Chapter Text
Sanghyuk parked his car a block away from HQ. Not for any security reason, but rather because there was no space anywhere closer. He cut the engine and then scrubbed at his face, wondering how the night could only be just beginning when he already felt like climbing into bed and sleeping.
But sleep these last few nights was proving to be a restless experience.
He felt his mouth set into a grim line and then he stepped out of the car, the shock of cold air feeling a slap in the face. When he sighed, his breath came out in a visible puff, and he pulled his scarf up to cover the lower half of his face before tucking his hands into his coat pockets.
The townhouse HQ used as a cover was in sight when Sanghyuk heard a soft scuffle to his right, and then he was being touched on his upper arm, and he yelped and jumped, but it was just Sungjae looping his arm through Sanghyuk’s. Sungjae didn’t let Sanghyuk jump far, and smirked up at him when Sanghyuk swore.
“You’re the worst,” Sanghyuk said, and Sungjae just leaned against him.
“You looked cold,” he said sweetly. He peered up at Sanghyuk’s face, leaning in. “And now that I am close I can see you look like shit as well. Cold shit.”
Sanghyuk put his hand on Sungjae’s face and shoved him away. “I’m tired.”
“And mean,” Sungjae whined. He’d stumbled back but caught up to Sanghyuk again with ease, and the two of them went up the stairs into the town house, then through to door of the coat closet and down into HQ.
“Are you patrolling tonight?” Sanghyuk asked.
“Yeah, with Ilhoon,” Sungjae said.
“Where’s Hyunsik?”
“Home,” Sungjae said, frowning for the first time. “He’s called out since the incident a few nights ago.”
Sanghyuk’s stomach swooped with worry and guilt. “Is he okay?”
“Yeah,” Sungjae replied, “just out of sorts, I think—”
He cut off when they walked into the main office floor with all the desks, and found it uncommonly crowded. “Whoa,” Sanghyuk said, stopping.
“Sungjae! Sanghyuk!” Ilhoon called from his desk across the room. He beckoned them over, and it took them a few moments of weaving through chairs and desks and chatting people to get to his side.
“What’s going on?” Sanghyuk asked. Sungjae was staring around owlishly. “Why hasn’t anyone gone out for their shifts?”
“Kris has called a meeting, no one knows what’s going on,” Ilhoon said, giving a one shouldered shrug. “Something happened last night, apparently, but I don’t know what.”
Last night. Last night was when Sanghyuk and Jaehwan had said their goodbyes. Surely Jaehwan hadn’t done anything foolish, surely, surely, he’dpromised—
“There he is,” Sungjae said, and Sanghyuk turned to see Kris coming through the door, looking more severe than usual. A hush fell over everyone in the room as they all turned to look at him, waiting for him to speak.
“I’m sorry to have delayed all your shifts, but something has happened that you all need to be informed about,” Kris said, loudly so he could be heard throughout the room. The last of the whispering died off as he spoke. “They’re keeping this out of the papers to avoid potential panic, but last night a VCF officer was attacked and killed by what we are assuming right now to be a vampire, as the cause of death was draining.”
Sanghyuk frowned. That wasn’t something necessarily noteworthy. It did happen, sometimes. All it meant for them was there was a vampire sharp enough out there to get the drop on a VCF officer.
“Just the one?” Eunkwang was asking. “Where was his partner?”
“He didn’t have one, because he wasn’t on foot patrol, he was in a car when it happened,” Kris said grimly, and it all made sense to Sanghyuk then. Everyone around him, too, seemed to realize the weight of that at the same time. Vehicles all had warding on them, as was the law, and the average citizen’s minivan wouldn’t have potent enough spellwork to deter a truly determined supe, but VCF patrol cars did. Or should.
“What happened, exactly?” This was spoken softly, and from Yixing.
“They’re not entirely sure. It looks like the officer was doing his patrol and the vamp smashed through his window and dragged him out,” Kris said.
“That sounds personal,” Sanghyuk said. “Was he high ranking?”
Kris shook his head. “No. But it is possible it was a personal attack, the officer had a kill record, though it was short. We cannot be sure though, and I don’t think I have to tell you all how worrisome this is if it wasn’t a personal attack. This wasn’t a civilian killed for blood, this was a very deliberate— all I can call it is a hit.”
“Could a nest have just moved in and is establishing its territory?” Ilhoon said.
“Again, it is possible, but you know as well as I that we’ve not seen any indication of that sort of activity.” Kris was looking carefully from face to face. “It is possible this was a one time incident, but it is also possible it was not. It might be a vampire going after vampire hunters. Since it is not something that the public will be hearing about I wanted to inform you, and stress vigilance. I know that on patrol it can be easy to slip into a more lax attitude, but when dealing with this sort of vamp, that can very quickly mean death.”
Sanghyuk got chills and beside him Sungjae looked unusually somber. Ilhoon was worrying one of his lip piercings between his teeth.
When Kris spoke again it was softer. “I’ll let you go out on your shifts now, but again: please be careful and watch one another’s backs.” He turned to leave, and was followed by a few people who presumably had more questions for him.
Sanghyuk exhaled shakily and rubbed at the goosebumps on his arms. Sungjae was looking at him with his pretty, dark eyes. “Sanghyuk,” he said softly. “Can you team up with us at least for a time? Between this and that thing that was running around killing vamps, I— you shouldn’t be patrolling solo.”
Ilhoon looked away and Sanghyuk got that sick, twisty feeling in his stomach, the one that always settled there when he had to lie to his friends. “I don’t think it would make much difference,” Sanghyuk said, gently curling his hand around Sungjae’s upper arm. “A vamp that managed to break into a VCF officer’s car— well, I think if it wanted to kill me, it’d find a way, even if you were there.”
Sungjae’s face twisted. “I guess.”
Ilhoon moved, stepping beyond them. “I need water,” he mumbled, and then shot Sanghyuk a speaking glance.
Sanghyuk sighed, so Ilhoon would know he’d understood, before turning to Sungjae. “I promise I’ll be careful,” he said gently, and Sungjae looked away. “I can’t promise more than that. You know what this job is. You know what we signed up for.” He was saying the words but they rang hollow even to his own ears. Sanghyuk was beginning to realize that maybe he hadn’t signed up for exactly what he was getting.
“Yeah, it’s just— you’re doing it so much more dangerously than the rest of us,” Sungjae said softly. “I know I don’t have to tell you how upset I’d be if— if anything happened to you.”
Sanghyuk found a lump rising in his throat. He’d known his death would cut Jaehwan deeply, but he hadn’t really realized the ripples it would make amongst his other friends. He wasn’t going to be there to see the aftermath, after all. But the look in Sungjae’s eyes right then was giving Sanghyuk glimpses he didn’t want to face.
“I know,” Sanghyuk murmured. He gave Sungjae a weak smile. “I need to go; I have been summoned to the water cooler by his majesty Ilhoon.”
That made Sungjae chuckle a little. “Yeah, go, before he gets cranky.”
Sanghyuk followed Ilhoon’s path to the corner of the room. Ilhoon was leaned up against the water cooler, his arms crossed over his chest. “You’re not subtle,” Sanghyuk murmured, grabbing a paper cup to get himself a drink. He flicked a glance over his shoulder to make sure no one else was in hearing distance before filling his cup with icy water.
“Sanghyuk,” Ilhoon said, soft but intent, “this wasn’t Jaehwan right?”
Sanghyuk straightened, looking down into the little bit of water he’d retrieved. “I can’t say for certain, obviously, but— I am almost a hundred percent sure it wasn’t him,” he said. “He has no reason and he isn’t the— the sort to go after hunters.” He looked up to see Ilhoon raising his eyebrows and he amended, “Well, except for you, apparently. But you’re connected to me; the VCF officer was not.”
Ilhoon grunted. “You still owe me an explanation for that, at some point,” he said, adding in a hard voice, “some point soon.”
Sanghyuk almost quivered in his boots, but opted to take a sip of his water instead, to calm his nerves. He felt a bit jittery, mostly from this new information they had. At least it wasn’t Jaehwan. At least that part of Sanghyuk was safe.
Ilhoon seemed to pick up on his unease. “You don’t seem well, Sanghyuk,” he said. “You didn’t look good even when you first walked in, but now— you’re allowed to call off, you know.”
Sanghyuk shook his head. “I don’t want to be alone with my thoughts right now,” he whispered. “I’ve been— having trouble, lately. With all the things running through my head.”
“Because of my prediction?” Ilhoon asked, almost too soft to be heard. “I’m sorry, Sanghyuk.”
It wasn’t just the prediction, but that was part of it. Sanghyuk was afraid, beginning to feel the ticking of the clock, but it was more than that. He dreaded it because he knew it could cause Jaehwan intense agony, and he didn’t know why he cared so much. Or rather, he was worried he did know, and he just couldn’t face it. He was so frightened, on so many fronts.
Ilhoon was looking at him, so Sanghyuk shook his head again. “It’s not your fault,” he said, biting his bottom lip for a moment before he had the courage to ask, “Ilhoon is this— is this the vampire that kills me?”
For a moment, a short flicker, Ilhoon looked incredibly sad. “I don’t know, Sanghyuk,” he said. “I don’t know.”
——
Jaehwan woke late. He wasn’t sure how he knew this, but when he opened his eyes he could sense the sun had been down for quite some time.
For a long while, he just layed there, staring up at his ceiling. He needed to shower, to dress, but working up the energy for that was another matter entirely. But he also knew he could not spend the next few weeks, months, moping. Sanghyuk wasn’t going to come help him to his feet again this time.
Jaehwan felt his lip tremble, and he closed his eyes, breathed deeply. He was not going to cry again, he wasn’t, and after a few moments of clenching his hands in the comforter, he managed to fight the urge off.
He rolled out of the bed, striding swiftly to the bathroom. His face felt stiff from the blood that had dried there over the course of the day, and he still didn’t have it in him to shower, so instead he turned the tap on and simply splashed warm water over his face. The blood dissolved, smearing over his hands before running down the drain. Once the water was clear again, the rusty red all gone from Jaehwan’s face, he used the excess water on his hands to slick his hair back, put it back in some semblance of order.
The finished product still looked— broken, worn. But even when he worked to put all his pieces back into place, he still looked that way, it bled through the cracks. So it did not truly matter.
He left the bathroom, left his room altogether, going in search of his children. They were still in, he could sense them about.
The marble was cold, but his feet were too, and this sweatpants dragged softly against the stone as he walked. He passed Wonshik and Hongbin’s room, as the door was fully ajar, showing it was empty. Again, he wondered what time it was. They might be in the kitchen, or if it was even later than he thought—
“Wonshik?” Jaehwan called as he approached the library. The door was cracked, but only a little.
“He’s in the kitchen, I think,” Hongbin called back, and Jaehwan steeled himself before he pushed the door open. Hongbin was also barefoot, and lounging fully on the library’s couch. He looked up from the book he’d been reading to blink at Jaehwan.
“I was looking for either of you, but it was actually you I wanted to speak with,” Jaehwan said, suddenly feeling— shy, of all things. Shy and small and weak.
Had Hongbin gawked or asked questions Jaehwan might have backed out, but as it was he closed the book he’d been reading, set it aside, and then tucked his legs in to make room for Jaehwan to sit beside him. Jaehwan was so full of nervous energy he’d rather have stayed standing, but he made himself perch in the empty space on the couch.
When it became evident Hongbin wasn’t going to speak, Jaehwan was at a loss of how to lead into this. “I—” he began abruptly, before stopping. “Wonshik probably told you, about what I said last night.”
“He did,” Hongbin said, eyeing him warily.
Jaehwan swallowed, a little ashamed of how Hongbin seemed like he was worried Jaehwan would lash at him. It was understandable, given Jaehwan’s behavior over the last few months. “It’s alright,” he said tiredly. “I know you two have no secrets, and I’m glad I do not have to explain again.”
“I’m sorry, Jaehwan,” Hongbin murmured. “I know— Wonshik said you were going to start talking to us, so, I mean— I can listen, if you need me to.”
“I wasn’t sure if either of you would want to deal with it, but especially you,” Jaehwan said, looking down at his hands, clasped in his lap. “You— I’m sorry, Hongbin. For what I did to you a few months ago. For threatening you. You were trying to help and you— you were right, in the end, had I spoken to Sanghyuk sooner some of this might have been salvaged. But as it is, Sanghyuk cannot be around me anymore, and I cannot blame him for it.”
“I think you both are wounded, and need time to heal away from one another,” Hongbin said softly. He tilted his head to the side. “You— you frightened me, back then, you know, but in the end you’re— you’re not—” His face twisted in frustration. “You’re not truly malicious, you’re not the utter bastard I think you were trying to seem to be.”
“Am I not?” Jaehwan whispered.
“No, you’re not. Jaehwan, you— you’re changing, I can see it happening, you’re becoming something better. The fact that you are sitting here apologizing and asking for help proves that,” Hongbin said, and Jaehwan blinked away the tears that were threatening to form, thinking he didn’t deserve such kindness, but grateful beyond words for it. “And I want to help if I can, help you get better. You said something, last night, about issues that needed to be resolved.”
Jaehwan swallowed thickly. “I don’t even know how to begin piecing through this anymore. Sanghyuk started the process, unravelling all my knots, and now they’re all— jumbled in ways I am unfamiliar with.”
Hongbin shifted, so he was sitting cross-legged on the couch, facing Jaehwan. “Well, I mean, what exactly were you talking to Sanghyuk about?”
Jaehwan recoiled a little. He hadn’t planned to talk about it now, he’d wanted to mentally prepare. “We’d— well, we started with—” he stuttered, finding it was harder to dredge the words up in front of Hongbin’s keen gaze, than it had been to speak of it with Sanghyuk. He’d already faced this once, and had begun coming to terms with it all, but it was still hard, he found, to drag it all into the light. “We started with my turning and— and the regrets around that.” Jaehwan looked away.
There was a strange note in Hongbin’s voice when he next spoke. “You regret turning?”
Jaehwan took a steadying breath. “Yes,” he whispered, barely audible. “And many other things.”
He chanced a glance at Hongbin, who had an expression on his face Jaehwan couldn’t define. It looked calculating, almost, but not as cold. “Jaehwan,” Hongbin said, “how old were you when you turned?”
“I was— twenty-one? Twenty-two? Twenty-two,” he murmured, thinking back. “My birthday was in spring, and I was turned in summer.”
“I was turned in winter,” Hongbin said, eyes unwavering, and it make Jaehwan’s breath catch a little. They never spoke of Hongbin’s turning— at least, he never spoke of it with Jaehwan. Belatedly, Jaehwan realized he should not, perhaps, be complaining to Hongbin about this particular subject.
“Hongbin— I’m—” Jaehwan said, but Hongbin shook his head, smiling a little.
“It’s alright, Jaehwan,” Hongbin said easily. “I have no regrets, my fate was snatched out of my hands. But yours wasn’t.”
“No,” Jaehwan agreed, “I made my own choices, my own mistakes.” He was glad Hongbin was so serene about the subject. It had always been a point of tension, with Taekwoon.
“Because you were very young,” Hongbin said, eyes travelling over Jaehwan’s face. “I always thought you looked like you’d been turned in your late teens, but I wasn’t sure if you just had a baby face.” Jaehwan huffed a little over that, and it made Hongbin smile. “Why did you turn, Jaehwan?”
Oh, this was where things began to get difficult. “You know I was a sorcerer,” Jaehwan said, and Hongbin nodded. “Well, I’d been working on—”
He cut off, head snapping to look to the door, which had begun to swing inwards. Wonshik was standing in the doorway, holding several blood bags and having frozen when he saw Jaehwan. “Oh,” he said, looking from Jaehwan to Hongbin and back again. “I— sorry, I didn’t know you were up. I was just bringing Hongbin some blood.”
Hongbin gave a fondly exasperated sigh and motioned for Wonshik to come into the room. Wonshik stepped forward tentatively, handing Hongbin a blood bag when he reached out for one. Jaehwan took one too, which seemed to surprise and please Wonshik.
“I hope I didn’t interrupt,” Wonshik said, a bit shy, glancing at Jaehwan.
“You did,” Hongbin said cheerfully. “But it’s ok, I think you need to be here for this anyway.”
Jaehwan looked at Hongbin in betrayal. Hongbin pointedly ignored him.
Wonshik, though, looked curious, and he sat down on the edge of the coffee table, facing them. “What were you talking about?”
“Jaehwan was telling me about the circumstances around his turning. He said he was turned when he was twenty-two, in the summer, and that he has since regretted the decision,” Hongbin said breezily, and Jaehwan sucked on his straw moodily.
Wonshik’s eyes were wide when he looked to Jaehwan. “You regret being turned?” he asked, then frowned, “or being turned when you were twenty-two? Or in the summer?”
Hongbin unfolded his legs simply for the purpose to lightly kicking Wonshik’s knee. “He regrets being turned, dumbass,” Hongbin said, and Wonshik stuck the tip of his tongue out at him, brow furrowed.
“Why?” Wonshik asked, looking up at Jaehwan from his perch on the table.
Jaehwan’s eyes flickered to Hongbin for a moment. “I’d been a sorcerer,” Jaehwan said, starting again, able to find his words a bit easier, this time around.
As he spoke, recounting what he’d already told Sanghyuk, Wonshik poked into a blood bag for himself, and Hongbin settled back into the cushions to listen. Having them as an audience wasn’t the same as talking to Sanghyuk, lacked that heart-wrenching intimacy, but it still gave Jaehwan comfort, to share himself with them.
Maybe there was something to this after all.
——
The sun was shining brightly, the sky a vibrant, clear blue, and it was rather incongruous with how cold the air was. Sanghyuk’s breath puffed out in a visible cloud when he breathed.
He hadn’t been out in the daylight hours in a long while, especially not with the present company, but it felt good, felt safe, sitting on a park bench in the frosty light.
Ilhoon looked like shit in direct sunlight, though a lot of that was probably just because it highlighted the dark circles under his eyes. Sanghyuk knew he probably didn’t look much better. As Sanghyuk watched, Ilhoon took a sip of his americano and then made a face.
“I told you to get the hot cocoa,” Sanghyuk murmured, his own hands wrapped around a paper cup of just that.
Ilhoon sniffed, huddling down into his scarf. “Yeah, well, it’s warm on my hands if nothing else.” He slid Sanghyuk a side glance. “You need to stop stalling.”
Sanghyuk swallowed, looking away, across the park. There were still kids here and there, playing, bundled up in puffy coats. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I told you: owe me an explanation,” Ilhoon said. “Like, from the beginning. Everything you’ve been keeping quiet. I didn’t want to pry before, but after what happened three nights ago, it is officially my business.”
Sanghyuk pursed his lips. “And I told you, it won’t happen again. I spoke to him about it.” He chanced a glance at Ilhoon, who was just staring at him expectantly, one eyebrow cocked in demand. “Ilhoon, I genuinely think you already know all the main points.”
“I don’t know why you didn’t walk away before he went crazy over you,” Ilhoon said, “or why you’re still hanging around him, to be honest. Like, I get it, he’s a hot vampire and the sex is probably astronomical, but Sanghyuk, it can’t be that good.”
Sanghyuk felt his cheeks turning red, and wondered if he blushed hard enough, if steam would come off his face. “We haven’t had sex in a long time, actually.” He paused. “We actually haven’t— touched, really, in a long time either.” They hadn’t touched since the last time they’d had sex, which was months and months ago. The one exception had been— when Sanghyuk had let Jaehwan feed on him after his breakdown.
Ilhoon’s expression turned downright quizzical. “So then— I know you were fuck buddies, but without the buddies part. And then if you take away the fuck part too you’re not left with anything. Did you put a stop to it and he just— kept coming around because he’s obsessed? Because, you know, Sanghyuk, need I remind you that you’re a hunter and have a lot of pointy silver objects.”
“I thought about it a few times, to be honest,” Sanghyuk said, a bit wretched. “But no, not exactly. He— he’s kind of a fixture in my life due to circumstance.”
“I swear to god, if you keep being vague, I am going to pour this shitty coffee on your head.”
Sanghyuk sighed heavily. “He’s Wonshik’s maker,” he murmured, and he could almost see the light bulb switch on over Ilhoon’s head.
“Oh,” Ilhoon said lamely. “So that’s— how you met him?”
Sanghyuk looked away. “Yeah.”
There was quiet between them for a moment, and Sanghyuk spent it listening to the wind whispering softly, the far away sounds of two boys playing soccer on the other side of the hill.
Finally Ilhoon said, “I always kind of assumed you met him on a hunt, or something.”
No, that is how Hakyeon and Taekwoon met, Sanghyuk thought, but didn’t say.
“When he touched me, my wards didn’t affect him at all,” Ilhoon was continuing.
“Because he’s an Elimia,” Sanghyuk murmured, and Ilhoon nodded shortly. “Mine don’t work on him either.”
“You’ve tried to use them on him?”
Sanghyuk smiled a little to himself. “It’s more like sometimes it just— happens. You know they’re not fully controllable. And it was especially bad in the beginning. It was— hard, being around a vampire as old as him at the start. It took adjusting to.”
Ilhoon was staring at him, seeming content to let Sanghyuk talk, and Sanghyuk sighed shakily.
“When we first met— I was more concerned with Wonshik. I couldn’t understand Jaehwan, it’s been so long since he was human that his nuances at the beginning were hard for me to read. Eventually he expressed his interest in me in such a way that even I couldn’t misinterpret.” Sanghyuk found himself blushing, which was silly, especially in the current company.
“And so you decided what the hell, I’ll fuck a vampire?” Ilhoon asked, like this was a reasonable thing to just up and decide to do.
Sanghyuk slid him a look. “No. I was fucking terrified of him at the go, and— caught up in the immoral aspects of it all,” he muttered, and Ilhoon sighed heavily, like Sanghyuk not wanting to sleep with a vampire because it was wrong and probably unnatural was a ridiculous protest to have. “Don’t you start, I know you’d fuck the devil himself without a second thought, but this was— me, and I was especially green then.”
“You were such a cute little virgin,” Ilhoon said wistfully. “Who knew vampires were into that.”
Sanghyuk opted not to comment on that. “He wore me down eventually, obviously. And no, before you ask, he didn’t glamour me. Jaehwan’s— he’s charming when he wants to be, and there’s something about him that’s just very compelling,” Sanghyuk murmured. “I liked him, but I— even then I knew, or thought I knew, that he could never love me, that if I grew to care for him he would tear me apart emotionally. He was just— that sort of person. Fun to fuck and spar verbally with, full of sharp wit and intelligence— but he was derisive of softer emotions.”
“Ah,” Ilhoon said delicately. “I’d expect such an attitude, from a vampire so old.” Sanghyuk didn’t say anything about that, because while Jaehwan’s personality and views were expected, especially given everything Sanghyuk had learned of him of late, Taekwoon was a polar opposite and even older than Jaehwan. But he could not tell Ilhoon of that. “How did you get from there to here? From fuck buddies to—”
“To Jaehwan being obsessively in love?” Sanghyuk finished grimly. “I honestly have no fucking clue Ilhoon. I— didn’t even know it was happening. He was so— frightened and abhorrent of the fact that he was falling for me that he hid it and decided acting like he was indifferent to me, at best, was the solution. I think his philosophy was fake it until you make it. If he pretended he wasn’t in love it would make it true.”
“And in the meanwhile you— you actually weren’t in love, and acted accordingly.” Ilhoon paused then said a little sheepishly, “Fucking your way through all the good clubs in the city.”
“Yeah,” Sanghyuk sighed. “He was so possessive, angry about it, I told you about it at the time and it just seemed like he was being a controlling bastard but in retrospect it makes sense if— if he was in love.”
Ilhoon gave him a sharp look. “It doesn’t excuse the things he said to you, the way he treated you. It’s his own damn fault you didn’t know.”
“I know,” Sanghyuk said. “I know, and I told him as much after he confessed to me. Him being in love with me makes it all make sense, but it doesn’t make any of it okay. It doesn’t make the hurt he inflicted on me okay. I was vulnerable to the abuse he spat at me, because even though I was never in love— I got close, Ilhoon.” Sanghyuk was horrified to find his voice cracked as he said it.
“You said that before,” Ilhoon murmured. “But, Sanghyuk, are you sure you just got close?”
Sanghyuk’s fingers tightened on the paper cup in his hands, and he had to check himself before he accidentally crushed it. “No,” he whispered, “I’m not sure.” He looked despairingly at Ilhoon. “I don’t think I fell. But I think I cared. I think I cared enough that it’s— it’s why I could never fall for someone else. Even at the end, when he was falling apart because we were falling apart, and it all went so bad, it wasn’t enough to make it go away.” He bit his bottom lip harshly for a moment. “After a time I sort of began to— not forget, I can’t forget him, can’t forget how he made me feel, but at least distance myself enough that it was okay that we’d fallen apart, were over. But then he— he—”
“He?” Ilhoon prompted gently.
“He confessed,” Sanghyuk whispered. “And it’s like you said, him being in love with me doesn’t excuse his words or actions, like he seemed to think it would, but it gave me the reason I had been so desperately craving. A reason for the cruelty, for the pain. I understood he’d acted as he did because he was afraid and stupid, so stupid, three hundred years of repression and stupidity. And I knew coming clean as he did was like cutting himself open.” Sanghyuk, with effort, met Ilhoon’s eyes, and he found them as level and intense as always. “I— it got to me,” Sanghyuk admitted. “In the moment I was still angry at him, and hurt, and wanted to be done with him, but I knew deep down that it was more than that. I needed to stay away, because I didn’t love him, I didn’t, but I could, and if he was in love with me and tried to seduce me again I—”
“You’d be in trouble,” Ilhoon finished. “When did this happen?”
“It happened the night after I first told you my lover was a vampire,” Sanghyuk murmured. “I went to see Kyungsoo — my sorcerer — and found out Jaehwan had been following me again—” At Ilhoon’s quizzical look, Sanghyuk added, “Jaehwan is prone to that. I thought it was a possessive thing, but he told me he was trying to keep me safe. He— when I split from Sungjae and went solo he had a hard time with it. I realize now, why.” He swallowed thickly, taking a sip of his now cool cocoa. “I went to confront him about it, and he finally broke.”
“And you— what? That was a month ago now, you’ve been hanging around him since?”
Sanghyuk shook his head. “I told him I didn’t love him back, that him loving me couldn’t— fix this. That it didn’t fix him, in the end. And I told him to stop following me around, and then I left.” He sighed. “And for a few days I had peace. But then— then Wonshik came by, said Jaehwan had been crying for days and wouldn’t say why. This was a problem simply because vampires cry blood, you see, and Jaehwan also was refusing to feed.”
“That’s... an interesting fact, and one I did not know,” Ilhoon said, far too mildly.
“He couldn’t die from not feeding, but he could descend into bloodlust, and the idea of Jaehwan loose on the city and out of his mind was— concerning, to say the least,” Sanghyuk said, mouth twisting. “They couldn’t persuade him with words or force to eat, so Wonshik— he asked if I wouldn’t talk to him, try and convince him to feed.”
“A hunter convincing a vampire to feed, how ironic,” Ilhoon said a bit dryly, and Sanghyuk didn’t need to be reminded.
“I sort of— I have been, repeatedly, underestimating the depths of Jaehwan’s feelings for me. He was in a bad way, when I went to see him. I— I let him feed on me.” At Ilhoon’s incredulous look, he added, “I know I’m a bleeding heart, you don’t need to say it.”
Ilhoon opted to not say anything in reply to that, just simply shook his head a little, finally looking away, out over the park, towards the lake. Sanghyuk looked too, at the water glinting in the bright sunlight, trying to calm down. He found himself feeling shaky and, oddly, sad.
“So what is happening now then, Sanghyuk?” Ilhoon asked softly. “You seem very unsettled.”
Sanghyuk’s hands were cold. “I convinced him he needed to eat, but— he’d spent the last three centuries with his head in the sand, burying so much deep inside of him and it was rotting away at his foundations. He told me he understood that he needed to function, but he just— couldn’t. He didn’t know how to deal with everything. So I told him I’d help him. He— he lost a lot, when he turned, has lost a lot since then. He needed to work through it all, face it, and he was too frightened to do it on his own, and— and I knew I was the only one he could talk to. His— his feelings for me opened the door for that. In the interest of getting him back on his feet, and maybe helping him get over it all and becoming a semi-decent individual for Wonshik’s sake, I agreed to listen, to draw the poison out of him.”
Sanghyuk put his cup down on the bench beside him so he could hug himself. “I know it may sound stupid, but Jaehwan— this is something he’s clearly struggled with for a long time, he’s in a lot of pain, and now that he’s cracked open I can see it so clearly and it hurts. At the start of our relationship, there were moments where all the sharpness fell away and he was so engaging and almost sweet— and he’s like that, now, no longer trying to hold up a mask for me in the same way, laying himself bare. Underneath the razor edges he’s so soft, Ilhoon, soft and hurt and I want to touch him and hold him and I hate myself for it.”
“Has it occurred to you,” Ilhoon murmured, “that this could all be a ploy to get you to come back around?”
“It has,” Sanghyuk replied. He thought of Jaehwan curled up on his bed, face streaked with blood, of the way he’d looked at Sanghyuk, when he’d first come back to see him, eyes full of worship. He knew it was within Jaehwan to lie and manipulate, and he knew he’d do anything, anything, to get Sanghyuk to love him. But he knew that wasn’t what this was about. “It isn’t though.”
Ilhoon huffed. “How can you be sure? Especially because— it’s working, Sanghyuk.”
Sanghyuk’s fingertips dug into his own upper arms. “He ended it last night,” he whispered, and Ilhoon stilled. It wasn’t the same as a vampire’s stillness, but it was a good human mimicry. “We— I didn’t mean to tell him about your prediction, it slipped out, and he took it hard and— went after you for it. I was angry, but more than that, after thinking about it I realized I was also— cracking. Which I’m sure you can see.” Sanghyuk’s eyes stung and his throat felt thick. “I spent months distancing myself and getting over him and moving on and after a few weeks of him being wounded and gentle and needing me desperately I— I think I’m right back where I was at the beginning. Teetering on the edge of falling for him. And I’m frightened. I can’t— I can’t love him, he’s changing for the better, I can see it happening, but I just— I can’t trust him. So I told him I couldn’t be his pillar anymore, I couldn’t listen to him pour himself out anymore, that he should talk to Wonshik. I think he thinks it’s because I was mad at him, and I can’t tell him the truth. I don’t want to give him false hope.”
“That sounds like you ended it, not him.”
Sanghyuk shook his head. “I ended— that part. But I’m a fool still wanted to see him, spend time with him, as friends, as something. And he told me we couldn’t, that— that if we kept spending time together he’d inevitably hurt me again, as he always did. And he didn’t want that. So we said goodbye.” He gave Ilhoon a wan smile. “So, if the objective was to simply keep me around, I— I don’t think he would have broken it off. For my sake.” He paused. “The fact that he did so shows me how much he’s already changing.”
He expected Ilhoon to say something, but the other boy was curiously silent, staring hard at the horizon.
“And what about you, Sanghyuk?” Ilhoon finally said. “You listened to his pain, tried to help him heal, but what of your pain, of your closure? Because you haven’t got any. Your wounds are still raw.”
Sanghyuk pulled back, just a little. “What do you mean?”
“We spoke before of you imprinting on him—”
“Kyungsoo said that isn’t possible.”
“Maybe not magically, but what about simply emotionally, Sanghyuk? I watched you grow sharp and hard and cold, and you were so sweet and soft before. You definitely still have aspects of that, but— he changed you. He hurt you. You can’t deny it.”
Sanghyuk found himself shaking a little. “Because— I got too close, too close to falling in love, and—”
“Sanghyuk,” Ilhoon interrupted gently, “I think you were in love, even just a little. I think you offered yourself to him in little pieces, trying, extending kindness and softness that he destroyed because he was too afraid to accept it. And finally you were burned enough that you gave up and pulled back but— Sanghyuk, he still hurt you. He hurt you and all this time it’s just been about his pain, and how you can help him through it, but Sanghyuk, what about what he owes you?”
Sanghyuk stood, pacing away and then coming back. “What does he owe me, Ilhoon?” Sanghyuk asked harshly. “If I did love him— he loves me now. He’s given my feelings back tenfold.”
“No, he’s given you his. He still has pieces of you,” Ilhoon said calmly, still sitting. “Too many pieces.”
“And how am I supposed to get them back? How am I supposed to heal?” Sanghyuk said, verging on slight hysteria. “I’m going to die soon, I don’t havetime.”
“I can’t answer that, Sanghyuk,” Ilhoon said, looking away and popping the lid off his coffee cup. “What will give you closure? What do you want?”
I want those moments back, Sanghyuk thought. I want them back and untainted.
There’d been so much intimacy shared between them at times— taking baths together, lit by candlelight, the air smelling thickly of roses. Jaehwan showing off his collection of weird and wonderful artifacts, the shrunken heads and charmed necklaces. Them watching Pacific Rim together, Sanghyuk leaning back against Jaehwan’s chest, Jaehwan complaining loudly about tasteless it was. The heat of Jaehwan’s face when he had hidden it in Sanghyuk’s neck when Sanghyuk fucked him.
He gave Jaehwan so much, tried so hard, and it hadn’t been enough. He thought he hadn’t, thought he’d kept himself in check, but he was wrong. And it wasn’t love, it was never love, but it was something and it was accidental and he needed to deal with it. He just didn’t know how.
“I don’t know,” Sanghyuk said, and it was an echo of when Jaehwan had asked him the same question three nights ago.
Ilhoon gave him a speaking glance and poured his americano out over the bushes.
——
The man Jaehwan had pinned to the grimy wall of a rundown building felt nothing like Sanghyuk, tasted nothing like Sanghyuk. He was too short, too thin, smelled like the streets and tasted like black oil and smoke.
The man made no noise as Jaehwan drank deeply from his neck, too glamoured to resurface. He ran a bit warmer than Sanghyuk, who tended to feel cool to the touch, possibly from bad circulation, and fuck but Jaehwan wished he could stop comparing every human he fed from to Sanghyuk. But every time he couldn’t help but think back to a few weeks ago, to Sanghyuk letting Jaehwan nip at the inside of his arm, have a taste of him. At the time, it hadn’t fully sunk in that it would be the last time Jaehwan got to drink from him. He wished he’d savored it more at the time.
The flow of blood into Jaehwan’s mouth was growing sluggish as the heart slowed, and when it stopped Jaehwan pulled back. He didn’t need to get every drop, didn’t feel like working for it tonight. He let the body fall down to the ground and stepped away, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. His hand was shaking a little, and he tried to steady it.
It was still the middle of the night, the streets around him quiet and still, the sound of leaves skittering over the cement in the breeze was the only thing to break the quiet. He had ventured out to feed and hadn’t planned his night out much past that, and the silence felt like a physical weight. His eyes went to the corpse slumped over against the wall and he found himself again noting all the physical differences between it and Sanghyuk.
He couldn’t be alone tonight, he realised, as much as he would like to be. There were thoughts pervading his mind, like smoke, insidious and impossible to fight against. He needed a distraction, lest his mind go in circles thinking of Sanghyuk, wondering where he was, home and warm and safe, or out on the streets, the sweet susurration of blood under his skin a calling to creatures like Jaehwan. Creatures that would do to him what Jaehwan had just done to the man lying at his feet.
If Jaehwan did not stop himself, he’d be too tempted to seek Sanghyuk out, try in vain to watch over him. And he’d promised to stop that, and did not want to break that promise. So he headed home, quickly, like he was fleeing his own impulses.
When he stepped through the front door to his house, he found he was still trembling a bit. “Hongbin?” he called, “Wonshik?” He knew they were home, the wards informed him such. They’d not been going out as much lately; perhaps the winter chill killing off so much of the foliage was putting a dampener on Hongbin’s photography prospects. Whatever the reason, Jaehwan was glad of it, had begun taking solace in their presences, both apart and together. More and more of late they’d been spending time in different parts of the house, occupying themselves differently. They weren’t fighting, and it was odd, to Jaehwan, that they would choose to have space to themselves. It was probably healthy, although Jaehwan had very little basis for comparison.
“Here,” Hongbin replied, and Jaehwan went into the house proper and found him and Wonshik sitting side by side on the couch together in the living room. Hongbin’s legs were curled up so that he was almost leaning into Wonshik. The laptop that they shared was open on the coffee table and Jaehwan could hear a movie playing, a woman talking, the sounds of a car driving. They both looked up as Jaehwan wandered into the room, and Hongbin gave him a small smile.
“Were you hunting?” he asked, his voice pitched just loud enough to be heard over the movie but not enough to ruin the easy atmosphere. Wonshik shifted a little, moving in against Hongbin further.
“Yes,” Jaehwan said. He could still smell the scent of his victim’s smoke on his clothes, but instead of going to shower and change, he sat down on his usual chair, subconsciously mimicking Hongbin’s pose. Wonshik watched him for a couple of moments, looking like he wanted to say something, but when Jaehwan just sat there and listened to the movie they had been watching, he turned his attention back to the screen.
The movie had apparently been close to the end — or Jaehwan lost track of time as he sat there and listened to it — because before he knew it, there was the sound of the ending credit music, an instrumental track that sounded vaguely familiar. Perhaps it was simply that it sounded like every other movie soundtrack made nowadays.
Jaehwan glanced up and found Wonshik and Hongbin having a conversation entirely in silent eyebrow lifts and tiny jerks of their heads. Even in silent conversation, Jaehwan could tell they were talking of him. He wasn’t sure what made him say it, maybe the music filling the room, but something prompted him to open his mouth and say, “I used to play the piano.”
Wonshik and Hongbin’s heads snapped around to stare at him. Jaehwan pressed his lips together like he was holding back a smile but he wasn’t really in the mood for smiling. There was silence for a minute before Wonshik blurted out, “Wait, really?”
Hongbin smacked him on the upper arm.
Jaehwan did crack a smile at that. “Yes, really. Back before— well. A long time ago.”
“Before your maker died?” Hongbin asked. Jaehwan nodded, jerkily. “Did you like it?”
“Yes. It was something I was very good at. Singing, too.” His voice grew softer as he spoke.
“Did you learn after you’d been turned?” Wonshik asked curiously. The corners of Hongbin’s mouth quirked at that for some reason.
“No,” Jaehwan said, trying recall some childhood memories, very blurry and muffled to his mind now. “I started when I was quite young, perhaps five? I was a small child, at any rate. My parents thought it best to begin at a young age.”
“Oh,” Wonshik said, shoulders slumping a bit. “I’ve been thinking I should try to take up some kind of hobby. Hongbin has his photography, after all.”
“You didn’t have a hobby when living?” Jaehwan asked. “Just went through life listening to dreadful music and killing hapless vampires?”
Wonshik didn’t rise to the bait, shrugging. “I watched movies too,” he said. “Read books.”
“Never did laundry,” Hongbin added helpfully, and laughed when Wonshik glared at him. He bumped their shoulders together. “Whatever you decide to do will be better than what Hakyeon’s post-turning hobby has become.”
Jaehwan narrowed his eyes, wondering what nonsense his brother’s wife was getting up to now. “And what is that?”
“Obscene amounts of olympic grade sex,” Hongbin said, and his cackles were drowned out by both Jaehwan and Wonshik protesting.
“I don’t want to think about it,” Wonshik complained, and Jaehwan added, “And I am quite sure it is not olympic grade sex, to be sure.”
Hongbin’s laughter subsided into snickers. “But, truly, we’ve forever to live, we could do anything we wanted,” he said. “I always wanted to play guitar, I might pick that up some point soon.” He looked to Jaehwan. “Do you play guitar?”
“No,” Jaehwan said, stiffening a little. “Just piano.”
“I could pick that up too,” he mused. He seemed to note he was brushing against a nerve, but they’d discussed going out of Jaehwan’s comfort zone, pushing it, a little. “If you stopped playing after your maker died, does that mean there’s a piano in this house?”
“There is,” Jaehwan said, clipped, “but I would prefer it be left alone.”
“So you won’t play for us?” Wonshik asked.
“No,” Jaehwan replied, voice a little harder. Wonshik just shrugged and settled down. There was a long silence.
“Why did you stop, Jaehwan?” Hongbin asked suddenly. “You’d been playing since you were small.”
“I think I gave it up because I wanted to get as far from my human self as I could,” Jaehwan said softly. And then, before they could say anything else that cut too close to the bone for him, he said, “It was a rather feminine hobby for the time, but as I was the youngest child, my parents were content to be a bit lax with me.”
“That explains some things,” Wonshik said, and Jaehwan sent him a look that could peel paint off walls. That had been exactly what Sanghyuk said when he’d found out as well.
Hongbin was shifting, turning his body towards Jaehwan. “When exactly were you born, Jaehwan?”
That made Jaehwan grin, fangs sharpening just slightly. “Guess,” he said.
“Well you were turned at twenty-two and are somewhere around three hundred years old,” Hongbin muttered, mostly to himself, clearly thinking about it.
“Math was never my strong suit,” Wonshik said, glancing at Hongbin expectantly
“Somewhere in the early 1700s?” Hongbin said, then his eyes widened. “Oh, I never really thought about it before.”
“1689, if my memory serves,” Jaehwan murmured, taking pleasure in the looks on his children’s faces. “It was a very different time.”
Hongbin was fully scooting across the couch now, laying his hands on the arm of the couch so he could rest his chin upon them and stare avidly at Jaehwan. “Tell us.”
The brightest of Jaehwan’s human memories flashed through his mind. They all were fuzzy and muffled compared to the clarity of his vampire recollections, but if he truly sifted, he could unearth quite a few. “What do you want to know?”
“What do you remember?” Hongbin immediately shot back. Wonshik leaned forward and closed the laptop, which had fallen silent several minutes ago anyway.
What did Jaehwan remember. He remembered getting rapped over the knuckles with a wooden spoon by the cook his family employed, for he often snuck into the kitchen to steal sweet pastries hot out of the oven. He remembered the basset hound that followed on his heels as a child, grey around the muzzle for he’d been quite old already when Jaehwan was born. He remembered hiding under chairs and frightening the maids by grabbing at their ankles. He remembered early mornings, stealing across the grounds of his family’s estate to the neighboring peach orchard, getting chased out screaming and laughing by the grounds keepers, arms full of stolen fruit.
He remembered the first time he picked a rose bud and made it bloom beneath his fingers, magic tingling over his skin. And after that he remembered growing up with blood and soot on his hands, remembered the opium dens, the women there painted and pliant. He remembered running through the night, reckless and unafraid.
He remembered being on the cusp of death in a vampire’s arms, crying softly.
“I remember many things,” Jaehwan said, then his voice lowered. “I remember more than I realized.” Hongbin and Wonshik stared at him, waiting, expectant. Jaehwan felt himself smiling at the sight. “Would you believe I used to often get up before dawn to sneak out and steal peaches from my neighbor?”
“Easily,” Wonshik quipped, and Jaehwan laughed.
“I stopped when I was about eleven, for one day when I was fleeing capture I took a different route and slipped in a creek, slicing my head open,” he said ruefully, touching a spot above his right temple, just on his hairline. “The scar is far faded by now, but there was a dreadful amount of blood. The maids couldn’t get it out of my shirt.”
“Was this a shocking thing, or where you they used to it?” Hongbin asked, sounding like he already knew the answer.
“Oh, I was quite a scandalous little brat,” Jaehwan said laughingly. “And I grew up into a horribly obnoxious fop, to be quite honest. Perhaps had my parents reined me in, my life would have turned out differently. But as it was, I spent my human life flitting about as my whims took me, until they took me into death.” Jaehwan’s smile turned self-deprecating, thinking about the human he’d been right before turning, full of hope and promise.
He was surprised to find it didn’t bring him the pain it used to.
“Jaehwan?” Wonshik asked. “Are you okay?”
Jaehwan shook himself. “I think,” he said, “that perhaps, I am beginning to be.”
——
It was cold, but the sunlight was bright, almost too bright. Sanghyuk had his hands wrapped around a paper cup of cheap cocoa, steam coming off it in lazy swirls. The world seemed foggy around the edges with frost. Sanghyuk’s breath puffed out as be breathed, and his butt was cold against the bench. There was a feeling of deja vu plucking at him, but he couldn’t focus on it.
He turned to his company, sitting beside him on the bench, shoulders not quite brushing his. Jaehwan looked back at him, an americano cupped in his own hands. “Are you cold?” he asked. His eyes sparkled, reflecting the frost around them. “We can go back to my house.”
Darkness. Sanghyuk didn’t want to go back to the darkness yet. Jaehwan’s hair glinted so prettily in the winter sunlight.
“No, I want to stay here,” Sanghyuk said, and Jaehwan laughed richly, like he could read Sanghyuk’s thoughts. It made Sanghyuk’s face feel hot. “Do you like the winter, Jaehwan?”
Jaehwan had stopped laughing, but a smile still lingered on his face as he looked out over the park. They were alone, not even the sound of the lake there to disturb them. “I prefer spring,” he said softly, and there was something there, some secret, but Sanghyuk could not know it.
“I think spring suits you,” Sanghyuk murmured. When Jaehwan looked at him again, he was still smiling, but it was a bit sad now. “I wish we could go walking, in the spring. There’s flowers here.”
“You know I can’t,” Jaehwan whispered. And then he was gone, and Sanghyuk was sitting alone on the park bench, an icy breeze tugging at his hair.
He was shivering. Truly shivering. The knowledge of it unsettled him, and he came out of sleep slowly, lured out of slumber by the need to attend to something wrong.
Sometime in the night he’d flung his blankets off himself and onto the floor, and there was a draft radiating from the window. His toes felt icy, and he groggily reached over the side of his bed, gathering his blankets up and wrapping himself back in them.
The image of Jaehwan sitting in sunlight, pale skin smooth and unmarked, his lovely eyes glinting, was seared into Sanghyuk’s mind. He wished it could be a reality. Jaehwan was not meant to be stuck in darkness, kept in solitude. It was probably a big part of what had caused his sadness, along with everything else.
Sanghyuk swallowed. He wanted to go back to sleep and dream of it again. And yet he knew that was part of the problem. But he couldn’t seem to stop. He ached for closure, for reconciliation, for anything, at this point.
He ached for Jaehwan’s touch, and not in the way he used to.
There would be no more sleep tonight, Sanghyuk knew, but he burrowed further into his blankets anyway. He couldn’t go on like this. Ilhoon was right. They’d focused so much on sorting out Jaehwan’s injuries even though Sanghyuk had his own, and it had all been left to poison him too. And he was succumbing to it.
Something had to be done.