A/N: Short chapter, just checking in with Ga Eul. Italics is a flashback.
Warning: This chapter deals with her reliving the night she got attacked and some lingering trauma from that.
"I'm guessing healing human colds isn't part of your special powers," Ga Eul croaked, her voice thick with the sinus fluid built up in her throat.
Rang responded with an apologetic 'no' as she coughed into her tissue.
Ga Eul's throat was horribly sore, but she was sick of tea, sick of cough drops. Just sick. The only bright spot in her sudden illness was the fact that Rang was currently wrapped around her like a warm blanket while she sat between his legs with several layers of actual blankets pulled up to her chest. She knew she wasn't being a very good host, but at the moment, she was so tired, and Rang's warmth was so inviting that she couldn't help but curl into it and close her eyes. In the dark, she could focus more clearly on other sensations: Rang's fingertips roaming her scalp, the intermittent twitch of his legs, the rise and fall of his chest beneath her head, the sound of his heartbeat. Ga Eul felt cozy and safe, and for the first time in a long time she let herself feel tired, let herself lean on someone else, let the heaviness settle in her bones. She didn't know how long she could stay there, soaking in Rang's attentiveness, so she tried to hide away in it for as long as she could, tried to keep her eyes closed and just be.
Ga Eul stood frozen in her tracks, with the night spinning around her. She pressed the satchel that held her schoolwork to her chest like a shield and tried to remember how to breathe.
In, then out. In, then out, she chanted to herself, all the while listening to the rapid beat of her heart pounding in her ears.
She'd never been like this before—unable to walk the meager distance from the bus stop to her apartment without panicking at the tiniest movement nearby. Ga Eul had always been independent for her age. She'd gotten her first job at fifteen as a waitress at a porridge shop, and even before then she'd tutored some of the younger kids in her neighborhood after school. She'd never been scared of being out after dark or of finding herself on an unfamiliar street. She'd been using public transportation for so long, she thought she knew some of the bus routes better than the drivers.
But tonight she'd been walking back to her apartment in the dark when suddenly a man burst out of the shadows and ran right across her path toward the buildings on the other side of the street. It wasn't an altogether uncommon occurrence, and he hadn't even glanced at Ga Eul as he'd passed by, but Ga Eul had been so startled by his sudden appearance on the otherwise empty street, lost in her thoughts of lesson planning as she was, that she dropped her bag, and a few papers had flown out and landed in a pile of mushy snow. She'd snatched them up before they turned soggy in a panicked fashion, her chest constricting, and shoved them back into their proper place, but she was finding it hard to continue her journey now.
Logically, she knew that the probability of another man waiting in the shadows to attack her was pretty low, but her emotions didn't follow logic. They followed memory. Memory of her attacker's grimy fingers against her teeth, his foul breath in her ear, his hand clawing at her waist—the terror of feeling trapped, like her body didn't belong to her, like she couldn't control what was happening to it, or what would happen.
Ga Eul shook her head. She had to focus. It wasn't too much farther to her apartment now. She could do this. She'd done this a million times before.
The week after the incident she'd taken taxis to and from home so she wouldn't have to walk the brief distance from the bus stop to her apartment in the dark, and for the entirety of her break, on the rare occasion that she'd been out after dark without Rang, she'd also taken a taxi back to her apartment so that she could be dropped off right in front of the building. But that wasn't financially feasible in the long term. The bus was cheaper, and she also didn't want to be afraid forever.
But the street in front of her was cold and lifeless, just like the night of her attack.
Still defensively clutching her bag to her chest, Ga Eul thought about calling Rang but realized she'd only be reinforcing his assertion—however false—that she couldn't take care of herself.
She would just have to work through this. That was all there was to it. Except...she felt nauseous. Her stomach was in her throat, and her heart was in her ears.
Ga Eul hadn't realized how safe she'd felt because of Rang until he wasn't there. She didn't fully trust him, still, but part of her really wished he would materialize in front of her at that exact moment, in his black choker and one of his flashy suits. He'd cock his head and squint at her and probably say something like...what was it he'd said to her once?
'Tell me, is it exhausting being human? You must be scared of everything all the time.'
The tiniest grin tugged at Ga Eul's mouth as she remembered the playful condescension in Rang's tone while he casually lounged on her bed and helped himself to her TV.
There was a flash of movement in the right corner of Ga Eul's vision, and, without thinking, she cried out, "Rang!" and scurried back in her black boots.
Of course, Rang did not appear; the source of the movement appeared, however—a woodpecker, flitting from one snow-laden tree branch to the next. Ga Eul realized she'd been clenching her bag and forced her fingers to relax.
Scared of a bird? Really, Ga Eul?
But the woodpecker was—if not staring straight at her—inclining its head in her direction.
Hadn't Rang said something about transforming into animals besides cats? Not that she'd necessarily warmed up to the whole shape-shifting idea, but at the moment, it brought her some small comfort to think that he'd caved already on his sort-of promise not to stalk her.
Maybe the bird was him, lingering there just for her, so he could watch over her on her journey home. Maybe she wasn't alone in the dark after all.
At least, that was what Ga Eul told herself as she gave the bird a tentative smile. Absurd of her to be smiling at a bird, thinking it might be her delinquent boyfriend breaking her rules, but Ga Eul didn't care. Just the idea that it might be him calmed her somewhat.
Ga Eul checked around her; there were still no other humans in sight, so she asked the bird matter-of-factly, "Will you watch over me until I get to the end of the block?"
The woodpecker cocked its head, then began pecking at the tree it had landed on.
Ga Eul supposed she would take that as a 'yes.'
"Thank you." She gave the bird a slight bow. "Rang, if that's you, I'll see you on Saturday, okay?" She smiled again, not caring if she'd look crazy to anyone else. If this was what it took for her to walk alone at night, then so be it. Forcing herself to walk forward, she imagined the bird alighting from the branch and fluttering over her head to where she couldn't see it, but it could keep an eye on her, watching her until she made it safely inside her apartment.
Once Ga Eul was ensconced in her apartment walls, a bit jittery but relieved that she'd been able to push through her nerves, she decided to take a look at the gift bag of office supplies Rang had given her and was amazed at how thorough he had been.
"Silly fox," Ga Eul mumbled, spreading the contents of the bag across her bed. "Why would you buy all of this if you didn't want me to go to work?"
Truly, Rang had included everything she could possibly need for a home office, minus a laptop. Pens, pencils, highlighters, bookmarks, paper clips, a stationery set, a cat calendar, even a new planner for the current year.
The planner was one of those expensive spiral hardbound ones with an elegant floral design on the cover and more tabs, stickers, and extra material than even Ga Eul, with her obsessive organizing habits, knew what to do with; it was by a brand Ga Eul thought only sold clothing; she didn't want to know how much it had cost. When she opened the book to the first page, there were lines indicating who the planner was being gifted to and from. The lines, usually left blank, had been filled in: To Chu Ga Eul, From Lee Rang.
Ga Eul smiled despite her lingering reservations about the whole room situation. What sort of person left an inscription on a planner hidden inside a room that was a present in and of itself? Yes, Ga Eul's room had clearly been a well-thought-out present, if a terribly gifted one. Rang had even picked out the exact brand of red marking pens Ga Eul favored. That, like most things about Rang, could be creepy or sweet depending on how one looked at it.
For now, Ga Eul decided it was sweet, but she wasn't sure that she was ready to use the planner yet, so she stashed it in her drawer for later, along with the stationery set and the cat calendar and a fancy notebook that matched the planner. She could use her old planner in the meantime. The red marking pens, however, she set in the purple pencil holder on her nightstand, where they blended in with their half-used companions. She also slipped one of the bookmarks—which featured a cat reading on top of a bookcase—inside a textbook she'd been skimming.
Was it her fault Rang had a way of saying and doing things that made it impossible for her to stay completely mad at him?
Take that morning, for example. Initially, Ga Eul had been horrified to realize, as she'd dried herself off from her morning shower, that Rang had been inside her bathroom in his cat form and that she had, in fact, taken a shower with him in the room. She'd still been quite riled up as they went back-and-forth over text on the subject a few hours later, but, unfortunately, the more she'd reread Rang's messages throughout the day, the more his words had made her laugh.
Anyway, it's not my fault you let some strange cat into your bathroom, locked him in, and then decided to start stripping.
Of course, Rang would be so shamelessly unrepentant about something like that. Oddly enough, she believed him when he said he hadn't looked at her simply because he'd been so honest about wanting to look at her. Perhaps he wasn't a gentleman, but at least he wasn't acting as though he was. At least he wasn't layering on another deception.
On that count, she supposed she was glad he'd answered her questions the way he had. She only hoped that he would continue telling her the truth, that she wasn't in for any more surprises.
She wondered if he would fulfill any of her requests. She wondered if he would really last the whole week without spying on her. She wondered when she'd feel safe enough, or brave enough, to let him all the way back in.
