesse whispered, squeezing Hokuto tight before releasing him.

“It’s fine,” Hokuto said, wiping the side of his face that Jesse couldn’t see. “Don’t worry about it.”

Jesse felt a hand be placed on his shoulder. “Jess, you’ll be fine,” Kochi said, squeezing Jesse’s shoulder. “These magic people probably know what they’re doing.”

“I do.” Hokuto took another sip of his drink. “The spell is usually cast with ten people, but I believe we can do it if there’s only three of us.” Hokuto paused for a moment. “Juri and I will of course take part. I’ll also be teaching our snake line-”

“No,” Juri said. He snatched his spell book from the countertop and slid it back into the waistband of his pants. “I’m out. If you’re inviting him, I’m not doing it.” 

Hokuto looked absolutely flabbergasted. “Juri, the two of you are friends-” 

“And you know how I feel about his kind of magic,” Juri snapped. “You know I don’t, I can’t, be around him when he does that. I can’t, Hokuto, I can’t.” Juri’s words lost their edge the more he spoke until they were hardly a murmur in his throat.

There was something there, some kind of past event, that Jesse couldn’t put his finger on nor find the courage to ask about. Juri’s walls were firmly up, and, having only met the guy once before, Jesse wasn’t sure he even had the right to know. If he was barely alluding to whatever had happened, there was no way he would let three strangers into his world.

“Hey, so, I don’t really know you or anything,” Shintaro said from his place at the bar, “and you’re one of now three magic people that I know now, but you got this, my magic fox bro.” Shintaro reached over and nudged Juri’s shoulder with this fist. “Besides, if anything goes wrong, Jesse will be there to save your ass.”

That sentiment made Juri snort. “Oh, please. If anything, I’m going to save him.”

“Got him!” Shintaro said, slapping Hokuto’s shoulder, making the lion almost spill his drink. “So we’re all good! Operation save Jesse’s life is a go! You guys learn the fancy spell thing, Jesse, Kochi and I relax, and Juri gives Kochi one of those dog tags so he can come here, too.” 

Juri coughed.

Shintaro’s eyes were glittering in anticipation.

“You probably should give him a pass, Juri,” Hokuto said. “Whether he has an invitation or not, you know these two will keep bringing him regardless of your wishes.”

Juri waved his hand, another one of his dog tags appearing from thin air. “I hate it here,” he grumbled, passing the tag to Kochi, and Jesse let out the largest laugh.

The days passed slowly as September bled into October. The air grew cooler, humid fall bleeding into a more cool and temperate weather. Jesse’s professors pushed their classes farther into the textbooks, demanding more work from their students. Quizzes became an almost daily occurrence in order to pound the material in Jesse and his fellow classmates’ heads. It was all in the name of preparing them for their final year of undergrad, but it felt more like torture. 

Though his school days were spent pouring over textbooks in the school library, there was a new scent burrowing its way into Jesse’s nose. It was the most delicate smell, fragile but it coyly crawled amongst all of Jesse’s senses. It begged for his attention, sneaking into Jesse’s lungs with every breath he took until his head was spinning from the smallest hint of it. He racked through his brain, trying to pull at any memory of why this scent felt so familiar to his soul but came up with nothing. It wasn’t until one evening Hokuto was helping Jesse study, the pair sitting next to each other on the couch, did Jesse get the courage to ask Hokuto about it. 

“That,” Hokuto said, thighs brushing against Jesse’s as reached for the next set of flashcards on Jesse’s coffee table, “is the scent of magic. Isn’t it incredible?”

Of course magic had a smell! Jesse should have known, especially the way it enticed all of his senses. Walking down the streets of Tokyo from his apartment to his university, magic floated all around him, and Jesse couldn’t believe he had never noticed it before. The city thrummed with magical energy no matter where he went. Now that he was paying attention to the world around him, he saw people’s clothes changing with the blink of an eye as well as others disappearing into thin air. Magic was all around them and yet every day humans passed it by without so much as a second glance.

There were a few magic dens in the neighborhood surrounding Jesse’s apartment in buildings that had appeared long ago abandoned to his non magical eye. Jesse had gone into one after a particularly rough test, the music bumping from the speakers and bleeding onto the streets intriguing him far too much to ignore. It had more of a club atmosphere, the complete opposite of the more classy image Juri had built for rocks. Jesse had thought the name was a bit on the odd side— Kiss Me? Really?—with its logo having some kind of hand character on it but elected to try it on his own anyways. 

The owner had been an eccentric and incredibly airheaded blond man who Jesse had to repeat his drink order three times before it clicked and he filled the order. The drink that had caught his attention on the menu had a ridiculous name, Sha la la Summer Time, but was cool and refreshing on his tongue. Jesse was transported to a tropical paradise, a warm summer breeze brushing against his skin until the final drop in the glass was gone.

When it came time to pay, Jesse panicked. How did he pay for a drink in a magic den? Did they accept Japanese yen? Did magic people have their own currency? Did he have to give some part of his own magic in exchange for the beverage? He shot off a text to Hokuto and hoped he didn’t look too suspicious as he anxiously waited for a response. He had half expected Hokuto to tease him at his lack of knowledge, but the response was sweet.

Yen is fine to use! Magic society doesn’t have its own money system, so don’t worry!

A series of texts quickly followed the first.

Sorry I should have explained that earlier!

Let me know the next time you go to a magic den!

I’d love to join you and explore other hangouts!!!

The thought of trying out other dens around the university with Hokuto had Jesse smiling. His cheeks felt toasty as he kept rereading Hokuto’s texts, sending off his own reply with his availability.

Now that his magic was seeping out, Jesse found himself spending more and more time with Hokuto in his free time. When they weren’t helping each other study and cram for upcoming quizzes and tests, Hokuto had been trying to teach Jesse easy spells from his spell book. Jesse had been cautious the first few times Hokuto had laid the little novel between them on Jesse’s coffee table, not wanting to cross any boundaries or make his friend uncomfortable, but Hokuto waved Jesse’s worries away.

“You’re someone I trust,” Hokuto said, eyes drifting off. He rubbed the back of his neck as he spoke. “I know you wouldn’t use my knowledge against me. Besides, it’s easier to study from my spell book than trying to have you memorize the words audibly.” 

They always sat side by side in these magic lessons, shoulders brushing as they leaned in to study the words on the pages. Hokuto’s finger would gracefully dance across the page, pointing out words and rhythms Jesse needed to be cautious of when speaking the spell. When he turned to make sure Jesse was paying attention, Hokuto’s breath was warm on Jesse’s face. It was only when Hokuto stiffened, turning back to his book to lecture on some other minute detail, that Jesse realized how close their faces had been. 

Jesse found himself craving Hokuto’s presence the further into October the days went. Though it wasn’t often that they could meet, a few evenings outside of their usual lunches as a group, Hokuto was opening up more and more now that the secret of his magic had been exposed. There were a few late nights, the hours ticking past when the trains stopped running, when Hokuto would sink into Jesse’s couch, and his lips would wander with worries.

“Sometimes I wonder if I can do what my family is asking of me,” Hokuto said one night, the consonants of his words so soft Jesse strained to hear him speak. “I wonder if I should wait and let my mother take over before it’s my time.” It was a long time before Hokuto spoke again, so long Jesse had thought his friend had fallen asleep. “Will I be good enough?” 

He laid back on the couch next to Hokuto, pulling his friend onto a tight hug against him. Hokuto’s nose was smushed against his chest, his hair so perfectly messy that Jesse’s fingers ached to thread their way through every strand. He craved knowing how soft it would be to the touch. “You will,” Jesse said. Hokuto sunk into the hug, wrapping his arms around Jesse’s chest to reciprocate. His light touch felt as if it was being burned into Jesse’s skin so he would always remember the sensation. “I believe that you will.”

Hokuto had been too exhausted to teleport home that night, and Jesse had offered his bed for him to sleep in. Jesse planned to take the couch, but Hokuto had clutched onto the end of Jesse’s shirt.

“Please,” Hokuto said. “Stay.” 

Jesse got under the covers, trying to give Hokuto as much space as he could without the risk of falling out of the bed in the night. In the morning, Jesse woke up with Hokuto in his arms, the hair at the top of his head tickling Jesse’s nose. The sound of Hokuto’s breathing was so gentle and warm, and he found himself wishing he could stay in that moment forever. 

They rarely made progress during those late evenings with Jesse’s magic. No matter how he tried, he couldn’t tap into the power flowing through him. The lack of spellcasting had baffled Hokuto, for he believed there should have been enough magic seeping out to warrant a small levitation spell or two.

“This is a first for me,” Juri said one day when Hokuto had dragged Jesse to rocks after classes had ended, seeking another opinion on the conundrum plaguing him. “You know as well as I do that magic without spell books just…don’t exist. It’s a wonder that guy is even alive.”

Juri had taken to calling Jesse “that guy,” even when he was in the room. Part of him had wanted to retaliate, to make up some kind of ridiculous nickname for Juri in return, but a swift glare from Hokuto snuffed out that idea quickly.

“Give Juri a little grace,” Hokuto said when Ren had come bursting into the den, joyfully shouting how happy he was that ‘Just Jesse’ was back. Juri’s attention swiftly changed to the young magic kid, leaving Hokuto and Jesse to talk. “Juri is a bit closed off when you first meet him, but he would do anything to help his friends.”

Jesse found that hard to believe. They had all but worn down the magic den owner until he had agreed to helping Hokuto create Jesse’s spell book. Every request to Juri was like pulling teeth, clenching his jaw and refusing to open his mouth when asked. The image of Juri willingly agreeing to help someone was the farthest thing from Jesse’s mind.

Ren’s voice broke through Jesse’s thoughts. “I can’t do it,” Ren said, tears beginning to well up in his eyes. “I can’t. I tried it at home. I tried it with you, but my magic won’t pick up the spell.” The young boy wiped away the tears that began to fall with the sleeve of his sweater. 

Juri’s voice was soft when he spoke. “Hey, now, that’s no way to talk.” He guided Ren to one of the arm chairs to sit down, Juri crouching down beside him. “This spell is a lot more complicated than the previous ones we worked on. Using illusion magic on a living object takes a lot more concentration than a nonliving one. You know how long it took me to pick up that spell?”

Ren shook his head, a few stray tears still escaping his eyes.

“A whole year! And look at how good I am now!” Juri said, the biggest grin on his face.

“That’s so long,” Ren giggled. 

“It is, right? The point is,” Juri patted Ren on the shoulder, “is that you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself. Foxes are crafty and smart, so, even if it takes you three weeks or three months or three years, I’ll be here to help guide you.”

In the blink of an eye, Ren launched himself at Juri and pulled the older fox into a big hug. “Thank you, Juri,” Ren said, smiling up at Juri with the biggest grin on his face. Juri picked the teen up, spinning Ren around so fast and quickly his legs were floating in the air. It wasn’t until Ren was screaming with laughter, demanding that he be put back down, that Juri complied, and the lesson picked up once more.

“Fox lines are more common in the prefectures surrounding Tokyo,” Hokuto said, drawing Jesse’s attention from Juri explaining the concept of the illusion spell once more. “The magic schools in the area are trying to recruit teachers but no one wants to make the move. Ren’s school doesn’t have someone from his line to instruct him in the illusions. Juri is from a well-respected line, and a powerful caster in his own right. Since Ren and his family live so close to here, his parents asked Juri to teach him a few times a week.”

It was sweet, Jesse had to admit, for Juri to step up and fulfill the role of an instructor. He had a way with speaking to children that was heartwarming and kind, but Jesse would continue to wait for the day that kindness was turned upon him.

Though Kochi and Shintaro didn’t have much to do in terms of preparation for Jesse’s new life of magic, they still latched onto Hokuto every time the four of them met at lunch. They poured out their questions about the magical community every day, digging deeper into this mysterious world. No question was too ridiculous, and Jesse had even laughed when Shintaro asked if magic people wore underwear. It was times like these, when Hokuto was more focused on Shintaro and Kochi, that Jesse missed having a little bit of Hokuto’s attention, but he pushed those desires down. They spent plenty of time together outside of school. This was fine.

When those lunches were done, Jesse would return his tray and bowls to the cafeteria staff, backpack hanging off one shoulder as he tried to remember which class he had next. Hokuto would appear at his side, placing his tray next to Jesse’s on the counter.

“I don’t mind answering questions from you, too,” Hokuto said one time, the hem of his jacket seeming quite interesting as they left the cafeteria together. He looked up at Jesse, his eyes so wide and sweet. He pouted his lips, making Hokuto’s cheeks look so fluffy. Jesse wanted to reach over and poke them to see if they were as soft as they looked.

Jesse linked their arms together as they continued walking, and he let the first question that came to mind fall from his lips. “How much can a magic person burp after consuming a soda?”

Hokuto’s laughter was loud despite him hiding it behind his hand, making Jesse’s heart beat even faster. He did everything he could to make Hokuto continue laughing until they needed to part or risk being late to class.

On one particularly warm Thursday just before lunch, Jesse’s biochemistry professor sent an email announcing their class as well as the test for that day had been canceled. Something about his daughter being sick and his wife being out of town for a conference but Jesse had skimmed the rest. He had a free period!

Jesse often ran off to class in the middle of conversations because he lost track of time on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Meanwhile Shintaro, Kochi, and Hokuto hadn’t scheduled classes for themselves after lunch on those days. He had kicked himself when he selected that particular biochem class, but it was the only decent time with a professor he had heard good things about through the rumor mill. He hadn’t wanted to miss out on the best teacher just because his friends were free.

Shintaro had been ecstatic, saying how they should claim a spot on the quad before it filled up with other students. Hokuto magically pulled a blanket out of his crammed backpack full of books for all of them to use, and they took turns running off to buy lunch at the convenience store around the corner. When Jesse returned from his turn, he heard Kochi ask a question that piqued his interest.

“Squirrels are such a random animal to include in your magic thing,” Kochi said. He was laid on his side, snacking on a bag of black pepper chips that Shintaro kept sneaking his hand into. “I would have chosen something much cooler. Like a hedgehog.”

“No way! A bear is so much better than that tiny thing!” Shintaro said. He reached out for another chip, but Kochi smacked his hand before it could enter the bag.

“Apologize and you can have more,” Kochi said. Shintaro muttered a half-hearted apology to which Kochi turned the bag in his direction, giving him free reign access to continue munching.

“It’s based on a story from our history.” Hokuto was laid on his back, his head resting on his backpack as his pillow. His hands were folded over his chest with his spell book resting underneath them. “Long ago there were ten villages founded by ten brothers, and-” 

“They were all animals!” Shintaro interjected. 

“Shin,” Jesse hissed out as a warning, and his friend quickly apologized once more for the interruption.

“As I was saying,” Hokuto said, his features a little flustered. “The villages were founded by ten brothers. Each village was plagued by various disasters that no one, not even the brothers, were able to solve. In order to protect their homes and ensure the longevity of their people, the brothers sought out the ten sacred animals.”

Jesse leaned forward the more Hokuto spoke, wanting to cling onto every word Hokuto said. He had never thought to ask about legends within the magic community when the two of them were alone, and this history, his history, was absolutely fascinating. He would have to buy Kochi a snack as a random thank you for instigating this tale. 

“Lion, wolf, hawk, snake, fox, monkey, rabbit, chameleon, cow, and squirrel. Each animal gifted one brother their special brand of magic in order to combat the problems surrounding the villages,” Hokuto continued. “The legend says magic was passed down through each generation, mingling and mixing with each other until our modern day magic was created. But,” Hokuto paused, brows furrowing a tad before he continued, “they say that within each line there is a family who can trace themselves back to the brothers.” 

That sentiment sent a wave of shock through their little group. Jesse sat up straighter, and he saw both Shintaro and Kochi sit up.

“Wait, so there’s people out there that are just…like legendaries? Like in Pokémon?” Kochi said. He had completely abandoned his snack.

Hokuto nodded. “I’ve never met one before, but supposedly they’re incredibly powerful. I mentioned before that a specialty of the lion line is blood control magic. That kind of spell is incredibly complex, so someone of my caliber could control only a single person,” Hokuto said. “The rumor is that the descendent of the brother who received his magic from the sacred lion could control hundreds if they chose to.” 

Jesse’s heart stopped. Hundreds? There was someone so powerful that they could control the actions of so many people with a single spell? 

“I hope that I never get the chance to meet them,” Jesse said.

“Avoid any and all Nakamuras that you meet,’ Hokuto said. “From what I’ve heard, that’s the last name they chose to blend into the human world.”

It was easier said than done. Jesse had three of them in his anatomy class. It didn’t count for the thousands of them in Tokyo. He was beginning to see the appeal of choosing last names to blend in with human society. Picking one Tanaka or one Nakamura out of a crowd would be near impossible to do.

“Not gonna lie, it would be kind of cool to meet one of them.” Shintaro laid back on the blanket. He snatched up Kochi’s chip bag once more to polish off the last few remaining ones. “We could make some kind of superhero team to save the city.” He grinned. “Just imagine it! Jesse uses his doctor degree to heal and take care of anyone injured and then our three magic bros and this super powered person fight them off. It’s foolproof!”

Kochi sighed, flopping back down on the blanket with a loud sigh. “And how do you propose we even find someone like that?” 

“We put up a flyer, dumbass.”

“Most people don’t know about magic, dumbass.”

Jesse scooted over next to Hokuto, laying down next to him. Their shoulders brushed as Jesse’s back connected with the blanket, but neither of them moved to give the other more space. Shintaro and Kochi continued to bicker and argue, each of their sentences punctuated with an insult to the other. “Never a dull moment with them, right?” 

“It’s what made university so much fun for me,” Hokuto said. His head turned to look at Jesse, and the soft expression on Hokuto’s face made his heart skip a beat. The world around them melted for a moment, Shintaro and Kochi’s words fading into obscurity, and the only thing Jesse could focus on was Hokuto’s smile. “Though I do have to admit, sometimes I like our quieter chaos a bit more.” 

His heart was flying in his chest, though Jesse couldn’t quite figure out why. He appreciated Hokuto’s energy and rationality compared to the blind pandemonium that came from the dynamic he had with Shintaro and Kochi. He liked looking over and catching Hokuto mid laugh at one of Shintaro’s dumb jokes or the thoughtful way he would explain something happening in the news that Jesse didn’t understand. Or the way Hokuto would ignore them all, getting lost in his book, and the gentle way he would bite his lower lip when he was concentrating on the words on the page. That was a normal way to appreciate your friend…right?

It had to be. But Jesse couldn’t help comparing Hokuto to Shintaro and Kochi. Of course he liked the two of them. He liked all of his classmates, too. Hell, he even liked the lunch lady who would sneak him an extra piece of chicken despite the portion size being six pieces per order. But he didn’t wish for more hours in the day to spend with Shintaro and Kochi. Their time together came, it passed, and Jesse left feeling content. With Hokuto, he never wanted those moments to end. He would glance at the clock and wish for it to slow down. Give him a few more minutes.

Maybe…maybe it meant he treasured their friendship more than he thought. Maybe he-

“Uh, guys!” came a hiss from Shintaro, and Jesse shot up from his place on the blanket. Shintaro’s words had snapped his attention, and he felt dazed and confused until he could follow where Shintaro’s finger was pointing to.

Kochi’s chip bag was floating through the air. Kochi hadn’t moved from his spot and was staring blankly as the empty bag floated around the sky as if it was being carried by the breeze. Hokuto was the first one to properly react. With a quick wave of his hand, the bag gracefully fell back to the blanket.

“Hokuto, I know I shouldn’t be the one to warn you about this considering you’re magic and all, but you have to be more careful with what spells you cast,” Kochi said. His hands grasped onto the blanket, eyes darting around to the surrounding area. “What if someone else had seen it?”

“That…that wasn’t me.” Hokuto pushed himself into a sitting position, his spell book sliding down his chest until it rested lower on his stomach. His attention turned to Jesse, a small thought blooming behind Hokuto’s eyes until it consumed his features. “That means…Jesse? Jesse, I think you cast your first spell.”

He cast a spell? He had cast a spell! It took all of Jesse’s energy to not yell out in glee, to let the whole campus know his joy. Finally, after so many long nights of study and practice he was able to cast a levitation spell! He hadn’t known how he did it, he definitely hadn’t said the words that Hokuto had taught him, but perhaps it was a latent casting? Maybe the words from the previous day had caught up to him finally. Jesse didn’t know. Magic was still a strange and foreign concept to him. He longed to pull Hokuto into a hug, to share his joy with his friend, but he held back. Perhaps Hokuto would celebrate with him during their next lesson together.

“Oh hell, yeah!” Shintaro shouted before the trio of them shushed him. “You know what that means?” A manic grin spread across Shintaro’s features.

The joy in Jesse’s heart was ripped from him in a moment, memories of his younger self flashing through his brain. “Shin, no!” It was one secret he had been clinging to and didn’t want Hokuto to know. Jesse launched himself across the blanket. He curled his arm around Shintaro’s neck to obstruct his airways while the other covered Shintaro’s mouth from speaking. But Shintaro was big and strong, not as strong as Jesse, so the two rolled off of the blanket, turning into a mess of limbs and cursing.

“I feel like I’m missing something,” Jesse heard Hokuto say as Shintaro was attempting to shout through the hand Jesse had covering his mouth. He attempted to lick and bite at Jesse’s fingers, but Jesse refused to remove them.

“It was before my time, but years ago Jesse wanted to be an amateur magician in elementary school,” Kochi explained.

“Kochi, don’t you dare!” Jesse shouted. He could feel Shintaro getting the upper hand. He knew all of Jesse’s weak spots, the ones where he was most ticklish from years of rough housing, and it was taking all of Jesse’s energy to not let go and fall into a fit of laughter. 

“He had the most ridiculous stage name, too,” Kochi continued. “Jesse gets so embarrassed the second Shin brings it up.”

Shintaro’s fingers reached Jesse’s weakest point, a small place in his side just above his hip. It was a small brush of his finger, but it was enough. Jesse released Shintaro, rolling away to avoid further attacks. Being tickled to death wasn’t worth trying to hold in an embarrassing secret any longer.

“It’s the return of Mr. Zudon!” Shintaro gleefully shouted, throwing his hands up in the air. “Come one and come all to his fantastic and enlightening magic show!”

Jesse could feel his cheeks burning. He hadn’t even been able to do that many tricks back then. He knew a few sleight of hand things on top of a few card maneuvers that had amazed his classmates, but, when he showed off his skills to his mother after school one day, she quickly ordered him to stop. He tried to ask why. It was only a bit of harmless fun, but her decision had been final. He hadn’t practiced since. Shintaro continued to tell people about Jesse’s old stage name because he thought it was funny and that the whole world should know it.

Hokuto’s laughter cut through Jesse’s embarrassment, the tone of it not biting or cruel like others Shintaro had told in the past. “That’s so cute,” Hokuto said in between giggles, and Jesse felt his face turn red from the compliment. “We should choose stage names to match.”

The conversation changed to discussing what each of them should be called and their role in Jesse’s magic show. As the conversation drifted on and on, he found himself liking the silly name he had chosen so many years ago more.

“Hey, Juri, my buddy, my pal,” Shintaro called out from across rocks. The last few times Shintaro and Jesse had come to the magic den, Juri had finally consented to serving Shintaro a regular Coke (Shintaro had broken the glass roughly fifteen seconds after receiving his drink and hadn’t been allowed glassware since). Since coming into the magic den, he had snatched a container of plastic cups from behind the bar and went to his usual spot, the armchair where he and Kochi had first played their checkers game. Juri learned through trial and error the more space that existed between him and Shintaro, the better. Shintaro had used the cups to build a tower on the table in front of him, but a tiny mistake had sent the tower tumbling down. He collapsed onto the armchair, sighing then popped his head up, worries forgotten. “What’s your deal, my bro?”

Jesse was seated at the bar, drinking his own Coke out of a tall glass. He had tried to order something extravagant off of Juri’s menu, Strawberry Breakfast sounding quite interesting, but Juri had ignored his order in favor of a normal soda. Not that he could entirely blame Juri for the choice. Jesse and Shintaro were so closely linked it felt like a blessing Jesse hadn’t been relegated to using plasticware as well. 

Classes had been cancelled at the university the second Jesse had stepped onto campus that day, something about an electrical outage and the back-up generator not functioning like it was supposed to. The admins hoped an electrician could get the whole campus back up and running by the next day, but it hadn’t looked likely. Jesse had been oddly relieved at the news. He had spent the previous evening with Hokuto trying to replicate the levitation spell the other day to no avail. He should have been more concerned over his magic not working as expected, but it made him feel so thankful. It meant another night with Hokuto, another chance to spend time with him. That grateful energy continued to build. Jesse didn’t think he could focus on his schoolwork with his head spinning the way it was.

The four of them had met, trying to figure out how to spend their unexpected free day. Kochi had already made plans to play soccer with a few other friends since the weather was still nice despite it being almost November. Going to rocks to hang out seemed like the safest option with campus crawling with students relaxing in the sun. Hokuto wanted to join them but had received a message spell right before they walked in from his family requesting his presence. Not able to say no, he had apologized profusely for needing to step away. 

“Remember, be nice,” Hokuto said, nudging Jesse in the side with his elbow. The small touch made Jesse’s stomach flip, his heart leaping up to his throat. It always felt nice when Hokuto playfully teased him, and he wished it happened more and more. “I don’t want to come back here tomorrow to find that the three of you got into a fight and destroyed the whole place.”

They hadn’t done anything physically destructive since Kochi had unscrewed the light bulbs to play checkers. Though there was the concern that Juri would make a snide comment over Jesse’s existence or something stupid Shintaro would say, Hokuto was always the one to smooth things over if tensions threatened to bubble over. Without him there, there certainly was the concern of tentative treaties between the two sides being torn to shreds. 

“If I’m good, do I get a prize?” Jesse asked, nudging Hokuto back with his own elbow. Hokuto wobbled a bit from the sudden gesture. He reached out, his hand landing on Jesse’s bicep for support until he regained his balance. Jesse’s muscles felt like they had been electrocuted from the touch.

“We’ll see,” Hokuto said, and Jesse could have sworn he felt Hokuto squeeze just a little before letting go. “I’ll need a full report of the evening before I make any decisions.” Jesse still felt the imprint of Hokuto’s hand when him and Shintaro had entered rocks.

Juri was restocking ingredients for that night’s business, sleeves rolled up to keep them from hanging into the various sauces he was bottling. Something flashed behind Juri’s eyes, too quick of an emotion for Jesse to catch. They had been in a tentative but awkward peace since they had settled in the magic den, Juri groaning when they announced Hokuto wasn’t with them. Jesse knew he had the same question as Shintaro floating around in his brain for weeks, but now it didn't seem appropriate.

Jesse kept a hand on the edge of the bar, the other grasping onto the back of his chair as he twisted to look at his friend. “Hey, Shin, maybe now’s not the time-”

“What do you mean?”

Jesse stopped. Juri’s voice wasn’t angry. It wasn’t cutting. It was a completely different tone than Jesse had ever heard the fox speak in. He sounded mildly interested in whatever Shintaro had to say and as if that interest could grow depending on the meaning of the question. 

“I mean, we know about Hokuto and his whole story. His family is training him to be that spell book dude. Jesse and his magic are a whole mystery that I don’t even think a therapist could crack,” Shintaro rambled on and on. He picked up all of the plastic cups he had snatched from behind the bar and stacked them into one line. “We don’t know anything about you. So what’s your deal, mister foxy magic man?” 

He risked a look back at Juri. Both of his hands were resting on the edge of his work counter, his fingers drumming on the metal surface. If he was plotting murder or Jesse and Shintaro’s mutual self-destruction, Juri was hiding it well in his features. 

Time ticked by slowly, each second lasting a year before Juri spoke. “There’s not much to say,” he said. “I grew up in a well-respected fox line in Chiba with my four brothers. I didn’t want to go the university path and enter the human world and blend in for the rest of my life, so I constructed rocks with my own two hands. It’s been thriving ever since its doors opened a few years ago.”

“That can’t be it,” Jesse interjected. “It doesn't explain why you’re so-” He cut himself off. He didn’t want to complete the sentence and risk angering Juri when he seemed so normal compared to their previous interactions. Jesse let the word ‘grumpy’ hang in the air around them, and Juri fill in the blank with whatever word he wanted. 

“I’ve hardly known either of you for a month.” Juri snatched up a rag off the counter, crossing the area behind the bar to where a few dirty glasses from the night before still sat in the sink. “You’ll have to forgive me for not trusting strangers with my past so quickly.”

Jesse didn’t know if Juri’s words weren’t so biting as usual or if it was their increased contact or maybe male intuition, if that even existed, but a part of him understood what Juri had meant. All of his life, Jesse had been an open book. He met people through shared homerooms or club activities growing up. At the end of an hour, he had a new friend and a new contact in his phone. He saw someone interesting, and he wanted to get to know them. It’s how he, as well as Shintaro, had befriended Kochi so many years ago. 

But to open up and trust people with your worries? The things that made you tick? To put the full force of your anxieties and emotions into someone? Jesse didn’t think he had many people he trusted on that level. Outside of his family, it was only Shintaro, Kochi, and Hokuto who Jesse felt like he could talk to without feeling as if he was burdening them with his emotional problems.

“You don’t have to tell us,” Jesse said. Juri stopped his furious scrubbing with Jesse’s words.

“Yeah, mi compadre! No worries!” Shintaro’s tower of cups was five rows high, and he was working on adding a sixth. “We’re all in this crazy boat, and you know what they say in America! ‘We’re all in this together once we know we’re all in this together…unless we’re leagues apart!’”

“We don’t say that in the U.S.,” Jesse fake whispered behind his hand.

Shintaro shouted loudly, “Jesse! You told me they said that there!” He slammed his palms down on the low table, and the plastic cups went tumbling to the floor once more. He paused for a second, brain whirling. “Or maybe you told me that in a dream. I don’t remember.” And for the first time since Jesse and Shintaro had stumbled into rocks a month ago, Jesse heard Juri laugh.

It was a loud boisterous one, the kind where Juri’s arms were wrapped around his sides, his shirt getting wet from the soapy water he had been washing the glassware with. The laugh came deep within Juri’s belly, and he wiped away forming tears with the edge of his hand. 

“I can see why you keep that human around,” Juri said, a few fits of laughter slipping through.

“I have a name!” Shintaro shouted. “And Jesse doesn’t keep me around. He needs me! Who knows what wild shenanigans are going to happen when we learn what Jesse’s true power is!”

“He’s not gonna be that special,” Juri said. “He’s a giant for a man who walks around dressed in stupid hats and tracksuits with a doofy smile on his face half the time.” 

“But I like my hats!”

“Just imagine it!” Shintaro said, barreling through Jesse’s interjection and increasing with fervor as the words vomited from his mouth. “What if he can run through the forest super fast! Or climb buildings like it’s nothing! Oh, oh, oh! Or what if he’s not like other guys and his blood is so powerful that a single drop can heal nations and they want to kidnap him and experiment on his body-”

“Oh god, not this again,” Jesse said, rolling his eyes. “He’s been doing this every day.”

“The two of you are idiots. I have half a mind to throw both of you out of here and keep the door permanently locked behind you.” Though his words were insulting, there was a teasing edge to it that Jesse had only heard Juri use in his lesson with Ren. “That guy? Special? A ridiculous concept. It’s like saying Asahi beer is top shelf liquor.”

Things felt easy when the three of them were joking together, like one of Juri’s many walls had come down the more that they talked. There was humor and goodwill that Jesse hadn’t experienced before, and it felt good. Maybe, just maybe, he could confidently call Juri a friend sooner than expected.

It wasn’t the door opening that had caught Jesse’s attention first. No, it had been the sound of singing growing louder and louder from down the street. It was the sweetest voice Jesse had ever heard, the kind you expected on an evening music program or crooning from the lips of a pretty idol rather than from a random passerby on the streets of Tokyo. The words were muffled just enough that Jesse couldn’t hear exactly what song the person was singing, but the tone and musicality of the voice danced through the air as if it belonged in the sky. The voice picked up in volume the second the door was opened, and Jesse finally made out a few words of a popular pop tune on the radio.

Juri grabbed a glass from the sink and threw it. It slammed into the wall next to the singer’s head, shattering into sparkling little shards. The sound of the impact made both Shintaro and Jesse freeze. The singer jumped and screamed, collapsing to the floor in a pile of limbs. 

“YOU KNOW THE RULES!” Juri shouted. He reached for another glass in the sink, and Jesse jumped onto the counter to try and grasp onto Juri’s arm. Anything to get him from throwing another. “NO SONG MAGIC IN MY DEN!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” the singer shouted. A book was clutched in his hand, some kind of manga, and he held it close to his chest as if it was the most precious thing in the world. “I swear I forgot! But I wasn’t doing song magic, I swear! I was only singing a pretty song. I would never do song magic around you, Juri.” He thrust his book out in front of him as if offering it in compensation for his actions. “Please forgive me!” 

Juri’s grip on the second glass in his hand went lax, and Jesse let go of Juri’s arm in return, sliding off of the bar counter and back to his seat. Jesse hoped that Juri didn’t change his mind with whatever happened next. He wasn’t sure if he could react fast enough the next time.

“Fine,” Juri said. He grabbed a rag next to the sink to dry his hands. With a wave of his hand, the shattered glass disappeared from the floor. “Don’t do it again or I’m kicking you out.”

Jesse fought the roll of his eyes. He was starting to learn that kicking people out of rocks was Juri’s preferred threat of punishment. 

The singer picked himself up off the ground, and Jesse got his first good look at him. The man was, perhaps, the most ethereally beautiful person that Jesse had ever seen with features carved by the gods. His hair was dyed blond, a mid-length styled into gentle waves. His bangs were parted over his eye showing a little bit of his forehead. He had on the fluffiest sweater that looked as if Jesse could sink his hand into it and never reach the bottom. The singer’s face had softened, melting with Juri’s acceptance of his apology, and he approached the bar with a twirl and a bounce in his step.

“You’re not going to believe what happened in this week’s episode of Conan,” he said, swaying to a rhythm that only he could hear with every word he spoke. He placed his manga on the counter, a volume of Conan from what Jesse could make of it. The singer swung his arm around Jesse, fingers drumming on the top of Jesse’s shoulder. He stayed in motion as he continued speaking, dragging Jesse along in his swaying. “The mystery is finally coming to a close, and it was so tense! I can hardly wait for the next episode.” He paused for a moment to look Jesse up and down. “Wait, you’re not Hokuto. Who are you?”

Juri let out a loud groan. “Introduce yourself first!”

“Oh…right.” The singer stiffened next to Jesse before hopping back and giving a slight bow from his hips. “I’m Taiga of the Snake Line. Nice to meet you.” His gaze drifted to the seating area of the den and settled on Shintaro. He gasped, hands slapping his cheeks. “Wait, you’re human!” 

Shintaro blinked. “I…am?”

Taiga snatched his manga off the counter and in the blink of an eye was crouched next to where Shintaro was sitting. “You have no idea how much I’ve been dying to talk to another human! I never find the right ones. Please tell me you like Conan! Or that Pokémon game that everyone is playing! The one on the phones that make them appear in real life.” Taiga wrapped his arms around Shintaro’s calf, yanking it close to his chest causing Shintaro to slide forward against his will. His eyes were shining so brightly. “I tried to get a phone but each one I took from the store didn’t work when I tried to use it. How do humans use phones? I need to know.”

Jesse rarely saw Shintaro speechless and unable to respond to people, and the more Taiga spoke, the more Shintaro’s jaw dropped. “Uh, well, did you talk to a staff member and start a contract?” 

“A contouract?” Taiga said, repeating the word a few times and changing the pronunciation each time as if he was tasting it. He whipped his head around. “Juri, why didn’t you tell me I needed a contouract?” Taiga pouted, his bottom sticking out. “No wonder the fifty phones I took never worked like the other humans’ did!”

“What did you want me to tell you? I know even less about the human world than you do!” Juri’s words snapped from his mouth, snipping at Taiga with every consonant he enunciated. “You’re the one obsessed with all of those silly cartoons.” 

“You would like them if you tried,” Taiga said. He teleported into the chair next to Shintaro, crossing one leg over the other. He flicked open his manga, flipping through the contents of the book. “You’re limiting yourself by being so anti-human.” He snapped the manga shut when he couldn’t find what he was looking for and jumped back to his feet. “Just think of all of the things we could watch together if you opened your mind, Juri! Come on, please! Let me introduce you to Conan at the very least! It’s the best human thing in the world.” 

Jesse had known his fair share of chaotic individuals, he was as well, but none like Taiga. From this small interaction, the snake was incapable of staying in the same place for longer than thirty seconds. There was a joy and life to him that radiated through his entire body. His smile was infectious, and Jesse found himself doing the same watching Taiga.

“The two of you are a cute couple.” Shintaro rested his elbows on his knees, cradling his face in his hands. “When did the two of you start dating?” 

Juri appeared before Shintaro, grasping onto Shintaro’s shirt and twisting the fabric in his fists. Juri’s hands glowed as he lifted Shintaro in the air, whose legs dangled underneath him. “We,” Juri growled, fire swallowing all of his words, “are not dating. We will never date. Get that idea out of your head.”

It was only from Jesse’s place at the bar that he could see how Taiga’s features fell for just a moment, gaze drifting down to his book to thumb the edge of the pages. But Taiga blinked, and a confusion spread across his features, his lips forming a single word that drifted off into the air. “How…”

“Dude, chill,” Shintaro huffed. His hands clawed at Juri’s hands, but the magic fueling Juri’s grip stayed strong. “It’s not that serious! Just say you’re not dating! That’s what normal people do.”

Juri kept a firm grip and refused to release the current object of his ire. “You should know by now that I’m not what you humans consider ‘normal.’”

Taiga teleported the small distance to stand next to Juri. He reached a tentative hand out but winced before he made contact with Juri’s shoulder. He withdrew his hand as he spoke. “It’s okay, Juri. He knows. That’s the most important thing…right?” The hand curled itself around the hem of his sweater. “You have all of the space that you desire, and no one but you can dictate where your boundaries are.” His next words were quiet, so quiet, and Jesse’s ears strained to hear them. “It’s my fault that he misunderstood. He didn’t mean to offend you. Let’s just let it go. I’m sure he won’t make that assumption again.” 

Juri faltered for a moment, a little color coming to his cheeks. Then he was gone. Shintaro went crashing down to the armchair he had been sitting in before, yelping when he made contact with the edge of it. A quick glance around the den found that Juri was nowhere to be found.

“Sorry,” Taiga said. His energy was less boisterous and chaotic than when he had initially walked into rocks. “This is all my fault.”

“I don’t really understand what happened, but that wasn’t you,” Jesse said. He slipped from his chair at the bar and took a few steps towards where Taiga and Shintaro were before stopping. What was he going to do? Hug the guy? Did Taiga even like hugs? Did he want to be comforted by whatever the hell had just happened?

“Seriously, blame all of that on me,” Shintaro said. He stood up and rubbed the part of his ass that had collided roughly with the edging of the armchair. “Should have known Juri would be a prick about a stupid joke. I legitimately thought the two of you were dating from that ‘bit a banter’,” he said, switching to a brief British accent. “How was I supposed to know that was his trigger word?”

If Taiga found any comfort in their words, his face didn’t show it. There was only a tight smile across his features, the emotion not reaching his eyes like before.

They had just made so much progress with Juri, and Taiga was so terribly airheaded that Jesse already liked him. But the shift of the room’s energy was awkward, almost painful, and Jesse felt responsible to lighten the mood. They were all brought together because of him and his stupid blocked magic, so it fell to him to fix things.

And he had the perfect idea.

Jesse crossed to the group of armchairs where Shintaro and Taiga were and sat in the chair opposite of his best friend. He put on his most warm expression and tried to keep his tone light. “You said that you do song magic? What’s that like?”

Rather immediately, Taiga’s face lit up. Jesse hadn’t been expecting such a sudden mood shift, a more gradual shift more reasonable, but this was something? “It’s the most incredible magic in the world!” Taiga was suddenly sitting on the arm of Jesse’s chair. He threw his arm around Jesse’s neck, pulling Jesse so his head was nestled under Taiga’s chin. One of his hands was petting the top of Jesse’s hair. “And the most interesting. I sing…and things happen!”

…Jesse was already regretting his choice of topic. Hokuto always explained spells with illuminating details and various ways it could be useful that Jesse understood without needing further examples. He had hoped Taiga would talk more about what he could do, be willing to show them a spell or two. His description lacked in every detail Jesse thought possible.  

“Uh, can you be a little more specific?” Shintaro asked. He yelped when Taiga appeared behind him, perched on the backend of Shintaro’s armrest like a bird. Shintaro fell out of the chair to avoid Taiga’s arms swooping to capture Shintaro just as he had done to Jesse. He crab walked backwards to further escape from Taiga’s clutches. “N-Neither of us are well versed in this whole magic thing.”

“Oh, uh.” Taiga opened up his manga, though Jesse didn’t quite understand why. What could the twenty-eighth volume of Conan tell them about song magic? “It’s hard to explain. My magic is song magic. And song magic is…my magic!” 

Shintaro covered his face in his hands. “I’m losing brain cells.”

A familiar crackling energy filled the air before Juri’s voice floated in from the bar. “Taiga’s magic line is incapable of casting magic like the other nine,” Juri said, and Taiga had reappeared back in his own chair, sitting properly in it. Juri’s hair was sopping wet. He didn’t seem to care if water was dripping down and slowly soaking his clothes. “He can cast simple spells by either speaking or doing them nonverbally, but anything more complicated than that must be done through song.”

Taiga seemed to sparkle under the weight of Juri’s explanation. He gave Juri finger guns. “Yes! That’s how you say it! My family has a specialty in emotion magic, so we make people feel things.”

Jesse and Shintaro sat there for a moment in pure silence, exchanging a look between themselves, before Jesse called out. “Juri!” He whined the fox’s name. “Translation please!”

Juri sighed, raking a hand through his soaked hair to push his bangs up from his forehead. “Snake magic is based around music, but it is also influential. Some snake lines are able to predict the future while others can burrow in and implant ideas into the brains of others. Taiga’s family is able to change the emotions of those who listen to their songs.”

“Oh oh oh!!” Shintaro said. He raised his hand and waved it back and forth as if they were back in school, and he was trying to get a teacher’s attention. “Do that to Jesse! Make him laugh so hard he starts crying. Oh wait! Or cry so hard he starts laughing. Either one! No preference.”

Neither of those options appealed to Jesse nor did he want to be under the effects of this type of magic. Regardless of the deeper reason for Juri not allowing it in his magic den, Jesse agreed with the sentiment of not being comfortable with it. One single song could completely change his entire emotional structure, and it felt a bit invasive without seeking prior consent first.

“I can’t.” Taiga looked over at Juri. “Not without his permission first. It’s the agreement between us.” Taiga blinked and his eyes turned pleading once more, his bottom lip pouting. “Please,” he begged. “One song. I’ll only make the magic one,” he gestured to Jesse, “laugh, and then I’m done.” 

“Shouldn’t you guys ask me if I’m okay with this first-” Jesse interjected, sitting up in his armchair, but Juri cut him off.

“One song. Anything else but a laughing spell, and the next time you walk through those doors will be a month from now,” Juri said, and a wild grin spread itself across Taiga’s mouth.

Shintaro let out a loud cheer, and Jesse shot him a glare. Jesse should have campaigned for Shintaro to be the one experiencing snake magic. But maybe it wouldn’t affect him that much…since he was human and all.

Taiga pushed himself off of his chair, teleporting in front of Jesse, his arms caging him from running off and escaping. Jesse had half a mind to try and push past Taiga to get out of rocks as fast as he could, but a quick look at Juri told him everything he needed to know. Juri had relented and given Taiga permission, therefore the fox would glue Jesse to his chair to make sure the spell happened. “Relax,” Taiga said. “And prepare to enjoy the best branch of magic there is.” He closed his eyes, face so serene as he cradled his manga close to his chest, and began to sing.

If Jesse had thought Taiga’s usual singing was beautiful, it was nothing compared to when he infused it with magic. The tone of it sounded heavenly, the notes soaring up high into the furthest reaches, far higher than Jesse had thought was possible for a male singer. Taiga’s voice infused with magic was as ethereal as his looks, and Jesse felt himself fall under its power. 

The lyrics poured themselves into Jesse’s ears, the words of the spell flowing into his brain and surrounding it with this light and airy feeling. The main room of rocks melted away in Jesse’s vision only to be replaced with an endless sky and fluffy clouds. Though Jesse knew the words Taiga was singing, for they were lyrics constructed in Japanese, he couldn’t comprehend the meaning of them. They burrowed into his brain, attaching themselves to his nervous system, and his muscles melted under their influence. All of the tension in Jesse’s body released itself. He had never felt calmer in his life.

Taiga’s song abruptly ended, and the world that had been constructed in his brain evaporated in an instant. Taiga stood before him, half turned away from Jesse. His arms were crossed, manga hanging from his fingertips, and glaring from the corner of his eyes as if trying to intimidate. But to Jesse he looked more like a disgruntled Pomeranian who didn’t get its belly rubbed.

“You can’t do that.” Taiga huffed. Despite being angry, it was too sweet to Jesse’s ears. “You can’t interfere with the spell when I’m casting it. Stop it. Let me make you laugh.”

What did Taiga mean? He could have sworn he had completely fallen under whatever Taiga was doing. If snake magic was all about influencing another person, the calmness he experienced should have been an indicator that Taiga could ask anything of him.

“I didn’t do anything,” Jesse said, and he saw Juri perk up at his words. Juri looked like he was calculating, his eyes darting around as if he was reading invisible words in the air. “Maybe you were casting it wrong? I don’t have a spell book yet, so I couldn’t have stopped you if I tried.” 

Taiga looked baffled at Jesse’s words, like he had struck an invisible nerve somewhere along the lines. Jesse knew that Taiga didn’t believe him, the disbelief was painted across his face, but it was the truth. He felt like Taiga’s song had done something to him, but he had no clear reason for why he hadn’t laughed as he was expected to.

“He’s a monkey.” Juri flicked his wrist, and the water from his hair dried in an instant. Whatever lingering hostility from before had evaporated as the puzzle pieces came together in his head. “I should have known it from the second he didn’t start laughing while you sang. No matter how hard you tried, it was never going to work on that guy.”

Before anyone could express their confusion, Juri teleported, and he sat down in the final armchair of their group. “There are pairs scattered throughout the lines that work together. Wolves are drawn to lions as protectors of great magic, squirrel and rabbit magic compliment the other and they often seek each other out as lifelong friends, and so on. But,” he said, resting his forearms on his knees, so he could lean forward, “there are lines which also repel each other’s magic, and one of those pairs are snakes and monkeys.”

Jesse’s thoughts immediately started spiraling. Did that mean him and Taiga were natural enemies? Could they never develop a close emotional bond because their kinds of magic wouldn’t blend? Would Taiga never watch Conan with him? He needed to calm down. Everything was fine. He was an adult. Certainly that wouldn’t have any effect on the creation of Jesse’s spell book. Hokuto had said they needed at least three people to cast the spell, and, if Taiga couldn’t, who would step in? 

“What does that mean? Do they have to fight it out or something?” Shintaro did a little shadow boxing from his seat.

“No,” Juri barked out a laugh. “this is more in part to that guy’s magic line, and how their magic works. In order to cast, they can’t be influenced by outside forces. Monkeys need clear heads to do their spell work, so their internal magical structure rejects any and all snake magic. If the snake magic is too powerful, their minds will shut down in order to not face any outside influences.”

It explained the world Jesse’s consciousness had been transported to, but it didn’t explain his specialty. Hokuto, Juri, and Taiga all knew their specialties. They knew what they could do, and Juri was dangling his knowledge over Jesse’s head. The answer was there, at the tip of Jesse’s fingers, and he so desperately wanted to know. Could he grow a tail? Could he soar through the trees? Did he gain super strength in order to crush opponents in a fight? He couldn’t wait any longer to be filled in.

“Can we cut to the chase already?” Jesse asked. His annoyance was burning a pit in his stomach. “What does my magic line do?!”

“You,” Juri said, leaning back in his armchair. His arms were perched on the arms of it, and a little smirk played across his lips, “have healing magic.”

Jesse grumbled for the umpteenth time as someone bumped into him. He had been standing in the same spot in front of the FamilyMart when people had walked in, large backpacks hanging from their shoulders and Tokyo guide books clutched in their hands, and he certainly hadn’t moved into their path on their way out. He wished people would pay more attention to their surroundings. 

“How long does it take to buy a rice ball?” Jesse muttered, shoving his hands into his jean jacket’s pockets. Shintaro hadn’t had time to eat before their group had met up that Saturday morning, and it had been at least five minutes since he had shot into the first convenience store they passed. Kochi had followed him in to make sure Shintaro didn’t break anything. Was Shintaro eating inside the store?

“He’s probably calculating which one has the most filling in it by weight,” Hokuto offered. He had pulled the hood of his highlighter yellow hoodie up, pushing his bangs further over his eyes than normal. His own hands were stuffed in the center pocket to protect them from the cold.

“That doesn’t sound like Shintaro,” Jesse said. He frowned, but he could feel the corner of his mouth threatening to turn upwards. “You know he can’t do math.” Hokuto’s laugh sent Jesse’s heart spiraling in his chest, Hokuto’s eyes shining behind the curtain of bangs blocking them.

The plan for the day happened because Jesse had been scrolling on his phone during lunch that week. His feed was flooded with pictures of people going to this interactive museum in Odaiba. There were pools full of water, colorful reflections of fish swimming on the surface that would scatter with a single touch. There was also an exhibit where you entered a room full of flowers, the buds being lowered to the ground, and it looked like the people were surrounded in a world of greenery. It was the kind of thing that made for perfectly aesthetic photos on social media.

“That looks so beautiful.” Hokuto was leaning in to get a better look at Jesse’s phone. He had reached out and swiped back to a photo Jesse had already moved on from. It was of a woman standing on a structure that looked like it was supposed to be a rock, the background behind her a digitally animated waterfall. “I want to see this place in person. How do we go?”

Shintaro had butted in then, asking what the two of them were looking at. Him and Kochi had flipped through a few photos from Jesse’s phone and found the exhibit interesting as well. They purchased tickets for that weekend instantly, and Jesse knew he would do anything to make sure Hokuto had a nice time.

“About time,” Shintaro said. He bumped into Jesse, weaseling his way in between him and Hokuto. He tore into the packaging of his tuna mayo rice ball. “It was like they were auctioning off rice balls or something in there. It was insanity!”

“Shin couldn’t decide between rice balls or meat buns.” Kochi was kinder and took the open space across from the trio rather than worming his way into the line Shintaro had created. “It was a miracle he even made a choice.” 

“But this shop has a collaboration with Conan right now!” Taiga said, grabbing onto Shintaro’s shoulders and shaking them. “You should have bought the meat buns to try the special flavor, you fool!”

Shintaro screamed, understandably. Taiga had appeared out of nowhere. “How did you do that you mother fucking bitch ass-”

Jesse covered Shintaro’s mouth, cradling his friend’s head in his other hand. They really needed to work on Shintaro’s habit of screaming expletives whenever magic happened suddenly. The shout had drawn the attention of the people surrounding them, and he didn’t want anyone remembering their group had only been four a few seconds before. 

“I think I’m having a heart attack,” Kochi said, clutching his heart.

Taiga released one of Shintaro’s shoulders, so he could turn and look at Kochi, head cocking to the side. “Healing is sadly not my specialty, Human Number Two. If you are concerned about your health, you should ask the monkey to take a look and cast-”

“Kochi, you’re fine. It would take a lot more for you to have a heart attack,” Jesse said. He felt Shintaro lick his hand once again, and Jesse let go of him to wipe it on Shintaro’s jeans. He also really needed to talk to Shintaro about not doing that. “And Taiga, ixnay on and the agicmay.”

Taiga popped up next to Hokuto. He was pouting, his cheeks puffing up as he spoke. “Hokuto, do you understand what he’s saying? Your monkey is speaking in tongues. Is this a side effect of his magic?”

“He’s fine, don’t worry.” Hokuto patted Taiga on the shoulder. He pushed his hood off his head and shook his hair to restyle his bangs. To the other three in the group he said, “Taiga doesn’t spend much time around people like you all. He often forgets most human beings are a little less…knowledgeable.”

A thought seemed to flash in Taiga’s head, and he nodded his head fiercely. “Oh yeah!”

“So we’re just going to have to learn to get used to this now that we know this kind of thing exists?” Kochi asked, gesturing at the pair of them. 

“Yup,” was Hokuto’s short answer the same time Taiga answered, “That’s right!”

Shintaro had finally gotten all of the plastic packaging off his rice ball. “So you guys can basically listen in and pop over whenever you feel like it?” he asked, folding the final bit of seaweed into place to cover the rice.

“Pretty much,” Juri said. He swiped Shintaro’s rice ball from over his shoulder and disappeared without a trace.

“Hey!” Shintaro shouted again before Kochi hushed him. “That was mine. I paid for that.”

Taiga appeared in the small space between Jesse and Shintaro, and Jesse sidestepped to give the pair more space. “There, there,” Taiga said, he gave Shintaro’s back a few hard pats. “Don’t feel bad. I haven’t had a tuna mayo rice ball in years. Juri keeps stealing mine.” Taiga was gone as quickly as he had appeared.

Shintaro’s face fell, dejected, and he tugged out another tuna mayo rice ball out of his plastic bag. He hushed the others in his group as he opened the package and proceeded to inhale it whole. He left no crumbs for Juri to claim. 

The walk to the exhibit wasn’t far, but Jesse’s mind drifted off as his friends chattered around him. He wasn’t sure why, but Taiga’s words were sticking to his brain and turning his thoughts into vicious poison. What if his magic wasn’t standard? What if it didn’t function like the rest of society’s because it had been locked up for so long? No matter how he tried, he couldn’t purposely cast any spells. Hokuto still pushed to see if Jesse could achieve any kind of results, but nothing worked. He was broken, and his magic would forever be full of horrible side effects. That was the only logical explanation for it. 

The spell book ceremony was looming over him as well. Hokuto swore it would happen by mid-November, and, as the days ticked past Halloween and into winter, Jesse’s heart started to ache more and more. Hokuto had already told him the basic structure of the ceremony, and it didn’t seem too horrible. The whole process wouldn’t take longer than ten minutes if things went according to plan, but the shortening timeline only increased the fear clawing at Jesse’s belly. It was the day of reckoning. The time he would learn how damaged he was, and he wasn’t sure he was prepared for the answer.

“If I turn into a monkey after I get my book made, swear you guys will still hang out with me,” Jesse said as they lined up to go into the exhibit. He was glad they had pre-booked, for the day of tickets line wrapped around the building. It made his heart feel a little less anxious. “I can’t promise I’ll remember any of you, but I’ll remain loyal to you all somehow.”

“Okay, but imagine if you turned into a dragon instead,” Shintaro said, slapping Jesse in the middle of his back. “Can I have permission to sit on your back? I swear I won’t make you destroy the city or anything!”

The inside of the exhibit was cool and dark when it was finally their turn to enter. All of the walls were pitch black with colorful changing displays mesmerizing people. The low lighting made it difficult to see where you could walk, but the forms of people disappearing and reappearing hinted at where there were hallways leading to new places to discover. 

Shintaro led the charge into the exhibit, saying how he was going to find the waterfall room with Kochi chasing after him to get Shintaro to stop running. Jesse followed at a slower pace, laughing at his best friend’s antics. They’d find their way to each exhibit in this world one way or another.

Jesse felt Hokuto’s hand slip into his, locking their fingers together. “It’s normal to be nervous, you know,” Hokuto said. He gave Jesse’s hand a tight squeeze. “I was before my own ceremony.”

That was surprising to him. Hokuto had this air of confidence to him when it came to magic. Except for a few things surrounding Jesse’s own, the knowledge Hokuto had about magic society was limitless. No matter the question, no matter the statement, Hokuto always had an answer ready. To imagine Hokuto just as another one of his friends felt like an insult. 

“Really?” Jesse asked, and Hokuto nodded.

“I woke up early that day and hid under my brother’s bed,” he said, and Jesse heard the smile in Hokuto’s voice. “My parents scoured the entire house for me, and it was sheer dumb luck they didn’t check under the bed. They had to ask a squirrel who was part of our household staff to cast the spell that found me in the end.” 

Jesse stopped, tugging Hokuto back when he tried to keep walking forward. “Your family has hired staff?”

“Most if not all of the lion line families do,” Hokuto said. He tugged on Jesse’s arm, leading him into the room they had seen Shintaro and Kochi slip into. It was the same one from the photos on social media, a tall towering wall with a waterfall flowing down it. So many people were crowded on the rock structure trying to take pictures, pressing their fingers into the wall and watching how the water display flowed around it. “I would say most of the wolf, hawk, snake, and fox lines do as well. The others…” he trailed off, biting his lip. “The other lines have been seen as lesser for so long. Even a few decades ago it would have been scandalous for a lion and monkey to be friends.”

It was hard to believe, but wasn’t that the same thing that happened in modern day Japan? Jesse had experienced his fair share of ‘othering’ growing up, full blooded Japanese kids not wanting to get close to him at first because he was half American. It was only because he was funny and made them laugh did kids start flocking around him. Who wasn’t to say that magic society acted similarly?

“I don’t believe what many in my line do,” Hokuto said. It felt like he was clinging onto Jesse’s hand for dear life, and Jesse rubbed the back of Hokuto’s hand with his thumb. “They believe the lower lines are weaker and should be treated as lesser because their animals aren’t ‘strong.’ But I think we all have our various strengths to uphold society. Strength isn’t the only factor in casting spells.”

“It’s because you’re a good person compared to others,” Jesse said, and he felt Hokuto’s hand soften its grip.

“I try to be,” Hokuto breathed out. “It’s the part I hate the most about the world I grew up in. Society’s rules shouldn’t dictate who we become friends with, who we spend time with, and who we choose to be with."

Jesse felt a pair of eyes on him. He looked around the room at the various people playing with the displays, touching the walls and watching how the falling water bent under their touch. He looked down at Hokuto and swore he caught Hokuto looking away. Hokuto coughed before continuing his story. “My mother was the one to bring me to my appointment, and my grandfather was the one to announce I had enough magic to create my spell book,” he said. “I should have been so excited, but I was scared.” 

Shintaro had climbed the rocky face across from them, weaving his way in and around the other museum goers so he could be close to the waterfall. Kochi wasn’t far behind him, Shintaro’s phone in his hand to play photographer for him. 

“But you said everything is fairly standard?” Jesse said, feeling the fear creep up his neck. “Right? So everything went normal?”

Hokuto nudged Jesse with his elbow. “Don’t jump ahead,” he teased. He led Jesse to another display in the room of falling flowers. A few people were nearly flush against the wall, fingers grazing the flowers and watching them bloom under their touch. “But, yes, everything went the way it was supposed to, but I was trembling while I waited for it to begin. Even in a room full of people, I felt so alone. I thought they were all lying to me, and I wasn’t ready. I felt like I was being rushed into a decision I didn’t choose to make and didn’t consent to. I was just a kid, and the world was bearing down on me, telling me that I needed to be a man. I hated it.”

Jesse could sympathize with Hokuto and his story. Such little time had passed, and Jesse already felt the crushing weight of expectations upon his shoulders. There were parts of him that clung to his life before that fateful night outside of rocks, but he couldn’t go back. The world had decided Jesse’s path for him, and he couldn’t stray from it.

“But then I saw it,” Hokuto said, his voice so soft that Jesse couldn’t help but look down at Hokuto next to him. His eyes were glazed over, lost in a memory, and his lips were parted ever so slightly. “My magic. It was one of the most beautiful things that I’ve ever seen, and I wanted to look at it forever. I almost missed the opportunity to form it into my book because it was the only thing I could think of.” He sighed, and Jesse saw the way Hokuto’s eyes closed and lips curved into a wistful smile. “There were still days I wished I could go back and change things, to make another decision, but…But I’m glad I can’t. I’m glad I made my book because that choice led me here to this moment with you.”

Hokuto’s eyes blinked open. Jesse’s eyes locked onto his, which were now unwavering and full of certainty. Hokuto captivated his attention. His story was the only thing Jesse could focus on, and it soothed the internal chaos of his mind, bringing him a sense of needed relief. 

“It may not feel like it right now, but everything will be okay,” Hokuto promised. “Even if your magic is next to nothing or doesn’t react like it’s supposed to, I will always be by your side. We’ll tackle whatever problems arise together.” Hokuto gave Jesse’s hand another firm squeeze, and Jesse’s heart felt as if it was floating in his chest. “I won’t let anything happen to you, Jesse.”

“Guys! Get over here!” Shintaro shouted, waving at Hokuto and Jesse. “Let’s take a group picture!”

Hokuto let go of Jesse’s hand, drifting over to where Shintaro and Kochi were with Jesse following at his heels. They all grouped up together, Jesse throwing an arm around Hokuto’s shoulder to pull him close. Shintaro held the camera and snapped a few selfies. He complained that Kochi’s face didn’t look right, earning another scornful remark from him. There was chaos and joy surrounding him, but Jesse’s head felt like it had been hit by a train.

He was in love with Hokuto. And he couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it before.

Jesse had been in relationships before. He had dated his fair share of people, and he thought what he felt in his heart was love. He knew now that those feelings were nothing in comparison to how he felt about Hokuto. 

Jesse knew how to draw people to himself. He knew how to make them laugh. He had developed those skills over his life, fine tuning them until he could walk up to a stranger on the street and be comfortable striking up a conversation with them. There were plenty of people that Jesse liked and was willing to spend time with, but the way Hokuto made Jesse feel was so unique. Even Shintaro, who he had spent his entire life with, didn’t come close.

Hokuto made him feel seen. He made Jesse feel heard. He matched the chaos that Jesse brought to the table while being a place of quiet and comfort that Jesse craved at the end of a long day. Hokuto never made him feel less than nor stomped over Jesse’s wishes, crashing into boundaries Jesse had erected to protect the fragile parts of himself while they healed. He accepted Jesse for the person that he was just as Jesse accepted Hokuto. Jesse knew if he needed to choose someone to catch him, Hokuto would never drop him, and Jesse would never let him go in return. 

The love that he had for Hokuto was so strong, burning brightly in his chest, and it was so obvious to him now. Ever since Hokuto had stumbled into his life, Jesse had been building his love until it stood strong and solid before him, an unmovable force that couldn’t be broken. His mind and heart had been carved so that there would always be a piece of Hokuto in him.

Jesse’s hand on Hokuto’s shoulder felt like it would be scorched if he kept it there a second longer, but he couldn’t let Hokuto go. His mind raced with negativity that he couldn’t control. What if he never got the opportunity to hold him again? What if Hokuto didn’t feel the same? 

He needed to get Hokuto alone. Just the two of them far away from Shintaro and Kochi. Jesse didn’t know if he would confess, or even if he had the strength to so suddenly after realizing his own feelings, but he needed to figure out if Hokuto was even interested. As much as he adored Shintaro and Kochi, he didn’t want to make any kind of move in front of either of them. Jesse didn’t think he could handle the eternal teasing. 

When Shintaro was satisfied with their pictures, Jesse slipped his hand from Hokuto’s shoulder and returned it back to his hand. He leaned in close to Hokuto’s ear, whispering, “Come with me,” before leading them into one of the many darkened hallways connecting the various exhibit rooms of the museum.

Jesse’s heart was beating in his chest as they wandered through the different rooms, weaving in and around people who were walking a bit too slow for Jesse’s liking. He wanted a quiet place, as far away from other people as he could, to talk. It would be difficult in a packed museum, more and more people funneling in every few minutes, but there had to be somewhere. Jesse just had to locate it.

No matter where they went, no matter how out of line of sight they were, Shintaro always managed to find them not even thirty seconds after Jesse had found a place he thought could work for a quiet chat. Shintaro would come barging into the room, squeezing his way in between Hokuto and Jesse, looping his arms around them and loudly barking about how cool this display was or the kind of photo he wanted to take. Kochi would always volunteer to take the photos, and it gave Jesse the chance to slip away with Hokuto while Shintaro was distracted.

If Hokuto was confused or annoyed at Jesse’s constant run around, he didn’t show it. He only clung tightly to Jesse’s hand and followed his lead. Through rooms of hanging lanterns and a domed room with flowers flowing through space, he stayed by Jesse’s side, never letting him go. It only made Jesse’s heart beat faster in his chest. Was this a sign?

But after the sixth failed attempt, Jesse was beginning to feel as if he needed to leave the building entirely. No matter where Jesse tried to hide, Shintaro managed to find them before Jesse started the conversation he was desperate to have. Part of him wanted to strangle his best friend, the other was more understanding. They had agreed to hang out together, and now it seemed like Jesse didn’t want to spend time with him. Shintaro had to be feeling excluded, and Jesse couldn’t do it to his best friend any longer. One more chance. One more shot. If it didn’t work out this time, the plan would be abandoned. 

Jesse had wandered into the last exhibit with Hokuto, a room of hanging beaded lights that changed patterns and brightness based on the music playing. There were two paths to choose from through the exhibit space, one going right while the other went left. Jesse started to head through the right hand pathway before Hokuto tugged Jesse’s hand to go the opposite direction. Without so much as a second thought, he followed Hokuto around a gentle curve and into a dark triangular shaped room. There was a control panel closest to where the lights were hanging, a little box that allowed them to change the ambiance of the exhibit. It wasn’t long before Jesse saw Shintaro and Kochi in the distance following the path Jesse and Hokuto had not taken. 

“Jesse…is everything alright?” Hokuto’s voice was quiet, so quiet Jesse could barely hear it over the music that was playing.

“I…yes…maybe? I don’t know?” Jesse said, dropping Hokuto’s hand. He could feel his heart beating in his throat. They were finally alone.

Hokuto walked the small distance to the wall and leaned against it, patting the spot next to him, and Jesse couldn’t ignore the summoning. The lights glowed in front of them, the designs dazzling, and they watched them change to the swirling tone of the music. They stood in silence until Hokuto spoke. “Did I say something wrong?”

Jesse froze. Had Hokuto been talking to him as Jesse had been trying to escape Shintaro’s bloodhound senses? His silence must have distressed Hokuto since he sighed next to Jesse. 

“I should have known this was my fault. I shouldn’t have told you about the spell book ceremony so far in advance.” Hokuto’s voice sounded so sad. “If I had kept that information to myself, you wouldn’t be so nervous right now.” 

“What? No, that’s not what’s going on at all,” Jesse said. He pushed himself off the wall, so he could stand in front of Hokuto. “I-” love you. But no matter how he tried, Jesse couldn’t say the words out loud. He had just come to this realization an hour ago.

Hokuto cocked his head to the side, and Jesse’s eyes went to his throat, following the gentle curve down then back up. His gaze lingered on Hokuto’s cheeks, that perfect nose, before reaching Hokuto’s eyes. “You…?” Hokuto trailed off. 

He took a deep breath, trying to calm how fast his heart was beating. “Hokuto, even if you hadn’t told me about what’s happening in a few weeks, I would have been anxious about it. So please don’t blame yourself.” There was a strand of hair that had fallen out of Hokuto’s hairstyle, and Jesse longed to brush it back but couldn’t make his body move. “I…this is about something completely different.”

Though he had intended to ease Hokuto’s worries, his friend only stiffened in front of Jesse. Hokuto’s gaze drifted downward, and he refused to look Jesse in the eye.

“If I’m honest, I’m incredibly nervous,” Jesse said. He felt the words falling from his lips before his brain could process what he was saying. “But I’m also scared that I’m about to make a fool out of myself.”

“I’ve never known you to make a complete fool of yourself when you’re not meaning to,” Hokuto said. His fingers were fiddling with the hem of his hoodie. “You always hold yourself so well, and, even if you make a mistake, you own when you were wrong. It’s something that I’ve always admired about you.”

Jesse felt like he couldn’t breathe. “You admire me?”

“I do.” Hokuto’s gaze dropped to where his hands were, and Jesse watched the way he bit his lip. He had never noticed before how full and plump Hokuto’s lips were, the desire to kiss them growing in his stomach. “I…I admire you more than you know.” Hokuto took a shaky breath in. “I admire that you always put others first, even when others tell you that you’re supposed to look out for yourself. You would do anything for your friends and are always there to defend them.” Hokuto’s voice was shaking, and Jesse wanted to reach out and pull him into a hug. “I feel lucky to have you in my life because I feel like I don’t deserve to have you.” 

A single step closed the meager distance between them. Jesse reached out to grab hold of Hokuto’s chin, tugging it up until Hokuto’s eyes met his. He could see how Hokuto expressed all of his worries and doubts about himself through a single look. And he saw the confusion blossoming in Hokuto’s eyes, questioning what Jesse was doing the longer Jesse held onto his chin. Jesse felt Hokuto’s warm breath on his skin, and he wanted to know how those luscious lips felt on his.

“Don’t steal my line,” Jesse said, earning a small puff of laughter from Hokuto. “I’m the one who is lucky to have you after everything you’ve done for me.”

There was something else in Hokuto’s eyes, something that Jesse hadn’t seen before. It twinkled, dancing around the dark depths of his pupils before racing across Hokuto’s features. He saw the way Hokuto’s lips pulled back into the happiest smile and how his hands reached out, grasping onto the edge of Jesse’s jacket to pull Jesse closer; he noticed it all. Jesse’s body followed, comprehending the signs faster than his mind could process.  

Jesse leaned in ever so slightly, breath hitching in his throat until Hokuto slowly closed his eyes. His head tilted up, and it took all of Jesse’s restraint not to crush their lips together. He didn’t want a kiss so rushed he couldn’t remember every single nanosecond of. He breathed out, closing his own eyes, and started to close the distance.

“THERE YOU GUYS ARE!” Shintaro shouted. “KOCHI, I FOUND THEM! You said it couldn’t be done, but I FOUND THEM!”

Before their lips could touch, Jesse heard Shintaro’s hurried footsteps coming around the bend they had walked through not long before. It sounded like Kochi wasn’t too far behind him. Jesse felt Hokuto slip from his grasp, and Jesse’s heart started to ache.

Just a little bit longer. Just a few seconds more and he could have been kissing Hokuto. He could have been cradling that beautiful face in his hands, noses brushing. He would have known what Hokuto tasted like on his tongue and how they would have stood there after, foreheads pressed together and laughing at how wonderful they felt. He’d trace those plump lips with his thumb, memorizing every detail until he swooped in for a second. He had been close, so close, and his heart burned over what Jesse had missed. 

“Why did you guys keep running off?” Jesse heard Shintaro ask, his tone so light and carefree.

“Jesse had some questions he wanted to ask,” Hokuto answered, his voice calm as if they hadn’t been moments from sharing a secret kiss. “Boring magic stuff he didn’t want to worry either of you guys about.” 

His heart was stinging with every beat, the pain increasing tenfold with every breath. He couldn’t focus on anything, anyone. He only felt that horrible, terrible pain mixing with the love he felt, combining into a mess in his chest. The sensation started to spread, flowing from his veins into the other parts of his body. 

“Dude, none of this magic stuff is boring! You could read magical law books to me, and I would eat this stuff up.” Shintaro laughed.

“Still, I wanted to respect Jesse’s wishes,” Hokuto said. “Though it wasn’t too personal, I promise. I’m sure Jesse will share our conversation with you in no time.”

This…this wasn’t normal. He wanted to scream, to yell, but his mouth wouldn’t open. Where was this feeling coming from? Jesse shouldn’t want to tear his skin off from a single missed kiss. An ache, yes. Anger of being interrupted, yes, but this burning fire was too out of control. He wanted to get someone’s attention, but the conversation was flowing around him as if he was a rock stuck at the side of the stream.

“Jess,” he heard Kochi say, and the chatter between Shintaro and Hokuto stopped as they finally noticed him. “Are you okay?”

The lights in the exhibit went haywire, the beautiful patterns and rhythms of its design crackling. He heard the music screech and grind itself to a halt, and the chattering sound of other guests wandering through the room replaced it, wondering what was happening. He couldn’t make out what they were saying nor even process the words. It all felt like a distant hum. His entire focus was pulled inwards towards the blazing ache that was consuming him. It had subsided a bit, enough to give him room to breathe, but it coursed through his veins like death. 

“What the fuck is happening?” he heard Shintaro ask, and he felt himself be pulled into someone’s lap. He had fallen? When did that happen?”

“I-I think it’s his magic,” Hokuto said, and Jesse felt how Hokuto’s hands shook as he tried to pull Jesse into a sitting position. “I think the block on it is fading faster than I expected, and it’s starting to become too much for his body to handle.”

“What do we do?” Kochi asked, and Jesse could hear him pacing around. “We can’t exactly walk out of here with him like this!” 

“Don’t panic,” Hokuto said, his voice trembling. “I’ll get him to Juri’s. You two leave the way we came in and meet me there. I’ll figure out a way to temporarily stop all of this, and before the weekend is over, we’ll make his spell book.” 

“Hokuto. Look at me.” Shintaro’s voice cut through, and Jesse felt Hokuto stop shaking. There was a beat of silence before Shintaro spoke again. “Lock in.”

If Hokuto responded, Jesse didn’t hear it. He had been clawing to stay conscious, but he felt his grip slipping more and more as time passed. He felt Hokuto’s arms wrap firmly around his midsection, one hand cradling his head. Hokuto held him close as a swirling sensation filled his vision, and then all Jesse knew was darkness.

Jesse woke up to sunlight streaming through the window, blinking the sleep from his eyes. He was in his bed in his one room apartment, covers pulled up to his shoulders. He could see his couch and coffee table from where he was laying and the little area that barely qualified as a kitchen, not that Jesse cooked that often. The door leading to the front door, as well as where his bathroom and shower were, was closed. Jesse was home. He was safe, but he couldn’t remember how he had gotten there.

The last thing he had remembered was being in the museum, Hokuto tugging him closer by the edge of his jacket. Jesse’s heart had been beating so quickly, his body reacting to the signals Hokuto had been giving, and it felt unreal to be so close to the object of his newfound affection. He had been leaning down to kiss Hokuto when Shintaro's voice called out to them. He felt Hokuto slip from his grasp, there was a little pain, and then…he had woken up. Anything after the pain didn’t exist in his memory.

The bed shifted as someone sat down by Jesse’s feet, making him jump. A hand rested on Jesse’s covered knee, but Jesse relaxed when he heard who it was. “How are you feeling?” Hokuto’s voice was soft and gentle. He was dressed in a sweater overflowing with lightning bolts and bright blue sweatpants. Hokuto’s expression was neutral, but Jesse sensed a worry hidden deep in Hokuto’s eyes.

“Good,” Jesse said. He started to push himself to a sitting position but winced when a shock of pain flashed through him. Hokuto appeared by the head of the bed, a hand on Jesse’s lower back to help him fully sit up. “Maybe. Hokuto, what happened?” 

Hokuto’s words were tentative, each one hanging in the air before he said another. “Your…your magic went haywire at the museum.” Hokuto rubbed gentle circles into Jesse’s back, and Jesse leaned back into the touch. Hokuto’s massage was firm, and the tension sitting in Jesse’s muscles slowly evaporated. “I managed to cast another block on your magic, but it’s only temporary. I can already feel it starting to fade. If we don’t act quickly…” Hokuto trailed off, but Jesse didn’t need to hear the rest of the sentence. He knew the consequences.

“Are Shin and Kochi-”

“Your human friends are fine,” Juri said. He was standing in a doorway that shouldn’t have existed. Normally it would have been the connecting wall between Jesse’s apartment and his neighbor’s. Juri was half done up for the day. His black dress shirt had a few buttons undone, his sleeves rolled up to the elbow. He had foregone his usual tie and jacket. He had only accessorized with a few rings compared to the mountain of jewelry he usually wore. Juri waved his hand, and the illusion of Jesse’s bedroom dissolved, the room transforming before his very eyes. The new layout was small, about half the size of his apartment, but had a small closet, bed and nightstand as simple furnishings. There were a few decorations on the walls but nothing that drew Jesse’s attention. “I kicked them out of rocks this morning to get some sleep. They hadn’t left your side all night.”

Jesse felt horrible. He had caused his friends to worry enough that they had felt the need to stand vigil over him. He knew he would need to find some kind of way to thank them for their service, but his mind couldn’t formulate a proper idea. Even if it hadn’t been his fault entirely, his leaking magic was beyond his control, he still had a sinking feeling in his chest that he was to blame.

“I wanted to stay by your side to make sure you made it through the night, but Shin forced me to bed,” Hokuto said. He took Jesse’s hand, weaving their fingers together and sandwiching it with his other. “Taiga gave them both a megaphone to wake us up if things took a turn for the worst. They took their jobs so seriously. I’ve never seen Shin that quiet.” Hokuto rested his head on Jesse’s shoulder. “I feel so responsible. If only I had been paying more attention to your magic. We wouldn’t be in this-” 

“Both of you stop it,” Juri snapped. “It’s written on both of your pitiful faces. This is no one’s gods damned fault. Now,” he said, standing up straighter and crossing his arms over his chest. “This is what we’re going to do. I’m going to go into the next room and get Taiga. Hokuto, you’re going to get that guy ready for his spell book ceremony, and then we’re getting this mess done before I have a dead man in my magic den. Got it?”

Jesse nodded, and he felt Hokuto do the same against his shoulder. Satisfied with their understanding, Juri turned to leave, but he stopped. He turned slightly to half face Jesse. “I’m not going to let you die,” Juri said before slipping back into the hallway. 

“I need to get you ready for the spell,” Hokuto said, and Jesse saw Hokuto sneakily wipe his eyes. “I’ll help you lay back down. You should be comfortable for what’s about to happen.” 

Hokuto’s hand was firm on his back, helping Jesse to lay back down in case there was any more sudden pain from his leaking magic. When he was safely nestled on the pillow, Hokuto threw the covers off entirely. Someone had changed Jesse’s clothes while he had been passed out, replacing them with a pajama set, unlike the usual t-shirt and shorts he usually slept in. He hoped someone had kept the clothes he had been wearing the previous day. He liked that jacket.

With a snap of his fingers, Hokuto made three wide leather straps appear that were snug across Jesse’s chest, hips, and knees. Hokuto checked the buckles, making sure he had magically secured them, and Jesse flexed, testing the bonds against his own brute strength. He couldn’t move an inch. There was no way he could get out of them.

Hokuto had already explained he needed to make a few concessions due to the location of Jesse's own ceremony. Usually the spell required extreme precision when it came to the position of Jesse’s body, Jesse’s arms and legs needed to be in a specific placement to best encourage his magic to leave his body. He also needed to be chained down to discourage movement. Given the limitations of Juri’s magic den and lack of stone structure to the building, Hokuto had deemed it necessary to skip this part. There were also runes that needed to be freshly painted onto stone flooring, but the specific paint was created and mixed on site, not to mention it was only made when a ceremony was scheduled to take place. Hokuto wouldn’t be in charge of making it once he ascended to his grandfather’s seat and had no way of swiping a batch, so he had chosen to forgo it as well. 

The preparation reminded him of a twisted surgery. He wanted to make a joke, to ask if Hokuto needed to leave and wash his hands before they got started, but Jesse’s words remained stuck in his belly, his throat refusing to speak. That kind of easy atmosphere would ease the anxiety clawing at Jesse’s heart momentarily, but it would have the opposite effect on Hokuto. Jesse could see from the way Hokuto was moving, his body rigid and robotic, his gaze avoiding Jesse at every turn, and knew that it would only stress him out. It wasn’t an appropriate time. Not when so much hung in the balance.

He went another route instead, his memory tugging at moments from yesterday in the hanging lights room.

“Hokuto,” Jesse called out. He saw the lion freeze, his eyes finally meeting Jesse’s. He saw the fear clinging to Hokuto’s eyes, the stress painted across his features with broad strokes. “When this is all over today, do you want to go to a magic den by my apartment? Just the two of us?” 

He saw an empty smile crack itself across Hokuto’s face. “You’ll more than likely be too tired to move when we’re finished.” And Jesse’s heart fell for a moment. “But…,” Hokuto said, and Jesse felt hope beat through his veins. “But maybe…when you’re feeling better…?” 

His heart leapt, and Jesse felt it bang around in his chest. “I would like that a lot, actually.”

Juri and Taiga walked into the room then, Taiga hugging his Conan manga to his chest so tightly. It was the most grave and serious Jesse had ever seen the snake, only giving a curt nod to Hokuto before taking his place near Jesse’s bedside. Juri stood beside him, and Jesse could see the faint outline of Juri’s spell book tucked in the waist of Juri’s pants. 

“Remember to stay as calm as you can, even if you start to feel pain. It’s important that you don’t panic,” Hokuto said. He took his place on the other side of Juri. “And don’t forget! When you feel your body start to become light, you need to imagine what your spell book is going to look like. You have a limited time to shape your magic into it.” Hokuto took a shaky breath in. “Okay. Let’s begin.” 

Juri’s voice was the first one to start, a low rumble of chanting that filled the air. The words he spoke were ancient, long ago forgotten. Taiga’s voice joined in swiftly, a mix between singing and speaking to match the rhythm of Juri’s voice. Their voices combined together, swirling in the air to create a beautiful harmony of sound.

Jesse kept himself relaxed as he listened to Juri and Taiga’s voices. He heard what he thought the end of the spell sounded like, and the pair started to repeat it for a second time. This wasn’t so bad. He didn’t know what Hokuto was talking about. Pain? Hah! He laughed at the thought of it. Maybe the fact that his magic had been blocked for so long was a good thing. Maybe it diminished the supposed side effects of having a spell book made. He had to be the luckiest person in the world if that was the case! 

“I’m going to fully remove the block on your magic now,” Jesse heard Hokuto say over Juri and Taiga’s chanting. “Remember, relax. This will be over before you know it.”

Between Juri and Taiga’s voices, Jesse picked out a few words here and there from Hokuto’s own. His hands were in front of him, palms facing down and fingers spread slightly. There were words like ’break’ and ‘set free’ that Jesse caught, but the sound and force of Juri and Taiga’s own spell were building in fervor. They swallowed the sound of Hokuto until Jesse strained to hear him. 

A pulse of magic burst through the air suddenly, shaking not only the bed but the entire building structure of rocks, but the trio of magic stayed firm in their spell casting. Jesse heard Hokuto switch his spell to the ancient sounding one on the fourth round, his voice joining in with Juri and Taiga’s. The chanting voices fell away from Jesse’s senses as a wave of pain came crashing down over him, knocking the breath from his lungs.

Jesse had known pain. He had experienced his fair share of injuries. He had even ended up in the hospital one time for attempting to do parkour as a teenager. Jesse was a boy, after all. He had engaged in his fair share of activities that ended in scrapes, cuts and mysterious bruises over the years. It was a part of growing up and exploring the world around him. But this? This was so much worse.

It felt as if every bit of muscle in his body was peeling itself away, separating itself and spreading underneath his skin. His bones moved and shifted, struggling to pull themselves out of their sockets. His lungs screamed for air, his heart burned in his chest, and he wanted nothing more than to shout and scream and beg for Hokuto to stop. This was too much. Death would be kinder than keeping him in this eternal pit of suffering.

How was this normal? How was this so accepted in magical society? Jesse couldn’t comprehend why anyone would put themselves through this torture to keep practicing magic. It wasn’t worth it, not by a long shot. His very soul felt as if it was being ripped from his body, and he wanted to cry. Something was being torn from him, strand by tiny strand, and it felt so unnatural, an absolute abomination. Jesse wanted to stay the way he was born, so whole and perfect, and his entire being screamed at him to fight against it.

A great strength came over him, and he fought against the straps binding him to the bed. Jesse felt them give ever so slightly but remained steadfast. He was stuck. He couldn’t get out, and that thought made him panic even more. He had been lied to. The lack of a spell book wasn’t what was going to kill him. It was the ceremony itself. He would never get to see Shintaro and Kochi again. He was never going to taste his mother’s cooking or spend time with his father anymore. He would never graduate from university or get the chance to apply for medical school. 

Jesse would never know what it was like to kiss Hokuto.

Jesse’s focus shifted in a moment, drifting from the pain tearing him apart, and Hokuto consumed his every thought. Hokuto’s smile. His laugh. The way that Hokuto’s hand felt in his. The teasing tone of his voice. The way Hokuto clung to Jesse’s side when they stood in line for lunch. The elegant way Hokuto held his chopsticks and how his eyes lit up when he tasted something delicious.

Everything was Hokuto, and that bit of relief, that bit of normalcy, allowed his mind to refocus on the lessons and words Hokuto had instilled in him prior to that day. He needed to calm down. Starting from his head and working his way down to his toes, Jesse slowly relaxed each and every one of his muscles. He took his time, feeling the tension unwind itself until his body felt like molten glue. The pain was still there, beating and burning under his skin, but it felt much more manageable. 

He kept his mind occupied as he worked on relaxing himself by thinking of Hokuto and their promised date, their first date. He thought of the insane combination of clothing Hokuto would choose, and yet the outfit would compliment him perfectly. They would go to Kiss Me and experience that eccentric owner’s drinks before going back to Jesse’s for a movie. And maybe, just maybe, if Jesse was lucky enough, he could kiss Hokuto goodnight. It would be the perfect evening.

A great sense of calm washed over Jesse, the pain washed away as if it had never existed at all. Jesse’s body felt so light, as if he was a cloud floating through the sky on a warm summer day. Everything he had experienced not even moments before, the urgency to escape, the hopeless despair, were distant memories in his mind. The only thing that existed was the sense of true peace.

From his chest rose a bright white light, and his breath was stolen once more from his lungs. Jesse had listened to Hokuto explain what it was like to gaze upon his magic in physical form, the indescribable beauty that had left Hokuto at a loss for words, but he hadn’t been able to comprehend. How could something exist in that kind of way? But seeing it for himself, it was nothing like Jesse had imagined. The feeling in his heart was of a connection full of a love of the purest kind. It was him and yet not him. A part of his being and yet separate, and yet Jesse knew he understood what true peace was. 

A memory shot through his mind like lightning. He couldn’t dawdle. Jesse needed to form his magic into his spell book or it would disappear. Jesse closed his eyes, focusing on the form he wanted his book to take. It wasn’t long before he felt a little book flopping onto his chest. When he opened his eyes, he bent his body as much as he could against the binds to see it: a joke book. Jesse had done it. He had made his spell book.

He couldn’t wait to get his hands on it, to see what magical knowledge existed behind its pages. Jesse knew that he didn’t know much, just the few spells he had been working with Hokuto to perfect, but there was an excitement bursting in his chest. As long as there were no horrible side effects and he was normal, the world was now open to him and the possibilities. Over time he would fill his little book with knowledge and spells, and, one day, he hoped to rival the knowledge that Hokuto had in his own. 

But something…something wasn’t right. He had expected to hear Hokuto’s joy at Jesse successfully creating his spell book. Taiga would have been teleporting around the room, joyfully shouting about how another magic had officially joined their group. Hell, Jesse even hoped the walls around Juri would break a bit and he would smile. Maybe even say how proud he was, but Jesse wasn’t holding his breath for a compliment lacking any bite to it. The entire bedroom was silent except for the sound of labored breathing, and, no matter how Jesse tried to move his head, he couldn’t see where it was coming from.

Jesse felt someone undo the buckle securing his chest to the bed before a loud thump followed. There was enough wiggle room for him to slip his hand out from the binding over his hips, and he quickly undid it before sitting up to undo the one over his knees as well. When he was free, Jesse twisted to look over the bed and froze at what he found.

Hokuto was on the floor next to him, crumpled into a ball. His arms were wrapped around him, but his entire body was trembling. Jesse’s first instinct had been to grab the comforter from the bed to try and warm Hokuto up, but then he saw how pale Hokuto was, his skin near translucent. Hokuto’s breath was ragged, and as Jesse sat frozen on the bed, there were a few times he thought he heard Hokuto stop breathing. 

He hadn’t wanted to look away, but Jesse had needed to confirm how Taiga and Juri were. Taiga was completely passed out, and Jesse could barely see the rise and fall of his chest. Juri was in a similar state, eyes glossed over as he clung to his sides. He let out a low groan that sent shivers down Jesse’s spine. Both looked as if they were barely clinging to life.

What happened? Hokuto had promised everything was standard. He had said his grandfather walked away from these ceremonies like it was nothing. Sometimes the elders did as many as three ceremonies in a day. With that kind of prior knowledge, conducting a single one hadn’t seemed that impossible. Something had changed.

“No, no, no!” Jesse jumped to the floor beside Hokuto, discarding his spell book on the edge of the bed, and pulled Hokuto’s head into Jesse’s lap. “Hey there, Hokuto. Stay with me. Talk to me.” 

Hokuto’s eyes were scrunched together, a grimace on his lips, and he barely cracked his eyes open to look at Jesse. “I…I think I gravely miscalculated.” Hokuto’s words were strained, a hollow laugh escaping from his lips that turned his grimace into one of pain. “Too much magic needed. Not enough...”

Jesse’s mind was racing. From his medical knowledge, the signs were all there. Hokuto was fading quickly, and Jesse didn’t know what to do. He was only a pre-med student whose magic line specialized in some kind of healing. He wasn’t even sure what that entailed. Was he supposed to heal someone through true love’s kiss? Was he supposed to give them his blood in a magical transfusion? The more he thought about it, the more Jesse realized wasn’t qualified to save a person’s life, even in the human world he wasn’t. He hadn’t even decided where he wanted to go to med school! Nor did he know any spells in order to heal people. Spells needed words, and those were things Jesse was severely lacking.

If only they knew another monkey line member. If only Jesse had been smart to seek one out while they waited for Juri and Taiga to learn the ceremony’s spell. He could have easily healed all three of them, and he wouldn’t be panicking on the floor. He wouldn’t be watching the metaphorical blood of three people be painted on his hands. Jesse was about to lose the person he loved.

He cradled Hokuto’s face in his hands, tears forming in his eyes and he closed them as they ran down his cheeks. He had only been magic for a short time, but Jesse already had so many regrets. He had thought that healing was a ridiculous form of magic when Juri first revealed his specialty. Healing was normal. It was something the body naturally did on its own, but doctors and nurses helped aid in that process. It had seemed like such a ridiculous concept to infuse into a magic line, but Jesse wanted to eat his past negativity. If only he hadn’t been so stupid.

“Fuck!” Jesse shouted, letting the bubbling stress escape from him in a burst. He looked down at Hokuto, pleading with him. “What do I do? Hokuto, how do I fix this?”

Hokuto didn’t answer. His lips formed words that Jesse couldn’t understand, and he watched as a single tear ran down Hokuto’s face. He closed his eyes once more, not wanting to see Hokuto suffering and in pain.

Jesse wanted to brush the tear away, to rub away the pain like his mother had whenever Jesse had gotten hurt as a kid. He had come home one time with a deep bruise on his shin after falling on the playground, the kind of bruise that hurt with even the slightest brush of skin. She had taken one look at it and beckoned Jesse over. She had sat him down on a stool, grabbing a cream from their medicine cabinet and her little book of remedies she always kept on her. She gently rubbed the cream into his skin. As she worked, she repeated the words she always said whenever she took care of Jesse’s bumps and scrapes. In the morning, the bruise had faded so that Jesse could barely see the outline of it anymore. 

His eyes flew open. What if…what if that was a spell? But that couldn’t be right. Was there a way his mother had been doing healing magic on him? He shifted slightly so he could grab his spell book from the side of the bed. His hands were shaking as he flipped through the early pages of the book. There were a few spells he didn’t recognize at the beginning, the words foreign to him, and there were the levitations spells he had been working on with Hokuto. Nestled between the two were the words from Jesse’s memory. 

What if his mother had been doing healing magic on Jesse for years, and he had never noticed it? It was possible. He hadn’t noticed the magic around him until his block had started to fade. He certainly wouldn’t have noticed spells being done in his childhood home if that was the case.

It was his one chance, his one opportunity, to fix all of this. If he was right, then he could save everyone, and they could move forward like nothing wrong had happened. After all, Jesse had a lot more to lose if he didn’t try. He crammed his spell book in his armpit to free up use of his hands. Jesse rubbed slow and small circles into Hokuto’s cheeks, so cold and clammy under his touch, and he began to speak the words he had heard so long ago.

At first, nothing happened. Jesse finished the possible spell, and Hokuto was the same. He could have sworn Hokuto’s cheeks were draining of color, and a panic flashed through him. He tried again, putting more force behind the words and infusing them with more energy. Jesse imagined Hokuto healthy again, life flowing through him. He thought of how he would embrace Hokuto afterwards, his tears soaking into the fabric of Hokuto’s shoulder, and how Hokuto’s arms would wrap around Jesse’s chest to never let him go.

When he was finished, Jesse heard the change in Hokuto’s breathing. It was less labored, steadier. His skin looked warm and tanned, and he could have sworn Hokuto’s cheeks felt softer and fluffier under his touch. For good measure, he repeated the spell a third time to be sure. It didn’t hurt to be careful. He placed Hokuto’s head gently on the floor when he was certain Hokuto was fine before Jesse moved on to casting the spell on Juri. He felt confident after repeating the spell twice that Juri would be okay, and, by the time Jesse finished casting over Taiga, he only needed to say it once.

Jesse collapsed into a sitting position on the floor, throwing his spell book to the floor next to him. He tucked his knees close to his body so he could rest his head there. He…he had done it. He had successfully cast his first purposeful spell. He had saved every single person in the room. He had healed them. 

He felt himself shaking as he clutched his knees tightly to his chest. Not from fear or anxiety but joy. Jesse had tasted magical drinks from rocks and Kiss Me. He had experienced what it felt like to cast magic without any intention, but this? This was the biggest rush Jesse had ever felt in his life. It was as if the blood coursing through his veins was singing, desperate to escape and replicate that healing magic over and over again. He wanted to yell, to scream, to shout and let everyone in Tokyo know how wonderful he felt. 

He grinned. He couldn’t wait to tell Shintaro and Kochi about it all. He already knew Shintaro would be so impressed at everything he had done. He would probably come up with some dumb nickname to call Jesse for the foreseeable future, like ‘Mr. Medical Magic Man,’ and Jesse would roll his eyes and accept it. Kochi would look at him with stars in his eyes and swear to go to him for every little health scare in the future, but Jesse didn’t mind. With magic at his disposal, anything was possible now.

When the others woke up, Jesse knew the first thing he would do. He’d ask Hokuto or Juri to help him find a proper magic teacher from the monkey line. He still wanted Hokuto to teach him the basics, he didn’t want that part of their routine to disappear entirely, but he needed a monkey to increase his healing knowledge. He also needed to ask Hokuto on a date. A real date where they would kiss. Jesse had no idea how he would do it, nor if he could even balance these lessons with his already strict school schedule, but he would find time. Hokuto was worth it.

A shifting across the room drew Jesse’s attention, and he perked up when he noticed it was Hokuto who had come to first. He opened his mouth to shout, to share his joy that Hokuto was okay, but Jesse stopped.

Hokuto…he looked frightened. His eyes were darting around the room between Jesse and then Juri and Taiga who were still passed out on the floor. His body was pressed against the wall, his feet digging into the floor as if he was trying to separate himself as far away from Jesse as he could.

“How are you still alive?” Hokuto asked. His hands were pressed onto the flooring as if he was preparing to jump up and run in a split second. Jesse wanted to go over, to sooth Hokuto as much as he could, but every little movement, every sound, made Hokuto flinch.

“What do you mean? The three of you made my spell book.” Jesse went to reach for it on the floor but thought better of it. Jesse stopped and sat criss crossed on the floor. “So I’m fine? Right?”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.” Hokuto’s voice was strained. “Monkeys…monkeys heal by taking on the pain of others into their body.” Hokuto was shaking as he talked. “Things like broken limbs, organ failure, and cancer are too big for a single person to handle by themselves. Some are too big for even a group of people to balance among themselves. How did you…” Hokuto trailed off, but Jesse didn’t need him to fill in the blanks. 

There had been three people in this room at death’s door. Three people who had been clinging to consciousness, and Jesse had held Hokuto, watching him cling to life. Based on Hokuto’s explanation, Jesse shouldn’t have been able to bring one of them, let alone all three of them back to full health. The mere thought of it should have killed the inexperienced Jesse.

Hokuto’s gaze was unwavering on Jesse, his words laced with quiet disbelief. “What…what are you?”

Time hung around them as Jesse processed the words that had come out of Hokuto’s mouth, but his mind wouldn’t let him comprehend the meaning behind them. Four words, four simple words, but it was as if Hokuto had spoken another language to Jesse’s brain. It was a strange question to ask, a touch bizarre, but one Hokuto wouldn’t have asked if he didn’t have a reason. Jesse was sure of it, and his mind was racing to formulate an answer that would be good enough. His lips formed the words as his mind pieced together a sentence character by character.

“I’m just Jesse,” he said, fingers twitching. “I haven’t changed just because I gained healing magic. I’m still the same person that you know.”

“But this,” Hokuto said, gesturing to the room. His hand was shaking visibly until he pulled it close to his chest, “this shouldn’t have happened! None of it should have. I thought we were fully prepared. I thought we were doing everything right, but I was wrong. I vastly underestimated the magical power we needed.”

“Hokuto, it’s okay,” Jesse said. He tried to speak as calmly as he could, to get Hokuto to relax. “Everyone makes mistakes. You know I’ve made mountains of them before, and it all worked out in the end for me. This time is no different.” Jesse’s fingers twitched again. “We can move on and forget what almost happened. I healed you. There’s nothing to worry about anymore.” 

“No, no, no, no, no,” Hokuto said. He pulled himself into a little ball, hiding his face behind his knees, and held himself close. Jesse could barely make out his muffled voice from across the room. “You don’t get it, Jesse! You don’t know how that felt at all. Every breath I took…I didn’t…I didn’t know if it would be my last.” Hokuto’s voice was shaking, the sound of it radiating through his body, and Jesse ached to hold him. “The last thing I saw before it all went black was you. I thought that would be my final memory until I woke up again.” Hokuto’s voice was choking out the words he spoke. “I should have never been in that position!” 

Something was digging into Jesse’s brain, hooking its claws into him to yank him down into the muck slowly infiltrating his mind. It whispered in his brain how Hokuto was right. If Jesse had never discovered his magic, things would be fine. Hokuto would have never known what it was like to come face to face with death nor the feeling of his heart slowly stop beating. There would only be memories of happiness and life in Hokuto instead of an all consuming darkness dragging him closer and closer to a six foot deep grave.

“I would do anything to change what happened,” Jesse said. He tried to slowly scoot closer to Hokuto, to close the distance between them slowly, but Hokuto’s head snapped up at the sound of movement. His expression was so scared, so terrified, that Jesse didn’t have the heart to try again. They were meant to exist far apart for this conversation. “Hokuto, please understand. I never meant for any of this to happen. Please, forgive me. I’m so sorry-”

“No!” Hokuto barked, and Jesse froze where he sat. Hokuto had never snapped at him like that before. “This is your fault.” He looked off to the side, muttering to himself. “Should have known better.” 

“I-I wish I did,” Jesse stuttered. He could feel the insides of himself cracking and shattering, the shards falling down into the bottomless pit of his heart. “But I don’t know anything. I’m still trying to learn. I’ll try and do better in the future to help all of you.”

Jesse didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t physically comfort Hokuto, and his words were doing nothing to calm him down either. He was stuck in the center of a storm, a lonely ship getting thrown around by waves three times his size. Jesse was doing his best to weather the conditions, waiting for sunny skies to return once more, but the winds and rain continued to batter him the longer this conversation went on.

This wasn’t supposed to be how things went. It was the furthest thing from Jesse’s mind when he had been on such a high, but he was slowly losing steam and crashing back down to earth. He didn’t understand where any of this was coming from. Weren’t they all okay? Hadn’t he saved them? He had, Jesse was most certain of that, but Hokuto’s words and actions told another story, one where he had woken up to a room full of dead bodies instead of one where they were all alive.

Jesse wanted to reason with Hokuto, to make him see some sort of logic, but his brain wasn’t working fast enough. This was Hokuto’s forte. He was always the one in their friend group who saw scenarios from multiple perspectives in order to invoke an understanding of an opposing viewpoint. He was so damn clever, and Jesse had loved watching Hokuto’s mind work as he pieced together the parts needed for a compelling argument. Jesse, on the other hand, was the glue that kept all of them together, the moodmaker, and now it was as if his power had been diluted with an ocean of water.

Hokuto’s fingers were curled around the knee of his sweatpants, digging into them like talons as he spoke. “I saved you,” Hokuto said, his voice catching in his throat. “I taught you all about the world you were separated from. I convinced Juri to welcome you in with open arms, so that you would feel more at home here. And when you were nearly dead on the floor, I helped create your spell book, so you could live. I funneled so much of my magic into severing the bonds of yours, and instead of me helping you, you drained me of my magic. I saw Taiga and Juri dying next to me, and I knew deep down in my heart that I was going to be next. Do you know what that feels like?” Hokuto ran his hands through his hair, gripping onto the strands. “To watch your best friends dying and you can’t break the spell or risk everyone in the room dying? I had to continue. I had to keep letting myself have my magic be siphoned out of me. It was violating. How messed up is that?” 

“I didn’t know that I was doing that. I swear that I didn’t, Hokuto,” Jesse pleaded. “I felt my magic being ripped from my body, but I wasn’t aware that I was stealing your magic in order to form my book. I would have tried to calm myself faster to cause you less pain if I had known.” Jesse felt absolutely horrified seeing Hokuto so broken before him. He was hunched over, an absolute shell of himself, and Hokuto’s eyes were glazed over as Jesse spoke. “But I had to do something. I couldn’t be the reason that you died.”

Hokuto let out a weak laugh. “Yeah, you had to do something. You used that unnatural power of yours to save me. Don’t you get it? If you weren’t such a freak of nature, we’d all be dead!”

Jesse’s heart stopped in his chest. He…he couldn’t have heard that right. Hokuto would never insult him. He had never done that before. Jesse had his fair share of ridiculous and utter stupid moments in their years together, and Hokuto had never so much as called him an idiot in jest. Hokuto was kind. He was smart. He was the most rational and logical person that Jesse knew. It had to be a mistake, a slip of the tongue, Jesse told himself, but Hokuto’s words continued to strike him.

“Do you see how absolutely crazy this is?” Hokuto said, but Jesse couldn’t move his head, couldn’t avert his gaze. The only thing Jesse’s mind could process was the flooring in front of him, the wood grain swirling in his vision. “If you had tried to heal us and were a normal monkey, all four of us would be dead right now. In the past, you would be collected and studied in a laboratory to understand what was wrong with you. You would be an abomination to the monkey line! How absolutely terrifying would that be?”

His mind was spiraling, swinging round and round its designated path to the depths of despair, and Jesse couldn’t control his thoughts any longer. It had all been a lie. Everything had been one big practical joke. Hokuto had never cared for him. Hokuto had probably secretly thought it was hilarious that an eighteen year old kid didn’t know that he was magic. He had been biding his time to see how long it took until Jesse realized what he was. Jesse wouldn’t doubt if there was some kind of bet going on between Hokuto, Juri and Taiga about how long it would take poor, pitiful Jesse to learn his first spell. They had to be laughing at him behind his back!

His thoughts continued to unravel the more Jesse sat there, listening to Hokuto talk, and Jesse was kicking himself for not coming to this realization sooner. Jesse had always prided himself on being a decent judge of character, but it was a testament to how good of an actor Hokuto was. He had Jesse fooled for three long years, but it had only been a matter of time before the facade fell and the true Hokuto remained. 

“I should have seen it before,” Hokuto said. Jesse heard Hokuto shift his seating position, but he didn’t know how. The only thing he saw were past memories of him and Hokuto flicking through his head, and he felt broken. All of those smiles, those fond moments, were lies. “I should have known you would be super powered. I mean, what kind of parent would lock their kid’s magic power away behind a block?” Jesse felt the shards of himself continue to fall with every word Hokuto said, his happiness breaking until he was grasping at the final pieces. “They had to have known the power you possessed when you were younger! How could they not? That’s why they had to lock it away, so it wouldn’t fall into the hands of a monster.”

There was nothing left inside of Jesse. Nothing contained within his body. He felt like a shell of a person unable to experience any kind of joy, a void that was only meant to consume and not create. Three words cycled around in his brain, repeating themselves over and over.

Freak. Abomination. Monster. 

That’s what Jesse was. That’s how Hokuto saw him. That’s how Juri and Taiga would see him when they woke up and after Hokuto shared what Jesse had done. That story would pass to Shintaro and Kochi, his closest friends, and Jesse knew their minds would change. This dawning realization would hit them that they were friends with a monstrosity, one that needed to be chained in the darkest depths of the deepest prison on Earth.  

There was no saving Jesse. There was no helping him. Hokuto was right. Jesse was a monster unleashed. He shouldn’t have let Hokuto try to save his life. He should have accepted the fate that the universe had deemed him worthy of. Jesse wasn’t worth it, and this power that he possessed should have been destroyed the second he learned of its existence. 

The air in the room was stifling, Jesse’s lungs not taking in the air his body craved. The walls were closing in on him, and Jesse knew that he had to get out of there. He had to free himself before he was captured and locked away for the rest of eternity. If he ran, at least he could control his own fate. He could write his story to have a better ending. Anything was better than staying in a room where not even ten minutes before, he had experienced such elation and excitement for the future. Now, it only reminded him of the abomination he had become.

Hokuto thought he was a monster. Hokuto thought Jesse was the worst kind of person imaginable, and Jesse would never change his mind. He didn’t have it in him to fight, so Jesse would remove himself from the picture. He’d erase himself from the narrative so that way Hokuto would never have to see his face again. He would have to move on, to forget how his heart beat in time with Hokuto’s, but he could do it. Jesse would slowly cram all of the love he had in his heart into a box deep in his chest. He’d forget over time that he had fallen in love with Hokuto of the Lion Line.

Jesse snatched up his spell book, pushing himself off the floor, and he ran. He ran past the doorway into a little living room and kitchen. He ran down the stairs, into rocks, and onto the streets. He ran as fast as his legs could carry him, weaving in and out of people on the streets. He ignored red lights and blinking crosswalk signs. He ran and ran and ran until his lungs were begging for air, desperate for oxygen, but even then he kept running. 

He ran until he got the door to his apartment, fumbling with the key until he managed to unlock the door. He stepped inside and slammed it behind him, clicking the lock closed with one movement of his wrist. It was only then he collapsed on the floor and allowed the world around him to fully unravel. 

A knock echoed through Jesse’s apartment, slipping through the cracks from the front door to burrow its way into his ears. He knew he should get up to answer it, but Jesse couldn’t make his body move. He stayed on his bed, clutching his pillow tightly to his chest. His fingers dug into the fluff, and Jesse tried his hardest to keep pushing out the words floating around in his mind.

“What…what are you?”

No matter how he tried, no matter how Jesse distracted himself, his mind kept going back to those four words. They echoed around his head, becoming louder and louder until Jesse couldn’t even feel his heart beat in his chest. He wanted to claw at his ears, to silence them somehow, but no matter what Jesse did, the tone in which Hokuto spoke turned crueler and crueler until he couldn’t remember how they had been originally said. There were times he finally silenced the voice in his head, allowing himself to have a good hour where he forgot all of the troubles plaguing him, but, like a rocket, that phrase would shoot through his mind, destroying every semblance of peace he had cobbled together.

He hadn’t left his apartment in five days. Not since he had fled rocks without so much as a backwards glance. Hokuto had made himself perfectly clear with everything that he said, not leaving any room for a different translation. Hokuto hated him, plain and simple, and had made it perfectly clear what kind of person he thought Jesse was. It pained him deeply to throw away a precious friendship, but Jesse had to accept his new reality. Jesse would do everything in his power to make sure they never saw each other again. 

There was the chance of running into Hokuto between classes or at lunch, their daily school lives so intertwined, so Jesse had emailed his professors to claim he was sick, at least for a week or two while the wounds were still fresh. He had asked permission to do his classwork from the comfort of his apartment, and every single one of his professors had relented in the end, wishing him a speedy recovery. Getting groceries was also too much of a risk of running into someone he knew, so Jesse ordered take out far more than he normally would have. But his spell book, the thing he should have been the most proud of, he couldn’t look at it after the things Hokuto had said. He didn’t dare to. He crammed under his mattress, so he wouldn’t be reminded of everything that had happened at rocks. 

Jesse’s self-imposed isolation was the only way to protect his friends from what he had become, but, in doing so, had cut himself fully off from what occurred after he had fled. He didn’t know if Juri or Taiga were okay. He didn’t know what Hokuto had told them after the ceremony had been completed. Jesse’s phone had been blowing up with text messages from Shintaro and Kochi as well as his mother, wondering where he was and if he was okay, but he swiped away the notifications before he could read the full messages. They all had to know what Jesse was, and he didn’t need their text messages to confirm what he already knew. 

He was an absolute monster.

Hokuto had managed to validate every single worry Jesse had about himself, and that singular thought broke his heart more than he could ever imagine. There had always been a closeness to them since Jesse had noticed Hokuto clinging to his side. They had a mutual love and respect for each other. They cared for each other. They were friends! And yet when Jesse had looked at Hokuto after his spell book had been made, there was a distance between them that transcended the physical plane. Jesse was so certain that if the two of them had been separated by an entire ocean, Hokuto would have still been desperate for more space between them. He could still see that in the way Hokuto’s feet had dug into the floor, pushing himself farther and farther away from Jesse.

Jesse’s mind flooded with ‘should have’ when he thought about the moment before his world came crumbling down. He should have done something, anything, to try and comfort Hokuto. He should have crossed the room despite how Hokuto had flinched at any movement. He should have pulled Hokuto into his arms, smushed his face into Jesse’s shoulder, and held him until he stopped shaking. He should have done anything besides sit there and maybe, just maybe, Hokuto wouldn’t have gone on that tirade that ended with Jesse feeling this horrible, awful way. 

But he hadn’t. Jesse hadn’t done a single thing. How could he when Hokuto had addressed him as if he was a stranger, putting so much distance between them with only a few words? Hokuto had called him vicious and vile things. A freak of nature. An abomination. A monster. Whatever goodness Jesse had perceived in Hokuto had been destroyed in less than five minutes. This was how Hokuto truly saw him, and it tore at Jesse so violently. 

Those simple vile words Hokuto had called him dug a dagger into Jesse’s heart. Even before they had become friends, before Jesse had learned Hokuto’s little quirks and things that made him tick. Before he learned what Hokuto’s smile looked like when it was turned to him. Even before he remembered what Hokuto’s voice sounded like, Jesse was so certain Hokuto had never talked to him like that, even in a joking manner. 

There had always been a warmth to Hokuto, a belief in Jesse that Jesse had always accepted as truth and fact. Hokuto had become his sunshine, his rock, over the last month. He was the person who had kept Jesse sane, and Jesse was forever grateful to his friend for supporting him. They were the perfect combination outside of the chaos of their friend group, and Jesse would have done anything to return back to that bond they had cultivated.  

If only Hokuto didn’t hate him.

There was another knock at the door. This time louder, more insistent, but Jesse just rolled over and clutched his pillow tighter to his chest. It had to be Shintaro or Kochi. Hokuto never wanted to see him again. He had made that perfectly clear, but even if it was two of Jesse’s best friends wanting to talk to him, Jesse couldn’t imagine what they had to say. By this point, Hokuto had to have relayed the monstrous nature of Jesse’s magic, and he couldn’t foresee a future where either Shintaro or Kochi wanted to maintain a friendship with him. Jesse wanted to believe in his friends, he truly did. The other part of him knew that, if he told them about his unnatural power, there was no way they could remain on his side. 

Freak. Abomination. Monster. The words cycled through Jesse’s mind over and over, turning into a tornado of noise that he tried his best to shut out, but the sound was too powerful. He tried to breathe them out, expelling every inch of negativity from his body, but they snuck back in with every intake. They rattled around in his lungs, desperate to climb their way up to infect every cell of his body. 

Why couldn’t the block on his magic have held forever? Why couldn’t he have been a human for the rest of his life? Things were so much simpler before he had gone drinking with Shintaro in that park. Jesse had his friends. He knew his future path. He was working every day so that he could apply to medical school in a year. But, more than anything, Hokuto would still be at his side. Hokuto’s hand would still be in his, looking up and smiling at Jesse with the biggest grin on his face. Jesse’s heart would flutter in joy knowing that Hokuto’s attention was on him and only him.

But that’s not how things would go. They never would. Hokuto would forever live in a world where he had befriended a monster. If only Hokuto had never met Jesse. He would have never experienced such a horrifying beast.

The door separating Jesse’s room and his front entrance exploded into shards of wood, showering the room in a cloud of sawdust. Jesse jumped at the sound, heart racing as he searched for what could possibly cause this sort of destruction, but came face to face with a furious Juri instead. A sense of relief flowed through Jesse, for he was fine. Jesse hadn’t been killed in the blast, and Juri was perfectly healed from his injuries. Those thoughts dissipated in a flash when Juri curled his hands around Jesse’s loose t-shirt and lifted him off of the bed. 

“How absolutely dare you,” Juri snarled. His face was so close to Jesse’s that he could barely make out Juri’s features. “After all this time, I never thought you’d actually be this kind of person.”

This was it. This was how Jesse died.

“However you’re going to do it, just make it quick,” Jesse said. He scrunched his eyes. He didn’t want to see death coming for him. “At least give me that final request.”

There was a beat of silence then two and three and four. Jesse’s lungs were burning as he held in his final breath. He hoped for a swift and painless death, one where he didn’t feel it happening. He would float into the depths of the underworld and live out his afterlife in eternal servitude for the hell he had caused on earth. It’s what he deserved. But when he thought he couldn’t hold his breath any longer, Juri finally spoke, his grip relaxing on Jesse’s shirt. “You…you’re just as miserable as him.”

Jesse cracked open one of his eyes, and he tried to steady himself with what he saw. Juri was dressed far more casually than he had ever seen him before with a plain white long sleeve shirt and jeans that were patchworked together. He still had a mountain of jewelry on, but it was his expression that caught Jesse. There wasn’t much that had ever shocked Juri, at least from what Jesse had seen, but his face was positively perplexed at whatever he saw on Jesse’s face.

“I’m not here to kill you, you idiot.” Juri released his hold on Jesse’s shirt, and Jesse sank back down onto his bed. A sweet relief melted through Jesse’s veins with Juri’s words. He wasn’t going to die. That was good. He could continue to live out the rest of his life in solitude without fear of divine retribution from the fox.

“Then leave.” Jesse rolled over so his back was to Juri. He went to grab his pillow again, but it was ripped from his hands and tossed aside. “Hey!”

“I’m not going anywhere until you get out of this ridiculous pity party you’re throwing for yourself and apologize to Hokuto for what you’ve put him through this week,” Juri snapped, and confusion flashed through Jesse’s mind. “So get your ass up and get dressed. You’re going to rocks, and you’re working out this little spat today with him even if I have to drag you there kicking and screaming.”

“I’m not going,” Jesse said, wrapping his arms around himself the best he could. He rubbed his biceps to try and keep himself calm, his emotions starting to bubble up with every word he spoke. “You didn’t hear how he spoke to me after everything that happened. Hokuto thinks I’m a monster.” Freak. Abomination. The words stung, and he did everything in his power to reign in his emotions. He didn’t want Juri to hear him cry. “How the hell did you even find my apartment? Get out and leave me alone!”

“You’re not a monster, my bro.”

The new voice made Jesse jolt up, and he found Shintaro with Kochi hovering behind him in the doorway among the wreckage of the shattered door. He hadn’t heard them walk in, but it explained how Juri had found his apartment. The two of them must have led Juri here. 

“You’d have to do some pretty messed up things for me to think you’re a monster,” Shintaro continued. “Like drown a whole village with a river or establish a cult that worshiped the ground you walk on or suddenly like eating bitter gourds.”

“You don’t understand-” Jesse began, but Kochi cut him off.

“No, you don’t understand,” Kochi snapped, pushing past Shintaro to go farther into Jesse’s apartment. Each step he took echoed into the silence. “Do you know the hell you put us through the past five days? The last me and Shintaro heard,” he gestured between the two of them, “you either had that spell book ceremony or you died. Do you know how worried we were all of Sunday? No messages. No calls. We thought you died, and no one had the guts to tell either of us.”

Shintaro closed the distance between him and Kochi, laying a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, maybe we should be a little nicer to-”

“Fuck that.” Kochi shrugged off Shintaro’s hand. “Jesse’s going to hear all of this if he wants to treat us like shit.” He turned his attention back to Jesse. “Hokuto told us what happened. He told us how you saved not only his life but Juri and Taiga’s, too. He said you achieved this huge feat of magic and then you ran away. He refused to say why, but that doesn’t even matter at this point.” Kochi’s eyes were full of righteous fury as he spoke. “Instead of letting us know what was going on, you kicked us out. You locked yourself away and didn’t communicate with anyone at all, and you let us imagine the absolute worst happened to you. Do you know how fucked up that is?” 

Kochi’s words were digging into Jesse’s heart, and he felt nail upon nail being hammered into it with every word. All of Jesse’s decisions were being laid before him in their bluntest form, and Jesse couldn’t ignore that, in what he had imagined was kindness, was, in actuality, cruelty. 

“Do you know how many times Shintaro and I came over after school to check on you this week? Every single day,” Kochi snarled. “We knocked on your door every day. We messaged you every day. We called you every day, and you didn’t even give us a second of your time. You’re the one who decided how we felt without even asking us. That’s not how friends treat each other, Jesse, especially ones who have known each other for years. That’s not how you treat your best friend since elementary school,” Kochi wildly gestured to Shintaro before turning his fury back to Jesse. “You’re being an absolute shit friend, you asshole.” 

Kochi’s breathing was ragged when he finished his rant, but he was right. Jesse had been a horrible friend. There had been no denying it. He had thought he was protecting his friends, but instead, he was only dragging them down to the depths along with him. They cared for Jesse. Loved him. Appreciated him, but it didn’t erase how Hokuto felt about him.

“I’m sorry,” Jesse said. He shifted on the bed, so he was sitting on it, his feet planted on the floor. His hands were resting on his knees. “I should have reacted differently. I should have let both of you in and trusted in our friendship. That was wrong of me, and I will find some way to make it up to you both. But,” he took a deep breath in before looking at Juri, “there’s no way that I can ever meet Hokuto again. He hates me, and I want to respect his wishes to-”

“Shut the fuck up, Jesse,” Juri snapped. In all the time that Jesse had ever known Juri, the fox had never used his name. He had always been at the end of a disparaging nickname or simply been called ‘that guy’ when around others. Jesse snapped his jaw closed and listened. “You have no idea the torture you’ve inflicted on Hokuto and don’t you dare pretend as if you’re an expert on what he’s gone through this week,” he said when Jesse opened his mouth to try and defend himself once more. “I’ve been the one at his side. I’ve been the one trying to raise him up and calm him down because you ran away. Fucking hell.” Juri threw up his hands. “Do you know most days I couldn’t even coax Hokuto out of bed? I had to move him from his apartment to rocks to make sure he even ate a meal a day. He keeps saying this is all his fault, but I know it’s not. It’s yours.”

There was so much power in Juri’s words, the consonants cutting in every phrase to Jesse’s ears. “I’ve known Hokuto since he moved here from Shizuoka, and even when he was at his lowest point, I have never seen him in this kind of state before. Taiga has been watching over him when I’ve had to work because he breaks down more when he’s alone. One of my closest friends is a mess because of you.” Juri curled his hands into fists, and Jesse flinched. He was so sure Juri would teleport and punch him across the face. “If you do not fix this, I will rain down hellfire until your bones are nothing but sludge on the floor,” Juri threatened, and Jesse knew with every being of his soul that Juri meant it. “I never want to see Hokuto cry like that again, and I will not let a sorry excuse for magic get away with causing that kind of pain.”

Hokuto had been crying? Because of Jesse? But that…that didn’t make sense. Hokuto thought Jesse was a monster, an untamable beast. In fairy tales and legends, the hero of the story wasn’t supposed to empathize nor cry over their adversary. The commoners didn’t mourn the creature who was the cause of all of their strife. They were supposed to rejoice in their freedom, and yet Hokuto was reacting differently to how he had been scripted. It wasn’t possible, right? Jesse was the villain in all of their tales. 

The bed beside Jesse shifted, Shintaro sitting down next to him. His voice was quiet and oddly serious when he spoke. “I can’t speak for Kochi or Hokuto or even Juri, but I don’t think you’re a bad guy, Jesse.” Shintaro was fiddling with his hands as he spoke, massaging and cracking his knuckles. “I…I was honestly so worried for you, and then you wouldn’t answer any of my texts. It…it made me feel like you didn’t want to be my friend anymore.”

Shintaro took a shaky breath in. “I have no idea what you’re going through, and I’m not going to pretend to. You know me. I’m not that good at this serious kind of stuff.” Shintaro’s hand came up to rub the back of his neck. “But whatever happened on Sunday with Hokuto, I don’t care. You’re my best friend in the whole world and nothing is going to change that.”

For the first time in days, Jesse could breathe again. As long as Jesse had one person in his corner, somehow things would be okay. Jesse looked at the three people occupying his room: the anger melting off Kochi, Juri still full of righteous fury, and Shintaro calmer than Jesse ever remembered him being. There was peace flowing through him that he hadn’t experienced in days. Regardless of how these three people felt about his magic, they were fighting for the bonds that had connected them all together. Jesse had tried to escape, to slip through their fingertips like water, but it hadn’t worked. At least things were a little okay.

Jesse was still absolutely terrified of what would happen when he met Hokuto. What if Juri was lying to him? What if this was one big hoax and was meant to humiliate him further? Juri hadn’t been around to hear what Hokuto had said to him, and the story could have easily been twisted in Hokuto’s favor. After all, Juri had known Hokuto a lot longer than Jesse, and he was predisposed to believing whatever Hokuto said. Their bonds had years longer to form and build over time, and Jesse was some random guy who had stumbled into his life. Jesse felt absolutely sick to his stomach when he imagined confronting Hokuto face to face, and he wasn’t sure he had the confidence to do it.

At the same time, Jesse wanted to see Hokuto. He needed to learn for himself if what Juri had said was true. It was the only way Jesse would learn why Hokuto had called him a freak of nature, an abomination, and a monster, and, if they had any chance of moving forward, he needed to take the first step. No matter how crushed and broken he felt under the weight of what had happened, Jesse still loved Hokuto, and, in his heart of hearts, he couldn’t give up on that love that easily. He had to fight for it. If he failed, at least he gave it his best shot.

“You’ll always be my best friend, too,” Jesse said, nudging Shintaro’s side with his elbow. He saw Shintaro perk up at his words. He looked at Juri. “I don’t know if I can do anything to help Hokuto, but I’ll go with you. I should at least talk with him.” And Jesse saw the fury on Juri’s features shift, peeling away so there was less anger spread across his face.

Jesse stood up from his bed, Shintaro following after him. “Just fix my door first? Please? And then we can go,” he said. Jesse looked down at his clothes, seeing the holes in the shorts he usually slept in, and he cringed. “And, uh, let me shower and change, too.”

Jesse could have sworn he saw Juri’s face crack into the tiniest smile, but he didn’t point it out. He needed to fix things with Hokuto first before he risked teasing the fox.

The trip to rocks wouldn’t take long, Juri begrudgingly agreeing to teleport Jesse once he fixed the door with a wave of his hand. Jesse fished his own spell book out from under his mattress after he showered and put something more presentable on than holey shorts and a shirt that had seen better days. Shintaro and Kochi had left not long after, wanting to run an errand before meeting at the magic den in around an hour. Jesse tucked his spell book safely between his stomach and pants like he had seen Juri do before being whisked away. The sensation had been wild, Jesse clinging to Juri’s elbow, wind whipping around and forcing Jesse to close his eyes. When he opened them again, they were in the bar area of Juri’s magic den, and Taiga appeared a moment later.

“Hokuto is upstairs,” Taiga said, clutching his Conan manga tightly to his chest. His eyebrows were furrowed in a display of anger that Jesse still found more cute than angry. “Don’t you dare hurt him more.”

“I won’t,” Jesse swore. “I’m not here to purposely cause more damage.”

Juri and Taiga exchanged a look before Juri nodded. “Top of the first flight of stairs. Second door on the right,” Juri said. “Hokuto has been staying in my guest room.”

The top of the first landing was vaguely familiar to Jesse’s memory from when he had left in a hurry. The space was decorated similarly to rocks, dark and classy furniture occupying the small space. From what Jesse could see, the majority of the open floor plan was dedicated to a living room with an attached kitchen and dining area. There were only two doors on the wall across from the living spaces, and Jesse padded his way down the wood floors to the one Juri had told him.  

Jesse reached out to grasp onto the handle, fingertips brushing against the cool metal, before he stopped. Hokuto was on the other side of the door, he had been told as much, but Jesse couldn’t force himself to fully commit. With every breath he took, anxiety flooded through his system. Once he walked through the door, there was no turning back. He wanted to work things through, he truly did, but there was still a bit of fear clinging to him, telling him he was being lied to. That all of his fears about what he was would be validated once he passed through the threshold. His heart couldn’t handle it if all of those fears came true.

At the same time, he loved Hokuto. He truly did. As scary as it was to confront the conversation from five days ago, it needed to be done. Jesse didn’t want to exist in a world where he would wake up and not see Hokuto any longer. He wanted to sit next to Hokuto at lunch and get distracted by his soft smiles as well as the elegant ways he would page through his spell book and read its contents. He wanted to be the cause of Hokuto’s laughter, and Jesse couldn’t do that if he didn’t take a step forward. He was scared of whatever waited for him on the other side of the door, but the chance of a life without Hokuto in it was far more terrifying.

Jesse wrapped his hand around the door handle and pushed. 

The door creaked as it opened, and Jesse’s eyes immediately found Hokuto where he was sitting on the bed, flinching from the noise. The furnishings felt so familiar to Jesse: the artwork, the bed, the nightstand, until it clicked in Jesse’s brain. This was the same room his spell book ceremony had taken place.

But more than that, Jesse’s heart broke when he saw the state Hokuto was in. He had been crying, eyes red and puffy, and Jesse could see a few streaks of tears lingering on Hokuto’s cheeks. There were places on his color splotch patterned sweater that were darker than the rest, the material clinging to his wrists from where he had wiped his tears, and he was shaking. Jesse wanted nothing more than to go over and pull Hokuto into a soul crushing hug, to apologize for anything and everything that came to mind.

Juri had been right. Of course he hadn’t lied to Jesse, and he was kicking himself for ever considering Juri would lie to him. Hokuto was an absolute wreck because Jesse had taken the easy way out and ran. Every decision Jesse had made after the spell book ceremony had been the wrong one, and he wished more than anything he could go back and change each path he chose. This was his fault. It was all Jesse’s fault, and there was no one else to blame for it except himself. 

“Hokuto, I-” Jesse started to speak, but he was cut off.

“I’m sorry,” Hokuto said, leaping off the bed. His plain black pants clung to his legs as he walked a few steps closer to Jesse before he flinched and stopped. “I’m sorry this is all my fault. I treated you so poorly after your spell book was made, and I should have been more careful with my words.”

“You didn’t-” Jesse tried to say, but Hokuto kept barreling through, his words falling from his lips faster than he could speak them.

“You’re not a freak of nature. You’re not a monster,” Hokuto continued to ramble. “You’re the kindest person on the face of the planet, but when I said those things, I…I…” Hokuto’s fingers were twisting into the hem of his sweater. “I swear I didn’t mean it so negatively. My mind was in a state of shock and I said horrible, cruel things that I would do anything to take back. I know you hate me now, but let me fix this. I’d do anything at all. I can’t exist in a world where you hate me, Jesse. I just can’t. So please,” Hokuto said, and Jesse saw tears falling from Hokuto’s eyes once more, “please let me take them back.”

Jesse was stunned. It was one thing to hear about the state Hokuto had been in, but it was another thing to experience it firsthand. This was the person Juri had been caring for. He had been looking after a crumbling and broken Hokuto as Jesse had been wallowing in his own apartment. Juri had every right to be angry with him. If Jesse didn’t have monstrous power, he was a monster for putting a friend through such horrible emotions for so long.

“The only thing I’ve been able to think about the last few days was you.” Hokuto swiped away his falling tears with his sweater but more replaced them. “I couldn’t stop seeing your face when you ran out of the room. I wanted to follow you, but I couldn’t. Isn’t that horrible?” Hokuto let out a hollow laugh. “I hurt you in the worst way possible, and I was frozen on the ground. I thought you would come back, and I could apologize but…but you didn’t. I was so foolish to think I could fix things so easily when you were so mad,” Hokuto’s fingers dug into his sweater once more, twisting, tugging and stretching it. “All I could think about was you. I imagined how you’d treat me like a ghost on campus and we’d never eat lunch together. We’d never hang out after school or go to a magic den. I would be alone with no one by my side and I’d wake up one day and see you on the street somewhere and find out you were much happier without me and I would cry and crave the life we had before I messed everything up and I would spend the rest of my life wishing that I hadn’t been an idiot so I could just stay friends with you-”

Hokuto was spiraling out of control before him, and Jesse’s body reacted before he had time to fully process the words coming out of Hokuto’s mouth. He crossed the small distance between them in two steps before he reached out to cradle Hokuto’s face in his hands, crushing their lips together in one swoop. Hokuto went rigid in his grip, his lips tight against Jesse’s. There was so much confusion and disbelief in Hokuto’s body language as Jesse kept his lips firmly planted against Hokuto’s, but Jesse refused to let their first kiss end too quickly nor poorly. Jesse kept slowly coaxing Hokuto to fall deeper until finally he sighed and melted into the kiss. 

Jesse had kissed other people before. He loved kissing girls, so soft and plush, and he had enjoyed kissing other men, the rough edges and hard lines addicting, and yet Hokuto was his favorite. It was as if they had been carved specifically to fit against the other, so alike and so different at the same time, and yet Jesse was dizzy from the sensation. He was lost in the feeling of Hokuto’s lips on his, like satin, and Jesse wondered why it had taken him so long to taste them. He was a fool for waiting.

Doing magic was a great high, a power so addicting that Jesse craved feeling it over and over again. It didn’t hold a candle to what Jesse felt kissing Hokuto. His blood was singing in his veins, rushing around to let every cell in his body know what true joy felt. He never wanted to let go, to leave this room. His one desire was to stop time and exist forever in this moment, for not even the greatest poets could ever hope to replicate the sensation on pen and paper. Hokuto’s kisses were a sweet addiction that Jesse would hunger for, for the rest of his life.

“I don’t want to be just friends,” Jesse said, resting his forehead against Hokuto’s. “I want to go on dates with you. I want to spend time with you outside of our friend group. I want to see where things go between us because the way I feel about you makes my heart beat like crazy.” Jesse rubbed little circles into Hokuto’s fluffy cheeks as he spoke. “And I’m certainly not angry. I could never be mad at you. I thought you didn’t want to ever see me again.” 

Hokuto was staring at Jesse, his eyes so stunned, but there was hope peeking through his features. His tears had stopped, leaving streaks on his face. “You don’t hate me?” he asked, his voice hardly a whisper.

“I don’t,” Jesse said. “I’ll tell you as many times as you need to hear it. I don’t hate you, Hokuto of the Lion Line. I’m a dumb guy that makes dumb decisions and dumb mistakes, but I want to be your dumb guy.”

“You’re not that dumb,” Hokuto said, a smile blossoming on his lips. Jesse released his hold on Hokuto, so he could wipe away the remnants of his tears.

“I’m plenty dumb, excuse me,” Jesse said in fake aghast, slapping a hand onto his chest, and Hokuto’s laughter was like music to his ears. “But I…I do think we need to have a chat about Sunday.” 

He held out a hand to Hokuto who, after a moment of hesitation, took it. Jesse wove their fingers together as he led them to the bed. Hokuto went to sit down, but, with a wicked grin, Jesse pulled Hokuto into his arms and went tumbling onto the bed with Hokuto.

“JESSE!”

“What?” Hokuto’s hair was a mess in Jesse’s face, strands getting caught in his lips. He didn’t mind. He loved the way Hokuto felt in his arms, so firm and solid, and he didn’t want to ever let go. “Isn’t it better to talk things out through cuddling? I could have sworn you told me that one time.”

“I did not,” Hokuto said. Jesse could feel Hokuto’s pout on his shoulder and the way he clung to Jesse’s clothing, as if Jesse was plotting further to roll them off the bed together. But there were no further plots. The only thing that mattered was having Hokuto in his arms. “You’re making things up!” 

Jesse hummed in response, neither confirming nor denying the accusations. He rolled just enough so he was laying down on his back. He pulled Hokuto closer to him so his head was nestled in the crook of Jesse’s armpit, Hokuto’s arm thrown over Jesse’s chest. It was lazy. It was comfortable, and Jesse loved the feeling of Hokuto against him.

“I’m sorry for running away,” Jesse began. He reached a hand up to play with Hokuto’s hair, “and for not letting you know why I was upset. It was wrong of me to push everyone, but especially you, away. I let my own negativity cloud my judgement, and I should have stayed and talked things through with you instead of flying off the handle.”

Hokuto was still against him. If it wasn’t for the stifled sounds of his breathing, the warm feeling of Hokuto’s body next to his, Jesse would have been so sure he was alone in Juri’s guest room. “From my perspective, I heard all of these horrible and negative things about myself. I heard you call me a freak of nature, and my mind…it shut down. I couldn’t process that you had called me such a horrible insult.” Jesse sighed. “And then I heard all of these other insulting things. I thought you secretly hated me, and your true feelings were finally coming to the surface.”

Hokuto’s voice was barely a whisper. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he said. He held tightly to Jesse’s shirt. “Please try and understand that I would never in a million years mean those words.”

“I do,” was Jesse’s simple response.

Hokuto relaxed against Jesse with those two words. “I…from my perspective, I was overwhelmed. I couldn’t believe everything that had happened. I had almost sacrificed my life to save yours, and then you turned around and almost gave up yours to save me? I…I…” Hokuto nuzzled his face into the side of Jesse’s chest, his grip tightening on Jesse’s shirt. “Jesse, if you had less powerful magic, you would be dead, and I couldn’t handle the thought that I almost lost you twice.”

Jesse laid there in silence, his fingers twisting and curling their way into Hokuto’s soft waves. Hokuto did have a point. There was almost a cycle of carnage that destroyed every single person within rocks that day. It was only through sheer dumb luck that nothing terrible had happened physically to them in the end.

“I think the one thing I’m confused about is why you would use those words,” Jesse said, trying to choose his words carefully. “You said that my parents had chosen to lock my power away and that I would have been studied like a rat if this was a different time.” Jesse reached down from Hokuto’s head to squeeze his shoulder. “I know now that you didn’t mean it in a negative way now, but I want to understand why you phrased it like that.” 

“I…I was panicking,” Hokuto said, and Jesse felt how he pressed his face more into Jesse’s chest, Hokuto’s words coming out more muffled. “And in that state of mind…” He felt Hokuto shift next to him, and Jesse looked over to see Hokuto staring at him. “Please don’t get mad.”

“I won’t,” Jesse said. He rubbed little circles into Hokuto’s shoulder with his thumb. “I promise that I’m only trying to understand your perspective.”

Hokuto looked down, staring at the fabric of Jesse’s shirt. “In my childhood, I grew up hearing those kinds of words from my family, and I’ve grown accustomed to hearing them. Talking about other magic like that was like commenting on the weather to my family and the people they surround themselves with. The way they saw other powerful magic was like an academic fascination. I swear I had meant everything as a compliment.” He paused as if waiting for Jesse to snap or get angry. Jesse kept rubbing little circles into Hokuto’s shoulder until he spoke again. “Jesse, you’re absolutely incredible. Your power is the stuff of legend. With the mental anguish and fear I was under, I wasn’t thinking properly. I didn’t stop and consider my words before I said them. I said the first thing that came to mind, and I hurt you so horribly.”

“And…what you said about my parents?”

“This kind of power you have…who knows what would happen if it fell into the wrong hands.” Hokuto’s voice was so soft to Jesse’s ears, and he felt Hokuto draw little figures on his chest. “When I said those things about your family, I didn’t mean to insinuate they locked it away because you shouldn’t exist or shouldn’t have access to it. Rather it was because they wanted to protect you from others that would want to use it for the wrong reason.” Hokuto’s hand was shaking so much, the feeling traveling down his body. “I know my reasoning might not make sense, and it’s no excuse for what I said, but I truly wish I could go back to change everything. I wish with all of my heart that I didn’t treat you so horribly, and I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to stop being my friend.”

Jesse laid there for a moment, considering all of the things that Hokuto had told him. There was a part of him that was fully willing to forgive Hokuto for everything that happened, but a small part still ached at the words that were thrown at him so viciously. It wasn’t as easy as he thought to throw away his past feelings without any lingering emotions clinging to the seams of his mind. It would take time, but Jesse knew he was willing to put in the effort to leave this whole situation in the past. It would be cruel of him to hold this over Hokuto’s head when Jesse had caused him mental anguish as well.

“I…I am still a little hurt by the things you said if I am completely honest.” He heard Hokuto start to sniffle beside him, but Jesse reached over with his free hand to grab Hokuto’s chin, forcing him to look up at him. “Hokuto, this isn’t going to be any kind of goodbye.” He said firmly. Jesse didn’t want Hokuto to get the wrong impression from any of his words. “I’ll heal from this, and the bond we have will be stronger than ever because we crossed a hurdle together.” He swiped his thumb against Hokuto’s bottom lip, so plump and full under Jesse’s touch. “I wasn’t lying about what I told you earlier.” 

There was a second of quiet contemplation before Hokuto located the words in his memory. “You…don’t want to be just friends?” 

Jesse nodded. “I’m not interested in going backwards.” Hokuto’s eyes were so big and round, his face expressionless as he listened to Jesse. “I’d like to keep moving forward together if you want to. Not to mention,” Jesse grinned, “I really like kissing you.”

A small blush spread across Hokuto’s cheeks, his lips parting so slightly as he breathed out his response, “I do, too.” For the second time that day, Jesse leaned down to capture Hokuto’s lips in a kiss.

Jesse lost track of time in Hokuto’s embrace, his lips so perfect and sweet. There was another side of Hokuto that he wanted to learn, the side only a partner would know, but there was all the time in the world. It was the first day of, hopefully, many between them. For now he wanted to exist with Hokuto’s in his arms, see his shy smile before Jesse leaned in to nuzzle their noses together. They would lay there in content silence, Jesse’s mind in disbelief that he had woken alone in his bed but was laying with Hokuto now. It felt like a dream, and, if this was real happiness, Jesse never wanted to let go.

“We should go back downstairs,” Hokuto said in between Jesse’s peppered kisses on his mouth. He laughed in the kiss when Jesse refused to stop, his touch so light and gentle on Jesse’s jawline as he tried to push Jesse away. “Juri will think the worst if we don’t let him know we’re both alive.”

“Do we have to?” Jesse pouted. His hand drifted to Hokuto’s waist, tugging Hokuto closer to him. He didn’t like the idea of going downstairs just yet. It felt as if it would be the end of their fantasy world, and he would need to re-enter reality faster than he wanted to. “I like it here with you.”

“Unfortunately, we do,” Hokuto said. He patted Jesse’s cheek a few times before reaching down for Jesse’s hand on his waist. Hokuto moved it, so he could fully slip from the embrace. “I wouldn’t put it past Juri to blast his door down to check on us.”

Jesse’s mind flashed to earlier in the day, the destruction that had been his door raining down as Juri had come storming in, and sighed. He didn’t want to experience that twice in one day, and he wouldn’t put it past Juri to engage in the same wicked tactics more than once. Reluctantly, he followed after Hokuto.

They came down the stairs, hand in hand, to find Juri lounging in Shintaro’s usual cluster of armchairs with a double old fashioned glass hanging by his fingertips. Taiga was perched on the arm, leaned back with his arms behind him, and a soft smile on his face. His Conan manga was across his lap, sliding down his pants slowly, and he had to readjust it so it wouldn’t fall off. Juri’s expression mirrored Taiga’s as he took a sip, listening to Taiga murmur something in a low voice. When he noticed Jesse and Hokuto approaching, he raised an eyebrow.

“You two were up there for a long time,” Juri said, swishing around the amber liquid in his glass.

“We had a lot to talk about,” Hokuto said. Jesse took the armchair next to Juri and Taiga, and Hokuto squished in next to him, half sitting on Jesse’s lap, but Jesse didn’t mind. He only wrapped an arm around Hokuto to nestle Hokuto closer to him.

“Mhm,” Juri said, looking at the pair of them once over, over the top of his glass. He took a long sip before speaking again. “If the sheets are dirty when I go upstairs, I’m charging you both a cleaning fee.”

Hokuto went rigid next to Jesse. “We only talked. Nothing else.”

“Sure, sure. But if you engaged in nefarious activities while under my own roof-”

“Juri.” 

“Under my supervision-” 

“Juri!”

“I’m going to make you both pay to clean the whole den from top to bottom!”

“JURI!” Hokuto’s face was bright red, hiding his face in his hands, and Jesse knew his face was equally toasty from the insinuation. They hadn’t even done anything scandalous, and Jesse felt as if his parents had walked in mid activities.

“What?” Juri asked, eyebrow raised once more. He polished off the rest of his drink. “I would do the same if anyone defiled my guest room.”

Jesse rested his other hand on the top of Hokuto’s knee, drawing little circles there. Hokuto was tense under his touch, and Jesse didn’t want him to be too stressed from Juri’s teasing. They definitely deserved it a bit. It had to be close to, or even past, an hour at this point, but they had worked through their issues. They were back to how they were before the mess of magic and spell books had splintered them apart. Now they could move forward. 

“Oh, to be young and in love,” Taiga said, clasping his hands together by his cheek with his eyes shining so brightly. Jesse heard the front door open behind him, the chattering of Shintaro and Kochi filling the air. “I remember back in my day you had to meet people the old fashioned way: going to cotillion and teleporting yourself with someone so you could dance with people that looked interesting. Don’t you remember that, Juri?” And Juri groaned. “I danced with Juri one out of every five songs that night! Nowadays you have to talk.” Taiga huffed. “How dull. We should bring back executions by fire.” 

“WHAT?” Kochi shouted. 

“Calm down, human, he’s joking,” Juri said. He nudged Taiga, and Jesse could barely make out Juri saying, “Tell him you’re joking or I swear to all the gods-” 

“I’m joking, I’m joking, Human Number Two.” Taiga was in front of Kochi in a flash, hopping from one foot to the other. His Conan manga was clutched in his hands. “Executions by fire have been outlawed since the fifteenth century. Or the twenty-first…I forget which.” 

“Probably the fifteenth. The twenty-first seems really recent,” Shintaro said, Kochi hissing that they were in the twenty-first century now. Shintaro was holding onto a gift bag with tissue paper sticking out of the top of it, and he held it out to Taiga. “This is for you, by the way.” Taiga snatched it out of Shintaro’s hands, his manga tucked between his knees as he tore into the bag to get its contents. “Uh, it’s a, uh, present as a thank you for helping save Jesse. We gave Juri his already.” Juri thumbed one of the chains around his neck. “Me and Kochi were waiting to give Hokuto his until things calmed down between him and Jesse.”

“Presents are so much fun!” Taiga screeched as he shredded the tissue paper into tiny pieces. “I’ve always seen the humans open them at Christmas time, but I never got to open one!”

“He watches them through the windows of their homes,” Hokuto clarified, his voice low and whispered into Jesse’s ear. The feeling of Hokuto’s breath exhaled on his skin sent shivers down Jesse’s spine. “It’s Taiga’s favorite Christmas time tradition.”

“I think I would have loved to live my life never knowing that fact about him,” Jesse said, but Hokuto shrugged.

“Now that you’re magic, you would have found out sooner than later,” Hokuto said. “Taiga always invites me and Juri every year to go with him. I always tell him I’m busy, but Juri can’t tell him no.”

Taiga finished tearing into his present, holding up the one hundredth volume of Conan in his hands. He blinked a few times before cocking his head to the side. Kochi cleared his throat. “We, uh, wanted to get you a new volume since you’re always reading the same issue,” Kochi said. “We asked the bookstore staff, and they recommended this one.”

“That is very kind, but I already have this one at my home,” Taiga said. He picked up his other manga from between his knees. He appeared a moment later back on the arm of Juri’s chair, clutching both to his chest. 

Shintaro and Kochi exchanged a look before filling the other two chairs in their little group of four. “Wait, then why do you always carry around that other issue?” Shintaro asked.

“Because,” Taiga said. He opened the twenty-eighth volume, and flipped through it quickly for the group to see, “this is my spell book.” 

As the pages flew by, Jesse could make out that most of the book was dedicated to sheet music, words written under each music note. But scattered around the book were pages similar to Hokuto’s, pictures with the spell attached, but those were few and far between. Taiga closed his spell book once he had quickly flipped through them all. 

“You know,” Kochi said, blinking a few times. “We should have figured that a magic being would always have their spell book on them.”

Taiga puffed out his chest. “Of course! I refuse to go anywhere without it!”

The conversation began to flow through various topics, namely Shintaro questioning why Juri had chosen something so simple for his spell book and Juri refusing to give an answer. Shintaro was called an idiot for even asking, but Juri’s tone was far from the biting edge it had when they had first walked into rocks, an almost teasing quality to it that made Jesse laugh. Things felt so easy in their group as they talked, and Jesse found himself grateful for the people around him. Every person had their own quirks and things that made them tick, but they were all so distinct. It was a wonder how they had found their way to each other.

They felt like six stones, rough around the edges, but with a unique sparkle to them. Though they were each cut in a different manner, when combined together they became six beautiful jewels that complimented each other. There was still the question in Jesse’s head of if Taiga ever learned Kochi or Shintaro’s name, but that was easily remedied. Looking at the five people surrounding him, Jesse hoped that, over time, they would grow into a group that would be closer than any other Jesse had been a part of. He didn’t want to ever let these people slip from his life.

As they were discussing the properties of tofu and if it would be possible to use for a baseball game, the door to rocks slowly creaked open. Jesse didn’t pay it any attention, too engrossed in a discussion with Shintaro over whether it would count if the tofu broke apart on impact or not.

Juri slid his empty glass on the table in front of him as he said, “Ren-chan, I thought I cancelled your lesson for-who are you?”

Jesse looked back at the door behind him. Standing in the doorway was a man who he didn’t think he had ever seen before…maybe. He had a face that was ageless in a bland and unremarkable kind of way, as if he had never known the definition of the word ‘fun.’ His features were so unassuming Jesse felt as if he could have passed this man on the street a hundred times without realizing it was the same person. His brown hair brushed the top of his ears, bangs reaching his eyebrows. The expression on his face was neutral as he considered each member of their little group. 

“Hey,” Juri said, his voice snapping when the man ignored him. He rose from his chair with Jesse following Juri’s lead with the others in their group slowly standing up one by one after him. “We don’t open up for another couple of hours. Come back then.” 

The man’s gaze finally reached Jesse, his eyes flashing. He reached up with his hand, pointing in Jesse’s direction. “You,” was the only thing he said.

Jesse felt a tug on his chest before he went barreling into the armchair he had been sitting in, the impact so strong that he felt the wind knock from his lungs. His head was spinning as he went tumbling over the back of the armchair, and someone latched onto his back, arms clasped over his chest. A blast rang out around him, and the tugging sensation stopped, sending him and the person holding onto him crashing to the floor.

A sweet singing filled Jesse’s ears for a moment before he heard Taiga curse and let him go. “I can’t calm you down with my magic. Please try and relax.” And Jesse felt himself untense, if only a little. At least it was only Taiga who had been clinging to him and not another assailant.

There was another small blast that sent shards of wood and dust falling around them. The spinning sensation in Jesse’s head wouldn’t stop. What was going on? Was Hokuto okay? Jesse didn't know. Spells were flying over him with such speed that he couldn’t focus on what was happening. He just wanted to be able to catch his breath, so he could feel like he could move on his own.

Shintaro was suddenly beside him, arm looping around Jesse’s back as he positioned one of Jesse’s arms over his shoulders. “I got you.” Shintaro adjusted his grip on Jesse’s side. “Come on, dude. Just a little bit of walking. Let’s join Kochi behind the bar.”

“Wait!” Taiga shouted over the sounds of blasting spells. He held onto both of them, a swirling sensation taking over Jesse’s senses before they all reappeared behind the bar.

Kochi was by Jesse’s side in an instant. “What the fuck is happening?” he hissed before looking over at Taiga who was hovering nearby. “And why aren’t you helping? Aren’t you supposed to be fighting that guy with magic, too?” 

“Without song, my magic isn’t strong enough for combat spells,” Taiga snapped. He peered over the top of the bar before swooping back down, a blue spell missing the top of his head by centimeters. “And my course of study wasn’t for fighting spells! I have emotion magic not destruction magic!” 

A dull throb was pulsing through Jesse’s ribs, the pain intensifying when he tried to move, and he knew they had to be bruised, hopefully not cracked. Part of him wanted to run over and kick his assailant in the chest to see how he liked the sensation, but the other part knew he’d be dead the second he leapt over the bar. He stayed where he was safe, his mind racing.

What did this mysterious person want with him? It wasn’t like anyone outside of this room knew he had the healing powers of a god. Maybe Jesse had passed him on the street one time and spilled food on him? Or had unknowingly made fun of a significant other or child of his man? He had to be around forty if Jesse was any kind of judge of age, so definitely at the age where he could have children. But that certainly didn’t explain why he had gone from zero to one hundred without any kind of explanation. 

Jesse peered over the top of the bar, jaw dropping when he got his first good look at the battle before them. rocks was a mess, one of the chandeliers barely hanging from the ceiling, sparks flying from the half severed electrical wires. Much of the furniture had been torn into by magic, the armchairs between the two sides shredded messes. 

But it was Hokuto who stole Jesse’s breath away. There was a shimmering barrier of light erected between him and the mysterious man. Hokuto dipped and dodged his opponent’s spells that curved around the edges of his barrier spell, avoiding getting hit directly by flying magic. He moved with the fluid grace of a dancer, flicking his hand with a quick snap to send magic shooting through the air at his opponent. The calculating expression on Hokuto’s face was cold as he reacted to each of the man’s moves.

Jesse had never seen Hokuto this way before, so different from the magical ease he exuded now that Jesse knew of his magic self. He had been a kind teacher, understanding when Jesse hadn’t been able to grasp the spell Hokuto had taught him, but this was another side of Hokuto that Jesse was learning. Behind the logical and fluffy exterior was a powerful and talented spellcaster.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jesse saw the intruder’s gaze lock onto Jesse once more. He reached out to Jesse, and Jesse felt the telltale tug of magic grasping onto his chest. He braced to be pulled again, hands grasping onto the counter as hard as he could to stop himself from flying over the bar. 

Juri dropped the illusion that surrounded him, materializing from the air, and punched the man across the face. His fist was blazing blue as it connected, and the mysterious man went careening to the floor. The spell on Jesse’s chest released, and he sighed with relief. He really hadn’t wanted to go flying again.

Juri was above the man in a flash, holding onto his shirt in a tight grasp as he lifted his chest up by his shirt. “Yield,” Juri hissed, “and tell me why the fuck you came in here to destroy my magic den.”

The man let out a cold laugh. “I do not answer to you.”

Juri’s grip tightened. “Who do you answer to?”

“My master demands his property back,” the man said. His eyes flicked to Jesse, and Jesse felt his blood run cold. “Give him to me.” 

“Answer my questions or I swear to all of the gods-” Juri barked, but the man wasn’t concerning himself with Juri anymore.

“Come with me.” The man’s eyes were so cold and empty. A shiver ran down Jesse’s spine. “It’s what you want, is it not? It’s what your line craves.” His smile was so cruel. “Servitude. Let me bring you back to where you belong.” 

Juri cursed before he began to speak an old spell, words so foreign to Jesse’s ears. It had to be as old as the one from the spell book ceremony, but before Juri could finish the spell, Taiga popped up from behind the bar. He sang a quick rushed tune, and the stranger’s eyes rolled back into his head, head lolling back as he passed out.

“I’ll apologize later for doing song magic without your permission, but what the heck are you doing, Juri?” Taiga screeched. “Were you really going to kill him? Do you really want that on your consciousness?”

Jesse froze where he was crouched. That had been a killing spell Juri had been casting? Juri knew that kind of magic this whole time? He was really glad Juri had only threatened to kick them out for annoying him and was more concerned with his carpet getting dirty. Jesse couldn’t imagine the true damage Juri could inflict with whatever knowledge resided in his spell book.

“I dunno,” Juri shrugged. He let go of his grip on the man’s clothing, letting him drop to the floor with a loud ‘thunk.’ “He looks like the type to cheat on his wife.”

“WHAT??” Jesse shouted, fully popping up from behind the bar. 

Shintaro followed him up, considering the man passed out on the floor by the door before saying, “Yeah, I can see it.”

“I’m joking,” Juri rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t going to kill him. We can’t ruin the carpet.” 

“Oh, yeah. That’s bad for business,” Shintaro nodded, and Juri flashed Shintaro a smirk and a thumbs up.

Kochi had risen from his crouching spot, too, his upper body being supported by the back counter of the bar. “I can’t handle all of this madness. I thought magic was supposed to be fun! I didn’t think when I woke up today that I’d be in the middle of a magic fight!” 

“Unfortunately, I fear this is only just the beginning,” Hokuto said. He was picking his way over the wreckage of rocks to where the bar was. “Did you pay attention to what that guy said? He knows Jesse’s magic line. It sounds like he’s had some sort of contact with them in the past, and if I’m right…and I hope that I’m not…this might be bigger than we could ever imagine.”

Every eye was on Jesse, and he awkwardly laughed. “What? I know I’ve got super strong healing and all, but I can’t be that amazing. You’re acting like I’m some kind of magic royalty based on one guy’s words.”

Hokuto was chewing on his bottom lip. “I’ve had a theory about what you are since I experienced your magic firsthand, but I don’t want to make any assumptions until we know for sure. There are only a few people who can tell us the absolute truth,” Hokuto said, his voice grave with every word. “Jesse, I think it’s time we talk to your parents about your magic.”

Jesse couldn’t focus the entire train ride out to West Tokyo. The stations flew by in a blur, but his mind was far, far away from the chaotic conversations flowing around him. Jesse knew what he was, that much was obvious to him since Hokuto had broken the news a month and a half ago, but there was more to his story, more that he was terrified to learn. Jesse didn’t know what to expect when he reached his family home, but a pit was slowly growing in his stomach. The terror of the unknown was making his heart seize more and more with every station they stopped at.

The walk to his parent’s house from the station was decently far, roughly twenty minutes, but towering apartments gave way to houses crammed next to each other, making use of every inch of ground, with each step he took. Jesse had walked the path so often coming home from high school that he didn’t need to think about it. His feet knew the way as his heart was banging around in his chest. His father would still be at work until late, the demands of a teacher never ending even when the final school bell rang, but his mother had always worked half days on Fridays. She should be home around this time of day.

When they turned the corner for Jesse’s street, he stopped dead in his tracks. From where Jesse stood, he could see the front door open, someone’s legs halfway out the door. They didn’t look as if they belonged to either of his parents, but his mind imagined the worst. He exchanged a look with Hokuto before he took off in a dead sprint, Shintaro and Kochi following behind him. Hokuto, Juri, and Taiga were at the front door in a flash, Juri taking the lead to check whoever it was.

“Japanese dude,” Juri said when Jesse had closed the distance, and the ache in his chest lessened. It wasn’t either of his parents, but that didn’t mean his mother wasn’t still in danger.

Stepping inside the front door, there were bodies of men in stiff uniforms scattered around the front entrance, a mess of them leading up the stairs. He didn’t know how far the wreckage extended into the rest of the house, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. The way the bodies were positioned Jesse couldn’t tell if they were only passed out or dead, but if they had hurt his mother in any way, he…Jesse didn’t know what he would do, but he wished each of them the worst pain possible.

“Mom!” he called out, kicking off his shoes. He didn’t know where to look first. The living room and kitchen? The bedrooms upstairs? Where could she be? “Mom, are you here?”

“We can start a sweep of the house,” Juri said. He stepped out of his shoes as well, hand on the wall to steady himself. “Three of us take downstairs, three go upstairs. If you find anything-”

The sound of stomping steps came from the floor above, a flurry of them drawing closer to the top of the stairs until Jesse saw his mother appear. “Jesse?” she asked, her voice breathless. Her black hair was messily pulled back, her ponytail off center. Jesse could see where her shirt had been torn a bit but, other than that, she was alive. 

His mother appeared before them in the blink of an eye, and any remaining thought that his mother couldn’t be magic was erased from Jesse’s mind as she pulled him into a soul crushing hug. “When you didn’t respond to my calls this week, I thought the worst,” his mother said. She pulled back, cupping Jesse’s face in his hands. She felt so small standing in front of his massive frame. “I thought that he had captured you.” There were tears forming in his mother’s eyes, but she blinked them away. “Go upstairs and pack a bag. We’re leaving for the U.S. once your father gets home.”

Jesse felt like he was experiencing whiplash. One moment he had thought the worst and someone had come to kill his mother, now he was expected to drop everything and move to the U.S. without so much as a backwards glance? Things couldn’t be that dire that they needed to completely uproot and move halfway around the world. 

“What-no? I’m not doing that,” Jesse said, taking a step back. “My whole life is here!”

“It’s much safer for all of us to get as far away as we possibly can from him,” his mother said. “Now that he knows I’m not dead and you exist, he will never stop hunting us down.” 

“Mrs. Lewis,” Hokuto said, stepping forward. His voice was sweet and polite. “Perhaps we can all take a moment to sit down and have a conversation about all of this? I think having the details laid out before us will allow everyone to make the most informed decision possible about the future.” 

There was a moment of hesitancy from Jesse’s mother before she nodded. “I’ll make tea.”

Proper introductions were made between Jesse’s mother and the magic folk, her nodding to Shintaro and Kochi having met them before. When Hokuto made his introduction, her gaze flickered between him and Jesse, and Jesse hoped she didn’t ask. He hadn’t exactly ever brought a partner home to meet his family before, and his newly realized feelings for Hokuto were still so new…Wait, could she tell they had kissed today? Did mothers have that kind of superpower? Oh, gods, he hoped not.

They all went to the living room to wait for the tea to be made, Jesse and Hokuto sitting on the small side of his family’s L-shaped couch with Shintaro on Jesse’s other side. Kochi sat next to Shintaro, and Juri took the last remaining spot. Taiga sprawled out on the floor on his stomach, legs kicking up in the air behind him. When Jesse’s mother was finished making the tea, she placed six cups on the coffee table in front of them, sitting down across from their group.

“Mrs. Lewis, I hope you don’t find this too forward of me to ask,” Hokuto said. He reached out for his cup of tea, cradling it in his hands as he took a tentative sip, “but I have a few assumptions based on what I’ve seen of your son’s power.” Hokuto breathed in deeply. “Please correct me if I’m wrong, but is your family descended from the ten brothers? Specifically, you are a descendant of the first monkey.” 

Jesse’s mother sat there for a moment, her gaze never wavering from Hokuto’s, before she answered. “We are,” she said, hands folded so elegantly on her lap. 

Jesse’s jaw dropped; the entire room dead silent. Even Taiga had stopped moving, his gaze focused entirely on Jesse. Juri looked as if Jesse’s head had split into two, but that didn’t compare to the shock on Kochi and Shintaro’s faces. It was as if Jesse had become a superhero to the two of them, and they were both seconds away from shouting how unworthy they were to be that close to him.

Hokuto closed his eyes, breathing out. “I thought so.” He nodded. “It was the only logical explanation for why Jesse could bring three of us back from the brink of death.”

“I am not giving you the royal treatment now,” Juri snapped at Jesse. “Just cause you’re some magical god doesn’t mean-” 

“Treat me like trash. Kick me out of your magic den. I don’t care,” Jesse cut in. He could see the way his mother was gripping her knees with how Juri had talked to her son. “But treat me like some mystical fairy prince, and I’ll kick you out of my house.”

There was a beat of silence before Juri nodded, a small appreciative grin on his face. “You got yourself a deal.” Jesse’s mother relaxed her grip.

“But who is this guy that’s after Jesse?” Taiga asked, his legs kicking around in the air once more. He disappeared in the blink of an eye and was crouching next to Jesse’s mother, arms wrapped around his knees. “Who could be so big, bad and scary that even a descendent of the brothers is scared of him?” 

“His name,” Jesse’s mother said, “is Kamenashi Kazuya.” 

“He’s human?!” Kochi shouted, leaping off the couch. “We’re fighting a human??”

“If only he was,” Jesse’s mother said, her voice barely a whisper, but it gained strength with each word she spoke. “In school, magic folk are taught that we address ourselves by our given name and magic line, and we adopt a last name in order to blend into human society. But before we received gifts of magic from the ten sacred animals, our ancestors were entirely human and completely adhered to their customs.” 

“So this Kazuya guy adopted the last name Kamenashi to blend into human society?” Jesse asked.

His mother sighed. “If only it was that simple.” 

Shintaro raised his hand. “Uh, he was human and someone turned him magic by biting his neck?”

His mother raised an eyebrow at Shintaro’s ridiculous idea. 

Hokuto’s eyes were wide, the details of their conversation piecing themselves together in his head as the conversation swirled around them. “Wait…that’s not possible.”

“Oh, but it is. My family’s magic is incredibly powerful,” Jesse’s mother said. “We do not need to take on the pain of others in order to heal them, but our specialty is of keen interest to Kamenashi.” She looked at each person in her living room before speaking once more. “We are able to transfer life from one being to the other.” 

Hokuto slumped on the couch next to Jesse, his gaze drifting up to the ceiling. Whatever realization he had come to, he wasn’t sharing with the group just yet. There was a part of Jesse that was frustrated, for why wasn’t anyone speaking straight? Couldn’t they just tell them all directly what was going on? Things would be so much easier if the truth was out in the open. 

Hokuto’s hand slipped into Jesse’s, gripping it tightly. “Jesse…Kamenashi isn’t a normal magic being. He wasn’t born from a magic line. He’s the start of his line.”

Jesse felt like his world was crashing around him. That…that couldn’t be. He didn’t know about the lifespan of magic folk, but certainly they didn’t live longer than humans. If Kamenashi was the start of his line, then that meant… 

“That’s impossible,” Juri said, Kochi crashing back to the couch next to him. “No reasonable magic can live for thousands of years!”

“But it is true. The stories have been passed through my family for generations, so we might understand why we were forced into captivity,” his mother said.  Her grip on her knees was tight. Taiga reached over to rub her back. “Kamenashi tricked us. He was given the magic of the wolf line from the original brother, but he feared death and losing the new power he had just gained. When he learned of the magic my ancestors could do, he reasoned with them that their future progeny would need protection, and he could offer that to them.” His mother’s words were being spit out. “They trusted him, and, in return, he enslaved my family for millennia so that he may never know death. That,” she said, her eyes hard as her gaze returned to Jesse, “is the reason why we need to flee. Kamenashi will never back down. He will never give up, and I will never let you fall under his control.” 

Jesse knew that he should have been frightened. He should have agreed and prepared to flee the country. Him and his friends had already been attacked by one of Kamenashi’s lackeys, and they would keep coming with every breath that he took. No amount of knowledge or spell work would stop Kamenashi, but Jesse didn’t want to give up with a few words. He had thought he had already lost Hokuto once. He wasn’t going to run away a second time.

His mother sighed. “I can see there is no reasoning with you with words.” She stood and walked to the TV stand behind her, rummaging behind her in one of the drawers. “And if you will not listen to reason, then I will have to show you the destruction Kamenashi causes in his wake.”

She pulled out a little black box that Jesse had passed over time and time again when searching through the various drawers. He had never touched it for one reason or another, the outside structure not interesting to his mind for whatever reason. His mother undid the clasp, opening it from the top. Inside was a fine black powder. She took a handful of the substance before flicking her wrist, covering the room in it, and instantly Jesse’s world began to change. 

Jesse was pulled into another world, visions of memories dancing across his eyes. There were times when his mother was happy, playing with her brother while adults stood around looking tense. As she turned older and older, the years flicking by in seconds, Jesse began to understand the place his mother had grown up in. 

He watched as she struggled to learn healing magic, the spells not coming easily to her, and the way men in those same stark uniforms beat his mother until bruises blossomed on her skin. She begged and pleaded for someone to heal her, but her teachers stood and listened with hollow eyes. Their touch was light on her shoulders, a slight nod the only apology they gave for their inaction. Once Jesse watched as someone who could only be his grandfather healed his daughter. The next day, when she arrived home from her lessons, he was a bloody mess on the floor, and Jesse’s heart stopped in his chest. 

But it was one of many similar scenes he was shown. The life and valor were slowly stripped from his mother’s eyes as she grew up. He watched as people stumbled into the compound his mother grew up in and weren’t allowed to leave. Many tried and failed, and their bodies were strung up before the front gates as a reminder that once you were inside you could never leave. The memories were brutal, and Jesse wished he could turn his head or stop watching, but no matter how he tried to hide, they continued to flow before his eyes.

There was a young woman who had entered the compound when Jesse’s mother was in her early twenties, swearing it was just for a night as she was traveling back to Kansai. His mother took the girl under her wing when she wasn’t allowed to leave just like all of the others. Jesse saw how the two protected each other, becoming close friends as something akin to love seemed to form between his uncle and this new woman. One night his mother was summoned to the main house, and his mother and her friend walked together until they were forced to separate at the front door.

His mother padded down the long hallways, coming to a door that was twice the size of Jesse, and she pushed it open. Inside was a throne room grander than Jesse had ever seen, even in a big budget Hollywood movie. The walls were dusted with gold, a shiny luster that almost hurt to look at. The stone walls were carved into intricate designs of bloodshed and death, intestines and guts seeping from stomachs that were brutally cut. At the center of it all was a throne made from knives, the edges still sharp and glinting in the low firelight. 

When she was about five feet from the throne, his mother stopped, and a man appeared before his mother. His features were handsome, the kind that would have made hundreds of thousands of people faint at the mere sight of him. His lips were full, cheekbones high, and Jesse would have thought this was an ordinary magic if not for the cruelty in his eyes. Jesse felt his blood freeze in his veins for he knew if a person was murdered in front of this very man, he would not blink twice at the bloodshed. He could be no one else but Kamenashi to Jesse’s mind.

“Look at how beautiful you’ve become,” he said, voice higher than Jesse had been picturing. He brushed his hand down Jesse’s mother’s cheek, and he saw how she fought not to flinch from the touch. “Such an elegant flower from a family of garbage.” A cruel smile spread across Kamenashi’s lips. “Your line has become quite feisty in the last few generations. The amount of little kerfuffles has risen in recent years that my guards have had to squash. So much unnecessary bloodshed when it’s so easy to follow the rules. Your ancestors have been so happy under my thumb for thousands of years, but time has weathered away that cheery servitude I’ve expected from the lot of you. I cannot stand any longer and let vicious rulebreakers defy my leadership.” Kamenashi sighed. “It’s quite sad, but perhaps it’s time to nip this rebellious energy in the bud before it grows into a full blown mutiny.”

His mother froze in place, her eyes widening ever so slightly but not too much to draw too much attention to herself. 

Kamenashi waited a moment for her to respond. When she didn’t, he continued. “If your family was any normal monkey line, I would exterminate every last one of you until you were nothing but dust between my fingers.” He slowly circled Jesse’s mother, that single finger dragging over her shoulders as he spoke. “Sadly, you’re much too important to harm. Without your power, I’m as human as you, and I can’t let that happen.” He leaned in, his lips brushing the shell of his mother’s ear. “My power is much too vital to throw away so easily.”

“What are you going to do to me?” his mother asked, and Jesse heard the tremble in her voice.

“Oh, you sweet and gentle flower,” Kamenashi said, stopping so he was standing in front of her. He placed a single finger under her chin, lifting it so she was forced to look into her eyes. “Your life is about to become so much easier. You’re going to become my wife.”

The color on his mother’s face drained as Kamenashi spoke. “It’s been so long since I knew the warmth of a woman, and who better than the line who gave me this fabulous life? After all, out of your ungrateful family, you’ve always been the most obedient of the bunch. I need to show the lot of them what greatness can behold them when they bend the knee to me.” He chuckled. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure that sorry excuse for your brother picks up your family’s specialty first before we wed. I can’t risk my magic mixing with yours in our future children and becoming…tainted. If he doesn’t…well.” A smile spread itself across his lips, but the emotion didn’t reach Kamenashi’s eyes. “Your mother is still young. She can have another child to pass along your family’s magic. I would hate to flay your brother from head to toe for his insolence. Blood is so hard to clean from stone.”

“Why…why are you doing this?” His mother’s voice was hardly a whisper.

“Because in my old age, I’ve become too kind,” Kamenashi said. He disappeared and reappeared on his throne. “It’s time to remind my followers of the true power I have. It’s time to remind your family who your king is.” He crossed one leg over the other, hands resting on his bent knee. “You are my property. I own you and your sorry excuse for a magic line, and what better way to show them then by owning you in the most intimate way possible. ” Kamenashi laughed once more. “I think a few hundred years in my bed will teach them a proper lesson. You are mine in this life and every other.”

The visions melted from Jesse’s eyes, and he found himself shaking in his seat on the couch. This was the kind of person that they were dealing with, a man so hung up on power that he crushed anyone who defied his orders. Jesse knew that there were cruel people in this world, the ones who sought out power to control others, but this level of inhumanity was difficult to reason with.

His friends were in a similar state of shock, even Taiga not moving and flitting around as much. There was a heaviness to the air that hadn’t been there before, a boulder of weight crushing them under the sheer terror of the memories they had all viewed as one collective. This wasn’t a mishap or a spell gone wrong. They were dealing with a villain so heinous he belonged in a novel, not real life.

“I escaped that night only through the insistence of my family,” Jesse’s mother said, her voice so strained as she spoke. “I was so terrified of what they would do to them. I could hear their screams echoing in my ears, the torturous magic he would use to mangle their bodies because I ran, and I tried to refuse. I could do it. I could stay and be his wife to protect them, but my family forced me to go. They swore that whatever magic Kamenashi used on them would be less painful than being tied to him for hundreds of years in marriage. At least one of us would be free.” 

Tears were streaming down his mother’s face, and she wiped each with her sleeve as she continued her tale. “Kamenashi tracks people through magical signature, so my friend blocked my magic so I could escape. I ran as far as I could and established a life in Tokyo. I swore to never marry and let my magic die with me but then,” his mother looked to him, “I met your father, and I fell so in love. The day I learned I was pregnant with you, Jesse, was the happiest and scariest day of my life. I thought if I married a foreign man, you wouldn’t receive my magic. That Kamenashi would never know you existed, but I was wrong. Even with it blocked, I still passed my magic on.”

“When did I…?” The question drifted off, not quite forming on his lips, but his mother knew exactly what he wanted to ask. 

“You were a late bloomer,” she said, a bitter smile on her lips. “You just picked up human stage magic as a hobby in elementary school. To the untrained eye, you were quite good at their little tricks, but to me? I saw them for what they were: true magic.”

Everything was clicking into place in Jesse’s head. Why his mother had been so vehemently against him practicing little card tricks. Why she had made him swear to never do it again. If his magical signature was close to his mothers, then Kamenashi could use his spells to find her and bring them both back to the hellscape she had grown up in. 

“I found someone that evening that was willing to do a bit of complicated spell work to protect us both,” his mother said. “The wolf I hired blocked your magic but tied it to a protection spell over myself and our entire house. As long as I renewed the spell once a year, I had access to my magic again to protect you and your father, and Kamenashi would never be able to find us. I thought you would be safe forever until you missed our dinner this year…”

She trailed off, but Jesse didn’t need any further explanation to connect the dots in his brain. Everything made sense now. Why they always had yearly family dinners that his mother was so insistent he attended even after moving out. He knew how important they were to her to relive memories of her childhood, but the true meaning behind them being to renew the block on his magic…he felt manipulated. All this time she had been keeping a secret from him, and he would have never known he was magic if Shintaro’s brother hadn’t been accused of arson.  

His mother was in front of him, taking his hands in hers. “Please don’t be angry,” she said. “Everything that I have done has been in the name of protecting you. I couldn’t bear to see you grow up how I had. I wanted you to live a life without pain or worry, and I will continue to strive for that as your mother.” She reached up and brushed Jesse’s hair behind his ear. “No matter how tall you become, you’ll always be my little boy, and I would give up my life to see you remain free.”

“Which is even more reason why we need to take him down.” Jesse’s gaze drifted upwards to see Hokuto standing. His own vision was laser focused on Jesse’s mother. “If what you’re saying is right then Kamenashi will never give up. Who’s to say that he won’t follow you all to the U.S.? What’s stopping him from hunting you and Jesse down?”

“He would never cross the ocean,” his mother said, but her voice didn’t sound as certain. “It’s too far to teleport, and Kamenashi has never left the compound in all of the years my family has documented his movements. He’s too set in his ways to-”

“But his lackeys would,” Juri cut in, his voice like razors. “Hell, look at all of them that came for you in your own home! Even if you take Jesse to Antarctica, these people will never stop coming.” Juri stood as well, his hands slipping into his pockets. “Hokuto is right. We have to take a stand or you’re always going to live in fear of this guy.” 

“I will find a way to keep us safe,” his mother said.

There was a flash, and Taiga was standing as well. “But is that really the way that you want to live your life? Always looking behind you and never forward?” Taiga asked, and Jesse saw how Juri shifted listening to Taiga speak. “It seems like such a sad way to live the rest of your life. Everyone deserves a chance at happiness.” 

“And these guys are super powerful, Mrs. Lewis!” Kochi said, jumping up from the couch. “Hokuto’s family makes spell books and Juri’s so strong he can knock people out with a punch and Taiga…Taiga…Taiga, I don’t really know much about, but he sings! He has the voice of an angel. If there’s anyone that can save Jesse and your family, it’s these guys.”

Shintaro looked around before leaping up as well. “Yeah! What they all said!” He slung an arm around Kochi. “We’re not going to let you or Jesse get hurt because of one big, bad guy. We got your backs!”

Jesse looked around at all of his friends, the conviction in their faces and voices, and he knew that he trusted all of them. They had proven over the course of the day as well as in the years he had known some of them that they would always remain by him. Who better to have on his side to take down the man who had been terrorizing his magic line for thousands of years?

He stood as well, looking down at his mother as he spoke. “Mom, trust in us. We can do this.”

There was hesitation painted across his mother’s face with broad strokes, the emotion barely hiding the fear coursing through her. It felt like centuries as Jesse waited for her response, but finally she gave the smallest nod. “I’ll give you the coordinates for his compound. And Jesse?” She took Jesse’s hand in hers, giving it a tight squeeze. “Please be careful. I can’t bear to lose you.” 

“I will,” Jesse said, and he pulled his mother into a soul crushing hug. “I promise I’ll be safe.”

When they arrived back at rocks, the inside of the magic den was the same as they had left it, a complete and utter mess. The warzone atmosphere remained, the lights still flickering and destroyed furniture littering the ground. It was difficult to see how such a beautiful and elegant place had been caught in the crossfire. Everything was quiet but one concerning detail stood out to them all: Kamenashi’s lackey was gone. Juri and Hokuto worked swiftly to erect protection spells over the whole building in case he came back for a second try. It was better safe than sorry. While they worked, Jesse and the others went upstairs to sit in Juri’s living until the fox and lion rejoined them not long after.

“I don’t want to go and fight this Kamenashi guy!” Kochi shouted once Hokuto was settled next to Jesse, their thighs brushing as Jesse pulled Hokuto closer to him. Hokuto leaned into the embrace, his head resting on Jesse’s shoulder. It hadn’t been that long, but Jesse felt so comfortable having Hokuto close to him. Juri took his spot on the sole single seat armchair in the living room. “Please don’t make me go. I don’t want to die.”

“The only people going to take down Kamenashi are me and Hokuto,” Juri said. He waved his hand, and Jesse heard clinking sounds coming from the kitchen. Not long later, a pitcher of a strong smelling alcohol came floating over the counter along with six double old fashioned glasses. “I’m not going to risk the lives of untrained magic,” he gestured to Jesse, “and humans for one big, bad evil guy.” 

Taiga was on the arm of Juri’s chair in the blink of an eye, and he fished a glass from the air. The pitcher came over and poured him half a glass. “What are you talking about? I’m trained just like you are!” 

Juri was upright in a moment, his back rigid as he snapped out his words. “And this is a stealth mission,” he said through gritted teeth. He plucked his own glass from the air, his own drink being poured not long after. He took a long gulp. “If we bring snake magic into this stronghold, they’re going to hear you from a mile away. My illusions only work on visuals, not sounds, so you’re staying in Tokyo where it’s safe.” 

Taiga deflated with Juri’s words, and teleported back to the arm of Kochi and Shintaro’s loveseat as far away from Juri as he could get. He sipped on his drink, face scrunching, but returning to a pout between sips.

“I’m going, too,” Jesse said, and he could see the veins in Juri’s neck start to stand out. 

“Are you going deaf? What did I just say?” Juri asked. He threw back the rest of his glass in one gulp, and the pitcher was there once more to refill it. “It’s me and Hokuto on this mission. With our magic combined, we can get in and out quickly. We’ll take care of this Kamenashi guy before he even knows what hit him!”

“But this is my family we’re talking about!” Jesse said. He saw how Kochi and Shintaro picked up their own glasses to receive their own drinks. Jesse grabbed his, the glass being filled immediately, but he saw how Hokuto waved his own glass away. It settled itself on the coffee table in front of them. “It’s my cousins and grandparents and maybe even nieces and nephews! I have no idea who could be waiting for me there, and I think I deserve the chance to get to see how bad my life could have been if things went another way.”

“You can do that when it’s safer,” Juri snapped once more, the liquid in his glass sloshing around with every movement he made. “What are you going to do if you get killed and your mother loses her son? How do you think Hokuto is going to feel if you die on his watch? I’m not being responsible for you and putting you in a dangerous situation.”

Jesse knew that he shouldn’t push more. He should roll over and listen to Juri’s reasoning. It was solid and reasonable. It was the right thing to do, but there was a part of him that wanted to step up. He wanted to not be so useless and help his friends. It was only with the destruction of Kamenashi that he could truly begin to live his life in the magic world, and he wanted to have a hand in stopping the enslavement of his family. 

“I’ll watch over him.” Hokuto’s voice was quiet, but it cut through the silence. “I’ll make sure nothing bad happens to Jesse.” He placed his hand just above Jesse’s knee, and Jesse felt himself jolt at the touch. It felt like electricity coursing through his body, though it could have been in part to how badly Hokuto was shaking. “You know I'm powerful enough to watch his back, and, if things take a turn for the worse, I’ll grab Jesse and run.” 

Juri sighed, taking a long drink from his refilled glass. He rubbed his temple with his free hand. “Fine! It’ll be me, Hokuto, and Jesse-”

“I’m going, too,” Shintaro jumped in, and Juri looked like he was about to have an aneurysm.

“Have I gone mute? None of you are listening to me today!” Juri snapped. He placed his glass on the table, so he could rub both of his temples. “What part of me, Hokuto and now Jesse are going to the compound to take Kamenashi down don’t you people understand?”

“But it’s still only three people! It’s you and Hokuto, and me and Jesse are the same person, so that makes three,” Shintaro said, holding up a finger for each person proudly.

Juri was silent for a moment, running a hand down his face. “Are you really this stupid or are you trying to lighten the mood?”

Shintaro tapped his chin before he responded. “Both? Both sound good.” 

Juri snapped. “I’m not going to play babysitter to a bunch of people who can’t do magic! If you come, you’re only going to slow us down once-” 

“Shintaro should go.”

Juri’s mouth dropped open, and Jesse’s eyes flicked to the person who had spoken. Taiga’s hands were clenched tightly around his glass, eyes squeezed shut. His voice was tight as he continued to speak. 

“I’ve had my theories about him since I met him, but the coincidences have become too numerous for me to count,” Taiga’s eyes popped open as he found Juri’s. “Shintaro is a snake. Not directly descended as me or you or any magic folk are. I think his line has been so intertwined with humans that he lacks powerful magic like the rest of us, but he has enough latent magic that he gets bursts of visions.” He took in a deep breath then took a large gulp of alcohol to settle his nerves. “If you’re going to stop Kamenashi, Shintaro might be able to help guide you to the right path.” 

Jesse knew that he should have been shocked that his friend was a low level magic. He should have been thinking of all of the strange things Shintaro had said throughout their years of friendship that had somehow come true. There were hundreds of things that should have shocked Jesse the most, but the one at the forefront of his mind was how Taiga knew Shintaro’s name. 

“Wait,” Kochi said, his brain whirling behind his eyes. “That means…that means…” His voice screeched out. “I’m the only human person in this group?!”

“It would appear that way,” Hokuto said, and Jesse felt Hokuto drawing little circles above his knee. Jesse reciprocated the gesture on Hokuto’s shoulder as Kochi groaned, sinking further down. “I would have never thought that Shintaro was distantly related to magic. I didn’t sense it at all from him.”

“Snakes know snakes!” Taiga said, looking particularly proud of himself.

Everyone’s attention turned to Juri who looked completely and utterly broken. It was as if his entire world was crumbling around him, and he couldn’t fully process that Shintaro, the Shintaro, had some kind of magical ability. 

Something clicked in Shintaro’s brain, and he let out a shout of random noises jumbled together. “Wait a minute! You know what this means?” A smile spread itself across his face. “You said it before, Juri! And Taiga just said I’ve exhibited magical abilities sooooo,” he drew out the word before thrusting his fist into the air, alcohol dripping down his glass and onto his hand before seeping into his sleeve. “I can try your drinks! Hell yeah!” 

That broke something even further down in Juri, and he sank far down in his chair. “Fine…” Juri said, and Shintaro started to lap the streaks of alcohol off of his skin. “He can come, too.”

They spent the rest of the day together, planning for the next day when they would follow the coordinates Jesse’s mother had scribbled onto a sheet of paper for them. As the day winded down, the hour for sleep creeping up on them faster than expected, Juri made the decision that no one was leaving rocks that evening. The protection spells were strong enough to hold against any future attacks, and he didn’t want to risk anyone going home and getting kidnapped or ransomed. 

He and Hokuto turned the couches in his living room into beds as well as providing sleep clothes and toiletries for the additional guests. After he had changed, Jesse went to claim a bed with Shintaro, letting Taiga and Kochi have the other, but a hand in his tugged Jesse to Juri’s guest room. 

“Please,” Hokuto said, his voice so low that only Jesse could hear. “I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, and if something goes wrong…and it’s the last time I see you…” Hokuto bit his lip, and his grip tightened on Jesse’s hand. “I don’t want to spend it alone.”

And Jesse couldn’t say no to Hokuto.

The hours ticked past midnight as Jesse laid there, Hokuto so close he could feel the hairs of his head tickling Jesse’s shoulder. He wanted nothing more than to pull Hokuto into his arms, to drift off to blissful sleep, but his head was a mess. Thoughts were whirling around in his mind that he couldn’t control, the scenarios getting more and more dire as each minute torturously dragged by. He saw his friends brutally tortured, their flesh melting off of their bones. Jesse’s mind infected his imagination, the visions turning so cruel and vicious he couldn’t escape them by closing his eyes. They consumed him, and he didn’t want to risk transferring them to Hokuto through any kind of touch. He didn’t know if it was possible, but it wasn’t worth it. 

The image of a second staircase came to mind, one he had seen when they had lounged in Juri’s living room earlier that day. rocks was only a two story building, so it had to lead to the roof. Slipping from the bed, he quietly padded out to the living, sneaking past a sleeping Kochi and Shintaro, and climbed the stairs upwards. He used a random brick to prop open the door as he walked out onto the flat roof.

It was so quiet outside, peaceful in the early hours of the morning. Lights from surrounding buildings and street lights danced across Jesse’s vision as he gazed out into the sleeping city. There was a metal railing going around the top of the building, discouraging anyone from walking over the edge. Jesse walked over, leaning against it as he slowly washed the horrid images from his brain.

“Couldn’t sleep either?” Jesse whipped his head around and found Juri there, hands stuffed into his grey sweatpants’ pockets. He crossed the small distance so he could lean against the railing with Jesse.

“Horrid visions of death. You?” Jesse asked.

“Taiga had a nightmare and woke me up,” Juri said. “He’s asleep in my room, but I can’t fall back asleep. Too many memories.”

Jesse wanted to ask. He did. There were so many questions that he had surrounding Juri and Taiga’s relationship, or lack thereof. There was a closeness to them separated by Taiga always taking a few steps back from Juri, not to mention how Taiga’s eldritch horror tendencies were reigned in whenever Juri stepped through the door. They were friends but not friends. Close but not close. It was a conundrum that whispered through Jesse’s mind each time he saw them interact but would leave when something new distracted him. 

But he didn’t want to press Juri. He had shown his tendencies to push people away when his boundaries were grazed by even the gentlest of touches. The two of them had established a mutual understanding of each other, enough where Jesse felt comfortable calling Juri a friend now, but it wasn’t enough to risk collapsing the delicate house of cards they had built.

“You know, I actually thought he was cute the first time I saw him,” Juri said, his voice so wistful as he gazed out into the city lights. “Don’t ever tell him this, but I was happy when he swapped partners with me. It felt like fate to fourteen year old me.” 

Jesse stared at Juri, not saying a single word as the stars twinkled above them. If Juri was confused by the lack of conversation, he showed it. His head turned to Jesse as he snapped out a, “What?” to Jesse.

“I…have never heard you talk that much about yourself before,” Jesse said, jaw dropped.

“I can stop.”

“No, no, keep going!” Jesse said, words coming out in a rush. “Tell me more.”

There was a silence between them, Juri grasping onto the railing like it was the only thing keeping him grounded. He took a shaky breath in. “I was scared going to cotillion that night. Hokuto was going off to a human high school in a few weeks, I didn’t have many friends, and then this beautiful guy kept teleporting himself to be my partner. I was shocked.” Juri looked down at his hands, his grip getting even tighter. “We talked after our sixth dance, and I learned we would be attending the same school. I thought maybe we could get to know each other, and he could fill Hokuto’s place in my school life. I was…kind of excited for the future.”

Jesse stayed quiet even when Juri paused in his monologue. Not for fear of pushing too much with a comment or angering him but because he could see how hard it was for Juri to open up. The only family member Juri consistently brought up was his mother, never mentioning his father or his siblings. Jesse wanted to give Juri all the space he needed in order to tell whatever part of his tale he was sharing. 

“I was really happy when Hokuto and Taiga got along when I introduced them. I couldn’t believe my luck that two people I liked got along. But more than that I loved having Taiga by my side. Out of me and Hokuto, I was the only one he would cling to. It made me feel special.” Juri’s gaze drifted downwards. “But I was too closed off.” Jesse could see how Juri’s eyes glazed over, the memories taking over. “I could tell Taiga wanted to get closer, that he wanted to know more about me, but no matter how I tried, I couldn’t tell him anything deep about myself. I wanted to, I really did, but there was something within me that was scared he wouldn’t like me if he learned what kind of person I was behind my walls.”

Juri closed his eyes, scrunching them together. “We were hanging out after school one day when Taiga got this dumb smile on his face, and he started to sing. It was so beautiful, the most beautiful thing I had ever heard, and I relaxed so much listening to his voice. I felt like I could tell him anything, and he wouldn’t judge me. I felt so at peace, but then things changed.” Juri’s eyes opened, his gaze drifting away from Jesse. “It was like every emotion I was capable of feeling came crashing over me, and I felt so overwhelmed. But the worst of it? There was one emotion that came completely out of nowhere.” 

Jesse took a risk and reached out to touch Juri’s shoulder, to try and give him some kind of comfort, but Juri flinched under the brush of Jesse’s finger. Jesse silently cursed himself. He should have known that was the wrong move given their past history. Jesse pulled his hand back as quickly as he could, not wanting to risk upsetting Juri further. 

“Love,” Juri laughed, the sound so bitter. “What I felt for Taiga was love, and I panicked. I didn’t know where it was coming from. He had quickly apologized, his song spell got away from him. He had just begun learning emotion song magic, but the damage was done. I felt violated. I felt like I had been pushed past my comfort zone, and I was scared of what I was feeling. So I shoved him away. I didn’t want to be his friend anymore. I couldn’t do it.”

Juri turned so he was leaning against the metal railing, shoving his hands back into his pockets. “We’re better than we were, don’t get me wrong. It’s only because Hokuto kept us together that we’re even friends now, but I still…I…” Whatever Juri wanted to say, the words were getting caught in his throat. “It doesn’t matter,” he finally got out. “Whatever could have happened is dead. I ruined those chances, and he hasn’t shown any interest in me since those days.” There was a long stretch of silence before Juri’s voice was a whisper in the night air. “He doesn’t even want to touch me anymore.”

The air between them was heavy, and Jesse didn’t know what he should do. On the surface, Juri and Taiga were two entities planted next to each other that didn’t connect, but, under the surface, Jesse could see how their roots were so interconnected it was impossible to break them apart. If only Juri could dig a little farther beyond the surface. Maybe then he could look past his own trauma to see the real bonds that connected him to Taiga. 

“I don’t think you ruined things,” Jesse said before snapping his jaw shut. When Juri didn’t snip at him or reprimand him for inserting his opinion, Jesse continued. “I’ve known you guys for a short time, but I think the two of you are just opposites. Taiga welcomes people in easily and will say anything that comes to mind, but you’re more careful with your words and stories. Your personalities are like oil and water or…something, but that doesn’t matter!” He said when he saw Juri’s expression falling. “You should trust yourself more.”

But Jesse’s words didn’t appear to give Juri any sense of relief. “Anyways,” Juri said, pushing himself off of the railing, and he started to walk back towards the door, “that’s what I’ve been thinking about tonight."

Jesse knew that he should have let the conversation end there. He should have followed Juri back down in silence and gone to bed. They had a long day tomorrow, and, no matter how much they planned and predicted the next day’s events, anything could happen. But there was a part of Jesse that wanted to help. He wanted to try and get Juri and Taiga on track to some kind of mutual understanding.

“Give Taiga a chance,” Jesse said, whipping around. He saw how Juri paused for a moment, just out of reach of the door back down into rocks. “I think you’d be surprised at what could happen.”

Juri was silent, not even a rustle of clothing filling the air between the two of them. His back was rigid, Juri’s arms pressed to his side. It was a while before he spoke. “Goodnight, Jesse,” Juri simply said. He waved his hand, the door opening for him, and Juri slipped down into the dark depths of the floor below without another word.

Jesse woke bright and early the next morning, sleep hanging from his eyes and demanding him to rest more. Hokuto was nestled against him, Jesse’s arm low around his waist as Hokuto peacefully dreamed on, and the desire to stay in that moment clung to every inch of Jesse’s body. If he stayed in bed, maybe the events of the day wouldn’t need to happen. Maybe they wouldn’t need to negotiate Jesse and his family’s freedom. He could forever stay in Tokyo, Hokuto in his arms, and the fable that was Kamenashi Kazuya would remain a horrid story.

Hokuto’s sleeping face was perfection, and Jesse wanted nothing more than to look upon it. The soft way Hokuto’s lips were parted as he breathed out, how fluffy and sweet his expression was as he was caught in a dream, was far too beautiful for Jesse to comprehend. He wanted to lean in until the only thing in his vision was Hokuto, all he could breathe in was Hokuto, and to kiss him until the memories of the last day faded into oblivion. Kisses made everything better, but the only thing holding Jesse back was wondering if Hokuto would find it romantic or creepy to be woken up with Jesse’s mouth on his.

…and Jesse’s stomach. The sound of it rumbling made him wince, scooting just far enough back so he could wrap an arm around it to try and quiet the noise. They hadn’t eaten dinner the night before, the weight of their mission weighing down their stomachs with dread, and his body was fighting back in protest. He had seen some take out containers in Juri’s fridge last night, but the idea of raiding the fox’s fridge without permission felt more like a death sentence than a paradise. He sighed, reluctantly pulling himself out of bed to hunt Juri down. If his food mission was unsuccessful, he’d come back and snuggle Hokuto until he woke up. 

The living room was quiet except for the gentle snoring of Shintaro who had kicked off the comforter and was starfished on his mattress. From what Jesse could see of Kochi, he had buried himself under the covers and had a few pillows wrapped around his head to block out the noise. Jesse tiptoed down the small hallway, not wanting to wake his friends from their peaceful sleep. They deserved all of the rest they could get.

The fox’s bedroom door was cracked open as Jesse approached it, and an odd sense of relief washed over Jesse. It had been firmly closed when he had gone to bed the night before, so someone, whether it was Taiga or Juri himself, was up. He raised a hand to knock and announce his presence but stopped when he heard the murmuring of conversation floating through the cracks. 

He froze, a small panic coursing through his body. If Juri and Taiga were having a private conversation, he knew it was the wrong thing to listen in. It was the one rule he knew when it came to Juri, no prying into his personal life. Hokuto would be the safer option if Jesse wanted food. Jesse could wake Hokuto up, and the two could run down to the convenience store to pick up a few rice balls, maybe some packaged fluffy pancakes with butter and syrup, and some juice. Anything would be better than facing the wrath of eavesdropping on Juri, but Jesse’s body crouched down instead, making himself as small as possible as he listened to the words slipping through the crack. 

“Juri, you’re going to be okay,” Jesse heard Taiga say. A figure passed in front of the crack, and Jesse made out Taiga’s blond hair. He was in an oversized shirt that was swishing around his hips as he walked and baggy shorts. “You’re one of the strongest casters that I know. If anyone is going to sneak you guys in without being seen, it’s going to be you.”

From Jesse’s perspective, he could see the bedroom was easily twice the size of the guest room. There was a king size bed with side tables on either side, and Juri was sitting on the corner, legs spread, and he was fidgeting. His hands held his gaze, one of his hands massaging each finger on the other slowly and deliberately, and he didn’t dare look up from them no matter how Taiga pressed for conversation. 

“Yeah…” was Juri’s only response.

Taiga paused his pacing. “It’s true!” he said. “I’m not lying to you. I’ve never met anyone as talented as you.” He swept across the room, sitting down next to Juri. For a moment, just a moment, Jesse saw Taiga reach out to try and take hold of one of Juri’s hands, but he stopped. He retracted it and kept his own hands in his lap. “I know you don’t see it yourself, but you’re incredible. I’m so jealous that you can perform illusions so easily. The way that you can trick the mind is so cool.” Taiga’s face shone with so much affection. “Don’t get me wrong. I love my magic. I love how I express it through song, but sometimes I wish I could be like you and have so much raw power.” 

If Juri was paying attention to anything Taiga was saying, his face didn’t show it. He sat quietly on the bed like a statue made of stone.

“You can trust them.” Taiga’s voice was so quiet that Jesse could barely make out the words. “Shintaro is…well…he’s nearly human, and Jesse doesn’t know what he’s doing yet. But he will in time, and if things go wrong, Hokuto will be there as well.” Taiga's head hung down. “I-I know you don’t trust—I, well,” the words came tumbling from Taiga’s mouth. “I hope that you believe what I’m saying.”

“I wish I could,” was Juri’s response, and Taiga deflated next to Juri. “But the only thing I can think about is how everything is going to go wrong. There’s no room for hope in my head. I feel like I’m going to burst from the stress of it. If we get caught going into this compound then it’s no one’s fault but my own” Juri’s head hung lower, his hands holding it up. “I want to feel like this weight is off of my shoulders, so I can cast my spells without any worry.” 

Silence hung around the pair, and Jesse knew he needed to announce his presence before either Juri or Taiga noticed him. It would be much easier to knock now that the conversation had died down. Neither of them would ever consider that Jesse had been crouching there the past few minutes listening to them awkwardly converse, and Jesse could get permission to raid Juri’s fridge to his heart’s content. It was absolutely foolproof. Juri and Taiga just needed to not look at the door and catch him.

He slowly stood up, reaching his hand out to knock on the door, when Taiga spoke again. “I can help relax you…if you want to,” the last few of his words came out as a jumbled mess, and Jesse froze just before his knuckle knocked. “One quick song, and that’s it. I swear I won’t do anything else without your permission.” 

Juri was rigid on the bed from what Jesse could see, his self-soothing gestures grinding to a half. His eyes were wide open, pupils dilated, as Taiga sat on the bed beside him, eyes watery as he gazed upon Juri as if he was the only being in the entire universe. Taiga waited patiently, the silence dragging on between the two, until Juri slowly nodded his head, and Jesse let out a slow breath he hadn’t noticed he had held in.

Each movement of Taiga’s body was slow and calculated, perhaps the most careful Jesse had ever seen the snake move. He picked up his spell book off of the bed before standing between Juri’s spread legs. He tucked the manga between his knees and took Juri’s face into his hands, cradling it as if it was the most precious thing in the world. Juri’s vision turned up, looking Taiga in the eyes, and Jesse saw the corner of Taiga’s lips turn up into a smile before he opened his mouth to sing. 

The song was slow, the words elongated and performed low in the throat, and the notes were just barely within Taiga’s vocal range. At the same time, Taiga’s voice was rich like melting chocolate left in the warm summer sun. It coated the air, each note hanging heavy in Jesse’s ears, and he could have sworn he felt himself relax listening to the song as well. He knew in the back of his mind that it couldn’t be true, Taiga’s magic would never have an effect on him, but the low warmth of the notes soothed him nonetheless.

When he was finished, Taiga released his hold on Juri’s face and stepped back, putting more distance between the two of them. “Thank you for trusting me,” he said, a serene smile on his face. 

Jesse only caught a flash of Juri’s expression, shock taking over his features but his body more relaxed than it had been prior, before Jesse slowly backed away from the door. There was a part of him that was happy that Juri had listened to him and given Taiga a chance. The other part knew if he stayed there a second longer, his grumbling stomach would betray him and announce his presence to the two magic within. He had been hovering long enough, and Jesse could feel his lucky streak coming to an end. He tiptoed back to the kitchen, cracking open Juri’s fridge to sort through the various takeout boxes within it. He had a feeling Juri would be a bit more receptive to a missing box of Chinese food. If he wasn’t…well…it would be easier to ask Juri for forgiveness now that Taiga had cast his relaxation spell.

The morning was a mass of chaos once everyone was awake, Hokuto running around rocks to check the spells had held overnight and would for the foreseeable future. Juri had sent a message spell to Ren’s parents, cancelling their lessons until they received another message from him. He apologized for the sudden nature of his message, and he promised to explain once he returned from out of town. Jesse hoped the little fox wouldn’t be too disappointed. He was always a bundle of joy when he came into the magic den to learn illusion magic from Juri.

Hokuto ordered lunch from a nearby restaurant for the six of them, going to pick up the food himself, and they all sat down to one quiet meal. The plan for the day kept circling in Jesse’s head. Get to the compound. Find Kamenashi. Negotiate the release of his family through any means necessary, even if Jesse had to go back once a year to be Kamenashi’s personal magic man. And if things took a turn for the worse, they would run. It all seemed so simple in theory, but Jesse couldn’t allow himself to imagine anything going wrong. It would be fine. Everything was fine.

Once their spell books were hidden safely beneath their clothing, Jesse knew it was time to go. They had dawdled enough. This was it.

“Be good, be safe, be careful,” Taiga said to each of them, popping in and out to give each of them a firm goodbye hug. Jesse swore he felt his ribs being crushed in his chest from the strong embrace. When Taiga finally appeared in front of Juri, he awkwardly reached a hand out to the fox, but Juri took it without any hesitation. Jesse could have sworn Taiga lit up like a Christmas display from the small touch. 

“Don’t you two dare die on me,” Kochi said, wrapping his arms around Jesse and Shintaro’s necks to pull them down into a hug. “Come back alive or I’ll haunt you.”

“Isn’t it supposed to be the opposite?” Jesse asked, but Kochi just shrugged.

But then Hokuto’s hand was in Jesse’s, Juri reluctantly grabbing onto Shintaro’s, and Jesse felt the familiar scent of magic fill his nose as they were whisked away.

Jesse blinked his eyes a few times before he could process the unrivaled beauty of nature that surrounded him. They were in a small valley, towering snow capped mountains surrounding them on all sides. Crisp edges of stones jutted out from the peaks making the mountains appear too perfect, too beautiful, for his mind to comprehend. A small bubbling stream flowed in front of them, the water so crystal clear that Jesse could see fish darting through the cold water. Jesse had seen countless pictures of the Japanese Northern Alps during his time at school, the photos spread out across his geography textbooks, but it was nothing in comparison to the real thing. 

“We’re a few kilometers west of Mount Norikura,” Hokuto explained. While Juri had already separated from Shintaro, putting as much distance as he could between the two, Hokuto still clung to Jesse’s hand. “If your mother is correct, Kamenashi’s compound should be at the base of the mountain.” 

“Let’s go,” Jesse said, squeezing Hokuto’s hand tightly. 

Jesse was grateful the hike was fairly easy, the path they carved through the trees gracefully inclining over time. Hokuto led the way, using magic to cut away particularly thick branches or bushes, so they wouldn’t have to wind their way through the forest. They mostly hiked in silence, conversation drifting amongst them before petering off once more. The occasional rustle of leaves gave them pause a few times, Juri investigating what the cause of it was, usually a small animal, before they continued on. 

“I hope we can get food or something when we arrive,” Shintaro said, huffing and puffing behind Jesse. “All of this walking is making me hungry.”

“Could you eat an elephant?” Jesse asked, a sly grin spreading across his face.

“My dude,” Shintaro said, clapping him on the shoulder. “I could eat a whole cow.” 

Jesse blinked. “But cows are smaller than elephants.” 

“Uh, no they’re not?” Shintaro said, rolling his eyes. Jesse could hear Hokuto giggling in front of them. “Cows are definitely bigger. I know my zoological facts.” 

“Shin, if we had service right now, I would whip out my phone and-” 

A force shoved Jesse and Shintaro down from behind, cutting off the conversation they were engrossed in. He went to shout, to demand why the hell this was happening, but his voice was silenced, not a single sound escaping his throat. Fear flicked through Jesse, confusion as to what was happening and why, until he saw Juri reappear behind Hokuto, forcing him down as well. Juri threw a glance behind him, and, satisfied with what he saw, he made a swirling motion with his hand. The world around Jesse started to shimmer, the borders of objects becoming less defined in his vision, but Jesse felt annoyed.

What the hell was Juri on? They were in the middle of the forest with no one around them for miles and miles. They hadn’t seen a soul since they had teleported into the Japanese Northern Alps, and they wouldn’t see anyone until they had arrived at Kamenashi’s compound. They had no reason to be slammed to the dirt and treated as if they were being captured. Whenever Juri released whatever ridiculous spells he had cast, Jesse would be giving him a peace of his mind! 

The air shifted above him, and Jesse turned his head to look up, his eyes widening. There were two men standing there, the same stiff militaristic uniforms from his mother’s memories with little black books clutched in one of their hands. Every ounce of annoyance and anger burst from Jesse’s mind, his heart racing in his chest. He felt Shintaro shift slightly beside him, grasping onto the edge of Jesse’s jacket, and Jesse tried his hardest to control his breathing. He didn’t know if the two men could still hear them or not, but there was no way Jesse was going to be the one to alert them of their presence. 

He watched as the two of them scanned the forest from top to bottom, their heads leaned in and murmuring. There was a moment, just a single moment, where Jesse swore one of the men was looking at him right in the eye, and he felt his heart stop in his chest. But whatever magic Juri had cast over them held, and the man moved on to study another part of the forest floor. As quickly as they had appeared, the pair were gone in the blink of an eye, and Jesse’s lungs demanded pounds of air, gulping it down as if he had been underwater. 

Jesse laid in the dirt, hands grasping onto small pebbles that littered the earth, until he felt Hokuto’s hand on his shoulder, a gentle brush, and he picked himself off of the ground. His blood was rushing through his veins, the sound like drums in his ears, and his knees felt weaker than he had ever experienced. That had been close, too close. If Juri hadn’t acted even a second slower, there was no doubt in Jesse’s mind that they would have been captured and dragged before Kamenashi.

“We move under illusion from now on,” Juri said, pushing himself to his feet. “No more walking around all willy-nilly. And no distractions,” he snapped. “If I break my concentration, the illusion goes down. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to risk capture.” Jesse had no reason to disagree. He nodded and continued to follow after Hokuto. 

They moved in silence from that moment on, not wanting to risk drawing any attention to them now that they were nearing where Kamenashi resided. Occasionally they would stop if one of them stepped on a branch too loudly, the sound echoing through the trees. It was only when Juri cleared them to keep moving, seeing no further appearances from guardsmen, that they kept pressing forward. It was better safe than sorry.

Sunshine streamed through a line of trees, the forest giving way to a rolling field of grass, and it was then that they were greeted with their first look of Kamenashi’s compound. The mini city was built into the side of Mount Norikura, stone walls erected around the perimeter that were easily a meter thick and five meters high, discouraging any from trying to burrow through or climb over. A metal portcullis was at the center, the gate drawn up but protected by five guards with black spell books in hand. From their vantage point, Jesse could see similarly dressed guards patrolling from the top of the walls in well timed intervals. 

Though it was difficult to see how many and what kind of buildings were within this cultish affair, Jesse could barely make out the main house. It looked as if it was built into the mountain’s face, roughly three stories high, and was the most elaborate show of wealth Jesse had ever seen. Its roof tiles curved towards the low light of the late afternoon sun, and every inch of the building’s stoneface was painted the darkest shade of black with red accents that shone like blood. It was a dark and harrowing exterior that made Jesse’s skin crawl. 

“How the hell do we get in there?” Jesse asked. Teleporting in seemed like the easy and most logical idea, but there had to be some kind of protection spell against that kind of magic. If Kamenashi hadn’t wanted anyone to escape on his watch, he certainly wanted to know if anyone magically waltzed into his compound.

“Uh, dude. Come on,” Shintaro said, gesturing to the structure in front of them. “Isn’t it obvious? They have a front door.”

“If Taiga wasn’t so certain you had latent snake magic, I would burn you where you stood for even considering something so heinously idiotic,” Juri said without missing a beat. He turned to Hokuto. “What do you think? Is it worth the risk?” 

Hokuto stood there for a moment considering their options before nodding. “Let’s try.”

They slowly creeped towards the open gate; careful footsteps placed one at a time to discourage any noise that could alert the guards to their presence. Jesse felt his heart rattling around in his ribs, breath getting caught in his throat as the boisterous voices of the guardsmen became more and more clear. How were they going to get through this pack of guards? They were milling around, wandering around as if they were hanging out at a party and not protecting the lair of a villain. It was impossible to guess who would be where with how erratic they were, and Jesse wished they could fly over the wall. That would be so much easier. 

A man came stomping through the entrance to the compound, kicking up dirt every time his boots grazed the earth, and the guards snapped to attention, saluting him. His hair was dyed blond, wild in its styling, and his clothes were equally as odd. His pants were patchworked together, cinched at his waist tightly with a belt, but he was bare-chested, only wearing a fur lined cape despite the chilly fall weather. If this man wasn’t shredded beyond belief, Jesse would have laughed at how ridiculous his outfit was. “What are you doing?” he snapped. “I need three of you now to search for the brat. He didn’t show up for his afternoon lessons. Again.” His glare was pure fury as he shot a disgusted look at each person before him. “Weren’t you sorry excuse for magic supposed to ensure this didn’t happen? I’ll kill your families for your repeated insolence if you do not find him right now!”

The three guards closest to the wild haired man quickly followed after him as he stomped his way back into the compound. The remaining two stood on either side of the portcullis leaving a wide berth for Jesse and his friends to sneak through. He exchanged a quick look with each of them before they moved like ghosts, slipping their way inside without a sound.

The compound was oddly quiet, not as many people milling around and going about their daily life as Jesse had imagined. There was the odd person who would exit one of the simple two story houses made of wood, but they walked with a purpose, hands wrapped around the straps of their bags and heads looking straight forward. It wasn’t how a city was supposed to feel like, so drained of life that it felt hollow. Even empty streets of Tokyo had more character to them. Jesse could have been walking out in the open, and he didn’t feel as if he could approach a single soul and get them to converse back with him, no matter how he tried and prodded. 

They followed the main road as it curled its way through the city until the main house towered above them, the front doors looming black and intimidating. This was it. The place Jesse’s mother had entered countless times. The place she had studied and learned healing magic through her young adult life. It was where she had entered that fateful night over twenty years ago and had learned her fate Kamenashi had assigned to her before fleeing, escaping marriage. This was where it would all hopefully come to an end.

Looking upon the front door, it was then a concern hit Jesse that he hadn’t thought of before.

“Guys,” he hissed, pausing in front of the massive door. “How the hell are we going to get in?” 

The door had to be as big as the one to Kamenashi’s throne room, perhaps even taller, and there was no way to possibly open it without someone in the town noticing nor without alerting any possible guards on the inside. If anyone happened to be within eyesight of the door, it would immediately alert suspicion, and they would be found out in an instant. It was a part of their plan that they hadn’t considered, and Jesse was kicking himself for not asking his mother if the main house had a back door or secret entrance. It would have been much easier to sneak in that way.

“Let’s try and find another way in,” Jesse said, exchanging a look with Shintaro. “Anything should be easier than trying to go through this one.”

Juri tsked. “What do you take me for, a novice?” he asked. He thrust out one of his hands, keeping it steady while the other swirled in a circular motion close to his chest. “I’ll show you how powerful my line’s magic is.” 

The door shimmered in the light of the afternoon sun, the edges of it becoming fuzzy in Jesse’s vision, until it solidified once more. If Jesse hadn’t watched the entire exchange, he would have thought nothing had happened, that Juri was pulling a trick on them. But Hokuto walked up to its massive frame, grasping onto the door handle, twisting his hand, and pulled. As he backed away from the door, his hand held the perfect shape of the door handle, but the door remained closed to Jesse’s vision. 

Jesse stood in silence, his mouth agape. The logical part of his brain knew that Hokuto wasn’t pantomiming and pretending to open the front door, for that would have been the kind of joke they’d pull back at home, not at the home of Kamenashi. But the visual part of Jesse’s brain was at war with the logical part, the illusion of the closed front door so flawlessly perfect. It fought viciously against Jesse’s knowledge of Juri’s illusion spell, his brain turning into a mess the more he gazed upon the illusion before him.

“Hurry up, you idiots,” Juri grunted, a grimace on his face. “I’m powerful, but I can’t hold both of these illusions forever.”

His brain was screaming at him not to, for Jesse would walk straight into the wooden door if he listened to Juri. He pushed down those instincts to the bottom of his chest and took his first step into the illusion.

The structure of the door wavered around Jesse, bending and waving as he took tentative step after step until he passed through it. For a moment, he patted himself down, making sure he wasn’t missing any limbs or appendages and was relieved to find he was fine. Juri was truly an absolute master of his craft, and Jesse understood why Ren’s parents had trusted him as their son’s teacher. 

But a flash of movement captured Jesse’s attention, drawing him from his own thoughts, and he froze. The scene before him was too terrifying to comprehend, and Jesse’s heart sped up, threatening to burst from his chest as fear consumed him. It was only when Shintaro stepped through, already inhaling a shout, did Jesse break himself out of his panic ridden state. He wrapped a hand around Shintaro’s mouth, his other going around the back of Shintaro’s head to keep him from wiggling away from Jesse’s hand. 

There was a chained woman sitting on her knees in the center of the entrance, the floor an elegant design of black marble that was marred with puddles of dark red blood. Her skin was badly bruised and beaten, one of her eyes swelling shut, and a split lip dripped blood. Her breath was ragged, and the only thing keeping her remotely upright was her hands as they clawed at the floor for some kind of purchase. Though it was hard to tell under the discoloration, Jesse guessed she had to be around his own mother’s age, and his heart ached for this woman. She didn’t deserve to be in this kind of position, no matter what had been the cause. 

There was a small gaggle of guards surrounding her, blocking one of three hallways that jutted out to other wings of the main house. The decorations of the entrance were sparse, mostly old and fraying paintings of Kamenashi in various centuries' clothing. Most of the guards had their spell books in hand, but a few had batons clutched in their grasp whose ends were dyed red. Out of the corner of his eye, Jesse saw Juri pass through his illusion with Hokuto bringing up the rear, closing the door behind him. The newest additions to the hall hadn’t been noticed, and Jesse thanked every god he knew for Juri and his illusion magic. It was truly incredible.

“I’m telling you the truth,” the woman said, her Kansai accent thick in every character. “My son left the house as he did every day Kamenashi summons him for practice. What he does between the front door and the main house is of no concern to me.” Her words came spitting out as she continued. “Perhaps if Kamenashi hadn’t murdered his father in cold blood, then he-”

A swift kick came to her side, sending her sprawling to the floor. She hit the ground with a loud thump, her chains clanking when she clutched onto her stomach, the cry of pain that echoed around the entrance hurt Jesse to listen to. He wanted to go to her, to attempt to heal her of the pain she felt, but he knew he couldn’t. He hoped he could find her later and relinquish some of the pain she was feeling. 

“Speak only when spoken to,” the guard who kicked her snarled. He stomped onto the woman’s stomach, grinding his heavy boots into her flesh, and Jesse let go of Shintaro to step in front of Hokuto, if only to protect him from the cruelty for a moment. Next to him, Jesse saw Juri stop the swirling hand motion he had used to illusion the door. The guard turned to the nearest guardsman, an annoyed expression on his face. “The absolute disrespect. You would think lifelong citizens of our great home would know better.”

“I’m not from here!” the woman shouted, but the guardsman only stepped harder onto her. She cried out once more from the pain. “I only wanted to stay the night. You fools never let me leave!”

“Because all should be grateful for Master Kamenashi’s kindness,” the guard said, sweeping his hands outwards. “What more could a peasant from outside these walls understand? Master Kamenashi gives us food, shelter, and all we could ask for. And yet you insignificant, whiny, little—wait, who are you?” his head snapped in a direction, and Jesse’s gaze followed it.

Shintaro. He was looking at Shintaro right in the face. The shimmering magic that had surrounded them on their travels into the compound was completely gone from Shintaro, and he awkwardly stood there, every person in the room staring at him with complete and utter shock on their faces.

“Uh, hi?” he said, waving at the guards.

With the blink of an eye, the shimmering magic was over Shintaro once more, but the damage had been done. A panic was washing over the guardsmen, their voices rising in pitch and volume as they began waving their arms around trying to find where the intruder had gone off to. For a moment, just a moment, the entire room went dead quiet to Jesse’s ears, the stomping and shouting from the guards disappearing, their lips moving but his ears unable to make out the sounds. Hokuto’s voices cut through the quiet, a single word echoing in Jesse’s ears. 

“Run.”

Jesse grabbed onto Hokuto's hand, sprinting across the entrance hall for the closest hallway as he dragged Hokuto forward. He shoved past one of the guards, sending them sprawling and screaming to the floor, but he didn’t look back. The time for subtly was over. Before long an alarm would be rung, and the entire main house would know someone had broken in. 

The hallways twisted and turned in front of Jesse as he ran, turning down any hallway that appeared as if it wouldn’t end in a dead end. Hokuto’s breath was ragged behind him, swallowing gulps of air the farther into the main house they went. Jesse heard Shintaro and Juri’s footsteps behind him, their pounding steps echoing down the empty hallways, but he didn’t turn to confirm their presence. He had to trust they were following him. 

They needed a place to stop, to rest, and to regroup, if only for a moment, but every door Jesse tried was firmly locked. Not a single one budged under his grip, and the more he failed to find an open room, the more Jesse felt himself panic. He only had a vague recollection of where the throne room was, and he didn’t want to turn a corner and find himself face to face with Kamenashi before they were ready nor did he want to run into a pack of guardsmen. The further they went, the higher the chance of them encountering both increased with rapid fervor. Jesse would have crammed them all into a mop closet if it meant a second to breathe. They needed one door, a single one, to open for them. That was it. 

Jesse curled his hand around a door handle at the end of a hallway, turning it with his wrist. He slammed the full force of his weight into it, intending to break the door down if he needed to, but it gave way. He went tumbling into the room, Hokuto getting dragged down with him. Jesse scrambled deeper inside, giving Shintaro enough room to follow after, and Juri brought up the rear. He closed the door behind him, flicking his wrist to lock it with magic.  

“What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck,” Shintaro cursed. He started pacing around, a large square counter the only thing in the center of the room. “Juri, what happened? How the hell did they see me?” 

“My concentration broke,” Juri snapped. He stepped over Jesse and Hokuto’s sprawled bodies on the floor. Jesse picked himself up off of the ground, offering his hand to help Hokuto up as well. The shimmering magic around them broke with a wave of Juri’s hand. “I wasn’t exactly expecting to walk into a torture session.”

“That poor woman,” Hokuto said, and Jesse pulled Hokuto close, nestling Hokuto’s head under his chin. Jesse rubbed small circles into Hokuto’s back as Hokuto curled into the embrace. Hokuto’s words were muffled as he spoke, his lips pressing into Jesse’s chest. “I knew things would be bad before we got here but experiencing it is entirely different.”

“We’ll save her, too,” Jesse promised, hugging Hokuto tighter. The crisp sound of someone biting into an apple filled Jesse’s ears, and he felt his face tick in annoyance. He knew Shintaro was hungry, but his friend had chosen the wrong time to find something to eat. “I don’t know how, but we’ll do it.”

“How sweet,” a voice Jesse didn’t recognize said. “Our heroes come to rescue us all.”

Jesse’s head whipped around, and it was the first time that he realized they had stumbled into the kitchen. The walls were covered in cabinets, high tech cooking equipment scattered across the various counters and surfaces that lined every wall. On one of them sat a guy about Jesse’s age, his hair styled in curtain bangs with its length reaching to the bottom of his ears. His face was long, his features classically boyish, and he bit again into the apple he was holding. 

“Who are you?” Juri asked, stepping forward with his hand raised in front of him.

The other man just raised an eyebrow, chewing the bit of apple that was still in his mouth before he spoke. “Isn’t the better question, who are you?” Jesse could hear the hint of a Kansai drawl at the tinges of his words. He looked at each member of their little group from top to bottom. “I’ve never seen the four of you around. So,” he said, a playful smirk across his lips, “you must be from outside the wall. How’d you get in?” 

“Juri used illusion magic,” Shintaro said, pointing to Juri who looked as if Shintaro had decided to dress in drag and do the hula.

“What the fuck are you doing, you idiot?” Juri hissed. “He could be working for Kamenashi!”

“But he’s not in that uniform we saw earlier,” Shintaro pointed out, and the man sitting on the counter nodded along, taking another bite of his apple. He was dressed in an army green jacket, simple shirt, and what looked like chino pants, a far cry from the drab uniforms of the guardsmen.

“And I never would be caught dead wearing that thing,” the man said after swallowing once more. “Kamenashi and his goons are nothing but bad news. Life would be so much better if my family had never been trapped here.”

Hokuto slipped from the loose grip Jesse had on him, studying the man sitting on the counter for a moment before speaking. “If we introduce ourselves, will you do the same in return?” The man considered the arrangement for a moment before nodding. “I’m Hokuto of the Lion Line,” Hokuto said before gesturing to each person he introduced. “That is Juri of the Fox Line and Shintaro the Human. And this,” Hokuto said, resting his hand on Jesse’s shoulder, “is Jesse of the Monkey Line.” 

Jesse had half expected the man to be shocked there was a human in his midst, similarly to how Taiga had reacted not long ago, but he sparkled after hearing Jesse’s magic line. “I’m from the monkey line as well!” He threw away the apple he had been snacking on, the apple bouncing on the counter several times before rolling to the floor, before he jumped off of the counter. He teleported so he was just in front of Jesse, nudging Hokuto away with his elbow. It was only when they were standing next to each other that Jesse realized how tall this man was. He was the exact same height as Jesse. “I’m Nozomu.” He held out his hand, and Jesse took it in his, giving it a firm shake. “Nozomu of the Monkey Line. My mother is from the chameleon line, but, of the two, I gained my father’s magic. How about you?”

“I, uh, got my magic from my mother,” Jesse said. Nozomu hadn’t let go of his hand, continuing to shake it up and down. “My father is human…But I haven’t been studying long!” Jesse threw out quickly. He didn’t want someone from his line to start questioning him on what spells he knew and didn’t know. “I only recently learned that I was magic.”

“Huh,” Nozomu said, ever so intelligently. His eyes were so wide, almost innocent. “You’re weird.” 

“You’re telling me,” Juri muttered, earning him a gentle elbow to the ribs by Shintaro. “What? You can’t deny that he isn’t!”

“But if I’m weird then what does that make Shintaro?” Jesse asked. He tried to pry his hand from Nozomu, but the other monkey’s grip was like a vice on his hand.

“A bird brain nutcase that should be housed in an insane asylum.”

“You recite the Declaration of Independence from memory backwards one time and then-” 

“You didn’t recite anything!” Juri sighed, nudging Shintaro back. “You just kept saying the word ‘poop’ over and over to combat my argument with you!”

“Okay, but to be fair, I’m pretty sure a Founding Father of the U.S. would have snuck in the word if he was drunk,” Jesse threw in, earning a glare from Juri, but Jesse ignored it. There was no proof or naysay that they wouldn’t have gotten drunk and tried to sneak in a dirty word or two.

The sound of Hokuto’s laughter filled the kitchen, warming Jesse’s heart at the familiar sound, but when Nozomu’s laughter joined in, it made Jesse pause in his bickering with Juri. He wasn’t exactly sure why. Laughter was laughter, but there was something oddly familiar in the shape of Nozomu’s mouth, the crinkle of his eyes, when he laughed. Jesse just couldn’t put his finger on what that was. 

“You people are fun,” Nozomu said once his laughter had subsided. His grip had finally slackened on Jesse’s hand, and he managed to pull it free. “Why are you guys here anyways? No one willingly walks into this place, and you guys seem to know who Kamenashi is. I’ve never met anyone that knew who he was before.” 

Jesse exchanged a look with Juri, the fox shaking his head, and he had to agree. They had only just met Nozomu and, though the other monkey didn’t appear to be on Kamenashi’s side, they couldn’t fill him in on the exact reason they were there. Not yet. 

“We’re here to negotiate with him,” Jesse finally said. Not the complete truth but not a lie either.

Nozomu laughed again, the sound bitter and cold. “Whatever you want from him, there’s no negotiating with Kamenashi.” He held out his hand, and a large butcher knife from the knife block flew into his hand. “You’ll have to kill him first.” 

That…that wasn’t in the plan. Taiga had made Juri swear up and down that they wouldn’t resort to any sort of violence on their mission. It was strictly to get in, get what they wanted through any nonviolent means, and then return home. Jesse couldn’t imagine the snake’s heartbreak if they returned with blood on their hands. 

“Trust me,” Nozomu said, placing one of his hands on Jesse’s shoulders. His voice turned low, sending a shiver down Jesse’s spine. “I’ve lived my entire life here. How many people do you think have entered these walls to try and reason with Kamenashi? How many do you think left with their lives intact?” He leaned in, lips brushing the shell of Jesse’s ears. “I’ll spoil the answer for you. None.” He backed away, thrusting the hilt of the knife at Jesse. “Whatever you hope to accomplish, it only ends in his death.”

Kamenashi was cruel, there was no doubt about that, but certainly there was another path to take that didn’t resort to death. Nozomu had to be exaggerating the truth to get them on his side. Killing people? It was something within Kamenashi’s cruelty but seeking out death for those that opposed his views? That seemed absolutely ridiculous. When shown facts and logic, and that he still had access to Jesse’s family’s magic, Kamenashi would see reason and agree with them…right? 

But there were still the memories his mother had shown them, the vicious tactics Kamenashi employed to keep his subjects in line. Jesse had witnessed his mother and her family punished countless times for not picking up spells or for failing to follow Kamenashi’s orders. His streak of cruelty was the one thing Jesse knew about Kamenashi that was a bolded fact tattooed across Jesse’s mind. Who wasn’t to say that this man wouldn’t resort to murder for someone questioning his decisions? It was in line with his past behavior.

The air around them crackled, and Nozomu prickled at the sensation, his lips pursing. His eyes darted around the room before he waved his hand, and Jesse and his friends were dragged to the floor. Jesse tried to push himself up, to shout out and ask what Nozomu was doing, but his limbs were frozen in place, his voice silenced. Whatever was about to happen, Nozomu didn’t want them to participate in it at all. At the last moment, Nozomu hid the butcher knife behind his back before a large square box materialized in the air in front of him.

The box flickered for a moment before the image of it sharpened into a chest up shot of the man from outside of the compound. His wild blond hair was striking against the pale walls of the kitchen, a scowl on his face. “Where the hell are you, you brat?” he snarled. “You were scheduled to have a lesson an hour ago. There are consequences now for your repeated failures.”

“I got hungry, Tatsuya dearest,” Nozomu said, gesturing to the space behind him with his free hand. “Not exactly a lot of food going around these days, and the main house’s kitchen is where I can actually get a decent meal.” 

“You have to ask permission-”

“Do you really think Kamenashi wants his shining star to go hungry,” Nozomu cut in, his eyes narrowing. “You of all people should know how vital I’ll be to him once I pick up my family’s spells.”

A deafening silence hung between the two, Jesse’s heart thumping in his chest. This small exchange was enough for him to know they couldn’t entirely believe Nozomu and whatever words came out of his mouth. There was a bigger connection between him and Kamenashi that they had been privy to. Though Jesse didn’t know the specifics of what bonded these two men together, the conversation between Nozomu and Tatsuya a bit too vague for his mind to comprehend, Jesse was right to be wary. 

“It’s still the rules,” Tatsuya grumbled. He snapped, “Get to your lessons now and be on guard. There’s a doofy looking buffoon that’s broken into the main house.” Out of the corner of his eyes, Jesse could see Shintaro fight against the spell gluing him down when he heard the insult. “He has illusion magic, so we don’t know where he’s hiding.” 

“Sure, sure.” Nozomu sighed, raising his hands in a mock salute. “I’ll be careful,” he said, before the video message spell disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.

Jesse felt the spell holding them down release immediately, and he picked himself off of the ground, trying to put as much distance between him and Nozomu as he could. “What did you mean by that?” he asked, tugging Hokuto closer to him once he was also standing. “What did you mean that you’re Kamenashi’s ‘shining star’?” 

“Excuse me! That is Mr. Doofy Looking Buffoon!” Shintaro said, leaping back to his feet. “And don’t wear it out!”

Nozomu’s features changed before Jesse’s eyes, the cold and calculating expression softening. “It’s too complicated to explain right now,” he said, his words pleading. “You have to trust me. I have to pretend to be on their side or they’ll punish my mother instead of me. They can’t harm me because of the nature of my family’s magic, but they can take it out on my mother to keep me in line. Please,” he said, voice almost holding a desperate edge to it, “let me take you to where Kamenashi is. We can take him out in one swoop and whatever issues both of us have with him will be gone forever.” Nozomu looked between Jesse and his friends. He held the butcher knife out to Jesse once more. “Let’s do this.”

Jesse looked to Hokuto, deferring the decision to him, but there was a strange expression on Hokuto's face, one that Jesse had usually seen on Juri. It was usually reserved for when Juri was trying to piece together Jesse and Shintaro’s thought process when one of them had done something particularly stupid. Though at this time…Jesse didn’t understand what was puzzling Hokuto that much. Nothing particularly confuddling had happened yet, only a potential betrayal just out of reach of their fingertips.

“What did you say your family’s specialty was again?” Hokuto asked, his gaze entirely focused on Nozomu, and Nozomu stiffened with the question.

“I didn’t,” he said, chewing on his words. His own gaze drifted off, his free hand clutching the edges of his jacket, “and I can’t tell you that either. It’s…it’s complicated.” 

Hokuto continued to watch Nozomu, his gaze never wavering from the monkey, and Jesse saw how the other man shrunk back a bit under Hokuto’s scrutiny. It wasn’t much, not anything anyone would have noticed if they were looking at Nozomu out of the corner of their eye, but Nozomu wasn’t holding the knife out as confidently to Jesse anymore. 

“Against my better judgement, I’m going to trust you,” Hokuto said, and Jesse’s eyes widened at his words. Even Nozomu perked up a little. What in the world was going on? 

“Hokuto-” Jesse started, but Hokuto interrupted him.

“We have to believe in him,” Hokuto said, his voice firm. His hand found Jesse’s, squeezing it tightly. “There’s no one else here that can lead us to where Kamenashi is. Besides, it doesn’t hurt to have more magical power on our side when we’re dealing with a millennia’s old demon.”

“And it’s not like you can just waltz into the throne room either!” Nozomu said, furiously nodding his head. “Kamenashi will go in there sometimes to sleep undisturbed, and the guards are under strict instruction to not let anyone in except a select few. It’s so not fun!” 

“What and like you’re one of them?” Juri asked, rolling his eyes.

“Believe me or don’t believe me,” Nozomu huffed, “but remember that I’m the one who’s lived his entire life here. Let me use this one,” he waved his hand, and Shintaro went skirting across the floor until his shoulder was in Nozomu’s grasp, “to get us entry to the throne room since he’s the one who ‘broke in.’ The rest of you follow under that one’s illusion magic.” He flicked the knife around so he could wave the blade in Juri’s direction. “Then we stab Kamenashi.” Nozomu swung the knife down, cutting through the air so swiftly it made Jesse jump. “Any questions?” 

“Yeah, just one,” Shintaro said, raising his hand. “Dónde está…the, uh, bad guy?”

There was a beat of silence before Nozomu asked, “Any other questions except that one?”

Jesse’s head was a mess, words and memories floating in and out of his brain far too quickly for him to comprehend. It was a symphony of chaos that was driving him insane, pushing and cajoling him into making a decision that warranted more time and discussion than they had available. Every second that passed by pushed them closer and closer to the edge of discovery, and Jesse’s mind couldn’t work that quickly. He had never been good at making flash decisions.

The whole situation was the illusion of choice. They either followed Nozomu and his quickly thrown together plan or declined and waited like sitting ducks until they could cobble together their own, only with the threat of being found out once Nozomu stepped through the door. He could very easily betray them all for not following in his footsteps. It was frustrating. It was aggravating, and Jesse wanted to feel as if he had some kind of control over the slowly escalating hellscape they were preparing to enter. 

The only thing that felt right was believing in Hokuto’s faith in Nozomu. Jesse had no idea what Hokuto was basing it off of, for they had both heard how Nozomu had addressed that Tatsuya fellow in their conversation. There was something in his words, something that Hokuto had caught, for him to put his trust and faith in Nozomu. If only Jesse could have picked up on it, too. 

The hilt of the knife was offered to Jesse’s once more, an easy going smile on Nozomu’s lips. “What do you say?” he asked. “Are you in?”

Jesse took the knife. 

They moved swiftly after Nozomu, his footsteps and pathing confident as he pushed Shintaro deeper into the house. Jesse, Hokuto, and Juri followed behind them, keeping their footsteps near silent under the shimmering world of Juri’s illusions. Jesse gripped the knife tightly, praying that he had made the right decision. He would never forgive himself if his friends were harmed because of his choice. 

The hallway they were in opened up to the grand entrance of the throne room, and Jesse’s mother’s memories flooded in. It was the same doors that stood intimidatingly before them, the one his mother had pushed through before fleeing the only home she had ever known. The only difference from her memory and the reality Jesse was living being the ten guards posted outside of the massive doors. Jesse gulped. It was another tick in Nozomu’s favor. He hadn’t been lying about the security detail. 

“You!” one of the guards shouted, pointing at Nozomu as he approached. “General Tatsuya reported you would be attending your lessons. What are you doing here?”

“Unlike you imbeciles, I’m doing more than milling around,” Nozomu said, his voice returning to that cold and uncaring tone he had used with Tatsuya. He shoved Shintaro forward who stumbled from the sudden gesture. “I captured the man who broke into the main house.”

The guard stood there, mouth agape. “I-”

“Certainly the lot of you could have found him on your own instead of requiring the healer to do your jobs,” Nozomu sneered. “I’m sure Kamenashi will love to hear about how all of you couldn’t complete one simple task.” 

“But Master Kamenashi is-”

“I’m done with you,” Nozomu said, waving them off. “Nothing you say will excuse you of your failures. Now, get out of my way. I won’t allow any of you to take credit for my hard work.” He grabbed onto Shintaro’s shoulder with one of his hands, pulling him close once more. He drummed his fingers on Shintaro’s shoulder. “Besides, I want to show Master Kamenashi my progress with my spells, and I have the perfect test subject now.” 

The guards stood at attention, giving Nozomu, as well as the invisible Jesse, Hokuto, and Juri, a wide berth to pass. He waved his hand, and both of the massive doors swung open, giving Jesse a clear view of the throne and the person sitting upon it. He couldn’t make out the details of Kamenashi’s face, his long bangs covering his eyes, but it appeared as if he was sleeping, his elbow on the arm of the chair and his hand propping his head up. He almost looked angelic. Nozomu waited just long enough for Jesse, Hokuto, and Juri to make their way into the throne room before he followed after, the doors closing behind him with a flick of his wrist.

The throne room was much as Jesse remembered it, the bloody details decorating the golden stone walls that churned his stomach. He felt sick seeing the depictions in person, the luster and shine of the designs hurting his eyes if he looked upon them for too long. At the center of it all was Kamenashi sleeping upon that horrid throne of knives.

Juri dropped his illusion the second the doors were firmly closed behind them. “Alright, give it to me.” He held out his hand to Jesse. “I’ll stab the guy and get it over with.”

“Hell, no,” Jesse said, and he held onto the knife tighter. “Taiga would find some way to sing us all to death if he knew we let you stab Kamenashi. We’re all here because of me. I’m going to do it.”

“Jesse, give me the knife.” Juri said. He snapped his fingers, and Jesse felt the knife try and tug itself out of his grasp. He grasped onto it with every ounce of power he could muster, digging his heels into the floor as the knife dragged him along the marble floor closer and closer to Juri. “What the fuck, you asshole. Just give it to me!” 

“I’m not letting you take the fall for this!” Jesse said through clenched teeth. He felt his fingers slipping on the handle, but he refused to let go.

In a flash, the knife disappeared, and he crashed into Juri in a tangle of limbs, Juri barely standing under the full brunt of Jesse’s weight on him. Jesse’s hands had narrowly avoided slamming into Juri’s face on impact through sheer dumb luck. He scrambled to get back some sense of balance, but Juri teleported before Jesse could fully get back on his feet. He caught himself in the nick of time before his head smacked into the floor. Jesse whipped his head around, trying to find where the knife had gone, only to see it in Hokuto’s grasp. 

“I…I care about you both too much to let either of you do this,” Hokuto said, the knife trembling in his hand. “Let me be the one to take care of this.” 

Jesse wished he knew how to teleport and remove the knife from his hands. There was no way he could let Hokuto, his Hokuto, have something so cruel and violent be on his soul. Jesse should be the one to take the fall, to corrupt himself for the trouble that he put everyone through the last week. He couldn’t let anyone else take the fall. 

He tried to make eye contact with Shintaro, to see if his best friend could wrestle the knife from Hokuto, but Shintaro was too drawn in by the horrid carvings on the wall. Jesse scrambled to his feet instead, intending to close the distance between himself and Hokuto through human means, but magic was always faster. Juri was at Hokuto’s side in a flash, whisking the knife from Hokuto before Jesse could get a single foot on the ground.

“Both of you stop trying to play the hero,” Juri snapped, the knife firmly in his grip. “I’m the only one who has enough courage to kill a man. If either of you attempt it, you’re going to tear yourselves apart. So let me stab him,” Juri swung his curled hand towards Kamenashi, “so we can all go…” Juri’s words trailed off when he noticed he was no longer holding onto the knife.

Nozomu appeared next to Kamenashi, the knife in his own hand. He yawned loudly. “I’m bored. Listening to all of you bicker isn’t fun. So,” he smirked, changing his grip so the blade was pointed away from his body, “let’s get this show on the road.” And he stabbed the knife into Kamenashi’s heart.

Jesse could only stare at Nozomu, his jaw slack as the other monkey released his grip on the knife. He appeared before Jesse in a flash, Nozomu reaching down to pat Jesse on the shoulder a few times. “Take notes,” he said, that same cold voice freezing Jesse’s blood in his veins. “That’s how it’s done.”

It would have been a lie to say Jesse didn’t feel relieved. It was done. Everything was over, and none of his friends had to live with a shadow looming over them for the rest of their lives, the knowledge that they had a hand in someone’s death. Nozomu’s actions had freed them from that fate, and Jesse was grateful he had taken things into his own hands. This compound was now free to seek their own fates, no longer under Kamenashi’s thumb. And Jesse’s mother? Jesse knew she would sleep well at night knowing her son would never experience the hell she had grown up in. 

Things would be fine…somehow. Juri and Hokuto would teleport them home, and they could report back to Kochi and Taiga about how their afternoon out had gone. Juri would get rocks fully cleaned up and back in perfect order for business. Nozomu would go off somewhere, Jesse wasn’t sure where, but it would be a place. Maybe he knew where Jesse’s family resided within Kamenashi’s compound. He wanted to meet his uncle and any other distant relatives that were still living. It would be nice getting to establish a familial connection to the half of his roots he hadn’t known before.

A swell of magic crashed down on Jesse out of nowhere, slamming onto his shoulders with brutish force. His body crumpled under the sheer weight, crushing him down and down and down until he felt as if his bones would shatter within his body. Even then, the brunt of the magic wasn’t satisfied until Jesse was immobile on the floor. 

This…he had never experienced any kind of magic like this before. It fully consumed Jesse’s breath, forcing it out from his lungs, and he struggled to get any air back in. His lungs were screaming for relief, for someone to come and free him, but Jesse couldn’t. He could hardly open his mouth. Tears stung the corners of his eyes, threatening to fall, but not a drop could be formed. He was trapped. Utterly trapped.

He couldn’t see if Hokuto was affected by this powerful display of magic nor Shintaro, Juri or even Nozomu. He hoped they were okay, that they had somehow escaped this gross show of power, but in his heart of hearts Jesse knew they were all just as trapped as him. As the seconds ticked by, Jesse’s vision wavered, and he clung to every inch of pain to keep himself lucid. 

The figure on the throne shifted, the small movement demanding Jesse’s attention. He slowly sat up into proper form, arms resting royally on the arms of the horrid throne of knives. Kamenashi’s eyes shot open, the irises bloodred, his glare cold and calculating as he looked down upon those who had broken into his throne room. When he saw Jesse struggling, the magical force pushed harder down upon Jesse, crushing him further, and he let out a weak cry of pain.

“Puny mortals,” Kamenashi said. He reached up to grasp the hilt of the knife and pulled it out, not a single drop of blood pouring from the wound. Jesse gasped with what little air was left in his lungs, and Kamenashi threw the knife, the metal clanging along the marble surface of the floor. His smirk was cruel as he stared down at Jesse. “Did you really think this would kill me?”

Kamenashi wasn’t dead, not even injured in the slightest. He sat upon his throne the picture of perfect health, his magical power bearing down onto Jesse and crushing him beneath its might. They had accounted for Kamenashi’s cruelty, his all consuming need to capture Jesse and his mother’s power, but none of them had considered the absolute magical might he would possess. It was truly frightening.

“Honestly, I never understand why you sorry excuses for magic attempt to kill me,” Kamenashi said, crossing one leg over the other. He leaned an elbow against the arm of his throne, his cheeks resting upon the knuckles of his curled fist. “Now, come on, explain yourselves. I want to hear your reasoning before I smite you all.”

The crushing magic against Jesse disappeared, and he gulped down air as if he was dying of thirst. His bones ached, his muscles screaming at him for some kind of relief, but the only thing Jesse could do was lay on the floor and try to work up the nerve to push himself up.

What could he or any of his friends say to that demand? That they had broken in, in order to negotiate? If the threat of death was already looming over their heads, Jesse was no longer sure only words would be enough to sway Kamenashi over to their own demands. It would take more persuasive negotiation skills than they possessed or disappearing into the cosmos to escape his wrath.

“It was them!” Nozomu’s voice rang out, the sounds echoing around the walls of the throne room. “They found me in the kitchens and forced me to bring them to you. I swear I had no idea of their intentions or I would have tried to fight back more. But you know me,” sorrow clung to Nozomu’s voice, “I don’t know any combat spells to defend myself.”

“I should have known that we couldn’t trust you,” Juri snarled, and Jesse could make out the sounds of Juri pushing himself up behind him.

Nozomu appeared in front of Kamenashi, kneeling before him. “You have to believe me. They forced me to sneak in the knife, and then that loud one,” he gestured behind him to Juri, “was the one who struck you. I couldn’t believe they would attempt something so heinous-”

Kamenashi waved his hand, and Nozomu went flying through the air, smacking against the stone walls and crumpling into a ball on the floor. “A mouse that plays both sides of the field can never be trusted,” Kamenashi said, Nozomu’s groan echoing around them. “You’re just like your father in that regard, and it’s why Hiiro lost his life.” Kamenashi waved him away. “I have no need for pitiful fools who can’t remain loyal to me.”

As much as Jesse wanted to curl his hands around Nozomu’s neck for his attempted betrayal, he didn’t deserve to be thrown around like a ragdoll. Jesse could give him that bit of sympathy, even if Nozomu had tried to pass the stabbing off entirely onto Juri. 

The throne was empty when Jesse’s gaze focused back on it, his body tensing for a moment before fingers curled into his hair, and his head was yanked back so viciously that it made Jesse cry out in pain. 

“You look just like her,” Kamenashi hummed, his warm breath sliding down Jesse’s neck and making him shiver. “My sweet and gentle flower, but you’ve been tainted by the human world.” Kamenashi’s finger traced Jesse’s jawline. Jesse longed to shoot an elbow backwards to push Kamenashi away, but fear paralyzed him. “Tell me,” Kamenashi cooed, his nails digging into the flesh of Jesse’s face, ”is your magic just as powerful, my wonderful magic monkey?”

Kamenashi’s grip slackened for a moment before Jesse dropped back down to the floor. He had enough energy to turn and see Hokuto’s hands curled around Kamenashi’s ankle. “He’s not yours,” Hokuto said through gritted teeth. “Jesse is his own person, not someone for you to own.”

For a moment, nothing happened. Kamenashi looked down at Hokuto as if he was a bug he longed to squash before Kamenashi waved his hand once more. Hokuto went flying across the room, striking the wall with a deafening smack that sent shivers running down Jesse’s spine. 

“HOKUTO!” he screamed, scrambling to his feet, but he felt himself freeze with one foot on the ground.

“Now, now, my little monkey. That’s not how you’re supposed to act,” Kamenashi said, tapping Jesse’s shoulders. “I would have thought your mother would have raised you better.” A single finger was placed under Jesse’s chin, tilting his head up more to look Kamenashi in the eyes. “She was the epitome of a good follower. Your half-breed nature must have corrupted the good values I instilled in her.” He sighed. “If only I could tear that part from you, but I risk losing that beautiful magic you’ve been bred with.” 

“You hurt my friend,” Jesse managed to choke out, the characters getting caught in his throat as he forced them out. “Let me check on him, so I can try to-”

“No, no, no,” Kamenashi said, making a zipping motion with his hand, and Jesse felt his lips seal shut. “Monkeys only speak when spoken to. It seems as though I need to be more strict with your training now.” 

From where Jesse was frozen in place, he could see Juri standing ragged, looking as if he had fought a war, and Shintaro was unmoving on the ground, eyes wide as his fingers clutched onto the marble beneath him. Nozomu hadn’t moved since he was thrown, and Jesse couldn’t tell if Hokuto was okay. He scrunched his eyes shut, curses flowing through his brain. 

This was a mistake. It had all been a mistake. Jesse should have listened to his mother when she begged him to flee with her. It was foolish to think there was any chance of making Kamenashi see reason. He was too powerful. He shouldn’t have agreed to come. He should have pushed his friends away and run. Now they would all die, and it was all because of Jesse.

“You should have seen my surprise when I learned of your existence,” Kamenashi said, standing before Jesse as a king would. His shoulders back, confidence radiating from his cruel frame. “I had been searching for my flower for decades until one of my squirrels’ finding spells picked up not one but two magical signatures matching hers. To think she would have a son that I could add to my collection! And just in time, too.” He smiled. “My life force has fallen below five hundred years due to her disappearance and your line refusing to transfer more life to me. It’s time to rectify that.”

Jesse saw Nozomu shift across the room, and he felt oddly relieved. He didn’t wish death against him. If only Hokuto could let Jesse know that he was alright as well.

“I’ll give you the chance to prove yourself, my magic monkey,” Kamenashi said, leaning down so their faces were on the same level. “Do what I want,” he said, his voice turning low with every word, “or I’ll kill every last one of your friends. How does that sound?”

Things were getting worse and worse with every passing second. Kamenashi wanted him to do magic? Just like that? The few times Jesse had successfully cast spells were either by accident or his back had been against the wall, time ticking down until Hokuto was dead in his arms. He hadn’t attempted anything since saving Hokuto, Juri, and Taiga’s lives nor had he exactly had the time to pick up any new spells for practice. He had been too concerned with hiding himself away for the last week. 

Whatever Kamenashi wanted him to do wasn’t going to work, and Jesse knew it. Everything he did had been cast through sheer dumb luck and shaky reasoning at best. Kamenashi didn’t know that nor was Jesse going to be the one to tell him. It was the kind of sentiment that would have turned this vicious man into a raging monster if he knew the true extent of Jesse’s lack of practice. It was a piece of information that Jesse would keep close to his chest. 

“I don’t know any healing spells,” Jesse said weakly. It was a pitiful argument, one that would never hold up against Kamenashi’s desires, and he knew it.

“What luck!” Kamenashi said. He snapped his fingers, and Nozomu appeared crumpled in a ball on the ground next to them. “I already have someone who has spent years studying the magic you need to learn.” He kicked Nozomu with his boot, the other monkey groaning from the impact. “Go ahead. Teach him the spell.”

The spell freezing Jesse broke, the one on his lips as well, and he crouched down next to Nozomu, unsure of what to do. Nozomu didn’t look like he was in any position to teach any spells, but if Jesse didn't pick it up…he… 

He pushed the thought out of his head. Whatever Kamenashi wanted him to learn, he would do it. He’d save his friends, and they’d formulate a way to get out of there without Kamenashi noticing. The following steps of how to avoid recapture were details for future Jesse to figure out. Right now all that mattered was keeping every person in this room alive for the next however long until Kamenashi demanded more from him. 

“Hey,” Jesse whispered, shaking Nozomu softly. “What spell does he want me to learn?”

Nozomu laid there for a moment, eyes closed from what Jesse could tell, before his eyes cracked open. “It’s…they’re spells that involve extending Kamenashi’s life,” he said, his voice as soft as Jesse’s. “I…I’ve never done them successfully. I doubt you’ll be able to as well. They’re…they’re complicated.”

Jesse looked over to Kamenashi, who had resumed his place on the throne. He sat patiently, foot tapping on the dais, and Jesse wasn’t sure how long he would wait before acting again. 

“Let’s give it a try,” Jesse said, questioning his own resolve and if he could perform it with the little knowledge of spell work he did have. “Show me the words in your spell book, and I’ll try to learn them.” 

“They’re…not in my spell book.” 

“What?!” Jesse hissed. That didn’t make any sense. Weren’t spells that you learned supposed to be encased within the pages of your spell book? That was what Hokuto had said so long ago. Spell books housed your magical power as well as all of your spell knowledge. 

“I told you before that my line’s specialty was complicated,” Nozomu hissed back. He glanced to the throne before speaking. “I know the words because they’ve been passed down from generation to generation, but that power skipped my father as well as me.” He rolled over, so he was facing Jesse, pushing himself off of the ground so he was sitting. “I’m an amazing healer, one of the best in my entire line, but I’m never going to cast the spells Kamenashi wants me to.” His eyes narrowed. “I don’t know why he thinks some random monkey from outside these walls can, but we’re both stuck in this boat together.”

“Then we better get started and see if I can learn them,” Jesse said, taking his place next to Nozomu.

They sat on the floor together, Nozomu’s spell book, a little book of remedies, between them. A random dish washing spell was on the page, and Jesse tried to appear as if it was the exact spell he was studying. Nozomu muttered the words line by line, pointing out the rhythms and intonations that Jesse had to be careful of, and Jesse repeated them back until they were perfect. It was only then that Nozomu moved onto the next set of words. The spell was complicated, far more detailed than the levitation spell Jesse had worked on with Hokuto, and long. His brain was aching in his head by the time they finished the first paragraph, and there were still two more to go. 

Juri had been inching across the room towards Hokuto as Jesse and Nozomu worked on the spell, waiting for Kamenashi to strike him down with any sudden movements. It was only when Kamenashi began to drift off to sleep, his eyes slowly blinking closed, that he began to make bigger moves. His steps became longer, his strides more frequent, until Juri was kneeling next to Hokuto, his head in Juri’s lap.

“He’s breathing,” Juri said, voice quiet but loud enough for Jesse and Nozomu to hear. Jesse saw Shintaro perk up with Juri’s words. “Not very smoothly but he’s breathing.”

“Give me his symptoms,” Nozomu said, grabbing onto his spell book and flipping through the pages. 

“What? So you can kill him?” Juri sneered.

“Contrary to popular belief, I’m not in the market for letting everyone die on my watch,” Nozomu hissed back. “So give me his symptoms quickly, so I can figure out how to heal him. If Kamenashi wakes up while I’m doing this, your friend is going to be in far more trouble then.”

“Let him help, Juri,” Shintaro said. He crawled over to Jesse and Nozomu, settling in next to them. “Nozomu is a good guy!”

“He is not,” Juri snapped. “He’s been nothing but trouble since we met him. Jesse can heal Hokuto. He’s done it before.”

“Someone that isn’t practiced in this magic can do more harm than good,” Nozomu said. He was clutching onto his spell book tightly. “Without the right spell for the ailment, your friend can end up more injured than before. So, please, give me his symptoms, so I can help.”

Jesse felt himself pale. He had truly gotten lucky that his mother’s spell for bruises had saved his friends’ lives.

“Nozomu can teach Jesse later, so we can have an expert healer,” Shintaro offered when Juri didn’t answer. “Just this once. Let him help.”

Juri bit his lip, considering the proposal, before he said, “Tell me what I need to look for.”

Nozomu swiftly led Juri through a check of Hokuto’s vitals as well as the area of impact and Juri reported back his findings. Along with his shortness of breath, Hokuto was warm under Juri’s touch, sweat dripping down his body, and there was a large bruise forming at the impact site as well as the skin of his abdomen being tight. With each new symptom, Nozomu would ask a few follow up questions as he flipped through his spell book.

The pages of Nozomu’s spell book were flying across Jesse’s vision, all matter of illustrations passing by in the blink of an eye. There were spells for the common cold and coughs, ones for sprained wrists and broken ankles, and far more complicated ones involving procedures warranting surgery in the human world. He stopped on a page with its illustration depicting a deep and heavy bruise on the abdomen, and Jesse’s mind snapped to the same conclusion. 

“It sounds like internal bleeding,” Nozomu said at the same as Jesse, the other monkey stopping to stare at him for a moment. “How do you…?” Nozomu shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll cast the spell to help your friend and then we’ll return to memorizing the other one.”

Nozomu’s voice was low as he read the spell from the page, the words coming out clear and even. His focus was entirely on Kamenashi, watching to see if the tyrant woke with each inflection of Nozomu’s voice. When he was finished, he flipped back to the earlier spell in the book, eyes flicking over to Juri.

“The bruise is becoming lighter bit by bit,” Juri reported back, and Jesse sighed with relief. He didn’t know what they would have done if Nozomu wasn’t there. “Thank you for your help,” he said through grinding teeth. 

“It’s the least I can do for attempting to have Kamenashi kill you in my place.” Nozomu waved him off. Before Juri could open his mouth to give Nozomu a scathing retort, he turned his attention back to Jesse. “Now,” he said, clasping Jesse by the shoulder. “Let’s get these last two paragraphs memorized.”

The rest of the spell went by much quicker than the initial paragraph, Jesse’s mouth adjusting to the rhythms of the words much faster than even he expected. Shintaro sat by his side the whole time, trying to peek at the contents of Nozomu’s spell book, but the other monkey kept tugging it farther and farther away until even Jesse had a hard time seeing the words on the page. Not that it mattered, but if they wanted to sell the image that he was studying from Nozomu’s spell book whenever Kamenashi woke up, it would need to be within reach. 

Nozomu made Jesse run through the full spell from top to bottom five times before he nodded, content with Jesse’s performance of it. “With this spell, you need direct contact with the person that you’re casting it on,” Nozomu warned, “and keep the image of an hourglass draining in your mind for this spell. You need that intention behind it or it won’t work.”

Jesse’s head was spinning, this little notation Nozomu added another detail flying around in his brain. He knew he could keep the whole spell straight. Nozomu wouldn’t have signed off on Jesse's performance of the words if he couldn’t, but there was still the worry of if he was even ready. There hadn’t been a discussion of what would happen if Jesse forgot a word or spoke part of the spell wrong. 

“Let’s get this started,” Nozomu muttered before shouting, “HEY!” Jesse saw Kamenashi stir on the throne. “I taught your new plaything the spell. Don’t be surprised if he can’t do it. You know how much I’ve struggled with casting it over the last few years.”

Kamenashi appeared before them, a commanding presence, and Jesse felt Kamenashi’s magical power bearing down on him once more. “Let’s see how good of a teacher you are, Nozomu,” Kamenashi said before his cold gaze turned to Jesse. “Cast the spell on him.” He gestured to Nozomu. “If it works, you and your friends may keep your lives.”

Nozomu was pale on the ground next to Jesse, almost shaking. “B-but I haven’t taught him the-”

“I’m done with you,” Kamenashi said, making a shooing motion with his hand. “For too long you’ve been a growing thorn in my side, and today was the final straw.” A cruel smile was plastered across Kamenashi’s lips. “You should have thought twice before stabbing me.”

Jesse had no idea what was going on. Nozomu had told him the purpose of this spell hadn’t gone into further detail than there. There were too many pieces missing for Jesse to understand why Nozomu was panicking, and it wasn’t as if he could ask him now. The expectation of a spell being cast was looming over them both.

Perhaps he could help get Kamenashi to change who Jesse cast the spell on. It wasn’t likely, but it was worth trying.

“I-” Jesse started, but Kamenashi interrupted him. 

“Chop, chop,” Kamenashi said, clapping his hands with each word. “I don’t have all day to dilly dally and watch the pair of you look pitiful on my floor. I have dinner plans with Jin, and you know how he doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

Jesse sighed. He had known it would be a long shot, but he had thought he could at least get his argument out. He looked over at Nozomu, the other monkey shaking more but his face calm. 

“It’s fine,” Nozomu said, letting a long breath out. “I made peace with this path a long time ago.” He held out his hand to Jesse. “I’m ready. Cast the spell on me just like we practiced.” 

Jesse clasped Nozomu’s hand in his own, and he closed his eyes as he began the spell. He spoke slowly, the words coming to him naturally due to their long practice, and Nozomu’s warnings and critiques were fresh in his brain. He stumbled over a word or two when he felt Nozomu’s hand try to jerk out of his, but Jesse held tightly. 

When he was finished, Jesse felt as if there were tiny grains of sand flowing from Nozomu’s hand into Jesse’s. The little grains flowed through Jesse’s arm, into his chest, and nestled deep within his own heart as their final resting place. It was the strangest feeling, unlike anything Jesse had ever felt before, and he didn’t know how he felt about it. Something was ticking by, and Jesse couldn’t put his finger on what that was. The question was on his lips, the desire to know what he was experiencing growing with every passing second. He opened his eyes, his gaze finding Nozomu, but he sprang away, a scream passing through Jesse’s lips. 

There were threads of grey going through Nozomu’s hair, mostly at the temples. His face had lost its boyish charm, laugh lines deepening at the corners of his mouth as he jaw was dropped in shock. Nozomu looked older, more mature, than he had not even a few minutes before, and Jesse was grateful he had cut contact with the other monkey when he did. Nozomu had aged twenty years before his very eyes.

A hand was on the back of Jesse’s neck, squeezing it tightly, and he cried out. “I didn’t tell you to stop.” Kamenashi’s voice was cold. “Cast the spell until he’s nothing but dust in your fingertips.” 

This. This is what the spell did. This was the specialty his family had been gifted with centuries and centuries ago. They stole the very years someone had left to live, turning them into nothing but bones. It was no wonder why Kamenashi had so desperately clung to them for so long, forcing his family into servitude, and Jesse couldn’t believe he hadn’t pieced things together before this very moment. When laid before him in such an obvious way, there was no question about what this spell did.

How many people had died so Kamenashi could live on? How many people had felt their years of life slipping away, being forcibly drained so that way Kamenashi could continue on? It was brutal. It was horrid. No wonder why his family had become a thorn in Kamenashi’s side as the generations ticked by. They had been the ones at the forefront experiencing these horrors firsthand, death clinging to their souls with each person they killed in Kamenashi’s name, and now Jesse was privy to this family secret. 

Kamenashi’s hand tightened on the back of Jesse’s neck as he shouted. “I did what you asked,” Jesse said, balling his hands into fists. “You said if the spell worked, my friends and I could keep our lives. Nozomu is my friend as well, so let him live.”

Nozomu looked absolutely bewildered next to Jesse. “But we’re not-”

“You said that my friends would be safe,” Jesse said, staring Nozomu down. He still felt Kamenashi’s hand on his neck. “Aren’t you the king of this place?” Jesse could feel himself starting to sweat a bit, saying the first words that came to mind. “Don’t kings keep their word to their subjects?”

The grip on his neck faded, and Jesse’s heart started to race. Did he say something wrong? Did he push things too far? He looked over to where Juri and Hokuto were, the latter starting to stir on Juri’s lap, and Jesse could see Hokuto’s eyes slowly blinking open. Shintaro had scrambled a few feet away, but Kamenashi didn’t have him in his clutches. Where was he? Was this the moment they all died?

Kamenashi appeared before Jesse, an annoyed expression across his features. “Fine,” he said. “I will give you this one courtesy since you have proven your worth to me. Now,” Kamenashi reached out a hand to Jesse, “give me the life you took from Nozomu. It’s mine.”

Jesse took Kamenashi’s hand, pulling himself up to his feet. There wasn’t much choice in the matter. There were very few paths that he could take. It was either do whatever the insane magical vampire wanted or there would be more promises of death, ones that Kamenashi would be sure to fulfill. 

He just…didn’t…know how to transfer the life. Nozomu had mentioned another spell earlier, but they had only focused their time on learning one spell. The fact that a second spell existed told Jesse he wasn’t supposed to use the same spell twice, but what was it? What could he possibly do to hand over these twenty years he had taken? 

The desire to pull out his spell book, to check the contents for anything that could be the missing spell, was growing stronger in Jesse with every beat of his heart. There had been a few already written on the pages that he didn’t know the purpose of. Perhaps one of those mystery spells was the one he was looking for? But the way Kamenashi was standing before him, impatience written across his features and etching deeper into his expression with every second, was the one reason Jesse didn’t attempt it. He needed something quick.

Jesse’s mind drifted to an old story his mother had told him as a child, one that had been a fairytale that he had found incredible in his youth. It told the story of a brother wandering the forest one day when he came across a frail old woman who was on Death’s door. Instead of passing the woman by, he placed a kiss upon her cheek. Like magic, youth blossomed from the kiss and she was turned into a beautiful young woman. His mother always said the brother and the old woman married, but Jesse had scrunched his nose at that detail. Who wanted to marry an old woman who had turned into a beautiful one? 

But that story…maybe it was another old family tale! Maybe it was a story from the age of the ten brothers, and that was how you transferred life from one person to the next! It felt possible, but, more than that, it felt logical! After all, how many other things had existed right under Jesse’s nose without him realizing it? This had to be another fable hidden as a magical tale!

With great gusto, Jesse wrapped his hands around Kamenashi’s face, and he leaned in to press his lips against Kamenashi’s without a second thought. He had to be right.

It…well….Kissing Kamenashi was nothing like kissing Hokuto nor even anything like Jesse’s first kiss in middle school, one with a girl from two classrooms over. There was no spark, no charm. It was merely full lips against his own as Jesse tried everything he could to get the extra life in his heart to flow through the physical connection into Kamenashi. No amount of intention or mental imaging was changing the scene: him awkwardly pressing his lips against a brutal tyrant.

Kamenashi shoved Jesse away, breaking the physical connection that Jesse had established. “Why did you do that, you complete and utter fool?” he snapped.

“Uh,” Jesse said, brain spiraling to come up with a logical yet light hearted explanation for why he had kissed Kamenashi. He couldn’t exactly say it was because of an old story he had heard as a child that he had completely misinterpreted. “Cause…it’s…the kiss of life?” But the millennia old magic did not look amused by his reasoning. Far from it. 

“You think you’re funny?” Kamenashi appeared back on his throne, stomping his foot once that sent a shockwave of magic that made Jesse stumble. “You think you’re some kind of comedian?” The doors to the throne room slammed open, and a cluster of guards came pouring in. “I will not allow this kind of attitude to continue to fester. Guards! Seize them all.” 

A guard took hold of each of Jesse’s arms, and he tried to fight against them. He truly did, but they must have had some kind of physical enhancement spell because no matter how he twisted and turned he couldn’t break free. He was captured.

“I think a night in the dungeons will teach my new magic monkey and his friends,” Kamenashi spat out the word, “a lesson.” He snapped his fingers twice. “Be gone and think about what you’ve done. Summon the guards when you’re ready to return what is owed to me.” 

Jesse was hauled from the room, feet dragging behind him, and he was oddly grateful it was the dungeon and not something worse. They could come back from a dungeon…maybe.

“Hey, so, could be worse,” Shintaro said, drops of water accenting every few of his words. “They could have taken your spell books?” he offered. 

The dungeons weren’t deep underground, perhaps a story or two by Jesse’s own logic, but the stone was cold and damp to the touch. He had tried to sit on it, but the grime slipped across his fingertips made him squirm. It was much more comforting to stand. There had been a low bench that Nozomu had claimed, laying across it to stretch out his weary body. There was a small corner at the end of the bench Hokuto had taken after making sure no one else wanted it, and he sat there, head in his hands. Juri was leaning against one of the stone walls, arms wrapped around his thin frame, while Shintaro was shoulder to shoulder with Jesse on the adjoining wall. 

“The whole dungeon has a spell on it prohibiting magic use,” Nozomu said, stretching out so he could lay with his hands cradling his head. “We can’t cast magic but neither can the guards.” He laid there for a moment in quiet contemplation. “Should have grabbed that knife. Would make it easier to fight our way out if we could stab a few people.” 

“Are you always this stab happy?” Jesse asked.

“Only around people I absolutely hate,” Nozomu said, creaking up just enough so he could shoot finger guns at Jesse before he leaned back down. He covered his face with his hands in what Jesse could only assume was embarrassment. 

“I can’t believe I’ve been in a relationship less than a day, and I’ve already been cheated on,” Hokuto muttered, making Jesse freeze. “I can’t believe my boyfriend kissed another man right in front of my face.” 

That…that wasn’t exactly what had happened…It was!...But it also wasn’t, and Jesse was kicking himself for being so foolish. Of course years of life weren’t transferred through a kiss. He was a grown man of twenty-one! Following the words of a childhood bedtime story should have been the last thing on his mind. Instead of doing something intelligent and genius worthy, he had been so mind numbingly stupid, and he could have wrecked his relationship.

….wait, his relationship? 

“We-we’re dating?” Jesse sputtered out.

Hokuto looked so taken aback it had almost been as if he had been slapped. “Yes? I thought that’s what you wanted?” 

“I do!” Jesse said, crossing over to where Nozomu and Hokuto were. Nozomu moved his knee a little, giving Jesse enough space to sit down next to Hokuto. “I mean, I wanted to properly ask you to be my boyfriend once this whole thing was taken care of.” He gestured to the room around them. “I had it all planned out. We’d go on our first date, have dinner, and go back to my place. Then I’d ask you out over a movie and then we’d ki-” 

“Can we not talk about kissing and doing other things with my childhood friend while we’re locked up together.” Juri was covering his ears with his hands. “I know I joked about you defiling my guest room before, but I don’t need to know any kind of intimate details about your love life!”

“Okay, okay, no intimate details! I got the memo,” Jesse said before turning back to Hokuto. He took the lion’s hands in his, giving them a tight squeeze. “I’m sorry. I really am. I thought I was acting in earnest to give Kamenashi what he wanted, but I hurt you because I didn’t think through my actions.” 

Hokuto slipped his hands from Jesse’s, a loud sigh escaping his lips, and Jesse felt his heart break. Jesse wouldn’t have blamed Hokuto if he didn’t believe him. It was a farfetched explanation. But then Hokuto reached up to ruffle Jesse’s hair.

“I’ll forgive you this once, but any more random kisses and you’re sleeping in the dog house,” Hokuto said, puffing out his cheeks, and Jesse couldn’t help but laugh. He would have leaned in to kiss Hokuto silly, but he didn’t want to inspire Juri to suplex him for defiling Hokuto.

“This seriously sucks so much,” Shintaro groaned, slowly inching his way down until he was sprawled on the ground. “I knew I should have packed snacks! Do you think they’re going to feed us dinner down here? I haven’t missed a meal since six summers ago, and I ate a whole house the next day to compensate!” 

“It’s true,” Jesse nodded along when Nozomu peaked between his fingers, eyebrow raised. “His neighbor’s whole house was gone like that.” Jesse snapped his fingers for emphasis. 

Nozomu went pale, his eyes widening “Humans…can eat houses? Why did no one tell me this?!” 

“They can’t,” Hokuto said, rubbing his temples. “Jesse and Shintaro are being ridiculous. Don’t listen to them, Nozomu.”

“But have you ever seen a human eat a house?” Shintaro asked. 

“No, but-” Hokuto tried to answer, but Shintaro cut in.

“I rest my case!” Shintaro shouted. “Now, when’s dinner?” 

“Don’t bet on it,” Nozomu sighed, arms slumping on the bench beside him. “Jesse and I might get food because of who our family is, but, with how we both upset Kamenashi tonight, I wouldn’t be surprised if they starved us all.”

Jesse had never considered himself an ultra intelligent person. He was chasing his dream to be a doctor through far too much studying and memory mnemonics than one person should ever attempt. It was all in the name of one of his biggest joys: people. He wanted to help people. He wanted to heal them. He wanted to do everything in his power to give people a fighting chance in their lives, and the fact that his magic line mirrored that sentiment was beautiful the more he thought about it. 

His strength had always been in social connections. He knew how to read people and their body language. He knew when to back off and when to push for people to hang out with him. Hell, he considered himself a pretty excellent judge of character as well. But there had been strange ticks from Nozomu since around the time Kamenashi had threatened Jesse and his friends. Something was off about the other monkey, and that had become more and more obvious as time ticked by.

It was why it was strangely poetic Jesse had picked up on Nozomu’s turn of phrase.

“Wait,” Jesse said, his back straightening. He turned, so he could see Nozomu more easily. “What do you mean our family?” 

Jesse saw Nozomu freeze in his field of vision. “Uh, surprise?” Nozomu said.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Jesse said, leaping up. “How long have you known we were related? The whole time?”

“Since, uh, Kamenashi mentioned your mother,” Nozomu said. He pushed himself up so he was sitting on the bench, scooting so his back was supported by the wall behind him. “My dad would always tell me stories of my aunt growing up. How she was supposed to marry Kamenashi, but the family blocked her magic so she could escape.” He bent his knees, curling himself into a ball. “He told me how strong she was and how, no matter how she bent to follow Kamenashi’s orders, she protected her family and my mother fiercely. She was my hero growing up.”

A wistful smile was on Nozomu’s face. “Before he died, dad would always talk about how one day we’d escape and find her. How she’d be so proud about how talented my healing magic was, and I’d get to meet her kids. I always dreamed of getting to meet the other half of my family, even if I knew it was impossible.” He reached one of his hands down his shirt, pulling out his spell book. “When it was time to create my spell book, I wanted to honor her. Dad said it’s an exact copy of your mom’s.”

Jesse had seen the little book growing up so many times, but, due to the stress and pressure he had been under, he hadn’t recognized it when Nozomu had whipped out his spell book in the throne room. The cover was the same, delicate illustrations donning the front with looping cursive lettering Jesse had struggled to read as a kid. Any time he had gotten a bump or a scrape growing up, the book had been in his mother’s grasp as she took care of him. It was beautiful hearing how, even with the distance separating them, his mother’s family still remembered and passed on stories of her.

“My mom did the same with your dad,” Jesse said, his voice soft, and Nozomu’s head whipped up to look at him. “She would always tell the same stories year after year when we got together for dinner, but I could tell how much she adored him. Looking back, I think it hurt her to leave him and her family behind.” Jesse looked away, a small smile on his lips. “It feels like I know him even if we’ll never get the chance to meet.”

“You would have liked him,” Nozomu said. “He was always making everyone laugh even if the world around us felt like it was burning.”

It felt unreal. Jesse had always pushed the thought of the Japanese half of his family out of his head. The rule was that they were completely unreachable, and no amount of poking and prodding on Jesse’s part would ever reveal their location. It was the law Jesse’s mother had laid down growing up, and the family followed every single word of it to the tiniest stroke.

He had known he was coming to Kamenashi’s compound to free his family. It was the mission the whole time, but it was another thing entirely to meet someone who shared his blood and heritage. He had a cousin and an aunt! Jesse probably had a grandmother and grandfather and who knows how many great aunts and uncles and first cousins he had left to discover. Those wishes he had as a child to know the other half of himself were blooming before his very eyes, dreams that didn’t seem so fruitless anymore. 

They just needed to get out of this dungeon first. They would put an end to Kamenashi’s reign of terror, and Jesse could sit down and have a serious heart to heart with Nozomu. He’d learn about his family more in depth, who was who and hear about all of the family drama he had missed out on. Not to mention getting to know Nozomu a bit more besides the fact that he was-

“Wait a damn second,” Jesse shouted, and he saw how the others in the room jolted from the sudden noise. “You mean to tell me that you, my cousin, are a stab happy healer?!”

“I take offense to that!” Nozomu said, putting a hand over his heart. “And I can’t believe that is the thing you’re focusing on right now. Shame!” 

“But you admitted earlier you only get stab happy around people that you hate!” 

“And now I take offense to it!”

“You can’t change your mind that fast!”

“I just did,” Nozomu huffed. “Besides, you almost killed me earlier! I take offense to that, too!” 

“Only because you didn’t explain to me what the spell did, you-” Jesse argued before a hand covered his mouth. He tried to snip at the fingers, even lick them to remove them from his mouth, but they remained steady.

“Jesse. My bro. My dude. My main man. Mi compadre,” Shintaro said, and Jesse followed the angle of the arm to find that Shintaro was the one who was covering his mouth. “Don’t do this.” Jesse raised an eyebrow at him. “Don’t replace me with this guy. I know it’s amazing and incredible that you found the Japanese half of your family now, but you have to remember the good times! Will Nozomu go drinking with you at a park at midnight and help you learn that you’re actually magic?” Jesse heard Nozomu scoff at the idea. “No! Will he support you through a complete breakdown and be there for your intervention? No! Will he dance naked in the moonlight with you to summon a wild pack of bears that will give you magic beans that, when planted, will grow into a beanstalk up to the clouds? NO! But I would. I would do anything with you because we’re best BFFs forever!” 

Jesse had no idea what Shintaro was saying. Why would he ever do that ridiculous naked dance thing? That was completely and utterly insane. It was more likely that Kochi would start developing magic or Taiga would string together a coherent sentence that Hokuto or Juri didn’t need to translate. Not to mention Jesse wasn’t sure magic beans even existed. That just seemed absolutely silly and preposterous.  

He stared at Shintaro. Jesse stared at Shintaro so long until his best friend started to awkwardly laugh and pulled back his hand. “You’re never going to swap me with Nozomu, are you?” Shintaro asked.

“Never in a million years,” Jesse said, and Shintaro lit up like fireworks.

“This is sweet and all, but how the hell are we going to get out of this?” Juri asked, motioning to the dungeon around them. “We aren’t in the best situation. We’re like sitting ducks until they either come down and kill us or let us starve to death.”

“If only I knew blood magic,” Hokuto sighed. “It would be a lot easier if we could get a guard under our control to help us.”

“Do I…want to know how that spell is done?” Nozomu asked. 

“I…don’t have the specifics,” Hokuto said, and Jesse sat back down next to him, wrapping his arm around Hokuto’s side to pull him close. “From what I’ve heard, it involves drinking the other person’s blood to gain full control over their body and actions.” 

“Huh,” Nozomu said, the word coming out like a puff of air. “Sounds kinky.” 

Hokuto’s face was fully red. “I…that—that’s not at all what the spell is used for!”

“Okay sure but how many times have you envisioned using that spell on Je-”

“I am begging you,” Juri said, interrupting Nozomu. “Don’t finish that thought!” 

“You guys are no fun.” Nozomu slumped against the wall, a pout on his face. “I think it’s perfectly acceptable behavior to know about the guy my cousin is dating and the nefarious thoughts he’s had in his head!” Nozomu blinked. “Wait, what’s your name again?”

“We already told you our names!” Juri snapped.

“I wasn’t listening.” Nozomu said with the biggest and most innocent smile on his face.

“Oh, come on-” 

“I do like my nicknames for you though.” Nozomu clapped his hands. “Is it okay if I use them?”

“Uh, sure?” Jesse said. He could see how red Juri’s face was getting, as if he was seconds away from blowing a fuse, and Jesse didn’t want Nozomu to die by Juri’s own two hands. It was better to defuse the tension than let things continue to escalate between the two of them. “We should probably try and figure out a way to get out of here or Taiga is going to end up running rocks without Juri there.” 

Juri paled. “He’s going to completely destroy it,” he muttered. “My sweet baby. My precious business. My-” Juri froze, and Jesse saw him stumble, the wall catching him. “My family. My mother. She’s going to think that I abandoned her.” He snapped out of his nightmarish thoughts. “We, and I cannot be more clear, cannot let that happen.”

“It’s not like we have many choices on how to escape this place. I’ve never known anyone to break out of this dungeon once they’ve been placed in it,” Nozomu said. “We could have a fighting chance if ‘McDreamy the hot elf prince’ knew the blood magic spell he mentioned, but it’s not likely the casting would work.” 

“We could try stabbing Kamenashi again?” Shintaro offered from his spot on the floor. Jesse saw Hokuto mouthing the words ‘McDreamy the hot elf prince’ in disbelief. “You know what they say in the U.S., ‘If at first you don’t succeed, keep doing the same thing over and over until you get a different result.’”

Everyone looked at Jesse. “What?” he said. “We don’t say that in the U.S.”

“And as brilliant of a strategy that is, ‘Would tap that if interested,’ I don’t think any of us have the capability of stabbing Kamenashi five hundred times,” Nozomu said. “Each death is one year lost. With his magical power, we would need to restrain him…not to mention the time it would take to knock off year after year…” 

Those…were definitely some nicknames. They fit the crazy energy Jesse imagined was running around in Nozomu’s head, but instead of making him feel relaxed, it only inspired two fears that were bouncing around in Jesse’s head. The first was wondering what kind of nickname Nozomu had come up with for him and for Juri. The likelihood someone would end up dead on the floor was increasing with each insane nickname. The second was what would happen if Nozomu ever met Taiga. The insanity of having those two people combined would either end in an early retirement for Juri or a quick and painful death for Nozomu and Taiga. Jesse wasn’t sure which had a higher chance of happening.

“Wait,” Shintaro sputtered out. “Is that really the nickname that you came up with for me?”

Nozomu didn’t give Shintaro a verbal answer, only winked and gave him finger guns once more. Shintaro looked absolutely broken, his mouth forming words but no sound coming out.

“They…are certainly, uh, flattering?” Hokuto offered, and Jesse felt Hokuto lean closer into him. “I…do I really look like a hot elf prince or…?”

Nozomu opened his mouth to respond, his lips curled up in a grin, before he caught the blank stare Jesse was giving him. He quickly shut his mouth and muttered, “No comment.”

Hokuto coughed. “So we can’t kill Kamenashi. We can’t sneak out. We can’t reason with him,” Hokuto said, extending a finger for each item on his list. “Do you think we could stage some kind of mutiny? A coup d’état? Would the residents of the compound join in to help fight against him?”

There was a moment of quiet before Nozomu shook his head. “There are too many guards, and most follow Kamenashi’s orders under threat of their family’s lives. Only his top ranking officials are entirely loyal to him, but, unless we take Kamenashi out, there’s no way to ensure the guardsmen stay on our side.”

“So we’re back to square one again,” Juri said with a sigh. “We’re stuck here until Jesse agrees to do what Kamenashi wants and, even then, we’re not free.”

They were, and it hurt Jesse to admit it. They had tried every path, looked down every avenue, but no matter what street they took, the roads took them back to where they had started. A new shortcut popping up, a possible exit to the freedom they sought, ended in a dead end, and Jesse knew he should have listened to his mother’s advice.

It was a battle that they couldn’t win, a fool’s errand. Though he now knew Nozomu existed, a prize that Jesse was still debating the worth of, it wasn’t enough if they couldn’t leave. There had to be something else, a detail that they were all missing. There was a solution to their problems out there, and they just needed to find it. Then they could all go home and never have to worry about Kamenashi Kazuya again. 

“You know what we should do?” Shintaro asked, cutting through the silence haunting their little group like a knife. “We should just put a straw in Kamenashi and suck him off.” Aghast, Juri smacked him in the shoulder for the mere idea. “What? I’m serious!” 

Jesse stared at Shintaro. Usually he was up for any of Shintaro’s usual sentiments but this time? This time it went a bit too far into lunatic. “…I think you’ve hung out with Taiga too much in the past twenty-four hours,” Jesse said once the initial shock had worn off. “What are you going on about? How does that fix everything?” 

Shintaro was totally ruffled at the mere thought that Jesse wasn’t on his side. “It makes total sense! What are you talking about?” Shintaro said. “We get a big straw, stick it in Kamenashi, and then we suck him off.”

Jesse looked over at Hokuto, but the lion waved him off. “I’m not explaining to him why his wording is wrong. That’s your job this time around.”

Juri shouted, and Jesse jumped at the noise. “He’s right!” Juri said, pushing himself off of the wall, and Jesse scooted back to get away from the manic energy that had come over Juri. “I can’t believe I actually understood what Shintaro said, but he’s right! That’s how we beat Kamenashi.” A horrible, terrible grin was on Juri’s face. “We suck him off!”

Jesse heard rustling beside him and suddenly Nozomu was speaking directly into his ear, “‘Monkey 2’, are your friends always this strange?”

“Shin, yes. Juri? Never.” Jesse tried to move so Nozomu’s mouth wasn’t so close to his ear, but his cousin remained within his personal bubble. “Also, why am I Monkey 2?”

“Because I’m ‘Monkey 1’, of course!”

Jesse knew he should have been more grateful that he didn’t have a ridiculous description for a nickname, but part of him had been hoping for something a bit better than ‘Monkey 2.’They were FAMILY! It should have been at least a little more silly than that!

“Come on now,” Juri said, gesturing for them all to come close. “I’ve got the perfect plan. It’s near foolproof, too!”

Hokuto stood up, dusting his pants as he did. “Can’t be worse than the one we originally came up with.” 

“If it involves sucking him dry, I’m in!!” Shintaro said, jumping to join in next to Juri.

As much as Jesse was concerned over the lack of coherency and reason, he didn’t have any reason to distrust Juri. Hokuto believed in him as well as Shintaro, and that was enough for Jesse. If things fell apart, and Juri’s plan didn’t work, then they would regroup and try again. They would fall back on trial and error until they got the results that they wanted. 

“Let’s do this,” Jesse said, joining in the forming group. 

He paused for a second, looking back at Nozomu who was still on the bench, looking at his nails as if they were the most interesting thing in the world. He seemed content to exist in the silence until he looked up to find four sets of eyes watching him expectantly. Juri crossed his arms and began tapping his foot as they waited for Nozomu.

“Fine,” Nozomu said, hobbling off the bench. “I’ll put my trust in ‘Skipper’ and what he has to say, but if this goes horribly wrong, don’t blame me.”

Juri stood there quietly for a moment, and Jesse could see the gears whirling in his head as he connected the dots. In seconds, he was launching himself across the room. Jesse and Shintaro barely caught Juri before his hands curled around Nozomu’s neck.

Jesse summoned the guards early the next morning, his spell book tucked into the band of his pants, but his mind was a stormy mess as the fiery haired general—Tatsuya?—came to pick him up. Jesse had been shoved towards the stairs, not even given the chance for a quick pep talk or goodbye. He caught Hokuto’s eyes, afraid but a reassurance behind them, before Tatsuya pushed him up the stairs. Jesse gave a quick nod before he slipped from Hokuto’s view. Things would be okay. He’d be fine.

The entire walk to the throne room, Jesse massaged his biceps, speaking the same words with every step he took. “It’s okay. It’ll be okay. Just remember the spell. You can do this. You’ve done magic before. You’re not going to die.” Over and over Jesse repeated them until Tatsuya snapped.

“Oh, shut up already.” Tatsuya’s voice was a low rumble in his throat. “Are you people from outside the wall always so noisy?”

Jesse chose to lower his voice instead, his words coming out as a murmur. If Tatsuya was annoyed he was still speaking, he didn’t seem to care as much now that he couldn’t hear each of Jesse’s words. So Jesse kept up his muttering as they weaved through the hallways to the throne room, his hands hanging by his side as he followed after Tatsuya.

The door to the throne room loomed over Jesse, a powerful presence that made his heart race in his chest. He knew what he needed to do, what he was expected to do, but it didn’t make it any less terrifying since something could go wrong. Jesse stood before that massive door, ignoring Tatsuya’s demands to get inside already, until one of the guardsmen stationed outside rushed over to open the door for Jesse. He nodded his thanks before slipping inside, the door closing behind him with a dull thud.

His words picked up in speed as he crossed the throne room, consonants crackling under his tongue. The rhythm remained the same despite the way they hissed from his mouth, and he kept his mantra flowing through him with every step he took.

It’s okay. It’ll be okay. You can do this. You’re not going to die.

When he was about five feet from the throne, Jesse stopped, and Kamenashi appeared before him on the throne. Those handsome features were carved with the most bitter annoyance, for how dare Jesse make him wait an entire night, but Jesse held his ground. He wouldn’t allow himself to bend and wither before a demon so cruel. He held his head high, allowing his words to die on his tongue. He had done everything that he could. The only thing left was to cast the spell Nozomu had taught him the day before.

“I see that you have finally come to your senses,” Kamenashi said, his voice cold.

“I have,” Jesse said, simply.

“Then let’s get on with it.” Kamenashi clapped before beckoning Jesse to close the distance between them. “I don’t think I need to remind you, but I’m a busy man. I have-” 

“One question,” Jesse said, interrupting Kamenashi. Though Kamenashi looked as if he wanted to smite Jesse where he stood, Jesse kept pressing on. “Why do all of this? Why make a secret compound in the mountains?”

Jesse knew he was fully going off script. This wasn’t a part of the plan, far from it, but a part of him knew he would always wonder why. His mother said Kamenashi had feared death and had tricked their family into servitude but to trap them in a compound? To demand eternal servitude to all those who stumbled upon it? Jesse had always imagined the villains in stories to have bigger motivation, a more eloquent reasoning for their bad deeds, and it was the only chance he would get to ask.

“Because I deserved it,” was Kamenashi’s simple answer.

 Jesse could only stare ahead in shock. It…well. Jesse got his answer.

In a flash Kamenashi was before Jesse. He flicked Jesse’s chest, and the sheer force of the blow sent Jesse tumbling backwards. He shouted, thinking that he would crash to the floor, but landed onto a chair that had appeared behind him. Kamenashi’s finger was under Jesse’s chin, forcing Jesse to look up at him.

“If they had given me what I wanted, none of this would have ever happened,” Kamenashi cooed, his touch like ice on Jesse’s skin. “The brothers were fools and handed out the best gifts to those who were loyal to them rather than who would be best suited to hone that power like a blade. I had the mental fortitude to handle the lion’s magic. I had proved my ruthless nature time and time again. I was perfect to lead, but they gifted me with this instead.” He raised his hands, and Jesse felt the same crushing weight of magic weighing heavy on his shoulders before it released. “Protection magic? Security? Don’t make me laugh. Weaklings want to protect others. I wanted control.”

Jesse remained quiet, not allowing his hands to shake as they hung next to him. He didn’t want Kamenashi to see how afraid he was.

“Imagine how wonderful it would have been! To consume the blood of another and feel their presence in your mind as if it had always belonged there.” Kamenashi’s laugh was cold, echoing around the throne room. “I could have had legions under my control, dancing to my every whim with a single thought. I had the mental fortitude to test the extent of that beautiful magic, and, instead, they gifted me with a lifetime of servitude. Me!” Kamenashi shouted, the single word slamming around the room fueled by Kamenashi’s anger. “Don’t make me laugh. I serve no one.

“At the same time,” Kamenashi said, reaching to stroke Jesse’s cheek, “I had never encountered something so beautiful, something so blood rushing, as magic. My time on this earth was inching to a close, and I knew that I would never get the opportunity in this life or any other to have such power under my control. I had to ensure this curse the brothers gave me turned into a blessing.” He pinched Jesse’s cheek. “And it’s all thanks to your beautifully wretched ancestors. So trusting. So naïve. They ate up my lies like flies to honey. It’s thanks to those fools that I will live until the sun’s last rays. I will use your family’s power how it was always meant to be used: by ensuring that your people, the descendants of the men who stripped me of my true right, know what real magic is.”

A part of Jesse had wanted to sympathize with Kamenashi. It was an incredibly small part of Jesse but a part nonetheless. However, it was hard to feel kinship with a man who wanted lion magic to control other people for his own benefit.

“Thank you for answering my question,” Jesse said, keeping his voice calm and even.

“This is the problem with you simple creatures.” Kamenashi disappeared before reappearing back on his throne. “You seek out answers and meanings to questions that simply do not matter. Deep down in your tiny little brains, you crave stability and structure, and yet baulk when it is given to you. Such a conundrum that I solved with my beautiful town. I make the choices. I make the rules. I ensure it all is enforced, and you pitiful beings only need to adhere to my word.” He sighed, leaning against one of the arms of his throne. “And yet it is so hard to find people who understand such straightforward concepts these days.”

Jesse felt his anger boiling in his stomach, the desire to argue back. Sure, there were human beings who craved structure to their lives, but no one wanted to give up their freedoms to entirely live under another person’s thumb. It was a backwards and twisted way of thinking, and Jesse wanted to fight back. He wanted to make Kamenashi see the error of his ways, but he knew how absolutely pointless it would be.

People like Kamenashi would never understand why their view was wrong. They would never stand amongst those who held different opinions and be able to see a new perspective. If Jesse opened his mouth to try and reason with Kamenashi, he would end up dead on the floor, and that would do nothing but add another body to the metaphorical pile stacked behind Kamenashi’s throne.

“Come now,” Kamenashi said, spreading his arms as if to welcome Jesse in. “I’m tired of waiting. Give me what I deserve.”

Jesse stood, crossing the small distance between where he had been sitting and the throne room. His heart was beating wildly in his chest, trying to remember all of the words and rhythms he had practiced. He knew he remembered them, Nozomu had said his spell work was fantastic, but there would always be the lingering worry he was forgetting a part. 

Kamenashi was before him, that cruel smile on his face. He sat on his throne like a king, so proud and regal. Jesse took a deep breath in, breathing it out slowly to calm his nerves, before reaching over to cradle Kamenashi’s head in his hands. He leaned in, watching the confusion slowly draw itself across Kamenashi’s features, until Jesse brushed their lips together for the barest of seconds before pulling apart. He had promised Hokuto it wouldn’t last longer than that. 

Rage burst from Kamenashi in a second.  “What are you doing, you fool?” Kamenashi screamed. He tried to tug himself from Jesse’s grip, but Jesse’s hands stayed firmly attached. No matter how Kamenashi tugged and dragged himself away from Jesse, the spell would never release until Jesse murmured the counter spell…and Jesse never learned it. He wouldn’t need it. Juri had only quadruple checked Jesse remembered the initial spell in their lesson the previous evening. “Release me this instant!”

It had been Hokuto’s idea to cast the sticky spell on the way to the throne room. Jesse was naturally loud; some might even have called him mildly annoying. The theory had been that if he bothered whoever led him to the throne room enough, they would be more likely to ignore him after he had been chastised and switched to muttering to himself. Tatsuya was an easy target, for they had already seen Nozomu get under his skin in a single conversation. Kamenashi had thought he was sending his biggest ally, but the easily ruffled general hadn’t paid Jesse any mind once his loud voice had gone near quiet.

There had only been one concern. Jesse couldn’t touch anything once the sticky spell on his hands had been cast. There had been a close call when Jesse had landed in the chair, but he managed to avoid connecting with anything his hands could get attached to.

“I can’t,” Jesse said. “We’re stuck together for the time being.”

“Then I’ll have your hands chopped off, so you can learn it in the dungeons,” Kamenashi growled, sending a shockwave of magic throughout the room. There was a beat of silence, his eyes darting to the doors, before his brows furrowed in confusion. 

The second spell had been from Hokuto, one similar to his silencing spell but focusing on blocking magical signals. Hokuto had noticed that Kamenashi didn’t summon his guardsmen with his voice, preferring to use the strength of his magic to do so. In order to keep Jesse from being interrupted, he needed to completely cut off communication between the two entities. There was always a chance that Kamenashi could brute force his way through the second spell, for Kamenashi could easily do so with how much power he had, but it was all in the name of giving Jesse as much time as possible for the last stage of their plan.

Jesse ignored Kamenashi, opening his mouth and began to cast the final spell.

Kamenashi didn’t react to the spell in fear. No, a smile came across his face, and Jesse knew the kind of thoughts flowing through his head. Victory! Despite all of the strange occurrences in the past few minutes, Kamenashi had won. Jesse would be transferring the life he had stolen from Nozomu, and the status quo would return to normal. 

Nozomu had taught Jesse the previous night about the theory of the two spells Kamenashi had spent years trying to get Nozomu to perfect. The words, rhythms, and intonations of the two spells were structured exactly the same. The first two and a half paragraphs or so were complete mirrors of the other, so exact in their details that it wouldn’t have taken long to learn both spells. 

The words of both spells spoke of the nature of life, how beautiful and precious it was. How it was the kind of precious gift worth treasuring each and every day but in far more poetic terms. It was only at the final two lines that the spells differed. The one Kamenashi craved, the spell he was so desperate for Jesse to perform, spoke of giving life so that one may continue forth. The other spoke of taking it, so it may continue on in a new form.

While furiously studying the day before, Jesse had never noticed the beauty in the spell, how precious and fragile the words felt on his tongue, until he spoke them at Kamenashi once more. It was such a beautiful set of spells that had hidden thorns beneath their petals. When Jesse reached the final two lines, he spoke the ones he had studied in this very throne room, and he watched as the dawning realization of what he had done crossed Kamenashi’s features. 

“NO!” Kamenashi shouted, trying to shove Jesse away, but the spell Juri had taught him held. Nothing would break their contact. Juri had been certain of it.

Nozomu had said for this spell that Jesse needed to imagine an hourglass, the little grains slowly falling to fill the bottom half, but Jesse had taken a different approach in his intention. He imagined smashing that hourglass apart, tipping it over on its side, and he watched how the grains poured out, flowing from the shattered glass like a waterfall.

The spell mimicked his intentions, the little grains of life flowing from Kamenashi and into Jesse’s heart with such ferocity it felt like a tidal wave washing over Jesse. The sensation sent shivers down his spine, and there was a part of Jesse that believed that he was slowly being consumed by all of the life Kamenashi had stolen over the years. His heart felt like it was slowly expanding within his chest, growing larger and larger to accommodate each new year flowing inside of him, and Jesse was worried that it would burst in his chest. 

Kamenashi’s hands wrapped around Jesse’s wrists, the touch burning him and making Jesse cry out in pain, but he refused to let Kamenashi break his concentration. He would see this spell through to the very end. No matter if it ended in Jesse’s own death, Kamenashi would not walk out of this room alive. He couldn’t allow it. 

“Half-breed,” Kamenashi growled, funneling more power into the spell burning Jesse’s wrists, “release me at once.”

“Never,” Jesse said, sharpening his mind. He was growing tired, the magic needed to fuel the spell slowly draining him of his energy. “This is for my family.” He grasped tighter onto Kamenashi’s face, digging his fingers into the rapidly aging flesh. “This is for every person that you’ve enslaved and killed in your years of life.” Jesse smashed another hole into the hourglass in his mind, the grains of sand flowing far more rapidly now that two holes had formed. “You will never darken the lives of my family again.”

Jesse watched as Kamenashi's eyes began to sear with rage, screaming bloody murder as the extra life he had stolen finally reached his natural lifespan. He saw as Kamenashi’s skin began to sag, wrinkles stretching his skin. He saw how his handsome features deteriorated, his hair greyed then whitened and eventually fell out as old age overtook him. His earthly form looked frail and hollow in Jesse’s hands, like a dehydrated fruit left in the sun for too long, and it was hard to imagine that this person had been the source of so much pain and fear in Jesse’s family’s life for so long. Kamenashi was powerless.

Still, Jesse pressed on. He drained Kamenashi of every single ounce of life that was in him until his skin was disintegrating in Jesse’s hands and only a hollow skeleton remained. There was still a risk that Kamenashi could be resurrected from his bones, Hokuto claiming it was possible from his past magic study. Jesse kept syphoning life until there was nothing but dust between his fingertips, Kamenashi’s magic entirely exterminated from this world. It was only then that Jesse collapsed to the floor, his wrists red and raw.

Jesse reached up to place a hand over his heart, wincing from the touch. He would need to get Nozomu to heal the burns, but with every breath Jesse took, his heart still beat. The expanding feeling he had experienced faded as time ticked on, and everything in his body had returned to normal. He felt like himself, just with five hundred years, give or take, of extra life residing within him. But, more than that, Jesse’s fear and worry over the plan failing due to his own incompetence had been replaced with joy.

He…he had done it. Jesse had drained Kamenashi of every second of life he had left, and he couldn’t believe it had actually worked! Not to mention he had gotten to mark Kamenashi with a ‘kiss of death’ as his final feat. Hokuto hadn’t entirely been happy with the idea, but Jesse promised to make it up to him in the future. A sweet feeling of relief washed over Jesse, and he let out a cry of pure elation. It was over. Everything was finally over, and he couldn’t wait to get back to Tokyo to let his mother know that Kamenashi would never darken her doorstep. She was finally free of hiding herself and Jesse.

Jesse had only learned of Kamenashi’s existence a few days ago, but he could imagine how his mother would feel when he told her Kamenashi was dead. Jesse knew how he felt, the fear and anxiety and uncertainty over the future clinging to him, and his mother had experienced all of it and more for over two decades of her life. He had helped her in the most important way, and now the future was open to them both to pursue magic.

The door to the throne room creaked open, and Jesse froze. He, well, he had forgotten about the guards outside of the door, and it was only then he realized he had forgotten a crucial step of the plan. Hokuto had taught him two spells the night before, and Jesse had only cast one of them. He was supposed to cast the magic blocking spell and a silencing spell, so the guards couldn’t hear what was going on as Jesse drained Kamenashi of his life. In his panic to make sure he had cast the first, he had completely forgotten about the other. It was only through sheer dumb luck the guards hadn’t come in earlier.

Two sets of heavy boots stood before Jesse, and he looked up into the eyes of two men who didn’t look angry, per se. Both looked utterly confused as to why the supposed prisoner of Kamenashi was lying on the floor surrounded by dust.

“Where is Master Kamenashi?” the guard on Jesse’s left asked, his spell book already in hand.

Jesse had no reason to lie. It would do him no good to pretend that Kamenashi had teleported away for a moment. “He’s dead.”

The two guardsmen exchanged a look, and Jesse’s heart raced in his chest. Nozomu had said that many guards were only loyal to Kamenashi due to threat of death, but it didn’t mean that these two were immediately on Jesse’s side. They could have believed that Kamenashi was the greatest thing to happen since the invention of modern medicine. 

“If that is the case…,” the first said, trailing off, and Jesse’s heart picked up even more in his chest. He hoped he wouldn’t have to wait to find out this man’s thought process because the silence was killing him. The guardsmen nodded. “We will need to seek out the general.”

“And the lieutenants,” the second offered. “Do you think the others are ready?”

“They’ve been ready since the day they were born,” the first responded.

“Sorry, I’m not following any of this,” Jesse said. “What are you guys talking about?”

But the two guards weren’t paying Jesse any sort of attention.

“I’ll get this one back to the dungeon, so he and his friends can leave.” Jesse perked up at the words. So they weren’t on Kamenashi’s side! “We don’t need any outsiders getting involved in our conflict.” He tapped Jesse with his boot. “Come on, kid. Time to get you out of here.”

“A thank you would be nice. I just took care of your worst nightmare,” Jesse grumbled, pushing himself up by his elbows. When the first guard saw how he struggled getting up to his feet, he helped Jesse up to a standing position. “Thank you,” Jesse said, emphasizing each of the words. 

“Let’s go,” the second guard said, beckoning Jesse to follow him, and Jesse sighed. There would be no gratitude from these two it seemed.

The hallways flew by as the guardsmen led Jesse back to the dungeons, twists and turns as chaos began to erupt around them as the main house came to life. Jesse had never seen so many people roaming the hallways, guardsmen preparing for battle while cooks and maids and other household staff prepared to flee. The same words floated into Jesse’s ears as they approached the staircase down to the dungeon. 

Master Kamenashi was dead.

The guardsmen posted outside of the dungeon were long gone, and the one who had led Jesse there used magic to unlock the door. “The door at the dungeon floor is also open with that spell I just did. Get your friends out as soon as possible. Master Kamenashi might be gone, but members of his inner circle are quite powerful.”

“Got it,” Jesse said, giving a mock salute before deciding it was a bit too rude. He dropped his throbbing wrist to his side. “Thank you for your-” he started to say, but the guard was already halfway down the hallway, and the remainder of Jesse's words died in his throat.

Jesse took the steps down to the dungeon two at a time, nearly tripping on the last few but managing to balance himself before he caused more damage to his body. The door was a bit of an issue, his wrists not wanting to turn to open the door. He settled for kicking it until it opened from the other side.

“Jesse!” Shintaro said, ripping the door open. He lit up instantly. “Did you suck him o-”

“Shintaro, no! We’ve been over this!” Juri’s voice came shouting from deeper in the dungeon room. “You can’t keep saying ‘suck him off’ in public.”

“Oh, come on,” Shintaro groaned, and Jesse pushed his way in since Shintaro wasn’t budging. “I don’t think anyone would actually mind if I said that in public. It’s fun!” 

“I second the sentiment! It is fun!” Nozomu said from his seat on the bench, but Juri quickly hushed him. 

“Don’t encourage him,” Juri snapped. “We don’t need another weird phrase entering Shintaro’s lexicon of slang.”

Jesse felt someone tug at his sleeve, pulling it back to expose his raw wrist. Hokuto’s touch was gentle on his skin, but it still made him wince. Blisters were forming on the affected area, and the pain was blinding when they brushed his clothing. “Are you okay?” Hokuto asked, his voice soft and gentle. He looked up into Jesse’s eyes, his own so round and full of worry. “It looks like it hurts.”

“I’ll be fine,” Jesse promised before looking at his cousin. “Nozomu, do you mind? When we have access to our magic again?”

“Not at all,” Nozomu said, pushing himself up off of the bench so he could approach Jesse for a closer look. “Second degree burns are easy to heal. Third degree is where things get a little bit tricky.” He took Jesse’s other arm in his hand, assessing it for a moment before nodding. “Another minute or two and whatever spell was cast on you would have burned through your epidermis and dermis completely. Maybe even scorched the bone. You were lucky.”

“Then let’s get moving, so Nozomu can heal you,” Juri said, joining in with the huddle that had formed. “I’m guessing you succeeded since you’re alive?” Jesse nodded. “Good. Then let’s get the fuck out of here.”

“And I know the perfect place,” Nozomu said. He grabbed onto Jesse’s elbow, tugging him back up the stairs.

Kochi’s mouth was agape. “Wait, so you just let that guy drag you back to his house?” he asked, nearly shouting. “What if he tried to kill you?”

“Nozomu wasn’t going to kill us,” Jesse said, rolling his eyes. “He had plenty of chances to try, and he never took any of them.” 

“He still tried to have Kamenashi kill Juri though,” Kochi grumbled, slumping back on the sofa in Juri’s living room. After Jesse, Hokuto, Shintaro, and Juri had returned that morning, they had taken time to shower and get dressed in fresh clothing. Hokuto had ordered them all lunch before they settled in to recount their tale of the past twenty-four hours. “You can’t trust people like that. They’ll turn on you when you least expect it.”

Jesse just shrugged and turned back to his food. He hadn’t expected Kochi to understand. Nozomu was an enigma that Jesse wasn’t fully sure even he could comprehend. His cousin seemed like the type to do whatever caught his fancy and thus it was impossible to predict his next move. Unless you experienced him in person, it was difficult to wrap your head around Nozomu. 

After leaving the main house of Kamenashi’s compound, Nozomu had brought them all back to the home he had grown up in. It had been shocking to see how sparsely decorated it had been, hardly a stable chair and solid kitchen table filling the dining room. Jesse hated to imagine the kind of bed Nozomu had been sleeping on seeing how threadbare the couch had been.

True to his word, Nozomu had healed Jesse’s injured wrists. The spell in question had required touch to do so, and Nozomu’s fingers had felt like fire until the spell had taken over. The cool, freezing magic had done its work in seconds, and it was as if Jesse had never been burned in the first place. 

Before Jesse and his friends had left, he had asked Nozomu to teach him one more spell, to which Nozomu had quickly obliged. There were about twenty years of life within Jesse that belonged to his cousin, and Jesse didn’t feel comfortable knowing he had aged Nozomu because of Kamenashi. It hadn’t taken long, only ten minutes or so for Jesse to grasp the remaining two lines, and Nozomu had returned to his youthful self not long after.

“I kind of hope that Nozomu takes you up on your request,” Hokuto said, settling into his spot next to Jesse on the couch. “Things will be much more chaotic, but I think it will be fun to have more of your family nearby.” 

Kochi froze as he had reached for his near empty drink on the coffee table in front of him. Shintaro’s arm was bumping into him as he shoveled food down his mouth, having already consumed two other containers of food before his current one. Kochi’s eye twitched at the constantly bumping but didn’t chastise Shintaro over it.

“What…what do you mean more chaotic?” Kochi asked, each word a hesitation as he spoke it.

“Nozomu and his mother won’t want to stay at Kamenashi’s compound now that there’s nothing tying them there,” Hokuto said. He sipped on his drink, his usual from Juri’s magic den. Juri had made it as a special request. Twinkling stars floated through the purple liquid as it swirled around slowly in the glass. “Of course his mother will want to check on her family in Kansai now that she’s gained her freedom back, but Nozomu has no roots of his own. Jesse thought it might be easier for him to establish his own life if he knew people where he moved to.” 

Kochi was like a statue, fear clinging to his eyes as he darted between Hokuto and Jesse. “Please tell me he said no,” he whispered.

“Nozomu didn’t decide yet,” Jesse said through a mouthful of curry. He swallowed before speaking again. “I gave him my mom’s address as well as the one for my apartment. He said he’ll get back to me before the end of the month with his final decision.” 

Jesse really wanted Nozomu to accept. It would be nice to continue to grow old with his cousin nearby as well as introduce him to human culture, but the other part of Jesse was far more selfish. He needed a teacher from the monkey line desperately to instruct him on their spells, and who better than one from his very line? Who better than someone who was well versed and understood the bottomless potential of their magic? Though Nozomu hadn’t inherited the ability to take and give years of life, his spell casting and medical knowledge was on par with Jesse’s. He was the perfect person, in theory as well as practice, to bring Jesse up to speed on what he needed to know.

Of course Jesse could always ask his mother to teach him. She had grown up under the same strict instruction as Nozomu, so her spell knowledge would be flawless, but she hadn’t practiced as intensely in years. As far as Jesse was aware, she had only kept to small healing spells so as to not alert anyone of her magical gifts. Jesse wouldn’t mind seeking out his mother’s help if Nozomu didn’t accept, but he sincerely hoped Nozomu would take up his request to move to Tokyo. 

“I’m so jealous of you guys,” Taiga whined. The second Juri had finished his food Taiga had appeared on Juri’s arm chair, squeezing his way between the arm and Juri. Juri had scooted over enough to make room for Taiga, but the two were squished together from hip to knee. “I should have been there, too! It sounds like what you experienced was like an episode of an anime.”

“I’ve also been over this,” Juri said, rolling his eyes. “You’re not made for a stealth mission! You would have given our position away a thousand times if I had dragged you along. And move,” Juri barked, nudging Taiga with his elbow. “This chair was only made for one person, and that’s me.”

But no amount of complaining and nagging from Juri was making Taiga move. He seemed perfectly content to sit next to Juri despite the lack of space. 

“But think of the adventure!” Taiga said, throwing an arm around Juri’s shoulder. “Think of the drama! Think of how I could have swept in at the last second and saved everyone!”

“The only thing you’d be saving us from is having our ears bleed from listening to another monologue from Kamenashi,” Juri grumbled, standing up from his chair and picking his way through the littered dinner containers and plastic bags on the floor. “I’m going down to rocks to mix myself a drink. Anyone want anything? I know Taiga’s usual order.” 

“I’m fine,” Hokuto said, holding up his still mostly full glass the same time Jesse shouted out, “STRAWBERRY BREAKFAST!” He was getting that damn drink one day, and it might as well be today.

“Me, too,” Shintaro said, grains of rice falling from his lips. “Strawberry Breakfast for me, too!”

Juri stared at him until Shintaro picked up every last one that had fallen to the floor. He turned his attention to Kochi. “And you?”

Kochi’s back straightened. “Wait, I can have one of your drinks?” 

“Uh, yeah,” Juri said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You weren’t with us, but we’ve all gone through hell and back this weekend as a friend group. If I’m going to let a human try one of my concoctions, I might as well let you be the first.” 

A huge grin spread across Kochi’s face, and Jesse saw the excitement radiating from his body. “I want the same one as Hokuto,” Kochi said, pointing to the glass, and Juri nodded. He disappeared in a flash to make all of their drink orders.

Jesse finished up his own meal, scraping the last bit of curry onto his spoon, before closing the container and depositing it on the coffee table. He leaned back on the sofa, stomach bursting from how much he had consumed. It felt like he would never be able to eat another bite of food again with how much it ached, but he was happy. He felt content. It felt like things were finally on the right track after getting momentarily derailed. 

He felt Hokuto settle in next to him, the lion’s head resting on Jesse’s shoulder. Their bodies were flush against each other, hips and thighs brushing, and Jesse reached an arm around Hokuto’s shoulder to tug him closer. More than casting magic, more than learning his heritage, and even learning about the magical half of his family, Hokuto was the one thing that felt the most right in his world. There were still lingering thoughts, ones where Jesse was kicking himself for not realizing his feelings earlier, but he forced those down deep into the depths of his heart. There was no place in his mind to let negativity take over.

“When things wind down a little bit more, do you want to get out of here?” Jesse asked, leaning in to whisper directly into Hokuto’s ear. He saw how the lion shivered from the sound of Jesse’s voice so close.

“What for?” Hokuto asked, bringing his glass up to his lips and taking a long drink. Jesse’s eyes followed the motion, seeing how Hokuto’s Adam’s apple bobbed with each gulp, before returning up to Hokuto’s eyes. 

“I seem to remember a promise I made to you.”

Jesse could see the confusion in Hokuto’s eyes, the way he cycled through his memories of past conversations between the two of them. “No? I don’t remember you making any promises to me?” 

“It was about a week ago now, when you and the others made my spell book.” Jesse reached down, lacing his fingers with Hokuto’s free hand. “I would like to take you to a magic den as a, you know…” Jesse could feel his cheeks getting warmer. “As a date. I still want to properly ask you to be my boyfriend, too.”

“Jesse, it’s okay,” Hokuto said, giving Jesse’s hand a squeeze. “We’re dating. You don’t need to make a big show or anything. Simple is fine.”

“I know, I know,” Jesse said, his cheeks burning up, “but I want to be romantic and do something special even if I know what your answer will be.” Jesse’s lips turned up in a big grin. “Besides, I think it would be nice to have a little alone time. No friends butting in.” Jesse waggled his eyebrows. “Just you and me.” 

Hokuto’s face was crimson red. “I…yes,” he sputtered out. “We can, uh, have some one on one time.”

Jesse risked a quick glance around the room. Shintaro, Kochi and Taiga were in some kind of debate involving whether or not curry could be turned into a weapon if heated to a high enough temperature. Confident his friends wouldn’t notice, Jesse leaned in to capture Hokuto’s lips in a kiss. 

He knew, for the rest of his life, that he would never get tired of kissing Hokuto. Nothing, not even the threat of death by Juri, would be enough to keep Hokuto out of Jesse’s embrace. There would always be a part of Jesse that craved the feeling of those lips on his, so soft and gentle but with a voracious hunger behind them. No matter how much Jesse gave, Hokuto demanded more of him, and Jesse was nothing but a giving man. He could never tell Hokuto ‘no.’

“I still can’t believe this is happening sometimes,” Hokuto said when the kiss broke, resting his head on Jesse’s shoulder once more. Jesse only hummed in response, reaching his hand up to play with Hokuto’s hair. “I…It’s silly to admit this now, but I’ve had a crush on you since the first day I saw you. Back on our first day of university.” 

It was easy math to do in his head. They were both twenty-one now and had met when they were eighteen. 

“I’m sorry I made you wait that long,” Jesse said as Juri reappeared, four glasses floating around him. With a wave of his hand, each glass floated to its respective owner, and Jesse plucked his from out of the air. 

Hokuto reached up his hand, stroking Jesse’s cheek. “You’re worth the wait.”

“So, our knight in shining armor,” Juri said, his own drink, a spiraling blue concoction, clutched in his hand. Taiga teleported so he was perched on the arm of Juri’s chair. “You’ve got a bunch of years of life. What are you going to do with them?” 

“Oh, oh, oh!!” Shintaro said, raising his hand. His own drink, a reddish pink thing whose liquid was thick like a milkshake, was already halfway gone. “You should live for that long and use the time you have to take over the world!” 

“Oh, come on, do you want Jess to turn into a super villain or something?” Kochi groaned.

“Superheroes can take over the world, too,” Shintaro said, pouting. His skin had started to turn a rosy pink from whatever sensation the drink caused. It made Jesse excited to try his own.

“Whatever Jesse does, I have faith that he’ll choose to do the right thing,” Hokuto said, his own cheeks still a bright red. He looked up and smiled when he caught Jesse’s eyes. “You’re a good person. I wouldn’t have befriended and stayed friends with you if you weren’t.” 

It was almost scary having so much extra life within his body. There was a sense of power that hadn’t been there before, the roads before Jesse so endless with possibilities. He could truly set out to live out his wildest fantasies without fear of death striking him down. At the same time, he didn’t want that. The life he had sucked out of Kamenashi wasn’t his to use. It belonged to others. 

An idea came into Jesse’s mind then, the perfect solution, and he couldn’t help but let out a laugh, drawing the attention of all of his friends. It was so simple that he couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it earlier. It required mutual agreement and understanding from all of the magic folk in the room, but Jesse knew he could get them all to see his reasoning. After all, Jesse was good with people.

Epilogue

Even inside of the sixth floor hospital ward, the muggy weather of June clung to Jesse, sweat beading on his skin and threatening to fall. He pulled his hand towel from the back pocket of his pants, dabbing his neck and forearms, before slipping it back in. Not that it mattered. The cycle would repeat over and over as Jesse tried to combat the ever increasing humidity of Japanese summer. 

Jesse threw a smile over at Juri, nudging him with his elbow to get his attention. His lips formed the word, “Ready?” but it only made Juri roll his eyes. Juri had long since cast his illusion spell, the shimmering magic surrounding them before they had entered the hospital, and it was working as flawlessly as usual. There wasn’t much else for him to do until they reached the hospital room.

The only hiccup in their plan had been when the elevator door opened, a passing nurse pausing mid step when she had seen not a single person inside, but that was to be expected. Juri’s illusions didn’t work on sound, and they had to rely on whoever was around believing that someone had pressed the wrong button on the elevator this late at night. It was a risk, but it often paid off, and those that had encountered their ghost elevators never investigated further. 

Juri made a motion at Jesse, telling him to get on with it, and Jesse took his first tentative step towards Ward C. They needed to move swiftly but quietly to avoid any nurse doing their nightly rounds. 

The past seven months had flown by in a blur, but the kind that Jesse didn’t mind. It had been the kind of chaos that he thrived best in. His third year of university had ended with him in good academic standing and poised to attend a better medical school than he thought. Not a top tier one, but great was better than good. His schedule was packed with classes, and he couldn’t enjoy lunch with his friends as often as he would have liked, but they made up for it by hanging out at rocks once classes were done for the day.

Taiga had taken a special interest in Shintaro since returning from Kamenashi’s compound and was trying to see if Shintaro could control his random visions. It had been kind of funny at first seeing Taiga get so frustrated at Shintaro not being able to grasp snake line magic, but it had quickly taken a turn.

There had been a day where Taiga had said he wanted to show Shintaro something upstairs, and the two had disappeared onto the second floor of rocks. It had been a half an hour of quiet before Juri got a sixth sense of something going wrong and had gone up to check on them. The sounds of Juri’s yelling came slamming through the floorboards, and Jesse had exchanged a look with Hokuto and Kochi before going up to check what was wrong. Apparently, Taiga wanted to replicate the spell book ceremony to bring out any of Shintaro’s potential magic but had done every step incorrectly. Juri had walked into Shintaro balancing on his head, hands steadying himself, and Taiga doing a strange dance with fans. Needless to say, the two of them were no longer allowed to be alone together.

Kochi had come around slowly to being the only human in the group. There had been a time where a pout had been etched across his face, sad puppy dog eyes whenever Jesse showed off a new spell he had learned in his nightly lessons, but overtime Kochi’s disappointment disappeared. 

“I thought about it, and isn’t it kind of cool?” Kochi had said one evening as they gathered their things to leave, rocks’ business hours about to start. “I’m the only human. That makes me special!”

Jesse had opened his mouth to point out that Shintaro was also basically human but decided against it. In the end, it didn’t matter. Kochi was happy, and Juri still allowed him to order special drinks off of his menu. That was the true sign of victory. 

Juri had continued to instruct Ren a few times a week in illusion magic, and Jesse thought the young fox was getting quite good. Jesse often offered himself up as a test subject for Ren to practice on if he was available. It was fun seeing his friends’ reactions to Ren making various parts of Jesse’s body disappear, and Ren was ecstatic each time ‘Just Jesse’ was there to watch him grow his talents. 

There had been another fox that Juri had picked up to tutor, an older teen with dyed blond hair who wanted more practice with his spells. The new fox, a boy named Soya, was already quite good from what Jesse saw, far more advanced than Ren, and Jesse didn’t understand why he had asked for lessons with Juri with the level of talent he already possessed. The answer came about three months into Juri’s instruction when Soya admitted the reason. He had sought Juri out because he wanted to open up his own magic den one day, and he hoped to learn from Juri. 

“Absolutely horrible of him,” Juri had grumbled once Soya had left for the day. He had begrudgingly agreed to mentor Soya on how to run a magic den as well. “Should have just led with that when he first came in. I should have declined him for the treachery.”

But despite his complaining, Jesse could see how happy Juri was having another fox near his caliber to mentor in magic and business. Soya soaked in every word Juri said and was able to reproduce previous lessons word for word from memory. Even if their lessons ended with Soya grumbling about his squirrel line friend who insisted on calling him ‘Gary,’ Jesse knew Juri looked forward to their weekly meetings.

There was another change in Juri that Jesse would never have dared vocalize for fear of death. Ever since their return from Kamenashi’s compound, Jesse had noticed Juri and Taiga slowly getting closer. It started as small things, Taiga touching Juri’s shoulder or Juri asking if Taiga wanted a drink, but slowly Jesse and the others would go to rocks after class and Taiga would already be there. Not to mention the looks they gave each other when they thought no one was looking, soft smiles with fingers laced together. 

It was when Jesse and Shintaro came into rocks just after New Years that things had taken a turn for the strange. At first, Jesse had thought Juri had the radio playing when they had approached the outside of the magic den. It was a bit out of the ordinary for the fox, but Jesse rolled with it. People changed, and Juri wasn’t immune, despite being stubborn and stuck in his habits. It was only when Jesse stepped through the door that he realized it was Taiga singing. 

“Hey, what’s up with you two?” Jesse asked, leaning over the bar to hiss his question at Juri. Taiga had Shintaro pulled into a lively retelling of a recent Conan episode. “Are you…?” Jesse trailed off, not wanting to finish the question and risk pissing Juri off.

“We’re friends,” Juri insisted, swiping his towel off of the counter. He was polishing glasses for that night’s service. “Get any other idea out of your head.”

A few weeks later, Jesse’s last class for the day had been cancelled as well as Hokuto’s. They had decided to go to rocks to kill some time until Kochi and Shintaro were also free. The second they walked in, they were greeted with the sight of Taiga on one of the bar stools, Juri between his open legs, and the pair engaged in a kiss Jesse felt like he needed to cover his eyes for. Jesse considered himself lucky that Juri had only thrown a few glasses at him and not struck either of them down where they stood. Jesse never breathed a word of the kiss, Hokuto swearing he wouldn’t as well. The only thing they could do was wait until Juri felt comfortable admitting his newfound relationship to the full group…It could take years, but Jesse would wait. 

Nozomu had decided in the end to move to Tokyo. He had recognized that Jesse’s reasoning of a fresh start in a city with people was perfect, and he somehow acquired the apartment next to Jesse’s. Jesse didn’t know how Nozomu had done it, for the tenant had lived there for over a decade, but Jesse refused to ask. Some things were better left unsaid. Nozomu’s mother stayed in Kansai, preferring to live around family, but once a month she made the trip to Tokyo to spend time with Jesse’s mother. 

It had taken his cousin a while to adjust to the human world, the electronics and technology so unlike anything Nozomu had ever encountered. He also needed to choose a last name to blend into human society with. After what had felt like months of deliberation, Nozomu had settled on the last name ‘Kotaki.’

“Isn’t it fun?” he asked, showing Jesse the two kanji he had chosen. “Little waterfall’! How ridiculous is that? How can a waterfall be small?”

One day Jesse planned to take his cousin to a small waterfall close to Tokyo to prove they could exist. Until that time, he focused on meeting with Nozomu once a week or so to practice and study healing spells. Jesse was picking them up rapidly, and his spell book was filled with all sorts of spells, from paper cuts to healing sunburns and setting broken bones. He hadn’t progressed to more difficult surgical concepts yet and, according to Nozomu, wouldn’t for a few more years. 

Jesse was thrilled when Taiga and Nozomu got along, the two becoming instant friends, and he was even more happy when Nozomu announced he had made another friend, a human businessman named Hamada. Though they didn’t have a traditional friendship. Far from it.

“He thinks I’m a figment of his imagination,” Nozomu said when he was hanging out at rocks one afternoon. “Skip-I mean, Juri,” Nozomu quickly said when he noticed Juri reach for a glass, “helps me out by casting an illusion spell, so only Hamada can see me. He thinks he’s going crazy,” he laughed. “I can’t wait to play with him more.” 

One of these days, Jesse was going to have to teach Nozomu how to establish a proper friendship.

To ensure that Jesse was well rounded in his magic, he still kept his magic lessons with Hokuto. Nozomu was an excellent teacher, but Hokuto was still Jesse’s favorite when it came to instruction. It most certainly wasn’t because Hokuto would encourage him with kisses when Jesse got something wrong. Though Hokuto was starting to catch on that Jesse would purposely cast the spells incorrectly in order to derail their lessons, Jesse would never fully admit to such a heinous idea. He was nothing but a serious student! 

Things with Hokuto felt easy, and more and more Hokuto spent the night at Jesse’s apartment as their relationship progressed. It made it more difficult when Jesse had to get up for an early morning class, for he wanted to have Hokuto forever in his arms. It didn’t help when a sleepy Hokuto curled his arms around Jesse’s back, murmuring for five more minutes. Jesse was late more than often for his eight a.m. classes because of his clingy boyfriend, but he didn’t mind as much as he should have. Another minute with Hokuto was worth all the gold in the world.

The room Jesse and Juri wanted was at the end of the long, straight hallway, the very last in the ward. They had spent the last seven months working their way through the hospital rooms, and tonight would be the final patient. Despite the distance between the room and the nurse’s station, they still had to be careful. Anyone could pop out for a nightly round, and they didn’t want to alert anyone to their presence even under the shimmer of an illusion. 

Just outside of the door Juri stopped, putting one hand out in front of himself while the other swirled in a circular motion close to his chest. It wasn’t long before the sliding door to the hospital room fell under Juri’s illusion magic, and Jesse slowly slid it open. He let Juri enter first before following after him, silently closing the door behind them both. It was only then that Juri dropped the illusion around them both.

“In and out,” Juri hissed, his voice near silent. “No funny business.” 

Jesse placed a hand over his heart. “Me? Funny business? I would never.”

“Oh, come on,” Juri huffed. “You know as well as I do that you would chat up every patient if you could.”

“It’s called having good bedside service!” Jesse said. “It’s important to practice that in my field.”

“Practice with your doofy friend!”

“He’s your friend, too-” 

“Excuse me,” a tiny voice said, breaking up their argument, and Jesse’s head snapped to the person on the hospital bed. “Are you the spirits?” 

There was a young boy there, not even five years old. His covers were bunched around his waist, and he clutched onto the sheets in his tiny fists. The way he was staring at Jesse and Juri was so pure and full of wonder that it made Jesse feel so much joy. 

“No,” Juri said the same time Jesse said, “Yes.” He shot a glare off at Jesse who ignored him.

“We are,” Jesse said, voice so solid and affirming. He silently stepped over to the hospital bed, crouching down so he could be eye level with the boy. “I’m Je, and this is Juju.” He could feel Juri prickling behind him from the nickname. “And what’s your name?”

“Kento,” the boy said, his eyes almost sparkling in the low light. “Mihara Kento.” He let out a small squeal. “I can’t believe I’m meeting the spirits finally! I was so jealous when Daia met you last week! I was hoping it would be my turn next.” 

Part of Jesse was glad that this was the last time they were visiting this particular hospital. He knew kids were blabbermouths, but, if word of his and Juri’s existence had spread this much, it was time to move on. He didn’t want one nurse or doctor to start taking the kids’ silly conversations seriously and start hiring guards for each ward because of mysterious intruders.

“How are you feeling Kento?” Jesse asked, keeping his voice soft. He could hear a nurse doing rounds in the hallway. She was still far away, but it didn’t hurt to be careful.

“I’m okay. But…” Mihara said, but his eyes betrayed him. He refused to look Jesse in the eye now. “But I can tell mom and dad are sad. Mom is always crying now. I wish I can make her happy again.”

Jesse cast a spell under his breath, the words hardly a whisper. He still hadn’t been able to grasp doing nonverbal spells, but Hokuto swore that came with study and practice. He followed the first spell with a second to cast a diagnostic over Mihara. Both confirmed what Jesse had seen the last time they had snuck in under the cover of night: heart failure, and Mihara had hardly a week of life left. They had come back just in time.

“Hey, Kento,” Jesse said, keeping his voice soft. “Do you want me to help your mom and dad be happy again?” The little boy nodded fiercely. “Can I have your hand?” With Mihara’s tiny hand in his, Jesse began to work his magic.

Without the full knowledge of every healing spell, Jesse had to get creative when he visited sick kids near midnight. It often involved looking at each situation through another lens and applying the magical knowledge he had in a new light. Nozomu would have had an absolute heart attack if he knew Jesse was using spells outside of their intended use. He had already given his fair amount of lectures when he caught Jesse using healing spells in creative ways, such as when Jesse had used a spell for the common cold to ease an ache in Shintaro’s hand. Jesse had long ago decided these adventures with Juri would be a secret he took to his grave. 

Jesse focused his attention first on strengthening the muscle of Mihara’s heart, ensuring it would be able to handle any of the rambunctious energy the young kid would have once he left the confines of the hospital. He followed it with another spell to relax Mihara’s blood vessels before making sure to strengthen his lungs as well. It wasn’t perfect, but the spells would hold and keep Mihara healthy. Finally, Jesse poured an additional thirty-five years of life into Mihara.

It wasn’t much. Jesse could never give these kids as much life as he wanted, but it gave them a fighting chance, another opportunity at life. He knew that, sooner rather than later, the life Kamenashi had stolen would dry up, and Jesse would be left with his intended lifespan. Until that moment happened, he wanted to make sure as many kids as possible got the help they deserved. 

The footsteps in the hallway were getting louder as they drew closer to Mihara’s hospital room, and Jesse wrapped up his spells quickly. “Sorry, but we need to go. We can’t let any adults see us,” Jesse said, making a shushing gesture. “Keep this between you and us?”

Mihara nodded furiously, and Jesse cast one final sleep spell. He watched as Mihara’s eyes slowly became heavier and heavier, and he was fast asleep by the time his head hit the pillow. Juri had just enough time to cast his illusion spell on himself and Jesse before a nurse walked in pushing a cart in front of her, leaving the sliding door to Mihara’s room wide open. The pair quietly slipped out the door and left the hospital as quickly as they had come.

They stayed under the illusion spell until they arrived at a park around the corner, Hokuto sitting on a bench fully engrossed with his spell book in hand. It was only then Juri dropped his illusion. 

“Alright, alright, let’s get a move on,” Juri said, snapping his fingers. Hokuto closed his spell book and stretched, and Jesse could see a little hint of his toned belly. “I left Taiga in charge of rocks, and you know how he gets when he’s left alone for too long.” 

“Gives free drinks to anyone who wins his haphazardly thrown together karaoke contests?” Jesse offered.

“Exactly! You’re getting it now,” Juri said, a wolfish grin on his face. “And my older brother is stopping by tonight, too. He wants to see how things are run now that rocks 2 is opening up next month.”

“It’s sweet that your brother is opening up a second rocks in honor of yours,” Hokuto said, and Jesse offered his boyfriend his hand, tugging Hokuto up to a standing position. He used a bit too much power, making Hokuto crash into him, but Jesse was strong. He caught Hokuto easily, waiting until his boyfriend was steady on his feet before loosening his grip. “You said he’s opening it in Chiba, right?” 

“He is, but he’s not naming it rocks 2 because it’s the second rocks,” Juri sighed. “He’s doing it because he’s the second brother. He wants me to rename mine rocks 4 because I’m the fourth brother, but there’s no way I’m doing that.” Juri groaned. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. I’d like to make sure my den isn’t being burned to the ground by any of the idiots I left in charge.” Juri disappeared in the blink of an eye.

“We should follow after him,” Jesse said, giving Hokuto a tight squeeze. “I could have sworn Shin said something about playing checkers again since Juri would be out, and you know Juri was less than thrilled the last time him and Kochi commandeered the lightbulbs to play.”

Hokuto would usually take Jesse’s hand in his and teleport them out, for it was their habit each time Jesse went out to heal another sick child. He never tired of Hokuto’s hand in his, squeezing it tightly as the teleportation spell pulled them back to rocks or wherever they were headed, and tonight would be no different. But when Hokuto didn’t reach out, Jesse blinked and looked down at Hokuto, who was refusing to make eye contact with him. 

“I…you’ve gotten really good at teleportation magic recently,” Hokuto said, and he was right. The pair of them had been practicing working on teleporting over longer and longer distances, and Jesse was becoming as proficient as Taiga and Juri with the spell. “I’m guessing this will be the last time I help you with this kind of magic.”

In a way, Hokuto’s logic was correct. Jesse had already selected the next hospital he and Juri would be working their way through, and it was well within Jesse’s comfort zone to pop in and out of. There was no reason for Hokuto to join in, waiting around the corner for Jesse to finish his work.

But Jesse just took Hokuto’s hand in his, giving it a tight squeeze. “I may be able to do that kind of magic by myself now, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t want you to drag me around Tokyo anymore,” Jesse said. He placed a single finger under Hokuto’s chin, nudging his gaze upwards to look Jesse in the eye. “As long as you want to come along, I want you here by my side.” 

It was true, and it would always be true. No matter the paths they took from here, no matter when Hokuto ascended to his family’s seat, Jesse wanted to be with Hokuto. He would choose every single day to keep the lion by his side. Seven months was a short time in the grand scheme of things, but Jesse could already see their future being carved into stone.

He saw him and Hokuto together, growing old. He saw the pair of them with their friends forever at their sides, tackling whatever issues came their way. The six of them had stumbled together into a strange friendship, but it was the kind that transcended time and distance. The universe had brought them together, and Jesse would do everything in his power to make sure those bonds never broke.

Hokuto’s eyes lit up in the darkness of the night, and he leaned up to place a chaste kiss on Jesse’s lips. His smile when they broke apart made Jesse feel as if he was the luckiest man in the world. The magic of Hokuto’s teleportation spell swirled around them before it tugged the two of them back to rocks, the place where it had all begun.