Work Text:
It's unusual, Si-woo thinks, for the most interesting woman in the bar to make an immediate beeline to him and slide into the corner booth from which he conducts a not-insignificant portion of his business. Normally it takes more time for the ones who need him to see through the minor veil he’s woven around the booth, one that gives even his repeat customers and best contacts pause for a moment unless they’re particularly used to picking out the shadows.
It’s even more unusual for her to be someone he’s heard about. Oh, he makes it his business to know at least a little bit about everyone – and there are some names that ring like church bells, sonorous and deep, and others that are the tinny chime of a phone alarm set in the early morning, but he knows them all. But his clientele tend to be the desperate and the lonely, or the extremely fucking dangerous, and Ieiri Shoko, healer and adoptee and confidante of the Veil’s darling, is none of the above as far as he knows.
“Doctor,” he greets her. “Would you like a smoke?”
“I’ve got my own,” she says. Her voice is low, raspy. In all his Court dealings, every single one of them below ken, he’s never spoken to her directly. Seen her in the background, made allowances for her considerable talents, perhaps, but never spoken. She doesn’t beat around the bush either, merely fishes a cigarette from a crumpled box in her jacket pocket and lights up. It’s not the type Si-woo favors, the smoke acid green and bitterly herbal, but it suits her as it wreaths her face. His own cigarette belches normal smoke, acrid grey and laden with carcinogens. He’d take that over whatever’s in hers any day.
“It’s rude to smoke inside,” he points out.
“There’s an ashtray right there. I’d say that’s as much an invitation as anything, wouldn’t you?” Her eyes don’t leave his. She’s human, just as much as he is, but that isn’t saying much with them both embroiled in the affairs of the dokkaebi, as his grandmother called them. She is, of course, also a witch with a powerful gift, and Si-woo is just a man with a talent for running his mouth and getting himself both into and out of trouble. Barely a gift; barely a threat.
He concedes the point here. “A drink?”
“Maybe later. I’m here on business, not for your pretty face,” she says. There’s no inflection to it, but all the same he suspects she might be laughing at him. Their manners are different to humans; it’s strange and fascinating to see the same lack of expressiveness played out without the pulse and thrum of magic to accompany it, the flicker of otherworldly appendages and the heart of the world skipping a beat. Or two, if they’re powerful enough.
“You’ll make me cry, saying things like that. Without my pretty face, what do I have left?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. She’s cold, though, and doesn’t rise to the bait.
Another exhale of green, the glimmer of mica and strange fingers dancing in the smoke.
“Alright, then. What can I do for you? The business seems urgent, if you won’t even stop for a drink first.” It’s the second of three facts he knows about her – the first being her gift, the third being her choice of company. Ieiri is a woman who swigs Whimsy and Tears by the mouthful, who’ll down the bloodiest ichors and ask for another even as her throat burns. Toji, his only other point of comparison here, and not a good one since he was of the Blood even if just as a technicality, preferred the same shitty beer that Si-woo likes, and occasionally even shittier tequila.
“Not urgent, but important. And you seem like a dangerous man to get drunk around,” she murmurs. “Wouldn’t want you to take advantage of me, seeing as I’ve got someone waiting around the corner to make sure I come back in one piece.”
“Please. If it came down to a fight, you’d win. You do, after all, have magic. I do not.” Oh, he might pretend, he might employ a wide array of small charms and wicked tricks to give him the advantage of surprise, but in a direct fight there’s nothing. Not even the great equalizer of a revolver can make the difference, unless the bullets are salt-washed iron.
“I’m not armed,” she counters. “You are.”
“You came to see me unarmed?” His eyebrows shoot up despite himself. “Are you sure you came here on business?”
A ghost of a smile. The smoke in the booth is thick now.
“Very. Make me an offer some other time, and I’ll take you up on it, but right now I want to find someone, and I have it on good authority that you know where he is.”
Si-woo cannot imagine that there’s someone she’d need him to find that the vast coffers and sprawling web of those beneath the glittering Veil could not, let alone the weight of the Gojo name. Unless, of course, she didn’t want anyone to know that she was looking, or who she was looking for.
More and more interesting.
“I’m intrigued. My reputation precedes me, obviously, because I’ve made damn sure that it does, and I’m good at what I do. But who could I find that you can’t?” He asks anyway. It’ll be informative to see how she answers.
“Geto Suguru,” she says simply.
Si-woo blinks.
“Well, I can’t say that I was expecting that.”
“Did he tell you that nobody would come looking?” she asks, raising an eyebrow. “Or did you assume that nobody would.”
“I was under the impression that Geto burned every single bridge he had when he left,” Si-woo says, with more delicacy than Ieiri will appreciate. “I was also under the impression that there was a call for his death. He received the blood-gift before he even found me, and they don’t take those back.”
As far as he knows, Geto had it made into a cloak and wears it when he wishes to appear most dangerous – a far better warning than Toji had gotten, as even Si-woo can admit he looks striking with the diamond-glimmer of a thousand dragonflies settled over his shoulders, a powerful glamor woven in. If it were Si-woo’s business to hypothesize, he might offer that the blood-gift had been more of a claim, a boon, to disguise Geto should he ever wish to return. It stands to notice that the Gojo princeling wouldn’t want anyone else killing him, but Si-woo already knows at least that Geto has no intention of being killed by another.
He tells none of this to Ieiri. For one, he isn’t in the habit of giving information away for free, and this isn’t what she’d asked. And second, she probably already knows.
“Your impression’s wrong, then,” she says, blunt. “Sorry to say.”
She doesn’t sound sorry at all. Someone like her, raised behind the Veil, Si-woo doubts that she ever bothers to lie even if she can. Gambling isn’t his vice, but he’d place money on her being shit at it.
“You’re not,” he counters. “Why are you looking for him? Yes, we’re in contact, but you wouldn’t have come in here so sure of me if you didn’t know that already. All that means is it’s my job to decide who gets to see him from your side and who doesn’t.”
“I did know that, because I do my research and I don’t like to waste time. A trait that I’m sure you of all people must appreciate,” she adds. It’s artless, but an endearing attempt at flattery. Si-woo doubts she’s done it before; he wonders why it wasn’t necessary for her to learn, and then realizes just how stupid of a question that is.
“Business and pleasure should be kept separate, but I don’t mind when business is pleasant,” he tells her. It’s a fight to keep admonishment from his voice. He doesn’t often feel the urge to play the wise elder; when dealing with her kind, he falls more into the role of exasperated babysitter, or reluctant enabler. He’s good at both.
“Noted. Unfortunately, I’m rarely pleasant,” Ieiri says through another mouthful of smoke.
“I could’ve told you that. But I’m sure you’ve got hidden charms.”
“Well-hidden.” Another drag, slow and heady. Si-woo’s head threatens to swim; he sucks in a breath and stares at the table, counts the whorls in the wood until he can focus. “But I’m looking for him because I want to know where he is. He was once my friend, as far as I’m concerned that hasn’t changed.”
“That’s not enough of a reason for me to arrange an appointment, or to sell out one of my most lucrative clients,” Si-woo says, rueful.
But Ieiri wants to negotiate. “I’ll owe you a favor.”
His eyebrows shoot up, against his will. It doesn’t have the same meaning to humans, but they’re just behind the Veil now, enough that Si-woo can come in and out without too much risk, enough that he can stumble upon any poor soul before another carnivore does, and offer them a way out that costs only a little less than the alternatives.
And he likes the bar, likes the yokai behind the counter.
“Will you, now.”
“I didn’t come here to get turned away.” She leans back in her seat, ashes the remainder of her cigarette in the tray. It leaves a wicked iridescent tint amongst the grey.
“Never thought you did. Can’t say that I thought you’d play to win right off the bat,” he says. “What are the limits on this favor?”
“None.”
“Dangerous thing to be offering to someone like me.”
“Please. You’re too practical to do anything too objectionable, and I know my value well enough. You’ll have me heal someone, probably for a price from them, or leverage my position even if I’m just a doctor.” She sounds too satisfied with herself, her voice raspier now from the cigarette and whatever was inside it.
“Just a doctor is putting it mildly. But – like I said. Geto and I have a good working relationship. I’m not sure I’m willing to jeopardize that just because you’ll owe me a favor. You’ve got your reasons, Ieiri Shoko, and I want to hear them. Friendship isn’t enough, else you’d have reached out a long time ago.” He lets a hint of threat enter his voice, but she doesn’t seem anything other than amused. The typical reaction of residents on this side, but it smarts, coming from a human just like him, even if she’s a witch of the rarest caliber.
“You’re more loyal than I thought,” she says. He can’t tell if the set of her mouth is disapproving or not. Probably is, seeing as it’s what’s stopping her from getting her way.
“You wound me. Really. I can’t make a name for myself if I sell everyone out, can I? No matter the price on offer.” He smiles then, his most charming grin that he’s sure she won’t like. Si-woo is good with people, is the thing, and he thinks he has Ieiri’s number now.
“Alright, then. You’d better not tell anyone about this,” Ieiri sighs, as if it’s a foregone conclusion that he will. There’s not too many ears astray here, and the barkeep doesn’t suffer busybodies well, but he appreciates the caution. You speak something into existence under the Veil, and, well. Everything has ripples, everything has consequences.
“Cross my heart and hope to die,” he says in English, grinning wider.
It’s not lost on her; amusement flickers across her face before she stamps it down ruthlessly. It sits strangely there, but not badly.
“Out of my hands if it comes to that, but I might even shed a tear,” Ieiri says, dry. Si-woo surprises even himself by laughing.
“You might be the only one. Bleeding heart, how unexpected,” he jokes back.
“You’re mistaken, those I fix.” The levity disappears from her face though, quick as a shadow from a passing cloud. “I’m not saying too much with this. You’ll have noticed too, I expect. Whether or not Suguru is planning on making a move soon – and I’m sure he will – is irrelevant. There’s something else going on, and I think there’d be a better chance of survival for any and everyone involved if he was on our side.”
“I’d say you’re overestimating his abilities, but that seems unlikely. If any one being could tip the scales that way, it’d be him.” Si-woo has been fortunate enough to know two such individuals in his life, and even more fortunate to have never come into direct conflict with the third. But Toji is dead, and Geto dreams only of his own world, one where facilitators like Si-woo aren’t strictly necessary.
“Recently, there’s been plenty of humans bonding with things from Beyond,” Ieiri says flatly. “The scales are already tipping. Old things, powerful things, are stirring. You already know about the Curse-King’s fingers, and I’m sure Suguru has one or two in his collection if just to keep us from getting at them.”
She pauses, but Si-woo neither confirms nor denies it. Geto does, in fact, have three of the King’s fingers, still sealed in their grave wax, in his collection. He’s yet to be able to bend them to his will. Si-woo also knows that the Blood, collectively, have nine behind the Veil. This leaves eight entirely unaccounted for, and there has and always will be a vicious fight on both sides, and in the Haze, to find them.
“But there’s new things, too, that have been – coming through, for a lack of a better word,” she continues.
“New how?” Cautious. Wary, too, because whatever is coming from Beyond is something that Si-woo wants nothing to deal with. The Veil has existed for nearly a thousand years – lifted by human shamans and witches, plentiful in those days, and the Blood themselves, separating the world into two sides. Like mirrors, like coins. But before that, there was the Curse-King, and sorcerers, and creatures that even those in the deepest tangle of this side would flinch from, and all of them roamed free.
“The records go all the way back to Ryomen Sukuna, and to Sugawara no Michizane himself,” Ieiri says. The names still have power; Si-woo’s hair stands on end. It’s a miracle that her tongue doesn’t burn for speaking them, as he knows his would. “So by new, I mean not in those records when they should be. These new things – even back then, they’d have been reckoned as calamities. Less than the Curse-King himself, but they’d have been either members of his court, or killed by him, and we can say what we want, but he left thorough records of those he defeated so as to disgrace their names forevermore.”
Si-woo nods, though he knows only half of this. He’d not been raised with it like Ieiri has; he clawed his way to every piece of information that he has. He likes to think that it allows him an outside perspective. He likes to think that it leaves his eyes unclouded with useless history and tradition, keeping only to the useful ones that ensure he doesn’t get himself killed or worse. But it’s times like this where the gap between them and him, and between people like Ieiri and Geto and Toji, and himself, becomes evident.
“And – what. You think Geto can help with that?” He pauses, corrects himself. “I’m sure he can. He’d be able to add them to his collection. But you think that he will help?”
“I think that with the facts laid out in front of him, he’ll agree to help. I’m not asking that he join us permanently, and I’m not expecting it either. I might not look it, but I’m a realist.” A smile tugs at one corner of his mouth, razor-sharp. He thinks she looks like a realist, if not a pessimist; the reality she occupies is merely different from his own. “After all, there’ll be some self-interest involved in that. I don’t know where he is, exactly, but he spends a lot of time in the Gap. That’s where they slip through, and where they stay, and it’s why we never know about them until it’s almost too late. Windows on the other side – they can only tell us where these things manifest. Our Eyes on this side do the same.”
The implication: The Gap is lawless, liminal, and terrifying. It isn’t chaos so much as the slow syrup of distilled change; lose your focus, and you can slip a hundred years backwards or forwards in time. Stay too long, and you can never return. The rules are different there, and Si-woo has been all of twice in his life. The first time, he came out with the beating heart of a tree grasped in his hand, and swallowed it whole. It changed his life. It allowed him to do what he does. The second time, he stumbled out a tattered man, empty-handed and grieving more than he likes to think of.
If desperate people venture here in hopes of a deal, in hopes of a better life, it’s only the hopeless and the hopelessly unfortunate who go to the Gap. Or the hopelessly stupid, but Si-woo has less dealings with them. Sometimes they thrive, sometimes they die. The comedian’s going strong, last he heard.
“You really think he’ll listen?” Si-woo asks. The rest – well. It’s his business, and it’s not. He can’t do anything about it, only smooth things over before and after, profit while the profiting’s good. But if Geto’s going to help, he’ll need to be careful not to play both sides too obviously.
And that’s one hell of an if . It irks him that he doesn’t know just how big; it’s his job to be sure of things like this. He’s worked with Geto for a while now, fenced for him, ferried for him, offered a few bits and bobs in exchange for the odd favor from some of the halflings and shamans he keeps around, another sort of collection even if none of them will call it as such.
“You think he won’t?” She sounds like she wants to know, gives more than half a damn about Si-woo’s opinion. Rare, in almost all his dealings. But then again he never lets things like opinion come into it.
“If you’re as persuasive as you say, he will. If you’re relying on your old friendship to do the heavy lifting, a word of advice, since I like you.”
“Go on,” Ieiri says, like she’s ever taken a single word of advice in her entire life. Si-woo knows the type. Used to be he was like that, before he got in over his head and had to listen if he wanted to stay afloat. Now he’s built himself something like a yacht, but is all too aware of where the glue’s thinning and the ropes fraying.
“Don’t,” he says, and grins at her.
“Well, that was one word, as advertised,” she shoots back, deadpan. “I’m starting to get a sense of how you’ve managed to do so well for yourself.”
Despite being human , hangs in the air between them. Si-woo doesn’t take it personally. He doesn’t take much personally these days, it’s a waste of time.
Or perhaps despite being a piece of shit who nearly got my friends killed nearly ten years ago now , he amends mentally. She seems the type to hold a grudge and anything short of a century is a blink in the eye to the residents of this side of the Veil. Even the human ones, for whom time can be persuaded to shift and bend if they’ve accumulated enough favor.
Si-woo hasn’t. He sees more greys in his hair every time he looks in the mirror.
“I try my best,” he tells her. False modesty wins no one over; she’s no exception. “I mean it, though. Whoever you knew back then, whoever you think he is? He’s not. He’s changed.”
She nods slow, contemplative.
“Yeah, that makes sense,” is all she has to say. “I’m planning on presenting it as being more beneficial than costly, if it helps. Suguru – well. He’s stubborn, but he’s always tended to see the logic in things once they’re explained the proper way.”
The proper way. That could mean anything, and since it’s a staple in Si-woo’s own phrasebook, it just about does. He thinks he likes Ieiri.
“You’re going to see him in person, then.”
“That’s the idea, yes.”
“Have you ever been there?” Si-woo asks. He’s deeply curious; she must have slipped through, on the way here – or been dragged through, depending on her circumstances. But there’s no such thing as a casual visit, no such thing as true direction in a place governed entirely by whims and maybes.
“Not for a long time,” she says. Honest, probably to a fault. “You’re not just going to set up this meeting, you know. You’re going to take me to him. Maybe even escort me back.”
He wouldn’t mind that, on a surface level. Deeper down, he knows it will, at best, be a deeply uncomfortable journey.
“I’ll see if I’m in a generous mood that day,” he tells her lightly. “It doesn’t happen often, but for you it just might.”
“I’ll wear something backless,” Ieiri answers. Easy as anything, the words of a woman who knows exactly how to get someone to picture her the way she wants. “For your benefit.”
“Seduction won’t work on him either.”
“If it did, Satoru’d be the one in the backless dress,” she fires back, and then smiles, a private joke that Si-woo doesn’t grasp all the nuances of. Everyone knows that there was – and still is – something between those two. Nobody knows precisely what, except perhaps Ieiri, who’s comfortable enough to joke around it but will never explicitly state it.
A shame. It’d let Si-woo be the one to surprise Geto for once.
“What a sight that’d be, I’m sure. But alright. I’ll reach out. See when he’ll be around, if he’s amenable to meeting you. I’ll have to tell him that it’s you,” Si-woo adds, almost apologetic. “Misdirection –,”
“Not with him,” she interrupts, firm. “You tell him my reasons. You tell him it’s me. And then I show up.”
“You’re confident that he’ll want to hear from you.” Si-woo can’t keep the doubt out of his tone. Time might mean less to them than him, but a decade without talking and a parting on less than the best of terms would, to anyone else, be enough to end a friendship. No matter how deep.
“I’m confident that he’s noticed some of what we have. And I’m confident that he’ll want to do something about it,” she corrects him. “So that gets my foot in the door, you get me to the door, and the rest, I’ll have to handle myself.”
“And that favor,” he says, deciding to ruin any budding camaraderie more for his own benefit than hers, because this is still business, and he knows better than to get too involved.
But she just blinks. “Yes. Since I’m making you work for it, I’ll leave a token with you, and you can get in touch when you decide to call it in.”
“That’s it? I call and you come?”
“That’s it. Equivalent exchange. And we both know that this is important to me, so – worth the price. You’re not the type to spend it on something impulsive, either. You’ll bleed me dry with this one, but I don’t care. I know exactly what’s valuable about me, like I said.” She drums her fingers on the table, digging in one pocket with her other hand. Si-woo tenses out of habit; she won’t have a gun, or a weapon with her. She needs nothing but her bare hands to deal damage, and she’s more likely to heal than hurt. Historically, anyway. Si-woo knows that patterns break, and break easily.
But instead she produces a coin, blood-red and embossed with a seal he’s never seen before. He knows what minor weregild looks like, the coins that any of them can produce with a flick of their fingers, debt and payment. Major weregild he’s seen too, but that’s always blood and entrails.
“Nice,” he says, casual, and touches one finger to it. Warm, likely from being up against her.
“My personal mark,” she explains.
Si-woo has one too, or the pretense of one. He slides over a business card, one that shimmers in the low light.
“And mine. I’ll be in touch about Geto,” Si-woo tells her. “Probably in the next week or so. He’s hard to get a hold of.”
“You can’t negotiate when the deal has been struck already,” she says, the echo of formality behind her words. She sounds amused despite that.
“I’m just letting you know that I’ll be putting effort into this. Elbow grease. I’m working harder for it than you even know,” he tells her, laying it on thick, and as a reward she smiles a little more. It doesn’t soften her face, exactly, but makes it look more lived in.
“Better get started, then.” She takes his card, examines it briefly, and tucks it into her pocket. “I’ll be seeing you soon.”
It’s not a threat. It’s not not a threat, coming from her.
He just nods, says, “Pleasure meeting you,” and even means it.
They don’t shake hands, a custom that Si-woo has gotten used to by now even if he has to rid himself of the impulse every time a deal concludes. Most of the residents don’t like physical contact, let alone with a human. Let alone with him. Makes for some lonely nights, and strange days.
But she nods back at him as she slides out of the booth. A cigarette is already between her lips, and Si-woo watches her go, wants to see if she really does have a friend waiting. Something about her shifts and mutes, as she leaves his small domain, until she’s entirely unremarkable, nothing but another denizen leaving after a drink or two. An effective glamor, likely not her own work.
She meets someone at the door – tall, light hair, devastating cheekbones – and they speak briefly, warmly, in a way that belies friendship. Si-woo doesn’t know who that is. Si-woo feels like he ought to have at least heard of him. He might have to do some research.
“Hey,” he calls out, clear across the bar like he normally would never. “Ieiri. Look me up, when the dust settles. Once business is done, we can see about some pleasure.”
The blonde man she’s with, all sharp cheekbones, rolls his eyes. It’s impressive. Si-woo’s never needed to do that much to convey his disdain.
But Ieiri smiles, reveals a mouthful of human-blunt teeth, and says, “Bet on it.”