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He thinks little of you upon your first meeting.
Newcomers are a rarity in Ebisugaoka, and while you certainly stick out like a sore thumb in the dwindling sea of familiar faces, there’s nothing particularly interesting about you. The fox bears you no mind for quite a long time, only briefly taking note of you whenever you happen to be in his vicinity.
That is, until he begins to notice one of his long-forgotten shrines, smaller than most and tucked away off the mountain path, has begun to receive offerings again. It isn’t Shu’s doing - the boy had departed from the village years ago - but the scent that clings to the gifts is a familiar one, one the fox has grown to recognize over the weeks since your arrival.
Despite his certainty, the fox waits beside the shrine for another day and a half until you come strolling down the path, a rucksack on your back and a small bundle wrapped in patterned cloth cradled in your palm.
The fox makes no attempt to hide as you approach, tail swishing gently over the earth. You slow to a stop as you spot his crimson coat, surprised to see him, before a slow smile begins to spread along your lips.
“My, aren’t you a handsome fox?” you croon gently, not daring to approach him, but kneeling so that your eyes are level with his. From your neck dangles the strap of a camera, he notices, cementing your status as a tourist to these lands, though the fox cannot imagine what might have led you to Ebisugaoka. Any wonders that may have existed in this place have long since vanished or been worn away by time and strife, as are all things.
Still, the fox finds himself preening at your praise. It has been years, he recalls, since anyone had paid him the respect he deserves. “This must be your shrine, hmm?” you continue, gesturing to the worn shrine and the detritus of past gifts strewn about its surface: a gleaming five-yen coin, a satchel of high-quality tea, a flower plucked from the path. “I hope you’ve been enjoying my offerings.”
The fox dips his head in acknowledgment, and though you falter, surprised by his apparent intelligence - or perhaps the illusion of it, in your mind - you’re quick to rally yourself, ducking down to place your bundle on the offering plate. “I hope you have a sweet tooth,” you laugh gently, rising to your feet and dusting off your knees as the fox sniffs at the cloth - this close, the scent of higashi is unmistakable. “I’ll be sure to bring something more palatable tomorrow,” you promise, before humming inquisitively to yourself. “Hmm. What do foxes like to eat?”
The next few days persist in much the same manner. The fox waits near his shrine for the familiar trod of your boots upon the ground, paws crossed patiently while you place that day’s offering upon the shrine. You croon over his crimson pelt and sharp, intelligent eyes, sometimes settling on the opposite side of the path to sketch his likeness in a notebook you pull from your rucksack. Sometimes you take his photo, the large, reflective lens mounted on top of your camera catching the waning sun filtering through the canopy above and wreathing your head in soft, golden light.
You keep your distance from him, for the most part, not daring to come within snapping distance of his jaws, but you hold your ground whenever he chooses to approach, your body tense and still but your eyes full of quiet awe as he darts around your side, the end of his bushy tail brushing against your boot.
“Amazing,” you breathe, and the fox’s chest grows warm - a warmth he hasn’t felt in decades. A warmth he covets.
A warmth he craves.
You are not what he would expect of a bride-to-be, admittedly, but it is in that moment, with your gaze warm upon his, that the fox decides - you are to be his.
It is a simple desire, and a familiar one - one he will not see squandered for the second time. He has had decades to ruminate on his failings with Hinako, and will not see you slip from his claws as she did.
No, this time around, the fox will not resort to cunning deceits to win your heart. No intricate planning or careful manipulation or reliance on human tradition.
He will court you as a fox does.
He begins with a round, perfect peach placed delicately on your windowsill. A mouthful of fresh, red berries comes next, followed by a sprig of mint, a crow’s feather, a delicate silver chain missing its pendant.
“Is this your doing?” you marvel, catching sight of his crimson fur one fair morning after he’s left his latest offering upon your windowsill - a spider lily, its petals brilliantly red and its stem bearing the mark of his bite. A thin layer of fog has settled on the ground, wreathing his paws in mist, but your gaze - soft, surprised - warms him straight through. The fox dips his head and you laugh, breath huffing in disbelief even as you hold the lily close to your heart and call, “T-thank you!” through the fog.
He sticks close to you, after that. His gifts have been accepted, his intentions made clear. He will not allow another to dart in and whisk you away before he has the chance.
He will not allow you to leave.
“I wish I could stay longer,” you confide in him one afternoon, your back nestled against a tree while you sketch the landscape in varying shades of blue and green. There is a sadness to your voice that calls to him, a wistful ache the fox has felt often in the last few lonely decades he has spent without a companion, and it is with utmost certainty that he decides - now.
It is time to make you his bride.
When next you wake, it is not to the worn, sagging wood ceiling of your accommodations in town, but to the high rafters of his home, the alter laden with gifts and the statues of his kin staring down at you with bared fangs and laughing eyes.
“Where am I?” you mumble softly to yourself, not yet alarmed, but confused. You must think yourself dreaming, the fox assumes, amused, and yet his humor fades as you rise from the floor, clad in loose linens in preparation for bed and soft-eyed with sleep.
Desire pulses in the pit of his belly as he emerges from the shadows, no longer slender and small, but powerful and crimson-eyed, his many tails whipping against the ground as he approaches you.
“You are home,” he rumbles, and you gasp at the gleam of his many teeth.
“Who are you - ?” you start, breathless with awe, with fear. The fox trembles as your wide-eyed gaze drinks him in, and bows his head.
The familiarity of the gesture is not lost on you. “The fox… ?” you murmur questioningly, and his maw lifts in a grin.
“Yours,” he counters, his claws clicking against the wooden floor as he circles your form. “As you are mine.”
You swallow. He watches your throat bob with interest. “I don’t understand.”
“My bride,” the fox reiterates, nostrils flaring as he spots the glimmer of silver around your throat - the chain he had given you, worn like a prize. “My mate.”
“Mate,” you repeat, the word catching on your tongue. You take in his bulk, the lashing of his many tails, his maw of sharp, white teeth. “I don’t - how - ?”
The fox growls, relishing in the hitching of your breath as the sound vibrates down the length of your spine. “I will show you.”
You grunt as his muzzle nudges your chest and urges you to the floor, your palms rasping along the wood and your body trembling beneath the hot gush of his breath.
“Are you going to eat me?” Your voice is soft, small, and though fear cleaves to the words there is also wonder. Fascination. He wonders if you still believe yourself dreaming.
“No,” the fox laughs, voice gritty with desire. “I’m going to taste you.”
You yelp as his teeth rip into your clothes, baring your body and sending gooseflesh erupting along your naked skin. You shiver beneath the heat of his crimson gaze but make no effort to cover yourself - perhaps sensing the futility of it, or simply too stunned to care.
The inviting splay of your limbs coaxes him to creep closer, to touch, to taste, and so the fox does exactly that, your shoulders twitching and the buds upon your chest pebbling beneath his tongue as he laves at your flesh. You cling furtively to his snout as he explores, as though you actually possess the power to stop him should he truly wish to devour you, and laughter rumbles in the fox’s throat as he noses at the soft skin of your belly, down, down, until his tongue catches against the warmth of your sex.
“Ah,” you whimper, blunt nails scratching at his snout as you cling desperately to his fur.
The fox growls roughly in return, closing his eyes as he becomes lost in your taste. He laps at your sex until it swells against his tongue, your own fluids and his saliva leaving you wet and dripping. Until you’re writhing beneath him, chest heaving with the strength of your cries and flesh growing damp with sweat and hot to the touch, a heat the fox finds echoed in the grip of your body after he’s found your entrance and prodded at the muscle with the flat of his tongue.
The guttural cry you release as he slips inside sends his tails lashing across the ground, his pulse quickening as you gape and cling to his tongue. His desire to bury himself in your heat quickly grows to a fever pitch, along with his mounting frustration that your body cannot possibly take him in his current form. No matter.
You let out a broken cry as he rips his mouth away from you, only to gasp as he returns to the circle of your arms with hands to grasp at your flesh and lips to catch your own in hunger. In Kotoyuki’s form he fits between your thighs like he belongs there, his tongue slick against your own and his silver hair unbound, wound between your grasping fingers and clinging to your knuckles.
“How - ?” you breathe against his mouth, your eyes glazed, darting across the planes of his face in wonder. “What - who are you?”
“Call me Kotoyuki, if you must,” the fox pants, nosing at the line of your jaw and sealing his lips to the pulse point on your throat. You moan at the scrape of his teeth along vulnerable flesh, thighs shuddering as he drags them over his hips and the flared head of his cock catches against your entrance.
“Kotoyuki,” you whine, the syllables breaking on your tongue as he sinks inside you. “Kotoyuki.”
“Yes,” the fox hisses, baring his teeth at the snug, wet heat of you. “Again. Again.” Each plea is punctuated with a roll of his hips, your body cleaving to his as desperately as the fingers clutching at his silver hair and the thighs clinging to his waist.
“Kotoyuki,” you keen, and the fox growls, burying his teeth in the arch of your throat and thrilling as you shudder against him, hard, your body jerking and your nails catching within silver strands.
Yes, he thinks as his hair pulls taut between your fingers and pain lances through his scalp. Mark me as I have marked you. Make me yours as I have made you mine. My mate. My bride.
You cry out as though you’ve heard his plea, your walls fluttering around his cock, and the fox pants harshly as he feels his knot begin to swell, his tails - leashed as they are - lashing, your name thick upon his tongue.
Soon you will be inseparable, his flesh locked with yours - filling you, claiming you, as you were always meant to be claimed, until no other creature would think to touch you, tempt you, take you.
No creature would dare.