Fox Life

Once the awkwardness set in, Iris rushed to the table and began unpacking the food. She was totally lost on how to act at this moment.     

It wasn't like she had never kissed a boy before, but it had never mattered this much. Before, it was just something that she let happen, not something that she had waited for days, expecting and worrying about it.     

When the plates were set out, her heartbeat had calmed down a notch and she looked back at Kyro. He was still standing by the door. Once he caught her eyes, he nodded and came over to sit down by the table. His suit jacket was soon thrown off, but he didn't bother to go and change.     

Their gazes met again then, and Kyro sighed. "I'm sorry about today."     

'Today?' Worry flashed through Iris. He didn't mean what had happened moments ago, did he?     

Noticing her twisting face, he swiftly added, "No, I didn't mean that. I wasn't planning to spring on you this whole girlfriend thing in this kind of way. It just… happened."     

"Happened?" Iris asked, incredulous. Her hands moved on their own to cross over her chest, and her expression shifted to one that made sure he knew what she thought about such an excuse.     

"Would you believe me if I said my mom blackmailed me?" he asked with a laugh.     

"Blackmailed?" From what Iris knew, his mom was a likeable old lady until something concerned Kyro's love life. Then she turned into a monster that would do anything, going so overboard that she couldn't even see the ship. "Tell me more."     

Kyro then told her about how he was minding his own business when he was made aware of that one article that reached all the top charts in no time. He had been thinking how to deal with it when he received a message from his mom telling him he had limited time before she would release a post about his girlfriend.     

This left him with only two choices: do it himself first, or let the article be published and risk receiving even more damage to his reputation. With the masses so against him, anything that showed up about him would somehow be turned for the worse. Unless he managed to portray it in a better light himself, showed his face and admitted to some things before directing the attention elsewhere.     

"And so you decided to use my name?"     

"More like decided to give you a title. I didn't really want to tell a lot about you due to your… situation."     

That was acceptable. Iris didn't want to be looked into, either. The less the media cared about her, the better. It would be some nice chaos if someone dug out that she was illegally staying around.     

"Now that I know the situation, I'll consider forgiving you," she said, picking up the plates to bring them to the kitchen. Feeling lazy today, she just put them away and returned to the sofa.     

There, Kyro was watching her with narrowed eyes. "Consider forgiving?"     

She nodded. "It's not like I can let go of it just because you said sorry. I was robbed of one of the special moments in any relationship." Her voice had a righteous tone, but she was chuckling inside.     

Kyro seemed genuinely puzzled by her words. He stared for a long while, then turned around, his expression not changing. "Is it really that important?" he asked after a time.     

"I guess?" Iris tilted her head, suddenly feeling weird herself. "I'll survive though. It's not major major."     

"Right…" Kyro didn't look convinced, but he didn't say anything more.     

Not certain how to continue the conversation, Iris simply turned on the TV. Choosing a random movie channel, she made herself comfortable and started following the action on the screen. Her eyes sometimes strayed to Kyro, who still had a thoughtful expression, but she tried to keep it to a minimum.     

After a while, he said, "Have you heard from anyone of your family lately?"     

"No?" Iris looked over at him, puzzled by his question. Where had it come from? "I only have my aunt, and she doesn't care what I do as long as I'm alive."     

"No uncles or older family friends?"     

"Why are you asking that?" His eyes gazing at her were intense, and she couldn't understand what he was asking. What did uncles and family friends have to do with anything that happened today?     

He pushed his hair back, looking somewhat haggard. "I had a call today. Some middle-aged man asking for his female fennec fox, certain that you were his. I wouldn't have cared, but he was insistent on your gender and that the fox was exceptionally smart."     

Unease trickled into Iris' heart. Could someone she knew have come looking for her? But who could know about her condition if she herself hadn't known about it? And there really were no friends or family that she knew about. Her father was a single child and his parents had died in a fire when he was still a teen, while her mother's father had died from cancer while his wife wasted away soon after him.     

"If there's really no one, then it's fine. I told him you ran away back then in the park."     

"Oh god…" Iris covered her face, remembering what had happened. At that time, she had forced Kyro to search for her for a whole day, all until midnight or so.     

"So you do have a conscience…" he mused, teasing her, and she really wished she had something nearby to chuck at him. Sadly, she had already carried away all the plates and other utensils.     

With faked nonchalance, Iris moved her gaze to the TV and pretended to be interested in the movie. She hadn't watched the last ten minutes or so, and she had no clue what in the world had happened, but she could catch up. How much could a person on a deserted island do in ten minutes?     

While she thought about that, she noticed that Kyro had closed his eyes while leaning against the backrest. His chest rose in a steady rhythm, but it was impossible that he would be comfortable like this.     

Iris leaned over and poked his cheek. "Go to bed if you're this tired. No point in getting a sore back."     

His eyes blinked open, and she met his dark gaze. They watched each other for a moment, then Kyro stretched out on the sofa, putting his head on Iris' knees. He did it so fast, his eyes closed before she could even react.     

"What are you doing?" she asked in a low voice, not believing what she was seeing.     

"Sleeping," Kyro murmured in reply.     

In less that a minute, his breathing evened out, and Iris was almost certain that he'd fallen asleep. Her hand moved to his head, landing on his soft hair. Her finger brushed through the dark tassels that hadn't been cut in a while. She waited for him to move, but nothing happened. Kyro was really asleep.