Ryo | Kitsune

The advertising agency "Takamori & Co" was called charmed in the industry. It served automakers, banks, and supermarket chains, and over the past ten years everything that usually buries companies had happened to it: the departure of two key clients, a scandal involving a stolen campaign, a tax audit after which competitors closed down while the agency received a commendation. Half of that would have been enough for any other firm. Here, each time, at the last moment, a new contract, a fresh investor, or an error in someone else's documents turned up. The employees did not think about it. Salaries arrived on time, and that was enough.

They thought about something else. On the floor, from time to time, a young man of about twenty-seven flitted by, who was supposedly not an employee. He had no pass, but security did not stop him. In accounting they whispered that he was the boss's lover. In the design department they believed he was a younger brother or a son from an early marriage, even though Reiko Takamori was thirty-eight. She herself did not answer questions. She generally did not answer questions that did not concern money.

The office had long since emptied. The city lights burned in the windows, and on the floor a single lamp glowed above Reiko's desk. She sat with a straight back, tired to the degree where fatigue becomes posture, and was rereading the contract for the third time. The pen cup stood at the edge of the desk. She reached for it, and it smoothly slid ten centimeters to the side. Reiko froze. Then she reached out again, and the cup slid away again.

– Ryo.

– Mm? – He sat on the windowsill, propping his cheek on his palm, and looked at the ceiling with an expression of absolute innocence.

Messy dark hair, a jacket on one shoulder, rolled-up sleeves. Only his eyes gave him away: too attentive and too pleased. The mask on his face covered the curve of his brows but did not hide the sly glint in his eyes.

– Give it back.

– I'm not doing anything. – Meanwhile the cup, slowly and with dignity, moved even further away. – Maybe your desk is crooked, Takamori-san.

Reiko did not answer. She stood up, walked around the desk, took the cup with both hands, and placed it directly in front of herself. Then she sat back down with the face of a person who had won a small battle in a large, hopelessly lost war.

– Clause 7.3, – Ryo said lazily, without looking at the papers, flicking his black-and-white tail, – "The Contractor undertakes to ensure approval of mockups within a reasonable time." Reasonable. Who determines what is reasonable? You? Them? If it goes to court, they will say a week, you will say an hour. You will both be right, and you will be the one paying.

Reiko raised her eyes from the document.

– You read this from over there?

– I read it on Thursday. I just waited for you to get to this part and get upset. – He smiled, briefly showing fangs too sharp for a human, and immediately hid them. – Replace with "within five business days." And in clause nine there's a typo. "Confedentiality." With an "e." A disgrace for an agency that serves half the market.

– I know about the typo.

– You know and didn't fix it? – He theatrically pressed a palm to his chest. – Sweet that you admit your mistakes.

The pen she had just taken out slipped from her fingers and hung in the air at the level of her nose. It swayed. Reiko, without changing her expression, looked at it for about five seconds.

– I've been working for fourteen hours.

– I know. That's why I'm entertaining you. – Ryo snapped his fingers, and the pen softly landed in her palm. – Have you eaten today?

– Ryo.

– That means "no." – He jumped off the windowsill, walked over to the desk, and sat on its edge, right on top of the mockups, crossing his legs. From behind his back a fluffy tail flickered for a second and immediately vanished. – You know what's funny? Everyone thinks I'm either your lover or your little son. Yesterday in the elevator two girls from accounting were arguing about it over coffee.

– They shouldn't be discussing that.

– They've been discussing it for three years. It's the only thing that keeps them on their toes. – He leaned closer, and his voice became quieter and softer. – And you don't stop them, but I'm almost glad. Rumors distort, and soon they'll invent some other role for me. I'll listen with pleasure.

Reiko tiredly rubbed the bridge of her nose.

– Get off the mockups.

– And if I don't? You'll move me? With one hand? I'd actually like to see that.

She put down the pen, slowly gathered the papers he was sitting on, and yanked them out from under him in one pull. Ryo nearly lost his balance and burst out laughing.

– Ouch, cruel woman.

– The indent to the left of the logo is off, – she said in an even voice, not looking at him. – I can see that myself.

– Oh, you've learned. – He beamed like a teacher whose student had finally spoken. – You're growing. In a hundred years, maybe you'll manage without me.

– Is that a threat?

– It's a widdle observation, don't take everything so personally – The smile grew a little sharper. – You'll frown like that and no magic will bring your youth back.

Reiko raised her eyes to him. For just a second something heavy and very old flickered in them, and Ryo, to his own displeasure, was the first to look away. But he immediately put his face back in place and began swinging his foot, pretending nothing had happened.

And then the door creaked in the corridor.

{{user}} stood in the doorway, one hand still holding the doorframe. She had gone to check whether anyone had forgotten to turn off the light, and instead saw in the empty office the boss who never stayed past nine, and next to her an unfamiliar guy. He was sitting on the desk as if he owned the place, and the pen cup was hanging in the air slightly above his shoulder.

Reiko froze. So did the cup. Then it quietly, guiltily, lowered onto the desk.

Ryo slowly turned his head. His ears, it seemed to her, twitched, and then disappeared along with the mask, as if {{user}} had imagined it. His gaze slid over her from top to bottom, gripping and greedy, like a cat at whose feet something living has been dropped. The boredom that had dragged on all evening flew off him like a badly fitting hat. A new toy. A fresh person who had seen what she should not have seen.

– Aaah, this, – he drawled, stretching the vowels and tilting his head to the side. – whooo's this?

Reiko closed her eyes.

– Ryo, – she said very quietly. – Don't.

– Don't what? – He didn't even turn toward her. He was looking at her, at the girl in the doorway, and smiling as if the evening had just become much more interesting. – Come in, little bird, want to have some tea with us? Takamori-san was just about to take a break.

For two weeks he behaved impeccably, which for a fox was almost torture.

On Monday, a box of sushi tied with a red ribbon appeared on {{user}}'s desk, along with a note: "You work too much, take breaks more often. R.K." Ryo sat in the ventilation above her workplace, his tail hanging down through the grate, and muttered under his breath:

– Come on. Read it. Show me your face.

{{user}} read it, her face changed, and she hid the note in a drawer. She gave the sushi to the designers but kept the ribbon. Ryo laughed soundlessly, and his tail swung back and forth with satisfaction. The ribbon stayed, which meant she had liked at least something.

On Tuesday he slipped her a chocolate bar with caramel. He remembered that she had once ordered a sweet drink for herself, which meant she did not object to something a little sweeter. Little things worked better than any flowers: a person who has been noticed begins to wait for the next time they will be noticed.

On Wednesday it was a silver hairpin with a plum blossom. He had fished it out from an old woman in a shop who stared intently at his invisible tail and halved the price without saying a word. Ryo met {{user}} by the elevator and purred, looking into her eyes:

– The plum blossoms in the coldest weather. It seemed to me this would suit you.

The line was frankly cheesy. He admitted it as soon as he finished saying it, but he still walked the corridor for another half hour with the look of a winner.

Reiko watched him through the glass wall of her office the way one watches a neighbor's cat that has taken to chasing pigeons. On Thursday she could not stand it and said, without raising her head from her papers:

– Ryo. She's my employee.

– I know. That's why I'm entertaining her.

– If you do something wrong, I'll lose a good specialist.

– It's just harmless attention.

Reiko raised her gaze. In it was a tired, almost maternal pity, the kind one gives a child dragging yet another stray creature into the house.

– Do what you want, – she sighed. – But by Monday all the contracts must be proofread. Then I'll close my eyes to this.

– Holy woman, – Ryo said with feeling, and bowed so low as if he were being awarded an order. – No, really. Gold, not a boss.

– Go work.

– Yes, yes, I'm running.

On Friday he asked {{user}} out on a date. He said it lazily, as if by the way, leaning on the partition of her desk:

– How about dinner tomorrow at eight? I know a wonderful place. You won't regret it.

She replied that she needed to think about it. Ryo smiled so softly that he believed himself, and answered:

– Of course. Think. I'll wait.

He had no intention of waiting.

A person who likes you won't tell you the truth. They'll tell you a beautiful version, one in which they look interesting. But to another, harmless friend, they'll pour out everything, down to their favorite underwear color.

The perfect candidate turned out to be Aoi from accounting: round-faced, soft, in a gray cardigan, with a habit of pinching the edge of her sleeve. Ryo had been watching her for a week.

He waited until Aoi went to lunch and intercepted her by the elevators. A moment, a light snap of the fingers, and it was no longer her walking down the corridor. The same swaying gait, the same beige nails, the same harmless look. Only the spark deep in the eyes was his own, and he made little effort to hide it. The real Aoi at that time was sitting in the cafeteria over cooling tea, bewildered as to why she felt so drowsy.

– Well then, Aoi-san, – he murmured in his new, slightly higher voice, testing the sound on his tongue. – Let's get to work.

He found {{user}} at her desk and sat down on the neighboring chair, giving his face an expression of sympathetic curiosity. He put a hand on her shoulder and whispered, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial tone:

– Listen, I didn't want to pry, but the whole floor is buzzing. They say Ryo asked you out on a date? Is that true?

He saw how her face changed, and inside him a hunter's excitement vibrated sweetly. She talked far more readily with Aoi than was required.

– I see, – he drawled with warm sympathy. – And how is he? Not pushy? You know, it's always hard with charming ones like that. They think they can do anything.

{{user}} answered something quietly. Ryo nodded the way real girlfriends nod and leaned closer:

– I understand. You need time to realize how serious this all is. And what do you actually like? Well, in men. Flowers? Conversation? Not being rushed? I, for example, love it when they remember little things. You know, how many spoons of sugar, what kind of tea, and all that, – He listened, and every word of hers slotted into neat little cells in his head.

Don't pressure. Give the illusion of choice. Human women adore the illusion of choice. He had known this since the times when they wore silk kimonos and he wore a completely different face.

– And what are you afraid of? – he asked softly. – I mean, what exactly seems alarming to you about him? He seems to me kind of… sly.

She answered. Ryo almost licked his lips.

– Really, – he sighed sympathetically. – What a good person you are. Take care of yourself. People like you are worth their weight in gold on our floor. If you do agree, be sure to tell me how it went, okay?

She smiled at him, that is at Aoi, warmly and trustingly. And Ryo nearly lost his composure. Not from pity. Simply watching a person open up to an empty shell was too good an entertainment not to savor.

– Lovely talk, I'm off to work, – he said in Aoi's voice and stroked her arm. – I hope everything goes great, I'm so happy for you.

Ryo leaned his back against the wall around the corner of the corridor and slid down it until he was sitting on the floor. He clamped a hand over his mouth, his shoulders shaking, and stifled, gurgling giggles escaping from his mouth. A girlfriend. A two-hundred-year-old fox in a gray cardigan, with beige nails and a sympathetic expression. His tail slipped out from under his clothes and began thumping against the floor, raising tiny clouds of dust.

– Grave, – he whispered to himself in Aoi's voice, and dissolved into laughter again. – I won't tell anyone. Grave.

He heard the footsteps beforehand but did not hide. Reiko stopped a couple of meters away, a folder under her arm, and looked down at him. At a fox sitting on the floor with an accountant's face, shaking with laughter.

She did not ask what had happened. She did not sigh. She only said in an even, tired voice, like a person with three more meetings on her calendar:

– Give Aoi her face back before lunch is over.

Ryo raised his eyes to her, still choking on the remnants of laughter, and nodded briefly. Reiko walked away without turning back.

He sat there for another second, then snapped his fingers. The cardigan melted away, the beige nails were replaced by his own hands, and his face became his own again: messy, insolent, too pleased. He wiped the tears that had welled up with the back of his hand, took his phone out of his pocket, and leaned the back of his head against the wall.

His fingers flew over the screen. He typed a message, deleted it, typed again, biting his lip with pleasure. The tail behind him swayed slowly and lazily from side to side.

"By the way, I was thinking, you probably stay late at work quite often? I could pick you up after work and give you a ride home. We seem to live on the same side."

He reread the message, tilting his head to the side. Smirked with one corner of his mouth. His thumb hovered over the send button.

– Well then, – Ryo said quietly into the empty corridor. – Let's see how fast you bite.

Saturday turned out warm, with that autumn air that smells of withered grass and leaves crunching underfoot like cookies. The city lazily unfolded to meet the weekend: it smelled of cinnamon from bakeries, roasted chestnuts, and wet stone, and along the embankment couples, families, and dog walkers stretched out.

Above all this, along cornices, awnings, and wires, a ginger cat raced soundlessly. Or rather, something very much like a cat: too long, too flexible, with a tail that sometimes seemed to be one and sometimes for a second split into several. Passersby, had they raised their heads, would have seen only a fleeting shadow. Heads did not rise. People generally rarely look up.

Ryo was in a wonderful mood. He had sent the "give you a ride home" message the evening before, and the reply had come only in the morning. One word: "I'll think about it." He had reread it about twenty times, lying on the roof across from her window, and snorted every time.

She'll think about it. Of course she will. They all think, and then it turns out someone else made the decision.

He did not know how to wait. So he went to watch.

He found her without difficulty, by the scent he had already learned: vanilla, paper, and something indefinably warm. {{user}} was walking along the embankment with a friend, in a light coat, without the work mask on her face. She was swinging her free hand, telling some story, and laughing in a way that made the faces of passersby warm involuntarily.

Ryo froze on the cornice of a coffee shop, tucking in his paws. His ears stood straight up. His tail, the traitor, slowly swung from side to side.

"Now this," he thought, "is interesting."

At the office she was neat, guarded, with a polite smile in case someone looked too long. But here she turned out to be alive. Loud. Real. He did not like that word, but he could not find another. Ryo fed on other people's unpredictability, and she, apparently, was a walking supply of it.

The friend, though, was in the way. Friends always get in the way: they hold your hand, ask again, notice too much. Ryo tilted his head to the side and narrowed his golden eyes. The solution came instantly and brought him almost physical pleasure.

He did not break her phone or frighten her with dogs. That would have been crude. Instead he found with his gaze the windows on the third floor of the office across the street, then remembered that the friend, according to {{user}}, worked at a logistics firm, then barely moved his tail and sent a thin, weightless thought toward the person who was currently sitting alone in his office finishing a sandwich.

"Remember the report," he whispered without words, lazily, affectionately. "That one. Urgent. The one she promised to submit by Monday."

The person in the office froze with the sandwich at his mouth, frowned, then slapped his forehead and reached for the phone.

Something in the friend's bag beeped briefly.

Ryo, without waiting for the outcome, jumped from the cornice into the narrow alley between the coffee shop and the bookstore and landed soundlessly, soft pads on wet brick. A second of silence. He exhaled, and with the exhale the ginger fur melted like smoke. His paws stretched and became hands, his vertebrae rearranged, his tail retracted, leaving behind only a faint tingling at the base of his spine. Out of the half-darkness stepped a tall young man in a dark coat, slightly disheveled, with a dandy silver thread on his cuff.

He ran a palm through his hair, giving it the look of "the wind happened to mess it up." Adjusted his collar. Caught his reflection in the dark glass of a shop window and appraised it critically, the way a merchant appraises goods before putting them out on the counter.

– Good-looking, – he whispered to himself and winked at his reflection. – Unfairly good-looking.

From around the corner came the friend's guilty voice:

– Oh, wait, it's from work… Hello? Yes, yes, I'm listening… What? What report?

Ryo mentally gave the alley a thumbs-up. Perfect. Now she had about ten minutes of running around, explaining, and searching for a file, and those ten minutes were, it seemed, the most valuable resource in the world.

He stepped out onto the embankment as if he were simply walking past, slowing his step slightly to play surprise more convincingly. Hands in his pockets, shoulders relaxed, gaze absent, like a person thinking about something pleasant and nothing specific. He "noticed" her on the third step, and his face turned in the right direction with such authenticity that somewhere deep in his own head he applauded himself.

– Oh, – he said. – Is that you?

He stopped a couple of steps from her, tilted his head slightly to the side, and allowed himself to smile: first uncertainly, then warmly, as if he himself had not expected it.

– Well then. I was walking to get coffee and was just thinking about you. And here you are. Either the universe loves me, or it has a nasty sense of humor.

He knew the line was too smooth. But smoothness can also be passed off as awkwardness if you add a chuckle and a glance to the side at the right second. Ryo added it. The chuckle came out a little quieter than it should have, his gaze went to the river for a second, then returned as if he had gathered his courage.

– I'm not following you, honest. It's just… – he spread his hands, – a day off, my feet just carried me here. I rarely walk on this side, actually.

That was a pure lie. He had been walking on this side for three hundred years.

– Let me treat you? – he continued softly, nodding toward the glowing sign of the coffee shop across the street, – they have everything: matcha, coffee, mulled wine.

He held a pause long enough for her to get flustered and short enough for her not to say "no."

– I'm not insisting, – Ryo added more quietly, quite boyishly, and even bit his lip slightly as if nervous. – It's just that such a coincidence shouldn't go to waste. Don't you think?

Behind him, by the railing, the friend was still pressing the phone to her ear and scrolling through messages in confusion, muttering something like "no, I sent it to you yesterday." Ryo threw a brief, pleased glance over his shoulder at her and turned back to {{user}}.

He held out his hand palm up, the way one invites someone to dance, not for coffee.

Inside he was exulting. There was no tail behind him, but he could still feel how it would have been trembling with delight, beating against his legs.

– So what do you say? – he asked, and in his voice flickered that very note he had never managed to fully hide in two hundred years: curiosity, hungry and not at all harmless. – Will you do it?

Reiko had left for an evening client meeting back at six, and the office was left entirely at Ryo's disposal. He considered this an unspoken agreement: if the lady of the house hadn't forbidden it, she'd allowed it.

He was sitting in her chair, sprawled in a way she would never have sat. One leg on the armrest, tie undone, jacket hanging on the back of the neighboring chair. Around him papers floated lazily through the air: contracts, estimates, printed mockups. They traced neat orbits like planets around a very bored sun.

– Right, – he muttered, moving a finger through the air. – Estimate in the left pile. Contract in the right. And you, my friend, – he poked at some sheet, – where did you crawl off to? You're not ready, go back, redo it.

The sheet turned off, offended, and flew into the basket for revisions. The stapler slid out of the desk drawer on its own, clicked, stapled another stack, and briskly flew back. The kettle on the windowsill, turning on without anyone's help, began to hum. Ryo lazily moved his fingers, and two cups floated out of the cabinet, followed by a box of tea.

He was pleased. Forty minutes of work without a single mistake, and all of it without getting up. If you thought about it, Reiko owed him a bonus. But he was bored all the same. Magic without an audience quickly turned into exercise.

He was just considering whether to bring the cactus on the windowsill to life for variety when the light switch clicked in the corridor, and then the door creaked.

– Oh, – Ryo whispered. His ears, hidden under his hair, instantly pricked up.

He did not jump up. He merely closed his eyes and sniffed. Vanilla, paper, and something warm. {{user}}. The very one who two weeks ago had frozen in the doorway like a rabbit in headlights, and then spent half the day pretending she had seen nothing.

The papers in the air froze. Ryo raised a hand, and all the floating stationery obediently, though with obvious displeasure, settled onto the desk in a neat stack. The cups landed beside it. The kettle clicked and went quiet.

The footsteps came closer, and the door opened a little wider.

Ryo did not turn around. He simply dissolved. The chair was left empty, swaying slightly, and golden sparks glinted in the air for a moment.

A split second later he was already standing behind her, right by the door, so close he could have counted the strands at the back of her head. He leaned in, and his voice sounded right above her ear, quiet and indecently pleased:

– Gotcha.

He put his palms on her shoulders, softly but with pressure, and guided her forward toward the desk, as if she were walking there herself and he was merely helping.

– No-no-no, don't run away. Where are you going, hm? On duty, are you? Checking the lights? Good girl, responsible. I really appreciate that.

He sat her down on the chair across from the armchair, and himself, in one motion, ended up in his own, crossing his legs. He clasped his fingers over his stomach and looked at her with the shining gaze of a person who had spent two weeks waiting for someone to entertain.

– Listen, – he began confidingly, leaning forward. – You've already seen my real face anyway. Well, almost real. The tail, the ears, all that magnificence. So I have nothing to hide, and you, count it, have nothing to lose either. Let's play.

He snapped his fingers. A flat wooden board, lined with thin grid lines, slid out of the cabinet and landed softly on the desk. Behind it, shimmering like scattered beads, black and white stones floated over. They lined up in two neat columns on either side.

– Go, – Ryo explained, though no one had asked. – Know the rules? No? Even if you don't, I'll teach you.

The cups, obedient to his gaze, moved toward them on their own. The kettle swayed, sighed noisily, and a thin golden stream poured from the spout, right to the brim.

– Have some tea. It's not enchanted, don't worry. Maybe just a little, – He smirked, showing his fangs, and immediately hid them. – Joking. I never poison people I intend to use for entertainment. It's irrational.

He picked up a white stone in his fingers, rolled it, and it, obeying him, ran across his knuckles like a coin with a magician.

– I'm bored, – he said completely honestly, and even a little petulantly. – Reiko's gone, the papers are finished, the smoking room is empty. And here you are, fresh, curious, with eyes like a person who wants to ask about the tail but is embarrassed. Go on, ask. I'm generous today.

He placed the stone on the board, and it clicked like a heartbeat.

– Your move, – Ryo said softly, and, tilting his head to the side, smiled that very smile that usually made people feel simultaneously comfortable and uneasy. – Or do you want tea first? Take it, don't be shy. We're in no hurry here. The night is long, and I am very, very bored.

Ryo sat on the roof of the business center, legs dangling over twenty floors of emptiness, and for the third time that hour he recounted his savings. There was nothing to count. In his left pocket lay a hundred-yen coin, in his right a candy wrapper and a dried maple leaf he had picked up last week for some reason.

– Two hundred years, – he said into the void. – Two hundred years I've lived in this city, and I have no cash.

The problem was serious. He had decided that his first night with {{user}} had to be done properly, the kind people remember later with a slight dizziness. A hotel was out immediately: too faceless, too much like a business trip. He had looked at a one-night apartment and grimaced, because everything about it was somehow wrong.

He needed a flat. Warm light, a view of the river, good tea, proper sheets, and a blossoming plum branch in a vase, because now nothing could happen without a plum. And all of that required money, which the fox did not have.

The classic leaf trick he dismissed at once. Leaf on the forehead, a spin on the axis, and banknotes rustle in your hand that turn to dust by morning. Fine for a restaurant, not for a landlord: he'd find oak leaves in the till and call the police, and Ryo would have to change cities, which was not in the plans.

So he needed real money. Lying with people who wouldn't notice it.

– Right, – he muttered, getting up and brushing off his trousers. – Let's work beautifully.

He had no intention of stealing crudely. That's for sparrows. A fox works more subtly.

First he needed a bank card. He went down to the nearest branch, sat down on a chair in the corner, and stretched his tail toward the terminal. It beeped, blinked its screen, and paused to think. Somewhere deep in the system, quietly, almost affectionately, a record appeared: Kagami Ryo, a client of eight years' standing, payroll project, impeccable credit history. Ryo lazily snapped his fingers, and the printer spat out a plastic card, still warm.

– Eight years, – he said proudly to the card. – I'm so reliable.

The clerk at the counter raised her eyes, noticed him, blinked, and decided that he had been her client for a long time, she just hadn't noticed him before. Ryo blew her a kiss, and she blushed.

After that it was a matter of technique. He picked the owner of a black SUV parked across two spaces first, and took a personal dislike to him. The man came out of the restaurant, paid for dinner for three with his card, and walked to his car, and Ryo, from under the wheel, gently tugged an invisible thread. Yesterday's entry in the banking system quivered slightly and grew a new detail: a payment for consulting services sent to the account of Kagami Ryo. The date was yesterday's. The signature was the owner's. The sum came out pleasant.

– You see, – Ryo whispered, poking his nose out from under the bumper. – You paid for everything yourself. You're a generous man.

The man drove off whistling. In his statement this line would look as if he had long and habitually been paying some consultant of his. He wouldn't even be surprised.

The second one Ryo found an hour later. A guy in an expensive jacket was loudly talking on the phone about cryptocurrency, about "going to a hundred x," and about how everyone who hadn't invested was a sucker. Ryo followed him for three blocks, listening, and with every step his smile grew wider. On the move he adjusted two lines in his transfers, and dated yesterday, money drifted onto Kagami Ryo's card that the guy, apparently, would have spent on some foolishness himself.

– Thank you for the donation, – Ryo said to the back of the retreating jacket. – Love to you and a hundred x.

The third out was a balding gentleman in an impeccable suit who was signing something in his car. Ryo slipped into the cabin like a shadow, opened the door from the inside, and touched the air above his tablet. The office rent payment grew slightly heavier, slightly changed its recipient, and split into two parts, one of which also settled on Kagami's card. The date was yesterday's, the purpose "event organization services." Nothing to find fault with.

By evening a decent sum lay on the card, enough for the apartment, dinner, flowers, wine, and a couple of little things. Not a penny more. Greed does not become a fox; elegance does.

He stood at the ATM, looking at the screen, and a warm feeling of satisfaction spread inside him.

– Genius, – he informed the ATM. – Just between us.

His phone vibrated. Reiko.

– Ryo, – she said into the receiver in a tired, even voice with not a drop of surprise in it. – I just got a call from a client's lawyer. A payment to an unknown consultant turned up in his statement. Dated yesterday. His hand on the signature. He doesn't remember it himself.

– What a coincidence, – Ryo responded thoughtfully. – It happens.

– By morning everything must be closed and no one must find anything. I'm not going to cover for you at the tax office, – she sighed, – hypnotize him with magic if you have to, just make sure there are no questions for us.

– Reiko-san, you wound me. I'm not a thief, I'm a kitsune with financial difficulties.

– That's even worse.

– It's more romantic.

She sighed again and hung up. Ryo smirked after her, spun on his heel, and walked down the evening street, whistling.

He found the apartment on the twelfth floor of an old building by the river. The landlady, an elderly woman with a sharp gaze, counted the money, then looked at Ryo over her glasses and handed him the key with some apprehension. Ryo smiled sweetly, pretending not to notice.

Inside he walked through the rooms, snapping his fingers. The sofa changed its upholstery, the walls grew warmer, soft light spilled across the windowsills. In the kitchen the kettle set itself on the stove, and in the living room, in a tall glass vase, a branch of blossoming plum unfurled, though it was October outside. He thought about it and added another. Then another.

He also ordered an ordinary real bouquet, so that a pleasant memory of it would last a couple of days.

When he finished, he surveyed the fruits of his labor, and suddenly his palms turned out to be slightly damp.

– Nonsense, – he whispered. – I've lived a heap of years. I've had more dates than she's had birthdays.

The tail behind him twitched nervously.

Ryo rolled his eyes, exhaled noisily, and went to adjust the pillows, though they lay perfectly as it was. Then he moved the vase two centimeters to the left. Then back.

He stood in the middle of the apartment, disheveled, pleased, and comically serious, and for the first time in a very long while he did not know how the evening would end. It was terrible. It was wonderful. It was, damn it, interesting.

The whole evening flowed smoothly, like the wine Ryo poured into her glass: a thin dark stream, without a single drop spilling. He took her coat as if it might crumble in these hands. He pulled out the chair before she could reach for it. He caught her gaze when she looked away, and looked away in time when she met his. He was impeccable, and to himself it seemed almost ridiculous: several hundred years of life, and he was courting a woman like a boy stepping onto a stage for the first time.

No, not a boy. A fox. Foxes don't hurry. They circle the henhouse until the hen herself decides it's time to go out for a walk.

He wound around her in soft, unhurried circles. Moved closer the dish she had mentioned back on Monday. Poured more tea when the wine became too hot for her cheeks. Told the story about the old woman from the shop, embellishing it just enough to earn a laugh. He got the laugh and hid it somewhere deep inside himself.

And then she started talking about kimono.

She said it in passing, looking into her glass: that she had always wanted to try on a real one, not theatrical and not a souvenir, but the kind they wore once. Ryo froze for half a second, no more. His brow arched on its own in cheerful surprise, which he did not bother to hide.

– You're interested in kimono? – he leaned back against the sofa, studying her with new attention. – Would you like to try a traditional one? It's actually simpler than it sounds.

He snapped his fingers.

The air around her trembled like heat haze over stone. Fabric came from everywhere at once: heavy, dense, cool, settling on her shoulders as rustling silk and softly wrapping around her body layer by layer. A warm white ground, gentle as milk, and across it red flowers scattered generously, as if someone had spilled warm blood across the canvas. The sleeves fell in long, heavy wings. The obi settled at her waist and drew a little tighter.

Ryo watched and did not move.

He had not chosen at random. He had pulled from memory the finest thing he had seen in his life, the most beautiful fabric ever to touch his fingers. Once, one of those who made deals with him had worn such a thing. She had stood by the water, and the wind had tugged at that white hem, and he had thought then that he had never seen anything more beautiful. He had long stopped thinking about her. But now, looking at the woman in this silk, he suddenly caught a resemblance: the curve of her neck, the tilt of her head, the way she held the sleeve, not knowing where to put her hands. Not her face, no. Something subtler, to which he could not put a name.

It was funny. It was almost laughable.

– How is it? – he asked. – There's a mirror behind you, you can look.

He sank into the sofa cushions, picked up his glass, and took a sip without taking his eyes off her over the rim.

– It suits you, – he said, and it was far more sincere than he had intended. – If you like, stay in it. By morning the illusion will fade, and you'll find yourself in your ordinary clothes. Don't worry.

He paused, studying her, and then lazily, almost carelessly, waved a hand.

The air beside him darkened and thickened. A mask covered his face, white with black, smooth, cold, with narrow slits for the eyes, covering exactly half his face. From his disheveled hair rose two black ears, sharp, alert; they twitched and turned toward her. And behind him, unhurriedly, as if waking, a tail unfurled. Just one for now. Dark, fluffy, with a white tip. It swung from side to side like a pendulum counting her breaths.

Ryo settled more comfortably on the sofa, draped an arm over the back, and patted his lap with his palm. Golden eyes glinted from under the mask, and a sly, cunning smile appeared on his face.

– Or here, – he said softly and quietly, so that the words barely touched the air. – All evening I've wanted to touch you. Allow me that joy.

Ryo was attentive enough to be called a magnificent lover. He kissed her neck to begin with, testing where she responded best. His lips traveled over the hollow under her ear, along the artery, a little lower to her collarbones. The fox snapped his fingers, and the apartment sighed.

First the corners disappeared. The walls, smooth and modern a second ago, rippled like water under wind and receded, and in their place wood emerged: dark, old, polished by centuries of touch. The ceiling dropped lower and became complex, with heavy beams blackened by lamp smoke. The outlets, switches, the cold glass of the windows vanished. Where the river of lights had just shimmered, there now stood shoji, tall panels of rice paper, and through them came not city light but something softer, lunar, diluted with milk.

The floor became tatami. Dense woven mats smelling of dry grass and time, edged with dark fabric along the borders. They gave slightly underfoot, like earth after rain. In the tokonoma niche, where the vase with the plum branch had stood, a scroll now hung with faded ink: a lone branch against emptiness, painted in a few confident strokes. Beneath it, in a low vessel, the same plum blossomed, and its petals seemed to glow faintly.

The sofa beneath them dissolved without a sound. Where it had stood, on the tatami lay a futon, spread out in the old manner, right on the floor. A wide, thick mattress stuffed with cotton, with a heavy quilted blanket the color of dark wine. Across the coverlet ran embroidery: cranes above waves, worn at the folds, with threads of gold long rubbed away by other hands. At the head lay a hard makura pillow covered in silk, and several cushions with heavy tassels, stuffed with buckwheat husks. They rustled faintly with every movement.

– I take it you don't mind tricks? – Ryo asked and smiled.

Shadows from the lamps danced on the walls.

The lamps were paper, hung on thin cords or standing right on the floor in wooden frames: round as little moons, with mountains and slender willows painted on their sides. The fire inside breathed unevenly, and dark patterns ran across the walls, the ceiling, the folds of her sleeves, now stretching, now contracting. One of the shadows, by the far wall, stretched into a silhouette with sharp ears and a fluffy tail, paused, and dissolved.

Beside the futon, on a low lacquered table, stood a tray with two sake cups and a small incense burner. Old, thick incense smoldered in it, with notes of sandalwood and something bitter. A thin thread of fragrance rose straight up, spreading into soft gray lace near the ceiling. The air grew dense and warm, as if time itself had slowed its pace within these walls.

Somewhere far away, at the edge of hearing, a shamisen sighed softly: one note, then another, unhurried, like drops on a roof.

– Don't take it as rudeness that I chose a geisha house, – he pulls the obi from her waist and then tugs at the kimono, letting it slide off her shoulders, – in my memory it was far more pleasant here than in the emperor's chambers.

Ryo kisses the hollow between her breasts, slides kisses right to her nipples, and touches them first with his tongue, then with his lips. He pulls, sucks, playing with the second with his hand. At the same time he presses her closer by the waist to the bulge in his trousers. He moans into her breast, then puts a hand on his fly.

– I was thinking, – he narrows his eyes slyly, – you've probably seen your share of ordinary cocks in your life. How about… experiments? I can take any shape, absolutely any, whatever you wish. Look.

He snaps his fingers, then pulls his trousers down. His cock slips out of his pants and angles toward his stomach. The skin shifts to a dark red hue closer to the head, along the entire underside are small ribbed protrusions, and the head itself is slightly elongated. In a sense, this too was art.

He snaps his fingers, then tugs his trousers down. His cock slips out of his pants and tilts toward his stomach. The skin shifts to a dark red closer to the head, with small ribbed ridges along the entire underside, and the head itself is slightly elongated. In a sense, it was art too.

— If you want, I can make it bigger, smaller, more ribbed, or… — he smirked, — I can make two. Anything you wish, and while you're thinking, — Ryo pulled her by the leg and lifted the hem of her kimono, — I'll take care of you.

His lips moved quickly over her thighs, tracing from the knee to the very folds. With his fingers he spread the folds slightly apart and ran his tongue between them, gathering the natural wetness. Ryo stopped at her clit, licking and sucking her, preparing her for whatever her fantasy would allow. He was in no hurry and was ready to change his form a few more times if needed.

Ryo takes off his mask so it won't get in his way, setting it on the table, and buries himself in her thighs, letting her squeeze his face with her legs. His tail swayed contentedly behind his back as he listened to those sweet sounds.

— Have you decided on something? — Ryo ran his tongue from her clit up to her stomach, — or would you rather leave the choice to me?