No, she doesn’t off and worse, she finds out that Byulyi is a horrible cook.

“No, don’t stir that pot angel, I say- Oh my Lucifer, stop using controlling spell!”, Hyejin snarls, hitting Byulyi’s hand with her spoon. The distraction causes all the floating chopsticks and ladles to drop onto pots and pans.

“Ouch! Why do I have to do it by hand?! I hate the heat!”, Byulyi whines.

Something in the annoyed look on Hyejin’s face light up some kind of interest in the angel. “Well, because it’s food? And you can’t cook it right without being directly involved in it! This is not your lame, tasteless fruits like in heaven, and unless you want to put raw, bloody beef in your mouth, shut up and cook!”

W-wow. The demon is weirdly passionate about food, alright, Byulyi notes that down mentally. Still sulking, the angel gets closer to the sizzling pan of… steak? That’s what Hyejin calls it. She vaguely remembers her human mentioned this before, but since guardian angel and demon don’t share tastebuds with mortals, she doesn’t know any better than the name.

They’ve gone hunting earlier that day. Hyejin requires the angel to fly and report traces of wild animals for her, while Hyejin herself sprinting like a shadow across the forest and takes them down with her bow. In order to “save Byulyi from seeing barbarous execute of God’s children”, Hyejin said, with a wicked smirk of course.

“What are you good at, anyway?”, the demon asks when she puts steaks on their plates with sautéed brussels sprouts and mushrooms as side dishes. The rest of that poor boar is now safe in the smoker grill. “You have to do something in the house, at least be a little useful, since you wouldn’t pay rent.”

“Gardening.”, Byulyi nonchalantly replies, cutlery in hand. “My friend works in the Garden of Eden, and I usually take my duty to protect it too.”

“May I have the name, of your friend?”

The angel hums, happy at the thought about her sister. “Agnes.”

“Agnes? As in Agnes named Kim Yongsun?”

Stops munching on her veggies, Byulyi looks up at Hyejin in disbelief. “How do you know that?”

“I know her sister.”, an evil smirk slides across her face. “We had… interesting past. Michael once debated that angels are so pure they would break at a touch of sin and I told him to ask Yongsun’s sister, she would say the otherwise. Or her collection of whip would speak louder than words, I think?”

Byulyi has the feeling this is something she shouldn’t dig in deeper. And the minimal lift of the demon’s lips doesn’t help. Shakes her head at the thought of sin knocking on her doorstep, Byulyi looks back down, poking the mushroom out of awkwardness.

Hyejin reaches across the table, cuts the steak to bitesize on Byulyi’s plate.

“Have you ever have , angel?”, the demon stabs her forks in one piece, and raises it to Byulyi’s lips.

A gasp escapes at the filthy word, pink hue painted Byulyi’s cheeks. “W-Wha-“

Byulyi feels her heart jumps straight up to when their eyes meet. waters at the sight of open skin, leaves more to the imagination when the demon leans closer. Steak still offered, Hyejin stares at her opponent with an amusing expression.

“You are in my territory, and in my house. It was very disrespectful of you, trying to lure me to your side when we are here. But, I’m a demon who values manners deeply. I’ll return the favour with a taste of sin.” Juicy meat glistening under candlelights, and Byulyi swallows hard. “What do you think, angel?”

She’s sure that the demon can hear her pulse thumping, and takes the way Byulyi sits to the furthest on her chair.

A small gap between lips is enough for shoving the steak in, forcefully, but Hyejin doesn’t do so.

Silver is cold when Byulyi bites down on the fork.

Hyejin smiles broadly. With a satisfied victorious grin, she takes the fork just in the angel’s mouth back, happily continues her meal.

Byulyi shuts her eyes tight, for one, bites into the soft texture of meat.

It tastes…

delicious?

Byulyi doesn’t say much, just picks another one with her forks and now devouring it with her whole heart. It’s juicy, tender, loaded with flavor. Doesn’t as crunchy as peach and the salty taste is much more comfortable than the time her guardian devil companion dunked her face in the sea. Byulyi eats more, and more, and at last meets the soft amber look when Hyejin pushes her own dish to the angel’s side.

“The pure miss a lot with all the rules you have to obey. Now you know why I can’t return to that place.”

“It still has its advantages.”, the angel protests weakly, still chewing her food, full in her cheeks like a hamster. “But I’m with you about the protein.”

“Wait until you have .”

Byulyi chokes. Hyejin dodges the knife thrown at her.

-

Hyejin rushes to the garden to a panting angel on the ground, Lion bares his fangs and her epiphyllum oxypetalum in flame. Hose in hands, the demon points it to the mess, effectively puts out the fire, also wets both Byulyi and her pet.

“What the hell is happening here?”

“I-“, Byulyi stutters. “The plants were covered by shade and since I couldn’t move it, I cast a teensy weensy bit of light… Then this lion suddenly attacked me…”

Hyejin sighs. Is this the feeling of having children? Sure it is. Now she can’t blame her human for being extra grumpy when she had kids back then.

“I demand your paw, or hand.”, Hyejin said, put gloved palms up, looking left and right at her parasites.

Hesitantly, Byulyi puts her hand on Hyejin’s, flinches at the animal’s huff.

“Your boss turns mortals into trees for his pleasure and you are scared by a pet. Lion, Byulyi, an angel. I picked her up, she’s dumb don’t mind her. Byulyi, Lion, my pet. I saved him from being on the grill and he refuses to leave, which is annoying. Please don’t kill each other, or at least inform me about the time and place before you guys want to do so, just for the sake of cleaning your remainings. Got it?”

Byulyi is struck speechless, blinks at the big paw Hyejin puts on her hand. “He’s a pet?”

Hyejin shrugs. Turns around to tending for her poor plants, eyes crossed in exasperation. The demon murmurs. “I told you before, right? Not everything needs to be saved. Lion was trying to stop you. This flower only blossoms once or twice a year, he takes special interest in caring for it.”

It's the sort of soft tone damped with sadness that Byulyi has never heard before from the temptress, and it pulls her heart down with sympathetic guilt. Kneeling besides Hyejin, she touches the burnt petals attentively.

Dried-out flowers wake up from their death at the touch, fresh as if nothing happens, not the fire, nor the powerful water shot at them moments ago.

Normally Hyejin wouldn’t be so surprised with magic, she’s seen it all, even when God himself created Adam and Eve. But in the Middle of Nowhere, the ecosystem has to obey mortals’ rules, it’s almost impossible to make a spell here. Even Hyejin herself was exhausted when constructed the mansion, well protected and surrounded with magic-enable field.

Byulyi caresses the green buds. “My bloodline magic is healing. As long as the heart, or the root in this case, is still alive, I can catch and heal the lifeline. Get that from my mom.”, the angel smiles fondly at the thought of family. “And I’m sorry, Hyejin, I didn’t know. We don’t have flowers in darkness up there.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s fine, you are free to make mistakes here, and learn to fix them. I won't... punish you or anything.”

Their eyes meet, the demon’s mellow and the angel’s bewildered.

“Where else can I expulse you to, and who am I to do that, right?”, Hyejin chuckles. “No one has any authority over you here, Byulyi. This is… freedom.”

A taste of sin and she’s doomed. The words don’t taste like apple, or pomegranate, but it struck Byulyi just the same.

And Byulyi doesn’t move a finger to fight back.

Safety is a dangerous trap. A bundle of happiness that no one wants to escape.

Stands up, Hyejin waves nonchalantly. “Brunch is almost done, you two-”, she points at Lion too. “-take a bath first. Now you have met Lion, you will take care of his meals too.”

“What?!”

“Be a little useful, angel.”

Lion her face as an act of peace, and even though sulking at new tasks, the angel can’t deny that his fur feels so good. The purr makes Byulyi feels like she’s the goddess of all creatures.

So this is a trap. A trap that she’s oh so willingly laying on, with the memories of Hyejin’s scent and Lion’s wet nose snugging to her neck.

The kind of familiar feelings Byulyi wouldn't be able to give up on, in near future.

Of course she knows.

And yet, she falls and falls and falls.

How witty, witty, Ahn Hyejin.

She lies on Lion’s back as he carries her inside.

Three months in and Byulyi is best friend with Lion. Sometimes Hyejin questions herself whether she’s his owner or Byulyi is.

Carry a sturgeon on her shoulder, Hyejin is greeted with the angel spreading white wings across her floor, reading her book, her album currently in her vinyl player and her pet snoozes quietly while laying his head on the angel’s stomach.

Can somebody tell her who’s the boss in this house again?

Byulyi lifts her head up from the floor, a of annoyance on her beauty. “I despise Romeo & Juliet, mortals are stupid.”

With a soft whisper of spell to prepare the fish, Hyejin reaches for her apron, humming. “Really? Why?”

“Children are stupid and adults are just dumb, what’s new?”, she huffs, dropping the books aside, and supports herself up. Gently, Byulyi puts Lion’s head off her, doesn’t want to wake up the big cat. Just like Wheein, Hyejin thinks, absent-minded.