As her friend went back to staring at the wall, Lilian leaned over to her sister. “Ne, Iris, is it just me, or is Lindsay acting a little weird today?”
“Hmm?” Iris looked at her sister. “Sorry, did you say something? I was too busy staring at your rack to pay attention.”
“I-Iris!” Lilian hissed quietly as she covered her breasts with her arms. “Don’t say things like that in public! In fact, don’t say those things at all!”
“Huhuhu,” Iris’s quiet chuckle caused Lilian’s cheeks to heat up like boiling water. “Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. You’re just too easy, Lily-pad.”
“Mou… I’m being serious here.”
“So was I.” When Lilian continued pouting at Iris, her fraternal twin’s lips twitched. “All right, all right, no more teasing. I got it. So, you were saying something about Lindsay?”
Lilian nodded and got back on track. “Yes, Lindsay is acting kind of weird, don’t you think?”
“Hm…”
Iris observed the tomboy, who was still staring at the wall with a blank expression. She hummed, as if contemplating the girl like one might a puzzle.
“Hey, Dyke? Dykie? Raging lesbo with the hots for Frosty?”
Lindsay didn’t respond. She didn’t even blink.
Lilian twitched. “Iris, do you have to be so rude?”
Iris shrugged and leaned back in her seat. “What? I was just checking to see if she’d respond to insults, and it looks like you’re right. Something is definitely wrong. Whenever I say something like that to her, she always gets really depressed.”
Lilian bit her lip and looked at her friend again. “Maybe she’s tired?” Lilian suggested, even though she didn’t believe her own words.
“Excuse me,” a voice interrupted them. They turned to Ms. Vis, who glared at them with a stern frown of disapproval. “Why are you talking in my class, Ms. Pnév̱ma? Do you enjoy disrupting the learning process of your peers? Or perhaps you think you can teach this class better than I can?”
Lilian’s eyes widened. “That isn’t it. I was just talking to Iris about—”
“I do not care what you were talking about,” Ms. Vis cut her off. “All that matters is that you are disrupting my class and impeding the other students’ learning process. If you do not want to have a good education, that is fine, but you shouldn’t ruin it for the others. I am afraid I’m going to have to give you detention.”
Detention? She was getting detention? Lilian didn’t know how to take that. For the last several months, Ms. Vis had treated Lilian like she was the woman’s childhood crush. The math teacher had been abnormally kind to her, to the point that it was creepy. What had changed? Why was she getting in trouble now, of all times?
“Now hold on a second,” Kevin said, standing up in his seat before Iris could. “Don’t you think you’re going a little too far? There are plenty of students who occasionally speak out in class, yet I don’t see you punishing them.”
Ms. Vis’s smile was positively carnivorous. “And who, Mr. Swift, do you see speaking out in class? Are you sure you’re not just imagining things?”
“Of course not. I know for a fact that Jannice—”
“Do you see Jannice speaking out right now?”
Kevin blinked. “W-well, no, but—”
“Exactly. She is not speaking out right now. Neither is anyone else, for that matter. The only people who have spoken out in class today are Ms. Pnév̱ma and now you. Now please sit down, Mr. Swift, or I shall have you written up and sent to the principal’s office for talking back to a teacher.”
Kevin clenched his hands until his knuckles turned white, but he reluctantly sat down. As Ms. Vis resumed her lecture, he sent Lilian an apologetic smile, but she simply responded with her own smile and a shake of her head, telling him not to worry.
Class finished in unusual silence.
***
“Can you believe that bitch? How dare she make my Lily-pad suffer in detention! I was talking as well, but she didn’t give me detention! How is that even fair?”
Kevin, Lilian, and Christine listened to Iris as she ranted about the math teacher. It was lunch time, and the group was sitting outside, underneath the shaded patio, on a long stone table. With them were Lindsay, Alex, Andrew, and Eric, which was a surprise.
Their lecherous friend did not eat lunch with them often anymore, busy as he was spending time learning to peep from Heather. It made Kevin wary of what he was doing with them now.
“You’re the only person in the entire world who could possibly be unhappy about not getting detention,” Kevin said as he ate from his bento box.
Eating beside him, Lilian nodded in agreement. “Beloved, can I have some of your pork cutlets?”
“Hm? Oh, sure.”
“Thank you!”
Kevin grabbed a pork cutlet with his chopsticks and held it up for Lilian. His mate leaned over and took the food into her mouth, humming in delight. It was anyone’s guess if she was excited because of the food or because Kevin was feeding her.
“And what about you?” Iris asked. “Aren’t you the least bit bothered about Lily-pad getting detention?”
“Here, Beloved. Try some of my calamari.”
Lilian fed Kevin a piece of calamari, her bright eyes and vibrant smile making Christine shift in her seat. If the young couple noticed how uncomfortable their friend was, then they did an exemplary job of ignoring it. None of the others acted like they were bothered. It was strange. Alex and Andrew would normally make wisecracks about how lovey-dovey the two acted.
After he swallowed the food in his mouth, he addressed Iris. “Of course I am, but there isn’t much I can do about that. Ms. Vis is a teacher. If she wants to give detention, that’s her right. I don’t agree with her giving Lilian detention, but I also know better than to fight her over it.”
“Speaking of Ms. Vis, don’t you think she was acting kind of strange today?” Lilian asked, poking at her calamari.
“How so?” asked Christine.
“Well, Ms. Vis is normally really, uh, concerned about my well-being for some reason. You know how she’s always asking me if I’m all right in class and if I need anything and stuff?”
“I’m not in your class.” Christine shrugged. “But go on.”
“Well, she didn’t act nice or concerned at all today. She didn’t ask me if I was doing all right, or if I needed any help on my math work. Even more strange is that she gave me detention. I haven’t had detention with her since my first day of school.”
“Now that you mention it, that is a little odd,” Kevin said before shrugging. “But then, Ms. Vis has always been off her rocker. Remember how she originally hated you? Then there was that time she got upset with me for not sitting in the back of the classroom by the window, never mind the fact that our class doesn’t have a single window. That woman’s got more than just a few screws loose.”
“Makes you wonder why someone like that is even teaching here,” Iris said, getting several nods in return.
“Speaking of acting strange today,” Christine started, leaning in to the other four. “Do any of you guys know what’s wrong with the other students? Some of the kids in my classes have been acting really odd, like they’re in some kind of trance. All they do is stare at the wall. Even Lindsay and Eric are acting like that.”
Kevin, Lilian, and Iris looked at their friends. The fact that Eric was even present and not trying to peek on the freshman girls while they changed was odd enough. That he was eating at a snail’s pace while staring at the table creeped them out. Then there was Alex and Andrew, who weren’t fighting each other like usual, followed by the abnormally silent and unresponsive Lindsay. Yeah, their friends were acting odd, but none of them knew why.
“We kinda thought you would know what’s wrong with Lindsay,” Lilian admitted.
“Yeah, because you and Lindsay are yuri for each other,” Iris added.
“Y-y-y-y-YURI?!” Christine’s face burst into color
. However, this wasn’t the embarrassed, tsundere expression that they were used to seeing. Christine looked legitimately mad. “Why would you think something like that?! I’m not yuri for Lindsay! I like Kev—I mean, I like boys! BOYS!”
“Does that mean you still like the stud?”
“T-t-that’s—grr! Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up! Boobzilla!”
Lilian and Kevin remained silent as Iris wound the poor yuki-onna up worse than a toy soldier. They tried to ignore the freezing chill that caused their skin to break out into goosebumps. Christine was losing control of her powers and causing frosty vapor to appear in the air.
“You know, if this ever gets an anime, I think Rei Kugimiya should be Christine’s seiyuu,” Lilian said.
Rie Kugimiya was a famous Japanese voice actress and singer, born in 1979, who had played in several prominent anime rolls, including Nagi from Hayate no Gotoku, Louise Francoise from Louise the Zero, Shana from Shakugan no Shana, and Taiga from Toradora. Due to a good few of her roles being for tsundere characters, she was given the nickname “Queen of Tsundere” by her fans.
Kevin’s stupefied face at her exclamation expressed his confusion better than words ever could. “What’s this about a seiyuu?”
Lilian gave Kevin a blank stare. When it became clear that he didn’t know what she was talking about, her shoulders slumped.
“... Never mind.”
***
School ended. Most of the students were already leaving. Kevin had said that he was going to stay after class and wait for her detention to end. As for Iris, well, she decided to follow Lilian and suffer detention with her.
“You really don’t have to come to detention with me, you know.”
“What are you talking about? Of course I do. You only got detention because I was talking to you.”
Lilian really didn’t know what to think about her sister coming to serve detention with her. It wasn’t like Iris had been the one to get detention, though it did feel nice to know that her sister would stick up for her like this.
Not that either of them had any intention of serving. Oh, no. Why serve detention when they could just cast an enchantment on their teacher and make the woman think they had served detention? Yes, that sounded like a much better idea to Lilian, and it was the reason for her confusion toward Iris’s actions. There wasn’t much need for her fraternal twin to join her when she just planned on enchanting her way out.
“Ha… well, if you really want to follow me, I guess I can’t stop you.”
“That’s right,” Iris declared, sounding quite proud of herself. She walked alongside her sister, her hands laced together behind the back of her head. The grin on her face was a mile wide and showed off her perfect ivory teeth. “There’s no way I would let my cute sister be alone with that creepy old hag. Besides, would you rather I stay with you, or hang out with the stud without any adult supervision?”
From the moment Iris mentioned spending alone time with Kevin, Lilian’s overactive imagination painted a vivid image of her mate and sister lying naked together in a tangle of sheets, their bodies writhing in the throes of ecstasy, as Iris’s siren call echoed out for all to hear.
She immediately covered her nose to stem the tide of blood that threatened to escape. Damn her sister! She was thinking all of these lecherous thoughts because of her!
“Ho?” Most unfortunately for Lilian, Iris immediately noticed her nasal problem and sent her a seductive, narrow-eyed grin. “Are you thinking about what the stud and I could get up to on our own?”
“N-no! Of course not!” Lilian wasn’t a very convincing liar. “Shut up!”
Lilian couldn’t give into temptation. She couldn’t. No, she wouldn’t. For the sake of their somewhat normal lives, she wouldn’t let Iris tempt her.
I need to be strong for Beloved.
“Now, now, there is no need to get upset,” Iris soothed her sister’s worries—or she tried to. She wasn’t very successful. “While I admit that the stud is a fine male specimen, you know that I would never betray you, my darling Lily-pad.”
Upon saying this, Iris stuck her index finger inside of her mouth, moaning as she coated it in saliva. Then she removed the finger and placed the delicate digit against her backside. She made a strange hissing sound.
“The only way Kevin is getting some of this is if it’s during a hot, raunchy threesome between you, me, and him.”
“You shouldn’t say things like that,” Lilian mumbled lowly.
Did her sister honestly have to keep acting like this? Lilian was aware that human taboos meant nothing to a kitsune, that incest and other acts of debauchery happened all the time among her race, and that no kitsune worth their weight in anime would bat an eyelash if a pair of siblings got freaky in the sheets. She knew that. She accepted that. She’d even partaken in that before.
But it didn’t matter. Kevin was a human, and he wanted a human relationship. For accepting her, for being her mate, she had promised herself that she would give Kevin a normal relationship. It was a promise that she wasn’t willing to break.
Seconds later, they arrived at Ms. Vis’s classroom, and Lilian knocked on the door. There was no answer. She knocked again, louder this time. She still received no answer.
“Hello?” Lilian called, knocking some more. “Ms. Vis? It’s Lilian! Are you in there?”
“Maybe she’s sucking off the gym teacher or something?” Iris suggested.
“Ew.” Lilian shuddered. “Please don’t say something so disgusting in my presence again. That’s just gross.”
“Huhuhu, I’m just messing with you, Lily-pad. I doubt even that hairy old fart would let someone like Ms. Vis give him head.”
Lilian took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of her nose. She loved Iris, but her sister seriously creeped her out sometimes.
Since she hadn’t received an answer, Lilian opened the door and entered the classroom. She didn’t feel like standing outside, and Ms. Vis was the one who had ordered her to show up. If she showed up and her teacher was gone, then it was no one’s fault but Ms. Vis’s if she decided to leave.
The classroom was disturbingly empty. Not a soul could be seen. Despite this, or maybe because of it, Lilian felt tense, like a coiled spring ready to snap.
The door slammed closed, startling Iris and Lilian, who spun around.
They were shocked by what they saw.
“Ms. Vis!”
The stern math teacher hung from the door, her wrists tied above her head. She was still alive; Lilian could see her shoulders and chest rise and fall, but she looked weak. Her cheeks were hollowed out, and her skin appeared more pallid than normal. Eyes like soulless husks gazed at nothing and drool leaked from her open mouth.
“Welcome, Ms. Pnév̱ma, to your detention,” a voice spoke up, male, older, and reeking with a sense of superiority. “Though I do not remember inviting the other Ms. Pnév̱ma to our little punishment session. Ah, well. It matters not either way. It just means more entertainment for me.”
Whirling around, Lilian found herself staring into the face of a handsome man with red hair that was long and untamed, traveling all the way down to his back like a lion’s mane. Golden eyes glinted from beneath his bangs. They contained a cold amusement that sent chills down Lilian’s spine. He was short, almost as short as Christine, but that didn’t make him any less intimidating.
His black business suit stretched across his physique, showing off a muscular build not dissimilar to that of a swimmer—lithe, like a whipcord. He wasn’t wearing shoes, revealing sharp claw-like nails on his toes.
The air around them became thick, heavy, as something that neither she nor Iris could define descended upon them, causing their bodies to shake like leaves trapped in a tornado. Lilian’s breathing began to grow labored. Her pulse started to race. Every fiber in her body screamed at her, telling her to run, that the person before her was dangerous.
“Who are you?” Iris asked, stepping protectively in front of her
sister.
“Who am I?” The man chuckled and then, unfurling like a poisonous flower, three fluffy red fox tails emerged from behind his back. “I, my dear, am Seth Naraka, and I will be adding the two of you to my collection.”
***
Kevin perused the library, unsure of what he was looking for, or if he was even looking for anything. He’d first thought to find books on proper gun maintenance, but he soon realized that a school library wouldn’t have anything on guns. After that, he just sort of wandered the aisles, his fingers trailing across the spines of books.
Lilian was serving detention, and Iris had gone with her. Kevin had thought about doing the same, but he had decided not to in the end. He would instead wait in the library until Lilian’s detention was over, and then pick them up so they could head home on the late bus.
The library had a lot of books in all manner of genre. Fiction. Science Fiction. Nonfiction. Historical. Romance. Fantasy. They even had a section dedicated to manga. It was a truly impressive collection, especially when he took the time to consider how this was a school library.
Of course, they don’t have any manga in the harem or ecchi variety.
Iris had complained a lot when she discovered that. It was the only genre that she liked. The only genre. Kevin remembered her dragging him and Lilian to the principal’s office to try and convince the man that they should carry more risqué manga.
The principal was all for it. It’s good thing the vice principal was around to put a stop to that before Iris could continue.
Kevin wasn’t a big fan of harem manga. He’d read the ones that Lilian suggested, like that Magika Swordsman and Summoner one, but his life too closely mirrored something out of a harem manga for him to be comfortable reading them. Iris had made fun of him when he said as much.
Deciding that what he needed right now was a good manga to pass the time with, Kevin traveled into the manga section, where he discovered a surprise waiting for him.
“Christine?”
Wearing her unmistakable gothic lolita outfit and with her equally unmistakable short stature, Christine was easy to pick out amongst a crowd—provided the crowd didn’t stand over four feet ten inches. The girl in question had several manga volumes in hand, all of which he recognized as the shōjo variety.
A Fox's Mate (American Kitsune Book 6) Page 33
