Fox Life

Guilt is a strange thing. Normally, Iris felt guilty for the smallest things, but at the moment, that particular emotion didn't trouble her in the least. Maybe it was because this was a life or death situation?

The woman looked down at her hands, seemingly checking if they would reveal anything. However, they didn't tell her much, for her next words expressed her confusion over what happened.

"I didn't do anything! I was holding it normally like before!"

"Right," Kyro mocked and stroked Iris' fur in a reassuring manner. She whimpered at that, pretending that it still hurt, and began to stand up on shaky legs.

The sight seemed to pain Kyro, for he scooped her up and held in a careful embrace. "Get out and don't show up here again."

"I—" The woman thought to say something, then shook her head and went to the door. "I really didn't mean to scare it into jumping," she said and walked out, closing the door behind herself so it locked up.

"How badly did you hurt yourself?"

Iris cooed at him, lifting her front left paw as if showing it to him. He touched it lightly, and she whimpered with tears in her eyes.

"Right, right. I don't think you broke it, just hurt it a bit. That fall wasn't too bad."

He was trying to make it sound less than she was pretending it was, so she screamed loudly at him, raising her leg closer to his face. 'See, see!' She wasn't sure what he was supposed to see, but maybe he would.

Kyro sighed and patted her head, then went toward the kitchen. From inside the refrigerator, he took a couple berries. "They're cold so you'll have to wait a bit, okay?"

That was logical, but animals didn't really understand the idea of 'waiting for a later date to eat something' so she demanded them now. Besides, he hadn't put those berries in there a long time ago. They've been in the refrigerator for twenty minutes at max.

In the end, Kyro agreed to give her the berries, and they went to watch the TV while waiting for his dinner. Some time before that, Lucifer came over to check on them, and Iris raised her front paw to him, crying in a pitiful voice. She actually had no idea how he would react and just wanted to see if he would run away or tell her to shut up.

But as always, the cat surprised her. Lucifer bent over and sniffed her leg, then licked it a few times. After that, he proceeded to clean her like she was a dirty child having returned from outside.

'Hey!' This wasn't what was supposed to happen. She tried to escape his ministrations, but the cat growled at her menacingly and forced her to stay still. Only when he was satisfied with the state of her fur was she allowed to crawl away.

Iris instantly moved to Kyro, looking at him with accusing eyes. 'Why didn't you save me? You're not me, you can overpower that black monster.'

She wanted to cry. Was this the universe's revenge for her misdeed earlier? It's too soon! She hadn't even gotten to the part of gloating over her achievement of separating the possible lovers before she was punished for it!

╥ ﹏ ╥

Soon, dinner came and Kyro sat down to eat it. Iris in the meantime lay by his side, thinking of a way to pay back Lucifer. Or Kyro. One of them had to suffer for the injustice she had to live through.

All of her fur was wet now, sticking together like she had just jumped out of a pool. It looked and felt weird, and she could smell Lucifer's scent on herself.

But what could she do to either of them, the cat or the person. Lucifer was ten times stronger than her, so it could have to be high level deception, but with the IQ of that cat, she wasn't certain he'd fall for anything she could come up with.

The human in this regard was easier. He considered her a silly pet and so didn't think of her as a real threat. If she came up with a good plan, it wouldn't be too hard to execute it.

However, she didn't have a plan. The simplest choice was to just not use the bathroom, but that was too disgusting. As a once-human, she simply couldn't imagine herself doing that.

She could pretend to be really sick or hurt, but that might result in meeting a vet, and she'd rather avoid it. Should she chew something then? Maybe… but she didn't really want to destroy anything. It sounded kind of too much for a petty revenge scheme, even if the item was not expensive.

'Ech, whatever, it'll come to me.' Sooner or later, she was going to come up with something. And when that time came, Kyro wouldn't be expecting anything. Besides, there's a saying 'revenge is best served cold' for a reason. When she struck, everyone was going to be left amazed.