Wicked Fox (Gumiho #1)(71)

The Taoist master bestowed upon them three bottles: one white, one blue, and one red.

The brothers thanked him for his gifts and left.

When they arrived home, the house was empty save for their younger sister.

She greeted them happily.

They asked her what had happened, and she told them that their parents and youngest brother had died.

“We are thirsty,” the eldest brother said. “Would you please go to the spring and get us water?”

When she left to fetch it, the brothers fled. For they knew she had killed and eaten their parents and youngest brother.

She raced after them, calling for them to return.



They threw the white bottle and it created a thicket of thorns. She broke free and continued to chase them.

They threw the red bottle and it engulfed her in fire, but she continued to race after them.

They threw the blue bottle and it created a river that carried her away in a strong current. They never saw her again.

But this was an important time in the life of this gumiho. For she survived. She grew to hate humans and she birthed a daughter, one we all know as Gu Miyoung.





39





JIHOON’S DAYS NOW started before the sun rose. His new reality left no room for the laziness that had previously ruled his days. In an attempt to pay the rent in Halmeoni’s absence, he’d taken on part-time jobs while school was out. His first was delivering newspapers and milk cartons to people’s front doors before dawn. He rode a secondhand bicycle, but sometimes the streets were so steep, it was easier to push the thing. The crooked roads he used to love became his enemy as he trudged up and down, up and down.

He worked meticulously to get each order of milk on the front stoops or in the mailboxes along with the daily paper.

He’d taken on the day shift pumping gas for less than minimum wage. The owner claimed it was because he didn’t yet have a high school diploma.



Jihoon’s fingers froze in the late-January cold since he’d forgotten his gloves. When he raised his hands to blow on them, he smelled the bitter gasoline on his skin. He stared at the white scar in the center of his palm. A souvenir from when he’d snatched Miyoung’s bead from Shaman Kim. And every time he saw the puckered scar, it reminded him of that night and all he’d lost.

Night fell before he finished work, bringing with it a starless sky lit only by the full moon. The owner of the gas station ran to catch Jihoon before he left for the day.

“Here.” He shoved two triangle kimbap into Jihoon’s hands. He was a portly man, stingy and balding. “You’ve been standing in the cold all day. These are barely expired. Take them.”

As Jihoon walked, his eyes traveled to the sky. The sight of the full moon brought a dull ache that ran through his ribs. It was the first full moon since Miyoung had left.

He ate the triangle kimbap on his way to the convenience store, his third and final job of the day. The trek was tiring. His breath created clouds in the cold air that fogged his vision in teasing puffs.

His coworker, Kim Pyojoo, stood behind the counter. “You’re fourteen minutes late, Jihoon-ssi,” he said. “That’ll come out of your pay.”

Pyojoo was only twenty and had been working at the convenience store three months longer than Jihoon. He was also the manager’s nephew and thought that made him Jihoon’s boss. Jihoon didn’t care enough to correct him.

“The delivery came in this morning.” Pyojoo gestured toward the storage room.

Jihoon rolled his eyes behind Pyojoo’s back at the implied command. When he’d first started, Pyojoo had claimed the newest employee was responsible for unloading the deliveries. Jihoon had long since realized this was a lie.

Still he didn’t complain as he carried the crates to the front. The task made his arms, which already felt like wet noodles after five hours of pumping gas, ache. He had a low-grade headache that the fluorescent lights didn’t help. Plus, it smelled like someone had dropped milk somewhere in the store that was quickly souring. He knew it would be his job to find it.

It took Jihoon a half hour to get all of the crates inside and he stumbled a bit as he set the last crate down. Glad to finally be done with the task as he spread his aching fingers.

“Ya, what are you thinking?” Pyojoo asked.

“What?” Jihoon rubbed his sore shoulder.

“Why would we need ten crates of strawberry milk?” Pyojoo tapped the pile. “So?”

“So?” Jihoon repeated.

“So move them back.”

Jihoon’s fists bunched. He sorely wanted to use them to punch Pyojoo in his snarky mouth. Instead, he made a point of relaxing each finger until he’d regained his control. He needed this job. It was the only one he could keep hours for after school started again.

So he picked up two crates despite his protesting muscles and clenched his teeth as he heard Pyojoo chuckle at something he read in his comic.

On the next trip, Jihoon stumbled under the heavy load and his elbow cracked against the door frame. Pain lanced through his arm and echoed in his head, like a thin needle shoved into his skull.

His muscles quivered and the crates fell with a crash. Strawberry milk squirted over his pants and stained his shoes pink.

Ringing reverberated through his ears a second before he started to seize.