Yokai (11 page)

Brian accepted the item and turned it
over in his hands, examining it briefly before he handed it back to
Mori, clearly not giving the item much weight. Mori, however,
looked troubled.

“
So, he’s kind of like a
werewolf,” Reina said.

“
Kind of. His situation
certainly seems to have more in common with lycanthropy than
anything we’ve dealt with before.”

“
Maybe vampires are real
too,” Reina mused aloud.

Yumiko blinked as she glanced back at
her friend. “What?”

“
Vampires. You
know…
Twilight
?”

“
What’s that?”

Reina stared at her for a moment.
“Honey, I know that you don’t get out much, but…you really don’t
get out much.”

Yumiko shrugged. “I keep myself busy.
As for vampires, don’t you expect that they exist now, after what
you’ve seen and heard?”

“
But have you fought
any?”

“
No.”

“
Oh,” Reina looked back
down at her book, disappointed.

“
But in yokai lore, there
are vampire trees. Allegedly. Jubokko. I’ve never seen them, and
from what I gather, they must be rare, if they even
exist.”

Yumiko glanced up at the sound of a
zipper, to see Madame Mori packing up her things. Yumiko stood.
“Are you leaving?”

“
I think it’s time we call
it a night,” Mori answered. She sent a look in Brian’s direction.
“Wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Mathis?”

Brian looked up, distracted. “Hmmm?
Oh, we’re leaving?”

Mori nodded, a smile in place. “Walk
me out?”

“
Yes,” Brian agreed,
scrambling to leave placeholders in his books. “Let me just…” He
quickly arranged his desk, then stood, looking around at his mess
with some satisfaction. “Alright. I think that will do until
tomorrow.”

Mori smiled and led him out the door.
“Don’t stay up too late, ladies.”

“
We won’t,” Yumiko promised
as they left.

“
Good night!” Reina called
after them.

As soon as they heard the curtain
beads clink together, Reina wheeled on Yumiko. “I can’t believe he
turns into a fox!”

“
Careful, he might hear
you,” Yumiko teased.

“
Really?” Reina
stiffened.

“
Probably not, but…” Yumiko
shrugged.

“
He’s definitely cute
though,” Reina said. “Even if he does go all feral once a
month.”

“
He is,” Yumiko agreed
without thinking, then blushed at letting her guard down. “I mean,
if you like that sort of thing.”

“
That sort of thing. Uh
huh,” Reina wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. “Well, he certainly
seems into you.”

“
He does?”

“
Of course he does. Aside
from his books, you’re all he seems to notice.”

Yumiko tried to ignore the
satisfaction Reina’s words brought her, but she couldn’t help but
imagine his crooked smile, his flawed Japanese that she loved. She
found him very likeable and attractive. Perhaps, if things were
different, something could have sparked between them. But she
didn’t have time for anything more. Boys were
distractions.

“
Do you have any snacks?”
Reina asked after a few minutes of silence.

Yumiko caught herself still thinking
about Brian and scolded herself. “I can get something from the
Wadas, if you’d like.”

Reina nodded. “Something sweet.” Her
eyes widened. “Do you think they have Green Tea Ice
Cream?”

“
I’ll see what I can do,”
Yumiko said with a chuckle as she ducked out of the
room.

She heard the music from the sake bar
before she turned the corner into the room. She paused in the
shadow of the doorway to watch the scene, as Mr. Wada wiped down a
table, his head bopping slightly to the music. Mrs. Wada set a bowl
of rice in the window and called out an order number, before
disappearing back into the kitchen.

Mr. Wada cheerfully sauntered over to
the window and whisked the rice away almost gracefully, bringing
the food to a patron on the far side of the bar.

Yumiko walked over to the window and
waited for Mrs. Wada to reappear, her eyes sweeping the room. A
figure leaned over a small table nearby, far from the other patrons
in the bar. Based on the dark brown hair, she assumed for a moment
that it was Brian. She quickly decided that it couldn’t be him,
however, if he’d left along with Madame Mori. She tilted her head,
staring at his back and how the white t-shirt he wore stretched
taut over his muscles. She admired his form, wondering who he was.
Then she frowned, recalling seeing Brian in the dungeon, his naked
back to her, and felt a blush creep back into her cheeks. But the
image, it seemed, was burned into her mind. Once she’d conjured it
up again, it was difficult to banish.

“
Daydreaming, Yumiko?” Mrs.
Wada’s voice tore her from her reverie.

Yumiko bowed her head lightly. “Sorry.
I was just…thinking.”

“
About American boys?” Mrs.
Wada asked innocently, a knowing smile on her face.

“
N-no,” Yumiko stammered,
then crossed her arms. “Reina was wondering if you had any Green
Tea Ice Cream?”

Mrs. Wada smirked, then nodded. “I
should have some. I’ll get two bowls.”

“
Thank you,” Yumiko said as
Mrs. Wada disappeared once more. She turned to look back at the man
and saw him lean back, revealing another figure at the table,
albeit much smaller. Tanuki.

Eyebrows shooting up in surprise,
Yumiko took a hesitant step in their direction, wondering what on
earth they would be doing together. As she neared the table, she
heard Tanuki say “They’re all creatures of habit around here. It’s
the same thing, day in, day out.”

“
Is that how you see us?”
Yumiko couldn’t help but ask.

Tanuki started, and the man turned
around to greet her with a smile, dimples folding into the shadow
of his scruff. Yumiko felt a shiver run down her spine that she
tried to ignore, although she couldn’t squelch the delight she felt
at regarding Brian.

“
Mr. Mathis,” she bowed. “I
thought you’d left with Madame Mori.”

“
Brian,” he reminded her
with a smile, leaning back in his chair. Yumiko tried not to notice
his arms as they crossed over the white t-shirt. “I was going to
leave, but I noticed Tanuki here, and came back in to chat for a
bit.”

“
Oh? You two know each
other?”

She glanced at Tanuki, then frowned as
her eyes swept the sake bar overall. “Wait a second,” she said,
putting a hand on the back of Brian’s chair. She accidentally
grazed his shoulder and pulled it back as if it had been burned.
Trying to look as if the contact hadn’t affected her, she nodded in
Tanuki’s direction. “No one here can see him. He’s not showing
himself to mortals.”

“
You can see him,” Brian
pointed out.

“
But I…” Yumiko let her
voice trail off, then chuckled. “Of course. You have been touched
by the supernatural too. You can see them also, can’t
you?”

“
I can.”

Yumiko let out a breath and actually
smiled. “That’s…I mean, I’ve never met anyone else who
could.”

“
It’s nice to know that
you’re not alone,” Brian said softly.

Yumiko met his dark eyes, and nodded.
“How long have you known that you could see them?”

Brian shrugged. “Oh, since almost
right after I began changing. I’ve seen demons following people,
specters passing through walls, and these pale scarves floating
around the skies of Tokyo at night, swooping down every once in a
while like live origami birds.”

“
Ittan-Momen,” Yumiko told
him. “They are bolts of cotton, animated by spirits. They tend to
wrap themselves around people’s mouths and necks, to suffocate
them, or strangle them.”

“
That’s…” Brian shook his
head and turned to Tanuki. “Does she ever talk about anything that
doesn’t want to kill people?”

“
Not that I know of,”
Tanuki said, and Yumiko glared at him, taking in the sake sitting
in front of him for the first time. He was on his third
cup.

“
You’ve been busy,” she
observed.

Tanuki allowed a slow smile to creep
over his face. “I could be busier.”

Rolling her eyes, Yumiko glanced back
at Brian. “If you want to join us in the library, Reina and I are
just about to have some ice cream.”

“
Thank you for the
invitation,” Brian said, standing. “But I should really be going.
I’m sure Madame Mori wouldn’t appreciate me keeping you girls up
until all hours of the night.”

“
That’s my job,” Tanuki
wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

They both ignored him.

“
At any rate, I’ll see you
tomorrow,” Brian promised, bowing. He glanced at Tanuki. “Good
talking to you.”

Tanuki let out a loud belch. “Yeah,
sure.”

“
Goodbye,” Yumiko said,
watching him dart out the door. She stared after him for a moment,
thinking, until she heard Mrs. Wada call for her. She rushed back
to the window to collect her ice cream. “Thank you.”

“
No problem,” Mrs. Wada
grinned out at her. “And tell Reina that I know a boy I would like
to set her up with. A nice boy, with good grades. He wants to be a
doctor.”

“
I’m sure she’ll love
that,” Yumiko said, forcing herself to sound enthusiastic. She
bowed and turned back toward the library, Tanuki ducking between
her feet.

“
What were you boys talking
about?” she inquired, glancing down at him.

Tanuki snorted. “Wouldn’t you like to
know.”

“
Did you know that he could
see you?”

“
Of course.”

“
You didn’t say
anything.”

“
And you didn’t
ask.”

Yumiko frowned at this as she pushed
aside the beaded curtain and slipped off her sandals.

“
Hey, Yumiko?” Tanuki
looked up at her.

“
Yes?”

“
Do you like me, even
though I’m a yokai?”

Yumiko nearly laughed off the
question, but paused when she saw the serious expression on his
face. With a frown, she sat down beside him on the raised floor,
setting the ice cream aside for a moment. “Of course I like you,
Tanuki. Why would you ever doubt that?”

Tanuki looked away. “Well, you dispose
of yokai for a living. And I know that what you went through…really
made you hate my kind.”

Yumiko blinked, and sat still,
thoughtfully, as she absorbed what he was trying to tell her.
“Tanuki, I know that not all yokai are bad. It’s the ones who mean
harm to humans that I need to get rid of, to make things safer for
people, so what happened to me never happens to anyone else, ever
again.”

“
But…” he
hesitated.

“
What?”

“
Have you ever stopped to
wonder about the motives of yokai? I mean, you seem to stab first,
ask questions later. Or better yet, you don’t question things at
all. You see a yokai, do your duty, then leave them in the mirror
world without a second thought.”

“
I think about it,” she
said defensively. “I don’t just attack yokai for no reason. I
didn’t attack you when I first met you.”

“
No,” Tanuki agreed. He
shrugged. “Just…sometimes it’s not always black and white, Yumiko.
Sometimes you may not understand the intentions of others. It’s not
always apparent right away. I just…don’t want you to make a
terrible mistake someday, one you’ll regret.”

“
I can’t imagine how I
would.”

He looked so sad that Yumiko had to
wonder where this was coming from, but before she could ask, he got
to his feet and sauntered into the other room, a smile on his face,
as if the conversation had never happened.

Reina looked up as Tanuki glowed,
allowing her to see him. “Oh, hey Tanuki.”

“
Hey yourself, Gorgeous,”
Tanuki purred.

Yumiko shook her head, but continued
to watch him, for some indication of the source of his uneasy
feelings. But before long, she was swept away by conversation and
forgot about it herself.

Chapter Eight

A ten-year-old Yumiko sat in the
hospital waiting room with her chin resting on her folded hands.
She leaned forward, and slowly rocked herself. Was she cursed? Is
that why terrible things kept happening to people around her? She
needed to be stronger. For everyone around her, and for herself.
And she should never get close to anyone again. It only put them in
danger.

Yumiko looked up and saw a man with a
pink, glowing snake wrapped around his chest. A yokai. The man
leaned over, trying to catch his breath, but the snake held fast,
not giving an inch. Yumiko looked away and closed her eyes. She
didn’t want to see them. She didn’t want to.

“
Yumiko?”

Opening her eyes, Yumiko looked up
into Madame Mori’s face, who had come with her to the hospital.
When they’d received news of her aunt’s attack, she had been in
class. Yumiko had been learning to disarm men as her aunt was being
attacked by a monster.