Lilian stared at him.
“Thinking?”
Kevin nodded effusively, his head bobbing up and down like a bobble head found on the dashboard of cars.
“Yes, thinking. I was thinking and it distracted me.”
Lilian did not look like she believed him, but was willing to go along with it.
“What were you thinking about?”
“That I really want to see you in the black pair next.” It was only a second after saying this that Kevin realized what he said. His eyes went wide and his face began to burn. “I-I mean, I just meant… so I could decide which pair looked better on you… you know?”
Lilian had to hide her smile at Kevin’s reaction. He looked so cute when he got all embarrassed like that. That he had essentially just admitted that he wanted to see her in more cute clothes was simply the icing on the cake.
Christine stood off to the side, silently tapping an agitated foot against the floor. She didn't have much of a part to play in this scene. She wasn't one for googly eyes and lovey-dovey crap like this. But she didn't say anything because, well, she just didn't.
Lilian decided not to embarrass him anymore. While it was fun, she didn't want to jeopardize their already fragile relationship and drive him even further away.
She did, however, toss a vicious glare at Christine when the other girl began to make gagging noises. She really didn’t like the yuki-onna.
Several seconds later, Lilian stood before Kevin again, this time in the black jeans. Kevin was more prepared now, and didn’t overreact this time.
“How do these look on me?”
“Really good,” Kevin said after taking a moment to remember that breathing was necessary if he wanted to get any oxygen to his brain. Lilian gave him a beaming smile, which made his insides feel strange, like someone had stuck a furnace in his chest or something. Weird. “They really suit you. They outline you figure well, and allow you to show off your hips and legs while still remaining modest. And I like the black pair much better than the blue.”
“Why black?”
“Because black goes better with your hair.” Kevin nodded to himself. “Maybe it's my mom's influence, but I always felt like black goes better with red than blue.”
“Huh. I see.” Lilian appeared thoughtful for a second before smiling again. “In that case, I'll grab several black pairs.”
“Does that mean we're done here?” Christine asked impatiently, a scowl marring her cute face. “Good. Then let's get something to eat. I'm hungry.”
“If you're that hungry, you could always just leave and get something to eat on your own,” Lilian taunted. “Really, ever since we ran into you, all of you've done is complain.” She paused, then looked at the girl with a combination of curiosity and a hint of condescension. “And just why are you following us around anyways?”
As the question was asked, Christine looked at Kevin out of the corner of her eye. Kevin noticed her gaze and gave her a smile, which caused her to quickly look away.
“T-that's none of your damn business! Just hurry up and buy those clothes so we can get something to eat!”
“Maybe we don't want to eat. Did you ever think of that? Some of us might not be hungry.” Just as Lilian said this a loud, rumbling gurgle, like the roar of a hungry lion, sounded out from her stomach. Two sets of eyes stared at the emerald-eyed fox-girl, who suddenly found herself blushing under the attention. “Okay. So maybe I'm a bit hungry too. It's been a while since breakfast, so…”
“Right.” In a completely out of character display, Kevin decided to take charge. “Let's get those pants and that jacket, then we'll head to the food court. I'm getting a little hungry myself.”
The group left the department store after buying Lilian’s clothes. The redhead eyed the bag with a bit of distaste, which Kevin noticed.
“Do you really not want those pants?”
Lilian deadpanned at him, causing some sweat to run down Kevin’s face.
“Right, stupid question. Forget I asked.”
“I’m sorry,” Lilian apologized. “It’s not that I’m not grateful. I was just thinking about what a pain it’s going to be to create a flap for these. I'm not really good at sewing.”
“Flap?” Christine asked.
“I can’t very well just cut out a hole in these, can I?” Lilian said, as if the answer was obvious. It wasn’t, because neither of them were kitsune. Lilian pouted at the two. “I may not be able to let my tails out in public, but I’m not going to hide them at home. Therefore, I need to create a flap so no one sees my butt when I am in public.”
“I didn’t know you foxes cared so much about being modest,” Christine uttered.
“We don’t,” Lilian admitted, her eyes narrowing. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to give everyone a free show either.”
Kevin groaned when the two started butting heads again, sparks flying back and forth. Several people who had been walking near them backed away when a few errant bolts struck the ground, leaving black scorch marks in their wake.
“Please don’t fight anymore. I don’t know if I can take it.”
As Christine scoffed and Lilian puffed her cheeks up like a balloon, Kevin sighed. These two were such a handful. He could only pray that they would stop fighting once they started eating.
Chapter 12
Possible Lunch Time Romance
Maybe it was just Kevin's imagination, but the mall seemed to be much more crowded once noon rolled around. The walkways were filled to capacity with pedestrians; the stores had hordes of men and gaggles of gals. There were also a lot more people staring at them.
This included a significant amount of stares from numerous boys Kevin's age—and even a few who were quite a bit older, too. Most stared at Christine or Lilian, but a few were glaring at him.
Kevin knew why they were glaring, of course, but he honestly didn't see what the big deal was. How could they possibly think this was fun? Did they truly believe that he was enjoying himself?
Probably. None of these guys knew what it was like to have two girls constantly fighting around you, always arguing, always glaring at each other, making constant snipes about each others' physical appearance, or just throwing about random insults like they were something everyone said in normal conversation. They didn't know how frustrating it was to deal with these two.
All they saw was a single male with two hot females sticking close to him. That was all they wanted to see.
Idiots. The whole lot of them.
It should not have come as a surprise that the mall became more active in the afternoon. People were getting off work and schools were letting out. It was only natural that a number of them preferred spending time at the mall instead of home. Kevin also suspected that most of the Desert Cactus High students had decided to visit the mall since school was closed. They had probably just woken up a little while ago.
Teenagers were lazy like that. It didn't help that most of them probably stayed up all night playing Halo, Call of Duty, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Destiny or any other number of games.
Now that it was nearing lunch, there were plenty of teenagers with voracious appetites wandering the walkways.
“Why the hell are all these people staring at us?” Christine snapped.
It seemed that Kevin wasn't the only one who had noticed the stares, and the yuki-onna made it readily apparent that she did not enjoy being gawked at like a maid at a cosplay café.
Kevin didn't particularly enjoy it either, but couldn't really blame everyone for doing so. They were a noteworthy group; the blond-haired, blue-eyed young man walking alongside two girls whose beauty differed vastly from one another: the gothic cutie with raven hair and snow white skin, and the gorgeous redhead with enchanting emerald irises, fiery red hair, and a body that supermodels would gladly commit genocide for. That was a lot of sexy in one place—too much for the average male to handle.
“I'm surprised you're just now noticing them,” Kevin said.
>
Christine gave him a dirty look.
“It's not that I'm just now noticing them. It's just that all these stares are starting to get on my nerves.”
Kevin shrugged. “You get used to them after a while.” He sure had.
“Grr! Whatever!” Christine huffed. “That doesn't make being gawked at any less annoying!”
He didn't say anything, but Kevin did agree with her. It was bothersome. You'd think people would have something better to do than stare at a trio of high school students, but apparently not.
“Are people really staring at us?” Lilian looked around at all the other people they walked past. It was in that moment that she finally noticed the looks every single male in their vicinity was giving her—looks that she had been getting for the past three weeks.
She walked just a little closer to Kevin, as if subconsciously trying to use him as a shield. Now that she was actually aware of the men's leering gazes, Lilian felt very uncomfortable.
“You mean to tell me that you've been living in human society for Kami-only-knows how long now, and you haven't even noticed how many people stare at you?” Christine looked like she didn't know whether to be impressed or disgusted by Lilian's lack of awareness.
“Not really.” Lilian shrugged, doing her best to ignore the lustful looks she only just now realized people were giving her. “I've been… preoccupied with other matters.”
Yeah. Other matters, such as trying to get into Kevin's pants. It's hard to focus on the people around you when you're so caught up in your own fantasies of someone bending you over the table, taking you like a vixen in heat, and―
“Do you really have to say it like that?”
Are you denying it?
“Well, no, but the way you say it makes it sound so dirty.”
It is dirty.
“Yeah, but still, you don't have to say it like that.”
“Who the hell are you talking to?” Christine asked.
“No one.”
Christine's right eye twitched.
“That didn't sound like no one to me.”
“It was no one,” Lilian insisted.
“Don't mind her,” Kevin said, gesturing to get Christine's attention. He didn't want them fighting again. “She does this all the time. I find that it's best to just ignore her when she gets like this.”
“Really? All the time?” At Kevin's nod, Christine gave him a pitying look. “I feel really sorry for you, then.”
Lilian puffed up her cheeks and glared at the two.
“Thank you.” Kevin nodded solemnly. “Your sympathy is appreciated.”
“You're welcome.” A pause. “But really? All the time?”
“All the time! She's always saying weird things that make no sense, and constantly holding conversations with herself, and then she'll say that she's talking to no one every time I ask her. It's really weird.”
“You're right, that is weird. Who the hell holds conversations with themselves?”
“Trust me, you haven't seen anything yet.”
While Kevin and Christine talked about her, Lilian's face had been growing steadily redder.
“Do you two really have to talk about me like I'm not here?”
“Do you have to talk to break the fourth wall every other paragraph?”
“… Touché.” Lilian gave Kevin an appraising look before returning to their original subject. “Anyway, I don't really care about these other people. Why should I care if they stare at me?” she asked, though it sounded more like she was trying to comfort herself than because she actually believed her own words. “They don't matter to me.”
Kevin looked at her, his eyes compassionate.
“They make you uncomfortable, don't they?”
“… A little.” Lilian admitted reluctantly. She didn't want to admit that she disliked the looks people gave her―she was a kitsune for Inari's sake! They reveled in attention! Or they were supposed to. But she couldn't lie to her mate. “There's only one person in this entire world who I want looking at me like that. I don't care about anyone else. The only person whose eyes I want on me is the one that I love,” she finished softly.
Kevin felt odd; a combination of guilt and elation. He truly wished that he could give Lilian what she wanted. But how could he when he still had feelings for Lindsay? Lilian wouldn't want him like that anyway. She wanted his love, not his pity.
He would admit that Lilian was one of the most beautiful girls he knew; prettier than Lindsay, cuter than Christine, and hotter than any supermodel. Lilian was like those females you see in popular Shōnen anime; too beautiful to be human. Her beauty made his chest flutter, and his stomach twist, but he just couldn't love her.
He loved Lindsay.
He had to.
If he didn't love Lindsay, then why did he spend the last three years of his life pining after her from a distance?
“I doubt any of these guys would actually bother trying to hit you up,” Christine informed the other girl. She eyed the many lecherous gazes lingering on them scornfully. “Most of them will simply be content to lust after you from a distance, acting like you're some kind of untouchable goddess or something equally stupid. Tch.” She scowled. “They're just a bunch of cowardly, perverted idiots.”
“You said it.” Lilian nodded in agreement. Christine's words made her feel a bit better.
The two shared a look of camaraderie, for once completely in sync with each another. Kevin resisted the urge not to facepalm.
“Of all the things that you two could agree on, of course it would be that.”
“KEVIN SWIFT!”
Kevin groaned. Christine blinked. Lilian actually sighed.
“YOU'VE GOT SOME EXPLAINING TO DO!”
Three sets of eyes turned to look at Eric Corrompere, who marched toward them, an enraged look on his face. Kevin wondered what he'd done to upset the idiot this time—and then remembered that he was standing between two beautiful women.
Before he could even begin talking to his unreasonably angry friend, Eric grabbed him by the front of his shirt, and began to violently shake him back and forth.
“What the hell are you doing here?! Never mind that—what the hell are you doing with two boob-dacious babes?! Why is it that you're always the one attracting the hotties, huh?! HUH?!” Eric began crying as he continued shaking his best friend, though right then, it seemed more like they were hated enemies—or at least the results of unreasonable jealousy. “First you steal my Tit Maiden, and now you've managed to sink your claws into another sexalicious cutie!” The shaking increased and blackness was soon creeping into the edges of Kevin's vision. “Grr! You have no idea how much I hate you right now!”
Once the shock of watching someone manhandle her love wore off, Lilian stomped over to the boy.
“What in Inari's name do you think you're doing to my Beloved?!” In her outrage, Lilian used her normal term of endearment for Kevin. Her voice was also loud enough that most of the people in the area stopped walking to stare at the scene. “Let go of him NOW!”
“I'll be with you in just a second my lovely Tit Maiden,” Eric declared as he continued to shake Kevin like a ragdoll. “But first, I need to show this pompous ass what happens when you don't spread the boob-love!”
The shaking increased with renewed zeal. Kevin's eyes rolled into the back of his head.
While Lilian tried to get the stupid pervert to stop manhandling her mate without resorting to using any kitsune techniques—which never seemed very effective on Eric once he went into his pervert-mode—Christine wrinkled her nose in disgust.
“Ugh, don't tell me you two know this stupid pervert.”
Eric stopped shaking Kevin as this new voice reached his ears. It was so beautiful, so heavenly; like the tinkling of a wind chime, soft and enchanting. It passed through his ear like a soothing melody. He had to know who that beautiful voice belonged to.
Lilian was still trying to get Eric—who, surprisingly, was ignoring her—to le
t go of her love.
“Hey, you stupid pervert! Let go of my Beloved!”
She wasn't having much success.
“…”
Kevin was unconscious by now. His head lolled back and forth, and his body had gone limp.
Slowly, very slowly, Eric craned his neck, the movement almost mechanical, like a machine that hadn't been oiled in several years. As his head turned, his eyes sought the girl whose voice had enchanted him so.
She stood there, looking like some kind of gothic sex doll straight out of one of his erotic fantasies. He had been so caught up in teaching Kevin a lesson that he had not taken the time to truly see just how frickin' delicious this goth loli was. If she was dessert, then he would definitely skip the main course to get a piece of her.
Her long black hair shone and sparkled like a thousand stars at midnight. Her gothic lolita outfit accentuated her delicate body; those soft, feminine curves, not at all like Lilian's bodacious figure, but definitely drool-worthy in its own right. While her boobs were kinda tiny—make that really tiny—there was something appealing about her smaller-than-average chest.
Never let it be said that Eric only liked girls with big tits. He wasn't the kind of pervert who discriminated against small breasts. He loved boobs of all sizes!
Seconds later, Kevin was lying on the ground in a crumpled heap.
“Inari blessed! Beloved!” Lilian stepped around to kneel beside her abused mate. She wrapped her arms around his torso and lifted him up. His head flopped around uselessly as she tried to shake him awake. “Kevin! Are you okay?! Talk to me, Kevin! Beloved!”
Kevin didn't respond, naturally.
While Lilian tried to bring her beloved back to the land of the living via more shaking—which did more harm than good—Eric appeared directly in front of Christine. It happened so quickly that the yuki-onna could only gape. One second the boy had been standing several feet away, and the next he was right in front of her. How could a human move that fast?!
The young man ignored the way the new object of his lustful gaze leaned back in disgust and surprise. His nostrils flared like a bull and steam shot from his nose, a rather prominent flush of red staining his cheeks. This blush, which could only be salacious in nature, spread from his cheeks to the rest of his face, going all the way down his neck to disappear beneath his shirt.
A Fox's Tail (American Kitsune Book 2) Page 29