Plin Ch 1.4

He climbed the stairs slowly, almost crawling. He couldn’t miss this great opportunity to distribute directly to a prestigious company called ‘The Scope’. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and a drop of sweat ran down his spine.

The mental fortitude of a fox who had rolled in the pit of poverty for 25 years was remarkable. It’s not easy to escape poverty.

Finally, the 17th floor. Trust is the destiny of a merchant… he repeated to himself and opened the office door.

“Plin’s Fox Love Juice is here!”

Did he hear a whooshing sound, or not? The settled air was heavy. Amidst the silence, only the breaths of people could be heard. His fox instinct told him it was a bad situation.

He blinked a couple of times to accurately assess the situation. For some reason, all the people in the Media Networks department were standing as if they were receiving something. It was clear that the object of their attention was not him.

“What’s this, now?”

A smooth voice cut through the stifling atmosphere and pierced his ears.

It was someone he didn’t know. He couldn’t see the speaker’s face, but from the arrogant confidence deeply embedded in his voice, the languid tone as if he had found something interesting, and the attitude of freely disparaging a person as ‘this’, one thing was certain.

He was a big shot.

While Plin’s mind was racing, his feet were slowly taking steps backward. If he ran away noticeably in this situation, he would likely be caught in the beast’s grasp. Fortunately, the floor was made of a soft carpet, so the sound of his footsteps towards the emergency exit was inaudible. Just a little more like this.

“Gotcha.”

“…Got, me.”

So easily. Plin, who had been extremely tense, muttered weakly. When did he come this close? His small heart was beating fast. The man grabbed Plin by the collar and stood him up against the wall. Plin was dragged by the strong hand. In the meantime, Plin’s precious wooden basket rolled on the floor, but no one thought to pick it up.

The man was huge, reaching almost 2 meters in height. A shadow formed like a puddle under his large frame. In the overwhelming atmosphere, he couldn’t even think of looking at the man’s face.

His fluffy ears flattened and hid among his platinum blonde hair. The man stared at the trembling, fluffy ears for a moment.

The smell of perfume… There was nowhere to run to avoid him as he got closer. The wall was behind him. He saw the man raise his hand. It was a familiar situation. It happened often when he was a child, selling gum on the streets.

That huge hand is going to hit me.

Plin squeezed his eyes shut. He closed his eyes tightly, even crushing his eyelashes, preparing for the sudden pain that would come like a thunderbolt.

Flutter

“Hngh!”

The sensation that came was strange. Plin covered his mouth with both hands at the sound that escaped him without realizing it.

Flutter, flutter,

It was his ear. The man was playing with Plin’s left ear with his index finger. Every time he moved his finger, Plin’s fox ear wrapped around his finger and fluttered. His frightened right ear was still hidden among his platinum blonde hair.

“P-Please, don’t do that…”

“I asked what you are.”

The man continued to play with his ear casually. Plin couldn’t say anything, only letting out short breaths.

As blood rushed to his soft and flexible ear, he felt it gradually hardening. Only one ear, at that.

He felt like he would collapse if he stayed like this any longer. Disgracefully, Plin’s tail was tucked tightly between his b*ttocks. Plin was startled by the sensation touching his b*ttocks and almost jumped.

“Manager Jax?”

The man’s tone, calling the manager with only a slight lift at the end, was hypocritically gentle.

“Y-Yes, Executive Director.”

“I’m curious, why won’t anyone answer me?”

He asked lightly, as if teasing, but everyone tensed at his words. Those with visible ears held them erect, and those with tails hid them between their b*ttocks.

“This is the last time I’m asking… so answer well.”

“……”

“What is this, a traveling salesman?”

The executive director briefly glanced at the ‘Fox Love Juice’ product rolling on the floor. The ♥Fox♥Love♥ sticker was attached to the bottle. His eyebrows momentarily rose and then fell.

“N-No, he’s not.”

“He’s not?”

He looked at Plin, not Manager Jax, as he asked. He had stopped playing with his ear now. Because of the blood rushing to it, one of his ears was standing up while the other was drooping, making him look ridiculous.

“……”

Plin was not in his right mind and couldn’t say anything. He felt like he would make an irreversible mistake if he said anything. He was using all his mental strength just to hold back his moans.

Manager Jax stuttered, his jaw trembling, but he answered, trying to appear calm.

“For the health and welfare of our employees, and for the core value of coexistence of The Scope… we are allowing a small business owner of energy drinks to enter the company.”

He was indeed an elite. Even with the same meaning, when packaged nicely, it sounded plausible, making it seem like he wasn’t a peddler.

Plin didn’t let go of his tension and only looked at the floor. The office was so well-maintained that there wasn’t a single piece of fluff on the carpet to catch his eye.

“Jax, bring that.”

The man pointed at the drink with his chin.

“Pardon?”

The moment Plin raised his head in surprise, his gaze met his directly.

It was as if he had been waiting for Plin to raise his head, and their eyes met so precisely that Plin’s mouth fell open in an “Ah” sound.

It was a familiar face. The person Hyeongyeong had on his monitor yesterday, the person he thought was a beautiful actor. The cocky expression on his innocent face was unique… He was the newly appointed executive director called Ydrohan. Not only that…

“An energy drink for the health and welfare of the employees? I’ll drink it and judge.”

“Ah, t-that…”

Unfortunately, Manager Jax couldn’t find words to refute him.

“And you.”

“…Yes?”

“Follow me to my office.”

“W-Why?”

“Why, indeed.”

“……”

The executive director scanned Plin from top to bottom as if assessing something. His gaze lingered for a moment between Plin’s legs.

“Because I’m going to conduct a live experiment on this body, and depending on the results, you might need to be punished?”

While he answered honestly, Manager Jax handed the executive director a bottle of Fox Love Juice with trembling hands.

No one could disobey his orders. It was because of his fiery temperament, which was said to destroy everything around him if he was displeased, and also because he would be the future chairman.

They could only hope that he was young and strong and would not get aroused at any time, and thus not experience the potent effects of the drink.

The executive director turned and left the 17th-floor Media Networks department. But Plin didn’t follow him. He hugged his shivering body, desperately trying to understand the meaning of what he had seen.

When their eyes met just now, Executive Director Ydrohan showed his beast-person eyes. The golden, slit eyes…

While Plin was trembling slightly, the man who had left the office returned with long strides, grabbed Plin’s wrist, and dragged him out.

In the executive director’s office, which had been recently remodeled, there was a faint smell of chemicals lingering in the air.

Plin had never been to a new house, but he instinctively sensed the unfamiliar and unrefined energy of something new. The space, which had not yet been touched by human scent, suited the man in the perfectly fitting suit. Perhaps that’s why it was even more suffocating.

As Plin took a deep breath, the man opened all the large windows for ventilation. Even though the morning light was good, it was the middle of winter.

Whoosh–

Suddenly, a strong cold wind blew in like a blizzard. His skin ached from the sudden cold, and his body trembled slightly. He was used to the biting cold, but his body condition was too poor right now. His hands and feet were ice-cold from tension, but his cheeks and lower body were burning with heat. His mind was also buzzing with all sorts of worries.

The only consolation was that quite some time had passed since he ingested the dried snake’s p*nis powder. Immediately after ingestion, every hair on his body stood on end at the slightest breeze, but now his body wasn’t as sensitive. It was just that the sensation, which had been suppressed for a long time, was intense…

Get a grip. Plin pressed his cold palms against his hot cheeks.

Thud.

The man, called ‘Executive Director’, placed the Fox Love Juice glass bottle on the desk. The light sound was like a signal, and Plin stood up straight.

He leaned back in a large, comfortable-looking leather chair. The man looked at Plin for a while with a relaxed attitude as if he were appreciating him. It was the same expression he had seen on Manager Hyeongyeong’s monitor.

He looked down on the other person, but his bright blue pupils were fixed on the target. Plin trembled slightly, recalling the yellow slit eyes he had briefly encountered on the 17th floor.

Two different colored eyes…

“You look cold.”

“No… I’m fine.”

Plin was about to start chattering his teeth, but he said he was fine. He knew his place.

“A fox?”

“Yes.”

Foxes were a species that could be openly disregarded. People said that everything a fox said was a lie, and they mocked them, asking why they were selling things instead of normally committing fraud like a fox should. It was common to ask if their parents had taught them how to scam, like other fox parents supposedly did. Plin calmly waited for the insults and contempt that would soon pour out.

“A white fox, how unique.”

“Ah, yes…”

Plin tilted his head at the unexpected reaction. Not many people knew that white foxes were not ordinary foxes. There is a species called the white arctic fox. The white arctic fox has white fur, red eyes, and small ears. However, the white fox is a mutation of the brown native fox and has brown eyes and large ears.

Plin blinked his brown eyes.

“You must have had a hard time as a child.”

“…Yes.”

He seemed to know how white foxes were treated within their own packs. How did he know? He tilted his head again.

“Don’t you keep your head still?”

“…Ah, sorry.”

He was a man with a lot of things that bothered him. He clicked his tongue once and pressed the remote control. The window closed by itself, and the sound of the wind that had been filling the space disappeared. Plin felt relieved as the cold wind that had been stealing every bit of his body heat stopped.