50 Familial Bonds (11)

After eating a few more crickets, Iris could no longer take it and ran away. This was impossible. She was not meant for this!

Under the bed, she lay in the darkness. Hiding wasn't a way out, but it was her only solution for the moment. Kyro called after her a few times, but she didn't move a muscle.

Even when the doorbell rang and the girl from yesterday came delivering food, she didn't move. The smell from the living room was tantalizing, but her stomach roiled the moment she thought that it was now filled with bugs. There was no way she could put anything in her mouth any time soon.

She was drifting away when Kyro's feet passed the bed and walked into the study. With ears perked up, Iris peeked from under the bed. Was he going to start up his computer? If so, she needed to be by his side, even if she wasn't happy with his latest conduct.

The computer was clearly a good one, for it powered up in the few seconds it took her to dash from the bedroom to the study. Luckily, Kyro heard her scurrying over and didn't rush to type in his password.

"What's up? I thought you weren't happy with me or something." Kyro's words were mild, but his intonation was overly sweet. Iris was certain she was no longer in his good graces.

'I AM not happy,' she told him without preamble. 'I just want your password, so please be nice and show it to me.' However, since her words were in fox language, all he heard were a couple of screams and was then faced with her big innocent eyes staring up at him.

Like most people, he wasn't able to resist the kitten/ puppy power. Her cute expression instantly won him over, and he bent down to pick her up.

'Thanks.' She smiled and jumped up on the desk from his knees and wandered around it, sniffing everything. It was a foreign action to her, but animals seemed to do it an awful lot, so might as well imitate it once in a while.

When she took another step to the side, he started typing, and her eyes locked onto his fingers. 'What in the world are you doing?' she screamed at him, running to his side and jumping on the keyboard. As far as she could tell, he was just punching in random numbers and letters as well as a few extra symbols somewhere in the middle.

To make it even worse, his hand speed was nothing to scoff at. She wasn't certain she saw all the keys he clicked, let alone in which order and for which he used 'shift' to capitalize them or change the symbol.

This was going to take a bit longer than she had expected...

@.@

"Hey! Stop that!"

Kyro dragged her off the keyboard, on which she had stepped a number of times already in her frustration. It wasn't fair that he was this good at this. In retrospect, she should have expected it—what with him being a guy only a bit older than her and interested in games—but she hadn't, and now she was left feeling the fool.

She glared at him, her lips pursed. It'll take her forever to get access to the computer. Was she going to have to become a TV addict like people from her parents' generation?

How shameful!

"What's wrong with you today? You've been acting weird since I've returned," Kyro said while holding her against his chest and stroking her fur.

'Mhm...' Iris relaxed in his hands. Today was showing up to be a day of hardships. Not a single thing had went her way. It was like the universe was conspiring to make all of her efforts go to waste.

Noticing that she had made herself comfortable in his hold, Kyro didn't move her. He pulled the chair closer to the desk and read stuff with one hand, the other occupied with holding a certain fox.

This kind of little thing lifted Iris' mood a bit. Him bringing the insects home might have put her in an awkward position, but he did that out of care. This was even more emphasized by him accepting her right to sleep on his hand, taking possession of it for the evening. Not every person would do that for their pet.

'Fine, I'll try eating those things tomorrow,' she promised him silently. It wasn't something she looked forward to, but it needed to be done for her to remain healthy. Getting sick was the last thing she wanted. Besides, Kyro would worry about her then, and she didn't want that to happen.

It wouldn't be right of her to worry him when he went out of his way for her on so many occasions. Even if he did that just for what he thought was his new exotic pet.