A Fox's Family by Brandon Varnell

blinking several times as he processed his friend’s
words. “How is what?”
    Alex
rolled his eyes, as if amazed by Kevin’s ignorance. “Don’t
give me that ‘how is what?’
crap.
How is dating Lilian, like, really dating Lilian and not that weird
runaround thing you two were doing before?”
    Kevin’s
cheeks flushed a dark shade of crimson as he opened his locker.
“W-why do you want to know about something like that?”
    Alex
gave his friend a flat stare. “Are you seriously asking that?
After over two months of listening to you claim that you didn’t
like her, you’re finally dating Lilian. You can’t expect
me to not be curious.”
    As
his other friends nodded, Kevin conceded that Alex had a point. If
their positions were reversed, he’d probably be curious, too.
    He
paused halfway through getting changed. His track pants were on, but
his shirt remained in his hands.
    “It’s…
pretty
amazing, actually.”
His
blush didn’t recede, but a soft smile did appear on his face as
he thought about Lilian. “She’s a really amazing girl,
you know? She’s vibrant, fun, cheerful, and is always
optimistic about everything. She’s like…
like
a bright ray of sunshine. Everything just seems so much more vibrant
whenever she’s around.”
    “Don’t
forget she’s also hot,”
Andrew
added.
    “There’s
that, too,”
Kevin
conceded. While more interested in Lilian as a person, he would be
stupid to deny her general…well…hotness. The two-tails
was, quite frankly, one of the hottest examples of the female species
he’d ever seen. Oh sure, Kotohime was really
attractive--gorgeous even--and she had a mature air about her that
Lilian lacked, but she also carried a katana and wore a kimono
everywhere she went. Plus, she scared the crap out of him.
    Kevin
put his shirt on and began lacing up his shoes. “Sometimes, I
feel almost like I’m living in a dream, you know? I’m
always expecting to wake up one day and discover that none of this
ever happened.”
    It
wouldn’t have been a hard thing to do, considering all the
crazy stuff that had happened to him in the past two and a half
months. His life had been one zany disaster after another ever since
Lilian’s arrival. He felt almost like one of those harem
protagonists in a shōnen romantic comedy.
    Which
was, of course, patently ridiculous. He wasn’t some kind of
shōnen manga protagonist, no matter what crazy things Lilian or
Kotohime said to the contrary…
    …
Right?
    “Listen
to you, bragging about your love life,”
Chase
scoffed. “From the way you keep talking about Lilian these
days, you’d think she was the greatest chick in the entire
universe.”
    Kevin’s
blush receded as he finished tying his shoes. “Well, if there
was a contest for greatest woman in the universe, she’d
definitely have my vote.”
    “Whatever,”
Chase
grumbled. “For someone who used to be so hung up on Lindsay,
you’ve become awfully lovey-dovey with a girl you claimed to
not like two weeks ago. What changed your mind?”
    Kevin
shrugged as he, Alex, Andrew and Chase made their way out of the
locker room with the other track members. “I couldn’t
say. I guess it’s just, well, maybe I just realized that
Lindsay wasn’t the only amazing girl out there. Like, there are
more fish in the sea, or something, you know?”
    “Expanding
your horizons.”
    “Studying
abroad.”
    “Searching
the market.”
    “…
Women….”
    Everyone
stopped talking and stared at Justin very oddly for a second…
    …
And
then went back to their conversation.
    “You
know, I just realized something.”
Kevin
turned his head left and right, searching for something that wasn’t
there. Or rather, someone who wasn’t there. “Eric still
hasn’t joined us.”
    Alex,
along with his fraternal twin brother and Chase, also scanned the
area. “Huh? You’re right. That’s really weird. I
mean, Eric is a pretty unreliable guy at times, especially if he’s
given the choice between