She grabs a dish of bright orange togarashi spice and blows it right in the women’s faces. A blast of hot, spraying sand, the spices burn their way into their eyes and up their nostrils. They clutch their faces, writhing in such pain that their red wigs fall, exposing perfectly bald, egg-shaped heads. The Yokai sprints atop the table, kicking at whoever gets in her way, scoops the baby into her arms, and runs out the door.

“After her!” comes the women’s collective shrieks. “She’s got our dinner!”

As careful as anyone could hold a baby under the circumstances, the Yokai runs down hallway after hallway, a labyrinth of intricately designed walls, in sheer panic. There are no signs of any doors or windows, nothing that can serve as an escape. The sound of claws on tatami flooring is not far behind her. If only she knew her own power, if only she knew how big imagination can stretch the house, and if only she knew her way through its maze-like halls, she could have found her way to the other side, to find Akki lying in a vast bedroom with his most recent guest. Not that he would have any inclination to help anyone at the moment.

“Aaaah,” the young woman beside him sighs. “That was just what I needed.” She stretches under the silk ivory sheets like a cat. “This new job is so stressful. I can’t believe it! Who knew that kids had so much energy? And you have to smile all day and get them to speak, and they don’t understand a word of what you’re saying so they just keep talking and …” Interrupted by the flicker of flame, she turns to the man next to her. “Ugh, you smoke? That’s so unhealthy! Can you open a window or something? I don’t want to get sick. I just started this job, you see, and it would look really bad if I’m ill my first week. Anyway, the other day all the girls took me to this restaurant, and the food was so good! But you had to use all these forks and knives, and it was so confusing! I don’t know how foreigners do it. If I were to live in a foreign country, I don’t think I could survive. I was lucky though, when I visited Australia, I didn’t go to any fancy restaurants. Oh, there was this one time, when we went to this teacher’s house for a barbecue, and we had all this meat but we had to eat it with our hands, it was so funny! And then we — hey … what happened to your skin? So bright! You’ve changed!”

Akki grumbles and pulls the sheets over his head. He just wants to sleep. No chance of that happenin’. He rips the sheets away and gets up.