Familial Bonds (13)

Once the fennec calmed down, Kyro turned his eyes on Lucy. "And what do you think you're doing?" It was rare that he forgot to put his leftovers in the refrigerator, but it happened today, and Lucy didn't waste time to snatch them away.

Kyro looked up at the lonely plate on the counter, only a bunch of salad left on it. 'I planned to eat that for breakfast…'

The cat meowed at him while licking its lips. Lucy had made short work of the chicken leg while Kyro was dealing with the crazed fox.

"Can't you at least clean up after yourself?" Kyro picked the bone and threw it into the trashcan, then used a paper towel to clean the floor off grease.

He was tempted to lift the cat by its scruff and give him a lecture, but that would be a useless endeavor. He'd tried it when Lucy just came into his life, and it never worked. The cat just clawed his hands raw and did whatever it had done after. The only way to avoid it was for Kyro to be the smarter one and not leave temptations for Lucy around the room.

A bit tired after the workout, Kyro went to the sofa and leaned back to watch some TV. The news didn't show anything he hadn't heard during the day, so he changed the channel to a movie one and relaxed.

The evening flashed in a blur, and it was time to sleep. When he went to bed, both pets came after him. Lucy curled up by his feet, as was his place, while the fox just lay down randomly.

It seemed really lonesome, so he picked it up and brought closer. "You don't need to be scared I'll roll onto you. If I did that, Lucy would have thrown me off the bed a long time ago."

The fox tilted its head, as if thinking something, then bobbed its head and settled by Kyro. He didn't touch it anymore, knowing that this might annoy it into moving away. From what he knew based on Lucy, animals were fine sleeping by your side, but they wanted to sleep when they wanted to sleep. If you kept disturbing them, they would stand up and move to where they wouldn't be interrupted.

Soon, he fell asleep, and then it was morning with his pets creating a commotion to wake him up. Before, it was only Lucy, who sometimes just left the room when the alarm rang, but the little fox didn't seem to even consider that as an option. This time, Kyro was woken up by a bitten finger as two burning eyes glared at him from a little face with folded up ears.

"Fine!" he told it, slamming the alarm shut while his eyes fell back closed. Why couldn't anyone just let him sleep for a little longer? He didn't get a dog so he wouldn't need to wake up early to go for a walk with it, so why was he being bothered every morning anyway?

The morning routine went by, and he was already by the door, feeling little better than when he had just woken up. As he was about to leave, a small sandy creature stood up with its front feet on his boot and screamed up at him. It was the sound he was coming to recognize as the little fox asking for attention.

"Something wrong?" he asked, bending down to pet it. Once he did so, the fox screamed out again, then took a step back and sat down, satisfied with its actions.

Kyro couldn't help smiling. "I see, I'm not allowed to leave without saying goodbye, is that it?" The fox answered with a happy scream.

"'Kay, 'kay." He promised to not forget it again, and still smiling, left for work. There was nothing important planned for the day, so he looked through the reports on the table and the suggestions by some of the department heads. A few of them were good, so he green-lighted them.

When he was about to call for Lara to take them, his phone rang. It was an unknown number calling his personal phone, not the business one. That couldn't bode well. Instantly, the situation with Frank rose up in his mind. Was this their second move?

"Hello?"

"Are you Kyro?" asked a woman's voice in a tone that said he was going to pay for wasting her time if he wasn't. She sounded exactly like how rich girls were portrayed in the popular media. Just some twenty years older.

With a tight smile, he answered. "Yes."

"Good! I saw the found poster and am coming to pick the fox. Tell me your address."