Little Green Voyeur
Lately, she'd developed a taste for…men. Human men…
It was one of the shapes her husband was capable of assuming, more compact than his usual winged form and so more convenient in certain circumstances. It also served him well on those occasions when he needed to be visible to interact with humans, who seemed to be cropping up in ever greater abundance these days, but did not want to draw undue attention.
The form responded well to certain forms of…stimulation, which Muu was quite capable of supplying.
The thought made her lick her lips.
But, HE was only one tengu, and, lately he'd been taking her for granted, and, well, it didn't hurt to look, did it?
Still, what if he found out?
He was too possessive as it was, and perhaps this would teach him a thing or two.
So, she went where she could find men in abundance—naked men—to admire their forms and such variations between them as existed.
To the onsen!
And the best part of it was she could view them at her leisure, without being seen, because humans could see only the most powerful of youkai, and those only if they wished to be seen.
So, she sat quietly on a rock overlooking the main pool, waiting to view what parade of male bodies would wander through today.
In the morning, she was mesmerized by a human nearly round as she was, a fuzz of graying curls on his chest, his male member dwarfed and nearly hidden by his rolls of fat. His body jiggled when he moved, and despite herself she giggled with delight several times, prompting him to look around in confusion at the trees overhanging the pool. He was balding, and his face was wrinkled; she had learned these were signs a human man was old. She guessed he had mistaken her giggles for the call of some rare bird, and made a point of teleporting among the branches to keep him searching for its source.
Oh, what fun she could have with a husband like that, as a change from her hard-muscled, sveltely graceful partner? She would ask if Sugino could achieve that form, but he might get suspicious of where she got her ideas. As it was, she'd have to guard her thoughts of it carefully when she got home, to evade his discovery of them.
Next, what was this? Small, svelte and graceful as her husband, but with shiny silvery hair, and—pink eyes—were those pink eyes on a human? Such novelty!
She began to move over the top of the rock, as close to the water as she dared, to get a look at this rare sight, and then noticed his companion.
Tall, dark, with wide, grey eyes, thin, lanky, and muscular as her husband…
A tengu? With a human?
She hastily hid behind the rock, before the tengu could see her, frustrated that his presence thwarted her curiosity. She wanted to look over this little white man, so pale, and so pink—such an unusual color for a human. And what did he look like under that towel…?
Fortunately the tengu hadn't noticed her.
She tried to discern what power the tengu had. Would he be one to endanger her love? Had he perhaps come to challenge Sugino's lordship over this mountain?
He was powerful. But to her surprise, once she was looking for it, so was the human. There was a simpatico between them, imperfect, perhaps new—but they were clearly bound to each other in some way.
They were talking about a scar the human had on his chest, that she could not see from where she was hidden. She climbed up to the top of the rock, trying to get a look.
Are they also a married couple? she wondered. How odd, a tengu with a human? Or master and slave? Sugino knew a tengu trapped in that predicament, long ago—a tragic tale that ended badly.
At that moment, the human dominated the tengu, dunking him under the water.
Master and slave, then.
The next thing she knew, she was on her back, her head hurt, and the human was…
Kissing her? He tasted good…
No, he was breathing into her mouth, and from this and the focus of his energy, she could tell that he was trying to rescue her from drowning. Not only could this tengu-ruling human see her, but he wanted her to live, even though she was youkai.
A human who does not hate youkai?
From there she could see the scar on his chest, a nasty, pink mar of his creamy skin. The man was thin, with less muscle than his frame could hold, which she recognized as signs of youth. Yet he was an adult. The hair on his chest was white, though thin to the point of being nearly invisible. She looked lower.
Crap. He's still wearing that towel! she thought, in disappointment.
He began talking to her, as a friend would, some inane conversation from which she remembered only that the pair of them came from Tokyo.
Sugino hated humans. Never had he told her that humans could be like this.
She stood up, still wobbly, and he continued asking about her well-being, clearly delighted to be in her company, when to her surprise, the enslaved tengu climbed out of the pool with a conspicuous amount of noisy, excess splashing.
Through living with Sugino, Muu had become something of an expert in reading tengu behavior, and while this might have been mere impatience on the tengu's part, combined with a bit of impertinence coming from a slave to its master, she detected something more.
He's jealous! she realized. Then noticed with a pang of disappointment that he, too, sported a towel.
"Wait a minute," the human said to the tengu.
And then, the unusual human swiftly ended its conversation with her, in deference to the wishes of its slave.
What kind of master is that? she wondered, treating his servant as his equal.
What an intriguing pair! I want to see them again!
But next time, maybe, without towels…
onsen are hot-springs resorts
youkai are Japanese fairy-tale creatures
tengu is usually translated as a 'winged goblin' but is more similar in disposition to a winged elf.