A Fox's Hostility

by Brandon Varnell

  Lindsay stood by the bus stop, waiting for her friend to arrive. All around her, people huddled in groups, the division between them clear. Most groups consisted of humans, obvious by their lack of unusual animal or extra features. The other groups were much smaller and felt almost isolated to Lindsay. Some had furry ears and tails, others had gills and flippers, and a few even had skin tones that no human could possess. In short, the division was between yōkai and humans.

  The division had started a mere day after the Yōkai Identification Act had been implemented. All yōkai were forced to wear a wristband, which somehow nullified their ability to disguise themselves as a human. Jessica had said something about it disrupting their ability to mold youki, but Lindsay didn’t really understand it. That sort of stuff was beyond her.

  With the yōkai no longer able to hide their additional features, the many humans attending school realized that the people they had known for years weren’t human. Best friends no longer associated with each other. Couples had broken up upon discovering that their significant other wasn’t human. The humans feared yōkai; what they could do, the powers they possessed—the propaganda being spewed by the news didn’t help. That fear, coupled with feelings of betrayal, was beginning to turn into resentment. Lindsay could see it in the way the humans looked at the people they once called friends.

  Lindsay understood how they felt to some degree. She was lucky in that she had stumbled upon yōkai already. It had been over ten months since she’d learned about yōkai from Lilian and Christine, ten months to get over the fact that there were creatures other than humans living out there. In those ten months, she’d come to understand why yōkai hid themselves from humans.

  They wanted to live normal lives.

  A bus stopped several yards away and disgorged a bunch of kids. The last to come out was a young woman with long blond hair, bright blue eyes, and rabbit ears. She walked with her head down, her books gripped firmly in her arms. She looked every bit the scared rabbit staring at a pack of hunters with rifles.

  “Jessica!” Lindsay called as she ran up to the other girl. Jessica looked up and her dim blue eyes brightened. As she walked up to the usagi, however, Lindsay’s eyes dulled upon spotting the chunks of mud splattered in Jessica’s hair and ears.

  “Lindsay,” Jessica greeted meekly.

  “Jessica… your hair…”

  Jessica fingered her hair, sniffling a few times as if she was trying her hardest not to break out in tears. “It’s nothing. Someone just tripped on the bus and fell into me.”

  Lindsay nearly scowled. Only the fact that she’d already grown used to seeing this kept her from exploding like a volcano.

  “Don’t give me that lie. I know what really happened, and it’s not nothing. People shouldn’t be allowed to do this to you.”

  Jessica flinched at her tone, but offered a smile at her words. “There… there’s nothing I can do about it, though.”

  The new law made it illegal for yōkai to retaliate against acts of discrimination. A human could hurt a yōkai, but a yōkai couldn’t fight back because their “supernatural powers were too dangerous.” Doing so would invoke the wrath of the military, currently under the rule of the Sons and Daughters of Humanity—though just how that group of psychos became part of the military was beyond her.

  “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up,” she said, gently grabbing Jessica’s hand and leading her away from the bus stop. All around her, people watched the duo, some in curiosity and others with scorn.

  “Can you believe that girl, betraying her own kind like that?”

  “Disgusting.”

  “The girl’s always been a freak if you ask me.”

  “Aren’t you saying that cuz she kicked your ass in soccer?”

  “Pfft! N-no! Of course not!”

  “Why is she helping one of us?”

  “Do you think she’s a yōkai who escaped having to wear a wristband?”

  “Doubtful. I think she’s just trying to use that usagi for her own purposes.”

  “Should we help Jessica?”

  “Are you kidding me? You know what will happen if we do something? I heard that yōkai who raise a hand against a human disappear and are never seen again.”

  Lindsay ignored the conversation flowing around her, but Jessica couldn’t. Her ears twitched. She seemed to shrink in on herself the longer she listened. Lindsay walked faster. The sooner she got the girl away from these conversations, the better.

  They eventually found an unused bathroom, and Lindsay did her best to help wash the mud from Jessica’s hair, which had dried in some places and was much harder to get out. It wasn’t until she started cleaning, however, that she realized it wasn’t mud. It was food.

  Lindsay scowled as she washed Jessica’s hair in the sink. “Who did this to you, Jessica?”

  “J-just some boys,” Jessica answered.

  “Damn jerks. Who the hell do they think they are? Someone needs to teach them a lesson!”

  “P-please don’t. If you did that, we’d get in trouble.”

  “No. You’d get in trouble if you did anything, but I’m a human, so I can freely kick the butt of whoever I want. And somebody is gonna get their butt kicked for messing with my friend.”

  Jessica’s smile reflected back at Lindsay through the mirror. With all of their friends deserting the girl after she’d been outed, Lindsay was one of the only people left who she felt comfortable around.

  After washing the food out of Jessica’s hair, she and her friend traveled to the usagi’s locker.

  Unfortunately, when Jessica opened her locker, several dozen carrots fell out.

  “What the…?” Lindsay stared in shock at the carrots, however, a gasp from her friend brought her attention away from that and onto the locker itself.

  The locker’s interior was covered in graffiti. Lindsay saw everything from simple messages like “Die monster!” to a rather gruesome drawing of a rabbit being shot by a hunter. She knew from her history lessons that prejudice and racism were common for humans, but it still disgusted her to see how cruel people could be.

  “That does it.” Lindsay cracked her knuckles. “Someone is gonna suffer for this. Oh, yes. I’m gonna humiliate them so bad, they’ll wish they were dead. Hehehehe—hahahaha—bwahahahahaha!”

  As Lindsay laughed in a very evil manner, Jessica backed away from her friend in fear.

  ***

  Kevin couldn’t understand how he’d gone from being a fugitive, to being a fugitive who had to attend school at an underground base as the only human among a group of yōkai. Really, how did he find himself in these situations?

  Oh. Right. It’s because my mate’s a yōkai.

  Kevin didn’t regret becoming Lilian’s mate. Every day spent with Lilian brought a new experience, sometimes good, sometimes bad, but always interesting. He enjoyed doing things with her, whether that was reading manga, playing video games, talking about whatever caught their fancy, or making out on their bed. That being said, some of the situations he’d found himself in since Lilian showed up were downright zany—potentially lethal, too, but mostly zany.

  However, this one took the cake.

  “Newton's laws of motion are three physical laws that, together, aru, laid the foundation for classical mechanics. They describe the relationship between a body and the forces acting upon it, and its motion in response to those forces, aru. More precisely, the first law defines the force qualitatively, the second law offers a quantitative measure of the force, aru, and the third asserts that a single isolated force doesn't exist.”

  Kevin listened as the teacher lectured them on advanced Newtonian physics. Their teacher was an old man who looked like an old man. His green face was covered in wrinkles, and his webbed hands reminded Kevin of tree bark, rough and patchy. He walked with a noticeable hunch, which may have been due to the shell on his back, but Kevin believed it was because he was old. Just how old he actually was, Kevin didn’t know. He’d never been
good at judging yōkai ages.

  “The first law states that in an inertial frame of reference, an object either remains at rest or continues to move at a constant velocity, unless acted upon by a force, aru…”

  Their teacher also tended to say “aru” a lot.

  Sitting with Kevin were many other people. With the troubles going on around the world, a lot of yōkai parents sent their children to be schooled here. Monstrang had set up a system in which parents could send their children here to learn. He didn’t know how the system worked, since no one would tell him, but he did know that some families had simply decided to move here entirely. The once nearly empty apartment wings were now almost filled to capacity.

  “Does anyone have any questions, aru?” Mr. Malcom finished his lecture and turned to face the students.

  Kevin raised his hand. “I have one.”

  “Yes, Kevin?”

  “Are you Japanese?”

  A blink.

  “A-aru?” Mr. Malcom looked flummoxed. “Why would you think I’m Japanese, aru?”

  “It’s just that you say ‘aru’ a lot, so I was wondering if you were Japanese,” Kevin elucidated.

  “That’s right,” Lilian agreed, crossing her arms and nodding her head in a sage-like manner. “Everybody knows that Japanese people always add ‘aru’ to the end of their sentences.”

  “I assure you two that I am not Japanese, aru,” the teacher stated dryly.

  “You’re positive about that?” asked Kevin.

  “Yes.”

  “Really, really positive?” Lilian pressed.

  “I am, aru.”

  Kevin leaned over to Lilian and cupped a hand to his mouth. “I think he’s just saying that to throw us off,” he said in an exaggeratedly loud whisper.

  “I agree.” Lilian didn’t even bother whispering. “He’s clearly Japanese. What kind of Japanese person has the name Malcom, though? That’s a weird name for someone from Japan.”

  “I’m not Japanese, aru!”

  Class ended eventually. Mr. Malcom had gotten sick of him and Lilian constantly poking fun at the catchphrase he added to every sentence, and so he’d sentenced them to remain silent for the rest of class. When class ended, the group packed up with the rest of the students and headed out.

  “You guys are bad,” Iris said, wiping an imaginary tear from her eye. “I am so proud!”

  “What are you so proud of?” asked Kevin. “You didn’t do anything.”

  “If anything, I should be the one who's proud,” Lilian agreed, puffing up her chest. “After all, Beloved is able to break the fourth wall because of me.”

  “The fourth what now?”

  “Nothing, Beloved.”

  “Still,” Kevin mused, “I’m getting a strong sense of deja vu.”

  “How so?” asked Iris.

  “I feel like I’ve met another Japanese person like him before.”

  “I’M NOT JAPANESE, ARU!”

  The group paused as shouting rang down the corridor. They waited, but when it became clear that the shouting would not continue, they started walking again.

  “You know… I think you’re right,” Lilian said. “I remember us meeting someone else who also said ‘aru’ a lot…”

  Book 5. Chapter 7.

  “That’s it!” Lilian snapped her fingers. “Thanks!”

  You’re welcome.

  “Who are you talking to, Lilian?” asked Kevin.

  “No one.”

  “Ugh, right.”

  “Well, whatever,” Iris said, interrupting his and Lilian’s conversation. “Who cares about that? Let’s get going! I wanna relax before undergoing more mind-numbing torture.”

  “You mean training,” Kevin said.

  Iris shrugged. “Same difference.”

  Before the group could move off, they were intercepted by several other people, who surrounded them to ensure they had nowhere to go.

  “Can we help you?” asked Lilian. Several boys suddenly swooned. One even shot blood from his nose.

  “Oh, no. Don’t worry about a thing, Lilian,” one of the people said. “We’re not here because we need help. We’re here to help you and your sister by removing this trash.” The boy pointed at Kevin, who suddenly pointed at himself.

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you. Someone like you has no right to even stand in Lilian’s and Iris’s presence!”

  “That’s right! Leave them alone, scum!”

  “Human waste!”

  “Mama’s little bitch!”

  … Silence. Everyone stared at the person who said that.

  “What? All of you were thinking it, too!”

  Kevin shook his head and sighed. He understood where these people were coming from. He was the only human in a facility filled with yōkai. A human. The enemy. Right now, he was the enemy, a member of the same species that was responsible for destroying their way of life. It only made sense that they would want to take their frustrations out on him.

  However, just because he understood where they were coming from didn’t mean he’d put up with their prejudice.

  “Are you Lilian?” Kevin asked.

  “W-what?” the boy in front, a lanky teen named Frederic, asked. He wasn’t very tall, and he sorta reminded Kevin of a cross between a dog and a monkey.

  Frederic was a yamabiko, supposedly a mountain spirit of yōkai lore. The term actually came from the phenomenon of a delayed echo in mountains and valleys. Of course, like all legends and myth, reality was different than myth and superstition.

  “Are you Lilian? Is your name Lilian?” Kevin repeated the question. Frederic didn’t say anything. Kevin nodded. “I thought not. So, then, if you’re not Lilian, what right do you have to say who is and who isn’t worthy of being with her?”

  A moment of silence passed. Apparently, none of them had expected him to stand up for himself.

  Frederic’s face twisted into a snarl. His teeth suddenly seemed incredibly sharp, claws grew out of his nails, and his tail bristled to the point where the fur looked like a thousand needles.

  Kevin tensed. A million thoughts ran through his head. Would he have to fight this yōkai? Would the others join in? He knew that, should it come to a fight, he held the advantage. Aside from having previous experience fighting yōkai, he also had Lilian to back him up—Iris currently couldn’t fight for some reason. He and Lilian would be more than capable of taking on these yōkai, especially with how much they’d been practicing.

  At the same time, he really didn’t want to fight. These yōkai weren’t his enemies. They were just a confused group of people. Furthermore, he wanted to prove them wrong. He wanted to prove that he wasn’t like other humans, that he didn’t hate them for what they were. He wanted to bridge the gap between them, to serve as an example that yōkai and humans could coexist.

  I really don’t want to fight, but I will if I have to.

  Kevin warily eyed the yamabiko. Beside him, Lilian discreetly slid into an orthodox fighting stance. If it came to a fight, Kevin knew that she would first cast an illusion to give him an opportunity to—

  “What’s going on here?”

  The building tension, which had nearly overflowed into outright hostility, suddenly dispersed, leaving behind only a feeling of awkward shame.

  The crowd split apart as Mack, pinkish bunny ears bouncing almost joyfully on his head, stepped into the circle.

  “Is there a problem here?” he asked.

  “No,” Kevin said for the entire group. “There’s no problem. I was just asking Frederic how yamabiko is spelled in kanji.”

  “What?”

  “… Never mind.”

  Mack stared at him for a second longer, then shook his head. “Whatever. Listen, you guys need to break up this crowd. You’re blocking the way for others who want to leave.”

  With a few grumbled complaints the crowd dispersed. Mack went on his way with a wave, whistling a jaunty tune that Kevin couldn’t place. He sighed, realizing they’d j
ust gotten out of a potentially hairy situation without the need for violence.

  “Well,” Iris was the one who broke the silence between them, “that was fun. So, who’s up for a quickie before classes start again?”

  Lilian raised her hand. “I am! Quick, Beloved! Let’s find a secluded spot to hide.”

  “I was the one who came up with the idea,” Iris mumbled as Kevin allowed Lilian to drag him off. “Why aren’t I getting any love?”

  Lilian’s ears twitched, but she ignored her sister. “I wonder if this base has any broom closets where we can practice procreation?”

  Kevin facepalmed.

  ***

  Lindsay stood under the hot water, which sprayed from the showerhead and drummed down her back and body like thousands of streamers. The heat from the water, the feel of it running down her back, helped ease the pain and exhaustion she felt.

  School had not been pleasant that day—had not been pleasant for the last month. Each day since the Yōkai Identification Act had been harder than the next.

  “U-um, Lindsay?”

  Lindsay opened her eyes and looked at the girl in the shower with her. Her eyes twitched when she saw Jessica’s voluptuous figure as the water ran down it. Part of her felt jealous, but the rest felt aroused.

  She groaned.

  This is just great. I’m getting aroused by one of my friends.

  She couldn’t help it, however. Like all yōkai she had met, Jessica looked perfect to her. Shimmering blond hair that reminded Lindsay of honey flowed down her head in gentle ringlets, several strands sticking erotically to her skin. The curvature of her perfectly rounded breasts seemed to defy gravity, while her slender waist shifted into a pair of wide hips. Lindsay swallowed when she saw the many thousands of little droplets that trailed down her friend’s near-perfect figure.

  Calm down, Lindsay. Jessica is straight. Don’t ruin your friendship with her because you couldn’t control yourself.

  Breathe in. Breathe out. Okay, she felt better.

  “Let’s get out.” Lindsay smiled.