A/N: I've had a lot of comments asking when Ga Eul is going to meet Lee Yeon, and the answer is...in two chapters! This chapter is in Ga Eul's POV, and the next chapter will be a continuation of this one but in Rang's POV. Then the following chapter will cover Ha Eun's birthday party with everyone there. :)
In case you're wondering where this story is generally heading, there will be some more angst, but the story in general will be lighter from here on out. I have some fun dates planned, more Lee Yeon and Yu Ri and Shin-joo (the whole gang, etc.), and we will see the F4 and Yi Jeong as promised, but that's still a little bit ahead. There will be some surprise guests/characters, and eventually we will end this story with several...large events, I guess you'd say. I hope that was sufficiently vague to spark your interest but also to keep my secret plotting under wraps hahaha
Also, sorry for the wait on this fluffy chapter. March was a really crazy month for me personally.
Just to note, the second section of this, in particular, has a lot of references to love bites, and there is some suggestive stuff throughout.
When Ga Eul woke, her bones felt leaden, as if, having laid down to rest after a long journey, her limbs refused to move even if her mind was awake. As it was, sleep weighed heavily on her eyelids, and the soft cocoon of warmth surrounding her beckoned her back into the world of dreams. With some effort, though, she managed to uncurl herself from her slumber and opened her eyes wide to stare into the blackness of an unfamiliar bedroom.
No. Not an unfamiliar bedroom. Rang's bedroom.
Rang's bedroom?
Oh no! She'd fallen asleep in Rang's bedroom! In his bed, half-clothed, after…
Ga Eul burrowed into the covers, bringing them up to her nose. A quick glance to the side told her she was alone in the bed, however, and the bright blue letters of the alarm clock on Rang's nightstand told her it was barely six in the morning.
But wait. If it was six in the morning, that meant she had slept for twelve hours!
Ga Eul drew the covers up over her head until her entire body was enveloped by the gray-and-white comforter and a blanket she didn't think had been there the day before. She knew no one was present to witness her embarrassment, but still, she felt that she ought to hide. Some girlfriend she was, letting Rang do such, um...pleasant...things to her and then falling asleep straightaway. She'd even slept through the rest of the evening, and now Rang was probably asleep on the couch while she took over his bed. Or maybe he'd gone to the guest bedroom that would have been hers. There was an extra bed in there. That thought brought Ga Eul a little comfort.
Uncovering herself down to her waist, Ga Eul attempted to sit up and assess the situation further. As she slid up the bed, however, a slight ache in her thigh muscles reminded her, once again, of how far they had gone the day before—not as far as they could have gone but certainly further...further…
Ga Eul's face heated up, and she tried to think of something else—anything else—but it didn't help matters that she was only wearing her sweater and her underwear. Her bra had been tossed into the void of Rang's bedroom, but in the semi-darkness, she saw that Rang had placed her jeans and socks on top of his nightstand, next to his black-and-white lamp and his alarm clock.
Ga Eul cracked a smile, thinking that Rang didn't seem like the type of person to set an alarm for anything.
Except for our dates, she amended. He's always early for those.
That thought made Ga Eul smile more, and she settled back into the pillows. She wondered what she could do until Rang woke up. She needed a shower, but that would probably be noisy, depending on where Rang was in the apartment. Plus it seemed rude to use his shower without asking, and now that she thought about it, he'd never used hers.
Deciding to first figure out where her boyfriend was, Ga Eul slid out of the bed and into her jeans, ignoring the discomfort from the rough fabric rubbing the bruises on her thighs; those reminders of their activities yesterday made her self-conscious, but she would be more self-conscious if she walked around in her underwear. She crept over to the door as quietly as she could, though maybe her quietness wouldn't matter. She knew Rang had razor-sharp reflexes and heightened hearing abilities. He probably already knew she'd woken up. He probably heard every sound in his apartment and would wake up at the slightest provocation, like the highly trained, super-powered fox he was. It would only make sense; her cat used to wake up at every sound or movement, and Milo was hardly a wild animal or a supernatural one.
So Ga Eul was careful, but not too careful, as she turned the doorknob to Rang's bedroom and let herself out into the main living space. It, too, was shrouded in darkness, with only the glow of the distant city lights outside the window to illuminate Rang's motionless form on the couch. He had curled himself into a fetal position, dressed in a beige sweatshirt and a matching set of sweatpants. The TV remote lay on the wood floor just below his open palm, as if it had fallen from his grip when he'd dozed off. He slept soundly as she approached, his bangs splayed messily over his forehead, and he looked so uncharacteristically vulnerable that she wanted to scoop him up in her arms and hold him there.
He didn't wake up when Ga Eul stopped right at the edge of the couch, and he didn't wake up when Ga Eul whispered his name, so she decided to be more daring and poked his shoulder.
Still, nothing.
'Wow,' she mouthed. The few times he'd slept over at her apartment, he'd always woken up when she did—had always circled his arms around her and tried to prevent her from leaving the bed—so she hadn't figured him to be a heavy sleeper.
Well, maybe he was more tired today. Or maybe she was more disruptive getting out of the bed than she was poking him with her index finger. As long as he kept sleeping, though, she supposed she could take her overnight bag with her into the bedroom and work on her lesson plans. Ga Eul crept back around the couch and gingerly picked up the bag. She carried it into the bedroom, still tiptoeing, and held her breath until she'd closed the door and set the bag down again.
Ga Eul had packed her white pajamas dotted with tiny lavender flowers—a set with a short-sleeve top and long pants—and she pulled those out along with a folder of paperwork, her notebook, and her Korean language textbook. Rang's bedside lamp clicked on easily, and before long she had arranged herself in the middle of the bed with her work spread around her. Somehow, it felt natural to be doing her work there in Rang's apartment, even though she'd never done that before. It felt cozier than doing her work in her own apartment, perhaps because she knew she wasn't alone. There was comfort in knowing Rang was in the next room, sleeping soundly. Soon, Ga Eul was so absorbed in reviewing her lessons for the following week that she barely registered the bedroom door opening until she heard Rang speak.
"You're a crazy human," he observed, "poking a wild animal in his sleep."
Ga Eul jumped at the sound of his voice and looked over her shoulder to find him staring at her from the doorway.
"Oh...I-I'm sorry," Ga Eul replied guiltily. "I thought you didn't wake up."
Rang squinted at her, bleary-eyed.
"You think you can actually sneak up on a nine-tailed fox?"
"Uh...well…" Ga Eul smiled sheepishly.
"I heard you." Rang yawned and stuck his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants. "I just didn't want to wake up, so I didn't open my eyes. But then I realized I could bother you and go back to sleep, so here I am." Rang grinned and shuffled over to the bed. He shoved Ga Eul's papers aside so he could stretch out on the bed and lay his head on her lap. Ga Eul blushed at the dull pain as his head pressed into her thighs; the discomfort wasn't enough to make her remove his head, but it did make her shyness return. Still, she set her notebook aside and sunk her fingers into his hair, figuring that was what he wanted, and he smiled and curled into a ball again.
Well, she supposed she could at least do this for him since she'd fallen asleep before. Ga Eul began rubbing small circles on his scalp, and when she glanced down at Rang's bare feet, she noticed his toes twitching as she petted him. She wanted to giggle at that but decided to tease him later when he wasn't so drowsy.
Rang closed his eyes, and Ga Eul continued massaging his scalp for several minutes in silence. She thought maybe he'd fallen back to sleep when he spoke again.
"You slept for a long time," he noted. "I must say, I've heard humans tire easily, but I didn't know they tired that easily. Are you sure you'll be able to do everything later?"
"W-what?" Ga Eul stammered.
"I mean, after all," Rang teased, "I did all that work. Don't you think I was the one who deserved a nap?"
"Uh, um…" Ga Eul stammered, toying with a strand of his hair. "But that was, um...I mean...I didn't mean to fall asleep!" she protested. "I was just so tired, and then you took a while in the bathroom, and I haven't been sleeping well so I just...Also, you made me really relaxed from, you know, all the kissing, and I...I..."
"Ah, stop. It's okay. I'm just teasing." Rang batted her hand away and rolled over so that he was staring up at her.
Of course, that only made Ga Eul feel more exposed, and she blushed, then mumbled, "You're not mad at me for falling asleep?"
Rang raised his eyebrows.
"Why would I be mad?"
Because I cried for half of our date yesterday and slept through the rest of it.
Because you did such nice things for me...well, to me...and I don't even know what to do for you.
Because I took over your bed, and I know you don't like sharing your things.
"Well," Ga Eul began, "I kind of slept through the whole evening. And then you slept on the couch. Why did you sleep on the couch? You could have slept with me." Ga Eul mumbled the last sentence.
Rang shrugged.
"I didn't want to wake you up. You looked like you might die of exhaustion if I didn't let you rest." He stated this rather dramatically but reached up and affectionately tucked her hair behind her ear, and Ga Eul's brain stuttered to a halt when he looked at her so tenderly. Then the moment was over as his face suddenly scrunched up and he said, "But now I see why you've been so tired. Do you always work so much first thing in the morning? No wonder humans die so young. Your fragile bodies just give out after a while."
Ga Eul frowned.
"If no one did any work in the morning, how would anything get done?" she argued.
"I didn't say the other humans shouldn't do anything. But why don't you go back to sleep and let them handle it?" Rang waved away the imaginary humans who should be 'handling it.'
Ga Eul raised her eyebrows.
"Because I'm the only one who teaches my class, so if I don't do this"—she gestured to the books and papers Rang had thrown into disarray—"my students won't learn anything."
"I don't think they'd mind that." Rang laughed.
"The school would mind. The parents too. You think I get paid to babysit?" Ga Eul feigned offense, and Rang started to say something, but she cut him off, confessing, "Actually, it does feel that way sometimes." She chuckled. "But I like teaching kids about the world. I have them right at the age where it still holds wonder for them. It's nice." Ga Eul smiled and resumed fiddling with Rang's hair.
Rang didn't say anything for a long moment, and she thought maybe he didn't care to hear her wax lyrical about her silly human job, but then he surprised her by saying, "You can use the desk if you want."
"Huh?" she asked, meeting his intense stare.
"The desk...in the guest bedroom. I took all the supplies out of the drawers, but the desk is still there."
The desk in the guest bedroom.
Oh. The one he'd bought for her.
Ga Eul smiled softly, still caught between the sweetness and creepiness of that gesture but not wanting Rang to think she was still angry with him.
"Oh, um...Okay. Thank you...But I don't have to work on this now," she quickly amended. "If you want to get up—"
"It's six in the morning. Why would I want to get up?" Rang looked pained by the suggestion, and she laughed.
"Okay, okay. I understand. I can give you your bed back then. But, um...do you mind if I take a shower? I brought all my own toiletries."
Another pained stare.
"You don't have to ask to use the shower. If you lived here, did you think I would send you off to a sauna?" Rang put an extra ounce of disgust into the word sauna, and Ga Eul laughed.
"Well, you don't have to say that like it's a bad thing. Going to the sauna can be very relaxing, but you don't know that, do you?" She narrowed her eyes. "I bet you don't go because of all the humans."
"Of course not!" Rang protested. "If you don't have to bathe with a bunch of sweaty, naked humans, why would you?" he grumbled. "Besides, foxes don't like baths much. Or showers. I mean, we like to be clean, but...we don't much like the cleaning process. I try to keep my showers under five minutes, and I prefer lukewarm water. Almost cold. Saunas are kind of like...nine-tailed fox hell." Rang grimaced. "All that heat and steam." He shuddered.
Ga Eul blinked.
Huh. Maybe that was why he'd never asked to shower at her place.
"Oh? I didn't know that," she answered. "But why...if you have a human body…"
"I have fur. You just can't see it. It's...hard to explain. When I get wet, it gets matted down and heavy. I don't like getting caught in the rain either."
Ga Eul looked him over, studying the babyish smooth skin of his face. She threaded her fingers through his bangs, brushing it away from his forehead. When he said he had fur, where did he mean exactly? She couldn't comprehend it.
Also, she'd thought it would be fun to go with him to a sauna, but now that date idea was out. In addition, this meant one of her naughtier ideas wouldn't work either. Not that she would have had the courage to suggest this to him anyway, but she'd thought it would be fun if, at some point, they took a shower...together…
Ah. Oh well. At least she wouldn't have to endure the embarrassment of asking later. She didn't want him to be uncomfortable...or miserable.
"What is it?" Rang asked, and Ga Eul realized she was blushing.
"Ah, nothing. I just...never thought about nine-tailed foxes not liking water. But that makes sense. My cat always hated baths. He hated getting his fur wet."
"A fox is not a cat," Rang noted curtly.
"And yet you also like being petted."
"I—"
"And you like turning into a cat." She smiled.
"I didn't say I like being a cat. You liked me as a cat. That's why—"
"That's why the big bad fox decided to spend an entire night with me being petted and eating canned cat food." Ga Eul giggled.
"Well, the joke's on you. I didn't eat the food. I threw it out," Rang retorted weakly.
"Oh? Then you wanted me to think you ate it. That was sweet."
"It wasn't sweet. It was a ruse. I was completing my very clever ruse." Rang crossed his arms, pouting.
"Very clever?" Ga Eul gave him a doubtful look.
"You had no idea until I told you."
"I suppose not." Ga Eul shrugged. "But then you didn't exactly get what you came for, did you? I was too irresistible. I seduced a nine-tailed fox," she teased.
"Don't push it," Rang smugly replied. "You still ended up in the nine-tailed fox's bed."
This comment made Ga Eul blush furiously, and she looked away, conscious of the marks on her thighs again. As much as she wanted to argue with him, she supposed she had found him too irresistible. At the moment, her belly tingled from the way he was smirking at her; it was too similar to the ravenous expression he'd had the day before, and she didn't know how to respond to it without losing some coherency. If she were bolder, she would have invited him for a repeat of yesterday's performance, but as it was, she felt shy, and her skin felt icky. She was terribly conflicted; part of her wanted to spend all day in bed with him, and part of her wanted to take a shower, get dressed in a clean daytime outfit, and pretend like nothing out of the ordinary had happened between them.
Clearing her throat, Ga Eul said, "Well, like I said, you can have your bed back. I think I'll take that shower now, if you don't mind."
Her fox raised his eyebrows, and his mouth twisted in lazy amusement, as though he knew what she was thinking—and for all she knew, he did. Then he wet his lips and let her know, in a teasingly seductive tone, that there was a spare clean towel in the bathroom and if she needed him to bring her anything else while she was in there to simply call him and he would be happy to assist. Torturous humidity be damned.
She thanked him, dryly, for his generous sacrifice.
A few minutes later, once Ga Eul had gathered up her clothes and toiletries from her bag, she shut herself in Rang's bathroom—and immediately jumped at her reflection in the mirror.
'Oh my god,' she mouthed, carefully pressing her fingers to the bruised skin of her neck. Or, rather, the cluster of bruises where the skin of her neck should have been. No wonder Rang had that self-satisfied smirk on his face. The front and sides of her neck looked like a piece of abstract art from her clavicle to the base of her chin. Upon lifting up her hair, she discovered that even the back of her neck hadn't been spared. There was a tiny purplish red bruise right below her hairline.
Ga Eul spent an entire minute gaping at herself in the mirror, her mind going blank with panic.
'Oh my god,' she mouthed again.
I can't go to work like this. I can't go to work like this. Oh my god, what was I thinking? I wasn't thinking. I can't go to work like this!
Frantically unzipping her make-up bag, Ga Eul rummaged around for her tube of concealer. She didn't need it that day, but she certainly needed to know if it would work the next morning, though she doubted it given how dark the bruises were.
No. Wait. Today was Sunday. Her parents. She always had dinner with her parents on Sunday.
Well, she'd have to cancel that; she'd just say she was too overwhelmed with work. Even if she could reasonably conceal this mess at the school, her mother would know.
Ga Eul groaned, remembering something else—she was supposed to meet Rang's brother and his wife later that week. At a party. For a baby.
Ga Eul squeezed her eyes shut, willing the marks to disappear, but when she opened her eyes they were still there.
Too many, too many. There's too many...Okay, Ga Eul, don't panic. Think.
Her scarf or a turtleneck would work for the lower bruises, but some of them were placed too high up, as if Rang had been trying to make them as conspicuous as possible. She would have to wear a turtleneck and then tie a scarf above that and hope her hair would hide the rest.
For two weeks. She would have to wear a scarf on top of a turtleneck for two weeks and hope that her sudden style change wasn't too suspicious.
Maybe she should just get a neck brace, Ga Eul thought as she dabbed concealer on one of the lighter bruises. People got into accidents all the time and had to wear neck braces, right? The makeup was kind-of working, but she felt like she needed to buy another shade. Something lighter. Or darker? Or a combination of the two?
Ga Eul cast her eyes about the room, searching for inspiration. She emptied out her makeup bag, then her other toiletries bag. Lotion and face cream, blush and powder, floss and toothpaste—all spilled out onto Rang's sink counter. She'd read in a magazine once that toothpaste helped love bites heal faster. Would that work on fox bites?
Ga Eul didn't know, but bruises were bruises whether they came from a fox or a human. Perhaps the science was still sound, if that method worked at all. Deciding to giving it a shot, Ga Eul clipped her hair up and wiped the foundation off, then squeezed a generous amount of toothpaste onto her finger. She slowly began coating her neck with the minty paste. It felt sticky and gross, but she was going to take a shower anyway. Once she finished, she sat on the edge of the tub and waited for several minutes; her neck tingled, and she hoped that meant the toothpaste was doing its work.
This had to be one of the weirdest things she'd done in her life.
While Ga Eul sat there, absently tapping the edge of the tub, she noted that Rang's bathroom had the same color scheme as his bedroom: blue, gray, and white. Ga Eul wondered if blue was Rang's favorite color, though she saw him wearing far more black and red. She wondered if he did that to give humans a certain impression of him. She tried to conjure an image of him intimidating people in his beige sweatpants and couldn't. Or maybe that was her bias bleeding through.
Yeah, for all she knew, he'd murdered someone in those sweatpants.
Well, maybe not those exact sweatpants.
A different pair.
Hopefully.
She'd decided she'd given the paste enough time to do whatever it was going to do and was about to get up and wash it off when Rang suddenly burst through the door, still dressed in the sweatpants in question, and she was sure her shocked expression mirrored his as he took in the sight of her perched on the edge of his tub with blue mint toothpaste coating her neck.
"What are you doing in here?!" she shrieked, bringing her hands up to her neck, which only made them sticky.
Ga Eul reluctantly lowered her hands, exposing her neck, and Rang frowned in confusion.
"What is that?...Is that...toothpaste?!"
"No!" Ga Eul shook her head vehemently. "And how can you burst in without knocking?!"
"I have to pee! And you were taking forever. Look, you're still wearing your pajamas." He pointed at her accusingly. "You haven't even turned the water on."
"I was getting to that!"
"When? Tomorrow? After you finished cleaning your whole body with a toothbrush? No wonder it was taking you so long. This is why I don't visit saunas. Humans have weird bathing rituals." Rang scrunched up his face.
"For your information"—Ga Eul huffed, standing and placing her sticky hands on her hips—"I'm trying to get rid of the bruises faster. You know, the ones you gave me." She pointed an accusatory finger right back at him.
Rang laughed.
"You weren't complaining yesterday," he remarked smugly, and Ga Eul's face grew hot. She started to stammer something in reply, but Rang cut her off. "You're trying to get rid of the bruises? Have you considered ice?" he asked, his lips curled in amusement.
Ice?
Oh, ice.
Of course.
Ga Eul knew that. Of course, she knew that. She'd just been so panicked...
"Ice? Of course, I've thought of ice," Ga Eul retorted. "I just...didn't know if you had ice...here."
And that was how Ga Eul ended up on Rang's couch after her shower, pressing an ice pack to one side of her neck while Rang pressed an ice pack to the other side. She'd put on a pair of white sweatpants and her favorite purple t-shirt, which sported a red heart on the left side of her chest.
"You should really stop getting injured." Rang tutted jokingly, and Ga Eul glared at him.
"This isn't fair. You should be covered in marks too," she complained.
"Really?" Rang raised his eyebrows. "Covered?"
"Ah, well...not covered but...you know what I mean!"
"I'm not sure I do." He grinned. "Would you like to demonstrate?"
"No!"
"No?"
"No."
"You're sure?"
Rang looked at her like she was a small child he was trying to bribe with a piece of candy.
As if he was a piece of candy.
As if she could be bribed—hah!
Still...
"Fine," she answered. "Let me try. At least I can get payback for some of these."
Maybe.
Doubtfully.
She didn't know how Rang could look so human and yet not bleed in the same way she did, but she'd tried to mark him before, and it hadn't worked. Maybe she just needed to try harder.
Setting aside her ice pack—her neck felt numb anyway—Ga Eul scooted closer to Rang, and, after a moment of hesitation, pressed her mouth to his neck and sucked at the skin there. Then she did it again in another place. And again in another. When she finally pulled away to observe her work, she saw nothing.
Absolutely nothing. His skin stayed smooth and blemish free, enviably so. Stupid fox genes.
"You're not doing it correctly," he chided.
"I am doing it correctly. It's not working," Ga Eul sulked.
"No, you're not. Should I show you again?" Rang leaned in towards her neck with a devilish smile, and Ga Eul scooted away from him quickly.
"Oh, n-no. Your privileges are revoked until the end of the school year," she said.
Rang pouted.
"Don't look at me like that!" Ga Eul tucked the ice pack under her chin.
"How about I just put this on your thighs too?" Rang grinned and held his ice pack away from her neck.
"No!" Ga Eul exclaimed, blushing.
Rang sighed.
"Ah, fine." He applied the ice pack to her neck again. "Can we at least have breakfast? I'm starving." With that statement, Rang gave her a tragically wounded look, as though she had been willfully withholding food from him all morning, and—wow—he did look like a pet with those puppy dog eyes.
"Can we have breakfast?" Ga Eul answered. "This is your apartment. What do you have to eat?"
"I don't remember," Rang replied, sounding utterly forlorn. How he could so easily transform from a mischievous fox into a needy child was beyond her.
Then again, he did know how to shapeshift.
"How do you not remember?" Ga Eul asked, removing her ice pack. Rang followed suit, turning his ice pack over in his hands.
"I've been eating at Shin-joo and Yu Ri's a lot. I told you I don't cook."
"Ah...So you're expecting me to cook?" Ga Eul raised her eyebrows.
"Thank you for offering!" Rang replied joyfully. He snatched up Ga Eul's ice pack and took off towards the kitchen with both ice packs in hand.
With nothing for Ga Eul to do but follow him, she got up as well and made her way over to the kitchen counter, where Rang had plopped himself onto a bar stool and seemed to be waiting for Ga Eul to pull a meal from the air. He propped his chin on his hands and smiled at Ga Eul when she made her way around the counter to stand in the middle of the kitchen.
"Don't get too excited. I don't even know what ingredients you have yet," she warned him.
"I have full faith in you. You said you used to work in a restaurant."
"A porridge shop, but okay, yes. I do know how to make a few porridges since I worked there for six years. But most of the things I know how to cook are my mother's recipes, though I can't make them as good as her. I know three or four dishes pretty well. The rest I just practice at." Ga Eul shrugged apologetically.
"I want to eat anything you can make," Rang insisted, and Ga Eul gave him a small smile.
"We'll see," she muttered, turning towards the fridge, but in reality, she'd never cooked in such a nice kitchen before. There was so much counter space, much more than in her studio apartment, and it made her want to cook something complicated with a lot of ingredients she could spread all over the kitchen just because she had room. Ga Eul didn't admit this though. She simply opened the fridge—and soon found herself staring at a lot of empty white shelves. There were a few bottles of beer and a takeout box that she guessed had been there for a while.
"Oh." Ga Eul closed the refrigerator and inspected the cabinets. She didn't have much luck there either, as they contained nothing but condiments and oil.
"Wow," she said after a moment. "You don't even have rice."
"Ah...I'd been meaning to order more."
Ga Eul twisted around.
"Order more?"
"Sure." Rang took his phone out of his pocket and opened a grocery app. He held it up for her perusal. "I must admit, this human invention is rather helpful. You order online, and humans deliver everything to you. Reminds me of when my brother was a mountain god, and humans used to bring him gifts. Now I just press a few buttons, and humans bring me anything I want." Rang gave her a self-satisfied grin. He offered her the phone. "Here. You can order anything you want. But get something tasty."
For a second, Ga Eul hesitated, thinking to remark on his casual sense of entitlement, but as Ga Eul had long suffered such vain attitudes in the company of the F4, she decided to let it go. She'd learned to pick her battles.
"Do you ever physically go to the grocery store?" Ga Eul asked, tentatively accepting the phone.
"Why would I do that?"
"Because then you can pick things out yourself. That way, you get exactly what you want."
"You're just saying that because you have to do it all the time."
Well...yeah...maybe…
"You can order enough for the week," Rang continued. "Then if you want to come back and eat, you can."
"You mean if I want to come back and cook for you?" Ga Eul eyed him suspiciously. "Since I know you're not going to cook."
"That too." Rang smiled. "You wouldn't want all that food to go to waste."
"I'm going to order nothing but instant ramen," she joked.
Rang's face fell.
She knew what he was doing—he wanted her to stay, but instead of directly asking her, he was resorting to his usual persuasive tactics. But she also knew he didn't mean to harm her by it; he simply didn't know she would stay if he asked her politely. She understood him a little better now than she had the last time she'd been in his apartment.
"You know, if you want me to come back, you can just ask me," Ga Eul informed him, putting rice into her virtual cart. "You don't have to bribe me with food. Or the very tantalizing proposition of being your personal chef," Ga Eul noted dryly.
"I thought you had school," Rang said.
"I do, but I can take the bus from here." Ga Eul scrolled through the fresh vegetables. "I just have to wake up a little earlier."
"You don't have to take the bus. I can drive you. Like a chauffeur," Rang said, and Ga Eul was quietly amused that he would place himself in a serving position in relation to her while simultaneously insisting that she cook him dinner. That was the great paradox of Rang, she supposed. In any case, she knew Rang had offered to drive her home after school before, but she also knew that Rang wasn't a morning person.
"You're going to drive me to work in the morning? Like, seven in the morning?" Ga Eul clarified.
"Yes, of course. If you stay here...I mean, whenever you want to stay here...I'll drive you to school. And I can pick you up too. If you want. Unless you want to ride the bus," Rang said, and she wasn't sure he knew what he was saying, bursting with impatient energy as he was, but she had been having trouble walking to and from the bus stop, and he looked so innocently hopeful. And she had been missing him. She'd liked waking up in his apartment. Maybe she should take his offer for as long as he wanted to stick to it.
"All right," Ga Eul answered. "I won't stay every night," she cautioned, "just sometimes. But I'd like that."
Rang's face lit up adoringly with her acceptance, and she returned his smile, then resumed her search for ginger root on Rang's phone.
