Volume 20 - Grand Finale, Chapter 149 - A Wild Time

The sun set early in mountain valleys, especially in December, but the people of Okayado were still lively. All over the small city, people were returning from work, going out to dinner, or shopping downtown.

Yuisu, Haru, and Kazumi had been all over Okayado that day, visiting all of Ichiro's favorite places, many of which Yuisu also treasured from her time with him. They'd walked the paths of Sakura Creek Park, ate lunch at a rustic ramen stand, and visited the university campus where Ichiro had worked. He'd worked many jobs over the years, but his role as student counselor had been the best fit. He had moved to Okayado to take that job at the university, then he'd fallen in love with the town.

The women's last stop for the evening was a brick building on main street, with a neon sign over the door. The business wasn't open yet, but they had an appointment.

"Head on in, ladies. He's expecting you," said a tall black-haired man at the door. Yuisu had seen him around, but she didn't know his name.

"Thanks," Yuisu said with a smile.

Just inside the Wild Life nightclub, there was a photograph on the wall of the man they were there to meet: Korbin. Then they stepped into the main area and Yuisu barely recognized it with the lights on. The dance floor was completely empty for once, as were all the booths around the outside. The only other people inside were a couple employees prepping for the evening, and a man seated at a table near the back.

He waived a big furry paw and stood from his seat. "Yuisu! Thanks for agreeing to meet me here."

Yuisu approached Korbin and her fiancee and mother followed. "No problem," she said, then added, "I forget sometimes that you own this place too."

Korbin grinned, showing some impressive canines. "Yeah, but it doesn't need much from me anymore. The managers do a fine job running it, and I just check in from time to time, like I'm doing right now."

Then Yuisu gestured to her right. "Korbin, this is my mother, Kazumi." She looked at her mom and said, "Korbin invested in my inn, to make sure Okayado had a place for visiting liminals to stay."

Korbin bowed and said, "A pleasure to meet you, Kazumi." Then he waved an arm over the table. "Please take a seat everyone. Would you like something to drink? Alcoholic or non."

"Water would be nice," Kazumi said with a smile. Korbin was so friendly and approachable, in a way that reminded her of a puppy. She could see how Kobolds had managed to build a relationship with humanity before other liminals had, with their natural charisma and business acumen.

"Water for me and Yuisu as well," Haru said as she scooted into the booth, on the opposite side of Korbin.

Korbin flashed some hand signs at the man behind the bar, the same ones Yuisu had seen the Wild Life waiters use when the club was too loud to communicate verbally. The man nodded and started filling some glasses with ice and water.

Then Korbin looked to the three women and said, "So, I can make a guess at the reason you wanted to meet me, but I wouldn't want to assume."

"It's about my uncle Ichiro," Yuisu said. "Today would be his 46th birthday, so we've been remembering him by visiting his favorite places around town. And since you knew him, we'd hoped you might have a story to share."

Korbin leaned back against the leather backing of the booth. "Hmm. As I believe I told Yuisu, I never got to know Ichiro as well as I would have liked. But he was kind to me when I first moved here, at a time when humanity was very wary of liminals. In fact, the term 'liminal' hadn't caught on yet, so everyone just called us monsters."

"That's rather unpleasant," Haru said.

"Indeed. At the time, academia was one of the few industries that liminals were approved to work in, so I applied for a job at the university. Ichiro didn't even know me, but he went out on a limb for me, encouraging the other staff to give me a chance. With his help, I got a job as an athletic coach for a semester while I waited for the Interspecies Exchange Act to be finalized."

He smiled. "Once the law was final, I was allowed to convert my family's mineral wealth into yen and start investing in Okayado. I started by buying abandoned properties, like this one, and redeveloping them to suit the new world I envisioned." He shook his head. "But I digress. You want to hear about Ichiro, not me."

Yuisu chuckled, "Yeah… Though the part about him fighting for you was new to me. Got any other stories?"

"Well, I suppose I can tell you about the staff mixer where Ichiro got a little carried away at karaoke. He told the group that he wasn't very good, but they bought him a strong drink and pushed him to sing anyway. Everyone, including Ichiro, had a good laugh at the results, but I'll just say that I wasn't happy to have superhuman hearing that night."

Kazumi let out a little laugh at that. "Yeah, he'd always been a terrible singer. As a kid, I'd leave the room when his favorite shows were on TV, because he'd sing along with the theme songs, terribly."

Yuisu looked across the table at her mom. "You're over six years younger than him, so you must have been tiny. You could already tell he was a bad singer?"

"Oh, he sang along with theme songs until he graduated high school and moved out. And I'd bet he kept singing along in private afterwards."

That got a laugh from the whole group. They reminisced for another thirty minutes or so, about Ichiro's strengths and mishaps and successes, then Korbin apologized and stood up.

"Sorry, but I must depart. I've got a date this evening, and I can't be late." He made some more gestures at the bartender, then said, "The bar's opening soon, and I put 10,000 yen on a tab for you ladies, if you want to stick around."

Yuisu's jaw dropped. "Are you sure? I mean, thank you, but that's a lot for the three of us. We weren't planning to drink much tonight."

Korbin just smiled. "Don't feel like you have to use it all, but I get the feeling Ichiro would want you to have fun tonight," he said, then he jogged away out the back door of the nightclub.

Over the next few hours, the small family made good use of Korbin's gift. Yuisu shared her favorite beers with her mom, and Kazumi even tried one of Haru's carnivore-optimized brews.

"Whoa, that's a strange one," Kazumi said, making a face. "Like washing down a rare steak with a dark lager."

Haru grinned. "That's a great description! That's exactly why I like it!"

Yuisu slammed back her own beer, then hopped to her feet. "Let's go dance, before the floor gets too crowded."

"Dance?" Kazumi asked. "I don't know if I should."

"You should," Yuisu insisted. "And you can prove whether you're as fit as you claimed."

"Ooh, that sounds like a challenge," Haru said. "How about some friendly competition? I'll play judge."

That got Kazumi's attention. She'd always been a bit competitive, often with her older brother. She finished her own drink, stood, and said, "You're on."

It was only 8pm, but there were already a few people on the dance floor. The music was some danceable J-pop, a little too new for Kazumi to recognize. She started slow but by the second song she'd hit her groove and she was really moving around the floor, shaking her hips and dancing up a storm.

Yuisu tried to keep up but she found herself short of breath pretty quickly. "Wow, mom, you weren't kidding about being fit."

"I hit the gym three times a week, and go dancing every other weekend," Kazumi responded, still dancing a circle around Yuisu. Then she grinned and added, "Moms have lives too."

Yuisu was aghast that her mom apparently danced regularly. "Then why were you reluctant to dance tonight?!"

"I didn't want to make you feel bad," Kazumi said in a teasing tone.

Yuisu glared at her, but she wasn't actually upset. In a fake huff, she admitted defeat in the dance competition and went to the bar to get another drink. Haru followed along, giving Yuisu some exaggerated consolations.

Something else caught Kazumi's eye. She danced over to a tall man who seemed to be alone. He had bristly brown swept-back hair with frosted tips, and his eyes were entirely black. She thought he looked a bit like a hedgehog, but she didn't want to be rude and guess aloud. In any case, he had broad shoulders like she liked and his face was quite handsome.

For a moment, she just danced near him, then she slid right in front of him, peering up into his intriguing eyes. He smiled and matched his movements to hers.

"You're a good dancer," he said, his voice soft and warm.

"Why, thank you," Kazumi said. She shimmied around behind him, noticing a short spiky tail that matched his hair. "You're not bad yourself."

They both went quiet as they danced to a particularly fast-paced song. When it ended, Kazumi said, "So, do you live around here?"

He nodded. "I work at the Ski Lodge. You?" He was very concise, but that had its own kind of appeal.

"Oh, I'm just visiting family," she said with a smile. She got closer, until her body was pressed against his broad chest and her lips were just inches from his. "What's your name?" she asked, her voice a breathy whisper.

"Whoa, whoa!" a voice cut in before he could answer

Kazumi and the man turned to see Yuisu jogging up. She grabbed Kazumi by the arm, then said, "Sorry, I need to talk to her for a moment." Then she pulled Kazumi off the dance floor.

The man looked puzzled as his dancing partner was stolen away by a very similar looking woman. He shrugged and went back to dancing, figuring that had been the family she'd mentioned.

When Kazumi and Yuisu were in a quiet corner, Yuisu said, "Mom, there are rules about interspecies interaction. If you do that stuff in public, it can get you and him in trouble."

Kazumi opened her mouth to respond, but Yuisu interrupted with, "And he looked half your age! No men younger than me, please."

"Hmmf, fine, Mom," Kazumi whined, channeling her memories of when Yuisu had been a feisty teenager. Then her tone became more serious and she said, "So I really can't even kiss a liminal man?"

"It's safest not to. If he's still in the Exchange Program, you'd need approval from his Host and Coordinator, so they can turn a blind eye, and physical intimacy is only truly allowed if you're seeking an Exchange-Program-approved marriage." Yuisu calmed her breathing, then said, "Haru and I have been walking on eggshells our entire relationship, whenever we're in public together."

"Oh wow, I never knew it was so tough," Kazumi said. Then a curious look crossed her face and she asked, "Is it true that a human and a liminal will always have liminal kids?"

Yuisu raised an eyebrow, wary of where Kazumi's line of thought was going. "That seems to be the case, but we don't have proof for every species."

Kazumi looked back at the dance floor, her eyes eventually finding and settling on the man she'd danced with. "Hmm. Creating it would be fun, but can I see myself raising a little hedgehog kid?"

"Mom!" Yuisu barked. "Ugh, you're awful when you're drunk."

"Oh, I'm not drunk yet. And you need to stop being such a stick in the mud. Let's get more drinks!" With that, she half-walked, half-danced up to the bar.

She slipped into a gap between other patrons and wiggled along with the music while she waited for the bartender. As Yuisu begrudgingly joined her, Kazumi overheard a woman at the bar talking loudly to another woman.

"Hell yeah, I love this part!" she said, then she sang along with the song that was playing, "I'm a picture-perfect face, with that wild in my veins, you can hear it in my growl, growl, growl, growl!" The last 'growl' was a literal growl, deep and rumbling.

Surprised, Kazumi and Yuisu turned to see that the woman's face was furry, with a snout shaped like a bear's, but it quickly faded until she looked nearly human again. Her friend, a satyr by the looks of it, said, "I wish I could switch between human and liminal forms."

"Hey, it isn't like I can control it perfectly. Nearly scared my host to death when I got startled by a loud noise and accidentally shifted in his little car."

Before Kazumi and Yuisu could listen in any more, a familiar bartender rolled up in front of them. The pink-haired woman said, "Hey, Yuisu! About time you visited again. And who's this?" Mimi looked between Yuisu and Kazumi, saw the resemblance, and said, "Nevermind, I can guess. Is this your mom?"

"You got it," Kazumi said. "The name's Kazumi. And I get the feeling you're Mimi. Yuisu mentioned you."

Mimi smiled wide, almost unnervingly so. "Oh, really? Only good things, I hope."

Yuisu grinned and said, "Nah, I told her that you were a lot like me: awful at first, but eventually coming around."

Mimi rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Can I get you ladies anything? And Haru too. I saw her flapping around somewhere."

Kazumi was nodding intently. She mumbled to herself, "I do see the similarities." Then she spoke up, "Three serpent-wines, please. That'll probably kill our remaining tab, so the rest is on me."

"Coming right up."

Serpent-wine, an import from lamia lands, was very strong and it caught all three women off guard. Haru was a literal lightweight and soon she was hanging on Yuisu for support. Yuisu wasn't much better off, relying on the table to keep from falling over. Kazumi at least stayed upright, but her inhibitions had been lowered to a worrisome degree.

"So, what about that guy?" Kazumi started. "Think he's well hung?"

"Mom. I'm gay. I don't want to know anything about that guy's junk."

Haru piped up, "My money is on yes. You know what they say about men with hooves."

Yuisu put a hand on her forehead, exasperated. "Right, I sometimes forget that you have some interest in that stuff."

"Just a little," Haru responded. "You know I only have eyes for you."

"Aww, thank—" Yuisu started, but she was interrupted by her mom's voice.

"Yeah, I think he'd fill me up nicely. Say, do you know if there's liminal porn? I guess with the law stuff it probably isn't liminal on human, but I'd settle for liminal on liminal."

"Mom! We're cutting you off of alcohol!"

Kazumi dismissively waved a hand in Yuisu's face. "Mimi already cut us all off, when I tried to get more serpent-wine a few minutes ago. And she called a cab too." She smiled, her eyes glossy but happy. "She's a nice girl."

Yuisu smiled and said, "In her own way, yeah."