A Fox's Family (55 page)

“I…the
truth is I… I’vealwayslikedyou!”

A
pause.

“Um,
what?”

Christine
flushed, but now that she’d said it once, she was able to
repeat it, and in such a way that Kevin could actually understand it.
“I like you.”

“Ah.”
Kevin grinned. “I like you, too.”

“No.
Not like that, you idiot.” Christine actually rolled her eyes.
“I mean I… I like you in…
that
way.”

It
took Kevin a couple of seconds to realize what “that way”
meant. When he did, his face went through a series of emotions:
shock, surprise and “
oh
my god, I think someone just confessed to me!”
being
the first three. His face then gained an expression that was best
described as a combination of embarrassed, pleasure, and ashamed.

“I…
wow… I never knew that.”

Christine
deadpanned. “You didn’t? All this time I spent with you
and you never once suspected that it might be because I have feelings
for you?”

“Ah,
well, you kept hitting me and getting angry all the time, so I just
sort of assumed you didn’t like me.”

“You…
you really are an idiot, aren’t you?”

Kevin’s
cheeks puffed up. “That’s not very nice. I’m not an
idiot. I’ve got the third highest grades in my class.”

“That’s
not what I meant.”

“Still,
I suppose I should have suspected something,” Kevin mused. “I
guess there was some truth to all those times Lilian called you a
tsundere, after all.”

“Urk!”

“I
mean, thinking back on it, all those times that you got really angry
and violent, those were, like, classic tsundere moments.”

“Geh!”

“Really,
I’m almost ashamed of myself. As an anime fan, I should have
recognized the signs. I don’t know how I missed them.”

“Can
we stop talking about how I’m a tsundere already?!”

“Right.”
Kevin offered the girl an apologetic grin. “Sorry.”

“W-w-w-whatever.”
Christine crossed her arms and huffed. “So, um, about what I
said…”

“Christine.”
Kevin’s smile was gentle, but it was mixed with guilt and
sadness. “I’m sorry. I like you, I really do. You’re
an amazing person. You’re kind, you’re fun to be around,
and you’re super cute.”

Normally,
Christine’s cheeks would have flushed at being complimented so
much, but she had already worked out where this was going. Instead of
getting embarrassed, she merely looked resigned.

“But
you like Lilian, right?”

“That’s
right.” Kevin nodded. “Lilian and I are mates. She’s
important to me. I like you, but I love Lilian.”

“But
how can you know that for sure?” asked Christine. “How
can you know that you love Lilian? We’re fifteen. We don’t
know what love is.”

Blond
hair swayed as Kevin shook his head. “I used to think that,
too. That I couldn’t possibly know what love really is because
I’m too young, but I’m beginning to think that age isn’t
all that important when it comes to matters of the heart.”

“But
you’ve only known her for three months!”

“I’ve
only known you for about three months as well,” Kevin pointed
out.

“That’s
not true,” Christine blurted, “you and I have—eep!”
Christine clamped her hands over her mouth.

“Christine?”

“It’s
nothing.”

“It’s
clearly not nothing,” Kevin frowned.

Christine
began to look irritated. “Look, if I say it’s nothing
that means it’s nothing, okay?”

“Um,
no,” Kevin determined, shaking his head. “Not okay. You
don’t get to decide what is and isn’t nothing all on your
own. Something I said clearly bothered you, but I can’t even
apologize because you won’t tell me. Do you know how that makes
me feel? It makes me feel like you don’t trust me. You say you
love me, but relationships are built on trust, Christine. If you
can’t trust me, then—”

“How
can I trust you when you don’t even remember me?!”
Christine exploded like a geyser. A very cold geyser.

“So
we’ve met before,” Kevin murmured as Christine huffed and
puffed.

“Obviously,”
was her biting reply.

Kevin
thought back to when he might have met her. He recalled a previous
conversation with Christine, where she had told him that she used to
live in Alaska, which he had visited back when he was younger.

Hm…

“W-what
are you doing?” Christine squeaked like a frightened mouse when
Kevin got into her personal space.

“You…”
Kevin squinted, as if doing so would help him see her more clearly.
“Are you Ice Girl?”

“DON’T
CALL ME THAT, YOU IDIOT!”

“Doof!”

Kevin
was sent sprawling to the ground from Christine’s mighty fine
pimp slap. He held a hand to his red cheek, gawking at the girl who,
after calming down, stared at him in shock.

“Ouch,”
Kevin muttered, “did you have to hit me?”

“S-sorry,”
Christine mumbled, looking down at the hem of her robes. She then
glanced shyly at Kevin as he stood back up. “So, you…
you do remember me?”

“Well…”
Kevin rubbed the back of his neck, “I remember Ice Girl, but I
hadn’t realized that she was you. As I recall, you were very
shy back when we first met—and you weren’t as prone to
violent outbursts. It took me the entire time I was there to break
you out of your shell.”

“W-whatever,”
Christine huffed. “I haven’t changed that much.”

Silence.
A number of crickets chirped, adding their music to the awkward
moment.

“W-what
are you looking at me like that for? I haven’t changed.”

“Christine,
back when we first met, you were more likely to hide in a corner than
to beat the crap out of someone for upsetting you.”

“Eep!”

“In
fact, I distinctly remember you crying when several bullies picked on
you.”

“Ugh!”

“And
I clearly remember this one time where I beat some of those bullies
up for you, and you ran over to that corner and began to cry—”

“Alright,
alright! I get it! I was a lot different back then!”

“Yes,
you were.”

Kevin
smiled at Christine, who turned her head.

“You
still haven’t answered my question,” she mumbled to
change the subject.

“Question?”

“My
question. How can you know that you’re in love with Lilian when
you’ve only known her for three months?”

“Ah,
that question. I’m not exactly sure what to tell you.”
Kevin shrugged helplessly. “I’ll admit, I don’t
know everything about Lilian. I’m sure it’ll be a long
time before I do. But, I don’t really think I need to know
everything about someone to love them. Lilian and I, we just sort of
work. She’s bright and vibrant and cheerful. She has a love for
life that I’ve never seen in anyone else. Her personality, her
emotions, that openness she displays all the time, I envy her ability
to be so honest with herself.”

He
chuckled in a self-deprecating manner.

“To
be honest, when I first met Lilian, I was actually kind of jealous of
her.”

“Jealous?”
Christine wrinkled her nose. “Of her?”

“Weird,
I know, but Lilian is just so open. She has no trouble speaking her
mind. She says what she wants to say, does what she wants to do, and
she doesn’t care about what anyone else thinks. In comparison,
I was a shy kid who couldn’t even talk to a single girl without
fainting or running away.”

“You
talked to me just fine,” Christine said, referring to their
meeting at the arcade.

“And
you can thank Lilian for that. It’s only because of her that
I’m like this now,” he fired back. “If it weren’t
for Lilian, I doubt you and I would have ever met. Re-met? Whatever.
My point is, we wouldn’t have become friends again. Even if I
had met you before Lilian, I wouldn’t have been able to speak
with you because of my… girlphobia?” Kevin scrunched up
his face, then decided to just roll with it. “Yeah, let’s
go with that.”

“Girlphobia?”
Christine couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You
were… afraid of girls?”

Kevin
blushed, just a bit. “Not quite afraid, really, just too shy to
talk to them.”

“Same
difference.” Christine blew out a deep breath. “So, that
time when you got me that… stupid cat… from the claw
machine, the only reason you did it was because of Lilian?”

“I
got you that cat because I wanted to,” Kevin told her, “but
without Lilian helping me get over the anxiety I felt around girls, I
can guarantee it would have never happened.”

“And
just how did she manage to help you get over your… issues?”

Kevin
absently recalled the hundreds of times that Lilian had tried to
seduce him, either by prancing around naked, leaving the restroom
door unlocked while she took a shower, or by wearing sexy lingerie
and posing on his bed—desensitization at it’s finest.

“By
being really, really tenacious.”

“I
see.” Christine closed her eyes. “I… I guess I
should have expected this.” She smiled at him, but it was a
very bitter smile, the smile of someone who had lost without ever
realizing it until it was too late to win. “I mean, you two are
dating already. It was stupid of me to think you would fall in love
with me just because I confessed.”

“I’m
sorry.” Kevin knew that contrite apologies wouldn’t
really help, but he had nothing else to give.

“No.
It’s fine.” Christine sniffed. “It’s not your
fault.”

Kevin
didn’t know why he felt so guilty at the sight of Christine’s
embittered smile, but he did. He felt like a jerk.

“Well!”
The smile became cheerful, but Kevin knew it was fake. Christine
never gave such bright smiles. “I think I’ll go back to
the party. You should, too. I bet your mate’s looking for you.”

The
girl didn’t spare him another glance. She walked past him and
went on her way.

“Christine.”

She
stopped.

“Are
we still friends?”

Christine
clenched her hands into fists. Her knuckles, already snow white,
turned nearly translucent as they shook. They relaxed seconds later.
She turned around and presented him with another smile. It was an
honest smile, despite the tears that were starting to glisten down
her cheeks.

“Of
course we are,” she said before disappearing around a corner,
walking in the opposite direction of the amphitheater.

Kevin
closed his eyes and sighed. He felt bad—horrible even—but
he knew this was for the best. He liked Christine, but only as a
friend, and he needed to let her know that. Leading her on, giving
her false hope, it would have only hurt her more in the end. It was
like ripping off a bandaid; better to get it all out of the way at
once, than to let it fester and scab.

Kevin
re-joined Lilian and his friends. They eventually found Iris bumming
money off of Justin. He noticed Lindsay looking at him a few times,
but whenever he looked her way, she would be looking at something
else.

They
partied well into the night, staying up until ten pm before traveling
home.

Christine
hadn’t been seen at the party after their conversation.

***

It
is a well-documented fact that all kitsune, especially females,
possess an almost unhealthy obsession with their bodies. Every
kitsune bears a strong urge to shape their body into an exemplar of
beauty. While nature certainly does an excellent job for them, many
kitsune feel that isn’t enough. Even though the overall
standard of what it means to be “beautiful” is something
that most of the world’s population has come to a general
consensus on, each individual often has their own quirks and ideas on
what it means to be “truly beautiful.”

Looking
at the female members of the Pnevma clan, it becomes immediately
apparent that “beauty,” as defined by them, can be summed
up in two words: tall and voluptuous. Each member of the Pnevma clan
is tall of stature and has a humongous pair of jugs--except for one
of them.

Even
Iris and Lilian, the second youngest members of the clan, are
purveyors of incredible beauty. While not as tall as the others, they
are still growing, and they are already quite shapely in all the ways
that matter.

In
order to fully grasp how the concept of beauty within the Pnevma clan
works, one needn’t look any further than the clan's matriarch.

Delphine
Pnevma has, for the past seven centuries, been considered one of the
most beautiful kitsune to ever grace the earth. She is the possessor
of a beauty envied by all, and is considered the pinnacle of what a
“pure” Pnevma clan female should look like.

Tall
with big breasts.

Sure,
she has a magnificent pair of legs, wide hips and a shapely rear
along with nine perfectly groomed silver tails, but most people are
too busy admiring the ginormous beach balls on her chest to notice.

The
kitsune in question sat upon a chair, a dais really, one befitting
the matriarch of the most powerful spirit clan in the world. Kneeling
before her, below the steps that led to her throne, was one of her
daughters.