A Fox’s Retreat, Not a Retreat but a Strategic Withdrawal!
“Sniff, sniff.”
I was busily using my nose to search for coins.
Maybe because it had rained, a lot of the surrounding smells had been washed away, which made the remaining scents stand out clear as day.
But money was money, and naturally, it wasn’t easy to find.
Tap, tap, tap—
“...!”
The sound of footsteps made me dart out of sight at once. A stranger passed by, and I waited until they were far away before carefully poking back out and continuing my search.
Then my nose caught a familiar metallic scent, and following it, I found something glittering near the drain.
It was round, and the number 100 was printed on it, so it was definitely a coin.
I rushed over before anyone else could get to it first, but a black shadow appeared ahead of me and blocked my way.
“Caw.”
“Keang?!”
I jumped and stepped back, and when I looked again, I realized the shadow was a crow.
I puffed up my tail right away to threaten it and said, “W-what! I’m strong, you know!”
But even with my threat, the crow simply looked at me like it was nothing, ignored me, fixed its eye on the shiny coin, and then picked it up with its beak.
“That’s mine!!”
Startled that it had stolen the coin I’d been after, I hurriedly lunged at it, but the crow only lifted off into the air with lazy ease.
I stood there blankly, staring up at the crow as it flew into the sky. It circled around me as if mocking me, then flew off somewhere else.
Only then, seething with frustration, did I kick the utility pole, but my own foot ended up hurting so badly that I couldn’t move from that spot for a while.
“Nasty crow... Someday I’ll hunt you down and eat you with Boss...”
Since there was nothing I could do right away, I decided I’d get my revenge later and moved on to look for more money.
How much time had passed? Eventually, I found another coin.
“...1 won?”
It was so covered in rust that it looked like it had fallen ages ago, and there was practically nothing you could do with a one-won coin in this day and age, so my ears and tail drooped on their own.
But I still wasn’t going to give up, so I slapped my own cheeks to pull myself together.
“...Ouch.”
I’d hit myself a little too hard, and tears prickled at the corners of my eyes, but no one was watching, so it was fine.
“Sniff, sniff.”
Just as I was about to stick my nose back into the ground and keep searching, I felt a familiar scent drawing near and looked up. Norangi was coming toward me.
“Norangi.”
“Meow.”
“I’m in the middle of something very important and difficult, so what is it?”
“Meow.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
Norangi told me that a can-opener, someone I’d never seen in this neighborhood, seemed to be looking for me.
There was no way it was someone I knew, so it had to be a stranger... but I couldn’t understand why they were looking for me.
What was certain, though, was that wandering around like this would be dangerous.
“Thanks for telling me, Norangi.”
“Meow.”
“You want me to pay my debt, including from last time? Ngh... I’ll try.”
Once I promised to repay the debt, including the favor from when I found clothes last time, Norangi left as if its business there was finished.
“Someone’s looking for me?”
Why?
No matter how I thought about it, I couldn’t figure out why anyone would be looking for me, or how they even knew about me in the first place.
I wanted to keep looking for money before the sun set, but it was about time to take my afternoon nap with Boss, so I decided to head back for today.
Of course, it was only 1 won, but it was the first money I’d ever earned through hard work, so I made sure to treasure it.
As I was on my way back, more wary of my surroundings than usual, some strange sensation brushed over me, and I froze without meaning to.
“...?”
It wasn’t one of the five senses I’d ever felt before, so it was confusing and unsettling, but I could clearly feel it all the same.
“What is this?”
I looked all around, but nothing seemed odd. Still, that only made me more uneasy, and I instinctively started searching for somewhere to hide.
The place I chose was under a parked car. There was plenty of space, which made it a little unsettling, but it was still far better than nothing.
“Gulp.”
I held my breath and tried to erase my presence as much as possible. Before long, a purple butterfly fluttered into view.
“...A butterfly?”
I could tell that the strange sensation I’d felt was coming from that butterfly.
Were there purple butterflies in our country?
No, there was no way a butterfly could fly around scattering glittering purple particles like that.
Even my instincts were telling me it wasn’t something I could eat.
I hid myself even deeper and swallowed hard.
The purple butterfly fluttered around for a while, then circled the area near the drain where I’d been before, and finally dissolved into particles and vanished.
“It disappeared?”
When the butterfly vanished, the strange sensation disappeared too, but I still couldn’t let my guard down.
And not long after, just as I’d expected, someone appeared.
“All right, something reacted here! This time, let’s really check whether it’s here!”
“...?”
A woman appeared, talking to empty air all by herself. Quietly listening, I realized she seemed to be searching for something.
Only her legs were visible, but it was definitely just her alone, and watching her talk to someone invisible was so unnerving that my tail curled up on its own.
I forced myself to stay calm and hugged my tail tightly. The woman looked around the place where my coin had been stolen by the crow, then picked something up.
“This is... animal fur?”
“Keang?!”
Seeing her examine a strand of fur that had fallen from my tail made my skin crawl, and I almost screamed, but I barely managed to clamp my mouth shut with my tail and stifle the sound.
“Didn’t I just hear something?”
Th-th-thump.
Her words made my whole body tremble, but I held even more still and hid my presence.
“You didn’t hear anything? No way! Don’t act like there’s some kind of atmosphere here. When I say people have told me I’m lying... I’ve heard that a lot? What do you mean by that!”
She kept talking to herself, and now it felt like a scene from a horror movie.
I judged that staying here was dangerous, so it would be better to move carefully and run away.
From beneath the parked car, I slowly backed out and slipped away through the rear, then cautiously peeked back to see what she was doing.
The black-haired woman was examining my fur while talking into the air.
She looked normal enough and fairly young, but I had no idea why she’d lost her mind. Still, this was my chance.
Stealthily.
Stealthily.
One step.
Then another.
I put all my focus into every single step, trying to get away from that place.
On the bright side, I didn’t have any shoes on, so there wasn’t any sound. That was a relief.
But because my eyes had stayed fixed on the woman, I failed to notice the empty can lying beside me and kicked it cleanly.
Clang—
“!!!”
“What was that?”
I’d made such a stupid mistake!!
I had no choice now; it looked like the only way out was to run straight ahead. But just as I was about to dash off, Norangi suddenly appeared from somewhere and hurled itself at the woman.
“Meow!”
“Eek?! Why did a cat suddenly jump at me?!”
I immediately realized Norangi had sacrificed itself for me, and I gritted my teeth and started running.
I couldn’t waste the opening Norangi’s sacrifice had created.
All I could do now was run with everything I had.
I’ll remember this, Norangi!!
But at that moment, I didn’t know.
I had escaped the woman’s line of sight, but above her, one of her abilities—the butterfly—was filming from the sky.
“Boss!!”
After hurrying home... no, after strategically retreating, I ran circles around Boss, who was lazily basking in the sunlight on top of a rock, and cried out, “Boss! It’s an emergency!”
“...?”
“Because of me, Norangi got caught by a stranger human!”
Trying to talk while running had left me breathless, but I couldn’t stand still because I was so anxious.
Even after hearing me, Boss only flicked the rock with its tail and said, “Meow.”
“What do you mean I don’t need to worry?!”
Boss said that cats should never fight humans head-on, and that Norangi would be fine, but I still couldn’t believe it right away.
“But! But! Huff, puff!”
I kept running in circles around Boss, and Boss finally stopped me with a little cat-paw smack.
“Keang!”
“Meow!”
It scolded me and told me to stop being so noisy.
It said that humans were far stronger than cats, and yet at the same time, weak in front of cats.
As long as you didn’t launch a truly brutal attack, it said, they couldn’t do anything even if you messed with them or caused them trouble.
The whole thing had the calm dignity of someone who knew exactly what they were doing... the composure of the strong. I found myself calming down despite myself.
This was Boss, the one who’d beaten me...
“Boss is amazing after all!”
I was sure Norangi would be safe and that we’d meet again, and that made me smile.
“Thank goodness...”
Now that I could finally relax, the tension in my muscles seemed to melt away all at once, and I was suddenly exhausted.
Still, I didn’t forget to show off what I’d accomplished. I took the coin I’d tucked into my tail and held it out to Boss.
“Boss, look! It’s not much, but it’s money! The hundred won got taken by the crow, but I figured out the trick!”
“...”
Boss didn’t really seem to understand the value of money, but without saying a word, it flicked its tail as if to say I’d done well.
Then it got up and brought me something.
With an air as casual as if it had just picked it up along the way, it handed me a ten-thousand-won bill.
“Keang...?”
“Meow.”
Boss said it had seen humans carrying these carefully and had picked up one that had fallen, but that only made me compare it to the one-won coin I’d worked so hard to find.
Somehow deflated, I sank into the gap between the rocks and sat down with a thud.