Unexpected Tutoring (Fox)

Nina would be tending her shop as usual chatting to customers and having a few clones cleaning the place, just vacuuming the carpet and tidying the shelves, everything was pretty normal so far, which meant a little boring too. Nina was wanting something interesting, or at least someone interesting to show up, other than her usual adoring fanboys.

Fox was wandering the streets a bit today, not really in the mood to do any real stealing. He'd sort of gotten his fill of that recently, yet even so he did pick a few pockets as he went just to keep in practice. At the very least he knew how to 'read' money now thanks to Adri teaching him what the numbers meant, so he also knew how to read numbers and do math with these characters as well. After all Adri was quite adamant that he learn just how much things were worth!

Currently he was wearing a comfy hoodie (with the hood up to hide his ears of course), a nice baggy set of cargo pants (with his tails wrapped around his waist and enchanted with his illusion magic to look like a belt), and his mask (which was also enchanted to resemble a normal human face that seemed cloaked in perpetual shadow no matter the lighting around him). It was a good disguise, and since he was also wearing gloves and boots it meant he only had to keep the illusions working on his mask and his tails to look pretty normal in this city full of people.

As he discarded another stolen wallet after pocketing the cash he turned a corner and paused as he spotted a shop that simply caught his attention. He had no idea what the main sign said though since it was in English. No, what caught his eye was the colorful displays in the windows and the smaller signs displayed there that just happened to also have writing in Japanese! Fox looked at the displays for a few moments, his eyes literally lighting up for a moment before he brought himself back under control. Then deciding that he had nothing better to do, and certainly nowhere more interesting to be, he decided to enter the shop and look around a bit.

The door had a little bell that chimed as he entered, causing him to pause a moment before continuing further in. He looked all around, trying to take his surroundings in all at once and failing.

"What kind of shop is this? Looks like some sort of book store... but there are toys too." Fox said to himself, distracted by a model of an anime giant robot.

Nina would notice the mysterious looking customer but welcomed him just the same "welcome to kitsune comics~ if you need any help just ask" she said happily. Could this be the piece of excitement that Nina had been waiting for?

Fox's ears twitched under his hood as the owner of the store greeted him, causing him to turn to look at them.

"Kitsune Comics?" Fox asked as he noticed the owner's Kitsune features.

"Wait a sec, are you... are you a Kitsune?" He added, coming closer to her. Yet no matter how close he got the odd shadow obscuring his face didn't seem to clear at all. Of course that was what made his illusions so good. Despite that, it was quite obvious from his voice that he was much more interested in if the owner herself was an actual Kitsune or if this was just some sort of gimmick for the store.

.

"Mhmm, that I am, Nina Vulpes, owner of this shop" she said happily "also yes, the ears and tails are real" she added with a chuckle "yes you can touch them too" she added.

Fox almost stumbled as Nina introduced herself to him, mostly when she said that he could touch her ears or tails!

"That's a bit forward! I mean we just met, and I haven't even introduced myself!" Fox said, obviously flustered by Nina's words. Of course touching a Kitsune's tails was a very big deal where Fox came from.

Nina giggled "alright, well what's your name then?" she asked, even though he was quite mysterious looking, he actually seemed pretty friendly and sweet.

"Well, everyone around here just calls me Fox." He stated, not sure what to do at the moment. It seemed that Nina really was a Kitsune, but he couldn't understand how she could just be so open about it! After all, not all humans were accepting of others. It seemed downright dangerous to him to just advertise that fact, even going so far as to name her store in such a fashion!

"Uh, I should probably mention... that I'm... a Kitsune as well." Fox added, feeling that it would be rude to keep his illusion up in another Kitsune's area. He let his illusion fade from his mask as well as from his tails. As the illusion broke he let his tails uncurl from around his waist and let them wag freely behind him, all nine of them. He slid his mask off as well and stuffed it into one of his pockets before slipping his hood back as well. Admittedly it felt nice to not wear his disguise. Now free of his disguise he smiled at Nina.

"It's a pleasure to meet you. I didn't know there were other Kitsune in this city."

Nina would see him for what he really was and smiled "awwwh you're so cute~" she said happily "it's true there aren't many other kitsune, not that I know of anyway, up until now I thought I was the only one in this city" she told him.

"I thought I was the only one in the city too!" Fox replied, his ears twitching a bit at being called cute. He didn't mind being called cute, it was just that he felt a little conflicted since he thought of Adri as his girlfriend. Still he didn't say anything and just accepted the compliment, smiling right back at Nina.

"Is it really safe to just tell people what you are though? Aren't you afraid of the all the humans? I mean, some are nice and all but there's still a lot of mean ones out there too." Fox said, his voice lowering into a whisper at the last bit. He was still quite wary of humans, well except Adri... because she was super nice to him. In fact it felt a little weird to not be wearing his disguise out in public, though it would have been rude to keep it up in the presence of another Kitsune... especially in their den no less! If there was one thing his parents had taught him about it was proper etiquette among other Kitsune.

"You have a very nice den. So many colorful things, and so many books! Have you read all of them?" Fox asked, his eyes sparkling. It wasn't odd to him if she had read them all, after all every Kitsune had their own tastes. Sort of like dragons Kitsune usually had their own hoards too, only it could be anything with a Kitsune... including books. He wondered if these books were her personal collection.

Nina would chuckle when he asked if it was okay to show herself as a kitsune "of course, being a kitsune helped me get started at this place, and now I own it, with my own army of fanboys, and a few fangirls too" she said smiling "in a certain area of human culture they have this thing called cosplay, and its the act of humans dressing up as their favourite media characters, heroes, villains, animals, so you can get away with looking different here, also there's actual superheroes here too, and they're all different in their own ways" she told him "if anyone is mean to you, it's because they're afraid, or jealous" she added.

Fox then asked if she had read all the books in her store, she shook her head "nah, I just sell them to people, I'm not interested in all of them, I have my own preference in genre" she said calmly.

Fox tilted his head to one side as if he was confused, or simply couldn't believe what he was hearing. Being a Kitsune had helped her get a job here and she owned the place now? She actually owned her own business!?! That was unheard of! Owning a business in a human city! That was the craziest thing he'd ever heard of, and yet it seemed to be true. She didn't even have to disguise herself as a human or anything!

"So humans dress up as non-humans... for fun now?" Fox asked, actually confused about the bit on cosplay. After all he didn't really get to see much when he was stuck inside his little statue. He didn't comment on others being mean to him. He knew that they were afraid of him, even though they didn't need to be. He really doubted it had anything to do with jealousy.

When Nina said that all the books were stuff she sold that seemed to perk Fox back up some.

"If you haven't read them all, then how do you know they're any good to sell? Won't someone be mad at you if they buy a book and it's not any good? I know I'd read them all if I could to make sure everyone only got good stuff, but I can't make head or tails of the weird letters here." Fox said, accidentally letting out that he couldn't read English even though he was quite fluent in speaking it.

Nina smiled at Fox "well they can leaf through the books before they buy them, but most people buy the books here because they're part of a series of books that they like, the next issue of the last book they bought" she told him, she then looked curious when he mentioned he couldn't read "I can always teach you to read English if you like" she said happily.

"You mean the story is too big to fit into one book!?!" Fox said, pretty accurately summing up what she'd said with his own words. He'd never thought that a story could be that long! Then again he'd mainly dealt with oral tradition and a few odd scrolls here and there, nothing that could compare with a long running manga.

Fox was still getting over that little realization when Nina offered to teach him how to read English. His ears stood straight up and his eyes widened and sparkled, his muzzle curling up into a grin of pure joy.

"R-really?" He asked, his nine tails wagging frantically behind him. The thought of being able to read an entire new language of written word seemed to thrill him, but then again Fox had always been a curious little fellow eager to learn new things.