A/N: I originally wanted to post this within the same fic as Remorseful Kitsune actually, but then I change my mind. If you haven't read that one-shot first, please read it before starting this piece.
He woke up with a start. And for some reason, there were fresh tears lining his cheeks.
Had he been crying?
He sighed. Did he have a sad dream earlier? He squinted his eyes trying to remember any detail from the dream he just woke up from, but he got nothing. He used to read about how some people kept some kind of dream journal, so every time they woke up from sleep they would right away write the details of their dreams in the dream journal. It was said that doing so would train yourself to be able to recall more of your dreams while awake.
But...
If you can't even remember anything when you wake up from your sleep, how could you even write anything in your dream journal?
.
The sister walked past the open door of his room before gasping aloud in surprise.
"—! What're you still doing on your bed? Shouldn't you get ready for work... or will I end up hearing more stories of your manager complaining about your tardiness?"
He glanced up towards his sister before snorting. "Aha... don't worry too much, big sis. Everyone knows how capable I am at my work, regardless of my occasional tardiness!"
xxx
He rushed into the restaurant in the middle of lunch hour as the owner called out to him, telling him to take the last empty table at the corner of the restaurant. Lucky! Just as he thought that he'd end up having to find another place to have lunch at. Since recently, the restaurant had received a sudden increase in customers after some internet influencers or something promoted the place on their social media accounts.
"Kitsune udon again?" asked the owner as he looked up towards the list on the menu. The tanuki soba caught his attention right away, followed by nekojita ramen and beef ramen. He just shrugged.
"Yeah, kitsune again," he told the owner, grinning.
The owner chuckled at him. "I remembered all the years when you and your sister often come to this shop to eat. And as always, both of you often ordered tanuki soba from the menu." The owner grinned at him. "Never thought I'd see the day when you'd break out from your usual habits."
He laughed. "Well, turns out that kitsune udon was pretty tasty too. And I'm not really in the mood for ramen around this time."
"It's all right," waved the owner off as he headed back towards the kitchen.
"I'm just glad to have you continuing your patronage..."
.
"—!"
He glanced up from his desk just as his colleague come over to pass him a thick folder. The colleague gave him an apologetic look.
"I'm sorry, —! Something came up with Minori-san. Can't you take over her job for today? We had an interview scheduled with a famous internet celebrity in a few minutes but we had no one else to be the interviewer—"
"It's okay," he said before getting up and taking the folder. "I used to dabble on it a bit at school, so this shouldn't be a lot of trouble."
"Ah good. And don't worry, since this was a recorded session you shouldn't worry too much about bumbling your words, since we can always edit that later—" exclaimed the colleague before slapping him on the shoulder as an encouragement. "Do a good job and you might end up getting a promotion as well!"
"Ahaha..." he chuckled awkwardly. "I'm just glad that I've had any kind of work honestly..."
.
"Neon—san?"
The petite lady just smiled at him sweetly.
"Ah, so you're the replacement host, is it? I'm glad that you at least know something about me..."
"Ah!" he just waved the concern aside. "That's because my sister was a huge fan of you—" he continued to say before cocking his head to the side. He frowned.
"Sorry... but have we met before? In person, I mean."
Kurama Neon just stared at him blankly.
"No... I would've remembered otherwise," she said as he hastily brushed the question aside.
"Sorry, for a sec I thought that you reminded me of someone I knew in the past." He held out a hand towards her.
"My name's Sakurai Keiwa."
Neon nodded her head at him and stood up to shake his hand as well.
xxx
"Honestly, Sakurai-san! I didn't expect to see you be so talented in doing this..."
"It's nothing special, really. I just like to talk to people..."
"No, it's really great. Perhaps we could put you in another department that better suited your abilities..."
Keiwa smiled to himself as he skipped happily towards home. His sister would've been delighted to hear that he'd been elevated from just the role of a general intern. Sara had been expressing some concerns when he told her that he managed to get a job at an online news company, thinking that it might not suit him. But now perhaps he could lessen her worries.
Also, she might end up very excited to hear that he'd be working alongside Neon for a while. She probably wouldn't have expected it!
.
Keiwa stopped in his tracks as he thought he was being followed. He turned around to take a look but saw nothing. There was a small park nearby... but at this time in the evening, it was pretty deserted. He cocked his head to try to listen for any sounds but there was nothing.
"Perhaps it's my imagination..." he started to say before turning around again suddenly.
Almost on cue, Keiwa heard the sound of glasses breaking and some movement from the corner of the road.
He made a run towards it as he thought he saw something white moving away very fast. Keiwa gave chase to it before running towards the corner of a building. And then he heard a loud cry that sounded like a sound made by a puppy...
.
It was a fox, a medium-sized one. But unlike the usual Japanese fox he used to see on TV, this one was almost purely white, with streaks of orange-red fur on some parts. It didn't make any sense to find an Arctic fox in these areas and so far into the city even. Did it get lost coming here from a forest somewhere?
But most importantly...
Keiwa slowly approached the white fox as he search his pocket to find anything that he could offer to the fox.
"Ah!" Keiwa took out a small packet of beef jerky that some promoter had given him earlier on the way back. He opened the packet as he tried to offer the jerky to the fox. Part of him thought that it wouldn't work because the fox was a wild animal but—the fox actually approached him and tried to nibble on Keiwa's offering. Keiwa took the opportunity to carefully check the fox's hind legs.
To his trepidation, he found that one of the hind legs was bleeding. And the cut was a big one too.
"Oh!" Keiwa gasped worriedly. "You're hurt. Did I startle you earlier? Sorry..." he apologise softly as he ran his hand over the white fox's head and back. A wild thought crossed his head suddenly.
.
"Would you let me take you to my home? I wanted to treat your injured leg. I meant no other harm..." said Keiwa again as he tried to gather his arm around the fox.
But surprisingly, the fox wasn't afraid of him and allowed Keiwa to pick it up. He chuckled.
"Aren't you quite a gentle one?" exclaimed Keiwa as he got up and turned around to head back home.
"Don't worry... I'll fix you up really good and send you back home..."
A/N2: Tried to make it a bit mysterious as to whose POV this chapter came from... but it's not really that hard to figure out, huh? Also, I got inspired by another fic prior to this so I've been wanting to write Kitsune!Ace for a while...