He
was beginning to think coming over had been a mistake.
“Oyoyoyoyoyo!
Hello, beautiful girls!”
Eric’s
dad had come home just a few minutes after they had arrived. The
moment he saw the five gorgeous females standing in his abode, the
perverted principle stripped off his suit and bum-rushed them like a
fat man at an all you can eat buffet.
Time
seemed to slow as the man ran toward them, his flabby belly bouncing
and jiggling in ways that made Kevin want to vomit. With a salacious
grin, the disgusting principal leapt into the air with the obvious
intention of pouncing on the family of female kitsune.
“Here
I come―DOOF!”
Kevin
watched in mute silence as Mr. Corromperre was smacked in the face by
a large, fluffy black tail. The rotund man soared in a graceful
parabolic arc until his grotesque body crashed into a wall on the
opposite side of the room, causing the entire vertical surface to
crack. He also had the unfortunate luck of slamming into it
headfirst, which caused his fat little head to get stuck in the wall.
As
the pervy principal struggled to pull his head out of the hole,
Kotohime retracted her tail. “I believe having that happen once
per novel is more than enough.”
“I
would be happy if it never happened again,” Kevin added,
shuddering as he remembered the fat pervert trying to jump on Iris
and Lilian and landing on him instead.
“Hmm.
Agreed.”
“Enough
fooling around.” Eric was, surprisingly, not up for their
antics. “I need you guys to heal my master.”
He
directed them to the unconscious Heather. Her skin, once a light tan,
had become chalky-white and pasty. The vermillion liquid pouring from
a gaping wound in her side had stained the leather sofa, and the
repugnant coppery scent of blood filled the air, causing the yōkai
amongst them to gag.
Being
a Water Kitsune, and the only one present with four tails, Kotohime
took to healing Heather. While she did that, her sister pulled Eric’s
dad out the wall and knocked him unconscious with an enchantment.
Nothing good would come from a human walking further into the house
and discovering the scene in the living room.
Healing
Heather was an easy task for Kotohime. While not a healer by nature,
Water Kitsune had the most powerful healing techniques of all kitsune
types.
Kevin
watched in fascination as the wound on Heather’s stomach slowly
closed, the skin sealing shut as if she had never been wounded in the
first place.
“Is
she going to be alright?” he asked.
Kotohime
removed her hands from Heather’s torso and stepped away. “Oh,
yes. She will be fine. It appears she gave herself some basic first
aid, which kept her from bleeding out. She’s lost a lot of
blood, but blood is made up of ninety-eight percent water. I
replenished most of it and healed all of the damage done. She won’t
wake up for a while, but provided she gets a full eight hours of
uninterrupted sleep, she’ll recover.”
“That’s
good.” Kevin still didn’t know how to feel about Heather,
but he didn’t want her to die if she could be saved. “You’re
really good at healing people.”
“Ufufufu,
why thank you.” Kotohime hid a demure smile behind her kimono’s
left sleeve. “But I am truthfully just a novice. As a
four-tailed Water Kitsune, I should be an expert healer, but my
abilities are middling at best. Now then, would you mind helping me
move her into a bedroom?”
“Oh,
um, sure.”
After
Kevin helped Kotohime transfer Heather to an unused bedroom, the
group adjourned to the living room.
“So,
does anyone know what happened to Blondie?” Iris asked, trying
not to frown as Lilian sat on a blushing Kevin’s lap. Beside
her, Camellia looked around the room, her eyes taking in their new
surroundings with the kind of curiousness one might expect from a
child.
“If
we knew what happened, then we wouldn’t be sitting here
discussing it.” Eric crossed his arms over his chest, looking
surprisingly serious. Then again, the woman he looked up to had
almost died. That was apparently enough of a reason for him to cast
his salacious habits aside—at least temporarily.
“There’s
no need to get upset. I was just asking a question.”
“Judging
by the wound Heather-san sustained, I can only conclude that the
weapon used to injure her was some kind of projectile.”
Kotohime cocked her head to the side, musing over something. “From
the size of the wound and the damage inflicted on her internal
organs, I assume it was a rifle, though I couldn’t tell you
which kind. There was an exit wound in her back, suggesting the
bullet went straight through her body.”
Kevin
frowned. “As interesting as that information is, it doesn’t
really help us.”
Eric
nodded his head. “This is Arizona. Anyone can buy a rifle these
days.”
“Of
course, we can probably dismiss this as a random shooting,”
Kevin added. “People who start shooting sprees prefer doing so
in populated areas with a lot of people. We would have undoubtedly
heard about something like that happening. That means whoever did
this must have known Heather personally.”
“What
about those people who kidnapped you?” suggested Lilian, her
brow furrowing thoughtfully as she bit her thumbnail. “That
Heather woman worked for them at some point. She said that she got
laid off when I talked to her, but what if she didn’t? Maybe
they tried to silence her, but she managed to escape before they
could kill her off, and now they’ve come back to finish the
job.”
“That’s…”
Kevin paused, considering her words. “Completely possible,”
he admitted. Smiling, he leaned up and pressed his lips to her cheek.
“Good thinking.”
Lilian
beamed at him.
“All
this speculation is fine, but it still does not solve our immediate
problem,” Kotohime announced. “What do we plan on doing
with this knowledge? Should we protect this woman from these people,
or should we leave her to fend for herself?”
“Oi,
oi, oi!” Eric stood up and gave Kotohime a glare. “How
can you even think about leaving my master to fend for herself?”
“Easily,”
was the blithe reply. “That woman kidnapped Kevin-sama and
tried to capture Lilian-sama. I do not care whether she lives or
dies.”
“Yeah?
Well, I do!”
“That
is not my problem.”
“Why
you…!”
“P-please
stopping fighting, you two.” Kirihime looked nervously between
her sister and Eric. “U-um, Mr. Corrompere, Kotohime does not
truly mean what she’s saying. She just doesn’t like
people who try to hurt her charge.” The demure woman addressed
her sister next. “And Kotohime, please do not say such things
in front of others who might care. I-It isn’t very nice.”
Everyone
except Camellia stared at Kirihime, who looked like she was about to
faint.
Kotohime
smiled. “You are right, of course, Kirihime.” She bowed
her head to Eric. “I acknowledge that my words were in poor
taste. Please forgive them. I was simply speaking on impulse due to
my negative experiences with Heather-san.”
“Negative
experiences, she says,” Kevin muttered in a soft whisper that
only Lilian could hear. “She kicked Ms. Grant’s butt back
to the Stone Age and calls it a negative experience.” Lilian
hid her snickers behind a cough.
“Tch.
I guess I can forgive you this once,” Eric mumbled. “But
only because you’ve got the largest rack I’ve ever seen!”
A perverted expression overcame his features. “Now, if you
really want me to forgive you, perhaps you should put out a little.”
Eric’s fingers twitched as he brought his hands up, as if he
was already imagining what it would feel like to grab Kotohime’s
superlative bosoms. “Maybe if you let me have a quick squeeze
of your―oof!”
The
group watched as Eric Corrompere received a very brutal smack to the
chest by the same tail that put his old man through a wall. The
dark-haired teen soared into the air and over the couch, smacked into
the kitchen table, rolled across the table, and then fell to the
floor, his head hitting the marble tiles with an audible
crack!
As
one, the group looked from Eric to Kotohime, who gave them all a
dazzling smile.
They
turned away again, swiftly coming to the conclusion that it would be
in their best interest to forget the past sixty seconds of their
lives.
It
was safer that way.
***
Christine
had never felt more awkward in her life. Lindsay had invited her over
for dinner and she, like a moron, had accepted the invitation without
really thinking about it. To be fair, she’d been a little busy
berating herself when Lindsay asked if she wanted to hang out after
school, but even she knew that excuse wouldn’t hold up if used,
which was why she didn’t use it—at least not verbally.
Stupid.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Damn it, Christine, if only you hadn’t
been so preoccupied with your newest failure, than maybe you wouldn’t
be in this situation!
She
sat at the table, trying to ignore everything around her. Lindsay’s
parents stared at her as if she’d sprouted half a dozen heads
from her backside and all six had started shouting, “NOTICE ME,
SENPAI!” as loud as they could. She felt like a circus freak
show being put on display.
She
was really beginning to regret accepting Lindsay’s invitation.
“So,
you’re one of Kevin’s friends?” Mrs. Diane asked in
a poor attempt at making conversation.
Lindsay’s
mom looked nothing like her daughter. Where Lindsay possessed an
athletic build, her mom was what many would call “pleasantly
plump.” She wasn’t necessarily a large woman; she simply
had more meat on her bones than most. Her hair was also several
shades darker than her daughter’s.
“N-no―w-well,
sort of.” Christine tried to control her natural urge to deny
being friends with Kevin. “I-I mean, he and I, well, we’ve
spent a good deal of time together, so I guess you could say we’re
friends…”
“That’s
nice. And how is that young man doing, if you don’t mind my
asking?”
Christine’s
mind went on high alert. Something about the way Mrs. Diane asked
that question, or maybe the disturbing gleam in the woman’s
eyes, set her on edge.
“He’s
doing fine,” Lindsay interrupted the conversation before anyone
else could say something. “In fact, he’s been doing
great.”
Mrs.
Diane raised an eyebrow at her daughter. “Really?”
“Yep.
The past few months have been really good to him. He’s grown up
a lot.”
“Mm.”
Christine shuddered. That smile. Oh god, that smile! It made her feel
like retching—and running away screaming, but mostly retching.
“That sounds wonderful. You should invite him over for dinner
sometime. I would so love to see him again.”
Over
at Eric’s house, Kevin felt an icy chill run down his spine as
he sneezed several times.
“Ugh,
um, maybe… perhaps… eventually…”
Christine
had the distinct feeling that what Lindsay really wanted to say was,
“not a chance in hell.”
Dinner
continued in relative silence. Mr. Diane didn’t speak, he
merely finished his meal and set his plate in the sink before
leaving. Mrs. Diane also said nothing—at least not until she,
too, had finished dinner. She offered them both a good night, and
told them not to come into the living room. Christine didn’t
know why she would give such a warning, and part of her feared
knowing.
After
they’d both taken a shower and donned their sleepwear, she and
Lindsay sat together on the tomboy’s bed. While her pajamas
were black like everything else she owned, Lindsay’s looked
like someone had taken a bucket of neon orange paint and dunked them
in it. Oddly enough, Christine thought those bright clothes suited
the girl.
“What
do you think about our new Social Studies teacher?” Lindsay
asked from where she lay on her stomach, elbows on the bed, chin on
the butt of her hands, and her feet kicking in the air.
“You
mean Professor Collins?” Christine absentmindedly flipped
through the pages of her book. “He’s alright, I guess.
I’m just glad he’s not some crazy secret service agent
who’s in the habit of kidnapping teenage boys.” A pause.
The flipping stopped. “At
least I hope he’s not.”
“Hehe,
yeah Me, too. He’s not Asian, though, so I think we’ll be
okay.”
“Hn.”
Lindsay
rolled onto her back and looked at the ceiling. Christine remained
seated with her legs crossed, a book titled “Ten Things You
Need to Know About Men” in her lap.
“Reading
another one?”
“Of
course.” Christine flipped another page. “If I want to
get Kevin to l-l-l-l-lo―like me, t-then I need to know how he
thinks.”
“Can’t
you just say love?”
Christine
felt her face burn a fierce blue. “Wh―l-love―I
could never―who’s in love?! Just because I have a small,
teensy, tiny crush on someone doesn’t mean I love him!”
“Okay,
okay, no need to get so defensive.” Lilian raised her hands in
a calming gesture, then lowered them back to the bed when it looked
like Christine wouldn’t verbally rip her head off. “Anyway,
I’m not sure if those books are gonna help you.”
“What
do you mean?”
“I
mean that I’ve known Kevin for a long time, and in that time,
I’ve come to learn a few things about him.”
“Like
what?” asked a curious Christine.
“Like
if you can’t even admit you love him, then you’re never
going to get anywhere,” Lindsay said bluntly. “Do you
know why Lilian managed to earn Kevin’s affection even though
he had a crush on me?” A blushing Christine shook her head, too
intrigued for her tsundere protocols to activate. “It’s
because I never did anything. I sat on my laurels, expecting that one
day he would finally pluck up his courage and confess to me. And he
did, but by then it was already too late, and Lilian had gained a
foothold in his heart.“