A Fox's Tail (American Kitsune Book 2)

by Brandon Varnell

“Oh,” Lilian looked thoughtful. “kitsune don’t have anything like that.”

  Kevin frowned at her.

  “Then what do you do to kill time?”

  “I used to spend time with my sister,” Lilian answered. “Sometimes I’d spend time with my mom. Kotohime also followed me everywhere I went, and her sister was usually following Iris.”

  “So wait. You’re telling me that you have two maids?”

  “Did I not mention that before?”

  Kevin twitched.

  “No, I believe you forgot to mention that.”

  “Oh.” A pause. “Well, now you know.” Kevin twitched again. Lilian continued. “Let’s see, I’d also go out into the village sometimes, but I never really liked it—too boring for my tastes, and all the people there are so old-fashioned. I also used to spend a bit of time with my cousins and nieces, but I don’t think they like me very much.”

  Now that got Kevin’s attention.

  “Why wouldn’t they like you?”

  “Oh, no reason. We just had typical family arguments and stuff. Nothing to be concerned about.”

  Kevin didn’t like the way Lilian waved off his question—he especially didn’t like the bitter smile on her face. However, he didn’t press her, either. She was entitled to keep her secrets, and he didn’t want to make her uncomfortable.

  He went back to their original conversation.

  “It's better this way anyways. With so few people, we'll have an easier time shopping. No lines, you see.”

  “Mm, mm.” Lilian nodded. “I get it.”

  Even though Kevin told her that it would be easier to shop, he didn't actually believe his own words. He didn't know why this was—no, actually, that was a lie. He did know why he felt this trip would be just as problematic as every other trip.

  The people staring at Lilian. There may not have been as many this time, but what few people were present, eyed the gorgeous girl like she was a prime piece of meat hanging in front of a butcher’s shop.

  During their first shopping excursion, he had only noticed the stares people gave her objectively. They hadn't really been on his mind at the time. More like they had been the last thing on his mind.

  That happens when you're too busy freaking out about the really pretty girl holding your arm within her bosom to pay attention to anything else.

  Now he could see them, however. He could see the way people gazed at Lilian, their eyes brimming with lust as they stripped the redhead of her clothing—men, women, young and old, it didn’t matter, everyone stopped to gawk as he and her walked past.

  Kevin tried to put those stares out of his mind and focus on the task at hand. They had shopping to do.

  While making their way to the nearest retail clothing store, the pair ran into a very familiar face.

  “Is that Christy?” Kevin asked no one in particular, as he glanced at the girl walking down the opposite end of the walkway.

  It was definitely Christine. There was no forgetting that gothic lolita dress, or that snow-white face, crystalline blue eyes, and pale blue lips.

  Lilian took one look at the girl, then snorted. She forewent her earlier hesitation, and grabbed Kevin by the arm.

  “Who cares? Let’s just keep going.”

  “But wouldn't it be rude not to say hello?” asked Kevin, not quite understanding why Lilian didn't want to greet the other girl. Sure, they had been arguing during the match, but that didn't mean they couldn't learn to get along eventually. Right?

  “Hey, Christy!” Before Lilian could pull him away from the other girl, without said girl noticing them, Kevin had begun shouting and waving the yuki-onna over. “Hey!”

  Hearing her name being called, Christine turned toward the source of the voice. It wasn't long before she spotted the two very familiar figures. They weren't hard to recognize, nor were they difficult to spot in the sparse crowd. Kevin made it particularly easy to see him, what with the waving and yelling and everything.

  With a slight smirk on her face, Christine walked up to the pair.

  “Well, look who it is. I suppose I should have expected to see you two here, what with our school being closed and everything.” The smirk on her face widened just a bit, as she turned her head ever so slightly to look at Lilian. “I'm guessing the damage done to our school was your handiwork? You're not very good at keeping on the down low, are you?”

  A pulsing vein popped up on Lilian's forehead, throbbing angrily. The two-tailed kitsune glared at Christine, her left eye twitching intermittently.

  “Don't try blaming me for what happened to the school. The one who did all that damage was that stupid dog, not me. Also, none of that would have happened if you hadn't run off like some kind of coward.”

  “You say that like I had a reason to stick around and get my ass kicked,” Christine quipped, grinning when a low, menacing growl escaped Lilian's throat. “Unlike some people, I know the meaning of prudence.”

  The glare Lilian cast Christine looked like it could have cut through steel.

  “And besides,” the girl continued smugly as Lilian glowered at her, “Had I stuck around with you, Kevin here would have been on the receiving end of an epic beat down by those three thugs who attacked him.”

  Lilian stopped looking at Christine with DOOM in her eyes. She knew that Kiara had sent three people after Kevin, but had been so preoccupied with everything else that it had just slipped her mind.

  “You protected Kevin from Kiara’s goons?”

  “That’s right.”

  Lilian craned her neck to look at Kevin.

  “She protected you from Kiara’s goons?”

  “Don’t go asking someone else the same question you just asked me!”

  “Yes,” Kevin said, nodding. “She’s actually the only reason I didn’t get turned into a large bruise like you did.”

  “And you, don’t go answering her, dammit!”

  Lilian pouted.

  “You didn't tell me that you almost got beaten up.”

  “There hasn't been a really good time to tell you.” Kevin tried to shrug the girl's look off, but had some trouble. Her stare made him more than a little uneasy. “After our, um, conversation the other day, I didn't think it would be a very good idea to talk about it. And I had kinda forgotten about it anyway. Besides, I wasn't really injured or anything.”

  “Well… I guess so long as you're okay,” Lilian mumbled. Despite her words, displeasure colored her voice. She was obviously bothered about not being informed of something so important. Actually, she just didn't like that Christine had been the one to save Kevin and not her. She was overreacting, she knew that, but that didn’t stop her from feeling jealous.

  While open-minded, kitsune are possessive creatures by nature. They don't like other non-kitsune coming onto their territory. And while Kevin could hardly be considered hers, Lilian still felt the desire to defend her right to be with him from the snow maiden.

  “And speaking of yesterday,” Kevin sent Christine a grateful smile. “I really am thankful for your help. I wouldn't have been able to get away from those three on my own.”

  “A-ah!” Christine gasped, her pale cheeks turning a mild red tinged with blue. “W-why are you saying this so suddenly?! Idiot!”

  “Wha…?” Kevin was confused, naturally. “I was just thanking you for the other day.” Seriously, what had he done to upset the girl now?

  “You already thanked me yesterday, stupid! Or did you forget?!” When embarrassed, Christine resorted to insults. They were her fallback protocol for dealing with her own self-consciousness. “B-besides, I didn't do it for you! I just didn't want to be in your debt! That's it! Got it?!”

  “All right, all right, I got it.” Kevin held up his hands in a sign of surrender. “Sorry I brought it up.”

  “Whatever,” Christine huffed, crossing her arms over her chest as she turned her head to hide the dark stain on her cheeks.

  “Seems like someone here is a little tsundere,” Lilian mutter
ed. Christine whipped around to glare at her. She’d gone on the internet last night and searched for the term tsundere, so she knew what it meant now.

  “What was that?! You wanna repeat that, ya damn vixen?!”

  “I didn't say anything.” Lilian's innocent smile didn't look very innocent at all. “And I certainly didn't say anything about you being a tsundere. Not at all. No tsunderes here. Did you hear me say anything about tsunderes?”

  “Bitch!”

  “Now, now.” Lilian's smile contained massive amounts of victory and win. “No need to get so defensive. Otherwise people might think there's some truth to my words.” Her smile grew when she saw the girl's face change from red to blue. “Then again, with the way you're acting, maybe I am onto something.”

  Christine grit her teeth.

  “Bold words coming from a bitch in heat!”

  “Don't compare me to a filthy dog, you loli wannabe!” Lilian's fierce expression began to match that of Christine’s.

  “Loli wannabe, am I?!” The girl in the gothic lolita outfit squawked in indignation. “I'll have you know that this outfit is authentic clothing from the late Victorian era! Besides, I don't need someone who dresses like a slut to tell me about fashion!”

  “A slut?!” Lilian looked truly outraged. “I already told you that I'm still a virgin!”

  “Doesn't change how gods-awful your sense of fashion is!”

  “Says the girl who wears clothing made for flat-chested little girls!”

  Glowering at the redhead, her face turning ice blue in outrage, Christine peeled her teeth back in feral snarl.

  “People who wear this kind of clothing in real life don't have flat-chests, idiot!”

  “Who are you calling an idiot?!”

  “If you're too stupid to figure out who I'm calling an idiot, then that should obviously tell you who I'm talking about!”

  “It was a figure of speech! And besides, the person who calls someone else an idiot is always the real idiot!”

  “That doesn't even make sense!”

  Kevin watched as the two began butting heads. Should he step in? He supposed coming between them before things could get ugly—uglier—would be the morally correct action to take. Then again, maybe he shouldn't. Christine and Lilian looked about ready to tear each other apart, and he really had no desire to inadvertently find himself on the receiving end of their hostility.

  He looked at the two, whose argument had degraded to childish insults.

  “Tiny-tot!”

  “Whore!”

  “Flat chest!”

  “Pumpkin tits!”

  “Pimple nipples!”

  Yeah, those insults. Kevin sighed, raising his left hand to massage his neck as he muttered a small, fervent prayer under his breath. He then gave the two his attention again, having decided that, yes, he really should stop them before their verbal sparring came to blows.

  I can't believe I'm actually gonna do this.

  “Uh… hey you two…”

  “What do you want?!”

  “Yes, Beloved—I mean, Kevin?”

  Under the combined glare of the two girls, Kevin shrank back, nearly crapping his pants at the vicious appearance his female companions held. The young man almost ran away screaming. Almost.

  Taking a deep breath, Kevin gathered his courage and said, “Um, you two might want to, uh, you know, stop arguing.”

  “Why?” asked Lilian. Christine just frowned.

  “Because you're making everyone else uncomfortable.”

  The two girls looked around to see that their little group had been given a wide berth. An extremely wide birth. There wasn't a single person within five meters of them. All of the people in the general vicinity had formed a large ring around them, gawking like they were a pair of wild beasts that might start attacking each other at any moment.

  Several seconds of silence came and went in a tense form of peace. The two girls locked gazes, then just as quickly looked away with a mutual huff.

  Kevin? Well, he just sighed in relief. Crisis averted, at least for the moment. He could only hope this peace would last.

  Good luck, Monsieur Swift. You're going to need it.

  “What's with the French accent?”

  I thought it suited the moment.

  “Oh. In that case, carry on then.”

  Aye.

  “Cut that out already!” A red-faced Kevin shouted at Lilian.

  ***

  Despite how empty the mall was at the beginning of the day, as time went on, the crowd began to grow. By the time ten am rolled around, it seemed like the entire Desert Cactus student population was present.

  Kevin felt very uncomfortable as he walked passed the many cliques that apparently had the same idea he did. He would like to say his discomfort was caused by the envious and jealous glares over ninety percent of the male population sent his way, as well as the occasional death threat muttered under someone’s breath.

  That would not be quite accurate. While the angry looks he received usually caused discomfort, he had grown used to them. Sure, they had grown two-fold due to Christine’s presence, but that hardly meant much. No, these glowering looks were merely a symptom of the real problem, the one that made him feel like a small, insignificant ant standing between two giants—or a human standing between two incredibly angry yōkai who were leaking killing intent at each other like it was going out of style.

  What did I do to deserve this?

  “I thought you two were going to stop arguing with each other,” Kevin said meekly.

  “We're not arguing,” Lilian said, making it a point not to look at the other girl in their company.

  “That's right. There's no arguing here,” Christine added. “If we were, you'd know it. Little miss Fox-Whore here would be crying her eyes out.”

  “What was that?!”

  “You heard me!”

  With a sigh, Kevin pressed his left hand to his face. Maybe it hadn't been a good idea to say hello to Christine? Ah, well. It was too late to correct that oversight now.

  “If you two aren't arguing, then what do you call this?”

  While his words did not get rid of the tension, it did do a decent job of making sure the pair's argument didn't devolve any further. Both Lilian and Christine looked away with a huff, their arms crossed.

  The trio soon arrived at their intended destination. It was one of the larger retailers that sold lower quality clothing for a cheaper price.

  Kevin wouldn't normally shop at a place like this. Having a mom like his made him a bit more fashion conscious than most males his age. Actually, he was probably more fashion conscious than any straight man had a right to be, but that wasn't his fault.

  Despite his natural dislike of shopping at department stores, Kevin didn't want to spend exorbitant amounts of money on clothing. He was already waiting for the hammer to fall with his use of the credit card that his mom had given him for emergencies. There was no need to get himself into more trouble when she found out that he had spent even more money on womens' clothing.

  Mom's probably gonna think I'm cross-dressing or something.

  Speaking of his mom, he wondered why he hadn't received a call from her yet. Knowing her as well as he did, he suspected that she wanted to discuss this matter with him in person, rather than on the phone, but had been unable to get away from her work. He was really not looking forward to that conversation.

  Sometimes, I hate my life.

  “So… what exactly should we be looking for?” Lilian asked as they entered the section that sold winter wear. It was located in the back of the building, because winter was still a couple of months away, though it would begin to get cooler once October hit. “I've never shopped for winter clothes before.”

  Kevin looked at her, frowning.

  “Doesn't it get cold in Greece?”

  “Not really,” Lilian said, “I lived in a coastal village on a privately owned island, so while it did get somewhat cold during the w
inter, it wasn't enough that I ever needed clothing like this. And Florida almost never got cold, even during the winter.”

  This wasn't necessarily true. As a kitsune, Lilian simply had a very different idea of what was and wasn't appropriate to wear regardless of the season.

  It should be noted that kitsune didn’t really have any modesty… or shame, and their clothing reflected that. It was very rare to find a kitsune wearing something that wasn’t skimpy and designed to show off their unnatural beauty and incredible assets. It was also very rare to see a kitsune with small boobs, which explained their need to flaunt what they had.

  “Besides,” she added, letting go of a jacket and standing next to Kevin. “If I ever did get cold, I could normally just use my tails to warm up. Or I could always change into my fox form if it got really cold.”

  “Tch.” Christine tsked at the pair of them. From her expression, it would appear that she was annoyed by the topic of conversation. “Neither of you truly know what it means to live in the cold. I used to live in Alaska. It was always freezing there, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week—the temperature always stayed well below zero.” She shivered involuntarily, as if remembering something unpleasant. “It was truly the most horrible place in the entire world.”

  “You lived in Alaska?” Kevin asked. Christine nodded. “I remember visiting Alaska several years ago. When I was four, I think.”

  “O-oh? Is that so?”

  “Yeah, but like I said, it was a really long time ago,” Kevin said, then became curious, “So is that why you moved to Arizona? Because you don't like the cold?”

  “Hnn.”

  “Hmph!” Lilian snorted. “You hate the cold so you moved to a state that was hot for most of the year. Aren't you supposed to love the snow? What kind of yuki-onna are you?”

  “Is that supposed to be some kind of insult?” Christine gave Lilian a frosty look. “Just because I don't like the cold doesn't mean crap!”

  “But if you don't like the cold, wouldn't that mean you hate using your own powers?”

  “Urk!”

  “Before you two decide to start arguing over something pointless again, Lilian—” Kevin held out a dark red wool jacket with a double-breasted front that tightened around the waist and flared out at the hips, “—why don't you try this on and see how it fits.”