Intrachit stared at the plate of fried dough in front of him. There was some translucent white dollop of what Lion had called ‘condensed milk’ in a saucer that apparently he was meant to dip the dough in.

Intrachit was yet to understand why anyone would want to dip their breakfast in something that looked like an ejaculated bodily fluid.

“Lord Hanuman,” the young human boy was blabbering again. His wide, light brown eyes alight with excitement as he ran about the kitchen brandishing various utensils.

The boy was small and slender, the opposite of what a warrior should be. He would have been eaten alive back in Intrachit’s world. Intrachit let out a laugh at the thought of this little Lion boy prancing about in the demon lands of Longka.

“A-are you okay?” the boy stuttered, pausing for a moment and looking anxious.

Intrachit nodded, not trusting himself to speak yet. The boy smiled, wide and toothy as his eyes crinkled up into moon like crescents.

“And who is this?”

Intrachit leapt to his feet, tensed and ready to fight as a new presence entered the kitchen. Lion however, sped across to paw at Intrachit’s biceps, almost as if trying to soothe him. Intrachit felt himself bristle uncomfortably at the gentle touch.

“Granny!” Lion beamed. “Um, this is my friend from school, his name is Ha-“

“My nickname is Inn,” Intrachit announced loudly, making Lion flinch.

Letting the foolish human believe he was Hanuman may have had its benefits but Intrachit certainly wasn’t going to tolerate being called by that despicable name.

“I was going to say ‘Han’,” Lion whispered, “I’m not stupid.”

“I like Inn more,” Intrachit cleared his throat awkwardly, wondering if he should have chosen a completely unrelated name. However, a moment later Lion simply shrugged and smiled, turning back to his grandmother.

“P’Inn’s parents are abroad so he is staying with friends at the moment,” Lion explained.

“You’re very tall,” Lion’s grandmother noted with a pleased smile. “You make Lion look like a little princess.”

“Granny!” Lion whined. Inn noticed that Lion’s face had gone a splotchy red, the blush dappling down the column of his slender neck.

Inn snorted with amusement, Tosokan would swallow this boy whole without even needing to chew.

“I get my height from my father, Grandmother,” he told the elderly woman. She was brown and wrinkled like a prune and was wearing a hideous tracksuit of baby pink with silver stripes.

“With big friends like this maybe you can get those awful bullies to stop pestering you,” Granny sniffed appraisingly as she shuffled over to the counter and began selecting some fruit from a woven bowl.

Inn frowned as he flicked his eyes towards Lion, the smaller boy had gone very red again, but he was remaining silent, his brows knotted together and his lips pressed tightly with what looked like shame.

“Do not worry Grandmother,” Inn smiled widely, affecting his most charming tone, “I will look after Lion from now on.”

“Oh,” Lion breathed out with a pleased looking flush, but he still wasn’t making eye contact with Inn.

Inn grinned to himself, yes, this little human was going to be very easy to manipulate. Inn had already deduced from Lion’s ridiculous tale of wishes on a meteor shower that it was something to do with the demon witch’s spell.

Tosokan had said that the witch had already harnessed the power of the stars, the next step was a pure heart. Inn just knew he had been sent to this strange human realm for that exact purpose. He was not going to let his father down.

Once he had procured a heart he would return to Longka and together they would defeat the forces of the god prince Phra Ram and his insufferable monkey sidekick once and for all!

“P’?”

Inn flicked his eyes back to Lion. The other boy was addressing him as an older brother, although the word P’ was not reserved purely for family but for any boy that was older than you.

“We should get to school,” Lion said, a hint of pleading in his voice.

Inn nodded, the human had already explained about school and enrolling him. Whilst Inn found the notion ridiculous, he also thought that a school full of young men and women might the perfect place to select a pure heart.

“Let’s go then,” he nodded, catching the relieved expression on Lion’s face.

Walking down the street was a myriad of confusion and surprises for Inn, he jumped backwards several times at the roar of strange mechanical vehicles. There were shops whose doors opened by magic and the air was cold inside. Inn had tried to ask Lion what spells they used but the other boy had simply giggled and shook his head, trying to explain something called ‘air conditioning’.

Inn frowned as Lion stopped several times down the road, handing out his freshly purchased sausages to stray mangy dogs. Another time he placed a handful of notes in the wooden bowl of an orange robed monk by the temple, receiving a blessing in return.

“You give alms every day?” Inn asked, cautious not to let the monk look too closely at him. Inn felt odd and out of place, dressed in some of Lion’s dead father’s clothes that were still far too small and stretched on him.

Inn knew there was nothing about his appearance that identified who he really was but still, he couldn’t be too careful. Phra Ram’s spies were everywhere.

“When I can,” Lion nodded before gesturing to a tall, decrepit looking building behind a cracked painted wall. “That’s the school. I’m going to try and research in the library today for a way to send you back.”

Inn rolled his eyes as Lion turned away. The other boy had been so apologetic, so terrified he might have angered his great hero Hanuman by yanking him from another realm into this one. It was pathetic really, how this small human had wasted a wish on a flea ridden monkey.

Inn smirked to himself, if only Lion knew who he had really summoned. The fear in those wide brown eyes would be quite delicious.