Kevin decided not to bother arguing with Iris. Unlike Lilian, who remained optimistic pretty much twenty-four seven, Iris was a realist with a severe pessimistic streak. She knew how to look at the bright side of things, but she only did so when it involved having an illicit relationship with her sister.
“Hey, you three!”
A voice called out to them seconds before a grinning Lindsay walked up. Her tomboyish blonde hair, styled in a cute pixie cut, bounced as she strolled to her desk, which was next to Lilian’s. Her jean shorts fit snugly on her hips and she wore a baggy white T-shirt that said, “I love soccer!” in big, bold print on her chest with a soccer ball below the words.
Lindsay and Kevin had known each other since their elementary school days, back when life had been uncomplicated and not fraught with supernatural peril. Even though they had been friends for a long time, Kevin had, until eight months ago, been incapable of speaking to her without passing out. Of course, the same could have been said for any female his own age.
These days, Lindsay spent more time with Lilian, Iris, and Christine than she did him. That was okay. He was happy that Lilian and Iris had found such a good friend. He was happy for Christine, too.
Lilian gave her friend a million-watt smile. “Hey, Lindsay!”
Iris merely crossed her arms. “Oh, it’s the dyke.”
“K-ku!”
Kevin and Lilian watched as their friend stumbled into her desk, pressing her palms flat against the surface to keep herself aloft. Even then, the tomboy still slouched over, her expression one of abject despondency. For a moment, Kevin thought he saw an arrow sticking out of her back with the kanji for dyke written on the shaft. He shook his head and the arrow disappeared.
Must be my imagination.
“Why is she always calling me a dyke? So what if I happen to think girls are attractive. That’s not a bad thing. All girls do it… I think…”
“There, there.” Lilian pushed off her desk, walked behind the tomboy, and rubbed Lindsay’s back. “Don’t worry. I don’t care what your sexual preferences are. Even if you are a dyke, you’re still my friend.”
Lindsay turned her head to give Lilian an exasperated look. “You know, when you say things like that, I can’t help but think you’re being condescending.” When Lilian just looked at the girl in genuine confusion, Lindsay sighed and gave her friend a smile. “Still, thank you, I guess. I’m glad you think of me as a friend.”
“Of course.” Lilian’s bright smile was like the sun, blinding if you looked at it directly. “We’ll always be best friends.”
“Hehe, right.”
Before Iris could comment—and Kevin knew that she would if given the chance—the doors to the classroom opened and their teacher walked in.
“All right, class, in your seats. It’s time to start our lesson.”
While most of the class groaned, Kevin studied their teacher. He was a middle-aged man with bland features. He had the kind of face that was so plain that he would be indistinguishable within a crowd. Even his outfit, a standard gray business suit with a casual cut, seemed designed to blend in with his surroundings. Dull. That’s the word Kevin would have used to describe their teacher.
Dr. Allan Spencer had replaced Ms. Vis as their math teacher after Seth Naraka had possessed her. Kevin had heard from Heather that Ms. Vis’s brain had been rendered inert. It had basically shut down, turning her into a vegetable. She was still in the hospital, her body alive, but her mind incapable of computing even basic sensory information.
He felt guilty over what had happened to her. If it weren’t for him, Lilian, and Iris, she wouldn’t have turned out that way.
Dr. Spencer walked up to the front of the class and gazed upon the students. “Today we’ll be taking our finals.” A chorus of groans erupted from the students. Kevin heard Iris slam her face on the desk behind him, and even Lilian’s shoulders slumped at the mention of the dreaded f-word. “I’ll be passing out the papers now, so get out your pencils and some paper. And remember, anyone caught cheating will automatically fail and be summarily kicked out of class.”
***
“I really hate school,” Iris groaned as she stretched her arms above her head. “Why did I ever agree to join you guys?”
Kevin turned away from her, knowing that if he looked, it would be to the sight of her breasts stretching taut against her shirt. Since she didn’t wear a bra, he also knew that he’d be greeted to the unadulterated view of her nipples poking through the fabric. He wanted to keep his blood where it belonged: inside of him and not spraying out of his nose like the tail end of a comet, thank you very much.
The first half of the day had ended. He, Lilian, and Iris were walking to their usual lunch spot. It was nearing the end of June. The summer sun blazed away, showering them with ultraviolet rays that caused objects and people in the distance to appear hazy. Kevin felt sweat cling to his brow. He wiped it away with the back of his hand.
“Didn’t you join the school so you could spend more time with your sister?” he replied absently.
“Oh, yeah. I did, didn’t I?” Iris grinned as she came up behind Lilian and slipped her arms around the redhead’s middle.
“The heck are you doing?!”
“Hehehe, come on, my darling Lily-pad. Let me give you some love.”
“I don’t want your love! Beloved gives me all the love I need!”
“Now don’t be like that.” Iris pressed her breasts against her sister’s back. Lilian’s face turned redder than her hair. “There’s nothing wrong with sharing a little love with your beloved sister, is there? I don’t mind sharing you with the stud.”
“T-that’s not…”
“Heck, I wouldn’t mind if you, the stud, and I had ourselves a good old-fashioned threesome.” Iris leaned up and started nibbling on her sister’s ear. Lilian went deathly stiff as though rigor mortis—or mortification—had set in. “Just think about it: You, me, and the stud, all naked in bed, our bodies sweaty and flushed from a night of raunchy sex. Imagine it, the stud staring at our nubile flesh, his Excalibur growing hard at the sight of our hot bodies. You and I would push our breasts together with his long, hard cock between us, pleasing him until he shot his sticky spunk all over our tits.”
Kevin quickly slapped a hand over his nose and pinched hard. Even so, blood still leaked out from between his fingers. Lilian was even worse. Her eyes had glazed over, her mouth had become slack-jawed, and it looked like she might start slobbering all over her shirt. He would have wondered what she was thinking about, but he had his own problems to deal with.
Guilt. Much as he abhorred the idea, there was some part of him, however small, that thought a threesome with Lilian and Iris would be hot. The other part paled at the thought. Lilian was insatiable and required a lot of effort to please, physically speaking, especially because he still refused to have sex with her. Iris was four times the sex fiend that her sister was. He didn’t know if he would be able to keep up with them both at the same time.
They’d drain me dry before we even got past the foreplay!
“Wouldn’t that be fun?” Iris continued to whisper in her sister’s ear. Kevin noticed the grin on her face and shuddered. Iris’s grins were terrifying in how sexy they were. Erotic didn’t begin to adequately describe them. “Wouldn’t you like that? You and me double-teaming your mate? Sharing his monstrous man meat between us, licking his spunk off each other’s hot, sweaty bodies. You know that you—OOF!”
Kevin blinked when Iris’s eyes rolled up into the back of her head. She tumbled away from Lilian and crumbled to the floor in a heap of splayed limbs. He stared at the unconscious girl. Then he looked at the person who had knocked said girl unconscious.
Christine looked the same as she always did. Her short stature meant that she barely came up to his chest. Her skin, pale as though she never saw the sun, glistened under the summer heat. Even though she must have been sweltering, she refused to change out of her black gothic lolita
outfit. Then again, maybe she was perfectly fine, considering she was half bakeneko.
“Stupid… perverted… fox!”
The yuki-onna glared down at the unconscious fox-girl, her face bright blue as she huffed and panted like she had just finished running a marathon. Steam shot from her ears, billowing like a white cloud, which Kevin knew from experience meant her embarrassment had reached critical mass.
“Christine,” he greeted the girl, whose angry eyes turned on him.
“Kevin.” The blush left Christine’s face, though the frown remained. “Why didn’t you stop her? Isn’t it your job as Lilian’s mate to keep Iris from doing… doing things, like, you know, g-getting all p-p-perverted and stuff…?”
“Uh…”
Kevin wasn’t exactly sure how to answer that. He couldn’t very well tell Christine that the reason he hadn’t stopped Iris was because the vixen’s words had invoked erotic images within his mind that caused him to nosebleed. That would just lead to all sorts of trouble.
“N-not that I care or anything,” Christine added, crossing her arms and huffing. “I-it’s not like I was worried about you and Lilian being taken advantage of by this stupid skank! I’m not! I just… it’s not something she should be saying in public! That’s the only reason I stopped her! Hmph!”
“Um, right.” Kevin ignored the girl’s tsundere-ness. “Sorry. You’re right. I should have stopped Iris.”
Christine’s decisive nod was that of someone who felt pleased at her advice being taken under serious consideration. “I’m glad you understand that.”
“By the way, where’s Lindsay? Don’t you and she share home ec together?”
“Lindsay went to buy her lunch,” Christine told him. “Since I make my lunches, I decided to wait for her at our usual spot. I was heading there right now before I ran into you three.”
“Ah.” Kevin nodded. “That makes sense.”
Lindsay and Christine spent a lot of time together. When they weren’t with him—or with Lilian and Iris—the two were often with each other. Lindsay, in particular, seemed to give Christine more attention than anyone else, though Christine didn’t seem to notice.
“By the way…” Christine frowned as her eyes flickered toward Lilian. “What’s up with Lilian? She hasn’t said a word since I knocked out her sister.”
Kevin locked onto his mate when he realized that Christine was right. Lilian was still stiffer than a bad case of morning wood. Her eyes were still glazed over and staring into the distance, their gaze unseeing and blank.
“Lilian?” Kevin placed a hand on Lilian’s shoulder to try and rouse her from whatever spell she was under. “Lilian, are you—”
He didn’t get a chance to finish.
Mere seconds after he touched her, Lilian was blasted off her feet as her nose became a literal geyser. Crimson ichor sprayed from her nostrils like the eruption of Mount Saint Helens. He and Christine gawked as she flew backwards for several feet, crashed into the ground, rolled, and came to an abrupt stop.
“Well,” Kevin began as a crowd of people drew around them to take snapshots of the scene, “that just happened.”
Christine could do nothing but nod.
***
“My Lord! I am happy to see that you have arrived safely! Please, sit down! I have been keeping your seat warm for you!”
“My Lord, My Lord. How are you doing today?”
“My Lord, My Lord. Do you need me to fan you?”
Kevin stared at Alex, Andrew, and Eric with a blank look in his eyes as they knelt before him. They were bowing to him like he was some kind of liege lord, or perhaps a warlord from feudal Japan. This was nothing new. They had been doing this for months. It used to bug the crap out of him. Now…
“Ha… whatever.” He sighed and sat down without complaint.
I feel like some small, very beloved part of me has died.
“Would you like me to get you a cool drink, My Lord?” Eric asked as he sat beside Kevin.
“No… I’m fine…”
“Are you sure? It’s awfully hot outside. One of us would not mind getting you something to drink.”
Alex and Andrew both nodded like a pair of evil twin lackies. While a part of Kevin felt like strangling those two for going along with Eric’s whims, another part felt like slamming his face against the table.
“No, I’ve already got a cold drink.” Kevin opened the first tier of his bento box and pulled out his chopsticks.
What I wouldn’t give for a fork. Why did Kotohime have to replace all our utensils with chopsticks? Does she think I’m an anime character?
“Really?” asked Eric.
Kevin resisted the urge to facepalm. “Yes, really.”
“Really, really?”
“Would you shut up already?!”
“Looks like Kevin’s having a hard time,” Lindsay said. She was sitting next to Christine and eating her school bought chicken sandwich. Because she sat at the edge of the table, there was no one on her left. “Do you think this is better or worse than the jealousy they used to display?”
“Definitely worse.” Christine wrinkled her nose as she punched a straw through her juice box. “Their fawning is absolutely disgusting.”
“Why did they start treating him like he was God’s gift to man anyway?”
“Because he’s living with five hot women, of course.” Iris smirked. She sat next to her sister, while Lilian sat between her and Christine. “Didn’t you know that the stud has his very own harem?”
“I DO NOT HAVE A HAREM!”
“All hail the Harem Lord!” Alex, Andrew, and Eric all said at the same time.
“SHUT UP!”
Iris chuckled under her breath. Kevin twitched at the sound. Unlike the others who sat facing the table, she was facing the opposite direction as she leaned her back against the table. She stretched out languidly, allowing all those who passed their table to admire her breasts and long legs. Numerous people stared at her. Iris seemed to revel in those stares, the lust barely hidden within their eyes. Even other girls were not immune to her looks.
Kevin shook his head. You’d think people would be used to her by now…
As Kevin tried to ignore his friends, he watched Iris as she surveyed the courtyard with a lazy glance. There weren’t many people outside. It was simply too hot. Even sitting in the shade like they were, it was still unbearably scorching. Aside from themselves, Kevin only counted about thirty people wandering around. In a school with over 1,000 students, thirty wasn’t a lot.
“Hey, Lily-pad, check it out.” Iris grabbed her sister’s attention by pointing. “It’s that other loli chick.”
Kevin, Lilian, Lindsay, and Christine all turned to look at the girl as she walked past their table. Her outfit presented a stark contrast to Christine’s. Where the yuki-onna’s lolita clothing was pure black, hers was whiter than snow. It also featured a much shorter skirt and a dip in the neckline that revealed her cleavage. That was something Christine, who was a B-cup, didn’t have.
“Isn’t that the girl who transferred here two months ago?” Lindsay asked. “I think her name is Fan Shenlong… something like that.”
“You know who that is?” Lilian asked Lindsay.
“Christine would know more about her than I do,” Lindsay confessed. “She has several classes with her.”
Christine growled as if the mere mention of Fan was enough to piss her off. “How dare that… that scarlet woman tarnish the Lolita name by wearing such a scandalous outfit!”
“I take it you two don’t get along?” Iris observed, idly watching the female stride by their table. Her eyes narrowed when Fan’s head turned and penetrated her with a stare. It was the kind of look someone gave a person they felt was beneath their notice.
Kevin winced when Iris’s expression darkened. He almost felt sorry for that Fan girl. Almost.
“I hate her even more than I hate you,” Christine said.
“Aw, you don’t hate me.” Iris gave
the other girl a lazy grin that oozed arrogance. “We both know you love me.”
“Tch!”
Iris chuckled when Christine turned her head, her face the same color as a tundra.
“So, you guys are coming to my game tonight, right?” Lindsay asked.
“Do I have a choice?” When Lindsay gave Christine a look, the girl sighed and waved a hand as though warding off a bug. “Fine, fine. Yes, I’m coming to your game.”
“You know Beloved and I are coming to your game,” Lilian added with a sunny smile. “We wouldn’t miss our friend’s championship game for the world.”
Over where he was sitting, Kevin gave Lindsay a thumbs up. He was listening to their conversation. It was a nice distraction from his male friends’ flagrant ass kissing.
“If the stud and Lily-pad are going, I guess I can tag along,” Iris said. Lindsay smiled at the group, clearly pleased to know that they would be showing up to cheer her on.
“By the way, My Lord,” Eric started. “Do you plan on adding that other lolita hottie to your harem?”
“For the last time, I don’t have a harem!”
Deciding to tease Kevin some more, a grinning Iris said, “Everyone who thinks Kevin has a harem, please raise your hand.”
She, Alex, Andrew, and Eric all raised their hands. Kevin shot Lindsay and Christine a betrayed look when they also raised their hands.
“How could you two agree with her?”
“D-don’t look at me like that.” Christine scowled at him with an icy blue face. “How can I not think that when you’ve got all those women living with you? It doesn’t paint you in the best light, you know.”
“You have to admit,” Lindsay added, “it really does seem like you have your own harem back home. I mean, seriously, have you seen the women living in your apartment? All of them are gorgeous.”
“The dyke makes a good point,” Iris said, nodding. “We are gorgeous.”
“U-urk!”
Iris ignored the sound Lindsay made as the tomboy was speared by arrows that randomly appeared out of thin air. As her friend slumped over the table, Lilian decided to be a good buddy and pulled the metaphorical arrows out of Lindsay’s back.
A Fox's Revenge (American Kitsune Book 7) Page 4
