Chapter Text
Usually he didn’t go out to run. Totally not because of his stamina.
It is just extremely boring.
Leon preferred being on Tumblr.
But today his head was one second away from exploding so he had to get out of his house. Yao didn’t seem to get that his partner Ivan, a pretty terrifying Russian, didn’t like Leon.
Obviously he wouldn’t hurt him, or that is what he hoped.
There already lived four people in their house and with a giant, that, to emphasize it again didn’t like him, he had to run. Just to get a bit of air.
After a while he got to a halt at a small pond where he sat down. Not because he was out of breath!
He plucked grass, when he saw something on the other side of the water. A deer stood on the edge and drank the water. It was astonishing, usually deers were extremely shy. Maybe it hadn’t noticed him though, so Leon tried to keep as quiet as possible.
The calm atmosphere was broken when uddenly there was the sound of other animal footsteps.
A fox came out of the brushwood, scaring the other animal which fled.
Maybe Leon should have gone away, but he was amazed by the fox. It wasn’t an usual fox, the fur was white and fluffy. And he was pretty sure polar foxes didn’t exist in China, outside of a zoo.
The fox barked at him, though he really didn’t get a dangerous vibe from it. So he stayed. If he should get attacked there was no doubt Leon would win. He could probably kick the fox away, even if he would rather keep it peacefully.
“Human”
What the hell?
Those words didn’t come out of the fox mouth. Did they?
He turned around to run away, but once again the same voice spoke: “Please wait”
“Shit, I’m hallucinating”
Once again he turned around to look at the animal, which sat in front of him and stared up at him.
“Did I frighten you? I am deeply sorry, but it has been a long time since I have spoken to a human being”
“Wait, why are you talking?”
“Would you do me a favour?”, the fox ignored his question swiftly.
Okay, this has to be a prank. He should probably just go along with it, maybe his friend Alfred or his brother had something to do with it. Which would be a great coincidence but he chose to ignore that fact as he did not find a possible explanation on why he was talking to an animal.
“Yeah sure, totally. Which favour, dear fox?”, he played along.
It seemed as if the fox felt the sarcasm because it glared at him and growled: “I need a red jasper”
“Dunno anyone called Jasper”, he joked to lighten the atmosphere a bit.
“I mean the gem!”, the animal barked at him again. Seems like it wasn’t very into his humour.
Leon tried to restrain a grin: “Why would I? Do you even, like, know where to get one”
“I am fairly confident you know exactly where to find a jasper”
To be honest he really knew where to get one. Yao had one. Something about wisdom. Maybe the fox wanted to be wise too.
“Please come here tomorrow. I will be here”, and a bit quieter it muttered, “not that I have anything to do”
He was sure the fox didn’t mean to be heard at the last part, but Leon had to agree. The boy contained his snicker and made his way home, to process what just happened.
Leon stared at his mobile. It was pretty hard not telling anyone about what happened. Though who would believe him?
Like, he just chatted with a polar fox. Which tomorrow he will bring a jasper. Believable. Totally believable.
Well, he hardly believed himself.
“Yao”, he called his foster father
“Yes? What do you want?”, the other answered him.
“Why do you keep that stone?”, he pointed at the jasper.
“Oh, dear! That is not just a stone, that is red jasper. A beautiful gem. It stands for wisdom, power and love. And it is good for your liver, skin-“
A knock on the front door interrupted the Chinese man: “Could you please look who’s there”
Leon nodded. So he was right about wisdom! But why would that fox need a red jasper? It just made no sense, nothing about their encounter made any sense.
“Dude!”
In front of Leon stood Alfred, an US-American who moved to China two years ago. He was Leons best friend… and they were supposed to meet today, oops.
“Oh”
“Yeah, oh! You could have really said something. I probably looked like an idiot waiting all alone in the park”, Alfred complained to his friend and crossed his arms.
“Sorry”, Leon apologized half-heartedly.
“No, no. That is not okay!”, Alfred did look pissed but he knew the boy. He couldn’t stand being on bad terms with anyone, especially not his best friend. Moreover Leon had noticed the bag Alfred was carrying.
“You wanna spend the night?”, he asked, already knowing the answer.
“Duh! Why else would I be here?”
Alfred was talking about his newest hook-up, a British girl who he thought would be the right girl for him.
Meanwhile Leon looked up the gem (and signs for schizophrenia) on his phone.
“Dude, since when do you like witchcraft?”, Alfred butted in, ripping Leon out of his thoughts.
“What?”, he asked dumbfounded.
“Gems, herbs and that shit. You should totally meet Alice, she’s so into that!”, Alfred exclaimed.
Yao, too.
“No, I just want my Tumblr to be more aesthetic”, he stated.
“Which is 90% memes. The other ten are just gay”, the blonde hit his back lightly and laughed.
Leon playfully smacked his head, but he had to admit that his excuse was pretty lame.
“I don’t know if Alice has Tumblr but she would surely have those moon phases on it.”, Alfred showed him a picture of what he meant.
Instead of a spoken answer Leon just pressed a controller into his hand, signalling him that Leon wanted to play games.
The hours went by and around 2 am they were too tired to pay attention to Mario Kart, which lead both of them to fall of the track more than actually driving.
“Yo, I think we’ll never gonna finish Rainbow Road”, Alfred complained, looking as if he wanted to throw the controller out of the window.
“Come on, isn’t it funny to be circled by npcs?”, Leon mocked him but eventually turned off the console. They got ready for bed, Alfred sending messages to his girlfriend while brushing his teeth.
“You really like her, huh?”, Leon spoke up. The other boy nodded happily: “She’s the moon in the sky full of stars”
“Oh my god, don’t make me gag. Tell her that line, not me”, Leon rolled his eyes.
And so they went to bed, dreaming about what was on their current mind. Which meant a certain white fox showed up in Leons dream world.
In the morning Alfred was already about to head out without even eating breakfast. He really wanted to see Alice again and they were supposed to meet soon.
On the doorstep, Alfred scolded him playfully: “Next time you should tell me before you leave me waiting”
“Like I said before, I’m sorry”, how often did he have to apologize? He was actually sorry.
Eventually they said goodbye and Leon got ready to go on a mission, aka to give a fox a jasper. Secretly he was praying that Yao would not find out that he stole that stone from him. He was just going to run to the fox, see if it was a prank… and then… then what?
As he arrived at the small pond yet again, he looked out for the animal, but couldn’t spot it.
Guess he had no other option than to shout.
“Hey, fox! I have-”, he was interrupted by a gentle nudge against his leg, making him flinch hard as he did not expect the polar fox to appear behind him.
“Not that loud, no one has to hear us”, hissed the fox.
“Who should hear us?”, he asked bewildered.
“Other animals, obviously” Oh yeah, makes sense. But, like, would they actually care?
“Don’t be paranoid. Here, I’ve got the red jasper you asked for”, Leon got the gem out of his pocket.
The eyes of the animal lightened up in delight. Do polar foxes have lilac eyes?
“Please just lay him down here”
Leon followed the instructions and laid it in front of the animal, which crouched down to touch the jasper with its snout. The impact made smoke rise up, covering the fox completely.
A bit horrified, Leon covered his mouth and nose with his hand until the smoke faded. He blinked away a few tears and eventually found himself standing in front of a completely naked boy. At this point he was pretty sure this was no prank anymore. The boy facing him had the same lilac eyes as the fox and his hair colour was like its fur.
“Did… did you just… what?!”, he stuttered.
“Thank you very much. How can I thank you?”, the boy in front of him smiled lightly at him. Though he could not ignore something else.
“By putting on clothes”, was Leon’s smart comeback.
That made the other blush intensely as he stammered awkwardly: “Oh god, oh fuck is that embarrassing. I totally forgot about that. Look away!”
Geez, now Leon was embarrassed, too. He politely turned his head away.
“I could give you some of mine. But first of all I have to ask, what do you want to do now that you’re … human?”
“I’m not sure, uhm, but it’s pretty good to stand on two legs”, he answered.
“You didn’t even try standing up”, Leon pointed out and, to be completely honest, he really hoped, as cliché as it would be that the white haired boy would fall down. That would be fucking hilarious.
Ironically, exactly this happened. And even though in the end Leon caught him, the face that the boy made was pretty funny. Come on, Leon, don’t laugh at him. God was that hard.
“I’m fine, you can let go”, he pouted.
He let go so the other boy could now stand on shaky legs. “Do you have a name?”
“My name is Emil”, he told him. Oh, he didn’t expect such a non-mystical name.
“I’m Leon”, Leon introduced himself.
“Thank you, Leon. How can I pay you back?”
“Probably not with money. But really, just come with me. No, better you just wait here. I’ll get you clothes first”, he offered Emil.
“God, thank you”, yeah, that boy probably was a bit cold, so Leon immediately ran back to his house.