145 Parental Pressure (12)

In no time, most of the week was already over. While returning home on Friday, Kyro couldn't help thinking about what his current life had become. Not only had his parents come to stay with him and kept badgering him about getting a girlfriend every single day to the point he considered just not coming back home for a time, he also had a fox that wasn't a fox.

At first, he'd thought that the girl changing back into the fennec would end up as a disaster, but nothing of the sort happened. Even though he now knew the truth, they had only needed a single day to fall back into the old habits.

Was that good or bad? He could no longer tell.

When he returned home, his mother was already standing next to the door. "Hurry, hurry, go get ready! You can't be late!"

Her enthusiasm didn't rub off on him, however. Not a single part of him wished to go to that damn party. It was a waste of time, and he'd rather spend it watching the girl playing with Lucy. This would at least have some entertainment value.

He got ready in some twenty minutes, but there were still two hours till Julia's party would start, so he went to sit at his computer. The girl came running over and jumped on his knees then the table and lay down so she could see the screen.

"Why are you here? Wasn't your dedication before only to learn my password?" he asked. It was actually quite amusing how hard she had worked to be able to use his computer. Before he had wondered why the fox so interested in his keyboard, but now he knew better.

She had been simply trying to steal his password.

Yet even though she knew it, she kept coming to watch him every single time he turned on computer like it was her life's mission. "Are you afraid I'll change the password while you're not looking?"

The girl raised her head and shook it. She stood up and he let her go to the keyboard. As always, her message was short and to the point. [No. type fast. envy]

That was… Kyro wasn't certain what to think. He looked at her, then the keyboard, and double-checked he'd gotten it right, "You're envious of my typing speed?"

She nodded emphatically, watching his fingers like a hawk its prey. Without thinking, he pulled them away from her reach, and the fox made a sound that could only be a laugh. Her gaze then told him that he was acting silly.

"You're scary, what can I do," he said with a laugh and patted her head. She leaned into his touch, then made a grab for his fingers when he was about to pull back his hand.

Her action was only an imitation of an attack, so he escaped unscathed, and she lay down once again, watching him with bright eyes.

At that moment, a heavy weight dropped on Kyro legs, and he looked down to see Lucy demanding attention. The cat was clearly unhappy to not have been invited to this meeting between the apartment's true inhabitants.

Kyro scratched Lucy's ears, then stroked his fur, which resulted in a delighted purr. Although Lucy didn't avoid Kyro's parents, the cat didn't like them too much, either. Because of this, he became a shadow in the house. Kyro saw him only when he went to sleep, and even then not always.

While he thought about that, mom entered his room and set off to lecture him about keeping himself clean of cat hair. Her words were sharp, but he didn't put them to heart. From what he'd learned so far, his age didn't matter regarding whether he'll get lectured by her or not. He was pretty sure that even when he neared fifty she would still be teaching him about how to take care of himself like when he was eight.

"Hurry up and get changed! The party is about to start and you can't be late!"

A look at the clock told Kyro that were still almost two hours and he only needed twenty minutes to get to the villa. Despite that, he stood up and cleaned his trousers of cat hair before leaving in a hurry. If he heard another lecture, he was going to go crazy.

Maybe distance did make the heart grow fonder. Mom hadn't been acting like that when he came back to them only for a couple days every couple months.

In his car, he took out his phone and called Gale. "Are you free today?"

"Mostly, why?"

"There's a party I have to attend, and I need some sane company."

"Sane?" Gale laughed. "You sure? I think you just want to have a free evening while I get swarmed by all the girls that were collected for you."

"Will you refuse?"

"Certainly not. Tell me the address and I'll be there. You might not survive till morning if I let you go there alone."

"Thanks for being so concerned about my safety."

His words dripped with sarcasm, but he was thankful that Gale agreed. With him around, all the girls would flock to him, and Kyro would be left mostly alone. He had no patience or interest to play with high school girls. For Gale it was a fun game to see how many he could charm in one go, even if nothing came out of it, but Kyro didn't enjoy such pointless interactions.

Even though he had agreed to go so his parents wouldn't worry so much about him, he wasn't going to play by the rules. He might go, but he would bring someone along that would take up the spotlight in place of him. Like this, he might make it through the evening without wishing to blast the whole villa into outer space.