I wiggled my toes where I sat on the thin cushion and took a slight breath to take in the scents of fragrance wood, boiling water, and powdered matcha. We were in a room with tatami flooring that was mostly used for ceremonies like this, and I was waiting for Wored, my adoptive father, to start the story.

My father noticed my wiggling; I could tell from the flickering of his fox ears atop his long, black hair, but he said nothing about it.

“Your mother had dark brown hair and a pale face,” he said instead as he ritually cleansed the tools that would be used for the tea ceremony.

We weren’t supposed to talk about anything other than the ceremony, to separate the ceremony from our daily lives, but my father had chosen to use these ceremonies to tell me about my biological mother. It was a way to keep me interested in the ceremony itself, and it was working.

I watched carefully as he wiped the tools with a silk fukusa cloth. The motions were controlled and graceful. They were already clean, of course. This was just a show of keeping up utmost hygiene standards.

He then folded the cloth in a complicated pattern and started to whisk a thick matcha tea in the tea bowl using a bamboo whisk called a chasen as he continued the story. “That day, she was running with you in her arms.”

***

“Wored! Wored! Kago…kago mıde! Come…come here!”

Wored appeared in front of my mother right away. My grandmother had saved him from some hunters while still in his mother’s belly, and had raised him like her own child, so he had vowed to protect her and her descendants from harm.

They were in the forest my mother and I used to live in and my mother’s face was even paler than usual. Her clothes were dirty, and I was crying.

“Sıd huhua? What happened?” Wored asked.

“Wored!” my mother said with a sigh of relief. She tried to hand me to Wored. “Sı nanuw kaşte. Take my baby.”

Wored hesitated. “Sıd-sıd paye? Wh-why?”

Then they heard someone yelling.

“Wudı! Wudı, wıs! Witch! Witch, stop there!”

My mother looked behind to the source of the voice and turned back to Wored in a hurry. “Psınce! Quickly!”

Wored took me, but he took a step towards the noise. He was going to do something about this.

However, my mother stopped him. “Wumış’e! Don’t!”

Wored was confused. Why was she stopping him?

He turned to my mother. “Nesü- But-”

My mother shook her head. “Kwedıy, sı nanuw kaşte. Just, take my baby.”

“Wudı! Kago mıde! Witch! Come here!”

The voices were closing in, and I was still crying.

Wored nodded and asked, “Ar yi’zer sıt? What’s her name?”

My mother smiled. “Maze. Ar dewu yepl, Wored. Maze. Take care of her, Wored.”

Wored nodded and disappeared with me in his arms.

***

“That was the last time I saw your mother,” Wored finished as he placed the frothy tea in front of me.

“Thank you for making tea,” I said as I received it. I took care not to let my hands shake as I raised the bowl in my hands, holding it just so.

The tea was bitter, but it was a familiar bitterness. It was the bitterness of my nonexistent memories of my mother and of my hatred for humans.

Because I knew Wored had stayed to watch until my mother died, and I knew those humans were the reason for it, even though he would never tell me so.

I could imagine what they had done to her, and so I hated them.

I hated them so.

After the tea ceremony was over, I thanked my father for his instructions and left the tatami-laid room. I rushed to the woods surrounding our village, to see a certain someone.

“Maze?”

The voice came out of nowhere, just like the owner of the voice, but I wasn’t startled.

I knew he was close by because I could feel his presence thanks to the promise ring on my right pinky finger. It wasn’t a real ring, more of a red, ring-like mark, but its implications were as real as my soul in this body—we had a promise between us.

I looked at the black-and-white-haired teen kitsune. His hair was short unlike most kitsune, who liked to keep it at least at chin length because hair had power in it.

He didn’t need it. He was already a nibi—two-tailed kitsune—from birth, and that meant he was stronger than those his age.

It had caused him to be bullied as a cub and had led to our meeting—for which I would always be grateful.

He was one of my few friends, after all.

“Kon, I was looking for you,” I said to him with a shaky grin. Then I pursed my lips to stop them from trembling more.

Kon frowned and then gestured, with both hands to be polite, in the direction of the clearing in the middle of the forest. “Would you like to spar?”

I took a deep breath as I nodded. “Yes, please.”

I wanted this weird energy out of my body, and training was the best way to do it.

***

After about an hour, I didn’t have the kimono on me anymore; instead, I was wearing only the pair of comfortable hakama pants that were green like my eyes. My chest was bound with white, traditional sarashi, and I was wearing red zori sandals that had a tighter fit than normal sandals.

And I was still losing.

I shook my head to get strands of light brown hair out of my face, huffed at Kon, and pushed myself off the dirt ground with my hands, jumping to my feet.

The bitterness of the tea, and the memories, were behind me as I said, “Again.”

Kon grinned. Of course, he would only be emotionally expressive in times like these. He hated to lose as much as I did and was making sure I would be the one to taste defeat.

Well, I would be making sure that didn’t happen. Not again. Please.

We circled each other, looking for openings as we moved with the practiced, graceful movements of two warriors.

Something rustled in a tree then, and Kon’s ear flicked towards it—which was enough of an opening for me.

I rushed to him, and when he turned his attention to me, I blew a cloud of dirt I had been hiding in my hands, right at his deep blue eyes.

Then, taking advantage of the bigger opening I had created, I grabbed his collar and threw him over my shoulder.

He groaned as he made contact with the ground, and I grinned down at him, with my hands still holding his arm and collar.

“Again?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

He chuckled as he squinted his eyes at me. “I’m glad that you feel better now.”

I let go of him and watched as he fluttered his eyelids, trying to get the dirt out of his eyes.

“I see you liked the surprise attack,” I commented as I handed him a water bottle.

He smiled and nodded his thanks as he received the bottle. He was already retreating into his shell, and, while I didn’t like it, I was used to it.

It didn’t make it any less difficult to watch, however. Oh, how I hated those kitsune who had bullied him, and me.

“I have an idea,” I said suddenly, and I think I had a wicked smile on my face as I said it—because Kon looked both intrigued and worried as he looked at me.

“Okay,” I said as I wiped my hands on my hakama—big no-no but they were already dirty from being thrown around so much so I didn’t care. “Here’s the plan—oh, stop raising your eyebrow at me!”

***

We picked the appropriate herbs from the forest until sunset and returned to our homes just in time for dinner.

Hitomaru, my father’s only cub other than me, was in the kitchen, and helping my father when I arrived.

“Sorry, I’m late!” I called out as I removed my sandals at the entrance. I was wearing the top part of the ceremonial dress like a jacket over my green hakama.

“Welcome home!” Hitomaru called back out to me, but he didn’t leave my father’s side. “We’re in the kitchen!”

He was a total Daddy’s boy, yes, he was, even though he was all grown up now and working as a doctor in our village.

I chuckled as I replied, “I know, onii-san!”

I peeked into the kitchen with a big smile on my face. “Is there enough space for me, or should I make myself presentable before I join you two?”

My father wrinkled his nose at me, but his expression was soft. He wasn’t angry, not really. Just worried. He was tolerant but he was still a father and fathers worried when you spent the day half-naked in the forest with a boy, even if that boy was your best friend. “Go take a bath before you drag dirt into the kitchen.”

I gasped with a hand over my heart. “Otou-san, you wound me! And I already had wounds! See?”

I showed him a scratch on my elbow that was from Kon throwing me too hard one time.

My older brother’s shoulders trembled with silent chuckles as my father huffed gently. “That’s nothing, I’m sure you gave him even larger wounds.”

I grinned. “I did.”

“Okay, go have your bath now. Nyeko! Off you go!”

My father liked to use my native tongue, Adigabze, with me from time to time to make sure I never forgot it.

“Arı, sıate! Yes, father!” I replied, the language feeling familiar and strange all at once to my lips, and left for the bathroom.

***

“Itadakimasu, Let’s eat,” we said as we clapped our hands together.

Then, our father said, “Dozo, please, eat.”

The meal consisted of boiled chicken and wild berries. Simple, but delicious.

I couldn’t focus on the meal, however, as I was focused on the prank we were going to pull tonight, and my father noticed.

I was grinning as I chewed on some chicken when I heard my older brother clear his throat. I looked at him questioningly when I noticed our father looking at me intently, watching the way I was grinning.

I stopped grinning.

“Uhm, excuse me,” I said as I dabbed at my mouth with a napkin. My face was scarlet red at the thought of chewing through my table manners as I did with the chicken.

Now, I wasn’t someone who cared about manners much, but that was when I was in a fight. It was completely different when I was consuming the hard-earned food prepared by my family’s hands. At least, it should have been.

“I am sorry,” I mumbled again, looking down at my hands in my lap.

Then I heard a chuckle.

“Now, now. You’re forgiven,” my father said, but my relief was short-lived because he continued with a raised eyebrow. “Under the condition that you tell me what you were smiling about.”

Poo.

I didn’t want to tell him—he would definitely stop us from doing it, but when I looked into his eyes, I saw that I had no choice.

“…air.”

“Excuse me?”

“I was going to shave his hair,” I muttered, and after a few seconds of silence, my father let out a peal of laughter.

I smiled, beginning to relax, but the interrogation wasn’t over.

“Whose hair?”

“The leader of the kitsune who bullied me as a cub,” I said, starting to pout. I left Kon out of the equation because I didn’t want my father to punish him as well.

However, my father was clever.

“And you were going to do it on your own?” he asked and continued before I could say anything. “Don’t forget that I can smell it when you lie.”

I looked him in the eyes and lied. “I was going to do it on my own.”

My older brother raised an eyebrow at that.

“Well, I guess we know who you’re protecting,” my father mumbled to nobody in particular, and I bit my bottom lip, refusing to say more.

Then I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up to see my father smile mischievously at me.

Yes, he was a kitsune, too.

“Don’t be late, you two.”

And my grin was back in place.

“We won’t.”