A/N: Happy New Year! :)

Some of you are wondering when (when?!) Yi Jeong will show up, and the answer is: two chapters from now! (so not in the next chapter, but the one after that)

Korean terms:

jangdo: a small, ornamental knife carried in clothing

kong-guksu: cold soy bean soup with noodles; a popular summer dish

"What's wrong with you? You look like someone spit on your food," Ga Eul commented as she and Rang chowed down on fried chicken after the end of her school day.

Rang eyed her curiously. He didn't want to talk about what had been bothering him since he'd left his brother's house that afternoon, but Ga Eul dealt with parents a lot. Maybe she could help.

"I have a human problem, and I can't solve it using my normal methods. Do you think you can fix it for me?" He tore into a drumstick.

"You mean you want me to do you a favor?" Ga Eul clasped a disbelieving hand to her heart.

Rang glared as he swallowed his chicken.

"We operate on a free system here. You never owe me, and I never owe you."

Ga Eul laughed.

"Relax, I'm kidding. I'm kidding." She tried to pat his arm, but he snatched his shirt sleeve away from her greasy fingers. "Of course I'll help you," she continued. "No favors. But it depends on what it is as to how much I can help you. Humans have many problems. You'll have to be more specific."

"Well, specifically, I need you to get Ji Ah's parents to let me play with Ha Eun."

"What do you mean? Don't you go over there all the time?"

"I go there, but unless they're out, I have to deal with them hovering on top of me. Especially the grandma. I swear she thinks I'm going to kidnap the baby. She barely lets me hold her, and half the time, she comes up with some excuse for why I can't see Ha Eun at all." Rang winced at the thought of the old woman wielding so much power over him.

"Hmm...It sounds like she doesn't like you very much."

"She hates me," he spat. He gnawed on a chicken bone, grinding it under his teeth.

"Well...that's very frustrating, but...wouldn't your brother be more help than I could be?"

Rang waved her suggestion off.

"My brother has divided loyalties. They're his in-laws. He lives with them. You, on the other hand, are only loyal to me. Besides, they like you."

Ga Eul frowned.

"They barely know me."

"Everyone likes you."

"I assure you, that isn't true." Ga Eul wiped her hands on a napkin. "The teacher who gives me bad performance reviews borderline hates me."

"I told you I'd take care of that. You said 'no.'" Rang gave her a pointed look.

"All right, well, we're not talking about me right now. Let's figure out a way to solve your problem that doesn't involve me getting mixed up in your family drama. Have you considered why they dislike you? What about offering them an apology?"

"An apology? For what?" So much for Ga Eul being on his side.

"Hmm, let's see. Trapping them in a plant for twenty years? Making their daughter grow up without her parents? You have to admit, they did miss twenty years of her life because of you."

"Well, it's not like they lost those twenty years. They were the same age when they came back. If anything, I gave them twenty extra years."

"That's not the point." Ga Eul drew herself up with authoritative poise, her know-it-all tone making him roll his eyes. "Their daughter was already grown when they returned. They missed so many moments of her life that they'll never get back no matter how many years they live. Wouldn't you be angry if someone kidnapped me and only returned me to you when twenty years of my life were gone? That's a quarter of the average human lifespan."

"All right, all right. I get it. Humans have short lives. Every moment is precious. Blah, blah, blah. You sound like my brother." Rang slouched down in his chair and scrunched his face.

"We're not just saying that, you know. It's true. We do have limited time."

Rang picked at the stripped bones on his plate. He didn't like to think of limits on his time with Ga Eul. Why couldn't she be a fox like Yu Ri and stay with him forever?

"Rang, trust me." She laid her hand on his arm, and this time, he let her. "I know how humans think. I know what makes us sad and scared and angry. Time with our loved ones is one of the most valuable things we have. For you to steal that, it's not a small thing. If you want my advice, a sincere and contrite apology is the way to go."


Rang and Ga Eul could have been doing any number of awful things from her list to wrap up her summer vacation, but instead Rang was apologizing to the grandparents from Hell.

Not that Rang could entirely blame Ga Eul for this development. He'd brought the subject of them up again when he was drunk—despite Ga Eul's assurances of 'that's just how babies are,' he was convinced Ha Eun hadn't recognized him at the cosplay convention—and Ga Eul wouldn't let it go the second time. No, no, she'd prepared a speech for him, dragged him to Yeon's house in the middle of the afternoon, and was currently knocking on the front door.

The burning sand on the beach sounded delightful right about now.

Thankfully, the in-laws didn't answer the door, but Ji Ah did.

"Oh, hi, you two. Lee Yeon's not here if you're looking for him."

"Unnie, we've come to apologize," Ga Eul noted cheerfully.

"Apologize? For what?"

"I mean, Rang would like to apologize to your parents." Ga Eul hooked her arm around his, and he resisted the urge to squirm like a worm on a hook. "I'm just here for moral support."

"It was her idea." Rang motioned to Ga Eul, and she shot him a warning glare. She nudged him in the ribs, and he was forced to continue, "Look, your parents don't like me, and I think we all know why. They didn't get to raise you or watch you grow up. Also, I tried to kill you. Now, will you let us in so I can make my apology and we can be on our way?"

Ji Ah looked caught between shock and suspicion, and Rang really needed her to hurry up and make a decision because the only thing keeping him rooted to the spot was Ga Eul's firm grip on his arm.

This was so embarrassing. Possibly the most embarrassing thing he'd done in his life.

"Well...my parents are outside in the garden," Ji Ah began, "but I'm not sure—"

"Don't worry, we won't disturb them too much," Ga Eul assured her. "Rang has a script, and I'll be there the whole time."

"A script?"

"Ga Eul wrote it."

"Ah." Ji Ah looked indecisive for a few more seconds, but stepped aside to let them in.

Had she been persuaded by Ga Eul's naive earnestness? By Rang's odd candor? He couldn't say. He only knew that Ji Ah had made a foolish decision, for once, and if Ga Eul hadn't been there, he would have told her so.

"They're drinking tea," she mentioned as she shut the front door. "I'll come with you."


Rang had been tailing the man through the city for maybe half an hour, slipping through the night's shadows like he was made of them.

Finally, after four years of learning the ways of the fox from Su Gyeong, she'd given him a solo mission. Loathe to believe that she trusted him to work alone, however, he kept checking over his shoulder for her watchful eyes. But he made quick work of it, never letting his gaze stray too long from his target. If he didn't bring back the information she wanted—'by whatever means necessary'—she might never again give him the opportunity to work on his own. And working on his own meant that he was a proper fox. It meant that he could do anything a full fox could do; it meant that she approved of him.

At fifteen, it was harder to go unnoticed, given his height, but he was still shorter than his brother had been, and too thin, and he felt awkward in his long limbs. He was still more boy than man, too large to be ignored but not imposing enough to be intimidating. At least, not at first glance.

He often felt like a boy wearing a man's clothes, except he wasn't a boy and hadn't been one for a long time. The years had sharpened him; like the axe that hung heavy at his waist, they'd broken skin and drawn blood and made him quick to recover and quicker to the draw.

He'd stopped wishing for his brother to return; he'd stopped dreaming of flying kites and playing baduk; he wanted two things only: to stay alive and to be a fox. A true fox, cunning and feared. Then he would be accepted in his brother's world, among the supernatural creatures there. He would be one of them. It was what he had chosen on the day his brother had saved him, and if he couldn't have his brother, he would have that.

If he couldn't have his brother, he would have revenge on the humans that took his brother from him. He, and Su Gyeong. They both would.

Perhaps they were very different, but they shared the loss of their siblings; they understood that about one another. They were not alone as long as they had each other, and how Rang hated to be alone. How he'd longed to be understood. And finally, he was. Finally, he'd found somewhere he belonged, and he was doing things only he could do. Things that fit him. Things that felt natural as breathing now that he'd grown used to them.

They weren't always good things—he knew that—but goodness wouldn't have gotten him far in a world that had never wanted him. He knew that now. And if the world was so ready to slit his throat, then he'd stab it in the back before it got the opportunity.


A few minutes later, Ji Ah was nowhere in sight, having disappeared to change Ha Eun's diaper. Meanwhile, Ga Eul had stationed herself at the kitchen window, where she appeared just above the heads of Ji Ah's parents, who were sitting at the wrought iron patio table.

Ga Eul gave him a smile and a thumbs up in the pause after his greeting, probably thinking he'd be fine if he just stuck to the script.

Ah, but did he really have to bow deeply to these people? That seemed excessive.

Was being trapped in a plant so bad? It wasn't like he'd hacked off their limbs. They'd said themselves that they only felt as though they'd been asleep for a long time. Should Rang apologize for gifting them a lengthy nap?

Rang remained razor-straight.

"Right, so…"

The grandparents stared at him with judgmental eyes. The grandfather sipped his tea. The grandmother frowned.

Rang cleared his throat.

"I've come here today...to offer an apology for…the whole...plant thing," he muttered, summarizing the first few sentences of his script.

He glanced up at the window.

Ga Eul was still smiling. She gestured for him to keep going, but she didn't understand. Human parents didn't like him. They'd never liked him. An apology wouldn't change that because it wouldn't change him.

Whenever he tried to be human, he screwed it up. He was always wearing the wrong shoes. He didn't know how much money a university student should have or the dress code for a police officer. Even now, he tried to remember the rest of his script but couldn't.

The grandparents were staring, and he felt like his tails and his eyes and his claws were exposed. Like he was in one of those cages at the zoo, and humans were picking him apart with their eyes. Like he was back in the village, and his mother was shouting at him to put his claws away, and he was trying to draw them back into his fingers, trying and trying desperately, but he didn't know how to control them.

Now his claws came out again, and he didn't bother controlling them.

"I was going to apologize, but you know…" His smile was razor-sharp. "You really should be thanking me."

Ga Eul frowned as Rang began pacing languidly.

"Now that I think about it, you came back the same age you were when you left. You still have the same amount of life, only now you get to spend it with your granddaughter and with your great granddaughter after her." He cocked his head. "It's almost as if...you owe me a favor." The words were sweet, yet savage; they felt right on his tongue.

When the grandfather rose up, indignant and chastising, he almost laughed.

It would be nothing for him to put them back where he'd plucked them from, yet the old man had the nerve to berate him. To demand an apology.

Rang snickered; he narrowed his eyes to slits.

Ga Eul mouthed something and waved her hands, but he ignored her.

"I owe you an apology?" He scoffed. "I believe you owe me an apology. What I did to you wasn't personal. You just happened to be Nam Ji Ah's parents. Is that my fault? But what you do to me, not allowing me to see my own niece, now that is personal. Where is my apology? Your daughter is the reason my brother and I were separated for centuries. You think you can hold a grudge? Well, I assure you, no one holds a grudge like I do." He pointed at himself and gave them an unfriendly smile. "I'd watch your backs if I were you."

Ga Eul had gone ashen, and her eyes had filled with horror. She made a slicing motion around her neck, but there was no need because Rang was done talking. He stalked back inside, the grandfather's curses trailing after him, and he was ready to leave the house and never come back, but Ga Eul blocked his path.

"What is wrong with you?" she hissed. "Couldn't you just make a simple apology like we talked about?"

"I can't do it. I won't do it."

"Bullshit! You've apologized to me plenty of times."

"You're worth apologizing to!"

Ga Eul sighed heavily.

"Do you want to spend time with Ha Eun?" she huffed.

"Of course, I do. But I'd rather kidnap her than spend any more time in their house."

"They didn't even do anything. You're the one who decided to throw a temper tantrum when all you had to say was 'sorry.'"

"Of course, they did something! That's the whole reason we're here! This apology was your idea. I tried it. I didn't like it. I'm leaving. You can follow if you want." He brushed past her and shot out the front door at lightning speed. By the time Ga Eul caught up with him, he was already in the driver's seat of his car.

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" Ga Eul wrenched the passenger door open but didn't sit.

"Are you getting in or spending the night?"

"I'm going back to apologize to everyone. Since clearly you can't. And by the way, now you better think up a damn good apology for me because I vouched for you." She slammed the door and stomped off, leaving Rang to sit in front of the house, his anger tinged with something that felt too much like shame. He wanted to get out of there, but he couldn't drive off and leave Ga Eul.

Ga Eul, who had vouched for him and was now cleaning up his mess.

Rang blew out a frustrated breath. Well, that was her problem. He hadn't asked her to do that!

Sure, he had asked for her advice, but…

What the hell did she expect? For him to beg for mercy from those humans? He would never let himself beg a human for anything, certainly not forgiveness. Certainly not something he could just as easily take. If he wanted to see Ha Eun, he could snap his fingers, and everyone in the house, including his brother, would give him anything he wanted. Humans, all of them. He'd never apologize to them.

Ga Eul was an exception, but she'd never be the rule. She might as well learn that now.


"Who's there?" In the middle of the courtyard, the man turned and squinted towards the darkness of the gate he'd just closed.

Having slipped in behind him, up and over the wall in a flash, Rang did not step out of the shadows. He let the man sweat.

"I heard you made a deal with a fortune teller for a talisman that will bring misfortune to its wearer. Let's chat, shall we?"

There was a pause. The man's right hand searched in his coat pocket and produced a jangdo. It was made of silver, dulled with age, and carved with the ten symbols of longevity.

"If my neighbor sent you—"

"I have no interest in your petty human squabbles," Rang interrupted, slinking into the light. He kicked aside a dusty child's ball. "I am only seeking information. Where is the fortune teller? And what did you trade for the item?" Rang wanted to wince as his voice cracked; instead, he smiled like he'd said something amusing. It was Su Gyeong's smile, full of tricks and traps, and he'd perfected it.

Upon seeing what he was, however, the middle-aged man scoffed, though he still held up his knife.

"You are just a boy. How dare you speak to your elder in such a tone. Why should I tell you anything? Go home to your parents before I have you punished for trespassing."

"My parents are dead, and you will be also unless you tell me what I want to know." He pitched his voice as low as he could, tried not to let it crack. He resisted the urge to shift into his brother, a form which he'd mastered to some degree. Instead, he unsheathed his claws and revealed his golden eye.

Instantly, the man's eyes widened, and his knife hand shook.

"A fox-demon."

"Correct." Rang fell upon the man faster than the human could take in his next breath. He snapped the man's wrist and kneed him in the stomach. The human fell on the ground, coughing, and scrambled for his knife, but Rang snatched it up and plunged it in the center of the hand that was searching for it.

As Rang twisted the blade that nailed the man's palm to the dirt, the human opened his mouth to scream, but nothing came out. Terror filled his eyes as he gaped at Rang, his mouth opening and closing like a fish gasping for air where there was none to be found.

An elated thrill coursed through Rang's veins. He'd done it! He'd managed to invade the human's mind in the split second between the moment the blade dug into his hand and the moment the human looked up at him, right before he'd almost screamed. No sound had made it through Rang's grip on his mind. Not one whimper.

"Sorry. I have sensitive ears." Rang curled the tendrils of his power tighter, and the man choked, sputtered, then gasped for air upon being released. "Now no screams," he continued as his prey panted, "or you'll have a hole in your heart instead of in your hand."


"I wasn't a very good fox back there. I'll be good tomorrow, I promise," Rang teased on the way home, hoping to inject some lightness back in the day, but Ga Eul's arms remained crossed, her stare disapproving.

"Why am I worth apologizing to? Why me, and not them?" she asked, soft but direct.

"You are Ga Eul." He poked her cheek. "I care if you're sad."

"Well, can't you care if the grandparents are sad?"

"No."

"Why not?" Ga Eul frowned.

"Because they mean nothing to me." And I mean nothing to them.

"But they mean something to your brother."

"Then that's his problem."

Ga Eul turned away, looking troubled, but she said nothing else.

After a moment, he prompted, "What?"

Ga Eul's lips were set in a thin line.

"It's just that…" She said the words slowly, as if testing them, "I was thinking about introducing you to my parents, or just to my mom, but I don't know. Maybe we should hold off on that." She shook her head and looked out the window. "You didn't want to meet them anyway."

Rang stilled. He clenched the steering wheel.

It was true that he hadn't wanted to meet Ga Eul's parents, but that was different from her not wanting him to meet them.

"What do you mean? Of course, I'll meet your parents. What happened back there was just...I can be nice. You know I can."

"But what if they upset you?"

"Then I'll exact cruel and painful revenge."

Ga Eul's eyebrows shot up.

"I'm kidding, of course," he said. Maybe it was a lie. Maybe it wasn't. He probably wouldn't know until he reached for his axe. He hated human parents.

"I don't think you are." Ga Eul's voice wavered with worry.

"Don't worry, little human," he placated. "If I can tolerate Jan Di, I'm sure I can tolerate your parents. I know how much they mean to you. You eat with them enough."

"Tolerating someone and caring if they live or die are two different things. And why should it matter what they mean to me?" Ga Eul's voice cut through him. "It doesn't matter what the grandparents mean to your brother. You just said so."

Rang blinked.

"That's different," he insisted, though it wasn't. Or it shouldn't have been.

"I don't think it is."

"It is," he countered. "Of course, it is."

Ga Eul bit her lip.

"What was today, anyway? A test?" he lashed out. "To see if the bad fox could behave?"

Ga Eul gave him a weary look.

"No, Rang, it wasn't a test. But it still doesn't look good."

"Yeah, well, don't look so shocked. I hate human parents."

"But you can be a decent person when you want to be."

"Well, I don't want to be, so let's forget it," he snapped in a tone that said the conversation was over. He wanted it to be over; he wanted this day to be over, and he never wanted to talk to human parents or grandparents again unless he was screwing with them. But the look of disappointment Ga Eul gave him then, like he was a student she'd expected better from, branded him like a hot iron.

He almost took the words back. Almost.

"Sure," Ga Eul answered. "Let's just forget it." She sounded defeated, but Rang didn't feel like he'd won.


"Let's try this again." Rang wrenched the knife from the man's hand, and the human audibly suppressed a groan. He circled him. "Where is the fortune teller? What did you trade for the talisman?"

"You won't be able to find him where I met him," the man wheezed. "He comes and goes as he pleases."

"Wrong answer." From behind, Rang pressed the bloodied knife to the man's throat.

"I swear, I don't know where he is now," the human protested, trembling on his knees. "I was traveling when I came upon his tent. It appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the fields, and the next day, when I returned to the spot, he was gone."

"Where did you see him?" Rang repeated. "How long ago was this?" The man's account was much the same story he and Su Gyeong had gathered from every other person who had seen the fortune teller, but perhaps if they knew where and when he usually appeared, or how often and in what form, they could establish a pattern.

"I don't know. I don't know." The man collapsed in on himself, his shoulders sagging, but Rang snatched him by the collar, hauled him to his feet, and brought his focus back to Rang's face.

"Where?" He aimed the point of the knife at his throat.

"You wouldn't be so eager"—cough, cough—"to seek him"—cough—"if you knew the cost."

"Where?!" Rang snarled.

The man glanced down at his ruined hand, though the pain in his face was too distant to belong to so recent a wound.

"What did you give him?" he demanded, and the man glanced up at Rang as if noticing him for the first time.

"The only thing I had," he answered, and his eyes strayed to the front gate. Or so Rang thought until his chin tilted down, and then Rang understood. The child's ball. The silence in the courtyard. The dark house, falling into disrepair.


Ga Eul requested they stop at the stationery store, and Rang did, eager to be out of the car and away from her. Though he usually hovered nearby, teasing her about her lamentable choice of a hobby, this time, he hung back near the store's entrance while Ga Eul browsed her weapon of choice: pens. Their dedicated displays spanned several rows, complete with limited edition box sets. And what the hell was so exciting about pens, Rang would never understand, but Ga Eul liked coming in the store from time to time and testing different brands and different colors. She'd ooh and aah over how smooth one pen wrote or how comfortable another felt between her fingers. When she found a color she'd never seen before, she'd march straight over to the cashier and add it to her collection.

A teacher can never have too many pens, she'd told him once. It had sounded like an excuse to spend money, and he'd told her so.

She'd bought five pens that day just to spite him.

Now he watched her drift through the aisles, more aimless than usual. She wasn't stopping at her normal spots. Maybe she just didn't want to talk to him, and that was why they'd come there.

Well, that was fine. He didn't want to talk to her either.

Rang shoved his hands in his pockets.

Apologizing to human parents? Upsetting Ga Eul?

This was not how he'd wanted to spend his last weekday with Ga Eul before she went back to school. Already, her vacation was far too short. A few weeks? Pfft. Why not a few months?

At the counter, Ga Eul checked out a pen and a set of sticky notes. She started walking towards him, but Rang turned and headed back to the car before she could reach him. An uncomfortable sense of shame lingered around him; he tried to kick it away, but it kept rolling back to him like a ball that had been kicked up a hill.

To add to his headache, his brother would definitely call him later and give him hell.

What a shitty day.


Rang had heard of humans selling their children as servants to other humans, but he hadn't realized that supernatural beings took that form of payment as well. What use could they have for such weak and short-lived creatures? It hardly sounded like a fair trade, but all the same, Rang's blood boiled.

"You weren't traveling alone," he growled.

"No." The man hung his head.

Rang scoffed in disbelief. So it wasn't just his mother. Perhaps every human parent had a price they would give up their children for.

He flung the man's knife to the ground, but the human didn't seem to notice. His gaze remained fixed on the ball, right up to the moment when Rang sunk his claws into the man's neck, and blood gushed from his throat, staining his blue hanbok crimson.

The man fell to the ground, already dying, but Rang continued shredding his throat until the last bit of life had been drained from him. How dare he throw away a life that had been entrusted to him. Rang hoped he ended up in the worst hell, and all the misfortunes he'd brought on his neighbor would visit him in his next life. If he had a next life, which Rang hoped he didn't.

Even after the man had long gone cold, Rang kept slashing at his skin, ruining the man's face until he could almost see his mother's in its place.

It wasn't until the rain started, washing away the blood, that Rang's rage subsided, and his tremors of anger turned to shivers. Slowly, his breathing returned to normal, and then he realized, surrounded by the downpour, that he'd failed Su Gyeong.

He had no idea where the man had seen the fortune teller, and now the man was gone, and he had only his human emotions to blame.


Rang had failed Ga Eul; that much was clear. She didn't scold him any further, but she wore her disappointment on her face like a second layer of makeup, and he wished he didn't care, but he did.

Stupid human emotions.

With minimal conversation, they'd ordered food, and now two bowls of soup sat between them: kong-guksu for Ga Eul and naengmyeon for Rang, who would take comfort where he could get it. Nevertheless, he picked at his noodles, having little appetite, irritated with her for asking him to do such a stupid thing and irritated with himself for failing to do it to her satisfaction.

Ga Eul's blue gift bag from the stationery store sat on the side of the table closest to the window. After a moment, she reached inside it and produced her new pen and pad of sticky notes. Hiding the sticky note behind her bowl, she scribbled something on it. She folded the paper once, then twice, and slid the note over to him.

He opened it.

I'm sorry I made you talk to the grandparents from Hell.

Rang smiled at her use of his term for them, but Ga Eul didn't see it. She was staring down at her soup. What he'd thought was disappointment now looked more like guilt.

And what made him soften then? What made him want to give her an apology when she obviously felt she was in the wrong? When she was correct that he'd never show remorse to another human? Probably those stupid human emotions that had only ever brought him trouble.

For once, he didn't care.

Grabbing her pen, he wrote, on the same sticky note, I'm sorry. He wasn't sure what, specifically, he was sorry for—too many things, and maybe not the right things—so he didn't elaborate.

But when Ga Eul had unfolded his message, she smiled back at him. She took the egg out of her soup and placed it in his bowl.

A/N: If you watched Kim So Eun in Three Bold Siblings, I hope you enjoyed this callback to her character Kim So Rim :)