A Fox's Family (10 page)

Kevin
was so surprised by the question that he almost choked on his food.
He banged on his chest several times to dislodge a bit of sausage
before looking at the red-haired vixen, his mouth hanging open as he
stared at her in stupefaction.

“I’m…
sorry,
but, did you just ask about my training?”

Lilian
puffed up her cheeks, her pout filled with enough cuteness to
suffocate a man from too much fluff. “What’s with that
response? I’ll have you know that I am very interested in your
training.”

After
a moment’s hesitation, Kevin reached out and placed a hand over
one of Lilian’s. “I’m sorry. It’s just that
you’ve never asked about my training before. You always said
that you weren’t interested in the ‘stupid training I did
with that dumb mutt,’
remember?”

Lilian’s
cheeks flushed upon hearing his words, just a bit. “Y-yes,
well, t-that’s just because I don’t like you spending
time with her. She’s an inu, and even though she doesn’t
have any romantic intentions towards you, I still don’t like
how you’re spending time with some filthy dog. You’re
mine, not hers.”

“O-oh…”

Kevin
and Lilian stared at each other, their faces growing more and more
red as the seconds ticked by.

“S-so!”
Lilian
tried to get her groove back. “A-anyway, I’ve calmed down
since then, and am now curious to know how your training
is going.”

“Well,”
Kevin
stretched out the word, thinking about how to best describe his
training with Kiara, “it’s…
productive,
I guess.”
When
Lilian stared at him with an astoundingly blank expression, Kevin
felt his cheeks burn. “W-what I mean is that Kiara hasn’t
been teaching me how to fight or anything. She just has me doing
strength training exercises. She runs me through drills and routines
that are designed to strengthen my muscles and increase my speed
while not gaining any extraneous muscle mass.”

“Uh
huh…”

“Yeah.
According to Kiara, having big, bulky muscles actually puts fighters
at a disadvantage against their opponents, and that large muscles not
only cause your movements and reactions to become sluggish, but that
having them can also restrict your range of motion, limiting the
number of ways your body can move and bend.”

“That
was a terribly long run-on sentence.”

Kevin
nearly faceplanted into his food. “You’re not even
listening to me, are you?”

Lilian
dipped a piece of bread into her soup.  “Of course I am.
You said that Kiara is increasing your strength through exercise.”
She
took a bite out of the bread and moaned at the pleasant taste filling
her mouth. Upon swallowing, she continued. “And that having
large muscles is a bad thing for fighters. See, I was listening.”

Now
it was Kevin’s turn to pout. “It didn’t seem like
you were.”

“That’s
because I’m an excellent multitasker. I can eat bread and
listen to you at the same time.”

“If
you say so.”

“I
do say so.”

Kevin
and Lilian stared at each other for a second before, ever so slowly,
matching smiles crossed their faces.

After
they finished dinner, Kotohime served them baklava.

Wanting
this moment to be romantic, Lilian tried convincing Kevin that they
should feed each other. Because he didn’t have any experience
at being in a romantic relationship, Kevin agreed, even though the
idea of him and Lilian feeding each other was kind of embarrassing.

When
dinner concluded, Kotohime took their plates away. Lilian and Kevin
moved to the couch where they watched an anime that Lilian had been
wanting to see. Kevin didn’t know why, but as they watched the
anime, which featured a kid who’d been turned into a zombie by
a necromancer with godlike powers, he felt a strange sense of deja
vu, like he’d seen or knew someone who had been in a situation
similar to the main character’s. Weird.

Several
hours later, as the twilight hour dawned, Kevin and Lilian prepared
for bed. After their nightly ritual, Lilian donned plain white
panties and a large white T-shirt, while Kevin put on black boxers
and a T-shirt of the same color.

Kevin
laid down on the bed with Lilian cuddled up to him, snuggling into
his side and using his left shoulder as her pillow. Despite his body
burning like a furnace, Kevin still responded to her affection,
wrapping around her and letting his hand rest on the curvature of her
hip.

Lilian
sighed in contentment, kissing his chest and falling asleep seconds
after saying goodnight, Kevin’s warmth lulling her mind and
body into a sense of peace and tranquility that she only felt in his
presence.

On
the other hand, Kevin was wide awake and suffering from a small (not
so small in his opinion) problem. He stared down at Lilian’s
lovely leg, visible as a lump underneath the blanket covering them.
While he couldn’t anything more than an outline, he could feel
her leg just fine, along with what it was grazing.

Lilian’s
leg rubbed against him, causing his body to respond. He rose to the
occasion. Lilian shifted some more, her bare leg caressing him and
causing a delicious sort of friction that he felt even through his
boxer shorts. Kevin thought his face might undergo spontaneous
combustion at any second.

Despite
it only being 9:45, Kevin could already tell.

It
was going to be a long night.

***

A
sea of velvet blanketed the night sky, complemented by the twinkling
of several million stars.

Justin
leaned against a pillar located in a small park near his house. The
pillar was connected to a pavilion filled with metal tables and
benches.

He
could have sat down, but he honestly preferred standing. With a cell
phone held to his ear, the young man waited patiently for the person
he was calling to pick up.

“…”

“Good
to hear from you, Commander. I was beginning to wonder if you’d
answer my call.”

“...”

Justin
listened, waiting until the person had finished before chuckling. “I
assure you, this isn’t a social call. I just thought you would
like to know that one of your former associates who went against the
grain and tried kidnapping the kitsune, Lilian Pnevma, has managed to
slip through the cracks and is still hanging around. She’s
currently teaching at my school as an assistant PE coach.”

“…”

“Her
name? I believe it’s Heather Grant.”

“…”

“Yes,
it’s the same Heather Grant who spent almost half the Arizona
Branch’s—excuse me, I meant, the now defunct Arizona
Branch’s budget on eroge.”

“…”

“Never
knew you were capable of such expletives, Commander.”

“…”

“The
point of my call? I just wanted to know if you would like me to take
care of her for you. She could cause some serious problems if not
disposed of soon, you know--especially if she decides to speak with
Davin Monstrang.”

“…”

“Very
well. I’ll let your people take care of her. Who do you plan on
sending?”

“…”

“None
of my business? Right. Okay. You know, that untrusting nature of
yours will eventually be your downfall if you’re not too
careful.”

“…”

“There’s
no need to get upset. I was simply stating a fact. People don’t
like it when they feel like you don’t trust them. It makes us
wonder if the reason for your lack of trust is because you plan on
double-crossing us at some point in the near future. Besides, wasn’t
it your inability to trust others that caused your wife to leave you?
Oh, wait. It wasn’t lack of trust that made her leave, but
because you experimented on her unborn child, wasn’t it? My
bad.”

“…”

“You’d
be surprised by the things a person can learn if they ask around
enough. It’s not like what happened between you two is a
closely guarded secret. I’m pretty sure everybody knows about
that incident and just refuses to speak about it.”

“…”

Justin
examined his nails. They’d need to be clipped soon. He’d
have his mom do it tomorrow after school or something.

“Yes.
Yes. I know. You’ve given me that same speech several times
already. There’s no need to give it again.”

“…”

“Fine.
Out.”

Justin
sighed as he hung up the phone.

“‘Stay
out of the way,’
he
says. ‘You’ll only cause problems in the future,’
he
says. Does he really think I’m so incompetent that I would
allow myself to get caught by some hentai-watching floozy?”

Looking
up, Justin admired the astral beauty of the phantasmagoric night sky,
his mind tracing intricate shapes using the stars as waypoints.

“I
guess there’s nothing to it.”

Pushing
off the pillar, Justin shoved his hands into his pockets and began
walking home, his mouth twisting into an unpleasant facsimile of a
smile.

“I
wonder who the Commander plans on sending after Heather? Whoever they
are, I hope they’re strong. I could really use some
entertainment right about now.”

***

Kevin
didn’t know when he had gone to sleep, nor did he know how long
he had slept for. It couldn’t have been that long though,
because when he woke up to use the restroom, the clock told him it
was 1:45 am.

Lilian
stirred as Kevin tried to extricate himself from her grip, an
exceedingly troublesome task. Lovely eyelashes fluttered open,
revealing irises that glittered like precious gemstones. The
twin-tailed kitsune blinked the sleep out of her eyes as he sat up.

“Kevin?”

“Go
back to sleep, Lilian, I’ll be right back. I just need to use
the restroom.”

“M’kay…”

Lilian
complied and went back to sleep. Smiling as he looked at her, Kevin,
in a rare moment of courage and initiative, leaned down and kissed
Lilian on her right cheek. The emerald-eyed vixen smiled in her
sleep, settling deeper into their large pillow.

Kevin
left the bedroom and was soon draining the dragon. Upon revealing the
tension in his bladder, he entered the hallway and was about to head
back to bed, when a noise caught his attention.

Halting
in his tracks, he strained his ears, listening for…
there
it was again! What was that? It sounded like something was…
shaking?
No, it sounded like crashing.

Looking
around for a second, Kevin noticed that Kotohime was not in the hall.
She also wasn’t in the living room when he arrived. He frowned,
but figured she must be out doing
something.
He didn’t know what she might have been at this time of night,
and truthfully, he didn’t want to know.

The
sounds grew louder, and Kevin determined that they were definitely
from something crashing into something else, though he couldn’t
determine what. They came from outside his apartment and were getting
closer.

Kevin
approached the door slowly, cautiously, like a real life ninja and
not those shōnen ninja who wouldn’t know stealth if it hit
them in the face. Having already dealt with several life and death
situations, he had no desire to find himself on the receiving end of
a kidnapping, a violent yōkai who wanted to kill him, or both.

The
door loomed ever closer. His footsteps were as silent as he could
make them. Not that it mattered. Whatever was causing that racket was
making enough noise for the both of them. He soon discovered other
noises mixed in with the crashes, which he realized must have been
something banging against the stairs. It sounded like…
voices?

“M-My
Lady! Please be careful! I don’t think these stairs are safe!
Just listen to how much noise they’re making.”

“Tee-hee,
don’t worry. Camellia’s fine. See? She’s graceful.”

“The
reason they’re making so much noise is because you keep banging
our luggage against them.”

“I-I
can’t help it. This luggage is really heavy…”

“Inari-blessed,
you’re almost as useless as Mom!”

“Th-that’s
not a very nice thing to say…”

Kevin
blinked at the odd conversation taking place. He reached the door
and, remaining vigilant, peered through the small eyehole.

“Hawa!”

His
eyes promptly widened.

“My
Lady! Please be careful or you’re going to―”

“Hawan!”

Unlocking
the door and swinging it open, Kevin was just in time to receive a
face-full of two large, round things.

“Mmph!”

His
back hit the floor as he lost his balance, the person who’d
slammed into him falling on top of him, further depriving his lungs
of oxygen. Because the two somethings smothering his face seemed to
possess a circumference that was twice the size of Sanosuke Sagara’s
zanbato, he couldn’t regain his breath either.

“Hawawawawawa!!!”

“Useless
woman!”

“M-My
Lady!”

As
voices shouted and darkness encroached upon his vision, Kevin Swift
had but one thought.