Wicked Fox (Gumiho #1)(70)

“I know,” Jihoon said. “I’m sorry.”

Detective Hae had proven to be more than a cop trying to close a case. He’d become personally invested in the attack at Halmeoni’s restaurant. Sometimes the neighbors told Jihoon they saw Detective Hae diligently canvassing the area. Jihoon knew the attacker would never be brought to justice, but it mattered that someone cared.

“Jihoon-ah, when a man gives his word, he should keep it.”

The lecture was something Jihoon would have ignored a month ago, but he nodded dutifully. “Yes, sir.”

The detective was a man with a distinct sense of right and wrong. Follow the law, be a good person, and live a decent life.

“Have you given thought to what I asked you last time?”

Jihoon hunched, averse to the topic at hand. “I did,” he mumbled.

“And?” Detective Hae prompted. “Would you like me to try to find your father? It could make it easier to have a parent . . .” He trailed off, knowing it was a sore subject for Jihoon. The detective was good at his job; it had only taken a day for him to find out who Jihoon’s mother was and where she lived. But he’d respected Jihoon’s desire not to call her and that had gone a long way in earning Jihoon’s trust.

“I’ll be okay once Halmeoni wakes up,” Jihoon said, standing. He wanted to end this discussion. “I’ll go to that appointment now.” And with a final bow, he escaped.



* * *



? ? ?

The neurology floor was newly renovated, frosted glass bordering the halls and freestanding waterfalls decorating the waiting room.

Jihoon checked in and was immediately brought to the back, where Dr. Choi waited in an examination room. He stood with arms crossed, his square jaw set. The gray at his temples gave him the distinguished look of a man with wisdom. Jihoon suspected it was a carefully cultivated look.

“Mr. Ahn, how nice of you to grace us with your presence.” Dr. Choi gave a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

“Do you really think another test is going to tell you anything new?”

“What concerns us is that nothing seems to be working and the seizures have grown more severe,” Dr. Choi said, as if lecturing a room on a medical phenomenon. “Don’t you want to know what’s causing this?”

Jihoon couldn’t very well say he already knew. What would Dr. Choi do if Jihoon said, Well, I do know what’s causing them. A couple months ago I fell for a gumiho whose mother put my halmeoni in a coma and probably put a fox curse on me.

That would wipe the smirk off the doctor’s face.

“Fine.” He shrugged. What was another brain scan in the grand scheme of things?

The tests told them nothing. And the doctor left him with vague talk of possibly trying surgery if medication kept failing.

Jihoon made his way back to his halmeoni’s room and plopped down in the chair beside the bed. Detective Hae had long since left, but new flowers stood on the bedside table. A cheerful sight that Jihoon barely noticed.

“She left without a word,” Jihoon said to his halmeoni. “We’ll never see her again, so we shouldn’t hold our breath. Right?”

He stared at his halmeoni, like he was waiting for an answer. “Right,” he agreed with himself.

“It’s not like we haven’t gone through this before. People have left before. We don’t need anyone else.” Jihoon laid his head on his halmeoni’s shoulder, careful not to put his full weight on her. “We never needed anyone but each other.”

Nurse Jang found him asleep twenty minutes later.





WE’VE LEARNED HOW gumiho rose. How they were cursed. How they grew to hate the humans who both shunned and fed them. But there is the story of one gumiho in particular that we must learn.

Long after the first gumiho disappeared from the face of this earth, during a time when the stories had started to become myths . . .

There lived a man with three sons and no daughters. He prayed every day for a daughter to be born. One day his wife came home and presented him with a baby girl.

The family lived happily for years. The wife claimed he held his daughter so tight, she feared the little girl would be crushed by her father’s love.

When the girl turned thirteen, the livestock started to die. Soon, the man’s fortune began to dwindle from the loss. So he set his eldest son on watch to find out why the cows and horses were dying.

The next morning, the eldest son said, “I saw Little Sister going to the barn. When I checked, the cow’s liver had been eaten.”

Enraged, the man threw out his eldest son.

The next night, he set his second son to stand guard.

In the morning, he reported seeing his sister slaughter a horse.

“You want to kill your sinless little sister! I no longer wish to lay eyes on you!”

Finally, the man set his youngest son to watch the barn.

The third boy watched his little sister approach the barn, kill a cow, and devour its liver.

However, fearing banishment like his older brothers, he lied.

“The cow died naturally,” he claimed. “Then a fox came and ate its liver.”

The two older sons wandered the land until they came upon a Taoist master who taught them the ways of his magic. However, they could not forget their family. So they decided to return home.