The Fox Eats the Clouds
“You were abandoned?”
“A-ack!?”
At Naru’s words, I shouted before I could stop myself.
That made her jump in alarm and hide behind the black cat, and I quickly apologized.
“Ah, sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“W-who said I was scared? I’m perfectly fine...”
Her ears had flattened, and her tail had slipped back between her legs, trembling faintly. Anyone could see she’d been badly startled, but I didn’t say it out loud.
She seemed a little pitiful, unable to admit she was frightened even now.
I need to find out why Naru was abandoned, and who abandoned her.
Since she seemed to have relaxed after the Churu, I asked carefully.
“How long have you been living here, by the way...”
“Why do you want to know that?”
But Naru cut me off, her gaze still full of suspicion.
I’d been trying to learn about her naturally, but I must have underestimated her just because she was young.
“What’s your goal?”
“...Huh?”
“I saw Yerin before, and she was muttering to herself about my fur! She looked dangerous!”
“What are you talking abou-- ah. Wait, on the broadcast?”
I remembered it clearly now: while searching for the box fox, I’d found a tuft of fox fur and introduced it on the stream.
Naru must have seen me then and completely misunderstood.
“That was a misunderstanding. I was just doing a broadcast.”
I started to say I’d been streaming, but then I hesitated. Would a child who lived in these mountains even understand what a broadcast was if I explained it?
So instead of making excuses, I decided to speak honestly.
“I want to help Naru.”
“...Help?”
My words only left her looking confused. Then her tail slowly lifted, and she began to eye me with even sharper suspicion.
“Lies.”
“Huh?”
“It’s a lie! There’s no such thing as something for nothing in this world! What are you after?”
Grrrrowl!
Naru even howled as she refused to believe me, and I was briefly thrown off, but it made sense almost immediately.
If an abandoned child who had never received help from anyone suddenly heard a strange adult say they wanted to help, who would believe that?
“Nothing comes for free...”
What a cold side of the world, something I could never have imagined coming from a child.
And because of that, I wanted to reach out to her even more.
“Maybe that’s true for the world. But not everyone is like that.”
“Grrrr...”
I held out my hand cautiously, but Naru only backed away from it, even more guarded.
“Hmm...”
I thought hard about how I could ease her suspicion and help her.
Ah, right. She ate the Churu like it was unbelievably delicious, didn’t she?
I immediately took the things I’d bought out of my bag and showed them to her.
“Look at this, Naru.”
“...!”
I waved the food temptingly in front of her, and her eyes snapped to it.
What I’d taken out was castella.
I’d bought bread and triangle kimbap and other things while wondering what would be best to feed a child, but right now castella seemed like the best lure.
“Wh-what is that?”
“It’s called castella. It’s soft and fluffy and melts sweetly in your mouth.”
“Gulp.”
Naru’s eyes sparkled as she stared at the castella, drooling openly.
So cute!
“Well? Don’t you want some? Why don’t you come with this big sister?”
I never expected I’d end up saying something that sounded like I was abducting a child, but this was a rescue operation through and through.
“Tch, I’m... I’m a smart fox!! I won’t fall for it!!”
I’d hoped she’d come over easily, but unfortunately she didn’t give in right away.
Still, the way her tail was wagging quickly as she looked at the castella with shining eyes made it seem like she was close.
“The truth is, I bought castella because I wanted to eat it, but I got too much and now it’s a problem.”
“A-ack...?”
“If I eat it all like this, there’ll definitely be some left over, and it’d be a waste to throw it away... I wonder if there’s anyone who’d eat it with me?”
I remembered something I’d seen in a short video: if someone looked wary, don’t just give them something directly. Approach it by making it sound like you need their help.
I wasn’t doing this as a gimmick for the stream, so I put on my best act and spoke as naturally as I could. Naru thought it over, then opened her mouth carefully.
“If you n-need help...”
“Hmm?”
“If you need help... I can help... maybe...”
The way she spoke in a voice as tiny as an ant crawling along made an urge to scoop her up rise in me, but I held it back and said,
“Then you’d eat the castella with me?”
“...”
“Didn’t you just say before that nothing comes for free?”
“A-Ack!?”
I couldn’t help teasing her because she was so cute, but if I pushed it any further, she looked like she might start crying, so I stopped there.
“And still you say you’ll help me, so you really are a very kind child.”
“...!”
At my praise, Naru’s tail swayed back and forth and her face reddened.
“Boss...”
“Hmm?”
“It’s just like Boss helped me.”
Boss? Ah, that must be the black cat’s name.
A story about an abandoned child being raised after receiving a debt of gratitude from a cat sounded almost like a fairy tale, beautiful and wonderful in its own way, but realistically, there was no telling how much she had suffered in between.
I swallowed my tears and took out the castella, cutting it into a size she could eat easily before handing it over.
“You’re hungry, right? Come on, eat.”
“...”
Naru stared at it with a look that suggested she might devour it at any second, but she held herself back and carried the castella somewhere else.
“Boss! Let’s eat together!!”
What a good kid!
She must have been hungry, and yet she hadn’t forgotten the kindness she’d received and wanted to share it with the cat...
I could feel an instinctive maternal urge blooming where none had existed before, shouting at me to raise that child right this instant.
“...But can cats eat castella?”
Moved by Naru’s behavior, I still hurriedly pulled out my smartphone and searched, just in case.
“Huh?”
“Boss, eat first.”
“W-wait!”
“A-ack!?”
When the search results showed that it wasn’t good for cats, I cried out in surprise before the cat could take a bite.
Naru, startled badly, let out a yelp and dropped the castella she was holding, then immediately reached for it with a look of shock, as if she meant to eat it anyway.
“N-no! Gross! Gross!”
“Waaah! My k-kasutira!!”
“It’s not kasutira, it’s castella! And you dropped it, so it’s gross now. You can’t eat it!”
Naru’s ears and tail drooped unmistakably, and then she turned a wounded look on me.
“You tricked meee!”
Apparently deciding I’d fooled her, she lunged at me and started biting my hand, but it hurt no more than a puppy nibbling on skin, just a little ticklish.
Her fierce little attack was adorable, but more than that, I needed to calm her down.
“Sorry, I was told I shouldn’t give castella to cats.”
“...?”
“Cats... I mean, Boss might get sick if he eats this.”
“!!!”
Understanding my words, Naru turned pale in an instant, as if she thought I had poisoned the castella.
Before the misunderstanding could grow worse, I hurriedly shook my head and explained.
“It’s because cats can’t eat some of the same foods we can!”
“...Really?”
“Really! I bought tuna for Boss, so let’s eat a fresh castella instead, okay?”
I took out the can of tuna I’d bought along with the Churu, and Naru hesitated for a moment before nodding.
Once I handed her a fresh castella, she shook off her gloom in an instant and wagged her tail excitedly while admiring it.
“Th-th-this is castella!”
“It’s castella.”
I opened the tuna can for cats and set it down in front of the black cat, Boss.
“You must have had a hard time looking after Naru all this while. I’ll say thanks on behalf of humans.”
“Meow.”
Boss answered as if he understood me and began eating the tuna can, though it was obvious that would never actually happen.
I reached out as if to pat his head, but the instant I saw those sharp, gleaming eyes, I pulled my hand back.
He looked as if he were saying, How insolent for a mere can-opener.
Is he only gentle with Naru?
Leaving Boss aside, I turned back to Naru just in time to see her take a huge bite of castella.
She seemed to have opened her mouth as wide as she could, and yet it still looked tiny, which only made her cuter.
In that moment, Naru’s ears and tail jerked hard, shooting up as if they might fly into the sky.
“Her pupils are gone... Naru, are you all right?”
I worried that maybe fox beastmen weren’t supposed to eat castella either, so I spoke to her carefully, but the eyes I thought had gone unfocused were locked on the castella alone.
And the way her tail was whipping around like mad made it seem as if she could fly with it by itself.
Nom nom.
As her little mouth moved busily, the cheeks that had been puffed up like a squirrel’s slowly shrank back down.
Gulp.
Then she spoke, tears in her eyes.
“The castella... was a cloud.”
“Huh?”
“It’s fluffy and soft. And it’s melting in my mouth!!”
“I’m glad it tastes good.”
“So clouds were this delicious...”
Naru had already finished the rest of the castella in no time, but she still seemed dissatisfied and kept licking her fingers.
Seeing that, I felt sorry for her and took out the very last piece of castella.
“I’m full, so do you want one more?”
“!!!”
Naru nodded so quickly it was almost frantic, then immediately started on the second castella.
After a moment, she seemed to remember something, and with half the castella still in her mouth, she began digging at the ground nearby.
“Naru, what are you doing?”
“E-eemergency sto-ree-here...”
“...?”
I couldn’t make it out because she was talking with the castella still in her mouth and mangling the pronunciation, but then I remembered reading about foxes and their habit of hiding food in the ground.
In other words, Naru was trying to bury the rest of the bread as emergency rations.
“Wait, Naru!”
She really was a child who needed a lot of help.
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