The Instinct Beneath the Mask
The two of them fell into a strange silence. In that brief moment, a storm raged through Yeo-won’s mind.
She stared at her neatly folded hands resting on her sharply angled knees and steadied her breathing.
Shin-wol’s behavior wasn’t unfamiliar. He often tapped the spot beside him or patted his knee when he wanted to call her over, so acting flustered now would have seemed far more strange.
Yet having just heard those obscene moans, her senses were heightened, and she couldn’t help the strange thoughts that flashed through her head.
Yeo-won cleared her dizzy mind, stood up, and moved to sit at the very edge of the opposite side of the bed.
The room was small; even from where Shin-wol sat, he could easily reach her if he stretched out his hand.
Nevertheless, he seemed dissatisfied and urged her again in a low, coaxing voice.
“Even closer than this?”
Yeo-won glanced back and forth between his knee, which was nearly touching hers, and her own, then looked up at him again.
At the meaningful look in her eyes, Shin-wol muttered softly with a faintly bitter expression.
“Ah, seriously!”
At those words, Yeo-won shot up from her seat and perched sideways on his knee.
Now that she thought about it, this was the first time she had ever sat on his lap while fully conscious.
‘It’s more embarrassing than I expected.’
To hide that inner thought, she deliberately spoke in a cold, mocking tone.
“There. Happy now? And don’t ever say that again.”
Instead of answering, he gave a faint smile and buried his face against her shoulder. The slow, deliberate way he rubbed his cheek against her made Yeo-won’s entire body stiffen with tension.
“Stop teasing me. I’ll get angry.”
Every time his languid voice tickled her ear, her body instinctively shrank inward.
The breath brushing against the nape of her neck was so hot it felt like it might scorch her. Yeo-won straightened her back as rigidly as possible, trying to minimize the areas where their bodies touched.
Yeo-won thought that only Shin-wol could make someone’s knees go weak with nothing but a sigh, and quickly spoke up.
“Do I smell bad to you?”
She gently pushed against his chest and curved the corners of her eyes in a sweet smile. It was a smile laced with subtle anxiety.
“You said the plum blossom scent was unpleasant.”
He let out a soft sound of realization, but his gaze remained fixed on the hand she had placed against his chest.
He took her hand, lifted it, and pressed it to his own cheek, rubbing slowly.
Through her palm, she felt skin as smooth as silk and a faint warmth.
He slowly raised his lowered eyes. The soft brown irises had already transformed into a vivid, brilliant gold.
He buried his face against the nape of her neck once more. The hand that had been on her cheek now laced fingers with hers and held on tightly.
“Well… it is a motel, after all…”
It was a place many people had passed through. The cheap air freshener sprayed heavily to mask the odors made even Yeo-won wrinkle her nose.
Since he was from the canine family and sensitive to smells, Shin-wol was surely feeling the fragrance far more strongly than she was.
On top of that, he had expended a great deal of power from the moment they left Mount Gonok until now, and he had even stopped the pouring rain earlier. He was probably far more exhausted than he appeared.
Perhaps that was why he seemed a little more clingy today than usual.
Yeo-won felt slightly flustered, but she quickly understood that this must be the reason.
Suddenly, Cheong-sil’s words came to mind.
“Maintaining a human form takes a lot of energy and is very uncomfortable-seumnidayo.”
‘Really? In what way?’
When Yeo-won had asked, Cheong-sil thought hard for a long time before his face lit up with realization. He scampered into the living room, returned with a small box in his mouth, and shoved his body inside with a grunt.
Then, with a triumphant expression, he shouted.
“It feels like being crammed into a tiny storage chest and not being able to do anything-seumnidayo!”
‘…I see. So it feels stifling.’
“Exactly-seumnidayo! Stifling! And when the transformation is released, it’s like this!”
With those words, Cheong-sil popped out of the box with a dramatic poof. His movements were so lively and energetic that Yeo-won could almost hear the sound effect in her ears.
“It feels wonderful-seumnidayo!”
‘Ah, so it’s like stretching after staying in one position for too long?’
“What is that-seumnidayo?”
‘A refreshing, invigorating feeling?’
She had failed to make Cheong-sil understand the exact sensation, but she had grasped what he meant.
Even though he couldn’t hide his tail and ears, Cheong-sil’s human transformation had never lasted more than four hours.
Of course, she knew that the innate spiritual power of Shin-wol and Cheong-sil differed greatly.
Yet she had never once seen Shin-wol release his transformation.
Even the elegant, ancient appearance with long hair adorned with irises had still been a human form. She had never seen his ears or tail.
No matter how strong one was, staying in one position for too long would eventually become tiring. Perhaps it was the same for him.
Besides, today she had asked him to transform into a completely different appearance. He might be pushing himself even harder than she realized.
After finishing her thoughts, Yeo-won cautiously called out to him.
“Shin-wol-nim.”
“Yes, Shin-wol-ssi.”
“Can you release your transformation for a moment?”
His fingers, which had been idly toying with her interlaced hand, suddenly froze. Then his head slowly lifted.
When their eyes met at such close range, Yeo-won instinctively drew her head back a little.
“Is that a compliment?”
“Then I’ll take it as a compliment. It’s not that I mean anything else by it—you just look a little tired.”
He repeated the word softly and smiled in a way she couldn’t quite read.
“It wasn’t strange. I just heard that maintaining a human form is tiring and uncomfortable.”
The words ‘a prickly, stubborn gumiho’ rose all the way to the tip of her tongue, but Yeo-won barely swallowed them and spoke again.
“No matter how extraordinary a being you are, there are times when even you can feel tired. From what I’ve seen, you always try to hide it when you’re exhausted.”
“You’ve been in human form for a long time.”
He slowly raised his head.
Then he snapped his fingers and returned to his original appearance.
The long hair, the vivid golden irises, and the slit pupils like thin shards of glass felt familiar to Yeo-won.
But this too was merely another form of transformation. It was not his true self.
When she still didn’t relax her worried gaze, his eyes narrowed slightly.
“…A little.”
To be honest, she had been very afraid, but she felt like stubbornly denying it.
“It wasn’t monstrous.”
Yeo-won clearly remembered the nine-tailed fox she had first seen on Mount Inwol.
It had been enormous, but it was a beautiful fox whose appearance had nothing to do with the word “monstrous.”
At her confident answer, Shin-wol smiled as if she were adorable.
Shin-wol stroked her hair in a soothing gesture and wrapped his arm tightly around her waist.
“I wouldn’t hate you for something like that.”
She answered, but she could no longer insist.
There had been a faint trace of loneliness in his voice.
He pressed his face into her hair, let out a comfortable sigh, and suddenly asked.
“…Does it mean you might harm me like a beast?”
A low chuckle rumbled above her head.
It wasn’t entirely wrong. Humans usually imagined gods as noble beings untouched by desire.
At the self-mocking tone, Yeo-won lifted her head and quickly denied it.
“That’s true for every living thing. It’s not only beasts that follow their instincts. Humans do too.”
His voice suddenly grew deeper, and his golden eyes burned with heat.
Her heart sank with a heavy thud. At the same time, Shin-wol’s hand slid slowly up her side.
When his fingertips brushed the underside of her breast, goosebumps erupted across her skin.
“Hng…”
When Yeo-won flinched and twisted away, he gripped her waist firmly to hold her still.
The moment she met his eyes—completely devoid of laughter—she realized he was telling the truth.
Just as she felt like she might be swallowed whole by those transparent eyes, he smiled gently once more and said,