My Angel

A Father

At first, it was but curiosity...

The fox stood on the traffic light pole, her nine tails whipping with the wind behind her as she stared off at the horizon where snowflakes dropped from the sky slowly, performing a synchronized dance among themselves.

The moment she looked down at the people passing right beneath her, their eyes met. She glimpsed those purple large eyes staring right at her, as though they could see her. But that was far from possible, humans could never see them, that was the way they were made.

However, when their eyes met, the kid looked away from her nervously as though caught doing something offending. " Hurry up!" The woman she presumed was his mother took his hand and dragged him along as they crossed the street. And for a moment, she thought he had looked back at her.

Kyubi then wondered for a while, was it her imagination, or was the kid able to see her for real? Her curiosity got the best of her and, she spent the whole week searching for him. Only to find him one day in daycare, crouching right at the far-away corner of the playground while the rest of the kids were laughing and cackling as they played tag together.

Kyubi landed beside him and the kid looked back at her. He jolted in fear and hid his head between his arms as if that was going to help him hide from her.

At that moment, it became clear to her, that the boy could see her without any doubt.

" Look, he's doing it again..."

" Does that mean something is there..."

" That's freaking scary, maybe we shouldn't go near him..."

She looked at the caretakers whispering about him. And the boy merely kept trembling.

" Relax, I'm not here to harm you." But it didn't seem her words got through to him for he lowered his head even more, not wanting to face her even by mistake. And when the bell rang, he rushed back to the building.

Kyubi however couldn't overcome her curiosity. She kept watching over him both at daycare and the nearby playground. And at both, he was always the outcast who sat down at the corner, doodling on the ground.

One day, she approached him as he sat down to a tree and used a twig to draw something on the sand. He flinched when Kyubi's shadow fell upon him.

The fox looked down at the drawing, it was of her, though poorly drawn, but the nine tails were a given sign. " You definitely can see me. How astonishing."

Yuu hugged his knees tighter and lowered his head. " Mom says I shouldn't be talking to you... my parents don't like it when I see you... "

" I see. So that's why everyone else is avoiding you too." The boy nodded. " Then why come here if you don't have someone to play around with?"

Yuu clutched the twig tightly in his hand. " Because it's better than home."

Kyubi didn't know why, maybe it was out of pity at that point, but she frequented that park ever since.

" It would be better if you spend as much time with people as you spend with me." She told the boy as he came to her hiding spot as per usual. The boy merely shrugged as he looked away. Back then, Kyubi couldn't wish for anything more than for Yuu to make friends.

A year passed by. And the boy grew. And so did their bond...

...

" You will catch your death here." She told him once finding him huddled in her cave on a snowy day.