A/N: I promise really good things are coming up within a few chapters ^^ if you just hang in there with me ;)

Rang's puppy was hopeless at ice skating. That much was clear to Rang as he watched the young boy stumble and trip over the ice. He'd thought a ten-year-old human would know the basics, but apparently this particular activity had not been taught to him by his mother—certainly not by that lousy excuse of a stepfather—and somehow Yu Ri and Shin-joo hadn't had much luck with teaching him so far. Yu Ri barely skated herself—it simply wasn't in the list of human skills Rang had found useful to teach her—and Shin-joo...Well, Shin-joo was Shin-joo, wasn't he?

At least Soo-oh was enjoying himself. To his credit, he didn't cry when he fell but got right back up with a mindless, animated grin.

"Ahjussi, watch this!" he called over to Rang after his latest spill. Rang had been standing stoically on his skates a few feet away, unimpressed with Soo-oh's performance but guarding him nonetheless from some of the teenage humans flying around the rink. He didn't like how close some of them passed by next to his puppy, as though they might run over him, and he'd taken to trailing behind Soo-oh and cutting in front of anyone who seemed to be heading in their direction, sending the other skaters careening off course. A few skaters shot him dirty looks. Rang merely rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to his puppy's wobbly legs.

"You're never going to be able to balance if you keep leaning forward like that," Rang scolded, "and quit wiggling so much." His advice came too late. Soo-oh flailed forward and landed on his hands and knees again.

Sighing, Rang skated closer and helped the boy up. He didn't let go of Soo-oh's arms once the boy was standing; instead, he instructed Soo-oh to stand still and straight.

"Good. Now don't move. Just try to stand there without falling." Rang hesitantly released Soo-oh's arms, and the boy didn't move for a few seconds, but then he reached up to adjust the hood of his puffy blue coat, and the sudden movement sent one of his legs flying out from under him. Rang caught him under the arms before he hit the ground and set him back down, holding him firmly until he'd regained his balance.

"I said not to move."

"But—"

"Don't move! Stand straight. No, straighter," Rang commanded, and Soo-oh contorted his body until his posture was straight enough for Rang's liking. "Good. Now I'm going to take my hands away, and then you're going to count to ten—no, twenty. When you get to twenty, you better still be standing." Rang removed his hands. "Okay, go ahead."

"One, two, three, four…" Soo-oh counted, and Rang smiled to himself when he noticed Soo-oh's fingers were following along with his mouth, opening and closing into his fist with each new number. When Soo-oh finished counting, Rang arranged the boy's arms at a ninety-degree angle from his body.

"Now you're going to be a plane," he informed him, "and you're going to march forward, like this." Rang skated up beside Soo-oh and took a few steps forward. "Pick up one foot, then the other." Soo-oh attempted to mimic Rang's movements. "Slowly. One step at a time," Rang added, watching his puppy carefully. "If you feel like you're going to fall, hold your arms out like this." Rang demonstrated holding his arms out in front of his body. He waved his hands for effect. Following Rang's directions, Soo-oh shoved his hands out from his body so fast, giggling, that he nearly lost his balance again. Of course, Soo-oh then pretended to sling webs from his fingers, casting them one way, then the other.

Rang shook his head. The kid couldn't concentrate on one thing for more than a second. Every other second was reserved for Spiderman. Wasn't Spiderman a phase he should grow out of at some point? Kids were fickle that way. Not that Rang should be a phase. Rang should definitely not be a phase. Soo-oh wasn't allowed to outgrow Rang.

Rang felt someone watching him and turned his head slightly to the left. Off to the side of the rink, by the wall, there was a group of young women chatting amongst themselves. With his superior fox hearing, he could make out that they were talking about him. The conversation went:

"Do you see the guy in black next to the kid in the blue coat? He's so attractive."

"He's so sweet too. Did you see him teaching his son how to skate?"

"Too bad, he must be married."

His son? He didn't look old enough to have a son Soo-oh's age, did he?

Rang scoffed.

Of course not. These human women were out of their minds.

Except for the 'attractive' part; of course, they would notice his superior good looks. Unfortunately for them, even if he wasn't married, he was taken. By his soulmate, a human worth a hundred foxes. All the inferior humans could look but not touch.

Not that they could have touched him anyway, at any point in his existence.

One of the women suggested to the others that they get hot chocolate, and Rang tuned the rest of the conversation out.

But come to think of it, Soo-oh might be more successful at drinking hot chocolate than he was at—Rang flinched as Soo-oh ignored his instructions for the hundredth time and promptly fell on his butt—ice skating.

"Come on, Blacky. Give me your hands." Rang skated to a stop in front of Soo-oh and held his hands out for the boy to take. "I'll skate us over to the concessions stand. Want to go as fast as Spiderman or faster than Spiderman?"

"Faster!" Soo-oh jumped as he grabbed Rang's hands, nearly falling again in the process.

Hopeless.

"I don't know." Rang squinted at him doubtfully. "I don't think you can handle going faster than Spiderman. You can't even skate properly."

"Faster, faster!" Soo-oh insisted, wiggling so much it was like he wanted to fall down.

"Okay, hold tight to my hands. And for the last time, don't move so much. I'm going to make us go super fast," Rang said, glancing behind him as he began skating backwards.

"Yay!" Soo-oh replied, and Rang started out slow as he moved around the rink, mainly for Soo-oh's benefit. Humans would certainly find it difficult, if not impossible, to keep track of the kid and navigate the maze of other people on the ice, all while skating backwards and increasingly faster than everyone else there, even those dumb teenagers that kept passing by them earlier, but Rang managed it easily enough. Soo-oh blew raspberries at the teenagers that they now flew past, cold wind whipping their faces, and Rang smirked.

Amateurs.

When they finally came to a halt near the concession stand, Soo-oh begged to go again.

"I'm not a carnival ride," Rang admonished, freeing the boy's hands. "Hot chocolate first."

"Okay." Soo-oh pouted. "Then can we go?" he asked, his face automatically brightening.

Rang bit back a smile.

"One more time," he said, "but only if you practice your skating again. You have to actually practice."

Soo-oh accepted this in that buoyant way he had, and the two of them headed for the concessions line, with Rang barely concealing another smile at the sight of the boy dancing around and mumbling to himself. The senseless antics of human children annoyed him as a rule, but he found his puppy amusing and, somehow, heartwarming. Was this how Ga Eul felt about all children? Is that why she wanted to return to work so badly?

Rang wondered.

He glanced back at the ice and was deeply satisfied to find that those teenagers still looked pissed off.


On Saturday, even though Rang arrived early for their date as he normally did, Ga Eul was already inside their coffee shop. Rang saw her through the glass window, sitting at their table in a long tan coat over a white blouse with thin black horizontal stripes and black trousers, one leg crossed over the other. Their outfits sort-of matched. At the risk of her thinking he'd lost all of his other clothes, Rang had once again worn his tan coat, a white dress shirt, and dark jeans, convinced there must be some kind of magic in that clothing combination that gave him good luck with her.

Ga Eul was biting her thumbnail—he didn't recall her biting her nails before—but when she noticed him enter the building, she stopped and gave him a smile and a wave. A tentative smile. A feeble wave. Now that he had gotten closer, he noticed that she wasn't wearing her butterfly necklace. Not that she had been wearing it the last time he saw her, but he thought since they had straightened things out between them that she would be wearing it again. Already, all the marks on her neck had vanished, like they'd never been there to begin with.

Rang hoped she hadn't been having second thoughts. She shouldn't. He'd been unnaturally good all week. He hadn't violated her rule about shapeshifting. He hadn't turned up at her school or her apartment, not once, mostly from fear of being found out and partly from fear of not being able to lie to her about it due to her irritating and absurd talent for luring the truth out of him, like she was the fox and he was the one bewitched.

Anyway, besides his good behavior on that front, he'd taken Soo-oh ice skating one day and had hung out with him around Shin-joo and Yu Ri's house another day. He'd also visited his brother and met Ha Eun, and now he was about to complete a third item on her list.

With a self-satisfied grin, Rang plopped down into the chair opposite Ga Eul and announced, "I hate mint chocolate chip ice cream."

Ga Eul stared at him blankly. She blinked. There were dark circles under her eyes, and Rang almost twisted his smile into a frown. Had she been sleeping properly? When she'd said she'd be busy at work, what did that mean? Surely they wouldn't keep her up at all hours of the night.

Well, if they were, Rang would find whoever was in charge of the school and break all of their bones so that they were up all night, screaming in pain.

"What?" Ga Eul asked, making a conspicuous effort to perk up.

"It's on your list," he explained, breaking himself out of his increasingly murderous thoughts towards her employers. "Number five. Tell you something you don't know about me." Rang leaned forward in his chair and smiled encouragingly.

"Uh...Oh!" Ga Eul smiled awkwardly, as though she had just remembered she'd made the list. "Yes, that's right," she affirmed. "Um, thank you."

Rang slouched back down in his chair, taking her in. Something about her expression was off—something besides being tired—but he couldn't pinpoint what. He studied her as she shook off her coat and arranged it on the back of her chair. Her glossy copper hair spilled over her shoulders, contrasting with her black and white clothing. He missed running his fingers through it.

Folding her arms on the table, Ga Eul cleared her throat and asked, a bit too cheerily, "So...is it just mint chocolate chip you have a vendetta against, or do you despise any other flavors?"

Rang tilted his head in thought. Should he comment on the ice cream or her odd demeanor?

"I think I hate mint chocolate the worst," he replied, choosing the safer option. "It tastes like toothpaste. But maybe...vanilla?"

"Vanilla?" Ga Eul laughed, and it sounded nervous but genuine. "What's wrong with vanilla? Everyone likes vanilla."

"There are no actual ingredients in vanilla ice cream," Rang observed in an all-knowing tone. "It literally tastes like nothing." Rang pulled a face.

"Oh, I see. You'd like it to be more exciting."

"Life gets boring after six hundred years. I'd at least like my food to be above average. Vanilla is a flavor for babies and old people."

"Well, I like vanilla, so which am I?" Ga Eul leaned forward and tilted her head. "A baby or an old person?"

Rang squinted at her for a second, then smiled. He liked Ga Eul better now that she was bickering with him. It felt like old times.

"A liar," he goaded.

Ga Eul leaned back and crossed her arms over her body.

"I am not. I do like vanilla. It's perfectly fine."

"Why would you order a flavor that's perfectly fine if you could get something awesome?"

"Vanilla is my comfort flavor." Ga Eul took on that indignant look she wore when she was trying to defend her opinions, particularly her nonsensical ones.

"Comfort flavor?" Rang repeated doubtfully.

"You know, when you're having a bad day, and you want something that reminds you of your childhood, sometimes simple things are best," Ga Eul insisted with more fervor than the subject required, waving her hands around as she spoke.

Rang had a feeling she was making stuff up, but she looked adorable doing it, so he sighed and said, "Fine. Vanilla can be your comfort flavor." He cocked his head. "What's your favorite flavor?"

At that, Ga Eul blushed, and he didn't know why—they were talking about ice cream. She took a moment to answer.

"Um...There's an ice cream at Baskin Robbins that's milk chocolate, dark chocolate, and white chocolate all together. I like lots of chocolate," Ga Eul admitted shyly.

"I know. You drink hot chocolate all the time," Rang informed her.

Ga Eul smiled, and her shoulders relaxed.

"So what's your favorite ice cream?"

"I'm not telling you," Rang teased. "That would be two facts about me in one day."

"Three, if you consider telling me you hate vanilla," Ga Eul replied solemnly.

"Oh? Yeah, I guess so." Rang flicked a piece of lint off of his jeans. "Okay, fine. It's strawberry."

"Strawberry?" Ga Eul giggled. "How is that different from vanilla?"

"It's strawberry." Rang raised an eyebrow at her.

"Still, it's one solid flavor. I thought you were going to say something crazy, like honey-red-bean-matcha-mango-with-white-chocolate-swirls."

Rang wrinkled his nose.

"Is that a real flavor?"

"I don't know, but it definitely doesn't sound boring."

"Strawberries aren't boring." Rang scoffed. "Korea has the best strawberries in the world, and the best strawberries in Korea grew in the forest where I grew up."

"Oh, I see," Ga Eul said solemnly. Then a grin slowly spread across her face. "So strawberry is your comfort flavor."

"Ah, stop saying comfort flavor like that's an actual thing," Rang protested.

"It can be a thing if I want it to be a thing." Ga Eul pouted.

"Not a thing," Rang announced. "I'm going to get some cake." He stood and turned to head for the counter.

"You should get us the kind with strawberries since you love them so much," Ga Eul called after him.

"I'm not bringing any cake for you," Rang retorted as he sauntered off.

He lied, though. Of course, he ordered cake for Ga Eul—the cream cake she liked—and a second cream cake for himself. He set them down on the table and informed Ga Eul he would be right back with her hot chocolate, though she hadn't requested any.

"Oh, thank you," Ga Eul said when he'd returned bearing their drinks.

Rang took a sip of his coffee and repositioned himself in the chair across from her.

"Besides telling you three facts about myself, I also visited Soo-oh and my brother this week. And I did not spy on you," he announced gleefully. "See? I did my homework. I should get a prize." He waggled his eyebrows suggestively, and a faint blush appeared on Ga Eul's cheeks.

"Uh, what would you like?" she asked, looking mildly uncomfortable, and Rang wanted to tease her so badly. He wanted to suggest all manner of inappropriate prizes, but, annoyingly, there was one thing he really needed her to say yes to, and this was the perfect time to suggest it.

"Come to my niece's birthday party with me. It's on February tenth," he said.

Ga Eul looked surprised. Maybe she'd been expecting him to tease her.

"Oh, your brother's—"

"My brother's daughter. It's her hundred day celebration. The party will be at six at this restaurant called The Snail Bride. My brother has the whole place rented out. Shin-joo and Yu Ri will be there, and Soo-oh as well," Rang rushed out. "And you can meet my brother and his wife. They both really want to meet you."

Ga Eul said nothing for a moment, so Rang continued, "They have good food there, and I think there might be kids. I mean, there's Ha Eun and Soo-oh, but since it's a kid's party, there should be other kids. Humans like to bring their kids to that sort of thing. Anyway, you like kids, and there should be lots of kids...there," Rang finished awkwardly.

Ga Eul didn't react to that last set of statements as quickly as he'd hoped, but eventually she rewarded him with a smile, and said, "Um, let's see. February tenth is a Thursday, which is a school day. But you said it's at six, right?"

Rang nodded.

"I should be able to come. Let me just check my schedule."

"Can you check it right now?"

"I don't have my planner with me."

"Ah, I see."

"But I'll check it as soon as I get home."

"I can drive you home after our date. You can check it then."

"Oh, I can text it to you later...I have to, um, find my planner. I might have left it at work."

"Ah...Okay."

Ga Eul gave him a tiny smile. They descended into silence for a few minutes, each of them poking at their respective cakes. Finally, Rang started detailing the visit to his brother for her, and though she had a pleasant expression on her face while he described Ha Eun, she didn't say much. Not about Ha Eun. Not about anything for the remainder of the hour. But when Rang asked if she was okay, she suddenly blurted out, "Should we get ice cream? There's an ice cream shop across the street."

Rang gazed out at the bundled-up passersby hurrying past the café. There was an ice cream shop across the street, but it was ten degrees below freezing. Did Ga Eul really want ice cream? The Ga Eul he remembered from their dates only enjoyed warm things like roasted sweet potatoes when it was this cold.

"If you eat ice cream right now, you'll become an ice cube," Rang noted. "From what I remember, your normal body temperature is already around the freezing point." He smirked teasingly.

"It was just a suggestion." Ga Eul shrugged. "We don't have to," she said, looking so crestfallen that Rang immediately stood up.

"No. If my girlfriend wants ice cream, she gets ice cream," he said, taking her by the hands and pulling her up from her seat. Rang tucked Ga Eul into her tan coat. Then he leaned over to retrieve the black scarf that had fallen onto her chair and, when he'd straightened back up, murmured in her ear, "Besides, I can always warm her up afterward." He kissed Ga Eul's cheek and arranged her scarf around her neck while her eyes stayed pinned to his collar.

Ga Eul remained immobile, letting him do what he wanted with her clothing. Not until he finished fussing over her did she look up at his face with a shy smile and say, "Um, thank you."

"Let's go," he said, taking her hand. He tugged her outside and then across the street, overjoyed to be walking alongside her again.

"I want two scoops of strawberry," Rang informed the attendant when they entered the ice cream shop. Energetically turning to Ga Eul, he asked, "What would my girlfriend like?" as he squeezed her hand.

"Oh, I'll take one scoop of the chocolate and green tea, please," she told the attendant.

Rang paid for both of their ice creams but took Ga Eul by the hand again as soon as he'd tucked his wallet back into his pocket. Despite the ice cream being her suggestion, she looked less enthused about being there than he'd thought she would be, but perhaps that was due to her tiredness. Ga Eul yawned while they waited on their order, then apologized for doing so, her mouth hidden by her free hand.

"Jagiya, did you get enough sleep?" Rang asked, affectionately rearranging a few of Ga Eul's rogue hairs that had parted the wrong way. "Why does my little human look so tired? Hmm?"

"Oh, um...It's nothing. I've just been working a lot," Ga Eul assured him, accepting her ice cream from the attendant, who had returned bearing two cups. Rang took his own ice cream and trailed after Ga Eul to a table by the window. She sat down on one of the silver metal chairs, and instead of taking the seat across from her, Rang sat beside her, hoping he could touch her more that way, maybe soothe whatever was wrong that she wasn't telling him. Stretching his right arm around the back of her chair, he ate his ice cream with his left hand.

"So," he said, after taking a few bites, "what do we do after this?"

"Oh, after this…" Ga Eul trailed off as though she hadn't thought about it.

"If you're tired, we can watch something and cuddle." He tucked her hair behind her ear, which gave him a pleasant view of her side profile as she dug into her ice cream. She sucked the cold treat from her spoon for a long time—and it was a tiny spoon. He wasn't sure what she needed to think about. Ga Eul loved cuddling. She especially liked pressing her cold feet to his legs and teasing him that 'foxes like the cold.'

"Um…"

"Or we can do other things that also involve lying down," Rang murmured, dropping his voice lower. He pressed his body closer to her, but Ga Eul didn't look at his face. She blushed, but her eyes remained on her ice cream. She wasn't eating it so much as cutting it up with her spoon. It would melt soon despite the weather outside.

"I'm kind of...really tired, actually. I thought maybe I would go to sleep after this."

"Sleep?" Rang frowned. "But it's two in the afternoon."

"I-I know. It's just I...haven't been feeling so great since yesterday, and I don't want to end up sick again when school's just starting." She finally turned her face towards him and winced apologetically. "I'm sorry. I know this was short."

Now more than a bit concerned, Rang pressed the back of his hand to her forehead to check if she had a fever. She really hadn't been herself for the past hour.

"I don't think you have a temperature," he announced, removing his hand, "but you should get some rest, I guess. Do you want me to drop you off at your apartment then?"

Ga Eul nodded.

"If you could, that would be nice."

Rang scoffed.

"That would be nice? What else would I do? Have my girlfriend ride the bus? Of course, I'll take you." He ran his fingers through her hair. "Are you done with your ice cream?" He gestured to her half-eaten bowl, and she nodded. Rang wished she would look at him more.

They walked to Rang's car in silence, albeit holding hands, and spent their car ride to Ga Eul's apartment in silence as well, with Ga Eul staring out the window for most of it and biting her thumbnail.

"I'll see you next Saturday?" she asked when they had pulled up in front of her apartment building. "I promise we can have a longer date then, and I'll come to your niece's party as long as my schedule's free. I'll check my schedule and text you."

Rang wanted to ask why he couldn't see her before Saturday, even for one evening during the week, especially with the Lunar New Year holiday coming up, but he remembered he was supposed to be patient—patient, patient, patient, Shin-joo and Yu Ri liked to berate him—and Ga Eul looked so tired and distracted. Maybe her work was harder than she'd anticipated? Rang found himself agreeing to see her the following Saturday before he could think too hard about it.

Before she got out of the car, though, he slipped his hand around the back of her neck—because she was not getting out of his car that easily—and kissed her hard on the mouth. She stiffened for a second, then softened in his hold and kissed him back in equal measure.

"Have a nice dream," he whispered as he pulled away.