The lady stops at a booth with a window. She bows a perfect ninety degrees. “Please have a seat. I will return shortly. Relax, and be yourselves.”

The girl slides into one side of the booth. Akki collapses on the other with a sigh of relief into his cushioned seat. He rips off his jacket and shirt and chucks them onto the humongous table. The table was not designed with giant boar gods in mind, so he settles for his in-between form: a samurai with a blazing green aura haloed around him. He feels so free. “See? What’d I tell you? The real deal. Pure. Classic. Right out of the old days. None of that newfangled gaijin shit you see everywhere. You don’t even see fries on their menu. Anyway, what was I talkin’ about? Oh yeah. I don’t even know if the kid made it out of there,” Akki goes on. “Haven’t seen him since. I left him a message to show up here but no clue if he even got it. Maybe I went a little too far, settin’ the whole place on fire. Shit, man, I don’t know where I can find a better wingman than that kid. Tail hasn’t been this easy to get in a century. All he has to do is bat those crazy eyes of his and bitches come runnin’. Then all I gotta do is step into the room. The second they lay eyes on this divine temple they forget all about him. Can’t blame ’em. The kid’s like a rickety shack next to me. Oh, don’t look at me like that. I can say that about him. We all know it’s true. The real bonus is he’s got both bases covered — the prudes fall for that ‘cherry boy’ soushoku-danshi vibe he gives off, and the sluts who got that gaijin fever are too stupid to see through him. Best of both worlds, you know? Never could figure out why he goes through all that trouble to convince bitches he’s a ‘hafu.’ Hell, whatever gets the job done, am I right?”

The girl faces him for the first time this evening. She speaks in a throaty voice, deep as a man’s: “You moron. He is ‘hafu.’”

He cracks up. “Please! You tryin’ to play with my balls, Hinochan? You know I prefer the real thing.”

“He has been dreaming about his American father kidnapping him for years. Do you not talk to him? You have been harassing this human for a third of his life, and you do not know anything about him?”

Akki swears under his breath. “Leave me alone. Fuck. Can’t we just hang out instead of talkin’ about stupid shit nobody cares about? I’m hungry. And DON’T look at me like that. I picked a good place for us this time.”