and leaving. And those fantasies tripled when the summer got truly unbearable like it was now. But Somin knew she could never really leave. She had too many responsibilities here.
One of those responsibilities lay in the small apartment above the dark, empty restaurant. Jihoon’s halmeoni’s little restaurant used to be a bustling place, a hub in the neighborhood. But it had been closed for months now. The landlord had used Halmeoni’s illness as an excuse to change the terms of their lease. And as soon as it was clear he couldn’t pay the rent, Jihoon had received an eviction notice. Even thinking about it made Somin’s blood boil. The second-floor apartment door was unlocked. The space inside felt like it should be musty, like she was opening a time capsule. But she knew better. Jihoon and Miyoung had been living in the apartment for the past few months. A strange fast-forward in their relationship that would have worried Somin. Except now she knew that worrying about dating teens living together was nothing compared to knowing the real horrors that lurked in the shadows of the world. Things that could rip out your liver or your throat without a second thought.
Somin liked to think she was pretty tough. She didn’t scare easily. She would never run from a fight, especially if it meant defending someone she loved. Still, knowing that the monsters in her childhood storybooks were real was a cold shock to the ever-practical Lee Somin. Now she had to readjust her whole way of looking at the world. And for a girl who always liked to be right, it was a hard thing to accept.
As Somin let the door close behind her, she wasn’t sure what she expected, but Gu Miyoung in an apron, dusting the shelves, was not it.
“Did I step into an alternate universe?” Somin asked.
Miyoung glanced up. She was beautiful. With ebony hair that swung halfway down her back, long legs, thick lashes, full lips. But when she looked close enough, Somin saw the worry in the pursed set of Miyoung’s mouth.
“I know how to clean an apartment,” Miyoung said. “I’m not a total slob.”
“Oh, I never thought that,” Somin said. “I just figured dusting was beneath a gumiho.”
“Well, I’m not really a gumiho anymore,” Miyoung muttered.
The only thing weirder than realizing that her new friend had been a gumiho was learning how she’d become a not-gumiho. Betrayal, lost fox beads, a long-lost father, and an overprotective mother.
Somin had grown up hearing stories about gumiho—nine-tailed foxes with the ability to live forever as long as they devoured the energy of men. And in the span of one night, she’d had to accept that they existed and that there was one who wanted to kill her best friend, Jihoon. Miyoung’s mother, Gu Yena, to be exact. A gumiho who had lived for hundreds of years and had been willing to do anything, even kill—even die—to protect Miyoung.
It had been a few months since she found out Miyoung’s secret, and sometimes Somin still forgot that Miyoung wasn’t just human.
Jihoon walked out of his bedroom, a tall boy with a lanky frame and hair that always looked mussed, probably because, more often than not, he’d just woken up from a nap. He spotted Somin and gave her a sad smile. It looked wrong on his handsome face. His face was better suited for wicked grins that made his dimples wink. But Somin supposed he had nothing to really smile about today.
“Jihoon-ah, are you putting your girlfriend to work while you sleep away the day?” Somin said, but there was no bite to the words.
His smile deepened a bit, so there was a hint of dimples. Like a ghostly trace of the affable boy Somin had grown up with.
“She volunteered for cleaning duty. Don’t offer to do the boring work if you don’t want me to accept.” He shrugged. Jihoon was never one to make excuses, but his blunt honesty was part of his charm, usually.
“I’d rather dust than try to clean out the black hole you call a bedroom,” Miyoung said.
“You make fun of it, but when the government pays me billions to study the natural phenomenon of a black hole right here in Seoul, you’ll be sorry,” Jihoon quipped.
Somin rolled her eyes, but secretly she was relieved her best friend was still able to make jokes on a day like today. “What job should I do?” She glanced at the empty boxes scattered throughout the room. Not even