She turned on her heel and padded barefoot toward the steam, her tail swaying with every step.

Not a word about the dress. Not a glance back. Just her humming something soft and slow as she disappeared behind the mist.

I stood there like a dumb anime protagonist, staring into fog and trying to remember how language worked.

God help me, I knew exactly what her plans were.

She was going for a dip.

And she expected me to burn until I joined her.

She stopped at the edge of the water and turned to look at me from over her shoulder.

"Whoopsie," she said, swishing her tail back and forth.

She stuck out her tongue, grinned like a brat, and her tail vanished into the mist.

"Wouldn't want to be too obvious now would I, darling?"

She stepped into the warm, steaming water, making her swimsuit cling to her body the exact same way bad decisions and my teenage eyes did.

When she reached the wall, she turned around and leaned against it, sticking out of the water just enough to make sure her breasts were visible in the lantern light.

"Ryu-kun, I'll be a good girl and wait for you here," she said. "Why don't you come get me when you're finished. After all, it's not a school night."

She blew me a kiss, and I swear, I felt it land on my cheek.

That's not something a succubus can do, right?

I told her that sounded like a plan alright and stepped inside Shin'yume-sou's double-glass door and into the almost-cool, stale-tobacco smelling lobby.

Hibana looked up from behind the front desk's POS computer.

The very second she saw me she frowned.

"Oh, it you," she said. "The resident idiot."

She looked around.

"Natsumi's not with you? Decide to get high somewhere else, huh?"

Then she snorted.

"Don't tell me that you're high again, are you, baka? I've got to work with you this evening? Gods I wish I were high."

I just sighed and rolled my eyes at Hibana.

"No," I said, crossing the lobby toward the stairs.

She raised an eyebrow.

"No?" she asked. "No what? 'No, I don't have any brains, Hibana'?"

I kept walking.

"No, you're not goading me into a fight," I said. "I'm going to change and then I'm going to get my janitor work done."

Suddenly, quick as a whip, she gracefully leapt over the counter and ran in front of me, blocking my exit to the stairs.

"No, you're not," she said. "You weren't here yesterday. Rinko wants to see you in her room pronto."

I stifled a laugh.

"Pronto? Who says pronto? You've got to hire a new writer, Hibana. Your lines are terrible."

She shook her head.

"Please, like you wouldn't hire someone who thinks Married with Children is Oscar Wilde level wit to write dialogue for you."

Ouch.

Then she crossed her arms.

"Do you have the rent money?" she asked.

Damn. She's on fire this evening.

"No," I said lamely.

She narrowed her eyes.

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"Typical. Baka."

I took a breath, but before I could say anything, she cut me off with something unexpected.

"I need your help," she said. "I wouldn't ask if I weren't serious."

She wouldn't look me in the eye, so I knew it had to be something big.

Finally, she took a deep breath and met my gaze.

"I saw your fight in the gym today and—"

I scoffed.

"You gonna criticize me over that, because if you are—"

Then she stomped her food. Hard.

The vibrations traveled straight through my bones and had the same effect as if she'd screamed.

"Baka! You let me finish!" she said, pointing a finger straight into my chest.

I crossed my arms, wanting to leave.

"Fine."

She took another measured breath and continued.

"You impressed me."

My brain locked up.

Hibana Asuka, martial artist, verbal assassin, undisputed champion of calling me an idiot at every available opportunity, had just said she was impressed. With me.

Somewhere deep inside my chest, some weird version of me—probably twelve years old, covered in acne, and watching Neon Genesis Evangelion alone at midnight—stood up and started clapping.

"Uh… thanks?" I said, which might've been the understatement of the year.

I didn't know if she meant it as a trick, a test, or just a momentary lapse of judgment. But something in her tone felt real. And that scared me more than the yokai did.

But she just dismissed it with a single wave.

"I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it for myself, but you adapted on the fly, took a hell of a beating, and somehow you're able to walk it off okay."

She quickly looked me up and down.

"Since that's the case, and since I'm desperate, I need your help against an actual threat."

I remembered something earlier she'd mentioned about a yokai.

"Does this have anything to do with that yokai you told me about?" I asked.

She nodded, then she sounded serious.

"Yes, I've heard that someone was attacked in the park downtown."

"Not the one with the bench and the streetlight by the trail?" I asked.

She shook her head.

"No, this is a bigger one. It's… 'No-Parking Park,' across the street from the old Mongomery Ward's."

I furrowed my brow.

"Come again?" I asked. "From… Mongomery Ward's? When is this park. Not where, it's downtown, but when?"

She looked like she was about to come back with a killer barb, but then the front desk's weird phone began ringing and the red light on the receiver began to flash, so it had to be important.

Hibana ran back to the front desk, leapt back over the counter like a boss, and snatched the receiver like she'd done it a thousand times.

"Shin'yume-sou, front desk. How may I help you?" she asked in a tone I'd never heard Hibana use when addressing me.

I saw her nod once or twice, and I was just about to head upstairs to my room when I heard Hibana begin to talk about me with whoever was speaking on the other end of the phone.

"Yes, he's right here," she said looking straight at me.

She smiled darkly.

"Of course. I'll send him right away."

Then she hung up.

"Ryu, you poor bastard. That was Rinko. She's tried of waiting for you. She says you've got to head to her room now."

I blinked a few times.

"You're trying to make me nervous about seeing Rinko?" I asked.

Then her eyes grew wide as saucers.

"Ohhh, you don't know, do you?" she asked.

"Know what? That you're annoying? I could write a book on that subject."

She rolled her eyes at me.

"You're such a dumbass, you make Beavis and Butthead look like Leopold and Loeb, you absolute baka," she said. "You should be nervous about seeing Rinko. She's an oni!"

Oh.

I must have made a face, because Hibana nodded slowly.

"Yeah," she said. "And she's our manager. She might be a wasteland of squandered potential, but if you piss her off, she's not above cracking skulls. She's 100% of the reason we don't have many problems with customers."

Then a thoughtful look crossed Hibana's sour face.

"Well, her and the Asuka clan."

She looked me in my eyes, staring daggers into them

"My clan," she said flatly.

"Yeah, as if you'd let me forget. Fine. I'll see Rinko."

Hibana sighed as I began to walk away.

"Ryu," she said. "I meant what I said about needing your help with the yokai in No-Parking Park."

I gave her a thumbs up. It probably looked lame, but whatever.

"Yeah," I told her. "You can count on me."

The ground floor of Shin'yume-sou, past the lobby and the depressing front desk that looked as though it were still waiting for Days of our Lives to come back with the milk, was an entirely different world.

Once I pushed open the swinging doors and stepped into the dark heart of the island's onsen, it was like stepping back in time.

The interior gave way from old, warped wooden planks to cold stone floor. Not like cobblestone, or stone tile, but "live in a cave" dinosaur, Land that Time Forgot bedrock stone. Warm, swirling tendrils of mist hung in the air like cobwebs that refused to be brushed away.

This place reminded me of a dream. The brass lamps on the side, reminiscent of oil lamps, were never quite bright enough to penetrate the onsen's swirling mist. The hallway both looked and felt like a giant throat of a slumbering beast, and the steam inside was the rancid hot breath as it slept.

And the more I looked around, the more it occurred to me that the ground floor of Shin'yume-sou was absolutely amazing.

The rooms were built into the actual side of the mountain. The baths were created to resemble small natural onsen too.

I realized mine and Yuki's room upstairs were the budget-friendly economy class rooms and felt cheated for having to stand under a shower that was more like a car wash than anything appropriate for a real person.

"They stuck us in the cheap seats, hon," I said to Yuki.

Then I remembered that she was watching movies again with Azuki, and I sighed.

I could've sent a text to Inego, or even told Lah Lah, but that wasn't quite the same.

Ahead, I saw Rinko's door. Number 3, located at the end of the hall past my janitor's closet.

She even had a neon sign that glowed hot pink, neon blue, and sunset orange through the onsen's mist.

"Rinko's Room: Manager's Special! <3"

But I understood what it meant: Abandon all hope ye who enter here.

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