“
Shut up! Shut up, both of you!”
“
Damn you, Kevin Swift! Just wait until I get out of this!”
Having moved inside, Ms. Swift and Kotohime watched the group from their place on the couch.
“
Look at how much fun they’re having.” Ms. Swift’s pout was reminiscent of a child whose parents told her that she couldn’t have dessert after dinner. “I wanna play Twister, too.”
“
Ara, ara.” Kotohime held the sleeve of her kimono up to her mouth, looking nothing if not amused.
***
In the end, no one won the game of twister.
Once three o’clock hit, Christine, Lindsay and Justin went home. The twins and Eric stuck around, playing several more rounds of violent FPS goodness.
They decided to stop playing when Lilian won every single round.
Kevin returned from his trip to the bathroom to see his friends watching another anime. This one, much like
White Out
, was a mainstream anime—except it was about ninja instead of Shinigami. It was called
Shinobi Natsumo
.
“
No! What the hell are you doing, Natsumo! Don’t just keep using dopplegangers to overpower your enemies! That’s never going to work on an opponent as powerful as Gaia!”
Kevin stifled his chuckles as Lilian shouted at the screen. He understood her frustrations. While he enjoyed the series, he really wished the main character would stop trying to run roughshod over her enemies with corporeal copies. Such strategies only remained interesting after the first couple of times. It got boring after the hundredth time. It got annoying after the thousandth time. And after the ten-thousandth time, well, it wouldn’t be inaccurate to say that there were times Kevin wanted to throw his TV through a wall.
“
Hey, Eric.” Kevin stood next to his friend.
“
What do ya want?” Eric didn’t take his eyes off the screen.
“
I wanted to talk to you about something.”
“
What? Now? Can’t you see I’m busy watching sexy two-dimensional jugs bouncing around here?”
“
It’s important.”
“
Ha… fine.” Eric stood up. “But make it quick, alright. We’re just about to get to the best part of the entire episode.”
Which Kevin took to mean they were getting to one of the parts where Natsumo found herself randomly stripped naked for no apparent reason. It happened a lot in anime—spontaneous stripping, that is.
Kevin took Eric to the spot outside where he’d conversed with Kotohime several nights ago. He didn’t want anyone overhearing their conversation, least of all Lilian.
Eric crossed his arms and stared at his friend. “All right, now, what’s so important that you felt the need to drag me all the way out here?”
Kevin took a deep, calming breath to center himself—
“
IthinkI’minlovewithLilian!”
—
and then spoke complete gibberish.
Eric stuck a pinky in his ear, pretending to clean it out. “Eh? What was that? I couldn’t understand a word you just said.”
Kevin grimaced and took several more deep breaths. When he finished finding his zen, he looked at Eric again. “I… I think I might be in love with Lilian.”
Eric’s stare made him feel like an idiot.
“
Is that all you wanted to say? I could have told you that.”
“
Eh?”
At hearing his friend’s most elegant way of expressing confusion, Eric rolled his eyes. “Look, man, it’s obvious to anyone with a pair of eyes that you like Lilian.”
If Kevin hadn’t been startled before, then he certainly was now. “It is? Really?”
“
Kevin, only an idiot wouldn’t notice that you like her.” Eric held out a hand and began ticking off reasons with his fingers. “You spend more time with her than anyone else―and don’t give me that crap about you two living together. That doesn’t stop you from avoiding her at school. You treat her with more kindness than anyone else.”
Kevin opened his mouth, but wasn’t given a chance to speak.
“
Ah ah, don’t interrupt me. I know exactly what you’re going to say. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’” Eric said in an approximation of Kevin’s voice, “‘I don’t treat Lilian any differently than I do anyone else.’ Bullshit! You treat her way differently than anyone else. You might be a complete pansy when it comes to women—”
“
Oi!”
“—
but that doesn’t mean you’re weak-willed. If you didn’t like Lilian, she would have never gotten away with half the crap she’s done since you two met. The mere fact that you let her say the stuff she does, that you don’t put much effort into stopping her when she clings to you, tells me that you like her.”
To this, Kevin said nothing.
“
Besides, you stare at her all the time.”
“
W-w-what?!” Kevin shrieked as his face turned into a neon sign. “I do not stare at her!”
Kevin looked away when Eric gave him a surprisingly deadpanned stare.
“
W-what? I don’t… do I?”
“
Kevin.” Eric’s voice had never been more serious. “Just the other day, you were so busy staring at Lilian that you couldn’t even run properly during track practice. Coach Deretaine actually had to curse you out like a sailor stuck in a desert just to get you to start moving.”
“
T-that’s because…”
“
And what about today,” Eric continued, “the whole time we’ve been hanging out, you’ve hardly gone ten minutes without looking at her. You also let her feed you, hold your hand, and you’re always smiling at her.”
“
What does me smiling have to do with anything?”
“
Everything!” Kevin jumped in shock when Eric shouted. “Look, Kevin, most people probably think I’m just a good-for-nothing pervert, and they’re one-hundred percent correct. But! I am also a pervert who happens to be your best friend. I know you; your habits and your thoughts and how you act when you’re uncomfortable, so I know when you like someone. Even Lindsay never got the smiles you’ve been giving Lilian. Face it, you’ve been struck by Cupid’s arrow, you’ve caught the love bug, the doctor of love has come knocking on your front door, you―”
“
All right, all right! I get it,” Kevin interrupted. He really didn’t want Eric going on one of his rants. “I’m in lo-lo-love with Lilian. But… how can I know if this is real love and not just a silly crush? What if it’s not true love?”
“
True love?” Eric snorted. “Kevin, there’s no such thing as true love. That’s a fairy tale coined by Disney in order to con money out of tween girls and their parents.”
“
I thought fairy tale princesses was the Disney concept?”
“
They came after Disney created the idea of there being such a thing as your ‘One True Love.’”
“
Oh.” Kevin paused. “So what should I do?”
Eric raised an eyebrow. “Are you really asking me what you should do?”
Kevin shrugged and looked down at his shoes. His black sneakers contrasted sharply with the concrete pavement. “You’re my best friend. Who else am I supposed to ask? My mom? She hasn’t dated since the jerkwad of a sperm donor left her. Lindsay? She’s a girl.” Another pause. “And now that I think about it, maybe asking her for advice is a good idea.” He shook his head. “Anyway, the point is, you’re my best friend. If I can’t come to you for help, then who else can I go to?”
Running a hand through his hair, Eric sighed. “If you really want me to help, I do have some advice to give you. But, you’re probably not going to like it.”
“
At this point, I am willing to take any advice you can give me under serious consideration.”
“
Alright then, here’s my advice. You listening?” Kevin nodded. “Fuck her.”
…
Silence. Several crows cawed in a most annoying manner.
“
I-I’m sorry, what?” Kevin looked at Eric like he’d sprouted a donkey’s tail from his hindquarters.
“
I said fuck her, diddle her fiddle, stick your tallywhacker in her babymaker, shove your star quarterback into her squealing cheerleader, poke your―”
“
I can’t do that!” Kevin exploded. Eric’s blank stare would have made him uncomfortable, but Kevin was already too embarrassed to feel discomfort.
“
Why not?”
“
What do you mean why not? Because it’s… because I… I mean… to have sex with someone that you don’t even know your own feelings for… it’s just wrong!” Kevin grabbed his left elbow with his right hand, looking more than a little uneasy. “Lilian, she… she really loves me. This isn’t some high school crush to her; this is serious. It’s the ‘I wanna spend the rest of my life with you’ kind of serious. If we had sex, it would be like I was declaring my intentions to marry her, and I don’t… I mean, I’m not sure if my own feelings for her are that strong. What if I tell her that I love her back, and then realize later on that I don’t actually love her?”
“
That’s the risk one takes when it comes to love.” It was surprisingly sound advice coming from a pervert. “You can never know if you’re going to still love someone months, years or even decades down the road. That’s why so many people get divorced these days.”
“
But that’s wrong!” Kevin exploded. “That’s so, so wrong! You think I can do something like that?! That I can hurt someone like that! My mom suffered because my dad left her after I was born! Even now she refuses to talk about him!”
Kevin gritted his teeth. He didn’t know his father, not even his name, but he didn’t need to. His father had left his mom. She was with child, and he left her! To be born from someone like that, to have that man’s blood flowing through his veins; it made him sick.
“
I refuse to do that to Lilian.” Kevin’s eyes blazed like twin bonfires in the night. “Lilian loves me, Eric. Do you understand what that means? She loves me so much and I… I’d never forgive myself if I got her hopes up by accepting her love without being positive that I could return it with the same intensity and devotion as her.”
“
You make it sound like you’re her soulmate or something.”
Kevin looked down at his hands. They were trembling, weak. The hands of a boy born from a man who abandoned his significant other after he’d gotten her pregnant. These hands held Lilian’s heart in their palms. That knowledge made him queasy.
“
I might as well be.”
“
I’m sure you’re just exaggerating.” Eric rolled his eyes at Kevin’s melodrama. “I know the girl is into you. Hell, everyone knows Lilian would like nothing more than for you to stick your rock hard porpoise into her moist cavernous passage―”
“
Oh, for the love of―would you stop crapping out innuendos already?”
“―
but that doesn’t necessarily means she wants to get married, have your babies, and buy a house with a white picket fence and a flower bed.”
Kevin shook his head. Eric just didn’t understand. “No, she does. Trust me on this, Lilian isn’t looking for a quick screw or anything. This is a lifetime commitment to her.”
“
Whatever. I think you’re just a little too into yourself.”
Kevin sighed. He wished he could tell his best friend the real reason that Lilian loved with him, but he couldn’t. A conversation like that couldn’t end well.
“
Eric, the reason I know that Lilian isn’t looking for a one-night stand is because she’s actually a kitsune, and she has chosen me to be her mate. That means she’ll remain by my side for the rest of my life, and because I am her first mate, I’ll be the single most important person in hers.”
“…
Justin hasn’t convinced you to do whatever has fried his brain, has he? That was the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Kevin shook his head. Yeah. Not happening.
“
Look, Kevin.” Eric placed his hands on Kevin’s shoulders, snapping him out of his thoughts. “Whether Lilian is looking for marriage and children or just a young man to screw doesn’t have any bearing on your decision. It also doesn’t change the fact that, in the end,
you
are the one who has to make this decision.”
Kevin sighed. That really wasn’t what he’d been hoping to hear. But then, what did he expect when asking Eric for help?
“
I know you’re afraid of acting on your feelings because of your old man.”
Kevin’s eyes widened.
“
How did—”
“
Oh, please.” Eric rolled his eyes. “Just because I spend more time looking at tits than I do paying attention to you doesn’t mean I’m ignorant.”
“…
I really dont’t know how to take that,” Kevin mumbled, “so I think I’ll just ignore it.”