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The insect-fetish commission client had offered several times the price of the previous job, desperate to squeeze one more piece out of me — but after careful consideration, I turned him down.
The deviant with the baffling libido pressed me for answers, utterly unable to comprehend my decision. I replied with absolute firmness.
As I sent the reply, I cast my mind back to drawing that insect NSFW piece.
Had the gumiho's characteristic lust reacted to the rhinoceros beetle's mighty horn? No. It hadn't. If anything, whatever desire I'd had went ice-cold and sank without a trace.
Then what about the female side — had that done it for me?
Nope. The mesugaki getting thoroughly disciplined had her own appeal points, sure, but she wasn't a fox beastkin, so she did absolutely nothing for me.
Would a fox-beastkin version of that mesugaki have stirred even a little something? I wondered carefully — then pictured a fox beastkin getting wrecked by a rhinoceros beetle, and whatever flicker of interest I'd felt promptly halved itself.
And that was when it hit me.
Insect fetish content and I were fundamentally incompatible.
And if I kept drawing insect stuff that left me completely cold, I'd eventually lose the ability to draw anything that actually turned me on.
Why had I started drawing in the first place?
Wasn't it so I could draw the things that got me going?
To self-supply hotter fox-beastkin pieces. To rev my baby-factory engine even harder. That was why I'd started — and now I was supposed to draw things that left me cold? To look at my own art with disgust?
Absolutely not.
I'd rather give up a fortune than draw something like that.
I drew the line one more time, and the commission client voiced his disappointment before saying goodbye.
Having reached a relatively warm conclusion, I let out a deep sigh and sprawled across the bed.
Exhausting. The mental drain was brutal. I wanted some healing — was there any way to get it?
Right. I'd hop on Hitomi and dig up some ridiculously hot fox manga.
A few hours of happy time with manga — nothing healed better than that. I'd held out for two whole days, so a few new ones had to have gone up by now. Fox beastkin content was normal, healthy lust. Surely at least one artist out there had drawn some.
I fired up the VPN on my phone and went straight to the Hitomi site saved in my bookmarks. Then I typed the three letters I always typed into the search bar.
Fox.
A tag that got me going — and came loaded with an absurd number of landmines. Fox.
Before hitting search, I offered a prayer in the Fox God's direction.
Please don't lead with something disgusting. And please don't let Tag: Fox come paired with Tag: Furry.
With a heart full of desperate hope, I pressed the search button. And the result—
"You have got to be fucking kidding me!!!!!"
Instant, total annihilation.
The moment the loading screen vanished, what greeted me was not the resurrection of the dead but the preferences of the male. And stuck to it like a curse: the tag Yaoi.
I coughed blood internally and scoured the entire first page, but unfortunately, all that existed there was despair.
Fuck.
I shouldn't have prayed to the Fox God. I should've prayed to Buddha, or Jesus, or Allah instead. Come to think of it, praying to that bitch was never going to get me what I wanted. She grants wishes in reverse, doesn't she?
Yeah — she flipped the wish, and now all I got was gay stuff and furry stuff. Next time I should just beg for a flood of gay and furry content. Then maybe some ridiculously hot fox-beastkin manga would show up instead?
I was about to hit page two and resume the expedition when the world suddenly spun, and a crushing wave of fatigue crashed over me as if it had been waiting for this exact moment.
"...I just wanted my happy time."
Apparently the page-one yaoi tags had dealt significant psychic damage. But if I fell asleep like this, that stuff was going to show up in my dreams — and those images had been vivid enough to haunt me.
I tried to force my eyes open, but the fatigue that had been stacking and stacking all this time refused to allow it. And so that night, I ended up witnessing two male furries playing firetruck in my dreams.
It was a vicious nightmare.
Of all the dreams I could have had, instead of two ridiculously hot female fox beastkin melting into sticky, slug-like intimacy, two male furries showed up and played firetruck. A truly revolting nightmare I never wanted to experience again.
"Urgh... gwehhhhh..."
Was I still dry-heaving from the nightmare replaying itself when the Fox God approached with a face full of concern and asked after me?
— You there. Did you mate while this lady was away? From where this lady stands, it looks rather like morning sickness.
"What the actual fuck are you talking about."
— This lady has heard that this era possesses something called a pregnancy test. Why not try one?
"This two-bit goddess bitch has finally gone senile."
I hurled a pillow at the Fox God, venting pure rage.
"I'm already fucked up from a shitty nightmare and now I have to listen to shitty nonsense on top of it? You've crossed a line, you bitch!"
— Just what manner of nightmare did you have to speak so? Did you mate in the dream? Strange — mating should not be a nightmare.
"Even explaining it is a shitty nightmare, so don't ask. It's so disgusting I'm about to throw up."
Was I clutching my head as it throbbed under the crushing stress? Suddenly a pair of hands gathered my head close, and the supreme cushioning against my forehead left my mind going completely blank.
Through the haze of that blankness came a bewitching voice. The Fox God — when had she manifested? — was cradling my head and laughing softly.
"A reward for all your hardships. Not a single man who spent a night with this lady has ever received such a thing — consider it an honor."
"Saying that doesn't make me particularly happy, you know? You put me through hell and the best reward you can offer is a hug?"
"Fufufu... For someone who claims not to be happy, your tail is wagging rather vigorously, is it not?"
"Hmph."
I answered curtly, but the truth was that the moment I buried my face in the Fox God's chest, every last scrap of stress evaporated.
Magnificent size. Incredible cushioning. The performance of the Fox God's baby-food pouches, steeped in maternal warmth, was extraordinary — and thanks to them, the nightmare that had been endlessly violating my brain moments ago crumbled into dust and vanished.
"Feeling better now? Shall this lady disappear again?"
"...I was fine without you to begin with. Go back to spirit form already. Stop making people restless for no reason."
"Pfft. As you wish."
The Fox God snorted a laugh and immediately returned to spirit form. Lingering in the rich afterglow still clinging to my head, I tossed her a question.
"Oh, right — I've got something to ask."
— What is it you wish to know?
"Is there any way to hide the ears and tail for just a few hours? My parents told me to come by tomorrow, and I really can't show up looking like this."
There were two reasons I hadn't set foot outside until now. One: I was a shut-in, and my bastard of a best friend handled the trash, so I'd never needed to go out. The other: I was terrified that if I did go out, I'd get snatched up as a lab specimen in some underground research facility.
If I could just hide these perky little ears and this lush, fluffy tail, I could manage an outing somehow — but while the ears could be concealed, no method on earth could hide the tail.
If there truly was no way, I'd have no choice but to summon my parents to my room even if it meant getting beaten to death by my father. But if my parents set foot in my room...
"Is this a raccoon den? Do you never air this place out? You said you'd live just fine on your own, and look at this disaster."
"W-well... if a dog lives here, isn't a doghouse kind of fine...?"
"You little... talking back...?"
I'd get the absolute shit beaten out of me and get dragged home by force. And if I ended up living at home that way — happy time would get awkward, streaming would get awkward, and even commission work would clearly take a hit.
I had to go myself, no matter what. Being summoned over there was still vastly better than summoning my parents over here.
So I fixed the Fox God with a steady look, certain she would know the answer — and she smiled brightly as she opened her mouth.
— That is...