I got a Kitsune Caregiver, but...

Chapter 17: Take Care (Vol. 1 End)

It was a normal day at the office for Nishiki. After a month since meeting and falling into the contract with Tenha. He felt like his life had reached a new level of normalcy. While it was nothing like his life before meeting that fox girl. The man could say it was beginning to feel right living with her. That natural feeling like when a child has lived with their family all their life.

That seemed to be the case as he handed in his paperwork for the day. Usually he would still be swimming in work late into the hour. However, his energy had taken a bit of an upswing lately. Not only that, but instead of not caring for heading home, only to plop himself right into bed. Nishiki began to look forward to it. There was no way he'd tell her that though.

"Oh?" Today was a little bit different as he got off work. This time, he saw Tenha waiting for him in the front. "What are you doing here?" At first, he was worried about how this may look to his coworkers. They all assumed he was a loner because that was the case until recently. So it would be questionable if a little girl showed up randomly at work for him. But then he calmed down when he rationalized the fact she would be invisible.

"What does it look like?" She responded by lifting up a small box before him. "Isn't it nice to have a lovely girl surprising you with food?"

"Wait, my house is fine, right!?" His face turned from one of being pleased to seeing her to that of fear and dismay.

"How dare you insinuate that I'd burn down your house!" She yelled at him, punching him in the chest repeatedly. "Look..." After a quick moment, she calmed down. "The truth is that I... Just wanted to apologize to you about before."

"It was just a misunderstanding." He held no hard feelings about being called a pervert. Considering most of the things she had done since living with him. Calling him mean things was pretty low on the list of wrongdoings. "Say, am I required to eat that to fulfill the contract?" They had been walking on their way home when he was hit with an idea.

"Yeah, or else what's the point of me making it?" She took issue that he apparently didn't want to eat the food she made for him. This time was supposed to be different because she made it with an apology in mind.

"All of it?"

"Ehh, just one bite's enough." She answered. To which he responded by opening up the box to take a good bite. "Geez, you can tell me that it's bad."

"It's really not that bad." He replied, then promptly tossed it into the trash. His actions definitely didn't match up with his words if he was trying to make her feel better. "But I was thinking, maybe we should go out for dinner." And he didn't mean just going out to eat wherever. This time, he was more willing to spend a bit more for something classy.

"Really?" Her ears perked up and tail wagged to-and-fro. "That's a surprise coming from you. Why?" Then her eyes squinted and glared at him.

"I was just thinking. It's been a month since we ended up meeting. So maybe we should celebrate. I know I earned that from surviving you."

"And I deserve a reward for having to serve you." She replied, even though she served him as a means of literal survival and in the hopes of being welcomed back to the spirit world. "All right then! Let's go!" With a surge of energy, she took his arm and allowed him to lead them to a spot he knew would satisfy both their stomachs.

Nishiki took them to a nice restaurant he had not gone to in years. The last time he was here must've been when he first started working at the company. Back then, he had bright eyes for the future. However, since then that light had faded to near complete darkness. Only now did he seem to have found the bottom and began to turn it around.

"It's a good thing I got you cooking for me." He laughed as they enjoyed their time at the table. "It's saved me more money than I ever thought it could." And when he looked at their bill, he swore he would not make a habit about bringing her here. That girl easily ate twice the amount he did. Both in food and on his wallet.

"I knew I was being smart when I picked a guy with some deep pockets." She giggled along with him as Tenha took another bite of the beef she ordered. As funny as it was at the moment to joke about his financial situation. Nishiki wouldn't be laughing come the next morning when he saw how much he spent. But that was for his future self to deal with later. In this moment, he was more preoccupied with enjoying life in the present.

After their fun dinner was finished, the pair found themselves walking late into the night on their way home. It was a familiar route for him, so finding their way to his house would be no trouble. However, this familiar route also led him somewhere he hadn't gone to since meeting her.

"Oh wow." He was in awe to see the shrine he used to pray to everyday after work. The place had weeds growing all over the ground and there was leaves covering the statue. "It's only been a month and it's already this bad?"

"Geez, no one really cares about this place at all." Said Tenha. While it was a place of worship for her kind, she was also in the same boat as everyone else. Everyone else except for Nishiki, who separated from her to approach closer to the shrine. "What are you doing?" She asked, seeing him stand before the statue, clasping his hands.

"Making a prayer." He responded, then got silent.

"I can't believe you're doing it again." She walked up next to him. It was a wonder to her to see someone perform a sacred task in front of something so ruined. To her, it barely resembled anything of importance. "Thought you weren't going to do it again."

"A part of me can't believe it either." He answered when he was finished making his silent prayer. "But, I shouldn't shirk on making my intentions clear." With that, he leaned over and began to brush off the leaves from the statue.

"You're cleaning it too?" She stared at him dumbfounded. The girl couldn't figure out what had gotten into him to cause the man to put in this much work. He didn't have any alcoholic beverages during dinner. "No one cares about this place. You saw what happened to it in just one month."

"Yeah." He chuckled. His work on the leaves allowed him to see the face of the statue. It was of a fox girl not to dissimilar to Tenha's appearance. "If this is the result after just one month of neglect, then no wonder it took me so long the first time. Back then, that must've been the first time in years since anyone took care of it." Nishiki realized how much work it took just to maintain a place like this.

A daily task that required a broom to clear the leaves, someone to bend down to pull the weeds, and even a bit of water to wash the dirt from the face of this stone statue. "It's not easy to keep a place prim and proper, is it?"

"Yeah, and it's not going to be easy to take care of the mess this place already has." Tenha noted how long it would take to restore this place to its former glory. Just one month easily caused a week's worth of work to clean it.

"But it's worth it to restore it to his past glory." He commented, cleaning up a plaque that contained the words, 'Everyday, a struggle'. "I won't be able to do it tonight, but I'll make sure to clean this place after work." Nishiki made up his mind. The man would return to this not so old habit of his. "And I'll get a fair bit done tonight."

"You mean we'll get a fair bit done." She responded by getting down onto her knees and pulling some weeds growing from the cracks in the concrete.

"Really? I thought you didn't care about this place." He asked, now it was his turn to be dumbfounded.

"Just take this as you being lucky I'm moved by those words of yours." She replied. "And don't keep asking questions or I'm going to leave you alone out here."

"Heh, that's exactly what I expect from you." He chuckled and got back to work. The pair would work into the night together. Their group effort would be paid off in time. 

Author's Note: Thanks so much for reading to this point. Haha, I wasn't expecting this story to be at this point if I'm being honest. Originally, this was supposed to be a short story where we'd be wrapping up here, but I think there's more plot to take out of it. I hope you enjoyed reading and hoped you also enjoyed the little lesson that Nishiki learned from his time with Tenha so far. 

Not sure when I'll continue this, but we'll see in the future.