31 The Journal (2)

Iris was bored, utterly and thoroughly so. She stared at the ceiling, but she had already counted every dot on it in the last hour. Disappointed, she rolled over and glared at the door. What had gotten into him to lock her into this small space? What was she to do here?

The only saving grace might be his computer, but she didn't know his password yet! The computer was nothing but a lump of plastic and worthless machinery to her for the time being. Without a password, it was beyond useless.

Who would've known that having nothing to do could be so unbearably boring? And the worst part of it was that she had no options. As a human, she could just go online, watch TV, go outside - do anything she came up with. Even if she was bored, she had options. They weren't too enticing at that moment, but at least she could pass the time.

Now, however, she could only sleep or climb walls. That was all her options consisted of.

Well, there were the couple toys on the ground, but they didn't seem interesting, not when she was alone anyway. What was the point of acting the fool if it wasn't to amuse someone? Without audience, the whole meaning was lost.

Maybe she should train? Now that Kyro was away, she could learn the motor skills of a fox? Walking was simple, but she still had no idea of how fast she could move or how high her jumps were. Her ability to pounce could also be improved.

Since that last one sounded the most fun, Iris brought out the toy mouse and walked away from it. When she thought she was a good distance away, she turned and pounced. On her way, she scratched the mouse with her front legs, but her jump was too great, and she went past. Due to her expecting to grab the mouse, her feet were in the wrong position, and instead of landing on her feet, she rolled over her head, landing in a messy heap.

'That probably doesn't happen to real foxes,' she mused, untangling herself. Her shoulder ached a bit from the uncomfortable fall, but it wasn't too bad. 'This needs a bit more calculation to it…'

For the next half an hour, she practiced her pounces. It was hard to say why she needed that, but it seemed like a skill any animal should possess, and since she now had to live as one…

Besides, it made the time pass swifter. Her boredom was alleviated for at least half an hour.

But just half an hour. Then she was bored again, and tired, so physical activities were out of the question. With a frown, she made her way into the study. Maybe there would be something there besides the computer?

How could she have forgotten it? There were dozens of books in the shelves! As a human, she wasn't too fond of books, but now, reading sounded like a blessing. If she could only find something of interest here.

The bottom row was no good. It had volumes on business theory, marketing, and other stuff she didn't know and didn't want to know. All of these looked like books from someone's university classes, and as bored as Iris was, it wasn't bad enough for her to touch these. Even recounting the dots on the ceiling would be more interesting than this.

The second row was little better, but one book caught Iris' attention. It wasn't a book per see but a journal. Her eyes lit up. Had she stumbled upon his diary? Even if it was an old one—she didn't see him writing anything during Friday evening or the weekend, so it was doubtful he kept one now—it would still reveal a lot of secrets. She could find out the kind of person he really was!

It showed up to be harder to get the book out than Iris had expected. Her inability to do the simplest tasks still caught her off guard, again and again. Just how long would it take for her to forget that she was human once and start seeing herself as a fox?

Like right now, she wanted to just pick the book and start reading, but she was too small to reach the second row of the shelf. The book's top was no higher than half a meter from the ground—as a human she would have even needed to bend down to get it out—but now, it might as well have been twenty meters up. She simply couldn't reach it even if she stood up on her hind legs.

But wallowing in misery wasn't her way of doing things. If one way was blocked, then she had to think of another. It was that simple.

After a short consideration, she decided that Kyro would probably forgive her for a mess. So she begun pulling out the books in the bottom row. They were thick and heavy, so the task wasn't easy, but Iris managed to get a couple of them out.

With this, she began building a pile. Of one book. Apparently, putting one thick book over another was beyond her baby fox capabilities. Whatever, at least that single one was a very thick book, some thousand plus pages.

While standing on it, Iris could somewhat reach the second row. It was packed with books though, and she couldn't reach their top to pull them out like that. Thus, she located the thinnest book and bit into its spine. Her teeth slipped and ached at the pressure, but she didn't give up.

This was all for an important revelation! There was nothing more revealing than somebody's diary of their younger years. Her mouth watered just thinking of how much dirt she'd gain on Kyro from it.

Her hard work bore fruit soon. The book fell, and Iris with it. Shaking her head, she swiftly moved back onto her stand and located the diary. It was the thickness of two fingers, so she couldn't have dragged it out while it was squashed between other books, but now… now was her chance.

She rubbed her imaginary hands as her eyes shone with a mischievous glint. 'Kyro, let's see who you were before, shall we?'