Admiring Lovers

Jonathan was something of a wrench in everything he inserted himself into. He was a heroic looking Scarfox who took immense pride in his “unique” situation. Having fallen from the sky in a roiling ball of flames and plasma, he had crashed into a field outside of a small village, crushing and killing a monster that preyed on the locals in the night.

The sky had flashed bright and the fields had been burned to the ground as a Scarfox with striking red and white markings across his body had risen from the ashes of his descent. With the monster vanquished, there had been a mad scramble for the village to put the fires out that had spread in the meteoric crash. The wooden buildings, though somewhat spaced apart, had not been able to withstand the conflagration as it chewed through their livelihoods.

Pepper had been there for only a night when she had awoken to the smell of smoke and chaotic hysteria as every fox attempted to abate the surging flames. Pepper, knowing that she would die without helping, tried her best to beat back flames with meager buckets of water.

In a moment of desperation, her magic had swelled within her and had come out in the form of a vicious wind blowing back the flames. Though it hadn’t helped put the flames out, it had stopped the fires from eating more of the village.

A feat she hadn’t really understood had come from within herself. She had chalked it up to luck, and while Jonathan had been barreling through the village to grab as many helpless foxes as he could, he had laid his eyes on Pepper as the winds whipped around her, ruffling her hair and waving her ears in front of her face. It was love at first sight.

So Jonathan had said.

They had been traveling together ever since. Jonathan had insisted that the two of them were destined to be together after saving the village together, and Pepper, who already didn’t like this guy, had merely shrugged. She wouldn’t have been able to stop him anyway, though she would not hesitate to leave him behind if he decided to wander off to play a hero again.

This was a mistake.

Jonathan talked in a weird way. He would pause for effect quite often, as though he were living in a fantasy world of his own creation. His explanation for being in the little village had been long winded and had mentioned the word isekai more than a few dozen times. Pepper simply let it go in one ear and out the other.

This delusional fox had somehow convinced himself that he and Pepper were destined to be companions because a protagonist would meet their sidekick almost immediately after waking up in the new world, and since Pepper had been that person - “er, uh, Scarfox I guess” Jonathan had corrected - then it was going to be a fair number of adventures before they would come to like each other. Or maybe even something more.

Pepper saw Jonathan’s cheeks go red after this, his fiery horns flaring in intensity as he thought about whatever it was that occupied his conscious.

Though the longer they traveled together, the more Pepper grew from a standard disdain for most other Scarfoxes to a very quiet and subtle hatred. Jonathan never stopped talking. He would announce every thought he had the second he had it and would explain that Pepper simply couldn’t understand his point of view because she had not been isekai’d like him. She was destined to think the thoughts of a Scarfox and not…

Well he couldn’t answer that. He didn’t remember.

Pepper and Jonathan were camping one night. Jonathan had been inspecting the campfire, when he had been passing glances at her. He could never hide when he was flushed because his fiery horns would flare again and wreath his whole head in flames before fizzling out, leaving a trail of smoke in its wake.

“Pepper?” Jonathan asked sheepishly.

Pepper tensed, preparing for another lecture about anime and popular cliches that were being subverted. She was, frankly, exhausted, and she really didn’t know what she was going to do about this random Scarfox that had decided to insert himself into her life. Well that wasn’t entirely true. She had briefly considered killing him. Determining exactly how she would do it in vivid detail.

“What?” Her voice was very soft. Those who didn’t know her would have assumed that she was just being meek, but her voice was very flat. Trained patience.

“Well I was thinking,” Jonathan started. He pressed his fingers together, making strange noises with his mouth, as though adding sound effects to his actions. “Since we’ve been traveling for a few episodes now, I was wondering if I could. Admit something to you.”

Pepper blinked incredulously, but Jonathan either wasn’t paying attention, or was lost in his own fantasy again. She kept her face as neutral as possible, but her teeth were still very sharp and her neutrality felt more like a violent grimace.

“A few what?” Pepper replied. “Episodes? It’s been two weeks.”

Jonathan wheezed. “Yes, but think about what we’ve done in that time. We wrestled that one beast to get back our tents. We did magic together. We camped under the stars and had many a bonding moment.”

Pepper recalled only two of those things. “Okay?”

“And I know you’re a bit tsundere, so now is about the time that I confess something to you and then you can think about it. Or reject me and then rethink it later after we have had life altering experiences. Fell a dragon, or storm a castle.”

What in the hell was he talking about? Pepper opened her mouth to ask what exactly a tsundere was because she knew that whatever Jonathan would say, it was wrong, but Jonathan stood up and clenched his fists in an effort to steel his nerves.

“Pepper, I think I love you!”

Pepper’s words evaporated.

“What?”

Jonathan flew away, flapping his mighty wings as the fire within him flared once more. Pepper was at a loss for words and simply rolled into her tent and dove under the blankets that served as her sleeping bag.

Jonathan was an idiot. Apparently, an idiot in love.