2.04: A Beted BreakfastI hovered just inside the hallway in front of a door like a ghost.

  They’re waiting for you inside, baka.

  I swallowed hard and with some effort made myself move.

  My shoes made the softest scuffling sounds against the polished wood floor as I stepped into the open. A cool current of air slipped past my legs, slipping beneath the hem of my skirt. The deep green jacket I now wore settled around my shoulders with a comforting feel.

  This was the first time I felt that girl’s clothes truly fit me.

  Something had always felt a little off before… My old shoulders were a little too broad, my hips too narrow, my legs too wiry, my torso long in ways that never seemed to match what was put on me, although I’d only been dressed up the one time for our meal at Royal Boost. I’d somehow gotten hit on by the hostess and was princess carried by Akuchi away from the restaurant.

  But this jacket… this skirt… they fit me perfectly as though they’d been waiting for me to put them on.

  Dark red pleats brushed my thighs with every small movement.

  This combination of clothes reminded me of Reiko.

  It was her style.

  Maybe I’m trying too hard to follow in her footsteps or something stupid like that…

  The bck tights hugging my long legs felt strange, almost too intimate, but they were a welcome barrier between my skin and the world. But I hadn’t fully picked them myself.

  Natalia-sama had quietly corrected me, slipping what would match the jacket I’d picked into my arms while gently removing the brightly colored undershirt I’d chosen. She’d even firmly taken the pants that I’d intended to wear under the skirt, to completely hide my legs, folding them away with a firm shake of her head.

  I’d chosen high heels, too.That earned me a wagged finger.“You’ll hate yourself in thirty minutes, trust me. Save shoes like this for special occasions.”

  And just like that, she shaped all the rest.

  When she finished, I stood again in front of the mirror, feeling heat climb up my cheeks. My soft green eyes trembled back at me, full of shyness, nerves, a fragile seed trying to take root in broken earth.

  Susu was about to make her debut to the world.

  I pushed open the door and saw what was waiting for me.

  Natalia-sama’s rooftop looked like a pce where a goddess would take her morning tea. My breath caught.

  Sunlight poured through tall gss panels that framed the breakfast nook, catching on floating dust motes and the steam rising from an elegant white teapot. Beyond the open sliding doors y a garden that looked more like it should have existed in the countryside, rather than on the top of a building in Tokyo. There were stone nterns, sculpted shrubs, a tiny koi pond, and a modest shinto shrine tucked beneath a maple tree whose leaves were just starting to redden at the edges. Beyond the low rooftop wall, the rest of the neighborhood sprawled in the morning haze.

  My eyes rested on a low table.

  Rui sat at the low table, one knee bouncing furiously. Akuchi slouched beside her in her tanuki-girl form, her chin propped on her hands, her bushy African civet’s tail flicking like an irritated cat’s. A spread of tea and small dishes sat between them: delicate cups, a pte of what had clearly once been fluffy hot tamagoyaki, grilled fish, miso… all slightly wilted and sad-looking.

  They both turned.

  For a heartbeat, no one spoke.

  Rui’s jaw dropped. Akuchi’s ears shot straight up.

  Natalia-sama, who’d been standing near the teapot, smiled like she’d just unveiled a new luxury brand.

  “Presenting,” she said with quiet pride, “my test masterpiece.”

  …Me.

  The jacket felt heavier under their scrutiny. A fitted, hip-high coat in deep green, light but well designed, with subtle edging that gave it a faintly military crispness. Beneath it, the bck blouse hugged my torso, the neckline modest… just below my cvicle, but still exposing the faintest hint of cleavage.

  Natalia-sama had insisted I wear a bra when I started pulling on the bck blouse.

  “No.” She said firmly, sighing. “You’ll bounce around so much, RuiRui and Ume will probably be all over you all day long, not that I don’t already expect that.” She giggled.

  The set she chose was of bck ce.

  My skirt swished around my thighs whenever I shifted my weight, stirring the air in soft, nervous currents. And the thigh-high stockings she’d called “practical” finished the look… elegant, mature, and honestly, the look was a little too composed for someone still barely holding herself together.

  It was… a lot, really.

  My cheeks burned.

  “G-good morning…” I managed.

  The silence stretched another second.

  But then…

  “KYAAAAAAA!!!” Rui shrieked, springing to her feet so fast her feet skidded on the floor. “Susu, you… you… you… YOU LOOK SO HOT!”

  I turned crimson, clutching at my breasts to keep her off them. I couldn’t handle any more fondling right now.

  Akuchi’s eyes bugged out. “Susumu…” she breathed. “You’ve evolved…”

  Natalia’s tail swished in a very satisfied way. That was what a smug fox looked like.

  “Anyway…” Rui pouted. “You sure took your time,” she snapped, her shock and admiration converting immediately into righteous fury. “Do you know how long we’ve been waiting? My tamagoyaki is FREEZING COLD THANKS TO YOU, BAKA! …No one has eaten a single bite yet because ‘someone’ went and spent a century getting herself together!”

  “I didn’t take that long,” I protested weakly, my toes curling up in my new shoes. “Besides, Natalia-sama was…”

  “Yes. I’ll take responsibility for that,” Natalia said smoothly, stepping to my side like a proud stylist at a runway show. She adjusted my colr with deft fingers. “I insisted the finishing touches be… precise. My apologies for the dey, RuiRui.”

  Rui huffed, crossing her arms. “I forgive you, Natalia. But Susu gets no mercy. None.”

  “Of course not,” I muttered. “Typical oni logic.”

  “Exactly,” Rui snapped, but her eyes kept flicking up and down my body, tracing me head to toe in a way that made my stomach get butterflies. Her cheeks went faintly pink.

  Akuchi scooted closer to the table, like she needed a better angle. “I knew it,” she muttered, awe bleeding into a low whine. “I knew that she would be devastating once she completed her metamorphosis. It’s not fair that I was outcast so harshly… I would have loved to witness every moment.”

  “I’m certain that you would have.” Natalia smirked slightly, then let it fade into something warmer. “Sit, Susu,” Natalia said kindly, extracting me from the two girls ringing me, guiding me to a cushion at the table with a hand at the small of my back, just above my backside. “Have some tea. It should still be hot. Ume should finish up in the kitchen soon with fresh ptes…”

  I folded my legs carefully under me, trying not to fsh my bck cy panties at anyone in the process, and froze. A stray breeze wafted through the breakfast nook through the open doors, fluttering at my jacket and skirt. “Ume’s cooking?”

  Natalia lifted the teapot and poured me a fresh cup of tea. While she did that, Rui and Akuchi peeked at my cy bck panties. My eyes widened and I dropped to my knees, not gracefully.

  Natalia eyed me with sympathy as she offered me the cup. “One of the hazards of wearing a skirt.”

  Rui’s face was faintly pink and Akuchi’s lips were curled up at the corners.

  I took the cup and inhaled the steam rising from it, trying to rex. The tea smelled faintly floral, sweet and comforting. My hands shook just a little as I held it.

  “It’s not that big of a deal to have your panties seen,” Rui said as she nudged her cushion over to rest her hip against mine.

  I blushed faintly and focused on my tea.

  The first sip went down smoothly, warm, full of fragrant love.

  “Ume-chan made this for us.” I sighed in contentment, taking another sip.

  Rui-chan nodded, a soft smile flickering across her face as she peeked at me… only to fade a moment ter. Her lips tightened, her shoulders sinking.

  Huh?

  I hadn’t realized how empty I was until that moment. My stomach growled.

  Rui suddenly smmed her palms on the table, making all the cups clink. “We don’t have time for you to drink tea like some kind of elegant princess!” she barked.

  “Eeeeeep! I literally just woke up,” I sputtered. “Leave me alone, oni! You’re yelling at a gu-girl who literally just crawled out of bed! And there’s nothing elegant about me!”

  “Hmph… Excuses.” Rui harumphed, standing up on her zabuton cushion, then unching herself onto the table itself, pnting herself beside the teapot as if that might give her extra authority. “Listen up, Susu. We’re on another deadline.”

  “W-what? What’s going on?” I blinked.

  “We don’t have much time,” she said, leaning in so close her chocote brown eyes filled my entire world. “I looked it up this morning and just as I thought, the exams for Spiritual Detective licenses are in one week. One. Single. Week! If you’re not ready by then, we’ll be stuck waiting an entire year!”

  The words slid through my still slightly scrambled brain with a deyed thud.

  “One week…” I echoed weakly. “Th-that’s… way too soon! I’m not ready!” What she said sank in mid-compint. “Wait… Are you telling me that Spiritual Detectives are actually licensed by someone? I thought they were just a weird hobby or something…”

  “WRONG! Wrong! Wrong!” Rui snapped, jabbing a finger at me. “Spiritual Detectives are a serious occupation! We cannot sit here having a leisurely brunch while you make heart-eyes at your own reflection on Natalia’s polished wood floor! We need to train, Susu! ... And pn, and—and—”

  I couldn’t help peeking at the floor, despite my shock, and noticed that my face was reflected in it.

  “Wait… it was you making heart-eyes at my reflection, not me!” I gasped. “I didn’t even notice how polished the floor was until now!”

  Rui flushed and gritted her teeth, leaning toward me. “Shut up, baka!”

  “Yai!” I yelped, recoiling.

  That was her murder Susumu face.

  “Let’s just calm down and eat, RuiRui,” Natalia interjected mildly. “We can’t start our day properly without a proper meal.” She pursed her lips and looked at me. “Especially Susu. Her body has gone through some rather extreme changes recently, if you all hadn’t noticed.”

  My ears burned. “Natalia-sama…” It genuinely touched me that she thought so much about my well-being. I set my cup down carefully, crawled over to her, and hid behind her.

  “There, there…” Natalia set her tea down and put an arm around me.

  “Crybaby,” Rui muttered. “I wasn’t going to hit you!”

  “You looked like you were!” My lips twisted in a pout.

  Rui took a deep breath and rolled her eyes. “Please focus on the issue at hand, Susu.”

  “Um… what happens if I don’t get a license?” I asked anxiously.

  Rui tilted her head. “Are you implying that you won’t even try?” Her fists clenched.

  “I didn’t mean that. I was worried we’ll get in trouble over what we just did,” I muttered.

  “Afraid of the w? Tch. With me at your side, you’ll never be caught!” Akuchi decred, standing and stamping a foot on the table.

  “Feet off the table, Akuchi.” Natalia sighed.

  “What’s your problem, Susu? You showed so much balls in Mitsuhiko’s tower that I could hardly recognize you.” Rui crossed her arms under her almost non-existent breasts.

  “Rui! …I just fused with a noh-face, sealed a wannabe yōkai-master businessman, and woke up a completely different person… all without a license.” I ranted.

  “And your point?” Rui gritted her teeth.

  “Can’t I just… be RuiRui-chan’s sidekick or something?” I couldn’t resist twiddling my fingers together nervously.

  Rui’s eyes narrowed. “I’m unlicensed, BAKA. While I can use spiritual tools, the Yōkai Council decided I’d be ‘too much at risk’ if they licensed me.”

  “Eh?” I blinked. “Why…? You can use your dad’s scroll…” I abruptly remembered the Yōkai for Dummies book that I’d seen on her desk. That was starting to look less like a joke and more armingly real.

  “I don’t have any spiritual power of my own, baka! I already told you that. That’s why I can’t get one!” Rui pouted.

  “You’re a little fraudster oni after all, aren’t you?” I couldn’t help accusing her, climbing up to my feet in outrage.

  “No! I did not lie to you, Susu. Why would I?” She scowled at me. “Spiritual Detectives without licenses or spiritual power just get in the way, create a bunch of paperwork, and end up in jail if we so much as sneeze wrong, like we did in the train station and tunnels.”

  “And sometimes,” Akuchi added helpfully, “they get eaten by especially nasty yōkai.”

  “Says the pretend tiger?” Rui snapped.

  “Says the meager mouthful. I imagine the taste, if I had eaten you, would have been very… ft.” Akuchi curled her lips in a victorious smirk.

  Rui’s pupils dited to the size of teacups.

  “You… bastard…!”

  Before I could blink, she unched across the low table with a shriek, tackling Akuchi like a feral loli lucha wrestler. Cups scattered across the floor, a couple of them shattering, and the cold tamagoyaki spttering on the floor. Tea spilled everywhere. Akuchi shrieked, shifting forms mid-roll, and suddenly a half-tanuki girl with a puffed tail was locked in a deathmatch with a very furious little oni.

  “Take it back!” Rui roared, grabbing a fistful of Akuchi’s wavy hair.

  “Never!” Akuchi kicked Rui in the shin, her fingers flexing as she clutched a handful of Rui’s own hair in retaliation.

  “OW—let go of my HAIR, you ANNOYING FURBALL!”

  “I will NOT!” Akuchi screeched. “You grabbed MINE FIRST! YOU LET GO FIRST!”

  “Not until you apologize for calling me FLAT!!! I’ll YANK ALL THAT FAKE CURLY HAIR OUT, STRAND BY STRAND!”

  “YOU STARTED IT YOU VIOLENT LITTLE…!!!” Akuchi screamed, getting cut off, as Rui tweaked one of her nipples with a cute smirk.

  “Hyaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!” Akuchi squealed. “If you had anything to grab, I would retaliate!”

  I reached across the table and rescued my tea cup before they knocked it over, then sipped it delicately, averting my eyes.

  Natalia-sama exhaled behind her own teacup in the most dignified way possible, giving her head a tiny shake and covering her mouth.

  At that moment we were a matched pair. Natalia smiled at me slightly.

  “Um… I guess that means we’ve already been acting without a license,” I pointed out weakly, trying to mediate in my meager way as I sipped.

  “That was an emergency,” Rui shot back immediately in the middle of her scuffle. I was shocked she had that kind of focus in combat. “There was no time, and I’d sooner die than hand my case over to another Spiritual Detective!” Her fists clenched tightly around Akuchi’s tail and wrenched it violently.

  “AIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!” Akuchi shrieked.

  “At least we put an end to Mitsuhiko’s murders,” Rui muttered, seated on Akuchi’s arched lower back with her skirt tugged up, giving Akuchi’s butt an extra hard smack, Akuchi’s tail hooked over one of Rui’s shoulders like a wrestling hold. “...So the Council can’t bme us for wrecking a few things.”

  I didn’t think that Akuchi would wear white panties.

  Akuchi frantically spped at the floor like she was tapping out, squealing as Rui drummed on her backside again and again until it was sunset red.

  Finally Rui stood, let go of Akuchi’s tail, and crossed her arms, her chin lifting with that stubborn pride of hers. “That should do it. Well… at least I hope so.” She eyed Akuchi like she was daring her to move.

  Akuchi stiffened, not moving from that position.

  “If we want to keep doing this for real…” Rui frowned as she added, looking at me. “If we want to keep my family’s legacy alive… then we need official papers and a registered ID for you. You have no identity right now. And frankly SSDS hasn’t had much clout in a long time.”

  “As much as I enjoy RuiRui’s dramatic phrasing,” Natalia said, pouring herself another cup of tea, “she is correct. Working without a license leaves you vulnerable to the council and to human w enforcement.”

  She gnced toward her garden, her tail tip twitching.

  “That aside,” she continued gently, “the most prudent next step would be to report Mitsuhiko’s capture to the Yōkai Council. His disappearance will send ripples through the yōkai world. They will demand expnations… and that presents us with a valuable opportunity.”

  “An opportunity…?” I echoed.

  She turned her eyes back to me. “As part of our report, we can request a formal human identity for you. Given that your new existence came from a fusion of yōkai spirits, the council will give your situation special consideration. You are part of what they have to clean up.” Her tail swished once. “With that identity established, we can proceed to apply for the exam. The council will understand why it has to go through them. But to qualify, you will need to demonstrate that you possess sufficient spiritual energy.”

  Akuchi brightened, straightening. “Oh! Oh! The paperwork hustle part. I love bureaucracy… At least when we cheat.”

  Rui wrinkled her nose. “As long as it gets Susu a license and getting SSDS going again keeps any annoying rivals from trying to steal her for their own detective teams, I approve.”

  You’re assuming anyone else would want to work with me,” I muttered.

  Rui’s gaze sharpened. “They will. That’s the real problem. You pick things up too fast. You knew what was happening the instant you two fused… no… you had a sense of it before then. I’ll never forget when you put on the Yōkai Sentai Noh-Face helmet and actually transformed like a real sentai warrior. Sure, that was yōkai power behind it, but the way you moved was still you.”

  She pointed at me. “Anyway, obviously, you’ll be taking my surname. Something Shinohara. You’re mine!”

  My throat bobbed as heat rushed up my neck. I stared between them, the cup of tea in my hands suddenly feeling too heavy.

  A new identity.

  A license.

  A future that wasn’t just drifting between curses.

  The whole situation felt unreal to me. How could things like this happen to someone like me? I was just…

  Just a loser.

  Before I could find words to say, the sliding door to the kitchen on the side of the roof opened with a soft ccking.

  CLICK

  “Thank you for waiting~!” Ume’s voice sang.

  We all turned.

  Ume stepped into the light, carrying a rge tray as though it weighed nothing. The wore the same simple red ribbons as always, but her frilly bck-and-red dress had been traded for a softer house outfit. It was a ruffled blouse and a fred skirt. Even so, she still looked every bit like a gothic café idol who’d somehow wandered into the breakfast nook.

  Steam rose from the dishes on her tray.

  The smell hit us a second ter.

  My stomach growled so loudly Akuchi jumped from the noise.

  GURGLE

  “Oho?” she chirped, her eyes sparkling as she took me in, head to toe. “Oh, Susu~. You look so adorably cute right now, I might just gobble you up instead of my portion of the breakfast I made for us. Fufufu.~” She licked her lips over her little fangies.

  “Get in line,” Rui growled automatically.

  “Both of you will eat what’s on the table,” Natalia said, amusement threading through her voice. “We are not engaging in cannibalism in my rooftop garden, am I clear?”

  Ume giggled and set the tray down with practiced grace. “Yes, Natalia-sama.” One by one, she arranged dishes around the sad, earlier breakfast that had been id out… at least whatever wasn’t spattered on the floor amid fragments of expensive-looking teacups.

  Warm rice, glistening.Miso soup with tofu and seaweed, still giving off thin steam.Perfectly rolled tamagoyaki, golden and tender.Grilled fish that shone with a light brown gze.Pickled vegetables, bright and crisp.Small bowls of simmered root vegetables that smelled homely, but looked even better.

  It all looked and smelled so heavenly, honestly.

  … That’s why I was suddenly feeling nervous.