A/N: Someone requested that I write Rang's POV in waiting for Ga Eul and the kiss in chapter eleven of I'd Eat Your Heart. Here you go, with a little extra. :)
"...[T]here are still remnants of a pathetic human heart inside of me. Is it because my blood is dirty?" -Lee Rang to Ki Yu Ri, Tale of the Nine-Tailed Episode 7
Rang had never understood the hold Ji Ah had on his brother, even when he'd been jealous of it. A relationship between a human and a fox was just this thing that wasn't supposed to exist, like Rang. Apparently, Yeon had a knack for caring about people he shouldn't.
Rang's father, like Yeon, had been a very powerful fox, so, in human terms, Rang was like the bastard son of a king. Yeon had been disappointed in him when they'd first met, calling him 'nothing special,' but even if Rang wasn't special, he wasn't normal either. To other humans, he was an evil omen. To other foxes, he was an aberration, a mistake. A thing that wasn't supposed to exist.
But he'd been stubborn. He'd existed anyway—sometimes carelessly, sometimes for revenge alone, but he'd stayed alive all these years. Maybe that was the human part of him, what drove him from one futile endeavor to another. Maybe that was the part that allowed him to hope. Maybe that was what made him hope now that Ga Eul would see him differently than every other human he'd known. That she'd give him some benefit of the doubt he didn't deserve.
But Rang should have known that history would repeat itself, as it always did.
Ga Eul wasn't coming.
Rang took another sip of his cold coffee and placed the mug back on its saucer.
He'd been in the cafe for a little over five hours now. As soon as he'd left the envelope in front of Ga Eul's door and, concealed at a distance, watched her take the package inside her apartment, he'd rushed over to the coffee shop and sat down at the same table he'd been at when he'd last seen her there. As though by sitting in the same spot he could summon her.
It wasn't working. She wasn't coming. Her time was almost up.
He didn't know why he'd been so sure his idea would work. He'd thought if he delivered the envelope in person, she'd refuse to take it. Or maybe she would take it, and he'd have to stand there awkwardly while she read the most honest statements he'd ever made right in front of him. And then she would have...would have…
He couldn't finish the thought. He had no idea what her reaction had been upon opening it.
What if she hadn't opened it at all? What if she'd taken one look at his note and thrown the package away?
No, that was ridiculous. Who wouldn't open it? Humans were insatiably curious that way. Drawn to mysteries, to cheap thrills.
She must have opened it, but maybe he'd been wrong in thinking she'd want to meet with him. Maybe he'd misread her the other day. Maybe she'd been taking the moral high ground with her questions. Maybe she genuinely hated him, but she didn't want to say that.
No, no. That didn't make sense. It didn't not make sense either. Ga Eul's face might usually be an open book, but he suspected her words were often more polite than her thoughts.
That was the worst part, the real reason why he hadn't wanted to be there when she read what he'd written. Even if, after all he'd confessed, she said no to trying things with him, he knew she wouldn't laugh at him; she wouldn't insult him; she wouldn't act cruel. That wasn't Ga Eul's character.
No, she'd let him down gently with those soft eyes of hers.
She'd...pity him, and he could take outright rejection better than pity. Cruelty, he was used to; he could twist it back on whoever wronged him until they hurt worse than him. He'd killed the villagers who'd set fire to his forest. If he'd known where it was, he would have spit on his mother's grave.
Pity was worse than cruelty because it assumed that he couldn't fight back; it assumed he was weak and pathetic. It made him feel small, and Rang hated feeling small because somewhere deep inside he was small. Still a child waiting for his mother and his brother to return. Waiting to be told that he was good enough, that he was worthy of love.
And now he was waiting on someone else who wasn't coming.
Rang frowned at his mug. He needed something stronger than coffee if he was going to keep thinking like this. Thankfully, in a few minutes, he'd be gone, and, after today, he wouldn't think anymore on this failed experiment. This moment of weakness. This one time that he'd let the human part of his heart gain a little bit of ground, this one time that he'd let himself feel dirty. He regretted answering Ga Eul's questions now, regretted being fooled again. Whatever he'd felt for that teacher was an anomaly, and she was a blip in his long existence. He'd destroy that charm no matter what he had to pay for it. He'd...
Rang felt someone watching him, felt it with the familiar sensation of someone used to being spied upon or stabbed in the back. But for the first time when he looked up and saw that, indeed, someone was watching him, he felt relieved instead of panicked. Relieved and maybe a little awed.
The person watching him was Ga Eul, draped in a flattering purple coat; she stood out among the other customers clad mostly in blacks and greys near the front counter. A bright spark against the world's usual dullness. Her hair, too, was a lustrous shade of copper that shone in the electric lighting. She looked different—more stylish, prettier even—but it was her.
She'd come.
Ga Eul wanted cake.
Well, more accurately, she wanted to share cake, and Rang did not share. Not when he'd had to fight tooth and nail for everything he'd ever had. But...he grudgingly agreed to her request; he wasn't hungry anyway; he'd only mentioned dessert to get out of talking about his powers. Now that was a topic best discussed...never. Ga Eul wasn't an idiot; she probably wouldn't piece together everything, but one thing would lead to another…
Anyway, the cake...the cake he could do without. Still, when he returned with the generous slice—he'd made sure to get the kind she liked, the one he'd seen her eating when he'd bought her all those desserts that one week—he sliced it precisely down the middle. Rang would concede that much to her but nothing more. His point made, he sat down and made to cut into his half, but to his shock Ga Eul beat him to it. She swiped a bite from right under his nose.
Rang stared at her as she smiled while chewing; in his surprise, he forgot to glare at first. What was she playing at?
"You're playing with fire," he informed her after watching her chew for a bit too long.
In response, she reached over and took more of the whipped cream off the top of his cake. His scowl deepened. Why, the little—
"Actually, I'm playing with whipped cream," Ga Eul answered. Then she laughed, and his brain switched off. She got brighter when she laughed, like she was absorbing all the light in the room and reflecting it. Also, she had a splotch of whipped cream on the corner of her mouth that he wanted to swipe away with his thumb. Whatever brilliant thing he'd been about to retort slipped away from him. Unsure what was happening—what strange magic she was working upon him—he slid his eyes back to the remainder of his cake.
"This is why I don't share my food," he muttered lamely.
"This is why you've never had a girlfriend."
"How do you know that? You said I'm handsome. You said I could even be an actor."
"You said it in your letter. You said you'd never been in love."
Rang chewed slowly. Well, she was correct. He'd never been in love, but it hadn't exactly been on his to-do list. Sure, he'd fooled around with random foxes over the years, usually those from weaker bloodlines who cared less about his half-blood status and more about his relation to Yeon, but even if any of those foxes had wanted to be attached to him in that way, until a year or so ago, he'd been finished with love and its disappointments in any form. But maybe it would seem absurd to Ga Eul that he was over six hundred years old and he'd never been attached to anyone. The last thing he wanted her to think was that he was, um...deficient...in any way.
"What does that have to do with me having a girlfriend? You think everyone has relationships for love?"
"No. But I think you like being alone," she observed. "I don't think you would break that for just anyone." She made the assessment calmly and matter-of-factly, like she'd known him his entire life. Perhaps it was an oversimplification—she didn't know him that well—but she was correct. He preferred being alone to being with anyone he didn't trust, which was most people.
"You seem to think you know a lot about me," he evaded, still not wanting to confirm her assumption.
Ga Eul shrugged. She took another bite of her cake.
"There is one more thing I would like you to tell me."
"What is it?"
"Why do you like me?"
Rang halted, his next bite of cake half-way to his mouth.
Hadn't he answered that already?
"Didn't I answer that...on the paper?"
"Yes, but...I want you to tell me in person." Ga Eul smiled sweetly, as if confessing something like that was the easiest thing in the world, and maybe it was for her, but Rang preferred being alone to confessing his feelings—or feeling his feelings, for that matter. He stabbed at his cake and refused to look at her.
At least, he'd thought he preferred being alone. Even if he was on guard all the time, it was better than waiting to be held by arms that would never reach for him or being struck from behind when he least expected it. He'd known the day his mother led him into the forest that he wouldn't be coming back out, but he'd kept holding onto her hand, holding onto some reckless hope that she would regret her decision and turn them around. That maybe when she reached the point of having to leave him, she wouldn't be able to go through with it. Or that maybe he was wrong and she really did love him and she wasn't leading him to his death.
He'd never forget the sharp rush of panic when he first saw one of the undead lunging towards him. But, mostly, he'd never forget the quiet that came before, such quiet that he could hear every snapped twig, every crushed leaf.
After he'd been left alone the second time—when his brother had disappeared—he'd made sure to keep to himself but to always watch his back.
"In the forest," he began without really knowing where he was going with the phrase, "when it gets too quiet, you start feeling like something is going to jump out and attack you at any moment. Because why else would nature fall so silent? What do the birds know that you don't?" He paused, trying to grasp what Ga Eul meant in that context. He didn't know why he was thinking about that incident in relation to her, not until he glanced up at her and noted how peaceful she looked, patiently waiting for him to continue. She was a patient person—with Soo-oh, with him. She'd explain the same concept to Soo-oh five times in a row without batting an eyelash. She'd answer a hundred of the little human's inane questions without rolling her eyes or snapping in annoyance. She was a comfortable, dependable person. He'd always been on edge around his mother and the villagers in the place where he'd grown up. He'd been waiting to be accused of something or attacked as far back as he could remember. But even if Ga Eul had ammunition to attack him with, she hadn't used it. She wouldn't. She was...safe.
Rang blinked away the water in his eyes and continued softly, "I don't like quiet much. I know one thing only. If you're not the one doing the hunting, then you're most definitely the one being hunted...But...you're quiet...and calm...and soft, like rain. You're the only quiet I've ever known that's comfortable." Rang didn't look up at her. He hadn't been able to pinpoint what he'd liked so much about her before that moment. He felt overwhelmed by the realization and more than a bit uncomfortable at confessing such things.
"Are you sure I'm not hunting you? I did track you down at your apartment," Ga Eul said, breaking his train of thought. When he glanced up, he saw her smiling. She was teasing him, but she was also giving him an out. Probably she'd sensed his change in mood. She'd done that before—deflected something heavy with a joke at the exact moment he felt himself becoming too unnerved by the topic. It was strange how observant she could be in some ways and yet how utterly clueless she could be in other ways. Regardless, he was grateful the change in subject.
"Yeah, that's true. You snuck up on me. Good job. That's difficult to do." He smiled as he offered her one of his rare compliments.
She smiled back warmly. A smile without pretense.
Overall, the evening had gone better than Rang could have imagined, and now that he was walking with Ga Eul up to her apartment, he'd begun to wonder if the night would continue. After all, Ga Eul had called him her boyfriend back at the café, and she was leading him up to her apartment.
Boyfriend. What a human term. But coming out of her mouth, he liked the endearment. He liked that the word described him as hers.
At her apartment door, Ga Eul turned, her cheeks red with cold and her coat dotted with white snow flakes. The visible puff of air she expelled drew his eyes to her lips. He had the sudden realization that he could kiss her now. He wanted to kiss her so badly, to touch her, to make sure he wasn't dreaming. To make sure that she was really there and she truly wanted him.
She'd come.
She'd actually come.
That didn't make sense, but neither did her general appearance in his life. Perhaps the gods had made a mistake; whatever was between them really shouldn't exist, but it did.
He should take advantage before it slipped away.
"Um, well…" Ga Eul trailed off, and he waited with bated breath for her to invite him inside. Unfortunately, she didn't complete the thought. She had a shy look on her face, and her bashfulness was so adorably human of her that he couldn't resist any longer.
He pulled her to him and kissed her.