Huh?
The girl with bobbed hair froze.
That was true...
But suddenly losing an ability she'd always had...
Still felt like a shame.
Didn't it?
"Xiao Xiao."
The girl with bobbed hair looked at Xiao Xiao.
"Then..."
"After I can't see them anymore..."
"Could I see them again?"
"Has that ever happened?"
Was God really that capricious?
Xiao Xiao paused briefly.
Then he smiled.
"So far, I haven't heard of anything like that happening."
"But you never know."
"Maybe it could happen."
"I just haven't encountered it yet."
The girl with bobbed hair pressed her lips together.
"All right."
The boy smiled at the girl with bobbed hair.
"It wasn't that special an ability to begin with—"
"You've seen a monster!?"
The girl with bobbed hair abruptly lowered her voice and glared at her brother. "Isn't that special enough?"
A monster!
She'd always thought they were something humans had imagined.
But...
Today, after she'd grown up...
Her own brother had told her he'd seen a monster.
Did he know how much that shook her?
This news was like a nuclear bomb, blowing up her entire worldview.
"Brother, it was a monster!"
The girl with bobbed hair stressed.
How could her brother be so calm?
"I know."
After a brief moment of stunned silence, the boy nodded.
He was surprised by how calm he was, too.
Maybe...
"...I haven't fully processed the news yet..."
And...
The boy's gaze passed over the two foxes on Xiao Xiao.
"Maybe because the two of them look so much alike."
"It made the fact that one of them was a monster less shocking."
So monsters looked pretty much like ordinary animals...
Not like the towering, bizarre, grotesque creatures described in books or created for movies and TV...