The Shy Gumiho
I felt like someone had swung a hammer straight into my skull. What? Too embarrassed to do it? I asked again just to be sure I hadn’t misheard.
“You… what did you just say?”
“I said I’m too embarrassed to do it, you idiot! I’ve repeated it three times now!”
Hearing it loud and clear a second time only made it more ridiculous. If I translated and condensed Snowflower’s words, it came out to this: ‘I’m too embarrassed to have sex.’
What the hell… She wasn’t some sheltered country girl. She was a gumiho who couldn’t gather spiritual energy because sex embarrassed her? It was almost too absurd to believe. No matter how deep I dug through old legends and folktales, gumiho were always portrayed as seductive monsters that lured men in and drained their life force. They were the very symbol of temptation, famous for bewitching people with cunning grace. And now this gumiho was telling me she was too shy to approach men?
“…Huh.”
Still, I had no choice but to believe her. Humans who slept with a gumiho didn’t survive the encounter. The physical disparity between yokai and humans was only part of it; the absorption of spiritual energy through intercourse was supposedly powerful enough to devour the victim’s very soul. If Snowflower had followed the classic legends, she would have been steeped in dark yin energy by now.
“You really are one of a kind.”
“Excuse me? I don’t want to hear that from you. Where else are you going to find humans as weird as an exorcist clan…?”
“Shut up. And I keep telling you, I’m not an exorcist.”
“Oh, right. When you think about it, you’re pretty fearless yourself, aren’t you?”
What was she on about?
“You came to meet a yokai armed with nothing but a few paper talismans? What if I really had been a man-eating monster? What then?”
…She had a point. Her words made me realize how poorly prepared I had actually been. I did have a few strong talismans, but they were useless unless I could actually stick them on the target. And how many yokai in the world would politely stand still and let me do that?
“There. Questions finished? Now hurry up and write the post right in front of me.”
“Ah.”
Right. That was still left to do. There was no getting out of it. Not a single one of Snowflower’s claims had been a lie, and she had proven every last detail. So…
“Fine. I lost. I’ll write it however you want.”
“Really? Then I’ll pick the title. ‘Review After Meeting the Prettiest Girl in the Province, Snowflower Noona’……”
“Say anything weird and I’ll just write that it was all fake.”
“That’s not fair!”
Prettiest girl, my ass. I could admit she was beautiful, but calling her a “girl” was a stretch. Where in the world was there a thousand-year-old girl?
“…I’ll write it properly, so just wait. All I need to say is that you’re real and that I was wrong, right?”
Snowflower looked briefly disappointed, but since my reasoning was sound she didn’t push it. Thank goodness she let it go.
I opened the gallery app again. It still felt strange that the gallery had its own separate application. The login screen appeared for the third time, and I was inside.
The moment I switched to the all-posts tab, both Snowflower and I froze.
“This…”
“It’s… all about us?”
Exactly as she said. The entire gallery was flooded with talk of our offline meeting.
There was also the shitpost written by the same anonymous user who had been arguing with Snowflower yesterday.
Plenty of users were also passionately hoping Snowflower would get properly destroyed. When she saw it, she exploded.
“There isn’t even a rule against socializing, but that bastard throws a tantrum every single time!”
“Uh… yeah…”
Anyway, the gallery was clearly dying to know the outcome of our offline meeting. A moderator had even stepped in to restore order amid the chaos.
Next to the username IronKing* was an orange badge. It meant this person was an administrator of the Ghost Gallery.
“So that’s the head mod…”
“Iron King? I’ve always thought it sounds like some old man’s username from the early 2000s.”
She wasn’t wrong. It did have that early-internet vibe. Still, when even the moderator was warning that we’d be banned if we didn’t post, it was best to get it over with quickly.
“They said we’ll get banned if we don’t post. Not just me—you too.”
“Me too?”
“Yeah.”
“Ugh, seriously.”
Snowflower and I sat on the motel bed and started tapping away at our phones. I would post first, and she would follow about five minutes later.
“Hey.”
“What?”
“Let me take one picture of your tail.”
“Oh, for proof? Sure.”
She seemed pretty experienced with gallery culture; she gave permission without fuss. I took a quick shot that showed only her tails, then uploaded my post to the Ghost Gallery.
The reactions exploded the instant I posted. Notification sounds went off like crazy, so I turned them off. When I checked the comments…
Most of the comments seemed to lament the fact that I had been wrong. Apparently a lot of people had been annoyed by the way Snowflower acted like a forum dictator.
Then one comment caught my eye. It was a little strange.
…A bed?
I looked back at the photo I had uploaded. At first glance it only showed nine tails, but beneath them was a pink blanket. The very blanket on this motel bed.
“Ah……”
“Hey, hey… what are we going to do about the mood now?!”
Snowflower must have seen it too. She stopped typing and started shaking my shoulder frantically.
“What are we supposed to say?!”
…I had no idea either.
#2
Even if I explained how we ended up in a motel, how many people would actually believe me? Probably none. And even if it looked true, they would refuse to believe it. Why? Because the other version was way more fun. These piranha-like users weren’t about to miss fresh bait like this.
The gallery descended into pure chaos. All sorts of vulgar sex jokes about Snowflower flew around, and the insults aimed at me were so filthy I could barely read them. Someone even made an instant meme of a flag with both our names on it being burned. The moderators were deleting the worst posts, but given the nature of the gallery, they usually let moderate swearing and sex jokes slide. So we saw everything.
Honestly, I didn’t care that much. I hadn’t been active in this gallery long, and if I abandoned my anonymous account it wouldn’t affect my future activity. But…
“……”
It didn’t look like she felt the same. Just looking at her drooping ears and watery eyes told me exactly how she felt. This whole mess had happened because of my mistake, my carelessness, so I felt incredibly guilty. Yokai or not, I was the one who had screwed up.
“…I’m sorry. I should have checked the photo more carefully before posting.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“Huh?”
“I said what are you going to do about it!!!”
When I looked at her with a genuinely clueless expression, her blue eyes grew even wetter. Afraid she might actually cry, I spoke in a rush.
“I-I’m really sorry. It’s all my fault.”
“I don’t want an apology! I’m asking what you’re going to do!”
“I don’t understand what you want me to—”
“My spiritual energy!!”
“…Huh?”
Why was she asking me about that? As if reading my confusion, Snowflower shouted.
“I’ve been listening to the worries of the gallery users and helping the ghosts pass on in exchange for their spiritual energy… but now I can’t do that anymore!”
“Wait, so you’ve met other people besides me?”
“You’re the first living person. Until now I only met spirits. Most yokai don’t like sharing their spiritual energy, but once a ghost lets go of its lingering attachment it leaves this world, so… at that point spiritual energy doesn’t matter.”
This was the first I’d heard that she could absorb spiritual energy from ghosts too. But if that was the case…
“You did spirit possession?”
“What kind of bullshit is that!”
A pillow flew at me with a loud thud. It hurt. For a bundle of cotton, it packed a surprising punch. Guess a yokai was still a yokai.
“No, I just meant that the reason you’re a virgin is because of the spirit possession thing.”
“That’s not it! You can absorb spiritual energy just from contact! That other act just lets you take a lot at once and is more efficient, that’s all.”
“Ah… I see.”
I really hadn’t known. I also hadn’t realized she had met other gallery users before me. Since none of the ghosts I’d asked had given me clear answers, it seemed that once a spirit passed on, it naturally left the gallery.
“Can ghosts really pass on just by talking about their worries? I thought deep-seated grudges would be hard to resolve.”
“Not every spirit is a vicious evil ghost like humans think. Some can’t move on because of tiny little regrets.”
Snowflower continued.
“I listen to those regrets, help resolve them… and in return the relieved spirits give me their spiritual energy as a gift. That’s how I’ve lived.”
After she finished speaking, her expression suddenly changed as if she had remembered something. She rummaged through the bag she had brought and pulled something out.
“Ah, this. I need to deliver this quickly!”
“A medicine bag?”
“On the way here a young spirit asked me for a favor. Their mother is sick and needs medicine.”
“……”
So that’s why she had gone to the pharmacy? I was genuinely surprised. It wasn’t just the fact that a gumiho lived by listening to ghosts’ worries and receiving their spiritual energy. It was the urgent sincerity written all over her face right now.
“Hurry!”
“Okay, okay. Let’s go. Where are we headed?”
“It’s… 15, 119 Beomcheon-dong. They said it’s a house.”
“Got it.”
As if she had completely forgotten about the chaotic gallery, her eyes and movements were filled with urgency as she recalled the request from the young spirit she had met on the street. It didn’t seem like she was after the tiny amount of spiritual energy a child ghost could offer.
A thought suddenly occurred to me. I wanted to say it couldn’t be, wanted to deny it, but…
Why is a yokai acting like this…?
If she was going to be a yokai, she should act like one. But no matter how I looked at it, this idiot gumiho seemed far too kind.