c022

Damn Suk Aeri and her cheap tricks.

Seokga pointedly avoids Hani's eyes as they sit in the same Okpo restaurant they'd visited the night before, focusing instead on the tendrils of steam curling upward from the miyeok-guk that the pair of them ordered. As much as they are in a hurry to return to New Sinsi, he needs to eat. To recuperate before rushing headlong into what will surely become a whirlwind of chaos. Using his magic on Ji-ah, combined with the stress of thinking he had lost Shim, has drained him. Seokga eats as quickly as he can, shoveling the soup into his mouth, trying not to choke on the slick pieces of savory seaweed.

"Slow down," Hani says in concern. "You're going to give yourself a stomachache. Shim's alive, and if we head out in an hour, we'll still reach New Sinsi by tonight. You have time." The gumiho is dialing Shim's number over and over again. Seokga trusts Aeri's scrying—it's served him well in the past—and trusts her when she says Shim is alive. But he needs to hear it for himself, Shim's voice.

"He's not picking up," Hani says with a sigh, and he raises his gaze to see her biting her lips. Lips that he has kissed.

It was a kiss that damn near weakened his knees if he's being honest about it. A kiss that felt so…good.

Seokga has been alive for thousands upon thousands of years, but never before has he shared a kiss crackling with such…heat. It was brief, yes, but he cannot deny that in those moments, he wanted her. Wanted Kim Hani with every fiber of his being.

And he still wants her.

Something has gone wrong.

He is supposed to despise Kim Hani—the gumiho who threw coffee in his face, the gumiho who is infuriatingly obnoxious—but between this morning's cuddling and the afternoon's kissing, something has gone incredibly, unbelievably wrong.

He does not hate Kim Hani.

Does not hate her sunny laughter or her sharp, witty tongue. Does not hate the way that her nose crinkles when she laughs or sneers, does not hate the way that her eyes widen in amusement whenever he says something that is not at all intended to be amusing.

Seokga does not hate Kim Hani.

And it has not escaped his notice that for some time today, they have both been speaking in banmal. As…friends.

As friends, even though the day prior they were attacking each other in a bamboo forest.

Friendship appears in strange ways, sometimes.

Seokga is not amused. Scowling, he shovels a mouthful of too-hot soup past his lips. It nearly blisters his tongue, but he doesn't care.

Seokga the Fallen does not have friends. Seokga the Fallen does not use the informal except to insult others or address those younger than him—never in friendship. But with Hani, it is clear that he is using banmal because…because she is his friend.

He squeezes his eyes shut, hoping that when he opens them, this truth will disappear.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Hani inquires, as if reading his mind. Seokga tries not to jump.

Absolutely not. "Talk about what?" he asks, hoping that he sounds even the slightest bit innocent.

"You know." Hani shrugs, avoiding his gaze. "The—well, the kiss. And that…other thing."

Seokga straightens. That other thing. "What?" he demands, and Hani winces.

"I mean—we should talk about Aeri's scrying. And Ji-ah. And the eoduksini…"

"What," Seokga says, his voice strangled, "do you mean by ‘that other thing'?" It is odd, he thinks dimly, that he is more appalled by the cuddling than the kiss.

"I…" The color of Hani's face matches the color of the kimchi bokkeumbap a couple is eating a few tables over. "It doesn't matter."

He glowers. "Spit it out."

She knows.

But how does she know?

She was sleeping…

"Fine," she snaps back, her eyes bright with embarrassment. "I know that you—I know that you used me as some oversized teddy bear last night. I woke up and you were holding on to me. Cuddling me. Happy?"

Something in her story doesn't quite fit. Seokga tilts his head. "When did you wake up?" he asks, frowning.

"Early morning."

Comprehension dawns on him. "And then you went back to sleep?" In my arms?

Hani glowers down at her bowl of soup, half-looking as if she would like nothing better than to drown in it. "That's beside the point. But if you really want to know—" She meets his gaze, her cheeks still burning ruby red. "Yes. I did go back to sleep."

Seokga gapes at her, unsure whether he should frown, laugh, or stand up and walk out of the restaurant.

Or possibly slam his forehead down onto the surface of the table.

But Hani is on a roll now, and she's showing no signs of stopping. "But only because I was so cozy," she insists, glowering. "If you know anything about foxes, you know that they like to be warm. And you were very, very warm. I think that your body temperature might run higher than what's even remotely healthy. You were using me as a teddy bear; I was using you as an overgrown heating pad. The way that I see it, it's a fair deal. You get to hold a makeshift stuffed animal, and I get to be warm. So it's really not a big deal. Okay?" She finishes, gasping for air. All of this had been said very quickly, each word blurring together.

Hani rambles when she is nervous.

Something in Seokga's chest warms at the realization. Something that has been encased in ice for six hundred and twenty-eight years. Something that is cold and dead, and yet beats for this peculiar gumiho.

"It amuses me how you think you can out-deceive the god of deception."

Hani blinks. "What do you mean?" Her tone is wary. Cautious.

"You awoke in my arms," Seokga says, feeling as smug as a cat after devouring a particularly juicy mouse, "and you liked it. So you stayed there."

"Semantics,"she snaps back.

The notion that this is simply semantics brings a scoff to his lips. He cocks his head, biting back another snicker. "What if I told you," he asks, hardly believing that he is allowing the words to pass his lips, "that I liked it, too?"

Immediately after he says it, he wonders what has made his sharp tongue so loose. Perhaps he hit his head harder than he realized during their tumble down the hill.

A moment of silence stretches between them, like a droplet of water suspended precariously between the eave of a roof and the pavement below, unsure of whether it should tumble to the ground or not.

"Seokga, I—"

The phone rings.

Seokga jumps, then lunges across the table to yank the cellphone from Hani, who splutters at his sudden motion. He grips it with a slightly shaking hand.

"Shim?" He's too exhausted to care that his voice wavers with hope and fear.

"Seokga." Chief Shim's voice crackles through the phone in all its warm, grandfatherly glory. Seokga presses a fist to his mouth, breathing hard. It's him. "You were…You were right about Dok-hyun."

Shim is alive. Shim is fine.Seokga struggles to contain himself. What is happening to him? Why—why does he care about these snarky gumiho and tired haetae chiefs?

"What happened?" he manages to ask, putting the chief on speakerphone as Hani leans in, eyes wide.

A long sigh from the other end. "It happened early this morning. Around one a.m. I wasn't at the precinct—the night-shift officers were, and the guards watching Dok-hyun. What happened next is unclear. The cameras didn't pick anything up. Their lenses were suddenly blocked with shadow. By the time I made it to the precinct, my night-watch officers were dead—hearts ripped out—and Dok-hyun was gone. It was a bloodbath."

"Fuck," groans Seokga.

"Language," reprimands Shim, although there's no force behind it at all. "We're scouring New Sinsi for Dok-hyun. I've initiated stakeouts at various locations he might return to or pass by. I'm assuming you're still on Geoje?"

"We'll be leaving soon."

"The witness?"

"Confirmed that it was Dok-hyun, as did a yojeong we visited." The eyes of the weary. Alone in a sea of deception. Verity, hidden beneath insincerity. Godsdamn Lee Dok-hyun. "Not that it matters now. He's clearly revealed his hand in the most dramatic way possible," Seokga adds in disdain as he stands, flinging down some cash on the table. "This whole thing was a waste of time. Choi Ji-ah has gone missing. If you have officers to spare in the coming days, send some out here to find her and bring her back to New Sinsi. Have them take her to a shaman and wipe her memory. We're heading back now. Are you…" He awkwardly clears his throat. "Are you…okay?"

Seokga can almost hear his sad smile. "I'm fine, Seokga. Thank you for asking. I'll see you when you return and we can plan our next move."

"Right," Seokga says, and hits the end call button before he can begin showcasing any more embarrassing displays of emotion.