A/N: I posted a one-shot of the coffee shop scene in chapter eight that is written in Ga Eul's POV. It's called "Foolish Heart," and hopefully it'll fill in some gaps for you on what Ga Eul has been thinking about all of this…
WARNING: There is canon-typical violence and a panic attack in the first part of this chapter. So if that bothers you, I would skip down to the first section break (section beginning "They finally arrived outside of her complex..."). I've never written an action scene or a panic attack before, but I did a bunch of research on both subjects, so hopefully this chapter turned out okay. (Fingers crossed.) If there is anything you think I could have done better, feel free to let me know so I can improve.
Thanks to greysmalla for being an amazing beta reader for this chapter! If you haven't read any of her Yi Jeong/Ga Eul stories, you should because they are beautifully written :)
"What should I do with you, huh?" Rang sneered, his voice breathy and unstable. So much rage flowed through his veins, he might as well have been drunk on it. "You like hunting innocent ladies in the dark? I like hunting too. When I'm done with you, maybe I'll stuff you and hang you on my wall." With a murderous smirk, he leveled his fox eye at Ga Eul's attacker and dug his claws into the man's neck, just deep enough to draw blood. He wanted to puncture the man's lungs, wanted to snap his limbs one by one by one. He wanted to make him drown in his own blood. How dare he lay a finger on Rang's soulmate.
The man whimpered, his eyes widening as he realized what Rang was, or at least surmised that he wasn't dealing with a human. He choked out something unintelligible, but Rang only increased the pressure on his throat. Despite the man's larger size, he squirmed in Rang's grasp and tugged helplessly on the fox's arm. Rang rolled his eyes. Releasing the perpetrator, he flung him onto the pavement where the man landed on his hands and knees, coughing.
"Ah, how boring. I forgot how easily subdued humans are," Rang taunted. "Especially the spineless ones." He let the bastard take a few steps before snatching him by his dress shirt collar and hauling him to his feet. "Hey. Get up." He held the man's stained shirt collar in a death grip but otherwise didn't touch him.
"Please." Trembling, the man held up his hands and pleaded, showing his yellowed teeth, "You don't want my heart. It-it's diseased."
Rang shoved him into the wall once more.
"On the contrary," Rang assured him, "I'll carve your heart out right now and feed it to the rats. But first, I'll give you a fighting chance." Smiling, Rang released the man's shirt and spread out his hands in invitation. "You wanna hit me? Go ahead. I won't even block it."
The man glanced between Rang and the road, obviously trying to decide whether to run for it again or to give Rang what he wanted. His breaths came out in ragged puffs, visible in the frigid night.
It didn't take long for him to decide, and he ran off down the alleyway again, halting abruptly when Rang showed up in front of him. Wide-eyed, he took off in the direction he'd come from, and there Rang was again, waiting with a deadly smirk on his face.
"If you run, it gets worse," Rang informed him and backed up a few steps. "Come on. You wanted to attack someone. So do it. If you beat me, I'll let you go."
The man hesitated, then rushed at him. True to his word, Rang didn't block him. He dodged, moving out of the way so fast that the man stumbled on his feet, having expected to run into something solid. Before he could react to Rang's sudden disappearance, Rang grabbed him from behind, clamped his hand down on the man's arm, and snapped it. One twist, and the limb was broken. The man howled.
"Try again." Rang flung him to the ground and circled around him. "You want to hurt someone? Hurt me! Go on." Rang stalked towards him. "What? Am I not weak enough for you? You want to pick on someone half your size? Does that make you feel powerful?"
Scrambling to his feet, the man shuffled back, cradling his injured arm, and spit on the ground.
"Go back to hell, demon."
"Someday," Rang agreed. "But I think I'll send you there first." Rang glared menacingly. "Or I could make you see hell right now." Maybe he would. Maybe Rang would make the man see horrible things as he faded out, right before Rang snapped his neck. "You want to kill a demon?" Rang goaded. "Hit me again. I won't dodge this time, I swear. I'll stand right here and take it."
The man swung at him with his uninjured arm, and Rang let the sloppy punch land just as he kneed him in the stomach, knocking him to the ground again.
Rang laughed as he swiped blood from the corner of his mouth; he stared at the pitiful creature on the ground who had doubled over, clutching his stomach.
Rang's mouth stung, and this felt right. Maybe not good, but right.
This was who he was. A trickster. A predator. Someone who enjoyed hurting people. He was certainly enjoying this.
"I told you I wouldn't dodge. I never said I wouldn't retaliate." Rang hauled the man to his feet again.
"What do you want with me?!" the man cried, and Rang soaked up the terror in his eyes, drank it in like a poison he'd become immune to. Rang cocked his head to the side.
Isn't it obvious? I want to watch you suffer.
The words were on the tip of his tongue, but before he could get them out, a harsh intake of breath drew his attention away from the man. Whipping his head around, he saw Ga Eul curled up against the wall of the nearest building—the one opposite the wall Rang had pinned the man to—with her knees in front of her chest and her arms wrapped around her legs. She was breathing erratically and visibly trembling.
Rang froze.
A panic attack. She was having a panic attack, and not because of the man who'd attacked her. Because of Rang. He hadn't noticed her gasping for breath earlier; he hadn't noticed her at all. He'd been too caught up in his little cat-and-mouse game to give one thought to her well-being. As if the man attacking her hadn't shaken her up enough, he'd had to go on a demented rampage right in front of her. The realization punched him in the gut.
Tearing his eyes away from her, Rang commanded, low enough that only the man would hear, "Forget everything you saw today, and go home...or back to whatever gutter you crawled out of." Rang released the man's shirt collar and shoved him away, and he stumbled off in a dazed fashion, clutching his bleeding neck. Rang watched him until he disappeared around a corner, then turned around and cautiously approached Ga Eul. Her breathing hadn't normalized with the man's disappearance, and she curled further into herself when Rang drew close. Her right leg shook uncontrollably, and her glazed eyes flickered over Rang's body, from his eyes down to his hands and back up again. He noticed then that he still had his blood-stained claws out, and in the faint glow of the streetlight opposite them, she could see plainly what he was and why the man had referred to him as a 'demon.'
Flushing with uncharacteristic shame, he sheathed his claws and wiped his hands on his coat. He blinked, making his fox eye disappear. Then he stepped back until he hit the wall opposite hers, putting some space between them. Rang slid down the wall and sat on the ground so that he was at her eye level. He'd been running on adrenaline and rage moments ago, but he couldn't feel any of that now, just an acute awareness of Ga Eul's terrified state and his role in putting her there. He couldn't hear anything but her harsh breaths mimicking his own.
Shit.
She wasn't looking at him now. She was staring at her knees, as if trying to gauge if her limbs were real. Her leg continued shaking.
Rang swallowed. He would be shit at calming anyone down, least of all a jittery human who had plenty of reasons to be wary of him to begin with. Besides that, he wasn't sure if the sound of his voice would help Ga Eul or make her more anxious.
For once in his life, he wished he was Shin-joo. Despite his more irritating traits, the veterinarian certainly knew how to patch up things that were broken. Rang only knew how to break things and hide the pieces so that no one could patch them up. Still, he had to try to fix this. He couldn't leave Ga Eul in her current state.
"Miss Ga Eul?" Rang prompted tentatively. "Miss Ga Eul, can you hear me?" Ga Eul made no motion of having heard him; she looked lost in simply trying to breathe. "I don't...um..." Rang flailed around mentally, trying to remember things Yeon used to say to him when he was a scared child. His older brother had always made a bad storm or a dense part of the forest seem less ominous with only a few words.
Stories. Yeon used to tell him stories to distract him from his fears. But most of those stories had been about mythical creatures, and Rang didn't think that subject would be distracting or comforting for Ga Eul at the moment. He curled his hands into fists, hiding the blood-stained tips of his fingers. He couldn't talk about anything related to foxes, so no stories about Yu Ri or Shin-joo then. Soo-oh wouldn't be the best subject either since the boy might remind her of being in their apartment. Of being with Rang. Almost nothing from the past few hundred years of his life would be light or soothing subjects, and, obviously, he couldn't talk about any of his recent activities concerning her. But maybe…
"Did I ever tell you about my dog?" he asked. "Probably not, right?" Ga Eul's eyes shifted to him for a split second, and he gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. "I had a puppy when I was growing up. His name was Blacky. I named him Blacky because he had black fur." Rang forced out a laugh. "What a kid thing to do, right? Naming an animal by the color of its fur. I like to think now I would come up with a better name, like...Haneul or...Min-jun." Rang shoved his hands in his coat pockets and leaned his head back against the wall; he searched through the fog of his centuries-old memories like he rarely allowed himself to do. He stared at Ga Eul's worried expression and willed her to realize she wasn't in any danger. "I didn't really have friends when I was a kid besides my brother, so I played with Blacky all the time. He liked to fetch things. You could throw anything anywhere, and no matter how far it went or how hidden it was, he'd find it. I thought he was the smartest dog in the world." He thought Ga Eul's breathing was slowing down, so he continued, "He had the softest fur. If he'd been larger, I could have used him as a pillow. But he was a tiny dog." Rang tactfully decided not to mention he'd been a puppy when he died.
"He was so tiny he used to burrow inside this hollowed out tree trunk and take naps. The first time he did that, I thought I'd lost him because he suddenly disappeared. But then I called out to him, and he burst out of his hiding place, and when I picked him up, he launched himself onto my face and licked me all over." Ga Eul still wasn't quite looking at him, but she wasn't looking away from him either. Her eyes were on his body rather than his face. Rang stayed carefully motionless. There wasn't much point to his story, but it seemed to be calming her, so he kept talking.
"There was a big forest where my brother and I lived. Blacky liked to run around in there. I was always sort of afraid that one day he'd run off and get lost, but he always came back to me. He followed me everywhere. My brother called him my shadow." Rang grinned in earnest, remembering something he'd long forgotten about. "I used to play tricks on my brother. I liked to, uh, borrow his things sometimes, and Blacky made it so much easier. Whenever any of my brother's things went missing, I would say that Blacky probably buried it somewhere and that we'd never find it." Rang laughed again.
God, he wished she'd look him in the eye so he'd know she'd be okay. At the same time, he didn't want to be scrutinized by her. It was an impossible situation, and Rang had run out of words, so instead he took a deep breath, then another, then another, until Ga Eul took a deep breath as well. Then another, then another. Gradually, her breaths evened out, and she unfolded herself little by little. Her tremors left her. She extended her legs out in front of her instead of holding them like a shield in front of her chest. She breathed some more and stared at the ground again. The glazed-over look had disappeared from her eyes, and she finally appeared to be aware of her surroundings, but all the same, she didn't talk for a few minutes, or maybe seconds. It felt like minutes. It felt like an eternity waiting for her to say whatever damning thing she was going to say due to whatever fears had torn away at her mind moments before. When she finally spoke, it came out as a croak, and Rang steeled himself for the worst, but it didn't come. She didn't recoil from him or denounce him. She didn't say anything about him at all.
"I want...I want to go home," she said, creasing her forehead. "Can you...t-take me home?"
Rang said nothing for a moment, stunned into silence as he was. Why would she want him to take her anywhere? If he were her, he'd want to get as far away from himself as possible.
"Please, can you...can you take me home?" A note of panic rose in her voice when he didn't answer, and she squeezed her eyes shut momentarily, as if steeling herself against another attack.
"I don't..." Have my car, Rang mentally finished. But of course that was the wrong answer. She wanted to go home. He had to take her home.
"I want to go home," Ga Eul repeated, her voice a near-whisper. "I want to go home."
"I'll call a cab. I'll drop you off at your apartment. Okay? Miss Ga Eul?" he rushed out.
Ga Eul glanced up at him, then nodded vigorously. She didn't seem to want to look at him for longer than a second. Tears streaked her face, and when he pulled his phone from his coat pocket, she dabbed at her damp cheeks with her coat sleeve.
"Just give me a moment," Rang commented. He kept her in his peripheral vision while he ordered the cab, searching for signs of another impending breakdown. Rang hadn't felt the cold earlier, but he felt it now, seeping into his bones. He wondered if Ga Eul felt cold. He wondered if she felt anything, if she was properly comprehending the situation. He wondered if he'd broken her, fragile being that she was. More than any other reaction could have, her silence unsettled him.
When he finished ordering the cab, he stood, and so did she, without comment. She followed him out to the main road, trailing a few paces behind him. Together, they slid into the backseat of the cab, and then the ride to her apartment took an excruciatingly long time.
They finally arrived outside of her complex, and he assumed she would exit the cab as quickly as possible, but she surprised him again.
"Will you walk me up to my apartment? I don't...I don't want to walk by myself." He glanced over at her, but she wasn't looking at him; she was looking out the window. Rang wanted to force her out of the car, but instead he mumbled 'okay' and paid the driver. He would make sure she got inside okay; once she was inside her apartment, maybe the reality of the situation would hit her, and she'd react how she should be reacting. With horror. With disgust. With fear.
The cab left, and they walked up the stairs to her apartment in silence. Wishing he was merely a cat again, Rang trailed behind her so as not to crowd her, but when they reached the door of her apartment, she paused. She didn't turn around, but she didn't try to enter her apartment either. She seemed to be waiting for something, or maybe collecting her thoughts.
"I'm sorry," she blurted out suddenly. "Back there"—she gestured behind her—"I, um...I don't know what happened. I'm not usually..." She took a deep breath. "I don't usually react that way to things."
Rang raised his eyebrows. First, she wanted him to take her home, and now she was apologizing. He'd always thought she was a strange human, but this was beyond strange. It was nonsense.
"It's fine. You were upset. It's understandable."
"I know, but I..." Ga Eul shook her head as if to clear it. "I'm sorry you had to deal with that."
I'm sorry you had to deal with that. I don't usually react that way to things. She was embarrassed, he realized, and she had no reason to be. He was the culprit.
"No...I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you." As he spoke the words, Rang realized that was probably the only time he'd ever said such a thing.
Ga Eul nodded. She paused again, biting her lip.
"So...it's true, then?...That thing, about you being a fox?" She spoke the last part of the sentence in such a hushed tone he nearly missed it. "I didn't...I'm remembering correctly, aren't I?"
She turned her head towards him then, a guarded but not exactly fearful look on her face, and he nodded. A half-fox, he almost corrected her. But she didn't need to know that. He'd spent long enough hating the human half of him anyway. He didn't feel human, more like the evil spirit of legend that humans warned their children about.
"I thought that was just a myth."
He shrugged, unsure of what to say. Unsure of why she wasn't running away.
"So...Yu Ri and Shin-joo...They're foxes too?" she asked.
Rang shuffled his feet.
"They are," he confirmed. "But they're good foxes. They won't hurt you."
Ga Eul stared at him a moment, then nodded slowly, seeming to accept this.
"And you?" she asked. "You're a good fox too?"
Rang didn't answer; he opened his mouth to deny any and all good intent in that careless manner he had, but the words stuck in his throat. He should have told her everything and let her run inside and lock her door and never speak to him again. He should have lied and let her assume he'd only gone a bit crazy because she was in danger and of course he would never attack anyone just for the heck of it. Of course not.
The silence lingered, thick with the tension of his unspoken words, until he caught a flash of something as her hands twitched at her sides.
"You're hurt. That bastard hurt you." He stepped forward and grabbed her wrist—reminding himself to be gentle at the last second—and opened her fingers to show himself the palm of her right hand. Upon close inspection, both of her palms were skinned but her right hand more so; he guessed it had happened when her attacker had initially shoved her away and she'd fallen to the ground.
"Oh, um..." Ga Eul pulled her wrist away and looked down at her dirty, bloodied hands, and he winced when he realized he might have frightened her, grabbing her as quickly as he had. To his relief, she didn't put any distance between them, only explained, "I didn't notice before. I guess I was too upset." She let out a nervous laugh. "It hurts now."
"Do you have anything to take care of that?" He gestured to her apartment. "In there?"
"Um, I have a...a first aid kit," Ga Eul mumbled. She made no motion to go inside though, and Rang fought the urge to shove her door open and force her to tend to her injuries. Using force of any kind would certainly backfire; he knew that much from tending to Yu Ri right after he'd rescued her. But the idiotic human seemed intent on standing there and staring at the scrapes on her hands until they got infected or scabbed over. Maybe she was still in shock. Maybe she didn't want to be alone. Or maybe she didn't want to go inside until she'd figured Rang out. Either way, she was taking too long, and there was too much blood on her hands for Rang's liking.
"If you show me where it is, I can fix your hands up," Rang offered. "It'll be easier than doing it yourself." It felt like a moment of truth. If she refused to let him in, maybe she did fear him.
But she simply answered, "Ah, okay," and stepped back enough for him to open the door for her.
He didn't know what to make of her easy acquiescence.
"Where's the first aid kit?" he asked, once inside her apartment. He shrugged off his coat and draped it over the kitchen counter.
"In the bathroom. Under the sink." She followed him inside and flipped the lights on. When he turned on the light in the bathroom and looked back at her, she was standing by the kitchen counter wearing a stunned expression, watching him.
"Can you wash your hands?" He gestured to the kitchen sink, and she snapped out of her trance.
"Oh, um, yeah," she answered and moved toward the kitchen sink.
Rang removed his coat and rummaged through the assortment of items under Ga Eul's bathroom sink until he found the first aid kit. He washed the remaining blood off of his hands, then popped the kit open and took out the gauze and antibacterial ointment. When he re-entered the kitchen, Ga Eul was slowly rinsing the dirt and crusting blood from her palms. Abrasions dotted a few of her fingertips too, and he realized she must have struggled to unbutton the black wool coat lying next to his on the countertop.
Her cardigan was red today. Underneath, she wore a black skirt and blouse. They were his favorite colors, though he thought warmer, softer shades suited her. Now that he'd gotten close enough, he could smell her perfume. The scent brought back memories of playing video games with her on Yu Ri and Shin-joo's couch. A lifetime ago.
"Here. Let me see." Rang set the supplies on the counter and squirted hand soap onto his hands. He cupped one of her hands in his palms and gently applied the soap. He'd only done this one other time, when Soo-oh tripped over his own shoelaces and landed hands-first on the sidewalk. Once he'd rubbed the soap into both of her hands, he turned Ga Eul's hands this way and that in the stream of warm water until the soap and the remnants of dirt had washed off. Then he patted her hands dry with a clean washcloth he'd found in her bathroom.
Neither of them spoke. A strange but companionable silence settled upon them while he cleaned her hands, and once it was time to put on the medicine, Rang didn't break it. He took her by the wrist and led her over to her bed in the middle of the room. The bed creaked beneath their weight as they both sat down. Rang shoved aside a piece of clothing, belatedly realizing it was the cardigan he'd bought for her, and Ga Eul adjusted herself until she sat next to him, almost touching him but not. She extended her hand, palm up, and patiently waited for him to unscrew the cap from the antibiotic ointment. Perhaps she thought Rang didn't notice, but she kept glancing up at him, then quickly looking back down at her hand. He wondered what she was thinking.
Rang fumbled with the cap for a few moments. Insane to think he had nearly driven a man to his grave not an hour before, and now he couldn't unscrew a damn medicine tube. Finally, he got the stubborn thing uncapped. He squirted the ointment onto his fingertips, then took Ga Eul's hand by the wrist. She had soft, delicate hands, stained with ink from grading papers, or so he assumed. Whatever the bright red marks were on the sides of her fingers, they hadn't come off with his liberal application of soap. Keeping his eyes on her hands, he rubbed the ointment into her skin in slow, methodic circles, careful not to irritate the torn skin more than he had to. Ga Eul flinched occasionally but, to her credit, didn't cry. Not a single tear. When he finished treating one hand, she automatically held out the other one.
Rang worked the ointment into the center of her hand, then the tips of her fingers. Sometimes he lingered over a spot that didn't need tending to, just to feel the softness of her skin. He wondered if she was that smooth all over. Smooth and perfect. No calluses, no scars. Though even scars would look pretty on her, he imagined.
He hoped her hands didn't scar from her injuries, though the abrasions didn't look deep enough for that. They were surface wounds, nothing more. Still, he hated that she had them. He wished she had been wearing gloves like a sensible human in cold weather. He wished he had healing powers or some useful shit like that. All he could do to help her was finish his application of the ointment and move on to the gauze. He wrapped strips of the smooth fabric snugly around her palms and pinned them in place with medical tape. When it became clear that they were nearing the end of the exercise and circling back around to awkward silence territory, he decided to ask the question that had been in the back of his mind since he first saw her that night.
"Why you were there?"
"Hmm?"
"You don't live near where you were tonight."
"Oh, that." Ga Eul stared down at her bandaged hands, gingerly prodding the edge of the gauze with her fingertip. "I was visiting my cousin. She just, um, broke up with her boyfriend, and she was really upset, so I ended up staying later than I intended to. And then I got turned around going to the bus stop. And then this guy came out of nowhere, and he...and then, well, you..." Ga Eul cleared her throat. "Thank you."
He wasn't sure if she was thanking him for saving her earlier or thanking him for patching her up, but he nodded. Before she could detain him, he stood.
"You should rest. Change those bandages tomorrow." He pointed to her hands.
"Oh, um, yes. I will." A cough escaped her, then several more. When that turned into a coughing fit, Rang walked over to the small kitchen area and took a glass from the cabinet. He filled it up with water and started to hand it to her, then remembered her hand situation. Instead, he held the glass himself and tilted it back for her to drink.
"Mm, thank you," Ga Eul said when she'd finished drinking and he'd set the glass down on her bedside table. The picture of her and Milo was still there; so was the urn.
"So do I...do I owe you something? For, um...saving me?" Ga Eul asked. "Isn't that normally how it works with nine-tailed foxes? A favor for a favor?" She eyed him curiously, and he knew then that she wasn't scared. For some reason, she trusted him.
She shouldn't trust him. Because oh the things he could do with a favor like that. What could he ask for? A kiss? That would be a selfish ask, and he knew it. Because some bastard had just attacked her to do god-knew-what and now her savior was going to demand a kiss. Because that would be her first kiss, even if she didn't know that he knew that. But Rang was a selfish fox. Always had been. And even though he'd been trying to rid himself of her, or rid her of him, the thought of someone else having Ga Eul's first kiss made Rang's blood boil. So the favor of a kiss settled quite deliciously on Rang's tongue, but in the end he couldn't get the words out. Some part of him didn't want to kiss her like this, not if she had no choice in the matter. It wouldn't mean anything, except to confirm he wasn't any good for her.
"You're Soo-oh's teacher." Rang shrugged. "Consider it part of your payment for taking care of him. So no. You don't owe me anything. But maybe you could answer a question."
"What's that?"
"Why did you want me to come up here with you? You aren't afraid of me, not even a little bit?"
Ga Eul frowned like he'd asked her a completely ridiculous question.
"No. You saved me. I can tell you're a good person, even if you say stupid things sometimes."
She said it so innocently, so genuinely, and just like that, the chasm between them opened again. He'd touched her, could touch her still, and yet he suddenly felt leagues away from her. Even with all she now knew, she knew nothing. She saw what she wanted to see—a good person, even a fox, who had snapped when someone messed with her. Even if he'd inadvertently distressed her, she thought it had been for a good cause. It wasn't true; his initial instinct had been to protect her, sure, but that had quickly given way to bloodlust. The person Ga Eul trusted did not exist.
"I'm not a good person," Rang snapped. He offered her the most cruel, most artificial smile he could muster. "And I'm not a good fox."
With that announcement made, he turned and, snatching up his coat, swept out of her apartment.
He didn't look back.
He didn't go home either.
When Rang got back to his car, he drove and drove until he wound up on a beach not unlike the one where he had aided the rise of Imoogi in what seemed like a lifetime ago. A violent, biting wind whipped around him, and the water crashed against the shore in riotous waves while the black void of the night sea and sky threatened to swallow him up.
Rang remembered the first human he'd killed, how he'd flailed around in his inexperience but eventually won the fight. Blood had soiled both of their clothes, and he'd washed his in a stream. He'd washed and washed and panicked when he couldn't get the stains out completely.
Tonight there was no blood on his shirt, but he'd felt it on himself anyway the whole time he'd been in Ga Eul's apartment. A foul, sticky mess, seeping through the fabric into his skin. Staining him.
Maybe Yeon had been right. Maybe he was punishing himself.
Maybe he'd wanted the guy to hit him just so he'd bleed.
Maybe he'd wanted to kill the guy because destruction was the only art his hands knew well, and after centuries he didn't know how to do anything else. Not the way other people did. He'd nearly laughed when Ga Eul said he was a good person, but the truth was, her statement broke him a bit. It was further proof that she didn't know him. Not really. She didn't know how close he'd been to killing a man that night. She didn't know how many people he'd already murdered. She didn't know the whole terrible truth about his existence. He'd been fucked up for too long. He'd fucked up for too long, and if he started regretting everything...
You're punishing yourself.
What?
You are. You think if you don't get reborn, it'll be some kind of poetic justice for all the people you hurt.
Maybe it would be.
When Rang returned to his apartment, he texted Yu Ri to let her know that the fox was 'out of the bag,' so to speak. Then he took a searing hot shower and stayed in bed for the next twenty-four hours.
A few days passed by. He didn't hear anything from Yu Ri and Shin-joo and figured Ga Eul must not have contacted them. Maybe she'd been in a calm sort of shock the night the incident took place, but in the cold light of day, she'd realized what sort of monsters she'd been dealing with and had reasonably distanced herself from them.
He didn't want to think about the soulmate charm that still tied them together. Maybe he'd lock himself inside his apartment for the rest of Ga Eul's relatively short life and take his chances with the rest of her reincarnations. Maybe he'd spend the rest of her lifespan aimlessly roaming the streets of Seoul on the off chance she needed him. The only good thing that had come of the charm was that he'd happened to be in the vicinity when she'd been attacked, and he hated to think what would have happened to her had he gotten ahold of the charm weeks earlier like he'd wanted to. His renewed concern for Ga Eul's safety was yet another wrench in his plans to get the stupid thing back.
By the seventh morning since the incident, his frustration at the whole situation had returned full force, compounded by his fear of what Ga Eul thought of him, and in an attempt to not think of anything, he spent the morning stretched out on his couch in his sweatpants and a white t-shirt, mindlessly scrolling through his phone. He let random videos and memes lead him from one rabbit hole to another. Unfortunately, at one point, he stumbled upon a thread of humorous cat videos that reminded him of Ga Eul. He was halfway through his fifth cat video when his doorbell rang.
Rang frowned. He hadn't told anyone his new address, and he wasn't in the mood to deal with whoever was at the door. They had no business bringing him back to reality. Not when these cat videos were so quickly convincing him that he could still make a go of it as Ga Eul's eternal cat companion.
He made up his mind to ignore the bell, but then he heard Ga Eul's voice over the intercom. Abruptly pausing the video, he froze, already sitting halfway up.
"Mister Lee Rang?" she said. "If you're there, I'd like to talk to you about something."
Rang set his phone down on an end table and sat fully up. He willed the voice to be a hallucination, but it rang out again. A siren's call luring him to an uncertain fate.
"I know you probably don't want to talk to me, but it's important, so I'd appreciate it if you could open the door. Um, I hope you don't mind, but Yu Ri gave me your address."
Yu Ri. Of course she would know his whereabouts, even if he wasn't talking to her. He'd gotten more than he bargained for in a protector when he'd taken her in.
But wait. If Yu Ri had given Ga Eul his address, that meant Ga Eul had talked to her. Which meant Ga Eul either didn't care that Yu Ri was a fox or her curiosity had overridden her fear. But which was it with him?
"Are you sure you're not there?" Ga Eul's voice came again. "I thought you said you weren't a morning person. That you don't like going out before noon. If you're still in bed, I can keep talking until you get annoyed enough to come to the door. Hello...Hello, hello...Hel—"
Rang swung open the front door, surprising Ga Eul, who staggered back in her brown flats when she saw him.
"Oh, um, hi." She smiled nervously, even though she'd begged him to talk with her.
"What is it?" Rang blurted.
"Huh?"
"You said you have something you wish to discuss. What is it?"
"Can I come in first?" Ga Eul gestured inside, and Rang didn't want to have the memory of her standing inside his apartment, but he opened the door anyway. Ga Eul slipped inside, as quiet as a mouse, and shrugged out of her coat and scarf like she intended to stay awhile. When she pulled the scarf over her head, the static left her hair frizzy, and he fought the urge to smooth the long, loose strands out. Of course, she'd worn her hair down; it clung to the shoulders of the cardigan he'd bought for her. Underneath the cardigan, she wore a lacy cream blouse and jeans. Unfortunately, the cardigan stretched past her hips, so he couldn't see much of her figure in the fitted pants. He probably shouldn't have been thinking of things like that at such a time, but now that his true identity was out in the open, should he bring himself to care if he was ogling an innocent schoolteacher? Or would be, if the damn cardigan hadn't been so long as to obscure his view.
Ga Eul padded around the living room, surveying the sparsely furnished apartment. Rang had meant to have it professionally decorated, same as his last one; he just hadn't gotten around to it yet. He'd told himself he was too busy trying to get that stupid charm, but deep down he knew he hadn't wanted to stay there permanently. The place felt empty without Yu Ri, Soo-oh, and even Shin-joo, and it wasn't like he'd planned on having company. But now he wished he'd brightened the place up, maybe thrown a few paintings on the walls. Compared to her cozy apartment, Ga Eul must have found the place depressing. Sure, it was located in one of the most expensive complexes in the city, but he had a feeling Ga Eul would care less about what the apartment cost and more about how the place made her feel.
In the end, she said nothing about the apartment—maybe all that walking around was to give herself time to mull over what she had come to ask. She turned to him and noted, in a calm, no-nonsense tone, "You said I didn't owe you anything for the other night. That's correct, yes?"
"Yes."
"Then I'd like to make you a deal. You do me a favor, and in return, I'll give you something you want."
