Chapter Summary: The white fox that Keiwa named Ace seemed quite friendly unlike what he ever imagined a wild animal could've behaved with a human. In fact, the fox's peculiar behaviour of always wanting to snuggle close to his chest always amused him. But then a few days later, Keiwa found out why.

Ref: Timeline - the first few nights when Ace started to live with Keiwa (Chapters 3 - 5 ), post Chapter 10.


Ace the albino fox was so cute... as Keiwa came to realise. Aside from the overly friendly behaviour that reminded him of an overly excited Husky, Ace was nothing like what he used to hear about foxes. In fact, sometimes he felt like he was dealing with a hybrid creature that was a mix of an overly-excitable dog and a prideful cat.

He thought that foxes like Ace should be extremely wary of humans, yet Ace seemed very happy to have close bodily contact with him. As if Ace didn't think that he was a different creature compared to him; it was as if Ace was treating him like a fellow fox.

It was pretty fascinating.

.

Just when he thought he was about to fall asleep again, Keiwa felt something poking into his stomach. He opened one eye to see Ace trying to—get under his shirt?

Keiwa tried to mumble something close to telling the clingy fox to stop trying to burrow into his shirt as he tried to gently push the fox away. And without warning Ace dove into the empty space where his arm used to be and tried to snuggle close to him.

On any other night, Keiwa would've pushed the fox away like any other person who would try to invade his personal space without permission. But Keiwa didn't do that in this case. Because something else took his notice.

When Ace tried to settle itself by snuggling next to Keiwa's chest, Ace kept trying to push its snout against his chest. And Keiwa kept noticing Ace's ears—the only few parts of the fox's body where the furs had a hint of normal red fox colouring—kept twitching as if trying to look for something it just heard. Ace's ears kept twitching as the fox kept tossing and turning—before finding a good spot where it could rest an ear over Keiwa's chest and Ace just settled in. Seconds later Keiwa could hear Ace make a sound that sounded like a deep cat's purr, as the fox seemed to have fallen asleep right away.

Feeling reluctant to disturb Ace's slumber, and Keiwa feeling sleepy himself... he just let it be.

xxx

"Keiwa...? Keiwa, wake up..."

Keiwa sleepily opened his eyes to see his sister sitting by his bedside. What time is it already?

"Sorry... big sis. I was so tired... dinner—!"

Sara just shook her head at him. "Don't worry about that, I already ordered something to eat. Do you want to grab something to eat?" she asked as Keiwa just shook his head.

"Not that hungry... just tired..."

Sara just nodded in understanding. "I'll warm some milk for you then, I don't want you to sleep on an empty stomach—"

That remark made Keiwa sit up as he tried to leave the bed. "Then I'll just do it myself—!" he started to say as Sara stopped him.

His sister smiled. "Don't bother. It's just me boiling some milk in a pot. It shouldn't be hard—and I'll be careful."

.

Moments later Sara came over bringing a cup full of warm milk. She grinned at him after putting the cup into Keiwa's hand.

"See? Not a problem. Also, I put some honey and cinnamon in the milk."

"Hmm?" Keiwa hummed testily as he tried to sip on the milk before noting that the milk actually turned out to be good! Keiwa raised his eyebrows questioningly at his sister as Sara grinned smugly.

"Don't underestimate me, I've been practising to get it to taste so good..."

Keiwa's smiled as he passed the empty cup to his sister.

.

"I saw the report. Did Dr Kiryu say anything else to you?" Sara suddenly asked as Keiwa shook his head.

"No, but today Kiryu-sensei did run a lot more tests than usual on me to check if I'm really okay. So it was a bit more tiring than usual—"

"Alright then, I shouldn't disturb your sleep any longer. Go lie back down."

"Hnn..."

.

Sara grabbed a blanket and used it to cover Keiwa's sleeping body. As she was tucking Keiwa gently, she couldn't help noticing fox!Ace starting to snuggle its body against Keiwa. The white fox even went as far as resting one ear against Keiwa's chest.

How peculiar...

xxx

Keiwa paused as he stopped himself from grabbing a fresh shirt to wear to sleep. He ran his hand over the faint surgery scar on his chest.

"—I don't want you to become ill!"

"Hang on, Keiwa... the doctors will take care of you—"

It was so weird. To think that he used to have a hard time trying to remember who was the person who had brought him to the hospital. Yet now he started to get bits and pieces from that one sketchy memory.

Keiwa turned his glance towards the albino fox sitting beside him. As if aware that Keiwa had been watching him, Ace turned around to look at him.

"What?"

Keiwa bit his lip before taking a really long breath.

"Ace... did I—did I almost die before this?" He frowned at himself as the words didn't sound right to him. Keiwa shook his head before glancing up towards Ace. "No. Had I... died again last time?"

Ace didn't answer. Keiwa sighed again.

"Was that why you didn't want me to find out what happened in the past? Was that why you get very anxious whenever I showed any signs of getting ill?"

Ace turned its head away and made a gesture that looked like the fox was letting out a soft sigh.

"Does it really matter? The most important thing right now... was that you're still alive."

Keiwa smiled weakly as he lay down on his bed and petted the empty spot next to him. Ace wasted no time rushing over to him before resting its ears against Keiwa's chest where his heart should be.

Keiwa chuckled at the gesture. He ran a hand to caress the fox lying next to him so gently.

"I knew it—there was a specific reason why you always snuggle so close beside me."

Keiwa barely heard Ace's hoarse cry from next to him.

"There's no specific reason! I just wanted to be close to you!" barked Ace again as Keiwa chuckled.

He placed a soft kiss over Ace's head before closing his eyes to allow himself to rest after yet another eventful day...


A/N2: Please pardon my lack of dog (and fox) knowledge 😂😂 All I know about dog (and fox) behaviour was from tv and anime 😃