c029

Consoling Seokga is a lot like comforting a morose child prone to throwing tantrums.

In his apartment, Hani taps the notebook held in her hand, where she's written out Aeri's clue in her looping handwriting as Seokga asked her to. It was with a bitter jolt of disappointment that she realized Seokga had heard that little s sound in the fairy's clue, after all. Yet Seokga has been vocal about the clue's "vexing uselessness" in terms of identifying the Scarlet Fox.

She's curled up on the overstuffed couch, clad in sweatpants and a ratty gray sweater, Seokga slumped next to her, eyes shut and face pale. Hani sighs. He has been like this ever since they left the precinct. "Seokga," she says for the fiftieth time. "We need to plan our trap for the eoduksini."

Seokga mumbles something in return that sounds suspiciously close to "No."

Hani winces.

It would be a lie to claim that her guilt has not caught up to her. It would be a lie to claim that she doesn't feel the slightest pinch of remorse for breaking the cameras, smashing the computers, and then dumping the bodies in the Han River—all within a matter of nine minutes and forty-seven seconds.

It would be a lie to claim that this game of deception that she is playing has not begun to…hurt her heart, somehow.

Because of her, Seokga is pursuing a fruitless goal.

But the circumstances are not changeable, Hani reminds herself. There is no point in dwelling on it. Instead, she must focus on what Seokga and she can do.

They will never catch the Scarlet Fox, but together they can catch the eoduksini. They won't be signing up for another stakeout—they'll be plotting something more effective. As soon as Seokga is shaken out of this morose trance.

"Seokga," she repeats, nudging his shoulder. "Come on. Quit moping."

He grumbles and, in an oddly childlike gesture, turns so that he sits facing away from her.

"Seokga. For the love of gods." She pulls at his shoulders. "Stop acting like a baby. You've been alive for thousands of years." She tugs him backward, and to her surprise, he lets her. Something in Hani's chest breaks a little as Seokga's head lowers to her lap, and as he stares up at her with those eyes that are usually so cruel and cold but are now almost vulnerable.

"Hani," he says in that eternally hoarse voice. "If I am not reinstated as a god, I will burn Iseung to the ground."

Hani runs her fingers through his inky black hair. "I believe you," she says dryly. She watches as his eyes flutter closed again as she plays with his hair. Her throat tightens.

You are alone, god, in a sea of deception.

"Listen," Hani says, reaching for her notebook even though she knows she shouldn't. "We can go over Suk Aeri's hint again—" Seokga's hand covers hers, stopping her from grabbing the pad.

"I've gone over it hundreds of times in my head," Seokga says resignedly. "It's exactly the sort of watery, half-baked, entirely useless prophecy that I should have known to expect from one of the yojeong. I don't know if any part of it is even in reference to the Scarlet Fox. I am alone in a sea of deception. That was about Dok-hyun. I should not be fooled by surface perceptions. Also Dok-hyun. I should look for those with weary eyes. Dok-hyun. The part about the teary eyes is the only part that hasn't been met by him." He gazes up at her. "Bend closer," he says. "Show me your eyes."

Hani's heart lurches, but she bends over him all the same, her nose nearly touching his.

"Well," Seokga mutters petulantly, "your eyes aren't teary."

"Only weary," Hani grumbles, even as she is overcome by a mixture of relief and guilt. She wonders again if Aeri's clue signifies that one day, she will weep for Seokga. "I didn't sleep a wink last night."

He smirks but it's half-hearted. "Scared, fox?"

"Not at all," Hani lies smoothly. "The bed is just obscenely uncomfortable." She frowns down at him, still only inches away. "Why are you grinning?"

The god is staring up at her with a small, lopsided smile that is so unlike the Seokga that she knows. Whereas his leers are cold and calculated, this smile is almost subconscious.

Seokga's eyes widen slightly in confusion, his smile faltering. "I…I don't know," he snaps, but Hani recognizes that his frustration is not with her. It is with himself. "I don't know," he says again, this time quieter. And she swears that his voice wavers with hesitancy. "Hani," Seokga asks, "what are we?"

"I have no idea," she whispers. And it's the truth. She knows what she wants them to be, but with the scarlet daggers stashed upstairs and secrets hidden in her heart, it's something that she shouldn't chase.

But Hani has never been very good at ignoring temptation, and there is a fallen god on her lap, gazing up at her with an unusually naked expression of hope and what might even be the same anxiousness that she feels. He's infuriating and snarky and grumpy and cold—but he's also sharp-tongued enough to keep up with her banter, to return it in full. He gives her his own shirt and binds her leg, he buys medicine and daggers for her when she needs them.

And gods, he's beautiful. Nothing, in all her one thousand and seven hundred years, has matched the exact shade of his evergreen eyes, nor the midnight locks of his hair.

She begins to ramble, losing all of her usual confidence with one fell swoop. "I mean, are we—are we friends? With benefits? I know you liked it when we—when I—in the car. Kissing. Hand. In pants. And if you'd want to do that again, sometime, I wouldn't say no." She needs to stop talking. Hani really needs to stop talking. But she can't. It's all spilling out. "I would say yes. Very loudly, probably. I like kissing you. More than I should. But I don't know what to call that. I don't know if I want to be your friend."

His brows have inched together; he looks hurt. Hwanin's tits. She really didn't phrase that right.

"That's not what I meant," she says, suddenly overcome with the urge to hurl herself out the window. "I want to be more than a friend. More than your makeshift teddy bear. I want to keep kissing you, and—"

Seokga is laughing. It's not mocking laughter, though. It's soft. Almost tender. "Hani," he says, "I want to keep kissing you, too."

Warmth blossoms in her heart. "Oh," she murmurs. "Good. That's—that's good."

The trickster smiles. "And I think I know what we are, after all," he adds. "We already decided."

"We did?" she whispers.

"Coming back from Geoje. Remember?"

Hani's lips quirk upward. She does. "We're Hani and Seokga."

Seokga reaches a hand upward and tucks one of her loose strands of hair behind her ear. And the tenderness with which he does so, the uncharacteristic gentleness, the kindness that is so unlike him…That simple act answers all her questions.

Hani leans down and kisses him.