Tell the Truth. You Like This Too, Don't You?
Man, the way he's staring at me, you'd think he wanted me dead.
Is being smacked with a frying pan and tied to a bed really that upsetting?
Well… yeah, okay. Fair enough. That'd put anyone in a foul mood.
If I'd hit him from the front it might've been one thing, but even I have to admit that getting clocked in the back of the skull would piss me off.
Looking down at my friend — trussed up on the bed, eyes full of pure murder — I flashed him my greasiest smile.
"Hmm, what did I do with him? Maybe I tore out his liver and ate it. Or maybe I drained every last drop of his jeong-gi and chucked him out the window?"
I hadn't really meant to mess with him.
But the dead-serious look on his face was so ridiculous that the teasing just slipped out before I could stop myself.
How was I going to clean this up afterward?
Eh. Future me could deal with it.
And sure enough —
The bait landed hard. His face twisted into genuine, frothing rage, and he started thrashing against the ropes.
"You fucking bitch. Did you kill him?"
"Who knows? He might still be alive."
"Don't fuck with me. If that bastard's dead, you're dead too — by my hands. The second I rip through these ropes, I'm sending you straight to wherever he is."
Murder in his eyes, he yanked the rope taut. A sharp zzzt of fraying fibers answered him as the cord began to give.
"Oh, shit — you're actually tearing through that?"
"Just wait. I'll tear you apart next."
"Yeah, no. Not happening."
Clang!
Right before the rope gave out, I brought the frying pan I'd kept ready and cracked him over the skull again. His tongue lolled out and he slumped back into unconsciousness.
"Crazy goddamn gym rat. I tie him up so he can't get free, and he just tries to rip the ropes apart with raw strength."
It only lasted a second, but I genuinely thought I was going to die.
I'd never seen my softie of a friend that furious before. The feeling that he could kill me with his eyes alone was a first for me.
"Better reinforce this. One strand isn't even close. At least three wraps, minimum."
"I keep it around just in case. You never know when some psycho might break into a one-room apartment and try to murder you, right?"
"Idiot. A frying pan is a cooking tool, not a taser. Who the hell beats people with cookware?"
…Ah.
"Well, sometimes a situation comes up where you can hit someone with cookware. Like right now, for example."
"Yeah, pretty much. Anyway — that was way too close. Who even thinks of tearing through rope that thick?"
Yeah, no ordinary human — that was putting it mildly.
Hitting a Three Lifts total of eight hundred already puts you well outside the ranks of regular people.
"Just look at the body. One glance at those murderous muscles and if you still call him a normal guy, you need your eyes gouged out."
I wrapped three thick lengths of rope around each of his arms and legs, then grabbed a bottle of cold water from the fridge and dumped it over him.
"Ghk— cough, cough— uurgh… my head…"
"Quit whining. A guy whose brain is packed solid with muscle — what's a little bump going to do to you?"
"Why don't you take a hit yourself and then talk? The second I snap these ropes, I'm frying-panning that head of yours first."
"If you can manage it, sure. But do you really think you can break free right now? Three layers of heavy-duty rope?"
I spelled out his situation right in front of his face, mocking him the whole way. He slowly reined in his temper and asked, almost calmly —
"…Can I ask a few questions?"
"Of course."
"What did you do with my friend? If you'd killed him, I'd expect the room to reek of blood and semen — but it doesn't."
"Sharp. For a guy I figured was all muscle and no brain, I expected pure rage, not actual reasoning."
Soft, dumb, and muscle-obsessed — I never thought he was capable of thinking this clearly.
Some kind of near-death awakening? Not that I'd ever planned on killing him.
"How would you even know what he smells like? A yokai I've never met before pretending to know him is seriously unpleasant."
"Is that so? We've been running into each other for quite a while now, actually."
"No. We haven't. There aren't many fox yokai left who can take human form. The ones still around are too busy hiding to waltz up in front of an Exorcist."
"I've been dropping hints this whole time — are you playing dumb, or do you genuinely not get it? Also, since when were you an Exorcist?"
Last I'd heard, he was a gym trainer, not an Exorcist.
Had he career-switched into yokai-slaying in a single month?
Then again, looking at those muscles, he could probably subdue the monsters out of a fantasy novel or a wuxia epic. In a way, Exorcist might actually suit him.
I was nodding along in understanding when he looked at me like I was the one not making sense.
"Doesn't a yokai recognize an Exorcist on sight? Especially a gumiho with high-tier yoreok like you — you should've sensed me from a distance. Or wait — you did crack me over the head with a frying pan the second I walked in. So maybe you did clock me right away?"
"Haaah… you are so goddamn exhausting. Stop jumping to conclusions, you idiot. I thought your IQ had gone up, but nothing's changed at all."
"Jumping to conclusions? What are you trying to say?"
"You said it yourself. No semen smell, no blood smell, so I probably didn't kill him. And then there's a gumiho who keeps acting like she knows you. Does anything ring a bell?"
"A gumiho who ate my friend's memories and is impersonating him… You really are a nasty piece of work. So what did you do with my friend after you wiped his mind?"
…She could absorb memories too?
Wait. If that was on the table, bringing up blackmail material from our past wouldn't work either.
I was completely, utterly fucked.
Realizing the situation was careening toward catastrophe, I left my bound friend alone and turned to the Fox God.
"Hey. One question."
"What?"
"Not you. The Fox God. What the hell did you do to my body? Did you grab some random freeloading gumiho, stuff my memories into her, and dump my real body somewhere?"
"Really? So my original body doesn't exist in this world anymore?"
"Couldn't you have just… not changed my body? Then this bastard wouldn't be looking at me like he wants me dead."
Understanding, my ass.
A guy getting turned on and jerking off is pure instinct.
And she was calling that instinct a sin? What a piece of— no, what a bitch.
At least I'd confirmed the Fox God hadn't body-swapped me with someone else. I walked back over to my friend with a smile.
"Hey. She says it wasn't a swap. She transformed the body itself."
"Don't give me that crap. That violates the natural order. Even most great yokai wouldn't pull something that insane."
"What if it wasn't a great yokai — what if it was a yokai who'd ascended to godhood? Possible then, right? I don't know a damn thing about that side of things, so I couldn't tell you."
Please stop talking like this is some exclusive lore dump only you understand and use words I know, you asshole.
This conversation was so convoluted I couldn't follow half of it.
"Can we drop the complicated shit? Yokai this, Exorcist that — it's boring as hell and zero emotional payoff. We'd be better off debating the aesthetics of what makes a fox beastman hot."
Maybe it was because the topic had swung to something that actually got him going.
Even bound hand and foot, his eyes lit up as he spoke.
"…Fox beastman? You mean the ones closer to human form, or the ones closer to animal form?"
"Obviously the ones closer to human. If you're jerking it to something that's basically a full-on beast, that's a paraphilia — not normal libido."
"Hah. Hilarious. It's because they have a beast's form — because they're a little more primal — that they're hot. You absolute taste-deaf moron."
"There he goes again. People are supposed to get off on people. Getting off on animals is a paraphilia, period."
"Banging a fox that looks like a person, or banging a person that looks like a fox — isn't it the same thing? It's bestiality either way. No point drawing a line."
Unbelievable. Fucking hell.
And the worst part was he had a point, so I couldn't even argue back.
While I sat there stumped by a hit that landed dead center, the Fox God watched from the sidelines with pure secondhand embarrassment, pinching the bridge of her nose.
"If you ignore the sexual hang-ups, he's still more normal than I am. His social life actually works."
"Hey, if he actually tried, he could get a girlfriend. He could even lose the V-card. That face of his is… hmm. No. Never mind. He couldn't."
I shook my head, picturing those murderous muscles and that thuggish mug. His already vicious face twisted even uglier as he started growling.
"You fucking bitch—"
"What? I'm right. Be honest, look in a mirror. Is that a face that gets girlfriends?"
"…Muscles don't lie."
"Yeah — they tell the truth that you can't get a girlfriend. So I guess they really don't lie."
"…"
I kept needling him as I carefully leaned in and started tickling his ear with one of my fluffy tails.
"So at this point, you can admit it, right? Who else would debate this stupid topic, crack their friend's skull with a frying pan, and be a total freak for fox beastmen — if not me?"
"…First, get that goddamn tail out of my face before I rip it off."
"Goddamn tail? This soft, fluffy thing that looks like it'd feel amazing to touch — and you're calling it a goddamn tail? That doesn't sound like something that should come out of your mouth."
"Sh-shut up. I will never surrender to some fluffy, ridiculously hot tail. You think just looking at a hot tail is enough to make me fold?"
"Mm, judging by how red your face is, you're about to fold any second. One tail not enough? Let's try another."
I brushed a second tail against his other ear. He shuddered, voice cracking with something that was definitely not just anger.
"I will! Never! Surrender! No matter how many insanely hot tails you add! I will not feel lust for the likes of you!"
"Hey. Just tell the truth. You like this too, don't you? Go ahead and accept me as your friend already. Do that, and I'll show you paradise."
"I… I…"
He still wouldn't say the words. So I draped a third tail over his face and spoke softly.
"If you can hold out against this too, I'll acknowledge it. But can you really take it?"