#Fey Touched Prequel | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

doiefy · 3 years

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respice finem // nakamoto yuta // johnny seo

PART OF DAWN TO DUSK.

Respice finem: consider the end. From the 1400s to the 80s to the present day, vampire crime has always ran rampant after dark. When you meet a strikingly dangerous vampire in the late 80s, he’s everything you’ve wanted, and everything you need to combat the coldness of vampirism: attention, thrills, someone else who understands what it’s like to be alone. You run with him through the chaos, succumb to the mayhem of his coven, but you soon lose sight of the fallout. Consider the end, they say—because contrary to all the promises whispered in your ear, there is no such thing as eternity. Not even for the worst of them. Not even for you.

genre: modern vampire, crime, angst pairing: vampire!yuta x vampire!reader (f., she/her pronouns), human!johnny x reader warnings: language, violence, murder, major character death, implied suicide, graphic depictions of blood and some gore, use of alcohol and mentions of drugs, gambling, blackmail, blood sharing, huge age gaps (due to immortality), toxic relationships, vague mentions of stalking, some misogynistic undertones, implied assault, suggestive scenes and implied sex, heavy angst towards the end. word count: 47k (sheesh fei touch grass)

playlist: spotify, youtube (I would highly recommend listening to the songs in order; I've arranged everything so it takes you through the different time periods and atmospheres of the fic!)

taglist: @neonun-au @hyuckworld @jensrose

thank you so much @jisungiest, @kjmsupremacist and yoona (get tumblr coward) for beta reading this monster for me! there was absolutely no way I could finish this without losing my mind if it weren’t for y’all. I promise not to put any of you through anything like this ever again LOL for your sanity and mine.

other notes:

This is the prequel to my Doyoung fic, At Dawn. It can be read on its own, but there will be major spoilers. Some aspects of this story will also make a bit more sense with the context of At Dawn.

I feel it necessary to preface this fic with the following: this fic involves a lot of dark and disturbing themes that differ from the other stories in this universe. Yuta's character is a psychopath, and the reader character also has a lot of psychotic tendencies. They are both very manipulative of each other and the people around them, and their relationship is supposed to be sick and twisted. In no way am I trying to romanticize or justify any of their actions—the focus really isn’t on writing a romantic relationship, but exploring Yuta’s character from another perspective and explaining many of the events leading up to At Dawn. The reader’s relationship with Johnny involves a very prominent age gap (by a couple of centuries!) and power imbalance as a result of immortality. Again, a questionable romance, not meant to be romanticized.

Please be mindful of all warnings listed above, and read at your own discretion. All scenes I’ve found particularly disturbing have been indicated with asterisks (***). Stay safe, read safe, and enjoy!

i. The stars incline us, they do not bind us

August 1987

There was a certain numbness that came with vampirism.

You’d first felt it years ago, somewhere beyond the reach of your memories, in the late 1800s. The details had faded a bit with time, but you couldn’t forget the flickering candlelight and ear-splitting noise, a perfect backdrop for a soul-shattering epiphany: the reality that you’d been cursed to walk the earth for eternity.

It was quite difficult to explain. You used to think it was a sort of coldness—certainly, you’d felt a rush of wind and chills up your spine when the realization first dawned upon you. In some way, it was as if all the time you’d spent subject to this pale and sickly form had trapped you within the confines of your own mind, encased you in a thin layer of ice that refused to melt even on the warmest of days. You were all too aware of every thought in your head, too deep in contemplation to have any regard for the outside world; and yet at times you felt nothing but everything being pulled into a dark void. Frost accumulated on your skin with every passing year, and yet an inexplicable heat danced along your fingertips, brimming in some cold corner of your body.

At times you felt a surge of something akin to adrenaline, a rush of life through your otherwise lifeless body. Other times you felt nothing but the absence of breath in your lungs. Urge and then apathy. Longing and then restraint.

You thought about it every now and then; eternity and immortality seemed to swirl into your head whenever you reached the high you’d been chasing, like an ever-present reminder of what awaited you once the adrenaline disappeared. It was there when you’d met the charming stranger at the bar, perhaps a little softer when you’d both had enough to drink, but still there when he showed you to his hotel room.

His lips moved hurriedly against yours, and you yanked him insistently closer, tangling your fingers into his hair. Truthfully, you couldn’t remember his name, nor did you have any idea as to who he was. A businessman or a CEO, you think he might’ve mentioned earlier; and you could tell as much, from the watch on his wrist and the woody notes of an expensive cologne. In the late 1980s, Gangnam District was transforming from a grim neighbourhood into a glamorous hub for fashion and nightlife—and it seemed as if he stood in the midst of it. The details of his occupation would be revealed to you a little later, but for now he was just another one night stand. Admittedly an attractive one, but a nameless face nonetheless.

He soon broke away to unlock the door, and you unconsciously chased after him, a little too brazen to be embarrassed when he laughed at you.

“Patience, my darling,” he chuckled. There was a familiar lift to his words that almost matched yours, a slightest hesitancy despite his fluency, like Korean wasn’t his first language. He didn’t look Korean either, though the paleness of his skin made it hard to attribute him to anywhere at all. “We have all the time in the world.”

“The years go by quickly, yet an hour passes so slowly,” you retorted, and pulled him in for another heated kiss the moment you were inside. You quickly found yourself shoved up against the closed door, your wrists pinned above your head as his free hand wandered along your waist. You felt his cold fingers swipe against your hip, nails just about digging into your skin. His eyes glowed yellow in the darkness: hungrily, almost wolfishly, and it sent an excited tremor down your spine.

“At a certain point, when you’ve accumulated as many years as I have, you’ll learn to cherish it,” he said, almost breathlessly. He groaned, swung you around, setting you down onto the bed with ease. “Eternity isn’t as monotonous and mundane as you’d think.”

You let your teeth graze his neck, just as a warning. “I didn’t come here to listen to your musings, pretty boy.”

His lips twitched upwards. “Shall we, then?”

He made deft work of his shirt, pulling it over his head to reveal toned muscles and a black tattoo along the side of his chest. The ink was fading, eroded in some places and completely missing in others—it’d likely been stone chiselled into his skin decades ago, but the image was still clear as day. A winged serpent crept up his ribs and coiled around the blade of a sword, its forked tongue flicking a row of sigils out onto his chest. You had a couple of similar markings across the small of your back, but nothing quite as extensive as his, nothing as elegant. His were charming, drawn so delicately to offset the bold lines of his features, and you found yourself running your fingers up his side while he undid the buttons of your blouse.

Before he could continue, there was a loud thump on the door.

“Ignore them,” you murmured, still entranced by his figure in the moonlight; more so than you would’ve liked to admit. He grinned in agreement, eyes flashing with mischief.

Another knock, this time more urgent.

“Police! Open up!”

“Fucking hell,” your hookup grunted, now pulling himself away from you. You expected him to ask if they were here for you—which you knew they were—but he only reached around for the shirt he’d just discarded. Perhaps his reaction was a little more telling of who he was, but you were too dazed to realize until he’d opened the door.

“Evening, gentlemen.” His voice came from across the room a couple moments later: flowing smoothly, pleasantly, surprisingly composed like he’d been expecting to greet visitors. “Can I help you?”

From your spot around the corner, you could see only a couple of silhouettes stretched out on the tiled floor, dancing at the foot of the bed.

“Detective Lee Joowon with the SMPA. We’re searching for a suspect. Know this vampire?”

Through the reflection of the floor-length window, you saw one of the officers pull out a photo. Your skin crawled with anticipation—not dread, but a twisted exhilaration. You waited for the stranger to let them in, but he only shook his head.

“I’m afraid not.”

“Are you sure? We were told you left the bar with her.”

“I’m sure.”

“Sir, allow me to remind you that being an accomplice to a crime is just as serious of an offence as committing the crime itself. If you have any information, it’s in your best interest to report it.” Despite the man’s warning, he sounded unbelievably bored; you wondered how many times he’d given the same speech, how many times it’d gone disregarded.

Another long silence, but this time you heard the unmistakable sound of banknotes being pulled from a wallet. They shuffled against each other for a moment, and then the silhouettes on the ground jumped forward, hitting the edge of the mattress where you were sitting.

“Are you trying to bribe us?” A different voice, much younger, higher-pitched, with a bewilderment that mirrored yours. As much as you were enjoying the show, it’d taken a sudden turn you hadn’t been expecting.

“It sounds horribly wrong when you put it that way,” came the response. “Take it as compensation for the trouble I’ve caused. I imagine these aren’t particularly comfortable working hours for either of you.”

“Sir, this is against—“

“The law, I know. But buy yourselves something pretty, hm? And here’s my card. Feel free to contact me if there’s anything else I can help with.”

There was a sharp intake of breath, indicative of some sort of realization. Feet shuffled against the ground. The silhouettes shrunk back.

“Apologies for the inconvenience, sir. Have a good night.”

The door slammed shut, but you managed to catch a couple of words before their footsteps faded down the hallway.

“Are you insane?! Why would you—“

“Move along, Rookie. You don’t want trouble with that man.”

Too focused on trying to hear the rest of it, you flinched when you felt cold fingers on your skin. They brushed your chin, tilted your head up, brought your lips to his so quickly that your ears filled with white noise. Normally, by this point, someone would be threatening to turn you in or ready to attack or begging for their lives. So whatever this was, you gladly welcomed it, pulled him back in—until there was a cold whisper against the shell of your ear.

“Aren’t you going to tell me what you did, darling?”

You had no need for breath and your lungs rejected air, but you still felt your throat close around something as his words shot down your spine.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” you shot back, but relented when he raised a brow. You shrugged. Because if he hadn’t cared enough to turn you in, surely he wouldn’t care if you’d—

“Killed a man.”

He stared at you for a hard second, trying to decide what to make of your confession—without any disbelief or even malice, but something calculating. His eyes flickered like flames in the darkness, and then they disappeared altogether. You turned to see him doing up the buttons of his shirt and carefully cuffing his sleeves; he then reached into his wallet and pulled out a black card, as if he were already done with you, about to send you on your way.

“Perhaps you’d consider joining us.” He handed it to you: a square of black linen upon which swept three lines of curving silver script. Reluctantly, you took it, ran a finger over the coven name. Laverna. The Roman goddess of thieves, cheaters and the underworld. You were sure you’d heard it somewhere, but it seemed to escape you the moment you searched your memory. “If you’re… how should I put this? If you’re one with a tendency to get in trouble with the law.”

An invitation to what you assumed was a prestigious coven, from a vampire who’d just bribed the cops without any consequence. There was surely more than he was letting on. For once, you couldn’t find any words; you stared at the card, focusing on the swirling latin letters until you heard him speak again.

“We can grant you immunity. From the new vampire accords, and from the law, to a certain degree,” he continued, now walking off to an adjacent room; suddenly the penthouse suite felt a lot grander. Grand, but cold. Empty. He returned with a crystal glass and bottle of liquor mere seconds later, but the coldness lingered, rolling off of him in waves. “In exchange for your membership. That’s all I ask.”

And then your head was spinning, buzzing with a high you didn’t think you’d ever reached. You were teetering a thin line, playing a dangerous game, and not with the cops this time. You didn’t want trouble with this man—the detective had said it himself—but this was exactly what you wanted. The drug lord whose skull you’d bashed in just a couple days ago had never posed a threat, never allowed for a thrill until you’d killed him. All the men previous ranked similarly.

You flipped the card over to find a name printed on the back: the same silvery lines, but they formed the intricate curves and slashes of traditional kanji characters. Nakamoto Yuta.

He was staring at you when you looked up, yellow eyes holding your gaze sharply, with intent. You saw through it. There was something more at play, more than just a favour and repayment.

“Perhaps I’ll think about it,” you murmured. And in the darkness, you made out a faint smile.

To anyone who still had colour left in their cheeks and a steady rhythm in their hearts, your desires were abstract ideas, twisted thoughts that would never cross their minds so long as they were alive. The alcohol and drugs and sex they saw as a monster’s hunger—though in some ways, they weren’t exactly wrong.

In others, they were far from understanding.

ii. An eagle does not catch flies.

Covens started off as ritualistic gatherings—candlelit meetings for the purposes of casting spells and curses, bewitching a neighbour, or healing an affliction. And surprisingly, they were one of the few things humans guessed correctly in their speculative stories about the supernatural, before vampires properly made themselves known to the rest of society. You still had vague memories of late nights and early mornings, the crazed laughter of conjured spirits; but everything you remembered of the early covens could have been easily fabricated, twisted by the passage of time. Gatherings always thrived off of blood, and enough of it would leave you as drunk as alcohol left humans.

But as the century came to a close and a new era dawned, things were changing. Spell books were being swept away like the fading symbols on your back, old relics disappearing into the dusty corners of abandoned meeting spots. Covens were no longer haphazard rallies thrown together beneath the moonlight; they existed for political reasons. Social reasons. The government needed them to keep track of people. To keep them in line, stop them from returning to the savagery they supposedly came from.

So it didn’t quite make sense—a coven that could exempt you from the law, where most were there to enforce them.

Later that night when you’d returned home, you rifled through the books on your shelves in search of answers; the paperback you were looking for turned up on the bottom ledge, buried between old textbooks and stacks of crumbling papers. A cloud of dust released from the cover, caking your fingers with grey and spreading grime all over the smooth wood of your desk. It wasn’t nearly as ancient as it looked, nor was it even outdated, but you couldn’t remember the last time you’d flipped through the pages.

The official coven directory was a list of all the vampire groups in South Korea, filled with generic names and portraits of pompous coven leaders, incoherent bits of Greek and Latin, painfully cliche descriptions that played into every existing vampire stereotype. Years later, the same papers would fill with extensive countryside estates and modern villas instead, but for now they were modest enough. You located Laverna between Lares and Liber: a brief description of an old mansion in Yongsan, and a familiar name printed in block letters next to a picture of the vampire you’d met only a couple hours ago. The publication was in black and white, but his eyes glowed yellow, leapt right out of the page, and his voice returned from the back of your memory to echo quietly in your ears.

You scanned the page again, noticed the logo in the corner, and then jolted with an abrupt realization. You’d seen it before. Three small letters emerging around the city, on the edges of windows and storefronts. They belonged to NWC Inc., a glass company the government had recently partnered with for their UV-resistant glass.

Twenty something years ago, there was no such thing as UV protection. If you were a vampire, you were out of luck; you moved at night with only a couple of hours of darkness, always counting down the minutes until sunrise. Bodies turned up on random doorsteps every now and then—poor vamps who couldn’t make it home in time and knocked on a stranger’s door, hoping someone would let them in. Sometimes, people simply weren’t home. Most times, the knocks were purposely ignored.

Fortunately, most of the windows in and around Seoul were being replaced, and death by sunlight was now the least of your worries. Vampires could work and travel whenever and wherever they wanted to, perhaps still a little uncomfortably, but there were no more bodies. No more “accidents.” An impressive feat.

And Nakamoto Yuta, a successful businessman and the CEO of a multimillion dollar corporation, stood at the forefront of such a movement. As long as he stood with city hall on his side, it seemed the police were happy to let him do as he pleased.

A knock on the door startled you out of your thoughts, and you looked up to catch a glimpse of two familiar figures standing out on the porch.

“Give up, kid. You lookin’ to get yourself killed?”

You slid over to the window and took a peek outside. A middle-aged man with greying hair and beard stood lazily against the banister, a lit cigarette dangling from his mouth. His hairline was just starting to recede, and the wrinkles along the sides of his mouth deepened when he scowled. In front of him stood a much younger man: bright eyes, smooth skin and long black hair that reached his shoulders in wispy curtains.

“Look, she’s not even home. Let’s just go.”

“Half a million won was all it took to convince you? You’re breaking the law as much as they are, sir. I hope you know that.”

A cold scoff. “A human cop who took a bit of money to save his life, or a vampire who robbed and killed a drug lord. Come on.”

The younger cop knocked again, but you simply sat still near the window, watching. Something told you they would give up relatively quickly.

And then he looked in your direction.

The look he wore wasn’t exactly cynical, but you saw a speck of skepticism in his brown eyes: a sort of determination that burned with flashing colours, although mostly hidden behind a steady gaze. This was all an attempt to prove his superiors wrong, to open a can of worms the police preferred to keep closed. Some display of a youthful ambition you yourself hadn’t felt in centuries. While his partner was lazily smoking cigarettes and taking bribes, the young detective had his future firmly in his sights—and a whole abyss of vampire crime waiting to swallow him whole if he probed too far.

The world was changing, and you imagined the future would be spearheaded by people just like him.

“Taeil. We’re leaving. This is a waste of time.”

“You’re in trouble if we don’t get to the bottom of this. How are you gonna explain all that extra cash up your shirt?”

“Son of a bitch, you wouldn’t dare. If you value your job, you won’t tell anyone.” A breath. “Let’s go.”

Taeil’s gaze lingered on the window for another second. You knew he couldn’t see you, but you swore you saw him tilt his head, as if to give you a quiet warning before following his partner to the car. A set of headlights flashed along the street, and then they were gone.

You sat in silence. For some time, for maybe a couple of minutes, the thoughts ran rampant through your head until finally forming some sort of coherency. Eventually, your hand drifted to the black card in your pocket. You reached for the phone.

It was raining when you arrived in Yongsan a couple days later.

The streets glistened beneath the moonlight, and the water sloshed noisily around your feet as you walked. The Laverna estate stood quietly at the very end of the road, covered in greenery and surrounded by carefully-trimmed rose bushes. Despite its outer grandeur, it was quaint—like a scene from a children’s picture book, or the brick castle in a fairytale. A winding path took you past two stone gargoyles and up a small flight of stairs, to an ornate brass knocker at the door. You let your eyes sweep over the place once more, and then knocked.

The rain continued its gentle rhythm against the canopy of your umbrella, thunder rumbled quietly in the distance, but the house was strangely quiet. You checked your watch: a couple minutes before the hour he’d asked to meet you.

Finally, the door swung open, and an older-looking vampire ushered you in. At first glance, he must have been in his mid 40s, but you could tell he was much younger than you. Newly turned. His canines had yet to grow in, and his eyes were just faintly green; he averted his gaze when you entered and quickly turned around to face the vampire coming down the hall.

You almost didn’t recognize him. You’d been expecting him to appear in the same attire he’d worn the last time you saw him: the meticulous suit and tie, golden jewellery and expensive watch. The usual imposing, self-absorbed appearance of a coven leader. Instead, he was dressed rather casually, in grey slacks and a white shirt, with a set of reading glasses perched on his nose and a couple of books tucked under his arm. Japanese classics.

“Thank you, Hajoon.” Yuta nodded, waving the man away almost dismissively before turning his attention to you. He gestured for you, and you followed him down the hall past stacks of cardboard boxes and piles of scrap wood. A plastic tarp covered the entirety of the wall, blocking off broken windows. Yuta gave a quiet sigh. “I apologize for the mess, we’re in the middle of replacing the windows. We would’ve had this done years ago but alas… our members are a little slow to change.”

You frowned. “They’re just windows.”

“Perhaps,” Yuta gave a soft laugh. “But if they allow us vampire folk to go about in daylight, some see that as a threat to the traditional lifestyle.”

The traditionalists. You felt your lips twitch with a grimace.

At the end of the hall, he pushed open a set of blackwood doors and led you into an office. While the rest of the house had been seemingly empty, this new space appeared to be well lived-in, and you imagined he spent most of his time here. Floor length bookshelves lined the walls, housing thousands of texts in hundreds of different languages. There was an impressive stack of papers on his desk—everything from newspapers to magazines to unfinished letters—which he quickly gathered aside so the two of you could sit.

“So you’re interested in joining us now.” Yuta leaned back in his seat to survey you, yellow eyes wide and unblinking.

You nodded. “Although before we go any further, I’d like to ask why you extended the invitation to me the other night.”

He raised a brow. “Simple. I have only a handful of members, and the new laws require covens like ours to have at least ten. If I don’t want the coven to disband any time soon, well, then I have to do some recruiting.”

“Of total strangers? I don’t understand.”

Maybe the look you gave him was a little too skeptical—his eyes widened for just a second before taking on the usual thoughtfulness. “Allow me to speak my mind more freely, then,” he said. “I don’t seem like the righteous type, do I?”

A sharp laugh escaped your lips. He’d bribed the cops, for starters. And if you knew anything about foreign investors and CEOs like him, it was that they were far from righteous. “No. You don’t.”.

“Then we’re on the same page. Good.” Yuta smiled, now spreading his hands as if he were at a board meeting. “In my line of work, sometimes we resort to rather… unorthodox methods, if you know what I mean. That being said, I need people like you.”

The realization set in a second later—the unmistakably cold glint in his eyes, how adamant he’d been in recruiting you despite not even knowing you, all the hidden messages behind his words now. It made sense. To him, you were either an accomplice or a scapegoat, someone to use and throw around like a business asset.

“I’m not a contract killer,” you responded wryly.

“Oh, you misunderstand. I’m not looking for killers,” Yuta was quick to correct you. A dark chuckle, and the subtlest shake of his shoulders indicating amusement. “At least, not yet. No, I just need a couple of like-minded people who won’t make a fuss about the type of business we do here.”

“And what makes you think I’m the right person you’re looking for?”

He stared at you for a long second. “You’ve killed, and obviously not just once. You dislike humans as much as I do. And you’re here.”

You stopped to consider. You were here, not because you were worried about the police; there was no reason to be. You were here because you suspected Yuta was different. Perhaps he offered more than just empty promises, more than the pointless cash and cheap thrills. All the vampires you’d been with previously had bathed in luxuries, sat neck-high in money and drugs, thrown their wealth around just for show. That was how they’d all died: with blood on their hands and flimsy stacks of cash gripped tightly between their greedy fingers, as if the money would ensure safe passage to the afterlife.

But Yuta… if there was any greed or hunger in his heart, he didn’t make it particularly known. He was tactical. Silently scheming, graceful and charismatic in the way he’d brought you here. Nothing was for show; everything had been meticulously planned. With him, it was a different game.

“You need me to up your member count, and you need me to keep quiet about what you do. In exchange, immunity from the law,” you said slowly, trying to gauge his reaction. An affirmative nod, but nothing else.

It was a game you were willing to play.

“I suppose I can do that for you.”

iii. More lasting than bronze.

September 1987

You moved in a couple weeks later.

It was strange, to say the least—you’d lived in the same little neighborhood for years, and uprooting yourself from it all had felt unpleasantly abrupt. But in all honesty, you were happy to finally get away from your neighbours: the young vampire who’d been possessed by her passion for the piano, the old man who frequently threw childish temper tantrums in his front yard, and the group of reformist vampires who debated politics and economics loud enough for the entire street to hear. Having dealt with them for years, you’d almost forgotten what it was like to have silence.

The Laverna residence was eerily quiet in comparison. Excluding you and Yuta, there were only three other members. Lee Hajoon, the vampire you’d met the first night. Osaki Shotaro, one of Yuta’s associates—he was almost always away, conducting business in Japan. And a young bartender who went by the name Hendery. They were a quiet group, and if Yuta hadn’t introduced you to them the night of your arrival, you probably wouldn’t have known that they were even there.

You spent most of your time alone, either in your room or the library, sometimes in the courtyard after nightfall. You read, memorized poetry as you had back in the day, but observing the others became infinitely more interesting.

You now understood what Yuta meant by “like-minded people.” Laverna was a safe house for the sinister. Not a place where alliances were born, but not exactly a forge for contention either. On some days, Hendery could afford to mix drugs into his alcohol, or replace animal blood with human blood. The latter bits of Shotaro’s phone calls to his partners revealed all sorts of covert operations, everything from selling weapons to producing illicit substances. And Hajoon, while you knew he wasn’t a facilitator of any kind, you knew he was one for indulgences. You could always hear him. Lewd noises, obscene comments, downright pornographic fantasies, pleasure and pain. In due time, he would learn that vampire hearing grew increasingly acute with age, and that the entire house knew exactly what he was up to.

But no one cared. You were all privy to each others’ crimes and treachery, but no one cared. You stayed out of each others’ business. You did whatever you needed to do, unless Yuta had something to say about it. Which he never did. Because as far as you could tell, Yuta was no better.

He was quite secretive, but it didn’t take a detective to figure out what he was up to: drugs, extortion, blackmail, bribery. From your room on the third floor, you often saw his guests arrive. Sometimes you saw them leave. Sometimes you didn’t. Or you saw them collapse on the front porch, shaking in terror, banging their fists on the front door as if it would change their fate, whatever that might be.

Laverna was the perfect name for such a vile group.

One night, you noticed her statue in the living room: a headless woman on the fireplace mantel. It seemed as if she were only there as decoration. An old relic that no one paid attention to, nor had the mind to get rid of. Next to her hung an ink painting of the coven’s founder, Isobe Hinata. From what you’d heard, it was the countless millennia of vampirism that finally drove him mad; he killed himself in the 1800s, laid himself out on a straw mat until the sun had reduced his body to a pile of black ashes.

And like the statue, Isobe had seen years of neglect. His painting hung crooked on the wall, brushstrokes streaked grey, colours washed out by the sun. It was a simple portrait, but he looked about as crazy as he sounded. His eyes pierced into your very soul, bright yellow with an unmistakable hunger and malicious intent. His face was perfectly oval, his nose was perfectly contoured and his cheekbones were sculpted in symmetrical, dramatic arches—the perfect image of timelessness, flawless youthfulness, both of which he threw away to the sun.

“He was hell-bent on pleasing the gods.”

You jolted at the voice, turning to see Yuta standing in the doorway. Most days, he arrived at the estate just before dawn, went straight to his quarters, and left again at dusk—you hadn’t spoken to him since you moved in.

“It didn’t matter which gods, which deities, whether the religion was dead or alive,” he continued, and walked over to stand next to you. He didn’t look at you, simply kept his eyes on the painting as if he were at a gallery—with a faint solicitude, and a pondering gaze. “He worshiped them all. Obsessively. It’s strange, how immortal beings such as ourselves still turn to higher powers the way humans do.”

“Immortal,” you repeated dryly, but held back on voicing the rest of the thought. It was true that vampires were ageless. The lines of your faces never hardened, never deepened or wrinkled, but you were not exactly eternal. Not immortal. The way you saw it, there was no such thing as eternity.

“Ancient,” Yuta corrected himself. “Isobe lived long enough to witness the collapse of humanity’s greatest empires… what he thought was the wrath of the gods.”

“Did Laverna seem particularly vengeful to him? That he had to name his coven after her?”

“Quite the opposite,” he laughed, finally tearing his eyes away from the painting. He took a step back, and after a moment of silence, seated himself in one of the leather armchairs behind you. A bottle uncapped, a glass clinked, and then there was the sound of alcohol spilling into a cup.

“Laverna was the goddess of thieves and the underworld, but it wasn’t just criminals who worshiped her. Thieves prayed to her for good luck and riches, victims prayed for vengeance. Some say it was simply a matter of who called upon her first.” A pause. “Isobe prayed to her after being robbed, as you can imagine. Three days later, the thieves miraculously turned up dead at his doorstep… or so the story goes. Regardless, he named our coven after her as homage. Always told us to keep her in our thoughts, no matter what we did.”

“He was your teacher, then?”

“No. He didn’t have much time for us. Being so committed to several hundred deities does that to you.” His expression soured. “I did have a teacher, though. Someone… else.”

Again, he broke off, and you turned to see him flipping a coin between his fingers. It shone with the same images he had tattooed on his chest: a winged python wrapped around a sword. Its mouth opened to reveal glimmering fangs, and a forked tongue flicked into the air. Its wings beat powerfully, and yet it was wrapped too tightly around the weapon to take off into the skies. You blinked, and the image reduced itself to only circles and lines. The snake stopped twitching around the polearm. The stream of scarlet ceased to flow down its length.

“Excuse my rambling, ____,” Yuta gave a shake of his head. “If I’m not mistaken, you have somewhere to be.” He nodded at your outfit: a black evening dress that swept down to your ankles, black heels to match, an expensive purse carried on your shoulder.

“I really don’t,” you shrugged, and he responded with a puzzled look. You laughed. “It’s not a date or anything. I just sit alone at the bar, look a little bored, and wait for eligible men to approach me.” There was an opportunity here. “I get a free drink out of it every now and then, maybe someone pretty to spend the night with…”

“That’s what you did with me, no?” He smiled coyly, making the subtlest motion for you to come closer. You approached him hesitantly, only to be thrown completely off guard when he suddenly leaned forward. His gaze was hard and his lips pulled back, revealing sharp teeth.

“Finish what you started.”

To hell with it.

You plucked the glass of liquor from his hand, and after setting it aside, straddled his waist to kiss him. It was heated, rushed, fueled by alcohol and want alone, a chaotic clash. At some point his teeth nicked your bottom lip, drawing blood. His tongue ran along the seam of your mouth, collecting all the crimson alongside your sounds, and only when he was content did he finally pull away.

“Let’s get out of here.”

You left a teasing kiss against his jaw, despite his protests. “What, don’t want the others seeing us?”

“Least of my worries,” he huffed . “You have no idea how many women Hajoon has had in here. Fucker doesn’t ever clean up after himself.”

You grinned, mind reeling back to the words he’d uttered last time. “Shall we, then?”

iv. The die has been cast.

April 1989

“Have you ever killed anyone?”

Yuta glanced over at you. Presently, your head was still spinning with all the blood and alcohol you’d let him coax into you, and you couldn’t properly decipher his expression. Confusion, maybe a bit of incredulity, like he wasn’t sure if it was you talking, or the drugs. You weren’t too sure either.

“What do you mean?” He asked, and then turned back to the book he was reading. “Haven’t we all?”

“For food, yes, back in the day,” you scoffed, flipping onto your side so you could see him better. The sheets fell away and you felt the cold air embrace your back. “I mean, in the last couple of decades. In the world of business. You ever have someone killed just for the hell of it? Or because they’re meddling?”

Obviously, you knew the answer. He wasn’t all that secretive about his work now that he trusted you—at least, you hoped he trusted you after all your hard work gaining it—but you had a feeling he never got his hands dirty the way you did. He could very well frame murders as suicides, stage car wrecks, simply hire the right person for the right job, but you wondered if he remembered how it felt to see life spilling out onto his hands.

“You know the answer to that.”

“Well, do you ever do it yourself?”

“What is this about, ____?” He glared at you, but it was mostly out of annoyance more than it was anything else. He marked his place in his book with a simple fold of the page, and then put it aside.

“Nothing. I’m just curious.”

“I’m a businessman, not a murderer,” he scoffed. “If I get caught, it’s over. Us vampires, we would be left to rot in a cell until either an ‘accident’ takes us out, or we go mad and kill ourselves. Prison is the last place any of us want to be, but that’s a risk you’re willing to take, isn’t it?”

You edged closer to whisper in his ear. “How else am I supposed to feel alive?”

You’d confessed this to several others—and for many of them, it was the last thing they ever heard. You’d always derived a bit of pleasure from their reactions, enjoyed watching their faces twist with anger and their bodies freeze rigid with fear; but Yuta only smiled, as if to politely acknowledge your words. There was something coy behind it though, almost as if he were in agreement.

“That’s cold,” he said, completely deadpan. “You like the thrill.”

A familiar wind returned, and it crawled into your skin, closing icy fingers around your throat. Years upon years of the same thing, neither living nor dying, always itching to do something, to feel something. Eternity isn’t as monotonous and mundane as you’d think, Yuta had told you not too long ago. Yet every second that crawled by felt incredibly mechanical. The last year had gone by in less than a second, and you imagined the next would go just as quickly.

“I’m not like you, pretty boy,” you sighed, now turning your attention to the ceiling so you wouldn’t have to see him staring at you. “You do business. You’re smart. You have something to keep you busy.” You didn’t miss the way his eyes flashed, the way he raised his brows at the compliment. “But I’m not good at anything. I don’t enjoy anything. Anything productive, anyways. There’s nothing that can make this world any less mundane for me.”

While he had often drunkenly confided in you in the past, you’d never done the same. You were quite sure he didn’t care, and it wasn’t like you were looking for his reassurance. You weren’t looking for anyone’s reassurances. After all, your problems were a reality you’d lived with for long enough. It wouldn’t make sense for someone to relieve you from something you could no longer feel.

A long pause. Eventually, you grew tired of studying the ceiling tiles, and turned to see a brooding stare hovering just a few inches away. Even after months of careful observation, you could never tell what Yuta was thinking, whether it was thoughtful or sinister, if it was sincere. It was always the same mirror-glazed eyes, the slight crease of his brow and subtle twitch of his fingers against the nearest surface. But something about him felt strangely genuine tonight. His silence wasn’t completely indifferent.

“Who says you have to do anything productive?” He said at last, with a simple shrug. “Who says you have to conform?” The silence that followed was a quiet whisper of the correct answer in your ear. Humans.

“Humans are so self-righteous. So sanctimonious and pious,” he continued, and you felt like you’d heard the same words from some of the new members—the smartly-dressed businessmen and lawyers who polluted the common areas with their expensive cigar smoke and meaningless debate. You knew Yuta wasn’t particularly fond of any of them, but numbers were numbers, and they all fit the profile perfectly. They shared his ideals. “They petition for vampire rights and inclusion, they try to treat us the same way they treat each other… but beneath it all, it’s an attempt to assimilate us. We’re all innately monsters, but they want us to behave like we aren’t.

“Obviously… I gave in. I do business with them. I pretend I’m grateful for the inclusion. I force myself to drink the pig’s blood they give us, just so they might turn a blind eye to everything else I do. But people like you, you’re sitting up where the rest of us vampires ought to be.”

He pushed forward, enough for his forehead to touch yours. His lips ghosted over yours briefly, with what you thought might’ve been a conscious breath. “You’re something else, ____,” he admitted in a low chuckle, and then pulled back to revel in your reaction.

You grinned. “So what you’re saying is… that I should continue?”

“If you’re so inclined.” He slipped out of bed and walked over to the desk he kept in the corner. After a bit of rummaging, he returned with a small notebook: deep green, snakeskin, with a bit of gold stitching down its spine. A few photos slipped out from behind the front cover, and he carefully put them aside so he could continue flipping through the pages. “And if it’s the thrill that you’re after, I have something you might be interested in.”

He handed you the notebook: what looked like records of his acquaintances. Some of them were recent; there were notes on mergers he’d mentioned only last month, but the rest dated to a few years ago. Addresses, phone numbers, license plates, vague lines of ink detailing everything they’d done in the past. He’d been keeping tabs.

You’d once told him that you weren’t a contract killer, but you couldn’t resist the urge to flip through the pages. The urge to look for all his worst enemies and eliminate them one by one, to discover just how disgusting they all were, leave their lies and vices and money in little pools of blood. You certainly weren’t doing it for his benefit—but you snapped the notebook shut and gave him an appreciative nod, all too aware of the crazed smile starting to form on your lips.

If it was one thing you’d learned from the green notebook, it was that Yuta had a particular disdain for backstabbers.

Even among your coven members, there seemed to be unspoken laws about betrayal. Keep your silence for someone, and they would do the same for you. Sabotage someone, and it would surely come back to bite you in the ass. The threat hung steadily above your heads, sometimes less perceptible, sometimes barely noticeable, but it was always there. It was the only thing keeping the coven from descending into chaos.

The pages you flipped through revealed all the people Yuta suspected—humans and vampires alike—from associates to shady lawyers and their malpractices. Perhaps Yuta wasn’t paranoid, but he was careful. If he hadn’t been so careful all those years, the entire coven would have disappeared long ago. NWC would have stayed a poor start-up company in Japan, nowhere near the multi-million corporation it was today.

You spent your time keeping tabs on the people he’d indicated, following them from a distance and sticking your own notes between the pages for Yuta’s later reference. There was something unmistakably voyeuristic about it—something that could almost rival the thrill of killing. You saw them do all sorts of things, heard all sorts of obscenities uttered when they thought there was no one around. On rare occasions, when you were certain that your target couldn’t trace you back to Yuta or Laverna, you liked to step out of the shadows and approach them with empty promises, gestures that would later drag all sorts of strange truths from their lips.

Tonight, you’d shed your usual disguises, opting for a maroon dress so you could sit next to a rich businessman at an underground vampire casino. You’d run into Kim Seojoon by chance, and upon realizing that his name had been scrawled out angrily on the third page of the notebook, decided to attach yourself to him for the rest of the night.

It wasn’t all that pleasant. The place reeked of blood, sweat and smoke, and there were more than thirty vampires shoved into a space no larger than the Laverna common room; people could only do so much when gambling was illegal in Korea. Seojoon practically had you in his lap and always pushed up closer than what was comfortable, but you took it as a good sign. You had him exactly where you wanted him: drunk on blood, with one hand on your waist and several million Korean won in the other, all placid and compliant, content to let you whisper in his ear.

“All in,” you murmured to him with a horrendously flirtatious giggle. Seojoon raised a brow and looked at you for confirmation, spreading the cards for your inspection. It wasn’t a bad hand. If anything, there was a decent chance that he would win.

“You sure, sweetheart?” He asked in a low drawl; it was supposed to be coy, maybe a little teasing, but you were still sober, and could only hear uncertainty. He was worried.

“You said you were good,” you reminded him with a shrug, and took a sip from your glass. The metallic tang of blood complemented the wine perfectly, and it sent a slight shudder down your spine. “Impress me.”

“With pleasure.”

That was all it took. He pushed his stack of chips to the centre of the table, earning a chorus of excited hoots from the onlookers. The shadows towards the edge of the room shifted with the slightest expectancy. You’d already deduced that his opponents didn’t like him much, but now you could make out the faintest signs of hostility across the table.

The round went as usual. The cards left the dealer’s hands, moved across the table, and the favourable ones found Seojoon. He deftly assembled them and waited eagerly for the others to reveal theirs.

Three of a kind.

Straight.

The blonde lady at the end of the table cackled with maniacal laughter—but at this point, you knew that her behaviour had absolutely nothing to do with the cards in her hand. Two pair.

The teenage-looking vampire across from you took a sip from his drink to mask his expression. Flush.

Seojoon lowered his cards. Flush. But they were higher.

He swept his hands out to collect his prize, fingers moving greedily to secure every chip and bring them to his side. “I told you,” he said proudly. And resisting the urge to roll your eyes, you kissed him on the cheek.

“You’re good,” you giggled. “One more?” If he hadn’t been so drunk in his victory, he likely would have heard the malice dripping from your voice. But he only smiled, as if all your empty praises had rendered his head completely void, his brain completely useless. He nodded, ordered another round of drinks for the both of you, and made his bets.

The next round was a blur.

Flush.

His jaw tightened.

Full house.

The teenager dropped his straight, and the blonde flung down four of a kind with a desperate screech.

Seojoon’s measly three of a kind.

But even while the victor swept away all his hard-earned chips, he didn’t seem affected in the slightest. With a lazy smile, he inclined his head at his opponents and pushed away from the table, dragging you with him.

“What was that?” You demanded, following him outside. “You aren’t going to try and—”

“Oh, don’t concern yourself with me, doll,” he laughed, producing a silver zippo from his pocket to light the cigarette dangling from his mouth. He leaned a little closer, exhaled, and the hot smoke fanned gently across your face. His eyes flickered. “I don’t have anything to lose.”

“What do you mean?” You asked, feigning naivety as much as you could. The green notebook had mentioned that Seojoon wasn’t nearly as wealthy as the other coven leaders; he led Lucetius, a small group of vampires, and in all the years Yuta had known him, he’d never pursued anything more than being a manager at NWC. He didn’t have the luxury to gamble so carelessly… unless it wasn’t his money.

“You don’t know anything about business, do you?” He crouched down to see you a little better, almost as if you were a child. “It’s a hierarchy, sweetheart. And sometimes… the bad men at the very top of the ladder get so used to ordering people around that they forget to keep them in line. They forget that they aren’t the only ones who can get away with all sorts of horrible things.”

“And who might those bad men be?”

He snorted. “Means nothing to you, doll.” His next words were a drunken mumble, a sort of mindless ramble you knew he’d meant for his own ears.“Some Japanese fucker. Fucking idiot… he’s too easy. Just change the numbers, change the records, keep the money for yourself. He’ll never find out.”

“You’re so smart,” you crooned and let your hand find a gentle hold on his neck. “I hope he never finds out.”

You tightened your grip around him before he could respond, and then swiftly knocked his head into the wall.

Yuta was always silent whenever he was angry.

You’d noticed this some time ago: he always held his tongue in moments of rage, almost as if he was worried about saying something he’d regret. But it was never out of consideration. Anger only brought back remnants of his past, and when they brought back memories he’d rather forget, he would go completely mute. He would move around slowly, pace the room, sometimes stop to pour himself a drink, but he never spoke until he’d pulled himself back to reality. Currently, while you dumped Seojoon into the closest armchair, he stood facing the window, watching the cars go by on the street.

A quick search through Seojoon’s pockets produced a thick wad of cash, empty cheques, and an assortment of cheap edibles. You tossed the baggie over to Shotaro, who was watching from his spot in the corner. Apparently not interested, he gave you the finger and promptly threw them in the trash.

“Get up, you son of a bitch,” you grumbled, grabbing Seojoon by the hair and pulling him forwards. His eyes opened briefly, and then they shook in their sockets, rolling back into his head. You kicked his seat in annoyance, sending him crashing into the wall.

“He’s probably concussed,” Shotaro said with a shake of his head when Seojoon let out a low moan of pain. “You seriously don’t know your own strength, ____. The poor guy.”

“Quiet,” you hissed back. “Maybe if you’d showed up a little earlier, I wouldn’t have had to knock him out twice.”

“Enough, you two,” Yuta broke in coldly from the other end of the room. “Get him some blood. I don’t have time for this.”

You raised your thumb up to your mouth and raked it against your teeth, drawing a small stream of crimson. You offered it to him, allowed him just a couple drops, but pulled away the moment he stirred from sleep. Still only half-conscious, his lips parted, a bit of your blood dribbled down his chin, and he gave a weak groan for “more.” You swiped at what had escaped and fed it back to him, retracting your fingers in disgust when he tried taking them into his mouth.

“Best behave yourself,” you warned him, and then wiped your fingers off on his cheek, none too gently. His eyes snapped open, immediately filled with confusion and then subsequently, terror. Now conscious of his surroundings and the situation at hand, he lurched out of his seat, only to cower back when he caught sight of Yuta standing across from him.

“How much did you take?”

Yuta’s voice came out much gentler than you’d been anticipating. It was quiet, almost solicitous, like the chiding tone of a school teacher who’d found one of his students stealing a pencil. And the longer you looked at the two of them, the more it made sense. Perhaps Shotaro had made the connection too, because he sent you a brief side glance. A disbelieving smile. You scoffed.

Kim Seojoon was downright pathetic. A two-faced liar, a conniving rat bastard, and above all, a traitor. Whatever he and Yuta had had in the past, he’d thrown it all away in favour of money, and it was written all over his face, clear as day.

“I-I didn’t t-take anything. I swear!” He gave a desperate gasp and the words tumbled from his mouth, cracking and breaking with each syllable. “Whatever she told you, it’s not true—“

“I trust her.” Yuta silenced him with a dismissive wave of his hand, pausing to send you a rather blank look. He turned back to him. “Just like I used to trust you. Before you…” He trailed off, but after a moment, stepped forward to sit down across from him. “You’ve been stealing from me. Embezzling company funds for your little gambling addiction, which you said you recovered from over a decade ago.”

“It’s not an addiction,” Seojoon stammered, pupils trembling as he looked between you and Yuta. “I went to rehab, I changed, I’m not like that anymore, I wouldn’t—“

You snorted. “He lost half a million won in a single night. You should’ve seen him.”

“I can imagine. Old habits die hard.”

Seojoon eyed the two of you angrily. “You’re just gonna take this—woman’s word for it? I told you, I don’t have an addiction! I didn’t steal anything from you.”

“What difference does it make that she’s a woman?”

He spluttered in his seat, his fear now morphing into an anger you knew would get him in trouble. “Women are devious. They’re liars. They say one thing and mean another, they do one thing but secretly feel the opposite. I’ll bet she’s using you. Just like Sone.”

The words carried a weight you couldn’t understand, but you felt its heaviness crash into the room like boulders plummeting off of a cliff. In the corner, Shotaro murmured something beneath his breath. Yuta’s expression hardened. His lips pressed together into a firm line, and his eyes darkened with unmistakable contempt for the vampire in front of him. Out of the stillness came the sharp sound of contact—Yuta whipped a hand across Seojoon’s face, leaving an angry mark against his cheek. The latter cried out softly, and then curled back into his chair without a trace of his previous boldness.

“Whatever Sone did, you helped facilitate it,” Yuta snapped. “And yet, I let you go. Somehow it wasn’t the first time I let you off easy, either.”

Seojoon nodded mindlessly, as if too afraid to argue. He was trembling pitifully in his seat, eyes flitting all around the room in search of an exit, maybe a means of escape. Even when Yuta stepped forward to grab him by the collar, his attention was elsewhere.

“Look at me, boy,” Yuta hissed, his words laced with venom, warped with so much spite that even you felt the urge to shrink back. Seojoon all but cried out, and with visible effort, jerked his head to do as he’d been told. Yuta scoffed. “I saved you. Back in 1890, when I turned you. In 1925, once Sone was gone. In 1954, when you went bankrupt.”

“I d-didn’t do anything.”

“I saved your life,” Yuta repeated with an emotionless cackle. “Like a Good Samaritan, I saved your life when everyone else kept walking. I took you in so you wouldn’t burn to death. I pardoned you when you put all of us in danger. I let you leave us when any other coven leader would have demanded your loyalty. I gave you a job to keep you off the streets when you gambled away all your savings. And this is how you repay me.”

Dead silence.

“So I’ll ask you again. How much did you take?”

(***)

Seojoon started babbling nonsense. Numbers, days, people. Half-assed justifications for what he’d done, dozens of people he felt the need to blame. All of his resolve, what little was left of it anyways, crumbled. You watched, entranced by the way the legs of his chair screeched against the floor, the way his hands shook with desperation. His eyes went wide with fear, and his mouth opened with a soundless cry when Yuta produced a knife from the top drawer of his desk. It was delicately-curved like a letter opener—a ceremonial relic of some sort—but the blade was unmistakably sharp, a flickering streak of silver beneath the faint light of morning.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean— Please, I— Please just this once, I won’t do it again—“

Metal pierced flesh, and a deafening scream tore through the room.

Seojoon clutched at his hand, screaming incoherent profanities while blood poured down his fingers and onto the carpet. The knife had been driven straight through his palm, with so much force that it tore clean through bones and tendons—a gaping, red hole held in place by the blade of the knife.

Through his tears, between all the screaming and cursing, he was chanting something. His lips moved with the same string of words, uttering something inaudible. But as he repeated it with increasing fervour, the syllables came together into a haunting phrase: “thank you.” While the words clashed nonsensically in your head, they emerged coherent when you understood their implications. This was only a lesson, and perhaps one he’d been taught in the past. He’d been expecting worse.

“Pull it out,” Yuta whispered. He grabbed him by the hand and wrestled his fingers open so that he could see the wound better. Seojoon howled, and you swore you felt the floor vibrating beneath your feet. The whole house could hear, but they didn’t care. There was no one coming to save him.

“W-what? P-pull—”

“Or don’t. But we can’t stitch you up if you leave it there, can we?”

“I-I can’t do it.”

“Well you don’t want me to do it either, trust me,” Yuta laughed. “Go on. We’ll get you some blood when you’re done. I promise.”

You could tell he had no intention of keeping that promise. His eyes were crazed, aglow with a maniacal thirst for blood. The urge to hurt, to manipulate and deform his victim between his hands. A sly type of wrath that seeped through the cracks of his composed exterior. He’d led Seojoon to believe that it was just a lesson. Discipline. But you could tell it wasn’t punishment—it was torture.

Seojoon closed a hand around the hilt of the knife, but then hesitated. A split second of silence.

The shriek that followed shook you to the very core. It screeched violently against the walls of the room, reverberated for several seconds until it was reduced to broken sobs. Red overflowed between his hands, the rug flooded crimson, and the knife clattered to the ground. Yuta murmured something. Seojoon struggled out of his seat and stumbled to his knees where he searched blindly for the weapon, trying to reach it before Yuta could. The struggle was over in an instant.

There was a garbled cry, and then the gurgling of blood. The knife found Seojoon’s chest with a loud squelch, and his lifeless body found the floor.

All his crimes were pooled on the ground, soaking the carpet. The blood stained the face of his watch, soaked his shirt, splashed across his suit jacket, formed little streams of crimson along the grain of the floorboards. It was a mess, but Yuta didn’t seem to mind. He crouched down, and with bloodied fingers, fished something out of Seojoon’s pocket: a green notebook with gold stitching, similar to the one Yuta had given you. He flipped through it, stamping red prints all over the pages.

“You knew better than to bring her up,” Yuta scoffed, snapping the book shut.

v. Moral actions never deceive the gods.

You could find no mention of Sone in any of the coven’s records.

It made sense; given how Yuta typically dealt with bad memories, he must have scrubbed the books clean of her name. Some of the scrapbooks in the library were missing photos, but they’d been removed so carefully, methodically, as if wiped from existence with a mere snap of one’s fingers. No trace of glue, no jagged edges or anything to suggest that the pages had been altered. Empty frames. Empty spaces. You always imagined a face in place of those gaps: devious lies hidden behind soft features and bright-coloured eyes. A wispy image of a mysterious woman, conjured by your mind’s eye.

A friend or partner, maybe a lover, though you weren’t sure if Yuta was fully capable of love. And in that regard, you weren’t sure what he considered you. You weren’t sure if the days you spent with each other really meant anything to him. Maybe he trusted you, maybe he looked at you differently now—left lingering touches against your skin, affirmed all your words with gentle laughter—but you still didn’t know what to make of it. Because if he was anything like you, if his idea of love was anything like yours, none of this was real.

If he’d given up on love, you liked to think that it was because of Sone. Perhaps you were a bit cruel, but it was an interesting idea to entertain.

“Who was she?” You finally asked him one morning, when you noticed he’d put his book away. He’d seemed distracted the last couple of days: you frequently found him staring off into space, running his hands along the bookshelves in the library or simply sitting alone in a corner. He always seemed lost in his own thoughts, and today was no different. He had the book held up to his chest while his eyes fluttered shut, his fingers drumming a lazily rhythm against the delicately-decorated cover. He hummed a quiet sound acknowledgment, but only when you repeated yourself did he finally respond.

“Who?”

“Sone.”

He was quiet for some time. His brow furrowed, and his pupils quavered beneath his eyelids, almost as if he’d been caught in a bad dream. At last, he opened them.

“Yurie,” he murmured, and then chuckled when he registered your confusion. “She was one of the last of her clan, so she preferred her family name. But she was always Yurie to me. We were…” He sighed. “Close. Well, I’m not really sure what we were in the end, if I’m being honest.”

A thoughtful pause.

“She was Isobe’s student. Somehow she convinced him to take her in, in an era where women were expected to stay home taking care of children and doing housework. She spent her time babbling prayers and worshipping dead gods with him, but she turned out alright.” He allowed for a slight smile. The faintest fondness, but it quickly turned into bitterness. “The reason for his insanity… it was partially because of her. No one knows exactly how she did it, but she turned him into a tyrant.”

To think that Isobe’s portrait hung crookedly in the entrance hall, but there wasn’t a single photo of Sone in the house.

Yuta scoffed, opening the book in his hands to play mindlessly with the pages. “If you’ve ever wondered why Laverna had so few members when you first arrived, it was because of her. She turned them against me, and then sent them running for their lives. To this day, I’m still not sure why she did it.”

“What happened to her?”

There was no reply, but his silence spoke enough volume: a faceless woman and another victim of his violent wrath, after he’d first fallen prey to hers.

“I didn’t think it was possible to miss her after she was gone,” Yuta sighed. “I suppose it doesn’t matter what someone’s done, when you’ve been with them for so long.” He went quiet again, returned to his reading; for a moment, it seemed as if your conversation had ended. Finally, he lifted his gaze from the page to look at you.

“Sometimes you remind me of her, you know.”

It was genuine. Maybe it showed in his eyes, maybe it was the way he grimaced, the way he turned his head at the last moment to avoid your reaction—somehow you knew.

“You must have a hard time trusting me, then.”

Yuta laughed softly. “Perhaps. But then again, I have a hard time trusting everyone. Don’t take it personally.”

“Why keep me around?”

Out of nowhere, he leaned forward to kiss you. For once, it wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t needy. It wasn’t the type of desire-fueled intimacy that often took the breath from your lungs—but it wasn’t gentle either. In some way, he seemed to be restraining himself; in another, it was as if he were trying to express something he couldn’t possibly put into words. The sentiments crashed against a brick wall and fell apart at your feet. His fingers found your hips as he guided you into his lap, hard enough to leave bruises, but you let him do as he pleased.

“I think I’m starting to understand,” he whispered in your ear. “The thrill you’re always after.”

You startled—his teeth were suddenly against your collarbone, the sharp points of his canines digging into your skin. They trailed upwards, and then stopped at the base of your neck. The vibration of his laughter travelled down your spine like a bolt of lightning, and before you could react, you were bleeding.

You had never let him feed from you before; vampires were never meant to feed from each other. Your blood had no sustenance, it wasn’t particularly safe to consume, and the initial healing benefits were misleading. It was supposed to be a last resort. But aside from that, it was a sign of familiarity. Trust. Two things you were quite sure you had never shared with Yuta.

“You’re reckless,” he mused, pulling back so you could see the red on his lips. “You live for danger, and for the prospect of things going wrong.” He brushed the stray pieces of hair away from your face—a seemingly innocent gesture, but the way he held your gaze said something else. “Let’s just say… perhaps I’ve learned a thing or two from you. To be reckless, but in a different sense.”

“So you trust me,” you gave a dry laugh. He nodded. “That is reckless,” you murmured, and he leaned in to close the gap. You kissed him back, but you lacked what you assumed he felt. Whatever he felt for you, however real it really was, it wasn’t mutual.

A little later, when Yuta had left to attend his meetings, you picked up the novel he’d been reading. It told the story of a king: a mere child showered with all the riches of his kingdom, promised a chance to avenge his late father. Utterly alone on his throne, he would seek the help of a young maiden—and completely blinded by his need for vengeance, he would leave his kingdom wide open to attack. The royal court would turn against him, his closest advisors would conspire behind his back, and the maiden would reveal herself at his greatest enemy’s right hand. He would fall from the throne.

Though one might argue that maybe he never ascended it in the first place.

vi. An hour passes slowly, but the years go by quickly.

January 2008

The house was strangely silent.

Granted, it was early morning, a couple hours before sunrise; you assumed the others were still out on business, or maybe wasting the last hours of their days away at a bar—but it wasn’t their lack of presence that felt strange. It was something else. Something was amiss. The old grandfather clock in the living room creaked out its usual staggered rhythm. Isobe’s portrait stared daggers at you as you walked by. There was an icy prick under your skin, and half a dozen discombobulated thoughts circling your head.

Quietly, you took off your jacket and slipped down the hall, intent on finding a warmer spot to read the new books you’d brought home. It was a particularly chilly January, and despite your natural immunity to the cold as a vampire, the windy conditions of winter were far from pleasant. Though you sometimes enjoyed walking around downtown in only shorts and a flimsy T-shirt, barefoot through the snow. Just to see the humans squirm, maybe even evoke a couple of heated slurs. And to prove a point: that despite all the new reforms, all the new vampire rights movements, things had hardly changed. Vampires were savages. Demons. Always the villains, so much so that some humans couldn’t even bear to see them walking around completely unscathed by the cold—

You shook your head, but the thoughts lingered, echoing in your head until they spilled into the empty corridor. Winter. Vampires. Reforms. Movements. Change. You blinked, stopping to listen to the silence. It was almost as if…

You glanced at the blackwood doors to Yuta’s office.

…as if the thoughts weren’t yours.

After so many years spent in his presence, you’d become incredibly perceptive to his moods, easily able to sense his emotions from even a door away. Like vampire hearing, it came with age—and like having the ability to eavesdrop on your neighbours, it was really both a blessing and a curse. It was bad enough, having to block out everyone’s sounds and ignore even the slightest noises in the hallway when you were trying to sleep. It was another to sense energy, and to feel unease when someone experienced any emotion stronger than mild dissatisfaction.

As of now, Yuta was brooding. And you knew better than to disturb him while he was. You turned to leave.

“Come in,” you heard him call, just as you had started walking away. You sighed. It didn’t help that he was a full century older than you; you’d learned on multiple occasions that he could sense your presence if you did as much as even breathe.

You pushed open the doors to find him sitting hunched over his desk, going through a stack of documents piled up in the corner of his desk. He set everything aside when you entered, looking up at you expectantly—you unconsciously took a step back. Even while you were outside, you could sense that he was irritated by something, but what you hadn’t been expecting was to be the source of that irritation.

“I thought I told you to stop snooping around FVA,” he said sharply. No greetings. No formalities or even niceties, not that the two of you exchanged those on any normal occasion.

“I don’t see the harm,” you shrugged. It was true that he’d told you to stop, about a week ago. But the Foreign Vampires Association of Seoul—FVA for short—simply couldn’t have been the clean, righteous coven it claimed to be. There was an urge you felt to poke and prod, to go looking for the names Yuta had already crossed out from his notebook.

“Allow me to remind you that one of their leaders is a private investigator,” Yuta snapped with an edge you hadn’t been expecting. “The other was one of the first vampires to walk the earth—“

“And the third’s a fucking internet celebrity who makes YouTube videos about breakdancing and parkour tricks,” you sneered mockingly.

Yuta gave you a harsh look. “It might shock you, how competent Ten is outside of his YouTube videos—“ He stopped, as if angry at himself for even admitting it aloud. “Regardless, I don’t want trouble with them.”

You reached into your pocket for your notebook. Yuta had given you your own not too long ago: it was the same as his, the same green snakeskin and gold stitching. The winged serpent sigil was stamped on the inside of the front cover, next to your name. A token of his appreciation. Of all the members, only you and Shotaro carried one.

You flipped to the right page and passed it to him, indicating a couple of lines with an irritated flick of your finger. “Here,” you grunted. “Lee Jungsoo. Chen Jiaying. He’s been fucking around with 0 Mile drug dealers, cutting off routes, stealing, the list goes on. She’s an extortionist. Anonymously blackmails people for money, usually with nudes, sexts, stuff that would ruin marriages. She recently targeted your guys in Angita.”

Yuta barely reacted. “Put that away, ____. I don’t want to see it.”

When you hadn’t moved after several seconds, he closed it for you, replacing the elastic strap that held the covers together. He slid open the top drawer of his desk and carefully placed it inside. The drawer closed with a resounding thud; his decision was final.

“Things have changed, my dear,” he sighed, producing a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket. He’d recently started smoking again—not as frequently as some of the other members did, but enough to indicate that he was feeling burdened. A spark flashed between his hands. A slow inhale, and then a puff of smoke. He turned away, slowly walking over to the window. “It’s a new era. I thought we already talked about this.”

He was right. The bay view windows of his office had once provided a breathtaking view of the surrounding hills, but they now overlooked a valley of construction. The highrises and skyscrapers sprung up, shifted, spread across the city like weeds, breeding all sorts of new businesses. New cultures, new technology, a whole new spectrum of colour and noise. On your side of the city, the trucks came and went, lugging bricks and steel beams, kicking up clouds of dust that obscured your vision of the city.

Not that there was anything to see. The rest of Seoul didn’t look much different, and in any case, you thought it looked worse. Reform groups paraded around the streets, happily signing human-vampire treaties that you knew wouldn’t last. All sorts of new covens had popped up, each more radical than the last. Across the country, humans were opening their doors: vampires in the military, vampires in parliament, the first ever vampire K-pop idol. A cute show of inclusivity and progression, but at its core, assimilation. Just as Yuta had said.

“Tell me, ____, do you still remember the night we met?” He was still at the window when he spoke again, eyes trained on some invisible speck in the distance.

“Would be hard to forget.”

There was a quiet sound of agreement. “About the detectives who came by that night… I’m sure you wouldn’t be surprised, but I did watch over them for a bit. Sometimes money isn’t enough to keep people quiet. Especially the younger ones.”

Barely twenty years had passed since then, and you could still remember the officers’ faces with vivid detail: the young detective’s silent determination and his mentor’s laziness. The cold stare he’d sent your empty window just before following the older detective away, knowing it was a fight he couldn’t win. Not yet. Not then.

“One of them has since retired,” Yuta continued, then paused so he could take a long drag from his cigarette. “Well, he was fired for sexual misconduct. 65, divorced, with too many mistresses—doesn’t matter. Though the kid…”

Taeil, your memory supplied a moment later—you were surprised you still remembered.

“He worked on your case for several weeks after that night, unauthorized, and ended up getting suspended for two months because of it.” Yuta sighed, feigning melancholy. “He became a sergeant about four years ago. They say he’s up for a promotion soon.”

You raised a brow. “And you’re worried about him?”

“Not him,” came the reply. “People like him.”

You failed to hold back your laughter: a burst of audible incredulity that bounced between the walls of his office, loud enough to pull him away from the window. He turned, sent you an odd look, but said nothing more. You plucked the cigarette from his fingers and took a short puff before returning it to him. “And since when have you ever been worried about the police? About anyone?”

“When they started worrying about us.”

His words were harsh, grating, like nails screeching across a chalkboard—the hostile hiss and deadly venom of a serpent.

“When human society collectively decided they needed to root out everything that makes vampires inhuman. When they decided not to treat us equally until we’re just like them.”

This was what he’d believed for centuries—that vampires could be nothing but innately evil. Spawn of night, monsters by nature, fueled by nothing but bloodlust. He’d never rejected the idea of being a monster.

He gave a dry laugh. “Humans think we’re capable of change. They think they can just cure us. Make us human. Save us from our true nature. Worse yet, some vampires are starting to think the same.”

He was wrong. You’d spent decades observing people, and you knew that humanity wasn’t something that simply disappeared when your skin paled or when you grew fangs. Keeping humanity was a choice: one you hadn’t taken, but still one you were aware of. Yuta had forgotten about it entirely, but you made no attempt to correct him.

“No more of this,” Yuta said at last, when he’d seemingly pulled himself out of his thoughts. “They say the police are preparing to dig up the entire underground in the next couple of months. All of it. I don’t want us caught up in any of it.”

The cold sunk into your skin. “That’s it? We’re done?”

“Oh, everything that goes comes back around eventually,” he laughed when he registered your disappointment. He turned to face the window again, and his expression softened in the reflection of the glass. The lines of his face faded in and out of the night sky, his yellow eyes glowed with the white light of the crescent moon, and the smoke escaped his lips like unspoken thoughts fleeing his head. He took a final drag of his cigarette, turned, and then put it out. The flame fizzed out against the copper ashtray, releasing a wisp of grey into the air.

“Patience, my darling. We’ll be back in business soon enough.”

The police tore through the underground quickly enough.

With so many vampire consultants joining their operations, it went faster than you’d originally anticipated: drug cartels and prostitution rings upturned in a matter of weeks, illegal blood services quickly shut down, instigators dealt with. It still amazed you, how carefully Yuta had cleaned up; as much as its members had dabbled in the world of crime, Laverna left no trace of its involvement behind. And even if it had, Yuta’s power hadn’t quite diminished since the 80s. The police came and went, questioned him at the door every now and then—mainly out of obligation rather than suspicion—but there was nothing more.

From the remnants of an old culture of vampire crime sprouted a new one. It was just as Yuta had said. What had been destroyed always found its way back stronger.

The vampire nightclub Shotaro and Hendery had opened several years ago quickly became a hub for everything the cops had confiscated. It was all done with the utmost caution: drugs passed from dealer to client through secluded alleyways, blood rooms buried deep in the basement, kept under constant supervision. It was a spark into flame. Small exchanges into booming business. A couple joints into stacks of cash passed between eager hands. If you ever needed a favour, if you were craving a dizzying rush of adrenaline, whatever you wanted, you found it at 0 Mile. It was a wild playground of alcohol, drugs and sex behind closed doors—and without the little notebook in your pocket to keep you company, you sure as hell needed it.

You started seeing Yuta less and less. He was always occupied, almost always holed up in his office if not at work or abroad for business. And even when his phone calls finally ended, when his black sports car sat idly out on the driveway and you could hear him pouring himself something to drink a couple doors down, he never called for you. On rare occasion, you would see him come home with a human: usually younger women with ignorant, twisted fantasies of having a vampire lover, who were content to let him feed from them free of charge. You thought it was a waste; at the private rooms you supervised, they could easily make more than five hundred thousand won in a single hour.

You would always watch Hendery count the earnings after hours, lazily drinking whatever he had to offer. He was usually generous in how much he let his human “employees” keep, and a younger human associate of his would take a cut for reasons neither of them would disclose—but even then, he was always left with a thick wad of cash. He would always give you a couple hundred thousand won, but never without mocking you for taking handouts. You didn’t care.

“Some more for you today,” he giggled one morning after closing, tossing you two bundles of bills with a shit-eating grin. “You look miserable, sweetheart.”

“You’ll be more miserable when I shove this up your ass, fucker,” you said, holding the cash up in warning.

“I’d love to see you try,” he cackled, and then gave you two more in retaliation. You shoved them into your coat without question.

“Oh ____, you poor thing. It’s really come to this?” Hendery continued, his violet eyes aglow with feigned sympathy. “Moping around all day at my bar, barely even doing your job properly… Yuta did a number on you, huh?”

“That son of a bitch has nothing to do with it,” you rolled your eyes, knocked back the rest of your drink and then grabbed the bottle from over the counter to pour yourself another. You weren’t lying. it wasn’t Yuta. It was the fact that you couldn’t do anything but sit around, drinking, smoking, fucking around with anyone even half attractive. So-called “eternity” had returned to monotony and cold silence.

“Admit it, you’re hung up on him.”

“Not on him,” you scoffed, though you didn’t really elaborate further; you weren’t sure if you could tell him about your previous endeavours with Yuta, if the contents of your notebook were off limits even for the purposes of proving him wrong.

“Then what?” Hendery didn’t let up, now leaning across the counter to give you a smug smile. “You’ve drunk at least a million won’s worth since we opened, and I never charged you once. I think you owe me something here.”

“Will you shut up and stop asking if I just give you your damn money?”

“What are you gonna do, give me Yuta’s card and then feel bad about using his money when he clearly doesn’t give a fuck about you? Oh, sweetie.”

You resisted the urge to slam your head into the table. You weren’t sure exactly how old Hendery was, you’d never cared about him enough to ask, but you were starting to think he had never outgrown his teenage years. Everything was a romcom to him, some silly high school drama to giggle over, something he needed to gossip about. If it weren’t for his refusal to drink anything other than human blood, you would have assumed he was newly turned.

“I can’t go about business the way I used to,” you scoffed.

The look he gave you was the same one Yuta gave you years back, and you caught the message before he could even utter it aloud.

“Who says you can’t? Him?”

A long silence. Enough time for you to finish your second drink, and for him to pour you a third. Gone was the teasing glint in his eyes and the mocking tone in his voice; because for once, maybe the two of you agreed on something. You wondered if running 0 Mile was enough for him. If he enjoyed the prospect of getting caught running such an illicit business. If dealing drugs and blood instigated enough chaos to satisfy him.

Neither of you spoke after that.

vii. We gladly feast from those who subdue us.

March 2016

You kept searching for something, someone, anyone to relieve you of your boredom after Yuta took his leave. Hendery was less than ideal when it came to company, and Shotaro hadn’t even been in the country for nearly three years; as for the rest of your coven members, they were more or less the same. Either busy or abroad.

The 0 Mile patrons were no better. From your usual spot around the bar, you were forced to observe their crimes, unable to act upon any of your impulses. By now, Yuta had made it very clear that any violation of coven rules would result in expulsion—and by extension, removal from the small realm of safety he could still uphold. For now, it wasn’t a risk you were willing to take.

You’d quickly turned your attention to the select humans passing through the establishment. You paid them, they let you feed from them, and it would usually leave you drunk for a couple hours… a couple hours killed. Occasionally they had more to offer: maybe a few drinks, or a decently-entertaining conversation that led you to the private rooms downstairs. You cycled through them, again and again, one after the other, until one drizzly March afternoon when you set your sights on someone else.

You first noticed him outside. A boy stood huddled on the sidewalk, hands shoved down the front pockets of his windbreaker, eyes darting up and down the street as if to make sure that no one was watching. He looked about eighteen—but then again, your perception of human age tended to be incredibly skewed. His features were soft, rounded with a subtle innocence, and there was something haphazard to him as if he wasn’t particularly concerned with his appearance: a worn-out hoodie, ripped jeans, beat up sneakers. There was a bulging backpack slung across his shoulders and a lanyard hanging around his neck, from which dangled a set of keys.

He disappeared from view. The door opened, and a cold wind swept past, carrying the smell of early spring. Hendery let out a mocking laugh, though quietly so that your visitor couldn’t hear; but even so, the boy seemed to falter when he noticed you, his feet shuffling awkwardly against the floor.

“We’re closed,” Hendery called out, and the kid took the slightest step back, eyes widening with fear. It was faint, just barely there, but you caught the way he choked back a breath. Hendery seemed to revel in it for a moment before adding, “And besides… vamps only.”

“Don’t be so mean,” you chided. “What do you need, kid?”

“I heard…” the boy mumbled something, and then with an abrupt, newfound confidence, “I heard you were hiring.”

Hendery opened his mouth—and knowing exactly the type of thing he would say if you kept him around, you waved him away. Too many times had he unknowingly driven a potential employee away with some sort of strange comment, and you weren’t about to let him lose you another. He pursed his lips in protest, but took off without another word.

“Where did you hear about us?” You questioned, gesturing for the boy to sit. Reluctantly, he came forward and joined you at the bar, hands clasped together, eyes flitting around the room every once in a while. Up close, he looked a bit older, and much taller. He loomed a couple inches above you even while sitting, yet there was nothing particularly intimidating about him. Nothing particularly noteworthy.

“A… friend,” he shrugged, and his shoulders slumped—almost as if he’d given up, like he couldn’t believe this was where he’d ended up. Drowning in student debts, desperate for money, naive enough to come looking for a job around here.

You sighed. “You know this is a vampire-exclusive club, right? That goes for our staff as well.”

He blinked, fumbling a little bit. “O-Oh, but I heard there were—” The panic seemed to be settling in now. “—human positions. For…”

He trailed off, and you raised a brow at him.

“Blood services,” he finished nervously.

You stared at him for a hard second. “How old are you, kid?”

“Twenty.”

The same age you’d been when you were turned. It was a strange realization, but you didn’t dwell on it for more than a few moments. “Name?”

He hesitated again. “Kim Yejun.”

It came out almost like a question, and his eyes instantly shot away from you the moment the syllables escaped his lips; it was clearly indicative of a lie. You allowed for a short laugh and shook your head in disbelief. “Let’s not have any of that, yeah? Your name, boy.”

He gave a quick, apologetic nod, but didn’t look at you. “It’s… Youngho.”

“Just Youngho?”

He immediately flinched away, squirming a little in his seat like he wasn’t comfortable hearing it from you. “Seo. Seo Youngho.”

“Seo Youngho,” you echoed, turning to grab the folder of papers Hendery kept behind the register. “Well, I should mention that the owner tends to be… rather selective when it comes to staff. There’s an interview process, blood tests, a diet if you’re so inclined—“ You handed him the document. “I’ll leave you to read the rest.”

He glanced at you warily. “Sounds a bit excessive for a blood donation.”

You weren’t sure how long you sat there dumbfounded, staring wordlessly at him; you only realized when he awkwardly turned away, at which point you shook your head and let out a soft laugh. “Our clients prefer to feed directly from a source. If you wanted to make a donation, hospitals take them.”

His eyes widened. “Oh.” It was the only reply he could muster. He fumbled with the paper, seemingly torn between taking it and returning it—his eyes moved restlessly, scanning the lines of text without really reading them, but his fingers trembled with unmistakable shock. Sighing, you took it from him, folded it into neat thirds, scribbled your number on one side.

“Think about it,” you said simply, handing it back to him. “Call me if you change your mind.”

“Okay,” he said. It was almost a whisper. After a long moment of contemplation, he hesitantly slipped the paper into his backpack, where it disappeared between two flimsy school binders. He stumbled out of his seat, averted his gaze and walked away without a proper goodbye. You watched him cross the street and continue on his way—and begrudgingly, against your natural contempt for humans, you wondered if you would see him again.

Sometimes you wondered what it would feel like to get drunk as a human. People had always said it felt different for vampires—for one, your tolerance was much higher than that of a human’s, and for another, blood was a different type of intoxicant.

You’d never had the luxury of alcohol when you were still human. Back in the 1400s, almost all of your days were spent confined to the home; you learned proper etiquette and shadowed your mother in performing household chores, accepting discipline from your father whenever you stepped even an inch out of line. There was an old brewery set up in the cellar—most families owned one—but your father never allowed you anywhere near it. The same went for the shrines and temples, where they brewed rice wine. Hell, he didn’t even allow you to go inside. Apparently a woman had no place in the world to even worship the gods.

You couldn’t help but think back to those days whenever you‘d had enough to drink. The thoughts of the ancient and current all whisked together in your cup, until you weren’t too sure where you were or what you were drinking. Sometimes you wondered if vampirism was just a twisted dream. If you would wake up in the shrine with a ceremonial knife through your chest. Bleeding out on a woven mat in front of the altar, where you should have died.

You sighed, finally putting the cup down and letting the recollections sing in your head. You slowly moved your fingers from the glass to the side of your neck, where there was still a scar from the bite: a jagged bump that hurt when you touched it, at first with a dull ache that never seemed to subside, and then with the memory of being turned. And just a little lower, near your collarbone, there was the mark Yuta had left some years ago.

I think I’m starting to understand. The thrill you’re always after. You’re reckless. You live for danger, and for the prospect of things going wrong. Perhaps I’ve learned a thing or two from you.

Yuta. Before you could even register your own movements, you were hobbling down the stairs with one clear intention: to find him. You made your way down the hall and threw open the blackwood doors, almost laughing out loud when you saw him on the phone. He turned, nonchalant—he must have heard you coming—and though his eyes lit up with surprise, he only calmly motioned for you to close the doors.

“Excuse me for a moment, Jungwoo. I’ll have to call you back.” Jungwoo, the new leader of Lucetius who’d replaced Seojoon; you were quite certain Yuta had turned the entire coven into his own puppet state since that incident in the 80s. He sent you a quick glance, as if aware of your thoughts. “Yes, of course. Thank you.”

His gaze sharpened the moment he hung up, and there was unmistakable anger in his voice when he spoke. “You’re drunk, ____.”

“Of course I am,” you scoffed, slowly walking over to the desk. Something told you you weren’t welcome to sit down, so you walked past. You propped yourself up on the ledge in front of the window, turning to watch the sky. Sunrise was due in a couple of minutes, and the clouds at the horizon were already glowing orange.

“What do you need?” He asked sharply; you caught a glimpse of his scowl in the reflection.

“You can’t keep me locked up like this,” you slurred, and vaguely remembered saying something similar to your father before facing his wrath: two full days confined to your room, with barely any food or water until you’d learned your lesson. Your betrothed had done nothing but watch.

“Who’s keeping you locked up?” Yuta snapped. “Last I heard, you were enjoying yourself at 0 Mile.”

“If you spent even a day in my shoes, you’d understand why I feel like a fucking prisoner,” you spat. “What happened to me sitting ‘where the rest of us vampire folk ought to be’? Look at me now, sitting silently and looking so pretty for everyone. Is that what you want from me?”

“I asked you to stop for your own good.” Yuta said impatiently, turning away.

Stay home. It’s for your own safety.

“If you’re so bored, then go on. Do as you please. But don’t say I didn’t warn you when they leave you to rot in prison. I won’t be able to protect you then.”

He can take care of you.

You were starting to confuse the past with the present—the alcohol was a thin medium between two extremes.

“I don’t have time for this, ____,” came the reply, cold. “See yourself out.”

“What happened to us?” You asked, hating the way you let out a heavy sigh, as if he really meant anything to you. Still adamant about holding his attention despite his visible annoyance, you continued, “What do I do now?”

“Go do what you do best,” he snapped. You turned to see him dialling Jungwoo’s number. “Whore around. Someone will give you what you want if you beg for it long enough.”

Your ears roared with blood and the heat immediately rose to your face, burning behind your eyes and mouth as memories of the past surged through your head. It was the same rage that had driven you out of the house that night, to the shrine where you died. You grabbed the phone from him, jabbed at the red button before the line could connect, and then yanked him out of his chair by the collar. He turned in surprise, and you pushed his back into the edge of the desk, planting your leg over one of his to stop his escape. The desk chair toppled over and went crashing to the floor.

“Say that again,” you snarled, to which he replied with a nonchalant raise of his brow.

“Am I wrong?” He shot back. “Was that not what you did with me? And all the men before me? Just to get what you wanted?” A gentle breath. “Oh darling, something tells me this isn’t the first time someone has told you this.”

You struck him across the jaw, with so much force it felt as if your bones were rattling in your hand. His head whipped back, but when he turned back to you, you were pleasantly surprised to see that there was blood dripping from his mouth. He was in a daze, in disbelief, eyes unfocused as if wondering what had just happened. You ran a finger along his bottom lip and wiped the blood away, allowing for a condescending laugh.

You were up against the wall before you could even react, his hand tangled in your hair. He yanked your head back, and you felt metal press against your neck—exactly where he’d bitten you last time.

“You’re breaking your own rules now, Yuta,” you warned him in a whisper. But he only pressed further, until the blade of the knife dug painfully into your skin. A drop of blood.

He stood still for a few moments, in silent rage, with the knife still at your throat. It was the same one he’d used to kill Seojoon. The snake of Laverna, the one he had tattooed on his chest, curled around the handle with its forked tongue up against the blade. The stones inlaid upon its belly blinked beneath the first rays of morning sun.

His phone went off, but with all the noise in your head, you could barely hear it. At last, he pulled away and turned to answer it.

“Out,” he told you quietly, and held the knife up in warning. A drop of your blood ran down its length.

You felt your lips curl back in disgust, but you didn’t argue. You stormed out without another word.

You found yourself back at the bar not too long after that—to absolutely no one’s surprise.

Hajoon was in the back hallway when you arrived, so conveniently blocking the entrance to the private rooms with a female vampire. It was horribly indecent, even for you: the two were entangled in each others’ limbs, practically stuck to each other against the door. Too much skin, too many obscenities, too much noise. Two shirts laid discarded on the floor, along with a joint that hadn’t even been put out; it was starting to burn through the carpet, but they didn’t seem to notice. Despite being tipsy, you still had enough sense to stomp out the sparks. Again, they paid you no mind, only kept going.

“The washroom is right there,” you said loudly, glaring at Hajoon when he finally stopped. The woman he was with glared back at you, baring her teeth viciously.

“____,” he drawled; he was properly high, and you knew because Hajoon never spoke to you. He didn’t really speak at all, unless it was to Yuta, in which case he suddenly became all too talkative, too eager to earn the approval of the older vampire. “What’re you doing here?”

“What do you think?” You snapped, pointing at the door he was leaning against. He looked up, craned his head around to look at nothing in particular, then gave a delighted laugh.

“Right!” He turned to his partner. “We don’t mind making room for one more, do we, sweetheart?”

“Move,” you all but growled, about to push the two of them aside. Suddenly he threw his head back and let out a strange noise, a cross between a groan and a cackle. His green eyes lit up with sudden realization, maybe even a bit of pride; like he was proud of himself for understanding you weren’t actually interested in a threesome.

“Oh! Yes, downstairs,” he slurred, and finally stumbled out of the way. “There’s new blood. End of the hall. Name’s Johnny or something, he’s—“

“Shut it.” You swiped your card against the reader and shoved past him.

The entire basement of 0 Mile was a surreal space: a small labyrinth of warping hallways and mirrored doors that you could very well get lost in if you didn’t know your way around. Phthalo green and earth tones blended seamlessly along the walls to complement tropical vines spilling from terracotta pots. The entire ceiling was a shimmering mosaic that threw bits of your reflection up and down the hall. There was something chillingly, unnervingly beautiful about it—like something straight out of Alice in Wonderland. A pleasant dream that was almost too peaceful for comfort.

Out of curiosity, you made your way to the door at the furthest end of the corridor, skipping the usual ones you knocked on. The wooden placard hanging from the doorknob showed a filled circle; they were available. You knocked.

There was no answer at first, and you wondered if Hajoon had just pulled some random nonsense from the polluted mush that was his brain when he mentioned new blood. Hendery would have told you if there was a new employee; but then again, he’d been in the middle of cheering on a bar fight the last time you saw him. As if it wasn’t in his bar and the thugs weren’t breaking tables and chairs he would have to replace.

Finally, you heard shuffling on the other side. The click of a lock. The door swung inwards, revealing a familiar face. You blinked, confused at first, before the realization hit.

“Just how many aliases do you have, boy?”

Youngho stood there with the door half open, one hand held tightly around the handle, his eyes widening in surprise. Dressed in a denim jacket, black turtleneck and black jeans, he looked much better put together this time—you assumed he’d already earned and spent his first couple of payments. Though it left you questioning how long he’d been here without your knowledge.

“I— I don’t,” he sighed, looking you up and down warily. “—have any.”

“Nonsense. First Yejun, then Youngho, now I’m hearing Johnny—“ You broke off, dismissing the thought with a wave of your hand. “Whatever. Are you available right now?”

Given his decision to assume an entirely different name and come back looking for a job without calling you, you expected him to turn you away. But to your surprise, he gestured for you to enter.

They’d given him a smaller room, as was customary for new blood. As luxurious as the space was, it already resembled a college dorm: his belongings were thrown mindlessly to one end of the L-shaped couch, and a couple of textbooks lay open on the mahogany coffee table with a copious amount of neon sticky notes stuck between the pages. Employees weren’t technically allowed to stay overnight, but from the neatly-folded blanket hanging over the arm of the couch and the pillow next to his bag, it was clear that he’d spent a couple of nights.

“It’s not an alias,” he mumbled as he closed the door behind you. “It’s just… my English name. I grew up in the States.”

You glanced over at his school work to see English notes and translations written dutifully in the margins of his notebook. “Where in the States?” You asked, simply out of curiosity, and in what you assumed was his mother tongue. You hadn’t spoken the language in some time, not since you left England back in 1975, but the syllables came back to you quickly enough. His expression softened, and you chuckled. “I speak some 20 different languages, kid. I have to keep myself busy somehow.”

“Right,” he nodded a little nervously, though now that you were speaking to him in English, he seemed a bit more comfortable. “Um. Chicago.” There was an awkward silence. “Anyways— did you need…” A halfhearted shrug in place of the missing word.

“Yeah,” you groaned, tiredly taking a seat on the couch. He joined you a moment later, holding a tube of liquid bandage and a cotton washcloth. “Don’t bother,” you told him when he started fiddling with the collar of his shirt. He stopped, looking up at you in confusion.

“What?”

“I’m not a complete asshole.” You let out a sarcastic laugh. “Give me your arm. It’ll hurt less than the neck. Leaves less of a mark too.”

It wasn’t that you actually cared for his comfort, but you had always preferred feeding from somewhere less intimate.

Hesitantly, he did as he’d been told, rolling his sleeve up and sticking his arm out to you. He flinched when your fingers met his skin, but kept still enough for you to find a spot along his forearm. He nodded, turned his head at the last second to look away—and you let your teeth sink into his skin.

A familiar warmth flooded your mouth, and you let out a soft sigh of contentment. Young blood had a notable smell, and an even more distinct taste; although after so many centuries experiencing and growing accustomed to its effects, you felt it difficult to describe exactly. You could only liken it to a medium-bodied red wine, however horribly cliche that might be: bold in flavour but still light enough, easy on the palette, faintly tart with a hint of bitterness.

You drank for only a couple seconds before releasing him, your head already spinning from all the alcohol you’d had earlier. Black spots flashed across your vision and then you suddenly felt weightless; your legs gave out and you sank deeper into the seat as the floor deteriorated beneath you. It was a soaring high, one you’d never quite reached before, but you had a feeling a good deal of it had to do with the adrenaline left over from your fight with Yuta. You recalled the look of stupor on his face after you’d struck him, the blood from his busted lip, and indulged in it one last time before snapping back to reality.

Johnny stared back at you blankly—and you swore you could see the yellow of Yuta’s eyes in his brown ones. You shook your head, and it all dissipated as quickly as it’d appeared. He turned away, pressing the towel to his arm to stop the bleeding.

“Here.” You handed him a small bundle of bills, not bothering to count them. It was more than enough, maybe even double what he was usually paid, but he pocketed them without a word.

You were too preoccupied by your thoughts to say anything else. What more was there to exchange with a human anyways? He gave you his blood, you gave him your money. To even think that he could be of ample company or properly fill the position Yuta left vacant—you weren’t in your right mind.

And so swallowing your strange feelings of vexation, quickly erasing the thoughts from your head, you stumbled out of the room and back up the stairs.

viii. Misery loves company.

September 2017

Some said that in turning to vampirism, all one’s past sentiments became permanently etched into their future.

In essence, the transition from human to vampire was an inexplicable process of time fueled by ancient vampire blood that had been passed down for millennia. For vampires, time went on, the world continued to spin its neat little circles around the sun, but it was all standstill within the body. One ceased to age, ceased to breathe, and their heart went silent—but in some mysterious and miraculous way, they were still very much alive. The body was a strange vessel for an even stranger soul... it was only natural that time altered more than just the physical.

Simply put, whatever one had experienced in their last moments of life would follow them for the rest of eternity. For some—those who were turned following extreme trauma—it was fear. They would spend the rest of their lives reliving the exact moment of their deaths, always haunted by whatever killed them, chased into the future by the past. For others, the luckiest ones, it was comfort. Confusion and numbness were most common.

For you, however, it was resentment. Resentment of the life you’d been forced to live as a child, and every face behind it. After all, your betrothed had driven you from his home only a few nights before your wedding and murdered you in cold blood. In a new, resurrected life, with the same cruelty tenfold and an anger like no other, you’d gladly repaid the favour.

Since then, you’d always felt hatred for humans on some level. After you satisfied your initial bloodlust, it reduced itself to a low hum, a whisper in your ear every now and then. It was all so innate, wrapped so tightly around every inch of your being that it formed an impenetrable armour.

And yet, somehow you found very little reason to hate Johnny.

“You still scared, kid?” You remembered asking him drunkenly during your third or fourth visit, once he’d finished bandaging his arm. You’d meant it mockingly, but his answer had taken you aback.

“We’re naturally afraid of things we don’t understand,” he’d told you. “So if you’re here to get a kick out of intimidating me, maybe try to be a little more unpredictable. I think I’m starting to figure you out.”

He’d said it so matter-of-factly, so calmly that you should have been annoyed. There’d been no confidence to his words nor hesitancy, but it was like a breath of fresh air for your unbreathing lungs. It was so simple. So easy. You couldn’t have found any way to disagree with him, but you couldn’t do what he’d told you to either.

Since then, you’d begun visiting him more frequently. Your usual sources had hit it big with some high-profile vampire over the summer, steamrolled him for all his money and left 0 Mile for good. Johnny was among the three employees left, and you would gladly take his company over the others’.

“So how old are you?” he asked you one day, maybe a year later. The months had passed by in a blur, more so than you felt it did usually, and suddenly it was the last week before he started school again.

“It’s rude to ask a vampire that,” you pointed out rather bluntly, though you hadn’t taken offence. Your age wasn’t a big deal. You just wanted to see him squirm.

Johnny didn’t squirm. He shrugged, nonchalant, as if it was a completely valid question worth asking and a disappointment that you’d refused to answer. As if he was content to go back to his own thoughts. You’d noticed that about him: after somewhat conquering his fears of vampires, blood and god-knows-what-else, he turned out to be rather… thoughtful. Thoughtful in a quiet and almost naive kind of way, tirelessly and endlessly, always thinking about something. Despite how monotonously he spoke, he was unpredictable, a stream of strange questions that overflowed when you least expected it.

“They say you shouldn’t ask about another person’s salary, but some people think that’s just a rule corporations made up so they could get away with paying their workers unfairly,” Johnny shrugged as he bandaged his arm. “Maybe it’s a similar thing with age. You don’t ask about a vampire’s age because, well, the new vampire-human relations code says you shouldn’t.”

You laughed. “You really shouldn’t run your mouth like that around here, boy. You’re lucky I’m in a good mood today.”

“Are you in a good mood, or do you just not care?”

“Someone’s chatty today,” you told him rather snidely, before lying down on the couch and letting the dizzying pleasure in your head envelop you. “562,” you murmured a couple moments later, and immediately felt the couch dip. You opened your eyes to see him sitting just an arm’s length away, peering at you curiously.

“You keep count?”

You scoffed. “Now that… some vampires would consider that a rude question.”

His eyes widened. “Do you?”

Maybe you did. Maybe it was a bit depressing, keeping track of the years as if it would make your life any more interesting. But letting the years go by without properly acknowledging them would be equally depressing—it would mean acknowledging how ancient you really were. So you deflected the question, as you did rather frequently with him. “I can do basic math,” you said dismissively. “Aren’t you supposed to be good at that? Math major?”

“I guess,” he shrugged, glancing over at his school bag, now empty and deflated in the corner. It would be full again in the coming weeks. “But honestly I… don’t really like it.”

You let your eyes open for a few moments to survey his expression: downcast, bored, disappointed. It didn’t occur to you that they were the same sentiments you’d been carrying since Yuta disappeared, but on a much smaller scale. Because for Johnny, it was typical college student angst. The subject of just about every coming of age movie. Fleeting trepidation for his future, whereas for you… you’d wandered with no direction for decades.

Johnny sighed, settled back into his seat and started scrolling mindlessly on his phone. So you left it at that, too buzzed to form a proper reply. And in all blatant honesty, you didn’t care.

Eventually, you would stop coming here. 0 Mile had fallen into a painfully regular rhythm, managing blood services was starting to get tedious, and if you didn’t continue doing your part—you’d already started slacking—Hendery would surely kick you out at some point. Johnny would run out of questions to ask you. He would leave when he finished paying his student debts. You would go crawling back to Yuta if you had to.

It was scary, just how wrong you were. And how quickly things would take a turn.

“What are your finances like?”

“What the fuck are you on about now?”

“No, it’s a serious question.” Johnny sent you a curious look from behind one of his textbooks, eyes wide and unblinking. “Half of the vampires I’ve met don’t work and haven’t worked in decades. How do they even sustain themselves?”

“It’s complicated,” you shrugged. It was true, but apparently it wasn’t a good enough answer for him. He quickly snapped his book shut and scooted over, another question forming on his lips. It’d become a rather common occurrence in recent days: Johnny asked a question, you gave him some sort of dismissive answer, and then he would always press for more. Morbid curiosity. He would often walk away with gruesome, vivid details he didn’t actually want, but he didn’t complain.

“‘Complicated’ doesn’t really mean anything, you know,” he rolled his eyes. “If it’s a lengthy answer, you better start now.”

You sighed, defeated. It was a brief history lesson, but you supposed you could water it down. “I mean it, Johnny. It’s complicated.”

“Nothing I haven’t heard before.”

You allowed for a wry smile, recalling his previous inquiries about the underground. “Fine. It’s usually one of two ways. Exploitation or accumulation.”

It was rather obvious which category you belonged to, but Johnny didn’t say anything.

“Most vampires my age have dabbled in organized crime at some point. Even the righteous ones. We didn’t have much of a choice before the government properly recognized us.” Your mind reeled back to the 20s and then sped through the 30s, through all the blood and chaos of the underground. “Embezzlement and drugs, mainly. The lucky ones came out with enough money and monopoly to last them decades. The rest of them latched onto whoever had money until they had the means to make their own. That’s how modern covens came about.”

He was still staring at you, as if awaiting more. You rolled your eyes, but carried on. “Some vampires come from wealth. Back in the day, rich heirs and heiresses who found out about vampires would hire one to turn them. To end the family line and keep all the money for themselves, I suppose.”

Johnny frowned. “That’s kinda fucked up.”

You laughed. “A rare case, though. Most people who paid to be turned romanticized vampirism. When they realized immortality wasn’t as glorious as it all sounded, well, let’s just say they killed themselves off pretty fast.”

You knocked back the rest of your drink before continuing. “And then there are vampires who saved up what they could. They didn’t need currency because they didn’t spend it… didn’t need homes or warmth or food. When times got tough, they would hibernate. While you humans suffered through the Great Depression, there were vampires in a decade-long slumber waiting for things to get better.”

“What about you, then?”

You froze. You weren’t sure why the question caught you so off guard, or why it sent your thoughts lurching straight back to Yuta; you hadn’t spoken to him in almost a year, and you couldn’t remember the last time he’d been home.

“My coven leader,” you shrugged, reaching for the bottle of wine on the table. “Let’s just say… he has to keep us in line somehow, and he has the means to do it with money.”

Johnny raised a brow quizzically, and you quickly realized you’d failed to keep the contempt and scorn out of your voice. “You don’t seem particularly fond of him.”

“I haven’t spoken to him since last year,” you said coldly, hoping it was enough to quell his curiosity.

Surprisingly, it was. He sent you what you thought might’ve been an apologetic look, and then went back to his reading. “Yeah, I get the sense that I’ll be in big trouble if I ask more.”

Your thoughts ran rampant. While Johnny filled the pages of his notebook with notes and exercises, you filled your head with distorted memories of the past. You didn’t miss Yuta’s company, you’d barely noticed his lack of presence, and yet the mere mention of him made you feel… something akin to emptiness. Something that wasn’t the cold resentment you’d awoken to in front of the altar. And it indicated that something was wrong.

Your mother had cursed you for lacking the “warmth one needed to be a good daughter and housewife.” Your father had once gone to the shaman in the temple, claiming your soul had been seized by evil spirits. A past lover had seen you as a cold-blooded murderer, and you eventually made that vision his reality. It was so obvious: you’d been cursed with an inability to perceive or reciprocate emotions, and an innate desire to keep it that way.

“It takes a lot to offend me, Johnny,” you sighed. “You can ask.”

“But that’s the thing,” he said, peering up at you with a familiar contemplativeness highlighted by the fluorescent blue and purple of the wall lights. Like Yuta’s, but warmer. Lively. Human. “I think I’m starting to understand when you say you don’t care. You’ve been alive for so long and you’ve lived through so much that you think none of it affects you. It’s not that you don’t feel, it’s… you force yourself to shut it out.”

You gave a cold laugh. “You wish that were true, boy. But this is how I’ve been since the very beginning.”

“No, listen to me, ____,” he said suddenly, sitting up a little straighter. “It’s not like your emotions aren’t there. You just— you choose to ignore them. It’s like anesthesia. Think about it. The medication puts you in a sleep-like state, and then the brain stops responding to pain signals. It doesn’t mean the signals aren’t there. It just means they aren’t being processed. ”

“But it does its job, doesn’t it?” You snapped. “You don’t wake up screaming in pain, yeah? The doctor does his job and saves your fucking life, doesn’t he?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“You mean for me to change. All you humans ever want from us is change. You need us to be just like you before you can properly welcome us into your society, even if this is just the way we are, the way we’ve been for centuries.” The familiar bitterness was back, ebbing just beneath your words, threatening to overflow. “This is just the way I am, and a stupid analogy from a stupid fucking blood bag isn’t going to change anything.”

He shrunk back, and everything shattered.

You blinked, finally registering the sick mixture of hurt and fear that twisted his features, feeling it all bubble together in the pit of your stomach. An unconscious breath ripped itself from your throat when he turned away.

Again, like you’d done to Yuta a year ago, you left him without a word, slammed the door to announce your departure. But much unlike that time in Yuta’s office, it wasn’t out of anger. It was something else.

After walking out on him that night, the prospect of feeling guilt wouldn’t stop circling your head.

You didn’t know if the tug you’d felt on your heart had to do with regret, or some other emotion you couldn’t yet put into words. And you couldn’t be sure if Johnny meant anything to you. If he’d really figured you out like he said he had. If maybe he’d been right, and you were just too blind to understand what he meant.

You were incapable of change, you had to remind yourself, and despite his unpleasantries and the unresolved tension between the two of you, you almost wished Yuta could be present to remind you of it. You longed for a precarious thrill, for something that would push you back into your usual rhythm, make you forget all the words of a human boy who was barely a fraction of your age. But of course, as if the universe enjoyed watching your pathetic attempts at keeping yourself grounded, you were given the exact opposite.

A week passed by in silence. Then a month. You frequently saw Johnny come up the stairs and slip out the back door after hours, but you never spoke to him. He would almost always turn the corner with his head down, eyes trained directly at his feet as if afraid he’d see you if he looked up. So you stayed out of his way, quickly finding your usual place upstairs, at the bar. Old habits die hard.

Hendery finally got fed up with you when you downed half a bottle of Glenfarclas 17 in front of him.

“I don’t pay you to sit around and drink,” he snapped, grabbing the liquor from you so abruptly he almost spilled what was left of it. “At least pretend you’re working.”

“I scrubbed down the men’s urinals three times yesterday, what else do you want from me?” You shot back at him, making an unsuccessful grab for the alcohol.

“And why the fuck would you do that willingly? We have a janitor, sweetheart.”

“I was drunk,” you told him, rolling your eyes. “Give me that and maybe I’ll do it again.”

With a huff, he slid the bottle back onto the shelf behind him, then turned to rummage around for something under the counter. Moments later, he slapped a folder of papers down in front of you and forcibly shoved a pen into your non-dominant hand. “Some of these contracts are ending soon. The girls in room 5 and 6. Go check in with them.”

You raised a brow. “Wow, look at you being all legal and proper.”

“It’s still technically illegal,” Hendery grunted. “But may as well cover our bases. Yuta won’t be around to bail us out if we do get in trouble, will he?”

“Fucker,” you scoffed, but obliged. You flipped through the papers, relieved to see that Johnny’s contract wasn’t among them. You recalled he still had a couple more months to go, after which you wouldn’t have to see him ever again. You hoped as much; from what he’d told you the last time you spoke, he’d already paid all of his tuition and moved into a small apartment a couple blocks from his school. There was really no reason for him to hang around.

You hobbled your way down the stairs and across the aquamarine hallway, intent on finishing up as quickly as you could. It’d been a slow day, the bar patrons were already starting to trickle out, and you couldn’t imagine what other stupid tasks Hendery could assign you once you were done. You could feasibly take off a little early without him noticing…

A peculiar sound stopped you dead in your tracks. It went silent for a couple moments—you wondered if maybe you’d imagined it—until a pained groan cut through. It was faint, the tail end of an echo almost beyond the reach of your hearing, somewhere between the walls. But it was real. You knew exactly which room it’d come from. And worse, who it’d come from.

(***)

You opened the door before you could stop yourself.

There was a thin trail of blood leading to the adjoining bathroom, a handprint on the wall where the light switch was, and red smears along the shattered remains of the coffee table. The room reeked of cigarette smoke and an expensive cologne that made your head spin—both of which you knew didn’t belong to Johnny. Someone else had been here.

You rushed into the bathroom to find Johnny’s broken form hunched over the bathtub, his hands held shakily to a bite on his neck. His shirt had been soaked through completely, the collar torn as if someone had grabbed him there. A long line of bruises ran down his neck, in the vague formation of their fingers. For a second, you could almost imagine a third figure in the room with the two of you: hands tightening around his throat and a garbled voice screaming at him.

All the air was immediately knocked from your lungs, and you found yourself choking on the smell of his blood. Your heart leapt into your throat—like your human years had finally caught up to you, raced through centuries to reach you with a reminder of what it’d been like to bleed out on the ground. In decades past, you’d left so many people like this simply out of resentment, out of bitterness after what had happened to you. You’d turned a blind eye to too many deaths you could’ve prevented… but something told you you couldn’t let Johnny be one of them.

“Fuck.” The curse left your lips in a whisper; you couldn’t manage much else, but it was enough for him to stir. His eyes fluttered open, and he let out a quiet gasp for air. You quickly got to your knees, finally feeling the panic settle in as you growled, “Who did this to you?”

He didn’t reply, only gave a soft whimper: a silent plea between tears and ragged breaths. You brought your wrist to your mouth and bit down hard, drawing two steady streams of blood.

Instantly, his eyes flashed open, blown wide with fear. “D-Don’t. Don’t turn me.”

Turning him had never been your intention, but you were still caught off guard. Of course: you’d lamented the implications of vampirism and immortality to him, and then you’d lashed out at him as a result of your monstrous nature. Of course he wouldn’t want the same for himself. He wouldn’t want to suffer through the same thing for so many years to come.

“I won’t,” you told him. “It’s just blood, it’ll close up the wound and speed up the healing but it won’t turn you—“

You were cut short when he eased himself back onto the ground—as if calmly accepting his fate. A cold chill ran down your spine when you understood just how empty and hopeless he felt after what had happened.

“No no no no, I won’t turn you but that doesn’t mean you’re dying on me, boy. Stay with me here.” But he was already too far gone; his eyes glazed over and his lips parted in an inaudible murmur. Without much of a choice, you sat him up against the wall and tilted his head back so you could let your blood drip into his mouth.

He was still bleeding several moments later, but the torn pieces of his flesh were starting to mend. Upon better inspection, you quickly realized the bite wasn’t meant for feeding. It pierced too deep into his skin, just barely missed an artery. It was meant to kill him.

Wincing, you replaced his fingers with yours, applying as much pressure as you could to stop the bleeding without cutting off his airways. Your hands were stained with blood, both his and your own, but beneath the turquoise LEDs of the bathroom, they seemed to glisten black like wet tar.

You slowly coaxed more blood into him until the gash had stitched itself together. His complexion was almost as pale as yours, his breathing shallow, and you weren’t exactly sure how well he would fare against the after effects of vampire blood; but at the very least, he was alive. Barely conscious as you helped him over to the couch, but alive.

You managed to shove a pillow under his head before grabbing a first aid kit to treat the cuts on his face. There was a nasty one across his forehead and another on his cheek, both of which looked like they’d been made by a knife; you couldn’t imagine how he’d gotten into such a predicament. You’d never had issues with any of 0 Mile’s VIPs, and as much as Hendery pretended to disregard safety, he had a number of rules put in place specifically for the human employees’ sakes.

You sat there for an hour, maybe more, simply watching him, making sure the rise and fall of his chest stayed steady. The colour was slowly returning to his cheeks and the rhythm pulsing beneath his skin was even when you held two fingers to his wrist. But he looked painfully uneasy in his sleep, brows furrowed and eyes shifting restlessly beneath his eyelids. His fingers instinctively curled around your wrist when you tried to pull away—and out of tiredness, perhaps even sympathy, you let him.

He came to about a half hour later, letting out a soft sigh as he regained consciousness. You turned to find him staring lifelessly at the ceiling.

“Hey,” you murmured, moving to sit a bit closer to him. “You alright?”

He said nothing.

“What happened?”

Still, no response. As if in a trance, he kept his gaze on the ceiling. A blank canvas upon which he could freely paint images from his imagination. A tear rolled down his cheek.

Sighing, you set about collecting his things: the books and pens thrown to the side of the room, his wallet and keys. With some time and effort, you had him sit up and drink water, and then draped his jacket over his shoulders. You stood there for a moment, awkwardly wondering what else you could do when he was so unresponsive and seemingly unreceptive of you. Finally, when you noticed the time, you dug your car keys out of your pocket.

“C’mon. I’ll drive you home.”

Unsurprisingly, Johnny was silent for the entirety of the drive.

He sat quietly in the passenger’s seat with his bag cradled in his arms, his eyes fixated out the window and his thoughts clearly drifting elsewhere. Sometime while the two of you were in the basement, dawn had already arrived. The sun broke over the horizon and directed blinding rays of light through the windshield, but he kept his gaze trained at the same spot in the distance. You didn’t think you’d ever seen someone so empty. So hollow. A crumbling shell of a person. You didn’t think you’d ever cared.

He collapsed into the couch the moment you reached his apartment. It was a small studio unit on the twentieth floor, about the same size as his room at 0 Mile. There was a twin-sized mattress in the corner and a small rack of clothing next to the window. Takeout boxes in the fridge, empty coffee cups in the trash. Some sort of ramen concoction had been left on the kitchen counter.

“You gonna be okay?” You asked him, hesitantly hovering next to him, unsure if you were welcome to sit. “Should I… go? Should I stay? You gotta tell me something, kid.”

There was nothing. Your voice bounced quietly between the walls of the room, and then faded into the slow ticking of the clock. You glanced up at the time: 6 AM. You couldn’t possibly make it home now.

“Guess I was right.”

“What?”

He turned onto his side to face you, coughing violently. The cut in his bottom lip had split open again, and he wiped at the blood carelessly, getting it all over his sleeve.

“I was right,” he murmured. “You wouldn’t be doing all of this if you didn’t care.”

“You nearly died and that’s what you’re thinking about?”

Johnny threw his head back to let out a bark of laughter, but it quickly sent him into another coughing fit. In defeat, he slumped into himself until it had subsided, at which point there was more blood running down his chin. You tentatively placed a hand against his forehead to find the skin feverish and clammy with perspiration; he was burning.

“What do you get out of this? Why are you so adamant about proving—“

“Forget it,” he grunted, swatting your hand away from him so he could get up. You watched him stumble into the washroom. “Pretend this never happened. Just go home.”

“I need to know who it was. So it doesn’t happen again—“

“I said go home!”

He promptly doubled over and threw up in the sink.

The hostility of his previous words still rang in your ears, so you stood still at the doorway, watching. For several minutes, he stood hunched over the sink, hands gripping tightly at the edges of the counter. The gagging and gasping gave way to heaving—and then sobbing. He sank down to his knees, completely unrestrained in his cries now, his head held in his hands. In shock, not knowing what to do, you listened to him until his wails inevitably pulled you into the past.

Your father would beat you if you ever cried like this. Crying meant your conscience was weak, and tears made you an easy target for the ghosts. In your earliest memories, he’d spun all sorts of tales just to scare you into submission—but in reality, he was simply tired of hearing your complaints. Of hearing you.

So after driving a knife through your supposed lover’s throat, you’d cried over his body; it had nothing to do with him, but the sick brew of emotions you’d kept sealed away for years. You’d released it all through your tears and blood, letting it mark the spot where you died, emptying yourself of it so you would never have to feel it again.

When you returned to the village some hundred years later, there was an old myth the villagers told their children: a female ghost haunted the abandoned shrine up on the hill, anguished by the death of her lover and hungry for vengeance. No one knew how to help her, or how to cast her back to the spiritual realm. One of the children said his great-grandfather had heard her screams when he was a boy.

At your feet, there was some broken, distorted image of yourself. He was on his knees, tearing up his innards and pouring them onto the tiled floor, reliving some twisted memory he couldn’t even bring himself to tell you. You couldn’t feel pity or sympathy, but you could feel anger. So you stepped forwards, put a hand on his shoulder, and let him curl into you like a little child.

You helped him to bed sometime later, when the sun had climbed to its peak position in the sky and you were starting to feel fatigue take its toll on you. Only then did he speak again.

“I‘m sorry,” he whispered, so quietly you almost missed it. “I-I just want to forget about it. I can keep working, I’ll stay, I just want things to go back to normal—“

“You need rest,” you told him, sighing. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

He didn’t argue.

The next day, when Johnny’s fever had finally gone down and he’d started eating again, you drove back to 0 Mile to look through the security footage. Just five minutes before you’d gone downstairs with the paperwork, a vampire had left with blood on his shirt. A quick search through the VIP files was more than enough: Choi Hojin from Nyx, a wealthy real estate lawyer and briefly one of Yuta’s business partners.

You clipped the footage, attached it to his photo and address, and sent everything to Hendery. His reply came not even a couple hours later. He’d been dealt with.

ix. To better things.

“What’s all this?”

You arrived at Johnny’s apartment one evening to find a plastic bag full of hair products on the table. Against his audible protests, you emptied its contents out onto the counter: bleach packets, developers, box dyes in several different shades like he couldn’t decide on just one. A handful of applicator brushes spilled off the edge of the table.

“I dunno,” he shrugged, flustered. “I was just on my way home, I passed the drugstore and thought maybe I could—“ He broke off for a second, perhaps contemplating what to say next. His shoulders slumped in silent defeat. “I don’t know how to explain it, but I thought maybe it would… help.”

He’d been rather obsessed with his appearance lately, though not in a self-absorbed way nor to a troubling extent. He frequently painted his nails and picked out a new colour every couple of days. Several racks of new clothing had come into his living space since the incident at 0 Mile. And suddenly he wasn’t all that conservative with his spending, like he was no longer bothered by where his money came from. The living room started to smell a lot like lemon and bergamot—all his expensive candles and perfumes—and the polyester school sweaters he used to wear were quickly being replaced by wool, cashmere, silk.

You had no idea this was a normal or acceptable coping mechanism among humans. Changing one’s material appearance for the sake of fixing something beyond the physical realm seemed so pointless—but then again, so were your drunken endeavours whenever you got upset. Not that you would ever admit it aloud.

Ten minutes later, you had him seated in front of the bathroom mirror with a cut-up garbage bag draped around his shoulders. Dark blond, he’d decided, after you rejected his initial request for white-platinum.

“You’ll thank me later,” you told him as you sectioned his hair. “You don’t want to go bald at twenty, do you?”

“Twenty-two,” he corrected you.

You made a face. “Right.”

It fell silent for a bit, save one of Johnny’s playlists droning on in the background. Some chill house beat you’d never heard before, and a catchy chorus that was just about to drive you insane. The type of song you imagined could be blasted at shitty house parties filled with sweaty university students and cheap beer.

“Johnny?”

“Mhm?”

“Were you being serious?” You asked, wrapping a strand of his hair in foil and clipping it out of the way. “When you said you wanted to stay at 0 Mile?”

Through the mirror, you saw him raise a brow. “Why wouldn’t I be serious? I’m staying. I’ll keep working.”

“You know, most guys your age are out there drinking, partying, doing drugs and all that fun shit… The kind of stuff you can’t keep doing once you settle down. Meanwhile you, you’re letting old vampire creeps feed from you for money. Why stay if it’s not to waste away the rest of your youth? Why not enjoy life?”

He stiffened.

Subconsciously, you knew you couldn’t keep him around much longer. As much as you’d grown to appreciate his company, you needed to get rid of him before all this human-emotion-change-for-the-better bullshit got the best of you. And maybe it was for his benefit too. He was wasting his time with you. He was wasting away the few years he had to properly enjoy himself. He was walking a thin line between knowing you and following you somewhere he didn’t actually want to go.

“I am enjoying life,” he replied dryly.

“Don’t lie to me, Johnny.”

“It’s fine. I’m fine. I wouldn’t keep doing this if I wasn’t okay with it, and I need the money—“

“But you don’t need the money. Maybe for all this crazy retail therapy you do, but this isn’t you.”

You hesitated, putting down the applicator brush to stare at him through the mirror. “And about what happened to you that night? How can you go back there without thinking about what he did to you? About what other crazy clients might do to you when I’m not there?”

“I like you, okay?”

The words hung suspended in the air for a second before crashing into you, full force.

I like you.

“I wanted to stay because of you.” This time he turned to look at you, and out of concern for the bleach in his hair, you turned his head back towards the mirror. He continued anyway. “And I know you don’t feel the same way about me or anything, that would be ridiculous but—“

“You don’t like vampires,” you said bluntly.

“You’re different.”

“Oh, I’m just like all the others. You have no idea.” You shook your head in disbelief. “Fine. Even if that’s true, that doesn’t answer my question. Why would you stay for me?”

“Because how else would you remember me?”

He was right. You didn’t remember the names or faces of people you’d been with in the past. It was all a blur, each person a continuation of the last, and you could hardly differentiate one from the other. Johnny would fade from your memory in a couple of years, as would Yuta given how things had been with him. But where Johnny was wrong: you wouldn’t remember him even if he stayed.

He locked eyes with you through the mirror. “I know it sounds selfish, but I just wish people would remember me for once. I wish they would remember me by anything, really. It doesn’t have to be anything grand or heroic or even interesting... but I’m tired of feeling so invisible all the time.”

You couldn’t bring yourself to answer.

In complete silence, you went about wrapping the rest of his head in a plastic bag and cleaning up the bathroom. By the time you started rinsing the bleach out of his hair, you’d almost forgotten about forming a proper response.

“I forget almost everything at a certain point,” you admitted, half hoping the sound of running water would drown out your voice. “A hundred years from now, maybe less, maybe more, I don’t know. But for the time being, I won’t forget you.”

It would be difficult to forget the first human you could tolerate.

Under the steady stream of water, Johnny tried turning his head, subsequently splashing you in the face.

“Stop moving!” you hissed at him.

And with what sounded like genuine amusement, genuine relief, he laughed back, “Sorry. I just… I didn’t think you would say that.”

When the water finally ran clear and you’d finished dousing his head in conditioner, you were left with a completely different person in the mirror. The golden-brown you’d imagined was more of a dirty blonde—it would lighten when it dried—but it looked perfect on him. Something about the lighter, brassy colour offset the boldness of his features and drew more attention to his eyes, made him look sophisticated but in an unassuming way. Somehow, you found it difficult to look away.

“Can I move now?” he asked you jokingly, with a rather sly grin. You nodded.

He turned and kissed you.

It came out of nowhere; and had you been human, it would have knocked all the air out of your lungs. You stumbled back, merely due to the abruptness of it all, but he must have perceived it as an attempt to distance yourself. He stopped, his hands moving awkwardly away from your face and back to rest at his sides.

“Sorry, I—”

“Don’t apologize.” You groaned, grabbing him by the collar and pulling him in with a fervour that matched his. You let your hands wander as his lips met yours again: up his shoulders and neck, into his hair where you pulled gently at the strands. It was slow, almost sweet in some sense—but the sparks were about to ignite into flame. You sensed his impatience, and his yearning to go further when his hands found your waist.

“Maybe we shouldn’t.” You planted your hands firmly over his, stopping him before he could go too far. “You know how I feel about you. You said it yourself.”

“I know.” He kissed you again, urgently this time. “And I don’t care, ____.”

“Are you sure?”

“Please.” It came out in a hushed whisper. His skin seemed to burn against your hands, and you could only imagine how cold your fingers felt to him: another reminder of how vastly different the two of you were.

Had he not nearly died that night, had you not driven him home and stayed with him until he was okay, you wouldn’t be here now. All the new clothing and hair and materialistic pleasures aside, you were his greatest distraction. Even if you could never see him the same way he saw you, even if you forgot about him, he didn’t care. Infatuation was a cruel thing.

In the days and months and years to come, he would come to realize this. But for now, while his judgement was so clouded by desire, it was of little importance.

You took a long drag from your cigarette, inviting the smoke into your lungs before releasing it into the cool air of early morning. Beneath the soft light of dawn, everything glowed: golden smoke escaping your lips in small spirals, iridescent rays fanning across the white sheets of the bed, the golden hair of the boy next to you. And while you would’ve preferred to have the curtains drawn around this time of day, it was oddly bearable today. Whimsical, almost. Peacefully ethereal.

The smoke hit the back of your throat, and it suddenly occurred to you: using your lungs so deliberately when you normally didn’t breathe at all made you too aware of the air passing through your mouth and nose. Every inhale, every exhale, it was all a steady stream of commands you had to give yourself, or the smoke would get stuck in your throat. It wasn’t exactly pleasant, but you were starting to see why Yuta liked it.

I like you.

The words came out of nowhere, without any reason—you hadn’t even been thinking about Johnny, but his voice quickly pushed Yuta out of your head. As if on cue, he pulled you a little closer, his breaths fanning gently against the side of your neck and his arms locking around you.

“What’re you thinking about?”

You blinked, and his face came into focus, hovering just a couple inches away from yours. The sunlight fell gently along his cheekbones and scattered in his brown irises, dancing delicately between the golden strands of his hair. Mindlessly, you trailed a finger along the scar on his forehead.

“Nothing,” you said with a soft sigh, taking another drag from your cigarette.

“You can tell me, you know.”

You scoffed. “Don’t want to bore you with the details of my life, do I?”

Johnny stared at you for a hard second, and then his eyes widened in a mixture of disbelief and annoyance. “You think your life is boring? You lived through imperial Japan, the rise and fall of empires, two fucking world wars and you still think your life is boring?”

“It’s like watching a shitty movie,” you shrugged. “Humans never learn from their mistakes. It’s all so predictable when you’ve seen the same thing happen over and over again. Not to mention…” A sudden flash of red in your mind’s eye when you thought back to the last war. “We vampires had no way to participate. We spent most of our time fighting ourselves.”

“I’d like to think we’ve learned from our mistakes,” Johnny said thoughtfully. There was that look in his eyes again: like he was trying to find constellations in the textures of the ceiling tiles, or shapes in the cigarette smoke escaping your lips. “I mean, we haven’t had a third world war yet.”

“Have you really learned anything if fear is the only thing stopping you from making the same mistake?”

Another long silence. You watched a speck of dust swirl through the sunlight until it disappeared from view.

“So that’s what you were thinking about? The villainous nature of mankind and the inevitable heat death of the universe?”

You chuckled. Johnny might’ve been young and naive, but the longer you spent with him, the more you learned to enjoy his company. The more you grew to understand the simplicity of his life. “I was thinking about… I don’t know. You, I guess.”

He shot you an amused look. “Me.”

“Don’t look so smug,” you scoffed, earning yourself a genuine laugh from him. You felt blood rush to your ears. “It’s just… I don’t think anyone’s ever said they… liked me.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“And why’s that?”

It was his turn to be flustered. He choked back a couple of words and averted his gaze, suddenly interested in the patterns on the sheets. “Just a feeling.”

“Don’t lie.”

“You’re… nice.”

A sarcastic laugh. “I’m nice.”

“You’re trying, ____, whether or not you realize it. You aren’t a bad person… you just need a bit of help. And we all do sometimes.”

“If that’s the case, you must be good friends with a lot of jerks—”

“____.” He cut you off this time, turning so he could gently put a finger to your lips. “It doesn’t matter what you think about yourself. I feel like I can be myself around you. I like being with you.”

You hesitated. No one had ever told you that, either. No one had ever said they liked having you around.

You took a final drag from your cigarette, and after putting it out in the ashtray, turned over so you could position yourself on top of him. You swept your fingers through his hair, mindlessly traced the lines of sunlight drawn on his cheeks, and then contemplated whether or not you should tell him it was mutual. For some reason, completely inexplicably, or maybe because it was really the perfect way to rebel against Yuta… you didn’t mind being with him.

“Me too,” you whispered, not even loud enough for the walls to hear; it was for his ears only. “I— like being with you too.”

His eyes lit up with glee. “Say that again? A little louder?”

You leaned down to kiss him. “Speak nothing of it.”

Within seconds, he had you held flush against him, his lips moving hurriedly against yours. The covers fell away when he sat up, suddenly revealing all the marks from last night. You gasped, and then moved back to admire them from a distance, in their entirety; you hadn’t gotten the chance to last night. Red and purple bruises lay scattered across the expanse of his neck and chest, alongside fading bite marks and the tattoo he had just beneath his collarbone.

“Fuck,” you groaned, running a finger over the marks on his neck, and then leaning in to hastily make another. “Look at you. Should get you a fucking mirror so you can see yourself, you look perfect.”

“Take a photo. Lasts longer,” he joked.

“You into that?”

He managed a breathless laugh. “Definitely not against it.” He reached up, placed his hand on the back of your neck, and carefully brought you back down to his level. “I trust you.”

He liked you. He liked being with you. And now he trusted you.

Laughing in a mixture of disbelief and delight, you kissed him. Just momentarily, you forgot who he was to you. Momentarily, you forgot about everything else, and everything that could possibly come between the two of you.

x. Fortune favours the bold.

December 2018

“Try it.”

“I’m not eating that.”

“It’s good, I promise!”

“It smells horrible.”

“I thought the whole vampire garlic allergy thing was a hoax!” Johnny groaned, and started cutting the garlic bread into even smaller pieces as if it would change your mind. It had just come out of the oven: golden brown, nicely-cut in a fancy checkerboard pattern and still steaming, but it smelled too strong for your liking.

“Well maybe the rumour came from somewhere,” you protested, quickly wiggling out of his grasp so you could avoid the smell. “Maybe the guy who turned me came from an ancient vampire bloodline that was originally allergic to garlic, and so it makes sense if I despise it too—“

“Or maybe you’re just making fun of my cooking.”

“What, no!”

“Yeah? Is that right?”

“Fucking hell, I never said that.”

“Okay, fine. I get it—“

“Oh my god, give me that,” you snapped, grabbing the bread from him and taking a bite before you could give it a second thought. The smell hit you all at once, pungent and almost offensive, somehow bitter and acidic and sweet all at once. You weren’t sure why you didn’t like it; your tastes had shifted a bit after turning but there was nothing you found as repulsive as garlic. Or maybe it was the cheese. There was way too much of it.

“How much cheese did you put on this thing?” You hiccupped, and immediately reached for your water to get rid of the aftertaste.

“It’s how we did it in America.”

“Death by high cholesterol?”

“More than two million deaths each year. Not something to joke about, ____.”

You glared at him, and he burst into a fit of giggles. It was a comfortable back and forth; gentleness and familiarity behind every sharp remark and teasing comment. You still thought it was strange. And in some sense, scary. A year had passed by, the weeks had melded into months without warning, and while you thought such an unconventional relationship would quickly fizzle out, nothing had changed. Johnny left 0 Mile, finally graduated, and put his diploma aside to open up his own cafe. Twelve months were enough to change his entire life, and yet when it came to you, he seemed content to stay the same.

“I think I’m in love,” he’d told you dreamily a couple days earlier, while you were scrolling through something on your phone. “I think I’m in love with you.”

“You don’t mean that,” you’d replied without looking up, and not in a way to hurt him, or to dismiss his feelings. It was simply the truth. Love was too complex of a word, and it wasn’t the right word to describe whatever he felt. He’d seen only a fraction of you; he was convinced that he loved you, but you knew it was from only one angle. Whereas Yuta, he’d seen you in every light possible—the only issue was his incapacity for love.

You hadn’t told Johnny much about Yuta, or anything about coven culture for that matter. If he was so convinced that you were capable of change, maybe it was best that he didn't know what kind of people you were associated with. He couldn’t possibly convince you to leave them, but it wasn’t a conversation you wanted to have. He didn’t need to know about Laverna. And Laverna had no business with him either. You kept the two completely separate, even if it was starting to feel like a burden. The sudden back and forth between Johnny’s quaint cafe and an old mansion filled to the brim with illicit activity was almost too much, not to mention the people.

“I think someone’s calling you,” Johnny said, and you quickly snapped yourself out of your thoughts. Sure enough, your phone had gone off somewhere in your bag. It took you a moment to find it, and then a second longer to register the name on the display.

Speak of the fucking devil.

“What’s wrong?” From across the counter, Johnny sent you a worried glance. You were still staring at the screen, not quite understanding why he was calling, and why so abruptly.

“I have to take this,” you murmured, and he nodded.

By the time you’d made your way out of the kitchen, across the main dining hall and onto the empty street corner, the call had been sent to voicemail. You hesitated, but eventually called back. The tone went off only once before he picked up.

“Where are you?”

No greetings, no pleasantries. His voice was tight with frustration.

“What do you want, Yuta?”

He barely let you finish your sentence before speaking again. “Give me your location, I’m coming to pick you up.”

“I haven’t agreed to anything.”

“Oh, trust me, it’ll be worth your time. It’s been awhile since we’ve done anything, hasn’t it?”

Your lips curled back in a silent snarl. Of course. If you were of importance to him again, it was because he needed you to cross off names in his book. Because he could freely do whatever he wanted to, and you were left to follow.

His voice seemed to soften. “Listen, ____. I know we left things in a rather… complicated state. We can talk about it later, but right now I need you. Please.”

Maybe this was all part of his plan: to admit defeat and stoop as low as he possibly could, beg like he’d told you to some years ago just so he could take control of your pride and use you. Maybe it was the white noise that was starting to eat up his voice, or maybe there really was desperation behind his words. Remorse, even.

“Fine,” you snapped. “I’ll send you the address. Better make it quick.”

“I’m afraid I can’t make any promises.”

He arrived about twenty minutes later, in an old Volkswagen sedan. You didn’t realize it was him until the side window rolled down—the Yuta you knew wouldn’t be caught dead driving a Volkswagen, much less a second hand. If he was driving something so inconspicuous, you had a feeling you were getting your hands dirty tonight.

“Didn’t think I’d find you loitering around some human establishment,” he called out to you, gesturing for you to get in. If the car wasn’t enough of an indication of the situation, his clothing certainly was: a simple sweater and jeans, like he’d just rolled out of bed and didn’t have the mind to put together a proper outfit. His hair had grown out since the last time you saw him, and he wore it tied back in a short ponytail.

“Happened to pass by,” you lied. The second one in the last twenty minutes; you told Johnny there was an emergency at home and that you would see him some other day. “What the hell do you want?”

“You haven’t seen the news, have you?”

You shook your head.

“Hajoon’s outdone himself,” Yuta said mockingly, pulling the car onto the road and speeding through the intersection, almost running a red light. “I didn’t think there was anything in that head of his, but apparently enough drugs does wonders to that stupid boy. He planted illegal UV weapons at a bar in Itaewon, riled up a couple of humans and indirectly started a bar fight… you can imagine how that escalated.” He sighed. “Nine dead, twenty injured. Almost all vampire casualties. Happened just two hours ago.”

“And? That’s Hajoon’s problem, isn't it? You’re really willing to let him off easy and take care of everything for him?”

“Right now, it looks like a mass murder and a hate crime. But the moment the police realize it was all orchestrated, the moment they catch Hajoon… they’ll catch all of us. I’ll be held responsible.”

You grimaced. This was bad. Even for you. Too many loose ends you’d have to tie up, too many witnesses, too many holes to cover up. Each and every correction you made would only last so long, until you inevitably had to make more.

“Relax,” Yuta told you with a dry chuckle when he realized what you were thinking. “Almost everything was lost in the chaos, so it should be impossible for the police to trace anything back to him. I just need you to handle a witness.”

He handed you a familiar notebook.

“It’s funny, how you end up running back to me for help,” you scoffed, unclipping the photo from the last page so you could better examine it.

He went silent, but you saw his hands tighten around the wheel. The air was quiet, abuzz with the drone of the car engine and the surrounding traffic. Faintly, you could feel his frustration, alongside his refusal to acknowledge that you were right. You scowled at the thought of his knife at your throat, but said nothing more.

“Consider it a favour,” you leaned over to whisper in his ear when he’d pulled the car to a stop. “Maybe next time I won’t be so generous.”

Twenty minutes later, you stood over the body of a young man, watching grey smoke escape two bricks of charcoal on the stove. You unlocked his phone using one of his lifeless fingers and typed up a note for whoever found his body, convicting him of crimes he hadn’t even committed. It was far from convincing—such a bright and hardworking 23-year-old couldn’t have orchestrated a mass murder and then killed himself out of guilt—but it would buy Yuta enough time to deal with the rest.

It was almost bothersome, how peaceful the man looked in death, like he’d fallen asleep on the couch after a long day at work. You almost expected him to get up and start moving again… you walked away before you could linger on it any longer. Before your thoughts could drift to the vampire in the car outside, or the boy sitting somewhere across the city, blissfully unaware of what you’d done.

Everything had been so much easier when Yuta still pretended you didn’t exist. At the very least, you didn’t have two completely different people pulling you in fifty directions at once. At the very least, you could pretend you had two different lives while you tried to figure out which one you actually belonged to.

Now, you couldn’t be so sure anymore.

Johnny, at 12:38 AM Are you okay? I heard about what happened in Itaewon None of your coven members got hurt, right??

“Is this seat taken?”

You put your phone down, glancing up to see a young-looking vampire standing next to you. He was probably around your age, maybe a little older judging by his appearance: neatly-kept black hair, modest dress, startling grey eyes that seemed to carry the same age and emotion you sometimes saw in Yuta’s. Something told you 0 Mile wasn’t his type of venue; maybe it was the round glasses perched on his nose, or maybe the faint softness of his features, the way he sat down when you told him the chair was free.

He ordered something to drink, and went quiet. A couple minutes passed in silence, and you were starting to think that maybe he wasn’t so out of place here after all, seen as he knew how to mind his own business. Then he spoke.

“You work here, don’t you?”

You narrowed your eyes, but he didn’t seem to care about your agitation, much less even notice. “And you’re not from around here,” you retorted.

“I suppose you wouldn’t be too observant of the people up here when you’re so busy... downstairs.”

“What do you want?” you asked, suddenly on edge. He wasn’t supposed to know about that.

The man let out a quiet chuckle, and then took a sip from his glass. Something about him was so strangely hostile despite the softness of his appearance, and beneath that, he seemed almost… melancholic. Sad, even. He didn’t look at you, didn’t look away either, simply kept his eyes on some point directly in front of him. “Relax. Not looking for any trouble, just making an observation.” There was a thoughtful pause. “Although maybe you can help me with something. You’ve seen the news recently?”

You didn’t like where this was going.

He sighed. “A good friend of mine got caught in the crossfire. A good guy, pretty young… he was only turned three years ago. It’s rather unfortunate that his orientation to vampirism included getting shot in the face with a UV laser.”

“Can’t say that’s ideal,” you agreed quietly.

“He died two nights ago in the ICU.”

His expression hardened to stone as he finally turned to face you, and your insides twisted unpleasantly.

“He used to come here,” the man continued, now more hushed, likely to avoid being overhead. “Not for drugs or blood, I’m hoping… but I was wondering if you could point out any people he knew here.”

“I can’t help you.”

It wasn’t a lie. You didn’t know anyone here, aside from the VIPs and human employees you managed; he was better off asking Hendery, who was regularly in the main room. Besides that, you knew when to back away. Now would be a good time.

The man sighed, and then finished the rest of his drink. His empty glass met the counter with a definitive clink. “Very well. I’ll ask around then.”

“I’d be careful with that,” you warned him just before he got up to go. “Some things are better left alone. Wouldn’t prod too far if you don’t want to end up like your friend.”

He scoffed, leaned a little closer until you could smell a subtle hint of citrus on his cologne. His grey eyes went dark with heavy storm clouds and violent ocean waves, as if to issue his own warning.

“Some people are willing to die protecting secrets. Others have the same type of conviction when it comes to unearthing them.”

He took his leave, a steady stream of coldness in his wake.

His name was Kim Doyoung, you later learned when you asked a couple of bar patrons. One of the leaders of FVA, and according to some rumours, an accomplished private investigator who’d helped tear up dangerous underground groups back in the 50s and 60s. Supposedly, those who knew of him from the underground made sure not to cross paths with him. His coven had the government’s protection, and rightfully. Arguably, that made him just as dangerous, if not more dangerous, than Yuta himself.

xi. Old habits die hard.

September 2021

The entire Itaewon incident blew over rather quickly, although not before everything in the district came to a screeching halt.

It was now 2021, about a hundred years since society opened up to vampires—but in times like these, everything seemed to revert right back to the darkest days of your history. There was a new case everyday: a dead vampire, then a dead human, then two more vampires. The media was starting to get shameless with their victimizing, and every social media site was being flooded with rampant internet wars, countless posts about GoFundMe’s as if any of it would make a difference.

Regardless, like every other major movement that year, everything died down only a couple months later. The news outlets quickly turned their attention elsewhere, snatching up stories about bullying scandals and newly-formed idol couples. The loose ends Yuta had tied together eventually came apart, but it was far too late for the police to do anything about them. Besides, they wanted nothing but to sweep it all under the rug and pretend it never happened in the first place. Had it not been for their complete and utter incompetence, perhaps the whole of Laverna would have been dissolved by now.

“Is everything okay?” Johnny asked you one night, while you were staring aimlessly out the front windows of his coffee shop. Business had been slow for the last couple of hours, and the store was currently empty; closing was just around the corner.

“Yeah,” you mumbled, without really processing his words. He finished counting the cash in the register and then walked over to sit across from you.

“I know that look.”

“What look?”

“When you can’t stop overthinking something. Your eyes do that and you start doing that weird thing your fingers—“

“I’m not overthinking.”

You frowned. It was a complete lie. Yuta was haunting you again.

“A penny for your thoughts?”

“Itaewon,” you blurted out without even realizing until he reached across the table to take your hand. You blinked, and then the words echoed back into your ears like a static-laced feedback loop. “I mean— It’s nothing. I don’t know. It doesn’t sit well with me—“

You stopped. There was a brief flare of yellow in the window behind you. The wind chimes tinkled, and a gust of autumn wind rushed into the store, brushing up against you with an all-too-familiar scent, and an even more overwhelming presence. You turned to see a vampire standing at the entrance, shaking the rainwater from his umbrella.

“I’ll be right back,” Johnny told you, and got up to greet his customer before you could even react.

Two extremes were about to collide into each other, head on. They were two tides rising on either side of you, opposite each other, and there was nowhere for you to run when they inevitably came crashing down. Yuta turned just before he reached the counter, locking eyes with you so deliberately that you froze rigid in your seat. An uncomfortable chill snaked through your veins.

He turned back to Johnny and laughed at something he had said—you’d listened to enough of his business calls to know that it was just for show—and then he pointed out something on the menu. You bristled a bit at his choice; Yuta didn’t even like coffee, and you knew he thought coffee shops were too gimmicky, too tacky and cute. And then there was Johnny: so friendly and sociable for his customer, even though Yuta was the perfect reminder of all his worst memories from 0 Mile. Rich, timeless, and a vampire, just like all his previous abusers. Watching two opposite ends of your life meld into one was so surreal, almost confusing, but you didn’t quite understand the full weight of the situation until Yuta sauntered his way over to you.

“Lovely place,” he remarked to you when Johnny had disappeared into the back room, out of earshot. He pulled a couple bills from his wallet, folded them carefully, and then slipped them into the tip jar on the counter. A couple moments later, he was sitting next to you. “Come here often?”

“What are you doing here?” You hissed. You took a glance in the direction of the kitchen to see Johnny fiddling with a machine through the window. “How did you—“

“Find you?” Yuta raised a brow. “It wasn’t difficult, darling. And I had a feeling you didn’t just… ‘happen to pass by’ that night.”

You grimaced. That was almost a year ago. If he remembered, it meant he’d been keeping track. Perhaps he’d already added you to a page in his notebook; you entertained the mental image of him angrily scribbling your name down after you’d struck him in the face.

“You could’ve just called me if you needed me.”

A mocking laugh. His eyes lit up with delight. “This doesn’t concern you, ____.”

“What the fuck do you want with him?”

You bit your tongue, tried to keep the words from tumbling out, but it was far too late. If Yuta didn’t already know you cared for Johnny, he sure as hell knew now.

“And since when have you started caring so much about humans?” When you failed to answer, he raised a brow, his lips pulling back into a snide smirk. “I know what happened to him at 0 Mile, and I happen to know the guy who did it to him. We had some unfinished business I thought he might be interested in.”

“What’s going on here?”

Johnny re-emerged from behind the counter and set a latte down on the table, looking awkwardly between you and Yuta, his eyes searching your face for some sort of reaction. You sighed.

“Johnny, do you mind stepping out for a second?”

“No, I think he stays,” Yuta cut in. “It would be rude not to introduce me to your new friend, ____.”

“Fine,” you snapped, a little sharper than you’d intended. Johnny shrunk back a little bit. “Johnny, this is… our coven leader.”

The realization twisted his features a second later: there was shock, then fear, and finally something almost akin to hostility. He pursed his lips and forced a polite nod. “You must be Yuta.”

Yuta looked pleased. “____ has told you about me, then.”

“Some things here and there.” Johnny turned back to you and asked cautiously, “What’s he doing here?”

“Same question I’ve been asking.”

Yuta promptly pulled his notebook out of his jacket pocket and handed it to you; you fumbled with it for a moment, surprised that he would take it out in front of Johnny, much less even in public. It fell open to the bookmarked page, revealing a business card with a familiar face you’d only seen in choppy surveillance footage.

Choi Hojin. Assaulted employees at 0 Mile. Harassed and later murdered two workers at NWC.

Conspired with Sone.

You knew, without a doubt, that Yuta couldn’t have cared less for the murders and assaults; he was most interested in that last point.

“I thought Hendery had him taken care of,” you said wryly, and quickly reread everything; you were worried about what you’d see on Johnny’s face if you looked up.

Yuta scoffed. “And who do you think Hendery went to for help? We took care of the issue with 0 Mile, removed him from the VIP list and I let him off with a warning. Alas… it wasn’t enough.” He sighed, and after several moments of silence, you realized he’d turned his attention to Johnny. “I’m so sorry about what happened, my boy. But rest assured, Hojin will be properly dealt with this time. With your help.”

You looked up to find Johnny staring back at you in fear and silent panic; his lips were pressed in a firm line and his eyes were locked insistently on yours for some semblance of comfort. His hands were trembling on the table. A stranger had just waltzed into his life, taken you from him, and was now intent on weaponizing the worst of his memories. “W-What do you mean by that?”

“I need a favour from you, Johnny.”

“Yuta,” you said sharply. “Leave him out of this.”

His gaze immediately landed on you, harsh with scorn and impatience. “Tell me, _____, exactly who is he to you?”

You expected everything to come crashing down: for the waves to finally meet and for the uneasy peace to shatter to pieces beneath their weight. But to your surprise and relief, everything hung perfectly motionless around you. Johnny was still sitting quietly across from you, now awkwardly tracing the grain of the wooden table with his eyes. Yuta arched his brow, clearly expecting an answer; you quickly realized he’d asked you in Japanese, and Johnny was completely clueless to what had been said.

“He’s nothing,” you replied coldly. Johnny looked up from his hands, and you wondered if the weight of your words had transcended language barriers. It certainly felt like it had.

“Then leave it alone,” Yuta snapped before his words took on the softer tones of Korean. “I’m sure you have your reservations about me, Johnny, but I only want what’s best for the human employees at 0 Mile. It may not be my club, but it’s still under my coven’s name. There’s much at stake if whatever happened to you ever happens again.”

You knew exactly where he was taking all of this, but you said nothing. You would only be digging yourself further into your grave.

“Starting with Hojin,” Yuta sighed, and Johnny visibly flinched at the mention of his name. “This isn’t the first time he’s done something like this, and I assume it won’t be the last.”

“And what do you want me to do about it?” Johnny growled. You shot him a warning glance in hopes that he would just go with it until you figured something out; but it was clear that he wasn’t in his right mind to listen to you. “I don’t work at 0 Mile anymore. Whatever happens there is your business, her business, but not mine.”

However angry his words were, Yuta didn’t seem the least affected by them. He simply shrugged, and tentatively took a sip of coffee. You noticed the slightest twinge in his facial muscles, signifying distaste. He put the cup down and pushed it away, ruining the foam design Johnny had so carefully made just minutes prior. “Hojin is an abuser, but he’s also a coward. He’s moved out of the city and I’m having a bit of trouble finding him, let alone arranging a meeting with him. But given your history with him, perhaps he would be willing to meet with you.”

Given his history. Willing to meet him. You skimmed through Yuta’s notes: Hojin had met up with people he’d previously abused, extended offerings of reimbursement and hush money—only to kill them.

“No,” Johnny shook his head, and you could see his gaze trembling. “No. I can’t. I won’t. You can’t make me do that.”

“Maybe I can’t.” Yuta took the notebook from your hands. Swiftly, he ripped out a page, folded it into neat quarters, and then slipped it in your coat pocket. “But she can.”

Time seemed to slow to a sluggish crawl. No one spoke. The rain beat a steady rhythm against the windows, intertwined with the continuous ticking of the clock. The single slip of paper in your pocket was as heavy as a tonne of bricks, but you resisted the urge to pull it out. Whatever was written on it was meant for your eyes only.

“It was a pleasure meeting you, Johnny,” Yuta said, finally pushing his chair back and letting its metal legs screech shrilly against the tiled floor. He fished his gloves out of his pocket, took his umbrella from where it was leaning against the wall, and gave a slight incline of his head in farewell. “We’ll be in contact.”

His steps faded to the entrance. The wind chimes sounded strangely, with what almost sounded like a diminished chord. The door snapped shut, and his presence faded into the rain.

There was another note awaiting you when you got home that night. It was folded methodically, placed under the glass bottle of blood you’d left out—a deliberate place, where you couldn’t have possibly missed it. You pulled out the previous piece of paper and hesitantly unravelled it to see your name written at the top.

There were point form notes detailing almost everything you’d done since your falling-out with Yuta three years ago. Your tendencies. Your spending habits. Your texts to Hendery with Choi Hojin’s photos. Your frequent visits to Johnny’s coffee shop, and the e-transfer money you sent him when times were tough.

You scowled, running your fingers over Yuta’s swirling handwriting with the sudden urge to tear it apart. It wasn’t an open threat, but a caution. A reminder that his trust in you had reached its limits.

You opened the second note he’d left on your desk, fully expecting to see a continuation of his first—but to your horror, it was something much worse.

“He didn’t mean it, right? You wouldn’t make me do anything— Please, ____. Please say something.“

Certainly, the cliche saying held true: pictures were worth more than a thousand words. Because in your hands, you held a coloured printout of something you’d only ever seen in private, and within the safe confines of a private folder on your phone.

“You’re not like him.”

Johnny’s head thrown back on the bed, his eyes screwed shut in bliss, and his hair a tangled mess between your impatient fingers.

“You’ve changed, ____.”

The marks on his jaw and chest on full display, like delicate flower petals laid out on his skin. Blood trickling down his neck.

“And you can still change.”

His lips were against yours. You were drowning in the thought of him, slowly losing yourself in his scent, allowing his presence to consume you entirely. He kissed you with urgency, like you would disappear if he let go for even a second. The sounds rumbled deep in his chest, spilled from his mouth in the form of low moans and gasps for air—you didn’t understand how he could render you so breathless every time he kissed you like that, or why he had such an effect on you. He held you the same way Yuta did, kissed you just as passionately, didn’t even fuck you as well as Yuta did, but he made you feel weightless.

“I think I’m in love,” he whispered, gently taking your hand and pressing a kiss to your skin—a seemingly sweet gesture even while he had you pushed roughly into the mattress, pinned under his full weight. “I think I’m in love with you.”

“You don’t have to do this, ____. You don’t have to listen to him—“

There was a coy laugh in your ear, and suddenly the hands on you went icy cold. Yellow eyes peered down at you, all mischievous and cunning, molten gold and liquid amber. The petrifying gaze of a snake. You saw him for only a second before feeling his teeth against your neck.

“He doesn’t mean it,” Yuta hissed, pushing Johnny’s hands off of you so he could take you for himself. “Infatuation, my boy… it’s a cruel thing.”

“What does he want from me?”

“Leave him out of this.” Your voice came out muffled, like you were speaking through a mouthful of cotton. Vexed and agitated more than anything else.

“Tell me, _____, exactly who is he to you?”

Teeth sank into your skin.

“You can’t make me do that.”

“Maybe I can’t. But she can.”

“He’s nothing.”

You folded the photo, and they both vanished, leaving your bedroom cold.

You didn’t know how Yuta could have possibly gotten to your phone, through your passcode or into the right folders. And you certainly hadn’t thought he was the type to stalk so obsessively; he liked to watch from afar, from a safer distance, from the high ground.

Perhaps he was derailing. A decade of restraint and playing so nicely with the authorities had finally come to this: a foolish, blatant display of his power for everyone to see. Where you’d learned control, he’d let loose, and his men were always there to suffer the consequences for him. What was once masterful planning, killing and manipulating was no longer just a way for him to consolidate his power. It was out of carnal desire.

Your thoughts spun with possibilities, but it mostly spun with anger. You shouldn’t have gotten Johnny involved. You were stupid to let him in, and he was stupid to believe that you could be any different from the likes of Yuta. It was a slow realization—something you knew, unconsciously, since the very beginning—but now it all came to a head.

“Why don’t you ever believe me? When I say I’m just as bad as all the vampires you hate?”

“If that were true, you wouldn’t still be here with me.”

You needed to get rid of him.

It was an ungodly hour to call him, but you did it anyway. He couldn’t be asleep, at least not after what happened at the coffee shop; knowing him, he’d be awake and contemplating all night long. You dialled his number before you could change your mind.

“Hello? ____?”

You stared at his name on the display. Stared at the folded photo in your hands and thought about the rest on your phone.

“You said you trust me,” you said at last, not registering how delirious you sounded until he asked,

“Are you drunk?”

“I’m—“ You sighed, taking your head in your hands and setting your phone down so you could put him on speaker. You weren’t drunk, but you suddenly wished you were. It would make this a hell of a lot easier. “I’m not drunk. Listen to me. You said you trust me, right? Did you mean it?”

There was a split second of hesitance. “Why wouldn’t I mean it? I trust you, ____. I do. Seriously, what is all of this about?”

You stopped, and the doubts swirled into your head: maybe there was a better way of doing this. Maybe you were being too cruel, making a spur of the moment decision while you still felt so hazy with anger and confusion. Was this not the exact same decision Yuta would have made?

Or maybe this was the only way. When humans talked about getting something over with like ripping off a bandaid, perhaps this was it. It was for his own good. Whether or not he appreciated it, whether or not he ever understood you, it was the only way. You weren’t being selfish. You would both forget about this sooner or later.

“Hello?”

“Then I think you need to do it.”

“What?!”

“Yuta can’t be reasoned with,” you explained quickly, before he could protest again. “And if you refuse, you’ll live to regret it. He’ll make your life hell. He has the means to take down your entire business, if not more. I’ve been with him since the 80s, I would know”

“____, you need to get away from this guy.”

I need to get away from you.

“He’s not good for you.”

Neither are you.

“You’re not—“

I’m not like you either.

“I’m not like him,” you cut him off with a loud groan. You’d heard this far too many times, and you didn’t need to hear it again. “I know. Look, who I associate with is frankly none of your business.”

The line went silent for some time, and you almost expected him to hang up. You folded your paper. unfolded it. Fold. Unfold. Back and forth, alternating so you would see the image turn within the quick motion of your hands. Kept going until the crease deepened. Kept going until it tore clean right through the middle.

“But I guess it is my business now.”

He sounded tired—not the least bit annoyed, angered, or even upset—simply weary. You let out a sigh, and it echoed back to you from his end. You imagined him sprawled out on his bed, staring blankly at the ceiling, his phone left on his pillow so he could still hear you.

“I never wanted to get you involved in something like this. I had no idea Yuta would—“

“It’s okay. I’ll do it.”

The line filled with white noise, and then you heard him laugh. It was sad, almost a little hollow, and you immediately felt a pit open up at the bottom of your stomach. “If it’s just arranging a meeting with the guy, I’m sure I’ll manage. And maybe it’s about time I… dealt with my demons for once.”

“You know, calling a vampire a demon is considered—“

“Harassment. Yes, I know,” Johnny giggled. “The guy tried to fucking kill me, ____. I’m not gonna go to hell for calling him a bad name. And I didn’t even directly call him a—“

“Okay, okay.” You allowed for a laugh. You allowed yourself to enjoy it just a little longer. The pit deepened. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Okay. I’ll… see you tomorrow, then.”

“Okay.” There was a long pause before he spoke again. You could hear the smile in his voice. “Goodnight, ____.”

You hesitated. Your finger hovered above the red button, lingering for several seconds when you realized there was more to say—but you were unsure of what to tell him.

“Hey, Johnny?”

He’d already hung up.

Whatever happens, it’s not your fault. The words were there, circling your head, resting on the top of your tongue just behind your lips, but held prisoner by all the other emotions rushing in and out of you. He was already gone. Your only chance to fill that pit in your stomach was gone, and the longer you stood there, the further it deepened. It had a name now: guilt.

The bottle on your desk shattered with the overflow of your anger, flooding your room red.

xii. Men believe what they want to believe.

Choi Hojin lived in the suburbs of Osan, about forty minutes south from Seoul.

It was clear that he didn’t like visitors. Yuta had tried getting ahold of him for months with no reply, and yet when Johnny reached out with threats to report him to the police, his response came in less than twenty four hours. He’d hastily sent back a couple hundred thousand won and an address, which led you here: a luxury bungalow on a street lined with tasteless McMansions that looked like shacks in comparison. A locked gate and extensive security system awaited you—a little much, Yuta had commented rather mockingly—but it meant Johnny had to drive while you and Yuta sat huddled in the back seats.

“I don’t have my full license yet, by the way,” Johnny grumbled when he and Yuta switched places about half a block away from your final destination.

“I’m not so worried about the law,” Yuta retorted, and made a couple of crude motions with the cigarette between his fingers, indicating the gear and seat adjustments. Johnny clumsily fixed the side view mirrors, tested the sensitivity of the gas pedal and sent the car lurching forward. Yuta glared at him. “But if you put a dent in my car, I’ll put a dent in your fucking head.”

“Don’t take him so seriously,” you scoffed. “This car is, what? Fifth place in your garage?”

Johnny tensed behind the wheel. You knew he didn’t like the way you talked whenever Yuta was around—but luckily for him, maybe he’d never have to hear it again after tonight.

“Sixth,” Yuta snapped.

“Doesn’t help your case. I could drive this car off a cliff and you’d get over it in about two days.”

“Over the car, maybe.” He flashed you a shit-eating grin, and then lazily offered you his pack of smokes. You shrugged, took one, and let him lean over to light it for you. “But with you in it?”

Your stomach flipped with annoyance. You knew he only wanted to see Johnny squirm, and yet something about his smile was strangely flirtatious, strangely reminiscent of your first meeting decades ago. You’d almost forgotten how charming he could be when he wasn’t so bitter and insufferable. “Shut the fuck up.”

You caught a glimpse of Johnny’s expression through the rearview mirror; but the glare of the streetlights through the windows quickly wiped him away.

About a minute later, he pulled the car up to the iron gates—albeit a little shakily, just about missing the curb with the back tires. He rolled down the window and rang the intercom. There was a low buzzing, several seconds of silence, and then a light flickered red. A mumble came through the speakers, gruff and distorted.

“Hello?” Johnny called out hesitantly, and there was another garble.

“Just you? No one else?”

“Yeah,” Johnny said shakily; it sounded more like a question, and he turned to look at you. “Just me.”

The light went dim, and the static cut into silence. The gates swung open a few moments later, almost completely soundlessly, like skeletal arms extending an ominous welcome onto the property. Johnny put the car back in motion. You rolled slowly past perfectly-trimmed hedges and cobblestone walls, into a roundabout that encircled a marble fountain. It was all quite fitting for a realtor, but tacky nonetheless—Yuta must have thought the same. Next to you, he gave a rather dissatisfied huff.

“Take this with you.” He leaned forward when Johnny had parked the car in the driveway, offering him the metal device that hung from his key ring. It was perfectly cylindrical, coated in silver and open at one end, no bigger than a pencil. “Click the button once you’re inside, disarm him, and then let us in. That’s all I need from you.”

Johnny frowned, and the lines of his face seemed to harden. ��That’s… that’s a UV beam.”

“Low power,” Yuta said, tapping the serial number on the underside rather offhandedly. “Won’t do much more than a couple of burns unless you shine it directly in the eyes. Which you’re free to do if you—“

“I’m good.” Johnny cut him off with an impatient shake of his head. He quickly got out of the car, slamming the door shut with so much force that the entire vehicle shook. Yuta muttered a string of curses beneath his breath.

“You found yourself a pretty one,” he commented once Johnny was out of earshot, his eyes fixated rather insistently on his figure in the distance. “Did you do his hair for him?”

“Don’t act like you care,” you retorted, and then turned to spit out the rest of your accusation: “Or like you didn’t already know.”

“I was worried about you, ____.”

“I guess you were worried enough to go through my phone and follow me around for years. Or did you get someone else to do it for you? The same way you had me do all your dirty work?”

“I never made you do my dirty work. You said it yourself: you wanted something to do with your time, and I gave you just that.”

“Fucking hell, Yuta. Having a conversation with you is really impossible sometimes, you know that?”

Silence. You heard the front doors of the house open, knew it meant that Johnny’s life was at stake the moment he stepped foot inside, and yet you paid it no mind; not until Yuta had undid his seatbelt and gotten out of the car. He quickly circled around to your side, opened the door and snapped his fingers at you rather impatiently. “Let’s go. We'll talk about this later.”

“You always say that.”

“Now’s not the time.” He tilted his chin towards the front door, through which Johnny had just disappeared. “We don’t want him getting hurt, do we?”

Instantly, a scream tore through the night, and you jolted out of your seat in surprise. It echoed through the courtyard and bounced back from the curving arches of the entrance with unmistakable agony, sending a nearby roost of crows into a frenzy. In your confusion, it took you more than a moment to realize that it wasn’t Johnny. Which could only mean—

Yuta’s lips curled back into an amused smirk. “Looks like the pretty boy has got a mean side to him after all.”

Unable to form a proper comeback, much less words, you had no choice but to follow him into the house.

The entrance hall was nothing but a continuation of the outdoor courtyard: a tacky, lacklustre show of wealth which, ironically, Hojin didn’t make available to anyone but himself. A couple of marble steps took you up to the main floor, where a short length of maroon carpet swept into the foyer. Multiple crystal chandeliers swung from the ceiling, illuminating an arrangement of leather couches and armchairs laid out between the twin staircases. Yuta took a leisurely moment to inspect the grand piano in the adjoining room before continuing on his way—as if he couldn’t clearly hear someone in pain just a few yards away.

“Who’s there?” You heard them call out shakily, and turned to see Johnny at the very end of the entrance hall. There was a vampire at his feet, slumped helplessly against the wall with his hands clutching at his eyes. At the sound of your footsteps, he quickly sat up. “You! Motherfucker, I thought I told you not to bring anyone—”

Despite it all, Johnny was strangely calm. He stood there, completely motionless, still holding onto the silver beam Yuta had given him earlier, his gaze fixated on the vampire he’d blinded. His eyes didn’t show any sign of panic or guilt, didn’t betray him of any emotion; but they showed the faintest disbelief. Like he was too caught up in his trauma to properly understand what he’d just done.

“Go wait in the car, boy,” Yuta told him softly, moving forwards so he could settle comfortably on the couch. At his feet, Hojin froze.

“Go on,” you nudged Johnny towards the door when he didn’t move. It’s not your fault. You didn’t do this. The words never came. But eventually, he shook himself out of his daze and backed away. Turned around. Made his way to the door.

“I’m disappointed, you know,” Yuta muttered when Johnny had gone, turning his full attention to the vampire on the ground before him. “For almost an entire year, I’ve been trying to schedule this meeting with you.” He let out a short chortle of laughter. “Of course, the years pass relatively quickly for us folk… but it was still such a hassle. At first I thought maybe you were busy with work, busy moving… I thought, ‘give it a couple months. We have all the time in the world.’”

“What do you want?” Hojin growled, still shielding his eyes from view as he wobbled back to his feet. Yuta sent you a silent glance.

Even after all these years, you remained perfect partners; you knew exactly what he wanted, and he knew exactly how you would get it done. In whatever distrust had formed in the past decade, there was still understanding. Certitude when it came to business. You walked over to Hojin and forced him back onto his knees, flipping your pocket knife out of your sleeve.

“Oh, that won’t be necessary, ____.” Yuta made a face. You flipped the blade away. So perhaps you weren’t on the same page quite yet. “Just a friendly chat. That’s all.”

Hojin tensed, and you tightened your hold on his neck a little. “You send your little boy toy out on errands like these whenever you want a friendly chat with someone, Nakamoto? Ask him to wave that UV laser around in vampires’ eyes before you go see them?”

Yuta took a long drag from his cigarette, pensively, almost dreamily. And then he leaned forward, gently taking Hojin by the collar so he could push insistently into his space. “You nearly killed him last time, sir.”

You flinched. Sir. There must have been history behind that title: respect marred by loathing.

“But that’s not why I’m here,” Yuta laughed, pulling away. “And not because of what you did to my employees, either. I do care about them, truly, but there are more pressing matters at hand.”

He fished an old film photograph from his jacket pocket, held it dangling from his fingers the same way he held his cigarette in his mouth: casually, delicately, but with intention. There was the striking image of a young woman in a flowing dress. Golden hairpins adorned her long locks of jet hair, and there was a patterned shawl wrapped carefully around her slender shoulders.

Sone Yurie.

The Sone Yuta agonized over. The woman who’d betrayed him. You’d never seen more than the mental images you’d crafted from vague stories. You didn’t even think a photo of her existed, given Yuta’s tendencies to run from his past. But you knew. It was in the delicateness of her features and the sharp attentiveness of her eyes. The subtle yet dramatic curves of her cheekbones. The mismatch of religious symbols hanging on the necklace around her neck. And the way she stared so flirtatiously into the camera while the man next to her had a rough grip on her hand. It was Hojin—softer in appearance back then, younger, but it was him.

“I didn’t think I’d ever go digging around for old photos,” Yuta said in a melancholic sigh. “I used to run from the past. When Yurie told us to meditate, when she told us to channel our past reincarnations and focus on our memories… I used to run away from it, remember?

But gone are those days. I went searching because you reminded me of her. You reminded me of what happened to her and… you know how it is. I had my doubts. I always suspected you of conspiring with her.”

Yuta nodded at you. And now, having fallen back into your old rhythm, the two of you worked in tandem; you let go of Hojin, shoving him forwards so Yuta could grab him by the throat.

(***)

“But I was wrong,” he whispered, prying Hojin’s hands away from his face to reveal the monstrous scars that lay underneath.

His left eye was swollen shut, and it had bulged to almost twice its normal size. The skin around his cheek and nose had turned scarlet, blistered all over with angry welts and scorch marks that ran black streaks across his eyelids. The bumps exuded blood, scabbed over, then broke open and bled again, over and over in a period of mere seconds. His entire face was pulsating, vibrating with the effects of vampire healing; each boil along his cheek twitched like maggots burrowing into his skin. It was an utterly grotesque sight to behold.

“Tell me what you see,” Yuta said, cackling a bit as he held up the photo for Hojin to see—or not. You were quite certain he’d gone blind in at least one eye.

“Nothing,” Hojin whimpered, trying unsuccessfully to twist free of Yuta’s grasp.

“Nothing,” came a mocking echo. “What, can you not see anything? Here. Let me help you with that, sir.”

This time he grabbed him by the face, his fingers digging insistently into flesh and blood, evoking an ear-shattering scream that rattled all the crystals on the chandeliers hanging above your heads. Blood splattered onto the ground, onto Yuta’s hands and the couch cushions.

“What do you see? Tell me, and I’ll let go.”

“Y-Yurie.”

Yuta struck him across the face, and you swore you heard the cracking of bone.

“You don’t have any right to call her that,” Yuta spat, and shoved the man back to the ground. “You know what I see?” Another strike, this time to the back of his neck. “I see a fucking pervert holding her hand.” Then to his back. “And I see a pathetic excuse of a man.” His stomach. “I see a sick fuck who used women and children for pleasure.” His head. “A rapist and a murderer and a psychopath who I’ve let harass my people for decades.”

One final blow. Yuta was seething now. You could see the resentment and hatred pour from every inch of his being like fire, burning through the expensive wood floors and consuming all the oxygen in the air. In more ways than just one, it felt wrong for you to be there. It was too intimate of an exchange, intimate in some sick and twisted way, and you weren’t supposed to witness it.

“You were Isobe’s greatest student. You were our teacher. I thought—when the two of you started spending so much time together—I thought you helped her turn my coven against me. But as it turns out, sir… you weren’t conspiring with her.”

Hojin let out another shriek, curling into himself when Yuta’s hands tightened on his face.

“You abused her.”

What had once been an unfinished painting was finally coming into focus. The colours were emerging, vivid and jarring against the portrait Yuta had first painted for you.

“You assaulted her. You threatened her life when she tried to speak out, hell, you almost took it. You drove her crazy with your abusiveness, drove her and Seojoon to do what they did. And you did this to me.”

Yuta smiled. It wasn’t his usual snideness; it was purely sadistic. His lips stretched apart to reveal a gleeful grin, but his eyes didn’t move with the rest of his face; they showed nothing but bloodlust. And it suddenly occurred to you: the smile was for Sone. The murderous glare he wore was for Hojin. There was some disturbing obsession he had for her, and he would now do anything to prove her innocence. To forgive her long after she’d betrayed him, and long after he’d killed her.

“Oh, it’s funny… the wonders that come with confronting one’s past,” he whispered, sighing in contentment. “At last, I can put it all to rest.”

Hojin didn’t protest, didn’t deny the accusations, didn’t even speak. His face was to the ground now, his body limp and his cheek pressed against a small pool of blood. You couldn’t tell if he was still conscious, or if the pain had finally rendered him unresponsive. If Yuta’s stories were true, then Hojin was among the vilest vampires you’d encountered. Yet it was almost difficult to imagine such a pathetic figure doing the unspeakable.

You and Yuta may not have been saints in comparison. You had both killed, lied, stolen, done just about anything to get your way… but rape was entirely wrong. And children—human and vampire alike—were absolutely off-limits.

But how much better were you, really? You felt something brush the edge of your conscience. A fleeting thought. Nothing to be so worried about.

Yuta glanced over at you. “How much longer until sunrise?”

And then the thought consumed you, when you realized exactly what he meant.

You stared at the time on your phone, at the sunrise countdown widget you had on your home screen: 20 minutes before sunrise. Not enough time to clean up all the blood or destroy whatever evidence you and Yuta tracked into the house. Your vision flashed red with the mangled texture of Hojin’s skin and for a brief moment, you imagined the same inflictions spreading along his limbs. You imagined Yuta’s wrath devouring him.

Were you really any better?

Before you knew it, you were standing out on the back porch, helping Yuta tie Hojin to one of the chairs with a length of wire. Every inch of your being screamed at you to stop. Every second that ticked by was a screeching alarm in your ears. This was wrong. This was against your nature—and this was exactly what humans had tried to do to your kind. What some villagers could have done to you, if the vampire who’d turned you hadn’t taken you under her wing.

But Yuta was silent. The house was silent. Hojin never screamed for help, either too exhausted to do so or simply accepting of his fate. The sky lightened from black to indigo, and you were starting to feel a prick under your skin—nature’s way of telling you to seek shelter.

“You taught us well, sir,” Yuta said softly, now kneeling down in front of him. “But some sins simply cannot be atoned for. That’s what she always told us.”

Hojin lifted his head weakly. “And I’m sure she’d be so proud of how you turned out.”

Unfazed, Yuta got back to his feet. He put his cigarette out against the side of the house. Took one final look at the scenery. And the two of you left your victim there, tied down in the open, completely exposed to the sky and its celestial bodies, one of which would kill him in a matter of seconds. In what few minutes remained, you erased your involvement, walked away from the scene like ghosts, and made it back to the car where Johnny was waiting. The world came to a standstill as the first particles of sunlight broke over the horizon.

And then the stillness blew apart, shattering into pieces as an agonized scream pierced the dawn. An act of justice that felt so, so horribly wrong.

“What the hell was that?!”

Time flowed strangely within the cold confines of Johnny’s apartment. Maybe it was the cool navy and pearly white of the walls that perpetuated such a slow crawl—while his current disturbed state of mind pushed the seconds past faster than you could comprehend. Or it was you; you could hardly remember when you’d woken up or when you’d gone down to Osan, and you couldn’t remember the drive back either.

“I heard screaming,” Johnny said shakily, getting up so he could pace around. “Before we left, I thought—” You heard screaming. “But I didn’t want to say anything because—” Because Yuta was there. “I was—”

Scared of him. Scared of you. Scared of himself.

You scrubbed the rest of the blood from your hands, watching the water run clear as the stains disappeared from under your nails. Your head was spinning, and the sunlight filtering through the blinds was not helping in the slightest.

“____? ____, please. Say something. Please—”

“Shut up!”

Silence. Even the clock seemed to heed your warning, and the ticking faded to nothing. The only sounds were those offensive words; they bounced back and forth between the walls, into every corner of the room before returning to you with malice.

You’d never raised your voice at Johnny before.

“We’re done here,” you huffed, shutting the water off and drying your hands. You turned to look for your keys, only to find them in his hands.

“What do you mean, we’re done?” He took you by the arm when you made a grab for them. “What happened in there? W-what did you do to him?”

“We killed him. Left him out in the sun.”

He said nothing, so you continued—with every intent of making this the last thing he remembered you by. For his sake. For both your sakes.

“I told you,” you said bitterly, taking the keys from him and shoving them deep into your pocket. “I told you, this is who I am. I told you so many times, I’m just as bad as the rest of them. And you never believed me.”

His voice dropped to a low quaver. “Because you gave me so many reasons not to. You—” He rushed forwards, trapping you between him and the kitchen island, his hands planted on either side of you so you couldn’t escape. “Fucking hell, ____, you saved my life! You said you liked my company, you were always there when I needed you, you were so… human to me. I felt like I could trust you. Like I was really in—”

“You’re not in love with me. You were never in love with me” you hissed, cutting him off. “You said I felt human to you, yeah? Then you’re just in love with the idea of me being human. You’re in love with whatever humane, benevolent, charity bullshit I showed you because you refuse to acknowledge the rest. You don’t care about who I really am, and you never will.”

“I don’t believe you. I know you, ____. I know you aren’t—”

“Then what will it take to convince you?”

“I—”

“The night I left you because of an ‘emergency,’ I went and staged someone’s suicide. I framed him for a mass murder. Yeah, Itaewon? That was my coven’s doing. Anything on the news about a dead vampire, that could have been our doing. And now we left a man to burn alive out in the sun, did it all in front of you, but you still don’t believe me?!”

His features, once soft with youthful innocence, twisted with rage. His hands tightened on the counter, knuckles turning white as he leaned a little closer. “Is that why you made me do all of this? To prove me wrong?”

You did it for him. To protect him. To show him how dangerous you and your coven were, and to pull him out of the mess you’d created before he got hurt. All the reasons were there, one after the other, but you couldn’t tell him. You do care, he would say if you did. In all his stubbornness and toxic positivity, he would forgive you. He would come back to you if he knew you’d done it for his benefit. You would never be able to get rid of him again, until Yuta did it for you. And you didn’t even want to think about what that might look like.

So you steeled yourself for his reaction. Nodded to affirm his words. “Yeah. To prove you wrong,” you whispered.

He withdrew sharply, taking a sudden step back in fear. True, cold fear. “What was I to you?”

“Exactly who is he to you?” Yuta had asked you a similar question.

And to both, the answer you’d forced yourself to believe in was the same:

“Nothing.”

In a few years, it would be true, at least for you; because you would forget. But for him—the pain of knowing he’d been used, the fallout of his infatuation with you and the burden of being such a close accomplice to a murder… it could very well last him a lifetime.

But you couldn’t afford to feel pity. You couldn’t afford to go back to him and make everything worse.

So when you walked out on him, you didn’t think about the pain etched permanently onto his face, or the way he stood hunched quietly over the counter—you thought about Yuta. The only person who, despite all your past strife, seemed to understand you. You didn’t think about how badly you wanted Johnny to chase after you, but you thought about what awaited you once you got home.

A steady rhythm, one you’d known for years. Away from the repetitive four four of every pop song Johnny put on his playlists, and back to the timelessness of a three four waltz.

“I still trust you. I always have. I want you to know that.”

“I really don’t know what to believe anymore, Yuta. You… stalked me. For years. You never even spoke to me until you needed me again.”

“You know I am rather reserved when it comes to expressing my true emotions. Especially… when it involves you.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“I missed you. I missed your company, but I wasn’t sure how to tell you that. And I didn’t know how I could’ve asked for your forgiveness after what I said to you.”

“Are you sure you’re not getting me mixed up with Sone? I remind you of her, you said it yourself.”

“I’m… not entirely sure, if I’m being honest. But I do know that I liked being with you. That’s why I was upset when you started seeing your little friend so much.”

“You were jealous.”

“I was not— Jealous… yes, maybe I was. Because since we first met, it’s always been us. No one else.”

“Johnny’s gone, if that’s what you’re so worked up about.”

“Then would you let me have you again?”

You jolted awake.

The room spun into focus. You were staring up at a kaleidoscope of light and darkness: bits and pieces of your surroundings in a disrupted pattern that shifted back to their rightful places a few moments later. You found yourself tangled up in the sheets and trapped in Yuta’s embrace, your back pressed into his chest. The details of the previous night came back to you a second later, and you suddenly remembered your response to his question.

“Yes.”

Johnny was gone—but you still hadn’t found the easy peace you’d been expecting when you came back to Yuta. Johnny had his infatuations, and Yuta had his obsessions. He had been obsessed with Sone, and now he was obsessed with replacing her… whether he realized it or not.

But you weren’t so compliant. He couldn’t mould you into her image no matter how hard he tried. If you couldn’t be what he wanted, you could only imagine you would reach the same fate as his past lover.

With a jolt, you realized that some of the ice encasing you was melting away. It’d happened gradually, so slowly that you’d hardly ever noticed. You could feel some tingling sensation somewhere deep within your chest, unlike anything you’d ever felt before when you went chasing cheap thrills. Your mind reeled back, because something about it didn’t feel right. When you were with Johnny, it was a gentle and comforting warmth. Now it was just heat. The heat of your agitation and worries and fears.

Fear. You’d learned to be afraid of the same things you used to chase after. You were afraid of the thrill now. You were afraid of all the consequences that would come once the high wore off.

And the very first thing that came to mind was the vampire fast asleep next to you. The one whose attention you used to vy for, the one who’d promised you all sorts of exhilarating things, who’d made you think killing was the only way to keep yourself sane. You couldn’t believe it—couldn’t understand how this had come to be, or why—but you were afraid of him.

So in the same way you moved so carefully to avoid rousing him, you would have to tread lightly if you wanted to make it out alive. And when his eyes fluttered half open with a split second of consciousness, you would press a gentle kiss to his forehead, coaxing him back to sleep. When he had his brief moments of suspicion, you would let him believe you were his. For as long as it took you to escape.

xiii. He who wants everything loses everything.

October 2021

“Now, we have breaking news from Seodaemun District: the bodies of two vampires were discovered in Yeonhui-Dong this morning, following similar murders in Osan, Anyang and Gangnam. Although the bodies had not been touched by sunlight, police suspect that the incident is related to the Sunshine Killer…”

The Sunshine Killer. He’d been all over the news lately: a faceless, soundless serial killer who abducted vampires by nightfall and let them burn to death in the morning sun. He travelled in reckless patterns, from one end of the city to the other, back to the first location the next day, circling around the cops like they weren’t even there. Some suspected a sicko supremacist. Others said cults, maybe the resurfacing of an old vampire group out for revenge. For the time being, the police were convinced it was a single person’s doing—they couldn’t yet fathom the sheer size of the underground, couldn’t possibly draw any lines between you, Yuta or anyone else.

You weren’t sure what had perpetuated such a violent change in Yuta. After killing Hojin that night, he suddenly read you all the secrets in his notebook, and started monitoring his targets even more insistently. You went down to Anyang with him barely a week after the police found Hojin’s body and gave them another to investigate. Not that the charred remains were much to investigate anyways. They had no leads. No way of catching you.

So he continued. He struck a deal with Lucetius and then Nyx, promising to eliminate any of their common enemies as long as they threw the police off his trail. Kim Jungwoo was more than willing to involve himself in the investigations as a witness and worried coven leader, only to come back with crucial intel: where the police were planning a stakeout, who they suspected, and most importantly, who was on the case.

This time it was the same detective who’d headed the Itaewon case, Lee Hyunjin. And Kim Doyoung.

“I knew he meant trouble,” you groaned when Yuta relayed the news to you one night. At his confusion, you quickly explained, “I ran into him during the Itaewon investigations. He seemed hellbent on avenging a friend, but I never thought he would collaborate with the police.”

“They’re both trouble,” Yuta said, showing you a photo of the human detective. “Lee’s in Moon Taeil’s division, and you know how he is. If the higher ups hadn’t shut down their investigations at Itaewon, they would have cracked the case.” He paused. “I think we need to stop here. Before we go too far.”

The last time Yuta had suggested taking a break, you’d retaliated. Now, you knew when to listen.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something.” His voice was oddly soft when he turned around to face you. He slowly slid out of his chair so he could join you at the window, where you were sitting up on the ledge. It was a small space, maybe only a metre across, so he settled for standing between your legs where he could still lean in and brush a stray strand of your hair away from your face. “I was thinking about moving back to Japan.”

You raised a brow. “What, for business?”

“Not… exactly.”

If he was thinking about leaving the country and it wasn’t for business, it could only be because of one thing.

“I’m… a little worried, I’ll admit. Especially with Doyoung on the case. I give credit where it’s due, and he’s a good investigator,” he said, taking your hand. With his free hand, he reached behind him and took the notebook he’d left on his desk. The snakeskin cover was worn now, and the stitching had come out in several places. When he flipped through, you realized every single page had been filled. His handwriting grew more and more erratic as the years went by, shaky and barely legible, twisted by anger and paranoia. “Perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself. But if it comes to that, if I have to go… I want you to come with me.”

“What about the coven?” You asked, swiftly evading the question. Yuta gave a gentle laugh and slid a finger under your chin, tilting your head up affectionately.

“I’m sure Shotaro and Hendery will manage without us.”

He pressed a brief kiss to the corner of your mouth, as if asking for your permission. Knowing you wouldn’t be able to form a proper response to his earlier question if he pulled away, you let him.

“We could go home,” he muttered after a moment, parting from you so he could hold your face delicately between his hands.

You rolled your eyes. “Where my village used to stand, there’s a huge shopping mall now. Pretty sure there’s even a love hotel where the schoolhouse used to be.”

A playful smirk graced his lips. “Even better.”

This time he kissed you hungrily, with enough longing to erase all the other thoughts from your head. He had that effect on you, no matter how desperately you wanted to escape him and his unhealthy obsession with a past lover he’d killed. He could kill you like this, you realized; he could easily do it while you were so distracted by him, and although it was a rather unrealistic thought, it was enough for you to stop.

You drew back from him not even a couple seconds later, and he gave you an incredulous look. “I’ll think about it,” you said, just to satisfy him. “I feel like…” You rushed to think of an excuse. “There’s just nothing left for me back home. I’ve been away for so long, I don’t think—”

“Wherever you want to go,” he murmured sweetly, kissing you again. “Wherever you are. You have me.”

Yuta would have made an excellent lover—if he had the capacity for anything more than lust and anger. He was so charming, so effortlessly charismatic, and he always knew exactly what to say.

If only this was real. If only he wasn’t so consumed by passion, if only he was in love with you and not the image of another woman. You bristled at the very thought: the thought of all the men who’d passed through your life, and their stupid fucking fantasies of love.

You hadn’t yet nailed your coffin shut. You didn’t have to go anywhere with him, and you didn’t have to do anything with him as long as the police stayed off your trail. You could very well fix this for yourself before it got out of hand.

But apparently, so could he.

The Sunshine Killer was caught two weeks later.

Yuta was waiting for you in his office when the news broke. After seeing the headlines circulating the internet and the dozens of photos on television, it took all of your willpower not to storm into the room and demand an explanation. It’s fine, you told yourself, slowing down in the hallway so you could catch your breath. At least they hadn’t caught you. At least they hadn’t caught him and torn down the entire coven along with him.

You took a moment to get it all out of your head before entering—because if you did so much as even think about it, he would know.

You opened the door slowly so you could see what awaited you: Yuta was standing by the window, nursing a glass of blood. There was an old bottle of wine on the table, alongside two crystal wine glasses. A vaguely familiar melody drifted through the space, and its notes blended seamlessly into Yuta’s humming; he was in a good mood.

“What’s all this?” You asked carefully, stepping inside and locking the door behind you. He turned, raising a brow quizzically, to which you replied with a mischievous laugh. It sounded dry to your ears.

“1945 Romanee-Conti,” he mused, showing you the label on the bottle. “I know it’s rather cliche… but I bought it the day I became coven leader. Never even thought about when I would open it.”

“I didn’t think framing someone for murder called for such a celebration,” you scoffed. “It’s not like you haven’t done it before.”

“Perhaps. But it felt right,” he laughed, before offering you the corkscrew. “Do the honours, darling.”

You politely refused, pushing it back into his hands. In your current state of mind, you didn’t think you could properly uncork the damn thing without trying to break it over his head. “The honour’s all yours.”

He inclined his head politely. Rouge liquid swirled into your cup, and a distinct, earthy aroma filled the air. The wine was wonderful—from the Cote de Nuit in France, one of only 600 bottles produced that year and truly a legendary vintage, Yuta explained to you at some point—but you could barely stomach it. You couldn’t stop thinking. Couldn’t stop thinking about him.

Johnny’s face was on display all over the city. Johnny Youngho Seo, 26, a murderer. Yuta had framed him perfectly, convicted him of all the crimes the two of you committed together, and you hadn’t the slightest clue until it was on every news channel.

“Everything alright?” Yuta asked, and you instantly snapped out of your thoughts. He held your gaze with genuine concern, his arm coming around your waist to pull you a little closer. Vampires had no warmth, but something about him seemed particularly cold tonight.

“I’m fine,” you told him, and leaned into his shoulder in an attempt to reassure him. You sighed. “Just tired.”

He gave a light chuckle. “You haven’t done anything today, my love.”

“You know, I might be reaching that age,” you said, taking another sip of wine. “They say that at 600 you go through one of those lows. Hibernate for a couple decades and then come out good as new.”

“If that were true, I wouldn’t be here with you, now would I?”

“What do you want me to say, that you’re special?” You snorted.

He laughed. It was a warm sound, filled with so much affection and joy that it sent a strange kind of shudder down your back; you’d never seen him so happy, so carefree, normal in some sense. Somehow it was unsettling, but you eased your worries a little bit, allowing yourself to relax in his arms. He didn’t have any suspicions. He didn’t know.

But the moment you eased up, he tensed. You cursed yourself when his lips brushed against your ear, suddenly realizing that your relief was just as telling as your anxiety. You’d let your guard down too early. “Tell me, my love. What’s really bothering you?”

You couldn’t find any words. At your speechlessness, he quickly took the wine glass from you and set it aside. The bitter aftertaste of it lingered in your mouth.

“Was it the news, by any chance?”

There was no point in hiding anything now. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to do that?”

“Because I didn’t think it was of any relevance to you?”

“You could’ve used anyone else,” you started slowly, still trying to form cohesive sentences as he stared down at you. “You could’ve—”

“You said he meant nothing to you.”

“If he meant nothing to me, then you wouldn’t have gotten him involved again.”

He narrowed his eyes. “If he meant nothing to you, then you wouldn’t care if I got him involved.” He finished his wine and put the empty glass down next to yours. “He was absolutely perfect, ____. He was there the night of the first murder. He had history with Hojin, and the messages were there to prove it. With the right words, the right photos and the right information, he would do anything for us.”

“You blackmailed him?!” you demanded, still in disbelief that all of this had happened without your knowledge whatsoever. “With—“

“With the pictures you took, yes,” Yuta sighed, and he sounded almost disappointed. “I was quite surprised you kept those.”

The pit at the bottom of your stomach was opening again. “What did you make him do?”

He tilted his head, as if the answer were obvious. “I simply had him go to all the wrong places at all the wrong times.”

You couldn’t help but imagine Johnny receiving all of Yuta’s threatening messages and despairing over what to do. Or maybe he hadn’t given it much thought. Maybe he’d gone to all the places Yuta had instructed him to—and upon not seeing anything particularly worrying, didn’t think twice. Yuta truly had you both played for fools.

“What if he talks?” You asked, now consumed by dread. “If he confesses?”

“I’ve sent Byun and Lee to represent him,” Yuta said. Byun Baekhyun, Lee Taemin, the two lawyers he worked rather closely with, although always behind closed doors; you’d only met them once, but from that one meeting alone, you knew they were a despicable pair. “He won’t talk.”

“You frame a man for murder, and then send your two best defense attorneys to represent him?”

“Oh, they aren’t really going to defend him. We can’t contact him while he’s in custody, so those two will do it for us. They’ll keep him silent.”

There was a long, contemplative pause, and he took the time to pour himself another glass of wine. Finally, he let go of you so he could instead hold you at an arm's length. “If you still care for the boy, ____, whatever he really means to you… I’m not upset with you.” There was a short burst of rather sad laughter. “But I hope you understand. I did this for us. I did it so you can stop thinking about him and move on. So we don’t have to worry so much about getting caught.”

You leaned forwards, fully pretending to be engrossed in his words. “And since when have you been so worried about getting caught, pretty boy?”

His hand moved up to carefully cup your cheek, and he stared at you like you held all of the universe’s galaxies in your eyes.

“Now. Now that I have you.”

When you finally got a cellphone in 2009, you ended up receiving hundreds of calls and text messages meant for the girl who previously had your number. You assumed she’d neglected to tell anyone about her number change for whatever reason; because you were quickly bombarded with everything from work schedules to party plans to boring sexts from an overbearing boyfriend. It was enough for you to piece together an image of her: a college senior who frequently called out of her job and spent just about every weekend getting wasted at a frat party.

It was the same with Yuta and Sone. You had Sone’s old number, and Yuta wouldn’t stop calling, thinking you were her. The more time you spent with him, the more you understood how he’d treated her: with the utmost endearment, with utmost respect, but like she was fragile. Like she would break if he pushed her too hard. Like he could do whatever he wanted and convince her that it was for her sake, and not for his. It was no wonder she betrayed him. It was no wonder she tried to leave him.

Even as things started to die down with all the police investigations, he was secretive. He was on the phone more often, he was out more often, and he would always put his work away when you were around, as if to protect you from something.

A little later, you found out he’d been making calls to Kim Doyoung. The howl of laughter you let out when you found the recordings was probably loud enough to notify everyone in the house, maybe even convince them you’d gone crazy—but the only person who’d gone crazy was Nakamoto Yuta.

He’d lost it. He’d really lost it this time. He really thought he was a god, thought he could call the authorities themselves and make it out completely unscathed, thought he could throw a monkey wrench into his own plans and still execute them perfectly. You didn’t understand why; especially when he’d been so careful only a week earlier. Perhaps it was just a blatant, arrogant display of power, or an attempt to win you over. You’re safe with me, he seemed to be saying. Or maybe framing Johnny simply wasn’t the end of it. He was running out of options, and running out of soldiers to do the work for him.

“You don’t remember me?” You were listening to the recording again, reveling in the absurdity of it all, in the possibility of everything coming to an end.

“I’m afraid I don’t. Who is this?” Doyoung’s voice was calm, collected.

“Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter whether or not you know who I am. I was just under the impression that maybe you stumbled upon my name somewhere in your little investigation… maybe heard my voice somewhere… Pity.”

Smug fucker, you thought to yourself. They’d catch him this time.

“Sir, I don’t quite understand why you’ve called me.”

“I’ll make it simple for you then. You have something of mine, Kim. Two, really. And I’d like them back.”

“I don’t think I’ve misplaced anything recently. But I will check if you insist—”

“Don’t play stupid with me.”

“Excuse me?”

“Seo Youngho. Kim Jongin. I’m aware that you’re with the police agency who took the two of them into custody.”

“If you are calling for their release, that is far beyond my control. I’m sure you know how the law works. As much as a murderer knows the law, anyways.”

“Don’t test my patience, Kim. You’re playing a dangerous game.”

“Interesting, considering you’ve just called the police and confessed to being an accomplice.”

They’d catch him, and you’d slip away before they could catch you too.

“One of yours for one of mine. That is the price you’ll pay. Fortunately, I’m sure the police won’t actually kill any of my men as that’s against the law. Yours, however… a different story. I’ve noticed that you’ve made yourself a new friend. Might I suggest you make your choices very carefully for their sake—”

The door flew open. You calmly shut off the audio, flicked your apps closed and took your earbuds out. Not even a second later, Yuta had his arms around you, his face buried in your sweater. Surprised, you stumbled back, catching him before he could fall and crush you under his weight. A white garbage bag slipped from his hand, and you caught a glimpse of bloodied gloves inside. He was shaking.

“What happened?”

A moment of silence before he finally detached himself from you and pulled back. “I don’t know.”

“Yuta, the blood— What—”

“I don’t know!” He let out a frustrated groan and crashed into his chair, taking his head in his hands to hide his expression from view. “It was all fine, but then—” He looked up at you; you’d never seen him so distressed. “I’ve never lost control like that. I-I don’t know, ____, I couldn’t sleep yesterday, I was already agitated, and Hajoon wouldn’t stop fucking talking to me, wouldn’t stop asking if we’d really be okay with all the murder investigations going on. He overstepped, so I—”

“You killed him.”

Yuta nodded, and held up a familiar silver rod.

You’d never liked Hajoon, though you’d never had any reason to hate him either. He was an idler, a freeloader who unintentionally got in your way at times, but he’d done nothing to deserve Yuta’s wrath.

“I just left him there,” he said, and for a moment, you thought you saw remorse. “I didn’t clean up or take his phone or anything. The scene’s a disaster and my DNA’s all over it. I don’t know what to do.”

Of course, it wasn’t remorse. He couldn’t feel guilt; he could only be worried about himself, maybe worried about you, but it was all in selfishness nonetheless.

“Lay low,” you told him. “We can stall. And if we need to…” You took his hand, remembering everything he’d told you and carefully spinning it around to fit your own needs. It brought a grimace to your face; as with what you’d done to Johnny, it was cruel. “Maybe we’ll go home together, after all.”

The words burned your mouth, and the smile he sent you in return snapped something buried deep inside of you. It all felt so bitter, so unpleasant and ugly, even though none of it really mattered. It was all just a ruse to gain his trust. You didn’t have much of a choice.

“You would do that?” He asked, staring up at you in awestruck wonder. You nodded.

And In some attempt to punish him, or maybe to punish yourself, you reached up and ran your fingers through his hair, letting the words tumble out: “Promise.”

Later, once he’d bid you goodnight, you took the set of bloodied gloves down to the sitting room and lit the fireplace. You sat down in front of the blaze, in front of the forgotten statue of Laverna that still stood on the mantle, and recalled all the empty promises you’d made to Yuta. Before he retreated into his room, you’d promised to take care of any evidence you could find. You’d promised to stand by his side if the police came for him.

You tossed one of the gloves into the fire and immediately reeled back at the smell of burning rubber. The flames blackened and spluttered, but after a couple seconds of stagnancy, raged on. The entire room went hazy with smoke, and you were suddenly reminded of the two bricks of charcoal you’d burned to kill an innocent bystander. The ashes scattered, and when the fire had finally regained their previous intensity, you hesitated.

You spared the second glove from the flames.

Two days later, when Detective Lee arrived to interview Yuta, they sat down in his office to find a bloodied latex glove in his trash. And as always, you watched his visitor come and go from your room on the third floor. You watched Lee leave with the evidence secretly up their sleeve, watched them get into Doyoung’s car about a block away. Yuta came back inside and went back to what he was doing… completely oblivious to what you’d done to him.

xiv. The gods thought otherwise

You heard him leave about twenty minutes later. A door slammed shut somewhere downstairs, and the noise echoed through the house like a violent shockwave; you felt it through the floor, felt an unsettling aura leave the walls, felt his rage. And you knew. The long-awaited end was near, even if it wasn’t exactly the ending you’d envisioned.

You glanced out the window just in time to see Yuta’s car backing out of the driveway. It looped around the fountain in the courtyard, took a sharp turn out the front gates, and then sped off so quickly that the tires left black marks on the road. The deafening rev of the engine faded into the night, and you finally forced yourself to get out of bed. You weren’t safe yet. Not until he was behind bars, and certainly not until you left Seoul. You weren’t too sure where you would go next, but you knew you’d been here for far too long.

The mansion was eerily silent when you emerged into the hallway—more so than usual—and you felt the unpleasant prickling of anxiety against the back of your neck as you made your way down the stairs. The doors to Yuta’s office were locked, but the handle gave up easily under your hand, snapping out of place and taking the lock down along with it

Once you were inside, it took you a moment to remember why you were there. It all came back when you saw the mess he’d left behind: destroy whatever traces you’d left as a member, and figure out exactly how the hell he found out about the glove, just in case. And then get the hell out, in case he miraculously made it out of custody and came back for you.

You searched through the cabinets, upturned piles of papers, but couldn’t find anything noteworthy. The fortune cat statue he kept on his desk waved at you mockingly, its round eyes following you insistently as you moved around. Fortune your ass, you thought, and felt an urge to knock the stupid thing off the table—

His computer. You turned on the monitor, pleasantly surprised to find that the system was still unlocked. He’d left a video on pause, and the frozen frame showed a higher view of the very room you stood in. You frowned; he’d never mentioned anything about there being a camera in here, and when you looked up, you could find no sign of one.

The folder contained dozens of clips from the past week, all taken from the same angle, but each showing him in a different meeting. He only turned the recording on when he was with someone, you realized. It was so he could watch them again, so he could catch anything he missed the first time. And if you scrolled far enough, you found clips of yourself—having wine with him, lighting a cigarette for him, going about what seemed like such natural and domestic actions—he’d kept these for himself without your knowledge. Enraged, you deleted them.

He must have rewatched his interview with Lee the moment they left. You scrolled back to the video he’d left open. Sure enough, the detective was in the midst of taking the glove from his trash bin, where you’d left it just before they came in. The camera had been so strategically placed, in a way that it caught every movement in the room.

If he saw it happen, then he knew you hadn’t destroyed all of the evidence like you said you would. He knew it was you. He had left to go deal with the detective. He would come back for you when he was done…

You turned the monitor off, shuffled his papers back into some sort of order, and headed for the exit—only to stop when you heard the footsteps in the hall. The sound of the broken door handle being kicked mindlessly aside.

…Or he would come back for you now.

The door slammed open, and suddenly you were being thrown against the wall. You crashed into the nearest bookshelf and hit the back of your head against a vase, banging your hip painfully into a sharp ledge. Shards of glass and ceramic rained down on you. Your ears filled with white noise, your vision with black spots, and your senses with a vague scent you recognized too well. There was barely enough time for you to react. His fingers tightened around your throat to pin you in place, and his hand found your stomach.

The pain came a split second later, red hot and persistent, countless times worse than the throbbing in your head. He let go of you, and you sank to the ground.

“Trust me, ____, this isn’t personal.”

You groaned, reaching to pull the knife out of yourself, purely out of spite. Your blood spilled out onto your hands, and you heard Shotaro let out a sigh of disapproval as he crouched down next to you. You laughed at how stupid it all was; Shotaro had been turned when he was only a teenager, and he still had the softness of one, at least appearance-wise. His maroon eyes were wide with what almost looked like curiosity, his smile almost innocent, but there was the same confidence Yuta carried.

“Yuta said you’ve always been stubborn,” he said, pulling you off the ground. The pain stabbed through you, shot down your limbs and into your head. Without much of a choice, you let him drag you over to the chair. “But I didn’t think it would ever come to this.”

“And since when were you so fucking loyal to him?” you demanded. You were instantly met with a harsh slap to the face, but it was only cautionary. You still found the strength to roll your eyes. “I thought you said this wasn’t personal.”

“It isn’t. You just talk too much,” Shotaro scoffed as he tied your arms to the chair, tight enough to cut off your circulation. “Save it for him. Apparently the two of you have a lot to talk about.”

He fished his phone out of his pocket and dialled Yuta’s number.

You were already starting to feel lightheaded. There was a twitching discomfort where he’d stabbed you, indicative of the skin starting to mend, but you knew the wound was too deep for any of your regenerative abilities to be of use. Judging by the flask of blood Shotaro was carrying, you were at his mercy until Yuta returned. He wanted you alive until he came home. He wanted to kill you himself.

“She’s here,” Shotaro said coldly once the line had connected. He put the call on speaker and left his phone on the desk for you. It spluttered with a bit of white noise, and then the distorted sound of city traffic. A couple notes of a song playing on the radio.

“I’d like to believe that you have a good explanation for all of this, ____.”

Instinctively, you clenched your jaw. “I don’t.”

Yuta gave a tired sigh, and you imagined him leaning back in his seat, forcing himself to relax his grip on the steering wheel, trying to subdue his anger. When he spoke again, there was a strange edge to his voice: forced composure, forced calmness, like he was an incredibly angry school teacher disciplining a child. “Then do you have any explanation for it? It doesn’t have to be reasonable.”

“I said I don’t.”

“Shotaro.”

His fist met your cheek, with a force that had you seeing stars. It stung, more so than it had the first time, and you almost felt tears form when he did it again.

“This really doesn’t have to be so difficult, darling.”

“I’m just speeding up the process,” you hissed before Shotaro could strike you a third time. “You’ve gotten reckless, Yuta. You called Doyoung just to taunt him, killed Hajoon, and practically confessed everything to the detective. They’re going to catch you one of these days, probably tonight, and I’m not going down with you.”

The laugh that followed sent chills to every inch of your body. It was twisted; a horrible mix of arrogance and menace that sounded impossibly sinister, even for him. This was the truly monstrous side to him, one you never imagined you would see. “They’re going to catch me,” he repeated, with malice and venom, like he couldn’t even believe you would challenge him this way. “Oh darling, they can’t possibly catch a god now, can they?”

It was all so blatant, so conceited, and it sickened you. He was a whole other person now; you’d peeled back an exoskeleton to find a new and gruesome demon underneath.

“My goddess… that’s what I considered you. The two of us together, we could’ve done anything. We could’ve taken on the world if we wanted to.”

“You’re full of it,” you spat. “What did Sone do to you, again? Turn everyone you knew against you and send you running for your life, was it? You have nothing, Yuta. You’re nothing.”

“My love, I was so convinced you wouldn’t do this to me again. I thought we had a chance.”

“She’s dead, you fucker. You killed her.”

It was as if he didn’t even hear you. There was a short pause, a couple beats of the city pop track he was listening to, and then he was back. Like nothing ever happened. “Sit tight for me, darling. I have Doyoung and his detective friend to deal with, but I’ll be back with you as soon as I’m done.”

“What are you planning to do with them?” You blurted out without even realizing it, without even registering the strange feeling of trepidation that was starting to consume you.

“Don’t concern yourself with it. Just know that whatever happens… their blood is on your hands.”

The screen of the phone flashed. The line clicked. And he was gone.

You were already close to falling unconscious. Just a little longer, and maybe you would bleed out. Maybe Shotaro wouldn’t notice. Maybe you wouldn’t have to see Yuta again after all.

But of course, the gods were cruel, and they’d already decided otherwise. Shotaro uncapped the flask he had with him and raised it to your lips, forcing you to drink. You did so without much of a struggle, hesitantly at first, and then gratefully. It eased some of the pain and cleared the haze from your head, but you were still bleeding when he stopped. It would be a slow and torturous death—perhaps Yuta would show you mercy if you played along, but his idea of mercy likely meant sparing your life. Keeping you with him. Teaching and reteaching you what it meant to be loyal to him.

It wasn’t a thought you wanted to dwell on any longer, at least not until he came back. So you settled into your seat, tried to ignore how painful the restraints felt around your wrists, and waited. You’d always been one to let time flow as quickly as you possibly could, always so impatient with the years that passed by.

This time, you let the minutes tick by according to their own rhythm. You were content to enjoy what you had left.

“You ever wonder what happens when we die?”

It was sunny. Midday, just before noon, when the sunlight felt scorching hot against your skin and the rays bounced off even the dullest surfaces, reflecting glaring light into your eyes. When the bridge you were walking across always got loud and busy. The cars and bikes rushed past, drowning out Johnny’s words so you could only see his lips moving against the brilliant blue sky. Yet somehow, you knew what he was saying.

“No. Not really,” you shrugged and continued on your way, only slowing when he chased after you. He grabbed your hand, swinging by so he could walk a couple steps ahead of you. Backwards, so he could face you.

“Really?”

You scoffed. “What is it about death that scares you so much?”

He rolled his eyes. “Easy for you to say.” There was a thoughtful pause, and his steps slowed. “I’m not scared of what comes next. Heaven, hell, purgatory, paradise… whatever it is, it can’t be much different from what we’re already living through.”

“Then what is it?”

“I’m afraid people will forget me once I’m gone.” He frowned. “…Or they’ll remember me for all the wrong reasons. Maybe that would be worse than being forgotten.”

He slowed to a stop, as if seriously bothered by the implications of his own thoughts. Suddenly you were standing in the middle of the bridge, facing each other, holding hands. The breeze swept past, parting his hair—now black like it had been when you first met him. The gentle fragrance of spring danced through the air, meeting you with warmth when you breathed in deeply. You stumbled, flustered by what you saw in his eyes when he met your gaze: awe and admiration, like you were a goddess and he was a mere mortal in your presence.

“What do you mean, all the wrong reasons?” You blinked, trying to ignore the rush of blood you felt in your cheeks. “You’ve done nothing but good your entire life, Johnny. What wrong could people possibly remember you by?”

He laughed. “People misunderstand sometimes,” he said sadly. “There’s so much we don’t know about each other in life, so much that isn’t said in life, and so much that’s lost when we die. There’s much wrong people could remember us by, even if it weren’t true.”

“And who cares about what people think of you after you die?”

You took a step forwards, expecting him to step backwards in tandem so the two of you could continue walking, but he didn’t move. You collided straight into him instead, but you made no attempt to escape his arms when he embraced you. “Who cares about what you did in life if you yourself know that you lived it to your fullest?”

“You. I want you to care.”

The world slowed to a stop. The cars froze. The pedestrians disappeared from the sidewalk, and even the water below your feet froze like ice, stopped moving, stopped carrying all the boats forwards. You reached up and wiped away the single tear that’d formed along his lash line, smiling when you felt him let out a sigh of relief against you.

“You could do no wrong in my eyes, pretty boy. Nothing.”

The taste of blood in your mouth jostled you out of sleep. Someone shook your shoulder hurriedly, and a dull ache coursed through your entire body, setting all your nerves on fire. You coughed, spluttered, choked on air as it rushed into your lungs uninvited, and then sat bolt upright to find that your wrists had been untied. Instinctively, you stretched your arms out, intent on strangling the life out of them, whoever it was.

“Fuck!” Something went crashing, and you turned to see Hendery scrambling to pick up the flask you’d knocked over. “God damn it, ____! Calm your fucking tits for a second, It’s just me.”

“What’s happening?” You asked groggily, reaching to pull your shirt up a little bit. The stab wound had healed completely. “Where’s—“ You could barely bring yourself to say his name.

“Yuta’s been arrested.”

Relief. Disappointment. Contentment. Anger. You felt them all crash down on you one at a time, until it was an indecipherable mess of twitching, moving, melting parts. The promise of a thrill you’d once chased after, and the one person you’d grown to be afraid of—gone. You couldn’t be sure of what he was now, or which of the two he’d previously been.

“We should go,” Hendery said, pulling you out of your seat, and you nodded mindlessly. “Apparently Shotaro’s already flown back to Japan. A couple of the others are leaving now.”

“And you?” You asked half-heartedly. It seemed right to at least pretend you were concerned about the person who’d just saved you from bleeding out, but you soon realized how decently Hendery had treated you since you arrived at Laverna—consistently with eye rolls and snarky comments, but he wasn’t like Yuta. “Where are you headed?”

“Home, I guess,” he shrugged, and you realized you didn’t even know where that was. “Macau. To get some good fucking egg tarts and pineapple buns, and then I may as well fly myself into the sun. I’m wanted there too.”

You had to ask. “What did you do in Macau?”

“I spray painted a giant dick on the side of a national bank.”

In any other situation, you would have laughed. But now, you could manage nothing more than a mere twitch of your lips. Even he seemed tired, like it was an old story he’d told far too many times for it to be funny anymore; it all felt more painful than it did amusing… mostly because he was right. You had nowhere to go. You weren’t wanted in any other country—none that you were aware of, anyways—but it wasn’t like you had a home either. You’d always gone from place to place, found a coven somewhere, went through the long process of registering with a new government, then inevitably left when it all crumbled apart.

You were tired. So, so, incredibly tired. And you now knew that it would never end.

Hendery left a little later, when two vampires from Nyx pulled up to the mansion in a sleek convertible. You recognized them; they were the two who’d played into Yuta’s trap and helped frame Johnny, supposedly for fear of dying at the hands of their own coven leader. You watched them with some sense of bitterness, but it wasn’t contempt. They were only doing what they had to do. There was so much more, so much you didn’t even know.

“There’s much wrong people could remember us by, even if it weren’t true.”

They weren’t Johnny’s words anymore. They’d never been his to begin with. Just some figment of your imagination that had twisted your dreams and made you think he was still there with you.

The house was silent once everyone had left—the exact same way it’d been when you first arrived in 1987. From the rooftop, you watched as the cars circled down the winding road, watched as the headlights all disappeared into the city like stars going dim in the night sky. There was a vast expanse of indigo and shimmering black above your head, a boundless galaxy that seemed eager to collect and indulge in all of your thoughts the moment they escaped you. The sun sat balanced below the horizon like a golden ball dangling in the ocean, lighting the sky with nebulous orange lines without hurting you. The celestial bodies seemed to circle you in joyous song and dance, adorning your skin with their heavenly lights, beckoning for you to go play amongst them.

But you’d never felt so cold and alone.

xv. Applaud, my friends, the comedy is over.

July 2022

“Promise me you won’t get into any more trouble?”

“It was just a fist fight! And I even won, babe. Fair and square. The guy passed out after taking just one look at me. I mean, look at me—”

“What did I just say?”

“...Promise you I won’t get into any more trouble?”

“So?”

“Okay, okay. I promise. I’ll be home before you know it, and then you won’t have to worry about me again.”

The voices of the human couple sitting adjacent to you creaked out of the old handsets and through the divider boards, meeting your ears with an unpleasant edge. You couldn’t help but listen; you didn’t really have a choice, not while their laughter echoed loudly through the walls, and definitely not while the cubicle you were seated in front of was still empty.

You fidgeted nervously in your seat, trying to ignore all the glances people sent you when they passed by. You supposed vampire visitors were rather uncommon in human prisons. After all, most of the people here were in for petty crimes: thievery, drugs, maybe a couple of murders here and there. The man sitting in the next cubicle was in for multiple DUIs and a backpack of weed the police found in the trunk of his car. In a vampire prison, the other inmates would have devoured him alive. You’d visited one a couple days earlier—an experience you were still fighting to forget as you sat waiting for the next person to arrive.

Finally, you heard a gate buzz on the other side of the acrylic screen, signifying his arrival. You caught a glimpse of the guard leading him in, and then a blur of motion as he sat down. Hesitantly, you looked up.

He had hardly changed. His hair had grown out, the blond locks had faded into natural black roots, and he looked significantly skinnier, but he was the same as he had been since the last time you saw him. His eyes widened when he saw you, but only by a little bit, almost like he’d seen enough to not be fazed by anything else.

You picked up the handset, grimacing at the slimy texture of the metal and cursing whoever used it previously. On the other side, Johnny hesitantly mirrored the motion. For several long moments, it was silent.

“I thought you were dead.”

It was the same face, but a different voice: coldly apathetic, harsh in your ears, without a single trace of emotion.

“I am, to the police,” you shrugged. “Had to get away somehow, after Yuta left.”

He visibly flinched at the mention of his name, his brows furrowing with irritation. You didn’t miss the way his fingers tightened around the receiver, and the way his voice took on a sharper edge. It was as if he’d aged decades in the mere months he’d spent here. “I could report you, you know. They’re still searching for you Laverna freaks. Finally opening the entire can of worms and shit.”

You said nothing. Of course, that had already occurred to you. Security had done a double take when you showed them your ID. Several of your past coven members had been caught and charged with crimes too numerous to count. 0 Mile had been ransacked and searched, closed down permanently. You hadn’t heard from Hendery or Shotaro, but you assumed they were laying low until everything blew over—and that would mean for at least several decades. You would all be in hiding until your files got lost in the system, and until any authority who’d heard of your names disappeared.

“Why are you here, ____? What do you want from me this time?” Johnny stared at you lazily, like you were a waste of his time.

You resisted the urge to look away. “I wanted to see you.”

“Well, now you’ve seen me,” he retorted, then paused for a moment. A sarcastic smile split his face. “All of me. You let him see me too, you know.”

Your mouth felt dry. “I didn’t give him those photos.”

“I can’t believe I let you take them in the first place.” And perhaps just to remind you of what you’d done, maybe to add more fuel to fire, he tugged at the collar of his shirt, revealing one of the marks on his neck. You knew it was one you’d left. “No, why are you really here?”

The bridge. The specks in his eyes illuminated by the sun. His hand in yours as the breeze swept past. The smell of spring. If you were being honest, you hadn’t stopped thinking about that hallucination since it’d come to you months ago. You hadn’t stopped thinking about how you could possibly set him free.

“I’m here to help you.”

The words felt raw; you didn’t think you’d ever been so truthful with someone. It was so transparent, crystalline, so perfectly clear that you thought it would shatter—and shatter it did, blowing apart under the relentlessness of a cruel laugh from the other side. The guard stationed at the door stiffened. Even the heavily-tattooed and pierced inmate in the next seat seemed to falter.

“I don’t need your help. I never needed your help. You should’ve let me die if you were going to help put me in a cell in the end.”

You ignored him, now deciding that trying to defend yourself was futile. “Johnny, it’s not too late. You have time. If you give a statement, testify against Yuta, maybe—“

“Who threatened me when I was in custody? Who made me shut up when I was actually in a position to tell the police exactly what happened?” He put both arms up on the table crossly, leaning forwards and jutting his chin out to indicate his answer. “You did, ____. You and those stupid fucking lawyers Yuta sent. I was being questioned by the police every waking hour, and when they were done, those two bastards would grill me on staying silent until I passed out. And they said it. They said if I spoke, you would—“ His voice broke, his cold exterior now threatening to split open. “You would hurt me.”

“What? I never—“

“You did it once. And you would do it again.”

“I’m trying to help you,” you told him desperately, in some attempt to stop the guilt gnawing away at you. “Testify against him. Tell someone. I don’t have the connections we used to have, but I can help get you out of here.”

“Testifying against Yuta means testifying against you. I’d have to prove that you’re still alive. That you were working with him the whole time. And that’s not really something you want, is it?”

You froze.

“Of course it’s not,” Johnny scoffed, shaking his head in disbelief. “Apparently your freedom is just that much more important than mine, even when you’ve already had centuries of it. I’m here for the rest of my life, you know.”

“Please,” you whispered, hating the way your voice was so betraying of emotions you couldn’t even properly name. “I’ll figure something out. We can still do something about this. Just give me a chance.”

There was a tired sigh. “I gave you so many chances, but you never took a single one. You walked away from me.”

“Johnny—“

He looked up at you with pure, unadulterated hatred, his eyes glassy with the tears he was fighting to hold back. There was a sharp intake of breath from his end—and then your lungs were burning, your head was pounding, and the long-departed heartbeat trapped in your chest quickened in pace. But you knew there was really nothing there. You knew your rib cage was an empty shell for a muscle that hadn’t moved in centuries. You were a heartless, cold-blooded monster; and the pain Johnny wore on his face was more than enough to indicate that to you.

“Rot in hell,” he whispered, quivering so violently that a single tear escaped his eye—as it had in your dream. Only now, you couldn’t wipe it away for him. “I hope you rot in hell.”

Without a single doubt, you knew he meant it.

He got up and walked away. The guard opened the door and let him out of the room.

He was gone, and you didn’t think you would ever get another chance to get him back.

“You’re still chasing that high, aren’t you?”

Yuta’s voice echoed between the walls of your motel room, just as cold as you remembered it to be. Your phone lay nearby, playing the audio you’d secretly recorded when you went to see him—you still weren’t sure why you’d done it. A part of you had hoped he would say something you could use against him. Another part of you had wanted one last reminder of him. One last way to punish yourself.

“I can tell, darling. You look like an addict who hasn’t had her regular fix in weeks. Even while you’re out there, while I’m in here, we’re still rather similar, aren’t we? Never satisfied with what we’re given? Always left wanting more?”

You weren’t sure who he’d seen in you that day: yourself or Sone, or some twisted combination of both. There’d been both love and hatred in his yellow eyes, some sense of longing paralleling repulsion—it’d been back and forth between two extremes, until love and hatred became two opposite emotions of the same intensity, until his true feelings for you felt numb against your skin.

“Now, you’re looking for some new type of thrill… this time, it’s trying to save the human boy from prison. Trying to be the hero. Winning him back and proving me wrong. I know how you feel.

You know, when I found out about Hojin… about what he’d done to my Yurie… I too thought I was being the hero. I was avenging her. I made that sick bastard pay for what he’d done. I made sure he wouldn’t do the same thing to anyone else ever again, and I made sure that anyone who looked up to him fled with their tails tucked between their legs. You saw how Nyx rejoiced the moment they heard the news of his passing. At the time, he might not have been living with them, or even a close affiliate of theirs, but we saved that coven from a tyrannical madman.

But in the end, it wasn’t really heroic of us, was it? Granted, death was what he deserved… but he deserved it from someone who could deliver his punishment without bias. If I had something else on my mind, if it wasn’t truly for good, then it wasn’t heroic at all.

Allow me to give you a small piece of advice, ____. Give it up. It’s all so fleeting, and if you think that being a hero will be more exhilarating than everything you’ve taken pleasure in up until now, you’re terribly mistaken. You’ll be burdened. You’ll feel sick. All of those horrible emotions you left behind for your own good, you’ll feel them again. You’ll feel human again.

You could end it all, like so many vampires have done so in the past... but you’re also not that type of person. You’ll keep trying, you’ll always think that something worthwhile is coming and you’ll just torture yourself by waiting.”

All of those horrible emotions, you’d left them behind in the shrine, thinking it would keep you from hurting ever again. The ones you’d slowly forgotten as the centuries turned and turned. Even the vampire who’d saved you couldn’t have possibly brought them back.

You stared at the wall, studied the stains in the wallpaper and the cracks in the crown moulding, letting Yuta’s words echo through your head. And then it hit, all at once.

The plastic chandelier crashed down on you, the squeaky mattress gave in underneath you, and the cream-coloured walls crumbled inwards. The entire universe screamed in terrorizing unity, rattling your bones, rattling every inch of your being with realization. A needle drove straight into your heart, injecting you with new life, and then centuries of repressed emotions. Your insides swelled with the onslaught of information, expanding until everything broke straight through your bones and burst outwards. You bled all over the ground.

You wailed in agony, and the sound came back into your ears in the form of a monster’s scream. Your eyes burned.

Relief now that you could breathe again. Despair for everything you’d done, and all the people you’d left behind. Anger towards Yuta for evoking this sort of reaction from you, when he wasn’t even physically there with you. Contempt for yourself. For everything you were.

“In the end, eternity will be monotonous because you made it so.”

And dread for what would come next. You could no longer withstand such thoughts.

Yuta’s knife lay on the bedside table. You didn’t register your hand reaching for it until it was grasped tightly between your fingers. The morning light danced between the gems, ran down the hilt, and allowed for a horrific reflection in the blade. A single ray settled into the brass serpent's mouth, giving the surreal illusion that the beast had swallowed the sun.

And so your second life ended the exact same way it’d begun.

xvi. Greater things are pressing.

October 15, 2021: Johnny Seo arrested.

October 21, 2021: Nakamoto Yuta arrested.

October 23, 2021: Court order for police investigation of Laverna Coven, 0 Mile Nightclub and LTY Incorporation.

October 30, 2021: Investigations extended to Nyx Cult Coven and Lucetius Coven.

November 1, 2021: Suspension of Laverna Coven ordered by SK Bureau of Vampire Affairs.

In the past hour alone, Doyoung had read over his notes more than four times; the words swam around on the pages of his notebook, evading his eyes like insects, flashing red and blue under the siren lights of the police cruisers parked outside. It was just a bit after dawn; around this time, he would normally be at home—bless Taeil’s wonderful soul for giving the night shift this month—so the sunlight had him feeling a little faint, though noticeably more than usual. He could barely process any of the words he’d scribbled down the night before, let alone try to make sense of what had just happened.

Another murder, long after Yuta and Johnny had been sentenced. With a knife that so clearly belonged to Yuta’s coven. Of a woman he’d met two years ago at 0 Mile, while he was investigating Dejun’s death. He couldn’t seem to connect the dots.

“I knew this one.”

He looked up to see the captain come through the door. Taeil looked exhausted, almost haphazard, like he hadn’t slept well in a couple of days. Doyoung didn’t doubt it; the night shift was rather hard on all the humans in the division, and Taeil couldn’t sleep well during the day. Comes with age, he used to say, and would always wave everyone’s concerns and offerings of coffee away dismissively.

“My second case on the field,” he sighed, strolling into the room rather leisurely to take a look at the body. Police work did that to humans, Doyoung had noticed—in the captain, his new partner, and all the humans he’d worked with in past decades. Those who’d seen and examined enough bodies didn’t seem the least bit bothered by all the blood and gore. The jokes thrown around in the precinct always took a darker turn when he was least expecting it, and Hyunjin had nonchalantly explained that it was the only way they could cope with discovering half-dismantled bodies at the ass crack of dawn.

“Never actually met her, but…” He trailed off, pausing to accept a file from one of the forensic scientists. “1987. One of Seoul’s most notorious drug lords was found dead in his bathtub.”

“Han Jinhwan,” Doyoung supplied, grimacing when images of the underground came surging back to him. He’d spent months undercover back in the 50s, and each name he’d come across had been permanently etched into his memory.

“You’re familiar with him.”

He sighed. “Can’t say we were total strangers.”

Taeil gave a light chuckle. “Then you would understand how dangerous he was.” He flipped the file open, revealing the victim’s name and photo. A few past addresses, and some sort of reference letter from a bureau in England. “And yet, somehow she managed to take him down. Single-handedly, with only a knife and a bottle of wine. I spent months looking for her and finally cornered her in a hotel in Gangnam, only for Nakamoto to bribe my superior and whisk her away. I always hoped I could redeem myself after letting her escape the first time.”

“34 years. Barely anything for my kind but for you…”

“Half my career. And in the end, I wasn’t even the one who caught her.”

Doyoung frowned, and then glanced around. No sign of forced entry. Nothing on the cameras outside. Yuta’s fingerprints on the hilt of the knife. Some signs of struggle on the bed, a mess of personal belongings on the floor, and marks on her wrists… but they took on a distinct pattern. Self-inflicted.

“No one caught her,” he murmured in realization, suddenly remembering the brief conversation he’d had with her at the bar. How unbelievably bored and nonchalant she’d seemed even when he came close to being accusatory. A stark contrast to what lay around the room, and something he’d witnessed in the underground: madness. The abrupt turn of events, a sudden change in one’s entire being, and the end of their life afloat a sea of chaos. He’d seen this before—he’d come close to experiencing it himself. “This wasn’t a murder. She took her own life.”

Taeil said nothing, only nodded and gave him the file he was holding when he gestured for it. He flipped through the pages, located the printed call log. Two calls: one to either prison where Johnny and Yuta were being kept, likely to arrange visitation times.

Truth be told, Doyoung still had trouble believing that Johnny was a killer. The DNA evidence was there, all the witnesses had come forward, Johnny himself had confessed, but something about it all simply didn’t sit right with him. And now, there was a third player who’d stayed hidden until the very end. He looked down on her lifeless body: her eyes blown wide open with what he could only describe as insanity, one hand tight around the hilt of the knife, and the other around a small notebook he recognized from the Laverna investigations. The same one Yuta had left behind.

He searched her face for answers he knew he wouldn’t find. He could very well determine the true cause of her death, prove Johnny’s innocence or prove his guilt, piece together exactly what happened behind closed doors—but he would never understand why. Why they did it. Why it had to happen.

Because the last time he tried to fathom the heinous nature of all the vampires who turned their backs on what they once were, he fell victim to them. In a split second of weakness, he nearly became one of them. He nearly became the very thing he’d been hellbent on destroying. Retaining his humanity over the centuries hadn’t always been a choice; at times, as much as it pained him to admit it, it’d been luck.

Whatever had happened to you, whatever had twisted you so violently beyond deformation, he would never know. But as the dawn bled through the curtains, as night retreated and the world fell into the light of the rising sun, he wondered if you ever had a choice. If the universe had ever given you a chance.

FINIS

and there you have it :))

if you've made it this far, thank you so much for reading!! I know it was pretty lengthy and wayyyy heavier than my usual fics, but I hope you enjoyed it anyways. if you haven't already, you can read 'at dawn' here, and see how the sunshine killer's murder spree played out from doyoung and the detective's perspective; I'm still planning to write something about doyoung's undercover days as well as some spin offs for the other characters, so if you're interested you can check my dawn to dusk masterlist here.

comments and feedback would be greatly appreciated!! I did spend 6 months writing this shit but. whatever I guess 🙄🙄 the price of being a fic writer is losing sleep over vampires.

THANK YOU AGAIN <333

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