A Fox's Vacation

by Brandon Varnell

  “Those look like…” Alex’s eyes widened.

  “I believe they are…” Andrew stared in reverent awe.

  “… Bruises…”

  Everyone gave Justin an odd look.

  Kevin and Lilian sat down at a booth. Iris tossed them one last wink, which elicited a glare from them both. She then sat next to an awed and embarrassed Lindsay and an angry and embarrassed Christine.

  “Oh ho,” Kiara laughed when she got an up close look at Lilian.

  “Whatever you’re thinking, stop it,” Lilian muttered harshly, hiding behind her menu.

  “Ufufufu,” Kotohime giggled demurely behind her hand. “It looks like Lilian-sama, Kevin-sama, and Iris-sama were having some fun this morning. Is that why you’re so late?”

  “I was not having fun!” Lilian hissed, her red cheeks revealing her true thoughts. “My sister practically raped me!”

  “It isn’t rape if you enjoy it.”

  “Shut up, Iris!”

  “Kevin liked it!”

  Lilian opened her mouth, then closed it just as quickly. She turned and gave Kevin an expectant stare. Kevin blushed.

  “Ah.” Awkwardly scratching his neck at the unexpected twist this conversation had taken, Kevin could do nothing but offer his honest opinion. “I… it was… kind of hot… I guess…”

  Even if he thought it was wrong on so many levels, he wouldn’t deny that it had aroused him. Throughout the entire incident, while Iris had been sucking and licking and nibbling on Lilian’s skin, he’d been sporting a boner hard enough to cut diamonds.

  “Well,” Lilian mumbled, turning back to the menu, “so long as you liked it, I guess it’s okay.”

  “In that case, wanna go again?”

  “Don’t push your luck!”

  Heather stared at Eric as he turned away, sobbing. “How can such a great man exist in this world? He must be some kind of god! An earthborn god!” Seconds later, the young pervert raised a fist to the sky. “Oh, My Lord, your incredible way with women knows no—DOOF!”

  Something hard and black smacked the back of Eric’s head with a loud thunk! The boy crashed to the floor, unconscious long before he hit the ground.

  “Shut the hell up, Eric!” Christine shouted, her face bluer than a frozen tundra.

  Ignoring the insanity around him, Kevin hailed down the waiter and placed his order: oatmeal with a side of blueberries. The waiter nodded, writing down the order dutifully. However, when his eyes turned to Lilian, he started staring.

  “Look at her with those lecherous eyes any longer and I’m going to rip them out of your sockets,” Kevin threatened. The man squeaked and, after taking Lilian’s order, he scurried off.

  “Someone seems upset,” Kiara whispered to Kotohime, who giggled. Kevin clicked his tongue, but he didn’t say anything.

  “K-Kevin,” Lilian sounded surprisingly shy. “I-I really am sorry. I didn’t… I mean, you know that Iris and I aren’t…” She trailed off, as if she was unsure of how to finish that sentence.

  Kevin, after taking a long look at her, sighed. “Yeah… I know… but that doesn’t make me feel any better.”

  “Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?” Lilian asked earnestly. “You know I’ll do anything for you.”

  And just like that, Kevin’s mind went right down the gutter. Dozens of naughty images played in his mind. The scene from the bedroom repeated itself, except instead of Iris doing those things to Lilian, it was him.

  “Kevin? Beloved? What are you—”

  Everyone watched in mute shock as blood sprayed from Kevin’s nose like a fire hydrant. His head slammed into the back of his seat. Because of Newtonian physics, his head came back down, and he slammed face-first into the table hard enough to leave a dent. He then slid off his seat and crumpled to the ground, clearly unconscious.

  “Inari-blessed! Beloved!”

  “Huh,” Iris mumbled as she watched her frantic sister try to wake up her mate. “It’s been awhile since he’s done that.”

  “Ufufufu, indeed,” Kotohime said with a serene smile.

  “Hawa…”

  ***

  That day, the group’s itinerary was Hollywood Boulevard, home to many different attractions and one of the most famous tourist destinations in Los Angeles. The bright morning sun bore down on the youngsters and their adult chaperones—plus Camellia. Hundreds of people walked alongside them, many of whom stopped when they saw the group. It was not hard to understand why.

  “It looks like there are a lot of places to visit,” Lilian said as she looked at the tourist guide brochure in her hands. “There’s the Chinese Theatre, Dolby Theatre, Egyptian Theatre, El Capitan Theatre, Golden Age Theater—is it just me, or are there a lot of theaters here?”

  “It’s not just you,” Lindsay confirmed.

  “Oh, good. Anyway, there’s also the Guinness Book of Records Museum. Hollywood and Highland sounds interesting. It supposedly has over three hundred and eighty-seven thousand square feet of retail space. It says there are a lot of restaurants, and nightclubs, and a bowling lounge, and a six-screen state-of-the-art cinema—that would be a great place to watch anime at.” Lilian’s eyes began to sparkle. “Could you imagine watching Natsumo Shinobi on one of those screens?”

  “I know I could,” Eric said, his eyes turning into pools of perviness. “Just imagining Natsumo being randomly stripped for no reason on the big screen, of her body put on display, and those luscious fun bags bouncing and jiggling and—Kuu!”

  Eric Corrompore’s face was planted into the ground with swift harshness, as a fist smashed into the back of his head with all the fury of a self-righteous angry female. After pounding his head in, Christine showed that she must have some knowledge in wrestling. She straddled his back, grabbed his legs, then bent them until a loud crack! echoed across Hollywood Boulevard.

  “Do you ever think about anything aside from tits?! Huh?! HUH?!”

  “Gack! Of course I do—gurk! I also think of butts! Ah! Yours is very nice by the way—OH, GOD!”

  “So, you’ve been looking at my butt, have you?! Damn, disgusting, dirty pervert! Scum of the earth!”

  “Ack! That hurts! Mercy!”

  “I don’t even know what mercy is! Now die!”

  “Maybe it’s wrong of me, but I don’t even feel bad for him anymore,” Andrew commented as he watched Eric being tortured.

  “Me neither,” Alex said. “He totally deserves it.”

  “… Freeze…”

  Once again, Justin received nothing but strange looks.

  ***

  It took a while, but they eventually decided on their first destination.

  Hollywood and Highland was a large complex. Surrounded on all sides by buildings that were packed so closely together there was no space between them, it looked as if they were all a single building instead of multiple buildings. Kevin and the others stood in front of the entrance, staring at the long set of steps leading up to a large archway: the entrance to the shopping center.

  “Whoa…” Alex muttered.

  Andrew nodded at his fraternal twin’s words. “Whoa is right.”

  “This place is so big.” Lilian spun around in an attempt to take everything in. “This mall is way bigger than the one back home.”

  “I’m not sure if this place can even be called a mall.” Lindsay’s own eyes were quite wide. “It looks more like a miniature city.” Standing beside her, Christine could only nod in agreement.

  “It’s seeing things like this in my own country that reminds me there’s still so much I haven’t seen yet,” Kevin admitted, though he wasn’t quite as impressed as the others. Having traveled to several other countries, he was used to visiting magnificent architectures.

  “That’s right. I almost forgot that My Lord has traveled all over the world,” Eric said, standing with a stooped posture. He looked like he hadn’t recovered from Christine’s beating yet.

  “Seriously, could you stop—” Kevin stopped,
then shook his head. “No, you know what. I’m not even going to bother anymore.”

  “Looks like Eric’s wearing him down.”

  “Maybe we should start calling him ‘My Lord’ as well.”

  “Do that and I’ll break my foot off in your, um, rear,” Kevin tried to sound menacing, but it didn’t work out too well.

  “Looks like you still can’t swear.”

  “What a prude.”

  “I’ll show you prude!”

  “Oh, wow.” Iris snickered at him. “I knew you were innocent, but I had no clue you were this innocent. Ufufufu, how cute.”

  Kevin tried to ignore the way his face burned. “S-shut up.”

  “Don’t worry, Beloved,” Lilian reassured her mate. “I like that you don’t feel the need to swear all the time. It makes you seem really mature.”

  Kevin stared at Lilian with large, hopeful eyes. “R-really?”

  Lilian nodded, her own eyes glimmering like emerald stars. “Really.”

  “Oh, Lilian, you’re such an amazing girlfriend.”

  “And you’re an amazing boyfriend.”

  “Lilian.”

  “Kevin.”

  “Lilian!”

  “Kevin!”

  “I’ll kill you both!” Christine shouted as the two embraced each other.

  “I think we should do some shopping.” Iris grabbed everyone’s attention, especially the males, when she placed her arms behind her back and stretched, causing her chest to not-so-inadvertently pop out of her tight black t-shirt. “Look, it says here that this mall has a Louis Vuitton and Victoria’s Secret.” The vixen gave her sister a sly look. “Bet you want to go there, right? You and I can do some shopping and find something sexy for you to wear in front of your mate?”

  “Hmph!” Lilian turned her head, looking away from her sister.

  “Aw, come on! You’re not still mad about this morning, are you?”

  “Of course I am. Only Beloved is allowed to do ecchi things to me.”

  “Can we please not call them ecchi?” Kevin pleaded. “That makes it sound so naughty… and I don’t think all of the readers will know what you’re talking about.”

  “You bring up a fair point,” Iris admitted. “Not everybody knows Japanese. Okay, then, let’s call it kinky.”

  “Absolutely not!” Kevin and Lilian shouted at the same time.

  “I’m really curious to know what those three got up to this morning,” Alex said. Andrew and Justin nodded.

  “Yeah, well, you can keep wondering,” Kevin told them both. “You’re never gonna find out.”

  “I don’t mind giving you guys a little play by play,” Iris said, a glint hidden within her carmine orbs. “Lily-pad and I—”

  “Alright, that’s enough!” Lilian, determined to shut her sister up, shoved a hand over Iris’s mouth. “We don’t need to hear—kya!” She retracted her hand and glared at her sister with a heavy blush on her cheeks. “You licked me!”

  “I did indeed.” Iris grinned and stuck out her tongue. “Would you like me to lick you again?”

  “No thanks.”

  Kotohime stepped in front of the group and clapped her hands, getting everybody’s attention. “All right, everyone! Because we have such a large group, we need to figure out how we’re going to travel. Because there are nine of you and only five of us—”

  “Are you including Camellia in that list?” asked Iris, raising an eyebrow.

  “—Four of us,” Kotohime corrected, getting a, “hawa,” from the woman they were talking about. “I would like to suggest that we split up into groups of two or three. We’ll all go our separate ways to explore, then we’ll meet up at the central courtyard.”

  “Christine and I will be a group!” Lindsay declared, grabbing her friend’s hand.

  “Eh?” Christine whined. “But I wanted to—” she stopped, looked at Kevin, then blushed bright blue from the roots of her hair down to her toes. “I-I mean, sure, I’ll go with you.”

  “Uhuhu, did you want to go with someone else?” asked Iris, a leering grin on her face. “Maybe you wanted to go with a certain stud muffin?”

  “Silence, skank!” Christine snapped.

  They eventually decided to have the girls and boys go separate ways. Kiara and Heather would watch after the boys, while Kotohime and Kirihime kept an eye on the girls. It was only after the groups had been decided that Heather realized something.

  “Hey, aren’t we missing someone?”

  Everyone looked at each other, mentally checking to see who was with them. A gasp from Kirihime caused everyone to stop their observations and turn to her.

  “My Lady?! My Lady, where did you go?! My Lady!”

  Everyone watched as the woman ran off in search of the missing woman-child, her frantic shouts echoing in the distance.

  Kotohime slowly massaged her temples with her right hand. “Right, well, it looks like I shall be accompanying the girls myself.”

  With their decision made, the group split up and went their separate ways.

  ***

  A young woman stared down at the group of humans and yōkai from atop a building. She observed the kitsune in the group: a beautiful woman with a busty figure dressed in a kimono, a gorgeous redhead with enchanting green eyes, and an almost ridiculously oversexed raven-haired girl with an erotic apollonian gaze.

  “The one with the katana and wakizashi must be my target,” she murmured to herself. “Then those other girls are… her charges, perhaps? Hmm…”

  Wanting to know more, she looked at the others. Most were human and not worth her attention. She did spot a yuki-onna among them, which was odd and noteworthy, especially given the girl’s clothes. What kind of snow maiden wore a black Lolita outfit? She also eyed the filthy and wild-looking dog with mild disgust, but Taer didn’t focus on the horrid creature for too long.

  “What an odd bunch,” she murmured as the group walked through the arch that led into the courtyard. “I never expected to see yōkai cavorting with humans like this. I suppose it doesn’t really matter, though.”

  That’s right. She had a job to do. Mistress wanted her to spy on the busty woman and learn of any weaknesses. Nothing else mattered.

  She stood up and began to move off. Unfortunately, she wasn’t watching where she was going and ended up tripping on the lip of the building.

  “Wah!”

  She fell down and slammed face-first into the ground. Several people stared in shock as she pried her face off the now dented pavement.

  “Um, e-excuse me, miss… a-are you alright?” a young woman asked hesitantly.

  Taer sniffled as she sat on the ground, on her butt, holding in tears and rubbing her now sore nose. It was all red and swollen and it hurt really badly.

  “Yeah,” she said, “I’m fine.”

  “W-would you like some, um, help up?”

  Taer looked at the hand offered to her and smiled before taking it. “Yes, I would appreciate that.” She was pulled back to her feet, where she then proceeded to bow towards the young woman. “Thank you.”

  “Um… it’s no problem.” The woman seemed embarrassed by having someone give her such a formal bow. “Be, um, be careful from now on, okay?”

  “Yes.” Taer rose from her bow and smiled. “I will do my best.”

  What a nice woman. Taer watched the woman walk off. Several seconds passed. As everyone who’d been staring at her left, Taer frowned as she suddenly remembered something.

  “Wasn’t I supposed to be following someone?”

  ***

  The more time that passed, the more Christine began to realize how much of an outsider she was. She knew that shouldn’t have been the case. Everyone seemed to accept her—even Iris, who she always argued with. Still, the feeling persisted. More often than not, she felt like someone who didn’t belong, like something there was going on behind the scenes that everyone but her was privy to.

  On a side note, Alex, Andrew, Justin, and Eric did not seem to b
e privy to whatever was happening either, but she didn’t care about them.

  She wasn’t the only one who seemed to feel this way. Lindsay appeared to be of like mind. Unlike Christine, who felt annoyed at being out of the loop, her friend seemed to be perfectly accepting of it.

  “Ah! I think this would look really cute on you!” Lilian declared passionately.

  Lindsay stared at the object in her friend’s hand. “Lilian… it’s a bra.”

  “A sports bra,” Lilian corrected.

  “It’s still a bra, and I’m not quite, um, how do you say ‘well-endowed’ enough for that.”

  “Don’t be silly! You’re so pretty! I have no doubt that you would look good in this!”

  “Ah!” Lindsay flushed deeply at Lilian’s words. Christine didn’t know what the girl was so embarrassed about. “T-thank you… i-in that case, I guess I can try it on.”

  “Mm! Mm! Try it on! I want to see you in it!”

  “O-okay, then.”

  As Lindsay went to try on the sports bra that the bubbly redhead had picked out, the feeling of being an intruder increased.

  After everyone had finished celebrating their friends’ return, Lilian and Kevin had informed the group about what had happened to them. It had been a very basic explanation claiming they’d been rescued by a group of people who healed their injuries before taking them home. While her tomboyish friend didn’t question it, Christine knew better. Something had happened last night that they weren’t talking about, and she wanted to know what.

  “Something on your mind, Frosty?”

  Christine glared at Iris, who walked alongside her, hips swaying in a way that she—much to her disgust—could not help but admire. Everything this girl did filled her with a combination of admiration, revulsion, and envy. How could someone, anyone, make everything they did so damn sexy?

  “Shouldn’t you be hitting on your sister?”

  Iris grinned, and Christine was sickened to know that even her grins looked abnormally hot.

  “I’ve decided to give her some room for the moment. I might have gone a bit too far with my prank this morning, and now she’s ignoring me.”

  This was the third time someone had alluded to what happened this morning. Christine was torn. She wanted to know about what happened, but at the same time, a part of her was sure that she would regret knowing.