Chapter Text
2012. December 24. Monday. 19:37. Hilton Tokyo, Shinjuku.
The banquet hall, designed for two hundred guests, felt like a glass tank choked with liquor and dry fish. The air was tinted with French perfume and sparkling hairspray.
Officially, the international finance and accounting department’s celebration commenced at nineteen-hundred hours. The employees had been herded here straight from their cubicles. They drank as if tomorrow had been canceled.
Everyone was there. Almost. The corporation—a structure as ossified as a dragon's spine—had carved out a vacancy: SMM Manager. The invisible web was rapidly ensnaring the globe, and even Mitsubishi had to bow to the inevitable. Twenty-eight pairs of eyes eagerly awaited fresh blood.
Actually, twenty-seven.
Nanami Kento couldn't care less.
He stood by the panoramic window on the fifty-second floor. Beyond the glass, Tokyo pulsed—millions of neon lights merging into one bleeding river. The world of mortals, the world of curses, the world of capital. From up here, it all looked equally insignificant.
Kento would have gladly traded this for the silence of midnight office.
Only one detail in the new colleague's file had snared his attention. Merely a coincidence. Not every Kamo concealed a cursed tool or a bow beneath their coat. Did they?
The ambient temperature was rising. A cube of ice chimed against the crystal, melting away with his patience.
"Did you see him? That handsome new guy from finance..." a woman's whisper, steeped in champagne, drifted from his left.
"That half-breed upstart again," muttered the men on his right, swallowing the complimentary beer.
Female employees fluttered around him like moths drawn to a cold lamp. The son of a foreign investor? The secret lover of a board member? A former runway model? No. Just the undisputed top graduate of Hitotsubashi University. Some had already diagnosed him as asexual. Some whispered of sociopathy, but no one dared call him a psychopath out loud. He was too pristine. Untouchable.
Kento Nanami possessed no gift for invisibility. At twenty-two, he looked like an athlete forced into corporate armor. Pale skin, sand-colored hair, and light amber eyes. The Danish genetics had played a cruel joke, turning him into a golden beacon in a sea of dark-haired salarymen.
Then there was his face. Sculpted bone structure, a sharp aristocratic nose, and deeply set eyes. The gaze of a man who had witnessed hell and wore its silence like a cross. Even in the dim light, he refused to remove his lightly tinted glasses.
A black Tom Ford O’Connor suit, a crisp white shirt buttoned tight to the very top, and a simple black tie. No festive cheer. Only a tiny ribbon shaped like a Christmas ornament clung to his lapel—pinned there by Mori-san at the entrance.
He looked like a GQ Japan cover model bearing an invisible subtitle:
Save me, I am dying of boredom. Or kill me.
Meanwhile, fifty-two floors below, reality tasted different.
A black sedan rolled up to the hotel's grand entrance. The driver's door swung open. A young man stepped out. His movements were fluid, precise. He circled the vehicle and, like a gentleman of a bygone era, opened the passenger door.
The December frost slashed at their faces, but the girl inside didn't flinch. She extended a hand. He gently enveloped her fingers, guiding her onto the pavement, refusing to relinquish her grip until they reached the hotel's revolving glass doors.
"Good luck, kitten," he murmured.
The girl leaned into him. Her lips pressed against his pale cheek, leaving a burgundy imprint.
"Thank you, my love," she exhaled.
She presented her invitation to the security detail and drifted toward the elevators. The pressure in her ears spiked. The silent roar of the hunt. Her target wasn't a cursed spirit. Her prey was a man.
In the banquet hall, the music abruptly died. The department head, Kobayashi-san stumbled onto the stage. He tapped the microphone.
"Esteemed colleagues! Your attention, please!" his voice cracked. "I am finally ready to introduce our newest addition! Starting the new year, Kamo Mina-san will be joining the International Finance Department! She will be taking over our... ahem... social media. Please give her a warm welcome! Kamo-san, the stage is yours!"
The massive double doors creaked open. Most guests didn't bother to turn their heads. Just another rich man's daughter. How long will she last? A week?
But the financiers standing closest to the entrance choked on their thoughts. One by one.
Click. Pause. Click. Click.
The lazy applause of two hundred people withered away.
Instead of the gray skirt suit, a porcelain doll glided into the hall. She somehow looked simultaneously seventeen and a hundred and seventy years old. Her chilling aura flooded the space. A black rose bleeding into a wasteland of plankton. Choso had sacrificed three hours to craft this masterpiece.
Her skin, flawlessly pale, as if it had never been kissed by the sun. Eyes framed by black liner and burgundy shadow, anchored by a blood-red stroke across the lower waterline. Spider-leg lashes cast trembling shadows over her hollow cheeks. Her lips were painted with the Addiction Tokyo's "Black Rose". Hair as endless as the night was braided into two plaits, bound by velvet ribbons.
The translucent black satin of her h.NAOTO blouse draped softly over her fragile shoulders. A leather Atelier Boz corset crushed her waist, carving out a hourglass silhouette. A multi-layered skirt of tulle and lace by Alice Auaa hissed with her every movement. On her feet—Mary Jane shoes perched on ten-centimeter platforms that gleamed under the crystal chandeliers. From the sterling silver Tiffany cufflinks to the black agate brooch pressed against her throat, every detail breathed a sense of taste cultivated over centuries.
She moved forward.
Nanami, ostensibly studying the condensation on the windowpane, felt a primal chill crawl up the nape of his neck. He turned. The heavy crystal glass in his grip trembled by a fraction of a millimeter.
This lady had violated every conceivable rule of corporate etiquette. But that wasn't why Nanami's pulse staggered.
Noir frills. Heavy lace. Gothic Lolita. A boy who had been the embodiment of sunlight, drawn to this morbid, doll-like aesthetic. For a heartbeat, Nanami smelled the copper tang and the damp earth of a cursed mission in 2007.
Mina ascended the stage. She stood before the microphone, looking impossibly small against the massive Mitsubishi banner. The hall held its breath, expecting a squeaky voice.
"Good evening," she murmured.
A velvety voice poured from the speakers, weighted with a rasp—as if she had been smoking raw tobacco since the cradle. She introduced herself as someone reading their own obituary. Her gaze swept the crowd, arrogant and exhausted, until it snagged.
She stared directly at him.
An icy dread slashed down his spine.
She’s normal, he rationalized, severing eye contact. You’re just exhausted, Kento.
She stepped down from the stage, her heels striking like a metronome through the stunned silence. Bypassing the crowd, she headed straight for the bar.
"Wine." She didn't spare the bartender a glance. "Red." She yawned without covering her mouth. "The sweetest, most expensive vintage you have in this dump."
The bartender’s hands trembled as he poured a heavy Bordeaux. She took a single sip. Brackish tap water. She swallowed the disappointment as her nostrils flared. A wildly different bouquet pierced the suffocating fog of cheap cologne, nervous sweat, and fried food.
The scent of a Grade 1 Sorcerer.
His blood smelled of dark Mavrud and tart plum, laced with notes of cold copper and the charged static of an impending storm. Her gums throbbed.
Delicious.
He felt like a heartbeat in the center of a graveyard. A feverish urge clawed up her throat: walk over to the tall blond. Sink her teeth into the thick column of his neck. Not to kill. Just for one searing taste.
Her fingers constricted. The delicate crystal stem shrieked.
20:30
The bottle of wine had been drained.
She pulled out her phone. Fingers capped with black manicured nails tapped out a rapid rhythm:
Mina: Brother, I want to go home. I’m going to die of boredom here... This Nanami looks so bland that if it weren't for you, I would have aborted this mission already. But... I must admit, he smells of potential. I played my part, come get me soon. I want to spend the rest of Christmas with you, not these wretched humans!
The reply arrived instantly, as if he had been sitting with his phone gripped in his hand, monitoring her pulse.
Choso: My little sister, bear with it just a little longer. Until 22:00. I’ll try to wrap up my assignment faster. I promise. Kiss.
Mina rolled her eyes, slipping the phone back into the tight confines of her corset. Two hours. An eternity.
The stool beside her scraped against the floor.
"Kamo-san, is everything alright?"
Yamada Keita. A slimy degenerate from accounting with a gaze that mentally stripped every woman it touched.
His damp fingers crumpled the delicate fabric of her h.NAOTO blouse.
She slowly turned her head. Her eyes were dead glass.
"The hand," she murmured.
"Huh?" Yamada blinked, leaning in closer.
"Remove the hand."
She didn't raise her volume a single decibel. The tone rang with the scrape of a katana sliding from its scabbard.Sakki.
Yamada recoiled as if he had touched an open stove. The blood drained from his face. He plastered on a trembling grimace.
"Don't get the wrong idea, heh... I figure a beauty like you must have a boyfriend. Just trying to be friendly. We're the same age, after all..."
Mina stood up, took her glass, and glided toward the panoramic window, positioning herself opposite Nanami. But in the dark reflection of the glass, Kento’s eyes met hers.
That silent execution of Yamada had earned the specimen a singular drop of his respect.
They stood in total silence for fifteen minutes. Two exiles at a festival of life.
She stared into the distance, dreaming of the warm weight of Choso's embrace. He stared at his own reflection superimposed over hers. Periodically, their gazes crossed in the reflection of the night city. Cold amber clashing against a black well of melancholy.
To avoid turning into a statue, Mina spun on her heel. She marched back to the bar and slapped a black AmEx Centurion card onto the polished wood.
"A bottle of bourbon. Four Roses."
She grabbed the bottle and a heavy rocks glass, retreated to the table in the darkest corner of the hall.
Kento observed her from the corner of his eye. His mind, accustomed to rigid formulas and flawless spreadsheets, was screaming: Data Error. No flush to her porcelain cheeks. No slurring. No loss of coordination. Her eyes only grew darker.
Metabolism? No. Nanami calculated. Unless she is...
Do not get involved. He was no longer a jujutsu sorcerer. He was an accountant.
22:00
At last.
Mina rose. A feline stretch, flaunting the corset-bound dip of her waist. She strode toward the exit without a backward glance. Left behind on the dark wood of the table, gleaming next to the empty bourbon bottle, lay a small square of plastic.
Nanami exhaled. Fate, he thought. Or a curse. He approached the table. His fingers closed over the plastic. It was still warm. In the photo, she wasn't smiling. He slipped the badge into his inner pocket and followed her wake.
Yamada tagged along him like a starving dog sensing a dropped scrap.
By the time Kento reached the elevators, the steel doors had already sealed shut, swallowing her lace-draped silhouette. He stepped into the adjacent car alongside Keita. A suffocating silence stretched between them. One man sweated. The other radiated frost.
They exited the building, stopping at the top of the grand staircase. Biting frost slashed their faces, but the chill instantly evaporated from Nanami’s mind.
A matte black Lexus LS 460 F Sport idled in the drop-off loop—a beast violating the sea of mundane yellow taxis. Its windows were tinted to an impenetrable pitch.
The driver’s door swung open. A tall young man stepped out, his dark, wavy hair pulled back into two messy buns. A cream cashmere turtleneck clung to a heavily muscled torso, paired with loose white trousers.
A joy so stark it made her unrecognizable blossomed on Mina's face. An answering flush warmed the pale cheeks of the man.
She slid her hand deep into his trouser pocket, extracting a pack of Seven Stars. In turn, Choso unfolded a black wool poncho, draping it over her fragile shoulders. He tied the drawstrings, pressing a lingering kiss to her temple.
They stood close enough to share a single breath. She tilted her chin up. With long fingers—delicate in appearance yet forged from steel—he placed a cigarette between her dark lips. She reciprocated the ritual, feeding another between his.
A silver Cartier lighter materialized in his hand. Clack. The heavy resonance sliced through the ambient noise of nocturnal Tokyo. The flame sparked, briefly illuminating his sharp features and the jagged purple stripe cutting across the bridge of his nose.
He lit his own. Then, with a doomed tenderness, he leaned down until their noses brushed. He pressed the glowing, cherry-red ember of his cigarette directly against the tip of hers. A kiss of fire.
Mina took a starving drag. Eye to eye. Their exhales mingled in the freezing air, a synchronized plume of smoke.
Even from a distance, Nanami saw it. Their faces were mirror reflections of a single soul. The same razor-cut cheekbones, the same cruel curve of the lips, the same aristocratic line of the nose. Though their eyes differed, the truth was glaring. These were not lovers. They were brother and sister.
Kento felt it—not with his analytical brain, but with the buried, rotting core of the jujutsu sorcerer he tried so desperately to suffocate beneath his Tom Ford suit. Every instinct he possessed screamed in unison.
Lethal Threat.
The bond tethering them was twisted—the roots of a diseased tree feeding on a mass grave. And the man... he was strong. Horrifyingly strong. Leagues beyond Nanami Kento. His cursed energy was meticulously concealed, folded inward, yet it exerted the crushing pressure of the Mariana Trench. The deafening calm of a hair-trigger weapon.
Beside him, Yamada sneered.
"Ugh, what a pair of freaks. That's our new coworker?" He spun on his heel and retreated into the warm lobby, blissfully ignorant of how close he had just come to having his throat torn out.
Nanami squeezed the plastic badge in his pocket until the sharp corners bit into his palm. He wouldn't approach. Not tonight. He had caught the brief, dead glance the dark-haired stranger cast over his shoulder.
Kento turned away. He had consumed enough darkness for one evening. It didn’t leave.
The siblings finished their cigarettes in silence, flicking the dying embers into the slush. Fingers intertwined, they moved to the Lexus. Choso guided Mina inside, meticulously shielding the layers of her skirt, before sliding behind the wheel. The engine purred to life, a low growl gliding into the pitch-black night.
At the first red light, Mina twisted in her seat. She crashed her lips against her brother's. Her teeth sank into his lower lip until the hot tang flooded her tongue.
His hands strangled the leather steering wheel until his knuckles bleached white, veins straining against the cashmere. He yielded, allowing her to feed herself.
At home, she would finish what she started. And he would let her.