Futoshi Kimura had a busy day ahead of him, for he had to spend the morning buying groceries, the afternoon meeting with prospective tenants, and the evening going on a date with Chikako, a widow from his calligraphy class.

She was a sweet old woman who often brought a box of homemade Daifuku for everyone to eat. The red bean paste inside was always delectably sweet yet appetising, a sign that she was quite the accomplished cook.

Chikako's late husband had to have been a lucky man indeed, and Futoshi felt flattered to have caught her interest. She would undoubtedly take great care of him and offer some much-needed companionship, but those two things weren't all he wanted.

He was old in appearance but young at heart, and a woman in her sixties just didn't appeal to him on a visual level. Instead, he much preferred another lady who lived right on his premises.

Kumiko Takahashi was her name, and she would soon turn twenty-four according to the date printed on her driver's license. She was strikingly pretty, with large eyes, a slim face, and full lips, so it surprised him that she was still single.

Even if she didn't seem to care about that fact, he hoped to intervene soon and prevent her from becoming an old maid. Time was of the essence and judging by the rapport that had been established between them, the next step would be to invite her out to lunch or dinner.

Still, he had an obligation to meet with Chikako and couldn't stand the sixty-two-year-old up like he wanted to. He scratched his head while thinking of a solution and eventually decided to tell Chikako that they'd be better off as friends.

Once he did that, Kumiko would be all his for the taking. She'd been nothing but polite in the two years he'd known her, so he imagined that at worst, she would claim to be busy and request that he try again some other day.

He felt a great deal of pride for being able to navigate the dilemmas of life so well. Most of his kind would have long since given up and returned to doing what made them comfortable, so with high spirits, he finished studying the calendar and grabbed his coat on the way out, eager to experience the joys of human interaction once more.

******

Kumiko wasn't in the best of moods when she finally arrived outside her apartment with a laundry basket full of dry clothes. The afternoon's events had taken a toll on her, and she wanted nothing more than to relax in the shower.

She returned the laundry basket to her bedroom, picked out a clean ensemble, and then headed to the bathroom to undress. She allowed her clothes to fall to the floor, feeling somewhat relieved to be naked like she'd been during the first several decades of her life.

Her attitude toward the human body had changed significantly over the centuries. It had once been quite an oddity to her, and she'd had difficulty accepting her new appearance upon mastering the art of transformation.

She remembered feeling repulsed by the skin as pink as a pig's and the tapering limbs that radiated from her torso but had since come to realise that this form of hers was simply beautiful in a different way.

As warm water poured down on her, her mind drifted to the policeman who'd interviewed her after Mr. Higuchi had been taken to hospital. He'd kept pressing her for information even after she'd told him everything, and his brusque manner had offended her to the point that she felt tempted to twist his neck, then stomp on his head until it was a visceral mess.

Fortunately, she'd possessed enough self-control to refrain from such violence until a senior officer had urged him to cease questioning. They had left in their car shortly afterwards, thus allowing her to return to the innocent activity of using a dryer while wondering if they planned on questioning every woman with the name Akane.

As for Mr. Higuchi himself, she wanted to believe that their encounter had occurred purely by chance, with no deeper meaning or providence. Yet, when his unconscious body had been placed on a stretcher and loaded into the ambulance, she'd sensed his soul calling out as if it wished to escape its mortal shell.

Such a thing was hardly unusual among those about to die, but in that instance, she could have sworn that Ichiro himself had been calling out to her through the chaos of several lifetimes. Perhaps he and Mr. Higuchi were two incarnations in the same cycle. If this was true, they would practically be the same on a spiritual level, and putting the soul of one into the other's body would likely bring her long dead husband back to life.

Kumiko shut her eyes, trying to convince herself that the idea was foolish. There were still countless other men whose company she could enjoy, even if all it would mean was a single night of passion before she slipped out of their bed in shame and regret.

The phone rang while she was busy drying off, so she hurriedly tied her towel around her chest before rushing into the kitchen. She could guess who was calling and was proven right when Mr. Kimura greeted her on the other end.

"Good evening, Takahashi-san. I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"

"Not at all. You couldn't have picked a better time to call..."

"Glad to hear it. I just thought that since today is the tenth, I'd let you know that your rent is due in four-"

"I'm aware of that. Thank you for reminding me."

"That's not all I want to tell you, Takahashi-san."

Kumiko pulled the receiver away from her face and let out a sigh of exasperation before she brought it close again. "Go ahead. I'm listening."

"As you might know, Valentines' Day is also on the fourteenth. I was wondering if you had any plans then."

She swallowed in disbelief. Mr. Kimura's tone of voice and choice of words suggested that he was about to ask her out. She couldn't deny how much his mere presence wore at her nerves, and she yearned to shout a long string of profanities at him.

Unfortunately, she'd already cultivated a sweet and courteous persona that she couldn't afford to destroy within a matter of seconds. She would need to decline Mr. Kimura's request as graciously as possible to avoid offending him and ruining her reputation.

"So, what do you say? Will you be busy?"

"Well," she spoke up, thinking of an excuse. "I'd love to spend time with you, but I'm afraid I'll be busy. My parents are coming over from the countryside, and we plan on spending the day together..."

"I see. Are they worried about you?"

"What do you mean?"

"You're twenty-three, and I've never seen you with a man..."

Kumiko's eyes widened as she remembered the date of birth on her fabricated documents. She'd claimed to have been born in February of 1961, though she still found it unforgivable that Mr. Kimura was trying to pry into her love life.

He had crossed a line, and she realised that it wouldn't be right to let him off the hook this time. "Kimura-san," she uttered loudly and firmly into the receiver. "It's none of your business whether I choose to spend time with a man or not. Have yourself a good evening."

She hung up the phone while expecting it to ring again, but nothing of the sort happened, and she interpreted it as a sign that Mr. Kimura had learnt his lesson.

Making her way back to the bathroom, she allowed herself a smile at the thought of how he might react to learning that she was in fact almost nine hundred years old.

******

Futoshi checked his watch upon leaving the house where Chikako lived with her family. It was a quarter past nine, and although he'd gotten her home in one piece, the journey back to his apartment would be just as risky.

If memory served him correctly, the ruthless Iron Butterfly gang was active in this part of the city. They were comprised predominantly of young women and girls from broken homes, who preferred to target old and middle-aged men as revenge for the violence they'd suffered as children.

It's going to be all right. Lightning never strikes the same place twice, Futoshi assured himself, remembering a past encounter with some of the gang members. He took a deep breath and walked faster while slipping a hand into his coat pocket and grasping the leaf inside.

In the unlikely event that they tracked him down and tried to beat him up again, he would simply draw on the leaf's power and take on the form of something mundane like a garbage bin or street sign. It had worked well enough last time, and they'd been confused enough that they'd begun arguing with each other and had forgotten their original intentions.

Some said that it was cowardly to hide in the face of danger, but he valued life far too much to be courageous. After all, there was still so much food and drink he wanted to try, and beautiful women he had yet to meet.

So, when he turned right into the next street and saw three girls coming his way with makeshift weapons, he pulled the leaf from his pocket and placed it upon his head.