A cool breeze lingered through the air.For but a moment,  Lei looked up from where she stood and halted,. She took it all in, what surrounded her in this moment.

The moon was hidden by misty clouds, and most of the stars seemed to be camouflaged, by the lights of the city. Lei sighed. 

The black french-chinese woman had very long wine-red hair, which coiled past her hip.

Her eyes were of almost liquid golden colour, but she had a hint of red in one of them, that swirled within her right Iris, giving her a hint of heterochromia and a unique quirk. 

She rarely left her hair open, yet tonight it somehow felt right. 

The reason behind this was; it was simply too warm, especially during the summer in the South of France.

Everyone possessing such a length of hair knew, inherently, that it was not only heavy, but each draft of air enjoyed it to the fullest, to put each strand into disorder.

The red-haired woman stood on the sidewalk and unconsciously reached up, to caress over her forehead and by way of doing this, she also readjusted her hair to the other side, while she looked around, again, with a bit of a lost expression painted over her beautiful face. 

She wore a dark green dress with multiple gossamer thin white-gold chains draped on her waist, which were growing into a corset-like structure over her chest. 

She was not out of breath, she bit her lower lip in frustration, though. 

Her golden gaze fluttering over the trees nearby and the cars that were passing her. 

She was not home in France. And the moment she had entered the plane, she had known, that she was searching for something.

Lei let go of the breath, she had been holding and then, finally, she heard it again. 

A violin was playing in the distance.

She had followed the sound, after she had stepped out of the subway. 

At first, she didn't know where to go, or what to do. 

Earlier she had looked at her smartphone to query a search engine for hotspots, clubs or some such, that would chase away her boredom.

Then, suddenly, she heard the soft notes of a violin that someone was starting to play.

In the beginning, the melody was abrupt, which made it very hard for Lei to follow it. 

When it arose into a more permanent melody, it was easier, but she was unfamiliar with the city, and she took so many lefts and rights and wrong turns that the moment she wanted to locate the sound, she found that the music had stopped all together. 

A rush of melancholy overcame her, and it felt like she had lost a piece of her. ... Maybe this sounded a bit overdramatic or ridiculous, but it was not like this logical deduction, could really stop her internal emotional outburst. Thinking feelings to her grievance never quite helped as much as feeling them did.

The next melody reaching her slightly pointed ears, made her turn around and realise that she was closer to the mysterious violin melody now, than she initially had thought. 

So, she followed the slow, high-pitched melody and then faintly could make out a guitar maintaining the rhythm, while the violin sound came to a stop. 

The violin's dulcet tones were exchanged by a clear and warm voice. 

This voice sang in Nihongo and it caused Lei's heart to skip a beat. 

Finally, near the coast located on a small opening, but of course with this much talent very much surrounded by a crowd of people, stood a woman at 1,65 m tall, daintly holding the violin, whose sounds had evoked Lei's attention. 

In this case standing was far from true, because this stunning person was moving with the elegance and cunning of a fox-spirit, a Huli Jing. 

Her eyes were mesmerising. Everything about her was.

They were so dark blue, a tribute to the night sky above, so no one knew that they weren't black, but in them there were stars shimmering, dancing and captivating Lei even more. 

Around the time she was within the circle of spectators, a new song began. 

It was a bit faster this time and suddenly due to the joining in of a passing person, who had just unpacked his saxophone, it seemed the song was complemented perfectly. 

Was this planned? 

Were they two different street or regular musicians, who always performed together, or had the saxophonist just already known this song and had decided to spontaneously join in?

Lei did not know, but the jig reminiscent song seemed so much more whole now, as if it was meant to be supplemented by the metallic sound of the unique instrument.

Still, even though Lei perceived this with her ears, her eyes were glued to the woman dancing light-footed, while still holding and sometimes playing on her black violin, with silver strings that reminded Lei of unicorn hair. 

Her silky hair was open and tossing parallel to her movements. 

The shiny waves were blue, even though most would not have been able to see, as stated earlier, but Lei with her vertically pupilled, draconic eyes could clearly identify the oceanic shimmer that was lured out by the surrounding lights. 

Which also darkened at the tips into a purplish blue colour, which reminded one of a blue zoisite.

Especially, when the clouds above finally parted, silhouetting the beauty in silvery moonlight - at first at least. After a bit, the light and the moon in general consummated in a metamorphosis from white to a muted gray to eventually accumulate into a shade of bloodred. 

It was just about three minutes, but the poppy red light illuminated the songstress. 

This gave her a dangerous glint around the upturned eyes, and her smile was so broad now that it revealed canines, which also revealed that Lei's guess had been correct. 

A fox was in front of her, her movements and voice mesmerising the dragon's mind and even though she was within her 10th century, it felt to her, as if she was a hatchling now, who had just left her eggshell behind. 

Half an hour later the performance had finished and Lei did not know what to do. The woman had definitely noticed her. But was she brave enough to approach her right away? 

Technically. she was just one of the crowd, but she could not ignore the magnetic pull, and usually, as far as this kind of magic was concerned (in the sense of spontaneous or occurrences of fate), it was usually reciprocated, and affected more than one person. 

But Lei was not so arrogant… or vain. 

Thus, she was even more stunned, when she moved away to go elsewhere, and to then discover that she could make out the footsteps of someone behind her. 

Unsure, if they really followed her, Lei slid into an alley and then turned around.

 

There she stood, with a quirky canine smile, eyes shimmering and reflecting the lights of the city, simultaneous to the starlight that blinked unhindered, after the clouds had parted earlier.

"Good evening.", the woman greeted in English, but Lei smiled and answered with a 'Good Evening' in Nihongo. 

"Oh Okay.", the other smiled and seemed a bit more relaxed now, also switching to Nihongo.

"My name is Xiu Hong Lei, it is very pleasant to meet you.", Lei introduced herself, caught in the widening smile of the blue haired woman in front of her. 

"I'm Kuragari Yumeji. It's very nice to meet you, too, even though you seem to be familiar.", Yu chuckled and Lei nodded in agreement. 

Yu felt so familiar, even though a sense of danger prickled in Lei's accelerated heartbeat. 

"Oh, and you may call me Yu. I'm not as dreamy as my teacher's suggested, though or as famous I’d like to be. Oh... Sorry I tend to overshare, when I'm nervous.", a hint of rosé bloomed on her cheeks porcelain cheeks indicating her agitation. 

Lei's heart was already fluttering like a hummingbird, but now it felt like something in her melted and even though her history admonished her to be cautious, all of this seemed irrelevant...

Not only because she was a fox spirit, but because of Lei's previous blown-up relationships.

"Your voice is amazing.", Lei complemented. "Are you three a band?" - "No. Tachibana-san and I are in a band. Akamine-kun usually plays at this spot, and he was kind enough to lend it to us, for the duration of the performances, during the last few weeks.", Yu explained with a bit more of a serious expression. 

"And how is your band called?", Lei inquired, honestly curious, still her eyes were fluttering to the lavender Yukata-style dress, which was patterned with magnolias and nightingales. 

Beneath that, Yu wore shiny black pants and no shoes, as somewhen, during the performance of the jig, she had gotten rid of them. 

"Oh... Eh... That changes too much at the moment, but if we have settled, you will be the first to know.", she hesitantly replied, moving a hand into her hair and caressing the back of her head shyly. 

This caused Lei to laugh, the other was so adorable. It would be such a waste not to get her contact information, and due to that she grabbed her phone and unlocked it. It was also prompted by the hint in Yu's previously uttered sentence.

Yu understood the notion and also got her phone out to scan the tag, which would connect them. Online at least.