A/N: Its interesting that Kitaro is one of the classics in Japan, yet the fandom is so small. The Nura fandom is not that large either. I hope this work can peak some interests in people, so they would at least check it out.

It has been eleven years since I found the infant. After discussing it with my wife, we made him our adopted son, though it took a while to do so legally, as we found him in the woods. Afterwards, I had a chilling experience when I went to look for my bag and I found vacant land instead of the forest. It felt like I experienced something from a horror story.

For the two of us who thought that we would never get to raise child, and were thus unprepared for one, Rikuo was a calm child that caused no trouble. It was so different from the taxing experience of raising a child that they have heard about from many others. A lot of my wife's friends asked how we raised such a good child. Both my mother and my wife's mothers even told us that they were worried that he was too much of a good child.

He doesn't cry, doesn't act selfish. He doesn't trouble other people, and treat others with equal amounts of kindness and he listens to instructions well. To top it all off, he was good at both his studies and sports.

To say it nicely, he was a very good child. To put it bluntly, he was a child who did not act like one.

But something came up recently.

We found out that he goes out somewhere every night.

Under normal circumstances, we would have thoroughly scolded him, or worried about him being associated with bad friends. But that was if he was normal.

My wife and I knew he was not normal for a long time. Heck, I knew even before I found him

That was probably why my wife, who knew he went out at night, didn't say anything. She most likely wanted to wait until he said something himself.

But we couldn't keep it up forever.

My wife began to worry that every time we pretend to not see, Rikuo would go further, and further away from us to somewhere we could not follow.

If it was making her worry so much, I told her, why not we just ask him ourselves to ease up our worry? And so, before she could change her mind, I decided to ask him.

"I'm going to sleep now. Goodnight."

"Rikuo, wait a moment."

"What is it?"

"We want to talk to you about something."

It was a little past nine at night. I stopped Rikuo, a little smaller than the average boy of his age, who wearing blue pajamas and was about to go to his room. As if sensing the tight atmosphere, he quietly moved to the dinner table, and sat in front of the two of us.

"Why do you go out at night after we sleep?" My wife asked.

"...What do you mean?" Rikuo smiled quietly, and tilted his head.

"Don't pretend to not know. We don't see you going out, but your bed is always empty when we check."

"..."

Rikuo's smile crumpled. Once he found that he could't talk his way out under my wife's sharp eyes, he averted his gaze down wards, and stopped talking. I tried to make eye contact with him, but the shine in the glasses that he had recently started wearing (even if his sight was perfectly fine) prevented me from doing so. But, like us, he seemed to be tense, and nervous.

The silence was heavy.

I started getting impatient, wondering if he was going to stay silent until we let it go. Just as I was about to ask again for my wife, Rikuo stood up abruptly.

"Rikuo, we're still talking!" I called out half standing, as he turned his back to us and walked towards the door. Was he going to walk out on us?

"...Dad, Mom. There's... I've been keeping a secret from you."

Rikuo stopped at the door and faced us. He stared at my wife and I, both standing at this point. Then he averted his gaze once more, took off his glasses, and dropped them to the floor.

What caught our eyes however, were not the glasses hitting the floor, but Rikuo's eyes, clearer without the glasses.

Rikuo's eyes were always a warm brown that was on the amber side. The eyes we saw now were red like garnets.

By the time that his glasses hit the floor with a high pitched clang, the fluffy, short brown had turned into smooth, silk-like silver strands, and his large amber eyes turned into sharper, and narrower garnet eyes that seemed to overwhelm you if one were to stare into them too long. His shorter than average statute grew as tall as my average for a Japanese man's height. As his clothes somehow turned from his blue pajamas into a black kinagashi, his delicate appearance seemed to turn into a muscular, yet well toned slim body. Now, he seemed to be a young man, older than fifteen.

"At night, ...I turn into a Yokai" he said in a deeper voice.

A young man, with features that seemed too perfect to be human, stood before us.

He observed us, while were were too surprised to speak, he narrowed his eyes, and bitterly smiled in self-derision.

"Don't worry. I'll leave you guys immed..."

"Oh, my! Ri-kun, you're so handsome now!" He was cut off by my wife.

"...Ha?"

When I looked at my wife, her eyes were shining, as if she was a young girl, who has found a prince on a white horse. With slightly pink cheeks, she moved closer to Rikuo.

"You change so much as a Yokai! Your eyes and hair are really pretty! Your cloths even turned into a kimono, that is so cool! My, your height is about the same as your father's! Oh, but take those setta? off in the house. And you shouldn't throw your glasses like that, even if they're not real."

"Oh. ...Sorry Mom." Rikuo apologized, taking off his setta to walk in his tabi, and picked up his glasses, and store it in to the folds of his kimono. I almost laughed at Rikuo's actions, but held it in and moved next to my wife.

"...Wait, that's what you're concerned about? I'm a Yokai? Aren't you surprised, or afraid, or think I'm freaky, or anything!?"

Rikuo exclaimed, backing away slightly as we moved closer without fear.

"Of course we were surprised." My wife smiled.

I coughed a little to get his attention.

"Rikuo, since the time I found you in the woods, I was prepared for many things. I'm actually revealed to know you are a Yokai. It makes sense. But even if you were Yokai, human, or something else ...Rikuo, you are our son. That will never change. Remember that."

I stated confidently, staring into his eyes, and my wife continued after me.

"That's right Rikuo, you're our precious child. So please ...Rikuo, don't be so frightened."

"...!"

Rikuo's eyes widened gasping a little as he listened to our words. He quickly turned around, and hid his face from us.

"...Thank you... Dad, Mom..."

He said in a very thin voice, and both of us saw his ears turn as red as a boiled octopus. My wife smiled with joy at the sight, and I put a great effort into hiding my smile.

This night, we truly became a family.