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The storm outside raged, and the Kitsune Akashi Seijurou hid deeper under his blankets.
Shaking with fear.
And also loneliness.
He’d never minded storms, not even the ones with thunder and lightning. In fact, those nights had been some of his favourites.
His mother would always pull him close, wrap him up in his blankets and tell him stories. Tell him about Gods of thunder and Lightning, and how they were friends to the Kitsune.
Akashi had always enjoyed those stories. And his mother would always tell them to him long into the night, until Akashi fell asleep.
His father had always thought it an indulgence, but he’d allowed it because it pleased his wife so much to do it.
Akashi’s mother had been adored as well as widely admired by the Kitsune community. Though she had married into the Akashi line, the natural deities, she had a magic all her own as well. And yet she had always taken the time for others. Something that made her deeply loved.
And her son, her son she had adored in turn. And doted upon.
It had not yet been a year since she had passed, and ever new first without her stung the young Seijurou deeply.
This was now the first storm. And he wasn’t sure how he was going to bare it without her.
Akashi’s father had left the shrine after his wife had died. Finding it too hard to be around so many memories of her.
Akashi, though young, a child still, having the look of a human child around 10 years old, he was old enough of a Yokai to be the key deity of the shrine.
“She always meant for the shrine to be yours anyway.” Akashi’s father had said as he left. “You’re just. Getting it a little earlier than planned.”
He’d been too grief stricken to make room for the sadness at his other parent also leaving him.
Akashi covered his ears with his hands, hoping to block out the noise of the storm.
Though he couldn’t block out the gnawing ache of his loneliness, now amplified.
Buried deep within himself, and so hidden beneath the blankets of his bed, Akashi nearly, just nearly missed the crash and thud that came from the entrance to the shrine, and his personal rooms.
Akashi stilled, removing his hands from his ears in order to listen, carefully.
A snuffling, a sniffing. And the sound of feet on the floorboards.
Akashi sat up, peering out from between the blankets.
Not afraid of what might await him, but certainly curious. And possibly a little annoyed that he had been disturbed like this.
His eyes went wide when he saw a creature in the entrance way to his inner shrine. A familiar creature, one that he knew had inhabited some nearby fields until recently.
He’d though he’d heard they’d all left though, in search of someplace further from humans.
So what was this tanuki doing in his shrine? And inside his shrine no less. And-
Akashi watched in aghast horror as the tanuki shook itself, it’s rain sodden fur spraying water everywhere.
Affronted by such inconsiderate and disrespectful behaviour, Akashi found his proud Kitsune blood urge him forward.
Akashi sat up, pushing off his blankets with a sudden force. He fixed the tanuki with a fearsome glare.
“How dare you-“
The tanuki shook again, but this time there was something different. Not as if it was trying to get dry but…
And then Akashi noticed the leaf on the tanuki’s head.
And understood. The tanuki was transforming.
So it was a Yokai Tanuki after all.
All the more reason for Akashi’s indignance, it should know that this wasn’t just a place you could simply wander into and do as you please.
Akashi was slightly surprised however, when he saw the tanuki fully transformed into human form. As it hurriedly dressed in a worn kimono it had apparently been carrying with it, Akashi was given time to note the youth of the yokai.
Surely the same age as Akashi. Still only a child.
Shaking, shivering hands struggled to place glasses on the young yokai’s face, but eventually it managed it, looking up at Akashi as it did.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get everything wet.” The tanuki said. “Only, the storm and the rain and-“
“And this is a Kitsune shrine.” Akashi said, keeping his voice low, practicing at sounding commanding.
He knew he needed a certain gravity to his words to be properly respected as the deity he was.
“And you…” Akashi took his time looking the tanuki over. Noting the messiness to the other young boys hair, the leaf still present caught up in it. “Are a tanuki. Tanuki’s do not live in shrines, they do not belong in shrines. You are disrespecting-“
“Please!” The tanuki spoke over him. “The storm is very bad, and there is only a little shelter in my field, and it has been damaged and I’m-“
“You do not belong here!” Akashi spoke louder, his eyes widening as his two tails flicked behind him. The young tanuki flinched as sparks of fox fire flickered within the shrine walls.
“Please.” The tanuki repeated. “I’m. All alone and… I don’t… Like… Storms…”
Akashi blinked. Looking at the tanuki before him again.
The words ‘all alone’ threatened to bore straight into Akashi.
Because wasn’t he just the same?
And then he saw the tanuki’s hands raised to his face. And realised his shoulders were shaking.
He was crying.
Akashi couldn’t ever remember seeing anyone else cry in front of him before. Even when his mother had died. The Kitsune. They had mourned but. They were a race to proud to shed tears.
Only Akashi himself had cried. And it had been put down to his youth.
To see someone else, and someone his own age crying in front of him. It felt…
Like he was allowed to see something private.
And that more than needing somewhere to shelter, this young tanuki needed someone to shelter with.
Just like Akashi did.
Carefully getting down off his bed, Akashi edged closer to the young tanuki.
“Please don’t cry.” He said, gently. “I’m sorry for yelling.”
Slowly, the tanuki peaked out from behind his hands. His face was wet and slightly red from crying, and his eyes were wary as they looked at Akashi.
“It’s only. I’ve been on my own a while too now. I guess I was scared too.” Akashi admitted.
The tanuki smiled, very slightly. “Do you not like storms either?” He asked.
Akashi shook his head, and smiled gently back. “I like them. My mother told me lots of stories about storms.”
Then the idea came into his head. “Would you… Like to hear them?”
The tanuki smiled, nodding enthusiastically. “Yes! Please.” Then he hesitated. “Does this mean… I can stay?”
Akashi nodded, very firmly. “So long as you tell me your name.”
The tanuki grinned. “I’m Miyuki Kazuya, the tanuki. Pleased to meet you!”
Akashi smiled back, feeling warm as he introduced himself in turn. “Nice to meet you, Kazuya. I’m Akashi Seijurou. The Kitsune Deity of this shrine.”
He showed Miyuki to area where he slept, and they sat together as Akashi recounted the stories his mother had told. Finding that, telling those stories again, rather than making him sad, made him feel closer, more connected with his mother again.
Miyuki fell asleep, much like Akashi must have done all those times when his mother had told stories.
He was glad the tanuki had decided to stop by.
Realising that he’d just made his first real friend.
Akashi didn’t feel so lonely anymore.