Chapter 249 Bakemono
She was silent for the entire short time we were in the subterranean rooms of the lab in question, and for some time afterward when we went upstairs. The family's Sunday dinner was a noisy and warm affair. Sitting at the head of the table, watching the people, and not so much watching them, communicating openly with each other, not trying to play dirty games or weave intrigues on the spot, I felt really at home.
And it was even more pleasant to realize that this house was built only by my hands, not literally, of course, figuratively. Although, if you look at it from the other side, those people were hired for my money, which I earned, and without them there would be no house and no table. Without my effort, my time, my visits to all these places, all these people would have gone on with their lives, not here. None of this would be here if I hadn't done what I did, and that really warms my soul.
To Lizzie and Nanao's right was a skinny teenager who looked to be about thirteen or fourteen, with black, disheveled hair with two white streaks in the hair above his eyebrows. His yellow eyes, with the dilated pupil of a werewolf cat, looked at me with hope and a silent plea, but I wasn't going to "save" him from the attention of the two girlfriends.
Stanley turned out to be quite withdrawn, but "normal" in the sense that his behavior is very similar to that of a human teenager of his age. In fact, he was already more than a hundred years old, the cat had gotten his second tail twenty years ago, and it took him a long time to become a full-fledged human being, who still had to "digest" the memories of the past period of his life. In general, the rebirth of an ordinary beast into a "Bakemono" is a rather vast topic, and I won't go into it now, but I will say that one of the ways of such a metamorphosis is to live a long life, longer than normal.
Stanley was born to the Richards family cat, a very ordinary Muggle cat, when his mistress was seven years old, and he lived with her all her life. He saw her grow up, see her through the war years, see her children come along, see her buried, and then lived with his first owner's daughter for over three decades until he got his second tail and became a Bakemono.
His first and second mistresses disliked noisy company and were never the center of even small gatherings, so Stanley adopted their most conspicuous traits, such as quiet, a reluctance to attract attention, and a habit of observing from a distance and not jumping to conclusions. Lizzie, who had never tried to hide or restrain her active nature, found a similarly restless nature in Nanao, which the cat hid behind a mask of aloofness and laziness.
In fact, Miss Shishi is a fun-loving girl, and her sense of humor is more than okay, but few people can see it behind the eternal "poker face". Here, as they say, "fisherman to fisherman". And when a new tenant appeared in the house in the form of a young cat, they couldn't help but squeeze him, especially since a two-tailed cat understood everything at first sight, but his playful and even hooligan nature demanded a "banquet", so everyone in the house squeezed the boy, and especially these two girlfriends.
And everyone would have played one day and calmed down, if Stanley had not made a fatal, one could say fateful mistake — during the next hug he turned into a man, well, with cat ears on his head and two tails. At that moment I was at home, I had things to do, and I happened to see the whole scene. It was then that I realized the position I was in with an inexperienced cat, and I also decided that I would not prevent him from gaining experience with the fairer sex.
However, then I had a strange conversation with the "parliamentarians", as a result of which I did not understand what they really wanted from me, the only thing I understood was that I seemed to be suspected of having a fetish, but what kind of fetish — it remained a mystery.
I refuse to solve this mystery, and unless the girls themselves bring it up again, I will do my best to erase this half hour of my life from my memory forever. It was probably the strangest conversation I've ever had in my entire life in this world, at least up to this point. What happens next, I don't know, but I really hope it doesn't happen again.
The girls take turns picking on the teenager, trying to embarrass him, stump him, and embarrass him again. Stanley, of course, is trying to keep a straight face, following Nanao's example, but he is not succeeding very well, for the cat does not even blush, but the boy often walks around with a red face, and his ears and tails, which he has not yet learned to hide in human form, unlike Nanao.
Next to them, closer to me, was Kiriko, chatting with Momo, who was sitting opposite the girl, and sometimes they would engage the others in conversation, and no one would push the girls away, which I liked. Further to my left were Afiri and Fleur, who were discussing some tricky air conditioning charms. To be honest, I spent most of my time listening to them, since I didn't know much about what they were discussing.
Further behind them, Kokoro and Maya sat at the table, speaking quietly in Japanese, followed by Gwyneth and Remus. It was worth noting that the werewolf was not trying very hard to woo the woman, and the witch herself was accepting these advances. It all looked very primitive, and even childish, because they were both embarrassed, but they weren't teenagers getting pink cheeks from the touch of their fingers.
But apparently this is the result of upbringing. In general, a good atmosphere, family, warm. As for the second fox, she went with Xeno somewhere near Manchester — there in a small magical village found a flock of some previously unknown to science magical birds, and such an event the man could not miss.
The fox is actively going for the goal, that's why she grabbed the chance with all her paws, fangs and tails. Well, I sincerely wish her luck, because despite her foxy nature and her love of jokes and pranks, she actually turned out to be a good person, hyperactive, yes, but this is the kind of girl who can pull a man out of the cocoon of old grief he lives in after the death of his wife.
I had spent the day at home with my loved ones, but I waited until late in the afternoon and moved by portkey to Greengrass Manor to begin the night's ritual.