Interview with the Yokai

Chapter 5

It was Saturday and Shoji was keeping his promise and helping Noriko with homework in her room. The room felt like like it had dual personalities. Noriko's side was filled with posters of wrestlers from New Tokyo Wrestling Council. Mari's side had one big poster of The Love Letter Lovelies a yuri drama series that was popular among high school girls. The room also had a bookcase that was full of books in different languages, Noriko told him they were Mari's, she apparently understood English, Spanish, French, and German. " Mari-san isn't going to study with us?"

" No, we'd just slow her down. Mari-chan really doesn't study anyways, she doesn't really need to," Noriko said taking a seat on the floor and laying out her books.

" So she really is that smart, are all bakenekos that smart?," Shoji asked wondering outloud.

" No, yokai's aren't inherently smart or dumb based on the type of yokai they are, at least not the one's that are human type, there are yokai that are animals just like there are animals in the human world," Noriko said.

" I guess that was a silly question," Shoji said taking a seat on the floor across from Noriko.

" No, you wouldn't have known, we are supposed to be teaching you about yokai, so ask any questions you have," Noriko said timidly.

" I've just been wondering how much of a yokai's personality is determined by their nature as a yokai? I mean I've researched what each of you girls is suppose to be, but what legends say doesn't always seem to line up," Shoji said.

Noriko let out a little laugh, " sorry Shoji-san, but most human legends are probably wildly inaccurate. Most old legends were either written when humans came in contact with exceptionally bad yokai or they were written by other yokai of one type trying to bad mouth yokai of another type."

" Still even if that is true, Yayaka-chan does act exactly like how you would think a succubus would, and Toyama-san acts like a yuki-onna," Shoji said.

" To an extent, it's true succubuses are sexual creatures, but Yayaka-chan isn't going around draining men of their life force," Noriko said.

" That's true, but she does seem to spend her time turning boys into doe eyed zombies," Shoji said with some bitterness.

" That's because she's practicing using her powers so she can control them. None of us are that old, we're all learning how to use our powers. You have to remember to, that we all came to the human world so we can learn how to get humans to follow us. A lot of succubuses become porn stars, it's the perfect profession for them, they gain popularity and get to satiate their hunger, so they have to learn how to get men to look at and follow them. Succubuses have always been popular with humans, so other yokai have written a lot of bad stories about them," Noriko said, seeming a bit uncomfortable.

" So succubuses aren't temptresses who subsist by killing men, but what about yuki-onna's? Toyama-san acted like what a lot of stories say about yuki-onna's," Shoji said deciding to change the subject away from succubuses sex habits.

" It's not a good idea to wrong a yuki-onna if you're a man, they can freeze a man to death, but they do it out of choice not because they have to. Benihime-san is just very emotional," Noriko said a little more comfortable with the change of topic.

" She doesn't seem that way, she seems calm and very sensible," Shoji said thinking of the impression he had of Benihime.

" When she is in public, but the girls know otherwise, her roommate gossips. Benihime-san flew into a fury against you, because she was angry and couldn't keep her emotions in check, not because there was no other option for her. Just think about me, I'm an oni, we're supposed to be these big, evil, brutes, who are ugly, do I fit that definition?," Noriko asked standing up and doing a turn.