Chronia pushed one of the front double doors open with all her might, causing her to huff and puff as she barely made a gap big enough for her to slip into the mansion's foyer. Zalroth strolled into the mansion, and Chronia frantically flailed her arms in front of him.
"TURN BACK, TURN BACK, TURN BACK!" Chronia quietly whispered in uppercase while she tried to stop Zalroth from walking any further into the house. Zalroth raised an eyebrow at Chronia while wondering what she was doing.
"Why do you want me to leave?" Zalroth asked perplexedly. Chronia gave Zalroth a dumbfounded glare, causing Zalroth to widen his eyes in realisation.
"Oh! You meant me to turn back to my other form," Zalroth murmured before he glanced his eyes slightly upwards.
"Duh!" Chronia uttered loudly. A set of musical-clacking footsteps approached from behind Chronia, and Chronia froze as she felt a shadow crept over her. Chronia raised her head upwards until she looked directly upwards and saw her mother's face looming over her; her mother was a tall fair-skinned, and adult version of Chronia with teal and lime gradient hair and radiant teal eyes.
"So, you've brought a new~ frienda~ over have you, that's so unlike you?" Chronia's mother asked callously with a hint of caution. Chronia nervously giggled while averting her gaze from her mother. Chronia's mother squinted her eyes at Chronia, causing Chronia to sweat buckets before her mother bursted into a slightly snobbish chuckling.
"I jest, I jest," Chronia's mother said playfully before she patted Zalroth on the head. Zalroth's pupils narrowed slightly from the contact but his tails eventually swayed from side to side.
"Could you wait for Chronia in her room, I need to have a word with her?" Chronia's mother requested with a beaming smile on her face. Zalroth's kitsune ears twitched and a faint blush formed on his face; he curled into his tails and formed them into a big sphere before he rolled off.
Chronia looked back forward and wondered what her mother wanted to say while she had a puzzled look on her face. However, as she wondered to herself, a gloomy look formed on her face. She realised her mother knew who Zalroth was: given how she said new friend and she didn't feel the need to give Zalroth directions to Chronia's bedroom.
"Now, my daughter; let's have a little chat about your fuzzy appearance-changing companion, shall we?" Chronia's mother said snarkily. Chronia's face went pale as she fully registered her mother knew about Zalroth the whole time.
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A few minutes later, Zalroth led on the floor and stared up at the glow-in-the-dark stars and moons on the ceiling of Chronia's bedroom. Zalroth raised an arm to the ceiling and reached out his open hand to the single full moon (which was the largest and at the centre of the ceiling) within the cluster of glow-in-the-dark stickers.
The door to Chronia's bedroom creaked open, and Zalroth sat up while lowering his arm. Chronia stumbled into the room with a skin complexion almost as pale as Zalroth's skin naturally is minus the cyan tint.
"I take it she knew?" Zalroth asked, and Chronia meekly nodded her head.
"I figured, given the looks she gave me," Zalroth uttered, while multiple instances of Chronia's mother smugly glancing at him while Chronia was preoccupied flashed in his mind.
"Yeah... but she wasn't mad, just found it amusing I tried to hide you; she even referred to it as trying to hog you all to myself... whatever that means," Chronia said defeatedly before she slumped face-first onto her bed. Chronia whined and groaned into her bed while she remained practically still. Zalroth rested his chin in his hand as Chronia continued to sulk.
"So, about that anime thing?" Zalroth asked, causing Chronia to spring to an upright position on her bed.
"Oh yeah, I gotta enlighten you on the wonders of Kalikosian entertainment!" Chronia proclaimed as the vitality returned to her skin and face. Chronia hopped off her bed and over Zalroth before gliding over to her short bookshelf filled with each shelf reserved for each form of media (the upper middle shelf had anime, the lower middle shelf had mangas, the bottom middle shelf had light novels, and the top shelf had anime figures of most chibi animals which stood on two feet).
Chronia picked out various action-orientated animes, figuring Zalroth would prefer those over the others. Chronia picked up another anime case and snickered as she looked at the slice-of-life/romance anime called Lightstar Foretold.
"Something funny?" Zalroth asked as he leaned over Chronia's shoulder. Chronia flinched before panickingly stashing the Lightstar Foretold anime case at the bottom of the anime case stack in her hands.
"N-nothing, I just remembered a funny line from one of these animes, that's all," Chronia said nervously before she coated her body in teal and lime qi and hurried over to her closet. Chronia placed the stack of anime cases before opening the double-door closet and wheeling out a box-shaped TV on a short coffee table with wheels. Zalroth watched Chronia as she became nothing but a blur as she bolted around the room and constructed a hill made of pillows and stuffed animals. The qi around Chronia's body dispersed, and she faceplanted into the soft pillow hill.
"Alright... it's ready?" Chronia said muffledly while lightly panting before she rolled onto her back. Zalroth sighed before he strolled over and sat next to Chronia. Chronia crawled over to the stack of anime cases and opened it; she pulled out a three-sheets-of-paper-thick rectangular object with three diamond-shaped grooves in it.
"Just a word of warning. I lost this TV's remote so I won't be able to fast-forward through any of the openings," Chronia remarked as she looked back at Zalroth. Zalroth shrugged as he led back on some of his tails. Chronia placed the object into the thin rectangle on the TV and turned the TV on. Chronia scampered back to Zalroth and sat next to him as the TV began to play the anime.