“Please, this is one of the oldest cliches in the history of romance anime.” Kevin rolled his eyes. “I’m honestly surprised it hasn’t happened to me before now, considering the way my life has gone. I sometimes feel like I stepped into Rosario+Vampire…” Kevin paused as realization flashed through his mind like a bolt of lightning. “Wait a minute! Rosario+Vampire ended with humans becoming aware of monsters, which is what’s happening to us right now!”
Frederic took a step back. “What are you talking about?”
“This… this is the discovery of the century!”
“Oi! Are you listening to me!?”
“I have to tell Lilian about this!”
“SHUT UP AND LISTEN TO ME!”
Kevin blinked several times as he was brought back to the real world. Frederic glared at him, huffing and puffing, his face red enough to make anime females everywhere jealous.
“I’m sorry,” Kevin apologized, feeling mildly abashed. Someone was trying to threaten him into not spending time with his mate, and here he was, ignoring them. “I can’t believe how rude I’m being. Go ahead. Please continue with your pointless monologue about how I should stop spending time with Lilian or you’ll make me regret it.”
“Thank you,” Frederic said, and then paused. “Did you just insult me?”
“Of course not. Now, you were saying?”
“Um, where was I? Oh, yes.” Frederic’s face turned dark and menacing, eyes like razors piercing the dark room and fangs glinting in the trace amounts of light coming through the cracks in the door. “I don’t know what kind of dirt you’ve got on Lilian that would make her date you, but you’re going to stop using it right now.”
“Eh?” Kevin could actually hear his mind come to a screeching halt. It sounded an awful lot like squealing tires grinding against pavement. “Blackmail? What are you—”
“Don’t think you can fool me! I know what you’re doing! And I want you to stop! If you don’t… then I’ll be forced to take action.”
Frederic cracked his fingers in a way that was supposed to be menacing, but Kevin was too baffled to take notice—and he wouldn’t have been all that frightened anyway. He’d faced far worse than a love-struck yamabiko.
“Look,” Kevin started as he scratched his cheek, “I don’t know why you think I’m blackmailing Lilian, but you’ve got it all—”
“That does it! Since you refuse to stop seeing Lilian, you’ve left me with no choice but to resolve this using violence!”
“Don’t interrupt me when I’m speaking!” Kevin shouted. “And don’t talk about using violence so easily!”
“Now, say your prayers!”
Frederic charged at Kevin, who clicked his tongue and slid into his preferred combat stance—feet shoulder width apart and hands held loosely at his sides.
I hate it when people don’t listen to me, Kevin thought seconds before his mind became lost to the haze of combat.
***
The battle was less of a fight and more of a slaughter. Frederic, like most yōkai, wasn’t really predisposed toward fighting anymore. His punches were sloppy, his kicks were weak, and his guard was full of easily exploitable holes. He also didn’t use any sort of yōkai power, making Kevin positive that he hadn’t been trained in their use. At most, he probably knew how to disguise himself as a human.
Frederic threw a sloppy punch that he slipped around. He latched onto Frederic’s forearm with his right hand, and then jabbed two fingers into Frederic’s elbow joint. A loud yelp escaped the yōkai’s throat. Kevin let go of the wrist, allowing Frederic to stumble backward.
“Look, could we just stop this?” asked Kevin. “If you keep fighting me, you’re going to get hurt.”
“Shut up!” Frederic roared. “I’ll show you not to underestimate a yōkai!”
Kevin almost sighed. He didn’t because he was in combat, and instead slid around Frederic’s next attack—a claw swipe to his face. He ducked, moving underneath the arm, his left arm coming up while he latched onto the outstretched arm with his right hand. Using Frederic’s own momentum and his unique positioning, he threw Frederic over his shoulder. The young yōkai wasn’t even able to yell before all of his breath was expelled in a loud whoosh!
He stood over Frederic, watching as the yamabiko gasped for breath, chest heaving, mouth making strange sucking noises akin to a vacuum.
“Had enough?” Kevin asked.
Frederic growled, though it sounded more like a whine to Kevin’s ears. “Bastard…” Frederic tried to get up, but Kevin put a foot on his chest and pushed him down.
“Why don’t you tell me why you’re really attacking me,” Kevin suggested. “We both know it’s not really because of Lilian. You don’t like me because I’m human.”
Tears leaked from Frederic’s eyes as he glared at Kevin. “You… this is all your fault. You and your kind have completely ruined my life. Thanks to you humans, my parents lost their jobs and can’t get new ones. We were kicked out of our house, and I was run out of school. You humans ruined everything!”
Kevin waited for several more seconds after Frederic finished talking, just to make sure the boy really was done. He crouched down by Frederic’s head and looked at the other boy, who glared back at him with a baleful stare.
“I guess I can’t really fault you for thinking that.” The admittance hurt, but denying it wouldn’t help. “Humanity has done a lot to hurt the yōkai community. I won’t deny that. But that doesn’t give you the right to take your hatred out on me. I never did anything to you. I never hurt you, spoke out against you, or even hurt yōkai in general. I’m dating a yōkai, for the gods’ sakes! You think I’d do that if I hated your kind? Of course I wouldn’t.”
Kevin sighed and stood up. He stretched his back out, wincing as he felt it crack.
“I understand that you’re angry, and I think you have every right to be angry, but your anger is misplaced. If you want to hate humans, then go right ahead.” He looked back down at Frederic, his eyes growing hard. “But don’t take your hatred out on the humans who aren’t to blame, on the ones who actually want to live peacefully with yōkai. If you can’t do that, then we’ll have this conversation again, and I guarantee that it will be much more painful next time.”
Frederic didn’t respond to his words, and Kevin didn’t say anything else. He left the yamabiko to his thoughts. One Piece was coming on and Lilian would be mad if he didn’t watch it with her.
I hate One Piece, he thought with a sigh. Lilian might still be alive when that series ended, but he probably wouldn’t.
***
Frederic skulked for the next few days. His friends tried talking to him, but he blew them off in favor of brooding. During class, he’d sit as far from everyone else as possible, he barely spoke more than two sentences to his parents at home, and he’d stopped playing video games in favor of lying on his bed. Nothing anyone said or did could make him stop.
After class that day, Frederic took to wandering the base. He didn’t want to hang out with his friends, who were annoying him with their constant questions, and he didn’t want to spend time back home where he’d just get into a fight with his parents.
Several people passed him by as he walked. They ignored his presence, caught up as they were in their own conversations and thoughts. The hallways were, while not crowded, certainly busier now than they had been in the first few weeks there. He guessed that meant more yōkai were living there than when he and his parents had first moved in.
“Hey, kid!” a shout came from behind him. “You need to keep moving. You’re blocking the flow of traffic.” Frederic turned around to see a familiar usagi with pinkish hair and large bunny ears. “Well, now. Here’s a familiar face. Aren’t you the one who tried picking a fight with Kevin Swift?”
At the mention of Kevin, Frederic scowled. “What of it?”
“Oh, nothing much, just thought I’d give you some friendly advice. Don’t mess with that kid. He might not look it, but he’
s pretty sturdy.”
“Whatever,” Frederic grumbled. “He’s just a human.”
“Human or not, he’s not the kind of guy you want to mess with. Trust me on this. He’s a lot stronger than he looks. Heck, he carried you all the way to the infirmary when you got knocked flat during that brawl in the cafeteria.”
What?
“What brawl? I don’t remember that happening.”
Mack looked at him like he was some kind of idiot. “The one you started when you stepped on that inu’s tail.”
“Oh…” Frederic hadn’t realized that he had started a fight because of that. He felt kind of embarrassed now.
“Yep. You’re lucky that Kevin managed to drag you out of the war zone the cafeteria had become. He carried you all the way to the hospital, too.”
“D-did he really?”
Frederic was surprised. He had thought Kevin would hate him, given the trouble he’d been purposefully causing the boy—or at least tried to cause for him.
“Yeah, he really did, which is another reason why you should stop trying to mess with him. Not all humans are bad and want us to disappear, and Kevin’s definitely one of the better humans.”
Frederic frowned. Had he really been wrong about Kevin all this time?
“Anyway,” Mack placed his hands behind his head and turned around, “I’ve got some work to do, so I’ll see you later. Think about what I said.”
Mack walked away and Frederic, now uncertain, decided to head back home.
He needed somewhere quiet to think.
***
Saturday meant no school, and to Kevin, no school meant spending the day with Lilian and Iris. Before the assassination attempt, they would have gone out somewhere fun—the mall, the arcade, the park. Ever since they’d been forced into hiding, however, they hadn’t been able to go out.
Kevin had learned through the grapevine—meaning Phoebe—that things were getting worse outside. The nonviolent protests had picked up here in America, but nothing had come of it. Furthermore, several fights had broken out between humans and yōkai, which, more often than not, resulted in the yōkai being arrested and taken away. No one knew what happened to them after they were arrested. Rumors spread that the Sons and Daughters of Humanity disposed of them.
The world had already been balancing on a razor's edge after the Yōkai Identification Act, but now it seemed as if the scales were about to tip, and Kevin was worried they would tip the wrong way.
“Ugh, this is so boring,” Lilian complained as she walked alongside him. “I wanna do something fun!”
“You and me both,” Kevin said.
“We could always have sex,” Iris said.
“I-I really wish you would stop saying things like that,” Kevin mumbled.
“Oh?” Iris’s knowing glance and arrogant smirk made him feel uncomfortable. “Is it because you’re still a virgin?”
“S-shut up!” Kevin hissed, looking around as if expecting someone else to be in the hallway with them.
“Heh, so you still haven’t had your cherry popped. Man, you’re so slow. Hurry up and park your porpoise into Lilian’s underground cavern so I can join in.”
“I said stop talking about that!”
“But, seriously, we really do need to find something to do,” Lilian decided to save her boyfriend-slash-mate from further embarrassment. “I know! Maybe we could ask Phoebe to buy us some manga the next time she travels outside?”
“That’s a good idea.” Kevin nodded. That was something he could totally get behind.
“The only problem is deciding which manga she should buy.”
“I vote for Noragami. I’ve always wanted to read that.”
“Bleh.” Lilian stuck her tongue out at him. “I don’t want to read that. I think we should read something with a little more romance. How about Monster Musume?”
“That’s not a romance. That’s a harem manga.”
“But it’s so cute!”
“It’s like reading porn.”
Lilian poked her fingers together and gave him a pitiful look. “But I… I really like the character designs…”
“U-ugh…” Kevin turned away. “D-don’t give me that look. We already have six volumes of that.” Lilian’s eyes went even wider, and then they got dewy. Kevin’s defenses crumbled, causing his shoulders to slump. “F-fine. We’ll ask Phoebe if she can pick up the next volume of Monster Musume when she goes out.”
“Yay!” Lilian pumped her free hand into the air.
“Could you guys play fight somewhere else? It’s seriously annoying when you do that.” Iris clicked her tongue at the way he and Lilian bantered.
He looked at the raven-haired beauty and frowned. He wasn’t sure what to make of the girl anymore. Lilian was including her in a lot more of their activities. In fact, outside of their more intimate time together, Iris had become a constant. Not only that, but Lilian was displaying a lot more affection for her sister than before. Kevin had noticed the silent conversations they had, too.
Something weird is going on with them…
“Where do you think Phoebe is?” he asked the other two, dispelling those thoughts with a shake of his head.
Lilian pressed a finger against her lower lip. “Um, I think she’ll either be in the command center or the garage.”
“Let’s hit the command center first. If she’s in the garage, then we probably won’t get to her before she leaves.”
Fortune favored them, as Phoebe was indeed in the command center. She and Polydora stood by Monstrang, speaking to him about something—Kevin couldn’t hear what. As they got closer, it became clear that they were talking about their next excursion to the world outside of the base.
“… We plan on checking the situation at the local schools this time,” Phoebe was saying. “While most yōkai have stopped attending entirely and are now coming to the underground schools that you have set up, we’ve heard that several are still going to places like Desert Cactus High School and Shadow Mountain Middle School. I would like to make sure they are not being abused there.”
“That’s a good idea,” Monstrang grunted. “Go ahead and do that. Report back to me with your findings.”
“Of course.”
“Phoebe,” Kevin called out.
“Master Kevin.” Phoebe greeted him with a bow of her head. “I apologize, however, I cannot engage in the act of procreation right now.”
Kevin tripped on air and face-planted into the ground.
“What the heck made you think that’s what I wanted to talk to you about?!” he asked, leaping back to his feet and glaring at the girl. He ignored Lilian’s and Iris’s giggling behind him. Traitors.
Phoebe shrugged. “I’m merely telling you this in case that was why you had come to me.”
“It isn’t!”
“Uhuhuhu…”
“Shut up, Iris!”
“Ufufufu…”
“You too, Lilian?”
After dusting himself off, Kevin informed Phoebe of the real reason they’d been looking for her. The woman listened with a straight face. When he finished with his request, she nodded several times.
“I see. So you have come requesting that I grab some manga during Polydora’s and my reconnaissance mission.”
“Yes. That’s right. Can you?”
“I am sorry.” Phoebe shook her head. “However, I cannot deviate from my intended route right now. It is not that I don’t want to do this for you, but the longer we stay outside, the greater the chances are that someone will discover our identities.”
Kevin felt disappointed, but he tried not to let it show. “I… I understand. Thanks anyway.”
“Again, I apologize for not being able to help you. In order to compensate for this, I’d like to ask that you hit me as punishment.”
“I’m not going to hit you!” Kevin shrieked at the same time that Polydora squealed, “L-Lady P-Phoebe!”
“Help me out, you two.” Kevin glanced at Iris and
Lilian, who, with their matching smiles, had never looked more like sisters than they did just then.
“But, you’re doing so well, Stud.”
I think you can handle things here, Beloved. Fight on.”
“You two are awful!”
Calming down, Lilian slid up to Phoebe and wrapped an arm around the yuma uba’s shoulder.
“I understand why you don’t want to deviate from your course, but could you please do this for us? If you did, I might be more inclined to convince Kevin to help you bear his children.”
“What?!” Kevin’s shrill cry went ignored.
Phoebe, who’d been waffling in indecision, suddenly gained a disturbing gleam in her eye. Kevin shuddered from head to toe.
“Very well, then. I shall buy you that manga.”
“So quick to change your tune!” Kevin spat. “Aren’t you going to stop her, Polydora?”
“S-s-s-s-shut up! There isn’t anything I can do!”
“Tch. Some best friend you are.”
“What was that?!”
Phoebe left with Polydora in tow soon after. While Iris snickered in the background, Kevin gave his mate a pathetic look.
“Did you really have to convince her like that? You know she’s going to be even more insufferable from now on.”
“I know.” Lilian’s expression was solemn, as if she’d already come to this conclusion and decided it was worth it. “But sometimes, we must make necessary sacrifices to achieve our goals.”
“Why am I the one doing all the sacrificing?!”
“It was for the good of manga.”
“Here, here!”
“Be quiet, Iris!”
“Ufufufu…”
“Ah, mou.” Kevin slumped over. “You’re just too cruel.” He tried to glare at Lilian, but there was no real heat in it—only exhaustion. “That was a mean prank.” Although he didn’t know if the prank was on him or Phoebe.
“I’m sorry, Beloved.” Lilian smiled apologetically. “But I really, really, really want that manga.”
“Sometimes I can’t help but think you love manga more than me.”
“Now you know that’s not true.” Lilian wrapped her arms around Kevin and pulled him close. Her tails also curled around his body and hugged him. “Nothing in this world is more important than you. You know that.”
A Fox's Hostility Page 26