"Come on, what are you afraid of? Hurting me?" Rang urged as Ga Eul struck his hand target with another set of roundhouse kicks.
She tried to strike the target anyway.
"You're still not rotating your knee properly. It needs to be pointed towards your target. Watch." He handed the target to Ga Eul, and she held it out at stomach level like he'd taught her.
He demonstrated the move again, slowly at first, and she noted the angle of his standing foot, his knee, his hip…
He showed her a set of rapid kicks, his body pivoting in one fluid motion each time. She was certain it was all muscle memory at this point. He didn't need to think about it while she, on the other hand, had to concentrate so hard on every little thing.
She'd been practicing her forms more vigorously since school had let out, and finally Rang had announced it was time for her to start sparring.
Sparring! The moment she'd been waiting for!
Certain she would kick Rang's butt in no time, Ga Eul had leapt into the activity with enthusiasm, if not skill. The same enthusiasm, and not skill, that she was currently showing off in Shin-joo and Yu Ri's living room while Yu Ri and Soo-oh watched from the couch. It was the day after the visit with the grandparents, and she and Rang both needed to let off a little steam.
When he finished his perfect set, Rang circled behind her and clapped his hands on her shoulders.
"Your back shoulder comes forward," he reminded her, pressing on her right shoulder. "Your knee points to your opponent. And you hit with your instep, not your toes. Unless you want to dislocate them like you've been trying so hard to do."
Ga Eul nodded.
"Yes, Sabumnim."
Behind her, Rang sighed.
"All right, again." He circled around her and took up the hand target once more.
"Is it too much trouble teaching me this stuff?" Ga Eul asked with an apologetic smile.
"Of course it is," Rang answered. "Humans are incredibly slow learners. Yu Ri was already beating up helpless humans by this point."
"Mister Lee Rang gave me these!" Yu Ri removed two hair pins from her hair and showed the blades to Ga Eul. "Want to try?"
"Are you crazy?" Rang knocked Yu Ri's hand away. "If you give her those, she'll stab herself!"
"I will not," Ga Eul argued.
"How many times have you almost injured yourself?" Rang shot her a tired look. "I don't need to attack you. You're doing all the hard work."
Ga Eul stuck her tongue out at him.
"The other day, she ran into a wall," Rang informed them.
"It was closer than I thought it was!" She snatched a throw pillow from the couch and flung it at him. Despite being right in front of her, he easily dodged it.
Ga Eul's blood simmered. Stupid fox reflexes.
"Ga Eul, if he gives you too hard of a time, I can teach you all my craziest moves," Shin-joo offered from the kitchen area where he was slicing up cucumbers.
"What crazy moves?" Rang scoffed. "Fetching firewood for my brother?"
"Hey! Before I served your brother, I terrorized humans too!" He flung a slice of cucumber, and it struck Rang's forehead.
Rang stepped towards him, eyes widened with shock, then narrowed in warning.
Calm and unblinking, Shin-joo continued slicing cucumbers.
"Not that terrorizing humans is something to brag about. Don't aggravate the chef," he advised, "or you might hesitate to eat your food."
Soo-oh burst out laughing.
"Yeobo, you should act crazy more often," Yu Ri encouraged. "I like it."
Rang opened his mouth to say something else but was interrupted by Soo-oh jumping down from the couch and pulling on his arm.
"Ahjussi! Ahjussi! Let me try! I can do it!" Soo-oh pleaded.
Rang squinted down at him, then up at Shin-joo, then back down at him.
"You think you can do it?" he asked.
"Yes! Let me! Let me!"
"You think you can do it better than your teacher?"
"Of course I can!"
"Wow," Ga Eul said.
"Chu Seonsaengnim,"—Soo-oh spun towards her—"you're not my teacher anymore, so it's okay if I teach you now."
Ga Eul raised her eyebrows.
"The miniature human has spoken," Rang announced with an amused grin. "Remember, he's going to be a whole grade above you now."
Ga Eul snorted.
"Oh," she said in mock-surprise. "I'd forgotten about that. Fine." She sat down next to Yu Ri. "Do it well then. Fighting!"
"What are you doing, sitting down? You have to hold this." Rang shoved the hand target at her, but Yu Ri snatched it in mid-air.
"Let me do something! It's boring to just sit here."
"Fine. Stand over there." Rang gestured.
Ga Eul smiled as she watched Rang go through the motions of the kick with the boy, sometimes pausing to physically reposition the child that was rapidly growing into a teenager. People might call her crazy if she admitted this, but she could actually imagine Rang being a good father. An unconventional one, certainly, but a caring and protective one too. As harsh as he could be towards outsiders, he was equally as warm to those he considered family.
In Soo-oh's eyes, he was a superhero, and in some ways, she supposed he was.
After he'd finished teaching Soo-oh, and the boy had taken a bow, to much applause, Yu Ri and Rang sparred for a round, deflecting one another's blows so fluidly that their fight looked like a dance they'd choreographed beforehand. Rang won, of course, but by a narrow margin. Somehow, both of them barely broke a sweat, despite Yu Ri's black pantsuit and Rang's equally warm-looking red pants and black shirt.
"It's too tight in here. Let's go to the park," Yu Ri complained.
"You think you can do better when I have more space to evade you?" Rang smirked.
"I don't like confined spaces. They remind me of…" Yu Ri broke off, but all the adults in the room could finish the sentence.
"Fine. Let's go to the park then. Blacky, are you coming?"
"Yes! Yes! Yes!"
"Ga Eul?" Rang glanced at her, but she wanted space from him. She'd wanted it since the day before, not because she was still mad at him but because she was mad at herself.
She wished other humans could see him the way she saw him, but they probably never would, partly because he wouldn't let them, but partly, she knew, because they'd already made up their minds about him and wouldn't be swayed from their belief that he was someone to be feared. Or shunned. Or distrusted.
She'd known how they looked at him—how so many people had looked at him—at the party for Ha Eun's birthday. And yet...she hadn't realized how much that hurt him, not until the day before, once she'd calmed down enough to think about why Rang had thrown a fit. He always pretended not to care, but when he'd been yelling at the grandparents, she'd seen in his face that he did care how they treated him. He wasn't merely annoyed by them. He toyed with a lot of humans, but he only lashed out like that when he'd been truly, deeply wounded by someone.
How had she not recognized it sooner?
Rang tucked her in every night, and yet her first instinct had been to side with the grandparents—not because she thought what they were doing was right but because she understood why they were wary of him. When he'd asked for her advice, she'd only looked at the situation from a human perspective, so much so that she'd failed to consider Rang's perspective. And wasn't that kind of her job, as his girlfriend, to always have his back? Especially when other people rejected him. Like he'd always feared she would do.
Afterwards, Rang had kept saying how much he hated human parents, and of course, he hated human parents. His own mother had abandoned him to the mercy of forest zombies!
She knew she should talk to him about the whole unfortunate incident before she went back to school and got busy, but she wasn't sure what to say. She didn't feel like she'd done something entirely wrong, but she didn't feel good about it either.
"You guys go," Ga Eul said. "I'll stay and help Shin-joo prepare dinner."
"Really?" Rang pulled a face.
Ga Eul nodded, trying to smile like everything was okay.
"Someone ought to help him. He cooks for us all the time."
"Thank you!" Shin-joo shouted from the kitchen.
Rang shrugged, seeming to accept her answer.
She sighed in relief when he'd gone out the door, Yu Ri and Soo-oh trailing after him.
In the kitchen area, Shin-joo was preparing braised chicken with vegetables and glass noodles, along with a spicy cucumber salad. After Ga Eul changed out of her workout clothes, he quickly provided her with an apron and gloves and handed her the ingredients to finish the salad while he made the chicken dish, and for several minutes, they worked in a companionable silence broken only by the sound of knives coming down on wooden cutting boards.
The methodical movements and sounds calmed Ga Eul's anxious thoughts; cooking with Shin-joo reminded her of cooking with her mother, or working alongside Jan Di back at the porridge shop, at least until Shin-joo paused his chopping to note, "You're crazy."
"What?" Ga Eul glanced down at the salad and her gloved hand covered in sauce, wondering if, in her distraction, she'd put in the wrong ingredients. Everything looked fine though: onion, salt, chili flakes, vinegar...
"I mean yesterday. You didn't really expect him to go through with that apology, did you?" Shin-joo scraped his chopped potatoes into the boiling pot of chicken and sauce.
"Oh...well, I...I don't know," Ga Eul concluded. "I understand why he was upset, though," she confessed. "I know the grandparents haven't been very nice to him. I don't know what I was thinking, telling him to go there…I screwed everything up." If her hands hadn't been covered in sauce, she would have beat at her forehead.
"Hey, don't be so hard on yourself. You were trying to fix something."
"Does it look fixed to you?!" Ga Eul burst out, then quieted. "I mean...I'm sorry. I didn't mean to shout at you. But what I don't understand is...why did he even go there if he hated my idea that much? He refuses to do stuff all the time."
There was a pause, and she half-heartedly hand-stirred the salad.
"Maybe because...when a human is in love, he gives his girlfriend flowers, but when an evil fox is in love, he tries to impress his girlfriend by apologizing to people he doesn't like."
Ga Eul chuckled, some of the tension easing from her shoulders.
"You really think he went there just for me?" She turned towards Shin-joo, doubtful.
"Of course. You're his first love. Foxes are wired that way." Smiling to himself, Shin-joo chopped up a carrot. "We like to keep our mates happy by cooking them tasty food every day." He glanced at Ga Eul. "I-I mean all foxes...do different things."
"Obviously. I can't imagine Rang cooking me dinner."
"Have you asked him to?"
"No, but...You're joking. He wouldn't actually do that?"
"Try asking sometime. Report back to me. Please."
Ga Eul laughed.
"I can't make him do that. He'll do it, and then he'll kill me afterwards."
"Hmm, what do you think he would hate more? Cooking a meal? Or the grandparents?"
"What about cooking a meal for the grandparents?"
"You're right. If you ask him to do that, you're evil."
They shared an understanding smile.
"He'd probably put poison in the food," Ga Eul noted.
"Definitely poison. Definitely." Shin-joo nodded and scraped the carrot chunks into the pot.
She watched him add onion and chilies to the chicken and vegetables until tears sprung to her eyes. She brushed them away.
Unfortunately, Shin-joo noticed.
"Are you...crying?" he asked as he put the lid on the pot.
"No." Ga Eul shook her head and resumed tossing the salad. "I mean...I'm sorry. I just...Do you think I should be more like Yu Ri? She always says that Rang's enemies are her enemies."
"She's like that because she owes Rang her life."
"I know, but...wouldn't her enemies be your enemies?"
"Of course! I'm her husband!"
"See what I mean? Rang probably wanted someone to help him kick the grandparents' butts. Instead, I kicked him with a dose of reality." Ga Eul frowned.
"Rang needs a dose of reality. He needs to be smacked over the head with it."
"Maybe, but...I still said something I wish I could take back."
"So take it back. Foxes are very forgiving."
"They are?"
"No." Shin-joo laughed. "But as I've noted, if a fox is in love with you, you have special powers. Now stop squeezing the life out of that salad."
For the first time, Ga Eul noticed the death grip she had on the cucumber slices.
She let the salad mixture drop, and he snatched the bowl from her.
"I'm not giving you salad duty anymore. You're too violent with the vegetables." He tutted.
"Sorry." Ga Eul sniffed. She wiped her eyes with her arm, wondering why her tears were coming out now and how she could get them to stop. She hadn't meant to devolve into a crying mess in front of Shin-joo. Maybe she could blame it on the onions.
"A word of advice."
"Hmm?"
Shin-joo gave her a gentle smile that was probably meant to calm her but made her want to cry more.
"You are very special to Rang, but that comes at a price. You'll never be able to gauge how he'll react to other humans based on his reactions to you. Never assume that just because he would do something for you, that means he would do it for someone else."
Ah. Hadn't Rang said something similar the day before?
"I know that. And I'm fine with that on most things. It's just...My world is bigger than Rang, and sometimes I don't know how he...or how I...or what I'm supposed to expect." Rang didn't scare her when it was just the two of them; he didn't even scare her with his actions towards strangers. But she didn't know how to imagine him with her family and friends. How would he react to everyone? How would they react to him? Would it be best if he met them as little as possible? But that didn't seem right. He was important to her, and she wanted people to meet him. Especially if she married him...or when she married him...
"You were in love with that rich potter before. What's his name?"
"Oh, um...So Yi Jeong."
Shin-joo nodded.
"So if he and you had worked out...I mean, hypothetically...I imagine his parents wouldn't have been too happy about that."
"Oh no, not at all." Ga Eul shook her head. "Wealthy humans can be very picky about the social status of the families their children marry into."
"Then I'm guessing this So Yi Jeong person would have had to make a decision at some point. To stay with either you or his family."
"That's probably true," she admitted.
"So maybe now your case with Rang is like that. You hope you can have him, as well as your family and your friends and your nice, orderly life"—Shin-joo placed two rogue slices of carrot next to each other—"but you don't know. At some point, someone might force you to make a decision you don't want to make. But there's nothing you can do if that happens except choose"—he spread the carrots apart, then picked one up and plunked it into the boiling pot—"one way or the other."
Steam billowed out of the pot; then Shin-joo covered it once more.
Ga Eul swallowed. How ironic. She was in the same position as Gu Jun Pyo.
But she understood Shin-joo's warning. She could have a normal life, or she could have Rang. But she couldn't have both.
"I'm saying maybe!" Shin-joo added. "It might never happen! But Lee Rang is so stubborn, and his wounds are so deep, it's hard to believe he won't screw up a few times. Probably in a really bad way, like he just did. If he believes he's in the right, no matter how flawed his thinking is, then that's it. He won't change his mind. However...I'll tell you something true. A fox is always loyal to his mate, so I think if you tell him something specific to do or not do, he'll follow your instructions. But you have to be specific! Foxes will use any loophole they can. Especially the tricky ones. I should know. I'm married to one." This last statement was made with fondness. Then Shin-joo ushered Ga Eul away from the meal prep area. "Now, why don't you try setting the table? And call Yu Ri. Dinner's almost ready."
It took a while for the trio to return, but after Shin-joo and Ga Eul had set the table with the braised chicken dish, cucumber salad, rice, and kimchi, the meal was devoured quickly. Soo-oh went to bed, and afterwards, the three foxes and Ga Eul sat around the table, chatting and laughing and drinking beer. Yu Ri and Rang relived some of their old hunting days, and Ga Eul answered Shin-joo's questions about the start of the new school year and what to expect from the fourth grade. Around midnight, she and Rang left; they'd been in better spirits for most of the evening, but once the elevator doors closed on them, and only them, Ga Eul felt awkward again.
Rang's phone vibrated in his red coat, and when he picked it up, she saw Lee Yeon on the caller ID for the tenth time that day. With a scowl, he rejected the call, silenced his phone, and stuffed it back in his inner breast pocket.
Sighing, Rang leaned against the elevator wall, his eyes glassy and his body relaxed in the way it normally was after he'd been drinking. The light in the elevator was too bright for Ga Eul's liking, but still, she thought he looked gorgeous in it, tall and dark with a shadow of stubble she'd like to feel scratching her neck. He leveled his far-off gaze at the doors, his lips pursed in an almost-scowl.
Maybe he was still upset with her.
But she hadn't meant to hurt him. Honestly.
She wanted to be on his side. For so long, no one had been on his side. How could she add to the list?
A fox is always loyal to his mate.
Ga Eul's ears burned with shame.
Could a human also be loyal to a fox? She felt like she could.
Ga Eul tentatively approached Rang on her black pumps; she noted the distorted reflection of herself in the elevator walls: her black pencil skirt, forest green blouse, and fiery copper hair, newly recolored. Pressing her hands to his chest, she tipped her head back and looked into his eyes. They flickered with a nameless emotion, then shifted down to her face.
"Rang?" Her voice came out raspy.
"Hmm?" He tucked her hair behind her ear, and the fond caress only made her feel sorrier.
"I'm sorry for what I said about my parents." She circled her arms around him and squeezed his waist. "Of course, I want you to meet them. You're my pet fox. I want everyone to meet you."
"Ah, seriously? You're still thinking about that?"
"Aren't you?"
"No." His defiant tone meant he definitely had been.
"I'm serious." Ga Eul rocked back on her heels. "Next to my parents, you're my favorite person in the world. Of course, all my favorite people should meet."
Rang chuckled.
"Are you sure you're not drunk?"
Ga Eul shook her head.
"Also...you came to me for advice about the grandparents, but I did a terrible job of being on your side. I promise I will be on your side from now on." She grabbed his hands. "Even if I think you're full of shit, I'll take your side. Team Rang, all the way! Fighting!" She raised their joined hands in triumph.
At this, Rang laughed sharply.
"You drank too much, little human."
"I did not. Team Rang." Pouting, Ga Eul pressed his hands to her cheeks. They were as soft and warm as his eyes could be when he kissed her in the night's shadows.
Right now, his eyes were unnaturally bright in a way that might have heralded mischief but that Ga Eul could recognize as defensive. He didn't believe her. Not yet.
The elevator doors opened to the parking garage, and Ga Eul tugged him out into the glass-enclosed elevator lobby.
"Hey, do you know what you should do?" Ga Eul asked, summoning her inner Yu Ri. She twisted their fingers together.
"What?"
"Instead of turning the grandparents into flowers, next time you should turn them into dung beetles!"
This time, a genuine, surprised laugh escaped Rang's lips.
Encouraged, Ga Eul continued, "Then you can put them in a glass jar and make them watch while you do anything you want. Who do they think they are, anyway? Keeping you from seeing your own family? You're Ha Eun's uncle! You have every right to be there too!"
Rang's lips quirked. He drank her in for a moment, then added, quietly, "They're annoying, aren't they?"
"They are! Very annoying!"
"They deserve to be punished."
"Of course!"
"We should go over there right now and show them who they messed with!"
"Oh, we should...r-right now…" Ga Eul faltered. "I mean, um, yes! Right now!" She tried to sound like she meant it.
"Relax, I'm joking."
"Oh." Ga Eul laughed nervously even as she sagged with relief.
"But seriously? A glass jar? That's the worst punishment you can come up with?"
"Well, I was just...talking off the top of my head."
"And you thought of a glass jar before you thought of stomping them to bits?"
"Well, I didn't mean to kill them."
Rang laughed, his shoulders shuddering with the effort.
"You're cute. Even your revenge is cute." He took one step, then another, and Ga Eul's feet made way for him. Suddenly, her back hit the glass. "But don't you know that anyone you don't kill will continue to be a nuisance?" Rang tilted his head down, his dark eyes reprimanding her for being so naive. His choker shifted along his exposed collarbone, framed by the buttery softness of his blood red suit. In that suit, every inch of him screamed murder is my favorite past-time.
Beetles in glass jars? Yeah, right.
She couldn't look away though. She wouldn't. Because after six hundred years, he'd chosen to be hers.
Hers.
He could crush her, same as those beetles, but he'd placed himself in her fragile human hands; he'd agreed to be her soulmate, and he was a very good soulmate, all things considered, and she loved him so much she might just trade her soul for him.
"Then...would you like me to kill them?" Ga Eul asked softly, squeezing his hands. "I could kill them for you."
She swallowed, the words thick and clumsy on her tongue. She didn't know that she meant them. She didn't know that she didn't mean them.
She wanted to mean them, despite herself.
"No," Rang replied. "With your skill, even as beetles, they'd probably end up killing you."
"Hey! I—"
"But thanks for offering, little human." He smiled, soft and affectionate. A smile he reserved for her and Soo-oh.
The caution in his eyes had fled, leaving only flecks of wonder, and Ga Eul smiled back, forgetting the stubborn protest she would have made. He pressed his hand to her back, and she gripped his shirt lapels.
"Team Rang," she repeated. Arching up on her tiptoes, she pecked his cheek.
Then she kissed him.
Ten kisses for every time he'd been punched or kicked or beaten. Ten more for every time he'd been rejected or abandoned or ignored. Ten for every kiss he'd given her. Ten more for choosing her even though he had no reason to trust her. No reason at all, except the feeble words she offered.
A/N: We will see Yi Jeong in the next chapter! It might be a long one, so apologies if it takes a while for me to post again.
