"Kuro, you look tired," Oiwa mentioned.
"You looked way worse than before." I sucked in the delectable nicotine from my iQos while chilling in my luxury leather office chair with the massager was whirling around, rubbing the right spots on my back. Just thankful to be back in my Japanese headquarters. That case in Hong Kong was a mess to clean up.
Oiwa chuckled happily, "thanks for the compliment. I went to Kakuriyo's spa. The staff discounts are awesome. My face is perfect now to scare those little shits to death faster. By the way, the financial report is out. Profits went up 30% again this quarter."
Faster is always good. Time is money. Employee benefits were working out. Happy employees mean better results.
Oiwa is one of my best performers in the Kanto region of Japan. She deserved that special perk. Going out with her was a pleasure - she scared the men. Not just any scare, mind you.
Imagine a horny dickhead getting an erotic lap dance with the fleshy hooters of some voluptuous hottie rubbed in his face while his dick stands erect and ready to fuck. Out pops Oiwa. She doesn't need to do shit except growl.
Even if he had taken Viagra, his dick will go limp and floppy with just one look at her adorably mangled face. With piss running through his pants. Sometimes the testicles even shrink in, trying to stay hidden from the sheer terrifying horror of Oiwa's true form.
Acute myocardial infarcts or massive cerebrovascular strokes tend to be the popular outcomes. If we are lucky, both plus that ever so delightful frozen horror on our target's dead fucking face - highly popular with our associates' female customers who wanted their men dead fast in the most humiliating fashion.
Heck, even the male ghosts fled from her. Now that is true talent, worthy of my utmost respect. Instead of pining away after a man who doesn't give two fucks about them, like other pathetic female ghosts, Oiwa made a roaring business out of it. Even had her own little shrine out somewhere, revered as a local Kami, before World War 2. Now her grave is the mini shrine where the hottest movie stars would pray for her to leave them alone when they enact her story.
A knock on the door. Oiwa faded away, like she always does.
"Come in," I called out.
The door slowly opened. Kyoko, my ever so organised secretary or what do they call it now in this century - the personal assistant - popped in with a case file. Last thing I want to see. It meant either labour shortage or another major screw up.
Speaking of which, Oiwa's schedule was booked out for the next two months with a long wait list. Massive nightmare. There are two clients seeking something similar in Tokyo.
Usually, I don't see individual case files. A case file gets generated upon receipt of a request from our associates, and then passed on to the relevant departments which process it into an assignment and delegated to the specific specialist section. Then the right entity will be forwarded with the assignment for execution. If the desired result is achieved, then I wouldn't even learn of the case.
"Sorry to disturb," Kyoko bowed and handed me the file.
"Shoot. What's wrong?"
We do have other alternatives, like the minor yōkai, capable of similar results. The yōkai had an interesting history as 'demons'. Unfortunately, they were not known for efficiency because they wanted to toy with their victims to suck as much life force as possible before disposing of them. Contracting with those yōkai always came with pain. Get something in the fine print wrong, and they will exploit it.
"What the fuck… all of them are kitsunes," I exclaimed after checking the roster on the standard enterprise management system. Those fucking kitsunes were as troublesome as their mortal counterparts, the good old foxes.
"Well, most of the others are scheduled. COVID-19 made our associates very busy with unhappy housewives. Our associates in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Indonesia, even the Philippines are also fully booked for such cases. We only have a few hours in the night to carry out the assignment," Kyoko replied.
Hell no, not sending a female kitsune yōkai in. That last case was Kuroha and what did that yōkai do? Marry her target and have a baby with him. That baby became a curse on my business then, when he grew up to be an onmyoji practitioner who exorcised practically a quarter of my staff. It was a mess those hundred years ago. It almost broke us. Lesson learnt.
"How about the male ones?"
"It isn't your first day on the job. You have been here for…oh say…FIVEFUCKINGHUNDRED years. Male kitsunes…heh. Male ones…," I rubbed my temples.
What a bloody genius.
Don't misjudge. The male kitsune are exceptionally efficient in delivering results. They can shape-shift into anything the target desires, even female. Their detriment is that damn hierarchy of their own, unlike the females who worked independently.
You could call it an almost rival business - theirs was underground, almost yakuza like. Half of the clubs in Japan are controlled by them or have their filthy paws prints all over. Host, hostess, bdsm, boy bars, dance clubs - any business that involved pleasure or a fetish have at least 50% chance of their involvement.
How the hell do you think middle-class workers can throw their hard earned cash of 2 million Japanese yen in only four hours? Either they are incredibly foolish or there's a kitsune turning on his magic charm. Or both.
Getting a male kitsune on a job meant outsourcing and liaising through their three elders. Negotiations were a pain with respect to splitting. And sometimes the cost was not worth it. Those elders were more dangerous and powerful with their own agendas.
The three elders were not just any yōkai. They are part of the Daiyōkai, the elite tier of Kakuriyo's social class, the hidden realm of where most yōkai seek respite in. In the mortal realm, they are the elite rich. A two-way street.
Yako, the oldest male kitsune, was the toughest to handle. Every time, meetings will go south with him. After centuries, their seduction spell is still hard to manage. Humans, ghosts, and other yōkai are all game to him. Even Oiwa. He was fascinated with provoking the crap out of that ghost. Gender didn't make a fucking change.
I have only one simple rule - don't shit or fuck on the table where food is laid on. Business is business.
"Make the call. Ask for Masakage."
Yes, Masakage was the easiest elder of the lot. Reasonable too.
"What if Yako wants in?"
Oh FOR FUCK's SAKE, don't jinx me!
"We will deal with it when that happens," I replied.