(Discontinued )
(Work Dated: May 24 2021)
The streets of Shikagami City have a secret.
To save themselves from paying their severe debts with their soul to a Verdish Goddess of the Underworld, a desperate restaurant mascot has to help a Junhic fox...
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You decide to turn around and walk away.
You decide to go home. The flow of fresh air from outside clears the smoke and dust clouds around the fire site. You drift out of the oppressive crowd, relieved to have survived the accident. You're too tired to do anything else and your mind is fixated on the promise of sleep. The street ahead is sparsely populated, and its slow, steady murmur is calming to your ears.
Mannequins, flaunting the latest winter collection of branded clothing lines, pose behind the glass panes on either side of the street. Jealousy grabs hold of your heart as you walk past them, wishing that human mascots could be hired to do the same. Those exist, your mind chirps back at you, and they're called models. You bite your inner cheek, ogle at the fashionable gowns for sometime and move on. Your mind prattles away, commenting on the ladies exiting through the glass doors with huge bags hanging on their arms. The tram station, newly refurbished in white, cyan and salmon pink for the Winter Olympics, enters your line of vision as you walk further.
The tram bound homeward is empty when you enter, save for the operator and the ticketeer. You get cozy on one of the soft padded seats and wait for the tram to depart. The route it usually took had a stop right in front of the apartment complex gates.
You plug in your earphones and recline on the chair, scrolling through your MeView app for videos to binge on. Your eyes and fingers stop on a video having a nine-tailed fox figurine on its thumbnail. The title promises you a rundown on why the figurines were so popular in Junho.
The tram jerks into motion and your back hits the padded seat again.
You realise that the channel is one dedicated to the narration of creepypastas and popular urban legends. You grin and click the subscribe button as various snapshots of the fox figurines appear on the screen.
There was apparently a very famous tavern in Junho, where warriors, noblemen and even princesses would stop by for a drink. The wine was so delicious that when the Emperor of Junho chanced upon it, he ordered twenty thousand barrels of the special wine to be produced before him within a year. The tavern-keeper was warned that any delay or negligence would cause the tavern to be razed to the ground with him and his family locked inside.
The tavern owner felt the noose tightening around his neck as a year passed by without a good harvest. All of his trees had failed to bear fruit, and he would sit in the orchard, crying for the withered flowers on the ground.
One day, a white fox spirit saw him crying and confronted him about it. The man recounted his story, and wiped his tears on the fox's fur. Feeling bad for the man's predicament, the fox spirit ran to its mistress, the goddess of harvests, prosperity, spring and fertility. It convinced her to help the poor man out of his misery, and soon almost all of the trees yielded bushel-fulls of prime quality fruit. When the tavern owner's wife bit into a plum, she was surprised to find its juices being sweet, potent wine. They served the Emperor with fifty thousand barrels of the juice and were rewarded handsomely for their service.
A few years later, the same fox spirit encountered the tavern owner again, crying in the now flourishing orchard. On inquiry, he revealed that the Emperor had ordered two hundred thousand barrels of wine this time around with the same threat. The fox once again ran off to ask the goddess to help him.
The goddess grew suspicious. She arrived at the orchard on fox-back to assess the situation for herself. She turned herself invisible and walked through the sprawling mansion the Emperor had gifted the tavern owner with. She found the Emperor himself walking with the tavern-keeper's daughter through the gardens, flirting and joking with her. He held hands with her and kissed her forehead, announcing how lucky he was to have her as his wife and consort, and that he'd never let any harm come the family's way as long as he lived.
The goddess instructed the fox to confront the tavern owner about this development and dissipated into petals. The tavern owner had, by then, overheard the goddess warning the fox in the orchard and readied a dagger underneath his robe sleeves.
The fox asked him when they met with each other later on, "Why did you lie to me? I heard that the Emperor has fallen in love with your daughter and that he would never kill her or you."
The tavern owner immediately attacked the fox.
You cringe and wish that the tavern owner had lied his way out of the situation instead of attacking the obviously powerful fox spirit.
The fox saw red and snapped in reflex. It took the form of a human being with fox ears, red eyes, protruding canines and nine tails. It caught the tavern owner by his neck with its sharp claw-like nails, pulled out his intestines through his mouth and hung him on the branch of a plum tree as a punishment.
The tavern-keeper's family spirits refused to let the fox get off scot free. They turned its beautiful white fur into a deep scarlet shade, and cursed it that any other food except fresh blood would choke and poison it. In addendum, they made sure that the fox would watch anyone it loved die from disease slowly and painfully.
And to this day, says the voiceover, the cursed Mihgi fox spirit roams the world, drinking only blood for sustenance. The figurines ward it off by strengthening the family spirits in their presence and alerting any benevolent spirits in the area. You cringe as you replay the part where the man gets hanged with his own intestines. You switch off the phone and look around to clear your mind. The detail has been imprinted onto your brain, and you're very sure that you'd have nightmares about angry, red fox spirits. You cuss at yourself for looking up creepypastas this late.
The tram pulls over at the dimly lit stop and the operator announces the name. You hop off, stuff your gloved hands in your pockets and cover the distance between the stop and the complex entrance as quickly as possible. You look around for creepy, red, vampire foxes and push open the glass door. The dull yellow interiors of the reception is homely and warm, with its wooden furnishing and red-trimmed curtains as always. The landlord presides over the desk, watching the opening events unfold on the LED TV mounted on the wall.
"Ah," he greets you with the last smidgeon of energy left within him.
"Hello, Mr. Han. Watching the Olympic—"
"Yes, goodnight."
You pout in anger as you climb up the stairs, throwing looks at the bald spot at the back of his head. His fingers fiddle with the top of his ballpoint pen lying on the desk, and he lets out a huge yawn. You roll your eyes and walk towards your apartment door.
There's a pamphlet wedged between the door handle and the door. You pick it up, ignoring the gleeful cries of children living in the nearby apartments and the smells of freshly prepared dinner. The paper hails from a newly opened exterminator agency situated somewhere in the neighborhood.
You catch a glimpse of the words 'fox termination' and crumple the paper in response. You sorely wish the animal protection activists would target such agencies rather than poultry farms as you slide the key into the lock of your apartment door.
