“It’s okay! Change is good! I wish I could change my body like that, whenever I wanted. I would change myself all the time! My hair, my breasts, my legs, my eyes — what a fortune I’d save if I could just snap! Wouldn’t that be wonderful? It would be like having superpowers!”

Akki slams the door on her words with a great swing of his arm. Downstairs he slips his feet into his giant pair of waraji and steps outside. It is nighttime. As it should be. He really needs to get over this new-found paranoia. “Ah —” he flinches as pain jets through his lower back. As he mentally curses Zaniel, something in the air makes him pause. He sniffs. Smoke. Smoke and immortal blood. Yes! Wading through the darkness with pristine night vision he heads around to the back of the house. Wisps of cigarette smoke float up from the giant koi pond in Akki’s backyard. Who else could it be?

“Shit, girl, don’t you ever put that thing down?!” he jokes in place of an excited greeting. Hino has a cigarette in her mouth and is engrossed in typing a text message on a keychain-laden keitai with both thumbs. “Huh. You actually get a signal on that thing up here?” Hino rolls her eyes. “Who are you textin’, anyway?” She does not answer. “Forget you, then. Where is that scrawny son of a bitch?”

Hino takes a long time to answer. “Why? This one was not what you were looking for, either?”

“Are you kiddin’ me? I threw my back out on this one.” He rubs his hip dramatically and pouts when Hino still does not look up. “That’s the second one to disappoint me this week. Two out of three. Come on, let’s get out of here. I need a massage.”

Akki’s eyes catch a slight bulge in the front pocket of Hino’s blazer. He pulls out the cigarette box without so much as a brush against her breast, lights one up with the lighter inside, which, to his chagrin, lights up with pink sparkles and plays a very loud electronic rendition of “Butterfly.” “Ai, yai, yai,” the lighter squeals over and over again.

“What the fuck?” Akki exclaims. “How do you turn this off?”

“You do not. It plays the whole thing.”

“The hell it does.” He winds up his arm and lobs the singing lighter through his bedroom window. Flames lick the air. “I hate that song.”

“Hey!” Hino yells indignantly. “That lighter’s as old as your human years! Where am I supposed to find another?!”

“So? Come on. She can go on about her superpowers and bum-fuck gaikoku on her own time. I ain’t no shrink.”

“I suppose. There is something you should know, Akki. I think your human has …” She trails off with a fed-up sigh. She is still thinking about her lighter. “Honestly, Akki, was that necessary?”