A Fox's Love (American Kitsune Book 1) (26 page)

Even if, you know, Eric wasn't actually trying to convince Lilian to like him instead Kevin because he wanted to be a good friend. Kevin liked to at least
think
his friend was looking out for his well-being.

After their last class Kevin, with Lilian attached to his arm, found himself heading to lunch. Usually he would have bought a lunch from the school cafeteria, but there was no need this time. Lilian had made them both a very large lunch that morning while he had been in the shower.

He would never admit this aloud for fear of Lilian getting the wrong impression, but it actually warmed his heart that she made lunch for him. His mom hadn't made him a lunch in years and he kind of missed that feeling of someone caring about him enough to do so. It very nearly made him forgive her for all the trouble she caused today. Very nearly.

So there they were, walking to lunch. Lilian had one arm wrapped around his right arm while the other held a large picnic basket in the crook of her arm.

He didn't question where she had gotten the picnic basket. Or how it had randomly appeared in her arms after their last class when he knew for a fact she didn't have it before. Kevin just
knew
he would be better off not knowing.

That was the most intelligent idea he'd had since meeting her.

"Hey!"

Looking up as his thoughts were interrupted, the aforementioned young man saw Eric dashing towards them, waving an arm over his head. Kevin raised a hand in greeting―

"What's up Eric..."

"Good afternoon, my lovely Tit Maiden!"

―
and promptly used it to palm his face.

“
I must be the luckiest man in the world to see your tits twice in a single day!” Eric grabbed onto Lilian's free hand, the one attached to the arm that was holding onto the basket. He was completely ignoring Kevin. “Would you like me to suckle your nipples―I mean, would you like to have lunch with me? I'll pay.”

Kevin gave a long suffering sigh and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. Why did he even bother trying to act like things were normal anymore? They had not been normal since Eric hit puberty, never mind Lilian's entrance into his life. It was all too clear to him now that she was just the last nail in his coffin of normality.

That's a pretty defeatist attitude to have, Kevin.

Lilian yanked her hand out of Eric's grasp. This did not deter the perverted teenager, who simply looked up at her with lust clearly visible in his eyes.

What does lust look like? Good question. It's a large blush that extends across the bridge of the nose and cheeks, glazed over eyes that sweep across the female said person is lusting after, clearly stripping whatever girl of her clothes. That kind of thing.

Ahem, in any event, it seemed the fox-girl's cold act simply spurred Eric onwards. Come to think of it, every time Eric was shot down, he would become even more overjoyed and determined... after the initial period of depression that is. It was as if the act of getting turned down made him that much happier.

Kevin's eyes widened. Oh God! His friend really was a masochist!

"Hmph!" Lilian huffed. "No thank you. I plan on sharing lunch with my Beloved. Why would I want to share lunch with a perverted lech like you?"

Is this a case of the pot calling the kettle black?

"Oh, shut up!"

...That was mean...

"!!"

Shutting up now.

It was almost amusing to watch the expression on Eric's face go from its dazzling and (in his mind) charming smile to utterly depressed within seconds. His mouth dropped open as if he couldn't believe he had been shot down so harshly (even though he gets shot down like this every day). Then his eyes took on the look of a person who'd just watched someone punt their puppy across a football field. You know, the whole grimacing face with shocked, wide eyes.
Then
his shoulders slumped in despondency as he fell onto his hands and knees like someone who had just been told by their older brother that he had killed their entire family to test his capacity.

Yes, that was a reference to a popular anime.

But Kevin was distracted from the very amusing sight of his friend slumping on the ground by something else he had noticed.

"Is that a raincloud?" asked Kevin, pointing to the large, black mass that floated over his friend. Tiny droplets of water were falling from it and onto Eric's head, matting down his hair and soaking his clothes. A number of flashes and sparks could be seen from inside the mass of black. If he didn't know any better, Kevin would say it looked like lightning.

Lilian looked where he was pointing and nodded.

"It certainly looks like it. And it's raining too. He must be pretty depressed for a raincloud to appear like that."

"How did it get there?" asked Kevin before he shook his head. "Never mind that, how did it even appear in the first place? Rainclouds can't form this near to the ground...and I don't think they can be this small..."

"It's probably my fault," Lilian admitted. "You see, Kitsune like myself tend to effect the Fourth Wall. Our presence alone is enough to cause small cracks in it." She gestured towards the rain cloud. “This is just a small example. I'm sure there were others earlier in this story, but you didn't notice them because my presence hadn't really become prominent until Chapter 5.”

Kevin had no clue what she was talking about.

"The Fourth what?”

See?

"Never mind that," Lilian declared, tightening her grip on his arm as she began leading him away from the weeping sophomore and his personal raincloud. "Come on, Beloved. Let's find a spot to have lunch together."

"Ah, well, I was actually hoping to sit with my friends," he said. Lilian gave him a look that made Kevin feel the inexplicable need to elaborate. "Usually, Eric, me, and a few of my other friends from track sit together over there." He pointed to a square section of grass that held a stage underneath a modern-looking gazebo with several stone tables that had been arranged side by side.

"But I wanted to spend lunch with
just
you," Lilian pouted. Kevin turned his head away so that he wasn't looking at her. He had played this game enough times in the past to know the rules by heart. If he so much as looked at her, he would lose.

"Don't you want to meet my friends?" asked Kevin, trying a different method of dealing with Lilian than his usual straight forward approach, which was basically telling her off until she gave him The Look and he caved like a tower of cards that had been knocked over by a petulant child. If he wanted to beat this girl at her own game he would need to be sneaky and deceitful. Like a politician. "They're very important to me, you know, and it would be nice if you got along with all of them."

There was a short pause followed by a loud exhalation of breath. "I suppose if they are
that
important to you, I could at least meet them."

He let out a sigh of relief. It was temporary relief because less than a second later he felt something warm and soft and moist and horribly familiar press against his cheek.

All the blood in his body began rushing straight to his face as Lilian's lips lingered against his skin for several seconds longer than necessary. When the feel of her lush lips left his skin, he raised a hand to his cheek and turned his head to stare at her, wide eyed.

"What....?" Kevin choked as his face began to burn something fierce. Just why he was so embarrassed when he had experienced much more...passionate...moments with Lilian was beyond anyone. How this young man had not yet managed to become inured to the girl's continuous use of physical affection to express her feelings for him was simply astounding on a scale so monumental that Otaku everywhere raged at his uselessness.

This kid was really going to need to toughen his skin if he hoped to survive the sequel, never mind the rest of this series.

"What was that for?"

“
Because you were being cruel," Lilian pouted at him. Kevin's look of discomfiture slowly morphed into befuddlement.

"You kissed me because I was being cruel?" He scratched his cheek awkwardly. "I'm not sure I get it."

"That's okay," Lilian patted his cheek. Kevin had the distinct feeling that she was being condescending. "You don't have to get it."

Definitely condescending.

With that small moment done and over with, the two of them headed over to the gazebo, leaving behind a still sulking Eric. It was only after they arrived that Kevin realized it may have been a mistake to have lunch with his friends after all. It had been Kevin's hope that by eating lunch in a very public setting with his friends, he would not only keep Lilian from trying anything too salacious with him, but also give his day, nay, his
entire
week,
some sense of normality.

He really should have known better.

Kevin and Lilian first met up with two of his track friends, twin brothers named Alex and Andrew Streit. The moment the brothers caught sight of the pair they dropped all the food they had bought from the school cafeteria and began gaping as they looked from Kevin to Lilian to the way Lilian was glued to Kevin, then back to Kevin again.

Cue awkward silence.

"Uh... hey," Kevin greeted the two awkwardly. They didn't say anything, merely stared. Talk about creepy. "So... this is Lilian, you guys. Lilian, this is Alex and Andrew. They're twins."

"Huh." Lilian looked at the two in idle curiosity. They didn't look alike, but then, she and her twin looked nothing alike either. "Nice to meet you."

Alex and Andrew were fraternal twins as opposed to identical. Alex had brown eyes and red hair while Andrew's hair was more of an auburn color and he had gray eyes. They both had pale skin. Alex had a good deal of freckles while Andrew was freckle-less.

The twins snapped out of their stupor upon hearing Kevin and Lilian speak...and immediately begin fighting over who got to introduce themselves to the gorgeous red head first.

"As the older brother it is my right to speak with her before you!"

"You're only older than me by a few seconds! And don't you know that the younger brother always gets first dibs? It's part of the bro code!"

"What the hell are you talking about? There's no rule in the bro code that says that you idiot! You just made that up!"

"So? It doesn't change the fact that I'm going to speak with her first!"

"No, you're not!"

"Yes, I am!"

"No, you're not!"

Lilian and Kevin watched, one looking slightly curious but otherwise unaffected (Lilian) while the other sighed and began rubbing his forehead in exasperation (Kevin), as the two brothers rolled around on the grass trying to wrestle one another into submission. It would have been funny, but Kevin had long since lost his sense of humor for situations like this thanks to the girl next to him.

"Are they always like this?" asked Lilian.

"Not always," Kevin started to tell her, only to wince as the sound of flesh smacking against flesh resounded through the air. It seemed Andrew had just hit Alex in the face. "Just whenever they disagree on something,” more sounds of fist meeting flesh accompanied his words, “which is most of the time."

"Hmmm..." Lilian looked at the fighting twins a moment longer before dismissing them. They weren't really important anyways.

“
Oh, and that's Justin.” Kevin pointed out one of his other friends, a kid with dark hair and a pale, pointed face. His friend didn't even look up from his food, just continued eating and mumbling in between bites as he listened to whatever song was on his Ipod. Probably some kind of Gothic metal band. “You can just ignore him for now. He never pays attention to anything during lunch.”

“
Good. That's one less support character to worry about.”

Kevin blinked. “What?”

“
Nothing. Let's eat.”

After that she brought out the food she made that morning. Kevin had to admit it all looked delicious. He didn't know what some of the delicacies were―she said they were Mediterranean―but it all appeared incredibly appetizing.

It was as they were about to begin eating that the next set of problems during lunch came. It started with Lilian trying to feed him.

"Come on, Beloved." She held the fork with what she called Shrimp Saganaki speared on it up to her mouth, gently blowing on it before moving it next to his mouth. It was still hot, as seen by the steam rising from it. Just how it had remained so hot when it had been cooked over five hours ago was also beyond Kevin, but he didn't want to think about the impossibility of something that inane now. "Say 'ah'."

"I-I really don't need you to feed me, you know. I'm perfectly capable of feeding myself."

"Ufufufu, now don't be like that. Just open your mouth and saw 'ah.'"

"There you go with that strange laugh again. And the answers still no."

"Mou." Lilian's eyes suddenly grew big. She always had rather large, innocent looking eyes, but now they were much larger. Not only did they grow, but her eyes also began to get dewy as tear drops formed at the bottom of her eyelids, completely disregarding the fact that the tear ducts were located at the innermost corner of the eyes and not the bottom of the lid. The whole “see how adorable yet sad I am” look was enhanced by Lilian's lower lip quivering. "Please, Beloved? For me?"