AN: Hello again my readers and, dare I say it, fans? I hope this doesn't confuse you too much. The chapter I posted up here first had multiple meanings. The first was just practice. The second reason was to see how a general audience would accept a story with this kind of plot. Now that I know that this story will be well liked, I would like to post the revised and serious chapter one. I would like to personally say thank you to Chibi Fenrir. You set me on the right course and I hope that this version does not disappoint you. In addition, I would like to thank Major Mike Powell as well. salutes You hit the nail right on the head in your review. For the dialogue, I was trying to make Keitaro and Kitsune appear to be real. To me that is one of the great hallmarks' of well-written literature. A nice flow is essential, but to make it truly remarkable, the characters need to seem human. To everyone who has favorited this story, I hope that I can continue producing chapters that will be to your liking.
The incessant noise of an alarm clock going off could be heard as it filter out of the room of one Konno Mitsune, or rather Kitsune as her friends affectionately call her. A groan escaped her lips as she slammed her fist down to silence the infernal contraption. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, trying to see through eyes that were still accustomed to the shaded realm sleep, not the bright land of consciousness. She mentally cursed herself for staying out so late to go drinking.
She smiled, however, at the memories of the previous night. She recalled that Keitaro had come back from a mock exam and had done better than he had on any test he had taken that year. She asked him to go drinking with her, as a way to congratulate him. He reluctantly agreed and at eight that night, they left for a night on the town.
The two friends had a pleasant time and enjoyed each other's company immensely. Kitsune noted that Keitaro had loosened up quiet a bit and was talking much more animatedly than he usually did. She chatted with him while they walked down the street to a bar/club. They stepped inside and found their eardrums victim to the hypnotic call of music. They made their way over to the bar and ordered some drinks to wet their throats. After a few more drinks, and some coercing on her part, Kitsune dragged Keitaro onto the dance floor.
She swayed to the beat of an unknown techno song, mesmerizing Keitaro with her fluid like movements. She received a shock when she saw Keitaro dancing as well, though he was clumsy and awkward. She was warmed slightly by sight of him trying to dance, albeit badly. The pair made their way back over to the bar to attain some liquid courage once the song was over.
Kitsune watched Keitaro gulp down the contents of his glass while she sipped on hers, still lucid enough to think rationally. She had always had some type of feelings for the man standing beside her; if they were feelings of friendship or love, she knew not. She had felt a connection to him when they had their heart to hearts'. She wondered if he ever thought about her in the ways she often thought of him. Though she knew she would never hold a place in his heart as Naru did, she still held onto a childish belief, that if she wanted something bad enough it would be hers.
She let out a small sigh and though the music was blasting from the speakers, Keitaro noticed it. He looked over at the beautiful woman who stood a few feet from him. "Kitsune, anything wrong," he had asked her. He had thought they were having a good time and wondered if he had upset her. She just shook her head, shot him a smile before draining her glass, and grabbed his arm, pulling him back to the dance floor.
She frowned though as her memory got fuzzy after that. She vaguely remembered them both staggering out of the bar and to the train station, but after that, it was as if an impenetrable wall was been put up. She almost had a heart attack when she felt an arm wrap around her waist and pull her back down to the futon. It was at that moment when she realized something vital. Her choices of clothes for her nights rest were considerably different from what they normally were.
'Fuck, why the hell am I naked. Don't tell me I slept with Keitaro,' she thought to herself. To see what she already felt certain of, she turned around to see who was beside her, silently praying it was Keitaro and not some strange man. She let out the breath she had been holding when she saw her friends face close to her own. 'I guess I we really did then,' she said to herself.
A knock on her door made her jerk back in surprise. She felt a chill run down her spine when she heard Naru's voice on the other side of her door. "Kitsune have you seen Keitaro anywhere? We have a study date with Mutsumi later today and I can't find him anywhere," she said to the panicking woman inside.
Kitsune tried to sound calm and indifferent when she responded. "Nah can't say that I have seen him, seeing as how I just woke up and all," she said with a forced laugh. "Have you checked the teahouse? You know how he likes to talk to Haruka in the mornings and get some coffee from her," she said while silently praying that she would leave.
She let out a relived sigh when she heard Naru turn to walk away. "Thanks Kitsune. Oh yeah, did that pervert try anything on you last night," she asked. Kitsune shivered at the thought of Naru coming in and finding them like this.
"No nothing, didn't do a thing but get plastered with me," she said quickly. "Now hurry up and go or you might miss him," she said as she hoped her friend would leave. She sighed in relief when she heard her foot falls fade as she made her way down the hall. "Now what do I do about you," she said to Keitaro's sleeping form. She smiled as he started to mumble math equations in his sleep. 'You do study too much,' she thought.
She soon lost herself to her thoughts. 'Well I guess I'd better wake him up,' she thought laughing aloud at the thought of his reaction. "Keitaro, Keitaro," she said in a singsong voice. "Time to get up," she said giggling. She held her breath when she saw him begin to stir.
"Wha, where am I," he mumbled sleepily. He blinked trying to see where he was but having a hard time seeing anything at all. "Where're my glasses he said to no one in particular. He made a face when he heard a woman start to laugh lightly at his words. 'One of the girls must be in here,' he thought to himself.
He scrambled around looking for his specs, when he felt a pair of soft, silken hands grab his face and hold him still. "Lookin' for these," asked the woman. When his glasses where slipped fully over his eyes he yelped when he saw Kitsune looking back at him. He turned crimson, however, when he saw that she was nude.
"Ki-Ki-Kitsune, why are you naked and n my room," he asked. He felt his confusion grow when she flashed her trademark smile at him. "I'm not trying to be rude, but please leave Kitsune. I don't want Naru to come in and kill me," he said her while trying to fight back any dirty thoughts that sprung into his mind.
She chuckled a bit at watching him struggle to be polite. 'This'll be fun,' she thought to herself. "For starters Keitaro, you're in my room," she informed the bemused man in her bed. "Second, if you would check for a second, I'm not the only naked one here," she said before laughing at his expression. She laughed even harder when he lifted the covers to see if what she said was true. If she had a camera, she would have taken a picture of his face just so she could have something to make her laugh when she was feeling down.
"Oh, god, oh, god, oh god," he kept repeating to himself. He looked up at her and blushed but did not let his gaze waver from her face. "Kitsune, did we…," he let the question hang in the air. His eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw her nod. "Please don't kid around Kitsune," he said sounding distressed.
"And what's so wrong about havin' sex with me. I happen to think I look pretty good," she said with mock anger. Her smile only grew when she heard him fumbling for words.
"It's not that I don't think you're attractive, quite the opposite in fact," he said. "It's just that, I'm not sure if I was your first, but I wanted my first to be something special. Something I would remember and would be able to cherish with the person I love," he said. She smiled when she heard his words. They reminded her of why she liked him in the first place.
"I understand Keitaro. I know what it means to want your fist time to be with that special someone, trust me, I more than understand," she said. "But I don't really regret what we did," she told the blushing man.
Just as he was about to open his mouth to reply to her, the door burst open and Naru walked in. She took one quick look at Keitaro and Kitsune and ran at Keitaro fist raised. She delivered her strongest 'Naru Punch' she could muster and Keitaro flew threw the air, landing in the hot springs below. "What the hell was that pervert thinking," she screamed. "Are you alright Kitsune? Did he do anything to you," she asked.
Before she could respond, Motoko walked into the room. "I was trying to meditate when all of a sudden; I heard a racket coming from Kitsune's room. Is everything alright in here," she asked the two women standing before her. She blushed slightly when she saw Kitsune's state of undress.
Just as Kitsune was about to tell Motoko that nothing was wrong, Naru interrupted her. "That pervert was in her futon, naked, and she was standing there like that," she said pointing at Kitsune.
At the mention of Keitaro, Motoko's eyes narrowed. "So trying to rob one of his tenants of their chastity," she growled pulling out her sword. Kitsune, who had opened her mouth to get her word in, stopped her.
"Oh shut up both of you. I'm far from being a chaste girl," she said angrily. "Naru get the hell out of my room right now, and Motoko put that blade away, you could kill someone you know," she said, deriving some twisted pleasure in the looks that passed over their faces. She knew that she was being harsh, but she also knew that she needed to be. When they tried to protest, she silenced them with a glare and pointed to her door.
Once she was alone, she walked over to her closet and grabbed some clothes to wear. She chose a plain bra and plain panties. She then pulled out a pair of tight blue jeans along with a black t-shirt. She looked over at her window and saw that Keitaro was still lying in the water of the onsen. She sighed and walked into his room to grab some clothes for him. Se grabbed a pair of black jeans and a black band tee. 'Hmm, I didn't know he likes Dir en Grey," she said to nobody in particular, grabbing a pair of boxers from his dresser. With his clothes folded in her arms, Kitsune made her way down to the springs.
She
bumped into Shinobu on the way down and smiled kindly at the blue
haired teen. She stopped when she heard Shinobu call her name.
"Kitsune, why are Naru and Motoko mad at Sempai this morning,"
she asked.
Kitsune grinned up at the girl realizing that this is
perhaps the only girl, besides Su and Mutsumi, to have ever cared
about Keitaro from the get go. "Oh you know, same old, same old,"
she said to the younger girl.
Shinobu frowned at her words. "I wish they'd stop doing that. He's not really that bad," she said frowning even more.
"You ain't the only one kid," replied the brown haired woman. "By the way, what's for breakfast? I'm starving," she asked.
"Fried eggs with some bacon, toast, and fresh juice and milk," said the young chef. "It's starting to get colder, do you think that fall will be here soon," Shinobu asked.
"Yeah, I reckon so," Kitsune said. "Well I've gotta go and run these to Keitaro before he catches a cold. See you in a few," she said, leaving behind a confused Shinobu. Kitsune hummed a tune to herself as she made her way into the changing room. She grabbed a towel off the rack and pulled back the curtain, only to see Motoko pointing her blade at Keitaro's throat.
"Taking advantage of a woman in her inebriated state, you're despicable," she spat at the man cowering before her.
"Please stop Motoko. I didn't know what I was doing. I was drunk," he pleaded.
"Spare me your lies," Motoko cried, as she lunged forward. The sword should have pierced his throat but she slipped and it wound up plunging into rock the beside his neck. She tugged on her sword, struggling to free it from its stone prison. Keitaro took this time to crawl away and run to the changing rooms. He didn't see Kitsune standing at the door so he ran right into her, knocking her over.
"So I guess you're ready for round two then," she teased. She laughed as his face went glow in the dark. "Just kidding, here I got you some clothes," she said tossing the bundle at him. He shot her a smile and pulled them on. He had just finished pulling his shirt down when Motoko came charging into the changing rooms.
"Don't I ever get a break," he sighed before sprinting out and away from danger. Kitsune held out her arm to bar Motoko's path. The look in her eyes did more to stop her than her arm did though.
"I said for you to put that thing away," said a seething Kitsune. She rarely let her anger show, but she was not going to be silent anymore. "Keitaro did nothing wrong. We went out, got drunk, and slept with each other. That's all. He didn't defile me. We just got to drunk," she said angrily to Motoko.
"Then why was he smiling when I found him here," asked Motoko, trying her hardest to come up with any excuse to make it seem like Keitaro had done wrong. She had little doubt that what Kitsune said was true, but she didn't want to accept that. If she accepted that Kitsune was right and she was wrong, it would make her wonder when else had she been wrong.
Kitsune smirked at her words. "Probably because he remembered something," she said. "Can you blame him," she asked laughing. "He's not even half the pervert you make him out to be. It's a wonder he hasn't thrown you or Naru out. I would if I were in his shoes," she said to the swordswoman in front of her.
Unsure of how to retaliate, Motoko bowed her head and left. Should it be swords they were dueling with, Kitsune would be ripped to shreds. Words, however, were something that Kitsune specialized in. She could not face that barbed tongue and come back unscathed. What kind of person would voluntarily subjugate themselves to that kind of abuse? 'Not me,' she thought bitterly, ashamed at admitting weakness, even to herself.
Knowing she had won this fight, Kitsune went to then table to eat with the rest of her ragtag family. She smiled at Shinobu and complimented her on her cooking. "Spectacular as always," she said smiling down at the girl, who blushed at the praise. "Keitaro, can you come with me for a bit," she asked when he finished his meal. He gulped, looking at Naru, but nodded nonetheless.
"Sure but it'll have to be quick. I have to study with Naru and Mutsumi later," he said. She beamed at him and got up to leave, but not before glaring at Naru and Motoko. Gathering up his courage, Keitaro made his way around the table and tried to avoid going near his tormentors. He followed Kitsune up the stairs to her room. Once they were inside, he slid the door shut and leaned against the wall. "So, what's up," he asked her, a curious look playing on his face.
She looked at him with concern lightly etched onto her features. "Did those two do anything more than they usually do," she asked quietly. His smile faltered for a moment at the mention of Naru and Motoko's actions.
He shook his head. "No. You stopped them from really doing anything to extreme. I wonder how far they would have went, though, if you hadn't stepped in," he mused. He felt in his heart of hearts that Motoko would have actually killed him had she not slipped. He silently thanked any god or goddess that had protected him from an early demise.
"Yeah, I wondered that too," she admitted. "Look, if you need to talk about anything, be it what we did, or if it's about something you just want to get off your chest, come to me. Keitaro, I can tell you hold a lot of things back and that's not good. It'll just hurt you in the end. That being said, I've got something I'd like to say to you," she said to Keitaro.
She took a breath to mentally prepare herself for what she was about to do. "Keitaro, for a while now, I have found my thoughts drift to you more and more. I feel different whenever I think about you, whenever I imagine what 'we' could be," she said turning red. "I really like you, I have for a while now. I know that you're in love with Naru, but I keep telling her to be honest and I don't want to be a hypocrite. I don't expect an answer, I just wanted to get things out in the open," she finished. With that being said, she made her way out of his room, leaving Keitaro behind to mull over her words.