Chapter Text
His mom had said the move was long overdue, but Reki wasn't so sure. If it weren't for the twins, he imagined they'd probably have stayed in Okinawa. They were just too rowdy to keep cooped up inside, especially with him and Koyomi going through "growing pains" of their own.
"I should have known that a strictly human life wouldn't work for all my children," Masae had reasoned, when she'd broken the news to Koyomi and Reki.
"But why Canada?" Koyomi asked, being the least thrilled with the fact that they were being uprooted. "Why not somewhere closer? There's houses in the country here too."
"Your father got a better job overseas," she reasoned. "Much better than anything he was offered here. Besides, we would have moved north anyway, where it's colder, so it won't feel any different than that."
"Except everyone speaks a different language," Koyomi sulked.
Reki wasn't sure how to feel about it, truth be told. He wasn't overly attached to his school—he didn't have any friends—and while he did love Okinawa, he wasn't opposed to the idea of something new.
When he was little, he'd dreamt of living out in the country, safe from prying eyes where he could have explored to his heart's content. Yet, that'd never happened. He'd been forced to hide away inside all the time, and find outlets for his energy elsewhere. He'd taken up skateboarding, and gotten pretty good too—even to the point of designing his own boards and starting to learn how to build them. But that kind of skill took a lot of work and practice of the solitary sort.
He wasn't exactly anti-social—he was quite friendly most of the time, really—but he just… didn't have anything in common with his peers. Couldn't relate to them much. Unlike Koyomi, who'd be leaving behind a larger social circle.
But it'd be okay—they were young, like his mom had said, and they'd make "new friends" (that'd mostly been directed at Koyomi). It'd be better for the twins too, who wouldn't have to suffer the confines he and Koyomi had learned to put up with.
New experiences were good, his mother reasoned continuously, as they packed up their lives and shipped it all off across the world. They'd get to use their English skills, she reasoned, forcing them to practice all summer in preparation for their new school. They'd learn to love it, she insisted, even as she fidgeted and paced and showed her fuzzy, pointed brown ears—part of her transformation that she rarely let slip. Unlike Reki, who tended to unintentionally start transforming whenever he was hyper-focused.
So… they left. The house—which had been in his father's family for generations—was closed up and they, with what little hadn't been shipped, got on a plane and moved all the way to Canada. Cochrane, in Alberta, specifically. Well, outside it, rather, but their school was in Cochrane. His father had gotten a job in Calgary, so he'd commute there, while their house was nearly twenty minutes outside of town.
It was a generous plot of land—at least by Reki's standards—being nearly ten acres. It might have been a small farm at one point, but was extremely overgrown now. It abutted a thick, shadowed forest, which then led up into the steep, mountainous horizon. It was cold by Okinawan standards, at least for the end of summer, but Reki didn't mind. He'd long been accustomed to the heat of Okinawa, but that didn't mean he wasn't naturally well-insulated.
The scenery was pretty enough—barren, as they had very few neighbors—but the house was… another story. It was a big old farm house and it clearly needed a lot of work. His father had flown out a month prior to them arriving, and had done a lot of improvements—namely supervising the installation of the new roof and having different contractors/specialists in to fix anything else. It was livable by the time they'd arrived, but hardly presentable. The siding—previously white—was in good shape, apparently, but needed to be repainted. As did the deck that wrapped around two sides of the house. It was a two story, six bedroom home, as the upper level housed four of the bedrooms, while the master and nursery were on the main floor. It had a big kitchen, a dining room, a generous common area, and three bathrooms, two of which were full sized. Yet, all of it needed attention. If it wasn't dated, then it was faded, or chipped, or cracked.
Not exactly a welcoming sight despite how his father had cleaned it up. Yet, his mother assured them she'd have the place fixed up in no time. She, Reki, and Koyomi, anyway, who were drafted into helping wherever they could. Anything that didn't require a contractor, they were doing themselves, from refinishing the old hardwood floors to replacing all the curtains to painting the walls. Which wasn't so bad. Truth be told, Reki didn't mind the work, as it gave him time to ponder the constant view outside the windows.
Koyomi wasn't nearly as interested in the countryside as Reki, which made her more unpleasant all around. But Reki, well… he'd never had access to so much open space before. Sure, it was isolating, and there wasn't much for skating as their driveway was only paved up near the house, but still, it was… new. And scary.
It took Reki nearly a whole month to walk out beyond immediate perimeter into the tall grass, and even then, he wavered. The smells were so strong, and so foreign. There were all kinds of big, strange animals out there, and he didn't know the territories or where was safe. Or where the hunters were. Yet, those childhood dreams of being able to stretch his legs out in the open were beckoning him closer, until his fear was slowly overcome by curiosity.
A week after his fourteenth birthday, he was up early—earlier than anyone else in the house. It was quiet, the dawn still creeping across the sky, and he was restless. He took his skateboard out onto the drive for a while, practicing in the stillness, yet his gaze was constantly drawn to the horizon.
Until, finally, he took in a huffing breath and decided to be brave.
Placing his skateboard on the steps leading up onto the deck, he then stripped down completely. Folding his clothes, he placed them beside his skateboard, knowing his mother would figure where he'd gone once she found them.
He shivered once, unaccustomed to the feel of wind on his bare skin, before he gave a quick shake of his head and, in the midst of it, shrank down into a nimble red fox.
He was bigger as far as foxes went, but still within reasonable size. He was more of a rusty red color—unlike the brownish orange his mother was and that his sister was adopting. His legs were black up to his shoulders and thighs, and white was blended in through his cheeks down under his chin, going full white down his chest. His ears and nose were black, and his long, bushy tail was mixed red and black. All but the paintbrush tip, which was white. Aside from his redder coloring and slightly larger size, there was little about him that would tip anyone off to the fact that he was anything but a normal fox. Well, a Japanese fox, but so long as he kept his distance from people, he doubted anyone would notice he was a long way off from his home country.
Giving his body a quick shake—to puff up his thin summer coat as best he could—he cast the house one final look before slinking off into the tall, dry grass.
Nose to the ground, he sniffed slowly forward, not too intent on getting very far as he was only growing familiar with the local residents of his new territory. Because it was his territory. As his father was just a regular human and his mother more human than fox despite being able to transform, he was the only active, relatively mature werefox in the household. And while he wasn't particularly concerned with other animals, he'd still like to have a good idea of what he was cohabitating with.
As he was unfamiliar with most of the smells, it took him a few days of exploration, digging around, and occasional run-ins to figure everyone out. There were, of course, a number of raccoons scattered around the property. Two of them tried to pick a fight with him, but overall, not a terrible lot. There were a few skunks as well, which he kept well away from. Thankfully, they were easy to avoid, what with the overbearing stench. There were some woodchucks as well, he found, and as they were a bit aggressive, he steered clear. Lots of expected rodents and snakes, birds too. A couple crows followed him around, seemingly keeping an eye on him. A few other foxes had passed through as well, which he did not, admittedly, like very much. So he started marking the edges of what he decided was his, to warn them off. He'd also come across a lot of deer, quite a few moose, a couple of needlessly aggressive geese, and one porcupine, who'd ignored his nosy (and careful) sniffing.
There were scarier scents, though, which usually had him turning tail when they were too fresh. Wolves, for one, and coyotes. Bears on occasion as well, though he wasn't sure if they were an actual danger to him or not. However, much of these scents had grown more distant since his family had moved in, which was comforting.
"You've been out a lot," his mother commented one evening, when he came in long after dark, covered in mud. She'd been leaving a towel out for him, which he wrapped around his bare waist as he stepped into the entryway. His mother was in the kitchen beyond, cleaning up after dinner.
"Yeah," he said, as he wiped his feet on the entry rug, to make sure he didn't track anything in with him. "Just trying to figure everything out."
His mother offered him a small smile as he passed her by, headed for the stairs. "I'm glad, though I do hope you're being careful."
"Always," he assured, offering up a grin of his own.
Beyond the stairs was the living area, where his sister and father were watching television. The twins were on the carpet by the fireplace, half-transformed and wrestling rather loudly.
Turning toward him as he moved around the steps, Koyomi sniffed rudely. "You smell," she said.
Which was fair.
"You'd be the one to know," he countered.
"Don't even start," their father interjected, not even bothering to look up from his book.
Still, he and Koyomi stuck their tongues out at each other, before Reki finally turned to make his way upstairs. He tripped on the way up and nearly lost his towel, which had Koyomi cackling.
He ignored her.
Though his family was certainly curious, none of them were as interested in exploring their surroundings as he was, and so didn't make any efforts to check up on him and his progress. Like his mother, his sister seemed to have a preference for being human. They'd played as pups when they were little, but she'd adopted better social skills than Reki. Again, it wasn't that he was unfriendly—he'd tried to make friends and relate to his peers at school in the early days—but that he simply didn't get along well in that fashion.
That didn't mean he preferred being a fox, however. He didn't feel a specific way about either option, his human side or his fox side. He was both and he didn't really see why he had to pick one or the other. It'd served him to be a human more often than not back in their more urban Okinawan town, as their inherited abilities were to be kept secret, but now that he was allowed to indulge in his fox side, it provided him something else to do when preoccupations were otherwise scarce.
Also, if he left early enough, it meant he didn't have to do housework, as his mother seemed intent on letting him explore the side of himself he'd been barred from back at their old house.
And so, he continued with his exploration, going a little further out every day. Property lines didn't matter when he was a fox, after all. So long as none of their distant neighbors wanted to hunt him down.
It was about two weeks after he'd started his escapades that Reki found himself tracking a new animal that he'd never run across before. Well, most of the animals he'd discovered were types he'd never met before, but after some critical thinking, he'd been able to pinpoint what they were, even the ones he'd been avoiding (like wolves). This scent, however, was strange.
It kind of reminded him of a human, but then, also a dog. But not in the way that a human walking a dog would smell. That is, he couldn't distinguish two scents, but just a singular one that was just… weird. Kind of like how a deer and a moose smelled similar, but still weren't the same.
Curious as to what it could be—as he was running through a mental checklist of all the animals in the area and couldn't narrow down his options—he followed it through the grass, hoping to find a clue. The scent was old, so he wasn't too worried about running into the creature. He'd just follow it till he either found something or got bored.
It was nearing sunset, so he didn't have much time. As a result, he skimmed quickly through the grass, as he was familiar with most of the terrain by then. Well, until he wasn't, as the scent did eventually lead off farther than he'd ever gone. And while it was getting darker all the time, he wasn't particularly worried about finding his way back home (he didn't need to be able to see to accomplish that). Supposing it couldn't hurt, he kept going.
There was a line of pine trees, which he passed through, and then more tall, neglected grass leading up hill. With his nose in the dirt and confident still that the scent was old, he kept going, eventually finding himself sniffing around the base of a large, craggily boulder. Ears perked, nose snuffling, he loitered at the base of the boulder for a moment, following the scent upward.
He had one foot up on the rock when his eyes caught and he froze.
There, sitting cross-legged atop the boulder—which was probably only as tall as Reki's chest when he was a human—was a young man, probably about Reki's own age. Pale, thin, with light, shaggy blue hair and piercing, icy eyes. He was staring down at Reki, unblinking and completely still. He wore only a pair of simple blue jeans and a black turtle-neck sweater.
Shying instinctively at the fact that he'd been seen (how could he not have been?), Reki's ears pinned back along his head and his tail wrapped protectively around his behind. And while he was a bit shocked and unsure about what he should do, his nose worked whether he was thinking about it or not.
The smell was still there. Concentrated, perhaps, but still seeming old. Yet, it was clearly coming off this guy. No people or animals gave off scents that smelled old, though, except—
Ears perking again, Reki came to the shocking realization that this boy had to be a shifter of some kind. It was a masking ability, one that he and all his siblings—his mother too—had when they were in human form. Giving off their fox smells would be too potent, even to human nostrils, and so they had a built-in defense when they were humans that masked that part of their scent, making it unnoticeable to people. But animals could usually tell there was something off about them, and Reki knew from smelling his sisters when they were humans that it oftentimes came across as if their odors were stale. His own too, he supposed.
But this boy didn't smell like a fox. A canine of some kind, sure, but still different, which was why Reki hadn't realized what he was. He still didn't know, aside from the growing certainty that as far as being able to transform, there was something the same about them.
Finally, the boy blinked, still possessing an unnatural stillness that was the usual trademark of animals.
Just more evidence.
Dropping his submissive posturing, Reki again sniffed blatantly at the air and settled both paws on the rock, pushing himself up even as the boy kept watching him.
Truth be told, he was excited. He'd never met a shifter outside his own family before. While he knew they existed rarely in the far reaching parts of the world, he'd never imagined meeting one. Especially by chance. His own family was one of only three remaining fox lines in all of Japan, whose numbers were still dwindling every generation.
Heart flipping, he dared be brave, hoping that—as this boy was dressed in a modern, civilized manner—he wouldn't be aggressive. He didn't smell aggressive, instead merely cocking his pretty head as Reki continued to unabashedly sniff the air.
Jumping fully up onto the boulder, Reki retained the expected hesitance of a wild fox, supposing that trotting up eagerly might be a bit startling. Still, he kept moving, slinking closer and eventually managing to sniff around the boy's folded knee. The boy, to his credit, didn't try to reach out and touch him, instead remaining as still and quiet as he had been when Reki had first arrived.
That didn't stop him from speaking, however.
"You're a brave one," he muttered, his voice light and soft and generally unthreatening, yet Reki still crouched in alarm at the sound of it. Mostly out of instinctive surprise. "Most animals stay away from me."
Finally, the boy moved, but only to hold the flat of his hand out for Reki to sniff. Which he did, his nose dusting the boy's fingertips as he dared straighten back up from his previous crouch.
"You must be used to people," he went on to say. "That could be dangerous, you know."
It was Reki's turn to be curious. Couldn't this boy smell that he wasn't a normal fox? Certainly he smelled more akin to a fox when in his fox form, but he was still off comparatively. Unless this boy didn't know what a fox smelled like? But if he lived nearby and was also a shifter, that seemed unlikely…
Weird.
"Well, stay on this side of the fields and don't cross the road," the boy continued. "They might hunt you down over there."
Good to know.
Though he was hesitant, the boy did turn his hand over and, very slowly, reach out to touch Reki's head. Which was fine. He didn't shy back, allowing the boy to gently pet between his ears before he even went so far as to rub behind one. Which Reki leaned into, sitting down on the rock and settling himself more firmly into place.
"You have to be a pet or something," the boy said.
No, just part human.
"I don't think there's a fox rescue around here…"
He had no clue.
Reki supposed he could transform, but then he'd be a naked human and that would probably be awkward for everyone. Besides, maybe this boy wasn't a shifter, as he didn't recognize Reki for what he was. Perhaps he simply carried an old gene, but couldn't transform. In that case, he might not be sensitive to the need for secrecy, or could even be completely oblivious to the existence of such abilities.
Reki would have to feel out the situation a while longer. The boy clearly didn't want to hurt him though, so that was good.
Tail whipping back and forth behind him—wagging, as it were—Reki opened his mouth a released a series of chatters. A little like chirping laughter, his mouth held open. Before he jumped up, whipped around once in a circle, and then crouched back down in place again. Mouth open, he chattered some more.
Maybe, if he could get the other boy to play, he'd transform too. Then Reki would know for sure what he was dealing with.
"You want to play with me?" the boy asked, having caught on to that quickly enough.
Reki chattered more, his chirping changing more fully into a sort of laugh, his tail still whipping back and forth.
"Foxes make such weird noises," the boy muttered, which had Reki going silent because, rude. "Sorry," the boy added quickly.
Reki supposed that would do, and he chattered some more.
"You're strange," he added, daring to reach out and scratch behind Reki's ear again. "You have to belong to someone."
Flopping down on his side, Reki pawed lightly at the boy's hand, the two of them batting at each other only shortly as Reki continued to offer up friendly chatter. He was starting to believe that maybe this boy really couldn't change into anything, which was… disappointing. But still, he was nice, and if they were around the same age, then they probably went to the same school.
He had to live nearby too, if he was way out here.
"I guess I should check facebook or something to see if anyone's looking for a missing fox. Probably wouldn't be a hard thing to find out."
Nothing to find out, but whatever.
Above them, the sky was getting darker and darker, the sun having long set beneath the horizon.
"I have to head home soon," the boy said quietly, scratching at Reki's chest as Reki kept up his laughing chatter. "You should go home too."
Reki remained where he was. The scratches felt good anyway.
"Unless you wanna come back with me," the boy offered.
Pass, though Reki might follow him far enough to figure out where he lived.
They stayed on the rock a little while longer, the boy petting and playing lightly with him. Eventually, though, the darkness fully closed in around them, inspiring the boy to give into a huffing breath and announce he should be "heading back."
Jumping to his feet, Reki jogged quickly down off the rock and ran in a tight circle, tail wagging and his whining chatters coming out alongside his panting breath. The boy climbed down shortly after as well, still watching him as he patted down his pants.
"It was nice meeting you anyway," he said as he bent down and rubbed Reki's ear. He then stood and walked off going east, Reki's body hunched as he slunk after him. "You're coming too?"
Reki released a laughing titter.
"Alright, I guess," the boy decided. "But I don't think my mom will let you in the house."
That was fine—Reki didn't really want to go into any house, just so long as he could figure out where it was.
So, they set off, the boy shoving his hands into his pockets as Reki jogged just behind him. He jumped through the tall grass a few times—just because he could—and stayed close to his new friend the entire way. It took them about fifteen minutes, but they did eventually end up on a bank leading down into a patchy dirt yard, beyond which was a small cabin.
The lights were on in the windows and Reki could smell another human around. Female, older. No evidence of the same strangeness that permeated the boy's odor.
Skulking down the bank, Reki remained hunched as they broke free of the grass and approached the house. He didn't want to get too close—too many humans around was a bad idea—but he did get a good look at the place, finding that it was well kept if not even more isolated than his own house.
A couple of mounted outside lights flicked on as the boy got closer, motion sensitive perhaps, which had Reki pausing. Probably best not to get any closer.
"I didn't think you'd come this close," the boy said as he turned to him. "Are you used to houses?"
Behind him, the back door swung open.
"Oh, Langa, you're back." A thin, Asian women with brown hair and eyes. She was very pretty and resembled the boy some in the face. His mother, Reki figured. "I was just coming out to check what triggered the li—Is that a fox?"
Slouching, Reki chattered warningly.
"Yeah, it followed me home."
Despite how ludicrous such a claim had to be, the woman didn't appear surprised. "You haven't dragged any animals home since you were a kid." She sounded almost accusing.
"I didn't drag it, it followed me," the boy—"Langa"—repeated.
His mother didn't look wholly convinced.
Reki, however, decided that he'd probably stayed long enough. Time to stop acting like an oddity and like the fox he was supposed to be.
Offering up a last whining bark, he skittered back.
"Oh," he heard the boy say. "Bye then, I guess."
Pausing to turn back, Reki chattered only quickly, before hunkering back off into the grass and brush. Based on where they'd ended up, Reki supposed this "Langa" and his mother must be the closest thing he and his family had to neighbors. Though they couldn't see each other's houses from one or the other, and there was probably a length of thirty or so acres between them, it was good to know that someone around Reki's age lived nearby. Maybe the boy couldn't change into anything, but that didn't mean Reki couldn't try being friends with him as a human.
Though, before that, he'd have to devise a plan to meet him all over again.