When all the borders were connected, the drawing shimmered—and a hole truly appeared. On the other side of the hole, a pair of human slippers was visible. The moment Yoha jumped into the hole, the garden of Iri’s Curio Rental Shop spread out before him. Immortal Iri and his sharp-eyed, brazen disciple were standing directly in front of Yoha.
“Yoha, hey.”
“Hello.”
“Ah, I figured you’d be too scared to show up—but you actually came.”
Dojin, the owner of the slippers, picked a fight the moment Yoha arrived. Yoha shot him a sharp glare, but glaring in the form of a baby fox only made him look cute.
“Yoha. We don’t have time, so let’s start with the fox marble.”
“Ah—yes, Immortal!”
Immortal Iri handed over a dark crimson pill. Yoha blinked when he saw its enormous size—nearly ten centimeters in diameter.
“C-Can’t you make it smaller?”
“The fox marble inside you is about this big, so anything smaller won’t work. Instead, it’ll gradually shrink starting tomorrow.”
“Ah… okay.”
“Swallow it and spit it back out right away. Dojin, if Yoha can’t throw it up immediately—”
Iri poked a spot somewhere on the fox’s back.
“—stroke upward with your fingers from here to the back of his neck.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t be too rough.”
“Don’t worry and go inside, Master.”
Yoha’s eyes filled with anxiety.
“I-Immortal. Where are you going?”
“I have business in the True Mortal Realm. From now on, Dojin will take care of things in my place. Then I’m off. Goodbye.”
Iri greeted them with a gentleness tinged with cool detachment, then walked straight into the shop. He didn’t leave Yoha even a moment to stop him.
“Hey. Hurry up and swallow it and puke it out. They said if you go over ten minutes past midnight, the effect gets cut in half.”
“Yeah, I know, okay? Stop rushing me.”
After sighing at the sight of the massive pill that was clearly going to torment his tiny throat, Yoha tossed it into his mouth.
“…!”
It felt like swallowing a lump of blazing fire. Just as Immortal Iri had explained, the sensation of burning spread from his throat all the way down into his stomach.
Khaek, keh, keh!
Yoha planted all four paws on the ground and tried to vomit the pill up, but it wasn’t easy. As he struggled to catch his breath, he heard a tongue click behind him. Soon, the strong pressure of fingers swept from his back up to the nape of his neck.
Kehhk!
A round object popped out of the fox’s snout. Thanks to the help of the sharp-eyed, arrogant employee, the pill finally came out.
The once dark crimson pill now glowed with an eerie silver sheen. Dojin picked up the silver pill and examined it from side to side.
“Looks good. Just like Master said. Hey, you okay?”
“Do I fucking look okay?”
“You’re talking, so you’re fine. Now get out. I’ve gotta fondle—ahem—guard my master’s empty body.”
“I was gonna leave even if you didn’t say anything.”
Yoha’s stomach still churned and his throat felt raw, but he didn’t want to show weakness, so he sprang to his feet. The door connected to the bathroom was still open. As Yoha leapt toward it, Dojin called out.
“Come again tomorrow at this same time. Don’t be late. You’ve gotta come every single day.”
“I know!”
Not long after Yoha returned to the bathroom, the door closed.
The fox transformed back into a human and staggered. Just swallowing and spitting out a single pill had utterly drained him. He filled the bathtub with warm water and sank into it. Even so, the deep furrow in his brow showed no sign of easing.
Losing a fox marble really is agony.
Iri had explained that it would hurt—but Yoha hadn’t imagined it would hurt this much.
Every fox yokai carries a fox marble within their body. In simple terms, it’s a sphere that contains the entirety of a fox yokai’s power. Fox yokai are peculiar beings even among the Wia, possessing not only virtue but also a force known as ‘yoryeok’. The fox marble is the very source of that yoryeok.
Exorcists are extremely sensitive to the sinister energy embedded within yoryeok. That’s why they can see straight through a fox yokai’s human transformation—something even divine spirits fail to detect.
No telling how competent the shaman coming to this broadcast will be…
To overcome the deep-seated fear of exorcists—fear etched into his very bones, sunk deep into his soul—and to make it through a day as Idol Yoha, he needed to eliminate any trace they could latch onto.
That was why Yoha chose to destroy his fox marble. Even if it was destroyed, it regenerated daily. And considering it was a fresh fox marble not even twenty years old—and that he’d live for well over a thousand years—it didn’t feel like a waste.
The goal was to destroy the regenerating fox marble every day for six days, leaving behind only the bare minimum yoryeok required for human transformation—so that on filming day, the shaman wouldn’t sense even a hint of sinister energy.
This much pain, I can endure!
Yoha clenched his fist. From the moment he chose to become an idol out of all the countless human professions, he knew it wouldn’t be easy. The harder it was, the more fun it became. Yoha was confident—at least, for now.
***
The 16th.
“Guys, I’m going to the bathroom. It’s a big one, so don’t talk to me and don’t come near me.”
“Ah, why would you say that? We’re making Chapagetti right now!”
“That bastard said it on purpose. Fine—wait till you eat Chapagetti later. Fuck.”
Khaek, keh-keh.
“Hey. Hurry up and throw it up. It’ll melt in your stomach at this rate.”
Keh-keh.
“I said puke it out. Now. Want me to hit your back harder?”
The 17th.
“Guys, everyone, attention.”
“Why?”
“I’m going into the master bedroom bathroom to take a massive dump.”
“Hyung, are you insane? Why the hell do you announce that you’re going to the bathroom?”
Khaek, keh!
“By the third time, shouldn’t you be used to it? Why are you still so bad at throwing it up?”
The 18th.
“Guys. I—”
“Wait. Let me guess.”
“What?”
“You’re going to the bathroom, right?”
“Yeah.”
“You shit on a damn schedule. But seriously, can you please just go without announcing it? Why are you advertising it? Trying to gross us out? Huh? Or make us puke?”
Keh-keh!
“Hey, spit it out already. Want me to yank it out for you?”
The 19th.
“Guys.”
“Bathroom! Go! Just go! Please don’t say anything and just go!”
Khaek. Keh!
“More force—yeah, that’s it!”
The 20th…
Yoha, who’d grown noticeably pale over the past few days, slipped into the living room bathroom. Thankfully—if only barely—everyone was completely wiped out from evening schedules and had collapsed right after showering. Still, just in case someone woke up, Yoha locked the door and pulled out the ‘Silver Pencil’.
He drew the door and tried to pass through instinctively, only to realize he was still in human form. Even doing a somersault felt exhausting, but he squeezed out what little strength he had left, transformed into a fox, and moved to the rental shop.
“You’re here?”
Kyawng.
Yoha was now so exhausted that he couldn’t even form human speech in fox form. It wasn’t an issue of yoryeok anymore—it was sheer physical fatigue. Swallowing a massive pill every day and forcing it back out was truly brutal.
Dojin stared blankly for a moment, then held out the pill. The fox sighed and swallowed it as if drinking poison.
Khaek, keh. Keh!
Dojin thumped the struggling fox’s back with measured force. After a brief battle, the fox spat out a silver marble.
Unlike the first day—when he’d returned straight to the dorm—Yoha collapsed flat on his back this time, focusing on recovering his strength.
Kkiwoong…
Kkiwoong approached and gently stroked Yoha’s fur like a caretaker.
“Hey.”
After securing the fox marble, Dojin crouched beside Yoha.
“Why do you go this far just to play idol?”
Kyawng. Kyang.
“If you’re human, speak human.”
The fox narrowed his eyes sharply.
“Could you not harass someone who’s collapsed from exhaustion and just fuck off?”
“If you fuck off, then I fuck off.”
“I’m just gonna rest a bit and head back, so fuck off.”
“You’re basically on death’s door right now. If Master finds out that a client’s in this state and I left them unattended, I’ll get chewed out. So no.”
Immortal Iri hadn’t appeared once since the day of the first consultation and the first marble destruction. It was always Dojin instead—doubling Yoha’s stress.
“Why are you so desperate to be an idol? There are plenty of jobs that are great for absorbing yang energy. Something safer than being an idol, constantly exposed to the masses.”
“It has nothing to do with absorbing yang energy. I don’t eat yang energy!”
“Then what do you live on?”
“Obviously human food. I had pork cutlet for lunch today and gukbap for dinner, okay?”
“Well, fox yokai are omnivores. Kkiwoong here is too—but these days, he eats real food more than shadows. Guess he wants to imitate everything humans do.”
Kkiwoong.
At the sound of his name, Kkiwoong lifted his head. The tiny shadow imp tilted it from side to side, then buried himself back into Yoha’s fur. In his own way, he was petting him.
Yoha gazed up at the moon floating quietly in the pitch-black night sky. Perhaps tomorrow would be clear—the sky was bright and sharp, with no halo around the moon.
“I’m not being an idol because I want to imitate humans.”
“Then why did you start being an idol in the first place?”
“The reason I started is… human.”
“…….”
The tip of Yoha’s drooping, fluffy tail swayed softly. A faint sparkle filled his yellow eyes as they reflected the moon.
“Unlike most fox yokai, I don’t have parents. My earliest memory is of an elderly human couple—both bent with age—finding me trembling from the cold in a deep rock crevice in the mountains of some rural village, and reaching out their hands to me.”
Thinking the beautiful silver-furred fox cub had been abandoned, the couple took him home. Though newly born, Yoha was still a Yeongmul, and he could tell they didn’t have long left to live. Thinking he might as well accumulate some virtue, he played the part of a fox cub so they could enjoy their final years.
They cared for Yoha with boundless devotion. Even when they could barely take care of their own bodies, they never missed a meal for the fox cub. Yoha loved the hands that rubbed his belly, stroked his fur, and brushed his tail. He loved the way Grandma called him ‘little fox’, and the way Grandpa always brushed his fur the wrong way when petting him.
Every morning, Yoha crawled into Grandma’s shoes to warm them. Every evening, he curled up on Grandpa’s pillow to test how soft it was. Grandma and Grandpa would laugh warmly, saying, “Looks like this little fox wants to wear shoes like a person, or lie on pillows like one.”
Then one night, deep in the dark hours, the fox—sleeping between Grandma and Grandpa—pricked up his ears and opened his eyes.
An uninvited guest had arrived at the quiet countryside home.
“Robbers?” Dojin asked, having listened in silence.
Yoha answered calmly.
“Grim reapers. In a sense, I guess they were robbers.”
