Chapter 1 ♥

"A penny for your thought." Yuuma Mori skipped down the tiny stairs and sat himself down beside me on the stairs. He peeled the wrapper off the ice-cream and popped it into my mouth.

"So." I removed the offensive ice-cream from numbing my mouth. "What is life afterlife?"

"Oh. Hold on a sec." He pulled out a tissue from his pocket and wrapped it around the base of the ice-cream before savouring it. "Honest opinion?"

"Yeah". I mumbled as I tied my hair into a ponytail. That summer was the worst. I always thought so for the past fifteen summers of my life. If it wasn't for Mother, I would never come back to this small village. This village doesn't even have any childrens or teenagers left.

A cat strolled past and rolled onto its ginger back under the hot scorching sun. I searched around and plucked the tallest catnip. The cat frozed, staring back at me in apprehension with brown round eyes.

"Afterlife is a place where hideous monsters hide behind too many look-alike fox's masks and sprout tails from all the wrong places with a deadpan expressions on their faces. All this while holding a holy branch to fend off others just in case they got uglier." He answered casually and leaned back with an elbow propped on the wooden stairs.

"That doesn't make sense". I slightly frowned and then giggled when the cat was having fun from my catnip attack.

"And they make you work like a slave. You wouldn't be able to escape because THE CATS WILL GET YOU!" He slowly got into character with his deep voice. My brother was fours years older and he recently got a job as an anime voice actor. He sat up straight all of a sudden and opened his arms wide to prove his point. "ROARRR!"

The cat hissed and scampered away in a hurry. Slightly deflated at the turn of events, I flung the catnip at my brother.

"Careful there." A voice not belonging to either of us spoke up.

Startled, we looked behind. The owner of the tiny grocer sat down on his chair. "That kitty there might tell on you."

I looked at Yuuma. He looked back at me. I don't know.

"Tell who..?"

The owner was plump and had tiny eyes on his smiley face. The heat must be getting to him. He was fanning himself with a worn-out wooden hand fan in addition to the small electric fan beside him.

Ring ring. Our hearts skipped. The owner's landline phone rang loudly. He picked it up and answered. Then he looked at us and passed the phone to me since I was closest.

"Hello?" Puzzled, I answered cautiously. Yuuma was looking at his cellphone and trying to get some signal in.

"WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?!!"

I cringed, effeciently removed the phone from my tender ears and passed it to Yuuma. He answered the phone innocently enough but stood a bit straighter when he learnt who it was and started to apologize. I watched at the interesting exchange and managed to catch bits and pieces of what Mother was conveying.

It didn't sound too healthy to my ears so I tip-toed away and found myself stopping dead in my tracks. My eyes met with a pair of slanted ones from across the dusty lane, behind the tall browning grasses. Something very furry and white with black tainting the tip of his ears. I blinked once and it was gone.

"Hmm.." I murmured.

"A holy fox." The owner smiled at me. "Maybe it was watching you."

As sacrifice for food on the altar. I shivered at the thought and quickly went back inside.

"Ojisan, more ice-cream please."

Hope you like the story so far! :)