A/N: New chapter notifications haven't been working for a few weeks, so...sorry if you haven't been receiving email updates. If you missed it, I posted a second chapter to "Good Girl, Bad Fox" and also a small historical Ga Eul/Rang one-shot for Halloween.

Someone noted that I have increased the chapter count to twenty-five. Yes, indeed, there are more developments ahead!

We are happy and light-hearted going into this chapter, but there is a bit more angst in the coming chapters. Rang has some issues; most of them stem from his fear of abandonment. I could gloss over those, but I'm not going to because I genuinely want to him to heal from that and be okay in the future. So enjoy the final chapter of Rang and Ga Eul's starry-eyed honeymoon period… and don't worry, I won't make them suffer too much ;)

If you're squeamish about knives on skin or blood-drinking, maybe don't read from the sentence "They were on the same coin" down to the second section break.

Can I have your new address? the text from Yeon read.

Rang frowned at the message notification but didn't open it. He mulled over whether to ignore it entirely as he stood in the crowded movie theater lobby, waiting for Ga Eul to arrive. Rang had been enjoying having disappeared, lost in a corner of Seoul where only he and Ga Eul existed. He wasn't ready to let the outside world back in yet. Maybe he never would be.

My address? Why? he typed back when Ga Eul didn't materialize in the sea of winter coats. Rang only had to wait seconds for a reply. Perhaps Yeon had already been typing.

I'm supposed to cordially invite you to the hundred day celebration of my daughter's birth. You would have gotten to meet her already if you'd bothered to return my phone calls.

Oh. So that was why Yeon had been calling and calling and calling. It was true that Rang hadn't returned any of his brother's calls recently; he hadn't wanted to answer Yeon's nosy questions about what he'd been doing or why he hadn't been in touch with Yu Ri and Shin-joo in over three months. He also hadn't felt like telling his brother about Ga Eul yet. For one thing, Yeon would probably laugh himself silly when he found out that Rang was dating a human. For another thing, his relationship with Ga Eul had been going so well that it was really going too well. Rang didn't want to jinx himself.

Then again, maybe while things were still going well, he should take advantage of the opportunity to show Yeon just how well they were going. Yeon may have gotten a human lover first, but Rang's human was better, and he'd gotten her all by himself. The charm didn't count. He'd won her over—he'd actually won something, for once—and he hadn't needed Yeon's help to do it. The more he thought about it, the more it occurred to him how satisfying it would be to rub his success in Yeon's face.

Can I bring a date? Rang typed.

A date?

Yeah. A plus one.

Who?

Does it matter?

I'd like to know who's coming to my daughter's party. There was an unspoken thought there. Yeon would like to know in case Rang brought another Imoogi back from the dead, or something like that. Rang rolled his eyes.

Look, can I bring a plus one or can't I? Yes or no? Rang typed. He waited an eternity for Yeon to answer.

Yes.

Great. Rang smiled. See you there. Oh, and here's my address.

Rang typed the address in and hit send. He pocketed his phone and scanned the crowded theater lobby again. Ga Eul should have met him there at eight. It was five minutes past eight now. He was about to pull his phone back out and call her when someone crashed into his back, and he nearly spun around, ready to spit out a pointed insult at the foolish human who'd dared to touch him. Rang paused when he felt two small arms wrap around his waist and hug him tightly. He looked down. Ga Eul's hands. He recognized her perfume now—the scent of spring flowers, as always.

"I'm sorry I'm late," Ga Eul said, her voice muffled by his coat.

"Just for that, I'm not letting you pick the movie anymore," Rang answered, and Ga Eul removed herself from his waist. She circled around him until they were facing each other. Today, she wore a black peacoat instead of her usual purple coat, along with a black scarf. Underneath, she wore jeans and black boots, the same jeans she'd been wearing a few days before when they'd taken things a bit further physically but still not far enough for Rang's liking.

"You're mean," she accused.

"You're late."

"By five minutes."

"Still late."

"It doesn't matter." Ga Eul crossed her arms. She looked cute when she was trying to be stern. "You promised I could pick this time. You picked the last two."

"And, clearly, I have good taste," Rang countered, "so I should be picking the movie anyway."

Pouting, Ga Eul gave him a puppy-eyed expression and latched onto him again, hugging him fiercely. He'd come to realize that childish but adorable pleading was always her back-up plan if she couldn't argue her way out of—or into—something. It was ridiculously effective.

"But Rang-ah," she implored him, drawing out the syllables in his name.

"I told you. I'm not a stuffed animal," he grumbled half-heartedly.

"I want to see the new zombie movie," she persisted, and that got his attention.

"The what?" he asked.

"The zombie movie that just came out. It has one of my favorite actors in it. I was going to see it anyway, so I might as well see it with you. Besides, I already bought the tickets. They're on my phone."

Unfortunately, Rang knew which movie Ga Eul was talking about because he'd vowed to avoid it. He didn't typically have problems with scary movies, given that he'd been through so many terrifying real-life scenarios that the stuff in movies couldn't possibly measure up to. But this was with one exception. Rang never, ever watched anything with zombies. Never. Just the thought of seeing those hideous, parasitic things running amok on the screen made Rang's skin crawl. Not that he would tell Ga Eul that. But he needed to think of something to get out of his current situation.

"Ah, but I heard it's not scary at all," he complained. "Let's watch something else."

"But I've been waiting for it to come out for weeks," Ga Eul insisted. She released Rang and tilted her head back so she could look up at him. She smiled encouragingly. "Even if it's bad, we can laugh about it afterward."

Laugh? Rang doubted it.

Suddenly, Ga Eul glanced down and closed the gap between them by pressing the toes of her black boots to the toes of Rang's dress shoes. When she looked back up at him, she was grinning gleefully.

"What are you doing now?" he asked. She gestured for him to put his head down so she could say something in his ear, and he obliged her, confused.

"Our shoes are kissing," she said, giggling.

He pulled his head away and raised his eyebrows at her.

"You're an odd human," he informed her.

"I want to watch the movie. Please."

"You want to be bored to death?"

"I'm sure you're just saying that because you've seen things that are actually scary. But I haven't—at least not much—so I don't know the difference. It's not hard to scare me."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"Come on. Do you want me to be scared by myself later? Don't you want to keep me company?" Ga Eul lowered her voice. "Or don't you want to watch a bunch of humans scream in terror? I though you liked that sort of thing." She gave him a secretive smile, and he couldn't help the slight smile that crossed his lips. She had him pinned; he did like watching humans squirm, especially over silly things like crappy monster animations. That was one of the reasons he liked going to other scary movies at the theater; while everyone else was watching the screen, all levels of horror and fear lighting up their faces, Rang would be joyously scanning the room with his night vision and snickering at the terrified half of a couple hiding their face in their significant other's shoulder. He'd watch every twitch, every flinch, and every jump with sick glee. He guessed he could try to do that during this movie.

Grinning with more enthusiasm than he felt, Rang answered, "I do like watching humans cower in fear."

"See? You can do that, and you don't even have to commit a felony," Ga Eul said, ever pragmatic. He kind of wanted to kiss her right there.

"Fine. I'll buy us some overpriced popcorn. Shall we go?" He held out his bare hand to Ga Eul—he'd taken his gloves off already—and she slipped off her gloves before taking it. The brightest smile lit up her face as she laced her fingers through his and pulled him through the crowd toward the concession stand, and for a second, Rang thought he could watch a few zombie movies if she looked at him like that.


The movie turned out not to be as bad as Rang thought it would be, but he still had to control the urge to flinch every time a zombie launched itself at the main character and lunged for one of his limbs. A phantom pain shot through Rang's leg whenever that happened, but he merely dug his fingers into his chair's armrest and endured it. Thankfully, Ga Eul was much freer with her displays of terror; she clung to his arm and squealed every time a close up of a zombie gnawing on human flesh lit up the screen, and the irony was not lost on him that now he was part of one of those couples he'd liked to laugh at before. At least, having to be Ga Eul's source of comfort distracted him from going too far down the rabbit hole of his memories.

"I thought you liked scary movies," Rang commented as they walked to his car afterward.

"I do," Ga Eul answered. She had her cold fingers laced through his, not having bothered to put her gloves back on when they exited the theater.

"But you get so scared of every little thing." They approached his white Mercedes, and he let go of her hand so he could open the passenger door for her. "You even jumped during the opening credits," he pointed out with an amused smile.

"Oh." Ga Eul gave an embarrassed laugh as she slid into the car. "I guess I did."

"If you were in the movie, you would have died within the first five minutes," Rang informed her, then promptly shut the door. He sauntered around to the other side of the car and got in, tossing his coat in the backseat. Turning the car on, he set the heat to its highest level, even though he liked the cold. If Ga Eul's fingers were any indication, the rest of her body was freezing.

"Sometimes," Ga Eul said in a small voice, halting him in his quest to make her comfortable temperature-wise, and he turned toward her.

"Sometimes I like being scared," she finished, eyeing him as if searching for his approval.

"You like being afraid of things that aren't real," he replied. "You know they can't hurt you, so it doesn't matter."

"I like being afraid in real life too," she insisted. "Just a little bit. Just enough to make me feel something. It's refreshing, almost, when all my days look pretty much the same. When I come down from it, I even feel happy. Isn't that why you like scaring people?" she asked, then glanced away with a self-conscious smile. "Not that you can really compare those two things, I guess. Our situations are totally different."

Rang studied Ga Eul, one of his arms draped over the wheel and the other draped over the center console. They were both wearing black shirts, but Rang had worn his red suit, accented with the black choker he liked. Ga Eul had been wearing a thick black scarf before, but she'd taken it off since she'd gotten in the car. She'd left her coat unbuttoned and parted to expose the sheer black blouse she wore underneath, a little bow tied at the top above her breasts. Yellow-brown splotches dappled her neck like abstract artwork, and it was proof that she was correct. Their situations were different because they were different from each other. As different as two people could possibly be. She would always be soft and vulnerable, and he would always be an animal sinking his teeth into her. He would always get high off the fear he could instill in people, and she would always leap onto her bed every time she saw a bug and burrow under her covers during a thunderstorm and grip the console of his car tightly every time he drove a bit too fast. They were on totally opposite sides of the same coin, and yet…

They were on the same coin. Maybe that was the point.

So she wanted to be 'a little bit' scared? She was in luck then. Giving humans a small fright was what Rang did best.

"That's a very impractical blouse if you want to cover up those," Rang noted, indicating the splotches on her neck, and Ga Eul brought her hand up to cover her neck self-consciously.

"On the other hand," he continued, "it's perfect for seducing dangerous foxes." He pinched the bow of her blouse between his finger and thumb and slowly tugged it free. The front of her shirt opened ever-so-slightly, giving him plenty of access to the top of her chest. Unfortunately, most of her breasts remained covered, but that could be remedied later that night. Without further ado, Rang unsheathed his claws and offered Ga Eul a smile poised on a knife's edge. "Is that the real reason you wanted to see my claws the other night?" he drawled. "Do these turn you on?" he asked, reaching for her face, and Ga Eul blushed profusely. She wouldn't quite look at him, but she didn't flinch away when he brought the blunt edge of one claw to rest on the delicate skin of her cheek.

She did, however, swallow, and he could hear the delectable sound of her breaths getting shallower. Rang traced his claw around the curve of her cheek, and she closed her eyes and parted her mouth. Her fingers knotted in the scarf she held in her lap.

Rang chuckled.

He dragged the blunt edge of his claw around her ear, then down her neck. Then he dipped his finger down between her breasts and made a line with his claw all the way to her throat, being careful not to cut her or disturb her butterfly necklace.

"I could tear this blouse apart if I wanted to, with only a few careless slices," he informed her. "Lucky for you, I'm trying to be a good fox. Otherwise, who knows what I would do?" He trailed one claw up her neck suggestively, then brought his hand to rest on her clavicle, right below her throat, so that his claws rested gently on her neck. He didn't apply any pressure. He wasn't trying to choke her. He just wanted to feel her pulse beat faster for him. He wanted her to feel herself in his grasp.

After a moment of letting him hold his claws around her neck, she opened her eyes, and he could see a tiny amount of fear there—nervousness maybe—but it was overrun by another emotion simmering underneath and blowing her pupils wide.

She wanted him.

His own heartbeat drummed in his ears. Suddenly, he felt dizzy from being in her presence. Or like he was getting high off a drug. He'd liked making people afraid before, but this was better. Her eyes were so inviting that he almost didn't hear what she said next.

"Do you miss eating human hearts? Do they really taste that good?" she asked, and he blinked. He tried to calm his heart rate, but it was useless. He took his hand away from her throat and leaned back in his seat. He still felt mildly dizzy. He wished she'd stop looking at him like she wanted him to ravish her so he wouldn't feel so off-balance.

What was the question? Oh, yeah. Human hearts. Those vulnerable things.

He tried to remember the exact taste of them, to ground himself to the physical world.

"They're the tastiest," he acknowledged. "Especially when they're fresh."

If this information alarmed Ga Eul, she didn't show it.

"Then...do you like the taste of human blood?" she further asked.

"I told you. I don't drink human blood. But if I didn't like how it tasted, that would be highly inconvenient, seeing as it gets all over…" He trailed off, then frowned. "Why do you ask?"

She bit her lip, then drew it into her mouth, like she was considering something.

"Do you think you'd like my blood?" she asked meekly.

Would he like her blood? He hadn't thought about it. He had never considered tasting Ga Eul's blood to be option. The idea was to make her hurt less, not more. But he guessed he would like it, even though he'd never feasted on blood by itself. No, he knew he would like it a lot. Probably, if he ate her heart right now, it would be the best meal he'd ever indulged in. Well, aside from the debilitating regret and the death of his heart and soul afterward. Anyway, she couldn't be asking him to kill her, so what did she mean by that question?

"What are you asking me?" Rang asked.

Ga Eul lowered her eyes to her lap.

"You could cut me, if you want, just a tiny cut, and maybe I'd bleed a little, and maybe you'd like how I taste." The last phrase was barely a whisper, but he caught it. He breathed in her words and felt dizzy again.

"Or not. Um, you don't have to. That's probably a silly idea," she muttered.

"Hold still," Rang commanded, his voice a bit hoarse. He should probably have made some smart remark about her insistence on turning him into a vampire, but he was afraid the moment might pass, and he really wanted to taste her blood now.

"Huh?" Ga Eul met his eyes again.

"Hold your neck still," he clarified.

"Oh."

Ga Eul stilled and let him inspect her neck. He wanted to make sure he didn't accidentally cut into a major artery, even if it was just a surface cut. When he finally worked himself up enough to slice with his claw, she bled precisely the right amount. Not enough to be concerning. Not so little that the exercise was pointless. Sheathing his claws, Rang flicked his eyes up to Ga Eul's face, silently asking for permission even though the cut had been her suggestion, and Ga Eul smiled and slid her fingers into his hair, pulling his face into her neck the way she did whenever he bit her.

Rang licked up the drops of blood on Ga Eul's neck. Then he kissed the cut on her neck and tasted her blood right at its source. Her blood had a rich taste, tinged with the sharpest, purest metals and sweeter for having been freely offered. He never would have asked for it, but he had a feeling he would be craving it for the rest of his life.

When her blood clotted and Rang tore his mouth away, Ga Eul was still smiling, and she gave him an affectionate peck on the cheek and a pat on the head.

That, Rang would also be craving for the rest of his life.


On the following Tuesday morning, Ga Eul called to say she was sick, and she wouldn't be able to go to the park that day like they'd planned. She suggested they cancel their date, and she would see how she felt the following day.

Well, that wouldn't do. Rang had been promised a date every day. And so, at one-thirty, he stood outside her apartment with a container of kimchi-jjigae, knocking insistently.

"Don't think you can just die and get rid of me," he announced when Ga Eul opened her door, clad in a blue sweater and floral print pajama pants. "I'll find you in your next life."

"Oh, you"—cough, cough—"you brought"—cough—"Is that for me?" She gestured to the carton of takeout stew he was holding.

"No. I like to watch a little human sickness with my lunch." Rang smiled.

Ga Eul coughed some more.

"Are you"—cough, cough—"serious?" She sniffled and rubbed her nose on the back of her hand. Usually Rang found sick humans nauseating, but Ga Eul managed to make even a red nose and puffy eyes look appealing.

"Are you going to let me in," he prompted, "or are you going to make yourself die faster by letting in all this cold air?"

"Um...Well, it's just...My apartment's a little...messy," Ga Eul finished as he shoved past her and set the stew down on her kitchen counter. Her apartment was a mess—clothes strewn haphazardly across her bed and the floor, coffee mugs and used tissues littering every available piece of furniture—but the way she set about cleaning it up was adorable, scurrying this way and that apologetically. Why did he find every damn thing she did, even fretting into a used coffee mug as she carried it to the sink, adorable?

Rang shrugged his coat off. He'd foregone his suit for a cozy black-and-white patterned sweater.

"I was promised a date every day," Rang continued, stretching himself out on her bed. He crossed one leg over the other, realizing, irritatedly, that if she kept coughing like that kissing was probably off the menu for the day. "You think you can break a promise to a fox over a cold?" he asked.

"Obviously not," Ga Eul noted dryly. "Thank you for the soup. My mother brought me some yuja tea earlier. Actually, my apartment was messier then. She cleaned it, but I messed it up again." Ga Eul coughed through a laugh.

"You should eat it before it gets cold." Rang gestured to the takeout bag.

"You shouldn't sit there. I've been coughing into my pillows all morning."

"You think you can get me sick with that pesky human cold of yours?"

"Germs are germs."

"I'm a fox."

"You're not stronger than germs. I'm a teacher. Believe me." Ga Eul lifted the stew container out of the bag and pried the lid off. The spicy scent of the kimchi and pork stew wafted over to Rang, making his mouth water even though he'd already eaten lunch. Ga Eul took a small container of leftover rice out of her fridge and reheated it. Then she set the stew and the rice and the napkins from the takeout bag onto a wooden tray and carried it over to her bed, where she sat beside Rang and ate.

"So...what are we going to do?" Rang asked, once she had gotten situated.

"Do?" Ga Eul mumbled, her mouth full. She swallowed. "You're the one who invaded my apartment. I assumed you had an idea."

Rang shrugged.

"I don't know. I'm bored. But this is your apartment. You should think of something."

"Don't you think you ought to entertain me since I'm the one who's sick?" Ga Eul coughed again, as if to emphasize this fact.

"But I already brought you food."

Ga Eul cocked her head like she didn't quite follow that logic. She dug into her food again and coughed a few more times.

"Well, I've been planning most of our dates," she finally said. "Why don't you think up things to do for the last week of my break? That's next week, you know."

No. Actually, Rang didn't know. He frowned.

"Oh, that reminds me," Ga Eul added. "We should probably leave my neck alone from now on too."

"I thought Soo-oh doesn't go back until the first week of February," Rang replied. He knew this because he'd looked up Soo-oh's schedule on the school website, once he'd gone to the building in search of Ga Eul and found it empty back in December.

"Mm, but"—Ga Eul wiped her mouth on a napkin—"teachers have to go back a week before students," she informed him.

"That's dumb."

"I know, but we have to get our classrooms ready for the new school term. And paperwork and other things." She took another bite of her stew.

"Still dumb. Teachers should get as much time off as students."

Ga Eul smiled.

"You can start a petition for me."

A petition? He'd march himself down to the school and tell whoever was in charge to give Ga Eul another week off or else.

Rang crossed his arms and scowled. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that the whole situation was ludicrously unfair. He'd managed to find his soulmate after six hundred years, and now he had to share her with a bunch of miniature humans five days out of the week? Ha! Ridiculous.

He could see it now. She'd go back to her life before him, to the people she worked with and the kids she taught and the parents she met and gradually he'd become less important. Eventually, she'd forget about him or let go of him. He'd known the outside world would get to them eventually; he just hadn't thought it would happen so fast. His mind began to race, then to panic, and he had to turn the TV on to distract himself.

Ga Eul finished her food, and they cuddled in front of the TV for the rest of the day. Her hands and feet were like ice cubes, and the rest of her body wasn't much better, so Rang let Ga Eul pile on blanket after blanket until he was sweltering. Then he threw all the blankets off in a fit of exasperation and demanded that she roll over so he could cuddle her from behind. Forming a protective ball around her, he held her and stroked her hair, trying to keep her as warm as he could. He didn't even mind her sniffling and coughing every so often when he could hold her like that.

Drowsiness overcame her in the early evening, either from her cold or her medication, and she dozed off beside him, but Rang stayed wide awake most of the night, bringing her water and tissues when she needed them but, more importantly, formulating a plan of action. He wasn't ready to let the outside world back in yet. Maybe he never would be.