ANGRY NIGGER RAID

  My walk home from work was the same as it had been for some time now, miserable. The early March weather meant the evening walks home from work were still cold and the week itself had been nothing but gray skies holding back rain that had trouble deciding if it wanted to be snow or just half sleet half heavy rain. The city skyline didn't add to the atmosphere either, having grown up in the country side as a kid and having a general disdain for the cramped city life. The cramped streets flanked by multi story buildings on each side were a far cry from the spacious yards and at most 2 floor houses that made up the town I grew up from. Even a half a year into living here I hadn't gotten used to it, nor did I want to. I continued to run through my list of gripes against city living till I managed to get back my apartment. A small three story building in a neighborhood that wasn't too bad, but not exactly a place where you can leave the front door unlocked overnight.  Fishing my keys out I unlocked the foyer door and headed upstairs to my single bedroom apartment on the second floor.

  "How was work Anon?" Asked a woman's voice as I got through the door.

"Fine." I said, closing the door behind me and pushing it shut with the heel of my foot "kinda slow till summer kicks in."

  "I'm getting an early start on dinner"  The voice said, now getting closer.

  From somewhere behind me a woman not that much shorter than me came out of the kitchen.

"We're having rice with some of that steak you bought, just cut up into strips."

Tsubaki ducked backed into the kitchen, the sound of meat sizzling in a frying pan coming from it before the sound of the vent fan kicked in and its own humming drowned out the sizzle. I had "met" Tsubaki a little over a month ago and at that time had been worse for wear. Her rust colored hair that sat a bit above shoulder length had been past that point and matted with dirt and grime. Even with that soft fluff on her head she was still a good three or so inches shorter than me, and I barely broke the six foot barrier myself.  She was overall, in a bit better of a condition than when I found her sifting through a dumpster on the edge of an alleyway.

"AHH"

  Tsubaki's startled voice came from the kitchen.

"Something wrong?" I asked poking my head in.

"I almost knocked the measuring cup off the counter" She said over her shoulder. "My tail almost knocked it over."

  The small cramped kitchen had never posed an issue for me, but for a mamono with a massive fluffy tail like Tsubaki's it was a nightmare to navigate.  Normally she would secure her tail with maybe a sweater tied around her wasit or magic it away with her illusion magic. Something like this wasn't out of the ordinary, at least in this world. For the longest time humans had existed alongside mamono, or what others would call monster girls. A varied race of demi humans that were essentially humans with animal traits be it a cat-like tail or in the case of a centaur, their lower halves were that of a horse while the upper half was human. The only outlying oddity with their kind was that barring the dwarf, every species of mamono was wholly comprised of women. The reasoning behind it, or at least the real reasoning had been lost to time. Various myths and legends were passed as accepted fact to explain why things were they way they were, but in the modern era it mattered little.

"Couldn't you just magic your tail away?" I asked as I kicked my shoes off, letting them land left of the door.

"It's been a lazy day..." Tsubaki's thought seemed to trail as she spoke. "That, and after dinner I need to talk to you about something."

  For a split second, my mind raced. What could Tsubaki want to talk about?  What could be so important she couldn't ask now? Before I could let my mind run wild though I stomped on the brakes. In the short time I've known her, Tsubaki wanting to ask me something was her just wondering if it was ok if she bought something for herself. It was usually something small, the biggest purchase being the pair of glasses she had asked me for a week back. Before that she had complained it had been hard to read a lot of finer print, relying on me to usually tell her how to prep meals. Outside those glasses Tsubaki didn't have any real possessions, not surprising though considering when I first met her she was on the street pretty much.

  It had been a day in late February when we met. It wasn't a particularly great day then either, the sky overcast and a light rain having started. I had been on my way back home when something in an alleyway had caught me eye. There, in the alleyway she was digging through a dumpster that hadn't been secured. I just stood there watching her, homelessness wasn't a common thing in this world, so to find someone as dirty and dishevled as her was a curiosity. To make matters more interesting she was a Danuki, a mamono that was seen as the most industrious humanoid on the planet.

"uhh.." my own words hanging as I looked for something to say. "You ok there?"

In almost one motion the woman's body went rigid, as if caught, her tail quickled swished through the air, with her head reappearing from the inside of the dumpster. The first expression I ever saw on Tsubaki's face was one of indignant contempt.

"I know what you're going to say." She said with that scowl still on her face. "The answer is no!"

  Her angry reaction had caught me off guard, like a deer in the headlights I was stuck looking for a response.

"Uh..." my voice trailed off, finding the right words seemed impossible.

"Nevermind" Tsubaki said, the scowl on her face easing up. "Whatever you were selling I'm not interested in."

 I could tell she was done with the conversation. Tsubaki had started to pull away, further down into the alley. I felt like letting her walk away was the wrong thing to do, like a bad end in a video game. I had to blurt something, ANYTHING out.

"You look like shit, at least let come back to my place to take a shower and sleep in an actual bed." My words sounded less like a kind offer and more like a cheap pickup line.

Tsubaki had snapped back  to face me "I knew it! I told you I'm not some easy woman like,  go take a trip to wonderland."

"I'm trying to do you a favor!" I fired back,  "it's not like I'm was going to ask for sex."

"No, but you were probably thinking about doing so"

"Look, I'm trying to help you." Aggrivation seeping into my voice. "If anything I have more to lose. You could rob me in my sleep or worse."