Throughout the weekend, Iris lived on hot coals. Every waking moment, she worried that she might return to her human form. It didn't happen for the time being, but for how long would that last? She didn't feel confident in predicting the next transformation and being on time to hide until it went away.
Kyro sensed her agitation, but he wasn't too calm, either. He kept on searching through the bathroom, looking for a way out of it to no avail. His showers became half the length, as if he couldn't stay in that room for a moment longer than absolutely necessary.
It would have been funny if Iris herself didn't have to worry about similar things, just her danger zone was the whole apartment. There was no saying in which place she might transform. And she really had no idea what was the trigger.
The next day, Kyro had given her some leftover strawberries, which she ate with weariness. Nothing happened, though. In the morning, she also checked the time and woke up earlier, but she was still her fox self. There were no changes, so both her suspicions were swiftly dispelled.
'What could it be then?' she wondered while lying on her back on the sofa and staring at the ceiling. At the time, she hadn't touched alcohol, and she had certainly not been blessed with a true-love's kiss.
Lucifer looked down, and she asked him if he knew anything. The cat then looked away, not caring for her troubles.
'But what if I turn back at the most inopportune moment? What then?' she demanded from the cat which didn't even bother to give her a second glance.
"I'll have to go somewhere," Kyro said coming out of the bedroom, dressed casually. "Be good." He patted their heads and disappeared out the door.
For a moment, Iris didn't move, giving him time to return if he forgot something, then dashed like lightning toward his study. Throughout the whole weekend, this was the first time he left home, and she'd been dying to go online and look for any kind of solution to what the hell was happening to her.
Online, she instantly typed in the search words 'turned into a fox', but the results were worse than abysmal. All she saw were fox videos, fanfictions, and general information posts about foxes.
Not a single person was talking about turning into a fox semi-seriously. Not a single one. 'How can that be?' she screamed at the monitor, suddenly angry. Why had no one shared their experiences? If something like this happened to her, then it meant that it had happened to other people, too. She couldn't be such a special snowflake that such a curse would only exist for her.
'Will you write it yourself, then?' a voice in the back of her mind whispered, and her anger evaporated.
She wasn't going to write anything, not in a million years. It would be like opening the gates for never ending mockery. If anyone paid any attention to it, that is. More than likely, her post would just disappear in the recesses of the Internet, not read by a single person.
For a time, she just stared at the monitor, seeing the links that weren't going to take her where she wanted. 'Should I try the fanfictions then? Maybe some of them accidentally touched upon something that could help me?'
Three hours later, Iris was woken up from her trance by the click of the door. 'Kyro's back!' In a flurry, she moved the mouse to turn off the computer, but it wasn't that easy, and her paws were shaking from fear. No way, it couldn't be that he was going to be caught now, so stupidly.
"Iris? Where are you?" he called, obviously surprised not to see her welcoming him by the door.
'Give me a moment,' she pleaded silently, pushing the damn mouse to the turn off symbol. 'There!' she screeched in joy, then realized that it would take a couple moments for everything to turn off and jumped down on the chair then the ground to go and stop Kyro.
She met him by the door of the bedroom and ran a couple circles around his legs, preventing him from moving forward.
"Hm? Had you fallen asleep?" he asked, patting her head.
'Sure, certainly, whatever you say,' she agreed instantly. Right then, anything was fine as long as he didn't go to the study.
"Well, I have some good news for you," he said with a smile, picking her up. 'Oh?' "I'll have some people check out the apartment, and in the meantime we'll go to stay at my parents' house. There's a lot more space there, so I'm sure you'll like it."
'Like it?! I'm not yet ready to meet your parents!'
That was a silly thought, but Iris had never met any guy's parents. She simply weren't good enough friends with any guys to come over to their place, and with her boyfriends, they never came to that phase of the relationship.
'Calm down, girl. You're a fox. As long as you don't change shape, it'll all be fine. All be fin— Like hell it's gonna be fine! That's a death flag waving from a mile away! How could I NOT turn back right in front of his parents in all my naked glory?!
'Universe, what did I do to you that you're making me suffer like this?' she asked on the verge of tears.