MC: I Can't Believe We're Stuck In This Room Together!

MC: I can't believe we're stuck in this room together!

Sylus, feeding the key to Mephisto: Truly unfortunate.

Fallen Star┃Jake Sim

Twenty - you're pretty when you're mine. warnings: smut and angst yipeee

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“What do you think?” you ask, foolish perturbation coloring the cadences of your voice. Your teeth sinking into your bottom lip with vigor the longer Jake’s silence stretches, the slower his teeth chew on the piece of dessert you had given to him with a glimmer in your eyes, a plead for his opinion.

“It’s good.” He answers shortly.

You release your lip into a pout, shoulders slumping down with disillusionment at the lack of buoyancy in his voice, yet the bags that seem almost permeant under his eyes, evidence of his everlasting fatigue that is pasted onto his features renders you mute. Aware that your pining for his approval is merely a desire to feed your hungry heart, woven with longing.

Jake’s eyes flit to your face then, taking note of the adorable disappointment awfully out of place on your face, it has his own heart softening, his fingers brushing across the skin of your arm with susurrates of your attention.

“I mean it. It’s really good bunny.” He reassures, attempting to demolish through your sulking. And you, with a heart as fragile as glass, one that is easy to peek through just as fast it trembles, only shake your head at him.

“You don’t look like you enjoyed it though.” You mumble, your pout enriching with the sway of your feet like a kid complaining how they didn’t get a taste of their favorite candy.

Jake’s smile disperses across his lips with fondness you don’t notice, his expression melting into endearment at the way you can never keep your words lodged into your heart for too long, your thoughts lingering at the tip of your tongue, yet he always manages to prompt them to spill.

“Have I ever lied to you?” he urges with a hum, titling his head at you in strives to catch your eyes and it works right away.

“No.” you shake your head.

“Then believe me this time too.” As if to make a point he takes another bite of the red velvet cupcake and this time it’s you who breaks into a smile tinged with fondness, like glass refracting light into a rainbow.

It’s directed at his kindness, at his attentive comfort towards you despite the heavy burden of simply existing weighing him down. You don’t get enough time for gratitude to unravel through your words because in a moment of your eyes falling into each other, a brush of his fingers in between the slots of yours, Sunghoon is standing between you two, a look of horrified disgust dancing between you two.

“Can you two not in flirt in the middle of work?” he comments with a roll of his eyes, one that has the tips of your ears tinting pink.

“We’re not flirting.” You defend weakly, your own words holding little to no conviction even to your own ears as you bunglingly retract your hand.

“Alright,” Sunghoon raises his eyebrow at you, tone dripping with irony “Can you shoo? I still need to dress Jake for his photoshoot.” He trails off, your eyes fliting to the couple pieces of garment he’s holding in his arms “Some of us need to actually work you know.”

“Hey!” you deliver a light slap to his shoulder “I work really hard! Tell him Jake” you turn your head to Jake with a pout of offense clambering over your face.

“I don’t know to me it looks like you’re slacking off right now.” Jake says, a sly grin is thrown at you and your mouth falls open with an overemphasized shock.

“Wow you’re really gonna betray me like that?”

“mhm. Are you gonna cry about it, little bunny?”

“As if! Give me back my cupcake” you attempt to snatch the half-eaten cupcake out of his grasp, leaning your body over the chair he’s sitting down in and yet it’s all deemed a failure when Jake stretches his arm out and away from you, a teasing smirk dispersing across his lips, eyes gleaming with mischief as your chest brushes against his shoulders.

“Jake!” you whine with facetious annoyance “Give it back! You’re not worth my treats”

“I don’t think so.” He mocks, watching with satisfaction etched onto his face at your futile tries.

You don’t get to register his other arm sneaking around your waist with a firm grip, ensuring you don’t end up stumbling onto your feet and falling over with the way you’re leaning over him. It’s such a saccharine gesture, one that comes as silently as a fluttering breeze sighing through petals of cherry blossom. A tincture of warmth spreads across your chest and you only feel it when Sunghoon has separated you two with an annoyed groan, reiterating his need to dress Jake.

“Shoo! Now!” He chastised and you had walked away with an overly dramatic pout drawn on your lips, throwing puppy like looks over your shoulder at them.

It only earned you a middle finger from Sunghoon and a snort from Jake.

You only think about his touch protracted moments later, when you still feel the heat of his body radiating off your waist, as if his touch has seared itself upon your skin. A coat of infatuation you can’t seem to take off. It’s the sole reason your heartbeat is abidingly fast even when his touch is long gone, even when his eyes are no longer on you but instead focused on Sunghoon’s face as they discuss his look. You remain a constant in a field of overgrown affection, your fingers itch – tinged with compulsion to pluck them out, you don’t have the energy nor the time to water them and yet, you don’t. your gaze glistening with heedless wishes.

Just a little longer.

You had yearned.

Even as the day unfolds like it always does, congested with Jake’s busy photoshoots and you running around in hope of making anything flow a little smoother for him. It’s only at the very ending hours of your schedule, the night sky had settled with a frigid air circling through the streets. As you sit in the backseat of the van with Jake’s head on your shoulder, exhaling tired puffs of air, and eyes closed.

Somewhere along the ride and in between seemingly unmoving traffic, he had rested his head on your shoulder, with mumbles about how tired he is. Albeit the days that have passed by with you snuggled between his covers or him falling asleep in your bed as if it’s his own, your body still can’t grow accustomed to having him so close.

Yet you still linger in your silence, putting on a show of having it all together as you scroll through your emails, mindlessly while Jay sits opposite from you, scrolling through his own end of work.

“Do you wanna go back to my place?” He whispers right into the skin of your neck, it has your fingers pausing across the screen of your iPad with bated breath, a shiver of something akin to excitement trialing down the length of your spine with fervor.

It isn’t an aberrant question, it’s one that you have heard for more days than not, one that you memorized the action that follows right after, the taste of his lips upon yours and the cruelty of his hands across your body. Yet how come they feel so welcoming? When did his light no longer blinded you but rather pulled you in?

“Sure.” You reply after a few silent beats, clearing your throat and adjusting yourself on your seat.

Jake only hums, and you smile to yourself as the amiability of his proximity filtrates through your essence. You smile, unaware of the heedless wishes driving you into the deepest end of the ground with promise of suffocation, unaware of the way Jay eyes you two.

Your night unfurls like it always does whenever you’re close to him, although with a few different elements it all ends in the same way. Or at least that’s what you tell yourself as you’re standing in the middle of his kitchen and amidst attempts to make a warm cup of tea that Jake didn’t even ask for. You grew a proclivity to try adding any weights of comfort to him, whether that was between the walls of his own home or dreadful hours of photoshoots and interviews.

And you enjoy it really, within your days you have accepted the fact that caring for Jake comes to you with no duress, in fact it is him that had always pushed you away from doing unnecessary things for him you’re not sure if he wasn’t used to the way you looked at him with genial amiability rather than reproach.

You enjoy it until you’re forced to be faced with the reality that none of this means anything cavernous than two lonely souls stumbling upon tender succour in blurry lines and scraps of affection.

You enjoy it until nights like these have your insecurity bubbling to the surface, protruding every sense of certitude he had whispered in your ears even when he didn’t have to. It all crumbles with vast impetus only because you saw a framed picture of Soojin on one of the tables in the living room.

You’re not sure how you never noticed it before, maybe because you and Jake never really spend much time outside his bedroom walls.

but you wish you didn’t. you wish you had gone blind for a moment or rather you wish you didn’t care as much as you did, there’s so much you wish for and yet none of them can be breathed into life in the same semblance you have to tie yourself back from tripping on questions you want to ask.

Is what between you and I merely a comfortable lie?

But none of it mattered, not when your chest had tightened with prodding thoughts, like knives stabbing at your heart with reminders that you will never be good enough.

Because you were feeling so good until moments ago, floating atop the clouds as Jake had muttered to you about how he needs to shower first, you took it upon yourself to ruminate through his displayed pieces, fingers grazing the soft petals of forget me not and eyes lingering on the singular painting he had hung up on one of the walls. You had paused with a dilated gaze, stupefied by the way fate seemed to work because you didn’t need to look at the signature to know who it belonged to you.

The art style was one that you couldn’t mistake for anything else, yet your smile had fallen from your face with enormous force as you took notice of the pictures of Soojin. You had to reason with your brain that they are close, even if you hate it but perhaps it was the fact that she holds space you never will, perhaps it was that you’re not even anything remotely close to what she is to him. You will never leave evidence of your existence behind.

Perhaps it was the fact that you and Jake do not mean anything outside the walls of his bedroom.

“Bunny?” you swivel your head around with surprise on your face as if forgotten where you were “What are you doing?” Jake asks– now freshly showered- leaning on the doorframe of his kitchen, his eyes darting over your figure rapidly.

“Making you tea.” You blink yourself out of your thoughts.

“Why? You don’t have to.”

“I know,” your smile tilts up your lips with ease, warmth that’s only ever entailed with whispers of his name “I wanted to.”

It’s only moments later when the both of you are on the couch of his living room, the entire space enveloped with darkness if not the moonlight seeping in through his open window.

“You’re awfully clingy today.” You comment as his arms tighten around your waist with dripping affection, pulling you against his chest impossibly closer and rests his chin on your shoulder. You don’t give room for yourself to waver even when he buries his face in the crook of your neck. Vanilla and cinnamon engulf his being with you.

“’m not clingy.” He mumbles, halfheartedly and with no intent for them to hold any meaning over your ears, so you don’t let them, only humming as your fingers graze the length of his arm, tracing over his veins, your fingertips leaving a trail of blossoming life behind “I’m just tired.” He adds after a while, as if his exhaustion is not a see-through flimsy excuse to have you closer, his chest pressing into your back.

“Do you wanna go to bed maybe?” you ask, concern inscribed into every stroke of your voice, as warm as the tea you had just made him and it has him smiling against your neck, evoking your smile to raise melting into a giggle “What?” you ask and when he huffs out a chuckle, yours sync with his colored pink like the flush upon your cheeks.

“Nothing.” He shakes his head, hugging you tighter “I just wanna stay like this for a bit.” Your heart trashes around your chest, and you fail not to waver akin to spring air wisping through your hair in the daytime.

“We can stay like this for as long as you want.” You whisper and he hums in agreement.

As a tranquil silence settles upon the two of you, his humming continues, turning into a sweet melody that you don’t recognize evoking your curiosity from Paris to rise to the surface once again. Although it isn’t coherent singing it’s enough for your soul to perchinto a similar placid feeling akin to floating atop waters warmed by the unforgiving sun or maybe it’s simply the warmth that comes from falling in love.

“What’s that song?” you whisper, afraid to break through his tonality of serene.

“It doesn’t have a name.” he answers after a few beats of silence.

You contemplate on the urges arising to ask for more information. Your fingers itching with heedless wishes yet again, so foolishly selfish like unraveling parts of him, a heedless wish like diving into him, looking through every nook and cranny of his being, even the darkest place he wishes light never touches. You don’t really linger on why, on where this urge exactly comes from and instead your nerves take over, worried you might catch yourself too far in, so you hold your tongue instead.

Your eyes dart across the living room in rapid search for something else to talk about, as they land on the piece of art hung upon his sage colored walls and your eyes light up, reminder of the piece you share.

“That painting.” you start, and he peeks at it, looking where your eyes are glued.

“What about it?”

“It’s really pretty.” You reply, feigning ignorance as your eyes trail over the name signed on the corner.

“I bought it at one of those college expos. I don’t really care about art, but I liked this one I guess.” He explains and your lips curl up into a grin as your fingers smooth over the length of his arm.

“Why this one?”

“I guess I could see what the artist was feeling.” His voice is soft, almost getting lost in the folds of silence if not caught by your heart “and I felt the same at the time.” He continues, tone sliding even softer, abrading across the surface of your chest with warmth the same way your nails to his skin.

“What do you think the artist was feeling?” Your smile slowly melts off your face, your essence overtaken by curiosity.

The painting was darkened by colors of gray and black, leaning towards petrifying it was a figure with their head in their hands as if in the middle of an agonizing scream, a couple of hundred nails stabbed into the skin.

“Guilt.” He replies “I felt like the artist was really struggling to overcome his guilt. As if it’s a part of you that you can’t seem to shake off. A shadow that constantly follows.” He continues, tone vulnerable as if the same liability still bears his soul, as if that shadow still loiters behind him.

His answer has your chest tightening compulsorily, as your eyes flit across the splashes of paint once again the meaning comes to you the same. Unfurling from the depths of darkness you can’t help the pain of realization that settles, it floods your being with a similar laminate of guilt.

“Niki painted this.” You say, letting out a breath and Jake stills, leaning his head back to steal a look at your expression.

“Your brother did?”

“Yeah,” you answer keeping your eyes fixated on the painting, darting over every swivel of color “I never really looked at his paintings this deeply before to understand.” you let out a chuckle that lacks humor and Jake doesn’t answer but you feel his gaze on you, fits his fingers in the empty spaces between yours with a squeeze.

“He’s really talented.” He says after a few minutes with sincerity.

“He is. He’s always been amazing at everything he does.” Your gaze falls to your interlocked hands, the sight of his fingers in between yours stirs something cloyingly tender within you “I wish he didn’t have to feel that way.” You continue with a soft voice, as if unwittingly revealing the concerns haunting your mind.

“It’s not your fault. It’s not something you can take away.” Jake whispers back, his thumb brushing over your hand.

“I know.” You smile, turning your head to catch his eyes with yours and the benignity woven in them almost has you melting, the skin of your fingers craves to mesh with his.

I wish you didn’t have to feel this way.

You almost want to whisper to him, right in whatever blurry space has been built between you two.

“You’re doing everything that you could, and it's amazing.” His eyes are penetrating, filled with seas of truth that you plunge yourself into with no second’s thoughts, your heart trembles with each word, your eyes softening so marginally.

Will you

“Thank you.” your chuckle escapes you gravelly, tinting your cheeks with a blush along the way “in the past none of my partners liked how much I cared about Niki- i-it feels like no one understood” Jake listens intently, a smile twinged with incitement for your emotions to unwind, spilling with a hue of rare amenability “So thank you for saying that.”

Allow me

“I think you dated a bunch of idiots if they weren’t able to envelope your heart with the same kindness it radiates.”

A silly urge to cry takes over your being albeit no tears fill your eyes, and your lips slightly twitch upwards in a grin twined with nothing but warmth that comes from the glimmer present in his tired eyes or perhaps it’s the heat emitting from his body pressing against yours, maybe it’s in the sincerity that laces his voice so effortlessly as if peering through your veils comes as easy as breathing to him.  Whatever it is, it is in this fleeting moment that you feel no need to hide but rather strangely feeling safe enough to spill whatever substance have plagued your soul for years.

To stay

“Do you mean that?”

“That you dated a bunch of idiots? I thought that was common sense?” you roll your eyes with a chuckle, his own smile rising as you deliver a slight jab to his stomach with your elbow.

“Jerk.” His own laughter erupts with ease, stealing your heartbeat as you attempt to free yourself from his embrace, his arms tighten around you. denying you.

“Have I ever lied to you?” he whispers against the shell of your ear, and you squirm with a shake of your head “Then believe my truth this time as well.”  He continues plaiting his words with a hum, a squeeze of his arms around your middle as if he’s not the reason breathing grows harder and harder to catch. An endless chase.

By your side?

“Sometimes I feel like I barely have anything to offer maybe that’s why I end up with a bunch of idiots.” You admit after a while, hushed as if shameful of the insecurity coating your flesh “Yeonjun – my ex that cheated on me at work remember? Yeah-“you chuckle nervously, a bitter edge to your laughter as if the memory is still fresh in your mind “used to say that all the time- that there’s nothing particularly special about me.”

You’re silent for a few tantalizing minutes, your gaze turning hazy as if recollections of every painful word Yeonjun has ever muttered still surrounded you, they twirl around your mind with the same affliction.

“I wonder why do I crave to be something-“you pause with darting glances as if trying to find meaning in the gaping holes of your being until they catch his “special so bad?”

Jake’s have always known his incarnation to turn coarse, his propensity for honesty remains abiding and he never knew to sugarcoat his words, they come out harsh, sharpened like an edge of a blade. You are a paradox to his own existence, the complete opposite of him, a gentle soul with words coated in candied affection.

It’s baffling to him, how someone as extraordinary as you could feel this way.

So, he shouldn’t be surprised at the words of raising at the tip of his tongue, almost choking him with its sweetness merely because it is directed at you.

“Isn’t giving your heart away the most precious thing you could ever offer?”

“What if my heart isn’t good enough either?”

“How could it ever not be good enough when it’s yours?”

As your eyes dance around each other, his reveal nothing but pure, crude veracity. It dawns on your being so intensely you’re not sure you have even a mere moment to question the fastening beats of your heart. You’re not sure when was it exactly that your world has shrank to nothing but him. When was it exactly that chasing fleeing gazes and waiting for touches of lust upon your skin have turned into this?

“How could it not be special when every particle of your essence is you?”

You never knew comfort that comes so simple yet so vigorous with its weight, how could such a minuscule word have such a big impact on your glass heart, on your staggered breath and how could it water your hope so effortlessly?

Another seed of heedless wishes grows, venturous with desire like asking him if I gave it to you would you still think the same?

“I don’t know how you make words sound like that.”

“Like what?” he asks, even in the middle of his living room his eyes sparkle as if they hold specks of stardust, his lips twitch upwards in a smile like the glimmering moon.

You feel foolish with the transparent reverence flowing through every part of you, in the tips of your fingers and in the delicate sentiment of you. You grow sorry for the rest of the world for stealing the scintillates of the night sky, you’re in his arms and you’re awfully sorry because there’s no way for you to share.

“I don’t know how you make everything sound so magical.”

“I think you’re just soft for me bunny.”

“You wish.” You snort, your words lack meaning and more than anything power.

“Do you ever miss Yeonjun?” he murmurs after a few moments of quietness, and your surprise takes you like a storm passing by with vehemence, it has your eyebrow twitching with semblance of annoyance that you’re not sure why it filtrates through your thoughts.

You don’t expect it, maybe not when you’re on his lap and in between touches of tender affection.

“Do you miss yours?” you retort back, harsher than intended and bittered by his nonchalance.

“Sometimes.” He answers and your nails dig into his flesh lightly, not sharp enough to evoke his notice “But we ended on good terms and we’re still friendly.”

You poke your tongue in your cheek as your eyes trail over that picture of Soojin once again, you’re somewhat thankful he can’t feel the heat of your furious gaze as you glare at the unmoving picture, and yet you’re somewhat annoyed he seems unaware of your frustration the way it imbues your senses has you faltering with hesitation at an answer to give back, so you don’t. Instead, you dwindle into silence intoxicated by your rapid heartbeat and the feeling of his breath on your cheek.

It's only when your own chest starts heaving as his lips ever so slowly, softly pressing into your neck with a phantom of a kiss, almost imperceptibly. His fingers trailing under your blouse with purpose, his touch scalding hot as his fingers graze over your hipbone and your lips separate with an audible gasp.

“What?” he breathes out an amused chuckle at your response.

“I just wasn’t expecting that.”

“What were you expecting?” He whispers, his voice tinted with allure the same way his other hand travels up your jaw, denting them with his fingers as he turns your face to him, you grow breathless, stolen by how enchanting his existence remains to be.

“I-I don’t know.” You breathe out, your eyes unfocused on anything other than the soft looking skin of his lips, even when it tilts upwards in an all-familiar teasing smirk that manages to irk you each time.

The space between you grows smaller and smaller as he invariably inches forward, his exhales mingling with yours and your mouth falls open with a silent moan, his fingers – with desire emanating from them slip past the confine of your pants. Your body burns with the heat of his touch, longing colors your gaze the longer he doesn’t kiss you and his glisten with mirth as he keeps his lips atop yours, almost touching yet not close enough.

never close enough.

“For someone who pretends to be unexpectant you sure are wet.” Your face burns with a blush so deep you could only hope the dark aids in concealing it, even when Jake’s thumb is pressing onto your clothed clit and your throat bubbles with the threat of a whine.

His scorching gaze scouring over passing expression lingering on your face for not long enough, yet amply enough for his own breathing to rattle, for his own sanity to abscond, overtaken by an utter ache to have you, ache to have you falling apart it has his fingers moving on their own, with a losing battle trailing behind as he buries them in your underwear, your arousal coats his hand as it slips inside of you.

“Jake.” you fall apart as easy as the whine escaping your mouth, as easy as the groan he lets out when he slots his mouth against yours with a bruising kiss, his other hand trails down from your jaw to your throat and your heart reels.

“mhm? What is it baby?”

“I-I thought you were tired.” You mutter weakly throwing your head back on his shoulder as he works his fingers deeper into you.

“Never too tired to fuck you.”  he replies, eyes glued to the way your mouth falls open, your eyebrows scrunching up in pleasure.

Jake’s cravings seem to turn decadent whenever you’re in the picture.

It’s the same way he learns to press his cravings into your back that night, with touches and kisses that abide closer to tender love than the way he looks at you, the way you moan his name, his thumb trails over your spine with fervor, his lips press into your neck with purpose to imprint himself onto your skin, a desire for you to give him something diverting to wear beneath his blood.

“Fuck! Right there!” you moan loudly, your fingers gripping the sheets below you tightly.

“Yeah? feels good baby?” he still asks with a whisper drilling into the same spot as if you’re not falling apart with drool staining his sheets, you still nod with a whine.

“So- so good oh my god- I’m close, don’t stop!” your words are barely coherent, getting cut off by your whimpers.

“Me too baby- fuck you’re so good-“ you keen at the fallen praises from between his lips, the knot in your stomach growing impossibly tighter with the same way his grip tightens around your hips, his thrusts growing harsher, the slap of the skin sounds sinful, reverberating through the walls. A pleasurable groan escapes him at way the you squeeze around him after a particularly hard thrust.

“fuck-!" he growls fucking into you deeper, harder, faster anything to have you crying out "You’re so pretty when you’re mine.”

You’re not sure if you hear him correctly, if your mind had conjured up a couple of words to feed your delusions, convocation that they’re closer to reality than none yet your orgasm feels like it dissolves you into liquid with how hard it hits you, the sounds emitting from you are foreign to your own ears only increasing in volume when he follows with the same path, his come spilling into you.

You’re feeling hazy as he pulls out of you, the air heavy even when he kisses behind your ears with murmurs of needing to clean you up.

You have fallen silent the entire process and it’s not until the both of you had changed that he’s pulling you into bed atop his chest with a question lingering in his gaze.

“Are you okay?” he asks, voice soft with careful tenderness and you only nod your head with a smile.

“i’m just sleepy and tired.”

“My dick is that good?” You don’t need to look at him to know he’s wearing that same annoying expression he has whenever he teases you, a smirk and a glint in his eyes.

“Fuck off bro.” your hands react before your mind, grabbing one of the pillows and hitting him square in the face, the chuckle that erupts from his lips is otherworldly heavenly and your eyes soften, mind plagued with the words he had said earlier.

“Bro? What is wrong with you? I just fucked you.”

“No what is wrong with you?”

“A lot.” He answers and you arch a brow at him, biting back a smile when he rolls his eyes at you with endearment tinting his hands as he pulls you closer to him once again, your head rests atop his chest and you fall into tune with his heartbeat.

As he runs his hands through your strands, the both of you are quiet, something akin to a tranquil silence fills the room yet your mind races with everything that has happened the few couple of weeks, Jake remains unstable, days pass by with him saying a few words to you then fucking you only to fall asleep with the same silence between you, then other nights unfold similar like today, with you pulling effortless laughs from his lips, gentle kisses scattered on your skin.

you're so pretty when you're mine

Did he mean it? or did you imagine it? Have you finally gone mad?

Perhaps it’s that sole reason your hope climbs over every other feeling, perhaps is the heat seared onto your back with whispers of the words he muttered that have you slipping with a new devotion, one like foolishly wishing for your souls to intertwine.

Maybe that’s why you thought it would be okay for you to speak after a while.

A fatal fantasy -

“When we were in Paris.” You start with overflowing prudent, circling the air as you slightly tilt your head upwards with intent to steal a glance at him, his hum comes as encouragement for you to continue “you told me you want to love music the way you used to do but you never answered me when I asked you why.” Your voice is much quieter than before, and his body grows rigid in counted seconds, shorter than you could blink away your orgasm.

“I don’t want to talk about this right now.” He replies with a deepened sigh, tone monotone and you chew on your lower lip with evident nerves at the lack of emotions radiating from him.

“I’m not gonna force you.” you say, hesitating for a few seconds before speaking again “I know things have been tough.” You’re met with quietude from him, one that has the tips of his fingers ceasing atop the skin of your back as if warning you to tie your tongue into a knot, do not break through your vows that took you countless enticing stares to keep.

Your heart abides a trivial piece of glass, yearning for him cuts through like the light of dawn coming to life with increasing heartbeat and woven with feelings you refuse to plaster labels on. Perhaps deep down your soul seeks for everything to fall apart.

“I know you must feel very lonely with how things are. with your mom gone and then your undiagnosed ocd-“you don’t get to finish your sentence before Jake is flinching away from you.

“What?” He sits up on the bed with a furrowed brow and a fire lacing his gaze as it lands on you, the heat of his body abandoning you has you itching “Are you trying be my fucking psych?” his tone - albeit does not change in volume, it still has apparent venom tinting every syllable. It has your heart trembling in your chest with the fear of stepping in too far, tripping on a ticking time bomb that explodes with a bat of your eyelashes.

“No I just thought-“  with nerves aptitude in your tone, limbs. You sit up as well, your fingers trailing over his arm in searched comfort, a reminder that mere minutes ago he was still entangled with you “I’m just trying to help and I thought-“you stumble, on your words and on your quivering heart as you try to find the right words to say yet your cognitive facilities shut down at the disillusionment sneaking into his irises.

“You thought what?” He lets out a short solemn laugh yet long enough to have your temerity crumbling as if daring you to speak.

“I opened up to you earlier and I thought maybe you’d be able to do the same.” You clarify with a whisper, eyes widened with pure longing.

A heedless wish.

“So, you thought you could talk like you fucking know a thing about me.” he grumbles, annoyance evident in the way he pushes his hand through his disheveled hair, and you watch with a shaking heart as he trudges out the bed with slumped shoulders.

“What? No, I’m trying to get to know you, Jake.” You defend, albeit debilitated by the obstacles of ice materializing in his eyes, you follow with the sun in yours.

“By treating me like a fucking project?” He’s growing angrier, it’s so visible in the cruelty that drips from his voice, in the way his eyes widen with a scalding fire threating to take you both down.

“I don’t treat you like a project.”

“Oh, cut the bullshit yn!” he swivels around to face you and you still in your trail with a bated breath “You think I don’t know what the fuck you’re doing? We talk for one night and suddenly you’re talking as if you have the cure to all my problems! Like you can fix me.”

“I’m sorry if it came out that way.” You mutter, your irises shaking with sincerity he doesn’t get to witness, not when he’s overtaken by anger, not when fear trickles in just as intense “When I saw that you had Niki’s painting I just thought-I thought we would be able to relate to each other. That there are sides of us we could understand.” He scoffs at your words, shaking his head in disbelief and your chest tightens, as if callous hands have made their way inside you with abhorrence, squeezing your fragile organ.

“Relate to each other?” He speaks, low and more to himself with displeasure written all over his face “You didn’t even understand what that painting meant until I explained it to you yn how the fuck are you gonna understand anything about me?”

“I know but-“

“God yn do you ever just stop and think about the way you act? The things you say?” As if a monster that has been unleashed, the shackles covered in rust, and they crack with the lump forming in the middle of your throat with a threat for tears to burn your cheeks with scalding trails “Do you ever stop and think about how overbearing you act sometimes?” Jake cannot stop, he feels it in the way his blood burns as it runs through his veins “why can’t you fucking listen to me when I tell you to stop? Why do you need to push me past my limits?”

“I’m sorry maybe I worded it wrong but my goal this time wasn’t to push you.” your words are not getting through to him, instead something akin to hideousness he’s all too familiar crumbles inside of him.

“I feel fucking sorry for your brother he has to deal with this kind of shit from you on top of whatever lead him to make that fucking painting.” His tone is cold and low when he speaks you but they break through your bones harsher than anything he had ever said to you and they crack, extending all the way to your heart, forming scars on the surface he had so delicately soothed not long ago.

You almost want to scoff at yourself more than anyone, how could you be so stupid to think of yourself as anything more than trivial glass that stays unaware of its imminent fate?

Jake regrets his words the moment they leave his mouth, not because of the bitter taste they leave behind but rather over the broken look that seeps into your face as quick as he inhales. His anger for you flees, tumbles to the ground right next to your puddle of blood, woven with your heartbreak and caused by the bullets he aimed at you while he wavers, colored with remorse.

It only penetrates him deeper when you grow quiet, your eyes fliting everywhere as if trying to find meaning in his words somewhere other than his face, as if you didn’t look at him you’ll be able to find different facets of them, ones that aren’t directed at you with only for hurt to unfurls throughout every nook and cranny of you. but then your eyes dart up to him, this time your eye contact doesn’t transpires with desire nor hidden giggles from you. This time your expression completely crumbles with excruciating agony.

“That’s too cruel to say even to someone like me Jake.”

Your words come out choked despite the tears glimmering in your eyes none fall, and it feels like punishment that dawns on him right away, he blinks rapidly at you, too aware of the harsh words that he let slip. There’s real pain in your voice, albeit your pure ability to display your emotions carelessly, he had never seen you this hurt, not in this unadulterated form and he falls speechless.

“bunny,,” he’s not sure what to say, his mind empty but it doesn’t matter because then you’re harshly wiping at your eyes with your arm and in mere moments you’re turning away from him.

He doesn’t know how long he stands in the dimly lit corridor, but it’s long enough to feel the weight of his own words pressing him down until he feels close to suffocating, he stares at his palms and fragments of your broken heart stares back at him.

You should have known heedless wishes were meant to break rather than mend.

→ taglist : @slutforsjy @wonwoos-wineparty @nxzz-skz @piripurora @vousty

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sacred monsters: part three

pairing: lee heeseung x f reader

genre: academic rivals to lovers, vampire au, slow burn

part three word count: 22.3k

part three warnings: swearing, blood and other vampire-y things — you know the drill, plenty of tension (of both the general and sexual sort), still nothing explicit but we’re getting a little ~sexier~, a kiss 😈

soundtrack: still monster / moonstruck / lucifer - enhypen / everybody wants to rule the world - tears for fears / immortal - marina / supermassive black hole - muse / saturn - sleeping at last / everybody’s watching me (uh oh) - the neighbourhood

note: my favorite chapter yet. I hope you love it too. happy reading ♡

⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖

A literature student in your third year of university, you’ve been dreaming of having your writing published for as long as you can remember. With a perfect opportunity dangling at your fingertips, the only obstacle that stands in your way comes in the form of a ridiculously tall, stupidly handsome, and unfortunately, very talented writer by the name of Lee Heeseung. Unwilling to let your dream slip out of reach, you commit to being better than the aforementioned pain in your ass at absolutely everything.

But when a string of vampire attacks strikes close to your city for the first time in nearly two hundred years, publishing is suddenly the last thing on your mind. And, as you soon begin to discover, Heeseung may not quite be the person you thought he was.

⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖

PART THREE

⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖

Biting your lip, you stare at the screen of your phone. The email you’re currently trying to draft has been completely blank for the last eight minutes. Other than the addressee line, that is. 

Despite the elapsing time, Professor Kim’s email address is the only field you’ve been able to fill out. 

Not without good reason, of course. It’s a delicate balance you’re trying to strike. After all, the last time you saw him, he was covered in blood. Fully deranged. Convinced of whatever motive spurred his actions enough to throw a dart at you. Inject vampire poison directly into your veins. 

Fleeing from the scene of his supposed crime with a strange look in his bloodshot eyes. 

Beyond that, there are other obstacles to consider. The only contact information you have for your professor is his official university email address. You doubt it’s monitored regularly, but you’d rather not have a paper trail of damning accusations in your wake stored forever on a public server. 

Sighing, you let your phone fall to your lap for a moment. You’ve been awake for nearly an hour now, and you haven’t quite worked up the courage to leave the confines of Heeseung’s bedroom. 

It could be beneficial, you suppose, to ask him for help. He’s more than proven his discerning eye for matters like this. But that would involve leaving the safety of your current location, even if it is illusory at best. And it’s not like Heeseung has shown any support for your plan to contact your professor. 

Besides, if you can’t handle something as simple as a well-crafted email, how are you ever going to manage profiling an unusually cognizant vampire without raising suspicion? No, this is something you need to do on your own. Even if only to reassure yourself that you can.

Bringing your phone back to eye level, you type:

Dear Professor Kim, 

 It’s cordial. A standard greeting from a student to their professor. Nothing that would raise a red flag, warrant further investigation. 

I apologize for not being able to attend our scheduled draft meeting on Wednesday afternoon. There have been quite a few unexpected events in the last few days…

You frown, backspacing through that last sentence. 

Something unavoidable came up, and I was not able to provide prior notice. 

You don’t love it, but it will have to work. 

If possible, I would love to reschedule our meeting. I am still thrilled about the opportunity to discuss my draft with you in person. I took the liberty of previewing several of New Haven’s recently published works, and I believe that my work will make a fitting contribution to the existing canon. For your convenience, I have attached a copy of my current draft for your review.

Regarding the internship, I am still highly interested in pursuing that opportunity as well. I believe that my personal interests are well-suited to New Haven’s core beliefs and values. I would love to find another time to formally tour the New Haven Publishing facilities. I believe that you have a great capacity for mentorship and would be honored to work alongside you in the coming months. 

You read over your message once. Twice. Deciding that it will only sound worse the more it lingers in your mind, you add your signature to the end. Then you close your eyes, take a deep, steadying inhale, and press send before you can change your mind. 

The small whoosh sound as the message leaves your inbox and slides into his feel almost anticlimactic. You’re dealing with vampires and careful allusions in subtext. Things that seem more suited to a quill and parchment than an email typed on a smartphone. 

With the message sent, your mind is suddenly free to wander to other things. Despite the strange, frantic jumble of events that have occurred in the past handful of days, you’re still tethered to your mortality. Now, that manifests as a grumble in your stomach. 

Although you’re sure the bag next to the nightstand truly is the result of Jake’s best efforts, the rather lacking grocery run he did hasn’t been doing you many favors nutritionally. 

For a fleeting moment, the idea of only needing to feed once a year is almost something that inspires envy. It would certainly make things simpler. 

While you’re contemplating the merits of peeling yet another clementine, a knock rings out against the door. Three firm raps that have you nearly jumping out of your skin. 

It’s another unfortunate side effect of humanity, your infallible skittishness. Distantly, you wonder when that will start to fade. If it will. Fear these days has a way of feeling etched to your bones, painted against the backs of your eyelids. A shadow that never strays far from your footsteps, no matter how quiet they are. 

It’s not unexpected, given the things your mind has been subjected to as of late, but it is starting to wear on you. 

Most of all, you miss feeling safe. Not so constantly, painfully aware of your own mortality, your capacity for injury. For death. 

For now, you force yourself to breathe. One deep inhale followed by a long exhale. It’s just one of the boys, you’re sure. 

But you can’t even linger on that too long. If you do, they stop being boys in your mind and start becoming five-hundred-year-old immortal, blood drinking beings with supernatural powers. It’s a lot to handle, especially at nine in the morning. 

Shoving your fear to the side the best that you can, you force your voice into something steady. “Come in.”

It’s Heeseung that enters. Tentatively, on slow footsteps, as if this space doesn't belong to him. It’s strange, you think, how out of place a person can look in their own room. And it’s not that he doesn’t fit in with his surroundings as much as it is that he appears to be brimming with unease. A tension that sits just below his skin and won’t let him relax. 

Eyes that can’t decide where to land, that flit around the room as if he’s seeing it for the first time. Hands that war between resting at his sides versus making themselves busy. Pushing at his hair, tugging at his shirt. 

If you didn’t know better, you’d think he was nervous. 

Finally, after a moment of stilted silence, his gaze lands on you. 

And it’s all too much like time you spent in an empty classroom at adjacent desks, reading each other’s words. The moments you stole under moonlight after he insisted on walking you home. It’s not that the discomfort fades. But when he looks at you like that, it has a way of becoming irrelevant. An afterthought. 

Eyes meeting across the room, the only thing that exists between the two of you is the gentle fragility of the moment. A blip in time that extends until it’s stretched too thin. Until it snaps, forcing you back to reality. 

“I came to check on you,” he finally says. “To see how you’re feeling.”

“I’m fine,” you tell him, averting your eyes. It’s a cop out, yes, but it’s also the truth. You are fine. Even if it sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself of it as much as you are him. 

Heeseung worries at his bottom lip with his teeth. Smooth, flat, even teeth. You wonder if he has control of it, when his fangs come out. If there are moments when he doesn’t, when control passes from his careful grip to the whims of his fading inhibitions. 

But for now, at least, he’s as guarded as ever. 

It doesn’t detract from his consideration. “I thought you might want to go to your apartment,” he offers. “Get some of your own clothes. Spend a little time in a familiar place.”

Sensing an opportune moment, your stomach grumbles audibly. 

Heeseung suppresses a grin. As if he’s charmed by it, you and your undeniable humanity. “Get some real food in you.”

It’s hard, at first, not to feel like he’s trying to kick you out. And it’s stupid, probably, to be in a vampire’s house feeling insecure about the space you take up, the effects of your presence. The fragile hope that something in him wants you there. 

But you’ve gotten better at reading his intentions, even when he does his best to keep them under lock and key. You’ve traded too many secrets to feel shunned. It’s concern that he wraps his offer in, not contempt. 

And you really are hungry. “I could go for some food.”

It’s sweet, the way he asks if you have a favorite restaurant. A spot for take-out that you frequent on busy nights when you’re too tired to cook anything. 

And it gives you a good excuse to drag him along to your favorite coffee shop. You’re the one that’s stunned into silence, though, when he tells the barista that you’ll take the food to go. And when he hands her a small wad of cash before you can get a protest in edgewise. 

You don’t press him on it, but the look you give him is question enough. 

“There’s something I want to show you,” he explains as you wait for your food. “We, well, you can eat there.”

It hits you then, in the middle of a cafe you frequent, that you don’t even have to think about it. You’re nodding before his words have time to fully process. For some reason, placing  small bits of trust in him feels like second nature. 

But now, a handful of minutes later, staring up at a very tall ladder with your takeout bag in hand, you’re having second thoughts. 

It’s not that you’re afraid of heights particularly, but…

“I don’t know…” you trail off, gaze still fixated on the top of the ladder. The longer you look, the further away it seems. When Heeseung said he wanted to show you something, you didn’t think the local water tower would be involved in any capacity. “Is this even allowed?”

Next to you, Heeseung just shrugs. “I’ve never gotten in trouble.”

“You know,” you glance at him sideways, “that’s really not all that reassuring.”

“C’mon,” he urges, and he has that glint in his eye. The one that would probably have you following him off a cliff if he asked nicely enough. “The view is worth it. I promise.”

Eyes squinting against the glint of winter sunlight and the prospect of scaling a water tower, you swallow audibly. “It better be,” you grumble. 

Heeseung, like you, has gotten better at picking up on the little details. He doesn’t need to hear you say it to know that he’s won. 

“You go first.” He nods towards the ladder. 

That you are about to argue against when he adds, “I’ll catch you if you fall.”

So with one final exhale and hands that tremble slightly, you walk until you reach the first rung of the ladder. 

“Wait,” Heeseung calls from behind. You turn to find him walking towards you, hand outstretched. “I’ll carry the bag.”

Wordlessly, you slide the takeout bag off of your wrist, handing it to him. At this point, you don’t care if it's chivalry or concern for your ability to scale a ladder that motivates his offer. You’re reeling either way. Despite his promise to catch you, you can’t shake the feeling that the odds of you plummeting straight to the ground from some awful height are greater than zero. You’ll minimize all the risks that you can. 

So, with a steady breath and a racing heartbeat you’re sure he can hear, you start your shaky ascent. 

Only once, during the entire climb, do you glance down. 

It’s not like you ever suspected Heeseung of breaking a promise prematurely, but the sight of him a few rungs beneath you is reassuring all the same. Even if the distance between you and the ground as your gaze shifts over his shoulder is decidedly not. 

And a few, hard earned minutes later, you have to give it to him. You hate to admit that he was right, but the view is absolutely breathtaking. 

The golden glow of late morning winter sunlight cascades over the city that raised you, now just a tangle of lights and roads and tiny buildings in the vast expanse far beneath you. It’s an entirely new perspective on the place where all of your first dreams were realized, where the plans for your future have started coming to fruition. 

In the distance, traces of snow dust the tops of the mountains. You’re nearly eye level with them now, those peaks that have always seemed so unreachable. It’s a vantage point that has you tilting your head, wishing you could capture it forever. 

Beneath you, the city teems with life. The hustle and bustle you’re usually caught up in suddenly feels far away, removed from you. Signs of life feel like something you observe, admire with curiosity but don’t belong to yourself. 

Fleetingly, you wonder if all of Heeseung’s years have passed in a similar fashion. If the sight of a million headlights in the distance makes him feel closer to his humanity or further from it than ever. 

You exhale, breath visible in the frigid air. 

Next to you, Heeseung remains silent. Lets you take it all in without so much as a word. But his presence is something your attention never strays far from. The sound of his breath, the space he takes up in your periphery and in your mind. 

Once you start looking, it’s hard to tear your gaze away. But after another moment, you turn to face him. The winter wind plays with your hair, skims across your cheekbones. The distance between you and him feels almost as much like a ravine as it does nonexistent. 

“It’s beautiful,” you tell him. But your eyes are dancing in dangerous territory. The curve of his jaw. The bridge of his nose. The deep hues of his eyes. The sudden memory of what it was like to be inside his mind, to occupy a space so intrinsically him it felt like an invasion of privacy. 

For a moment, you don’t think he’ll respond at all. But your predictions have never been solid where he’s concerned. 

“I thought you might like it.” Reaching out, he offers you your food again. “Here. I also thought it might be nice to eat with a view. Some fresh air.”

You move to take a seat where you stand, but Heeseung isn’t satisfied yet. He’s braver than you. It may be an unfair assessment, given the nature of his established perpetuity. 

Still, your heart seizes a bit in your chest as you watch him inch closer to the edge of the water tower, slide down into a seated position with his legs dangling off of the side. 

Deciding that you’ve had enough reminders of your mortality this morning, you slide down where you are. Setting the takeout bag down beside you, you pull your bagel out. Grateful that it’s held onto its warmth, you unwrap it, taking a bite. 

It’s almost good enough to have you groaning out loud. Thankfully, you’re able to tamp that urge down before it comes to fruition. 

After another handful of equally delicious bites, your eyes land on Heeseung’s back. Frowning, you remember the first essay from that strange book you found in the library nearly two weeks ago. 

Sacred Monsters, it was called. The Taste of Blood. 

A sudden question pulls at your lips. You’re not sure what the proper etiquette is, of asking vampires about their personal cuisine preferences. Swallowing, you decide far more invasive truths have already passed between the two of you. 

He’s still looking out over the city, still a few feet in front of you. But you keep your voice quiet, as if he were seated at your side. You know he’ll hear it all the same. 

“Can you eat?” you ask the silhouette of his back. “Human food, I mean.”

Turning to look at you over his shoulder, Heeseung pauses for a moment. He must decide that standing is preferable to responding, because with the grace of a trained dancer, he rises to his full height. Takes a few even steps before he’s right next to you.

Then, he slides back down into a seated position at your side, this time separated from you by only scant inches. 

“I don’t know,” he finally answers. “I’ve never tried. But everything about it,” he glances at your bagel, “the smell, the texture, the look, is very… unappetizing.”

You wonder if that’s why he chose to sit away from you, if it’s causing him any grief to be so close now. But he doesn’t seem all that perturbed. 

“That’s too bad.” A tone of light teasing playing at the edges of your voice, you nod toward what’s left of your bagel. “I was going to offer you a bite.”

You don’t miss it, the way his eyes fall to the side of your neck, just under your jaw. The place where your wound is still healing. The bite mark he left there. It’s covered by a bangade now. The thought of walking in public with such an obvious injury felt reckless, like an invitation for unwanted attention. But you’re still painfully aware of its presence. As is he, it would seem. 

“Hm,” he muses, gaze sliding back to your eyes lazily. “Tempting.”

You know he can hear it, the way your heart skips a beat at the implication. The undeniable hint of something that clouds his words. You’re not sure how to identify it, the emotion that has heat flaring beneath your cheekbones. Thrill, maybe. The kind you get in your stomach just before the roller coaster drops. 

But there’s a sensation that pools deeper, tugs at you from just below your naval. Something lost in translation as your struggle to sort the feelings memories of that night inspire. 

Whatever it is, your body betrays you all the same. There’s a flush in your heat and a thrum in your chest and something else entirely gathering at the base of your spine. You decide that taking another bite is the best method of defusal. It takes a concentrated effort not to choke on it.

“Did you have one before?” You’re suddenly desperate to shift the direction of the conversation. “A favorite food, I mean.”

For a moment, Heeseung is quiet. You’re suddenly worried that you’ve overstepped, landed on a sore subject. 

But then he reaches out his hand, letting it hover right above your wrist. “Can I?”

He’s asking for permission, you realize, to paint more images for you with his mind. 

Tamping down on the flicker of surprise that rises, you nod. And then his fingers, gentle as the fleeting kiss of a butterfly’s wings, are once again encircling the curve of your wrist. 

You’re more prepared for it this time, the way the city, nestled in the valley of snow-topped mountains, begins to disappear. As it does, a decidedly warmer image takes its place.

You’re in a kitchen, one lost to the centuries. A woman in a long, plain dress and an apron tied around her waist leans over the fire fueled oven, pulls out a tray of delicious looking pastries. 

Her careful actions are infused with love as she sprinkles a fresh coat of sugar on top of the baking tray, as she meticulously places a handful of fresh raspberries in the center of each perfect pastry. 

In the vision, a boy appears. You feel your heart melt a bit at the sight of him, at this version of Heeseung that can’t be older than twelve. He’s brimming with boyish energy, laughing as he’s admonished for taking a bite before the pastries have properly cooled. Fanning his burnt tongue with a frantic hand. 

Grinning ear to ear when he sneaks another as soon as the woman’s back is turned.  His emotions are as plain as day, in the way children’s always are. The honesty of his joy is painfully apparent in the way his eyes crinkle in amusement, the way they hold no traces of melancholy, no weight from the world. 

And then, just as surely as it came to you, the scene begins to dissolve. As it fades, you turn to Heeseung. His eyes are the same, as that boy from his vision’s, but there’s more depth to them now. The end result of a gaze that bears the brunt force of five hundred years of weight.

“Fresh raspberry cakes,” he tells you, some kind of distant sorrow for a long lost memory outlining his words. “Those were my favorite.”

Hoping to ease some of the heaviness, you offer him a small smile. “You have a good memory. I can barely remember what I ate for breakfast last week.”

But your words don’t have their intended effect. His focus is on the mountains in the distance when he tells you, “We remember everything. In excruciating detail. It’s different from humans, I suppose. Our minds don’t shift to make room for new memories. They just… expand. Hold more.” He sighs, and it’s lost somewhere in the wind. “Things from the past, no matter how distant, never blur. They never fade.”

He can paint hallucinations with his mind. He drinks blood. And still, as you gaze at his profile, you think this might be the most horrifying thing he’s told you yet. 

You can’t imagine it, having all of your past stored so fully in your mind. All the ebbs and flows, the pain, joy, sorrow from your life. 

And he has five hundred years of it. 

It strikes you then, at the top of a water tower, at the precipice of a debilitating revelation, just how insignificant this will all be for him. Your lifetime that will be nothing but a blip on a radar. A moment, never forgotten perhaps, but lost to time all the same. 

You’ll grow, age, change. You’ll graduate university and find a way to support yourself into early adulthood. You might move to a new city, learn a new language, pick up a new hobby. All of the ways people find to fill the limited time that they have, to make the most of the finite days they’re blessed with. 

You might even fall in love. Start a family. Sit on a porch one day, surrounded by grandchildren. Smiling as they laugh at your inability to understand the ways the world is changing, grinning at their disbelief as you explain how different things were in your childhood. 

And then, inevitably, it will end. The community you’ve found, the family you’ve built, will mourn you. Your life, like so many that came before yours, will fade into the background of the cosmos, surviving only in the memory of those that knew you. 

And for him, nothing will change. He’ll look the same, sound the same, be the same. Constant. Unwavering. Immune to the whims of time and the insignificance of something as fragile as humanity. 

You wonder, for a fleeting moment, how you’ll be committed to his everlasting memory. What shape the imprint of you will take. 

When he looks back, five hundred years from now, and can still recall this moment in excruciating detail, what will he think? What will he feel?

Heeseung must sense your sudden melancholy. The temperature hasn’t dropped. In fact, it’s only gotten warmer as the sun continues its steady trek across the late morning sky. 

Still, he turns to look at you. “It’s getting cold up here.” Jerking his head back in the direction of the ladder, he adds, “Why don’t we head to your apartment?”

For now, it’s enough to bring you out of your swirling thoughts. Right back to the current moment. Oh right. You may have gotten up here without much of a hitch, but you still have to get yourself down. 

Luckily, Heeseung offers to go first. And he only laughs once, a bright, airy sound you wish you heard more of, when you threaten to kill him if he lets you fall. 

…..

The lock on your apartment door has always been finicky. It takes a few frustrating tries for you to find the right angle. Finally, you hear the telltale click of the lock giving in. Sighing in relief, you push the door open. 

As you step inside and flick on the light, everything looks just as you left it. Mostly organized, save for the throw blanket you forgot to fold and the coffee mug you left next to the sink. But now, overly aware of the presence just over your shoulder, you’re suddenly looking at your space through discerning eyes. 

It’s not that you feel some immense need to impress him. It’s just that you’re suddenly very aware of everything, all the little pieces of yourself scattered across your apartment. 

You don’t know why, but you realize that it matters to you, what Heeseung thinks of your space.

As you turn to gauge his reaction, you find him still standing just outside your doorway, hands shoved in his coat pockets. A polite gesture maybe, but it feels out of place among the moments that have passed between you. The intimacy garnered over the last few days. 

“What are you doing?” You eye him warily. “Are you going to come in?”

“I’d love to,” he says evenly. His feet don’t budge an inch. “But I… I can’t.”

What? Your brow creases in confusion. What does he mean he can’t—

Oh. 

Oh. 

You figured there was no awkwardness left between the two of you in this regard. After all,  you’ve slept in his bedroom, in his bed, for the last handful of nights. You’ve been inside of his mind. But you suppose this is different. 

Besides, he’s from another time. Another century Despite the fact that he seems to be quite well adjusted to modern life, maybe he still holds some age-old reservations about entering a woman’s home. About being alone with you behind closed doors without six other people with supernatural hearing lingering nearby. 

Tucking a strand of hair behind your ear, you suddenly find it a bit difficult to match his eye. 

Where has his mind spun to, exactly, as he grapples with the thought of entering your apartment? After all, immortal or not, he is still a guy. And university aged one, at that. Well, kind of. 

“It really is okay,” you tell him once you find your voice again. “I mean, if you think about it, I was in your house for the last few days. I know it’s different, since you have roommates, but it really is fine. And my couch is actually pretty comfortable, so—”

“___.” He interrupts you with the sound of your name, intonation flat. “I’m not worried about how comfortable your couch is.” You do glance at him then, and a patient sort of exasperation is written across his features. “Jay was right. You really do need to brush up on your facts.”

Your eyes pull down in confusion. 

Heeseung sighs. 

“I — We — can’t enter into places we haven’t been formally invited into.”

“Oh.” The realization settles, and this time brings with it a white hot flash of embarrassment. You find yourself more grateful than ever that he projects thoughts instead of reading them. What a nightmare that would be. “Well, I officially invite you into my apartment.”

“Thanks,” he says dryly, crossing over your doorstep. “I thought you were gonna make me wait out there forever.”

For a moment, it’s all you can do to watch, still basking in mortification, as he enters into your apartment. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t give any indication as to whether he likes it or hates it or doesn’t think much of it at all. 

And then he takes a few more steps, settling down on the couch you’d mentioned earlier with an appreciative nod. You weren’t lying about it being comfortable. 

You track his movement with evasive eyes. As he gets comfortable, a realization occurs. “Wait.” You freeze, suddenly feeling self-conscious again. “You have to be invited in. So the vampires that have been attacking people…”

Heeseung shakes his head. “They wouldn’t be able to get in here either.”

“Oh.” The single syllable is all you can manage. All you can think about is the fact that you insisted on sleeping an extra night at their house, in Heeseung’s room. Practically speaking, you would have been just as untouchable here. 

You sneak another glance at Heeseung. 

For some reason, though, you don’t think you would have felt quite as safe. 

“There are still risks, though.” Heeseung’s looking at you like he understands where your mind has gone, like he wants to put it at ease. “The second you leave, you’re entirely unprotected.”

Until recently, vampires haven’t made an appearance in your city for nearly two hundred years. Only the overtly superstitious bother with any sort of precautions. Now, they seem like the logical ones, everyone else foolish.  “Garlic charms and things like that,” you wonder. “Do those actually work?”

“No.” Heeseung shakes his head. “The only real substance I know of that’s detrimental to vampires is moonflower. The dose has to be quite high, though. And there are certain forms of distilling it that make it more potent. Otherwise, it mostly just has a strong sedative effect.” 

You frown, his explanation spurring another question. “Why do you think Professor Kim shot me, then? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to inject you directly?”

Heeseung explains, “Moonflower is most effective on vampires when it’s consumed. Only the really strong stuff, specially distilled like I mentioned earlier, would be effective by injection. I don’t know how Professor Kim prepared the thing he shot you with, but it’s unlikely he knows how to properly distill moonflower to make it potent enough to hurt me directly.” 

“So he injected me…” you trail off. 

Heeseung fills in the blanks. “It’s likely that he was hoping it would be a strong enough deterrent for me not to bite you altogether,” he meets your eye, “or that it would kill me if I couldn’t find it in myself to resist.”

You’re finding it difficult to look away from him now. “How did you know? That it wouldn’t kill you?”

His silence is answer enough. 

Part of you wants to curse him for being so careless, so reckless with his own life. Another part of you is afraid that your pile of growing gratitude towards him will soon be too tall, too heavy to bear. 

Another part, small but insistent, wants you to thank him. To get on your knees and beg for forgiveness, for absolution of crimes you never meant to commit. 

“It was a calculated risk,” he tells you, as if he can see the gears whirring in your mind. As if he’s just as afraid of them as you are. “Which reminds me, I have something for you.”

You arch an eyebrow, not sure you can take any more of what he offers. 

But he stands from the couch anyway, walks towards you on steady feet. “I thought about giving it to you on the water tower, but I didn't want to take any chances.” His eyes sparkle with something that looks almost mischievous. “Just in case you got to the top and decided the view wasn’t worth it.”

That piques your curiosity enough to abate any lingering guilt at the thought of him giving you anything more than he already has. “Don’t tell me it’s distilled moonflower.”

It’s meant to land as a joke, but the look he gives you is entirely serious. 

“Close enough.” Reaching into his bag, he pulls out a small, rectangular box. It’s wooden, you think. And it’s beautiful. Ornate in a subtle way, the dark wood is inlaid with hints of a pattern, soft edges that turn and wind and curl in on themselves. 

Like many things he’s shown you, it feels like a relic of the past, a gift from another century. Something that belongs in a museum, not the worn but undoubtedly modern expanse of your apartment. 

“What is it?” you breathe, the air suddenly fraught with something delicate. 

Heeseung reaches for your wrist, opens your palm and places the box in your outstretched hand. “Open it.”

You’re not sure what to expect. The last few days have been anything but predictable, and the box between your fingers is no exception. Despite its solid weight, it suddenly seems fragile in your grip. As breakable as the moment between you. 

It’s with a silver of hesitation that you remove the lid, revealing—

“A knife?” The look you give him is incredulous. 

Because that’s what it is. At first glance, you can tell that it’s not a weapon built for brute force. It’s small, delicate, even. It feels strange to describe a blade as such, but it’s also undoubtedly beautiful. 

You look down at it, each time discovering another detail. A striking silver blade meets a handle even more ornate than the box that houses it. A series of intricate vines wrap around each other, come to full bloom just where the blade kisses the hilt. 

“A dagger, actually,” he corrects. Heeseung just watches as you examine his gift. He must decide that an explanation is necessary. And not just for the weapon between your fingers. 

“I know I wasn’t exactly… enthusiastic about you wanting to continue working with Professor Kim,” he starts. There’s a hint of strain in his voice. It’s not an apology, but you hear the tinge of regret all the same. “It’s not that I don’t trust you or that I don’t think you’re competent. It’s just that—I mean, he’s a…” Across from you, he can’t quite bring himself to say it. 

“A vampire,” you finish the sentiment for him. His expression is unreadable when you match his gaze. But you think there’s something there, something in his eyes that begs for forgiveness you’re in no position to give. Acquittal from crimes you never bore witness to. Difficult decisions lost to the passage of time, their lingering effects reverberating around the two of you now, holding you in their unyielding grip. 

“I understand,” you tell him, because you do. Because you know that his reluctance was never commentary on his faith in you. Because even when he told you, on a night that feels lost to some distant past, that your writing was awful, it was only because he knew you were capable of better. Of more. “And I’m not angry with you. So much has happened these past few days.”

Nestled in your grip, the wooden box and the dagger within feel more like an apology than something with any practical use for you. You’re not woefully unathletic, but the only knives you’ve ever held have been in the kitchen. 

“It’s beautiful,” you tell him. “Although I do have to say, I’m not sure how much good a dagger will do me. Especially since Professor Kim is, y’know, a vampire.”

“You’d be surprised,” he counters. “A potent dose of moonflower is one way of killing a vampire, but this is far simpler.” He matches your gaze. “You just need to aim for the heart.”

Nodding towards the weapon in your hands, he encourages, “Try it out.”

You arch an eyebrow. “You want me to stab you?”

“Not particularly.” That same glint is back in his eye. The one that spells trouble, but not for any of the reasons you would have predicted when dealing with an immortal creature of the night. “But it’s a calculated risk. And we’ve become rather used to those, have we not?”

He’s taunting you, you realize. Still, your uncertain gaze flickers between him and the object in your hands a few more times. Relenting, you set the box down on the counter behind you, pulling the dagger out with no confidence left to your name. 

It’s terrible, but the thing you’re most concerned about now is just how embarrassing this is about to be for you. 

Against your fingertips, the cool kiss of metal feels foreign, invasive. Warily, you test its weight within your grip. And then you turn around to face him again. 

Heeseung wastes no time, pulls back no punches. “You’re holding it wrong.”

“Sorry,” you retort drily. “I must have slept through the day in class where we learned about proper dagger grips.”

He sighs, but there’s a trace of amusement in his eyes. “Here,” he beckons you closer. 

Reluctantly, you close the distance between you. As soon as you stand directly in front of him, you stretch out your arm, offering him the dagger. You expect him to take it from you, to demonstrate a proper grip. 

There’s a comment brewing on your lips, one about how if you had five hundred years of life under your belt, you’d probably be an expert in hand-to-hand combat too, when he catches you off guard. 

Because he doesn’t take the dagger from your outstretched hand. No, instead you feel the warmth of his fingers as they wrap around your own. Gently maneuvering your grip, arranging it into one he finds acceptable. 

Hand still covering yours, he squeezes. It’s light in pressure, but insistent in nature. 

“You have to keep a strong grip,” he whispers. You feel his breath dance across your cheekbone. “Or your hand could slip. You’d only injure yourself.”

Close. When did he get so close? 

Before you can make sense of it, his hand is sliding from your fingers to the skin of your wrist. It’s instinct, at this point to brace for another vision. Maybe he’ll show you, you think. A memory of him learning, an image of proper technique. 

But the mirage never comes. Your apartment stays firmly in view as he catches you by surprise for the thousandth time within the span of days. 

With the practiced agility of a supernatural being, he spins you. Flips your wrist in his grip so that the rest of your body is forced to follow. 

Suddenly, you’re no longer facing him. Instead, you see the counter where you left the old, wooden box. Your front door just beyond it. 

And somehow, at this new angle, the space between you has only grown smaller. Your back, each and every notch of your vertebrae, lies scant inches from the expanse of his chest. You can practically feel the steady rise and fall of his breath. 

It makes yours seem all the more frantic in comparison. 

Your legs feel like jello beneath you, wobbly to the point you’re afraid they might buckle. You try to regain your sense, to get a solid grip on something, anything that will tether you to reality. 

But you’re too aware, so painfully aware of him behind you, wrapped around your wrist, tangled in your thoughts. It’s all too much. 

He doesn’t relent. “Your stance is crucial.” His whisper floats like a caress down the shell of your ear, has you suppressing a shiver in his grip. One that starts at the base of your spine and ends somewhere beyond your body, outside this plane of existence. 

Your body feels molten, less than solid. Something devoid of bones and marrow and muscled. Composed of nerves and flutters and a submission to sensation in their wake. 

The hand that comes to your hip does little to steady you. Again, his pressure is light. But there’s no question that it’s a demand just the same. “Avoid letting your weight sink here.”

Is it? You don’t know. You can’t tell. You can’t think. 

All you can do is feel as his open palm traces a steady line from the curve of your hip to the expanse of your stomach, settling in the space just above your navel. “Brace here,” he breathes against your ear. 

It dawns on you, after a handful of shallow breaths, that this is an instruction. That he won’t let up until you follow it. 

Your stomach tightens in response, just below his hand. 

“Good,” he praises, but his touch doesn’t subside. “Better.”

His other hand, the one still wrapped around your wrist, begins to adjust your grip again. Angles it so that the dagger points away from you, towards an unseen target. “And this,” he moves the dagger slightly, “think of it as an extension of your arm.” Drawing a small circle with the tip, your entire body shifts in response. The palm splayed across your stomach moves with you. “Your body is one moving piece. It’s all connected.”

You suddenly find breathing something you need to focus on. Inhale. Exhale. Repeat. 

“When you shift to the left,” he adds lowly. The hand against your stomach guides your movement to mirror his words. “What happens to the dagger?”

You hope his question is rhetorical. Even if you had an answer for him, you doubt your voice would be willing to cooperate. 

“It follows,” he answers a moment later, and you’ve never been more grateful. “Just like the rest of your body.”

The hand on your stomach begins to slide towards your hip again. It follows an agonizingly slow path, pauses for a moment, before he removes it completely. The hand around your wrist falls to his side again. 

“A good weapon,” he says from behind, heat lingering, burning against your skin in all the places he touched you, “is one you can control. It doesn’t need to be flashy. It doesn’t have to look impressive. It just needs to be yours. Completely under your command.”

This time, it’s him that moves. You’re grateful. You still feel frozen in place. 

He walks, circling your immobile figure, until he’s in front of you again. “If worst comes to worst and you do need to defend yourself, don’t lead with the dagger. Lead with your back foot. Let that be what generates momentum through your hip. Brace through your core again, and let your power, your control, come from there. It’s all connected,” he reiterates. “It all moves together.”

He’s not touching you, not anymore, but the sight of him, the memory of it, makes you feel unsteady all over again. 

“Root through your feet,” he instructs. You’re not sure how well you obey the instruction. It feels like all of your energy is dedicated to not collapsing to the ground in a puddle, a horribly undignified heap. 

“Okay,” he continues, “Adjust your grip again, but this time—”

The sound of an incoming notification rings out from your phone, discarded on the counter along with the box the dagger came in. 

You could almost cry with relief at the opportunity to diffuse some of the mounting tension, to have his gaze anywhere but on you, even if just for a moment. 

Relaxing your stance, you do your best to hide the tremble in your legs as you walk to retrieve it. Reading the notification once, you turn back to where Heeseung is still rooted to the spot. 

You suddenly feel unsteady again, but for a completely different reason this time. 

“Professor Kim read my draft.” You hold your phone up, facing the screen towards him even though he’s too far to read the reply you’ve just received. Voice slightly wobbly, you add, “He wants to meet with me.”

…..

The coffee shop you arrive at twenty minutes later is nondescript. Full of office workers on a late lunch, families on a winter outing, and couples enjoying a quiet moment together. It strikes you as odd, almost, how normal it all seems. Despite the way your world has shifted on its axis completely, despite the city’s recent uptick in death toll, people are just… living. Going about their day as usual. 

You find your professor waiting for you at a table in the far corner. He hasn’t ordered anything for himself, and for a moment, you wonder how long it’s been for him. How many years he, like Heeseung, has found human food rather repulsive. 

Regardless of what you now know, Professor Kim looks every bit the well-organized, put together version of himself you saw during morning lectures this past semester. Gone is the crazed, ravaging, consumed by bloodlust being whose path you crossed three nights ago. 

“I appreciate you meeting me here,” you tell him as you slide down into the seat across from him, voice guarded, expression carefully neutral. 

“I’m glad you were able to find it,” Professor Kim agrees. You don’t know why you expected him to sound different. More monstrous, somehow. He doesn’t. It’s the same even, slightly gravely tone he’s always had. “You’ll have to forgive me for not inviting you back to the publishing house. I thought a more public location might serve both of our interests better.”

Witnesses, he means. Whether they’re for your comfort or his, you’re not entirely sure. 

You didn’t come here to beat around the bush. And Heeseung, four blocks away where you forced him to wait for you, is surely anxious to hear the end result of this conversation. “Did you have the chance to read my draft?”

Professor Kim’s expression betrays nothing. “I did.” 

“What did you think?”

He waits for a moment, weighing his words. “I agree with your email. It seems that your interests are… aligned with New Haven’s mission. As you may already know, it’s a rather small publishing house with quite a niche audience. Our tastes are more specific than most.” There’s a hint of distrust when he adds, “It’s rare to find a young person these days who has the experience necessary to publish something that will entice our readers.”

And this is where you have to tread lightly. Make your story believable. Subtle, but foolproof. “I’ll admit,” you start, “my interest in your subject matter has been a fairly recent development.” Slowly, intentionally, you brush hair from the side of your neck. The bandage still covers the worst of the damage, but the fading bruises are still visible. As are the implications of your wound. “But believe me when I say that I am fully committed.”

Professor Kim appraises the side of your neck, eyes widening for a fraction of a second. 

“The woman in my story,” you continue, “the one whose dreams are stolen. I believe I’ve thought of a better idea for the ending.”

He pauses, leans forward in his chair. “Which is?”

“Originally, I thought it would be most fitting for her to die. After all, she was powerless against her enemy.” You meet his eye. “Had no way of defeating him as he grew stronger the weaker she got.”

Professor Kim nods. “A reasonable expectation. But you said your ending has changed.”

Nodding, you continue, “I think I’d like to incorporate a new plot element. A special plant, maybe. Something that makes her dreams toxic to her husband. Something that makes him ill every time he tries to steal them from her.”

Your professor’s gaze is still tight, but his eyes are beginning to relax. Glossing over with the realization of your implication. 

“In my story, the person who introduces her to this plant is a mentor of hers, and ultimately, someone she decides to work with. Someone whose mission she strives to fulfill. To protect her dreams and everyone else’s.”

“An interesting thought.” Your professor leans back in his chair. You can tell that he’s still not fully convinced. “But what if this mentor of hers turns out to be a dream stealer himself. Wouldn’t it be only natural for your heroine to be wary of him, to fear him?”

“She does,” you admit. “But fear won’t save her from her husband. And between the two of them, her mentor is not the one that has ever attempted to harm her. To steal her dreams. Between the two of them, she has no confusion about where to place her trust. Even if it is hesitant.”

Your professor considers for a moment. Then, after a second that seems to stretch infinitely, he nods. “I’d like to hear more about this story of yours. At the publishing house, if you’re able to meet me there.”

Your heart gives a traitorous lurch, but your voice is steady when you affirm, “I am.”

“Can you be there in an hour?” He’s already standing, as if this was a business meeting, a simple transaction, and he’s back to the office now. 

You confirm that you can, and he offers you one last nod.

Then, with little in the way of fanfare, he buttons his long coat closed, retreating through the front door of the coffee shop without so much as a backward glance. 

…..

The metal is cold against the skin of your leg. Biting, it demands all of your attention, even as Heeseung pleads for it where he kneels in front of you. 

“Are you sure about this?” he asks, not for the first time. “Because you don’t have to—”

“Heeseung,” you interrupt, and he looks up, his hands pausing in their ministrations. Beneath you, he’s adjusting the second part of his gift. Because not only did he give you a dagger in a wooden box pulled from a lost century, but also a holster. One that wraps around your thigh. One that he’s currently securing into place as he tries to convince you not to meet your murderous professor at New Haven.

But that’s the least of your worries at the moment. Right now, you thank whatever cosmic forces must be on your side that you wore loose fitting pants today. First because they will help to conceal the shape of your hidden weapon. And second because they’re roomy enough to pull up over your knee, so that you’re still clothed while Heeseung helps you adjust the dagger and holster into place. 

The mere thought of the alternative is too mortifying to consider, has another spark of heat gathering on your cheeks. 

Then again, it’s not like this is much better. Just as you were in your apartment, you’re painfully aware of each brush of his fingers against the skin of your thigh. You have to suppress the urge to sigh, and not in exasperation, every time he opens his mouth to tell you how bad of an idea this is. Mostly because it sends soft whispers of breath over your flesh, goosebumps following in their stead. 

“Heeseung,” you try again. The sound of his name makes him look up at you through long lashes. In front of you, on his knees, his attention has never belonged to you more. 

“We’ve been over this.” He’s had his chance to share his woes, voice his worries. You’ll never make any progress if he pitches this much of a fight every time a new opportunity comes about. “I’ll be fine. It’s just a meeting.”

Heesung frowns. “I don’t like that he wants you to meet him all alone. Why couldn’t you have your meeting at the coffee shop?”

“Right, because I’m sure you’d want to tell me all about your vampire history while a group of twelve-year-olds down caramel frappes a few seats over.”

Heeseung’s lips flatten. “Don’t compare me to him.”

“I’m not.” It’s the truth. Similarities between the two of them have yet to cross your mind. Despite the obvious similarity, your professor and Heeseung exist in entirely different planes as far as you’re concerned. On opposite sides of a vast spectrum. “I’m just saying, it makes sense that he would want to meet somewhere with a little more privacy.”

Heeseung slides the last strap into place, giving it an experimental tug. The holster and the dagger within it hold strong. Wordlessly, he rises back to full height. You release your pant leg, skin and weapon disappearing in one fell swoop. 

“At least let me come with you,” he pleads. “I’ll stay out of sight.”

You’re shaking your head before he can even finish the request. “You and I both know that’s a terrible idea. If he could detect you before, he can do it again. Let’s just consider ourselves lucky that he can’t tell we’ve been together.”

Because what a disastrous nightmare that would be. 

“I can barely do that,” Heeseung counters. “We don’t have to worry about that.” The concern in his gaze doesn’t ease, though. 

You get it, you really do. And you empathize with it. It’s only natural, you suppose, that he would feel some sort of responsibility for you. Even though it was your own volition, your own actions that led you here, he was a part of the catalyst. 

But you don’t want him to feel any guilt where you’re concerned. 

“I’ll be fine,” you reiterate, trying to placate him. “He’s convinced that I’m convinced that he saved me that night.” Looking for Heeseung, begging for a bit of his permission, you add, “This is the first step in getting the answers we need. Besides,” you lift your leg slightly. “he won’t be able to hurt me even if he wants to. I’ve got a secret weapon.”

Heeseung’s lips only thin further. “And no idea how to use it,” he retorts under his breath.

“Hey!” you protest. “I have some idea how to use it.” You’re lying through your teeth. You don’t think you retained a single thing from Heeseung’s rather unorthodox lesson in your apartment.  But in your mind, any fight that comes down to physical strength was always doomed to be a losing battle. “And you said it yourself, I don’t have to be perfect. I just have to wait until he’s distracted. Catch him off guard.” You point right at Heeseung’s chest, finger hovering a few inches away from his skin. “And aim right for the heart.” 

But now you’re thinking of your apartment again. Of hands on your hips, covering the expanse of your stomach. Warm, steady, grounding. And so goddamn distracting. 

“I can tell that you’re nervous,” Heeseung says, voice tangled with worry. “Your heartbeat just jumped.”

You’re too mortified to correct him. 

“Of course I’m nervous. But I’ll be careful.” You meet his eye, hoping your false confidence will reassure him. For the third time, you promise, “And I’ll be fine.”

Heeseung just looks at you for a moment. Inhales. Exhales. 

And then he says, “Keep your phone on you the whole time. Leave it open to my contact so that you can message or call me faster if you need to. And if something, anything feels off, get out of there.” He glances toward your thigh, where your concealed weapon rests. “That dagger is a last resort, but don’t be afraid to use it.”

You nod. After opening your phone to his contact, you check the clock. See that it’s time. 

It feels wrong to leave without any parting words, but you’re not sure what you would say. If there’s anything left to be said. 

You turn on your heel, surprised when Heeseung falls into step beside you. Again, the two of you agreed he would wait a considerable distance away to avoid detection. “What are you doing?”

“I can walk with you a little further,” he insists, stubborn.

“No, you can’t,” you argue. “We’re only a few blocks away, and you don’t know for sure how far his senses extend.” 

“I wouldn’t even be able to—”

“Heeseung.” You stop in your tracks, turning to face him. “Remember how you told me that you trust me, just a few hours ago?”

You need him to dig deep, find some of that faith again. Or else this is just going to be miserable for the both of you.

“You’re not the untrustworthy variable in this situation.”

You sigh. “Then just…” you trail off, not sure how to put him at ease. “Just trust me to be okay. Wait here, and I’ll be back,” you plead. “Soon. I promise.”

Heeseung is nothing but serious when he tells you, “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“I’m not planning on it.”

A moment passes. Another. Then—

“Fine.” But his shoulders don’t release their tension. 

Again, you turn to walk away. To leave him behind. You feel his eyes on your back, and you’ve barely made it a few feet before he says your name again.

“What—”

“Be careful,” he whispers, so low it’s almost lost to the breeze. “Please.”

Something in you softens at the tenderness in his voice, the worry in his eyes. But you don’t have time to linger on it now. You nod, only once, before turning away from him again. 

The distance between you and New Haven feels short fades quickly. As anticipation begins to settle uncomfortably in your stomach, you replay your fabricated story in your mind, the one you’re about to feed Professor Kim. The one you hope is convincing enough to earn a bit of his trust. Tight enough that he won’t be able to poke any holes in it. 

You’re at the door of the publishing house before you know it, before you have the chance to fully collect yourself. Pausing on the porch, you look around for a moment. It’s just as deserted as it was last week, just as eerily quiet. But this time, at least, you think you see a light in the window. 

Knocking with a hand that’s steadier than you feel, you will your heartbeat to maintain an even rhythm. 

It takes Professor Kim less than ten seconds to open the door. He glances over your shoulder, surveying the area with no small amount of suspicion, before he ushers you inside. 

The layout is just as strange as you remember it, but the hallway doesn’t feel so ominous now that the lights are on, the faint hum of electricity buzzing in the background. Then again, standing face to face with a vampire has a way of being unnerving all on its own. 

Beckoning you forward, you follow your professor past the same closed, unmarked doors before arriving in the open space at the end of the hall. Again, like the rest of New Haven, it looks different in the light. Warmer, more welcoming. Even if it still doesn’t look like much of a publishing house. Even if it still carries with it a distinct sense of unease.

This time, at least, Professor Kim has pulled out two chairs and a small side table,so the room isn’t completely barren. Sitting in the first chair, he gestures for you to join him. You do, eyes only darting towards the door marked with his name once. 

The blood is gone, you realize. 

“Thank you for meeting me here.” Professor Kim is all cordiality where he sits across from you. Again, you struggle to reconcile this version of him with the vampire who shot you full of poison just a few nights ago. “I trust you understand that this conversation is too delicate to have in a more public space.”

“Of course,” you nod. 

“Since we’re here,” he continues, “let’s not speak in riddles any longer. I’m sure you have questions about the last night you were here.” He pauses, passing you a meaningful look. “As do I.”

You inhale, reminding yourself that as far as he’s concerned, you don’t know anything about vampires other than the usual, superstitious lore. “The last time I was here, there was blood on your clothes. Your mouth.” The shiver that traces your spine is not forced. Even now, you think it’s one of the most chilling scenes you’ve ever witnessed. Finally, in a small voice, you breath, “You’re a vampire.”

Professor Kim doesn’t try to hide it. “I am.”

You force confusion into your eyes. “But you didn’t try to drink my blood. You’re not trying to now.”

He nods at your observation. “I have ways of managing my hunger,” he explains, frustratingly vague. “You do not need to fear me.” You hadn’t expected him to spill all of his secrets within the first minute of your conversation, but that only leaves you with more questions than answers. And it certainly won’t give Heeseung or the rest of the boys much to work with. 

“But you… you threw something at me.” Again, you don’t have to try hard to put fear in your gaze. “Something that stuck in my neck.”

“Yes,” he nods again. “That was an injection of moonflower. It’s a substance known to be poisonous to vampires. I believed that injecting it into your blood would prevent you from being preyed upon.” It takes a concentrated effort for you not to show any smugness. Your hypothesis had been right. He was trying to protect you. “I’m pleased to see that it seems to have worked, although I do apologize for the bruising.” 

You realize then that the bandage on your neck covers the bite mark, the place Heeseung left a scar of his own making just next to Professor Kim’s. 

Your professor, you realize, doesn’t know that you were bitten. Doesn’t know that the moonflower was beginning to have an adverse effect. That Heeseung took it right back out of you. 

Internally, you debate. You don’t want to reveal any more cards than you need to, but you don’t know how long the scars will last. Don’t know how much longer you can wear the bandage without raising suspicion. And if he discovers later that you lied to him, it could be disastrous. 

Slowly, you reach for the bandaid on your neck. Removing it, you explain, “What you did that night saved me. I was—”

Professor Kim cuts you off. Leaning forward in his seat, his attention is honed on the twin puncture wounds on your neck. “You were bitten.” Something flashes through his eyes. Confusion. Suspicion. He looks you over again. “But you haven't changed.”

Too late, you realize your mistake. Heeseung’s words come back to you. 

“No, that’s another difference. The seven of us can’t create new vampires.”

Shit. Shit. 

Scrambling, you try to come up with some sort of explanation. 

“Barely,” you correct, doing your best to maintain an even tone. “I was barely bitten. I don’t think he consumed any of my blood.” Trying to create a sense of false wonderment, you ask with wide eyes, “Do you think that’s what prevented me from transforming?”

“Perhaps,” your professor muses, but doubt lingers in his gaze. He appears more guarded when he conjectures, “Or perhaps moonflower has more qualities that even I didn’t know about.”

You’re curious about it, the way he makes it seem as if he’s quite familiar with the substance. Based on what you’ve learned from Heeseung, it’s rare. Difficult to come by. 

But with that suspicion still in his eyes at the potential hole in your story, you’re desperate to change the course of the conversation. Pushing forward, you poke at another one of the boys’ questions. “Did you know that… that he was a vampire?” Your struggle to say Heeseung’s name out loud is not entirely fabricated. It’s to your advantage that it makes sense now. What university student wouldn’t be horrified at the prospect of a classmate being a monster? 

“I had my suspicions,” your professor confirms. “But I wasn’t certain. Not until that night. I apologize for leaving you there with him.” There is sorrow in his eyes. He seems genuinely regretful. “But I was afraid that he would follow me after he realized I’d poisoned your blood. That he would seek his revenge on me.” Looking at you with a newfound curiosity, eyes honed in on the mark on your neck, he levels your with a question of his own. “If I might ask, what happened?”

The best lies are always wrapped in truth, and this is one you were prepared for. You start, “He bit me. But he stopped immediately, before drinking anything. I think he was confused for a moment. He couldn't tell what was wrong with me, with my blood. To be honest, I was quite disoriented as well. I remember him leaving, although I couldn’t say for sure how long he stayed.”

You also have no way of knowing if Professor Kim returned to New Haven. You can’t tell him that you spent the night there, not if he came back at any point and found you gone. 

Instead, you tell him, “I was weak, confused. But I think I remember getting into a taxi, going back to my apartment. I slept for over a day. When I woke up, I couldn’t remember anything. My entire body was exhausted, sore. But after a while, my memories started to come back. That’s when I reached out to you.”

He frowns. “So you don’t know then, if Lee Heeseung is alive or dead?”

You meet his eye. Shake your head. Do your best not to think of the boy waiting for you a few blocks away, sick with anxiety. “I don’t.”

Professor Kim considers for a moment, lets your words settle into the air. Eventually, slowly, he nods, accepting your warped version of events. “If he really didn’t consume any of your tainted blood, it’s likely that he’s still alive. But it’s no matter now.” He shakes his head. “I’m glad that you reached out to me when you did. And I’m glad you survived, that the moonflower had its intended effect. I do apologize for the memory loss you experienced,” he adds. “That is an effect moonflower has on humans.”

You display your palms in a sign of gratitude. “There’s no need to apologize.” You try to mean it, at least a little bit, when you say, “You saved my life. I’d rather lose my memories a thousand times over than succumb to a vampire.”

Professor Kim nods. “You said earlier that you were interested in working here, in aligning with New Haven’s cause.”

This is it, you think. This is your way in. This is how you play your part in preventing any morme unnecessary bloodshed. “I am.”

Professor Kim doesn’t smile, but he seems pleased with your answer. “I know that this was originally meant to be an opportunity to look at how a publishing house functions, but in light of recent events, I have another task in mind.”

It shouldn’t catch you off guard as much as it does. You try not to let any traces of dread imbue your tone when you ask, “What kind of task?”

“We would still publish your original fiction, of course,” he assures you, “but with the recent attacks occurring, this city needs someone willing to report on them.” He speaks with the fervor of a madman when he continues, “To share the truth that other news outlets are afraid to publish. To remind the public how evil vampires truly are. To encourage their support and convince them to join in the fight against these monsters and all of the suffering they bring.” 

You’re silent for a moment, his vitriol settling with a chill into your bones. “You want me to work here as a journalist?”

“If you’re willing to,” he nods. “I know that your background is not in journalism, but your words hold power. The ability to convince people, to hold the truth in front of their eyes and force them to see it, to understand it. I won’t pretend that there are no risks involved. Although blood is their ultimate priority, vampires do have a sense of self-preservation. Those that are sentient enough may be angered by what you write. If you accept, I will offer you as much protection as I can. Including, of course, a steady supply of moonflower.”

Moonflower. You can’t help the shudder this time. Memories come back to you unbidden. You, suspended in a terrible place between consciousness and unconscious. You, waking up in an unfamiliar room, afraid and without any recollection of how you got there. 

You could go your entire life without seeing that damn plant ever again. 

“It would be difficult to write,” you point out, trying to tamp down on the panic, “without my memories, even if they’re only lost temporarily.”

Professor Kim nods. “I believe that was due to the potency of the moonflower you were given, along with the fact that it was injected directly into your bloodstream. But there are other ways of consuming it. The petals of the flower itself can be made into a tea. I have other ideas, too. I’ve been wanting to create a salve out of it. Something applied topically to the skin.”

That you do find interesting. Again, Heeseung made it sound as if moonflower is quite rare. Hard to come by, difficult to obtain information about. He did also mention that it is sometimes consumed as a tea. You make a mental note to tell him about the professor’s seemingly extensive knowledge of it later. 

You might be pushing your luck, but you have one more question. If you leave here without at least trying to get an answer, you know you’ll regret it. “Forgive me, Professor, if this is untoward, but why did you help me that night? Clearly you’re different from other vampires, but…”

“But why do I hate them so much?” he finishes for you. 

You nod. “I’m sorry if it’s not something you’d like to share. But I’ve been having a hard time wrapping my head around it since my memories started to return.”

At your explanation, he says nothing. For a moment, you don’t think he’ll give you any sort of answer at all. 

But then, he begins, “It’s not a very happy story. I was turned just over twenty years ago. It was around this time of year, actually. I was visiting my family for the holidays. My parents had an old cabin, way out in the countryside. Far from the city.”

A flash of sorrow crosses his eyes, as if it causes him pain to remember it. 

“By then, vampire attacks were as rare as they are today, but we both know by now that doesn’t mean much. It must have been a group of nomadic monsters that came across our cabin that night.” 

He looks at his hands, gaze full of agony. “They massacred my family, every last one of them. My parents, siblings, cousins. My wife and daughter.” 

The small gasp of horror you let out is genuine. 

“It was an accident, I’m sure, that my blood wasn’t completely drained. That I was left alive, even if just barely. Alone, in a cabin that was meant to be a place for celebration, I spent long, agonizing days turning into a monster.”

“And then,” he concludes, looking at you, “I vowed to spend the rest of my immortality hunting down every last one of those wretched creatures that took everything from me. That stole my life and everything I love and made me into a demon.” Determination is etched into his features when he tells you, “Lee Heeseung isn’t the first vampire I’ve come across, and my only regret from that night is that he left it alive. I plan to remedy that failure. Especially now that he’s leaving bodies in his wake.”

“You think that it’s him, then?” you breathe. “The one that killed the humans at the river? All the other deaths?”

“Of course it is.” There’s no question, no room for argument in your professor’s assertion. “There hasn’t been any vampire activity in this city for two hundred years. And then, suddenly, I find him trying to drink your blood the very same day the first attacks occur. It’s not a coincidence.”

“But you’re able to see past your desire for blood. What if—”

“I am the exception to the rule.” He strikes your argument down before you can finish it. “Not once, in the last twenty years, have I ever seen a vampire that’s capable of empathy. As I warned you before, the only emotions they have are driven by instinct. Self-preservation on occasion, but above all, vampires are consumed by hunger. The constant need for blood.”

It’s similar to what Heeseung told you. Variations on the same theme, the same devastating truth. But you still don’t feel any closer to discovering what it is that makes Professor Kim different from the other descendants of the eighth lord’s son. And you can hardly reveal to him the truth of Heeseung’s nature. 

Instead, you ask him, “How many people have died? Since the first attack.” You want to know how current his information is, if it differs from what the boys told you. 

“Eleven,” your professor confirms. “Eleven too many. Which is why I need you. The city needs you. Your words could save lives, prevent tragedies before they occur.”

You’re silent for a moment, pretending to be lost in thought, to be considering his offer. Weighing the pros of his words over the cons of your potential endangerment. After a quiet minute, you inhale, as if steeling your resolve, finding your courage. Against the skin of your thigh, you feel the cool kiss of the metal dagger Heeseung gave you. “I’ll do it.”

His face remains stoic, the gravity of the situation far too heavy for him to be truly excited at the prospect. But you can tell that he’s pleased. “Good.” He nods to himself. “Good. This could change things. You could change things.” 

He looks around the space, as if realizing for the first time just how strangely empty it is. “I know that there’s not much here. I prefer to do my work in other places, but if you’d like for me to set up an office for you here—”

“That’s okay.” You shake your head. “Thank you, but I have places I like to write, too.” The thought of working here, of spending more time in this odd, dilapidated building, in the immediate vicinity of Professor Kim is reason enough to decline. Never mind the protest Heeseung would surely wage.

“Very well,” he nods. “I’m sure you understand the gravity of the situation. Typically, I wouldn't put a student on such a difficult schedule, but the truth is not something that can be delayed. I’d like you to have your first article prepared by tomorrow afternoon.” 

It’s a tight turnaround, but you’ve done more with less. For his class, even. Your ability to write in a short amount of time, at least, is something you’re truly confident in. “I can do that.”

“Good,” he says again. “Send me your piece by three p.m., and I will have my edits back to you within the hour. I want it published as soon as possible. The following morning would be ideal.”

“Are there limitations?” you ask. “Things I shouldn’t share or write about?”

Your professor considers for a moment, then he shakes his head. “The only thing I care about is that people understand why they need to be afraid of these attacks. Why they need to join the fight against them. Obviously your reporting needs to be factual, but do what it takes to get that message across, loud and clear.”

“I will,” you assure him, trying to be as much the frightened, determined girl he thinks you are. 

“I’m going to start reaching out to some of my connections,” he tells you. “Finding ways to promote this as much as we can, to get as many people reading as possible. But for now, I’ll get you some moonflower to take with you.”

Standing, he motions for you to follow him towards the door marked with his name. His office. The same place you heard strange noises emanating from the last time you were here. 

It’s confirmed as you approach. The bloodstains are gone. 

He opens the door, ushering you inside, and still, none of your questions are answered. It’s a normal office, nothing out of the ordinary. Similar to his office back at the university, in fact. Clean, orderly, meticulously organized. 

The sounds you heard that night… you swear they had seemed distant, far away. But this office is as cramped and impersonal as any other. 

In fact, the only touch of personality you can find is the large painting that hangs on the far wall, opposite from the door you entered through. Glancing at the scenery it encapsulates, you pause. There’s something strangely familiar about it. Like it’s something you’ve seen before.

It does strike you as almost comical, too, that the balance of it is off. It hangs slightly too far to the left, one side dipping lower than the other. 

You spent a semester reading Professor Kim’s lecture presentations that all had the same uniform Times New Roman 12-point font. You watched as he publicly criticized students for turning in work with nonstandard margins. And yet, it appears that he couldn’t be bothered to make sure the one painting in his entire office is level. 

It’s odd. Entirely out of character.

But you don’t have long to dwell on it before he reaches for a small bag on his desk. 

“Here.” He hands it to you. “These are moonflower petals, crushed into small pieces. You can brew a pinch at a time with boiling water. Don’t let them seep longer than five minutes, and there should be no negative effects on your memory.”

“Thank you.” You take the bag from him, doing your best to appear grateful even if your hand shakes slightly as you receive it. “I’ll use it well.”

“I’ll look forward to reading your article, then,” he tells you. “Three p.m. tomorrow.” The two of you leave his office, walking back into the large, empty, open room. You sneak one last glance at the painting before he closes the door. Frowning, you shake your head. In the grand scheme of the day’s revelations, it’s certainly not something worth fixating on. “Do you need any help getting home?”

“No.” You shake your head, already turning towards the hallway. “I’ll be fine.”

So with your bag of moonflower in hand and unused weapon still cold against your thigh, you bid your professor farewell. 

Heeseung is pacing when you find him. Wearing down a path in the grass next to the abandoned building you left him at just over an hour ago. 

He hears you before he sees you. Detects the sound of your heartbeat or your footsteps or maybe even the smell of your shampoo. Whatever it is, it has him stopping in his tracks, turning towards you with something desperate in his eyes. 

He makes quick work of scanning you head to toe, and you watch as tension drains from him visibly. 

“You’re okay,” he breathes as soon as you’re close enough for conversation. “You’re not hurt?”

“I’m fine,” you confirm, suppressing the urge to run a hand through his hair. Just to soothe him a little. But you don’t know if it would calm him down or make things so, so much worse. You offer him a small smile instead. “Just like I promised I would be.”

Heeseung spots the small bag you’re carrying, the gift from your professor. “What’s that?”

“Moonflower.” You hold it up to the light. “He gave me some. I was right. He shot me with it that night to try to protect me. He…” You trail off, remembering his story. The blame he is now mistakenly laying on Heeseung’s shoulders. “He has a reason for hating vampires.” 

As you recount the details of your conversation, it’s hard not to feel a distinct stab of sympathy for your professor. He’s honing in on the wrong target, yes, but his life has been informed by a deep, profound tragedy. He lost his family. A wife. A daughter. 

When you finish, Heeseung frowns. “He wants you to write articles about the attacks?”

You nod. “He thinks it will be a way to rally people together, to generate enough momentum to stop the attacks and drive out the vampires. Similar to what happened two hundred years ago.”

Heeseung is already resigned to your commitment to seeing this through. No matter how resistant he is to the fact that you’ll be spending more time with your professor, there’s no fight in his voice when he asserts, “And you’re going to do it.”

Again, you nod. “It’s a way for me to keep getting close to him. Maybe I’ll learn how he’s able to keep his bloodlust under control. And I know it’s more complicated than good and evil, but these attacks are horrific. If this helps to stop them, or at least to make people more aware of them, that could help save lives.”

That, at least, Heeseung understands. “The others are out right now,” he tells you. “Spread throughout the city near the places where the attacks occurred. We’re trying to stop what we can, too. And maybe get an idea of what’s going on. Where this vampire came from. Stop them before more are made.”

You think of Heeseung’s story, the painstaking steps they’ve all taken to allow themselves to get involved in matters like this. The sacrifices they’ve made. The dreams of a normal life they’ve all had to grieve, to give up entirely. “Have they found anything?”

Heeseung shakes his head. “Not yet. But we’ll keep looking. Vampires aren’t known for being careful. They can’t be, not with their head so full of bloodlust. They’ll make a mistake eventually, and then we’ll find them. I’m surprised they haven’t already.”

For the sake of your city, you can’t help but agree. Your only wish is that no one else will have to get hurt to finish this for good. “I hope so.”

Heeseung turns to you again. The bag of moonflower is still in his hands. It strikes you, just how close he can be to poison without feeling any of the fear that seems to find you so easily these days. “Are you sure there wasn’t anything that seemed… I don’t know… strange about him? About New Haven?”

You shake your head. “I mean, the building itself is still really odd, but it seemed less sinister with the lights on and the blood cleaned up.” Remembering that Heeseung sat through his lectures too, that he’ll understand just how odd it is for Professor Kim to have a painting hanging askew, you add, “Honestly, the only weird thing was this painting in his office. You know how meticulous he is, but it was super tilted to the—”

Your words die on your lips. It hadn’t clicked, then, what was so familiar about that painting. But here, now, in the aftermath, you put two and two together. 

Heeseung’s eyes flick to yours, finding them wide. “What?” he questions, suddenly urgent as he takes note of the odd expression on your face. 

“The painting.” Your mind is racing, willing things to make sense. “There was a painting in his office. I thought it looked familiar, but I couldn’t figure out why.”

Heeseung’s brow draws together. “What was it?”

“The field.” You match his gaze, eyes brimming with a million unanswered questions. There’s nothing believable about it. It sounds ridiculous, an absurd lie, even to your own ears. “The painting in his office was of the field from the vision you showed me.”

…..

Jungwon isn’t answering his phone. 

“C’mon…” Instead of sitting on the navy couch in his living room like Jake was when you found him here, Heeseung paces in front of it. A few feet away, you stand, still reeling at your realization. 

Finally, on the fifth ring, Jungwon picks up. 

“Jungwon,” Heeseung breathes. “How close are you to the professor’s house? Could you get eyes on him?”

You hear the muffled sound of Jungwon’s indecipherable response from the other side of the line. 

After a moment, Heeseung says, “Okay, that’s fine. Just have him text me.” 

Ending the call, he turns to look at you, phone falling limply to his side. 

“Niki’s closer,” he explains. “Jungwon will check with him and have him message me when Professor Kim is confirmed to be back at his house.”

Because now that you’ve connected the dots, Heeseung insists that he needs to see this painting for himself. Which means the two of you need to wait until you’re certain Professor Kim is nowhere near New Haven. 

“I mean,” you try, grasping at straws to find a way for all of this to make sense, “is it possible that he’s been to that field too? Or knows someone that has?”

“You don’t understand.” Heeseung shakes his head. “That field is—was—in Celedis. It hasn’t existed for four hundred years.”

Your eyebrows furrow. “What do you mean, it hasn’t existed? I know you said that people forgot about Celedis, but—”

“They didn’t just forget.” Heeseung sighs. After a moment, he stops his pacing to take a seat on the couch. He looks at you from where he sits. “The blood moon I told you about, the one that comes every hundred years.”

You nod, remembering that piece of his story, of his visions. 

“It has certain powers,” Heeseung explains. “It’s a night when old magic is the strongest. And four hundred years ago, one hundred years after the seven of us stopped aging, the eighth son went back to Celedis. It was mostly empty by then. Had been so ravaged by vampires that everyone was either dead or had fled to other kingdoms.”

He doesn’t accompany this story with narration, but you see it all the same. The devastation. The vast emptiness. The tragedy of a kingdom lost to destruction of its own making.

“But he went back, and he found the oak tree where the seven lords, the seer, and his father had all cast their wishes. He didn’t understand old magic, but he was so consumed by his own bloodlust, his thirst for more, that it didn’t matter.”

Heeseung looks at his hands, turns his fingers over in the light as if the lines in his palms contain unknown answers. Explanations for sins past.

“Fueled by his selfishness, he wished for ultimate control over everything, to be the most powerful being in the world. Old magic took his wish and interpreted it as old magic does. It is said that moments after his wish was cast, the kingdom of Celedis collapsed in on itself, destroying hundreds of years of architecture, history, culture. All gone in a single second. And it took the eighth son with it. Returned his body to the land. After all, what could be more powerful than the earth itself? The very source of the kingdom’s magic.”

Heeseung looks at you with something fierce in his eyes. “No one alive today should know what that field looks like.” 

His assuredness sends a chill into your bones. How could it be true? You know what you saw, or at least you think you do, but how on earth would Professor Kim have any connection to a kingdom lost centuries before his birth?

Heeseung pauses for a moment, something suddenly occurring to him, the same idea crossing his mind. “You’re sure that Professor Kim said he was turned only twenty years ago?”

“Yes,” you nod. “And I think that makes sense, actually. New Haven was founded shortly after.” The publishing house he created to spark a literary revolution against the monsters that consumed his world, ruined his life. It follows logic that he would establish it in the wake of his tragic changing. 

Heeseung accepts this, prodding at the other variable instead. “And you’re sure it’s the same field that you saw?”

The more he tells you, the more you doubt your own eyes, your own fallible memory. But— “I mean, my memory isn’t perfect, but I recognized it instantly. I just couldn’t remember where I had seen it until I was outside again, with you.”

Heeseung is quiet for a moment, contemplating. An incoming message from Niki sounds out with a quiet ping, breaking the silence.

Glancing down at his phone, Heeseung’s lips tighten. He looks back to you. “The professor is home.”

A handful of minutes later, you’re back at the publishing house, this time with Heeseung at your side. 

The two of you stand on the front porch, trying to shroud yourselves in the shadows as much as possible. The whole area still seems uncannily deserted, but erring on the side of caution has never hurt. Heeseung reaches for the door handle with a firm grip, but despite his efforts, it doesn't turn.

“It’s locked,” he whispers to you. “Do you have a bobby pin or anything similar?”

“No.” You shake your head. Did the two of you seriously get this far to be thwarted by something as simple as a locked door? After a moment of contemplation, you realize that you do still have something narrow and sharp holstered to your thigh. For a handful of seconds, it seems almost too ridiculous to consider. But your pride is not the most pressing issue at the moment. Slowly, you ask, “Do you think the dagger might work?”

Heeseung pauses, turns to look at you over his shoulder. “Maybe, actually.”

Again, you pull up the fabric from your left pant leg, retrieving the weapon in question. Sliding it out of the holster, you hand it to him wordlessly. 

You watch as Heeseung struggles with the lock, letting out quiet curses every time the knife slips. And then, after a few frustrating attempts, a quiet click signals his success. 

Who would have thought? The dagger did actually come in handy at New Haven. 

Despite Niki’s confirmation that the professor is far away in his home, the two of you enter quietly, carefully. The hallway remains dark as you forgo turning on any of the lights. Instead, you let the dim light of the dying day outside guard your path. You’re not even sure you would need that. At this point, this place is starting to become familiar.  

Plunged in darkness, the publishing house is nearly as eerie as it was the first time you visited, but with Heeseung at your side, at least some of your nerves are abated. 

In the open room at the end of the hall, your two chairs from earlier still sit, now empty. 

Moving past them, the two of you approach your professor’s office. As you get closer to the door, you wonder if Heeseung will have to pick the lock again. But when he reaches forward this time, the knob twists without a hint of resistance. 

Heeseung waits until you’re in the office next to him, shutting the door behind the both of you before flicking on the light. It’s another precaution. Just in case a passerby were to look in through the window from the open room, they wouldn’t notice any usual movement or light. 

But the world outside now feels like a distant concern. 

Because the painting, illuminated by artificial light, hangs in front of you just as surely as it had an hour ago.

For a moment, Heeseung says nothing, just frowning at the scenery. 

“Well?” you prompt, desperate to hear his appraisal, “what do you think?”

“It’s similar,” Heeseung admits, eyes narrowing. He exhales, and you can’t tell if it’s in disbelief or acute relief. “Really similar, but it’s not exactly right. Those flowers there,” he points to a small cluster of bright red tulips at the edge of the painting, “there were never any like that.” 

The most prominent of your emotions is relief. At least you won’t have to add this to the growing list of mysteries surrounding your professor. 

But then, another thought creeps in. Again, you wonder what life must be like with a perfect recollection. Glancing sidelong at Heeseung, you suppose it certainly comes in handy at moments like this. Although you’re not sure the price he pays for eternal memory is worth it.

“It must just be a place that looks similar,” Heeseung concludes, as eager as you to leave New Haven far behind. “Let’s—”

“Wait.” Frowning, you take a step forward, closer to the painting. “Earlier today, the reason I thought it seemed so out of place, it was hanging off center.” But the painting in front of you is perfectly level. “He fixed it.”

Heeseung follows your gaze. “Do you think it got knocked around that night we found him here? Maybe he didn’t have a chance to fix it until today.”

“Maybe,” you agree, “but the rest of his office was perfect.” Nothing else was out of place. 

Taking a few more steps forward, you stand directly in front of the painting. It’s beautiful, but the closer you look, the odder it gets. Looking at the brush strokes, it seems almost… amateur. The scene is strikingly realistic in the way only a practiced artist could manage, but the individual lines are messier the closer you get. As if unrefined hands put it together. 

An idea comes to you, along with a sinking suspicion that settles heavily in the pit of your stomach. Looking at the painting again, your eyes are assessing now.

It’s large. Heavy, probably. You’ll need his help. 

Turning to face Heeseung, you request, “Help me move it.”

Heeseung frowns at you. “Why?”

You shrug, but the last thing you feel is nonchalance. You’re thinking of voices behind this door. Too far away to possibly be coming from an office this small. “Just a hunch. If I’m wrong, we’ll put it right back.”

Heeseung still wears an odd look on his face, but he does as you ask. On the count of three, the two of you lift the painting off of its mount. Set it down. 

And reveal a small, circular opening in the wall, just large enough for a person of Professor Kim’s size to squeeze through. 

A glance passes between the two of you, composed equally of shock and dread. 

Still, you force yourself to get closer. Despite the light from the office, it’s dark when you peer in. The only thing you can tell for sure is that it goes down. Which is confirmed by the ladder that’s attached to the side of the wall. 

God, you’ve had enough of goddamn ladders today to last you a lifetime. 

Heeseung sends another message to Niki, once again confirming that Professor Kim is still far, far away. And then he hoists himself up through the opening. 

Or at least, he tries to. 

Feet back on the ground, very much still on your side of the wall, he shakes his head. “I can’t go in.”

You balk. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the dark.”

The look he gives you is withering. “No, I physically cannot go in. Vampires can’t enter into places they haven’t been invited to, remember?”

“What?” It’s not new information, and with moonflower out of your system, you have all the ability to retain it. But suddenly you’re confused. That particular restriction seems like something that should have been causing him a lot more strife. “How did you get through the front door then? Or into this office?” Another realization dawns. “How did you get into class?”

“The rules are a little blurry,” Heeseung explains. “Public spaces like businesses and universities that don’t really belong to someone are usually fine. Even offices, since they still lack that true sense of personal belonging.”

You arch an eyebrow. “That is ridiculously convoluted.”

“I told you, old magic is finicky.” Looking back at the opening in the wall, he adds, “Either our dear professor feels a particularly strong attachment to the secret chamber attached to his office, or that hunch of yours must have been right. This is more than just a publishing house.”

The admittance does make you a little smug, even if you’d never tell him that. Turning towards the opening, you move past him. With a large inhale, you start to hoist yourself up. A hand around your wrist keeps you firmly planted on the ground. 

You turn to look at Heeseung over your shoulder, brow pulling in confusion. 

“This was a good plan,” he tells you, “and a good idea. We’ll just have to figure out another way to come back and—”

“Wait, what?” You frown. “Why would we go back? We’re right here.”

Heeseung looks at you like you’re missing something blatant. “Yeah, with one small problem.” After a moment of extended silence, he gestures to himself and says, “I can’t go in.”

You return his gaze, equally incredulous. He’s the one that’s missing the obvious here. “But I can.”

“No.” His lips flatten, reminiscent of when you told him you’d be seeing your professor again. “Absolutely not.”

But you don’t have the time to waste on his misplaced sense of guilt-ridden protection over you right now. “This might be the only chance we get!” you insist. “You’re willing to waste that?”

Heeseung doubles down, equally stubborn. “I’m willing to wait for another option that doesn’t include you disappearing down a ladder into a dark room alone. We have no idea where it leads. Or what could possibly be waiting down there.”

“Fine,” you concede, shoulders slumping. “I guess you’re right. Maybe Jungwon will have an idea how we can—”

Cutting off mid-sentence, you turn again, trying to squeeze yourself through the opening before he has the chance to realize what’s happening and put a stop to it. 

This time, your wrist is untouched. Instead, it’s an arm around your waist, just under your ribs, that pulls you back. 

Heeseung’s chest pressed along the curve of your spine, he whispers against the shell of your ear, “Did you really think that was going to work?” His voice is low, dangerous as his irritation makes itself apparent. “I can tell when you’re lying, you know.” With the hand not currently wrapped around you, he taps the base of your neck, right on your pulse point. “Right here.” He presses down, pressure light but insistent. “Your heartbeat. It races like crazy when you lie.”

You feel it in your throat now. 

“Heeseung,” you whisper, not trusting your voice to remain steady if you speak any louder. 

“Mm?” His breath ghosts along the sensitive skin of your ear. You suppress a shudder. The ghost of it traces your spine anyway.

“Let me go. I’ll be careful—”

“I’m starting to think you don’t know the meaning of that word.” But his grip relaxes anyway. Loosens until his arm is back at his side. 

Slowly, you turn to face him. He’s still close to you. 

So close. Too close. Not nearly close enough. 

Angling forward, he places the palm of his hand on the wall behind you next to your head, just below the opening. Effectively caging you in. 

“What could go wrong?” You’re breathless and you hate it. “I have a dagger.”

“Actually,” he corrects you, “I have the dagger.”

“Well,” you argue, “if you give it back, we won’t have a problem.”

He still doesn’t look convinced. “Do you even have a light?”

Shit. You don’t. Well, except for—

“I have the flashlight on my phone.”

Disapproval makes itself the most prominent expression on his features. 

Slowly, he lets his arm fall back to his side. Then, before you have a chance to make sense of his action, he sinks to his knees before you. With steady hands, he starts to lift the bottom of your left pant leg. 

Your first instinct is to relax into his touch. Your second, not trailing far behind, is to kick him in the jaw. You doubt either of those would serve you well.

Instead, you remain motionless, prone to whatever whim spurs him on as he continues his steady path upward.

The skin of your calf is revealed, inch by agonizing inch, until he reaches the juncture of your knee. Until he stops just above it. 

You understand, now, what he’s doing. Every inch of you hones in on the sensation of gentle fingers sliding the dagger back into place. The holster on your thigh gets a little heavier. You feel his exhale against your skin. 

Slowly, he guides the fabric back of your pant leg into place, weapon now secured. From beneath you, his gaze finds yours. He maintains eye contact while he rises to his full height. 

“Don’t do anything stupid.” It sounds like a prayer, and you have no idea what to do with that.

“When have I ever—”

“Please.”

It’s so damn vulnerable, the sound of him begging. Pleading with you to treat your life with care. As if it’s something precious to him, something he can’t stand the thought of losing. 

You breathe, your chest rising and falling, separated from him by only a handful of inches. Resistance feels futile. So, you muster all of your sincerity, and you mean it when you assure him, “I won’t.”

This time, he helps hoist you up. Makes sure you have solid footing on the ladder on the other side of the wall before letting you go with a reluctant grip that lingers a little too long.

“Be safe,” he whispers. One last request between the two of you. “I’ll be here.”

You nod once, committing the strange look on his features to memory, and then you’re descending. You do your best not to think about how tall the ladder might be, how far you might have to drop should you lose your footing. You couldn't see the bottom from the office, and you’re not about to risk taking a hand off of the ladder to activate your phone’s flashlight. 

Ultimately, it’s not as great a distance as you feared. You can’t have been going down for more than a minute when your feet hit solid ground. 

Still shaky from residual adrenaline and the lingering remnants of whatever just passed between you and Heeseung, you reach for your phone, turning the flashlight on. 

It’s not a very powerful light, and it only illuminates small sections of the darkened room at a time. Turning side to side, you get the impression that it’s a fairly large space. Crouching down, you place a palm against the floor beneath you. Stone, you think. The limited light of your flashlight helps to confirm this.

There’s a distinct sort of permeating cold down here, so far from the sun, so deep beneath the earth. You can sense large amounts of moisture in the air, too. It clings to your skin, making you feel more clammy than you already were.

It’s quiet. Eerily so. The only sounds you hear are the rhythmic drip of water somewhere in the distance and the furious thrumming of your own heart in your ears. 

Immediately, you think of the night you heard strange noises that sounded like they were coming from Professor Kim’s office. He must have been down here, you realize. Maybe with someone else. 

Or something else. 

That thought sends your skin crawling with a deep sense of unease. You don’t know the extent of Heeseung’s heightened senses, but you’re sure he’d be able to tell if there was another living thing down here. Or, at least, you try to convince yourself that’s the case in order to ease some of your rising nerves. 

Turning to your right, you can barely make out the shadowy shape of some kind of structure a few feet away. Again, Heeseung was right. A stronger flashlight really would have been better. But you’re here now, and you’ll have to make use of what you have. 

Slowly, you begin to walk towards it. But after a few steady steps, you’re nearly sent sprawling over the stone floor as your foot makes contact with a hard, heavy object in your path. Letting out a hushed curse, you shine your light down at the ground once again. This time, stone floor isn’t the only thing you see. 

Frowning, you bend to take a closer look. Shackles. You’ve stumbled across an old, rusted pair of iron shackles. 

The discovery sends a fresh chill down your spine. What on earth is this place?

You don’t have long to linger on it. Niki is keeping an eye on Professor Kim, but even that will only give you so much warning if he should decide to come to New Haven for any reason. And you have your promise to Heeseung to consider. Nothing stupid. 

Taking care to step around the shackles, you shine your light towards the ground this time as you continue pressing forward. 

As you get closer, the structure you could barely make out comes into clearer view. But with every inch that’s revealed, your horror only grows. It isn’t much of a structure at all, you realize, stomach dropping. It’s a cell. Thick, heavy metal bars that appear to be carved into the earth itself. 

You can’t quite bring yourself to step inside, but you do get as close as you can. It’s empty, but evidence of terror remains. There are more shackles. These ones are attached to the stone that forms the back wall of the enclosure. 

And that’s not all you see. There are other strange objects in the cell. Long, long metal instruments that you don’t want to imagine uses for. Old, faded blood stains that cover the stone floor. 

Forcing your breathing to even out, you angle your phone towards the enclosure, ensuring that your camera’s flash is on before taking a photo. If Heeseung can’t come down here, you’ll bring as much of it as you can to him. 

Turning away from the cell, you start moving in the adjacent direction, the one that will take you further and further from the ladder with every slow step. In the silence, the sound of your feet against wet stone rings out like gunshots. 

You suddenly feel vulnerable. A sitting duck, an easy target. Shaking the thought away, you force yourself forward. 

Continuing to walk, more horror lines your periphery. There must be a dozen of them, at least. These strange, terrible cells that line either side of the long room. After the first one, you don’t stop for long to examine the others. 

Instead, you continue until you reach the end of the room. Similar to the publishing house above you, it’s essentially a long hall that opens into a wider room. Your eyes have adjusted slightly to the dark, but you still squint to make out anything other than the solid expanse of stone. 

Shining your flashlight to the left, you can just make out the shape of two large objects. As you walk closer, they become more clear. 

The first is a desk. A simple wooden surface to sit and do some writing, perhaps. Nothing particularly strange or out of the ordinary, other than its location. 

It’s the object next to it that gives you pause, has you leaning closer with furrowed eyebrows. 

As you shine your light at it directly, it appears to be a large chest. The kind you would find at an antique store or see in a museum. Something people from past times would use to store clothes or books or other household essentials. 

There’s a lock on the front of this one, however, Complete with a large, heavy chain that makes you think its contents are less than ordinary. 

Crouching slightly, you reach down. Your fingers shake slightly as you tug at the lid. It doesn’t budge, the lock holding firm. You suspected as much, but the result is still frustrating. 

Setting your phone down for a moment, you reach for the dagger strapped to your thigh. You aren’t as well versed in the art of lock-picking as Heeseung seems to be, but you know you’d regret not at least giving it a try. 

It’s no use, you realize after only a few seconds. This lock is different from the one on the front door. It’s large, looks as if it can only be opened by an equally ancient key. One forged by a blacksmith in a lost century. The dagger slips in through the opening, but the shape is too different to gain any purchase. Your dagger can’t find anything to maneuver. 

So you settle with the next best option. As you did with the first cell, you angle your camera towards the chest, taking a photo of ir and its impenetrable lock. 

Frowning at the dead end, you stand back to your full height. You replace the dagger in its holster, reaching for your phone. It might be wise to message Heeseung for a quick status update, to ensure that you have time to keep looking around. In fact, you’re surprised he hasn’t been blowing you up since the second your feet hit solid ground. 

But as soon as your phone screen lights up, you check the top corner and find the reason for his radio silence. 

No signal. Your heart gives a sudden lurch. It makes sense, in hindsight. You have to be at least several feet underground, and cell service providers probably didn’t have secret underground prisons with strange locked chests in mind when they planned their coverage maps. 

But it also means that Heeseung has no way of communicating with you. That you have no way of receiving any messages he may have been trying to send. 

You’re sure you would hear him, if he yelled loudly enough from the opening in the office. 

But if there were any reason he couldn’t speak loudly, any reason he didn’t want to draw attention to himself…

Scenarios suddenly spinning through your mind, you turn back, retracing your steps. The hallway seems even longer now that you’re trying to move through it quickly. The cells seem even more ominous, shadowy silhouettes in your periphery. 

You give a slight start when you almost collide with the ladder, so consumed with hurrying that you almost missed the wall in front of you entirely. 

Grateful that you didn’t just break your nose from a collision with a stone wall, you shut off your phone flashlight. You slide it back into your pocket, and then you begin to ascend back up the ladder you came down. It’s a precarious balance, trying to be both swift and sure footed. 

After what feels like hours but is surely less than two minutes, you’re back at the opening. 

Heeseung, just like he promised he would be, is already there, waiting. 

“Oh, thank the skies,” he breathes as soon as you come into view. If the situation were any different, you might laugh at the turn of phrase. Another relic of his unnaturally long past, you suppose. “I’ve been trying to message you this whole time, but—”

“No signal,” you explain. Your words are slightly stilted as you ease yourself down from the opening, less gracefully than you hoped. “I didn’t realize it until I turned back.” You nod at his phone. “Does Niki still have eyes on him?”

“Yeah,” Heeseung nods. “The professor is still in his house.”

Tension drains from your shoulders. But as you begin to tell Heeseung what you saw, show him the photos you took as evidence, it slowly starts to creep back in. 

“Jail cells?” He frowns, echos of your own questions repeated back to you. “For what? For who?”

“I have no idea.” You shake your head. “But there was also a box, a chest of sorts.” You show him the photo. “It was locked. I tried to get in with the dagger, but it was no use. The key hole was too big for it to move anything around.”

“Can I?” Heeseung asks, gesturing towards your phone. You hand over the device in question. 

Eyes narrowing in concentration, he zooms in on the photo. 

“I can’t remember the last time I saw a lock like that.” It’s hard not to feel defeated, to feel like everytime you’re on the brink of a discovery, some new obstacle blocks your path. After a moment, you add, “I don’t even know if I ever have seen a lock like that. Other than in movies or museums.” 

Heeseung could get into it, maybe. Either by picking it or with brunt force alone. But he can’t get to the chest. And it’s far too big for you to carry back to him. Besides, you’re hesitant to move anything, even if Professor Kim is back at him home for the evening. You doubt you could get the chest back to its exact location without shifting something around. And if anyone were to notice something out of place, it would be him. 

Even if it was just a chest in a dark, cave-like room, shifted a few inches in the wrong direction. 

“I think…” Heeseung looks up, directly at you, interrupting your train of thought. “I think I may have seen this key before.”

“What?” you ask. “Where?”

Heeseung still sounds unsure, but the more he reveals, the more you start to wonder if he’s right. “I can’t be certain, but towards the beginning of the semester, I remember seeing Professor Kim carrying an old fashioned key in his briefcase. I’d been following him all morning, and I saw him take it out once he got to the university. He put it in his office. I think he might have left it there.”

You frown. “That makes no sense. Why would he leave a key to a locked chest in his secret evil cave prison at his very public university office?””

“I don’t know.” Heeseung looks equally as confused. “And like I said, I’m not completely certain.  He might not have left it there, but… it could be worth a shot.”

You want to say that it feels impossible, but the events of the past week have made that word hold very little weight in your mind. 

“That seems…” you trail off, searching for a semantic replacement, “improbable.”

“I know,” Heeseung agrees, “but it’s all we’ve got.”

“It’s still winter break,” you point out, moving past probabilities to logistics. Glancing at the time on your phone, you add, “And it’s almost sunset. How would we even get into the university?”

Heeseung just smiles. There’s no humor in it, but there is an air of self-assuredness. “Leave that to me.”

Half an hour later, you find yourself standing at the top of a third unnaturally tall height of the day. 

“You know,” you cross your arms, “when you said you had a way of getting into the university, I didn’t think it would involve breaking in through a window on the fourth floor. You may be invincible but a fall from this height could actually take me out, you know? And aren’t there cameras?” 

Heeseung wiggles the window frame for another handful of seconds, a self-satisfied smile crossing his features when he hears a telltale pop. “This is the liberal arts building at a public university. The only security cameras that have been updated since 2005 are by the stadium and the school of business.” He pauses his ministrations, suddenly serious when he turns to look at you. “And I wouldn’t let you fall.”

You’re not reassured. “Still,” you hiss, “we’re breaking in through a window. What if someone sees—”

“Like you said,” Heeseung interrupts, sliding the window open, giving the two of you just enough space to slide through, “it’s winter break and after dark. No one is around.” He nods his head toward the open window. “After you.”

Tossing him one more glare, you maneuver your body through the open window. Heesueng follows you, sliding into the fourth floor hallway of the liberal arts building with more poise than you could ever hope to embody. 

He pulls the window shut behind you, slides it back into place with a firm tug. Brushing his hands on his pants, he turns to face you, expression light as if the two of you have just walked through the front door of a bowling alley, not committed a federal crime by breaking and entering through a fourth floor window. 

It’s all you can do to stare at him blankly. What has your life turned into?

“His office is on the third floor,” is all Heeseung says, “at the end of the hallway.”

“I know where his office is.” You sound petulant even to your own ears. But the location of your professor’s office is not the problem. The fact that you’re breaking and entering into a public university to try and locate a key to unlock an ancient looking chest in the prison-esque secret basement of your vampire professor’s publishing house, however, is. 

Still, you match Heeseung’s pace as he begins to walk, following a steady path to the third floor offices. After descending the staircase, the two of you round a corner, turning down the long, narrow hallway that leads to your desired destination. 

“How likely do you think it is that he even keeps the key here?” You’re whispering. The two of you are alone, so it’s probably not necessary. But speaking at full volume in a situation like this would just feel… wrong.     

Heeseung shrugs as your footsteps erase the last of the distance between you and Professor Kim’s office. “Only one way to find out.”

“Wait.” You stop, now directly in front of the door as another thought occurs to you. A particularly annoying limitation of those afflicted with vampirism. “Are you even going to be able to get in?”

“His office at New Haven wasn’t the problem,” Heeseung points out. “Besides, I actually have been invited into this one.”

You arch an eyebrow. 

“What?” Heeseung shrugs. “I went to office hours once.” 

Office hours. You’d been a regular at those too. It suddenly feels like a lifetime ago. 

Reaching forward, you try the door handle. It’s locked. 

“I think we might need the dagger again.” You reach to retrieve it, a memory flashing through your mind. The last time you were here, you were armed with a first draft of a homework assignment and enough anxiety to make you nauseous. Now, with a dagger in your hand and a vampire at your side, the contrast is stark. 

Handing the knife to Heeseung, you watch as he methodically jiggles it for less than thirty seconds before you hear a soft click. 

“Thanks.” He hands the dagger back to you, waiting for you to secure it back into place. Then, he opens the door, and the two of you enter. 

It feels illicit. It is illicit, but the first thing that strikes you is just how similar this office is to the one at New Haven. Meticulously organized. Not a file out of place. The only thing missing is a painting that looks eerily similar to visions of Heeseung’s childhood. Oh, and the secret basement hiding behind it, of course.    

Here, however, there would be nothing to hide it behind. And no matter where your eyes wander, you can’t seem to find anywhere worth hiding a secret key, either. No glaringly obvious evil drawer of a file cabinet or particularly sinister potted plant. 

But Heeseung must see something you don’t. He approaches your professor’s desk slowly, a frown tugging at his lips. His gaze is fixated on the far corner of it, where the only indications of personality in the entire room are arranged in a neat row. 

Three small figurines. At first glance, they appear wooden, hand-carved. The first is a tree. The second is a rose. And the third is a startlingly lifelike human heart. 

They’re all relatively small, about the size of your closed fist. The closer you look, the more intricate they become. Details are carved with phenomenal precision. From leaves to petals to veins, the craftsmanship is remarkable. 

Heeseung is staring at them with a distinct intensity. 

“What is it?” you ask. 

“I’m not sure,” he admits, still fixated on the carvings. “I just feel strangely… drawn to them. The heart in particular.” But he still doesn’t do anything about it. 

Spurred by his inaction, you reach for the figurine, lifting it to eye level. It’s smooth to the touch, nothing particularly noteworthy about it other than the intricacy of the carving. 

But then you give it a slight shake. The two of you lock eyes when something rattles inside. 

“Do you think…” you breathe, sentence trailing into oblivion. 

Heeseung’s eyes flicker from you to the heart. “Does it open?”

From your current vantage point, there’s nothing obvious. But then you turn the heart upside down. Whatever’s contained inside follows the flow of gravity, settling heavily inside the upturned figurine with a small thump. 

And on the bottom of the heart, there’s a latch. Tiny, but unmistakable. Your hands are shaking, almost too hard for you to get a proper grip. But once you do, the latch clicks open without a hint of resistance. 

Turning the heart upright again, all you can do is gasp as a large, ornate, metal key falls into your open palm. 

Your gaze locks on Heeseung’s, jaw open in disbelief. “How did you know?”

He shakes his head, just as dumbfounded as you. “I have no idea.”

But now you have another dilemma. Do you take it with you? Go back to New Haven now? If Professor Kim were to make a stop by his office or the publishing house for any reason, the two of you could be in deep, deep trouble. For something far worse than breaking and entering. 

But you can’t just leave it here. Not when you’re nearly one-hundred percent certain you know exactly what it opens. Not when you’re dying to know what’s worth guarding with that much effort.  

You’re about to voice your concern to Heeseung when he beats you to it. Eyes flicking to yours, imbued with a sudden intensity, he whispers, “Someone’s coming.”

“What?” you whisper back. “Who?”

“I don’t know.” He listens for a second longer. “It’s not Professor Kim. I can tell by the footsteps. But whoever it is, they’re headed in this direction.”

“Do we stay in here?” It’s unlikely that whoever it is will check your professor’s office, but if discovery is inevitable, it would be better for the two of you not to be found not inside a university employee’s locked office.

Again, you glance around the room, this time frantically searching for somewhere, anywhere to serve as a hiding space for the two of you. You come up empty handed. 

Then, to your relief, Heeseung says, “They turned down a different hall,” It’s short lived when he adds, “Let’s go. I think we can make it back to the fourth floor.”

Making a run for it feels like the worst possible option. “Are you serious?”

“Do you want to be found in here?”

You don’t, but the sound of footsteps in an otherwise empty building will surely alert whoever it is to your presence. Staying put feels like a far better choice. “Can’t we just wait for them to leave?”

“We don’t know when they will,” Heeseung argues. “Or if they’ll come this way before they do.”

He’s right, you realize, something sinking in your stomach. You know he’s right, but staying in place feels safer to you somehow. Making a mad dash back to the fourth floor feels like a suicide mission. 

“Okay,” you agree, breath suddenly rapid as you slide the key into your pocket. “Okay.”

“Give me the dagger.” Heeseung holds out his hand. 

“You’re not going to stab—”

“Of course not! We need to relock the door.”

Mollified, you retrieve the dagger before handing it to him. 

As quickly and quietly as possible, the two of you tiptoe out of your professor’s office, key heavy in your pocket. Heeseung slides the door shut behind you, slides the dagger into the lock and maneuvers it back into place. 

As soon as it clicks, his hand freezes. 

When he turns to you, it’s with panic in his eyes. “The footsteps,” he whispers. “They changed again. They’re headed in this direction.”

Shit. 

Shit. 

Maybe making a break for the fourth floor is still an option. 

“Do we still have time to—”

Heeseung shakes his head. You know he’s telling the truth. Because now you, even with your mediocre human senses, can hear the footsteps too. The way that they’re getting louder. Getting closer. 

You’re frantic now. “Don’t you have super speed or something?”

“The only exit is down the hall,” Heeseung returns. “We’d just be running at above average speed towards the person.”

“Well, can you make yourself invisible?”

“I’m not a wizard!”

“Oh, well forgive me for assuming the immortal supernatural being who can project visions from their mind through physical touch might be able to do something useful in this situation.”

Arguing will do little to save you now. The footsteps are only getting louder. Even if you wanted to, there’s no way you’d have time to get back into Professor Kim’s office before you’re discovered. 

Heeseung confirms this. “We have approximately three seconds.”

You look up at him, his features soft in the low light of a nearly abandoned building. Panic etched across his face, eyes locked on yours. 

Panic still outlining your words, you whisper, “Do you trust me?”

He recoils an inch, obvious distrust written in his expression. “Why?”

You roll your eyes. You should have expected as much. “Never mind.”

But you reach for him anyway, before he has time to register what’s happening. His supernatural senses will do him little good here. They warn him when your heart starts racing, yes, but they don’t make your actions predictable. Especially not the ones you don’t feel entirely in control of yourself. 

And of all the improbable, impossible things to happen today, this just might be the most unexpected. 

He’s surprisingly easy to maneuver, you realize, when he’s caught entirely off guard. There’s no resistance when your hand wraps around the nape of his neck. Nothing but acceptance in the way his muscles give as you pull him down to your height. 

There’s a second, a fragmented splinter of time, in which his lips hover just above yours. A millimeter of distance. A chance to retract regret borrowed from the future. 

But like every moment you’ve stolen with him, it slips from your fingers just as surely. 

And then, with the steadiness of a sure thing, his lips are on yours. 

You won’t pretend to be privy to the extent of his knowledge, the experience the past five hundred years have afforded him, but all you can think is that it feels a little bit like a kiss you would steal behind the bleachers in eighth grade. 

Hesitation renders him all but immobile. It’s written into the way his eyes are still open in shock, mouth screwed shut, hands anywhere but on you. 

Despite his obvious reluctance, despite everything in you screaming that this was a bad idea, your mouth parts against his, a breath escaping between your lips. 

He swallows it, and for a moment, everything is still. Until it’s not. 

Hands on your waist are the first thing you feel. The first initiation in this dance between you that’s of his doing. The second is pressure returned against your lips, firm, insistent. 

A line is being crossed; a barrier is being broken. Desire that he keeps tethered on a firm leash is slipping through his fingers as they land on the base of your spine. 

This was always going to be something forged between the two of you. In response, you bring your second hand to join your first at the base of his neck, tangling in the hair you find there. 

He pushes forward, and you’re left with nowhere to go but the expanse of the wall behind you. Back flush against it, you can’t help the small noise of surprise that escapes. Somewhere between a sigh and a hum. 

Whatever it is, it has Heeseung doubling down. As if he wants to swallow every sound you make. As if he wants to earn them first. 

His mouth opens against yours, and suddenly, his hands are everywhere. Your spine, your hips, the hem of your shirt. He pushes further, crowding you against the wall. Until it feels like your desire, the feverish heat brewing beneath your skin, doesn’t belong to you anymore. 

Sensation is suddenly a shared thing, and you’re both chasing fleeting glimpses at a future neither of you thought you would ever have. 

Fingers tangling further in his hair, you can’t help the small, pitiful noises that escape now. Crawl up your throat and drip from your tongue with every give and take, every push and pull. 

Heesung is anything but immobile now. And he’ll give as good as he gets. 

It’s on an unsteady exhale that you feel it, a quick, sharp pain on your bottom lip. Hissing in pain, it’s nothing but a knee jerk reaction when you pull away slightly. 

Heeseung doesn’t let you get far. Mouth chasing yours, he hovers just a fragment of an inch above you. Whatever remains of his inhibition keeps him there, a hair's breadth away from you. 

Slowly, you raise a finger to your bottom lip. To the source of your gasp, the site of the small flicker of pain. When you pull it back to eye level, your fingertip comes away red. 

You’ve never seen his fangs before, as your eyes drop to his mouth, you realize that they’ve made an appearance. Sharp, predatory, destructive. All the things you’ve been told to fear, raised to run from.

His eyes, however, hold nothing but apologies. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. He’s still just as close, but you can feel the way he’s pulling away, retracting into himself even as he remains tangled in your embrace. “I didn’t realize I had—”

You don’t hear the end of it. It doesn’t take much to erase the space between you again. 

And where you expect to find that same resistance from before, where you expect to have to fight his hesitation, convince him to give into the sensations building between you, you find only a feverish desire. 

If you thought you were falling into him before, you’re surely drowning in him now. Consumed in your entirety. 

There’s no space for you to breathe, to think, against the sudden insistence of his mouth, the fervent exploration of his hands. Pretenses between you have been vitiated, and the only thing you crave now is the feeling of reciprocation, some kind of indication that he’s fallen victim to it, too. 

You don’t miss it, either. The particular attention he pays to your bottom lip. The way he bites at it, pulls at it. Careful of your injury and meticulous about using only the teeth of his that don’t double as weapons, yes, but it’s desperate all the same. 

“Fuck, ___,” he whispers, the taste of you on his tongue, sliding down his throat. You feel his words reverberate down the length of your spine, settle heavily in that space just behind your navel. It’s sharper this time, more poignant. You want to follow it, trace all the lines between you until you’re not sure where he ends and you begin. “Fuck.”

It’s slipping from him, that facade of aloofness, that pretense of detachment. It belongs to you now, all of it. His attention. His desire. His feverish lust for everything his inhibitions have always kept him away from. 

His tongue presses against the sensitive skin of your broken bottom lip just as his hand slides under the barrier of your shirt, traces a steady path up your spine until it finds a place to settle, just beneath your rib cage.

“I’m sorry,” he’s still whispering, because he hates himself for wanting this, loathes the way it feels like he’s stealing something from you. Your blood is on his tongue and your trust in his hands. He’s never felt more like a monster, never had such selfish prayers. 

But this was never transactional in your mind, and you feel the furthest from fear that you have since you woke up with his wound etched in the skin of your neck. 

You pull away, only slightly, breath forgotten as you look at him. Your chest heaves with it now. His eyes are cast downwards, as if he can avoid the reality of what’s passed between you by averting his gaze, by looking away. As if his hands aren’t still sitting on your skin. As if he can pretend nothing has happened between you.

It’s not a particular peace you’re willing to give him. And an apology was never what you wanted.

Sliding your hand to his jaw, you turn his chin upward, forcing him to look at you. Your touch, like his, is gentle but firm. Insistent. Again, despite the obvious mismatch in your strength, he lets you adjust him to your will. Allows himself to be manipulated. 

You don’t want his apologies. You don’t want his regret. You hate every unearned sorry he lays at your feet. “Don’t be.” 

Slowly, you bring your other hand, the one not tangled in his hair, up until it’s at eye level. Without breaking eye contact, you press the pad of your fingertip, still stained with a drop of your blood, against his mouth. He opens it under your insistence, maintains eye contact as his lips part, wrap around the tip of your finger. 

When you retract it, the night air feels cold against the wetted skin of your finger. 

It’s only then, when his lips descend on yours again, imbued with a sense of desperate urgency, that you realize you were never disturbed. That the footsteps have faded, lost somewhere that your mind has no use for now. 

The only thing you hear now is the mingling of sighs and the fervent thrumming of your own heartbeat. 

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TO BE CONTINUED...

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note: THANK YOUU for reading!!! I hope you enjoyed, and I would love to hear your thoughts on this chapter. all the best <3

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💌send this to the twelve nicest people you know or who seem to have a good heart and if you get five back you must be pretty awesome.💌

i love you, little one 💜

omg tysm babi and i love you more 🩷

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ONE NOTE

SYNOPSIS > When you turned 18, you heard your best friend’s favourite song. Turns out, it was just one of the various signs to finding your soulmate. However, you couldn’t bring this up to jake. Not when he was in a happy relationship with your other best friend! Would you choose heartbreak or sacrifice your happiness for the sake of keeping the friendship?

ONE – wingwoman

*takes place 7 years ago*

MASTERLIST | START | NEXT

a/n: LETS GO FIRST CHAPTER🗣🗣🗣 also if you're confused. this is before jake and aria dated and before (name) or you realised that you liked jake. in other words, take the first few chapters as a flashback into the past😁 before finding out you were jake's soulmate

taglist[open]: @sumzysworld @mitmit01 @moon3verland @baribaaari @byty2k @alex-is-sleeping @viagumi @txtlyn @belovedsthings @woninluv @dreamiestay @niniissus @kyutiepeachy @yoongisbaguetteshoes @squiishymeow @jjaammm @enhaz1 @illvding @woniejjang @bee-the-loser @laurradoesloveu @ckline35 @ningx2stan @hoonlvly @clampclover @xyzyx01 @victoriasimm @eneiyri @nshmrarki @woorcve @bubblytaetae @i03jae @soobieboobiedoobiedaboobie

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[JAY] 🤠

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