Legend has it that there's a wicked creature in the city that preys on the livers of human beings. It pretends to be human and lures people with a mesmerizing face, but it's actually a fox that's hundreds of years old. They say the fox is a master swindler capable of seducing and attracting men or women.
In order to become a human, if you live a virtuous life for 100 years, you will grow 1 tail. If you live a life of enlightenment for 200 years, you will grow 2 tails. If you stay awakened for 300 years, you will grow 3 tails. Along with that, you will gain a red bead. From then on, you have 1000 years to turn that bead from red to blue by gathering human souls before you grow more than nine tails. Then you shall become human.
Having to live for years was definitely not what I wanted and being a gumiho was not in my plans or life desires. It is not fun at all to live a long-lasting life that makes you numb to everything. During these years, I dedicated and made a promise to myself to never fall in love when collecting human energy just so that I will be able to escape this miserable life quickly and finally be able to live the life that I should have from the very beginning.
The number of suitors I have had over the years and the time spent pretending to be in love was meaningless. Never once in my entire six hundred and seventy-five years of being alive have I ever fallen in love before as it's not worth falling in love because, at the end of the day, you'll be just collecting their energy just so that us gumiho can become human.
✺ 𓈒 𓆇 ˚🧚🏻♂️ ˳ ❊ ༚.
"So, you're telling me that she hit the back of your head with her handbag?" The police officer questioned the men and pointed to Hye Sun. "While she kicked you in the stomach." The officer continued as he points at me.
"Yes. You can't let them get away with hurting an innocent person." The man says as he tries to defend himself.
"An innocent person?" Hye Sun questioned as she scowls at the men. "You stared at us like a pervert saying we must get a lot of guys. You even told us that we were sexy and said things to sexually harass us, and you claim you're innocent?" This caused most of the officers in front of us to stare at the men weirdly, while the perverted men just scoff as he could not believe that the officers actually believed us.
"When did I do that? And can you prove the way I stared at you two? Does it show in the surveillance footage? On the other hand, the CCTV caught the two of you hitting me. You know our legal system loves evidence, right?" The man says as he glared at us.
"What? Our legal system loves evidence?" I say while not sparing another look at the men.
"Yes, so brace yourself. You can beg all you want, but I won't drop charges. The least you can do is grab my pants and settle right now" The man says.
"Hey, what are you doing?" He winced in pain while the officers in front of us just stared at Hye Sun in shock.
"This is me begging you to settle," Hye Sun says as she grabs onto his pants.
"Hey, let go of me." The man shouted as he struggles to get out of her grip.
"Sadly, I'm not familiar with the law here. So, I think we should just settle this " Hye Sun said as she turned her attention back to the men who sexually harassed the both of us.
"Let go of me. What are you doing?" The man says as he slowly slipped out of Hye Sun's grip. "Hey!" He shouted even louder. I quickly stand up to stop Hye Sun from getting us into more trouble. She then suddenly stood up from her seat and used both of her hands to grip his leg even tighter to stop him from leaving, "How long must I beg to get you to settle?" She questioned as she did not break eye contact with him.
"Let go of him first." An unknown voice said, this caused me to turn around to the unknown voice and realized that it was Woo Yeo who had finally shown up.
Hye Sun immediately let go of the men and brushed the dust off her clothes before turning to Woo Yeo while I started walking toward him. "You're here." Hye Sun says standing beside me.
After Woo Yeo managed to get Hye Sun and me out of the situation that we were in, the three of us walked toward the exit. "How have you been? We last met before the liberation so it's been about 75 years. Have you ever wondered how we were doing?" Hye Sun says.
"We were never close enough to keep in touch and for your information, I only met up with Mi Young a couple of times. Why did you two even call me?" Woo Yeo says with a stoic face.
"You still look as cold as ever," I say as the three of us came to a sudden halt.
"I want you to use your powers to erase their memories." Hye Sun says as she turned to him.
"Why not just do it yourself." He says to Hye Sun
"I can't use my powers anymore." Hye Sun simply says.
"Why?" Woo Yeo asked as he looks at her confusingly.
"That's right, I become a human four years ago." Hye Sun says proudly.
"And you?" Woo Yeo asked me.
"I also became a human, but only two years ago," I told him and stick my tongue out playfully as I heard that he is still a gumiho.
"Don't just leave." Both Hye Sun and I say as we chase after him.
"Let us treat you to a meal. We want to thank you for your help. That's what humans do when they want to show gratitude." I say as the both of us trailed behind him.
"Forget it." He says as he continued to walk ahead and not caring about us.
"Oh, I forgot. A fox's appetite can only be filled with human souls, not food." I spoke.
"Unfortunately, that's not something we can treat you to." Hye Sun says as Woo Yeo suddenly stops in his track.
"Just stay for a little chat." Hye Sun says as she tries to convince him, and this caused him to turn his attention to us.
"We've known each other for 700 years. We can't just part ways." I say as both Hye Sun and I started smirking and walked past him.
✺ 𓈒 𓆇 ˚🧚🏻♂️ ˳ ❊ ༚.
The three of us are currently at a beautiful restaurant near the forest. The atmosphere was quite tense as the three of us sat down in awkward silence. Hye Sun took a sip of her drink while staring at Woo Yeo, but he broke off eye contact with her as her presence itself was annoying him.
"So, Mi Young do you care to explain to me why you didn't tell me that you became a human even though I met you a couple of times within the last two years?" Woo Yeo says in a pissed-off manner.
"Oh, y'all met up together. Ugh, why did you not tell me about it!" Hye Sun whined as she tugged on my clothes.
"Well, funny story. After I had become human, I went back to college as an exchange student cause I was bored and when one of my seniors who is born in a year of a tiger accidentally bumped into me, I felt very weak and was in a serious amount of pain. But for some weird reason, I felt fine after holding your hand." I spoke while smiling innocently at Woo Yeo while he just shook his head disappointedly. After all these months, he finally knew why I called him that time and quickly grabbed his hand, and left without even explaining to him why I wanted to meet up with him.
"Wait, but didn't you become a human already." Woo Yeo says as his right eyebrow raised a little.
"Yeah, but I don't know why I'm still experiencing this while she isn't," I say as I pointed at Hye Sun.
"Maybe you are not fully human?" Woo Yeo suggests as he glances at Hye Sun.
"But, you can't explain the reason why I am gaining weight every time I eat fried chicken!" I say as I started poking the fats in my stomach.
"Moving on, I should stop eating also." Hye Sun says as she puts down her drink. "When I was a gumiho, I never gained weight. But now, I gain body fat if I overeat even a little." She continues on as she points to her stomach. "And that's not all, when I was a gumiho, I had perfect skin no matter my age. But now, I have to take antioxidants and apply eye cream to maintain this." After boasting, all Woo Yeo could do was roll his eyes while I sat there eating my cake happily.
"I'm sorry. I guess you can't relate." Hye Sun says with a sly smile as she knew that her becoming a human earlier than Woo Yeo would piss him off.
"You've lived long enough to learn some manners. But you still cross the line." Woo Yeo says with an expressionless face.
"What? The line? What line?" When did I cross it?" She says as she touches the table trying to find the line.
Woo Yeo just stared at her in disbelief while I told her," There's no actual line, Hye Sun." I whispered to her as I tried to explain to her, but Woo Yeo cut me off.
"It's an idiomatic expression that humans use." Woo Yeo explains to her while she was loss for words
"Oh, I see. I still find idioms very hard." She says as she tries to save herself from embarrassment, and this causes Woo Yeo to chuckle at what she said.
"You're as dumb as ever. It took you 80 years to memorize The Thousand Character Text." Woo Yeo teased her.
"You must be proud that you're a Seonggyun-gwan Academy graduate." Hye Sun says this caused Woo Yeo to roll his eyes for God knows how many times today already. "But let me tell you this. No matter how smart you may be, I still became human first."
Hye Sun then proceeded to sigh and cross her arms, "What's taking you so long to become human? It looks like you've given up on gathering human souls a long time ago. Don't tell me you're still as picky as you used to be." Hye Sun questioned him while he zoned out a little.
"What's your plan? You can't stay like this forever." I spoke as he starts to come back to reality.
"Will you please say something?" Hye Sun begged impatiently as Woo Yeo stares out the window. "I turned human before you even though I'm 200 years younger, you must want to know how I became a human. What I was doing when it happened, and how blue the bead was. If it was dark blue, light blue, or a gradation. You should be begging me to tell you about those things on your knees."
"You're really loquacious, why can't you be more like Mi Young." Woo Yeo says as he stares at Hye Sun.
"I'm loquacious?" Hye Sun questioned Woo Yeo as she looked at him in shock. "I lived in capitalizes of Goryeo and Joseon. And now I live in Seoul, the capital city of Korea. I always live in capital cities. You know all the hairpins and pendants I wore got sold out at the marketplace. Even now, I've never seen a woman in Seoul who's as elegant as I am, well other than Mi Young." Hye Sun explains before finally resting her arm around my shoulder.
Woo Yeo raised his eyebrow before turning his gaze away from her. This made Hye Sun realize that she had gotten the definition of that word wrong, "Was it a word I don't know?"
"Don't act like that's your only weakness. You're ignorant in a lot of aspects." Woo Yeo says.
"What did you say?" Hye Sun shouted a bit as she felt offended.
"I should get going. I'm expecting someone." Woo Yeo says as he looks at his watch before standing up.
"You are? Who? So, what does it mean to be loquacious?" Hye Sun shouted but Woo Yeo just took off and left. "Aish, can you believe him." Hye Sun sulked as she played with her straw.
"Hmm...," I shrug my shoulders before finishing up my drink.
"Where do you want to go now? I know, we can go shopping or-" Hye Sun explains as she drags me out of the restaurant, but I cut her off before she could speak.
"Noooo! I cannot go out with you anymore, I already missed one day of school just to pick you up from the airport. I need to catch up with my schoolwork." I explained to her.
"Ugh, I don't even understand why you would want to go to school." Hye Sun says with a pouting face
"Well, since we are humans now, we need live life to the fullest now," I told her and with that, the both of us got into the car to go home.
A/n: Hi guys, I hope you like the first chapter. Don't forget to vote and comment.