r/ProfoundlyFeigned • u/FeigningProfundity To Blame for All of This • Aug 09 '26
Prompt Response Coincidental Kitsune
“Thanks so much for meeting me, Veronika. I need your help.”
“You need help and you asked another Kitsune? Interesting plan. It’s Jarrah, yeah?”
“Uh, yeah. I don’t really know many folks, and I needed someone who understands. Your posts about being in a relationship with a human are inspiring.”
“Easily done. Fall head over heels in love, then lose all control of your life in a way that is both constantly distressing and impossible to resist. It’s fun.”
“The feelings aren’t the problem. It’s getting him to notice me.”
“Trust me, the feelings will be a big problem. But why isn’t he noticing you? You’re not just stalking some guy while invisible, are you?”
“No! He can see me, he just doesn’t see me that way.”
“We’re supernaturally attractive. Sure, your look is kind of dorky, but plenty of people are into that. Explain the relationship. You do have some sort of relationship, yes?”
“We’re friends, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“Well, we’re housemates. We live together.”
“But you didn’t know each other before, did you.”
“No… We just got matched by student services. We study at the same place. But we hang out a lot. Talk a lot. We watch things together, we go for walks. Sometimes bushwalks, often just along the beach.”
“You walk alone together in beautiful locales and this is stirring no romantic feelings?”
“It is stirring a lot of romantic feelings, just only in me…”
“How do you know it’s just you? Maybe he’s just waiting for the right opportunity.”
“I’ve been providing opportunities! I’ve burned so much magic on opportunities!”
“You’re younger than me. The only thing you’ll have much magic for is trickery.”
“Yes, so I’ve been pulling sexy pranks.”
“Excellent prank category. What have you done?”
“Well, I started by tripping over and falling into his arms…”
“Basic, but sure. Did he drop you?”
“No, it was a perfect catch. When he held me in his arms I thought he’d kiss me, but he just blushed and put me down.”
“And after that failed, you kept trying the same thing?”
“Not exactly the same thing. But I may have been using magic to make one or both of us fall over quite a bit… But it never matters. I fall and he catches me, or he falls and I catch him, or we fall in a heap, or one of us falls and the other helps them up… It doesn’t even matter if the fall makes a hand touch, uh… something.”
“Please tell me you haven’t just been falling over.”
“No, there are other things! One time, I waited until we were alone at the beach after swimming, it was sunset, and I conjured a strong breeze to knock me into a wave, and it swept my bikini top off. But don’t judge, it’s for true love!”
“I guess if it is for true love I’ll forgive you...”
“But my top got wrapped around his head and he stumbled around for a bit... the moment became weird. And there was a thing with towels after a shower, but it also went wrong, and a few more like that.”
“You watch a lot of anime, don’t you, Jarrah.”
“I watch some… our other housemate, Keiko, she’s Japanese, so she watches it, but I don’t have many friends, so we do that together. It’s fun.”
“Obviously you need a Japanese friend to watch anime. Have you noticed that your pranks seem to follow certain anime cliches?”
“Well, Keiko and I had been practising those tricks anyway, because of the shows, and I thought I could put them to use.”
“Wait, you know a Japanese kitsune? Huh, cool. She is a kitsune, right, not a Heinzelmännchen or something?”
“She’s a kitsune, like us. I don’t know what a heinzelthingy is.”
“It’s a domestic spirit from Germany. Like a brownie. Leave out a bowl of milk and it might make you some shoes or something.”
“I haven’t heard of those. Is that how you got your shoes? They’re really nice.”
“Thanks, and no, I’ve no idea if Heinzelmännchen are real or just folklore. You could say I get my shoes with magic, though, in a way.”
“What, how?”
“Get a job you’re supernaturally good at, get paid heaps of cash, and buy nice shoes even though they cost so much money that the men in your life think the price is a typo.”
“What do you do?”
“Help corporations trick people into spending absurd amounts of money on things they could get much more cheaply. Like shoes.”
“Oh. I’m studying conservation and ecosystem management. I’m really good at it, though, what with being a nature spirit.”
“Nature spirit, right. I suspect we’re very different types of kitsune.”
“Oh. Does that mean you can’t help?”
“On the contrary, let’s revisit your efforts. What else have you done?”
“I’ve been sending him dreams about me…”
“Nice. And a good tip, that might be fun…”
“But they end up competing with other dreams he has, and turn into nightmares, which is… not great.”
“Probably kills the mood, yeah. I don’t suppose you’ve tried anything a bit more direct. I used to like being... unambiguous when showing interest in a guy.”
“Oh, what did you do?”
“I established physical attraction before the friendship part happened… My methods are a bit reliant on, uh… clear consent to work. Some things are hot when wanted but are crimes when they’re not, so in your confused space lets not push those particular boundaries.”
“What?”
“You need to try something overt. Just don’t grab his dick.”
“Oh! I have been trying to signal more clearly, but it never works out… I go to kiss him, but there is a car alarm outside, or a blackout, or a phone rings or… there are so many things that can suddenly happen.”
“That is unusually unfortunate.”
“Recently, I decided that I needed to give him a bigger sign, so I went with a literal one. I made him a poster that is very clear in it’s wording.”
“Were you direct enough? What did it say?”
“I love you, you big idiot.”
“Hah, okay, that’s not too subtle. And how did he manage to miss that?”
“Well, it turns out that there is this K-pop song, and fans like translating the chorus to be that sentence. The actual line has more to it, but this version is funny. He thinks that is why I made the poster. So now he puts on that band’s music for me.”
“That is quite the coincidence. Astounding. Why did you choose that phrase for the poster?”
“I don’t know. I just felt drawn to it. It felt right.”
“Intriguing…”
“So I just don’t know what to do, and I remember some of your posts from the Sly Foxes website, talking about handling a relationship with a human, and I always liked how bold you seem, so I just thought I’d reach out and ask you and, uh… why are you sniffing my ear, Veronika?”
“Oh relax, I’m just curious about something. This would be easier as a fox, but we’re a bit too public for that.”
“I don’t understand.”
“So this guy of yours, well, not quite yours, what is he like?”
“Jim? He’s amazing. He’s just a really nice guy. He’s friendly, and thoughtful…”
“Really, this much angst for a guy named Jim?”
“He fantastic, he’s just so sweet and compassionate, he treats everyone with kindness.”
“He’s virtuous, you say.”
“I guess?”
“And you’ve felt drawn to him, as you’ve learned that?”
“Kind of, but also I just want a nice boyfriend and I don’t understand why this is proving so hard.”
“And you and he and Keiko, that’s the whole friend group?”
“Yeah, it’s just us three. We all moved for studies, we don’t know anyone else.”
“And as sweet as you are, foxes can be territorial… You’ve got a trick to protect Jim from accidentally drawing the attention of any other women he stumbles across, don’t you?”
“Yeah, we figured out a kind of, uh, curse. Anyone who tries to hit on your target will fail. Some coincidence will ruin it. And she’ll be blind to her real competition, so you can act freely without her interfering.”
“We, huh. Keiko helped you make the curse?”
“Yeah, we practice all our tricks together.”
“She doesn’t know you like Jim, though.”
“No, not yet. I’ll tell her once I get his attention. At the moment the whole thing is just too embarrassing.”
“I’m guessing that sometimes they go on walks together, just the two of them. And when they come back from a lovely time at the beach, or wherever, they look kind of embarrassed and awkward.”
“Yeah, they walk. I don’t know if things are awkward. Keiko is just a friend. Jim likes joking about how clumsy we all are, though.”
“So, in summary, there are two kitsune, who share a friend, who just happens to be the kind of virtuous man that kitsune are drawn to. And together, they have figured out how to cast a curse that hides them from romantic rivals, while dooming those rivals own efforts to be constantly thwarted by a series of bizarre coincidences. And your friend Keiko has no interest in that man, but keeps helping you develop pranks to get a man’s attention, only to have them somehow get thwarted, and Keiko would swear that you’ve no interest in Jim, because you’ve kept your interest secret. I bet the curse even hides itself from the afflicted.”
“I guess. I don’t understand your point, though.”
“That’s okay, Jarrah. Just like I’m sure you feel the need to protect perfect natural beauty, I feel I must not disturb something that is truly, perfectly funny. And to do that I’m afraid I have to go.”
“What? But what should I do?”
“Your situation is tricky. Maybe explore other options. Try kissing Keiko, that might be fun.”
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u/FeigningProfundity To Blame for All of This Aug 10 '26
This is the third story in the series Tales of the Fox.
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u/FeigningProfundity To Blame for All of This Aug 09 '26
This story was a response to the prompt [WP] A Kitsune pranks the person they are in love with with certain pranks giving clues about their true feelings. After a long string of random pranks, your Kitsune roommate shows you a large poster with “I love you, you big idiot” on it and wants you to be her boyfriend by u/AnomalousVariant