1.23: An Infusion of Courage“So tell me your story, Susumu-san,” Natalia said gently.

  She had pulled her chair around her desk so she could sit beside us, turning the rge desk itself into a shared tea table. Three cups of steaming tea had been arranged while I was unconscious from her devastatingly divine kiss.

  “Oh— I’m sorry,” Natalia murmured, bowing slightly. “I didn’t mean to presume. It may be insensitive… but I hoped you’d appreciate the gesture.” She nodded toward my cup, her blue eyes warm. I had no idea what to do with it, given my ck of a mouth.

  “I—I…” I faltered. “I’m just a simple man. I… lost my way. My reason to live. This morning, I intended to… set things right. Not that they ever really could be. But then it attacked me on the train.”I cpped my hands to my cheeks as the memory of the noh-face sank its cws back into my nerves.

  “That’s sad enough,” Natalia said softly. “But there’s still so much you’re not sharing. Something troubles you more deeply than that.”She studied me with a serene, penetrating sympathy. “I can feel discomfort radiating through your aura.”

  Rui gnced at me. I couldn’t speak. My grief was a locked box I didn’t dare open.

  So she opened it for me.

  “Do you remember the girl I was working with for a while, Natalia?” Rui asked, her voice lowering.

  Natalia nodded. “Yes. You mentioned her. You said you had a bit of a crush on her.” She smiled knowingly.

  A Crush?

  My head snapped toward Rui. She’d loved Reiko-chan.

  Deeply. Complicatedly. Painfully.

  It wasn’t puppy love like with Natalia or Ume… Her love was very real.

  Suddenly, things about Reiko’s “st days” made terrible sense. The handsome man. The cold eyes. And Rui hovering at the edges of her life, wanting to be closer, wanting to protect her, longing in silence.

  “Yeah…” Rui admitted, her voice small but honest. “A little bit. I barely knew her, but she impressed me. She was extremely tenacious. She would’ve made a great full partner.” Her throat tightened. “I bme myself for what happened to her.”

  Her eyes glistened for just a moment before she swallowed it down.“…But anyway, we’re here for information. Not comforting hugs.”

  Natalia nodded empathetically.

  “Before we discuss the noh-face,” she said, pcing one elegant hand over mine, “we need to address the storm inside you, Susumu. You are grieving. That is normal… even for yokai.”

  I nodded weakly, though she couldn’t possibly see my expression.

  “Y—”

  “You just smiled, didn’t you?” Natalia said, her lips curving upward.

  I froze. “W-what? I—but— I don’t even have a mouth anymore!”

  I touched my noh-face as if checking whether a mouth had suddenly regrown.

  She giggled. “I sensed warmth in your aura right then.”

  …Aura-reading. Supernatural empathy.

  “Speaking of which,” she continued, “I sensed your embarrassment downstairs the moment everyone noticed the tear in your bodysuit.” She chuckled softly. “It drew my attention immediately.”

  Rui huffed. “Of course it did.”

  “We’ll fix those clothes,” Natalia said as she lifted her teacup, “but I would like to help you beyond simple clothes mending. So…”

  She set the cup down lightly.

  “…Please take off all of your clothes, Susumu. I’ll prepare something to cover you while I repair them.”

  I gasped.

  Heat detonated through me.

  A geyser of blood erupted from where my nose should have been.

  It was the first time in my life a woman had told me to undress.

  Lewd thoughts blitzed my brain with military force.

  “Susumu-san!” Natalia scolded. “Stop that. You cannot afford to lose blood. The more you bleed, the quicker your mind will erode.”

  “You’re flooding her beautiful floor!” Rui shrieked. “You noh-brains! Stop thinking gross things!”

  She rounded on Natalia. “Let’s just throw him out the window! He’s a terrible guest!” Then she spun back to me with a raised fist. “Take your clothes off, idiot! Get naked! I’ll rip them off myself if you don't hurry!”

  I should’ve panicked.

  But when Rui lunged at me, fist raised, for one heartbeat I saw Reiko-chan instead… her fierce face when she used to smack sense into me.

  My heart clenched.The image froze me in pce.I even smiled.

  A fist connected with my face and the world folded like paper.

  I flipped backward over the chair, crashed onto the floor, and everything went bck.

  For the first time in a long time,

  …I had a familiar pleasant dream.

  I was nine when I first fell in love with her… not that I understood what that meant.

  All I knew was that someone on the pyground wasn’t afraid of me, and that alone was enough to tilt my whole world.

  The other kids followed the usual rules… don’t go anywhere near the scary boy with the gangster face. Don’t sit beside him. Don’t even make eye contact. I sat alone on the swing, barely moving, listening to the chains creak.

  Then she marched right up to me.

  Short, wild hair like she’d cut it herself. Scraped knees. Scuffed sneakers. Sharp green eyes. She couldn’t have been more than eight, but she walked like she owned the park.

  She pnted herself in front of me, hands on hips.

  “What kind of yakuza kid are you supposed to be? Which Family do you belong to?”

  Her question hit me hard. I wasn’t sure what she meant. Should I tell her about my boring parents? My brain froze. Before I could stammer anything out…

  She kicked me.

  Her tiny foot snapped upward with terrifying accuracy. I flipped off the swing and nded in the sand, dazed. Blood trickled from my nose. I stared at it, stunned… no one had ever gotten close enough to talk to me, let alone hit me before.

  Adults gasped. Kids scattered. The girl froze, eyes huge, then dropped into a sentai-like fighting stance.

  “D-don’t throw sand in my face! You… dirty jerk!!!”

  I realized my fists were full of sand.

  I didn’t ugh, though something inside me happened. A wild and warm sensation. I felt intense joy, somehow. She hadn’t run from me. Even fighting me was better than that.

  I started crying… loud, ugly, uncontrolble sobs. It wasn’t because of the pain or being in shock.

  She panicked, rummaged in her pocket, and held something toward me.

  “H-hey, don’t cry. I… uh… I’m… This is a rare gacha. Do you like Jetman?”

  It was a tiny red-helmeted Jetman figure. I wiped my nose and nodded as I sat up and got my emotions under control.

  “I do. Jetman’s the best.” I paused for a moment and sincerely asked her, “Can we be friends?”

  She hesitated… then rexed.

  “Yeah. We can be friends.”

  She pressed the keychain into my palm, smiling genuinely.

  “I’m Reiko. Though you look scary as hell, you’re crying. Though you look like a gangster, you’re not one. Too squishy. Pft. So… I guess you’ll do.”

  “I’m Susumu,” I said, clutching Jetman.

  She tilted her head. “Susumu? Like… ‘tomorrow’?”

  I nodded.

  “Huh. Then you’d better grow into the name. People named ‘Tomorrow’ shouldn’t give up so fast.”

  I jolted awake.

  My breath came out in a gasp as the dream dissolved. I was lying on a makeshift cot. An IV needle sat in my wrist, feeding blood from a half-full bag overhead. My head spun.

  Why did Natalia have medical equipment?I expected it from Ume. She collected cursed surgical kits for fun, but not from a fashion goddess.

  “Ah, you’re awake.”

  Natalia looked back at me from her workbench, a gentle smile touching her lips.

  “Tsk… Rui, you need to be much gentler with Susumu,” she scolded lightly. “He has a kind soul. I wouldn’t rough him up like you do.”

  “I get the feeling he’s the kind of guy who won’t move his ass unless someone prods him,” Rui muttered.Every word hit me like arrows.Because it was true.

  “And,” Rui continued, folding her arms, “he’ll need more courage than he currently has if he’s going to survive the next six hours. So tough love is necessary.”

  “Noh-face,” Natalia murmured, turning back to her sewing machine. “Yes, yes… I remember.”

  I started to sit up, but Natalia looked at me with those serene blue eyes and gently commanded,“Stay lying down. The infusion will help keep your mind clear. You’ve lost a dangerous amount of blood already. If you lose much more, you could slip permanently.”

  “Slip…?” I whispered.

  “Into becoming a yokai before the stroke of midnight,” she expined calmly. “Your memories will fade. Your humanity will unravel. But—” her voice softened “—sometimes that isn’t the end. Sometimes it’s a beginning. I sense you’d become a gentle yokai. An upstanding one.”

  “T-that doesn’t help much, Natalia-sama,” I said weakly. “I don’t like this face. I’m a monster…”

  Natalia blushed faintly when I called her “Natalia-sama.”It made her look impossibly softer.

  “You are a monster either way,” Rui snorted. “But honestly, you look better now. It’s an upgrade. Still… I dunno… losing your memories? That’s a big deal.”

  Rui gnced toward Natalia, then back at me. “He’s right, though. Giving up and becoming a yokai won’t solve anything. We need to stop Noh-face. For everyone’s sake. And we still have to deal with its master.”

  “A master?” Natalia and I said at the same time.

  Rui nodded slowly, her eyes narrowing in thought.

  “It’s a working theory. A good one, I think. I can’t say more yet.”

  Natalia and I exchanged a gnce…hers filled with concern, mine with dread.

  Whatever Rui wasn’t saying…

  …was going to be bad.

  Relwing