Only human

"Don't ask my opinion

Don't ask me to lie

Then beg for forgiveness

For making you cry

(Making you cry)

Cause I'm only human after all."

By the evening of the same day, the tiger and the raven were indeed on their way to Rumi - another message had to be delivered. Sam Kka himself assumed that the new envelope would follow the same fate as the last one, so he did not hold out much hope for success, which he informed Jin Woo about as soon as he contacted him in the morning and gave him the assignment. What Sang-ho was thinking, the crow did not know and did not think about it, but it was clear from the look of his partner that he was also waiting for a meeting with the huntress. Sam Kka tried not to tease the tiger's self-control, but it was extremely difficult to hold back. Every time Sang-ho transformed into animal form and the actions that followed, it was as if it had happened for the first time. He could do anything, but the guy with the burning amber eyes and azure hair turned into a huge, fluffy, harmless cat when he took on a different appearance. And the funniest thing was that, becoming a tiger, his partner completely lost his ability to control his body. Almost completely. — Are you sure your can fit in there? - The raven asked incredulously, wearing only a small hat on the alien's blue top, as they flew in a leap towards the narrow passage between two seven-storey buildings. — It'll get through! - A short growl rang out in response. A few moments later, they were stuck. To be more exact, only the tiger was stuck, and for the first time in the last couple of hundred years Sam Kka experienced something like a second attack of terror - he was seriously afraid that he too would find himself in the improvised vise thanks to his partner. At times like this, the man really doubted that Sang-ho wasn't dumber in his other guise. Because everything said otherwise. — I remember someone saying that he ca.... — Sam Kka!!! An aggressively panicked tiger even in the demon world would take a lot of effort to find. Resting his hind paws on the facades of the houses, the guy tried his best to push himself back and free from the concrete grip. However, it was not working well. When, after half an hour, the efforts of the frankly frightened Sang Ho had failed, the raven sighed meaningfully and rolled its upper pair of eyes and flew to the rescue. After another forty minutes, the bird with a frightening number of copper eyes on its small body managed to scare away the passers-by within a hundred metres of the tiger so that it could turn into a human and finally exhale in relief, realising that even its beloved ears were still in place. In the end, the demons reached the high-rise of the huntresses only an hour and a half after they left their own abode. And they were about an hour late, which the punctilious raven couldn't forgive his partner for and wasn't going to do anytime soon. Not immediately, but Rumi had agreed to the meeting, which was certainly a surprising outcome for both demons, though Sam Kka had not responded to Sang Ho's shocked mental comment. The ignored tiger kicked a flower pot with the tip of his paw, which he had tried unsuccessfully to lift for about three minutes, and it cracked. The cat's amber eyes widened in horror, but, fortunately for the boy, Rumi did not notice the barbarity. Sam Kka continued to ignore his partner, but it was more out of habit, and San Ho, who seemed impressed by the broken flowerpot, remained silent and didn't look at the raven on his head until the final point on their route, which was Jin Woo. Kka himself expected two outcomes - either Rumi would punch Gwi Ma's right hand from the heart and drive her away, or Jin Woo would prevail and the huntresses would lose the whole war in this fight. However, the conversation that followed the meeting and the brief altercation was not expected by either the crow or the tiger. They began to sing. More precisely, Rumi joined in, and Jin Woo, surprisingly for his usual behaviour, picked up, and they swirled in a dance, the mere sight of which made Sam Kka dizzy. Turning to Sang Ho to comment on the supreme demon's strange act, the raven opened his mouth, but did not make a sound, silently flapping his bird-like beak when he saw the gaze of his partner looking at their local Romeo and Juliette. The tiger kept his eyes on the pair. The striped tail was smoothly writing out excitedly enthusiastic pirouettes behind Azure's back, and Sam Kka suddenly saw in the cat's face the expression on the guy's face if he were in human form: The eyes were wide open, the amber of the iris glistened fascinatingly, the narrow pupils seemed to have rounded a little and became more like human pupils, the mouth was slightly open and exposed sharp whitish fangs, the three blue spots on the forehead shone with all the shades of azure, and the animal ears were curiously perked up. After a while, the raven realised that he was staring at his partner, so he shifted his gaze to Rumi and Jin Woo to avoid embarrassment. Sam Kka had never understood why people sang - you could just talk, couldn't you? There was no question about performing on stage, but why just start singing instead of wasting no time and openly confessing what one was so eager to talk about? It was incomprehensible. However, the more the man listened to the song, the more he realised that he... didn't like it.

"The words kept catching in my throat

I tried to smile, I was suffocating though,

But here with you, I can finally breathe."

Sam Kka couldn't breathe. Couldn't smile, couldn't be honest both with himself and with the one being who genuinely wanted to hear the truth from him. Could it be? Because Sang-ho wasn't like that. Unlike him, the raven, the tiger is a good guy who fell to the demon side by mistake, by accident. Sam Kka deserved it.

"What if we both tried fighting what we're running from?

We can't fix it if we never face it

What if we find a way to escape it?"

Yes, the only thing left for a lowly man with a past like the mistakes of a foolish raven is to escape. To hide as far away as he can, so that the memories of his sins destroy only him, and not the only partially living creature that cares for him. To keep him from hearing the girl's scream…

"Let the past be the past

'til it's weightless."

— ...Kka? Hey, are you okay? - A familiar azure-blue coat flashed before his eyes, and his partner's question flashed through his mind. Sam Kka didn't hear the tiger's alarmed behaviour, even though Sang-ho hadn't said anything out loud. In the last few minutes the pale raven seemed to have completely died before his eyes, the skin under the feathers on his head looking like porcelain. Only the expression on the bird's "face" made it instantly clear that it was not a play of light. — Answer! Hey! — A large furry paw pushed his partner clumsily into the only safe place on his fragile body, the hat. The man did not react. Images from the past flashed before his eyes again: a young man's head rolling across the cobbled palace floor, a blade swinging over a woman's neck, and a girl's scream, this time splitting as if there were two people screaming.... — Sam Kka, you… — Shut up! - the people in the nearest hundred metres disappeared, which automatically allowed both demons to return to human form, but the man didn't even notice it, catching the wrist of the dark-haired man's hand almost resting on his shoulder, — did I let you touch me? Why are you pawing at me with your paws?! Dazed, Sang-ho froze in incomprehension and was silent for a few seconds, his gaze shifting from his own wrist, which was clenched with force by his partner, to his face. — P-just that you didn't answer again, so I thought I'd make sure that…— The tiger began, uncertain at first, but with a rising tone of voice. — I didn't answer because I was tired of your endless chatter! - For the first time since their acquaintance Sam Kka spared no words, looking at his partner as if he were the most hated creature on the planet. The raven couldn't hear half of his words because of the noise in his ears. The self-control, which for so many hundreds of years carefully kept the strong wall behind which the small six-eyed bird was hiding, was collapsing more and more with every second, and with every brick it tried to hit the tiger cub who was waiting for so long very close to him. — S-sam Kka… — He said not to call me that! But what am I talking about, you never, never listen, do you? Your ears detect something suspicious, and you and your hyper-parenting are already standing under the door of someone else's room, ready to burst in at any moment! - The man was about to shout in full voice and felt his cheeks flush with irritation, but he realised that he looked lousy at best. - Always ignoring other people's requests just to impose your own ego! — But I didn't even think anything of the sort! - Still surprised, but gradually Sang Ho was beginning to boil over. Was that what Sam Kka was probably after? The man didn't know, too oblivious, as if in one of his nightmares, but imprisoned by his mind in reality. Poking the sharp nail of his index finger directly into his chest the raven made the guy wrinkle more and more with each touch: — Compulsive, clumsy, stupid, retarded tiger! If it wasn't for Jin Woo, we wouldn't even know each other, I should have been a two-time loser in the demon world! — You shouldn't have come to the Demon World in the first place! — You don't need to give me advice! You're having nightmares yourself! — I lied about them for your peace of mind! Sam Kka froze for a few seconds. Perhaps, after this phrase, the raven would have come to his senses, if it hadn't been for the shriek that made him grab his head with his hands, put his fingers to his temples and squeezed his eyes shut: — Your Majesty, how could you?! — Sam Kka!! The man roared. The screams, which had been separate before, were now blended together and were hitting, hitting, hitting me in the head with a dozen hammers from all sides at once. I wanted to shrink into a tiny lump at the same time, shouting back: "I'm not here!" and at the same time to straighten up and destroy all sources of noise within a kilometre radius around him. Unfortunately, Sang Ho's attempt to reason with his partner tipped the scales in favour of the second option. The man froze for a moment, and then a pale fist slammed into the wall a millimetre from the tiger's swarthy neck. The young man clenched his eyes painfully, hearing the unpleasant crunch of a finger joint. But the worst part was opening his eyes and stumbling into Sam Kka's gaze. Normally expressionless, the three pairs of copper eyes now looked as if their owner were ready to destroy his partner on the spot: — Don't come near me again. Sang Ho only had time to blink, but in that instant the man turned into a raven and, merging with the haze that covered the night Seoul with a soft hood, flew towards the centre. About three hundred metres away, the huntress and the demon, so different but at the same time uncannily similar, were twirling in a romantic dance. It was definitely fated for them to meet. Only by helping each other will they be able to help themselves. However, Sang Ho didn't care at that moment. He stood with his back against the wall, breathing heavily. The dangerous crunching of the already pale knuckles of other people's fingers still echoed in his ears. And the tiger's amber gaze was fixed only on the traditional cut hat, left by his partner before he disappeared into the darkness.