Ren turned even brighter red. He sank deeper into the water.

Kuro picked up one of the floating leaves. “You could have just said you wanted to bathe with a woman.”

“W-what?” Ren sputtered, and turned just in time to catch the smoke.

Kuro transformed into a plushed-lipped woman with even plusher breasts. She caught up her ample bosom in both hands, as if covering her modesty even as she leaned closer to Ren so he stared down her bosom. “You like?”

Really, human males weren’t so difficult to understand. Kuro was just over-complicating Ren’s reasons, mistaking Ren’s kindness as something to do with Kuro. Ren had pretty much told him, droning on and on about how the only people Ren ever saw was his family. He hadn’t meant people, but women. Ren was at that age when human males made themselves into fools to get a woman’s attention, like the boy-samurai at the shrine, falling all over himself for a lady who wouldn’t call him by his name. Not even his family name.

“You smell like wet dog,” Ren said.

“I know you want to—what?” Kuro stared at him.

The blush had disappeared from Ren’s cheeks. He placed a hand on Kuro’s forehead and pushed her back to a respectable distance. He covered his nose. “You stink like wet dog.”

Kuro glanced behind her. Her tail wagged under the water. “I’m pressing my gigantic bubbles into your face, and you’re complaining about the smell?”

“It ruins the mood,” Ren said.

Kuro placed her hands on her hips. “Perhaps little lonely princes shouldn’t be so—oh hey, they float!”

Ren sniggered.

“I mean, look!” Her breasts bobbed in the water, pressing up into the most enormous cleavage Kuro had ever seen. But Ren didn’t seem remotely impressed, only amused at her reaction. She pouted. What human male wasn’t impressed by big, floating breasts?

But perhaps that wasn’t Ren’s interest. He had risked his life to save Yumi, and she was pretty flat, even taking into account the way her kimono would have hidden her cleavage. Kuro picked up another leaf, and transformed.

She leaned back over him. “Is this more your style—”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

He placed his hand on her face and pushed her back. “Definitely not.”

“Oi, you didn’t even look,” Kuro whined.

“I’m sure it was a very impressive transformation,” he said. “You still stink.”

Kuro sagged against the wall. She thought she’d done it perfectly, using the housewife form she’d used the first time she’d met Ren, but the only thing increasing Ren’s temperature was the hot spring.

“Besides, haven’t you heard it’s not polite to dunk your fur into the bath?” Ren asked.

Kuro stuck her tongue out and lowered her eyelid at Ren, who didn’t even bother to look offended. She picked up another leaf and transformed back into his usual male human form, sans tail. “I’m going to figure out what kind of lady makes your blood boil, so save us the time and tell me.”

Ren turned around to face the edge of the bath, pillowing his chin on his hands.

“Ooh, I know.” Kuro slapped the water. “You like really old women. You dog, you.”

“You say that as if it’s a compliment,” Ren said, “but you call me a dog.”

“So I’m right!”

“Not at all.” Ren’s voice was flat. Too flat for it to be entirely the truth. Something about this made Ren nervous.

Kuro grinned. Ren might as well have been waving a flag demanding Kuro prod him until he confessed. “You can confide in me.”

“I thought humans couldn’t trust fox.”

“On matters like this? I couldn’t care less.”

“You… don’t?” He didn’t sound like he believed him, for some reason.

Kuro extended his arms along the tiled edge and shrugged a shoulder. “Few demons care what humans get up to in their futons.”

“So spirits don’t…” Ren tipped his head back and forth, as if that resembled in any way what he was talking about.

“That’s human stuff.” Only useful when trying to part gullible humans from their purses. Kuro didn’t really get their fever either. They tripped over themselves to impress a girl, whether hired or marriageable, and for what? He had more important things to concern himself with.

Like killing Ren. Kuro sank deeper, until the water came up to his chin.

Like getting his shrine, he reminded himself. His stomach felt cold like a pit of corpses. But it wasn’t as if Ren had much longer to live anyway. Maybe another fifty years, less than half current Kuro’s age and he was only a bit older than a kit. Hardly worth the effort.

“Or is it that you find upturned noses sexy?” Kuro pressed his nose back. “Oink, oink.”

Ren glanced at him and groaned.

“Or—”

“What would a fox think,” Ren interrupted, “about a human who didn’t care much for women? Not in that way.”

Kuro crossed his arms and tipped his head to the side. “That it would be a shame.”

“Oh.” Ren’s voice sounded like Kuro’s stomach felt when he thought about his mission.

“It’s so much easier to trick a human when their eyes are bulging out of their heads and their hearts and other things are palpitating too hard for their common sense to get through.”

Ren’s sigh of relief was so quiet, Kuro might have mistaken it for the rippling of the water. “Is that all fox think about?”

“Of course not. We also think about food.”

He laughed, too high and long and loud to be completely natural.

“Your Imperial Highness?” Kuro leaned closer to the prince.

“Ren,” he insisted.

Kuro didn’t answer, but continued to study him. Sweat beaded across his forehead and dripped down his nose. Red crept up his cheeks again.

“What would a fox think—” Ren shook his head. “What would you think if I looked at men the same way your favourite targets looked at women?”