1. Sun Ritsu

Thirty-seven.

The number of noodle orders Ritsu had served that day.

Eighty-three.

The amount he had been tipped that same day . . . in change.

“Sweet immortal peaches,” Ritsu swore as he prepared to balance yet another bowl swollen with noodles on a thin, chipped plate. He had spent enough time in the spirit world to understand that it was appropriate to speak these words in times of unchecked injustice, which to say was pretty much constant for Ritsu. Tonight, however, his luck was particularly rotten.

Circumstances forced him to cover the shifts of two spontaneous no-shows. Ritsu somehow always got stuck with the crotchety, cheap customers. The ones who expected to be waited on like lords and were never happy with anything they ordered. And yet they still managed to devour everything. The tips they left behind made Ritsu unable to decide if he was being mocked or pitied.

When he had first arrived in this corner of the Ninth Heaven, he desperately needed a job. This one was about as pleasant as a pile of tiger shit, but he didn’t complain.

These days, however, he didn’t know how much more he could take.

“At it again, Sideburns?”

Thrice went the clang of the metal spoon’s concave surface against the greasy wall. Ritsu turned to see the head of a life-sized fly – his boss – ducking through the opening into the kitchen.

“You don’t get paid to stand around and make faces in the broth. Get back to work!”

Ritsu waited for the fly spirit to turn away before sneering. He garnished the noodles with a sprig of cilantro before delivering the order without ceremony. He’d given up trying to appeal to the better nature of this particular customer.

Ritsu deliberately chose not to hurry back to the cramped, sweaty kitchen. His feet took him to the edge of his assigned section near a booth occupied by an uncommon customer.

Correction, Dear Traveler – an uncommonly beautiful customer.

Even through his periphery, Ritsu could tell that she was some manner of arthropod spirit, like his boss. But unlike that overgrown housefly, this girl did not openly express her feral essence. Same as Ritsu, she chose to adopt a more mortal appearance, even going as far as wearing modern clothes.

Of course modern was a relative term in the spirit world.

With a loose leather jacket detailed in fringe and matching boots that climbed up her strong thighs, this customer could have easily warped in from a disco era. Her hair was the only contradiction. No iconic afro, but rather thick, glossy braids that cascaded down her back, blending with the leather fringe along her jacket’s seams.

Ritsu took his time wiping down an already clean booth. He found himself trying to commit the customer’s face to memory. Under all that leather and fringe, there was a regal posture that could not be faked despite the hunch in her shoulders as she savored her order of hot tea.

He studied her harder. A spider spirit, he realized, with skin the color of raw amber and a youthful, but intense profile.

Ritsu quickly turned his back to the customer when her eyes drifted up from her cup.

He sighed. He had about two minutes before Gong-jon would send one of his legions to spy on the monkey. That customer was probably starting to get weirded out by him hanging around her booth. So he tucked the cleaning rag in his back pocket and headed for the kitchen.

“Sun. Over here.”

Ritsu turned.

The spider spirit kept her eyes on her tea as she spoke.

“The big fly. Is he your boss?” Her accent was . . . different. As if it were born in warm, shallow waters. Not this miserable stump.

Ritsu nodded and reached for her kettle. He replaced it with a full one and topped off the tea in her cup. Once again, he slowed down his movements.

The girl glanced up and lowered her voice some more. “He swipes your tips when he thinks no one is looking. But he always makes sure to leave the change.”

Ritsu didn’t pull the kettle back in time.

“Damn. Sorry about that.”

The spilled tea was scalding, but Ritsu didn’t care. He’d rather burn his hands than allow it to spill onto her lap. Thankfully, the boiling water distracted him from his mounting frustration.

“Are you sure it was him?”

The girl confirmed through eye contact. Ritsu swallowed at the full view of her large, dark eyes. The diameter of her irises was wider than normal. The difference wasn’t extreme enough to be off-putting like Gong-jon’s, but it prompted Ritsu to do a double take. Somewhere in the primitive corner of his mind, he identified her as a predator.

Zzzrp.

There it was. That buzzing directly in his ear. Gong-jon was looking for him.

Ritsu swatted the miniature fly away and took another hard look at the girl. Could he trust her?

“Why are you telling me this?”

Spirits didn’t let themselves become snitches without a reason. Once again, the girl fixed him with her unavoidable gaze.

“You need a new job and I need your help.”

Oh. She was trouble. Either that or she was in trouble. Whichever it was, Ritsu didn’t need that kind of drama. He shook his head, trying to ignore the way her eyes both pleaded and demanded of him.

“Thanks, but I’ve got a whole season under my belt and I’m not trying to screw it up.”

The girl’s brow formed a question mark. “So you’d rather be screwed over instead? Are you sure you’re a sun clone?” She went back to sipping her tea.

It wasn’t the first time Ritsu had been judged for his lack of drive to leave this junk shore town and look for something, anything better that the Ninth Heaven had to offer.

Ritsu huffed, “Look, I don’t have any holy peaches, okay? I’m low on Luck and I have no idea where anything is.”

Zzzrp!

“Sorry, but I have to go.”

Something fuzzy and solid locked onto his wrist. Ritsu thought it was the fringe on her jacket coming to life, but that was simply glamour cloaking one of her eight segmented arms.

“My name is Anari. In about sixty seconds, some bounty hunters are going to come in here looking for me.”

Ritsu tried to free his arm. “Why?”

Anari didn’t ease her grip. “I can’t tell you. But I’m not a bad person. Plus,” she smiled, “I know where to find your peaches. Lots of them.”

She could have been lying. And yet . . . there was something in Anari’s vice-like grip that helped Ritsu warm up to the idea of quitting his job and running off with her, even if she did make him feel like he was nothing more than a snack.

Besides, the promise of holy peaches was just too tempting to pass up.

“C’mon.” Ritsu used the girl’s fastened limb to lift her to her feet.

~

Dear Traveler, if Sun Ritsu was being completely honest with himself, agreeing to help this spirit was not a good idea. He was already unfamiliar with his environment, living on the margins of poverty, and especially Unlucky. But the spider’s magnetic eyes and powerful hold left him no choice.

For the first time since he arrived in the spirit world, Sun Ritsu had met someone that brought him excitement and made him realize that there were better ways to get screwed than by wasting away as a waiter in a greasy noodle house owned by greedy flies.