My New Boss at the Yokai Pharmacy Is a Fox Who Cannot Lie novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Cold Hands

Haruna takes Kuzunoha's wrist for the nightly fever check, and a visitor asks what the fox wants from her.

By the end of the first week, Haruna had learned three things about the Night Dispensary.

The shop took spirits of every kind, and none of them ever paid in money.

The tea in the back kitchen was always hot, and nobody ever boiled it.

And at two in the morning every night, Kuzunoha held out her wrist without being asked.

Tonight Haruna sat on the tatami with her legs folded and her thermometer in her lap.

"Forty-two point three," she said. "It went up a little again."

"Thank you for telling me."

"You could try telling me why."

"Ask me something else," Kuzunoha said.

It was the third time, and Haruna had kept count.

She put the thermometer aside.

"Then give me your wrist. I'm going to take your pulse the old-fashioned way."

Kuzunoha held out her left hand, palm up.

The wrist was slender, with blue veins under skin that was far too hot.

Haruna closed her fingers around it and pressed two fingertips to the pulse.

It was fast and strong.

She counted for a full minute.

Kuzunoha did not look away from her face once.

"Your hands are cold," Kuzunoha said.

"They always are. I'm sorry."

"I'm not sorry. I like it."

Haruna's fingers twitched.

"You like cold hands?"

"I like your cold hands on my wrist," Kuzunoha said. "It's the only time of the night the fever goes quiet."

She said it as simply as she said the temperature.

There was no tease in it, and no weight.

It was a fact, so plain that Haruna felt it land under her ribs.

"You can't just say things like that," Haruna said.

"I can't say anything else."

Haruna looked down at her own hand wrapped around the silver-pale wrist.

The pulse under her fingers ticked faster.

"Does that happen when I'm near you?" she asked, before she could stop herself. "The fast heartbeat?"

"Yes."

"Is it the fever?"

"Some of it."

"And the rest?"

Kuzunoha's amber eyes held hers, steady and warm and a little amused.

"Ask me something else," she said, quietly.

Haruna stared at her.

It was the first time the sentence had not sounded like a locked door.

It sounded like someone leaving a door open on purpose.

She let go of the wrist, slowly, because she did not want to.

Her fingers felt strange afterwards.

"I think you've been dodging me on purpose," Haruna said.

"I think you're right."

"Why?"

"Because if you ask me the right question I will answer it," Kuzunoha said, "and you aren't ready for the answer."

"Who decides that?"

"I do."

"That's unfair."

"It's the only unfair thing I do." Kuzunoha's mouth turned up at one corner. "Ask Tsukumo. She says I'm insufferable."

Out in the shop, something fell off the counter with a clatter.

"I did not say that!" Tsukumo called. "I said you were ridiculous!"

Haruna laughed.

It was the first time she had laughed in months, and the sound surprised her.

Kuzunoha watched her do it.

For a second the amber eyes went soft and wide, and then she looked down at her own hands.

"Do that again," she said.

"I can't on command."

"I know. I just wanted to say it."

Haruna felt her face go hot.

She had not blushed in years, and she was blushing in front of a woman who was running a fever of forty-two.

She stood up too quickly and picked up her bag.

"I'm going to make a tonic for the snow woman's appointment," she said.

"Yes. Thank you."

"I'm going to go and be professional now."

"Yes," Kuzunoha said, and Haruna could hear that she was smiling.

At the door of the back room she turned around.

Kuzunoha was sitting where she had been, with her left wrist resting on her knee, palm up, as if she was still waiting to be held.

She had not moved.

Haruna's whole hand ached.

She went out front and ground ginger for twenty minutes without once seeing what she was grinding.

At four o'clock, the paper lantern outside swung.

Haruna looked up as the door opened on its own.

A tall man in a long grey suit stepped in.

His silver hair was slicked back, and he had a thin, tidy smile, and he wiped his shoes carefully on the mat.

He had the narrow, pale look of someone who stood very still near water.

Tsukumo slid off the counter and stood between him and Haruna with her fists clenched.

"Hakuro," she said. "Out."

"Good morning to you too, little umbrella." He ignored her and looked at Haruna over the top of his glasses. "So you're the new one."

"I'm the pharmacist."

"Of course." He glanced at the curtain to the back. "Has she told you what the fever is for yet?"

Haruna went still.

"I don't know what you mean."

"I thought not." His smile widened. "In forty years she has never told anyone, and I do wonder how long she can last."

The curtain moved.

Kuzunoha stepped out into the light, barefoot and flushed, and her eyes were no longer warm.

"Hakuro," she said. "You are not welcome here."

"I'm only asking," he said. "Haruna, ask her. Ask her what the fever is for."

Haruna turned to Kuzunoha.

Kuzunoha looked at her for a long moment and said, "Ask me something else."

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