It's Fine to Fall for You, Right? (Fujiwara no Mokou X Male-reader)

Chapter - 5: 'Professional' Detectives at Work!

Visiting Hidea no Akyuu proved to be mostly fruitless for Keine's investigation. Not like she was expecting a lot out of it anyway. She was back at square one with nothing but observational notes about this evasive man. A bit tedious on her end but she's fine with it. It's manageable.

She doesn't have much of a lead right now and she's slowly getting a tiny bit uncomfortable with spying because of Akyuu's random teasing of all things so there's one other choice. Ask the man himself. A couple of questions would knock that curiosity of her out of the park-- except she tried that before. It was actually her first choice of action when she started. 

The only problem was she didn't have the opportunity to ask, at all. Tried to approach him in a friendly manner, he disappears at the next corner he turns. Knock on his front door, no one was home every time she did. Literally stayed up, screwing her sleeping schedule just to see him come home extremely late at night. 

When she first started her investigation, she was expecting it to just be nothing and she was being a tad bit paranoid. Now? She was super convicted to further press on. It's like he was purposely avoiding her but why? Why was he doing all of this? He's definitely hiding something.  

She sighed, keeping her slow pace amongst the crowd of villagers. 

Until she can finally approach him without him seemingly running away from her, she's going to be stuck where she was. 

With a slightly sour face from frustration, she continues her weekly shopping. Of course, some of the stores where Keine was a regular at questioned why she was acting a little peevish. Her default response was always "Oh, it's nothing much. Just a little under the weather." with a polite smile fastened every time. 

 But as she was about to return home, she stumbles upon another person, or rather kitsune was appearing to be a bit frantic. 

"Ran? Is something wrong?" Keine decided to approach out of concern. The youkai averts her attention to her, waving her hand while smiling.

"No, no, it's nothing. Just Chen disappearing while we go out shopping... again." The blonde fox answered. "And I forgot to bring some catnip on me to lure her back to me so now I'm stuck searching for her... again as well." 

 "Ah, I see..." The historian nodded. The kitsune standing in front of her was pretty well-known in the village, one of the few youkai that can walk in broad daylight in the village without causing any discomfort for the humans. She's been coming in and out of the village over the decades that they simply got used to her. Not to mention she's never shown any form of hostility ever towards them unless provoked that is.

Keine was of course, fairly acquainted with the blue Yakumo. If you pass by the same person for a couple of decades, you'd get fairly close to them. 

 "By any chance have you seen Chen?" Ran asked.

"No, I haven't. I'm sure she'll be fine on her own so you shouldn't be that worried." She assured but the kitsune shook her head.

"I'd rather not be irresponsible and leave her in the dust. As much as Chen can be... difficult at times, I don't have the heart to be cold towards that little cat of mine." 

"Hmmm, you were always kind-hearted." Keine smiled. "I'm sure one of the villagers will find her and turn her up to you. I can help you too if you'd like."    

"Ah no, that would be asking too much of you, Keine." She politely refused. "It's not the first time she's disappeared on me. I think I know where to look-- Ah! Speaking of looking." 

Ran peers behind Keine before walking past her. The half-beast turned around and there he was. The source of her stress and investigation. Just standing a couple of feet away from her with a bakeneko carried piggyback.