Author's Notes: "My Girlfriend is a Gumiho" fanfiction, one of my favorite korean dramas of all time.

Disclaimer: Not mine.

define gumiho: a nine-tailed fox of Korean folklore that originates from ancient Chinese myths.

Raising Gumiho

Premises: Where there's only Miho and Dong Ju, and no pesky self-centered humans to irritate me.

It is difficult in the beginning. It is difficult to accept the fact this strange creature bears the face and only the face of a dead love he's mourned for a thousand years. The light shining from her eyes has that iridescent sheen of a creature that has not experienced real pain, and it seems to mock him every time he turns.

He couldn't, can't bring himself to touch her. The traitorous knife in his backpack buzzes and shudders with sick anticipation. He's sure she can sense its murderous whine but she only looks up at him with those big eyes. He's not human, and she's definitely not one either, but that unearthly beauty still catches him off guard when he least expects it. Her hair may be a tangled mess, but it's moves down her back with that wild abandon all animals have. She may be in an ungainly position on the floor, but there is a languid sinewy grace in her sharp angles that is so undeniably fox.

Then she smiles. She smiles fiercely. It makes her eyes crinkle and her cheeks strain. She smiles without human artifice or animal cowardice. To him, that makes her even more supernatural than the nine tails flicking in the moonlight.

Dong Ju wants to resist. His life has been a lonely but steady affair these past thousand years. Every day is like the last, and he does not need nor want something that would make his heart unexpectedly clench and race. But strong and powerful as he is, there are things stronger and more powerful than him like fate and meddlesome old goddesses, so he let's her push her way into his life with the bitter tolerance of regretful old men. The sincerity in her skin as she tightly holds his hand makes him brush his thumb gently over her knuckles before he can stop himself.

She is even more naïve than he originally expected, and it takes more than considerable amount of patience to persuade her not to instinctively put everything she sees in her mouth. Although it frustrates him, pushes the limits of his tolerance, it also makes things easier. This is not the adult Gil Dong that he fell in love, who knew how to catch a man with an elegant twist of her beautiful chin. This creature is little more than a newborn, and it's much easier on his heart this way. His hands are gentle as they wipe her messy face, and even when she bounds into his office at random intervals and bedazzles the silly humans into stupidity, he watches with amused smile.

He's forgotten how a single glance of those bright eyes and a turn of that beautiful profile could stop a man's heart, and although she's not Gil Dong whose beauty was refined with maturity and knowing, he still spends an inordinate amount of time batting the human males away. He gives her his jacket to wear over that white dress that is a mockery of human purity and virginity, gives her his hat to tuck her hair away and hide her face, but she is still impossibly beautiful. She seems not to notice the attention, and instead keeps a steady chatter of inquiries and exclamations. Sometimes, he almost snaps but then she looks up again with her child eyes and this thousand year old half-human isn't that grouch-like. Dong Ju consoles himself by introducing her to his hapless assistant and watches the poor human male turn himself inside out to impress a creature that neither understands nor cares.

Despite his considerable patience and tolerance, they fight. They fight often, sometimes fiercely, sometimes lightly, sometimes even foolishly. They argue over her hair, his clothes, her persistent habit of eating everything, and his even more persistent habit not to eat meat. These arguments are usually resolved by actions of reconciliation, and by the end of a month he's learned to comb her hair, and she's learned not to pull on his shirt hard enough to rip the poor fabric. Far less often, but far more fiercely, they argue over his hatred and her love for humans. It's a vicious battle that often ends with her stomping out the door. Although his own pride smarts like those faraway winters without modern heaters, in the end he always runs out after her.

In his heart of hearts, she shames him. Wisdom comes from the mouth of babes as they say, and he's never been so humbled when he realizes this newborn makes his life a little bit brighter, a little bit happier. So while this creature can be as troublesome and psychedelic as a kaleidoscope, he tolerates. He accepts.

He loves.

Review perhaps?

Originally written 6.28.11, edited on 12.9.11.