White paper stretched across Ren’s desk like freshly fallen snow untouched by man, beast or spirit. Such pristine paper was sacred. Divine. A gift from the gods.

A delinquent like Kuro should never have been allowed within fifty paces.

Yet Ren knelt on the other side of the desk, sweeping his fingers forward to urge him on. He’d been the one to place the inkstone at Kuro’s elbow and fold Kuro’s fingers around the brush. “Go on.”

“I thought you said you’d teach me to read.” Ren had even shaken Kuro awake at the crack of dawn to drag him to Ren’s desk. “This is not reading.”

“Just copy this.” Ren tapped the example character he’d drawn and placed next to the pristine sheet.

“Are you hungry? Let’s go find breakfast.”

“Kuro.”

He sighed. Fine. He swirled the brush over the wetted ink stone and attacked the paper. He set the brush down, picked up the paper, and blew on the ink to dry it. He revealed it to Ren. “Tada!”

Ren kept his expression carefully blank. “What’s this?”

“Human scribbles!” And a fair impression of Ren’s note, although Kuro had added a flourish resembling a flower. He was fancy like that.

“You just swirled the brush around.” Ren bowed his head.

“Precisely.” Kuro set down the paper. What else was human writing?

They weren’t in Ren’s bed chamber, but a separate room Ren used for princely hobbies. Not that the room was drastically different. In fact, outside of the lack of kimono and futons, the room was pretty much identical — a mess of human scribbles, scrolls, flower stems and brushes.

Ren bowed deeper, as if the weight of Kuro’s ineptitude crushed his neck, and moaned.

So this was the end of the lessons. Ren had kept at it much longer than Kuro had expected.

But Ren flipped over the paper to the fresh side and picked up the brush. He painted a new character, this one all straight lines instead of flourishes. “Let’s try this again. This is the character used for tallying.”

“Tallying what?”

“Anything.” Ren gestured with the brush. “This line is the character for one. And if you add this line, you have a count of two.”

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

Kuro peered at it. That seemed simple enough.

“Three lines is three.” Ren kept demonstrating, adding more marks. “The line through the three lines is four. And with this final dot, you have five. Then you start again. Understand?”

Kuro dipped his chin.

“Good.” Ren smiled. He rifled into the lacquered chest and held up scrolls one by one, before laying one out on the desk. Lines and lines of tiny characters filled the space — and that was only one portion. Ren pointed at one. “Now this one is—”

“Gah.” Kuro collapsed, resting his forehead on his hands. “There’s too many.”

“We’re starting slow. This character is easy.”

He blew a breath, trying to ruffle the ink off the page, but of course the character remained. “There must be hundreds.”

“Thousands, actually.”

Kuro groaned. He had centuries to learn, and that was probably still not enough time.

“But you’ll learn them. It’s really not so difficult.”

It was impossible. Not that Kuro would admit it. He straightened, crossing his arms. “I don’t see why I should bother. It’s only a human language.”

Ren’s eyes brightened. “Is there demon writing?”

“Why would demons write?” Kuro asked. “’Dear humans, autumn days continue, how have you been? You are so tasty. I shall see you next week. Wait, why are you fleeing? Please give my regards to everyone. Sincerely, demon.’”

Ren exhaled instead of chuckling. “So you’ll have to learn to write like a human.”

“But why?” Kuro whined. “I’m not a clerk.”

“You’re a soon-to-be god, or so you keep saying.”

“Exactly.” He threw up his hands. “So I don’t have to learn this.”

“Gods need to write too.”

Kuro crossed his arms and shook his head.

“They need to write ofuda.”

He pressed one finger onto the scroll. “Characters don’t matter. Only intention does.”

“Kuro.”

He shook his head again. “Nope.”

“Kuro.” Ren dragged the second half of his name out into a growl.

“You can’t make me.”

“Is that a wager?” he asked.

Kuro’s lip twitched. Since the day was warm with very little wind, Ren had opened the doors to the veranda to let in the air.

Ren glanced at the veranda.

Kuro cursed. He burst up to his feet, knocking over the desk. He jumped toward the veranda, landing on his hands. His knees started to tuck up into his stomach, but Ren landed on him. Kuro fell to the mats, Ren falling on top of him. Kuro lost his breath, and Ren took advantage of his momentary shock. He straddled Kuro’s hips, pinning him down.

But Kuro was a spirit. He bucked up to dislodge him. Ren wrapped an arm under Kuro’s chin to hold on. Kuro threw his weight to the side, and they both landed on their sides. Kuro kicked to roll them onto Ren, breaking his hold. Holding him down, Kuro nipped the back of his neck.

“Ahem.” The massive form of an oni loomed through the opening. The sheer mass of its biceps strained at the simple indigo fabric containing them.

The Night Parade had come and—

And coughed politely?

The oni stepped inside. Grey whisked the sides of his top knot, but nothing else about him suggested age, unless he smuggled a sake barrel under his surcoat. He could crush Kuro’s neck with one of his hands.

But it wasn’t his bulging biceps, his arching pectorals, or the sword at his hip that stopped Kuro’s heart. It was a tiny white crest.

Three dragonflies. Even Kuro recognised it.

He could only be one man.

“Uncle Gorou!” Ren squawked underneath Kuro.

Kuro gaped, releasing Ren’s neck. He resisted the urge to wipe the teeth indents out of Ren’s skin.

The Shogun had arrived, just in time to see Kuro bite Ren as if the Sun Prince were a submissive kit.