Their skin was finer than ivory itself. White like snow, the words ‘skin like white jade’ came to mind like a revelation. Their eyebrows were black as if painted with charcoal, slender and long. Long and soft eyelashes were like butterfly wings on their big eyes. Clear, black irises were on clean white, like a bead of ink dropped on paper. A nose that rose airily like the roof tiles on the houses of the immortals. Their red lips looked as if dyed with flower petals.

‘Has the celestial maiden Hang-ah come down from the moon, or has a celestial maiden come to greet me since it’s been twenty years that I’ve been a mountain lord…’

Horang clearly knew he could feel the aura of a demon from the person before him, but no matter what, he couldn’t believe they were a demon.

Horang scratched the back of his head as if embarrassed.

“For now… please take a seat.”

The fox, who had been tidying up their tail-fur that Horang had disheveled, smiled slightly and nodded their head. And, looking around at the floor as if searching for a corner to sit in, they found a relatively clean spot and sat.

The two of them sat facing each other in Horang’s dirty room. And for a while neither said a word.

Horang had lived for a long time as a beast, and because even after he had become a mountain lord he hadn’t associated much with the other lords, he didn’t quite know how to receive a guest. The person in front of him had come to find Horang first, but they didn’t really seem to intend to open their mouth.

They only smiled with a face that was dizzyingly beautiful.

‘Perhaps she isn’t quite all there…’

Horang fretted for a moment and, thinking it seemed like he would have to say something first, looked around for something to say. And he discovered the blue silk envelope he had tossed into the corner of the room. The silk envelope that had come yesterday he hadn’t burned yet.

Looking at it, the silk cloth looked similar to the silk clothes the demon sitting in front of him was wearing.

“By chance, did you send this strange letter?”

With a face that was still smiling lightly, they nodded emphatically. Their attitude was confident without hesitating to think twice.

Horang scowled at that answer.

‘Any way I look, she looks sound, more than that, she looks very respectable. But is there something wrong with her head? Is she really not all there?’

Horang’s gaze swept over their body, but the demon was still wearing a smile on their unreadable face.

“Did you really write what was in the letter? A letter, do you know what a letter is?”

In case they really were a dullard and couldn’t understand, Horang waved the blue envelope in front of their eyes and made motions pretending to use a brush. Then the fox let out a light laugh and nodded their head again.

‘It seems like she understands properly and is answering but…’

So why did they send this ridiculous letter to him, who was a mountain lord, was the question.

Now that he was facing them maybe it really wasn’t a joke… There were so many ways that Horang didn’t understand.

But first he should reject them, so he put the envelope down, straightened his posture, and meeting their eyes he opened his mouth.

“My answer is that I refuse. So there is no need to bother seeking me out, and no need to send letters anymore.”

“Please marry me.”

Their voice was clear and sonorous.

It was like the sound of a drop of water falling in a waterfall. Despite the fact that it should be drowned by the loud roar of the waterfall around it, the small and pure and clear sound pierced through the noise to be heard.

It rang, and at the same time seemed hollow. But it was also a sound that pierced through the full and resounding noise of a waterfall to titillate one’s ear.

A pleasant sound, gentle, rousing the memories of anyone who hears it; not water, but a voice that seemed to fall into the heart.

He hadn’t felt it at all before, when he was flustered, but now their voice felt like it slipped into his chest.

Horang was momentarily bewildered and almost just nodded his head. Their voice made him want to. A voice where he would nod his head no matter what they said.

‘Is this what they say is to be bewitched by a fox!’

He had met quite a few demons during his time as a mountain lord, but Horang felt this way for the first time.

“I, I did not say yes!”

He shouted suddenly, embarrassed that he had nearly nodded his head while bewitched by that voice.

At his shout, the fox’s eyes went wide as if surprised. Seeing that face, Horang felt like he had committed some sort of crime by shouting like that.

‘What is a demon so pretty for.’

Horang scratched at his chest and turned so that he sat with his back to them. There wasn’t anything good to come from continuing to look at that face.

“Begone. I have nothing to say to you.”

“I truly want to marry to your lordship.”

“Go find another demon! A mountain lord and demon aren’t a good match from the start. And I have no intentions of marrying anyone, I have no reason to think of it!”

“I sincerely want to marry.”

And the fox moved next to Horang, who had his back turned.

Even with head turned away, Horang’s attention was still focused in that direction, and when something blue slipped soundlessly beside him, he felt like his heart jumped in shock.

“Uwaaaaahk!”

“Please. Marry me.”

Even as he smiled a bit bashfully at the startled and surprised Horang, the fox didn’t forget to say that he wanted to marry.

“I’m a mountain lord who is busy just looking after this mountain, so look for some other male!”

“It won’t do if it isn’t Horang-nim.”

“When did you even see me that you say it won’t do? Was it really another mountain lord who put you up to this, to mock me?”

Now it definitely seemed that way. When would such a beautiful fox have seen him, when he wasn’t even one of the lords of those big mountains—when he lived alone in a corner of this small mountain, why would the fox come find him and bring up marriage? The fox was also of beast birth, but being this beautiful, then instead of a mountain lord like him, catching the fancy of a mountain god wouldn’t be that far-fetched.

At the thought that the other was mocking him Horang’s expression became fierce.

“If you are trying to mock me, just quit it. Even you aren’t, then someone as prettiful as you can be a bride to someone better, so go back!”

“I would not be a bride.”

The demon said in a voice that was a bit amused.

Horang had yelled at him to go back, but the fox’s answer was on a completely different topic. Meeting Horang’s gaze that said that he didn’t know what the fox was talking about, the fox smiled even brighter. Horang looked up and down the fox’s body, and his eyes grew big and round.

‘If she only denied that she was a bride… No, no way…?’

“You, you, you, you, a, a male…?”

“Please, I prefer the term ‘man’.”

Horang’s eyes grew big like they were about to pop out.

“Get, get out right now! Right now!”

***

Pushing the fox’s back, Horang basically kicked him out of the cave. Even the perpetually smiling fox couldn’t contain his surprise and grabbed ahold of Horang’s hand, and Horang batted that hand away as well. He hastily pushed him out, even using his power he didn’t use except to take care of the mountain.

“ Even if you are playing games, don’t play this kind of disgusting game!”

Horang stood and yelled into the empty cave. The mice that had been gathered in a corner scurried as they ran away from the cave. Horang turned his back as if he didn’t even want to look in that direction.

[I will come see you again.]

The words the fox demon said before leaving rang in his head.

Even if he shouted at a rock, it would get the message quicker than that fox. Perhaps the fox’s ears were deaf—no matter how angrily Horang shouted at him not to come back, he told Horang that he would come again with a firm smile.

Horang pounded his chest and jumped up from where he was sitting.

Even if he was mocked, being mocked like this was too embarrassing to go complain about to someone. Not that he had someone to complain to. Horang’s face burned, and he was so embarrassed that he felt like it was hard to even hold his head up.

Horang’s shout echoed around the cave and beyond nearby mountains. As if it had heard that sound, soon a small shadow slipped into the entrance of the cave, and in an instant a small squirrel stood in front of Horang.

Its big, black eyes were bright, its curled tail had crisp stripes, and its body was a little smaller than a typical squirrel. The little squirrel gathered its small front paws together neatly, and stretched its body to look up at Horang. As if curious what he was going to say, it let out a small sound.

At Horang’s words, the little squirrel called Ttorang tilted its head to one side.

Ttorang cocked its head a little further, and a few beats later, as if it understood, it scurried out of the cave.

For now until Ttorang came back, Horang lit a fire inside the room and burned away all the remaining silk envelopes. Even the flowers he was keeping, not able to bring himself to burn them, he threw into the flames. He had been keeping the flowers because looking at them made him think of someone, but sentimentally saving those flowers that had been brought to mock him seemed pathetic.

“Now am I even disrespected by mere demons.”

Horang listlessly stirred the burnt-up ashes and gave a small sigh.

Not long after, he felt Ttorang’s presence. Horang was already waiting for Ttorang with the door open, and Ttorang came into the room casually, holding a pouch the size of its body in its mouth. And putting down the item he had brought in front of Horang, it looked up at Horang as if wanting to be praised.

Horang first picked up the pouch Ttorang had brought. And opening the pouch, he checked what was inside. The finely ground powder was much finer than what he knew as salt. Horang thought it strange, so he scooped a bit up with his finger and sprinkled it in his mouth.

A dry and slightly nutty flavor spread in his mouth.

“This is rice flour! I said to bring salt, salt! That stuff you ate and got sick from, don’t you remember? I’m the fool for sending you!”

He had wanted to lay down some salt, but the idiot had brought back rice flour.

Horang sighed, and perhaps that annoyed Ttorang, as it scampered over and chomp! bit down on Horang’s big toe.

“Hey!”

Horang curled over and grabbed his toe at the wound that started to well with blood after a second, and Ttorang hurried to flee from the cave before he could be scolded.

“That, that damn squirrel!”

For now, Horang quickly wiped the bit of blood that had welled up and stuck it in his own mouth. If the blood of a mountain lord was carelessly spilled, unnecessary things might happen. Ttorang had been one such ‘unnecessary thing’.

Inspecting his toe, which had bled a tad, the skin had a small tear. Horang just let out a sigh and stood up. And he picked up the rice flour Ttorang had brought. It wasn’t salt but he was still going to lay some down.

Horang emptied the pouch Ttorang had brought at the entrance of the cave and patted it empty so there wasn’t a speck left. Then he stepped out to check around the forest again. But he had at least done something, so he was put at ease.

‘Since they are a demon, if I put that, they shouldn’t be able to come in. Though I’m not sure since it’s rice flour…’

Horang decided to think optimistically and checked around the mountain, taking the same route as always.

After one loop around the mountain and on his way back to the cave, Horang stopped at a jutting rock halfway down the mountain. This place had the best view of the sky on the mountain. The other peaks of the mountain range were well-visible, and from the deep valleys to the distant land of humans, all of it was within view.

Horang watched the fading sunset from that place and, for a moment, was lost in thought.

In the blink of an eye, so much time had passed. For more than ten years, close to almost twenty years, he had watched this sunset every day, but today he was strangely reminded of past memories.

He considered looking around the mountain some more, but instead just settled on that rock. Then he transformed into a huge tiger.

There wasn’t really any need to be in the form of a tiger. His ears and tail still remained, but as a mountain lord, Horang’s human form was his true form. As time passed and his strength as a mountain lord gradually grew stronger, his remaining tail and ears would also disappear. But he remembered the time when he was merely a beast and longed for it.

“If only I had just lived as a beast…”

No one would have mocked him, he wouldn’t have been disrespected like this, and he would have just easily forgotten things he wanted to forget…

Horang looked at the setting sun and rested his head on his front paws. Today he didn’t want to go into his house and just wanted to sleep on that rock.

T/N:
Poor Horang doesn’t know he’s in a BL novel!