Please Never Ever Try Cooking
Everything else, I could let slide.
Claims that furries were a perfectly normal sexual preference, or that succubi really were the ultimate sexy race—those were pure nonsense I could dismiss as bullshit and move on from.
But the claim that fox beastfolk were an unsexy race? That, I absolutely could not tolerate.
What kind of animal is a fox, after all?
Among all the countless creatures out there, don't they possess the fluffiest, most blessed tails of all? Aren't they charming precisely because they act coy and cunning while secretly being total airheads?
When a creature like that becomes human and tempts you with those perky, fluffy ears and those lush, cozy tails—the exact things that push your buttons—what kind of person could possibly resist?
Wouldn't you just pounce and punish them so thoroughly they couldn't have a period for ten months straight?
And yet this bastard had the gall to compare a fox—not to some other animal, but to those foul-tempered furballs that would have gone extinct ages ago if not for the single advantage of being cute.
That son of a bitch deserved to get beaten until the inside of a frying pan went concave.
I swung the pan with everything I had at my buddy, who was snickering in the most punchable way possible, and only managed to calm down once I'd confirmed he was thoroughly wrecked.
"Hoo... I was having a great sleep and this motherfucker had to spike my blood pressure."
If I'd been mid-commission like usual, maybe it wouldn't have stung so much. But I'd finally gotten a proper rest for the first time in ages, only to get jolted awake by that absolute garbage of a statement. Of course I was pissed.
"I can't even just kill this bastard."
CLANG!!!!!
In the end, rage got the better of me and I swung the pan one more time before clutching my empty stomach and heading straight for the kitchen.
I hadn't even eaten a proper breakfast, and on top of that I'd worked myself into a fury, which only made me hungrier.
I opened the fridge looking for a meal kit, but they were nowhere to be found—no idea when they'd all been eaten. I checked the freezer for frozen food as a backup, but that was completely empty too.
...Fuck. When did everything get eaten?
I distinctly remembered stocking up enough to last a single person five full days with room to spare.
Curious about what the hell had happened, I checked the trash bags—and there they were. Every meal kit I'd bought for myself, discarded with the insides scraped completely clean.
I'd confirmed at lunch yesterday that there were still ten of various kinds left. So why were they all empty?
Had someone eaten them without me knowing?
Honestly, it seemed like a bit much for the bastard currently passed out over there to have polished off alone.
Still, I should ask. Asking might get me an answer.
I picked up the frying pan—now bulging outward on the inside—and carefully poked the unconscious guy.
"Hey, asshole. Wake up for a second."
"Ugh... why're you waking me, you bastard. I was just about to go at it with you."
"Stop being disgusting and answer one thing. The meal kits in the fridge—did you eat all of them?"
No way. There was no way this guy had eaten all of them, right? Some random home invader had probably broken in, suddenly gotten horny for meal kits, and scarfed them all down before leaving.
I asked my friend while denying even the slightest possibility—but the answer that came out of his mouth was more shocking than anything I could have imagined.
"Meal kits? Oh, you mean those foods wrapped in plastic?"
"Yeah."
"I made those into a full nine-dish banquet before heading out at dawn. Portions were better than I expected, so I left pretty full."
He answered with complete, shameless confidence, as if wondering what the problem even was. I let out a hollow laugh at that brazen attitude, then swung the pan and cracked him across the head again.
CLANG!!!
But he must have had at least some capacity to learn, because he threw up an arm and blocked it, then snapped at me in an angry voice.
"Ah, what the hell is your problem this time?!"
"You son of a bitch, you ate my five days' worth of food as a single meal!"
"Five days' worth? Don't bullshit me! That was one meal—how the hell is that five days of food?!"
"If you split them between breakfast and dinner, lunch and dinner, it was exactly five days of food!"
I screeched at him like a sparrow on the warpath, and he scratched his shiny bald head and offered an apology.
"Sorry, man. I genuinely didn't know that was five days of food. Forgive me just this once."
"Forgive you? There's nothing left to eat, you bastard! All those frozen foods are gone too! You did that as well, didn't you?"
"Oh, those? I saw the Fox God manifest a while back and pull them out one by one to eat. She looked like she was enjoying them so much I started craving some myself."
"Why are you only telling me this now?!"
"Uh... because the Fox God asked me not to say anything?"
Goddamn it. Two of the most useless creatures to ever walk this earth.
I ground my teeth and started pulling ingredients out of the fridge one by one. My buddy watched me with a peculiar look in his eyes.
"You... do you even know how to cook?"
"I can boil ramen."
"Is there a single person on this planet who can't boil ramen? I'm asking if you can make anything other than something that simple."
At the uneasy note in his voice, I shook my head lightly and answered with total confidence.
"Nope? In my entire life, the only thing I've ever cooked is ramen."
"...A guy who's never made anything but ramen is about to attempt actual cooking?"
"Being a beginner doesn't mean I can't do it, right? Worst case, I just follow along on the internet."
I pulled up LaTube and showed him a video titled Even Beginners Can Do It! Easy Cooking Edition!, and my buddy let out a hollow laugh before retreating to the bed.
"Fine, do whatever you want. Just make sure you eat whatever you cook yourself—don't give any of it to anyone else, got it?"
"Don't come asking for some later, you bastard."
Just you wait. I was about to show him a spectacular beef hot pot.
"Alrighty, first go ahead and chop those veggies nice and chunky for me. If you cut 'em too fine, the texture won't be as nice later on."
Following my excellent teacher's lecture, I set about chopping vegetables with a Chinese cleaver.
THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! THWACK!
With every strike of the knife, the flimsy kitchen trembled. Sensing the violent vibrations, my buddy cracked his eyes open and started offering unsolicited advice.
"Aren't you bringing that down a little hard? You're gonna wreck the cutting board at that rate."
"It's fine. Mom bought an expensive one. It'll take more than this to put a dent in it."
"If it's expensive, that makes it even worse, you crazy bitch! Chop gently!"
He came into the kitchen and pointed out the cleaver marks left all over the board. I gave him a look of pure indifference, then smacked him with my tail.
Thump.
My thick, lush tail slapped him across the cheek, and he stared at me with a completely blank expression.
What? It barely even hurt. Getting hit by a plump, fluffy tail was basically a reward, wasn't it?
I smacked his other cheek with my tail for good measure, then kicked him out of the kitchen.
"I'll handle it myself, so stop backseat cooking. One more word of advice and you don't get to touch my tail for the rest of the day. Got it?"
"Haa, fine. Whether the board breaks or the kitchen goes to hell, I won't say a single word. Do whatever you want."
He shook his head like he'd had enough and went back to the bed, and I returned to following the teacher's lecture to make the hot pot.
"Now toss in those chunky-cut veggies and let's season this up. Get your soy sauce, salt, and sugar ready for me."
"A hot pot's gotta have a little sweetness to it, right? The more sugar, the better."
"Season it just right, and once the flavor's there, throw in the meat and you're done. Pretty easy, huh?"
"That really was easy, teacher. A perfect lecture."
Except... well.
Why did my hot pot taste like this? I'd done exactly what the teacher said.
The teacher had clearly said it should be a sweet base with saltiness coming through. A hot pot suited a sweet foundation with salt better than a salty foundation with sweet, after all.
So why could I taste nothing but salt in mine?
It was a brutal, overpowering saltiness with only the faintest ghost of sweetness clinging on for dear life.
Had I made a mistake somewhere in the process? I carefully considered the possibility, but all I'd done was add a little extra salt because the seasoning seemed slightly off. I hadn't done anything wrong.
Had my sense of taste gone weird?
No—that bald bastard had happily eaten the same meal kits I'd enjoyed, so my palate was fine.
Which meant... this beef hot pot was just fucking terrible...
I stared down at the beef hot pot, which at least looked spectacular, then carefully ladled some into a bowl and brought it over to my friend.
"Hey."
"What."
"Try this once. Finish it and I'll let you touch my tail for a whole hour."
"Are you trying to poison your one and only friend? If I die, I can't touch the tail, you asshole."
He recoiled in horror and tried to get away from me, but I coiled my tail around him and dragged him right back in front of me.
"Where do you think you're going."
"A mangaka who spends happy time with a dildo... just thinking about it is so fucking hot."
"Shut up and eat, you horny demon. You're supposed to be a shaman by trade and all you can think about is that kind of filth?"
I handed him the hot pot—loaded with beef and gorgeous in appearance only—and he looked down at the plate with a puzzled expression.
"Smells good, though? Looks tasty too."
"Then try it."
"You idiot, you have to unwrap the tail before I can try anything."
Ah. Right.
At his sigh-laced voice, I uncoiled the tail wrapped around his body. The moment he was free, he picked up his chopsticks and tasted the hot pot.
And then.
"You—for the love of god—never, ever cook again."
He said it in a voice of absolute seriousness, then bolted straight for the bathroom and started throwing up.
...Was the hot pot really that bad?
Now I felt kind of bad.