Page 131 of Wicked Fox

“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 dirtbelow. 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, apfft.” She stuck her thumb down to symbolize death.

“Miyoung-ah, is that what will happen to you if you don’t feedfor 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.”

“I do.”

“I’m not sure,” Miyoung said. “But yeah, it seems like that’s the end game. Gumiho only bring death. Even to ourselves.”

Jihoon shook his head. “If you stopped feeding because of me, I don’t want the responsibility of it. My halmeoni is already in a coma because of me.” And he realized part of the reason he’d been so angry wasn’t because of Miyoung’s part in what happened to Halmeoni, but because of his. He’d been such a bad grandson and still she’d given everything for him.

Suddenly, it felt like a great idea to drink. He picked up the bottle and poured more into his cup, gulping it down in one shot. He hissed at the burn in his throat.

“If I die, it’s not for you. I’m dying for me.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Jihoon wasn’t sure if she didn’t make sense because she was drunk or because she was Miyoung. Probably a mix of the two.

“I watch my mother and I realize how lonely she is.”

Jihoon didn’t know where this turn in the conversation had come from. And he wasn’t in the mood to give Yena any sympathy. He took another shot and this one went down a bit easier.

“I never worried about the things I was missing out on. Like having friends or relationships. I think I always figured there’d be time for that later. But now...” She sighed. “Everything reminds me that my time is running out. I’m weaker now. I have scars now.” She traced the white mark on her palm, a twin of Jihoon’s.

“My mother told me to make a choice. So I did,” she said,flinging her arms wide, knocking herself off-balance. Jihoon caught her before she fell. She put her hands on his shoulders for stability. “And every day I decide to keep doing this, I know it’s what I need to do. Not for you. Not for my mother.Imade this decision. So it’s mine. It’s all I have that’s just mine.”

A pang shot through Jihoon, a tightening of his lungs.

He cupped her cheek lightly. Why couldn’t he admit before that he’d missed this? Hearing her voice, running his fingers along her hair, seeing her eyes so close he traced out the pattern in her irises. Blooms, like flowers. He’d missed it all desperately.

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