“Mommy! I’m home!”
Kim immediately recognized the voice of her younger child Sumin. She fell into a short panic trying to figure out what she should do, before deciding to choose the direct approach and be upfront about her condition.
“Hwan’s coming later, she wanted to go with her friends to–” Sumin stopped with a loud gasp as she saw a fox woman wearing the same clothes as her mother stepping into the hallway. “Mommy, is that you?” Sumin was quite perceptive for a grade schooler.
“Sumin, sweetie, please don't freak out,” Kim tried to gently ease her into conversation. “This might be quite a lot to take in and I know we told you to never put things you don't know into your mouth, but–”
“So cool!”
“Huh?” This was not the reaction Kim was expecting. She really should have, but she didn't. “You're not scared of my appearance?”
“Why would I?” Sumin tilted her head as she answered truthfully. “Everyone at school is gonna be so envious when they learn my mommy is an awesome fox woman now.”
Why did Kim doubt her own family so much? Of course they would still love her no matter her look or species. It still felt really good to actually have that reaffirmed. It was getting really hard for her to hold back some tears. “Come here, sweetie, let me hug you.”
Kim knelt down and enveloped her daughter in a full-body embrace, to which the little girl happily obliged. Half-consciously Kim moved behind Sumin and caressed her back with it.
“Hahahahaha, stop it, mommy, it tickles, hahahaha– Ouch!” Sumin suddenly shouted.
“What is it, Sumin? Are you alright?” Kim asked with immediate concern.
“It felt like something sharp poked me in the back.”
Being already in the right position, Kim lifted the back of Sumin’s shirt to get a better look, though the view was mostly blocked by her own tail. When she tried to push it away, she didn't expect “Ouch! Mommy, stop!”
Both more careful and concerned she felt up her own tail. Reaching its tip, as well as Sumin suppressing her own laughter confirmed her fear. Somehow the tip of her tail had attached itself to her daughter's tailbone and she could now feel it as her own.
Kim tried her best not to fall into another panic. What was she supposed to do now? Was this another weird effect of that fruit she was really starting to regret having eaten now? Were she and her youngest doomed now to forever be connected by tail?
While Kim was still in a stupor, Sumin wriggled herself out of her mother's embrace to get a good look herself. Before Kim could stop the girl from potentially hurting herself–
Plop!
The fox tail neatly divided in the middle, giving each female her own separate one.
“Huh?”
“Mommy, what's going on– Ah!” Sumin doubled over and held her head in apparent pain.
“Sumin! What is it now, sweetie?” If Kim had somehow, even if accidentally, hurt her own child with this strange new power of hers, she would never be able to forgive herself.
“I don't know, it feels like something is pushing out of my head. Please make it–” Plop! “...It stopped.”
Kim couldn't believe what her eyes were telling her. A pair of fox ears had suddenly pushed out of her daughter’s head. She decided to focus on the most pressing concern first. “Sweetie, is something else hurting?”
“Nope, I don't think so. What's going on, mommy?”
“Please don't freak out, but… it seems that I have given you a fox tail and ears as well.”
Sumin immediately ran past her mother into her own room. Kim was already blaming herself for doing this to her own daughter, when she heard a loud gasp followed by, “That's so cool!”
Again, Kim really should've expected that reaction from a grade schooler.
Sumin came back and hugged her mother again, already expertly wagging her tail in joy. “Now I’m almost as cool as mommy. Thank you!”
Well, at least Sumin was liking it. Still, Kim needed to be careful now. The fruit not only turned her into an anthro fox, but also gave her the power to give others fox ears and tails, assuming that's where it ended. Her life was certainly about to get interesting.