Wicked Fox (Gumiho #1)(93)

“Miyoung-ah,” Jihoon said more urgently.

She tried to reply but something filled her throat. She coughed and water flowed from her lips like a fountain.

Jihoon called for her as the water devoured him.

She tried to swim, but her fear overtook her. She didn’t like the water. The current pulled at her limbs, drowning her.

Kicking desperately, she pulled at the red thread connecting her to Jihoon, but it snapped in her hands. She searched and searched, but found nothing. Her muscles gave in to the heavy weight of the water pulling her down.





60





JIHOON WASN’T QUITE sure why he was wandering the streets at 3:00 A.M. He’d woken in a sweat, choking on his own breath like he’d actually been drowning. It was all still so clear in his mind. The hallway, Yena’s unconscious form, the flooding bathroom. And he knew now that it was probably not just a dream. With the bead inside of him, he knew he was connected to Miyoung.

This probably meant all of those damned dreams where he begged Miyoung to return hadn’t been his alone. Had she seen him then? At his most vulnerable? It made his head hurt to wonder.

This dream made him worry about Miyoung despite himself. The residual anxiety made it impossible to fall asleep again. So he’d taken a walk to calm his racing heart and ended up by the old neighborhood playground. The trees beyond looked like gray statues, guarding the abandoned swing set.

Miyoung sat on the roundabout. He should have been more surprised, but it was almost as if he knew he’d find her here.

“Jihoon-ah!” she slurred out, gripping a bottle of soju. Another green bottle already lay empty beside her.

Miyoung squeezed one eye closed in an effort to more accurately pour into a plastic cup. Her tongue stuck out the side of her mouth as she concentrated on the task.

“Why are you here?” Jihoon asked.

“Couldn’t sleep. Bad dreams.” She threw back the soju in one perfect gulp.

“Where did you get that?” Jihoon eyed the extra bottle sitting in a plastic bag with more cups.

“At the CU Mart. That smarmy guy made me promise not to tell anyone he sold me this. I think he has a crush on me. Pyopyo or something.” She gave him a drunken grin.

Jihoon would have laughed at Pyojoo’s butchered name, but he was too worried Miyoung would pitch off the side of the ride.

“You look like you’ve been enjoying yourself.” Jihoon sat on the edge of the roundabout, dragging his feet on the ground to stop it.

“I’ll pour you a glass.” Miyoung tipped the bottle against a second cup. Most spilled over the side.

“I’m good.”

“Nonsense!” She raised her cup. “We’re teenagers. We’re supposed to do thoughtless things. Now that I have a father, I should make up all the lost time defying him. Drink,” Miyoung said—actually demanded—with expectant eyes. Jihoon sighed and raised the cup. She clumsily tapped hers to his. “Geonbae!”

As she tilted her head back to drink in one shot, Jihoon poured his out.

“Kaaah.” She let out the throaty noise in appreciation, or perhaps because she’d heard it on one too many dramas, then held her cup out. When Jihoon didn’t move, she shook her hand at him.

“Haven’t you heard it’s good manners to pour for each other?”

He still didn’t move and she sighed, grabbing the bottle herself.

“Fine!” She poured so fast she spilled half the bottle to the dirt below. He counted it as a blessing that she had less to drink now. “I never used to be so impatient. Maybe because I had all the time in the world.”

She let out another laugh, her eyes already blurry and unfocused.

“Do you know what it’s like to live forever?” she slurred out. That last cup had definitely tipped her over the edge.

Jihoon realized she was staring at him, expecting an answer. “No.”

“Well, I was supposed to.” Miyoung poured another cup. “And when you think you’re going to live forever, things aren’t as serious. Missing fathers, strict mothers. People constantly hating you for no good reason. I mean except the fact that I could suck the life out of them.” Miyoung chuckled at her own morbid joke.

“Mortals treat everything like life and death. How long it takes to pay at a store is a favorite of mine. They get so mad!” Miyoung gestured wildly with her hand at that, some of her newly poured drink sloshing out.

“And then people get into fights and one of them ends up yelling, ‘What’s your problem?’ Like it’s not completely obvious everyone’s problem is that they’re going to die one day.”

Miyoung became somber at that and put her cup down. Jihoon reached for it, but she lifted the cup again before he could take it away.

“Everything in my world was tied to being a gumiho. My mother, my immortality. So it’s weird I meet my mortal father now that I’m dying. Do you think it’s a sign? That I should just be a human, a pfft.” She stuck her thumb down to symbolize death.

“Miyoung-ah, is that what will happen to you if you don’t feed for the full hundred days?” Jihoon asked. He needed to hear her say it.

She blinked at him, her lips curling down into a deep frown. “You don’t actually want to know that.”