I'm Just Your Type

by verivery_rtf

Summary:

Yeonho is accidentally bitten by a fan at a fansign event. He tries to not make a big deal of it so she wouldn't get in trouble, but then he starts noticing some strange changes in himself…

Notes:

Thought it would be fun to draw a shoujo manga style cover for the fic. So I did :)
Also thanks to smouldering for helping me edit.

Chapter 1: Blood Oranges

“Aren’t you cold?”

It might be nearing the end of winter, but snow is still everywhere and Yeonho finds the freezing temperature to be problematic. The current active six members of VERIVERY are exiting their warm ride and walking to the building where their next fansign is at. Yeonho is ridiculously cold, shivering even with his large, insulating jacket. Yongseung, however, is having no problem whatsoever while wearing a white, short-sleeve T-shirt, his seemingly unnecessary jacket being carried around an arm.

“I’m used to it,” Yongseung replies to Yeonho’s mostly rhetorical question.

Yeonho knows the other man had grown up with colder weather than him, but this is ridiculous. “You’re unreal.”

Once inside the building, everyone starts feeling much better, and anticipation for getting to meet verrers really starts warming them up. It’s early in the morning and the next couple of hours are spent getting ready for the fansign they have scheduled for the day, as they just recently had a comeback and are in the middle of promoting.

When the fansign begins, nothing out of the ordinary happens. This time, Gyehyeon is the first member that greets verrers as they’re lining up, and Yeonho sits on the farthest end of the table, being the last to sign albums and send them off.

After continuing the event for hours, the last verrer of the day finishes speaking to Yongseung and moves down to the chair in front of Yeonho. Yongseung hands the fan’s album to him, but instead of acknowledging it, Yeonho takes the opportunity to playfully bite his best friend’s shoulder. After a light-hearted complaint from the other member and audible amusement from the fan, Yeonho finally lets go and takes the album, turning his attention to the fan.

After waving goodbye one last time, Yongseung gets up to stretch and turns to speak to Hoyoung, who is on his other side. Most of the other members have also gotten up at this point, Yeonho soon hoping to join them.

Just having this last verrer left, Yeonho smiles and greets her. Nothing about this initial interaction with this fan stands out to him as weird, besides her seeming pretty tense. He assumes that she’s just nervous to meet all of them, as he doesn’t recognize her so this must be her first fansign. Her being nervous is understandable.

After lightly speaking to the fan for a bit, he does what she came for and signs her copy of the album, placing his signature right next to his photo on the open page. “Here you go,” he says and holds out the album for the fan to take.

Instead of reaching out with her hands, she leans forward and—a sharp pain. Before Yeonho fully realizes what was actually happening, the fan quickly stands up and dips her head down repeatedly, frantically apologizing. Yeonho awkwardly smiles and waves his hand, "No, no, it's fine." But is it? That fan had just bit his thumb, which was the strangest encounter he's had in his career so far. Nevertheless, he continues to insist it isn't a problem; she looks pretty embarrassed and he doesn't want to get her in any trouble. Yeonho properly hands her the album and watches as she hurries away after apologizing one last time.

Being relatively alone for a moment, he looks down at the base of his thumb and sees blood welling up from two holes that look like a large spider bite. It stings a little bit, but it isn't anything he can't handle. He hides his hand under the table and hopes it starts to scab over before anyone notices.

"Blood?"

Slightly startled, Yeonho looks up behind him to see Yongseung approaching.

"Are you okay? Did you get hurt?" Yongseung pulls out his chair, hesitating before sitting back down.

"I just got a paper cut."

"Need a bandage?"

"No, it's not a big deal," Yeonho lies, as the burning sensation in his thumb intensifies.

 

***

 

That night, Yeonho wakes up in a cold sweat. He reaches blindly for his phone to check the time, his thumb still burning since earlier that day and feeling worse by the second. After a moment of failing to find it, he sits up to look for it and the room starts spinning wildly. He closes his eyes to try to wait out the dizziness and wonders if he could have gotten sick.

He carefully steps down the ladder from his top bunk, his hands shaking as he holds onto it. Upon reaching the cold floor, Yeonho checks to find his roommate, Hoyoung, fast asleep. He considers waking him up for some help, but they've all had a long day and he can grab some medicine just fine on his own.

Trying his best not to wake any member, Yeonho carefully opens the door to the common area of the dorm and lightly steps out of his room. Being the middle of the night, it’s too dark to see and he’s far too dizzy to be able to walk to the bathroom without bumping into anything, so he turns to find a light switch and notices there's a figure sitting still in the living room. The person turns their head to look at Yeonho, but in the dark it’s hard to tell who he's looking at, as he just sees their silhouette.

"Yeonho, is something wrong?" Yongseung's voice softly asks him.

"I'm just going to the-" Yeonho cuts himself off as Yongseung flips on the living room light. He stumbles back, shocked at how bright it is, as the light seems to blind him.

"Ah, sorry," Yongseung switches the light back off.

Slightly embarrassed about the dramatic reaction he had to the light, he speaks up, “I’m not feeling great. I’m… really dizzy? And hot, and my thumb—” Yeonho stops himself as he didn’t want to talk about the awkward encounter he had earlier at the fansign.

“Are you sick? Do you have a fever?” Yongseung gets up and makes his way over to Yeonho. Becoming close to him, he places his icy hand on Yeonho’s forehead.

Yeonho’s heart is pounding so fast, but he can’t tell if it’s because of Yongseung’s touch or because of whatever sickness is ailing him.

“Your temperature seems high.” Yongseung stops for a moment. “Want me to get you some medicine?”

Yeonho is hit with a deep, uncomfortable sensation in his throat. “Actually, can I get some water?” he asks, wanting to solve his sudden strong thirst. Yongseung says something that Yeonho doesn’t pick up, as he’s instead concentrating on the intense burning that’s moving up his arm, and is suddenly overwhelmed with dizziness that he’s not even sure if he’s still standing upright.

The pain at this point is so unbearable that he can't relax, but he can't manage to move either. His whole body tenses up and he barely feels Yongseung holding onto him. The other man’s voice is muffled, yet seemingly coming from all around him. The same could be said for the burning, which now makes him feel like his whole body is on fire.

It’s difficult to concentrate on anything else, but he does notice that Yongseung is holding his hand. Why is he doing that? Yeonho decides he must’ve found the bite mark on his thumb. He wishes Yongseung would treat him and save him from whatever horrible thing is happening to him, which is the last thought he can remember having for some time.

The pain he was just feeling is a blurr. It felt so intense just a moment ago, but now, Yeonho feels nothing. Realizing he’s laying in bed, he wonders if it was all a nightmare. Yeonho peaks his head out from the covers and is temporarily blinded by the bright light in the room. It must be morning. Wait… this isn’t his room. This isn’t his bunk.

“Yeonho’s up!” Yeonho hears Kangmin call out to the others.

Squinting through the light, he sees Kangmin across from him, doing homework while seated on his own bunk.

“Feeling better?”

“I don’t know, what happened?”

“Yongseung said you were sick and passed out, so he brought you here. He couldn’t lift you to your own bunk, so.”

Upon hearing this, Yeonho lifts his thumb to look at it, but hides it from Kangmin, who’s too busy with homework to notice anyway. The bite mark is still there, but there’s no pain at all. Last night was clearly real, but it was all a blur, and now the only evidence of his sudden sickness was the two holes on the base of his thumb. And that would be his only reminder of what had happened for days.

 

***

 

At this point in time, it’s like the incident hadn’t happened at all. Days later, the wounds on his thumb are still a dark red, but it hasn’t been giving Yeonho any problems. Yongseung did seem to be cautious of him, asking daily if he felt okay, and treating him like he was still ill. Yeonho’s honestly just happy he’s feeling normal again so he can continue activities—and a lot of activities there are.

Busy everyday, Yeonho has only just come across some free time to relax. It’s early in the evening and most of the members are in the kitchen cooking. As Dongheon and Yongseung are making dinner for the group, Hoyoung is guiding their maknae on how to properly cut fruit for them to snack on in the meantime.

Yeonho had already just eaten all of the juicy fruit Hoyoung sliced as an example to Kangmin, but he’s still feeling really hungry, or thirsty, or both? Finding himself antsy while he waits for more food, he watches the others intently.

“No, not like that.” Hoyoung moves Kangmin’s extended finger from the back of the knife. “If you need more power behind your cut, just choke up on the handle. Don’t use your finger to push down on the blade.” Hoyoung grabs his water bottle and sits down next to Yeonho at the dining table. “And don’t cut towards your hand, obviously,” he gives Kangmin a last tip before relaxing in his seat.

“Got it,” Kangmin says, starting to slice the fruit carefully.

While considering if he should also help cut fruit so he could eat some more sooner, Yeonho watches as Hoyoung untwists the cap of his water bottle and tilts his head back to drink the rest of it. For some reason, Yeonho can’t take his eyes off of Hoyoung’s exposed, long, slender neck as he drinks. Out of the corner of Hoyoung’s mouth, some of the water leaks and a drop rolls slowly down his neck. Yeonho can’t tell what he’s feeling, but he’s feeling a lot of it right now. He swallows, a tenseness growing throughout his body.

Before Yeonho has time to process what was apparently wrong with him today, Kangmin shouts, and the most alluring smell fills his nose.

“Kangmin-a, be careful!” Dongheon quickly makes his way over to the youngest member and tends to the cut on his hand. Zoning out on what the others are saying, the scent of his blood is overwhelming to Yeonho even though Kangmin’s cut isn’t that horrific at all. He can’t stop looking at it and fails to notice that he had stood up from his chair. However, this wasn’t to help Kangmin, like Hoyoung is currently doing, alongside Dongheon. Yeonho instead feels an instinct to go over and—

“Yeonho, are you okay?” Yongseung speaks up from behind the kitchen counter.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he quickly says, scolding himself for what he was just thinking. Needing to get out of there, Yeonho makes his way over to the bathroom and locks himself inside.

He waits for himself to calm down as the scent of blood fades. Although he was so tense and overwhelmed, he’s surprised that his heart has remained silently calm throughout the whole situation. Maybe it was all in his head, he considers.

Yeonho looks at himself in the mirror above the sink. He looks normal for the most part, but the lighting in the bathroom must be unflattering to his complexion. He opens his mouth to try giving a smile and is greeted by his usual snaggletooth. Or... are they a bit longer? And pointier?

Shaking the thought out of his head, he opens the medicine cabinet and grabs the box of adhesive bandages. Yeonho brings himself back to the kitchen, feeling much better now that the scent has faded, and throws the box to Hoyoung, who takes out a bandage and applies it to Kangmin’s finger.

Hopefully they all can get back to cooking because Yeonho is finding himself feeling famished. I’m just being weird because I’m really hungry or something, he guesses, more than a little confused about his emotions today.

“Here, I’ll do the rest.” Hoyoung reaches his hand out and Kangmin complies, handing him a new knife and standing aside to watch how the older member slices the fruits.

“Okay, it’s all been cleaned up.” Yongseung washes his hands after throwing out the soiled fruit. “There’s only one fruit that should be associated with blood.”

“And that is?” Dongheon nonchalantly asks, while stirring a pot.

“Blood oranges.” Yongseung smiles, amused with himself.

Dongheon does a loud, fake laugh, and Hoyoung follows his example.

Yeonho can’t help but smile at this wholesome moment right after he thought he was losing his mind just moments ago. Before Yeonho could take his seat again, he hears the front door of their dorm open, followed by the loud and fast pounding of a heart.

“Ah, that was a good workout,” Gyehyeon sighs, trying to catch his breath. After coming back from his jog, Gyehyeon is looking winded and sweaty, and Yeonho can’t help but notice the beautiful music of his intense, strong heartbeat.

“Welcome back, hyung!” Kangmin calls out. “I got sliced.” He holds out his bandaged finger, which Gyehyeon briefly acknowledges.

“We haven’t finished cooking yet,” Hoyoung tells him. “Here,” he slides a bowl of newly cut fruit over to the edge of the counter nearest to where Gyehyeon is standing.

Gyehyeon instead starts walking to his room and calls out, “I’ll get changed first.”

The feeling of hunger is ridiculously torturous to Yeonho at this moment, but instead of looking to sate himself with the fresh fruit right in front of him, he finds himself silently following Gyehyeon to his room when the others turn their attention back to cooking.

He lingers outside Gyehyeon’s room, the door wide open, and simply listens, the other man’s rapid pulse calling out to him. Peaking in, Gyehyeon is faced the other way, and Yeonho can’t help but notice a prominent vein sticking out on the side of his neck. Not knowing what he’s doing, he takes a step before a cold hand grabs him and covers his mouth. He turns his head to see Yongseung, looking deadly serious, glaring at him. “Mm?” Yeonho raises his eyebrows, wondering if Yongseung knew what his intent was just then, when he had barely realized himself.

“Come on,” Yongseung whispers, his expression softening. “Let’s go out to eat. My treat.” He removes his hand from his mouth and grabs Yeonho by the wrist, walking past the others and pulling him to the front door. “We’re going out, we’ll be back in a bit,” Yongseung calls out to the others.

Just like that, Yeonho is quickly removed from their home, where it felt like he was about to hunt the other members for dinner. “What’s wrong with me…?” he mumbles aloud.

Yongseung ignores him and silently leads him to a slightly fancy restaurant, which wasn’t too far of a walk from their dorm.

“Aren’t we underdressed for this place?” Yeonho asks, entirely confused at what Yongseung is thinking. A snowflake lands and melts on his face, causing him to look up at the sky and notice the current weather. “Ah, I forgot my jacket too…”

“Are you cold?” Yongseung asks.

Yeonho furrows his brow. “No, surprisingly…”

As they head inside and are seated, Yeonho considers how strange this is. They were already about to have dinner at home. Why would Yongseung bring him out to eat?

“I’m actually ready to order now, for both of us.” Yongseung says as the waiter hands him a menu. “We’ll both have this.” He opens the menu up and taps on something that Yeonho can’t see, as he’s sitting across from him at the table. The way that he tapped the menu was arbitrary, yet specific, so it stood out to Yeonho. Yongseung’s pointer finger and pinky were extended, and both fingers were turned down. It reminds him of the choreography from their recent comeback. “Two special glasses and breadsticks as well, please.”

As the waiter leaves, Yeonho is left just looking at Yongseung, waiting for answers. Yongseung smiles at him, but doesn’t say anything. Entirely unsolicited, the thought pops into Yeonho’s mind that it looks like he’s on a date with Yongseung. Becoming a little shy, he presses his lips together to fight a smile and looks down at the table.

Yongseung opens his mouth, but hesitates for a moment. He clearly wants to talk about what was happening with Yeonho back at the dorm. “You okay?”

“I’m fine!” Yeonho meant it. Being brought to this place without knowing why really took his mind off of what happened at home for a moment, but the utter confusion of why they’re here is coming back to him now. “Are you okay? Why are we here?”

Yongseung furrows his brow in thought. “... You seem to be just having a craving. This will satisfy you then.” He smiles sweetly at Yeonho, who’s unable to enjoy the fact that he’s being treated to dinner because Yongseung won’t explain anything to him, for whatever reason. “When you experience real hunger, you’ll know it. Even without smelling blood or hearing a heart pound, you’d still be hungry. What you had—that was minor.”

“What? What are you talking about—” Yeonho cuts himself off as the waiter arrives with their meal.

A bloody, rare steak is set in front of him. He doesn’t usually eat meat like this, but Yeonho admits that it does smell delicious. Noticing the dark red drinks, he comments, “Is that wine? We don’t drink wine.” Without waiting for Yongseung’s answer, he grabs a fork and knife and digs into his steak. The flavor is outstanding. It near immediately starts making him feel satisfied—way more than the fresh fruits he had earlier did.

Before leaving, the waiter asks if it’s to his liking and Yeonho enthusiastically nods, chewing on his next piece and quickly cutting more. Being left alone now, Yeonho continues eating, forgetting about the situation until he hears Yongseung chuckle. Yeonho looks up at him.

“You don’t have any questions now? You seem pretty happy.”

“No, I’m weirded out.” He points at the other. “What’s wrong with you? And how dare you take me to this amazing place.” Without thinking, he takes a sip of his glass. The flavor is really good, but confusingly savory. “What is this?”

“Blood.” Yongseung plainly states.

Yeonho looks down at his drink for a second and sets it back down on the table. “Okay, edgelord.”

“Yeonho, you’re a vampire.”

Those words make Yeonho freeze for a second. Of course it's ridiculous, but when he thinks about the symptoms he’s been having today… it strangely aligns with what legends he knows about vampires.

“That’s really blood. And you’re really enjoying it because you’re a vampire.” Yongseung awkwardly clears his throat, “And I know this because I’m one too.”

Thinking back on everything he knows about Yongseung, that checks out. It explains why he’s always so cold to the touch, but unbothered by cold weather. It explains why he doesn’t ever appear to get tired when he stays up late and gets up early the next morning. It explains why it sometimes seemed like he could see in the dark, just like on that one night when he recognized Yeonho in near complete darkness. “A vampire… Are you dead—AM I DEAD?”

“I’m alive! Just differently. You are too.” Noticing Yeonho’s silence of disbelief, he continues, “Here.” Yongseung carefully grabs Yeonho’s hand from across the table and places it on his chest.

Yeonho is so dazed from suddenly touching Yongseung that his mind goes completely blank for a moment.

“Can you feel it?”

“What?” For a few seconds, Yeonho can’t feel anything at all, but as he comes back to reality, he notices Yongseung’s very weak, quiet heartbeat, with beats that are spaced so far apart from each other, he might miss it if he wasn’t concentrating. With his other hand, Yeonho feels for his own heart and finds it beating the same. “Okay, so we’re alive. And we're vampires."

Yongseung nods, but doesn’t let go of Yeonho’s hand. Feeling a little awkward being in public, Yeonho removes his own hand from Yongseung’s chest. Realizing something, he frowns. “No… oh god, no.”

Showing concern, Yongseung’s eyes are locked on Yeonho. “What’s wrong?”

“Not the breadsticks… Can we not eat them anymore? Oh god…”

Yongseung laughs, “No, we can have garlic. That’s just a myth. Go ahead, I ordered them for you.”

A wide smile spreads on Yeonho’s face. Yongseung knows him so well. While continuing with his meal, he decides to ask more questions. “So, when you get hungry you just have rare steaks?”

“Well, not just any rare steaks. See normally, steaks never have any blood in them—even the rarest of streaks. The red liquid is just water mixed with proteins from the muscle fibers, called myoglobin.” Before Yeonho pretends to understand what he’s saying, Yongseung lowers his voice and leans towards him. “But this place serves steaks marinated with real animal blood. Just give them this signal.” Yongseung shows him the tapping motion he noticed earlier. This time, Yeonho notices the hand gesture kind of resembles a pair of fangs.

“The steaks they’ll bring you look like regular rare steaks to normies,” Yongseung continues, “so you can enjoy your meal in public like everyone else.” He gestures to their glasses. “The same goes for the drinks. This is only possible because the new owner is a vampire. There’s not a lot of places like this so we’re fortunate to live so close to one, though it’s only been under this new management for a couple of months now.”

“How often do you need to drink?” Yeonho asks, in part because he’s curious how often he’ll need to come here.

“I try to feed once every few days. At a week I start to go hungry… a couple weeks after that, I would say I’m beyond dangerous.” Yongseung finally begins eating his meal. “It’s different for everyone though. Things like being around blood can make you hungrier. And even though it’s not that nutritional at all, eating regular, non-bloodied food can help with minor hunger temporarily. It’s also just pleasant to eat, though we only need blood to live.”

Yeonho is definitely glad for that. Pleased and thankful for his current meal, he cuts another slice of his steak and notices the bite mark on the base of his thumb on the hand that he’s holding his knife with. “Hey, this hasn’t gone away,” he lifts his hand for Yongseung to see, slightly hoping he’d hold his hand again to observe it closer, but Yongseung just looks at it for only a moment, disappointingly.

“That’s normal. The bite that turns you is usually permanent.”

“I’ve never seen yours…?”

“I don’t have one.”

“‘Don’t have one...?’ When did you—wait, how old are you anyways?”

Yongseung laughs, “I’m the same age as you.”

Yeonho did grow up with Yongseung since their trainee days, and he’s seen baby photos of him as well. He furrows his brow in confusion, waiting for Yongseung to explain.

“I was born like this. Both of my parents are vampires.”

“Is… any other member a vampire?”

“No, just me.” Yongseung’s response unintentionally makes Yeonho feel lonely for him. How could he have kept this a secret? How could he bear being alone with all of this?

“How did you manage? Living with a bunch of human people and no one noticed?”

Yongseung lets out a small chuckle, seemingly uncomfortable. “I don’t appear too out of the ordinary, so it’s easy to blend in. Let’s see… direct sunlight is tough, but tolerable. I need way less sleep, which is perfect for idol life. I’m a bit stronger than average, but nothing unreasonable. All in all, I’m pretty normal, considering.”

“I’d say you’re far from normal, but not for any vampiric reasons.”

Yongseung smiles wide at Yeonho’s playful teasing. Looking at his teeth, Yeonho notices his canines, which are slightly extended past his other teeth, their tips pointed. He never noticed them before, as when he witnesses Yongseung’s beautiful smile, full of sunshine, his subtle fangs are easy to miss. All this time, Yeonho was so blinded by Yongseung’s brightness that he didn’t notice the dark struggles he was going through alone up to this point. But now that the gemini twins are one in the same, Yeonho plans on staying by the other’s side to learn about the real Yongseung that he's been missing out on since the day they met.

Chapter 2: Blood Drives You Crazy

A couple days of busy scheduling went by with everything back to normal for the time being. Yeonho knew they had a charity event coming up, but he didn’t know it would be this.

Blood Drive, Yeonho reads the large banner hanging above what is, in fact, stations that are set up for civilians to donate. VERIVERY is performing close to it in the mall, helping encourage fans to give donations for recent natural disasters through money and through… blood. Every once in a while, Yeonho will catch a whiff of the sweet scent of blood from people who just donated, and the smell is so alluring that it’s utter torment to not be able to have any.

Having a break from being on stage, the other members are bantering, as usual. Seeing how Yongseung is looking surprisingly calm through all this, Yeonho wonders how a vampire is able to keep his cool during a blood drive. 

“We should give blood,” Hoyoung says with a wide smirk, tapping Dongheon’s shoulder, with his face challengingly close to his.

“Uh…” Dongheon awkwardly smiles down at the ground, not wanting to say he doesn’t want to donate to charity. However, it’s clear he’s too scared to do so. “You guys donate if you want.”

“I can’t. I’m afraid,” Kangmin states. “Gyehyeon hyung, you should donate.”

Gyehyeon shakes his head, clearly uncomfortable. “No, I don’t think I will.” 

“It’s not that bad. You only feel a pinch,” Yongseung tries to comfort him.

Gyehyeon doesn’t say anything back or even look in his direction, seemingly ignoring him and causing a brief silence. Is Gyehyeon mad at Yongseung? Yeonho wonders this before deciding that he’s overthinking it.

“If it’s so easy, you give blood,” Kangmin says to Yongseung.

“I can’t. I have low iron,” he replies.

Yeonho takes this opportunity to latch on to that excuse,“Me too. So anemic.” Although he doesn’t know much, it’s clear to him that vampires cannot and should not give blood intended for people in need. He would’ve definitely donated if he hadn’t turned about a week ago.

“Then I’ll go by myself,” Hoyoung says.

After a sigh, Dongheon mutters, “It’ll make the rest of us look bad if only you do it...”

Hoyoung smiles mischievously. “It’s for people in need, hyung! You’ll just have to give blood too.” He pulls on Dongheon’s arm, visibly enjoying the torment their leader is going through as he tries to internally convince himself to give blood.

“Okay, I’ll do it,” Dongheon sighs once more, trying not to regret this decision. 

“I’ll try to donate too then,” Kangmin decides, looking over to Gyehyeon to see if he’ll join as well, but he shakes his head.

“I won’t do it, but I’ll come with you if that makes you feel better.”

“Great, let’s go!” Grabbing the oldest and youngest by the hands, Hoyoung brings them over to the blood drive, Gyehyeon following behind. 

Yeonho and Yongseung watch as the others walk towards the stations. Even from this distance, he can smell blood coming from the drive, and he wants a taste so bad that he’s starting to go mad at this point.

“Yeonho,” Yongseung starts, causing Yeonho to turn his attention to him, “Are you doing okay with all of this?” He gestures to the event in general.

"Hardly. I’m barely holding it together."

"That's why they call it a blood drive."

Yeonho raises an eyebrow at Yongseung.

"Because blood drives you crazy."

Yeonho chuckles, “You’re not funny.”

Grinning at Yeonho’s reaction, Yongseung continues, “I brought you out for steaks not long ago, you’re hungry already?”

“I’m a growing boy, I need proper nourishment," Yeonho playfully defends himself.

“Alright then. We have some time.” Yongseung lowers his voice, “You need the real thing.” Taken aback, Yeonho wonders what he means by that as Yongseung grabs him by the hand and leads him past the blood drive. As they walk towards a door that someone who's wearing scrubs is standing besides, Yongseung makes the hand signal that Yeonho recognizes from the restaurant to the person, and they nod in response, moving away from the room.

Yongseung opens the door and checks inside before flipping on the lights. It’s a small room, but decently sized for storage. After they both enter, Yongseung shuts and locks the door behind them. Yeonho’s mind races trying to figure out Yongseung’s plan. Why did he bring him to this place where they’re now entirely alone? What did he mean by ‘the real thing’? Did Yongseung want Yeonho to drink from him ? 

Unsuccessfully trying to hold back a smirk, Yongseung whispers, “Are you ready for something better than animal blood?”

Suddenly not able to think straight, Yeonho finds himself at a loss for words. Even if Yongseung intends for Yeonho to feed off of him, Yeonho doesn’t know if that's the best decision. Wouldn’t everyone notice if they went missing together and came back with a mark on Yongseung’s neck? The thought that it would look like they’re dating fills Yeonho’s stomach with butterflies. Conflicted, Yeonho desperately searches his mind for answers as he looks into Yongseung's beautiful eyes before lowering his line of sight to check out his neck and collarbones.

Before Yeonho can snap out of his daze, Yongseung turns to a pile of storage supplies and starts removing the items to reveal a large, waist-height cooler underneath everything. Lifting the lid, he gestures to the multitude of blood bags that are piled up inside. 

“Ta-da! I know a guy. A lot of vampires tend to work at blood drives.”

Yeonho tries to disregard and rebury his last thoughts and feelings about Yongseung and brings himself back into the moment. “How…?”

“We’re lucky this time we don’t have to go all the way to a blood bank because they’re doing this drive. They usually supply bags that are about to expire to vampires for free since it’ll go to waste anyway, and they don’t want dangerous vampires going hungry.”

“Blood expires? I guess I never considered that, but it makes sense.”

Yongseung gestures to the blood bags, “Take your pick.” Yeonho reaches in and goes for a bag with a large O printed on it. Noticing his hesitation, Yongseung nods, “Go ahead, it’s fine.”

Yeonho bites into a corner of the bag and drinks. The coldness from the refrigeration is unpleasant, but the taste is fantastic—way better than the animal bloodied steak he had before, which he didn’t know was possible. “Are all the blood types different, or do they pretty much taste the same?”

“They’re different, but I wouldn’t take more than you need since this is a smaller supply compared to where I normally go,” Yongseung explains while starting to organize the bags into different piles, sorting based on the blood types printed on each one. “There’s still a lot available now because, well… The truth is people often only donate right after natural disasters happen, and that’s important of course, but more blood tends to come in than what’s needed, so a lot ends up going to waste. That’s why I try to encourage people to give blood regularly even after the news about disasters slows down. There’s usually shortages soon after, which most people are unaware of.”

Yeonho considers it too bad that the members have psyched themselves up for giving blood now, when it might end up expiring without helping anyone or possibly coming back around to the two of them. “Wouldn’t it be awkward if we eventually got the blood the other’s are donating right now, or what?” he observes aloud.

Yongseung nods but doesn’t say anything and just continues organizing the bags for a minute. “I was worried,” he says really quietly after some time. Yeonho continues sipping his drink, letting Yongseung continue. “During that fansign a week ago, I knew that fan was a vampire. I’ve seen vampire verrers before, but they’ve all been harmless. I didn’t know this one would…” He finishes stacking the last of the blood bags and grabs one for himself. “When I smelled your blood, I had assumed what happened. I didn’t know what to do—or if there was anything I could do. I should've stayed seated with you. I’m sorry.”

Yeonho shakes his head. “I think of it as a good thing. Now we can share these experiences together,” he optimistically states.

Yongseung smiles tepidly at him. “That’s right. I’m thankful for that at least.” He pokes into his blood bag with his fang and starts drinking.

Noticing the type on Yongseung’s bag, Yeonho comments, “Is that your favorite type? Type A?”

Yongseung nods.

“That’s Minchan’s blood type, isn’t it?”

Yongseung stops drinking for a moment. “It’s Hoyoung’s too,” he adds. “And don’t forget, you were also type A when you were human. You’ve always smelled delicious, it was tough to ignore,” he chuckles.

Hearing that Yongseung favored his blood type causes Yeonho to feel like all the blood he just drank is traveling right to his face. If vampires could blush, he’s sure it’s happening right now. However, based on what Yongseung said, vampires must lose the ability to produce their own blood. Yeonho considers it a shame that he couldn’t have been some sort of snack for Yongseung before he turned, as he would've easily volunteered in a heartbeat. “I wish you were the one to turn me.”

“What?” Upon hearing what Yeonho hadn’t meant to say out loud, Yongseung nearly drops his bag, and looks at Yeonho with wide eyes.

Guessing that was a little too awkward to admit, Yeonho brings the conversation back on topic, “Uh, what about your blood type that you listed on your profile? Where did B come from?”

Yongseung clears his throat, “I’ve technically never had a blood type myself, but both of my parents used to be type B before they turned, so I like to think of myself as type B too.”

Just earlier, Yongseung advised against drinking another bag in order to not take more than he needed, but Yeonho finds himself silently wanting to try B next in case he would really like it. Wondering if blood can even be more delicious than this, he asks, “Does fresh blood taste better?”

“Naturally. You can buy fresher ones if the blood bank has a lot stored up, but I only like to get excess bags that are about to expire, just in case. It does make it much harder to store a lot of them, but I don’t want to take blood away from people who might need it more than me. I don’t want anyone to have to suffer.” Noticing Yeonho has finished up his bag, Yongseung adds, “I’ll buy some for us to take home after this.”

“I thought you said they’re free?”

“They are, but I try to donate money each time I take some from my regular blood bank.”

“Wow…” Yeonho thinks that Yongseung is really a nice guy. Not only is he a perfect idol, but a model vampire as well. Even if Yeonho had known Yongseung was a vampire when he was still a human, there’s no doubt he would’ve felt safe around him. However, given that Yeonho has only known since he became a vampire himself, he’s at least glad that Yongseung is the one to guide him throughout these experiences.

 

***

 

“We should’ve stocked more. Ahh…” Yeonho groans, pacing around in Yongseung’s room alone with him as the others are out and about from the dorm. Given this opportunity, Yongseung reaches for his hidden stash of blood bags that lay in a cooler under a bunk, slid all the way back to the wall, only to pull out one. “Hand me one too,” Yeonho requests.

“Um…” Yongseung puts his hand back under the bunk and seems to briefly struggle with the cooler. After a few seconds, he finally decides to pull out the whole cooler from under the bed. Lifting the lid, they both see with their own eyes that it’s empty. “There seems to be only just the one… Huh. This isn’t ideal.”

Yeonho eyes the only bag left in Yongseung’s hands. He’s been going hungry for nearly a week now as a recent blood shortage has begun. On top of that, the restaurant where they could at least get animal blood is closed for renovations. They’ve been rationing the bags that they had saved since a few weeks ago, but they’ve finally reached the end of their supply. “This is beyond ideal!” The aching in his throat and deep feeling of thirst is so prominent that Yeonho is finding it hard to think about anything else.

“Here,” Yongseung holds the bag out for Yeonho, but he doesn’t take it. 

“Why me? Why can’t we split it?”

“You know half is not enough to satisfy either one of us. You look like you’re in pain, come on.” He continues to hold it out, but Yeonho refuses to grab it.

He shakes his head. “I think you should have it.”

“I have great self-control, you take it,” Yongseung gestures it towards him, seemingly losing patience with him.

“No! You’re only out of bags because of me. That was your supply. You should have it!” 

“Yeonho, take it! You’ve never had to starve before and you don’t know what it’s like. I don’t want you to kill someone!” 

They both become silent after realizing they raised their voices at each other, the hunger clearly taking a toll. Yeonho thinks of a way to apologize and a good reason for Yongseung to be the one to drink it besides just that he cares about him deeply. Before coming up with anything good, he finally notices the sound of a fast heartbeat. He looks up at Yongseung, who’s already realized they weren’t alone, as he is facing the entrance to his room, door wide open, with Gyehyeon standing in the doorway looking beyond shocked. Yeonho can’t stop looking at him; for a moment he feels like he’s being hypnotized by the rhythm of the other man’s heart.

“That’s…” Gyehyeon barely manages to point to the blood bag in Yongseung’s hand, his heart rate further increasing.

Tearing himself out of the trance that his heartbeat had him in, Yeonho tries to defend them, “Hyung, this isn’t what it looks like.”

Gyehyeon looks over at him and raises his eyebrows, waiting for an excuse that Yeonho hasn’t thought of yet. “Like what? Like you were going to drink that?” he rhetorically asks, his voice shaking at the last bit, though he’s trying to act calm.

Did he overhear us arguing? We’re doomed. “Uh… So this is… exactly what it looks like.” Yeonho internally scolds himself for not being able to think of any good lie at all, as Gyehyeon nervously steps back. Yeonho avoids looking back at Yongseung, as he is definitely glaring at him for confirming the situation to Gyehyeon, who currently looks like he’s about to run away.

“Wait!” Yongseung calls out to Gyehyeon, causing him to stop. “Don’t tell anyone we have these, okay?”

“Okay… ” Gyehyeon responds, sounding entirely unconvinced, and starts to turn away again.

“Hyung, wait, wait, wait, please.” Yeonho moves towards him in order to stop him from going off and telling anyone, and luckily Gyehyeon freezes, but from the pounding of his heart, it’s more out of fear than compliance. Yeonho tries to convince him, “Please don’t mention this to the others. We’re not, like, serial killers or weirdos or whatever. We’re vampires. I know that sounds so edgy, but we are. We’re not keeping bags of blood for fun, it’s just our food.”

Gyehyeon shakes his head, watching Yeonho carefully with wide eyes.

“I’ll prove it. Give me your hand.” Remembering what Yongseung did for him, Yeonho reaches out his own hand, exposing his bite mark to Gyehyeon, and waits, letting the apprehensive Gyehyeon have the initiative. While his hand is like this, Yeonho actually notices that the bite mark looks a bit faded compared to a week ago, but he shrugs this off. Gyehyeon still hasn’t given him his hand, so Yeonho makes another offer, “Here, just feel for my heart.” He puts his hand down and avoids making eye contact with the other man, so as to not weird him out further.

With a sour look on his face, Gyehyeon hesitates briefly before placing his hand on Yeonho’s chest. After a minute of witnessing his heartbeat first hand, so subtle, almost like it doesn’t exist at all, Gyehyeon speaks, sounding upset, “Why… How?” Looking at Yeonho’s chest, he looks baffled. Gyehyeon looks over and glares at Yongseung as if he’s done something wrong. Yongseung seems shocked at the malice in his stare.

“I had an accident with a vampire verrer over a month ago. And Yongseung’s always been like this,” Yeonho explains.

Gyehyeon nods slightly, removing his hand. “And you’re, like, dying or something because there’s not enough… of those?” He looks at the blood bag in Yongseung’s hands in disgust.

“Right. We can’t get anymore right now. And if we don’t get more soon…” Yeonho hasn’t considered before what would really happen if a vampire doesn’t get enough blood in time, but piecing it together from what Yongseung has commented before, it’ll be a scenario where they would either absolutely lose their mind and harm someone, or die from starvation. Although Gyehyeon’s heartbeat has calmed down for the most part, by being this close to him Yeonho can still hear it pounding loud and clear. He tries not to think about it because he really doesn’t want to hunt Gyehyeon again, like he did when he first became hungry. He wants the other to feel safe, especially now—

“Okay. I’ll do it.”

“What?” Yeonho blinks at Gyehyeon, confused at what he’s talking about.

“You were implying you need to drink from me.”

“I—I wasn’t…!” Yeonho looks over at Yongseung, who has his lips pressed together and brow furrowed in thought.

After a moment of considering, Yongseung gives him a supportive nod. “It sounds like it would be a good idea now that Gyehyeon knows about us,” Yongseung approves. “We’re in a desperate situation and he seems okay with it.”

“Yeah, if it’s an emergency, I’ll do it.” Gyehyeon adds, “And I won’t tell anyone.”

“But—but what if he turns?” Yeonho voices his concern.

“He won’t turn, you’ll both be fine,” Yongseung assures him.

Yeonho looks at Gyehyeon for a moment and sighs, “Fine. But Yongseung, you have to drink that.” He points to the blood bag in his hands.

Yongseung chuckles, “I will.” He brings it up to his mouth to bite it.

Awkwardly looking over Gyehyeon, who is avoiding eye contact with him entirely, Yeonho isn’t exactly sure what to do. He spots a faint vein on his neck that's moving slightly with every beat of his heart. Yeonho leans in and is stopped by a punch to his arm in protest.

“Really? Does it have to be there?” Gyehyeon complains and quickly rolls up his sleeve so that his forearm is exposed, as an alternative to Yeonho biting his neck. “Does this work?” He asks Yongseung, who nods.

“Yes, I suppose that’s an option.”

“Then why would you…” His sentence trailing off, Gyehyeon clicks his tongue and offers his arm to Yeonho, who has already spotted the perfect vein.

Yeonho gently grabs hold of Gyehyeon’s arm to try to steady it, but Yeonho himself is also shaking in anticipation. This would be the first time he gets to drink directly from another person. “Let’s sit down in case you faint or something,” he suggests, remembering that Gyehyeon was too frightened to give blood at the blood drive a while back.

Yeonho leads Gyehyeon over to a bunk and they sit down together. He looks up at Yongseung, who is currently drinking from his blood bag. “How’s your drink, is it good?”

“Yeonho,” Yongseung stops drinking.

“Yeah?”

“You’re stalling.”

“Yep.” After being called out, Yeonho sighs and brings his attention back to Gyehyeon, holding his arm once again. Still feeling Gyehyeon trembling, he checks once more, “Are you sure?”

“Literally just do it,” Gyehyeon says sharply as he squeezes his eyes shut, bracing himself.

Yeonho brings his arm to his mouth and tries to bite down swiftly to make it as quick and painless as possible. Even though he knew he punctured Gyehyeon’s skin, he’s surprised to find a delicious stream of blood flowing from where his fangs are dug into. 

Gyehyeon makes a noise out of shock, but when Yeonho looks up at him, he says, “I’m fine.”

Given permission, Yeonho drinks more, the flavor so amazing that it’s easily the best he’s tasted so far. Remembering that Gyehyeon is type B, Yeonho allows himself one moment to imagine that this is what it would be like to drink from Yongseung if he had been human. Fangs in Gyehyeon while seemingly pining for another man, he continues to drink to finally sate his hunger.

Not too long passes before Yeonho wonders when he should stop and when he would have taken too much. How much is one pint? Has he drunk a pint yet? How many pints can he have? Would two pints be too much? Yeonho literally doesn’t know the answer to any of these questions. Being paranoid and feeling mostly satisfied with how much he took already, he removes his mouth from Gyehyeon’s arm. 

“Great job,” Yongseung tells him. 

“How do I stop the bleeding?” Looking down, blood is still welling up where he bit and starting to leak down Gyehyeon’s arm now.

“You, uh…” Yongseung starts, “Vampire saliva can be a healing agent when a decent amount is applied.”

Gyehyeon looks at Yeonho, his eyes half-closed, but otherwise wearing a threatening expression.

“Yeah, I don’t think he wants me to do that,” Yeonho comments, noting how uncomfortable Gyehyeon looks.

“Ah. One sec.” Yongseung rushes out of the room for only a brief moment before coming back with bandages.

Yeonho starts wrapping the bandage around Gyehyeon’s arm and notices he’s glaring at Yongseung. Not understanding what’s going on between them, he ignores the tension. “How do you feel?” Yeonho asks him. “Does the place where I bit sting at all?”

“No, I just feel lightheaded.”

“Sorry… maybe I took too much.” 

“Looks like you’ve got this under control,” Yongseung comments. “I’ll make you dinner, hyung. Make sure you rest in the meantime,” he advises Gyehyeon before leaving the room.

After a moment goes by of Yeonho silently finishing wrapping, Gyehyeon speaks up, “If that’s what giving blood is like, that wasn’t that bad. I could donate.”

“Then please donate to me often,” Yeonho infuses his request with aegyo.

Gyehyeon scoffs but can’t hide his smile, “I’d do it again for you, but only as a last resort. Store more blood bags next time, aish…”

Yeonho laughs, “Go easy on me, I haven’t been a vampire until just recently, and I've been very busy on top of that.”

“So…” Gyehyeon starts, fiddling with the bandage on his arm. “You say you had an incident with a fan?”

“Yeah… She bit me and I turned… I feel bad.”

Gyehyeon thinks for a moment before speaking, “You seem to be doing okay now though. I mean, I imagine it sucks…”

“No,” Yeonho corrects him, “I meant I feel bad for her. She must’ve been hungry and lost it, but nearly right after she bit me, she realized what she had done and stopped. She probably barely got any blood.” Yeonho slowly shakes his head. “If I knew she was suffering, I would’ve let her take more.” 

“You’re a freak, to be honest,” Gyehyeon teases, causing Yeonho to smile. 

Although, the question that remains in his mind is why that little bite caused him to turn and not Gyehyeon even after being fed on. What was the difference between these two instances?

After a moment of Yeonho pondering to himself, Gyehyeon sighs, “I just remembered, I came back here because I forgot my phone when I went out… I’ll stay here for a bit to rest up.”

Yeonho finds and hands Gyehyeon his phone as the other man lays down in his bed to gain his strength back. With him taken care of, Yeonho heads to the common area and finds Yongseung in the kitchen making dinner as expected.

“Tell Gyehyeon hyung it’ll be a while. And tell everyone in the group chat that I’m making dinner tonight in case they’re about to order something,” Yongseung tells him while chopping some vegetables.

Yeonho is silent for a moment, unsure of how to proceed. “Yongseung.” The other briefly looks up at him before continuing to chop. “I’m sorry I yelled at you earlier. I should’ve assumed you knew what you were doing.” I just care about you so much and didn’t want to see you suffer, especially when you've been selflessly helping me since the beginning.

“It’s fine. I’m sorry I raised my voice as well.”

“Yeah, you were kind of scary, in a hot way.”

Yongseung laughs, but there was a lot of truth behind Yeonho’s joke. 

“Hey, why doesn’t Gyehyeon turn from my bite?”

“Well, to give you some background, fangs aren’t just for extracting blood, but there’s also a very small duct that can inject the 'venom' that would turn someone into a vampire as well. There’s a gland that holds the venom, similar to snakes, and when the muscles around it contract by biting down hard, venom will eject. The venom is traumatic to flesh, so it leaves a mostly permanent scar. Since I knew you weren’t about to bite down on Gyehyeon as hard as possible, I wasn’t worried that you’d accidentally turn him. Vampires can pretty much only turn people intentionally, since those muscles need to be fully activated. That much force is unneeded for feeding.”

Yeonho thinks about the verrer that bit him but can’t imagine that she’d be the kind of person to intentionally want to harm him, especially after she apologized. On top of that, he hadn’t considered the bite to be that strong. “Are you sure there’s no other way someone can be turned?”

“I suppose there’s exceptions, like most everything in life. Maybe if you felt threatened, you would have unintentionally contracted those muscles and injected Gyehyeon.”

“So there was a chance I could’ve turned him? Why didn’t you warn me?”

“Then you would’ve been more nervous. Besides, vampires are stronger than humans and have an advantage by default. You would’ve had plenty of control over the situation, so it’s unlikely you’d feel threatened.”

“Uh… have you met Gyehyeon?”

Yongseung laughs, dumping his freshly chopped vegetables into a pot on the stove.

Yeonho’s never surprised by all of the things Yongseung knows, but he does seem to know a lot about this particular subject. With his curiosity being piqued, he asks, “Have you turned someone before?”

Yongseung is silent for a moment as he stirs the pot and adjusts the temperature of the burner, turning the corresponding knob on the stove. “Yes, I have…”

“Really? Who? Was it on purpose?”

“Ah…” Yongseung looks like he’s about to answer but ultimately doesn’t, clearly not wanting to talk about his past.

Could Yongseung have turned someone Yeonho knew? He’s finding himself ridiculously curious but decides to drop that subject since Yongseung looks uncomfortable. “Well, can I ask if you’ve ever had an emergency drink before? Like I just did—a live feeding? You seemed okay with Gyehyeon’s suggestion.”

“I… did. For the most part, I keep my vampirism a secret. I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable or feel unsafe around me. All in all, even if I mean no harm, any vampire can become dangerous if they go long enough without blood. I wouldn’t want the others to feel obligated to keep me fed out of fear. Chani hyung was different than that, in that it felt like he genuinely cared and wasn’t afraid at all.”

Yongseung used to drink from Minchan. The thought hit him hard. Type A Minchan, Yongseung’s favorite. Yeonho bites his lip, trying to hold back his jealousy as Yongseung continues speaking. 

“I only used to drink from him if absolutely necessary, so it only happened a couple of times. I would do everything I could before having to resort to him.”

“So he knew?”

“Of course, he’s really observational. I couldn’t hide anything from him. I’ve been making due without him since he’s been gone… but I miss him, you know?”

Yeonho nods, understanding completely, as he misses Minchan too. It’s been a while since they’ve seen each other, and everyone else is also constantly missing him, so he feels a little guilty that he’s feeling jealous over this. Yeonho wants to be the one Yongseung feeds on. He wants Yongseung to rely on him and be close to him. Hoping that this could still be possible, Yeonho can’t stop himself from asking, “Can vampires drink from other vampires?”

“Yes, but depending on when the vampire last drank, the blood can be cold, the flavors inconsistent or even tasteless, and not nearly nutritional enough. If both vampires are decently satiated, I’ve heard they can drink from each other to bond and it’s supposed to be pleasant, not so much functional. However, because it can be draining, a vampire in a rough state being fed on too much at once by another could be detrimental to them. The only times you would drink then is if you’re desperate or trying to kill them. It’s impractical, which is why we need to feed off of humans and animals instead.”

That’s certainly not what Yeonho was hoping to hear. He tries to find a way to respond, but gets caught up in the sinking feeling in his stomach.

After Yongseung must have seen the disappointment on Yeonho’s face, he adds, “I know I can’t be any help to you with that, but don’t worry about it. Gyehyeon seems to be willing to help you when needed, like Minchan was for me.”

Yeonho nods, pretending that Yongeung had correctly assumed his concern. However, in truth, hearing that he can’t ever be the one to help his best friend in times of need is what’s hurting Yeonho.

Chapter 3: It Sucks Being a Vampire

“Aishhh…” A couple of busy days later, Yeonho luckily hasn’t been able to further process what he learned happened between Yongseung and Minchan. However, now that he’s come across a bout of free time, he finds himself unable to think of anything else. He’s unmistakably feeling jealous because… well, Yeonho is shocked to discover he has an honest to goodness crush on Yongseung. But acknowledging this won't change the fact that Minchan is someone important to Yongseung, and Yeonho could never take his place. Putting his head in his hands, he groans.

“Is Yeonho okay?” Yeonho hears Dongheon whisper to Hoyoung, as if he couldn't hear them right next to him on the couch.

Hoyoung shrugs. “He’s been like this for a while. Did something happen?”

“Guys, shh!” Oblivious to Yeonho’s wallowing, Kangmin quiets the older members, as they’re currently trying to watch a vampire horror flick together, much to Yeonho’s misfortune.

Yeonho didn’t agree to watch it with them, but when he came home today, he crashed on the couch and couldn’t get up, as his negative thoughts took over. The others decided his presence meant he was down to watch it with them. Gyehyeon and Yongseung, however, are currently hanging out in their room after they expressed that they weren’t interested in watching this movie. Smart… Yeonho wishes he followed their example, since this movie only continuously reminds him of his agony.

Finally deciding to remove himself from this torture, Yeonho gets up and heads towards the kitchen aimlessly, not sure what to do next to get him out of this strange headspace. Coincidentally, he spots Gyehyeon emerging from his room at the same time. Seeing the man he last drank from reminds Yeonho of how Yongseung basically instructed him to lick Gyehyeon’s skin to heal his wound that day. Since vampire saliva can heal, it would make sense that, in order to heal Minchan, Yongseung would’ve—

Nope. Yeonho can’t believe he’s genuinely been into Yongseung this whole time, only to realize it once he learned that Yongseung and Minchan probably have some sort of history. Are they dating? Is Yeonho’s love going to be unrequited if he confessed? That thought strikes a deep, unsettling feeling in the pit of his stomach. “I feel sick, aish…”

“You’re thirsty? Here,” Gyehyeon rolls up his sleeve and exposes his forearm.

Yeonho looks at Gyehyeon with wide eyes and subtly motions with his head to the living room where everyone is seated. And now, looking over at them, he sees the movie had started to buffer seconds ago, unfortunately leaving Gyehyeon’s voice being the only one in the common room.

“O-oh…” Gyehyeon’s face starts turning pink, as he realizes that the other members witnessed what he said and did. Gyehyeon coolly rolls up his other sleeve, pretending he was just adjusting how he’s wearing his shirt and not just offering up his arm. “I’ll… grab you a drink.”

Yeonho shakes his head at Gyehyeon’s offer and leads him to his room while the movie resumes. They both take a seat on the bottom bunk. “The shortage is over,” he explains to ease Gyehyeon’s concern, “We have bags again, so I don’t need your blood.” Yeonho then scolds him while laughing, “And don’t call me ‘thirsty’ in front of the others and flash me your skin.”

“Idiot, I was trying to help.” Gyehyeon facepalms, hiding an appetizing red hue that’s starting to appear on his face.

“Well, thanks for the offer. You are looking very tasty today, so I’ll consider it.”

“Shut up,” Gyehyeon smiles and rolls his eyes. “I’m not letting you drink from me unless you’re dying again.”

It’s true that Gyehyeon was just saving him from a horrible starvation. As far as Yeonho knew, they didn’t have any romantic feelings for each other, so the experience was purely about giving a helping hand—or arm—to a friend in need. That idea starts to relieve the fears he had with Yongseung and Minchan. It was probably just for emergencies, like he told him, and it meant nothing more. And while Yeonho would’ve loved to be that guy for Yongseung, it can’t be helped now that he’s also a vampire with zero nutritional value to him.

Because they didn’t talk about it much before, Yeonho asks about Gyehyeon’s experience, “How was it last time though? Did you enjoy it? Was it very sensual for you?” he teases, before immediately getting a punch to the arm. “Ah…” he grasps his arm and leans forward, overdramatically in pain, dropping his head down. He feels Gyehyeon trace a finger on the back of his shoulder.

“You know you have a bite mark right here near your neck?”

“What? This is my mark though.” He sits back up and holds his hand up to Gyehyeon and notices the bite mark on the base of his thumb is still fading, as if healing, though he knows that’s impossible. “Those must be spider bites or something.”

Gyehyeon nods. “Anyways, you want to know how it was?”

“Tell me.”

Gyehyeon takes a breath before speaking. “It was honestly terrifying… You didn’t realize what you looked like, did you?"

Yeonho silently shakes his head, letting him continue.

“Before you noticed me watching you, your pupils were extremely small, even though you were in a dimly lit room. The moment you set eyes on me, they dilated as big as possible. It was inhuman and I felt like prey. I honestly wanted to run away, but… I knew it was just you. And I trusted you, so…” Gyehyeon draws his thumb across the soft skin where Yeonho had bit him, the mark still slightly visible.

“Friendship wins,” Yeonho says humorously, trying to lighten the mood. He hadn’t considered he could be that terrifying to anyone. Trying to shake off how disturbing Gyehyeon’s description felt, he asks another question, “How come you were so easy to convince? You seemed to believe in vampires pretty fast.”

“To be honest… I knew. At least, I knew Yongseung was a vampire. When I saw that you were one too, I was so shocked and angry. I thought that maybe Yongseung…” Gyehyeon’s sentence trails off and he shakes his head.

“How did you know Yongseung was a vampire?”

“A long while ago, when Minchan was here, I overheard and saw Yongseung drinking from him.” Gyehyeon’s unexpected account of the event stuns Yeonho for a moment. “It was honestly unbelievable at first, but I realized what was happening. At the time, I figured it wasn’t anything to be jealous of, except…” He looks at Yeonho. “You drank from my wrist. But they…”

Yeonho’s eyes become wide as he realizes Gyehyeon is implying that Yongseung drank from Minchan’s neck. Was that romantic? Is it official then? Before further spiralling, Yeonho notices Gyehyeon’s word choice: ‘jealous’. Was he also jealous of Minchan? Does everybody have to be into Yongseung? “Yah, do you like Yongseung?”

“I wouldn’t say that I hate him.”

Yeonho blinks, surprised by the direction this is taking.

“I just don’t know if I trust him, I guess. Whenever Yongseung drank from Minchan from then on, I’d secretly check up on him afterwards to see if he was okay. When Yongseung was in the room, Minchan acted entirely fine, but when he left, he seemed like he was in rough shape. I took care of him then to help him recover.”

Yeonho looks at Gyehyeon, seeing the concern and love he has for Minchan clearly for the first time.

Gyehyeon continues, “I now know first hand that it’s draining to be drunk from, but it hurt seeing Minchan like that. Why didn’t he tell Yongseung it was hard on him? Why didn’t Yongseung notice he was so sick? I know this is weird, but I’m sure you know of stories where vampires can put people in trances, so I always wondered if Minchan agreed to doing it, or…”

In the movie the others were watching, the vampires there did indeed put victims in trances. Yeonho has just never considered that was something he could do before. He finds himself at a loss for words, besides wanting to say he doesn’t believe Yongseung is that kind of guy or that trances are a myth, but then again, Yeonho’s still new to all of this and doesn’t know if it’s possible or not for vampires to be able to put anyone in a trance in reality. 

“I was just considering this as a wild theory, don’t take it seriously,” Gyehyeon assures him after he must’ve seen the unsettled look on his face. “I’ve been talking with Yongseung today and I’ve changed my mind about him. He really seems to avoid hurting anyone.”

Yeonho knows this as well, but it was too late. Gyehyeon planted the idea in his head and he had to be sure.

“Going back to watch the movie?” Gyehyeon asks after Yeonho stands up.

“No, the movie’s kind of dumb, it was very big brain of you to miss it. I just need to check something real quick.” Yeonho enters the common room and opens the front door of their dorm.

“Hyung, where are you going?” Kangmin notices him.

“You feeling okay?” Dongheon asks.

“I’m just going to step out for a minute. I’ll be right back.” As the door closes behind him, Yeonho hears Hoyoung remind him that he forgot his coat. Oh well. I don’t really need it anyway.

Stepping out of the building, Yeonho takes a few breaths of the cold air, the breath leaving his body not creating a puff of smoke like it would’ve, had he been a warm blooded being again.

Not wanting to delay any longer, Yeonho takes out his cell phone and selects ‘Minchan hyung’ in his contacts. After pressing the dial button, he waits as the phone rings, trying to piece together exactly what he’s about to ask Minchan, but he picks up before any cohesive sentence is formed in his mind.

“Hello?” 

“Hyung, did you let Yongseung suck your blood?”

“Are we doing a vampire role-play?” Hearing Minchan’s voice again after he’s been so busy makes Yeonho feel like he’s at home.

“Come on, cut it out. I’m serious, I know everything—” Yeonho stops when he realizes if Minchan is truly unaware about this, then he most definitely was put in a trance all those times. “You—you do know what I’m talking about, right?”

He laughs, the sound making Yeonho feel at ease already. “I do, but it was supposed to be a secret, wasn’t it?”

“Well, Yongseung told me everything. And you didn’t answer my question.”

“What was it… ‘did I let him suck my blood’? Yes, multiple times before. And I would let him do it again.”

 “So he didn’t, like, put you in a vampire trance or anything to get you to do it?”

“Nope, not that I’m aware of.”

Yeonho sighs in relief. That was one mystery immediately created and then solved in no time, but there was still another. Remembering when Yongseung said he’s turned someone into a vampire before, he asks, “Did he make you a vampire, by any chance?”

“Well, I haven’t been craving any blood recently,” Minchan chuckles. “So no, he hasn’t yet. Why do you ask?”

Looking down, Yeonho kicks a rock into a snow bank, trying to find a better reason than just saying ‘I’m nosy.’ Yeonho explains, “When I asked him earlier if he’s ever turned someone, he said yes, and I really want to know who. I’m curious.”

“Really?” Minchan says, sounding surprised. “When I was at the dorm a while back, I asked him the same thing out of morbid curiosity, and he said he hadn’t ever done it before.”

“Huh…” Yeonho knows that Yongseung doesn’t lie. If he told the truth to both of them, who could he have turned since he last spoke to Minchan? They’ve all been at Jellyfish during the last and current comeback, so there couldn’t be many other people that Yongseung interacts with. It likely could be any of the three remaining members he hasn’t spoken to about this yet. Then again, Yongseung knows a lot of vampire facilities, so he must secretly be in contact with other people outside of the group. It could be someone he doesn’t know.

“If you’re worried about him, don’t be,” Minchan assures him, “If he really turned someone, he wouldn’t have done it without a good reason. Yongseung would never lay his fangs on anyone without their explicit permission. He couldn’t hurt a soul.”

“But doesn’t he hurt you?” Yeonho argues. “Gyehyeon said you got really sick whenever Yongseung drank from you.”

“No, no, listen,” Minchan starts sharply, “Yongseung avoids drinking from any living thing at all costs because he’s that afraid of hurting anyone. In absolute emergencies, I had Yongseung drink from me because I didn’t want him to starve and I didn’t want him to go ravenous and do something regretful. No matter what, being drank from has a toll on any human person. Maybe he takes a little too much from me because of his self-induced lack of experience and far-along hunger, but knowing that I was becoming sick from it would’ve killed him. And I guarantee he would’ve then refused to drink from me ever again out of fear of hurting me, and risk starving to death. It’s not a big deal, I recover every time, so it’s always worth the trade. I don’t want to see him suffer either. Yongseung is my cute little dongsaeng, he can’t really hurt me anyway. Harmless.”

“I see…” The explanation makes sense, but hearing this defensive protectiveness that Minchan has towards Yongseung causes Yeonho to ask without thinking, “Are you two dating?”

After a laugh, Minchan asks, “Why? Jealous?”

Yeonho tries to mutter a ‘no,’ but is caught up in embarrassment.

“Don’t be, you’re my cute little dongsaeng too.”

Yeonho fake laughs, “Ah ha ha, stop that. Don’t call here anymore.”

“You called me!” Minchan defends himself. “Anyway, if you’re so worried, why don’t you ask Yongseung what our relationship is yourself?”

Yeonho wonders if Minchan knows that his question came from a place of genuine pining. Yongseung did tell him that Minchan’s quite observational. In fact, it’s likely that he knew about his crush on Yongseung months ago, before Yeonho even knew himself.

“Don’t feel so jealous.” Minchan continues, “From the sound of it, you’re his replacement drink, aren’t you? That’s why he told you everything?”

“No… that’s not it,” Yeonho sighs. He wishes that were the case. “Anyways, I gotta go,” he says, before adding really fast, “Also I’m a vampire too now bye.”

“What—”

Yeonho hangs up and laughs to himself, as it starts to really occur to him that he misses talking to Minchan. He knows Yongseung definitely also misses him as well, in more ways than one, but he doesn’t know exactly how they define their relationship. Although he’s afraid of the answer, Yeonho knows he’ll have to ask if he wants a chance for Yongseung to return his feelings.

 

***

 

Yeonho may be procrastinating. There have been a few times where he was alone with Yongseung and could have easily asked then and there what his relationship with Minchan was, but no time has ever felt right. He knows deep down this is because if they’re not an item, he’s going to ask Yongseung out immediately, which would change everything for better or for worse. On the flip side, if it ends up they are dating, Yeonho would have to deal with that heartbreak, which he absolutely doesn’t have time for with his busy schedule.

However, in the current moment, Yeonho’s feeling especially on edge because he’s come across the most perfect moment to ask so far. The others are out of the dorm and will be for a while, they don’t have anywhere to be tonight or early tomorrow morning, and Yeonho and Yongseung are alone in the common room, playing video games together on the TV. And yet, Yeonho’s reluctant to say anything at all. He just wants to enjoy what they have right now as much as he can.

Sitting side by side on the floor in front of the couch, Yeonho and Yongseung are playing a co-op fighting game. Yeonho’s trekking on, while Yongseung has just run out of lives. Setting his controller down, he sighs and leans back on his palms, watching Yeonho continue as he destroys this game in part due to his mad skills, but mostly from pure luck if he’s being honest. 

“God, I’m so good at this,” Yeonho exaggerates, defeating the boss and passing the level with only a sliver of life to spare. He throws his arms up in celebration, “Yes! I’m gonna live forever!”

Yongseung laughs, causing Yeonho to look over at him. Despite being out of the game, he seems to be having a fun time, a smile on his face, but with his eyes on Yeonho instead of the screen. “You know… vampires might live longer than most, but they still die of old age, like every other creature. Except turtles perhaps… and a few sea creatures. The ocean is a mystery.”

Somehow after all this time they’ve spent together, Yeonho can still learn something new about vampirism from Yongseung, though this one is less fun than the previous facts in the sense that if he thinks about their mortality too much, he’ll have an existential crisis. There still being so much he doesn’t know, he asks a question, “Hey, can we put people in trances?”

Yongseung shakes his head. “No, that’s fiction. The only thing anywhere close to trances is imprinting, but that’s sort of been overexaggerated by the media. It’s much more simple than that. People you feed from that have a good experience and trust you will be drawn to being fed on again by you, and vice versa.”

Yeonho can’t tell if that’s romantic. He doesn't really think it is with Gyehyeon, but his main concern is Yongseung and Minchan. At least in his particular case, he hasn’t felt differently about Gyehyeon, and Gyehyeon seems the same around him, besides when he offered a sacrificial arm to him in front of everyone, and remembering this, Yeonho makes a note to never let him live that down. “Is imprinting a romantic thing?”

“No, not inherently. In vampires, imprinting is really just a word for the effect from oxytocin, which drinking from someone happens to produce a lot of, for both parties. You might have heard of it being called the cuddle or love hormone because it bonds people together. It has effects such as lowering anxiety and heightening empathy, but it's mostly known for being the key to mothers bonding with their offspring in mammals.”

“Okay, so Gyehyeon is my mom.”

Yongseung chuckles. “No, but you aren’t wrong that imprinting could be romantic if that’s how the participants feel about each other.”

“I see…” That answer not assuring him at all, Yeonho buries his worries about Minchan and Yongseung back into the depths of his mind. Hovering over the next level button, Yeonho wonders what time it is and if he should keep playing. The long silence from Yongseung catches his attention, and he looks over at him again. Yongseung has leaned back on his side with his elbow on the couch cushion behind him and his head resting in the palm of that hand, a content smile on his face and a warmth in his eyes as he looks at Yeonho.

“Why are you looking at me like that?" Yeonho asks, feeling a bit self-conscious.

“No reason… I’m just happy I get to share all this vampire stuff with you, though I know I shouldn’t be.”

“Why’s that?”

“It… sucks being a vampire, doesn’t it?”

“Is that supposed to be a pun?”

“Yes, but no.” Yongseung sits up, his smile fading from his face. “Isn’t it dark… isn’t it morbid to have to feed off of blood of all things? People are frightened of you, correctly so, as we're always one or two bad weeks away from doing something unspeakable. When people learn the truth about me, I can tell that's what they're thinking. Like that day, I saw how Gyehyeon looked at me when you told him what we were. I don't blame him for the horror and disgust on his face. It's natural that people just see us as monsters…”

Yeonho shakes his head at his reasoning. “Well, I don’t particularly feel like a monster… do you?” 

Yongseung nods slowly, looking down at the floor and fiddling with the cord on his controller.

Yeonho hadn’t considered Yongseung felt like that. He thought Yonseung could never feel monstrous because of all the good deeds he does—only drinking nearly expired blood, donating money often, being reluctant to drink from anyone. He never imagined the reality is that Yongseung does these things because he feels monstrous.

“You’re not a monster,” Yeonho tells him. “I know you’d never do anything to hurt anyone.”

Yongseung is silent for a long moment, so Yeonho decides to continue the game for one more level to try to help take both of their minds off of this dark subject. A couple of minutes in, Yongseung stands up and puts his hand on Yeonho’s shoulder, causing him to pause the game and turn his attention to the other man.

“Yeonho… there’s something I have to tell you.”

Noticing the serious tone of Yongseung’s voice, Yeonho also stands up to turn off the game console and waits for Yongseung to be ready to speak. After a couple of moments, Yongseung begins telling him his side of the story.

“It’s about the day you were bitten by that fan.”

***

Another fansign was ending and Yongseung was meeting with the last verrer in the line. Yongseung greeted her, asking for her name, and she gave it to him, at the same time tapping twice on the table in front of her with her pinky and pointer finger extended. She must’ve figured out he was a vampire, and he could tell the same for her, as her nervous smile exposed a pointy length to her canines. 

She looked happy to meet him, but Yongseung could tell something was off by the way her hand was shaking wildly when she tapped the table. She was either sick or going hungry—both are not great for a vampire to experience. As they chatted, Yongseung decided he would find her after the fansign and take her to a blood bank or give her the rest of his blood bags, whichever could help her most conveniently. 

After a minute of chatting followed by saying their goodbyes, he stood up to stretch and chat with Hoyoung away from the table as the fan moved down the line to greet the last member. A moment later, a heavenly scent filled his nose and briefly took over his other senses. Blood. Why? 

Trying not to show concern for what he assumed happened, he made his way over to Yeonho.

"Blood?" Yongseung noted that that wasn’t the most subtle way to check for problems, but he found it hard to think straight with this much panic going on internally. "Are you okay? Did you get hurt?"

"I just got a paper cut."

Yongseung believed him for a second, but his worry got the better of him. He looked around for the fan, but she was gone. He wasn’t sure what sort of bite that was. Did she just take some blood? Did she inject him to turn him? Or worse—was she actually sick? Yongseung weighed his options, but it turned out there was nothing he could do but wait and see if Yeonho was okay.

That night, he couldn’t sleep, not that it bothered him, as he only needs a couple hours a night to be fully rested. Yongseung wanted to stay up to think. The bags under that fan’s eyes, the way she trembled, how she was a little slow to respond… all of these signs pointed to sickness. Vampires may be immune to plenty of human illnesses, but there was one, horrible, vampire-born virus that they could catch and spread to people that they bite. It usually turns out fine if vampires catch it, but for humans, this virus is… 

Being in deep thought and anxiety for what will happen to Yeonho, he only then noticed a rapid heartbeat in the common room with him. Yeonho. Squinting at him was his best friend, who must have been in some sort of distress from the sound of his heart. "Yeonho, is something wrong?" he asked quietly, as to not wake the others. Yeonho’s eyes weren’t focusing back at him, so he must have not been able to see him. Yongseung turned to hit a light switch.

"I'm just going to the-" Yeonho cut himself off as the living room light came on. He stumbled back, his eyes shut tight. 

That’s not a good sign. "Ah, sorry," Yongseung switched the light back off for his comfort.

“I’m not feeling great. I’m… really dizzy? And hot, and my thumb-” Yeonho stopped his sentence there. Yongseung noticed he was holding his hand as if it were bringing him pain. Did he really get a bite more dangerous than one that just intends to draw blood? 

“Are you sick? Do you have a fever?” Yongseung stood up and made his way over to Yeonho. Becoming close to him, he placed his hand on Yeonho’s forehead. Yeonho’s heart was pounding so fast and loud, Yongseung could cry out of worry. “Your temperature seems high.” Yongseung considered what he could really do in this moment. Was this normal sickness? Was it more than that? Wanting it to be the former, he asked, “Want me to get you some medicine?”

“Actually, can I get some water?” Yeonho requested, furrowing his brow and squeezing his eyes tightly shut. 

“Are you in a lot of pain? Yeonho?” The other man wasn’t answering and looked as if he’d fall over any second, which turned out to be reality. Yongseung caught Yeonho right as his legs gave out and slid down onto the floor with him. “Tell me, is it your hand that hurts?” Yongseung lifted Yeonho’s tightly clenched hand and noticed his veins are a deep purple, slowly crawling up his arm. From what Yongseung could tell, the source was a bite mark in the shape of two fangs.

“That person really bit you…” Yongseung stated the obvious to a whimpering Yeonho, who was in too much pain to hear him. Not only did Yongseung’s fear come true, but it was also the worst case scenario out of all of the options he considered. That fan was sick with a vampiric virus, and after being injected with it, Yeonho’s human body couldn’t take it. In fact, rarely any human body could handle this, it being like pure poison to them. The virus is transmissible through a vampire’s saliva for days to weeks, coincidentally coating their fangs and endangering everyone who is bitten. From what Yongseung is aware, vampires almost always recover from this sickness. For humans, however, this is most definitely fatal. 

“Yeonho? Yeonho, look at me,” Yongseung begged, refusing to come to terms with the fate that Yeonho has met.

“Ss…” Yeonho started speaking, his voice barely audible. “Save me.”

Yongseung swallowed the thought that flashed through his mind. “I can’t…” But Yeonho kept repeating his request, deliriously. He couldn’t possibly know that Yongseung could save him. Because vampires can survive this virus, Yongseung knew the only way Yeonho had a fighting chance was if he was a vampire as well.

If he turned Yeonho, would he be furious that his life would never be the same again? Would he be filled with regret every time he looked at Yongseung? Would this absolutely destroy their relationship? Would this ruin Yeonho’s life? Looking down at him, Yeonho’s teeth were clenched in tremendous pain, showing off his once cute snaggletooth, which now just seemed like morbid foreboding to his soon vampiric fate.

Deep in thought about what looked like his only option, Yeonho’s weak voice called his name, “Yongseung…”

Selfishly, Yongseung couldn’t care less about how he felt about him after this point. He couldn’t imagine living without Yeonho, who he loves so dearly. He couldn’t wait for another solution, so he decided to help him the only way he knew how. Yongseung pulled Yeonho into his arms and tightly hugged him, causing the other man to groan in pain, but in case this was their last moment together before Yeonho saw him as a monster from then on, Yongseung didn’t let go. Holding back his tears, he firmly bit down on Yeonho’s shoulder and injected him.

Yongseung couldn’t help but taste the sweet blood that started pouring out of his skin. Even with the virus actively rotting his blood, Yongseung could hardly believe how heavenly Yeonho tasted. At once, he regretted not telling Yeonho his secret sooner. All this time they had spent together, and yet he was always holding back his true self. 

Although it was difficult, Yongseung managed to pry his fangs out of Yeonho’s shoulder to find that he had passed out. Fear shot through Yongseung’s body, but as he quickly checked, Yeonho was still breathing and the dark color from his veins was fading. The only lucky part of this was that his transformation from human to vampire would be painless now, which was deserved since he went through unnecessary suffering up until this point.

As silently as possible, Yongseung lifted and carried Yeonho over to his bedroom where his roommates were sleeping, and he laid him down in Minchan’s empty bottom bunk. Instead of climbing into his own bed, Yongseung sat down at the foot of the bed and watched over Yeonho to make sure he was still okay during the rest of the night.

As the sun just started to rise, Yongseung decided to make breakfast in hopes and anticipation for Yeonho to awaken. He definitely cooked it too early, that was for certain, as the food was already cold by the time the other members started to get up and take a share of the meal. But was a cold breakfast anywhere near enough for Yeonho to forgive him for changing his life forever? 

As the morning passed by and the afternoon approached, new worries started tormenting Yongseung. Was Yeonho going to wake up at all? What if he never did? Right as he was about to check up on him, Kangmin’s voice called from the room Yeonho was sleeping in.

“Yeonho’s up!” 

Finally hearing that filled Yongseung with relief. He wanted to run into the room and see Yeonho be alive and well, but he couldn’t help the tears that started to well up in his eyes. Not wanting to cause a disturbance, he locked himself in the bathroom and waited for the tears of relief to subside.

***

Yongseung finishes up telling his story, “I was surprised you were asymptomatic after being injected with both the virus and vampire venom. The bite you got from the fan wasn’t as traumatic to flesh as the one that turns you, which is why yours is healing. I knew you’d notice and figure it out eventually, so I had to come clean… I’m sorry.”

Beyond shocked, Yeonho can only manage to shake his head at Yongseung’s apology.

Looking visibly drained, Yongseung sits down on the couch and fiddles with his hands. “I never wanted anyone else to have to suffer like I do—especially you—but I had to turn you so you’d survive. I’m so sorry I didn’t have any other solution. Once I realized you didn’t remember any of it, I decided to keep it a secret. I didn’t want you to know because I didn’t want you to look at me different or be regretful because of me. I shouldn’t have lied to you, but I was scared.”

Yeonho opens his mouth to tell him it’s okay and to stop apologizing, but he struggles to find his first word.

Because of Yeonho’s silence, Yongseung continues, “It was all so scary, Yeonho. That night, your veins turned a dark purple, you weren’t responding… It must have been so painful because it was actually killing you. You might’ve been delirious, but you kept repeating 'save me, save me'… Hearing that hurt me too. I was weak. I took that as permission to turn you—and on top of that, drink your blood—but it probably wasn’t what you had in mind… I’m sor—”

“Were you okay?”

Yeonho’s concern stuns Yongseung for a moment. “What?”

“I had, essentially, vampire disease in me and you drank my blood, hello? Yongseung, were you okay?”

“I experienced some side effects, but I recovered without major incident.”

Despite Yongseung’s grim confession, Yeonho is experiencing pure bliss. Yongseung was the one who turned him, and he gets to keep Yongseung’s bite mark on his shoulder forever. Finally knowing this fills him with a deep warmth that he’s never felt, even when he was human. Yeonho finds himself so in love with Yongseung and so relieved that everything turned out this way. It was that unfortunate, dire situation that caused them to grow closer. Looking at Yongseung now, Yeonho can’t stop smiling. He wants to kiss the sad look right off the other man’s face.

“Yongseung,” Yeonho starts, waiting for Yongseung to look him in the eye. When he hesitantly does, Yeonho continues, “Thank you for saving me. I genuinely mean it. You have no idea how happy it makes me to hear that you were the one who turned me this entire time. So don’t ever apologize to me again.” Then, trying to lighten the mood, Yeonho asks, “Well? Was I tasty?”

Yongseung shyly smiles, “Delicious even with the sickness.”

“I knew I would’ve been, ahh…” Yeonho dramatically snaps his fingers. “You were missing out all that time.”

“I was,” Yongseung agrees. “I can only imagine what you would’ve tasted like before then.”

Due to having recently drunk, Yeonho feels the blood traveling to his face and heating his cheeks in response to Yongseung’s unexpectedly flirty reply. Not being able to hold back, Yeonho asks, “Was I even better than Minchan?” Seeing how Yongseung looks taken aback by his question, Yeonho can’t stop himself from prying further, “Yah, are you dating Minchan? Was it romantic when you fed off him?”

“What? No…”

“What about how you drank from his neck? Was that not romantic?”

“At first he offered up his neck, and I was so hungry that I didn’t bother with the details. He probably didn’t realize he could’ve used another spot, and we didn’t really consider any other way since it happened rarely anyway. Need I remind you that you tried to do the same with Gyehyeon before he stopped you?”

“So… you don’t like Minchan?”

“Not in the way you’re thinking.”

“... Then date me.”

“What?”

Yeonho doesn’t bother to repeat what he said and just looks at the other man with a serious expression. He knows Yongseung understood him, and he wants his response.

Yongseung silently looks down at the ground for a moment with an unreadable look on his face. He finally speaks, “You would still need to feed off of Gyehyeon in an emergency. And I would still need Minchan. Are you okay with that?”

Yeonho silently considers it a shame they couldn’t just feed off of each other.

“Would you be jealous of Minchan still?”

He could tell? “I won’t be. Feeding is feeding, isn’t it? Minchan and Gyehyeon are our trusted, close friends. But the way that I like them is different from the way that I like you.” When Yongseung remains quiet for too long, Yeonho adds, “So date me!”

After a silence, Yongseung slowly gets up and comes closer, towering over Yeonho with an intense look in his eyes, reminding him of what Gyehyeon said about feeling like prey. Yeonho wonders when the last time Yongseung drank was as he recalls Yongseung telling him how vampires can feed on another to kill them. He puts his hands on Yongseung’s chest to keep him at arm’s length. “Look, I’m sorry, I’ll back off. You don’t have to kill me about it, geez.”

Yongseung laughs, “I’m not trying to bite you, I’m trying to kiss you.”

Oh…  

“I like you too, Yeonho. Of course I’d like to date you… May I kiss you?”

Yeonho laughs in embarrassment and playfully bites down on Yongseung’s shoulder lightly, careful not to hurt him through his shirt. His hands that were on his chest wrap around his waist.

“Hey, you have sharp fangs now, watch out!” Yongseung scolds him, laughing.

Yeonho smiles against Yongseung’s shoulder. Remembering that vampires can also bite each other to bond, he’s just testing the waters with this particular act that he’s done numerous times before he turned. He hasn’t realized how long it’s been since he last did this. Yeonho is secretly enjoying Yongseung’s arms being wrapped around him, the other man not trying whatsoever to push him off and even discouraging him from leaving by how he’s holding tightly onto him.

“Cut it out,” Yongseung objects, his laugh music to Yeonho’s ears. “I’ll bite you back this time,” he warns.

Yeonho takes his teeth off of Yongseung’s shoulder and looks directly into his eyes, threateningly. “I dare you.”

The lighthearted interaction turns into a more intense encounter due to the incredibly flirty vibes of Yeonho’s challenge. A moment goes by where they just look at each other before Yongseung’s eyes settle onto Yeonho’s lips. For once since he became a vampire, Yeonho swears he could feel his own heart, beating wildly for Yongseung.

Notes:

smouldering suggested I add an educational tag because of the amount of Knowledge that Yongs lays down throughout this fic. And i had to do legit research for these facts so i'll consider,,

Also, spoiler for this chapter, my reason for Yeonho being so obsessed with Yongseung is that they bonded from Yongseung feeding from him and turning him, which intensified his existing feelings and made him want to be fed on again, like with Gyehyeon’s sacrificial arm 🤭

i'm working on a fourth chapter that i originally didn't plan for, so it'll take a bit more time before it's ready

Chapter 4: My Roomie's a Slayer?!

Notes:

A bonus chapter. The story was supposed to end at chapter 3, but I thought of a funny concept and had to write it. This chapter takes place in early 2021 right after Minchan’s return. Also, this chapter is kind of stupid :) enjoy!

“It’s been such a long time since I’ve been pricked!” 

“Hyung, you seem excited?”

“I’m just happy to be here, honestly!”

The group’s comeback ended not too long ago, which is a bummer, as they’re not able to see verrers. On the bright side, Minchan has returned to the dorm, and just seeing his smile is enough to put a matching one right on Yeonho’s own face.

“Ahh… lemme see those new vampire teeth.” Minchan pinches Yeonho’s cheeks in an effort to hold his mouth open, “Huh… they don’t look any different?”

“They’re pointy and long now,” Yeonho tries to say while his mouth is being assaulted.

“Your snaggletooth has always looked like that though?”

“No, they’re, like, more vampirey now—get your fingers out of my mouth, freak!” 

Minchan laughs as Yeonho slaps his hand away.

Yongseung chuckles as well, “It’s like Chani hyung is trying his best to get bit. He might need me more than I need him.”

“I doubt that,” Minchan turns his attention to Yongseung and moves to stand beside him. “Okay, I’m ready to be food!”

Minchan’s volume is initially alarming to Yeonho, but the three members that are blissfully unaware of their vampire shenanigans are out and about, leaving just the four knowing members alone at the dorm. Although Minchan has only been back for a short time, there happens to be a minor blood shortage, so earlier Yongseung had asked if Minchan would be okay with directly donating to him. He’s willing… and Gyehyeon is wearing a bit of a sour expression because of it.

Before Yongseung and Minchan can go off into their room for a feeding, Gyehyeon steps up to them. He uncharacteristically gently takes Minchan’s arm and rolls up his sleeve to his elbow for him. “Bite here,” Gyehyeon commands and softly taps Minchan’s wrist while glaring at Yongseung.

Being reminded that Gyehyeon saw Yongseung feed from Minchan’s neck multiple times, Yongseung shifts his weight on his feet awkwardly and nods, “Will do.”

Gyehyeon nods back, looking at him for a moment longer in a slightly threatening way, “Take care of him. I’ll be back with treats,” he turns and grabs his coat before leaving their dorm.

Minchan tilts his head at the front door he left through. “Is Gyehyeon into me?” 

The answer being obvious, Yeonho scoffs, “Where have you been?”

Appearing taken aback by Yeonho’s sass, Minchan clarifies, “I’ve literally been away at home for months, but okay.” Yongseung chuckles at this, causing Minchan to turn to him, “You better be gentle with me. Gyehyeoni looked like he was gonna slay you,” he teases.

Yeonho assumes Minchan is referencing the new show about vampire slayers that they were all keeping up with lately. Near the end of promotions, they picked up watching it weekly, while Minchan kept up at home, and they all finally got to watch it together as a group yesterday. 

Yeonho was reluctant to watch it at first because it involved, well… the slaying of vampires, of course. He could handle seeing the subject matter because the vampires they do kill off are somewhat animalistic or evil, but he was initially worried about how Yongseung felt about it. Yongseung was concerned with the morality of existing as a vampire not too long ago, which is something he shared with Yeonho when he explained that he was the one who turned him into a vampire. 

Despite being heartbreaking, it was also that moment that led Yeonho and Yongseung to officially start dating, which only Minchan and Gyehyeon know about right now. Because it was still new, it seemed awkward to announce their relationship, but Yongseung decided it would be best to let Minchan and Gyehyeon know since Yeonho had discovered Gyehyeon’s feelings for Minchan and wanted him to avoid the jealousy that he went through himself. But in Yeonho’s experience, once Yongseung returned his feelings, what jealousy he had melted away and he understood that even though feeding is intimate, it’s not fundamentally romantic, much like with love. Unfortunately, Gyehyeon doesn’t fully understand this yet.

On top of the jealousy, Gyehyeon has been pretty stagnant with his trust for vampires in general. When first discovering Yongseung was a vampire, he seemed to really distrust them, but after talking with him he started to get better… until they began watching this vampire slayer show, which honestly can be deeply disturbing at times. After watching a new episode, it seems like Gyehyeon becomes colder towards Yeonho for a little while, much like watching a horror movie would spook a small child, giving them nightmares and making them weary of the elements involved. Yeonho doesn’t even blame him; the effects and story can be pretty brutal. 

In fact, the show has been having a similar effect on Yeonho as well but not because of the vampires. The idea of vampire slayers is terrifying to him for obvious reasons. The thought that there could be people out there that might find out the truth about him and do everything in their power to end his life has him even more frightened when making any public appearances. As an idol, tens of thousands of eyes are on him everyday, which gives endless opportunities for him to accidentally expose his secret. 

And although he knows vampire slaying is just a fictional profession in a TV show and not a part of his reality, it’s been making him a little paranoid. Even just last night, these paranoid thoughts started to creep in while watching the latest episode. Yeonho was sitting shoulder to shoulder with Yongseung, lightly tracing his fingers across the other man’s hand that laid casually on Yeonho’s leg. During the scarier parts of the show, feeling Yongseung next to him eased his fear, but only slightly. 

While looking around to try to avoid a particularly gruesome part, Yeonho noticed that all of the other members were on the edge of their seats at this fight scene. They wanted the vampire slayers to win. Of course they did; the vampires depicted here were absolute menaces. Yeonho was on the slayers’ side as well, but every time he saw a scene with a realistic portrayal of how he experiences vampirism, he wondered if the other members didn’t feel bad for the ones that accidentally went feral, especially with how human some of them are portrayed before they starve and become inhuman horrors.

As the fight scene ended, the slayers were suddenly overcome by the vampires and retreated. They suspected that one of the slayers was a spy—and a vampire themself—feeding the other side intel. Yeonho had always frozen up at this sort of scene, where a character that the others thought to be human turned out to be an evil vampire. After the characters started panicking about who the traitor could be, the members began discussing the evidence themselves and made an educated guess.

“It’s definitely the leader of the moon team. She barely did anything during that fight, of course she’s the vampire,” Gyehyeon commented. “She clearly wasn’t trying to hurt her own side.”

“And,” Kangmin started to say excitedly, “did you notice that they always commented about how she would never rest until all vampires are stopped? I thought it was so weird that they kept repeating she ‘never rests,’ but we’ve also never seen her sleep once on screen, so I don’t think it was an exaggeration.”

“Oh, I thought the writing was just cheesy,” Minchan laughs. “I only really knew the second that someone said she had cold hands.”

“Did you guys see what happened during the battle?” Dongheon asked. “Her night vision goggles fell off and she pretended she couldn’t see so she couldn’t fight, but then she perfectly followed the path back to the camp without any lights when she led the retreat… And right into another trap, on purpose.”

Kangmin gasped. “They did say that it was one of the darkest nights they’ve ever seen under a new moon! And that they couldn’t even see their own feet without the goggles.”

While listening to their discussion, it made Yeonho feel more than self-conscious. The other members were really skilled at picking out these vampiric details. Would they end up internalizing this scene and realize that he and Yongseung were also vampires? Or would they—

Yeonho suddenly noticed that Hoyoung was looking right at him. During this scene of all times. Was he piecing it together from the evidence in the show that he was a vampire? Did Yeonho resemble them a little too much? After Yeonho caught Hoyoung’s gaze, Hoyoung turned his attention back to the TV. Maybe it was a bad idea to watch this sort of show when they’re trying to keep their vampirism a secret, especially because it paints them in a bad light.

“You okay?” Yongseung whispered to Yeonho.

“Huh?” Yeonho then realized he was squeezing Yongseung’s hand out of fear. “Yeah,” he answered and let go of his hand entirely, not wanting his love for soft skin to look like a vampire tendency when in fact he loved Yongseung’s soft skin since before he turned. It had nothing to do with enjoying the satisfying sensation of biting into it. But that still did make him look like a vampire, and he found himself growing more self-conscious of it at that moment due to Hoyoung continuing to subtly glance at him every so often, so he kept his hands to himself.

Yeonho hadn’t thought much more about Hoyoung’s ominous stare since then, but as he’s reminded of it the very next day, he wonders what it was really about. He shrugs it off, continuing to scroll through Twitter on his phone as he lays in bed, waiting for Minchan and Yongseung to be done with feeding. Starting to hear voices outside of his room, he gets up thinking that they're finished, but stops as he realizes he hears Hoyoung’s voice talking to Minchan. He must’ve come back to the dorm not long ago.

“You don’t notice anything weird with them?”

“No, what do you mean?”

“I didn’t want to say anything, but aren’t Yeonho and Yongseung kind of… different lately…? If you didn’t notice anything, then nevermind. Maybe I’m imagining it.”

From the sound of it, Hoyoung must definitely be onto them. To be honest, Yeonho was surprised Yongseung managed to keep his vampirism a secret for this long anyway. Normally, it wouldn’t concern Yeonho too much if the secret got out. However, the images of the vampire slayer TV show flash into his mind when he tries to imagine Hoyoung finding out. Hoyoung doesn’t talk much about his past in New Zealand. What if he’s a vampire slayer? Yes, that’s wild. Yes, the show is merely fiction. But not too long ago, Yeonho thought vampires were fictitious as well. Why wouldn’t there be people who hunt rogue vampires? They can be dangerous after all.

Yeonho starts to regret having these thoughts. Hoyoung is his roommate. He’s not going to be able to sleep tonight—not when he can imagine Hoyoung realizing what he is and taking advantage of his unconscious state to plunge deep into his heart a sharp, wooden—

“Stake?”

Yeonho jumps in surprise, not realizing Hoyoung opened the door to their room. “Stake?” he repeats back, quietly.

“Didn’t you say you wanted steak for dinner?”

Oh… steak. “Yeah,” Yeonho laughs nervously, “that’s right.”

Hoyoung comes into the room and towards Yeonho, causing him to back up slightly. He looks at him quizzically before briefly looking over his own bunk and the floor below it. He clicks his tongue, “I don’t know where my phone is, so if you could tell Heoni hyung to pick up some food on his way home, that’d be great.”

After Yeonho gives him a thumbs up, Hoyoung leaves the room, shutting the door behind him. That was briefly horrifying and also awkward. Yeonho shakes his head and reaches for his phone on his own bunk when he hears a ping from below. It pings again, sounding like it came from Hoyoung’s pillow, and he reaches under it to find Hoyoung’s phone. He’s about to call out to him to let him know he found it, but accidentally sees the message from one of his sisters that popped up on the screen, reading:

 

Noona: She’s still going on about trying to get you to be a slayer…

 

Slayer? Without thinking, Yeonho sits down on the bottom bunk and opens the chat to read the full message, starting with the conversation before it.

 

Noona: You’re watching that vampire slayer show? Hoyoung-a why????

Hoyoung: Because I like it?? 🙄

Noona: Returning to your roots huh? 🤭🤭🤭

Noona: Speaking of which, did grandma call you lately?

Hoyoung: Yeah why?

Noona: Sorry was at work all day 

Noona: She’s still going on about trying to get you to be a slayer again since you’ve been back in Korea. What did you tell her?

 

Okay, so Yeonho knows what this looks like… And it looks like his roommate is a vampire slayer, apparently. Maybe Dongheon hyung is looking for a roommate? The phone pings twice more.

 

Noona: You’re into that show now, seems like you’d be onboard lol

Noona: Seen any vampires lately that you could use to get a head start on, killer? 🤭

 

Yeonho can’t stop himself from gasping aloud. Hoyoung has been gaining muscle lately. Is it all for slaying vampires with? My roommate’s gonna kill me. At the same time he has this thought, the door to his room opens again, causing him to jump and nearly drop Hoyoung’s phone.

Relieved at who it is, he loudly whispers, “Yongseung, Yongseung! Hoyoung’s a vampire slayer!” 

Yongseung looks at him funny and chuckles, “How do you figure?”

Lifting the phone, Yeonho frantically says, “Look, right here—in Hoyoung’s phone, the messages—! He slays vampires.”

Yongseung clicks his tongue and sighs, “Yeonho, you’ve been watching too much TV. Vampire slayers aren’t real.” Because this experienced vampire doesn’t seem too concerned, Yeonho feels like he might be misinterpreting something… somehow? Although the texts seem pretty straight-forward… Yongseung continues, “But you’re committing a real crime.”

“Huh?”

Yongseung steps towards him and leans down to face him. “Looking through another member’s phone without their permission? Incredibly naughty.”

His words send a shiver down Yeonho’s spine. Hoyoung who? Slay-what? All that he can see is his hot boyfriend trying to flirt with him.

Yongseung kneels on the bunk and gently pushes Yeonho to lay back. “We don’t have a specific veri-law for that, so I’m detaining you here as punishment.” Holding himself up and leaning over Yeonho, Yongseung smiles innocently at him, as if he’s not deliberately trying to make Yeonho lose his mind.

With Yongseung on top of him, Yeonho knows he can’t get up, but that’s more like the opposite of a punishment. “So what’s bail gonna cost?”

“Hmm…” Yongseung briefly looks away as he considers. “About five kisses? Right here,” He points to his lips before placing his hand back next to Yeonho’s head, his arms mimicking jail bars. 

“Yeah, I’ll do that… eventually,” Yeonho smirks.

Yongseung raises his eyebrows and says jokingly, “I don’t think you’re taking this seriously. You realize you’re stuck here, right? I’m detaining you here for as long as it takes for justice to be served. You’re completely trapped.”

Yeonho laughs, “I think you’re mistaken. See… you’re the one trapped here with me.” Yeonho wraps his arms around the blushing Yongseung and pulls him in. He chooses to kiss along his jaw instead, to keep him with him for as long as possible, followed by leaving a trail of kisses down his neck before finding the perfect spot. The red that colors his face lets him know that Yongseung is in good condition, fresh from feeding, so that Yeonho can take a little sip. He gently bites down to break his skin and just gets a taste when—

“Yeonh—”

Hearing Hoyoung’s voice as he enters their room, Yeonho pushes Yongseung off of him, who then gracefully stands up, while Yeonho throws himself off of Hoyoungs bed and rolls onto the floor painfully. Quick, try to act like I wasn’t just drinking blood straight from a neck! “Hey, roomie.” Yeonho smiles awkwardly from the floor, internally shaming himself. There’s a bit of a shortage right now; he shouldn’t be drinking from Yongseung anyway, but he got carried away. Yongseung’s fault. He looks up at his boyfriend to see him holding his hand over his neck where Yeonho had bitten him, so as to hide the mark. 

“Sorry.” Yongseung moves towards the door to leave.

“Whatcha got there?” Hoyoung asks him as he walks past him.

“I… this is just a cool new pose I’m trying out.” Yongseung puts his other hand on his hip in an attempt to make sense of the hand covering his neck. Yep, that’s nothing. Also knowing that was a horrible excuse, Yongseung promptly leaves as fast as possible.

Yeonho picks himself up off the floor.

“You okay… roomie?” Hoyoung holds back a laugh, and Yeonho cringes at the word ‘roomie’ that had slipped out of his mouth in an attempt to look normal—which didn’t work at all— being used back at him. “Oh, there’s my phone.” Hoyoung grabs it from on his bed and briefly looks through it. 

Yeonho has no idea what to do besides maybe run for it before Hoyoung pieces it together and decides to follow his calling for vampire killing. Before he can move, Hoyoung speaks up.

“So, Yeonho-ya,” he starts carefully, “You and Yongseung—”

“Hyung!” Kangmin’s voice calls from the common room to interrupt this confrontation. Thank you for saving my life, Yoo Kangmin-a.

“Which hyung are you looking for?” Hoyoung calls back, peaking out of their room.

“Anyone! I’m lonely!”

Yeonho sighs in relief as Hoyoung exits the room before he follows behind.

“I ran into Gyehyeoni hyung on the way home, but he doesn’t want to hang out with me,” Kangmin explains, all but stepping on Gyehyeon’s heels as he follows him in the kitchen while pouting.

“I had to get these ice creams in the freezer or else they’d melt, what do you want from me?” Gyehyeon responds sharply while putting away the pints he bought for them.

“I just wanted you to stop by a store with me.”

“Why didn’t you go by yourself?”

“Hyuuung,” Kangmin whines, “I need company.”

“Yeonho, did you tell Dongheon to pick up steaks?” Hoyoung asks Yeonho, to which he shakes his head. “Then come on, Kangmin-a, let’s go together and we’ll stop to grab some on the way back.”

Hoyoung and Kangmin grab their coats as Minchan emerges from the bathroom. “What’s up,” Minchan greets them all. Gyehyeon’s wide eyes show that he’s shocked to see Minchan up so soon after he was just fed on.

“Going shopping,” Hoyoung answers. “Wanna come?”

“Nah, I’m good. I’ve been waiting to eat some ice cream,” Minchan explains as he opens the freezer to look at the selection Gyehyeon brought.

“No, this one’s yours,” Gyehyeon hands Minchan the pint he left on the counter. “I was going to bring it to you…”

“Alright, text me if you want something from the store,” Hoyoung adds before leaving the dorm with Kangmin.

Yeonho hears Yongseung sigh as he enters the common area, coming from his room. Yongseung sits down on the sofa and Gyehyeon makes his way over to him, saying in a low voice, “You let Chani hyung walk around after you drank from him? Yongseung, he…” Gyehyeon brings his volume down lower, “He can barely stand as he is normally…”

Yeonho holds back a laugh. Minchan can be awfully clumsy. To be honest, Yeonho was also surprised earlier to hear him be up and about so soon. From what he’s seen, blood drinking is a draining process. 

Overhearing this, Minchan eases his concern, “I’m fine, Gyehyeon-a.” He walks into the living room while carrying his pint of ice cream and Yeonho follows. “Yongseung took very little this time. I told him he should’ve taken more.”

“But the bank’s supposed to be getting more soon,” Yongseung explains, “so I didn’t want to take more than necessary.”

“Yah!” Yeonho exclaims, shocked that Yongseung let him bite him when he apparently barely had enough blood to keep him satiated as is. 

“I told you, you can take as much as you want and more,” Minchan assures him. “All my blood are belong to you, Yongseung-a! Drain me!”

“God,” Yeonho shakes his head and takes a seat on the sofa next to Yongseung. “What’s it called when someone’s thirsty, but for getting drank from?” He laughs at the irony that the one doing the drinking isn’t automatically considered the thirstiest person.

Gyehyeon looks back and forth between Minchan and Yongseung in thought. “Maybe one of them is considered the thirster, and the other is the thirstee. But which is which…?”

“Maybe ‘simp’ is a helpful word for this,” Yeonho suggests. “It’s like he’s a simp for vampires.”

“Simpire,” Yongseung adds with a smile.

Gyehyeon shakes his head, “No, that makes it sound like he’s a simp who’s a vampire.”

Yeonho tilts his head at Minchan, “Hey, hyung, what’s wrong with you anyways?”

“I’m just being very supportive!” He defends himself with a mouth full of ice cream.

Yeonho furrows his brow. “I don’t know if supportive is the right word…”

Gyehyeon snaps his finger, “I think the right word is vampirephilia.”

“Yeah, that sounds like it could be a real word,” Yeonho agrees and turns to Minchan. “You’re a vampirephiliac, hyung.”

“I don’t like this conversation,” Minchan states.

“Then you should learn to think before you speak,” Yeonho advises while laughing.

“Never.” As if he won some sort of argument with that line, Minchan proudly turns away from them to eat the rest of his ice cream in peace.

The rest of the day goes by with nothing too significant happening. Yeonho forgot about his concern with Hoyoung, until he’s reminded at dinner, feeling self-conscious that his fangs might be visible as he eats his steak across from Hoyoung, so he takes smaller bites than usual. But as dinner passes without incident, he begins to relax… until bedtime, when he realizes he has to sleep in the same room as Hoyoung. And be unconscious. In a vulnerable way. So to avoid that at all costs, Yeonho is hanging out with Dongheon late, late at night in the studio room where he usually composes new songs as the other members are asleep at the dorm.

Yeonho spends a lot of time just scrolling through Twitter and taking selcas to post later as Dongheon silently works on a new track. In fact, he’s been unusually quiet. “Hyung,” Yeonho gently calls out to him.

Dongheon sharply inhales and his head jolts up off of the keyboard on the desk in front of him. “I’m awake…” He then gasps after he must’ve realized what time it is. “Yeonho-ya, why are you still here?” he asks while rubbing his eyes.

Yeonho doesn’t know how to respond. He’s scared, but it’s something that he can’t even share with his leader. “Hyung, can I sleep with you tonight? You said you wanted a roommate, didn’t you?”

“And you volunteer to be mine suddenly…?” Yeonho not responding to his suspicion, Dongheon is equally silent for some time as he examines where he left off in his work in progress before he had fallen asleep. Yeonho starts looking through Twitter again as Dongheon speaks up, “Did you have a fight with Hoyoung?”

“... Kind of.”

Dongheon briefly turns in his chair to look at Yeonho, visibly shocked that they would actually fight. “That’s strange,” he turns his attention back to his screen to look over his work. “I can’t imagine you two seriously arguing,” he comments. After a minute or two, Yeonho notices how slow Dongheon’s mouse movements are gradually becoming and that his head starts occasionally dropping as he fails to fight off sleep again.

Yeonho chuckles and a ‘hyung’s so cute’ comes out of his mouth, catching Dongheon’s attention and causing him to sit up straight in an attempt to wake up.

“It’s really late,” Dongheon says through a yawn as he saves his work and closes all of his programs. “Let’s go back to the dorm, you must be tired too.”

“Yep. Like a normal human person would be at this hour.” Yeonho could honestly do without any sleep tonight, due to being a vampire—which coincidentally is also what’s causing his problem. “Let’s go to sleep in our room!”

Turning his chair around to face Yeonho, Dongheon just looks at him for a moment. “I don’t know what happened between you and Hoyoung, but this doesn’t seem normal for either of you. I’m sure Hoyoung is also feeling bad about this… Why don’t you go apologize?” 

“I can’t, he’ll kill me.”

Dongheon shakes his head. “Hoyoung’s a nice guy, you know that. You’ve known him for years now… I’m sure you two will reach some sort of an understanding. Just talk with him.”

It’s true that Yeonho has already spent so much time getting to know Hoyoung, bonding and becoming close friends with him. They already have a solid relationship, and if anything, maybe their established closeness combined with Yeonho straight up telling him the truth will show that vampires can be trustworthy and friendly, and Hoyoung might make the decision to not end his life… hopefully. 

“Okay, I’ll talk to him about it tomorrow,” Yeonho agrees, and then he and Dongheon leave the studio and walk back to the dorm together. There’s a pit in Yeonho’s stomach due to feeling afraid that Hoyoung might still be up at this ungodly hour and that he’ll have to face him immediately, but when he enters their room, Hoyoung appears to be fast asleep. 

He quietly lets out a sigh of relief and climbs into bed. Checking his phone one last time, he sees a message from Yongseung:

 

Yongseung: You’re back from the studio late. Write anything good?

 

Feeling more at ease now that he knows Yongseung is awake and heard him come in, he replies:

 

Yeonho: nah ive mostly been hiding from hoyoung hyung in case i die when he kills me

Yongseung: I’m telling you, vampire slayers aren’t real.

Yongseung: I’ve never met one in my whole life.

Yeonho: thats why youre still alive dude lol

Yongseung: That does make sense. ^^

 

Yongseung is responding pretty quickly to Yeonho’s messages. He must’ve stayed up all night too. Yeonho asks:

 

Yeonho: whatre you doing rn?

Yongseung: Thinking, making a schedule for tomorrow, listening to music.

Yeonho: make time for me in your schedule plz 

Yongseung: I’ll be very busy tomorrow, but I’ll try… 

Yongseung: How does a whole 5 minutes sound? Enough time for a date? Ha ha

Yeonho: not enough for what i had in mind 😏

Yongseung: ... I’m clearing my schedule.

 

A giggle slips past Yeonho’s lips at his boyfriend’s excitement to spend time with him. Right afterwards, he hears Hoyoung stir in the bunk below him. Suddenly nervous, Yeonho lies perfectly still so as to not wake him up, but hearing Hoyoung sit up, he knows it’s too late.

“Yeonho-ya, you’re making it incredibly obvious,” Hoyoung says softly.

Being caught fully awake at such an unreasonable hour makes him look evidently even more like a vampire. Yeonho face palms.

“You’re texting Yongseung, right?” Hoyoung quietly asks, seeming to already be suspicious that Yongseung’s a vampire too. “Yeonho-ya, you know you can tell me anything… We’re friends, right?”

It’s time. Might as well confront this now. “Hyung… me and Yongseung…” While staring at the ceiling, Yeonho listens for Hoyoung’s heartbeat, which he’s surprised to find is steady—and he doesn’t know if that’s good or bad. “We’re vampires.”

After a silence and a still consistent heartbeat, Hoyoung surprises Yeonho by chuckling, “Yeah, I know, I can spot a vampire from a mile away.”

“So you are a vampire slayer!” Tensing up, Yeonho accuses him in a loud whisper, “That’s how you know, isn’t it?!”

Hoyoung sighs, “Kind of.” Yeonho hears him lay back in his bed and Yeonho also relaxes slightly. “My grandparents were vampire slayers a long time ago. They trained their kids to be slayers as well, but we cut any slaying ties with them when my family moved to New Zealand.” Hoyoung continues, “I still remember what little training I had, but I never really did any ‘slaying’ because I was so young. It’s also not what you’re thinking,” he starts to assure him, “They didn’t just outright kill vampires that they felt were evil. They mostly went after feral ones, mainly trying to help them regain their senses without hurting them, if possible. I know most vampires are just regular people, just like most humans aren’t serial killers…” After a moment of silence, Hoyoung asks, “What made you think I’m a slayer?”

I went through your phone. “Uhh… I just sensed it.”

“Okay, you’re lying, but it doesn’t matter. Your vampirism wasn’t what I was talking about anyways.”

“Oh… then what’s your problem with us?” Yeonho asks, sitting up, more curious now. He leans over the edge of his bunk to look down at Hoyoung. “You’ve been weird. I noticed you stare at me a lot since we watched the last episode of that vampire slayer show.”

“Well, you…” Hoyoung opens his mouth to speak and hesitates. “… Okay, I’ll just ask, but don’t take this the wrong way. Are you and Yongseung dating?”

Yeonho’s mouth drops open.

“I know you two are close, but you’ve been really friendly lately, I mean REALLY friendly. I noticed when we watched that episode because you guys were, like, attached to each other, more than usual.” Hoyoung smiles, “So I thought, ‘Oh, maybe it finally happened.’ Minchan always pointed out to me that you had a crush on Yongseungi, you know. When he didn’t acknowledge anything changed between you two, I thought I was losing my mind. But then I saw—” Hoyoung cuts himself off. “I’m really happy for you guys—honestly. But don’t ever kiss in my bed ever again,” he laughs.

“We weren’t kissing, I was biting—! Nope, that doesn’t sound any better.” Yeonho lays back down, embarrassed. “You got it, won’t happen again…”

“Now that that’s settled,” Yeonho hears Hoyoung also lay back down. “Goodnight, roomie~!”

Yeonho groans in response, but can’t help but smile.

 

*****

 

“Blood.”

A couple of days later and Yeonho has been doing well ever since the non-existent threat of being slayed by his roommate has been cleared from his mind, but now he faces a new issue.

“No.”

“Please, hyung,” Yeonho finds himself nearly begging Gyehyeon for just a sip of blood because the shortage has yet to solve itself, and it’s about time for him to feed again.

“When did you last drink?” Hoyoung, the only other member in the common room with them, speaks up and asks Yeonho.

From the couch, Yeonho looks up at Hoyoung, who has walked over from the kitchen area to talk to them. “I had the last bag almost a full week ago.”

“That’s not that bad,” Gyehyeon declares, his eyes not moving away from his phone. After Yeonho groans and rests his head on the other’s shoulder, he adds, “Yongseung said the banks would have more blood in soon,” as if to get Yeonho to stop complaining. “Besides, we have a vampire slayer now, so if you go ravenous Hoyoung can just tie you up until they restock or something.”

“Okay, but what if Yongseung’s wrong though? What if the banks don’t restock for weeks?”

“Then starve to death.”

“Yah!” Yeonho lifts his head. “But I’ll die if I starve to death! That’s a problem for me!”

Gyehyeon shrugs off the hand that Yeonho has on his shoulder. “Then ask the vampirephiliac.”

A smirk forms on Yeonho’s face before Gyehyeon realizes what he had suggested. 

“No wait, don’t—”

“Too late, I’m going.” Yeonho stands up and looks back at Gyehyeon, who appears to be a little stunned that he accidentally suggested that, given that he gets jealous when Yongseung shares that type of closeness with Minchan already. Wanting Gyehyeon and Minchan to finally be together, Yeonho gives him an ultimatum, “Maybe if you asked him out right now, I’d hold off.” 

Gyehyeon bites his lip in thought before slowly shaking his head. “You’re the worst.”

“Okay, I’m getting a taste then,” Yeonho winks. “This is because of you,” he adds, trying to pressure him into taking action.

Gyehyeon slowly crosses his arms and looks down at the floor. Waiting for a response, Yeonho watches him until he finally says in a soft voice, “... He’s not going to say yes.”

Yeonho can’t help but feel disappointed that Gyehyeon is set on not asking Minchan, and it hurts to see him insecure about it. On the other hand, he’s so hungry. Feeling like it can’t be helped for now, Yeonho teases, “I’ll try not to go for the neck.”

As Yeonho starts to head off to Minchan’s room, Hoyoung advises him in an attempt to help Gyehyeon, “Yeonho-ya, you might want to ask your boyfriend first—oops.” Looking over, Hoyoung finally notices Kangmin had stepped into the living room just moments before, with Minchan following awkwardly behind.

“Hey guys, Kangmin’s coming,” Minchan warns all too late.

“Boyfriend?” Hearing what Hoyoung said—and seemingly only that, thankfully—Kangmin perks up to the conversation. “Hyung, you have a boyfriend? Who is it?” Kangmin excitedly asks Yeonho before his expression turns sour. “Is it Gyehyeoni hyung?”

“No.” Gyehyeon dismisses him, “Why don’t you mind your own business?”

“But I want to know who it is,” Kangmin whines.

“It could be me,” Minchan jokes, which is then ignored by all.

“Is it Dongheoni hyung?” Kangmin guesses. “I’ll text him and ask.”

“No!” Yeonho grabs Kangmin’s phone as he takes it out and tosses it to Hoyoung, who barely catches it, as he’s visibly surprised it was coming to him.

“Hyung! Why would you throw it?” Kangmin complains and looks to Hoyoung, expecting his phone back.

Hoyoung hesitates to give it back and changes the subject. “Hey, Kangmin-a, why don’t we take some selcas for Twitter? We never take any together…”

After this complaint, Kangmin agrees to take some. Hoyoung removes Kangmin’s beanie and fixes his hair for him while Gyehyeon moves to stand behind them to be in the background of the photo.

While the others are preoccupied, Minchan pulls Yeonho aside and speaks quietly so as to not let the others hear, “Did you say you needed blood?”

“You overheard?” Yeonho raises his eyebrow at him.

“Yeah…” Minchan confesses. “I was kind of acting as a guard for the door to our room in case Kangmin got up, since you were talking about vampire secrets… I did a poor job,” he laughs. 

Yeonho opens his mouth to ask why he didn’t just come in and warn them that Kangmin was coming, but he realizes Minchan probably also overheard them talking about him and didn’t want to step in, or maybe got distracted. Wishing he had been more careful, he feels bad again for Gyehyeon in case this makes things awkward between them. Bringing the subject back, Yeonho declines his offer from feeling a little guilty, “It’s fine, I’m okay right now anyways.”

Minchan nods. “Okay, but let me know when you need some.” He then goes over to talk to Gyehyeon.

Looking over, Hoyoung and Kangmin have finished taking photos together and are looking through his phone for the best ones to post later. Kangmin notices Yeonho watching and calls out to him, “Is it Hoyoung hyung?”

As Yeonho shakes his head and rolls his eyes, Hoyoung apologizes, “Sorry, roomie, this is my fault.”

Yeonho’s eyes shift back to Minchan and Gyehyeon, glad that there at least doesn’t seem to be any awkward vibes between them, since Minchan more or less knows how he feels. In fact, they seem to be getting along really well, as Gyehyeon is now smiling wide and enthusiastically nodding to whatever Minchan said to him. Minchan then grabs his coat and walks past Yeonho to enter his room and comes back with his phone. As he walks by again, Yeonho asks, “Hyung, what’s going on?”

“Just asked Gyehyeon out,” Minchan smiles.

Yeonho’s eyes go wide. “What— now? You’re going right now?” 

With just a smug nod, Minchan is already making his way over to Gyehyeon, who’s waiting at the front door. 

Kangmin notices them leaving and speaks up, “Where are they going? Weren’t we all gonna eat out together tonight?”

“Yeah, we were just waiting for Heoni hyung and Yongseungi to get back,” Hoyoung confirms. 

“We might have to eat without the lovebirds…” Yeonho comments.

Hoyoung gasps, “You mean, just now…?”

“Yep.” Yeonho nods, confirming.

“Dongheon and Yongseung are dating?!” Kangmin exclaims.

“Kangmin, no— I wasn’t talking about them, I meant—”

The door opens to their dorm, to which Kangmin instantly jumps in front of Dongheon and Yongseung, and opens his mouth to quickly ask, “Hyung-a, is it Yeonho or Yongseung? Who are you da—”

Yeonho covers Kangmin’s mouth with his hand. “He’s really hungry, are we ready to go?”

“Uh, yeah, but, um.” Dongheon peaks out the door briefly. “We just passed Minchan and Gyehyeon… It looked like they were holding hands? Are they…?”

Yeonho notices the curiosity spark in Yongseung’s eyes as he anticipates an explanation. Yeonho smiles at the attention. Yongseung must not know how cute his face looks right now… “They’re going out to eat together, just the two of them.”

“It’s official then? Gyehyeon finally asked?” Yongseung guesses, sounding surprised.

Yeonho shakes his head, “Minchan did.”

“I guess we’ll have to go out to eat without them then…?” Dongheon suggests, to which the others nod halfheartedly, followed by a long silence full of trying to internally reason with themselves. After the reasoning fails, Dongheon asks, “Wanna go follow them?”

“Oh yeah, I have to see this,” Hoyoung smiles in excitement, grabbing his coat, with Kangmin quickly following behind.

“Go on without us while we put on our coats,” Yeonho tells the three, grabbing onto Yongseung’s wrist. “We don’t want to lose track of them.”

Dongheon gives him a look, as Yongseung was already outside with him, not wearing or needing a coat despite the weather. As Hoyoung and Kangmin are already out the door, Dongheon nods and leaves with them anyway.

After quickly slipping on his own coat, Yeonho holds up Yongseung’s coat for him to put his arms through. 

Confused, Yongseung puts it on, followed by Yeonho buttoning it up for him starting from the bottom. “You know we don’t need to keep warm, right? We’re vampires,” taking advantage of them being alone, Yongseung states their secret.

“I know.” Yeonho also wanted to take advantage of the moment, as he only used this as an excuse for them to be alone. It was a romantic idea—as soon as he reaches the top button, he was going to catch Yongseung off guard with a kiss—

Before he could process it, Yongseung’s soft lips touch Yeonho’s. “Ya!”

“What? Wasn’t that where you were going with this?”

His plan ruined, he finishes up the last two buttons of Yongseung’s coat anyway and surprises him back by grabbing him by the collar and pulling him in for a longer kiss.

After pulling away, Yongseung smiles before pressing his lips together, seemingly wanting to say something. “Yeonho.” His expression is soft, but his eyes are shining. He’s just so beautiful that Yeonho’s mind goes blank for a second, and when his mind comes back, Yeonho considers himself incredibly lucky that Yongseung makes this expression when looking at him—because of him. Butterflies build up in Yeonho’s stomach as Yongseung opens his mouth to speak. “... I love you,” Yongseung says, his words unmistakably genuine.

“Isn’t it too soon to say that?” Yeonho tries to refrain from slapping himself after responding this way without thinking. They’ve only started dating a few weeks ago so the thought slipped out from being so taken off guard. But why did he have to respond like that? I’m stupid.

“I’ve always loved you. I can’t pretend any different.”

Yeonho can’t control his face, smiling widely. He has to break eye contact, not because he doesn't feel the same, but because looking at Yongseung right now makes his head dizzy, and there’s no doubt it would’ve made his face burn—if he had enough blood in his system. He wraps and tightens his arms around Yongseung, letting his weight rest on him for a moment.

“Are you okay? It’s been a while since you had blood. How are you holding up?”

Yeonho shakes his head at the change of subject and steps back. “Let’s tell the others.”

“That we’re vampires?” Yongseung looks at him funny.

“No, that we're dating. So I don’t have to find excuses to be alone with you anymore like this.” Yeonho grabs Yongseung’s hand to hold and rocks on his feet. “Plus, I don’t want the others to think Gyehyeon and Minchan are a better couple than us. I mean… We started dating first, so … ”

Yongseung laughs and squeezes his hand. “Should we tell the others about us being vampires too?”

“No,” Yeonho quickly answers. “What if Dongheon hyung’s a vampire slayer?”

“Yep, valid concern,” Yongseung jokes, “But even worse… What if Kangmini is a vampire slayer?” 

They both laugh, but Yeonho is secretly pleased that Yongseung feels comfortable enough to suggest telling the others about his vampirism, which is a great improvement compared to that night when he admitted to feeling like a monster. Seeing Yongseung become so relaxed about something that was originally eating away at him, Yeonho can’t help but feel proud at how far he’s come.

Although Yeonho doesn’t feel any heat from Yongseung’s hand, he could swear there’s a sort of warmth radiating from somewhere in his heart as he gathers up the courage to say, “Yongseung… I love you too.”

Excitement sparkles in Yongseung’s eyes as he visibly tries to keep his cool, but Yeonho doesn't really want him to. As if reading his mind, Yongseung suddenly wraps his arms around Yeonho, pulling him in and squeezing him tight, much like on the night that changed Yeonho’s life forever—only this time, in place of the burning pain is a warm bliss felt from head to toe.

Notes:

Thanks for reading :D