It's Okay to Touch, Right?
"You've never been to an amusement park before?"
"Well, not never. Elementary school, maybe...? If you don't count that, then yeah — this was basically my first time."
"...That's a little surprising."
"Is it? These things happen, don't they? You get sick on the day of the trip and can't make it. That kind of thing."
"I suppose that's possible."
One box of fried chicken and a six-pack of canned beer.
Two cans between the two of us would have felt a little stingy, and leftover beer could always wait in the fridge for later. So we came back to Baek Eun-hwa's place and settled into ordinary conversation. We'd both had a genuinely good day, and we'd gotten home earlier in the evening than expected.
"So it was really fun. I don't know if I'd go so far as to say I recaptured my inner child, but it was more than enough."
"Right. I was surprised when you suddenly suggested we go, but... well, you were right. It was fun."
"Heh. That's a relief, then."
What was so entertaining about tearing into fried chicken and talking about something this mundane? It had been a long time since I'd remembered how good it felt — that easy familiarity you only ever get with someone your own age.
Sure, I could run into people my age walking down the street, or at the Association office, or anywhere at all. Being close to someone, though, was a different thing entirely.
"Hehe..."
I couldn't help smiling. Neither the beer nor the chicken had anything to do with it. The smile just came on its own.
Friends...
It still felt like too much to call us that. But even being something close to friends was enough to make me this happy. I'd met plenty of socially awkward heroes through the Welfare Bureau. Maybe I was the one who'd been lacking this kind of human connection all along.
"Ahhh... that's good."
"It really is."
I poured that ridiculous little smile into my beer and drank it down. I'd gotten fairly close with Saran and Batori lately, but it hadn't felt like this, and my thoughts kept circling. Did I need counseling myself, the same way the other heroes did? I always told my clients that therapy and counseling were perfectly normal — that ordinary people got them all the time. Apparently I was still falling short myself.
"Heh..."
"Why do you keep smiling like that?"
"No reason. Spending time with you like this is more fun than I expected, Eun-hwa."
"Just as you said, Counselor... yes. It was a fun day. Much more than I expected."
"Ah — have a drumstick. I already had one."
I didn't bother voicing any of those thoughts. What I needed to do right now was solve Baek Eun-hwa's problems — change the way she thought. A kind of burnout. A kind of good-child complex. At the root of it all were the memories of being kidnapped as a child, and her mother's gaslighting on top of that.
"Hmm..."
I'd been working, in my own way, to shift her thinking lately. Would that be enough to resolve everything completely? That was still a question mark. But a question mark of that particular kind — the kind that meant possibility — was slowly turning into an exclamation point. Wasn't that reason enough to smile?
"Counselor, don't eat so awkwardly. Just have this."
"...You deboned it for me?"
"I was eating mine anyway. I just did yours while I was at it."
"Whoa..."
I'd been lost in thought, and then Baek Eun-hwa handed me a piece of chicken with the meat already pulled from the bone. I was genuinely startled. Setting the good-child complex aside entirely, the thought that occurred to me was simply that she was a very kind person.
I had never, in my life, watched someone share fried chicken with just one other person and take the time to strip the meat off the bone for them. Not even at company dinners, eating chicken with a whole group. And here was an A-Class hero doing exactly that.
She had a genuine talent for being the perfect wife, I thought, quite seriously. I had no idea who would eventually meet, date, and marry an A-Class nine-tailed fox... but whoever it was would have hit the lottery. She made good money. She was beautiful. She had a great figure. She had a good personality. She could cook. You could just sit quietly at home, do nothing but match her mood, and you'd have a happy marriage. That much was obvious.
"Thank you. I'll enjoy it. You're the first person who's ever done this for me, Eun-hwa."
"Is that so?"
"It is."
"...It's nothing. Just eat comfortably."
"Heh..."
We passed the time like that, and eventually we fell asleep. Somehow this was the fourth time I'd ended up sleeping in the same bed as Baek Eun-hwa, but nothing special happened. We just slept.
She was beautiful, and by my standards she still counted as the opposite sex. But looking at a client that way wasn't right. I'd thought the same thing dealing with Batori and Saran — and all the countless heroes before them — and I intended to keep thinking that way. At least until I retired from this job.
This work was something close to treatment. Heroes were the patients, and I was the doctor helping them. In my previous life I'd spent a long time as a man, and even in this one I was still very much aware of myself as male. Meeting beautiful women gave me a lot to think about, in more ways than one. But it wasn't as if I had anything to swing between my legs, and it wasn't as if my libido was particularly overwhelming, either. Dating the same sex wasn't exactly the ordinary kind of thing. And the other person would feel the same way, anyway.
"Yaaawn..."
I fell asleep in the most ordinary way, and I woke up the same way. The moment I opened my eyes, what filled my vision was Baek Eun-hwa in a plain short-sleeved T-shirt and shorts. Everything about her was dazzlingly white. Her hair, her eyebrows, even her skin — so clear it was almost translucent. Seeing her in person was incomparable to anything that circulated on the internet. So this is what they mean by a face that photographs can't capture, I thought, the instant I saw her.
"...Water."
I picked up the water bottle from the nightstand beside the desk and drank straight from it, no glass, watching her. Unlike when she was awake and going about her day, her two pointed ears and her tail were out while she slept. They looked like they'd be incredibly fluffy... and if I were the one who had them, they'd also look incredibly inconvenient. I couldn't help finding them fascinating.
She had human ears and animal ears both. Honestly, they couldn't help but look uncomfortable. But given that she used her illusion magic to hide them completely, maybe other people's stares were more of a problem than any structural inconvenience.
"I want to touch them."
Watching her, I found myself wanting to touch them in earnest. I mean, they looked so fluffy. So cute. If an incredibly cute puppy came up to you, wagging its tail, and lay down right in front of you — wouldn't it be weirder not to pet its head? Wouldn't refusing almost count as a crime?
Thinking that to myself, I slowly edged closer to Baek Eun-hwa, who sat beside me.
"......"
Can I touch them? What should I do? Honestly, I really, really want to. I want to touch them. But I also felt like I'd get scolded if I did. I'd always heard that these parts were sensitive, which made me even more cautious. Batori's horns, which I touched whenever I was bored, were incredibly sensitive.
"Nnnngh...!"
What do I do? Seriously? This was a dilemma that made me think harder than any dilemma I'd ever faced, and I... I...!
"What do I do...?"
I thought about it until my head actually started to hurt. But in the end, humans are animals too — and maybe we just prioritize instinct and desire.
"...Eun-hwa? It's okay if I touch them, right?"
"......"
I slowly approached her and asked the question. No answer. But she hadn't said no, either... Would it be okay to just touch them once, gently?
"...Hehe."
Unable to hold back a smile, I started moving my hand toward Baek Eun-hwa's ear. A fox ear, pure white and impossibly fluffy. Even without touching it, I was certain the texture would be incredible. I swallowed hard and, very, very gently, started from the very tip.
"Nnh..."
"......"
A small sound accompanied the slow touch. It was too faint to call a moan, but a little too strong to call just breathing. The texture was even softer than any of the animals I'd petted at the café yesterday, and that was fascinating. A little pointier than a dog's, but relatively broader than a cat's. Touching those pretty ears was a surprisingly fun experience. People always said foxes were like a half-and-half mix of dog and cat. Maybe that applied here, too.
"Haah, nngh..."
"......"
Just touching her ear that gently only grew my curiosity. It wasn't enough to satisfy anything. Just listening to her breathing... I knew I shouldn't go further. I knew it was incredibly rude to do this to someone who was asleep, without even properly asking...
"Excuse me...?"
I asked for permission again, so quietly she couldn't possibly hear, and started stroking her ear properly.
"Hyaaah!!?"
"...Ah."
...Of course the nine-tailed fox woke up immediately. If I'd just kept touching her ear slowly and gently — even if it was a little unsatisfying — she probably wouldn't have woken up right away.
I was pretty disappointed.