The Fox, Who Had Money and Then Didn’t
Yes, no matter how I thought about it, this wasn’t my failure. It was Boss who was amazing.
He didn’t even know what money was worth, and yet he still managed to find ten thousand won. As expected, he was the kind of man who had defeated me!
In other words, there was no reason for me to be disappointed.
I quietly took out the coin I had earned today and looked at it.
It was rusty and dirty, and it was worth almost nothing, but it was the first money I had ever earned. I decided to keep it carefully, like a charm that would bring me lots of money in the future.
And I would not waste the ten thousand won Boss had casually given me. I would spend it only on something truly necessary.
Of course, I was too tired to use it today.
Which meant I had to protect that huge sum of ten thousand won before tomorrow came.
"Gulp."
Just thinking that some unknown person might be after this enormous amount of money made me swallow hard.
I decided to stay alert and move carefully so I could hide the ten thousand won somewhere safe.
"Grrr."
I was carrying the ten thousand won in my mouth and searching for a place to hide it when I noticed a rat lurking in the grass, eyeing my money. I snarled and scared it off.
Last time, I had been careless and just shoved the mole I caught into a hole near the house, only for the ants to steal it away.
But I was a clever fox who didn’t repeat the same mistake twice.
I was going to hide this huge sum somewhere no one could ever find it!
"Good, this is enough!"
Thud-thud-thud.
I dug a small hole under a tree a little ways from the house and hid the ten thousand won there.
Just imagining Boss’s face when I bought something amazing with it tomorrow made my tail start swishing.
...
...
...But how much money was ten thousand won, exactly?
Lately I kept feeling like I was forgetting important things for some reason, but that was probably because I was too busy surviving in this harsh wilderness.
Still, if I thought calmly, I’d remember it in no time.
So... ten thousand won was... the same as my one-won coins, but ten thousand of them...
"Gasp!"
In that instant, I realized that ten thousand one-won coins stacked together would be as tall as a building, and only then did I truly grasp just how huge ten thousand won was.
Maybe I could even buy a splendid house.
Thump-thump.
My tail would not stop wagging, and my heart pounded hard at the thought that I could already buy a wonderful house.
At the same time, I started worrying that maybe I had hidden such a huge amount too casually.
"I should bury it deeper."
I dug up the hole I had just made and started digging deeper.
Thanks to becoming a fox, even digging with my bare hands felt incredibly fast and easy.
That made it possible for me to hide the money even more safely.
By the time I was covered in dirt, I was able to return to Boss’s house with a satisfied smile.
"Boss, I'm back!"
Boss did not answer. He was sunbathing, and he answered me with his tail instead.
"I’m going to rest up today and buy something incredible tomorrow, so look forward to it!"
"Meow."
"We might even end up moving!"
"..."
"No need to doubt me! With ten thousand won, I can buy a house and even repay Norangi for her kindness!"
I spoke with confidence, but Boss did not seem to believe me.
He was grooming himself leisurely, and just thinking about how startled he would be tomorrow made the corners of my mouth lift.
Even my tail was swishing, and even if I wanted it to stop, it wouldn’t listen.
I wasn’t used to the sensation of my tail moving and thinking on its own, but it still somehow felt natural.
Maybe, with time, I’d be able to control it perfectly.
"Hmm..."
I stared silently at my tail, and suddenly realized that my precious tail was covered in dirt.
This was no good!
My tail was a precious pillow and blanket, with its very own Fluffy skill, after all.
I tensed my hips and shook my body, trying to brush the dirt off my tail, but it didn’t seem like enough.
I wondered if I should wash it with water, but there was nowhere nearby to do that, and I didn’t even have a brush, so it was hard to take care of properly.
"What should I do..."
Sure, the gap between the rocks could protect me from the rain, but as a sleeping place it was hardly ideal.
In a place like that, the only thing that had helped me sleep warm and cozy was my precious tail.
Maybe it was just my imagination, but it felt like the fur had lost some of its shine compared to when the tail first appeared.
At this rate, I worried it might wither like a plant.
I had to stop my tail from losing its fullness and softness.
"A fox’s tail is her pride!"
As I used my hands to flick dirt away, Boss grooming himself on top of a rock suddenly caught my eye.
When I looked at him like this, he didn’t seem to bathe or brush himself at all, but his fur looked excellent.
Could the secret to fur care be...
...
Grooming?
!!!
I was struck as though by lightning.
Boss had been grooming diligently every day, and that was the very key to taking care of fur.
I, too, stuck out my tongue and began licking my tail, following Boss’s example.
My tongue combed through my tail like a brush, and the saliva felt like conditioner, bringing dead-looking fur back to life with a glossy sheen.
"Oh!"
The effects of grooming appeared almost immediately, and I got so excited that I started grooming myself seriously beside Boss.
Lick, lick.
The more I kept at it, the more instinctively I seemed to figure out the knack for it, and the more my tail seemed to come alive.
I’ll make up for everything I couldn’t do before, so I’m going to work hard.
Swish-swish.
"Stay still! It’s getting hard to groom you!"
My tail kept trying to move on its own while I groomed it, and before I knew it, I got annoyed and smacked it.
"Kyaang!?"
Of course, that tail was my own tail, so a scream burst out of me.
Boss looked at me with a pitiful expression, and I broke out in a cold sweat and kept grooming as if nothing had happened.
"...Huh?"
Then my tongue licked the air, and when I looked at my tail in confusion, I realized there was a spot I couldn’t reach with my tongue.
I had thought I’d become quite flexible after turning into a fox, but even so, the fur near the base of my tail was in a physically impossible place to groom.
I tried changing my posture and grooming from different angles, but I lost my balance and toppled over backward because of the awkward position.
"Ueh..."
I wanted to take perfect care of my fur, but not being able to groom properly left me feeling strangely unsettled, and there was nothing I could do about it.
"Haaah."
Just as I was about to give up grooming, Boss, who had been sitting beside me, climbed onto my tail.
"Boss?"
"Meow."
And then he started grooming me instead.
Could Boss really be grooming me for my sake?
Touched, I decided to leave my precious tail in his care.
"Should I groom Boss too?"
"Meow!"
"Kyaang!?"
I tried to groom Boss in return, but he gave me a cat-punch as if to say, “How dare someone so far down the hierarchy act up?”
Apparently, grooming was the sort of reward Boss gave to a subordinate.
That night, I was able to sleep comfortably with my tail, now softer than usual, as my pillow...
...
Wiggle.
Wiggle-wiggle.
My tail was definitely warmer and fluffier than yesterday, but...
"I can't sleep."
I had even forced my eyes shut and counted moles while I slept, but I dreamed that the ants stole the ten thousand won I had worked so hard to hide today and bought themselves a new house.
"Kyaang!?"
I woke with a start, clutching my pounding heart and scanning my surroundings warily.
It wasn’t long before I realized it had been a dream, and I let out a relieved sigh.
But soon enough, the anxiety started creeping back in little by little, and in the end I couldn’t stand it anymore and ran to where I had hidden the ten thousand won.
Only after digging into the ground and confirming the money was still there did I finally relax.
"Thank goodness, you’re safe."
The safety of my money was confirmed for the moment, but I couldn’t let my guard down.
I had to move it to a safe place no one could ever find.
I dug up the money from where I had first hidden it, buried it in a spot a little farther away, and went back home.
Not long after that, I dreamed again, this time that a rat stole my money and bought itself absurd amounts of cheese, so I woke up and hid it somewhere else...
I repeated the cycle of dreaming and rehiding it several times.
"Meow."
Boss, who had returned from hunting, looked at me strangely, then eventually climbed onto my tail and settled there.
"Bo... Boss? If you do that, I can't move."
"Meooow!"
"...All right, Boss."
Only after Boss scolded me did I finally manage to fall asleep.
Of course, I was startled awake by a nightmare and woke Boss up too, so I got scolded again with a cat-punch, but still.
"Hwae..."
A refreshing morning had come, but I felt anything but refreshed.
Having gained a large sum of money was a good thing, but I was painfully aware with my whole body that good things were not the only things that came with it.
And Boss, with all that money, could still stay so relaxed. Once again, I felt how amazing he really was.
Still, today!
At last, the time had come to buy a house with my ten thousand won.
Wouldn’t the convenience store have one?
There were so many things in a convenience store that surely they’d be selling houses too.
Wagging my tail, I headed to the place where I had first hidden the ten thousand won last night.
"Kyaang?!"
But there was nothing there.
There were signs that someone had dug there, and my precious ten thousand won had vanished without a trace.
"Wh... who stole it...? Ah!"
I wondered who had stolen it, then suddenly remembered how I had hidden it somewhere else last night because I was worried, and scratched my head awkwardly.
I hurried to the next hiding place, but the ten thousand won wasn’t there either.
"...Huh."
Cold sweat ran down my back.
I couldn’t remember how many times I had moved it last night, or where I had hidden it at the end.
I still couldn’t believe it, so I searched around several more times looking for traces of the money, and even tried following its scent, but because I had buried and dug it up in so many different places, the smell had scattered everywhere.
"Kyaang..."
Thud.
My legs gave out, and I sank to the ground, staring blankly at the place where the money might have been.
And at the same time, not far from Naru, a purple butterfly fluttered about.
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