Wicked Fox (Gumiho #1)(12)

The door shut, and Jihoon heard his halmeoni make her way to the front kitchen.

Jihoon wondered if the animal attack could be connected to that girl.

He shouldn’t worry about her. She’d told him not to speak of last night, so it would be easiest to forget it completely.

As he entered the back room, Somin swung through the kitchen door, balancing a tray of dirty plates. Her graphic tee and ripped jeans were covered by the knee-length apron for Halmeoni’s restaurant.

“What are you doing here?” Jihoon blinked owlishly at her.

“Your halmeoni said you were sleeping like the dead. She didn’t want to wake you, so she called me and my mom. It’s a madhouse out there.”

There was no accusation in Somin’s voice, but his shoulders hunched with guilt.

He’d been helping out in the restaurant kitchen since he was little. He used to sit for hours, cutting the tails off soybean sprouts and pinching closed the shells of dumplings. Now he was glorified waitstaff and delivery boy.

“I was going to call you,” Jihoon said, tapping a serving spoon against the counter as he considered his next words.

Somin was always available when he needed a sounding board. And after last night, he definitely did. Since they’d grown up together, Somin had heard all of his halmeoni’s fables, too.

But the girl’s threat still rang clear in his head: You will tell no one about what you saw tonight.

So instead, he asked, “Did you ever believe in dokkaebi?”

Somin thought a moment. She was one to take questions seriously when asked by a friend. “Sure, when I was younger. I heard there’s an app now that talks to kids in a dokkaebi voice to scare them into eating their vegetables.”

“Not the dokkaebi our parents used to scare us. Real ones.”

Somin laughed—the sound grating on Jihoon’s frayed nerves—but sobered at his serious expression. “Jihoon-ah, you know dokkaebi aren’t real.”

“Of course I do,” Jihoon said firmly, trying to convince himself more than her.

“You know you can tell me if you’re having problems.” Somin tilted her head. “Or delusions.”

“Ya!” Jihoon protested, throwing the spoon at her.

Somin snatched it out of the air. She’d always been the more athletic of the two.

Jihoon flopped over in defeat, letting his head fall onto the counter. What was the point in trying to figure this all out? He’d never see that girl again. “I need caffeine.”

“Well, you’re in luck.” Somin pulled a packet of instant coffee out of her apron pocket. Jihoon perked up at the sound of the ripping foil.

“You can’t find a way to inject it directly into my veins?” Jihoon asked as Somin used the emptied packet as a makeshift stirrer. He took the mug gratefully. The coffee burned his tongue, but he didn’t care. “You’re a goddess,” he said on a sigh of satisfaction. “One day they’ll build temples to you. Shrines with your likeness.”

Somin chuckled. “Come out front when you’re feeling full human.”

When Jihoon walked into the front kitchen, Moon Soohyun, Somin’s mother, was bickering with Halmeoni over seasoning.

“Mrs. Nam,” she said, “if you add too much fish sauce, then it’ll overpower the flavor.” She gestured wildly with her wooden ladle, and Somin snatched it from her mother’s hand before it knocked over a pile of pots.

“I’ve smacked your bottom with that ladle and I can do it again,” Halmeoni said.

“Mrs. Nam, everyone has loved your cooking for years. But even you have to admit you’re getting old. When you get old, your taste buds and your vision are the first to go.”

Halmeoni tsked. “I don’t know why I let you hang around.”

Somin’s mother grinned. “Because you love me so much.”

“I just grew used to you,” Halmeoni muttered. “You’ve been running around this place since you were in diapers with my Yoori.”

Jihoon’s heart fell into his stomach. He didn’t like to be reminded about how his mother and Somin’s grew up together. They’d played together, gone to school together, gotten pregnant together. But Somin’s mother had stayed and his had left.

“I like your cooking.” Somin hugged Halmeoni. “Maybe I’ll marry Jihoon-ah, and then I’ll get to eat it every day.”

Jihoon finally spoke. “Who says I would even marry you, Lee Somin? You know I hate it when other people tell me what to do.”

“Jihoon-ah!” all three of them said with varying degrees of affection and scolding.

“Oh, look at our Hoonie.” Somin’s mom pinched his cheek with a devilish glint in her eyes. He only allowed it because it was her and she knew it. “You’re lucky, Mrs. Nam. Saves you money on stepladders with a grandson who can reach the tall shelves.”

He held back a laugh.

“Stop teasing him,” Halmeoni said.

Somin’s mom let Jihoon go, but he wasn’t free for long. Halmeoni turned Jihoon’s face to examine him. Her eyes zeroed in on the bruise on his temple. “What happened here?”

“Nothing,” Jihoon said too quickly. He could only imagine where his halmeoni’s superstitions would take her if she knew about last night.