The Fox's Embrace
With a sickening crack, the sound of his jaw and neck bones shattering echoed through the room. His body went limp in an instant. She stared at him in stunned disbelief, as if she couldn't quite believe what she'd just done. Panicked, she checked his condition, but thanks to the strange entity living inside him, his body was already beginning to repair itself. Her held breath finally escaped in a shaky sigh of relief.
"Hoo..."
She prided herself on having the largest bust in the facility, but even she couldn't help letting out a sigh of pure relief this time.
"...No one saw that, right?"
She liked to think her private room was free from that creepy voyeur angel's surveillance, but the thought that someone might have witnessed it anyway sent a cold sweat down her back.
"I... I warned him, didn't I? But then this idiot suddenly yanked on it again...!"
She grumbled defensively to the empty room before sighing again, realizing how ridiculous she sounded. Her gaze drifted to the man sprawled across her bed.
"..."
For a moment, something strange flickered in her crimson eyes as she looked down at his defenseless form.
"You started this first, after all."
Using the excuse of his repeated rudeness as justification, she decided to test something that had been bothering her. Rustling softly, she first straightened his limp body on the bed like a broken doll. After hesitating for several long minutes, she carefully climbed on top of him and wrapped her arms tightly around his waist.
"..."
The deep embrace on the bed might have looked romantic to an outsider, but it only happened because he was unconscious. It wasn't about satisfying her own desires.
"Mmm..."
She frowned slightly, as if trying to figure something out. She adjusted the position of her arms, shifted her body, and changed angles, but eventually reached an unsatisfying conclusion.
"...It feels strange, but it's still different."
For him to truly love her, she would need to feel genuine affection toward him as well—whether she wanted to or not. And though she hated admitting it, she suspected that affection had already taken root when he saved her life. She had hoped that recreating the moment might bring back that fluttering feeling from before, but it didn't seem to work.
"The book said that skinship like holding hands, hugging, or kissing would... mm, help you understand your feelings."
According to the book she'd bought, How to Tell Real Love for Budding Romantics, physical contact with someone you cared about would reveal emotional turbulence and confirm your heart. But she wasn't the type to get emotionally flustered easily. Her honest feelings tended to show on her face before she even had time to feel conflicted.
"Haa... Fine. No need to test it with a kiss."
She squeezed his hand once more, then reluctantly tore her gaze away from his lips. She told herself there was no point in going further.
She believed that being willing to throw away one's life for another was the true mark of love. But it didn't seem like he loved her that way. Annoyed at herself for getting worked up like a fool, she still hadn't forgotten that she owed him for saving her life. Yet she felt it wasn't time to repay that debt just yet. She couldn't explain why. Maybe, under the excuse of repaying him, she simply wanted to keep this connection a little longer.
She had told herself it was over, but the lingering regret made her keep rubbing her dangerous body against his firm frame, still searching for that fluttering sensation. In the end, she couldn't find it. Strangely, she realized petting his tail had felt better.
If the counselor ever found out about this moment, he would probably shed bloody tears of frustration at having missed it while unconscious.
"...What am I even doing?"
She sat up and looked down at him, still fast asleep. Though she was the one who had knocked him out, the sight of him sleeping so peacefully only made her feel mischievous. A wicked idea crossed her mind—one that definitely wouldn't be good for him.
*
"...Huh."
How did I fall asleep? The fatigue from staying up all night with Nero had eased a little, but... my neck hurts. Actually, it hurts a lot.
"If you're awake, get your head off me."
"Ah... Eek?!"
My neck felt like it had been snapped, yet my head had been resting so comfortably. I realized I had been using her bundle of tails as a pillow. The fur that had been flattened by my head slowly puffed back up on its own—truly the ultimate pillow.
"If you're up, then get going."
"Ah..."
My head was still foggy from sleep, and I couldn't quite process what had happened. For some reason, the Field Team Leader was pushing me away in a hurry, which only confused me more. Something felt missing under my pants... and why did my neck hurt so much?
"I'll call you again next time."
"...Ah, yes... Yes?"
The door shut coldly in front of me. Only then did I realize I had been in the Field Team Leader's private room. Left alone in the hallway, the memories slowly returned. Thankfully, the blissful memory of touching the nine-tailed fox's tails remained perfectly intact. My brain must have prioritized protecting that precious information during its reboot.
And... the adorable reaction she showed when I pulled on her tail.
"But I definitely heard a cracking sound at the end..."
The punishment for my childish act had been lightning-fast. The last thing I remembered was her sharp voice and the sound of something breaking. I moved my neck left and right experimentally, but it seemed fine.
"Well, it probably wasn't anything serious."
I had deserved it, after all. How long had I been asleep? The time... the time?
"Ah...!"
I checked the clock and saw that I was already thirty minutes past quitting time. Thinking of Yerin and Scarlet waiting for me, I hurried my steps.
"You're finally here. What were you doing that made you so late? I heard you had a private meeting with that beastly woman in her room."
As expected—or rather, as planned—Scarlet pulled me into the back seat without a word and began interrogating me relentlessly.
"Ah... No? Nothing really... We didn't talk about anything special..."
"You really can't lie, can you? Don't you think so too?"
While waiting, the two of them seemed to have grown closer. Yerin nodded obediently at Scarlet's question.
"Something's definitely suspicious..."
Unlike Yerin, who had only nodded and now had to focus on driving, Scarlet clearly wanted to hear every detail about what happened between me and the Field Team Leader. And she wasn't the type to wait patiently for answers.
"Huh...? Hey, he's not wearing any underwear."
"W-Wait?!"
I couldn't believe a woman would just shove her hand straight into a man's pants like that, but there was one right here.
"No! That's not it! There's a perfectly good explanation...!"
I tried to explain everything to stop them from letting their imaginations run wild, but hearing my story only made them spin even wilder fantasies.
"Did she really throw them away? Or did she keep them separately?"
"Of course she threw them away...! Why would the Field Team Leader keep something like that?"
"Did you actually see her throw them away?"
"Well...! That's... No, I didn't see it directly, but there's no way something like what you're thinking happened with the Field Team Leader!"
It was the Field Team Leader, after all. The same person who had told me to go wash because I smelled. There was no way she would do something like that.
"There's no such thing as 'no way' in this world. Besides, that woman is pretty pathetic. If she wanted it that badly, she could've just sucked it once like this..."
"Ah..."
Oh no...
"Tsk, he'd get hard right away."
Regardless of the truth, Scarlet spent the entire ride home teasing me, determined to paint the Field Team Leader as desperate for me so she could feel superior. I had been exposed to quite a lot of the Field Team Leader's pheromones today, and honestly... it didn't feel so bad.