Kitsunebi 狐火 || Kemono Jihen

Chapter 10

Chapter 10: Twins

❃

"N-N-Nii-san is...split open! His insides...! His insides...! How gruesome!"

"Oh no, (Y/N), Shiki. Akira's brother's belly has been split open, and his organs are coming out, " Kabane informed.

"It's more unnerving that you thought that was his actual brother and casually told us that his guts spilt out." You shiver.

"Who cares?" Shiki dismissed. "He's talking about his plushie. He named it that because its face looks like his brother's."

"Why don't we have Mihai fix it for him?" Inugami suggested. "The guy hates having nothing to do. If he's not doing anything, he'll probably sew it up." With that, you accompanied Akira and his plushie to Mihai's room with hopes that he'd accept your request.

"You're pretty bold kids, asking me for anything, " Mihai said. "However, at the moment, they're doing server maintenance. I had some time and so I, once known as The Transylvanian Sewing Box, personally fixed it up for you." He handed the now sewed up plushie to Akira.

"Hello. Please give me a name, " It spoke.

"While I was at it, I installed an AI. I mean, I had the time to kill."

"Amazing, amazing! Mihai-san, thank you!" Akira thanked. "Being able to talk to Nii-san is like a dream!" He twirled it around and hugged the AI plushie. "I'm Akira. You're Nii-san."

"OK, Akira."

"But why did you suddenly split open, anyway? I wonder where brother is, and what he's up to right now."

Later that day, Inugami came back with a bunch of large bags. He called you over and of course, the strange bags puzzled you. "Huh?"

"What is this?"

"A request from a sandman's significant other. He had the ill fortune to pass away at the beach, so his remains got mixed up with the sand there. We're supposed to separate him out, " Inugami explained.

"How are we suppose to tell him apart?" Shiki yelled.

"Perseverance. Okay, off you go." And Inugami takes his leave, leaving you with the almost impossible work of separating sand from sand. 'Ah yes, the floor is made of floor.'

"What do we do with this?"

"If we can tell which is the sand, then his remains are everything else, " Kabane stated.

"You make it sound so easy."

"It'll probably take hours," You say

"Oh, what's the use? Guess I'll go get some sand from the beach."

"Okay, you know what? I'm going to–" Akira trips on one of the bags and falls on top of them, spilling the sand everywhere. With everything mixed, the work took even longer than it should have to complete. Akira profusely apologised after that.

"Supper is ready!" Akira called. You sit down at the table with the cup noodles in front of you. Water had already been poured into them so you began eating. You took one slurp and Shiki shouted out.

"It's cold!" He exclaimed.

"Huh? Oh, no! The kettle was unplugged!" Akira held up the electrical kettle.

And day after day, Akira kept messing up with whatever he was doing. Whether it was a mission or just a daily life work, he somehow managed to create more problems. Even that day, you hear him yelp from the kitchen followed by a crashing sound. He had dropped his bowl of noodles.