A/N: Warning: There is death of a beloved pet at the end of this chapter, so be prepared for that.

But overall, the chapter is MUCH lighter than the previous one...It was fun to write, and I hope you guys like it! :)

"Do you still have that contract?"

"Ah! You scared me!" Yeon scrambled backwards in his slippers and nearly fell as he fumbled for the kitchen's light switch.

Rang, who had been sitting in the mid-day dimness of his brother's kitchen, waiting for that moment, laughed his ass off at the dining table while Yeon struggled to regain his balance.

"What's the matter, hyung? Is being human not as fun as it was cracked up to be?"

His brother huffed as he righted himself and straightened his sweatshirt over his sweatpants.

"For your information, I had a doctor's appointment yesterday." Yeon shuffled over to the table. "I'm pretty sure they drugged me. My head feels like it's been stuffed with cotton," Yeon noted glumly. He plopped down in the chair opposite Rang. He looked awful, pale and flushed with droopy eyes. "What are you doing here?" he croaked, his voice thick with sinuses. Rang recognized the symptoms from Soo-oh's occasional bouts of illness; his puppy's school was a breeding ground of infections. Once one kid caught something, by the end of the week the illness had run rampant through the whole school.

Ridiculous.

"Ji Ah said you were sick. I had to come see for myself," Rang gloated. "I have to say, the show does not disappoint. Tell me, do you often get these pesky human colds now that you've willingly devolved?"

Yeon glared, but it didn't have much impact with his red nose and bloodshot eyes.

"Cut the crap. You said something...about the contract?" He rested his head in his hands like it pained him.

"I'd like to make some changes."

Yeon raised his head; he blinked up at him.

"It's not a negotiation," he said.

'It's not a negotiation,' Rang mouthed.

"I'm serious." Yeon coughed. "Granny doesn't have time for your games. Either you want to be reincarnated, or you don't."

"I don't."

"What?"

"I want something else."

"What?"

"I want something destroyed."

"You want...Why you...Haven't you"—cough, cough—"destroyed enough? What you could possibly"—cough—"want now?"

Rang grinned.

"Not telling. But bring this to Granny." He pulled an envelope out of his suit coat pocket and slid it across the table. "If you read it, you're dead."

Yeon flipped the sealed letter over in his hands. The envelope was completely blank save for Lee Rang's name scrawled on the front with an unnecessary elegant flourish.

"What is it?"

"Have you been listening to anything? It's my counter offer." Rang tapped the envelope.

"Is it going to piss Granny off?"

"No more than you asking her to reincarnate me. Actually, I think she'll prefer my suggestion."

"But you won't tell me what it is? Me? The one who arranged this whole thing?"

"Just take it to her. I'm not setting foot in that place again before it's absolutely unavoidable."

Rang stood, yawning, and stretched.

"Ah, while you do that, mind if I take a nap on your couch? I ate a big breakfast."

Rang didn't wait for Yeon to answer before padding over to the couch, shrugging off his coat, and kicking off his slippers. He fluffed up some throw pillows and curled up in front of the TV.

It took a minute longer than he expected, but soon he heard the tell-tale mutterings of his brother's fury at finding the refrigerator empty.

"Hey! Bedwetter!"

Rang kept his eyes closed even as he heard his brother stomp into the living room. Yeon had suddenly regained his voice.

"All the containers of food that were in the refrigerator...they're empty, and they're in the sink!"

"Oh?" A ghost of a smile crept over Rang's face.

"That was my lunch!"

"Cook yourself some rice. Your wife says you're good at that."

Rang flinched as a throw pillow bounced off of his head.


Two weeks. It had been two weeks since he'd last seen Ga Eul. One week since he'd moved out of Shin-joo and Yu Ri's apartment. Soo-oh had been inconsolable, of course, but at least the two foxes had been considerate of Rang's need for space. Or they'd been tired of his silent treatment.

Admittedly, he'd been worked up that night and had perhaps over-reacted, just slightly, and he knew he'd have to make up with Yu Ri and Shin-joo eventually. But right now there was something he needed to take care of before anyone else did anything rash.

Avoiding Ga Eul as long as she held that soulmate charm had proven impossible.

Even worse, he hadn't actually wanted to avoid her. The complete opposite, in fact. Sometimes he thought he tricked himself into believing that she wouldn't be in the very places he in fact knew she would be, just so he could see her from a distance.

The solution had become obvious then. He had to get that cursed soulmate charm away from her and get it destroyed, by whatever means possible.

It wouldn't be an entirely selfish action. Ga Eul hadn't looked happy the few times he'd observed her for more than a few seconds. She'd looked worried.

This was the only way to ensure she could find someone else and be happy again.

So that was it then. Taking the charm shouldn't be too hard. Knowing her, she carried it in her purse, along with every first-aid and self-care object one could conceivably require.

He only needed a good disguise.


Attempt one took place on a Monday. Ga Eul had mentioned having meetings with some of the other teachers on Monday afternoons, and when he'd made his way to the teachers' offices in the guise of an IT personnel, he was delighted to find the spacious room mostly empty. There were two women at desks near the front, but one merely glanced at him while the other kept her eyes on the papers in front of her.

Excellent.

It was possible, of course, that Ga Eul took her purse with her to these meetings; when he reached her desk, he didn't see her purse anywhere. But if he had to guess, he would say that she kept it locked in one of her desk drawers. He opened the first large drawer quietly but found only hanging file folders stuffed with papers. The second drawer was locked, and he smiled.

Glancing up over the dividers surrounding her desk, he noted that the other two ladies were still absorbed in their work. No one else had come in.

Rang quickly picked the lock and popped it open.

As he slid the drawer out, he saw the purse handle, then—

"Oh! Chu Seonsaengnim, one of the parents was looking for you earlier. I think it was Cheon Yi Seul's mother."

Rang froze, his fingers brushing the purse zipper.

Shit.

Heels clacked, and Ga Eul's voice drew nearer to her desk as she answered, "Yes, I saw her on my way back from the meeting. Thanks for letting me know."

She was almost on top of him now. He couldn't close the drawer without attracting attention.

He needed a distraction. Thankfully, at that moment, he happened to glance up and notice the cat calendar hanging from a pushpin in one of the dividers.

In an instant, the IT worker had vanished, replaced by a black and white calico, identical to the one on the calendar, that ran up to Ga Eul when she rounded the corner, purring and dancing around her legs.

"Oh!" she gasped. "How did you get in here?" Her voice took on that higher pitch people often used when speaking to animals; normally, it grated on his genteel fox sensibilities. But when Ga Eul knelt down, picked him up, and cuddled him to her chest, he suddenly didn't mind the voice at all.

"Where did you come from? Huh?" She scratched his ears. A shiver ran down his spine and his newly acquired cat tail. "You don't have a collar. Did someone leave you here?" She glanced around at the windows. "Or did you come in from outside? I bet one of the kids let you in, didn't they?" She looked down at him like the cat might confirm her suspicions.

Rang batted his paw at her arm.

Hopefully, she'd take that as a yes and put him back outside where he belonged.

"Who are you talking to?" the lady who had spoken to her earlier called out.

"This cat that was sitting back here by my desk." She brought him around for the other ladies to inspect him, and they murmured their adoration.

Ga Eul was stroking his head and his ears, and he leaned in to her soft but firm touch, getting drowsy despite the situation.

"Have you seen him before?" she asked. "Do you know if he belongs to a teacher?"

The first lady—the one who'd looked up when Rang had come in—shook her head.

"Maybe the IT guy saw where he came from," she suggested, looking around, and Rang had a rousing moment of panic. But then she continued, "Oh. Looks like he went out the other door."

"Well, he must belong to somebody." Ga Eul frowned. "He doesn't have a collar, but he looks well taken care of, and he's very friendly. He wasn't scared of me at all."

"I can take him and check with the front office," the lady suggested and held out her arms.

That roused Rang further from his massage-induced coma.

Perhaps he'd allowed Ga Eul to parade him around like some common house pet, but he'd be damned if anyone else was going to. Before the lady could grab him, he leapt out of Ga Eul's arms with a sharp yowl and, grateful that cats always land on their feet, scampered down the hallway.

It was past time for him to be leaving, anyway.

Cats. What a stupid animal.

A few strokes behind the ears, and he felt like he'd been drugged. And that, surely, was the cat's fault, not the fox half of his brain.


Attempt two took place at Ga Eul's apartment two days later, once he'd realized the cat ruse would probably serve him better than anything else. Thankful he'd been roped into driving her home that one time, he waited by her apartment door for several hours. She finally came home around eleven o'clock, and, knowing she didn't have to tutor Soo-oh that day, he wondered what she'd been doing after school let out.

Not that it was any of his business. He was supposed to be working on forgetting her.

"Oh! It's you again. Did you follow me home?" Ga Eul knelt down to his eye level. "You're a smart cat, aren't you?"

Pfft. A smart cat? Those two words didn't belong in the same sentence.

Rang meowed in protest.

"Are you hungry?"

Rang meowed in affirmation, circling around her legs.

"Well...I already have a cat, so you're going to have to be on your best behavior. But come here." Ga Eul lifted him into her arms, and he cozied up to her chest.

She unlocked the door with her free hand and made her way inside with Rang in her arms. When she flipped on the light switch, he was greeted by a studio apartment, small but cozy with plenty of brightly colored adornments to reflect the personality of the girl who lived there.

Ga Eul set her purse down on the counter—aha! finally—and moved further into the room, past the kitchenette to her bed where an old orange and white cat lay on top of her lavender pillows. The cat immediately stood up and bared its teeth, hissing and raising up on its hackles, its claws sinking into her bedsheets.

Rang nearly hissed back but then thought better of it.

Better to look terrified and vulnerable. He tensed and raised his eyes to Ga Eul in supplication.

"I know, Milo. I'm taking him to the bathroom." Ga Eul sighed and spoke to Rang, "I'll bring you a bed and some food in there." She steered away from her bed—away from her purse—and veered into the little bathroom opposite the bed.

Rang scrambled up onto her shoulders when she tried to set him down, but she managed to get him off of her anyway.

The bathroom door closed with a soft click.

He really hadn't thought this one through.

Well, actually he had. He'd remembered where she lived; he just hadn't remembered that she already had a cat. It wasn't like they'd exchanged social media accounts—those were treated, annoyingly, like cat photo exhibitions—and somehow the subject had never come up.

Well, it had come up. Once. Now he vaguely remembered her mentioning a cat, but it was so far back in their acquaintance that he must have intentionally blocked it out. Back when he was doing his level best to avoid her entirely.

And now...

Now her cat didn't like him—cats were irritatingly territorial that way; if it had been a dog he might have gotten away with it—and he was stuck on this unsanitary floor, waiting for cat chow or canned tuna or some equally unappetizing dinner option.

Rang batted at the door in annoyance. The door itself wasn't the problem. His original idea had been to wait until Ga Eul fell asleep and then, using his excellent night vision, have a look inside her purse, snatch what he'd come after, and vanish into the night.

Now there was no way for that to work without her cat raising all sorts of hell.

So he was trapped in a bathroom for nothing.

A bathroom.

True to her word, Ga Eul reappeared after a minute or two, carrying a small bowl of cat food. He might have slipped through her legs and begged to be let out then, but she adeptly maneuvered herself into the room through the tiniest crack in the door, not leaving him room for that. Like a skilled pet owner.

"Here you go."

She set the mushy brown paté down in front of him.

He sniffed. Liver and chicken.

He sniffed again, his head raised high. This was no way to eat liver. Livers were best served warm and fresh, carved from the body of...never mind.

He stared at the food, then back up at her, then back down at the food again.

Then back up at her.

I think not, he implored her with his eyes, his tail swishing.

"You're not hungry?"

For this? Rang looked ruefully back down at the unappealing dish.

Cats were stupid, but they couldn't be this stupid, could they?

"Well...I'll just leave you alone for a few minutes, and you can eat when you're ready, okay? Oh! I was going to get you a bed."

He could hear her shuffling around on the other side of the door after she left. She was talking to her cat—Milo, she'd said—and probably petting the tiresome creature. Reassuring him he was still the best cat in the entire world or some crap like that.

Rang paced the bathroom floor—he didn't see the top of the toilet or the rim of the shower as a more sanitary option. Not that the bathroom wasn't clean as bathroom's go. It was just...a bathroom.

A high window beckoned him at the top of the ceiling, above the shower.

He bet he could pry it open and jump out through there once Ga Eul went to sleep.

"Okay, I brought you a bed," Ga Eul said, re-entering the room. "This was supposed to be Milo's, but he doesn't like to sleep on it. He thinks he's a human, so he always sleeps on my bed."

Oh, lucky for Milo. As if he couldn't hate the cat more.

The light blue bed Ga Eul had brought in looked relatively new, though, and soft, and given that he'd already rejected her food, he curled up on it and purred appreciatively so she didn't think her hospitality had been totally wasted.

"Oh, you like that. Good." Ga Eul smiled. "Now, I hope you don't mind, but I actually have to take a shower." Twisting around to face the mirror over the sink, she pinched the top button of her white blouse between her thumb and forefinger. The blouse fell away to reveal the smooth skin of her collarbone. Rang froze as she continued unbuttoning it. She wore a camisole underneath the blouse, so he couldn't see much of anything yet, but once she'd shrugged off her blouse, she unzipped the side of her skirt, and whatever spell Rang had been under snapped.

He spun around to face the wall, cursing his half-baked plan for the hundredth time that evening.

A shower? Really?

Her bare feet padded softly behind him.

The water rushed out of the tap.

A curtain was pulled aside, then thrust back into place.

Rang glared up at the ceiling, his ears flattening, the hair on his back raised in classic cat irritation.

The universe was going to pay for this.

To the side of him, hidden by the curtain, Ga Eul hummed an unfamiliar song under her breath, and water splashed. The room steadily grew hot and sticky with steam, and the humidity wasn't helping his thoughts that had gotten ever more inappropriate as he'd heard her take off each layer of clothing and drop it on the tile floor. The clasps of her bra had clacked on the tile, a sound made unusually loud by both his fox hearing and his current position so low to the ground.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if he took a peek.

Not at her. He wasn't that crass.

At her underwear. The flimsy garment was right behind him.

He turned his head slightly, then snapped it back.

No, no, the idea was to become less obsessed with her, not more.

He could not look at her underwear.

But hell, she was taking such a ridiculously long shower.

Rang flicked his tail impatiently.

Just a peek. Just one little peek.

And that would be the end of it.

Honestly, how could he be expected to stare at this white monstrosity of a wall for half an hour while Ga Eul's underwear lay right behind him?

Rang had never been good at restraint. His impulsiveness had gotten him into this whole mess. But why quit now?

Before he could talk himself out of it again, he glanced backward.

Pink panties. Beige bra.

If cats could grin, Rang would have. As it was, he dug his claws into the soft blue cushion and purred contentedly.


Attempt three took place several days later, at the school again. Rang had escaped out of the high window without issue, but he had figured it was best to cool off a bit, especially after the rather weird but strangely gratifying dream he'd had involving himself as a cat and a very naked Ga Eul.

If it had been a regular sex dream, maybe he could write it off. But that one was much too specific.

Trying desperately not to think of sex dreams or cats, he, in the guise of Soo-oh, had snuck quietly into the offices while the children played outside and the teachers were occupied with watching them.

It hadn't mattered. Her purse wasn't in her drawer that day.

Attempt four was a blatant theft ruse. A quick snatch and grab. It would have worked—and obviously he would have returned her purse afterward—if some off-duty police officer hadn't flown in out of nowhere and tackled him. He got away with a cut above his eye. And no purse.

Attempt five was the classic let-me-bump-into-you-so-the-contents-of-your-open-purse-spill-onto-the-floor, which Ga Eul responded to with the classic let-me-whack-you-in-the-nose-with-the-back-of-my-head-as-I-look-up-at-you-while-you-kneel-down-next-to-me.

Mission aborted.

She'd touched him again, though, when she'd inspected his falsely enlarged nose to make sure she hadn't broken it.

That had been nice.


By attempt twenty-seven Rang was getting antsy.

Hell, he'd managed to trade his own brother for the Tiger's Brow, yet he couldn't get his hands on Chu Ga Eul's purse for long enough to steal one simple soulmate charm.

Perhaps it was best that Yeon still hadn't gotten back to him about the contract. Taluipa was probably being stubborn as always.

Tonight was the night, though. He could sense that something different was going to happen. Something that would alter the course of his luck so far.

He'd thought up a way to keep the cat quiet and to that end had stolen a cat sedative from Shin-joo's veterinary office. All he had to do was break into the apartment before Ga Eul got home, dose the cat, put him under the bed to sleep it off, hide himself in his cat form, and wait for Ga Eul's inevitable return.

He could go through her purse while she was in the shower.

It should have been a foolproof plan, except that when he entered the apartment, he couldn't find the cat.

Instead, he found a cat urn. A dark bronze figure of a cat sleeping in a basket, set over an inscription with a death date of five days prior.

Fourteen years. The cat had been fourteen years old.

If love could have save you, you would have lived forever, the engraving on the bottom of the urn read.

The figure was perched on her nightstand, behind which sat a photo of a much younger Ga Eul and her beloved cat as a kitten.

The cat had seemed fine when he'd visited before. He wondered what had happened.

Old age, perhaps.

Suddenly, it felt wrong to be there.

Leaving the apartment as he'd found it, Rang changed into his cat form, sneaked out the window, and would have taken off, but Ga Eul chose that moment to return, and she spotted him before he could get too far.

"Hey! It's you again." She gave him a soft, sad smile, and he couldn't run off with her looking at him like that. Though he didn't know if she was the type to grieve alone or if she wanted company.

He didn't move as she approached him. It might be best to leave. He wasn't a real cat. He couldn't stay with her and take the place of her childhood friend.

Though he could live forever—or at least he would live longer than Ga Eul.

Maybe he could stay with her and be her soulmate—just as a cat.

Okay, he was officially losing his mind. Too many attempts. He had to get it right this time. No more screw ups.

Picking him up, Ga Eul noted, "You must be one of those cats who doesn't belong to anyone in particular." She cradled him as she opened her apartment door. "You like people, but you like to roam free, is that it?" The door shut behind her and she let him down onto the floor. He took a few tentative steps into the apartment while she shucked off her cardigan and laid it on top of her purse on the kitchen counter.

"Well, as you can see, there's no one here to bother you this time. I don't have to put you in the bathroom. You didn't like that very much, did you? I know you climbed out of that window, though I was so sure I closed it. You're a smart cat, you know that?"

Ga Eul continued talking to him as she moved around her kitchen, preparing herself some instant shrimp ramen. She tried to feed him wet cat food again, and he once more refused to eat any of it. Then the two of them sat on her bed and watched an incredibly cheesy romantic drama while she ate her dinner. The smell of instant noodles made Rang's stomach grumble, but he played it off by rubbing his head against her legs and purring through it.

When she finished eating, she set her empty bowl to the side and sat Rang in her lap. She petted his head and ears the way she'd done at the school. He coiled himself into a tight ball and closed his eyes, basking in the warmth of her lap and the faint sound of her breathing. The steady rise and fall of her stomach. The gentle touch of her fingers.

He was nearly asleep, awash in comforting sensations, when Ga Eul's breathing stuttered, her stomach lurching erratically. A whimper drew him to look at her face.

The television clicked off, and the room went dark, but with his night vision he could see how wet her face was. She must have been crying silently for a while.

When she saw him looking at her, she smiled reassuringly and started massaging more firmly behind his ears and down his back. He let her scratch his stomach and play with his paws—though that last bit tickled—unsure if she was crying because he reminded her of her old cat or smiling because he reminded her of her old cat. Or both.

"I'm really glad you came back. I didn't want to be alone today," she admitted after a while. "This has been such a crappy year. I thought it was getting better for a while, and then..." She trailed off and shook her head. "And then my cat died a few days ago. You know, the one who was so mean to you. He was actually really sweet. I got him when I was twelve. My parents thought since I didn't have siblings, I should have a pet. His name was Milo." She wiped her tears on the sleeve of her gray blouse; then she clicked on her bedside lamp and brought the picture of her and the cat over so he could see.

"That's him when he was a baby." She pointed at the kitten in the picture.

Rang pawed at the picture frame to show some semblance of understanding.

Ga Eul perked up at that. She even laughed a little.

She left the room to take a shower, mercifully changing into a t-shirt and pajama shorts while still in the bathroom.

They watched another few hours of the drama together, with Rang perched on the pillow next to Ga Eul's. Occasionally, she'd pet Rang for comfort, and he'd make a big show of purring into her hand.

She didn't say anything else for the rest of the night, and around midnight she dozed off, lulled by the low hum of the TV or perhaps exhausted, her hair splayed messily on her pillow.

Rang stepped purposefully on the TV remote and turned the TV off.

He knew he should wait until he was absolutely certain she'd stay asleep and search through her purse. He'd probably never get another such opportunity. But he didn't move, longing to brush the hair out of her face or curl himself around her instead. The whole night he stayed there on top of her pillow, watching over her while she slept—rooted to the spot by an unseen force—until his own drowsiness overtook him.

After she left in the morning, leaving him yet another unappetizing meal, he cleaned the bowl off to make it look like he'd eaten it. He walked numbly over to the bathroom window, opened it a crack, and let himself out the front door.