It’s Richard and Jason again! Read this and this first.
“Drink this,” Jason said, dropping the tea bag in the mug and sliding it to Richard. “It’ll help you feel better.”
Richard played with the tea bag. “I’ll wait for it to cool off, thanks,” he muttered. He slumped back in his chair. “Sheesh,” he breathed, “I’ve never gotten that worn out from writing a story before.”
“Yeah, that’s my fault,” Jason said quietly, avoiding eye contact with Richard.
“What?” Richard said, leaning forward onto the kitchen table. “No, I didn’t mean it like that. It was a lot of fun, I got a lot done…”
“Drink your tea,” Jason said. “You’re tired and you’re starting to slur your words. This’ll give you some of your energy back.”
Richard blew over the top of his mug before taking a sip. “Doesn’t green tea have more caffeine than coffee?”
“Yeah, and you need every bit of it.”
“At ten-o’clock at night? We’ve got school tomorrow.”
Jason sighed and rested his head on the table. “Trust me on this, Richard,” he said to the floor, “just drink the tea.”
Richard took another sip. “What did you mean, ‘it’s my fault’?”
Jason bit his lip and looked up. “All creatures need energy to survive, right?”
“I think that might be oversimpl—”
“Just work with me, here,” Jason said. He was running his thumb along his pointer and middle fingers nervously. “You remember what I am, right?”
Richard smiled slightly. “A shapeshifting, fireball-throwing, two-thousand-five-hundred-seventy-three-year-old fox spirit? Yeah, I remember.”
Jason’s opened his mouth to continue but stopped. “You treat that like it’s nothing,” he said softly.
Richard smiled. “Guess I’ve gotten used to it,” he said. “And it does come in handy sometimes, like today, for example.”
Jason’s face fell. “That’s the problem,” he said. He took a deep breath and continued. “You’re a human, you exist primarily in the physical plane, and for energy you eat.”
“And drink Red Bull,” Richard added with a grin.
Jason didn’t laugh. “On the other hand, I’m a kitsune, I exist primarily in the spiritual plane, and for energy…” He looked Richard in the eye. “I have to get my energy from other people.”
Richard stopped, his jaw hanging open. “So…” he said finally, “while I was writing, you were…”
“Not while you were writing, because you were writing,” Jason said emphatically. “Not all kitsune are like this, but I live off creative energy. If you’re writing a poem, drawing a picture, making music, all of that.”
Richard took a long sip of tea. “But I’ve known you for so long, now,” he said. “How come I’ve never been this drained before?”
“Most of the time I just take a little bit from a lot of people. You’d be surprised at how creative our school is, by the way, given that it’s an academic school.”
“But why today?”
“It’s better if I can get energy from just one person,” Jason continued. “Especially if it’s someone I can trust. Plus, you drink the tea, get a good night’s rest, you’ll wake up tomorrow fit as a button.”
Richard took another sip. “What’s in this tea, anyway?”
Jason grinned. “It’s just green tea…”
Richard raised an eyebrow. “With…?”
Jason shrugged. “Ginseng, aloe vera, citrus extract, crap like that.”
Richard sighed and took another sip. “So what do other kitsune feed off of?”
Jason’s face darkened. “Some feed off of the elements, some feed off emotions, and some…” Jason sighed. “As you remember, there are members of my family I would rather not mention.”
Richard nodded in agreement and finished off his tea. He set the mug down gently and relaxed back into his chair. “That was good.”
Jason smiled. “You’re taking this pretty well.”
Richard shrugged. “Like I said, I’ve gotten used to things like this.”
“Most people don’t.”
Richard leaned forward. “Honestly, Jason, you’re the only person at school I can talk to like this. Most people… sheesh, I’m on such a different level politically, emotionally, religiously…”
“Really?” Jason said. “Your group at lunch seems to have pretty good conversations.”
“‘Seems’ is the operative word,” Richard said. “All we talk about is school, some stuff about life, but… there are times I’m afraid to be myself around them. I’m afraid to say that I don’t like John Kerry, that I don’t really like the idea of getting drunk, that…”
Jason nodded. “You can share experiences, but you can’t show them who you really are.”
“Yeah,” Richard said. “Almost like I’m wearing a disguise all day.”
“Like me.”
Richard looked up, a smile creeping across his face. “It wasn’t coincidence that we met, was it?”
“Nothing is,” Jason said.
Richard nodded and got up. “It’s late,” he said. “You better get home. Do you need a ride to school tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” Jason said, getting his bag from a corner. “I’ll come by around eight-thirty?”
Richard nodded. “G’night, Jason,” he said. “Make sure the door locks behind you.”
Jason shut the door as quietly as he could. It was a little old and in dire need of some WD-40, but it did the job. He glanced at the upstairs window that had just darkened.
“Go home?” Jason said to himself. He laughed at some secret joke and walked around to the back of the house. As quietly as he could, he glanced around to make sure no one was looking and allowed his disguise to fall off. Curling up in a patch of ivy, he buried his muzzle between two of his tails and drifted off to sleep, hoping the neighbors wouldn’t see him and call Animal Control.