Archive of Our Own

The first time you’d met Rang, he had tried to kill you. Teeth bared and blade pushed up against the fragile skin of your neck – and you, overworked and underpaid, exhausted from simply the experience of living, had thought: will he?

You weren’t sure you’d ever forget what the sticky heat of your own blood felt like against your skin.

Rang was more.. aggressive, then. More fragile. Prone to flinching towards violence the moment he was met with something unexpected. His words were sharp, his gaze sharper, and he insulted and bit at anyone who tried to get close.

He was dangerous, and you with your incredibly refined self-preservation skills fell for him almost immediately.

It was a strange sensation, to meet someone for the first time, they pushing a blade into your throat while your brain went fuzzy with the adrenaline and also the feeling that you wanted to gently delve into the deepest pits of your assailant’s heart.

Yeon would probably call it “fate” or something equally confusing and intangible – and then he’d probably divert to talking about how he felt that when he first met Aheum, and you’d end up bored out of your mind while wondering why you went to him for advice in the first place.

Besides, wouldn’t something that extraordinary be difficult to believe? You were just a regular human, a friend of Saerom’s who had gotten roped into helping translate English documents for some documentary her boss wanted to film. When you’d gotten the files you’d asked her why in the hell her boss wanted information on mythological creatures, but she had just shrugged and pleaded with you to help her out, and that was that.

That should have been that.

“That” ended up instead being a long ordeal that inadvertently opened your eyes to the true nature of the world, which as far as you could tell was simply “lots of dangerous beings exist and as a human just try not to get eaten by them”.

It also led to the natural progression of your relationship with Rang, which went from, well, his blade against your throat to you being an unfortunately permanent fixture in his life once you met Yuri. (She was wonderfully fun, and to the dismay of literally every person around the two of you, you became fast friends.)

It was fascinating, to watch the very obvious change in how Rang treated you as he got more used to your presence, the dismissive comments turning more pointed and focused, the way he always looked for you if he saw Yuri by herself, the one time he’d shown up at your house and gave you a heart-attack because he hadn’t heard from you in a week (and then proceeded to insult your interior decorating).

The sly smiles just for you, the hidden handholds, the blushing, the kisses, the whispered promises spoken inches from your ear because he couldn’t bear to have anyone else hear him.

It was all just too.. unbelievable for a human like you to experience, and yet..

And yet.

Yuri tells you of what it was like between sobs, the way the light feasted on his flesh as he was taken. The way he smiled, bittersweetly. The way she hadn’t made it in time.

The way you hadn’t made it at all.

You bite your lip so hard it bleeds, so angry at yourself for not being there, and you feel sick to your stomach as the taste of blood floods your mouth and it reminds you of him. Tears make your gaze blurry and the Grief is such a physical pain that you’re clutching at your chest, your throat, wanting to rip it out of you.

He was gone.

What do you mean he was gone?

Just reincarnate him. Just beg Taluipa. Just play another game with that creepy judge of the afterlife and get him back. Just –

Yuri holds onto your shoulders so tightly they bruise as you curl in on yourself and choke out a sob, chest heaving with a scream that tears through your throat like knives. You know she’s crying too, leaning over you like a protective barrier against the world, but it doesn’t matter anymore.

Maybe a human should never have experienced that level of extraordinary at all.

i must have loved you deeper than i thought

A sigh escapes your lips as you set your phone down on the table a bit harder than needed, screen turned down so you can try to momentarily forget the text you just read. Saerom had just asked you to help her translate some more documents for Jiah that she had come across yesterday, and you knew already that despite being busy yourself you were going to agree to her pleas for help. You were lucky enough to find time to meet up with one of the two annoying gumiho in your life – after all, if you had ignored him any longer then he would have probably just broken into your house and then blamed the break-in on your negligence to give him any attention - but that didn't mean you could just ignore a friend in need of help.

Rang glances up from his own phone when you mutter a “fucking hell..” under your breath, eyebrows raised.

“You know, you’re pretty vulgar for a lady.” He’s taunting you and you know it, your narrowed eyes only causing his smirk to grow. He’s expecting you to bite back with a curse word nonetheless, and to be honest, the urge is great – “fuck off” sits at the tip of your tongue, ready to throw at him.

And he, the masochistic brat that he is, is waiting readily for it. A child who wants your attention regardless of if it seems negative or positive. He’s even leaning forward slightly, elbows perched on the café table separating the two of you, expectant and excited.

It’s cute. He’s cute, the way he needles you and seeks out your annoyance, the way you’re one of the very few people who can curse at him and not end up bleeding out.

“I’m sorry.” You say it just to throw him off-balance – and it does, his self-satisfied grin slips and he blinks, looking almost offended that you’re not playing along with him.

Half-gumiho or not, your previous apology keeps him off-guard enough that his ridiculous reflexes don’t come into play when you lean the short distance over the café table to place your lips against the corner of his mouth. Almost a kiss, but not quite – your turn to taunt.

“I – you – !” Always so arrogant, always so suave, and Rang’s ears are flushing red as he lurches to his feet over something that was an almost-kiss. He moves to point an accusatory finger at you, who has gone back to sitting unaffected in the chair across from him, halting half-way to its destination to reach up and rake his hair back in a gesture you’ve noticed seems to be a nervous tic of his when he’s actually embarrassed about something.

“I know, I shouldn’t just kiss someone – but I figured if you didn’t want me to then you would have moved out of the way. Or just choked me before I even got to your face, or something.” It’s another taunt, but also your way of fishing for his true feelings – was it something you needed to apologize for?

There’s another long moment of silence as Rang swallows, jaw set in some undiscernible emotion as he sits back down, surprisingly subdued for someone who usually likes to make a show out of when he’s inconvenienced or annoyed. You’d miss it if you weren’t watching him so closely for a reaction, but his tongue darts out once to wet over where your lips had been.

“.. If that’s your idea of a kiss, then you’re not good at it.” He can’t meet your eyes and his voice is pitched lower, but you hear him clearly and smile sweetly back.

“I can try again.”

everyone acting like nothing happened is unthinkable

Grief has a way of isolating you from your support systems. It wrapped itself around you, covering your eyes with hazy limbs of darkness and sorrow, and whispered in your ear with its voice of grating misery that you were alone.

Maybe it’s cruel of you, but you think you may despise Suoh now. The pain that wraps itself around your ribcage and makes it hard to breathe kicks in with a vengeance when you see him, and the most you can do is offer him pained smiles and watery eyes.

When you tell Yuri this privately, amidst tears and apologies, she wraps her own cold fingers around yours and smiles with an equally sad look.

“It’s okay. If I didn’t –“ She doesn’t say it, but you know she loves the kid like her own son, and you also know that for her, Suoh is like a connection to Rang. You sniffle and nod, squeezing her hands. “Well. What I mean to say is that I understand.”

Shinjoo is not as understanding – he barely talks to you anymore, and while he’s polite and cordial when the two of you cross paths you know he simply cannot wrap his head around your decision to avoid Suoh. He’s too kind-hearted to understand someone willingly closing their heart against another, and you can’t find it in your cruel heart to blame him for it.

Saerom does her best to comfort you, but you knew she never really understood why you’d chosen Rang in the first place – and to be honest, you couldn’t really fault her for that either. Rang had the capability of being a truly awful person, and she had seen mostly only that side of him. Truthfully, you weren’t sure why him either, just that… it was him.

And Jiah… well, honestly you hadn’t had much of a relationship with her before, but she had taken you under her wing initially, a type of solidarity for humans who were partnered with something that wasn’t quite human. And that had been sweet, and she was nice, and… and she got her happy ending. Against all odds she and Yeon had obtained their happy ending, and a small part of you resented her for it. Why was she allowed a life of happiness? Were you truly so much lesser than her? Her smiles sent your way now are strained, and you have a feeling she either knows how you feel or is aware of the disparity.

And Yeon. He was the last in your social circle who had known of Rang, and a large part of you truly hated him. If it wasn’t for him, for the unending love that Rang had for his brother, then he would still be..

But no, that wasn’t fair. Yeon didn’t force Rang to make that sacrifice. (But he was still the main reason Rang was gone, and an acidic burn lingers in your throat whenever you think about it.)

Truthfully, you and Yeon had never been that close beforehand – you knew of him, of course. With all the chaos going on surrounding he and Jiah, how couldn’t you know of him? However, all you knew was that he was immensely powerful, incredibly in love with Jiah, and had the capacity to be a bit clueless sometimes. And he.. well, you didn’t know what he thought of you – you assumed he’d just thought you to be one of Rang’s unfortunate playthings.

But Grief also has a funny way of bringing people together, even as it tore you away from others – as close as you were and as instant as your connection had been with Yuri, your friendship with Yeon had only really developed after Rang’s disappearance.

It was an inexplicably strong bond born of the type of agony that made one want to rip themselves apart to get rid of it. The two of you were just frantically grasping at connections to Rang to keep his memory close.

“He’ll be reincarnated someday, eventually.” Yeon tells you this once when you accompany him to Rang’s “gravesite”, settled into the grass at his feet so you don’t have to see the picture of the other. It may help Yeon, but seeing Rang and not being able to reach him… it only hurt you.

“Does that make you feel better?” Your voice is so soft the wind almost drowns it out, but you’re sure he can hear you.

By the time Rang is reincarnated, you very well could be dead. And if you weren’t, did it matter? No memories, none of the experiences that had turned Rang into the annoying bastard that you loved. You wanted Rang back, not the possibility that someone could be similar to him, nor someone who housed his soul. Just him.

The silence stretches on for so long that you’ve decided Yeon just isn’t going to reply to you, your own eyes shut as the wind blows past the two of you, but a sigh from behind you, heavy with the weight of hundreds of years, announces that Yeon has finally decided to answer.

“No, it doesn't.”

me disappearing from your side is unthinkable

“Are you just hanging around me because you’re after my fox bead?” It’s a question Rang posits to you one afternoon, and when you look at him in surprise he isn’t even facing in your direction, coffee raised to his lips like he doesn’t really care what your answer is. You manage to keep yourself from sighing in amusement, but you can’t contain a small smile.

Arrogant to a fault, but secretly craved verbal validation. That was a good description of Lee Rang.

“Of course I’m not – you’re only half-gumiho, after all. I’m not even sure if you have one.”

“I have one!” His response is instant, and you’re not sure if he’s annoyed at you for not knowing or annoyed at the thought that you might think of him as lesser because he’s not full-blooded, but his annoyance fades quickly into sulking when he sees you stifling your laughter at his reaction.

“I’m just a dumb little human, how would I know?” And yet you watch him for a few moments after saying this, not really taking his words at face value as you try to figure out if he’s lying to you. You know he recognizes what you’re doing, and to his credit he simply sits there with his arms crossed, coffee abandoned on the table between the two of you, still sulking. Letting you openly analyze him.

You reach across the table, hand laid palm up in front of him as a peace-offering – he glances at you out of the corner of his eye before huffing a sigh, oh so magnanimously reaching over to interlace his fingers with yours.

“Truly, I don’t care about your "eternal knowledge" or whatever it is that I could steal from you, Rang. All I care about is you.” The fact that he was willing to let you come to your own conclusion without trying to hypnotize you into it showed the vast change he had undergone around you in the short amount of time you’d known him. “Besides, you don’t die of poisoning when you eat azaleas. I’m pretty sure there isn’t a single part of you that isn’t considered gumiho.”

“Of course humans would be weak enough to die just because they ate some pretty flower.” His tone is flippant, words harsh and dismissive, but his fingers twitch around yours and his thumb presses into a gentle sweep over the back of your hand.

loving somebody that isn't you is unthinkable

“I think you should have this.”

Yeon is holding Rang’s phone out to you, knuckles white with how hard he’s gripping it. You know he doesn’t want to let go.

“When you said you wanted to come over because you had something to give me, I thought that was just a ploy to get away from Jiah because you wanted to plan a party for her or something.” You keep your response nonchalant as you reach your hand out – not taking it just yet, letting Yeon decide to give it up on his own terms. The phone hovers there above your hand for a protracted period of time before he gently sets it on your palm, exhaling a sigh afterwards like it took a lot of strength to do such a simple act.

“That’s not a bad idea. I’ll remember that you volunteered your home as the place to plan her party.”

You roll your eyes at him, scooting over on your couch as he moves to sit beside you. The phone stares up at you from where you’ve wrapped your fingers around it, cold and silent. A part of you is scared about turning it on, and Yeon doesn’t rush you, just leans back and lets you process your emotions. Giving you the same courtesy you gave him earlier.

When you finally click the screen on you’re met with the same wallpaper you’d seen so many times before, this time without the “enter your password” popping up – you can feel Yeon watching you as you swipe through to the home screen.

“Thank you. For this.” Your words come out stilted, thick – it hurts to hold something of his, and you’re not really sure what you’re supposed to do with it. The gumiho sitting next to you (not the right gumiho, but a gumiho nonetheless) is silent for a few more moments before reaching over, index finger tapping the photos app.

You don’t want to see this, and yet you sit still and angle the phone towards him so he can show you whatever it is he wants you to see. You don’t want to see pictures of Rang, happy or annoyed or at all, and you’re opening your mouth to plead with Yeon to please stop when he clicks open a folder, and –

And they’re pictures of.. you.

It was strange, to see the pictures Rang had taken of you. You’d known he’d had them of course, always the little thief, always hoarding things that he thought were precious because he didn’t want them taken away from him again, but you’d never known just how many there were, or what they were like. Looking at the pictures he took was like looking into the softest parts of his heart, past the walls he’d put up. Rang lived his life behind those walls, aching and biting and shouting through its cracks that those who live their lives without one are only going to get hurt, and these pictures were a look at the vulnerable and weak parts of him that craved safety and intimacy and familial love. It was a softer view, and bizarre to see yourself the subject of it.

You can feel tears pricking at your lashline, and when you blink they slip down your cheek, but you can’t move, can barely breathe as you look through the pictures. Pictures of you asleep on his chest, pictures of just your hands intertwined, pictures of you reading, pictures of you looking at something on your phone… rarely was he in the picture, and even when he was you were clearly the focus.

“My little brother was capable of loving someone other than himself after all.” It’s more of a sigh from Yeon than a statement, and you don’t point out the obvious - he loved you more because he died for you. You want to, want to shout them at him, accusatory and scathing, but the words turn to ash on your tongue and choke you with sobs.

A warm hand on your shoulder keeps you grounded for a time, and you almost feel worse when he begins to whisper “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry” to you over and over, thick with his own pain and anguish.

Maybe Rang would come back someday, like Yeon did the first time – no real explanation that your tiny human mind could wrap itself around, but you wouldn’t care. He’d be back, and he’d probably have to work for the rest of his life for Taluipa chasing down and eliminating other dangerous and out of control mythical beings as penance for his own sins, but he’d be back.

You keep it a secret, but pray for that every morning and every night, something you never would have done before. Grief had a way of forcing you to cling to every possibility and hope no matter how small, and after having your eyes opened to what truly existed in your world maybe there’d be some great and lonely god passing by that would hear your pleas and take pity on you.

Please.

no longer being able to hold you is unthinkable

The lights in his house are all off, a single ornate lamp shedding reddened light around Rang’s bedroom. He’s got you pinned against the wall next to his door, licking hot stripes into your mouth hungrily.

Heat, the press of spit-slicked lips against one another as you push back against Rang’s assault – he makes a sort of growling noise deep in his chest and pulls away just to start leaving open-mouthed kisses along your neck.

Frantic, aggressive, driven purely by desire. It reminded you of an animal desperate to take as much as it could until it was driven away.

“Rang –“ Just the sound of your voice saying his name has a soft groan lodging in his throat, and his hand that had been cradling your cheek slides down to hook around your hip, pull you closer to him. “Relax. I’m not going anywhere.”

You manage to lace a hand through his hair and gently tug him back by that contact – his lips are shiny in the dim light, shaded a deep red, and you want nothing more than to lean in and kiss him until both your lips are sore.

“You kiss me and bite my lip and you’re telling me to relax?” Rang’s breathless and incredulous, and you notice keenly he doesn’t even react to the hand in his hair, or the pressure forcing him to pull away. “You’re the one playing with fire here. What if I get carried away and just eat you up?”

He growls the last part out, insistently ripping free of your hold so he can press his lips against yours again – you just hum in response, arms looping loosely around his neck, and refuse to let him lead the kiss. He’d eventually learn.

His dark suit jacket had been shed the instant you’d gotten home together, a sign of contentment and trust, showing he was comfortable with you seeing him relaxed at home – you use that to your advantage now, one of your free hands slipping down to begin unbuttoning the top few buttons of his dress shirt. If he notices he doesn’t react, one hand squeezing your hip and the other angling your head into whatever position he thought was best to kiss you in.

“You taste good.” The look in his eyes is wild, untamed, no hint of the embarrassment or nerves that usually surrounded him when the two of you did something more chaste – it made sense, in a way. Activities like this were more primal, more instinct over thought, and Rang was nothing if not naturally aggressive.

You huff out a laugh and bring your hands up to cup his face, leaving a trail of kisses down to his jugular. The fingers of his on your hip flex – impatient, but willing to let you dote on him a tiny bit before again taking what he wanted.

Good.

You bite down on his neck hard – you’re not worried about wounds, knowing he’ll heal within a few hours regardless. He makes a sort of shocked moan at the feeling, fingers coming down to scrabble at your shoulder but not push you away.

Bare teeth against the vulnerable part of his neck, too blunt to cause any lasting damage for a gumiho like himself but still enough of a threat in feeling alone that his instinct kicks in and he feels like prey, caught in the predator’s jaws. The taste of iron hits your tongue and you distantly think “huh, guess I managed to break the skin”.

“Rang..” Your voice is soft, barely audible over the sound of his harsh breathing, lips moving against his neck. You can feel the shudder that runs through his body. “What if I eat you up first?”

He looks down at you, takes in the slick of red against your lips, and you find yourself breathless as in an instant he’s moved the two of you to his bed, your back hitting it hard as he cages you in with his forearms. Stupid supernatural speed.

“I could kill you, you know?” Rang’s voice is almost a growl, dark eyes flickering gold – he looks deadly and beautiful. “Tear your flimsy, weak human body open and devour your liver.” He’s trying to be scary – a last ditch effort to self-sabotage? Your heart aches suddenly as you’re reminded of how he has been left so many times that he now tried to leave before he got left.

“But you won’t.” Breathless, but assured – you believe what you’re saying with one hundred percent certainty, and he just furrows his brow at your statement and says nothing. You reach a hand up to caress his cheek, and even though the look in his eyes hardens he tilts his head into the touch. “Your bedroom talk needs some work, though.”

Your taunt gets a scoff and not much else, but he does lean back down to kiss you – a little less aggressively this time, long and sweet. Despite his previous man-handling to get you under him you notice he’s still hovering over you – his heat radiates through the fabric of his fancy dress clothes and you huff and grab at his waist, yanking him down as hard as you can. His hips stutter against yours the instant the two of you touch, and it draws a moan out of you that he instantly tries to swallow with his own mouth. You can feel the heaviness of him against your leg and it nearly drives you insane with want.

“I knew you were vulgar, but I didn’t think you were the type to skip so many steps in a relationship.” You can’t tell if he’s trying to deflect or if he’s just naturally this talkative in bed – his voice sounds rough and strained but you’re not sure if it’s from nerves or your body being so near his own.

“You’re right, but with you I’ll do anything.” It’s a dangerous thing to say, but the truth – for Rang, you would do almost anything, and there’s a moment of silence where you know he clearly heard you but doesn’t respond. “You’re taking too long though –“ You push lightly at his shoulder to emphasize your point. “Move and let me taste you already.”

He lets you push him back towards the headboard with a complicated expression – you can see his wariness and mistrust clearly in the tense line of his shoulders and set of his jaw, but you can also see the way he’s fighting to trust you in how he obeys your command without a sharp retort.

It makes a part of you ache – in instances like this it’s incredibly obvious what type of person Rang was underneath his outer layers of aggression and cruelty. If you ripped his self-destructive walls down he was just someone desperate to please out of the desire to once again not be abandoned by someone he put his trust and faith in. His heart was a mess of overgrown brambles and strangling ivy, cutting anyone who tried to get close and suffocating himself if he tried to grow.

Fuck, you loved him.

Sweat glistens at his neck where you’d unbuttoned his shirt, and above that the smeared blood from your bite mark, already healing. The sight of his bared skin makes your mouth flood with saliva, and you realize that you desperately want your lips on every single part of him.

Well. In time.

Your nails clink against the metal of his belt buckle as you hastily unclasp it – he snorts but lifts his hips when you tug insistently at the waistband to his dress pants after popping the button open, not even bothering to do more than loosen the belt.

You’re so tempted to tease, lick a stripe up his clothed cock, wrap your fingers around him until the fabric is wet with both your saliva and his pre-come – but more than anything, you want him, so you drag them down so you can feel the heat and weight of him in your hand.

It’s strange, in a way – Rang is an incredibly powerful and dangerous creature, but with his cock in your hand he’s as vulnerable and weak as any other man, letting his breath escape through his teeth when you thumb the head of it.

Less mythical creature from legend, more lovesick fool willing to let anything happen to him.

You brace yourself with one hand on the fabric of his dress slacks, still bunched up under his hips, as you duck your head down and dart your tongue out to taste him before drawing him into your mouth. His hand trembles as his fingers lace through your hair and you feel such a surge of adoration for him that you reach for his free hand with your own, insistently groping until he acquiesces and interlocks his fingers with your own.

He feels hot and heavy in your mouth, and when you trace the vein on the underside with your tongue you can feel him swell bigger, a soft, shuddery gasp escaping him as he does so. You can feel his gaze on you as you take him in deeper, and chance a glance up through your eyelashes to meet it.

He looks deliciously debauched like this, flush high on his cheekbones, hair mussed, shirt unbuttoned, and pupils blown so wide that only a ring of gold lingers around the edges. If your mouth wasn’t full you’d laugh and tease him about his disguise slipping (you weren’t sure you’d ever seen the gold of his eyes as much as you had tonight) but instead you simply swallow and delight in the way he yanks one of his hands free to press the back of it against his teeth, eyes still locked on yours.

Rang's frustratingly quiet, soft broken wheezes whenever you swallow or experimentally scrape your teeth against him. You want to push him to the edge, get him to break and beg, but – now is not the time for that. Now was the time for hollowing your cheeks and swallowing him down more, fingers wrapped around the base and squeezing, drifting lower.

He lets you go for another minute before he’s muttering “fuck, ah – fuck”  in a rough, frantic tone and pulling you off of him – his cock sits red and shiny between the two of you, and you wonder if he was close. When you open your lips to ask he seems to understand your intent and dives forward to kiss you instead, and in revenge you bite the same spot on his bottom lip that had started all of this.

The next time the two of you separate he kicks his pants the rest of the way off without a second thought, fingers flying to unbutton the rest of his shirt – he’s watching you sharply, and a chill goes down your back from the weight of it as you slip your own shirt over you head, not bothering to try and be sexy about it.

Kissing was one thing, but you’d never been naked in front of Rang before. Your fingers hesitate at the clasp of your bra, watching as inch by inch the skin of his torso is revealed to you. Your eyes linger on the grisly scar bisecting his abdomen – you’d seen it before, but with the red lighting from his stupidly fancy lamp it gives the illusion that blood is lingering, clinging to the edges in the darker shadows.

“Stop stalling, I want to see you too.” Rang’s accusatory words startle you out of your thoughts – you know he’s as uncomfortable as you are, and also fully naked while you’ve only lost your shirt, so you suck in a breath and release the clasp.

Even with your nerves, you don’t expect any profound declarations of attraction from Rang – that just wasn’t the type of person he was, especially when he himself felt uncomfortable. You resist the urge to cover yourself and reach for your waistband –

A solid weight hits you in the chest, Rang’s hands coming up milliseconds later to splay across your back to keep you from moving. The feeling of his bare skin against your own causes your breath to hitch, and Rang’s annoyingly dexterous fingers cupping one of your breasts does nothing to help, the pads of his fingertips mapping out the swell of your breasts, the peak of your nipples.

That was one way to show his appreciation without using words.

The rest of your clothes he divests you of himself – you’re pretty sure your pants are fine, but your underwear has no hope of surviving, ripped from your body and tossed into the darkness – your complaints get lodged in your throat as Rang wastes no time in licking into you, one of his hands lingering above your clit and the other resting on your hip until you reach down to interlace fingers.

This is one thing where his nerves or discomfort don’t seem to come into play.

Rang has a type of methodical ferocity to the way he mouths at your cunt – it’s not messy, but he laps at you like a desiccated man who would sooner cut his own arm off than be apart from you. When he slips a finger inside you nearly kick him and can feel the soft huff of laughter as he releases your hand to wrap his fingers around the calf of yours near his head.

Fingers and tongue deep inside and thumb rubbing quick circles on your clit has heat creeping over your body, fingers curled into the bedspread. You’re not sure the tension in your body can get any tighter until he whispers something against your lower lips and it breaks, white dancing across your vision and legs locking around his shoulders as you tremble.

“You’re driving me insane.” It’s more an exhale than an actual sentence, his voice gruffer than you’ve ever heard it, mouth shiny from your own release.

It’s probably the single most erotic thing you’ve seen – that is, until he enters you, his mouth parted slightly and brow furrowed, gaze going hazy and unfocused.

“Fuck, Rang..” It’s an uncomfortable type of pleasure, the way he stretches and fills you – his eyes track your every expression, tension visible in his frame as he lets you acclimate to the feeling. It’s a relatively surprising level of care, and you reach up and draw him down into a kiss in thanks, scraping your nails against the hair at the nape of his neck.

“Mhm..” It’s not a word, but it’s his attempt to soothe you nonetheless, a hum against your lips as he shifts his weight on his forearms and tries to settle into not moving. Only a few more seconds pass before he’s pulling away from the kiss, brow furrowed.

“If it hurts too much, I can just.. make you think it doesn’t.” He seems almost embarrassed to offer, like he knows it’s a bad thing to influence you with his powers, but there’s a type of innocence in his gaze that undercuts his entire suggestion. He’s not offering to trick you, he’s offering to try and “help” you, in one of the only ways he knew how.

“That’s – “ Regardless of his intention, your instinctual reaction to him offering to hypnotize you is, of course, to recoil. “.. That’s actually not a bad idea. But I’ll be okay. Thank you, Rang.”

His eyes soften at your gratitude and he bends down to nuzzle his face into your neck – you’re not sure what he’s doing for a long moment but after a few seconds you realize he was probably just getting comfortable as close to you as possible.

And as sweet as that is – and it is sweet – you don’t need nearly that much time to become accustomed to him inside of you.

“You can move now, Rang.” He’s immediately lifting his head, jostling you a bit at the sudden movement, gaze raking over your face.

“Are you sure? I mean -” He looks like he wants to take back the question, but he also looks like he still wants an answer – his concern amuses you, but you keep it to yourself. You had a feeling that this was probably one of the first times in a good one hundred or more years that he actually cared about the person he was fucking on a personal level.

“Yes, I’m sure.” You reach up to thumb lightly at the place where you had bitten his neck – the wound itself had already closed, but the blood was still dried in the same spot. Your thumb presses in hard against what you assume is a bruise and his hips jolt into you suddenly at the dull spike of pain. “Move.”

It turns out that sex with Rang – at least, the first time, that is – is nothing like how he projects himself. He fucks you in slow, measured thrusts, arms bracketing your body to keep from jostling you as much as possible. It’s satisfying in an infuriating type of way, pleasure building slowly in your hips and coiling around your spine.

When he presses a wayward kiss to the corner of your lips you turn your head to snag him in a real one, and then nip at his bottom lip (that you refuse to let heal) as sharply as possible, licking into his mouth when he opens it to, most likely, curse at you. A sharp sense of pride erupts behind your ribcage when you manage to tear a moan from his chest with your tongue, and he pulls back to look at you, affronted and infatuated equally.

His lips, slick and kiss-bruised and dark red, curl into an amused smirk as he thrusts into you sharply in retaliation – exactly what you want, and he knows it, keeping to the pace you want for a short while before slowing down until you bite him all over again.

You’re not really sure who is manipulating who anymore.

He eventually spills into you with a choked off moan that sounds reminiscent to a sob, teeth gritted and head bowed into your shoulder – the sudden heat and way he thrusts into you in shallow bursts as he rides out his own high sends you over the edge yourself, and the moment he feels you tighten around him he’s lifting his head to kiss at your face feverishly.

His cheeks are red for a long while after, and you think he may be embarrassed about orgasming first. You simply stroke the hair out of his eyes and tell him how well he did.

“With the way your brother likes to play at being human, sometimes I wonder if it’s you and I who the legend describes, the ill-fated gumiho that fell in love with the lowly human. After all, it seems like he’s on the right track to changing he and Jiah’s fate.” Your voice is soft, contemplative and somber and spoken mostly into his chest. Rang’s thumb hesitates from where he’s been rubbing soothing circles into the base of your skull, fingers tangled in your hair. Your skin is still cooling from the heat of exertion, and while his skin feels sticky against your own neither one of you seem to want to part.

“Don’t make my life into a tragedy just because you’re into romanticizing them. Besides, I’m only half-gumiho.”

His tone is flippant and edging towards annoyed, and while you smile at it you wonder if his insistence on pointing out his heritage is his own way of trying to distance himself from the possibility you described.

“.. thank you for admitting that you loved me.”

His breath catches in his chest under your cheek, and you peek up at him to see him staring down at you wide-eyed for a moment before he wrestles his expression back under control into something more predatory and natural.

“You tricked me. Not bad.” His muttering is cut short of his own volition as he ducks down to press his lips against yours, and you smile into it and bite gently at the same spot on his bottom lip that you’d been abusing all night.

He yanks his head back and curses at you, a wild look in his eye that screams ‘desire’, and you feel so warm and safe and loved that you can’t imagine ever wanting to be anywhere else.

who do i love if not you?

The thing about Grief was that it clung to you so tightly because it was surprisingly easy for it to lose its grip against its natural enemy - Time.

Yeon has been getting restless lately, you – everyone – can tell. Jiah tells you he’s been making frequent trips to the Afterlife Immigration Office, and it doesn’t take a genius to puzzle out the meaning behind that.

“It just had to happen this way.” She laments one morning with you over your shared drinks at a quaint little café - it was the same one you used to frequent with Rang, but that thought is more easily pushed to the back of your mind in your present company. “You start getting better about everything and he gets worse.”

You hum in acknowledgement. She’s not really seeking advice, just venting. And as someone who also knew what it was like to be in a relationship with one of the Lee brothers, you were the prime candidate for that.

“I know the baby is a pretty long way off, but I thought he’d at least settle down a bit the closer the due date got.” Another soft sigh leaves her lips, fingers wrapped tight around the warm cup in her hands, gazing at the dark liquid inside. You can’t help laughing softly at her predicament, and she manages a small smile in return.

“Once another month or so goes by you aren’t going to be able to get rid of him, don’t worry.”

A week later and you’ve almost forgotten the conversation entirely – Yuri is settled at your side, the two of you watching as Suoh runs around their little backyard doing.. whatever it was kids entertained themselves with. You weren’t really sure. He seemed happy though, and that’s all that mattered.

Shinjoo’s pleading voice breaks the relative peace and quiet – you can’t make out the words, but from the way Yuri stiffens and tilts her head you know she can (stupid gumiho hearing). Yeon’s distinctive voice is lower toned, and you barely hear him respond, turning on the quaint little bench (that Shinjoo had painted, he reminded you every time you sat on it) to see the two round the corner of the house.

Yeon’s mostly focused on Shinjoo, but when he glances over at you and Yuri he brightens and heads your way – when he gets in front of you he claps you on the shoulder warmly, a carefree and thoughtless smile on his face as he proclaims, “just wait a little longer”.

You’re not sure what that means, and Shinjoo begins scolding him immediately – something about getting your hopes up, something about promises he couldn’t keep. Blood rushes in your ears as you connect the dots, Jiah’s concerns coming to mind immediately.

Over the next few days you manage to get enough details from the various gumiho in your life to piece together a little of what was happening, and the day Yeon says he’s not going to take no for an answer you dig your nails into your palm to keep from following after him – you were just a human and you’d get in the way, if you were even allowed into the building in the first place. You want to scream at the unfairness of it all, but you swallow your pride and your anguish and your need and try your best to make it through each day without going insane at the thought that maybe hope was once again within reach.

no matter how many times i'm reborn, my choice is you

“We should get a dog –“

“I don’t want to.”

Your statement is barely out of your mouth before Rang is rejecting you flippantly, and even though you expected it you huff out a sigh, looking over at him. He’s lounging contentedly on his bed, phone in hand, while you’re curled up a few feet away in one of his stupidly expensive chairs. You’d usually be next to him, but you hadn’t felt like trying to fend off his wandering hands – and yes, he had initially sulked about it.

“Why not? You like dogs just fine.” It’s an argument you’ve had with him before – you knew he had some mental or emotional hang-up over taking care of dogs, but you also knew he had a serious soft-spot hidden deep in his heart for the animal. Plus, taking care of an animal together would be another step towards the type of intimacy you and he both craved.

“If you want to take care of something small and cute, why not make a baby?”

“I –“

And he’s looking at you sincerely after saying that statement so carefreely, all wide eyed innocence and honesty that is usually hidden behind cutting words and a forced layer of arrogance, smiling excitedly, playfully, but genuinely. And that’s what trips you up.

He’s being so heartbreakingly honest with you right now.

He wants to start a family with you. Regardless of the timing, regardless of the reason, he’s not taking it back or laughing it off like it was a joke. The silence is stretching on much too long but you’re still stuck on the fact that he’s apparently decided you are his mate. He’s not going to go looking for anyone else – gumiho’s mated for life and he had essentially just told you that you were his and he was yours.

Forever.

“What, right now?” It’s a horrible response, but the best you can come up with – you even sound slightly choked up, and you’re sure it’s evident on your face that he’d completely blind-sided you. He’s still grinning, sitting cross-legged on his bed in a soft sweater that somehow changes his entire demeanor into something softer, sweeter.

“Sure, why not? I didn’t mean right now, but the process is fun.” He’s… he’s teasing you again. The fucking brat. You’re torn between wanting to hit him and wanting to hug him, and even worse, you know he must know.

God, he was going to be insufferable for a month or more about this.

“I think that’s kind of getting ahead of ourselves.” You move carefully, sitting down on the edge of his bed warily – the way he’s peering at you makes you feel a bit like trapped prey, and he must love it. “I know you’re just deflecting from the dog thing, but – Rang, were you being serious?”

“Yes.” His response comes so fast you’d almost think he was lying, but his cheerful demeanor has dropped and he’s staring at you head-on, expression open. There’s a flush steadily working its way across his cheekbones, and you can see the bottom of the ear closest to you is burning red, but he’s not looking away or deflecting.

You aren’t really sure how to respond to such a blatant show of vulnerability – usually you were the one trying to draw bits and pieces out of Rang’s innermost thoughts, so when he freely volunteered the information it always knocked you off balance.

He doesn’t seem surprised when you don’t say anything else and instead pounce on him – you’re simply doing exactly what he taught you to do when someone caught you off-guard. Deflecting.

“Pretty sure we can’t make a baby like this.” He’s breathless and still trying to taunt you, on his back with your fingers inside of him – his expression is haughty, and it amuses you because at one time he would have balked at even the idea of you fucking him, and now he acted like it was his right.

“No? What a shame.” And you crook your fingers to punish him for his clever remark, watching as he throws his head back on a groan ripped from his chest at the feeling.

Fucking Rang was always a delight – it was a beautiful thing, to push into him and watch the way it slowly tore down every wall that he had put up over the hundreds of years he’d been alive, reducing him to just another man who curled his fingers into the sheets and buried his face into his pillow as you stretched him open on your strap.

“You’re so pretty like this, Rang. You’re actually gorgeous all of the time, but you knew that, didn’t you? Such a cute little fox.”

Your hand against his back, even through the sweater, is a blistering heat and he knows you don’t have the strength to pin him – but you’re pressing down all the same and his mouth is dry at the feeling, at the connotation behind it. The idea that he was at your mercy, that you were stronger than he was. That you loved him enough you wanted to possess him and never let him go. That you cared about him enough that you were only cognizant of him.

It was mortifying and electrifying all at once – he was uncomfortable with that level of attention, at the idea that anyone would be looking that closely at him, but at the same time he’d begun to crave the feeling.

He blamed it completely on you.

Actually, he blamed everything that was happening on you – never before would someone have even dared to suggest fucking him, and if they had he would have ripped their throat open and let them bleed out. And now you’ve got him face-down on the bed, fucking into him in such deep strokes that he wasn’t even sure he could fucking breathe, let alone form a sentence.

He’s leaking onto the bed already, making a mess of the bedspread, and a part of him is disgusted at himself for just how quickly you can reduce him to a creature focused only on the basest desire – but the other, stronger part hears you whisper “does it feel good, sweetheart?” and melts into your touch, a whimpered moan the best he can do to answer.

When you grip his hips tighter and push him down, forcing him to grind against the bed like some sort of pathetic animal, he knows he won’t last long. He’d never explicitly told you, but something about you manhandling him, exerting your miniscule strength and him submitting like you were stronger than him.. it turned the blood in his veins electric, sparks of pleasure mixed with adrenaline flooding his system.

The power you held over Rang in instances like this was exquisite – his muscles are tense, each of your thrusts punching a groan out of his body as you do your best to hit that spot deep inside of him that drives him crazy. All it takes is you leaning over his back, wrapping a hand around his leaking cock and murmuring about how wet he is, how he looks so good being fucked by you, for him to break.

He orgasms with the feeling of your teeth on his shoulder, blunt pressure and tongue against heated skin.

You whisper affirmations into his neck, press kisses to his cheek as you pull out of him – he makes a displeased, exhausted sound at the feeling, rolling onto his side and tilting his head back so you could have better access to his face, eyes still shut.

“I love you.” And then, just to make sure he knew, your lips pressing to his brow - “Rang, I love you.”

You know he didn’t like dramatic declarations of love like that, but sometimes the emotion bubbled up in your lungs and spilled over onto your tongue, and then you had no choice but to tell him. He predictably clicks his tongue in response and looks anywhere but at you, still breathing heavily.

You know what comes next – him whining about how you left him sticky and sore – so you’re already up to wet a cloth with warm water to clean him with. (The noise he makes when you pull away from his side is soft, but you hear it all the same and a piece of your heart yearns to immediately reassure him that you’d be back.)

Your fingers gently brush at his hair, unsticking the pieces that were pasted to his forehead from sweat and sweeping them away from his face. There’s a fragile silence to the moment, like the bed the two of you were on was something disconnected from the rest of the world, intangible to anyone else. His eyes have slid open and he hasn’t stopped looking at you since, eyes fathomlessly dark and multiple levels of enamored.

Something in your chest hurts at his expression – it’s a level of honesty and vulnerability that you rarely see from him, something you have to pry from deep within his heart, and he’s offering it to you freely this time, fingers wrapped around your own to bring your knuckles up to his lips reverently.

“I’m glad –“ His voice sounds rough and he stops to swallow, seemingly taking the time to search for his next words as well. His grip on your hand tightens slightly, thumb rubbing gently across the surface. “I’m glad I met you.”

He whispers it to you like it’s a precious secret, and you squeeze his hand and murmur “I love you too” into the air between the two of you, a promise.

even if i can't come back, it's you

The Afterlife Immigration Office is vacant, cold, your footsteps echoing hollowly on the floors. You don’t know much about Taluipa, but you do know she’s incredibly powerful and has a way of seeing most things happening. The fact that you aren’t immediately accosted when you enter, nor when you make your ways into the deepest part of the office is.. concerning.

Her absence, her husband’s absence, and Yeon’s continued absence.. it’s all concerning.

The last time you’d seen anyone in or around this building was when you’d spoken with Hyunuiong – Taluipa's husband was much nicer and was willing to at least hear you out and explain what had happened and why Yeon had been gone.

He doesn’t tell you outright what Yeon had demanded, but you aren’t stupid. It’s easy enough to see where his thoughts had been.

Still, the gatekeeper of the Samdo River had seemed… tired? Something more bone-deep than tired, and there was an itching in your brain that told you he had only given you information because there was no point in keeping it a secret anymore.

The middle cabinet, unassuming, through the portal. You’d repeated what you had heard from him so many times that it had become like a mantra to you – every step you take it runs through your head, drowning out the sound of your heartbeat.

It was so quiet.

The smooth handle of the cabinet feels icy under your touch – your fingers go numb as soon as they clasp it, and the longer you stand there in indecision the more that sensation creeps along your arm.

This was stupid. If this even worked in the first place, what guarantee did you have that you wouldn’t just end up some place where you’d die immediately? Didn’t Yeon say he went through one of these once and ended up in literal hell?

And assuming you could survive wherever you ended up, how did you even know it would send you to the same place?

You have no answer to any of those questions, the Grief that had been gradually subduing flaring up and wrapping burning fingers around your throat, choking and painful and heavy.

You yank the door open and it takes you a moment to pry your fingers from the surface, like something greedy and hungry in the wood had been trying to keep you attached to it. The portal behind it is bright, leaves spots dancing in your vision as you blink and look away – much too bright to be able to discern anything through it.

The smell of gunpowder reaches your nose, an acrid stench you only barely recognize, and you take an involuntary breath, Grief rattling around in your lungs and tightening its hold at the thought that Rang was theoretically within reach.

You could still turn around. You could step away, go and ask Yuri or Shinjoo about the empty office, put your faith in Yeon. He had never failed at bending fate to his whim yet.

And still… the Grief howls within you, a separate entity, clinging to your organs and rattling your bones. It hurts. You miss him.

You breathe in deeply, and take a step.