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He shouldn’t have called Somin. Her mother’s voice had been saturated with laughter in the background. Though Somin feigned annoyance, there had been an answering glee in her tone. They were having fun together. Somin didn’t need Jihoon’s problems bringing her down, too.

His phone buzzed with Changwan’s belated answer:Dad saw my grades. Grounded. -_-

Jihoon knew he was in a bad place when he felt jealous Changwan had a dad around to ground him. It would all pass, he promised himself. This tightness in his chest never stayed for long.

Restless, Jihoon left the safety of the bus shelter.

He followed the winding streets decorated with yellow speed bumps. A stone wall held in the forest, but branches still reached over the small barrier defiantly.

“Babo-ya, you never hear of an umbrella?”

Jihoon stopped, barely fazed by being called stupid.

He stared at the shiny boots in front of him before he lifted his eyes.

Miyoung stood under the shadow of her umbrella so all he saw were her lips curled into a sneer.

“Excuse me?” His voice was as cold as the rain.

“Who walks around in a downpour with no coat and no umbrella?”

She obviously made a good point but only succeeded in throwing him into a darker mood.

“Just leave me alone.” Jihoon walked into the small neighborhood playground to escape. The colorful plastic tunnels looked faded and gray under the overcast sky. The swings swayed lightly, like they’d recently been abandoned for drier ground.

Jihoon flopped down in one. He hadn’t expected Miyoung to follow him, but she stood in front of the swing set, eyeing him.

“I think we need to get some things straight—” she began.

“You’re worried I’ll tell.” Jihoon cut her off.

Her fist squeezed tighter around the umbrella handle.

“That’s why you’re here, right?” Jihoon asked. “You’re afraid I’ll tell everyone what you are.” A voice in the back of his head told him to shut up, to stop poking at the girl who could literally tear out his heart.

Miyoung tilted her umbrella back, her head quirked to the side to study him.

“If I were you, I’d hold my tongue. I’ve had a bad day.”

“Well, join the club,” Jihoon said, ignoring the hard warning. It was just the latest in a growing list of bad decisions he’d made that day.

“How did you do it?” he asked, suddenly wanting to know. Needing to know. “How did you kill that thing?”

“The same way I’d kill you if I wanted.”

Jihoon gulped, shivering from more than the cold. At least the rain had slowed to a drizzle. “It’s true, then? Everything? All of the folktales and kid stories?”

“Probably. It’s not my business to catalogue what’s real and what’s just silly human imagination.”

“So why don’t you have fox ears. Or a snout? Aren’t you supposed to look more... foxy?”

“I can’t decide if you’re brave or dense,” Miyoung mused, her tone deceptively casual. Like a predator slowly stalking her prey before the strike. “So willing to make light of me when you know what I am. I could rip out your liver right here.”

“Could you?” He’d balled all of his outrage into a fire in the back of his throat and shot it at her.

The snarl twisting her lips only accentuated her beauty when it should have made her frightening. “You’re making a mistake if you assume because I saved you before, I wouldn’t kill you now.”

“You’re bluffing,” he said.