If he had a tail, Hak's sure it would be wagging.

Stupid. Hak the guard dog fetches his master a glass of water and tries schooling his expression into something less pleased. The smile is as thrilled as he is, and Hak thinks the look on his face must be a little frightening, judging by the bartender's reaction. He takes a few quick breaths, in and out, and reminds himself of who he is and where he stands - and reminds himself, too, of why Yona had even kissed him at all.

If he can call it a kiss. She'd kissed his cheek. Simple and sweet. Chaste. Really, the sort of smooch mothers give their babies, the sort that children give each other when they're forced to say goodbye to one another. Is he really so pathetic that even a fleeting peck on the face is enough to make his tail wag?

Apparently. Hak tries scowling instead. Finds that works better than trying to keep his expression neutral, and turns to deliver her highness her refreshments.

She's hard to pick out in a crowd. Even with her new hairstyle and clothes, even with all of the eyeliner she'd caked onto her face, even with the brightness of her hair - well, she blends in here. Even if Yona's fiery mane is natural, stark red hair is sort of trendy for this scene, and it's not like his little fake girlfriend is, well, tall. She's tiny. Barely reaches his shoulders.

Crap. Hak beelines for where he'd left her, hoping, miraculously, that his curious, stubborn heiress hadn't decided to go adventuring on her own. Even as he's pushing his way through the crowd, he knows such a wish is a pipe dream. With the way she'd been sizing up the front doors before they'd even walked in, or that look she'd had in her eye when she'd allowed her hand to trail down the front of his shirt after she'd planted a kiss on him - well, it's clear Yona's out for blood tonight.

For whose blood is yet to be discovered. Perhaps Hak shouldn't be the one doing the hunting.

Ah, well. Her safety is more important than a little bloodshed. What's the worst she can do to him anyway? Kiss him? He'd already weighed the pros and cons of this whole act anyway when he'd accepted this role. It's not like Hak doesn't already know he's stranded upstream without a paddle; he's fucked, he will always be fucked and will continue to be fucked long after this facade has ended.

But it's whatever. If it makes her happy, was it really all that bad? Hak doesn't tug on his leash. He trots far too faithfully after his master, drink in hand. Besides, it isn't like he doesn't already know how this ends. He's not foolish enough to believe, even for a moment, that this will end in happily ever after for the two of them.

He finds his master without much effort. Yona is out for blood tonight, and proves so by fighting her way onto a table, of all things. That's fine. What's less fine is the gaggle of men who've begun surrounding their newest manic pixie dream girl like moths to a flame.

Bottom feeders. Hak elbows his way through the crowd. "Princess."

The music is loud and Yona must pretend not to hear him over it. She continues jumping, or dancing, or… whatever it is she's trying to do. Moshing? By herself? On a table?

"What are you doing," he deadpans.

"Is that for me?" she asks, a bit louder than she probably needs to.

Still, she takes the glass from him and takes a long sip of water, and the crowd around her shuffles closer. Hak has half a mind to throw elbows and knock some teeth out but resists, barely, instead electing to hold a hand out to her and hopefully convince her to relocate.

No such luck. She hands the glass back to him and continues her thrashing.

Typical Yona. Stubborn and impulsive. Hak sighs and shoves the empty glass at some guy on her left, who's no doubtedly trying to sneak a peek beneath the oversized shirt she's wearing as a dress. "Yona."

She stumbles. Hak reaches to steady her, and manages to do so before any of her newly acquired fanclub can try the same - he makes contact with her knee and her resulting gasp kicks him in the gut. But now is not the time to be getting flustered by her bare skin, and Hak is her friend first before he is a man attracted to her, and reaches for her hand, next, slowly ushering her toward the edge of the table she's co-opted.

"Hey," she mutters, and as soon as she's close enough, Hak braces a hand on her hip instead of her knee. "I was having fun-"

"You can have fun away from men who're trying to throw themselves at you."

Yona huffs. Allows him to lead her anyway, surprisingly submissively, and Hak doesn't let himself follow that particular train of thought. "What," she says, "are you jealous?"

Not exactly. Still, he has a role to play, and if Yona's taking this ploy seriously, who says he can't, too?

"I think your boyfriend has the right to be," he says, loudly enough for it to be impossible for the school of fish around her to ignore. They don't disperse the way he hopes they will. And, well, he's her boyfriend for now, even if it's in name only, and if that's who she wants him to be for the time being, so be it. He'll be the big scary overprotective boyfriend she wants. He'll scare the shit out of her father. He'll scare the shit out of any man trying to sneak a peek beneath her skirt.

Her cheeks are suspiciously pink. He knows its not out of anything but pleasant surprise. "I wasn't doing anything wrong. I was just dancing while I was waiting for you to come back, and then they showed up, and I thought it was because I was really good at it or something, so-"

It's still weird for him to be eye level with her hips. Hak links an arm around her waist and hefts her into his arms, allowing her to slide, slowly, down his chest, until her feet are planted safely on the floor and there aren't wandering eyes seeking out that magical place between her thighs. He thinks not of how warm she is pressed against him, or how soft she'd been, sliding so neatly against his chest, or how hers had pressed against his - he'd said once (or twice) that Yona lacked a certain sex appeal, and it'd certainly been to throw her off his trail. Or perhaps it'd been to hammer it home for himself - that Yona wasn't somebody he could look at with such heated eyes.

Still. He's not made of stone, despite his best efforts. And okay, maybe he'd been a bit jealous of bottom feeders gawking so openly at Yona, the untouchable, and hates himself for it. Here he still is, perpetuating that pedestal she's trying to dearly to climb down from.

"Boyfriend," Yona mumbles, nose pressed to his chest.

Something purrs in his gut, ancient and strangled by his leash. Hak links an arm around her shoulder and glares at the residual men, still lingering. "Show's over," he grunts. "Get lost before I call the cops. She's underage."

.

It's less like partying and more like babysitting.

Yona is hard to keep tabs on. She's faster than she looks, and those legs of hers are deceptively long; she squeezes and sneaks her way through a crowd of punks and goths in ways Hak can't. Part of it might be that she's a cute girl, and some of these losers have never spoken to woman in their life, but she's also compact, and her shoulders cut through moshing men and duck beneath thrashing arms.

He does his best. Puts on his best scary face and stares down men who get too handsy. Tries to plant himself as close by as he can without getting in smacking zone of her enthusiastic dancing arms and hands. There's not much of a difference between fake boyfriend and loyal guard dog, he thinks, and it's a little funny, because he's been playing this role even before she'd knighted him. Playing pretend isn't that different from reality, especially when the only thing that's changed is that she's a bit more touchy-feely with him.

He really sort of likes it when she's touchy-feely with him. He also hates it.

It's a double ended blade.

Still, it's nice to see that she's having fun. The whole scene is not one he would've pegged her for, but it's refreshing to see how easily she falls into his step. That purring in his gut refuses to quit, and Hak decides that it's the rumbling of the bass that makes his heart stutter in his chest, and not the pride that comes with Yona fully embracing his venue and hobby of choice.

"This is so fun!"

"So you like being a riot girl after all."

If the crown fits. Yona beams and boogies her way over to him, then takes his wrists into her hands and forces him into step with her. She's not very good at dancing, and she doesn't have the best sense of rhythm, but Hak finds it's still easy to fall under her spell anyway.

"You know," she says after headbanging, "I can see why you like going to these things."

"What, shows?"

"It's like I'm somebody else for a bit." Hak wishes he could pretend she was somebody else, too. But he doesn't comment on such and allows her to finish, watching, distractedly, how she brushes her hair back from her face, how the lipgloss makes her hair stick to her lips. "It's freeing."

Her hair is frizzy and standing on end. It's the cutest thing he's ever seen. Hak takes to smoothing it down instead of responding.

It's like the light's finally clicked on in her head. She gasps and runs her fingers through her fluffy curls. "Oh!" she yelps, jumping back, "does it look bad? Shoot-"

"Your eyeliner is smudged," he says, without missing a beat. "You fit right in."

He can take the girl from the throne, but he can't take the princess out of the girl. She gives him a short, panicked smile. "I'll be right back," she says, excusing herself. "I'm just going to freshen up in the bathroom for a sec-"

"I'll come with you," he says automatically.

Yona's lips press together. "Um, no you won't."

"I'll stand outside the bathroom."

"You're not my dad!" she says stubbornly, and stops only to poke him in the stomach before slipping her way through the crowd in that uncanny way of hers.

.

It doesn't stop him from worrying over her.

Stupid. He's not her father, and he ought to remember that - but he is her boyfriend, even if it's all a farse, and he thinks that still allots him a certain amount of concern points. Beyond that, even, he's her friend, and after watching men flock to her table for a chance of touching a real life girl, it's clear that he has good reason to hover. There's something about her that's so magnetic - and Hak would be lying if he didn't feel that same pull, even if there's so much guilt tied up in it that sometimes it's hard to tell what's born from attraction and what's born from responsibility.

Still. He knows how men can be. Knows how clueless Yona can be, and how needlessly kind she can be - and more than that, Hak knows how frustratingly stubborn and headstrong his faux girlfriend is, and it's that and that alone that really motivates him to fight through the crowd and stand outside the ladies restroom like a chaperone, waiting.

If he gets weird looks from the exiting women, whatever. Hak keeps his head down and his arms crossed as he leans against the wall and waits dutifully.

He prepares to wait a while, of course. Yona is nothing if not vain, and especially when it comes to her hair, she's been known to fret. Which is funny, considering how little hair she has left - but then again, the memory of her recklessly chopping it off is still so fresh, and dithering on it sort of makes his fingers itch and his throat tighten.

She'll turn him gray early.

A while becomes too long, eventually, and Hak gets sick of waiting. This guard dog still has a job to do, and so when the next girl leaves the restroom - a girl with bright blue eyes and long, long dark hair - he clears his throat.

She jumps. Squints at him. "Hello?"

"... Is the redhead still in there?"

Dark hair continues to narrow her eyes at her. Two other, taller women begin to flank her protectively. "What's it to you?"

Ah. Well. Hak supposes this could come across as a bit predatory. Hell. "... Just wanted to make sure she's not getting sick in there."

The girl stares at him for a long time, obviously suspicious. Hak supposes he doesn't blame her; he knows there is an alliance of sorts when it comes to women in bar bathrooms, and he doesn't fault them for it; hell, the whole reason why they'd feel the need to unionize is the same reason why he's hanging out here waiting for her to come out anyways. Still, she doesn't know that, and it's not like Hak's known for being looking nonthreatening.

Finally, though, she relents. "Yeah. She's combing her hair."

"Still?"

"Frizzy haired girls have it worst of all," she says, sniffing. "I gave her some liquid courage to get her through it."

Hak blinks. "What."

"She just looked sad! Girls don't let other girls sadly comb their hair in the bathroom."

Liquid courage. Hak's brain bluescreens for a moment and then he's rubbing his face. "She's- you didn't look at her hand for a stamp, did you-"

Dark haired girl sticks her note in the air. Shrugs. "She needed a pick me up! Get over yourself. What, are you some kind of overprotective boyfriend or something?"

Hak grits his teeth. "Or something."

"She's fine. It's not like I got her wasted or anything. I just gave her a shot of tequila. It won't kill her."

Why would you bring tequila into the bathroom with you, Hak finds himself thinking, but the women on either side of this shorter girl give him a look, and he wisely shuts up. Whatever. At least he has confirmation on her location. "Thanks," he says instead.

She raises her brow, even as she's turning to leave. Gives him a look over her shoulder, a long, lingering stare that sort of makes Hak feel like he's being held under a microscope. "... For what?"

Hak stares pointedly at the bathroom door, as if the weight of his stare could will it open, could will Yona into the hallway. "Talking to her."

The girl shrugs and allows her friends to usher her back onto the dance floor - and, presumably, away from the large man hanging outside the women's bathroom. Whatever. It doesn't really matter what people think of him. It never has. If Hak cared what other people thought of him, he wouldn't wear as much black, wouldn't rip his sleeves, wouldn't moodily pick at his bass guitar at three in the morning as often as he does. When it comes down to it, there's really only one or two people he cares for the opinion of.

"Yona," he calls, still outside the bathroom door.

There's shuffling on the other side of the door. Hak can hear the faucet switch off. "Mmh!"

"Yona," he says again, still testing how her name feels on his tongue. It's weird, calling her by her given name and not by any nickname that he's hidden behind for years. "You okay in there?"

The door squeaks, and then Yona's poking her little red head out from the bathroom, narrowing her eyes. "You're not my dad! Don't worry so much, you big lug-"

He grabs her wrist and tugs her out without further thought. She stumbles after him and whines but doesn't trip and fall. So maybe it'd really only been one shot of bathroom tequila and nothing more. Maybe his fake girlfriend can hold her liquor better than he thought she'd be able to.

Which is surprising in itself. Beyond Yona being seventeen and a booze virgin, she's also barely more than five feet tall, and can't weigh more than ninety pounds soaking wet. Of course he's going to worry. Reputation dangerous venues are one thing - actually dangerous situations are something else entirely, and he's in the business of worrying her father, not getting her killed or shucked on the side of the road somewhere.

"Ow," she whines, squirming. "Grip, Hak, leggo-"

He loosens his fingers around her wrist but doesn't release her entirely. "Sorry."

"Don't know your own strength?" she asks, and there's a curious smile tugging at her lips, a pink heat warming along her cheeks, across the bridge of her nose. "Big lug."

Such words of endearment for her boytoy. Hak wonders if maybe he should have a drink too, just to get through this night with his heart still intact.

Yona selfconsciouly combs her fingers through her hair with her free hand and looks up at him. "I- does it look okay? I tried wetting it, but once it frizzes there's never any going back…"

She looks every bit the rock and roll vamp queen she'd been aiming to be, poofy hair and all. It's almost cuter, the way her hair refuses to sit and behave, the way the back stands up on end, and the way her bangs seem to fan over her forehead - but he can't tell her that, even under the ruse of pretend, and so he shrugs instead and grunts noncommittally. What more can he offer her?

That smile falls, just a bit, as she begins to comb more vigorously. "Ugh. Maybe headbanging was a bad idea."

"Your neck won't thank you for it, that's for sure."

She slips her wrist from his fingers and elbows him in the gut. "Shush, you."

Soo-Won would compliment her kindly. He knows it. Soo-Won would offer her a pretty smile and tell her she looks lovely no matter what she does, no matter the haircut, no matter the texture - but Soo-Won isn't here, and the whole reason Hak's here is because Yona can't think of anyone less like her prince charming. What a corner she's backed him into.

Indecision will eat him alive. He is Son Hak, coward. He scratches the back of his neck and settles with, "You look fine."

Even without looking at her, he knows she's turned her eyes to him, and her stare could burn him alive. Stupid. What's he doing, feeling so nervous around her? They've done this song and dance a thousand times, he's lived this life a hundred times - attraction to her is not new. Being unable to act upon it is not new either.

What is new is how long her stare lingers.

The back of his neck feels hot. Stupid. "You fit right in. Relax."

"But-"

It's cute. He should tell her that the way her hair looks is cute, and should tell her that there's a part of him that wants to run his fingers through the soft curls, even as short as she's cut them.

He doesn't. He is Hak, boyfriend only in name. This is not his role to play in her life. Prince Charming has never been his title.

"You're a cherry bomb now," he finds himself saying instead. "Remember?"

It's weird how in tune with her feelings he is these days. Or maybe she's just not very good at not broadcasting how she feels; Hak doesn't have to look to know that she's smiling. He just sort of knows, instinctively, and though it lifts a weight off of his chest, it plunges that guilt deeper, deeper, a sharp knife to the gut.

He should tell her. Should tell her his motivation, even if it doesn't constitute as a traditional ulterior motive. It's not fair to her, he thinks, to harbor feelings that she's not aware of, to allow her to smile at him like that and take his hand into hers and not know. It's like hiding behind a mask. It's cowardly.

He can't bring himself to do it.

Yona tugs him onto the dance floor and smiles big, and this time he faces her, even as that knife in his gut twists. They play pretend and dance, Yona bouncing to and fro, hands gripping the front of his jean jacket. The way her hair hits her cheek as she jumps is the most adorable thing he's ever seen, and that ancient longing in his bones whispers sweet nothings.

A lesser man could pretend that this was for real. This - the hand holding, leading her through crowds with a hand between her shoulder blades, the smiles she keeps sending him, her lips on his cheek - none of it is real. It's to prove a point. To scare her dad, because he's the textbook definition of the type of guy one should never bring home to mom and dad.

There's an insult in there somewhere. He chooses not to face it. It's not like his self loathing needs any more material.

There are bigger things to worry about. Hak leans over and asks, "You feel alright?"

She quirks her head. Raises a brow. "Huh?"

"Your stomach. The tequila."

Yona pinks, then pushes his face away. "Don't baby me so much! Relax! I'm a bad bitch, I can handle a shot, don't-"

She is seventeen. In the middle of a hot dance floor. Sandwiched between people both taller and larger than her. This isn't his first rodeo. Hak pushes her hand away and stares at her expectantly. "Yona."

She bunches up her nose. "It's fine! I just feel warm, and, um, I guess my face is really warm, but-"

Riot girl taking over the world. Hak sighs and relents, only because he knows, instinctively, that pushing will get him nowhere. Yona is as stubborn as she is lovely, and especially now that she's on this maturity kick, there's not a force in the world that could stop her. And for as frustrating as it is, watching her bulldoze through life, watching her throw her hands overhead and dance, it's also endearing, in a weird way. Charming.

He should stop sugarcoating it. It's hot. She's hot. He hates how hot she is.

She'll turn him gray early.

The song ends and Yona stops thrashing around. She looks up at him, a laugh caught in her throat, eyes bright, despite all of the eyeliner rimming them. The hottest raccoon he's ever encountered, and that knife rips out of him, and all at once, Hak feels like his guts are spilling out onto the dancefloor.

"... Oh," she says, more softly, as the music switches to something acoustic. Something sluggish and morose. Her hands shift back to gripping his jacket, and he wonders if she could cauterize the wound, wonders if she could press her hands to his ribcage and force his heart back inside.

Yona shifts back and forth, like it's a middle school dance in here, and she's trying to slow dance with her quarterback crush for the first time.

Oh.

"You're too short," Hak says automatically. He hadn't been entirely serious, thinking about Yona forcing his wound shut - pressing her to him wouldn't lessen the bleeding. If anything, it'd run him dry quicker.

What a corner she's backed him into. Does she expect him to bleed out on her? Does she know?

His princess pouts. Tugs on his jacket persistently. "That's quitters talk."

Her pull on him is the most deadly siren's call. He is but her humble servant, it seems, and she wields her word like a weapon. Tilts her head and asks, "please, Hak?" and it's like he's never stood a chance to begin with.

Hak takes her head and presses it into his chest. Perhaps it'll be easier if he can't see her face. If he can't gaze dopily into her eyes maybe it'll be easier for him to write this whole thing off like it hadn't been devastating. It's pathetic; when he'd accepted the job, he'd known what he was getting into, which feelings he was putting on the line. To get so choked up at the way she was looking at him, to feel his blood sing as she links her arms around his waist and snuggles her head into his chest - it's unreasonable. It's suicide.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. Part of him had thought it would never get this far. Like her father would take one look at him in his combat boots and towering height and relent, instantly, and then Yona would be planning her wedding to Soo-Won and Hak could go back to pretending like he never had any feelings to begin with. Normal stuff.

Some guard dog he is. Servants have no chance with their masters. He knows that. He's known it for years, since the first time she'd smiled at him and his heart had done that little racing thing it's doing right now.

He needs to be put back into his place, he thinks, even as his hands wrap around her, too, and pull her close. There's no space between them. What can he possibly hide, when she's right there, pressed to his chest? Surely she must hear the beating of his heart. She's dense but not clueless. Yona is stubborn, not stupid.

Hak banks on that tequila making her a little slow on the uptake. He takes a deep breath and schools himself back into bored indifference. Fake boyfriend. Fake boyfriend. Effectively paid muscle. Scary arm candy. The opposite of what she wants.

The opposite of what she wants.

Yona turns her face and presses her cheek to his chest instead of her nose. "Soo-Won's never taken me dancing before," she says, far too dreamily.

He just might die here. Her ear is pressed to him now, and if his heart commits mutiny and blows his secret, Hak will never recover. "He's clumsy," Hak says after a moment.

The acoustic guitar swells into a melody. Yona is terrible at keeping a beat, so Hak takes the lead, out of necessity. He guides her back and forth, back and forth, hoping, desperately, that maybe it'll lull her to sleep, with that little bit of alcohol in her blood working as a sedative. It's as cowardly as it is self indulgent, and he doesn't hate himself any less for it.

"Mmm," Yona hums. She allows him to lead her, even if it's more rocking her at this point, and pays no attention to the crowd that's begun to disperse around them.

He wonders, not for the first time, what they're doing here, as if anyone in this joint would actually recognize an heiress and call her folly. Is this what she meant when she said she wanted to embrace the bad girl life? Swaying back and forth in his arms? In a place where no one would know her name? Foolish. Misguided.

And yet here he is, with her anyway. And yet here he is, leading her through it.

"This is fun," she mumbles. "Thanks."

Don't thank me, he thinks. There's nothing to thank me for.

"I think I'd like to do this again someday," she continues, bulldozing forth, as always. "Maybe Soo-Won would want to come along too. We could get disguises…"

Something pinches in his chest. Hak suspects it's his heart. "I can't imagine Soo-Won in eyeliner. Or anything black."

She laughs, then, tiny and honest. "Could you imagine me? The me from before?"

Hak can't separate the two in his head. Yona with short hair and even shorter skirts is still Yona with ribbons tied in her hair and stockings on her skinny legs. They're not two different entities - both are Yona, two parts to her whole, and he doesn't know how to tell her that this girl has always existed inside of her.

"Makeup only changes the way you look," he mutters.

"Yeah," she sighs, "but-"

"You're the only person I know crazy enough to chop all of your hair off. And you've always been this way. Nothing's changed."

Yona makes a little frustrated noise against his chest. It takes everything in him not to collect her into his arms and pull her toward his face, and maybe kiss her on her cheek and see how she likes it. But he doesn't because he is stronger than that, and if nothing else, Hak is of the iron-clad will variety.

"But I'm different now," she says, and her thumb rubs against the line of his spine, perhaps mindlessly, without her consent. And maybe Hak's been wrong all along, and maybe he's a cat and not a dog, because he sort of feels like purring, more than anything else. "I'm-"

"A bad bitch?"

She nods. He thinks she might be hiding a smile in his jacket. "An adult," she corrects. "And I make my own decisions now. Nobody gets to tell me what I can and can't do."

"I think that's just teenage rebellion."

"Do you think I'm being unreasonable?" she asks, all of a sudden. "Or stupid? About marrying Soo-Won, I mean. It's not like it's come out of nowhere. I've always wanted him, and I don't think that makes me impulsive or anything, just because he's suddenly seeing me as a woman…"

She's always been unreasonable about everything. Her heart's too big, too stubborn. "Teenage marriage doesn't tend to last very long."

"But I love him."

He could never forget it. "You might still love him in a few years, too."

"I know I will! So-"

"You're young," he says, though not dismissively. She's young and has her whole life ahead of her, and marriage is a big, weighted decision. "If you still feel this way after your birthday, sure, maybe."

"But it's my decision!"

So why'd you ask, he thinks, but doesn't voice. Instead, he says, "It's your decision, and no matter what you decide, I'll support you. Besides. You'll owe me after all of this is over. I'm going to stick annoyingly close and demand to be the best man at your wedding."

"That's Soo-Won's decision, not mine," she says, but she's smiling for sure, and Hak can't decide if it makes him feel better or worse.

He settles for better. It's for the best, this happily ever after that she's planned out in her head, and part of loving someone is wanting to see them succeed. And if this will make her really, truly happy, who is he to get in the way? It's not unreasonable to want to be happy, or to want to be with the person she loves - what's unreasonable is standing in the way of that for selfish reasons.

Reasons like his own feelings.

That thumb's still petting down his spine. Hak could melt here. He sort of wishes he would.