A serious teacher, one actually interested in teaching, would never dare so much as think of having any sort of relationship with a student, much less sleep with one. This was an admirable stance to take but for one problem: any man in the village was likely to have been one of Kamishirasawa Keine's pupils at one time or another.

For Keine, the thought that any man she harboured the briefest feelings for was once a bright-eyed student of hers gave her feelings of self-revulsion. Even if they were others' children, they were just as well like her own in their own way. So many had passed through her hands that she could recall a scant few, but all the same there was a resistance to looking at even a former student with eyes tinged with wanting. Yet, she couldn't help feeling lonely.

Some years ago, there had been younger men who had never been students. Now, they were all older, many of them married, others simply undesirable in Keine's view. However much she aged, she still longed for men who weren't marred by decades, growing infirm and impotent, the ravages of time and self-abuse rendering them ill-fitting bedmates. Keine had had casual 'acquaintances' with some of these men before. There were a small number she would have gladly married; none asked. Cling to them though she might, they all were wary of Keine and her state of being. They feared for bizarre children. They feared for their own safety during full moons. They feared for their reputations.

Hope had dwindled over the years along with these men's ranks. The schoolmarm had generally accepted her role as one unattached her whole life long, though she only did so with a great deal of bitterness. Comparing the now-ill, now-married, now-unattractive, now-impoverished, now-besotted, now-nearer-death men to her blossoming former students, she gnashed her teeth in frustration. There were lines she simply refused to cross — and yet what choice was she given? All she could do was go home, lose herself in shameful desires, and hate herself afterwards. Even moreso when ex-students approached her as a woman. She suffered greatly even through solitary pleasures, crying herself to sleep no matter how chafed her heart had become with time.

Tears had been common from her during her early acquaintance with the whatever-man. He had given his name as Yuuya at one point, but Keine heard whispers that he went by others. All Keine knew about him was that he was, on the face of it, something of a feckless sort, spendthrifty and dandyish, yet he was known for doing 'whatever'. Well-built in his own compact, undernourished way, Yuuya the whatever-man spent his seemingly abundant idle time loitering at a sweets shop on one of the village's main drags. Approaching was difficult for Keine, so she often spent hours circling the blocks until there were few passersby, at even which point Yuuya would still be occupying his habitual bench. She would sit down next to him casually and produce a small bundle from her skirts. He would neither look at it nor count it, simply accepting the payment and tucking it into his sleeve. After a few minutes' wait for the sake of deniability, Yuuya would rise to walk off, then Keine would rise too, following at a certain distance.

His room was a no-frills affair tacked on to the upstairs of a nondescript house, of which he was apparently a caretaker, room and board his only recompense from its elderly mistress. The futon was already laid out tidily when she walked in, and it took very little time for Yuuya to shed his clothes and leave them folded beside it. He would sit cross-legged on the bedding, only watching silently as Keine more slowly, hesitantly undressed. She looked at him in return, admiring the various taut places on his arms and legs, contrasting them with the softer parts of his torso and abdomen, her eyes never straying too far below his belly. He exercised much less reserve, and she blushed brightly feeling his gaze wander from her sagging breasts and belly to her silvery pubic patch.

There was nothing particularly lurid about how he looked at her. She'd asked him one time if he enjoyed looking at her that way. His answer had been disappointing but simultaneously relieving to Keine.

"Even though I've seen many, it still gets me going, ma'am. Can't have a dissatisfied customer because I'm not up to work."

This was, Keine felt, an apt enough summary of his attitude with her. Feeling underequipped in her own art of seduction, she resigned herself to allowing him to 'work', letting herself be guided down onto the futon, Yuuya handling her with the care afforded by an antiques dealer to his curios, yielding herself to the slightest direction of his hands, her heart perpetually fluttering as his dark eyes tried to absorb her smallest details in the room's dim lighting.

Though there was the feeling of admiration in his gaze, Keine wondered how he must really feel in his servicing of her. Being careful not to sweat too much had drawn no comment from him. Efforts to conceal the dark moles just below her breasts, on the one side of her hips, and on her inner thigh were similarly passed over. He never mentioned anything about the times she tried putting on some scent or another, thinking he might find her smell unpleasant. Not even carefully attending to the hair on her pubis and around her anus took away from or added to his attentions.

He was quick to put a firm hand on her thigh and guide her legs open once she was lying down. No matter how many times he did it, for Keine, the feeling of Yuuya's gaze and warm breath on her most secret places was embarrassing to the point of death. The first few times, she had objected and kept her eyes shut, not wanting to see his face between her thighs. Shameful curiosity opened her eyes after a few rendezvouses, and eventually she came to take great pleasure in the sight of diligent work alone, peering down to see where his tongue or his fingers might be playing.

So few men she had known had ever done that much for her. At most, they would rub her until she was wet enough, then thrust inside before she could prepare herself. Even those few who bothered with more than the most perfunctory petting seldom did more than give her a few hesitant kisses below. Such avoidance made Keine self-conscious, feeling that her womanhood must be ugly, misshapen, or unpleasant in its odour or taste. She was too ashamed to even ask very much of her lovers of the time. She grew quietly resentful of their pleasure, feeling robbed of her own. They must have interpreted such resistance as frigidity, for that was usually the point when her engagements with them ceased.

The whatever-man, perhaps cowed by her payment, showed little reserve in giving her pleasure. His grazing kisses on her pale thigh as he approached her eager centre seemed purpose-designed to cause her spine to tremble in anticipation. The promise of even more kisses in her most tender places gave rise to an impatience in her. When this spark was lit, she drew down on him with her thighs, wanting nothing more than to pull him mouth onto her. He resisted this insistence gently, pushing her legs wider to gain more purchase for himself, murmuring words of assurance. Then, answering her desire, he would cease his teasing. The soft, wet sound of his mouth opening, followed by warm breath on her secret place, presaged greater rewards for her longing.

A well-slicked, invading finger and a probing tongue attacked her at once. By this point, there was no refusal in her heart for him; whatever he wanted of her, he could have. He held her legs open, licking and sucking at her noisily, prising her open inside slowly, every flick of his tongue hitting a different angle on her most pleasurable spot. Keine's senses all seemed to melt into one under such intense stimulation, fixated on a single hot, coursing space that only grew more heated as Yuuya went on. Try as she might to focus her vision on him, to keep a hold on him in her mind, she herself dissolved and was reduced to a writhing mass of flesh. Tears welled up in her eyes feeling the oncoming climax. All pretensions of the uptight schoolmarm exploded into a burning nova that rose from the pit of her belly and kept rising, heading to the crown of her head, seemingly unmoored from her physical body, heading upwards and upwards until...

In the moments following her orgasm, blankness always reigned in Keine's mind until she returned to herself, often first noting the continued tingling below, her whatever-man running his fingers slowly in the accumulated wetness. Her arms were thrown around him, holding his soft-but-wiry frame to her as he petted her. She would invite him to suckle on her breast, the nipples no longer too sensitive following her initial climax, having stiffened in the ascent. If he obliged her, she would stroke his black hair, cropped very close yet left slightly messy, probably done himself. He took to nursing her with far less vigour than when suckling her secret place, something Keine found odd in a man, having known many as practical babes in spirit. Even so, his careful, measured sucking, running his tongue in small circles around the protrusion, endeared Yuuya to her. Quiet hopes that he enjoyed her affectionate stroking made her smile at him. At the same time, there would be a dull ache in her heart.

Keine had asked him for a kiss one early occasion. His reaction wasn't one of immediate disgust or rejection, but there was a definite hesitancy. Yuuya scratched at his pock-marked cheek as he mulled over the request. Crinkling his brow, he finally regarded her with a look that was as puzzled as anything else.

"I don't know any other way to say this, ma'am, but... well, I've been licking your cunt," was his muttered response.

She looked at him in similar confusion, unable to grasp what his objection was. "I'm sorry?"

"Your taste is in my mouth. I'm just not sure you wanna taste yourself, ma'am." Yuuya looked away, sounding awkward in his explanation. "A guy wouldn't want to, not after a girl sucked him, you know? I don't know if women think about things like that, though."

"Oh, I'm— I didn't even think... Sorry."

"No, it's all right." He still looked off elsewhere as if he were distracted. His previously unbusied hand found its way around her belly, caressing her in a distant but reassuring way. The topic would go no further with him, Keine felt.

Just as the release of orgasm made Keine tear up, so did the aftermath, in part brought on by the pain of this whole engagement between them being fictional. Yuuya was at least kind enough to hold her while she cried and run his firm hands along her back. She would rather he kissed her, but she knew she couldn't ask for much more. A whatever-man's body could be hers at whatever cost; his heart, she would never have. This fact that pained her so much in the early stages gradually stung less, until it wore down into the dull ache she felt holding him.

On some occasions, not particularly often, that would be the end of their rendezvous. Whatever longing Yuuya himself may have felt, he respected Keine's wishes whenever she broke things off there, even going as far as helping her to dress and seeing her off to the street. There were times when Keine stood watching him retreat back inside his room, wondering if he was meeting his own need himself as soon as she left. That imagined scenario in mind, she soon returned home to comfort herself, as she had done so many times, pining for Yuuya once he was no longer there to touch her. Those times made her wanting for him even stronger the next time.

That wanting is what made her stay most times. Now primed and practically acheing in longing, Keine would be able to cast aside what her heart wanted most and only focus on what her body wanted. Where the former dearly wished for comfort and womanly acknowledgement, the latter only begged for one thing: to be used and discarded.

They'd had sex in various ways since their arrangement had begun, but Keine's most favourite manner of screwing — there was no less vulgar way to describe what they did — was to be taken from behind, nothing less than the feeling of being bred like an animal her most urgent need. Her long hair would serve as the perfect curtain to hide her face as she raised her hind-end, leaving her front pressed against the floor for the full effect of being taken. There was no need for words when she assumed this position. He would quickly oblige her by digging his hands into the flesh of her arse and spreading her wide open. She was sure he could see how desperately she wanted him, her dirtest places exposed for the whatever-man to do what he wanted with. After being stirred up with a finger or two, the teasing reigniting her inner warmth, she would feel the firm, hot thing that she really wanted pressed against her entrance.

In truth, their rutting didn't last particularly long. Keine didn't particularly care how long it lasted, even if she would love for it to last forever. As long as she felt Yuuya penetrating her, invading her inside, his warmth even more palpable there than with his body fully pressed against her, she could be satisfied. She treasured the feeling of his grasping fingers kneading at her arse or her thigh as he started thrusting, first shallowly then going deeper and more forceful as he built up speed. Her hips would swivvel to try and welcome him even further into her depths, and he would respond by pushing as far as he could go, making their skin slap together moistly. Keine could hardly hold back the low, ululating moaning from the back of her throat. She didn't want to sound human at all in this act; she wanted to be the animal she knew she was. All shame fled from her mind as their hips rammed together and she braced herself even harder against the bedding. This pounding would hurt and cause her to truly ache, yet she didn't care. That pain only heightened the feeling of being used, serving as Yuuya's convenient fuck-hole, where he discarded his pent-up semen before going about his business.

This had all been a mostly thoughtless act for Keine, losing herself in the physicality of it, but that hadn't been enough after a while. More recently, an image she kept in mind while being fucked was Yuuya's face during a certain conversation they'd had.

The question had been a simple one: "Can I see you again tomorrow?"

Uncomfortable minutes ticked away without an answer from the whatever-man. He lay on the futon, staring up at the ceiling, no visible inclination to say anything, his expression carrying the blankness of ennui. Keine had stopped dressing just to look at him. Standing in that room half-dressed, she felt strange, stranger than being naked.

Yuuya shifted on the futon. Sweat rolled down his chest, making it glisten in a beam of light coming from the cracked window, one of the sole concessions to the hot summer. His hand flicked up with several digits extended. "I'm going to have to charge you more, ma'am. From now on."

There was a moment of confusion before Keine realised that he was displaying a price. "That's... alright. I can still pay that much."

"You're sure?" There was something of a challenge in the question.

"I'll manage," she said firmly. She resumed fastening her dress but stopped mid-way. "Can I ask why, though? You know my position."

What Keine remembered more clearly than his response was his face at that moment. Yuuya had, uncommonly for him, looked straight at her, his dark eyes piercing through her. Though not strictly unkind, there was a fundamental coldness to his look. He was being completely honest; through all they'd bared to each other — though mostly she to him — they were still strangers. Keine's heart ached possibly more than when he hadn't kissed her. She herself felt cold despite the summer.

At the same time, her heart thudded, a desire she'd known deep down was always there making itself all the more known. Here it was: the validation of her deepest self-loathing. This whatever-man, a body for hire, not only didn't desire her, he looked at her solely as a job to be done and finished with. Her breath caught. The warmth inside returned and her face coloured.

"More than once a week is a lot. If I'm too tired, I can't do other work, know what I mean? Call it a convenience fee, ma'am," he intoned with a shrug of his shoulder. There was a clear note of finality; she would pay or they were through.

As Yuuya ravaged her from behind, that memory was what heightened Keine's fulfillment from the act. This whatever-man, this man who tore into her sore flesh, who had certainly at one time been one of her pupils, cared not a wink about her, only seeking the basest, most physical pleasures of her cunt because she paid him. To him, she was only that warm, moist hole and the money he got for licking and screwing it, hardly a person at all. And here she was groaning like some beast as he prodded her inside. She was ridiculous. She was disgusting. She was worth nothing more than this. The thought alone had driven her to climax more than once, more than any rubbing or thrusting could ever hope to do.

Most of what she felt was a mixture of pain, heat, and being spread open inside, but one distinct feeling she was sure of was when his penis hardened even further inside her. His own release would be welling up by that point. Every pump of his hips would be sharper, shallower, hitting her only in the deepest places. He often gripped her arse-flesh tightly to the point of leaving marks. Of the few noises he ever made, this was when Keine heard his breathy grunting, like some sort of wild pig living out in the forests. Eagerly awaiting this impending end, she would raise her arse further and open herself to him completely. Every remaining bit of purpose she had in this world depended on that rising explosion. She didn't simply want his ejaculation — she needed it.

A sharp slap would ring out and their hips would be locked together. Yuuya's breath would hitch, a guttural burst of air puncturing the momentary silence. Keine was never sure she felt his semen flowing out in her, but she knew it was running out in thick bursts, dirtying the walls of her cunt with sticky pearlescent white, the mark of Yuuya's most primal satisfaction, his only satisfaction. Like a pair of mating dogs, they would sit there locked together, immobile, until his orgasm wound down. Even after he withdrew, there would still be the feeling for a while of him stretching her open. The reality of the situation became most concrete when Keine felt the sensation of something sticky slowly dripping from her opening. He had deposited what he would and was now done with her.

Sitting in the Hieda house, waiting for Akyuu to appear, Keine flushed feeling something sticky in her undergarments. Thoughts of Yuuya and her need for him had floated idly past in her mind for a while. She needed to be more careful, she chided herself. Everyone counted on her to be the serious, dependable schoolteacher. To be getting so excited even in her whatever-man's absence was simply sloppy on her part. Yet, that very disappointment she felt in herself only served to excite her further. She fidgeted nervously in her seat, only for the Hieda girl to finally show up.

They hadn't got very far into business when Akyuu started to pry. "Are you feeling well, Miss Kamishirasawa? Your complexion is a touch red. Perhaps..."

Keine denied that there was anything wrong and pressed on with the matters at hand. They were having their regular meeting regarding funding for the school, Keine always dependent on the Hieda to be generous benfactors. Everything was as typical as could be. However, Keine still couldn't be entirely calm throughout their discussion. Akyuu, too, seemed to sense a disquiet in the schoolteacher and wound off into idle chatter after a time.

"I take it there's something other than illness troubling you," the Child of Miare spoke up after a time, idly stroking the black cat that had wandered in.

Feeling deeply ashamed, Keine could do no more than look at the floor. She swept back a lock of hair demurely, like some schoolgirl being admonished. "Actually, there was a separate matter."

"Money trouble again, is it? I really do wish you'd explain. There's little I haven't heard in some lifetime or another." Akyuu looked up at Keine with some concern. "But if you won't now, then I guess there's always later."

"Forgive me." Keine gave a deep bow.

"Not at all."

With that, Akyuu disappeared from the room, running off to fetch a discreet bundle of money to hand over. Since the last rendezvous, Yuuya's price had gone up again. Try as she might to back off, Keine was seeing him more than three or four times a week. The shame of begging loans off of Akyuu gave way to thoughts of fulfillment at his hands. She imagined the wetness between her legs was his semen left inside, running out to stain her underwear.

She gave a small shiver. Whether it was one of excitement, anticipation for another impending rendezvous, or one of fear, not knowing where this treacherous habit might lead her next, Keine couldn't tell. All she knew was that she needed her whatever-man, whatever price she had to pay.

---

This was the best I could do. Sorry that it's kind of a throwaway.

✱ ← big asterisk

✱ I won’t beat around the bush. This piece indulges in unapologetic incest, age_gap and Kosuzu. If you find any one of these unpalatable, kindly give this one a pass.

---

Kosuzu’s reading room was dark. It had quite little to do with the candles Kosuzu had lit and fused to the ever-transmuting mound of wax on the girandole; around the young librarian’s desk there burned a halo of sweetly scented light. It illuminated an unbound, yellowed lambskin scroll containing, well, something written, but in no discernible language except that of agitated poultry and inexplicably watering eyes. Somehow, still, the room was dark. It was as though the light merely teased the shadows out of the cracks between the stacked literature. It was as though the light boded.

Sadaharu Motoori rubbed his nose. He had a nose purpose-made for rubbing, all length and bulging alae. His wife had called it allegorical.

“I’m going to need you to run that by me, one more time,” he said at length.

Kosuzu curtsied on her chair. Her beloved bells were out of her hair: an occasioning, Sadaharu had learnt, associated with some of Kosuzu’s more extreme moods, such as the many shades of feminine frustration. “Yes. Ahem,” she began anew, undeterred; “so, the thing is, I have been given this youkai scroll for translation—”

Sadaharu’s nose came in handy once more. “That part, I got, Kosuzu,” he assured her with every gentleness of seniority. “It is what came afterwise that had me at a loss.”

They were all more or less aware of Kosuzu’s contentious hobby. They more or less didn’t mind because Kosuzu was (close to) almost of age at any rate, more heedful and vastly better versed since the first two dozen mishaps, and the hefty commissions she commanded for the use of her talents meant she hardly ever skimmed the family coffers (thus, her future dowry) for allowance. There were on the whole more danger-fraught activities than the perusal and transcription of youkai-cursed scrolls that a Motoori could engage in. Child-rearing, for example.

He looked at her impatiently polite expression. Somewhere under his little girl’s familial deference was her mother’s razor edge.

“The scroll,” Kosuzu let herself be cued into continuing, “the scroll, see, the scroll was penned by a Taka-onna around about a century ago. Awfully ho-hum piece all in all, being her memoirs; men cruel this, men evil that, will someone please kiss me already, waaah! But. But—” Kosuzu’s voice dropped to a conspirative whisper, “—there is a section at the end written in code. Or, rather, encoded. Sealed. The script is the same youkai variety throughout, but this section cannot be read. The words… The words dart. Only, I’ve figured it out. How to read it anyway.”

Sadaharu pretended understanding. “Have you?”

Kosuzu nodded – silently in this uncommon circumstance. “The clues were in the text all along!” she went on with growing zest; “I hadn’t noticed till I’d transliterated everything else, but then some words in the original started to stand out. Taken together, they spelled out the method. See, it’s on the reader. The reader must be a particular kind of person to be able to read the final section. The Taka-onna was very set on that. Very single-minded, the Taka-onna.”

“And that kind of person,” sighed Sadaharu, “is what?”

Kosuzu’s smile was big, bright and innocent. There was nothing undermining it, Sadaharu held sure, but for unadulterated curiosity for the mystery ahead.

“An adulterous woman!” Kosuzu exclaimed, clapping her petite, ink-smudged hands. “An adulterous woman, a woman with many partners, which is to a T at whom a Taka-onna would want to vent her rancour. So, that said, and since my deadline is tomorrow,” begged Kosuzu, her voice taking on a whine Sadaharu had heard oh-so-many times before, “please, help me convince the Taka-onna that I’m an adulterous woman! Please, please, please! Grandpa!”

Sadaharu Motoori, head of the Motoori family for now and however many more years the gods deigned to turn a blind eye, felt his age. Old worries resurfaced like… like a metaphor.

Her mother’s edge? No. The hungry glint in Kosuzu’s big, pleading eyes was her whole mother, down to the acutest angle. The stubborn, wordless persistence she poured forth at him was all Akai Motoori all over again.

Akai Motoori. The precocious, redhead girl, who, no sooner than she’d come to terms with puberty (and come she had), couldn’t seem to stop getting kid— woman-napped by every naughty youkai under the valley sky. He’d frequently had to lock her in the cellar room, had Akai’s hopeless father, which’d worked for the most part to keep his daughter clear of an Oni’s or Tengu’s or yet another fox’s wanton attentions – up until Akai had puzzled out how to pick the lock with a tightly rolled-up paper tube. She would return two nights subsequently, smug and momentarily fulfilled, causing her father no small measure of lividness, further because she’d insisted upon writing down and cutting a woodblock of her personal brand of “youkai taming” for similarly brave posterity.

It’d been a very good cut, though. Prints of it sold on the quiet to this day.

That, nevertheless, wasn’t close to Akai’s most depraved stunt. No. No door nor barrier could stand between Sadaharu’s maturing daughter and her already overripe libido.

Not even the door of her father’s bedroom.

And so, one late, moonless night, the head of the Motoori family had awoken to a vision of a younger version of his dearly departed wife bucking her nude hips atop his disrobed waist. He’d rationalise it in the morning, scrubbing his conspicuously sticky crotch, as a kind of delayed wet dream and nocturnal emission. Nobody, he’d reason, had said these couldn’t be delayed for decades – especially this last one, which he’d spent with at best sporadic female company. Then, he’d dreamt of the same, beautiful, young, horny girl bouncing, bare-butted, on his furiously stiff dick in the reverse cowgirl position. Then, next night, of her plump, saucy mouth spit-shining him from tip to root till such an explosive ejaculation that she’d need to work thrice as hard – and choke twice as loudly – on the slippery clean-up.

Inevitably, he’d dreamt of flipping the little minx over – and taking out every vexation of a widower’s life on her budding, receptive body in a reckless mating press.

After the fourth… fifth… seventh… truthfully, twelfth or so session of incestuous night crawling, Sadaharu would face up to the sordid reality that he’d been seduced by his own, promiscuous daughter. But, once he’d confronted Akai with the same, the girl had brushed his misgivings aside.

“It’s just sex,” she’d told him at breakfast in scandalous dishabille. “And, come, it’s safer than being nobbled by a Tengu. No?”

Guilt hadn’t had a wedge to budge that logic out of the equation.

Akai had mellowed out as she’d slipped into her twenties and thirties: in particular after finding a thankfully human and sympathetic husband who’d kept up with her sex drive and remarkably after at last giving birth to dear Kosuzu. Though, she still shot her father the occasional, scorching look that said she remembered being fucked and made to squirt in the same marital bed where she’d been begotten.

A mirror of that wilfulness was now twinkling at Sadaharu from another generation over. It was just slightly less misplaced this time. Slightly.

“I’m not… sure,” murmured Sadaharu, who was sure, at least of the shameful beginnings of a rise down in his robes. That Akai… “Shouldn’t you be doing this with your boyfriend?”

Kosuzu blinked up at him as though he’d sprouted feathers in addition to a hard-on. “Um?”

“That boy who comes by, what, every week?” tried Sadaharu. “To read with you?”

Now he had wings, too. But, Kosuzu’s grandfather wasn’t about to let the point breeze away from him. A shy, blond-haired young man had been visiting his granddaughter; it’d been bad enough, bumping into them as they’d crept through the shop to lock themselves in the reading room. Sadaharu had half-expected indecent behaviour, but his mother wit hadn’t quite stopped him from peeking in through the keyhole after hearing a disconcerting noise one day.

Then and there, he’d been treated to the pageant of his teenaged granddaughter bobbing her head up and down in the boy’s buck-naked groin while frantically taking notes on the side. He had been gripping her bells, so that they wouldn’t betray the skilful, fast-paced blowjob going on. Sadaharu had scrambled off (on the pads of his feet) just as Akai’s daughter had smothered the boy’s whole erection with her foamy mouth and begun swallowing.

Kosuzu of now stared on at her avian grandfather for a moment, and then the internal librarian threw up a card.

“Oh. Oh, no,” she said, barely flurried, shaking her head; “that wouldn’t do. Kogi is… Mm. He would help. But that’s not it. The problem, the problem is it wouldn’t have been adultery. The Taka-onna calls for an adulteress; that’s why I was thinking, I was, if I were to pretend to have… unfaithful sex, with another man, right here, I could maybe crack the seal before the client comes to retrieve the original scroll tomorrow. Maybe the strict minimum would turn the trick. Maybe—” her voice, and eyes, lowered dutifully, “—just one insertion. To count as sex. Just in and out. Not the full thing. No climaxing or… mm, coming inside. Maybe the Taka-onna would be fooled…”

Sadaharu wondered, not for the first time, but for the first time with his bits standing unwisely to attention, whether Akai had perhaps bred truer in this girl than he’d apprehended. She did have her mother’s hair, and her mother’s hell-bent… well, bent, but he’d dared hope the hereditary spill-over wouldn’t have dribbled as far down as Kosuzu’s panties.

He pondered, moreover, that he really shouldn’t have had that bedtime cup of sake. Kosuzu’s unmentionables wouldn’t have snuck into the sentence if he hadn’t. For sure, he could’ve come up with something more grown-up to ask than:

“Why me, again?”

Kosuzu obliged another nod. “Grandpa is very sexually active. So…”

Sadaharu winced, but the head of the Motoori family hadn’t built its business up to where it was by denying people their pick of words. “Sexually…?” he asked.

“Whenever Miss Agatha brings in a manuscript,” Kosuzu said matter-of-factly, “she goes into grandpa’s workshop to negotiate the price, and she doesn’t come out for sometimes an hour, and the door’s bolted, and Miss Agatha doesn’t shy from announcing when she’s having an orgasm. Also, there is a knothole in the door through where you can see the table where it is easy to negotiate,” she added. “I’ve thought, grandpa ought to make her apply herself harder than that for the rebates she gets,” she sniffed, critically.

Alas for Sadaharu, it was true. Miss Agatha Chris Q – who he was positive he wasn’t supposed to acknowledge was the same person as the de-facto head of the esteemed Hieda clan – was a penwoman of riveting and voluminous output, scrambled for by both the town’s erudite and lay populaces. No one, not even, say, a landed noblewoman, could repeatedly afford the issue and density of woodcut required.

So, the intrepid Miss Agatha had bargained. With the upmost – or lowermost – thing an attractive, young lady could offer an old widower for cutting her a deal.

Namely, with her tight, barely matured and readily aroused pussy touring the length of his hard, seasoned cock.

Kosuzu could not (with luck) have known, but the table-top missionary dealings were but a half of it; Miss Agatha also visited the master engraver for revisions and other input, most often that of his commoner seed into her upper-class, though (she’d apologised) infertile, womb. The gods of literacy had rewarded him for his lasting years with a dick as used to starting and finishing inside a young woman as it’d been when Akai had been a libidinous teen. Miss Agatha’s comparative indolence was no handicap; engraving and humouring a horny authoress for hours at a time left Sadaharu’s arms and thighs as wiry as wires.

“And,” Kosuzu went on, merciless, “Mother has complained about having to pick you up from the Pavilion. She says at your age you ought to stay at home—”

“That’s Akai,” Sadaharu interjected, among other things because the last he’d gotten drunk at home, he’d come to in the wee small hours with a pounding headache and someone’s come-soaked underwear plastered around his used-up dick. The Lotus Pavilion’s staff, at least, kept you semi-sober and alert while they did their thing. Not least since it was said some of them were youkai…

Sadaharu snapped off a traditional engravers’ oath under his breath (which went something like “Curses and blast!”). His head was as aswirl with thoughts of sex as the reading room was with candle-cast shadows. Kosuzu’s bespectacled, burnt-orange eyes watched him in the half-dark, lustful after their own fashion. She really did wish for nothing more than to unravel that youkai scroll. The impulse was etched into her very talents.

And, if her fun could be had in an equally fun way…

Sadaharu, who had been having a struggle with himself and presently lost, shook his head. Kosuzu’s bottom lip drooped… before that entire area of her face erupted in a grin as her grandfather gave himself a purposeful double-slap on the cheeks and said, with an undertow of great reluctance (mostly false):

“All right, very well, you minx. I’ll help you cheat that Taka-onna.”

Kosuzu squealed, “Yay! Thank you, thank you, thank you!” and launched off the chair. A short, precipitous run-up, and she tackled Sadaharu, her arms wrapping around her grandfather in gratitude. This had the collateral effect of smushing the fruits of Kosuzu’s latest growth spurt into where his dick wasn’t so much energetic as it was standing, straining, in the slips.

Kosuzu, who had felt the splendid erection through their clothes, pushed away. The impact had mussed her chequered kimono top, splitting it down the middle and exposing the lusciously creamy line of a deep, mature cleavage. Sadaharu ogled the bared slopes of his granddaughter’s breasts while she wet her lips and set her small, deft hands to picking apart his belt.

Idle appreciation lost its savour altogether too soon. The old engraver reached down and slipped his own, calloused hands down the kimono’s parted halves. He glided his grateful palms around and under the warm, perspiration-slick mounds, wiggled his forearms – and pushed Kosuzu’s bra-less tits out into the open.

They were bigger than Miss Agatha’s. Not head-turningly so: modest melon-sized at an eyeball; even so, their excessively large, beige nipples and oversized areolae intimated that perhaps lady puberty wasn’t quite yet done with Kosuzu. She couldn’t give a snug, full-coverage titfuck like her mother could (and had) at her age, but give it a year or two… Sadaharu cupped one of the soft, youthful breasts from below and tweaked the nipple between his fingers, vividly picturing just such an eventuality. He’d seen his granddaughter suck cock like her mother, but titfucks could be an exhilarating, all-new field of study. She’d just need a sizeable and unflinching teacher.

Sadaharu, for example.

Something gave downstairs, and Kosuzu gasped as her grandfather’s robes were unfurled and his dick joined her bust in indecent exposure. It was long, age-crooked, rugged and veiny all over, but it was nevertheless a dick which regularly bullied orgasms out of a pussy not much older than Kosuzu’s. The age had only lent it the grit to stand firmer and last longer inside the lucky woman.

Kosuzu gasped once again when the veteran penis tensed up excitedly under her attention. It was no longer the gasp of a frightened girl; it was the breathless surprise of a learned woman who’d realised her maiden womb was in serious danger. She laid her fine, dainty palms on her grandfather’s sturdy abdominals and gazed mistily at the erect, looming cock.

“Mm. It’s sooo big…” she marvelled.

Sadaharu lifted the breast he’d been feeling up by the nipple – then let it drop. It settled with a supple little jiggle. “You’re a big girl yourself.”

Kosuzu spread her arms and gawked as if she’d only now noticed her bust was on display and being fiddled with. Then, the girl shook it off and shimmied closer, till her grandfather’s cock was trained straight up at the smooth ravine between her perky, sweat-sheened tits. A girthy ring was shaped of her prim yet thoroughly un-squeamish thumb and forefinger, which Kosuzu then girded round the enthused cockhead. Softly, without peeling back the foreskin, she skimmed the ringed fingers down the sloping shaft – stopping and gripping right where its wicked curve began. The cock swelled appreciatively in her hold.

Kosuzu whisked her hair behind an ear with the free hand. “This part will be troublesome…” she opined.

Spellbound below his waist by the vulgar gesture, Sadaharu managed to defend his pride, “Miss Agatha loves it… when it goes in. And out.”

“That’s what I meannnt,” moaned his granddaughter. “Here, we’re just going to have to see.”

A judder of disaffection rocked his cock as Kosuzu’s fingers slid up and off of it, though it re-hardened with twice the gameness when she caught Sadaharu by the wrist and urged him toward the reading desk. More agreeable things were in the offing. There was the scrape of chair-legs on the floor, and then a sound which could be politely described as a wheeze once the old engraver sat – or fell bodily – onto the chair. Hot in pursuit, his granddaughter sidled in between it and the desk.

Kosuzu bent down and gathered up her skirts then pulled them up – unveiling in the process a pair of legs which could’ve done with more exercise and hips which got probably more than enough. Her panties were simple white, even demure… and drawn aside. A conscientiously trimmed, orange bush adorned Kosuzu’s otherwise bare mons, although it wasn’t that what made Sadaharu’s upright cock joggle in furore. What did, was the single, tastefully elegant beauty mark smack dab on the left half of Kosuzu’s vulva. Instantly, he found himself in a daydream of pressing down on it with his own pubic mound while bottoming the girl out in her attic bed.

Shivering from the sordidity of it, Sadaharu tucked the useless panties down his granddaughter’s hips, thighs and knees. He grasped at and squeezed one of her firm, warm butt-cheeks for the girl to turn around. Kosuzu cottoned on in no time; she faced the desk and stuck out her butt, so that it hovered over her grandfather’s disrobed lap. Then, she thrust two small, able hands between her thighs and, with as bold of a deliberation as some of the Pavilion’s rule-deaf pros, spread her adolescent pussy wide. Her pink, inner labia glistened wetly in the candlelight around the outstretched entrance. Things twitched in the gloom.

Sadaharu took hold of his spear-haft-stiff meat at mid-shank and slapped his frenulum a few times on the presented opening. Kosuzu’s tight, little butt jolted at each moist plap – and the stimulation of the hard cockhead striking her clit. Though, through some merit of congenital drift, where her mother would’ve been begging to put it in by this tease, the catlike Kosuzu curbed her mating instincts as best she could.

This didn’t extend to her pussy; Sadaharu had but to lightly press the crown of his cock to his granddaughter’s entrance for her vaginal frills to envelop him down to the ridge of his glans. This alone was enough to cause a hot trickle of natural lubricant to spill from Kosuzu’s sultry insides and start dribbling down the underside of his shaft. Then, as her enlarged labia tightened on his cockhead, she anointed the upper side as well.

Sadaharu spoke to mock censure. “You are drenched, young lady. Have you been masturbating?”

“I wasss,” Kosuzu confessed without looking back, “that is, I was tryinnng to be an adulterous woman in my mind. But it didn’t worrrk.”

“You mustn’t overdo that, you know,” cautioned her grandfather. “Masturbating too much invites all sorts of nasty youkai.”

There was an indiscreet – and hastily suppressed – titter. “Mm. I only go overboard when a new volume of Agatha Chris Q’s Secret Diaries comes out,” promised Kosuzu. “Maybe, mm, maybe grandpa and I could read the next one together? In my room, at night. Then, grandpa could make certain I don’t schlick… right?”

The sassy proposal nearly didn’t check him in divulging he already did read each Secret Diaries before they went to print. With Miss Hieda Agatha planted in his lap, keeping herself aroused while she injected last-minute obscenities into the manuscript – and while her womb was injected repeatedly with Motoori seed. He could recite some passages from memory, not least because some of them were his memories.

But then again, to an engraver, reading most any book meant reading it far more than once.

“Gods willing, she’ll commit another one,” said Sadaharu, guardedly omitting to mention the smutty palimpsest sitting on his workshop’s to-do shelf. “For now, we had a Taka-onna to string along, didn’t we? Kosuzu?”

“Yesss,” Kosuzu agreed in an anxious treble. “The scroll. Mm. Yes, let’s, let’s, let’s—”

Socked feet shuffling apart, she levered herself up by the edge of the desk to better align her vaginal passage with her grandfather’s troubling penial curve. Sadaharu held his restless cock straight – -ish, anyway – foreskin pulled back, eager for an exhaustive experience of his granddaughter’s steamy insides. Kosuzu released a low, satisfied coo as her body detected the perfect angle.

And then, slowly, little by little, she sat on her venerable grandfather’s lap.

If the bookish, indoorsy girl had still had a virginity to keep safe, it was discarded without a second thought in her drive to scratch an itch crack the seal on the youkai scroll. Sadaharu tipped his head back and groaned as the tight, pubescent pussy descended his old, battle-hardened cock. This was more than he’d bargained for, even with Miss Agatha; hot, clingy vaginal walls slid past his exposed glans, their every rumple and pleat catching on, stimulating and leaving the unprotected ridge that much worse for wear. Kosuzu hitched, paused then let go of a deep, deeply feminine cry as the crook of her grandfather’s shaft sank between her teenage pussy lips – its rough underbelly grinding along pleasure spots a girl her age shouldn’t know she had or could climax from.

Sadaharu manfully endured the redoubled tightness, clutching the chair’s seat for support, as more and more of his large cock crammed slickly into his granddaughter’s unswerving vagina. All of a sudden, he felt a naïve youth himself: once again having his virginity poached by a cute but much too-high-on-pollen-to-care fairy while out scouting for mulberries.

That experience couldn’t hold a candle to what young Kosuzu was giving to his much older cock now; not even the fairy’s cramped, nectarlogged baby-maker had brought him to as quick an edge as his granddaughter’s at last acquainting his raw, pussy-abused cockhead with the entrance of her pristine baby-room. Her toasty, teenaged buttocks slumped onto his nude lap like two balls of overwatered dough. Her engorged labia strapped the base of his shaft like a rubber band.

Their first-ever insertion, as breath-taking as it’d been, was complete.

The two hissed and panted together into the reading room’s candlelit must – turned on beyond words and certainly beyond the implications of their genitals growing so intimate as to fit one wholly onto the other. Adultery was, without a smudge of a doubt, occurring. Kosuzu’s young, inexperienced pussy wrung and squirmed as her grandfather’s adult cock pressed on its climax buttons simply by staying and throbbing inside her. Sadaharu smelt her hair – so like her mother’s – and revelled in the wash of perverse familiarity.

This shortest inattention saw his overstressed dick betray him – and loose several jets of thick, pent-up pre-come straight into Kosuzu’s defenceless womb. He felt her constricting pussy lips try to stem the faux-ejaculation at the root, but his old cock won out handily over the callow, pubescent vagina. Another Motoori womb was stained Motoori white.

This was… probably fine. The Motoori women didn’t get pregnant at the drop of a hat; else, Kosuzu would’ve had a gaggle of elder siblings, some of them horned and longer-nosed than was decent.

To distract from the possible incest, Sadaharu reached an ingloriously feeble hand around to Kosuzu’s heaving chest. He grabbed at one of her immodest tits: slipshod, like a far inebriated customer at the Pavilion. The tits she hadn’t even tried to hide from her grandfather, the minx. The puffy nipple felt stiff enough to carve wood when he pinched it between his fingers. Hard. Harder. Harder.

A whimper was the reward. Kosuzu writhed on his lap, her pussy clamping on his cock from tip to root, squeezing its own juices all over Sadaharu’s balls. There was no need for verbal admonishment; the girl understood just fine she was being punished for putting her grandfather’s storied manhood to shame. The cheeky, upturned grin on her face was a signed confession.

In redress, Sadaharu put the young woman to the question. “This isn’t your first time, is it, Kosuzu?” he growled. “Who have you been fucking? That Kogi boy? He’s too young to be a father; you know that. Have you taught him about safety?”

“This is the firssst time,” Kosuzu said evasively, “that I’ve been, mm, touched, mhaa, on some of those spots. Grandpa, mm, is the first to reach aaall the way inside. I promise!”

“That spot you stopped at?”

“Grandpa touched it first,” Kosuzu assured. She twisted her hips in his lap as though to stir his length around her slavering pussy. An impossibility, given how filled-out she was. “Grandpa ought to touch it againnn…”

Sooner than he might digest the Akai-like plea, Kosuzu had braced her feet and began to rise from her obscene seat. The overtaxed entrance of her womanhood gave the bottom inch of his shaft back unspoilt, but for the thick coat of vaginal fluids glossing its veins. The crown of his cock fought her creases and folds for passage as it left the lovesome company of her no-longer-virgin cervix. Her labia dragged along every bit of him they surrendered on the return trip up his vulgar curve. Sadaharu’s jaw clenched from the combined sensations.

The knickers of responsibility un-bunched themselves from the crotch of wanton proceedings. The old engraver stamped down on his giddiness and seized his granddaughter by her childbirth-ready waist. He yanked her rump back down to his lap, his arched cock tumbling all over her weak spots, and her pussy – all over his.

Thighs crashed into buttocks. Kosuzu choked out a throaty, low-pitched moan, re-seated and bottomed out in one fell swoop. Her legs curled up on either side of the chair. If there’d been a mirror, and happily there wasn’t, Sadaharu could have seen her eyes were crossing.

Since he didn’t, he spoke as though he hadn’t just given the girl a small but viciously fast orgasm. “Come,” he said (with no wordplay aforethought). “No real sex, Kosuzu. Just in and out to count. Yes? Try and read your scroll.”

Neither Kosuzu’s dopey reply of, “Mhaaa… Yeeesh〜,” nor her eloquently clumsy unreeling of the scroll on the desk could penetrate Sadaharu’s reformed resolve. In a minute, he swore before himself, in a blessed minute, it would be done and dusted. Kosuzu would’ve broken the seal. And he, who’d made her not only into a woman but an adulterous one, would pull his hard cock out of his granddaughter’s sensationally wet, coiling pussy to seek out somebody more appropriate to polish off his edge. Akai was… out of the question, not just at this late of a night; but, Miss Hieda Agatha was purported to keep odd hours, and, if he but found some error in her latest manuscript, he might beg an editorial audience. Or, failing to, beg her nascent excellency for sex. Jerking off, even into Kosuzu’s still-warm panties, he felt, wouldn’t cut it for this boner. He needed a woman. One he hadn’t taken baths with up to and beyond when her breasts had started to grow…

It was with therefore not a trifling blow to aforesaid resolve that he heard Kosuzu mumble, “‘S not workinnng…”

“W—What isn’t?” grunted Sadaharu, grudgingly aware it couldn’t have been his dick, as that was still periodically baiting her cervix with fresh dollops of pre-come.

Kosuzu griped under her lovely nose. She slouched, back against her grandfather’s slab of a chest, bringing his length upright in her belly and her nude, friskily pointy tits into his full, over-the-shoulder view. Without much in the way of reflection, Sadaharu’s hands homed in on and closed around the twin orbs of big-nippled, feminine softness. Their fingers sank to half-breadth into the tender flesh. The puffed-up teats poked his palms.

Kosuzu leant into the caress, back arching, waist fidgeting for carnal sensations above and below. When eventually she articulated her failure, it was as though there was inauspiciously nothing for it. “Can’t read it!” she sighed. “The Taka-onna, the Taka-onna mmmust disbelieve that we’re lovers. This mustn’t be enough. It might be necessary to have real sex.”

“To… have real sex,” Sadaharu echoed, his insubordinate hands squeezing the girl’s gorgeous tits at the sheer sound of the words.

“Mhm. That might give her opinion a jog—”

“Actual, real sex,” he had to make certain. “With climaxing.”

“Yes!”

“And coming inside.”

“Yesss!” Kosuzu whined, contorting in his arms. “Grandpa, please, please, please!”

Sadaharu lost. He’d known he had lost the moment her voice climbed to the wheedling register of a girl who’d coaxed her grandfather into shared baths far past the age when it’d yet been respectable. It strummed his moral fibre with its terrible resonance. Which, then, snapped.

Sadaharu stooped to press his mouth to the lobe of Kosuzu’s ear. He spoke gruffly, not as a grandfather – but as he did often to Miss Agatha, often to her palpable enjoyment.

“Which position,” he asked, “would most impress our Taka-onna, Kosuzu?”

His granddaughter shuddered, gripping him up- and downstairs as his hands and cock continued unsubtly to molest her teenaged body. “Ssstanding,” she pled, “from behind. So Grandpa can move that part in and out—”

“You mean,” Sadaharu cut in, “so you can watch the scroll for when it turns readable, you little minx.”

Kosuzu’s giggle was sensually low and clipped. “Mm. That, too. But making the most of what’s on offer is essential for good sex〜.”

Gracious gods, thought Sadaharu. Akai would’ve envied that one.

“… Stand up, then,” he rumbled into her hot, sensitive ear. “And lose the clothes. Not half of them. There’s to be only your hair on you. Get off of me, strip, and then perhaps you’ll get yourself fucked proper, miss.”

A water-thin lie that was, and thereby easy to swallow. Kosuzu obeyed without a peep of ado: rising from her grandfather’s lap on wobbly legs, leaving behind a hairy swamp of vaginal secretions, out the middle of which jutted a cock which’d so acclimated to the fervent heat of her insides the reading room’s air felt frigid by contrast. The teen librarian picked and tugged at her blowsy clothes till they slithered to the floor in a chequered cascade of immorality. She bowed her exposed back and thrust out her rear, ready to receive her prize.

Sadaharu chased her up, prickly from simmering anticipation, but didn’t rise to the pussy bait. He ran his rough palms up his granddaughter’s naked flanks and relished the shallow, keyed-up breaths she issued in return.

“Here. Good girl,” he commended her. “You’ll get yours yet. Get a knee up here on this desk; I’ll touch even more interesting spots when I go in in so wise,” he advised – and waited, while Kosuzu did as told. Strings of pearly arousal dangled from her crotch as she hoisted one leg over the desktop. Sadaharu brought the blunt tip of his meat up to his granddaughter’s muff. It slipped inside her sopping cock receptacle at the lightest prod. He jacked his hips expertly – and slammed his raw manhood back under Kosuzu’s womb where it belonged. “It’ll be like this from here on,” he said hoarsely, sawing his fat, crooked dick back and forth between his granddaughter’s squeezing vaginal walls, “so do not you tell me later you hate me, you temptress!”

Kosuzu made an ecstatic, consenting sound in response.

Moments on, she wasn’t making even these; she collapsed instead into the rhythmic, loose-throated gasps of a habitual stealth masturbator as her young pussy relinquished then accepted anew the brunt and length of a cock fourfold her senior. The plap-plap-plap of her comfortable, bookish girl butt being drummed on by Sadaharu’s lunging hips would’ve drowned out any other noise anyway. Her voiceless moans blew forth in tempo with her pussy’s itchy spots riding her grandfather’s heinous curve.

For his part, Sadaharu clutched the fluttering scraps of control as Kosuzu’s sex demolished his vaunted endurance. It wasn’t the insane taboo of the situation alone; his granddaughter’s skinny, unostentatious body was at the very peak of its sexual awakening and hadn’t yet learnt how to pace itself or go easy on her partner. Each and every upward thrust into her sex-crazed depths quaked his knees; each and every full-length insertion was an ongoing battle not to break and flood the amazing pussy with unholy amounts of Motoori seed. Only by the slight increase in volume of her lewd breaths and the sudden wetness on his thighs did he realise he had fucked Kosuzu straight through a silent, squirting orgasm. Her vagina hadn’t even clenched around his swollen circumference; she was that tight by default.

It was the kind of sex they had in Hell, which, Sadaharu considered foggily, must be where he was damned headed. The gods there would welcome a sinner of his knack with open legs arms…

Nevertheless, he was but a man. Notwithstanding his seniority, not a minute into the hormonal teen-like, doggystyle fuck, the old engraver not-withstood the only competition currently of consequence. He foundered in the most humiliating fashion: at the onset of an insertion, just as Kosuzu’s pussy lips slipped over his peeled foreskin. An incriminating gush of thick, pressurised semen sullied his granddaughter’s vaginal walls before, with a bestial urge, he shoved his spewing cockhead up to the entrance of her womb. Kosuzu came from the harsh, abrupt penetration, squirting on his balls and, this time, crying her climactic delirium out loud.

Sadaharu gritted his teeth, old enamel squeaking, his cock pulsing and coming like it had never with any other woman. Spurt after spurt after spurt, it pumped Kosuzu’s baby-chamber with incestuous seed in what was conceivably his granddaughter’s first-ever, adult creampie. Her cramped, orgasming pussy stood for all that no chance at stopping the prodigious, Motoori load from ending up where it absolutely, empathically ought not to. Her womb became a fast hostage of all-consuming lust.

A cut made was, however, a cut committed. And so, the overwhelmed Sadaharu grabbed his slutty granddaughter by the pretty chin and wrenched her round to face him, somehow without breaking off the sloppy, ongoing impregnation. Hers was a blissful grimace worth a paragraph in the Diaries.

“Tell me,” croaked her grandfather. “Hhhave you… had your firrrst kiss yet, Kosuzu?”

Even then, Kosuzu’s eyes twinkled mischief. “I, mmh, kissed Kogi’s diiick!”

Sadaharu subjected the admission to a distracted review and found nothing in it to invalidate Kosuzu’s experience. Accordingly, he tucked her lip down with a thumb and mashed their mouths together.

She’d lied. Or perhaps she had not, only toyed with the truth, because soon after she was sucking on and fellating his tongue like a Pavilion pro, while his emptied yet unsated cock shot further blanks against her cervix. He’d just entertained suggesting a shared, late-night bath – for old times’ sake, see – and a soapy titfuck when something snatched both of their muzzy attentions.

The scroll was smoking.

No… Not smoking. Script was billowing up from the parchment: inky youkai runes whirling in the air. The stupefied two stared as they rose and rose and rose, churning and distending to a human – then inhuman – size. An exhalation from beyond shuddered the conjoined candles, tinting the edges of their flames a sulfur blue.

And then, as everything (if not everyone) calmed, there stood an eerily tall, lanky, female figure. Greasy, tar-black hair palled its face, hunched shoulders and grubby, earthen robes. There was no mistaking it for a street-corner prostitute, save on the darkest of nights.

“Taka-onna!” Kosuzu yelped...

... and fainted.

The youkai imbibed the air as though she hadn’t had the opportunity to do so in a hundred stagnant years. A greyed finger stabbed out in sinister accusation.

“Snogging another man, are we?!” she shrilled. “Naughty, naughty! Cower now, ye unfaithful dame, for the jealous night for vengeance comes—”

The contention died on her corpse-blue lips as she drew the hair from her ghostly face and beheld the reality of the situation. Glowing eyes went from crescents to full Moons in a fraction of the astrologically expected time.

“Th—Thi—This isn’t snogging!” the youkai squawked, panic knocking her voice up two entire octaves. “This is se—sex! You… You fuckers! You fucking fuckers! Curse! Curse upon you! May you fuck forever! Waaah!!!”

And then, bawling and banging her head on the rafters as she went, the Taka-onna fled the shop.

In the consequent silence, Sadaharu lurched into reluctant focus. Something was off down below. He uncoupled his hips from the unconscious Kosuzu’s posterior and let his softened cock to flop out of her clinging, semen-smeared vagina.

Yes. There was something off. Tendrils of purple mist wreathed his family jewels, which he could feel even now were working overtime to replenish his virility. He staggered, faint of heart – till his dick once again stood mighty and tall and topped up with fresh seed to plant in the nearest willing – or unwilling – womb. He would, he knew straightaway, fuck forever… or till he dropped dead on the filthy bedsheets. It was such kind of curse.

This was what came of nosing around in youkai scrolls.

---

Afterwards of a hectic night – and a series of flimsy explanations – the Hakurei shrine maiden was summoned to the old engraver’s chambers, whereupon, so to say, his afflicted parts were acquainted with yet another young woman’s brazen touch. Thereafter – after an hour of nonstop, no-nonsense tantric sex, that is – the much more affable shrine maiden judged the curse weak due to the youkai’s imprisonment and best let to run its natural course. This meant eating and drinking weller than regular for a number of days and rubbing one out every few hours when the erections grew uncomfortable. A teenaged boy’s lifestyle.

Sadaharu intended to indulge just so. He couldn’t have, even if she should’ve, foreseen that Kosuzu and Miss Agatha and even a meddlesome Akai would sneak around one another to assist him in both respects, all in the dubious name of returning him to work sooner.

But that is a story for another woodcut.

For the best reading experience, please use an extension like Replacer and set it to replace [yourname] with, your name.

---

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

The old clock served as your only companion in this lonely room. You knew, come what may today, you would never see it again. You would never see the village again, nor the many people you passed on the streets. Those same people, who smiled and greeted you and told you how much you've grown, were the same ones more than content to see you sacrificed today. Well... maybe not see. Out of sight out of mind, after all.

Despite this, you couldn't begrudge them too harshly. It was how these things worked. Odds are, if it were some other poor bloke who was chosen, you'd be going about your day right now. You wouldn't be demanding justice or righteousness. You would just want to live a comfortable life, like all the other villagers.

Was this a bad thing? Hypocritical? ... There was no need for you to dwell on this. It didn't matter in the end. You were deemed someone who could be done without in the village. You recall the elder with the most feeble appearance trying to offer comfort by saying if it weren't you, it might be another with loved ones who would end up missed.

Shockingly enough, that did little to cheer you up.

You glanced yet again at the clock. What a painfully long eternity this was turning out to be. Youkai never respected human logic, and they certainly didn't respect human customs. And they absolutely positively didn't respect a human's short lifespan. For a youkai, what was a second? What was an hour? The idea of respecting a date that was set by a human would be laughable to them. A youkai would arrive whenever it desired. In fact, you bet being late was intentional. After all, it would be more time for you to stew in fear of your demise.

You took a deep breath. Try not to give them that. Remember the advice you were given ages ago, should you ever meet a youkai. Remain calm, remain composed, and should you face death, face it with dignity. If you feared, it would encourage them to make your demise all the more tragic.

As if reading your mind, the door slid open. You sat up straight, hands on your knees as you lowered your head in a bow.

"Great daitengu." You began the introduction the elders had you memorize, saying each word with mechanical reverence. "I hope you will find me a suitable sacrifice. May you and the tengu see fit to leave our village in peace."

"Rise." You listened to the authoritative female statement and stood up. Your eyes remained locked on the floorboards, however. You wouldn't dare look this monster in the eyes.

Silence filled the room, and you could feel the harsh gaze of eyes piercing your soul. It would be over soon, you told yourself. All over soon.

A small pop came from in front of you like a jar opening, and you could hear something light gently fall on the floor.

"Well, what do you think of this one?" The mature voice said.

"Hmm..." This voice sounded higher pitch, and a bit more... grating, maybe? It was hard to describe. "Is this really your taste? I thought you would've wanted something bigger, more muscular."

"The strongest human always pales in comparison to us."

"Including that shrine maiden? Fufu~, the shrine maiden..."

"She has a different kind of strength. Human muscles are bound by biology, and will always be outmatched by our kind. When they only serve an ornamental purpose, I'd prefer something more elegant."

The voices circled you, and you kept your eyes closed. Avoid questions, no matter your curiosity. Speak when spoken to, and stay brief yet polite. Just a bit longer.

"He looks pretty young too, and frail."

"There's a beauty to that, isn't there? A young boy undefiled."

"... Fufu, I think I get it. You're quite the deviant, aren't you Miss Megumu?"

"I know my tastes, I know what will please me." The mature voice confessed. "And what of you? Any opinions of your own?"

"... He should do, he should do~" Hearing yourself talked about like a piece of meat was miserable, but there was nothing you could do about it. You hoped they would just lunge at you and begin what they came to do when you heard a light smack.

"He's mine. I get first right to touch him. Do not touch him without my permission."

"Of course, of course, Miss Megumu~"

A firm hand gripped the side of your head and jerked it up, lifting your whole body up slightly, to the tips of your toes.

"Open."

You obeyed as light flooded your vision, and soon you could make out your tormenter. Her appearance was that of a tall mature woman on your with her dark-blue hair. Her face had an imperial elegance to it. If the saying was true, that some people were born to rule, then it applied here to this woman. Were it not for her great stature, pointed ears, and tengu attire, you might've misidentified her as human.

Another tell was her eyes. You accidentally looked into those crimson pools for a second and regretted it. There was no warmth in them as you had seen in your family and friends throughout the village. These were the eyes of a predator, awakening a primal fear in you. You had managed to remain composed for so long, but now... Now your fight or flight response was trying to kick in, and you had to do all you could to suppress it.

"Hmmm." A smile grew on her face ever so slightly. Was it the fear she sensed in you, or something else? She tilted your head to several different angles, either not noticing or not caring how rough she was. "I like his eyes. Shiny enough, no dulling."

"So is this one suitable?"

"Yes, I've decided." She released your head and you fell to the floor. "He'll do perfectly."

You rubbed the side of your head, shaken at the casual display of strength. Outside of that umbrella, this was the first time you ever got to be up close to a youkai. And, though you wanted to stand strong, you had to make a confession-

You were terrified.

You looked up to see the tengu sitting herself cross-legged on a pillow that the elders had prepared for her well beforehand. Even when she was sitting, you could tell she had a tall figure. "Well now," she began. "We haven't got all day. Sit properly." You assumed seiza position again, noticing what you assumed to be the second voice you heard earlier in the back, focusing on... something you couldn't make out.

Her appearance contrasted greatly with the daitengu. Her height was shorter and her frame petite, though still womanly. Short blonde hair was topped with fox ears, and a grin could be spotted whenever she turned her face ever so slightly.

The tengu gave a light smile of her own as you sat in silence. heart beating. A minute of silence passed.

"Excuse me, but..." Despite everything you were told and all your instincts, curiosity got the better of you. "What more do you want? Why not do what you came here for?" You knew escape wasn't a possibility for you, but... Could she not offer you a quick death at least?

The tengu gave a small playful expression of shock. "Goodness, aren't you eager? Have patience." Her eyes narrowed, and her grin became sinister. "I'm in no rush. And I think before we begin our ritual, we should have some tea first. Introductions as well. Wouldn't it be best for us to acquaint ourselves before our business?"

"Acquainted..." You echoed. Youkai were as cruel as they described. It wasn't enough that you were someone to be killed. You needed to have a name, a face, and a backstory... The youkai needed to know everything so she could truly know what she was taking, and the impact her actions would have. You lowered your head and made what you assumed to be your final act of defiance.

"I've no backstory of note. No friends, family, I've no introductions to make, so please finish your business with me!" Your voice shook, but you did your best, your last bit of manliness making its final stand before your demise. You couldn't see their faces, but with silence you could only hope that would shock them, and convince them to be done with this twisted foreplay.

The fox's laughter eventually wormed through the silence. "Fufufu~" The fox murmured from the side. Hearing the pouring of liquid, you could tell she was preoccupied with the preparation of tea. "He's still got spirit left in him. You haven't broken him in yet Miss Megumu? Fun, fun~"

The tengu gave a small "tch" sound. "You are in no position to turn down my hospitality, nor question by authority. I've decided we'll have tea beforehand, and so we will. I've decided we will talk beforehand, and so we will. Understand this human-in here, in this world, and for all time, my word is law. I am the daitengu who has been deemed to take the sacrifice this year. I will fulfill this duty the way I see fit, just as you will fulfill your duty the way I see fit." And so ended the debate.

You sat in silence for another minute or more, your bravery spent, before the fox had finished. Several teas she brought out, one placed in front of her master, one in front of you, and one for herself. She assumed a proper seiza position next to her master. "Now then~" The daitengu began, her smile returned as she tried to create a casual atmosphere. "Let us enjoy this tea and this prelude." She raised her cup and took the first sip. Her servant followed afterward. You hesitated. You were going to give a small word turning down the offer, before being cut off by a commanding "Drink." It was not up for debate.

"Pssst." The fox whispered as silently as she could, while her master took another sip. You turned to her to see a... strangely warm look on her face. There didn't appear to be any maliciousness, or signature youkai danger to it. It was like the look of a sister. She mouthed the words 'It's OK, drink it.' Though logically this should mean nothing, you couldn't help but...

You remembered an old tale, one so old that the specifics couldn't be remembered. When a human was kidnapped to be tortured by a wicked oni, the oni's brother slipped poison into the human's drink. The poison killed the human, but gently, denying the oni the ability to torture his prize. Was that what this was? You looked down at the drink. A simple hot green tea in its appearance, but no doubt hiding something more sinister within it. A tasteless anesthetic, a gentle death, not feeling teeth plunge into your flesh and tear it apart...

You slowly brought the cup to your lips and took in the emerald death.

"Now then, have the elders told you much of me?" The tengu began.

"I know you are a daitengu, a mighty and powerful one to be respected." You confessed. "To be feared. And the elders do."

"As they should. It is natural that youkai are feared, and humans serve them when called upon to do so." She took another sip of her tea. "We are extensions of the natural world and her fury, mighty, and power. When humans sought to fight the natural world, they sought to fight us. Do you understand?" You nodded your head, despite not fully getting her point. "Good." The daitengu was satisfied. "My name is Iizunamaru Megumu, a daitengu as you are well aware. From this point onward you are to refer to me as Miss Megumu. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Miss Megumu." You blinked your eyes, feeling a slight sense of dizziness.

She nodded her head. "Next to me is my servant Kudamaki Tsukasa."

Tsukasa nodded her head. "A pleasure to serve, a pleasure to assist."

"Now that we've introduced ourselves, it is your turn. Who are you?"

"I am the sacrifice to you, nothing more."

The daitengu gave a forced chuckle. "I appreciate the decorum, but answer the question."

"My name is..." Your head felt light, you had to give it a light shake. "My name is [yourname]."

"[yourname]? Strange, is it foreign?" Megumu asked. "Well, it's no matter. Tell me of your upbringing, your education." You thought to question her, to ask what use it was to you but opted to obey her. You told her of your youth, when you were more of a whelp than you are now, of how you could...

How you could...

Your train of thought escaped you multiple times throughout your introduction, yet you couldn't place why.

"Don't worry, you're doing well!" Megumu gave her reassurances, and you smiled. "Just focus on me, is there anything else you'd like to tell me about, [yourname]?" You appreciated how, despite being a youkai, Miss Megumu was quite amicable. How thoughtful, how kind of her. You thought of a few remaining things, but you ultimately relinquished the floor back to Megumu.

As Megumu talked about herself, her position in tengu society, how she had others serve her, and she herself served under the greatest of tengus, you found it far more captivating to listen to than you would've initially assumed. Maybe it was her natural charisma? Or perhaps you were too quick to judge.

"... anyways, that was how I ended up creating a whole new department of tengu affairs, using only a carrot and a stick!" She gave a hearty laugh, and you joined, finding her story just so hilariously funny. The way she told it was just... a knee-slapper, right?

Your mind struggled to grasp it for some reason. It was funny, but why? Your confusion must have shown, as even Megumu took notice.

"Hmm? Something wrong [yourname]?"

"I think... No, it's nothing. I guess my mind is just a bit nervous still. I was expecting this whole time you were going to eat me, but... You're far more wonderful than I expected!" You were so cheerful with this revelation, it really was a 180 from your initial mood. No doubt the elders would've assumed you had gone mad and cracked.

The daitengu and fox looked at each other, their faces donning slight grins. "Fufufu, they never tell these boys of their fates, do they?"

"Is it out of shame, you think? Knowing what fate awaits these young men." Now you were confused. "Boyo, we're not interested in your flesh. At least, not in the way you think. You see, here in this land..." Megumu slowly stood up, towering over you. "There just aren't many youkai men."

"They're practically extinct."

"Yes, they're quite rare. And frankly, even if there were many in Gensokyo... I think I just prefer being with a human more." Megumu motioned with her hand for Tsukasa to stand up, as she began to undress her master. "Something about a creature so weak, so below us..." Tsukasa removed her master's shirt and dress, revealing her tall and slender figure. "The idea of stealing a young human's seed sounds blissful..." Tsukasa removed her master's bra, allowing the large breasts to be freed of their restraints, sagging a bit from weight and age. "Ah, but I'm not really stealing, am I? After all," Tsukasa pulled her master's panties down, allowing her dripping womanhood to be visible and directly in front of your face.

"You're mine now."

Your face paled as a surge of adrenaline pumped through your body, snapping you back to reality. You weren't going to be eaten. You weren't going to be killed. You were going to be defiled. This was bad. This was really bad. Why had you allowed yourself to get lulled into comfort? You had... you had to get out of here! Any thoughts of honor and duty to your village were abandoned. Any thoughts of Miss Megumu's charms were abandoned. You needed to get out of here, to get out now. You turned around and tried to leap up, to bolt for the door. Your leg slipped, and instead you crashed to the floor. You tried to pull yourself up but your arm slipped on the floor. It felt like the room was spinning, your body parts weren't moving how you needed them to. What was...

The drink. The drink! It was poisoned, you were correct about that. But it wasn't to give you the mercy of death. It was to make you more vulnerable.

You felt a large weight fall on top of your back, making you gasp. The sensation sent shivers through your body. "Now now~" Megumu's mature voice said in your ear. "I didn't give you permission for that, did I?" She rubbed her naked body against yours. You struggled against her, but it only served to help her slide what clothes you had off your body. Naked and dazed, you felt yourself get rolled onto the floor, as Megumu sat beside you, admiring your naked body.

Despite the situation, your penis betrayed your thoughts as it stood erect. The stimulation, the sexually charged imagery around you, the heightened emotions, that were causing this reaction from you, surely. "Fufu~" Tsukasa caught sight of the erect shaft, and made her way closer to it, leaning a hand out-a hand which was swiftly kicked away. The fox yelped as Megumu stood, glaring.

"He is mine. I will be the first to use him. You do not touch him without my permission. Understand?"

For the first time, you could see a flash of malice in the fox's eyes, before they were quickly hidden under a forced smile. "Of course, Miss Megumu, of course~" Whether Megumu noticed her servant's ire was unknown to you, but she made no further comment, as she turned her attention back towards you.

"Now then..." Megumu stood directly on top of you, her feet on each side of your torso. You made a feeble attempt to struggle. Your sad attempt to wiggle away did not go unnoticed, as Megumu went to her knees, firmly on top of your body. You were pinned. You don't know if, at full undrugged strength, you could have shaken her off. But now? She felt far too heavy.

"It's over, no more struggling."

You obeyed, calmed by her words. Wait, calmed? That couldn't be right. This youkai was going to defile you, steal your virginity. You were going to be forced to mate with a monster and create more dangerous spawns with her. By any rational measure, you should be freaking out. So why had you been calmed?

Megumu saw your confusion and that grin returned once more. "Heh, maybe it's finally dawning on you?" She slid back, placing her slit right above your penis, pressing it flat against your body. Not letting it enter, but grinding against it, up and down its shaft.

You gritted your teeth, mind flooding with pleasure.

"That tea you drank, it's a special concoction I asked for. Just for you. You probably presumed that it was an aphrodisiac or something to disorient you. And both are true. However~" Her grin grew wider, as dread filled you, yet your body and mind refused to struggle, obeying her orders. "There's another surprise in there for it. It should help you get used to your new life serving me."

Megumu grinded forcefully on your shaft, pressing her full weight upon it. You could see Tsukasa sitting to the side, watching the two of you. Though you knew she had to keep up the facade of a loyal servant, it was plain to see that the fox was frustrated at being left to the side.

Your drifting eyes towards Tsukasa brought a slight glare your way from Megumu. "Look at me." You did. "Good. Now then, tell me..." She paused her grinding and leaned forward, her face close to yours. Was she...

Your mouths met, and instantly her tongue entered your mouth, intent on violating every part of it. You were shocked at how forceful of a kiss it was and sat back. You allowed her to do as she pleased, gripping your head and exploring every section of your mouth. Finally, she broke the kiss.

"... Who was your school teacher growing up?"

Huh? A quiz? What a strange thing to follow a kiss with. Especially one so easy, you just told her earlier, it was Ms... Ms... Well, she was a... Hm...

Megumu bore a satisfied look at your bewilderment. "And tell me," her hand played with your nipple ever so slightly as her grin grew wide. "Who were your parents?"

Well, obviously they were...

...

"What... What are you doing?"

Megumu lifted herself up, positioning herself right above your member. Her head tilted back slightly as she grinned down at you. It was a dreadful sight. "The tea, you see... Humans can get so attached to things they cannot have anymore, and nostalgia is a dreadful thing to deal with. It can keep someone like you from appreciating the future. I can't have a miserable lover who will simply whine about what is behind him, can I? Rest assured though, I'm not cruel. This won't break your mind. As proof... Tell me what I had for breakfast 2 weeks ago."

"Miso Soup with some toast and butter." Of course you'd know that, she talked about that ea-oh.

"Good, that's working as it should." Megumu looked down. "I think the last thing is the name. [yourname]? I'm not sure if I like that. I want to give you a name, so we'll make you forget that, alright?"

"N-No! Please!" You had already tried acting with dignity, you had already tried fighting. All you had left was to beg. "That's-that's me! I can't forget that! Please!"

"I decide what's you now, I own you. I'm the youkai, and you're the human. The dreamer, subject to the dream eternal. If it's any consolation, I don't think your name is too bad, [yourname]. Hell, I might give it back to you. But you'll never know it was your old name, you'll just think it was a name your wonderful master has bestowed upon you." Her hand reached down to your cock, positioning it up. "I'm a generous youkai, after all."

Down she fell. You gasped at the sudden surge of pleasure. Your body desperately fought against you as you begged it not to succumb to the joys it felt.

"Haha, what's wrong [yourname]? Enjoy this, it's the final moments of your old life! Savor it!"

Her taunts rang out loud enough that you had no doubt even the elders could hear. They sure wouldn't be willing to save you though. Up she went, down she went. You... You had to fight! If you gave up now, it would all be over! Maybe if you could just hang on, the poison would wear off soon, and you could be you!

Up she went.

You could do this, just believe!

Down she went.

Fight it, this wouldn't be your end!

Up she went.

"I'm [yourname!]" You shouted. "I'm [yourname]!"

Down she went.

Your body betrayed itself to the pleasure, and it shook. You inhaled, confused at first until a wave of euphoria blasted your mind. The tengu's insides were blasted white with your seed, as she underwent pleasure of her own. You couldn't remember those next few seconds, it felt as if they were erased from existence, the pleasure having been so great.

Megumu was lying on top of you now, her tall and heavy body cuddling yours. "So what was your name again?"

"My name?" You thought. You knew you had one, right? A name, what was your name...

Didn't everyone have a name? Yet none came to you. Nothing seemed right. No, no you couldn't think of one.

For a reason you couldn't exactly explain, the daitengu smiled. You smiled back. If Miss Megumu was happy, you were happy. You weren't sure why, but it just seemed to be what was right with the world. Did that make sense? It was hard to tell right now, your mind felt a bit foggy.

"Can I have a turn now, Miss Megumu?" Tsukasa asked, trying to be polite but her tone failed to hide her frustration.

Megumu stroked her hand up and down your body. "... I might let you clean him up later. But I'm keeping exclusive breeding rights to him. And I'd like a bit more one-on-one time with him now."

"Now?" Tsukasa asked. "Miss Megumu, we're still in the human village, yes? I don't mean to be crude, but surely you know the humans can hear the two of you? Would we not be better served at least returning back to the tengu realm with our sacrifice in hand?"

Tsukasa's attempts to get Megumu to slow her lust went disregarded. "The humans can hear us, you say?" She licked her lips, looking you up and down, already planning out round two in her mind. "... Good, let it inspire fear in them...

"Let's inspire fear all night long, and for all time~"

When I was still taking Keine-sensei’s classes, I remember reading about traditions and roles that changed between here and the Outside World. To put it simply, in the past men would keep hold of the reins of the world but over time, in Gensokyo, the metaphorical reins were handed to women. I’ve read that in the Outside World, there have been several similar massive and notable cultural shifts, and that each time it’s been met with a lot of resistance, whether it seems warranted or unwarranted.

It feels like that’s never how it works here.
Things will change. Walls between people will rise and fall. Power will be gained or lost.

Youkai will walk aside humans. New worlds will clash up against ours. Men will start to take up the loom instead of only women.

...

That’s right: I make and sell fabric.

However, because of how culture has changed...I still feel distant from girls.

Like I can’t reach out to them. Females I know closely are all either grannies or girls who were taught the trade with me when I was a kid. I’ve seen them every day for almost 30 years. They’re like my sisters.

Girls who work on restaurants? Not happening, they’re always busy.

Farming girls? Same thing.

Girls who work in bars have to pretend that they like you...

I can’t form any connections. I’m trapped in a pile of obi, sandals, boots, and kimono. Customers...only show up to buy things. Sometimes I think, “Does anyone in this village outside of the textile trade even know my name?”

I’m complaining. Or, maybe, I’m psyching myself down.

There’s one realm for girls where men are especially not fond to tread in Gensokyo: the realm of prismatic lights, rays of magic, tossed about items, grace and explosions.

The realm of spell cards, and danmaku.

Most who partake in spell card duels aren’t human. Youkai, fairies, ghosts, gods...

But that isn’t everyone.

What does Akyuu call them...“Heroic legends”.

Miss Kochiya Sanae on the top of the Mountain. Reimu on a smaller hill out east.

...The Kirisame’s girl.

Alright: allow me to build up my logic here. Everyone in the Village already knows the Kirisame family, and everyone my age knew the Kirisame’s girl back when we were kids. It wasn’t for long, but of course we knew her. She left the Village, but she never left Gensokyo. She’s Gensokyo’s #2 exterminator. Certainly amazing, but...of course...there’s something more important...

...Isn’t she really cute?

Marisa may have moved out of the Village, but she visits an awful lot. Actually, she’s been visiting more and more. Everyone knows she had some falling out with her dad, but that was a very long time ago. Has she maybe been getting over it?

...Well I hope so. Listen. So...I...
...One day, I heard someone singing badly.

Outside the store someone was singing a kid’s song, but it wasn’t a kid’s voice. I turned away from the loom and opened our window to check. Who else was it but the miniature Kirisame girl? Eyes closed, wandering forward, golden-haired, bouncing hair, and dressed in black and white.

“Spri~ng has come arou~nd!” she sang.

“Whe~re has it come arou~nd?” I sang back, she opened her golden eyes, and she froze and blushed up to her ears. I grinned at her. She’d been swinging a branch through the dirt—not her broom, surprisingly. This part of the Village is usually pretty empty, she probably wasn’t expecting an audience for her singing. After a second, she started stammering and—

“Ma—Masato!?” ...My name. And after that...

“...You...actually remember my name!?”

“Why wouldn’t I? You’re the Asahi boy... You’re in the fabric trade, right? My family’s worked with yours.”

...I’ll admit it:
I jumped at this with everything. She was blushing, but me: my heart started racing madly.

“You still like to sing,” I told her. “It’s good!”

“Shut up! I know I suck.”

“No, it’s great. Here, I’ll pay you for the show.”

I reached back into the shop for something.

“Guh... Seriously? You want me to remember this?”

Grabbing it up, I tossed it out at her for her to catch.

I told her, “Here. It’s Lily.”

She got it, and let it hang by a ribbon tied around its back: a little blond and pale-dress, iconic fairy—a Lily White doll, fit for a palm.

“Lily White...?” she muttered, scrutinizing it. “I wonder if you could summon spring with this.”

“If anything comes of that idea, let me know. Lily is popular every spring. If you make these easier to promote, we’ll jump on it. Later.”

I said that, and I sort of cursed myself, but I didn’t want to push my luck. I waved her goodbye, and got back to work.

Out the window, I heard, “Yeah! Ill let you know, Masato!” It sounded like wind was rushing around outside. She’d called for her broom, and for a second I caught sight of her flying off into the sky.

That day...it was nice. I felt a lot more gung ho while working afterward, but it was really just since I’d seen her. I’d already given up coming across her or talking to her again. I’m a villager, she’s a hero.

She showed up again after three days.

“Masato! Masato!”

While at the loom, I turned and saw a witch floating outside the opened window.

“Look!”

Marisa thrust her hand through our window. In her palm was the Lily doll I’d given her and, suddenly, a small explosion of warm pink light and almost a dozen sakura blossoms.

“Wh-What!?” Of course I was shocked. It was just an ordinary doll...how could it hold any magic?

Marisa was grinning. “I know a doll-using Magician!” she boomed. “I asked her about effigy magic!”

“Effigy?”

“Using what looks like something else to evoke power...! Amazing, right!?” Her eyes were sparkling.

“Right...”

“Well it’s not really only effigy stuff though. It’s a different school of magic,” with that said, she stuffed the glowing doll into a pocket. “So, Masato, I’ve got a request.”

“...Nothing’s free,” I told her. Can’t miss a beat with the Kirisame girl.

Hanging at the window, she came back with, “Of course! I’ll sing for you again!”

“I mean money.” Of course. She glanced away and her face frowned up.

“Tch.”

“Mo-ney,” I repeated.

“Okay,” she said, pointing at me and, with a determined face, readying a deal, “no money.”

“Money,” I repeated.

“No money at first! Listen, Masato! Didn’t you talk about promotion!?”

And I thought, Ahh, that’s what she means.

“You’ll spread rumors about our shop’s Lily White dolls in exchange for something... That’s what you mean?” I asked. She reached through the window again to pat me heartily on my back. “That’s a very good deal. Could you charm a few of them? Not all of them.”

“Yeah... Yeah! You get it! Sure thing!” She grinned again, and I think I blushed. Though, I hope I didn’t.

I asked her, “Alright, what did you want?”

And, “Make me a scarf!” she asked, excitedly.

“A scarf? In spring, and with summer coming?”

“Masato, you don’t know about summer scarves? How behind are you?”

I actually didn’t know.

But, she wanted a thin scarf with stars dancing over it. I told her after I finished orders and preparations, I’d have it finished the next day. And, the next day, I got to see her modeling my work—a veil-like, deeply violent cloth decorated in swirling and shooting, pearly stars—in the shop.

She could cast magic from it.
The ceiling turned into a planetarium as she spun around between our shelves.
I think anyone would find it beautiful...
I felt a little bad that her dad doesn’t.

With Marisa in my store, casting spells, I got her to talk about a lot of things: about what she does—I got asked about what I do. It became a little side thing but our shop started making more little dolls of more notable faces in Gensokyo. Reimu eventually came down and rattled her gohei around, worried we were starting an Incident. Marisa calmed her down. She kept coming over.

I have to ask whether this is special.

I made her a new apron at one point...

She hadn’t asked for it. I just made it: something girlish, and frilly. I made her an apron with a lot of red hearts. She always calls herself a star magician, but also a magician of “love” so I...
...gave that over to her...

“How’s it look?”

She asked me that after trying it on. Smiling toothily, she had her hands pushed down against it, leaning forward. I told her my honest thought: that I thought she looked really cute, that I was glad she liked it. She winked, and flicked a finger out underhanded toward me. Off of it, a heart shot toward me at the end of a rainbow.

“Bang! Just like that,” she said, chuckling while it landed on my cheek. “Love Spark—! I’m making you fall for me.”

She laughed about it. I laughed about it. I had to lie to my parents later on why I kept screaming into a pillow.
OF COURSE.
I’M IN LOVE.
WITH MARISA.

I’ve always liked how vibrant she is! I’ve always liked how ambitious she is!
She’s terrible—a thief, but she keeps saving the world!
She’s so damned cute. Her nose bunches up when she smiles, and she always smiles with her everything. Her hair is gorgeous, like water, or like the sun...! She has such a weird style! It’s from the Outside World, I think? How’d she learn about it!? Should I ask her?? Why does she keep coming here... She’s so cute, gods almighty...! She keeps punching my arm when I tease her while I’m at the loom... She helped with promoting our dolls. I made her a kimono once. SHE UNDRESSED IN OUR STORE. SHE WAS UNDRESSING JUST BEHIND A SHELF. I COULD HEAR HER CLOTHES FALLING DOWN. She’s so thin and pretty. I keep seeing flashes of her bloomers whenever she flies away. When she wore the kimono I made...wasn’t she blushing!? SHE’S SO CUTE! Why does she even talk to me!? She’s started coming over “just to play”, and she talks to me in this quiet old market while I’m sewing or threading or putting linens away...!

SHE CAN’T POSSIBLY...NOT HAVE NOTICED...HOW EMBARRASSING I AM.

...Hello.
I am Asahi Masato, and I’ve gone stupid for a small witch.

And now it’s today. There isn’t anything special about today. Any day, I keep thinking about Marisa. I don’t even know what to say to her.
...Anyway, it’s raining.

While I was out by Misty Lake to help repair a scarecrow, it suddenly started pouring. It’s been a year since all these memories. Now, it’s midsummer.

I find myself running back home. There are spirits about when it rains—there are spirits around whenever. So, I really need to get home.

Just when I’m thinking that, bright bullets fall down at my right and I leap away, yelping. A youkai...!

Someone flies down to my side. I see a cloth, catching what little light can be had from the sky, wrapped around a small pair of shoulders. Of course I recognize it. It’s my work. The someone who came to my side tips up her steepled hat.

“Yo,” says Marisa, “it’s pouring. Want me to give you a lift?”

“All...the way back to the village? No, I don’t want to impose.”

“You’ll impose on me by worrying me. Come on.”

She holds her hand out to me.

“Don’t worry,” she tells me with a smile, “there’s room for two.”

...Eventually, I take her hand.

“Hold on tight, okay.”

I...do. I lean forward after getting on her broom and—well, it’s hard to see past her hat and through the storm. I reach down to where the front of her broom is and find her hands. I press into her. Through my shirt I can feel the bands that keep her vest tight, her hair sliding against my neck, and the stiffness of her shoulders. I try not to think about it. Without hesitating, I hold over her hands tightly as she asked, covering them completely. She waits in midair for a few seconds... Then, without a word, she hurries off.

***

It got much, much worse after we got over the Village walls. The weather is getting outright terrifying—like a god might be the culprit. Marisa landed and, still holding me by one hand, hurried me down a street. Though it was hard to see, I could tell just a bit through the dark and the rain where we were. She takes me to our shop, easily.

We both hurriedly pull down the engawa—most of the shops in the Village were built the same so she must still remember how to do it. Since they’re not down already, I guess mom and dad took shelter somewhere else.

We slide open the shop door after and stomp our way in.

“Pheeeww...” Marisa breathes.

“Thanks,” I tell her.

We’re both soaked completely. Even her wide-brimmed hat couldn’t help her. Her arms and shoulders are visible through her shirt fabric, but with her heavy extra layers I don’t have to worry about seeing something I shouldn’t.

But...this isn’t good. Looking at Marisa’s face: she gets why, too. We...don’t have a bath in the shop. None of the shops in the Village do. Of course...those are for homes.

My home is a bit far away... This isn’t a residential area. I sit down on the floor and shake my head, water flying from my hair. Marisa sits down next to me.

“...Forgot the shops don’t have baths,” she says.

“Our shop sells towels, at least... You can dry off first if you want,” I say. And, she looks back at me.

Blushing... Hm?

“Y-Ya really want me to undress in here again real bad, don’t ya! D-Don’t look at my clothes right now, ha...haha!”

“No, don’t worry, I can’t see through them.”

She punches me in the arm.

“What!?” she shouts while I rub at the blow. “You don’t wanna look!?”

“Wh-Why wou... I wa... wou...”

“You didn’t peep on me when I changed before either...What, nothing works here?” She puts her hands on her hips and puffs out her flat chest. “N-Nothin’... Nothin’ tempting? Y-Yeah I guess not.”

“What are you saying... Stop being stupid,” I nudge at her and frown.

“...” And she slouches. Marisa pushes her hands into her skirt for a bit before tugging out her collar. She takes off her hat too.

And I don’t know why, but very suddenly everything clicks.

“I...” I open my mouth and the whole of the inside of it, from the roof to my tongue, feels like it’s tingling and about to burst into flames. I’m thinking while saying it: that this is crazy to say, but I have to say it. “I could see through...if you took off that vest.”

She looks at me. Her ears have gone pink and her expression is almost stern. With her hat off, I find my eyes darting throughout her hair and over her braid while water runs through it. She slowly takes up her hands...

...and puts them behind herself. My eyes widen.

The brass buttons on the front are just decoration...right, I felt that before: it’s kept tight by drawstring. The dark fabric goes slack, and she plucks up one of the shoulder straps.

With all the moisture, it isn’t a smooth task, but she pulls it off eventually, and indeed...like she “didn’t want”...I stare straight on.

Marisa pushes her chest out just a bit. Through her white, sticking shirt, I can see distinct, rosy hues. And...that has to be...

“So you can look...” Marisa remarks. And again, I don’t know what’s possessing me but...I suddenly feel compelled, and bold. I put a hand down on her left shoulder.

“Yeah,” I say, “but I can’t see very well...” I lean in to get a closer look, gently pushing her down as I do so. Eventually she’s on the floor and I’m positioned over her. My heart is thumping. It’s distracting, but not enough for me to not notice her bringing her thighs together and one hand, half-closed, over her lips. Squinting at me, she keeps that arm away from her chest.

But, I instead look up at those squinting eyes.

“Wh-What...” she mutters. I take my other hand to her cheek and feel and see it warm up as she squirms.

I’m not going to ask for it. I lean my face down toward her other cheek and—

—she reaches up with her left hand, stopping me. She drops that, and with her right hand she grabs at my shirt. She drags me forward.

And I get to kiss her.

It’s...an absolutely terrible kiss. While she’s glaring at me, I’m looking back completely sternly. Our lips are both totally shut.

“K-K-Kiss...” she stammers over my mouth after I pull back in shame, “kiss me for real...”

Saying this, she holds out her tongue, and it drives me forward in seconds.

I don’t think that a floor is a good place to “love” someone. While I’m pressing into Marisa’s body, I keep worrying every few seconds about her back. But, I also keep twisting my tongue with hers. Both of us soon start moaning, and Marisa starts wringing her hands at my shirt.

I push my knee between her legs. She shrinks, and then starts to open up her shirt.

I grab hold of her bared torso and stomach and squeeze at its softness and thumb at her ribs and my heart beats and I think...
...”She’s going to get sick if we keep doing this.”

“C-Come on...I already know they’re too small, quit staring...”

Wha...? Her breasts? I forgot about them. I shouldn’t tell her that. I push myself off of her and stand up, stomping deeper into the store.

“Ma-Masato!? W-Wait, hold on, I—”

“Oh,” realizing something, I make that utterance and pause. “Don’t worry,” I tell her, turning around, “I just want to make sure you don’t get sick.”

“I-I-Isn’t it sexy if I’m all wet like this!?”

“Y... yEs...” I respond in a broken voice. She’s...that. But that isn’t the point! Careful not to slip, I run to where we keep our towels.

When I have several of them, bunched up in my arms, I hurry back to the entrance.

“...We do have a bed,” I tell her. I nod backward. “Come on...” After turning around, I hear her following me.

***

I got to dry her hair. She dried off my chest.

We dried our faces, our legs, our feet...

In the staff guestroom, dark and only lit by lanterns, we’re both down to our bottoms.

I’ve been staring endlessly at Marisa’s small, pert chest. She keeps looking over my broad one...and I’m glad that one of my hobbies is exercise.

There’s a long standoff before Marisa starts removing my boxers, and in seconds she can see what I was hiding. “It” stands tall to greet her, and she pauses. With my damp boxers still in her hands, she stares it down. I twitch, and she glares. She drops my boxers, raises her hand nervously, and soon grabs at me.

Marisa’s thin digits crawl over the “Mini-Masato” and with that gliding a tickle, and pleasure, run up through my entire body. She leans forward while I’m leaned back and watching her examine it. She prods at it, she squeezes at it. She presses her chest against it and looks up at me seriously.

“...I mean, I don’t know what you should do either,” I tell her. She grips me hard then and I slouch forward involuntarily, pushing one hand down on her head. She’s pushed closer to it, and she starts talking.

“You’re really turned on by me...” she whispers, and I tense at her breath. “...Hey, guys can only shoot once and they’re out, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then, well...” She lets go of me and moves back and out of my hand. She puts her thumbs in the waistband of her bloomers. “Shoot it, uh...where it counts.”

She says that while glancing away from me, while pulling off her bottoms.

“...But no promises that I won’t...you know...” she mumbles, and when both her legs are freed from her undergarments, she locks eyes with me and says, “have yours.”

I don’t care if I haven’t said “I love you”. I don’t care if we haven’t “become a couple”, and that I haven’t married her.
When I push Marisa down on the bed, locking my lips with hers again and licking her tongue as it licks mine back—as my cock, spasming, traces a shimmering thread up her stomach I make a promise to myself instead:
“I’ll make her have mine.”

This time while I’m kissing her she runs her hands through my hair and I pull tightly at her breasts. She raises her hips and pushes her stomach more at my cock. Eventually I reach down instead and spread her legs wide.

Marisa lifts her hips again while entwining her tongue with mine. Huffing, I pull my mouth to her cheek and kiss her there. I meanwhile push my thumb at her clitoris steadily. It’s already stiff, but it swells, getting hotter and hotter with each prod and with each push she makes against my penis. She groans, and tugs, and tugs at my hair.

When I feel that she’s slick, I push her to the wall and move down to her crotch, kissing at her pussy instead. As she starts to scream I vaguely remember that it’s good it’s still storming outside. She shoves at my head with her feeble strength. No need to push—I’m eager for this. I grind my tongue at her lower lips and suck at her, making a plethora of noises I’ve never heard before and drinking a flood that’s easing out of her. I continue teasing her clit and as she groans again she eventually starts shaking violently, hugging at any part of me. She flinches, and flinches again. I rub quickly at her clit and her legs flutter almost like jerking wings. It sets me off completely to see that, and to see her shyly cover her mouth and narrow her eyes, panting loudly. I sit up, and kiss her while she cums, until her body starts to slack and her lips drop from mine.

With little energy there, she brings a hand to my cheek and weakly moves her head. I reach take another kiss and take one hand to under one of her thighs, and the other to my member.

I spread her open, and press the head against her. It kisses at me, and she relaxes after at first tensing. She looks down and focuses...she relaxes enough, and waiting not even a second longer push inside of Marisa. I gasp out immediately with her walls closing hot around me.

The tightness here...well, I genuinely don’t have anything to compare it to other than my hand, but it’s almost burning. She sleeves me and grips at me. She tightens and eases all around me, and after both our pubic mounds meet, she draws small hips back and begins to move. I don’t let her go alone, my musculature all tensing throughout my body as if I’m carrying a boulder.

It’s a rather absurd position, too... I’m holding her aloft while slowly pushing in and pulling out of her. Her thigh is over my knee. I took her into a hug and I’m holding her tightly and—

She’s so small. Her hair is silky and thick—it’s cushioning my arms. She’s huffing hotly into my shoulder, and she feels like some unimaginable lotion on my member, squeezing at me for my semen. I eventually hold up both of her thighs, briefly seeing spots of blood underneath her. Holding her up, I sit down and sit [her/i] down on me. I hug at her again, taking one hand up to her shoulder and [i]pulling her down on me while driving my cock upward.

I push into her hard and steady and after the third strong she blinks harshly. Her glittering eyes find mine as I hump at her at a more quickening and quacking pace. A heavy slapping pounds through the room and drowns out the sound of pounding rain and hearing it I want to cum. I want to leave everything inside Marisa. I hold her even closer, and smell the scent of rain and grasses from her body. Her mouth hangs open and she laps at my neck. I push my nose into her hair and breathe in deeply.

I really...really want to fuck her. Get as deep inside of her as I can. My penis is in some euphoric state, storing every hit, every thick stroke from Marisa’s thin and sexy body. While I’m thinking about getting her pregnant, her ankles round my back and she hugs even closer to me. I fuck her more, almost rapidly. She moans in time with every thrust and again my muscles all swell. I grip at Marisa completely.

And eventually, after soaking my thighs in her sweat and juices, I pull her down a final time and begin to spurt inside her. My breath is stifled, and she pants, high-pitched, for each shot, each hefty jet of cum thick and filling her body, eventually tightening her up more and settling warm. She asks for more and I push her into the bed, stroking against her and rising again while toying with her small breasts. Lifting her hips when she lifts them first. Pulling gently at her pubic hair. Kissing her deeply and thrusting more at her while we both shut our eyes and rest cheek against cheek. One more shot...One more shot... Marisa...

...After an hour, I finally feel myself slowing down, out of energy and semen. Marisa’s body is body completely wet now from sweat, and so is mine. Flushed, but still awake, she looks up at me, then shuts her eyes tightly as I pull myself out of her.

I managed to squeeze four out of myself. I think Marisa climaxed...five, six times?

Pink slips of her virginal cut through the semen tying her to me. Most of my loads were left inside of her—I would plug up into her to not let any spill, and she steadfastly always brought her legs to my hips to keep me there. We fucked. We really, really fucked.

...And now I feel woozy.

I drop next to the Kirisame girl, and she looks at me.

“...Was it stupid to try to get pregnant with my first time? With you?” What is she asking me...

“...No,” I tell her. “We’re both adults...”

“Virgin adults,” she says with a glowing smile.

“Not anymore.”

“I really probably got pregnant...” she mutters, tracing her fingertips below her navel. “That was probably stupid.”

“If you didn’t,” I say, breathing slowly and almost delirious, “I’ll do it next time. Let’s use...a better bed then, though.”

And again, she blushes to her ears.

“Marisa...” I say, “...you know I’m in love with you, right?”

“Do you know...I was starting to fall for you?”

“...” I don’t answer. I put my hand on her cheek. “Well you’d better fall in love with me,” I say, “because I won’t stop with one child.”

“...I won’t move back to the village, though, y’know?”

“You can run a loom basically anywhere...” I mutter, starting to drift off.

“...I don’t know why you fell in love with me,” she says, and for that, I try to stay awake... just enough.

“Because you’ve always been gorgeous...your spirit’s...beautifu...”

...I don’t think any of it was luck, really.
I probably would’ve pushed for this eventually. I probably would’ve started going to the Forest of Magic and the Shrine. I probably would’ve looked and asked for the witch with golden hair any time I knew where she was.
I would’ve done it in two years... five years... ten, maybe twenty...
I wouldn’t have let it go.
As I fall asleep, seeing a smile on Marisa’s face, tears in her yes, and her hand gently brushing my cheek...I’m glad to know that in any of those cases, I’m sure she would’ve found something worthwhile in me too.

Maybe I’m glad to be a man of the loom...

...maybe, honestly, this was all spun from a red thread of fate.

The season changed, and with it a festive atmosphere fell onto the village once again. The usually tranquil streets flooded with busybodies buzzing to and fro, their attention captured by the amusing games and mouthwatering smells that came their way. Powerful voices peddled their wares and attractions from their garishly decorated stands, amidst the hubbub of a colourful crowd that wore their best kimono for such a momentous occasion. This was not the first time Jin had lent his youthful strength and skills as a handyman—that is, he had hauled the heaviest pieces of lumber all over the town for days—to the elders in charge of the arrangement of these festivals, yet the quiet feeling of accomplishment he felt at the sight of his neighbours enjoying the fruits of his hard labour still hadn’t diminish in the slightest. The excitement was almost palpable in the air, so much that it felt like static over the young man’s skin, raising the hairs on his tanned, well-defined arms.

Nowhere was this more evident than at the stage erected at the central plaza, where the Prismriver Sisters had just finished their latest concert. From Merlin’s energetic horns to Lunasa’s heart-wrenching chords and Lyrica’s skillful keys; the trio’s melodies had captivated their audience for hours. Yet it had been the most recent addition to their merry band who had fascinated Jin the most. Raiko Horikawa’s percussion was, objectively speaking, not as prominent as the performance of the other members, but even someone as (self-admittedly) uninformed about musical theory as Jin could tell that it was the steady beat of her drums what turned the Prismrivers’ otherwise cacophonous sounds into the catchy tunes everyone enjoyed. The raw energy behind every pound of her batons shook the whole town, and rung deep through Jin’s ears until he could feel it inside his own chest.

The villager, however, had a suspicion that it wasn’t just Raiko’s musical skills what set his heart aflutter. The drum tsukumogami’s chosen human form was, in the words Jin had heard his boss whisper to his friend at work, an exotic stunner of a beauty. Several furtive glances shot her way later, Jin had been inclined to agree wholeheartedly. Short, wavy hair the colour of carmine, with matching big, round eyes. A strong, brawny figure with just the right amount of curves. An equally firm yet ample bust, concealed under a newfangled (for Gensokyan standards) shirt and jacket. And to top it all, a well-defined bottom supported by a plump pair of thighs, partially covered by a skirt short enough to raise an old maid’s eyebrow—and a healthy young man’s tent as well.

Jin could keenly reaffirm all these facts, especially the last one, by virtue of having those same thighs wrapped around his waist right at that moment, along with the rest of Raiko pressed tightly against him.

“Hmm. How long are you going to keep staring, mister? The show must go on, you know?”

Jin shivered at the coy, husky tone Raiko teased him with, and then once more when her soft lips smacked his a mere moment later—the lingering touch making the skin in his neck raise in goosebumps. The redhead drummer grinned, having noticed his reaction by virtue of the hand she had laid on his nape moments before. A slight push from it was enough to coax Jin to lower his head and meet those electrifying lips with his own once more. His hands settled on her waist and he pulled her in as they made out, smushing her chest against his and earning a lilted giggle from the drummer, who happily reciprocated with a squeeze of the leg she had wrapped around him.

Jin knew it was risky, getting frisky with a popular musician only mere moments after her concert’s ending, barely hidden from sight behind a stack of boxes at the backstage. But Raiko didn’t seem to mind it one bit—in fact, as the man attested with a furtive hand under her belt, she even seemed to get off on it. Raiko hummed at the young man’s audacity, and responded with a much bolder grope at the tent he pitched under his hakama.

“Oh my, you really are into me,” the drummer cooed. Jin opened his mouth in retort, but she shushed him with a finger to his lips and a light squeeze on his crotch. “Keep quiet for me, alright?”

“I’ll try,” Jin mumbled back, warily leaning back a little and glancing around the edge of the stack of boxes. Nobody had noticed them yet, much to his unspoken relief. His boss really seemed to have bought their weak excuse of doing a little bit of “post-performance maintenance.”

With a smirk that made Jin’s heart skip a beat, Raiko released her leg lock and lowered herself down to her knees, taking a second to brush a lock of hair behind her ear before deftly undoing his hakama and pulling them down to his knees—setting the raging hard-on under them free. The drummer let out a gasp of feigned shock at the sight of the young man’s dick; her cheeks blushing as red as her hair as she wrapped her dexterous fingers around his length and gave it a few tentative pumps. A hiss of pleasure escaped between Jin’s teeth, and Raiko dropped all pretences of naïvety, amping up the handjob by closing a ring around his bulbous head and running her thumb over her frenulum as she sped up the pumping motion. Soon after her left hand joined the action to cup his balls, forcing a string of stifled grunts and moans from the back of Jin’s throat.

“Should’ve expecte- gh, a drummer to be good at handling sticks,” he joked.

“Well, I do practice a lot,” Raiko giggled as she leaned in and kissed a glob of precum that had been wrung out the tip of his head, making Jin shudder in pleasure again. “Want me to show you?”

It took the young man every ounce of his will not to nod in agreement. “I’d love to, miss, but we’re still on the clock,” he said instead, ignoring his cock twitching in protest. “We have to be quick about this.”

Jin offered a hand to pull Raiko back to her feet and, with a firm grip on her hips, undid the leather belt from her skirt. He spun the drummer around until she faced the wall, presenting her shapely rear for him to handle. After a forceful yank—and aided by a playful wiggle of her own hips—, the skirt fell to the wooden floor, revealing a white pair of panties stained in her juices. Overtaken by a primal hunger, Jin brought down his palm onto Raiko’s firm buttocks, producing a loud, fleshy sound along with a barely contained squeak from the drummer’s mouth. Jin hooked his finger around the hem of her panties and pulled them down her thighs, finally exposing her pussy for him to see—so thoroughly wet that it was still connected to her underwear by a sticky, translucid strand.

“Well now, that is a mighty mess down here,” he said. “Does this always happen after your concerts, miss?”

“… Only at the big ones,” answered Raiko, her cheeks darkening slightly, “when the crowd goes wild and I feel all that energy and electricity in the air, sometimes I need another outlet besides my music to let all the excitement out, so…”

“So you sneak behind the stage to... Cool off?” The handyman punctuated his guess with another squeeze of her buttcheek.

“Nngh! Yes! But today’s concert was unlike any other, and I couldn’t hold myself back…” Raiko reached for his cheek, reaching back to his neck again and pulling his face closer to hers, until their lips almost met. “The manager told me you were the go-to person for when I needed an extra pair of hands. So won’t you lend me yours for tonight, mister Jin?”

The pure, unadulterated need in her voice was enough to make his heart race and his dick twitch with sheer arousal. He swallowed a lump in his throat, and trying his hardest to hide his own want from seeping into his voice, he replied, with as much professionalism as a young man could muster while lecherously groping his idol:

“S’pose that’s what I’m paid for, miss Raiko.”

His hand drifted between her thighs in an instant, his fingers rubbing against her nether lips and forcing Raiko to release his neck to cover her own mouth and stifle a gasp. Grinning cheekily, Jin kept up the pressure, his hand running along her slit and teasing more cute whimpers out of the tsukumogami. Her sweet cries intensified when he prodded at her inner folds with two fingers and spread her open, and she could barely hold her voice when he inserted his middle finger into her hungry orifice down to his knuckle, forcing spasms up her stomach and making her shoulders curl in with tightly-contained pleasure.

“O-Oh gods, mister… More… Rub that place a bit more…!'” Raiko whimpered, her back arching as his digit rubbed what he guessed was her sweet spot. “Yes, right th-nhah, therrre!”

The handyman relished the lewd sounds she made, holding her gaze as he finger-banged her like her life depended on it. Prisoner to his skillful technique, Raiko could do nothing but mewl her delight as Jin’s finger slid along her tight walls and explored her sopping wet insides with impunity. He stopped his hand for a moment—eliciting another impatient moan out of Raiko—, only long enough to add a second finger into her pussy and nip at her sweaty collarbone, making the drummer quiver in anticipation. Under such a relentless assault it didn't take long until she was thoroughly slick with anticipation. Not unlike Jin himself, who could barely hold his own arousal after witnessing the tsukumogami practically cream herself on his hand.

“I think we’re about done with the preliminary checks,” he muttered into Raiko’s ear, his voice hoarse with need. “How about we get started with the maintenance proper?”

“Yes! Hurrrryy!” Raiko moaned in response. “I can’t bear it! Give it to me now!”

Jin slowly withdrew his fingers from her tortured pussy, making wet sloshing sounds in the process loud enough to make him worry about being overheard by any of his coworkers or, gods forbid, his boss. Nevertheless, the risk of being found out couldn’t surpass his own arousal. With little fanfare, Jin pulled Raiko’s hips towards him, until she was bent almost perpendicularly against the wooden wall. He lined his cock up with her glistening, puffy lips—and groaned as he slowly sheathed himself inside her. Her puffy lips grazed his shaft as he buried himself inside her clenching heat, the slippery hotness so intense it briefly purged his mind of all thought. Still his hips worked on autopilot, pushing his dick all the way inside Raiko until the tip pressed up against her cervix, filling the drummer so completely that she had to push her knees together just to keep herself from collapsing.

“Ah… It’s here… Finally…!” Raiko moaned shakily, her face flushed as red as her hair. A satisfied smile twitched across her lips as she peeked back at her newfound lover.

Jin responded by leaning in, mashing his lips with hers over her shoulder in a slow, intimate kiss, coaxing a happy hum out of Raiko. Without breaking the kiss, the handyman started to move, his cock sliding partway out of her clenching vice before he speared back in; one arm wrapping around her stomach to keep her close while his other hand groped and pinched at her ass with glee. His thrusts were slow at first, but with every subsequent pump he grew a little bolder and quicker, his smeared length disappearing between her glistening nether lips and filling her pussy to the brim.

After a long, ecstatic minute, Jin broke off the kiss to catch his breath, but rather than rejoin her lips again, he instead chose to bury his face into her nape and sniff her. The thick scent of her sweat and the metallic smell of static filled his nostrils and clouded his thoughts. His movements became faster, rougher. His pelvis clapped against her ass, her buttocks smacking loudly as his cock stuffed her womanhood to the brim. Taking no heed of the noise they were making, Jin kept fucking a string of soft, cute moans out of his idol, even as Raiko started to shake her hips back towards him to get him inside her sooner. The sound of their passionate intercourse raised to dangerously loud levels, but neither made any attempt to stop or slow down, losing themselves in the raw, intense moment.

“A-Ah! Jinnnnn~!” Raiko threw her head back after his cock mercilessly grazed her sweet spot, and grind her hips back onto his length more actively.

Grunting in return, Jin ran his hands up her sides, slipping them up under her half-opened shirt until he reached her chest. He lustfully felt her up over her bra as he kept pounded her. The drum tsukumogami was easily the biggest girl in the band, and Jin could now appreciate this fact quite intimately—his fingers sunk under the bra and into her pliable flesh as he roughly groped her tits, his thumb flicking her nipples at the same time. Raiko mewled at the stimulation, her inner walls constricting his length in a telltale manner, which only encouraged him to keep pinching her to his heart’s content.

Tilting his head down, Sensei admired the raw sensuality of her arched back. He saw beads of fresh sweat running down her taut shoulder blades, before lowering his gaze to her ass—he watched it jiggle with every impact, his hips smacking up against it before he reared himself back for another deep thrust. The sight fuelled the heat inside his groins, and he could no longer stop his grunts from bubbling out of his tongue as he kept slamming into her pussy relentlessly, feeling his own arousal reach the peak of his endurance.

"Raiko, gonna cum," Jin rasped into her ear.

The drummer jerked her head—she was very close too, he could feel it. "D-Do it! Inside!"

Too lost in his own lust to consider the weight of those words, Jin let out a needy growl and hastened his hips, forgoing any kind of measured tempo and technique in his thrusts. Their flesh met over and over with a rapid string of fleshy smacks and raw claps, joined by the slick squelches of his cock stirring up her insides. His girth speared her hot walls apart, battering her innermost parts without pause, the pressure in his shaft swelling—

—until, with an animalistic grunt, he slammed inside her hot, welcoming tunnel and came. A gut-punch of tension, followed by a wave relief, washed over him, as he felt Raiko convulsing and clenching down on his cock the moment his first spurt shot into her waiting womb. Her tight walls squeezed out thick rope after rope of semen out of him, his load splattering deep inside her and painting her walls white. The tsukumogami whimpered at the sudden heat inside, unconsciously grinding her hips back in search of more lingering pleasure, the two of them practically humping each other as they rode out their orgasms.

Gradually, the intense rush waned, and the pleasure settled down to a simmer. Struggling to catch his breath back—and, for some reason, feeling a nagging rush of guilt in the back of his mind—Jin slowly pulled his cock out, shuddering at how cool the air felt compared to her hot pussy. He felt a sense of primal accomplishment as he saw his semen drip out of Raiko’s nether lips and onto the floor, ignoring the rational part of his mind that reminded him he would have to clean up that mess later.

“Ah... Haah... You alright, miss Raiko?”

“Hmmmm, never better,” the drummer responded, turning and leaning back onto the wall shakily. Her chest, now exposed after her shirt and bra had come half undone during their tussle, heaved hypnotically as she panted. Almost absent-mindedly, one of her hands lowered to her crotch, fishing a strand of cum from her dripping pussy. Raiko stared intently at the cloudy, sticky liquid staining her fingers, marvelling at the lingering pleasure still coursing through her body. “Ah, I really needed this…”

Then, with a sudden skip that took Jin off-guard, the drum tsukumogami abruptly shook off her afterglow, and began to fix her clothes up, paying no mind to the darkening stain spreading on her panties. Only the lingering blush in her cheeks and the sweaty scent of exertion belied what had just transpired.

“You really are as skilled as Merlin said, mister Jin,” said Raiko as she finished buttoning her shirt up. “Can I count on you if I’m ever in need of… further maintenance?”

“A-anytime, miss Horikawa,” Jin stuttered, feeling as embarrassed and about as talkative as a teenager in front of a newfound crush. “It would be my pleasure.”

Raiko smiled at his uncharacteristically bashful response, and before he could get more words edgewise, she leaned in and planted a candid kiss on his cheek.

“Well then, till next concert! Hope to see you there!” The drummer of the Prismriver Band waved him goodbye, as she walked out of the backstage and back into the bustling streets of the festival.

For his part, Jin stood there dumbfounded for gods-know how long, gingerly feeling the heated skin in his face with his fingertips, where the electrifying touch of Raiko’s lips still tingled. He barely recalled the motions of what he did during the rest of the night, so enraptured in the memory of his short tryst with Horikawa he was.

The following morning, the elder manager scolded him for neglecting to clean up the backstage.

The dark draped itself heavily over everything in the room, shadow on shadow obscuring the limits between objects, people, and nothingness itself. The moon had been full that evening—resplendent by any reckoning—but wind and cloud had acted as smoke, turning its luminosity into a slight pallor in the dense blacks of the night sky. Further filtered by the paper at the nearby window, the dregs of moonlight only served to add texture to the thick silk that enveloped them.

She sat up on the futon and rested part of her weight on her elbow and shoulder, keeping her face turned towards where she knew the window was. Otherwise lost in her own thoughts, she was nonetheless vaguely away of a tingle that would come and go, that would brush against and ripple across her naked flesh. It was a liminal sensation appropriate to the lack of form around her. She felt as though she had come close to death without realizing it, though that was clearly an absurd notion for her. Her heartbeat was as muted as her breathing but they were clearly there—clearly hers.

Still she felt as if she were just discovering herself; the movement of her palm and fingers in the dark felt unreal; the tingle came and went and remained unexplained. How could she figure out much in the dark? Any answers she might find could only prove themselves true in the light, if she endured. Endure what? Drunk on the dark, she felt too cowed to make a noise and affirm that she was still in her right mind.

After all, she had sought out the dark. She had left her home when the clouds began to gather, taking trails through the bamboo forest that were only known to fairies, youkai and herself. Since she knew those furtive trails as well as the back of her hand, there was no chance of her getting lost. She made good time, arriving at the outskirts of the village before too long. Lamplight came from a few homes but the streets were dark and mostly empty, allowing her to take a more direct path to her destination. In her audacity, she had even come to knock upon the front door!

Had she not heard a quote from a book long ago that women possess great mystery within themselves? That they were best approached in darkness and sometimes possessed in it? So, then, a woman approaching in darkness … that wouldn’t be too strange either. It didn’t seem like it surprised him, at any rate.

He had opened the door and his focused brown eyes came to rest upon her. There was no great emotion upon his face. She found herself thinking that she approached as a child come calling for a treat, unabashed and uncaring that she disturbed work or the normal rhythms of life. With a single word, she was invited in.

The man lived by himself and kept his large home tidy with considerable effort. Deep in the old quarters of the village, she imagined that the two-storied and gated residence had been meant to hold the better part of a clan, complete with servants who would be bound to the family for generations. That the kitchen fire was only lit every now and again seemed as great of a sin as the storm shutters being left closed in most of the rooms. The musty smell of history and tradition permeated every closed room and the poorly-kept garden. She understood how proud old families were—they imitated the ostentatiousness of courtly life on a smaller scale. Their objections from beyond the grave fell upon deaf ears as the man eschewed tradition.

They did not speak much as they dined together. Theirs was not a relationship characterized by the exchange of ideas and words. Whatever it was that she wanted, however she approached, she would not be rebuffed. But nor would she be encouraged either. A reserve that approached indifference was something that suited her just fine, she had decided, and made no effort to impose anything upon the man. At times, the difference in their ages, their experiences, made any effort towards more understanding seem like a fool’s errand.

They had sat in silence after the meal, in no real hurry to do much of anything else. She observed him carefully, as she usually did every time she saw him, finding him largely unchanged. His facial hair, a cropped shrub around his chin and smooth brush above his lip, made him seem older than his years. Not that she thought of him as particularly young—his peers would likely have all long-since been married off, if not already the fathers to infants. Still his youth came through unambiguously in those rare smiles of his as well as through the bright looks that he graced her with from time to time. Tall and with powerful and shapely legs, he was distinguished even as time worked to soften the flesh around his neck and lower abdomen ever so slightly.

A teardrop-shaped scar could be seen just below his jaw, on the left of his neck. She had asked once why he had not let his beard grow and cover it and he had replied simply that he had no reason to cover it. Though she did not understand that response she respected it and never brought the subject up again.

The intrusion of soft moonlight into the room interrupted her recollection. The clouds must have thinned out for the time being, she thought. Suddenly finding that her eyes quickly adjusted to the low-levels of light, she was able to see the lines that separated objects and people. The box lamp that had been burning earlier in the evening sat inert in the corner of the room, the delicate patterns on its sides just black blots. She found that her long hair draped across her breasts and torso and saw how they seemed to catch the dim light, reflecting a silver likely not too dissimilar to that of the face of the moon. She forced a deep breath and noted how the long strands moved in sync, rubbing against her skin.

She was aware of a faint, almost vanishing sound. Like the slight rustle of leaves on an autumn night it would be drowned out by the most cursory of distractions. Yet it sounded deep and almost sorrowful, enabled by her focus on it. The more she concentrated on the sound, the less it seemed like a sound at all and she became aware that it was, in fact, more of a profound silence. In the silence all things could come into being, couldn’t they?

If she were to turn around, she would see his sleeping form. Would there be a peaceful expression on his face? Whenever she looked too intently at him she felt that he was troubled. Although, perhaps that was her own thoughts reflected back at her though those clear and steady eyes of his. It had been lifetimes since she had felt anything like truly strong emotion. With time, even the grandest of excitements temper. She thought back to that teardrop that marred his manly neck, sometimes sporting a stubble but, more often, clean-shaven.

She had seen the wound while it was still fresh.

It had been a quiet spring morning and she had been bathing in front of her home. She ladled a bucket of cold water over herself, uncaring that her body complained of mistreatment by making her skin turn into gooseflesh. Her home went unheated even in the dead of winter and unventilated in the muggiest summer days; sensations of discomfort would pass, if they even registered. There was no real surprise in her when she heard the rustling of brush nearby; whether a fairy, youkai, or fairy, she would not rush her bath. Calmly, she washed her feet and rinsed out the homemade cloudy liquid she used to clean her hair.

A smile formed on her lips in a brief moment of recognition. For that moment she thought that perhaps her friend from the village had come to pay her a visit. Perhaps finally taking her advice to take a brief escape from her work. The pale figure that leaned pathetically against her blue dress and shoulder dispelled that notion.

She had seen her friend look concerned many times before—about youkai who came into the village, about education, about humans in abstract—but it was the first time that she had seen such visceral concern in her. There was uncertainty in her friend’s eyes and her lips trembled ever-so-subtly despite her obvious attempts to keep a pretense of steadfastness. Her friend wrapped an arm around the pale figure in an attempt to prop up an increasingly-limp body and, with her other hand, firmly applied a bloodied rag to the man’s neck.

“Mokou…” she trailed off, her voice quaking in synchronicity with her knees. Her youth had calcified and lines were visible along her forehead and around her eyes. Hair swept back as struggled with her load, even her prosaic square lost much of its ridiculous character.

Her friend’s need obvious, Mokou got up as if spellbound, barely bothering to toss her dirty blouse onto wet flesh. She pulled up her trousers thanks to the force of memory and ambled forward as quickly as she could. At that time, shhe recalled thinking, “If Keine is this serious…!”

Mokou guided her friend and the injured human through the bamboo forest as quickly as she was able. She helped keep the man from toppling by taking up position on his other side. The rest … the details … she could not really recall. Though it had only been a little more than two years ago, the memory had slipped away, carried away by a torrent of sensations that formed a dark flood for her even as she rested in that room. Keine, her only real friend, was in tears though none moistened her eyes nor much less rolled down her cheek. The strong emotion that came from her disturbed Mokou, for she had never thought her friend too attached to anything but a sense of duty. It aroused strong curiosity in her and, at the time, a shock of disgust, like that of uncovering a fermented dish for the first time and not expecting the intensity of its scent.

Though she knew it had become an amalgamation of memory and sense, what came clearest to her was the sickly-sweet smell of blood and the steady crunch of earth and plant beneath their feet. An ever experienced guide, Mokou did not even have to think about the quickest route through the brush. Her friend’s grave expression and sobs asking how much longer stuck with her, distorting the village guardian’s steadfast nature into a pathetically human mess. A mother with a sickly child she could understand, siblings also … lovers too, had they been normal humans both. Mokou remembered that she wiped off the sweat of her brow as she ran, thinking that she would have to bathe again later.

The journey to the lunarian clinic seemed to take hours. Given the distance, it had only been ten or so minutes at the most. They had made record time, she was sure after the fact. Young bamboo as well as branches from other plants had cut into her flesh in their flight. It was only after she entrusted the patient to the physician and coaxed her exhausted friend to sit that she noticed that her clothes were ripped and the flesh on her legs raw and bloody. Her head swam as she attempted to form appropriate questions. There was a lot that she wished to know. Still, something about the ordeal had made her reluctant to intrude. And so she held her tongue out of stubbornness.

Instead of talk, she simply sat next to Keine and placed a hand on her back, rubbing gently the tensed muscles. Her own shock seemed petty, inconsequential, and so she tried to be the best friend she could be at that moment. A quiet supportive force. Even in relationships where she had not been considered a peer of equal standing, she had done the same. Though that had been many lifetimes ago. Then she had witnessed a sadness that became as ice, melting onto pillows in the morning … that womanly grief could be described in verse but only understood by being in its presence. As a child she had seen much of what was essentially the same malady in the ladies of the household. They had no reason to share their trouble with her but she understood some of it implicitly nonetheless—proof of common humanity.

That thought had stayed with her, through justifications and recriminations. The conclusion seemed alien to her at times but she always assured herself that that element was ever-present. Especially when it seemed like it wasn’t. The passage of centuries had made her forget how she had arrived at that conclusion until that very moment. Since then, however, she hadn’t forgotten it. Whenever she had her doubts, whenever she questioned the behavior of others, she clung onto that truth as a tightly as prayer beads.

That common humanity also had quickly become a fascination to her. Even before that rabbit had come out to reassure Keine, looking past Mokou’s half-naked and already dirtied form with those deep red eyes of her, Mokou had found that curiosity gnawed at her. She wished to know why or, at least, how but could not bring herself to put it so simply nor could she puzzle it out on her own. Too many possibilities existed and to explore any one by herself would be like trying to rush up a fork in a river—there was no way of knowing which was a tributary and which led to headwaters. That image came to her often often when she was naked and tired in the dark, as she was at present. There was little that she truly understood despite her attempts. The facts she had learned since failed to sway her unconscious and her body towards any sort of encapsulating truth.

She had stayed quiet as the lunarian explained to her friend that the man had lost a lot of blood but he would, nonetheless, make a full recovery. He had been lucky, she explained with a softness unbecoming her normally superior posturing. Keine took the man’s hand as he lay in bed, unconscious but out of danger. Her friend sat by his bedside nodding as the lunarian explained what she had done to save the man’s life, absorbing very little of it. With a nod of her head—an acknowledgement meant for herself—the lunarian left them alone.

Mokou absorbed even less of the situation, turning her eye to the pale figure that lay in a small bed in front of her. A man, villager, yes. Older than her in physical appearance but still young enough to look unnaturally pallid. His cheeks were meant to hold a vital flush and life must have usually come easily to him. A bandage had been applied to his neck where, she later learned, a farming tool swung by an overeager younger relation who had little in the way of experience tilling had accidentally slashed close to arteries. He looked as if he were in a deep sleep, his wide frame and the cords of muscle that wrapped around his exposed arms and legs utterly relaxed. She could not see anything else of note in the man, certainly not a single thing that her friend seemed to see as she gently rubbed his hand while gazing deep into his face.

A few days later her friend came to visit her. She seemed her usual self and even tried to talk her ear off about an inconsequential matter when Mokou asked after something to be polite. The conversation did not take too long to veer into the topic of the man, however, and Keine gave her deepest thanks for the assistance, otherwise saying nothing else about the incident. Mokou only asked after the man’s health, feeling that a knot in her throat kept her from asking any other types of questions about him. Her friend did not seem to notice her hesitation and, before too long, thanked her again and claimed that she had to be off again to deal with business in the village.

Other than the occasional thought late at night, whenever sleep would not come easily, she put the affair out of mind. She did not see Keine that regularly to begin with and did not expect to have her visit often. The few times that she went into the village for whatever reason, she made a courtesy call to her friend and caught up with her. She did not ask after the man, feeling that it was somehow a subject she were best steer clear from.

Mokou sat up straight, finding that the moonlight coming through the window altogether too distracting. Looking up, she placed her arms on either side of her body and used them for additional support as she tried to organize her thoughts some more. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the dim shape that lay next to her. She tried not to look. It felt like an it would be an unavoidable matter, much like how she came to learn more about the man.

“Inaba said that…, Reisen thinks that…,” for quite some time, her companion had been making comments that began with with those words. It was the height of summer and she had been escorting another lunarian out of the forest and into the village. The princess was talkative at times, true, but she wasn’t prone to blathering as far as Mokou knew. For the better part of the walk through the forest, in less-traveled paths with fewer prying eyes, she had been talking incessantly. It was only many months later that Mokou realized that that had been her way of trying to cheer her up, as she must have looked especially dour that day.

Despite her own best efforts, Mokou had found herself getting lost in her thoughts more and more back then. She had also started to go into the village more often. It wasn’t because she wanted to be around people but she felt restless staying in her home. She had begun daydreaming, often thinking of seeing her friend in tears, imaging the scene with the man. Permutations upon permutations of that day and other similar situations held her imagination in thrall. She felt compelled to run through them always, to bring them to some sort of conclusion. With enough fantasies completed, It dawned upon her that she did not know how her friend would actually behave if faced with other life and death situations. Let alone the man. Would he be as distraught? Would he silently beg Mokou to take Keine to the clinic and never leave her side until she had recovered? And what about herself? She would move heaven and earth to save her friend but would it be so … would it be so desperate or would she be able to keep her wits about her? Not knowing for sure caused her further frustration. It also compelled her to imagine even more scenarios, as if the answer would come to her through sufficient repetition.

There was an arrangement that she remembered to honor with the lunarian companion. That was the only reason she had bothered to leave home that day. Almost immediately … no, probably immediately, Kaguya had read her heart. They had a bond of sorts, an understanding, that was unique. If either were pressed, Mokou doubted they would be able to describe how they felt about one another. Fellow immortals covered enough.

There was no need to lose herself to overthinking that one. Not for the time being.

“Mokou,” the princess called out to her before they arrived at the village. The sweet tone would have been enough to stop any man in his tracks. Old resentments flared briefly though she knew better now, knew that it was not the princess’ fault.

“Yes?” she had done her best to seem calm. A cold throb in her chest hurt her. She saw through herself and knew that Kaguya would too.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“I don’t want to talk about that,” she had replied. There was no need to pretend she didn’t know what the lunarian was getting at.

“Have you talked to her? If it bothers you so much, maybe you should talk to your friend,” the princess suggested, her manner calm and soothing. Her natural grace … or was it pity? Either way it was painful to be on the receiving side of it.

“It’s none of my business,” Mokou said firmly. She sounded gruff, perhaps masculine even, in her own ears.

“Inaba does really notice these things, she goes into the village after all,” Kaguya told her, “it’s part of our lot to see time pass and things change.”

“I’ve long since made peace with that.”

“Then what is it?” Kaguya’s soft and warm smile caused Mokou to smile as well.

Without wanting to she was being seduced! But was that really Kaguya’s fault? She remembered thinking that perhaps she had been seduced by something else first. Drawn to something that she could not explain. No, not even to Kaguya. The lunarian gave her time to think, acting as supportive as she could.

“I don’t really know,” Mokou slumped her shoulders and sighed. “I guess I was surprised. Not sure about what.”

“Hm,” the princess shook her head, beautiful eyes alight with tenderness, “that’s alright, you know. Being immortal doesn’t mean knowing everything.”

“I know that too.”

“Then what?”

“Then nothing. I’ll get this sorted out one way or the other.”

“… What if he marries her?”

“I’m not jealous,” Mokou remembered saying genuinely. It was true. She wasn’t jealous of her friend at all. In fact, she was happy for her. Perhaps instead she simply felt curious back then. If things had been more normal, if her friend had been more matter-of-fact about things….

“He was helping out in the school, that’s how they met,” Kaguya told her. She seemed to know the whole story, in fact. Mokou realized then that she should never say anything personal to a rabbit as it seemed that they were notorious gossips. The man’s age, his background, his standing in the village … all those sorts of unimportant details were shared. Mokou listened but she felt that there was one thing that Kaguya did not know and that she could not learn no matter how much gossip she heard. That one thing was the only thing that actually mattered.

For some time after that day, Mokou had made an effort to put all of that out of her mind. She met her friend now and again; she even came to meet the man more formally as he did, indeed, spend time at the schoolhouse helping. He was polite but otherwise did not seem to make much of an impression. He became something of a background actor for a while and, truthfully, didn’t even seem to spend that much time at the school or around Keine. Gradually, she stopped daydreaming and was contented in her daily routine again.

That continued to be the case until a full moon later that year. Keine traditionally sequestered herself during the full moon, pushing herself hard to get her work done before the sun came up again. During those nights, Mokou knew better than to disturb her. It was, therefore, an utter surprise to see her friend visit late at night, when the full moon still had an hour or two of glory left. Her friend had transformed into her more beastly form, with bull-like horns protruding from the top of her head. Mokou had seen her like that before and was not surprised. What did take her aback was how loose and carefree her friend seemed to be: sake lingered on her breath and and she carried a large bottle of spirits with her. She badgered Mokou into sharing a drink with her.

“Just so you know, we’ve got a good excuse to drink tonight!” Keine had a smirk on her lips as she spoke.

“Oh?” Mokou had no problem drinking with her friend but she knew her well enough to notice that the quiver in her voice was unusual.

“Got rid of my man, kicked him out!” Keine laughed as she poured a drink. “Got too mushy with me and so I had to set limits. When he refused, he was out.”

“You don’t say,” Mokou felt herself lightheaded even before she began to drink. It had not been confirmation that she desired….

“Ah, yeah, sorry, I forget that you’re a little inexperienced when it comes to things like this.”

“Am I?” Mokou had replied with some irritation. Her friend often forget that she had lived for over a thousand years. Most of her life had been spent outside of Gensokyo and many of the most consequential decisions she made had been before she had met her. She must have scrunched up her face, looking cross, but her friend had not noticed. Thinking back on it, Mokou cringed in the dark, thinking herself needlessly petulant at that time.

“A little, yes,” Keine had made herself at home at Mokou’s rustic home and, for once, did not make suggestions about how to improve her living space. All the rough and uncut wood, piles of old furniture that had been picked up here and there and the complete lack of amenities seemed not to bother her that night.

The exact details of the conversation did not really matter and Mokou had made no effort to remember them. Instead, she recalled how her friend had told her three or four difference versions of what their relationship was like, none of them that sounded remotely plausible. Her curiosity was piqued once more and she felt like she needed to ask more. The thought that she could ask the the right question, the one that would permit her not to obsess about things anymore tantalized her. Of course she did no such thing, incapable of sorting out the mess within.

The immortal lay down, keeping her eyes up on the dark ceiling. Thin clouds must have come across the moon, she reasoned, as the light dimmed but not to the previously oppressive degree. She closed her eyes although that was something of a performative act. Sleep would not find her easily. She was aware of the presence beside her, of the warmth that radiated from the other human. She was hyper-conscious of that reality; her ability to forget that fact had been stripped away from her a few months after Keine had come to see her.

She had run into him on her way back from seeing Keine one afternoon. They exchanged a brief, austere, greeting. Nothing else happened. A few times after, the same thing happened. Once, when she had taken Kaguya to see a village festival from the margins, she spotted him in the distance. She was sure that he had seen her as well.

Over time, she became conscious that they spotted one another with more frequency. Neither was making an attempt to change their route, to force their meeting. Of that much she was sure. So why…? Perhaps it had been Keine who set things in motion: she had moved on so swiftly and so without lingering regrets that the other people in her life got caught up in her wake. Always with a simple nod, with a measured look in those clear eyes, he greeted her.

That scar, that teardrop … she thought of it whenever she spent more than a week without seeing one another. It seemed to be proof of a compact between them. Had that moment of near death deprived her of part of her life, the ability to forget? Her immortality did not seem quite so flawless anymore.

Sleep felt near enough to interrupt her recollections for the time being. A surge of activity in the mind and, later, the body postponed the inevitable a little longer. She thought of the first time that they met alone. No one had set up a meeting, they simply arrived at the same spot near the outskirts of the village at the same time. Neither had any real business there. They had just been drawn to the spot, drawn to one another. He had begun to speak but then chose to say nothing, casting instead a long glance at her that seemed to see her clearer than she saw herself.

They whiled away an hour standing together, their gazes fixed on some unseen object in front of them, beyond the row of houses that obscured the view of the river and the rest of town. She had wondered since what the few people who passed by thought of them. He had been well dressed, with clothes that had been professionally made and with peerless grooming. That was a contrast to her own appearance. While, yes, she was fastidious in her own way, there was little she had in common in looks or demeanor with the young woman of the village. She was an outsider when it came to contemporary humanity.

After parting, Mokou had spent a long time thinking about him. She was sure that he thought about her as well, though he was as unlikely to show it to anyone else.

Mokou had never engaged in the laborious rituals of courtly love. Those ladies of her own bygone era, those high-born ladies who treated her with nothing but contempt, treated her ever worse than a common serving girl. What she had seen had been fragmentary and not meant for her eyes. She realized that their attempts at courtship and seduction were anachronistic and bizarre even for its own time—divided by a screen, a book or prayer beads between the would be lovers, the recitation of poetry and increasing innuendo and proclamations of love. Physical intimacy happened somehow—she had been too young then to understand sex—but it was never spoken about directly, only its aftermath the subject of further poems. It had seemed too strange that two people could fall in love through an obscuring screen, only catching glimpses of one another. Though she knew that her own origin came from such a tryst, it somehow seemed unimaginable. Back then she had known that that life would not be permitted for her and that it would be impossible for her to form those sorts of amorous bonds. Of the many cruelties she had been subjected to, that had been perhaps the greatest. She had not realized it at the time, at how they sought to thoroughly deny her her humanity.

She was ignorant about contemporary practice though during those days, she often wondered how the people in the village went about things. Save perhaps for the most fusty of families, the separated courtship that she knew would be completely unknown. Those farmers, those serving wenches, those marketeers … they had their own ways, ways that likely required much less ceremony.

He did not pressure her at all. She did not pressure herself either. They had met more often but, with an unspoken agreement, had taken to only seeing one another at night. They were doing nothing wrong but it was unnecessary to be so completely careless. The rest of the world had no right to know of their relationship.

On one occasion, when they were walking together in the early evening by the village outskirts, it just happened. Mokou had made the first move. She kissed him, surprised at how soft his facial hair felt against her skin. He accepted her act and looked her in the eye, making her feel a confused warmth in her face. His hand on her shoulder, he affirmed her while leaving her free to break away if she so desired.

Her fingers trembled slightly as she groped over his crotch clumsily. He said nothing, patiently letting her do as she liked with him. They retreated to a thicket just beside the deserted path out of caution rather than necessity. A lone lantern hanging outside a nearby home illuminated the secret space. The tittering of those young noblewomen from centuries ago came back to her clearly. She recalled how they spoke of obscenities and their carnal encounters: their lustful acts were couched in metaphor and elaborate courtly language. They moved the heavens and earth, felt divine presences within and without, and had their womanhood blossom like delicate flowers instead of simply enjoying oral sex, fucking, and reaching a messy orgasm. At one time she had wished for nothing but to join their ranks, to be accepted, despite the disfavor imposed by her birth. It did not seem to her like the difference between those fussy, enchanting ladies and herself were at all great.

Her head felt light as she rubbed her hand over his clothes, a previously dormant part of her pleased with how his sex reacted to her touch by growing and stiffening. His expression remained impassive and she was encouraged by the passive permission. She did not worry any longer about crossing a line. It took some effort but she eventually managed to loosen his clothes and move aside material and undergarments.

Erect and proudly jutting out into the air, his penis became her plaything. She crouched to get a better look at it and ran her hand slowly along the shaft. She wrapped her fingers around the stiff rod and delighted herself with the visual contrast of her thin, pale fingers and the dark meaty object beneath them. She worked her hand up and down the length of his engorged member, finding no reason to take it slow. Her fingers soon became sticky with the goo that emanated from the tip of his penis and so she loosened her grip and rubbed the natural lubrication along the length of the shaft.

Even then, lying with her eyes on the futon, Mokou could not help but feel a little excited at the memory. Foul curiosity had made her wonder every time she recalled that memory whether or not Keine had ever done the same for him. Had her friend progressed to anything physical, anything intimate or had she kept him at arm’s length as she suspected? She could scarcely picture Keine crouched down, in a thicket, at her home, or in the schoolhouse, pleasuring a man with keen interest.

Heat suffused itself from her chest up to her neck and shoulders as she had continued to stroke his member. The confirmation from her own body that she was excited made her feel more human than ever and she was glad that she had not forgotten what desire meant yet.

Encouraged by the throbbing of his cock, she brought her face closer. A sour odor assailed her—likely the result of her own excitement, sweat and precum mixing together. She gave the tip of the head a lick, finding it salty and slightly acidic, before taking in a good portion of of the penis into her mouth. There was a moment of disgust and displeasure as she first felt the taste in her mouth. It did not last long, however, as her own saliva diluted the pungent secretions. She found that it was like licking a thick finger and she moved her tongue around the sides of the head as she worked the rest of the shaft with a few fingers of her hand at its base. She chanced a look up, finding that his eyes was closed as he accepted Mokou’s ministrations.

Had he shown anything but surrender, however, she could have taken comfort in the honesty of his cock. Pleasing it seemed straightforward. It throbbed in direct proportion to the amount of effort she put in and, before too long, he seemed to be headed for climax. Mokou removed the member from her mouth and finished him off by moving faster with her hand until he exploded in a considerable burst. She had moved out of what she deemed the likely trajectory of the ejaculate and so was able to admire the large globs that came to rest on the ground beside her without dirtying her clothes.

At some point she had fallen asleep. It couldn’t have been for too long, since it was still dark out. Some moonlight continued to come in through the window. She looked over to her side and saw that the man was fast asleep, his breathing even and the regular rising and falling of his chest visible in the dark.

Left alone with her thoughts again, Mokou thought of the months that followed the change in their relationship. They met at least once a week, usually at his house, and often spent the night together. She had never invited him to her home and thought that he was unlikely to find it by himself. If he was unhappy with that arrangement, he never said anything. Their conversations, in fact, were utterly mundane, with food, the weather and pleasantries mostly being the anchors. That wasn’t to say that they didn’t find one another interesting—far from it. Their longing for one another was not based on sex and, more than once, they did not do anything beyond sharing a bed and enjoying each other’s warmth through the night.

With time, the immortal came to learn of his routine. She knew which days of the week he went to help out at the school, when it was that he would go to supervise the land he rented out to others and on which days he would simply stay at home, tending to his various hobbies. Mokou did not pry into his private affairs and left him alone when he wished to be alone. Whether writing, reading or doing calligraphy, she would give him all the time and space that he needed. He was especially pensive those days, besides, and there was no point in disrupting that process. A few days of the month he would go out to socialize with peers. More out of obligation than desire, she assumed given his otherwise quiet life. Whenever he did make plans, he gave her a few days’ warning, so that they could meet up some other time.

Her entanglement did not preclude her life from proceeding as usual. She met with Keine, but never spoke of the man or her personal life. It had never been a habit of theirs anyhow. Occasionally, she met a lost human in the bamboo forest who she either escorted out or towards the clinic, should they need help. Whenever she did the latter, she would drop by to see Kaguya, taking a small path that went behind the clinic and to the main building. It had become something of routine for them to chat for a few minutes before she went away and it felt good to have a more-or-less open exchange with a peer.

“Are you in love?” Kaguya had asked her suddenly during one of those visits.

“I don’t think so. But I am enjoying myself,” she had replied without hesitating. Perhaps the rabbits had seen her walking with him. She didn’t ask.

“That’s good.”

“Have you ever been in love?” she feebly asked the princess. The answer was obvious. If she ever had been, it might have spared them centuries of strife.

“Not sure what it feels like?”

“No, it’s not that. Well, have you?”

“It is not like you to pry about these sorts of things,” the princess laughed softly.

“It doesn’t sound like it,” Mokou thought she had her answer.

“Ah, it’s also not like you to try to tease me,” she laughed again, “it is good to know that people can change. Even after a long time.”

She could still picture at the carefree look the lunarian had when she said that. It wasn’t an exchange that she had thought much about at first but, as the weeks passed, she found herself recalling what what Kaguya had said at the end almost obsessively. Irritation usually followed. Mokou knew it was true. After all, weren’t the two of them the prime examples of that? A bitterness had existed between them. It had cause them to fight, imposed upon them a cruel routine, relayed some sense of understanding with enough time … why then should she feel so irritated with herself?

That irritation haunted her in the predawn hours. Would a shrine maiden be capable of exorcising the almost-supernatural compulsion? Mokou found the humor in the situation, letting out a small laugh that broke the silence, one that was devoured by the calm of the room. Her hand brushed up against his body as she repositioned herself onto her other side. He was warm, he was soft. Had she moved her hand onto her chest, as she often did late at night, she would have felt his constancy and found facile solace.

She did no such thing. Even when he was asleep, his passive acceptance of her whims felt opprobrious.

The more active he become, the less she would think about her own greedy desire. She had gasped, hadn’t she? She had. She had gasped, the air leaving her chest as the man pressed his face to her own sex, as his neat and trimmed beard brushed against her sensitive areas and caused her whole body to buzz. A fever had spread to her voice, thinning it and making her quaver with infantine helplessness. Something shrill and from deep within gathered speed and bubbled to the surface. He was zealous and unsparing in his duties…. In his own desire, for such dedication could be nothing else. It was during those moments that Mokou felt a violence that could be called love. It inspired angry defiance, resistance to the inevitable thoughtless surrender.

It was something that tired her, that tortured her, and most certainly irritated her—a thirst that could not be quenched just by herself. Her attraction to him became painful and irresistible and exploded through the layers of reason and immodest self-doubt she weighed herself down with. It was a spiritual impoverishment that was made evermore present by the true emotion of the flesh. Another source of frustration for late nights in quiet rooms as she collected the unpleasant dregs of spirit and reason but, at the moment, all she could think of was how skillfully he administered his tongue and how expertly he would rub her thighs as he brought her to climax.

In those moments her voice became weak and she felt herself a victim of floodwaters. She could try to hold on as best she could to the banks, to a tree branch, wrap herself around a stone … her body would invariable bend and stretch, sink and drown beneath the water. Despair would rise in her chest, her breasts would heave—even if he had not been teasing her nipples as he worked—and she would be aware of her own physicality. She was a person like anyone else, with a weight and dimensions. Sweat would stick her hair against her flesh and face and she would become aware of her own scent, vital and human, of her naked skin that was fresh and yearning to be touched. The understanding between her and the man transformed slowly; it became undone and rooted them both to the spot, to one another.

She usually lost her restraint and began to sob, began to let out what was contained within. Ah! The fight was lost! Her voice exploded with a crudeness that surprised her every time. She was broken, drenched in a suffocating fog of pleasure and exhausted to her core. Even if she tried to hold out, she could not endure. Anger and defiance could do nothing but evaporate as she boiled in pleasure.

With the warm memories stirring in her chest and beyond, the immortal thought that the established order of her life had been smashed into fragments without her realizing it. Ecstatic greetings and promises of a different future followed. That future was liable to hold anything, an unknown that promised to be a change if nothing else. Was she trying to burn herself out? She realized that she was afraid of her stopping before she burned to ashes. It was not a decision she could make by herself. For herself.

What remained of the moonlight filtered in like gossamer, disappearing for good just before daybreak.

“I’ve been told that I ought to get married,” the man had said after dinner dryly. “No, not told, ordered,” he had gone on with a shake of his head, “a spinster aunt and a cousin can do little to continue the family name.”

In response, Mokou had positioned herself by his side. She said nothing and held his hand. His meaning was clear but she chose not to understand it because he could not truly understand her. Out of kindness she kissed him, tasting the meal they had just had on his lips and his beard. His eyes, as usual, spoke for him but Mokou pretended not to understand. He indulged her sweetly, caressing her shoulders and pressing his own body against hers.

Once in his bedroom, she had unbuttoned her shirt and let her suspenders fall slack at either side of herself as she removed her trousers. He inspected her by the lamplight, quiet and patient. She fell upon him and used her hand to move his to her moistening crotch. He kissed her compact, firm breasts as he inserted his fingers and played with her then-quaking flesh. Their foreplay was intense and seemed to go faster than usual. She tasted him without compunction and febrile desire led them to join their bodies.

Her motion was deliberate and sustained, rocking herself up and down above his supine form. His manhood pierced her, caused her breasts and long hair to rock backwards and forwards, up and down. Her lover’s hands grasped onto either side of her hips, allowing her to move at whichever pace that she wished. The drawn-out motion which provoked glistening beads of sweat on both face and body, on both him and her, also caused her skin to feel as if it were on fire. She was suffocating and could scarcely breathe; the firm flesh on both their bodies bound them together, condemning them to a most wonderful death.

Their explosion was wild; because there was no possibility of issue, she had never taken any precautions with him. His seed would slowly dribble out of her, likely becoming spot of sticky glaze on her inner thigh and on the futon below. She sank onto him, short of breath, her chest slumping onto his. He wrapped his arms behind her back and began to say something but she stopped him, kissing his face before nibbling at the hardier flesh of his teardrop. After some time, she dropped off from on top of him and rolled to his side, laying carefree, next to him.

She tried to quiet her heart. Nothing in the world turned out to be as meaningful—or as meaningless—as a single word. It could be uttered so carelessly, so quickly and could change everything. Or, nothing at all. She held her lover’s hand, urging the man to touch her, to explore her body as he pleased. He guessed what she was thinking and acquiesced. Tender caresses yielded to more probing touches as they recovered their strength. He placed himself above her, stroking her hair as he thrust into her once more. Moans and gasps supplanted words; their unspoken meaning had penetrated their understanding of one another.

The lamp had burned itself out many hours ago. At first, the first rays of dawn seemed as feeble and ethereal as those of the full moon. The deep dark and shadow resisted the golden light. But slowly, irrevocably, light made its way into the room and reached into every which corner. His profile, distinguishable but previously ill-defined, became sharper. Her own exposed flesh acquired color and fixed dimensions. Mokou had shifted to her other side, intent on watching how the renaissance of day would transform her lover’s shape.

Obdurate as she willed herself to be, she found his form almost alien. The soft, well-cared beard became a simple mess of dark brown, not entirely unlike the hair atop his rectangular head. Those pliable lips, ever-ready to accept her attention and ever-ready to press themselves selflessly against the wispy, silken area above her sex seemed just a little too puffy, engorged with blood and meat and in no way attractive. Eyelashes seemed to project needlessly long over those closed eyes, curving like a mosquito’s leg.

And that teardrop! It bulged out in an unseemly fashion, drawing shadow towards it and distorting its shape. Instead of accenting a well-shaped neck, it disfigured it, marring the symmetry of normality. How then could those broad shoulders hope to seem appropriate if they connected to such ugliness? Tainted too was the bared chest, the long arms and legs and anything else that could be said to connect to that disfigurement. On the other side of a screen it wouldn’t have been noticeable. It might have even been desirable.

Mokou shook off the last vestiges of sleep and got to her feet. She arranged her hair first, for not real reason, drawing long silvery strands together and tying back on the ribbons that she had carelessly discarded the previous evening. Still otherwise naked, she moved to the window, placing a hand against the thin material. The paper felt warm to the touch and it didn’t appear like there would be much longer to wait before the sun boldly perch itself high upon the sky.

As she dressed herself, her eyes fell upon the man again. His eyes stared back. They saw right through her. They always had. The man had not tried to justify himself as she did and tolerated her numerous prevarications. Her cheeks felt hot with shame. Her satisfaction and happiness had been hers to accept whenever she had wanted. Those patient, generous eyes had not wished to add to her burden. All of the unfair rubbish she had projected onto him fell by the wayside as she drank of their kindness for a last time. All she had to do was to say a word—a single meaningless word—free from shadow and unafraid of the day and there would be no further need for intangible kindness. What they both wanted would then come to pass.

To an unwanted child, to one who had been drawn to love because it was transformative and within grasp, it was a terribly difficult decision to make. The certainty of change was the only thing that gave her the power to resist the pain of loss.

Outside of the man’s home, she found that a busker had fallen asleep by the outside wall. His night had also been sleepless and his payment most likely the half-empty sake bottle that he still clutched close to his chest. He did not stir as the immortal walked past him. The sun had, indeed, come out in force early in the day. Already she could feel the intense summer heat beginning to bear down upon her. As she navigated between narrow streets, she encountered no one. Tears began to stream down her cheek; they were not for herself.