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Minji wiped the window and sighed. A new year had rolled around again. In about 4 and a half months, she would turn 2086 years old. Being immortal was okay, but damn, was it tiring. She had lost count of how many different birthdays she’d celebrated, how many times she’d died, and had almost forgotten how old she was. She wondered who had cursed her to be that way, what she had done to see the ones she loved wither and die while she continued to live. Almost nothing kept her sane.
“Where’s Dongie? I saw her just a moment ago!”
Of course, almost nothing kept her sane. Siyeon getting concerned for all of their housemates definitely helped.
“Oh, she’s in the fire.” Minji said casually, turning to face the siren.
Siyeon raised her eyebrows. “What? Also, how could you say that so casually?”
“Handong’s a demon, Singnie. She’s practically made of fire so she’s super sensitive to the cold. Like literally as sensitive as Bora is to sunlight. That was why yesterday she was under practically every blanket in the house, and why the hot water bottles were all missing, because Handong had them all directly touching her skin.”
Siyeon smiled, then suddenly frowned. “She’s in her usual form, isn’t she?”
“Depends whether by usual you mean her human-like form or her demon form.”
“I mean her demon form.”
“In that case, yes, she is.”
“I’m not going into the living room, then. She’s terrifying in her demon form. Guess I’m going to snooze for a bit.”
Minji glanced at her watch. “But it’s 4pm! Sunset and Bora.” She bounded over to Bora’s bedroom and unlocked the door, making up a song on the spot. “Bboya, Kim Bora, you may not actually have a heart but you care for us a lot...”
“What the heck, Minji.”
“What? I like singing!”
“Honestly, kids, you woke me up with that racket.”
“We weren’t even that loud! And good afternoon to you too, Kim Bora who is barely 30 years older than me.”
Bora sighed. The life of a vampire had its ups and downs, of course. Youthful looks, seduction, immortality. The constant urge to drain humans of their blood, physically not being able to go outside during the day, immortality. Like Minji, she had a love-hate relationship with being immortal. Though, unlike Minji, who was still trying to come to terms with her own immortality even after 2000 years, Bora knew that she theoretically could die but had known she was immortal practically since she was born.
“Okay, since Bora’s awake and she’s the only one who can deal with Handong in her normal form, I’m going to the lake to stretch my tail,” Siyeon said, walking towards the door. “Tell me when the others get back.”
“Just also remember that it’s very hard to deal with Handong at most times, Lee Siyeon, normal form or not.” Bora glanced at her phone. “Plus Toni just told me that her and the others are going to be back in about 20 minutes, so, erm, yeah. I’ll get Minji to tell you when it’s 5 minutes.”
“Why Minji?”
“Because Bora would freeze up and Handong would die,” Minji said calmly. “And I’m calm about these things because it’s my job to make sure everyone is safely accommodated for.”
“Yeah, okay. See you in, like, 15 minutes!”
The siren walked downstairs, unlocked the door and bounded towards the lake, leaving Minji and Bora to stare after her before walking into the living room, where they were greeted with Handong’s unsavoury hiss.
“Dongie, it’s fine, Bora’s going to be on the opposite side of the room.”
“And given what happened last time, I really don’t want to make both of us in danger of dying.”
Handong snarled and slowly shifted out of her demon form. “You’d better not.” And with that her personality shifted to the one her housemates preferred, quiet and shy, and actually nice. Sometimes.
“How was your day, Minji?”
“It was okay. Oh, apart from accidentally running into an anti-supernatural protest.”
“Humans are idiots.” Handong muttered. “Bunch of good-for-nothing creatures.”
“I tell you, I haven’t seen this much resentment of our kind since the 1600s,” Minji sighed. “It’s like them getting scared of AI, specifically that it’s going to take over the world. They just don’t realise that we’re not like that.”
“Unless they’re rogue, and I’ve met way too many in my time. It’s probably the same people who hide at night because they think that all vampires are out to get them. I’ve actually learned the value of life from being immortal. Of course, that doesn’t stop me from snacking on the occasional human.” Bora said with a small smirk, her fangs very slightly extending.
“You’ve been good at it lately,” Minji said, smiling and winking at the vampire. “One a month.”
“Alright, don’t patronise me,” Bora grumbled. “I’m subject to enough attacking already without my own girlfr- best friend patronising me about sticking to our rules about my feeding from humans.”
Handong smirked. “You admit it, you two are together! Why do you think the concept of love is foreign to me, I’m literally married too!”
“I told you, I can’t love anyone, I have no heart.”
“Bora, don’t say you’re my girlfriend, you know everyone knows we’ve been married for over 900 years,” Minji said. “Have you seen how much I stare at you?”
“That’s normally just me compelling you to shut up and not talk for 24 hours.”
“Oh, that’s why she keeps not speaking to me,” Handong looked at the pair. “I thought she just didn’t like me anymore.”
“I’m pretty sure a few of them were while I was giving you all of the blankets and hot water bottles.”
DING DING DING.
“Alright, I’m coming.” Bora muttered as she got up and walked to the door. “Why is the doorbell so loud? Who’s even coming here at this hour? We’re in the middle of nowhere.” She opened the door to see a dripping-wet Yoohyeon, Yubin and Gahyun, carrying tightly sealed bags.
“Hey!” Yoohyeon said with a smirk, adjusting her sunglasses. “We got some supplies.”
“When she says some, she means almost too many.” Yubin frowned.
“Yeah, but you multiplied everything,” Gahyun muttered. “We have about 100 blankets and hot water bottles, and a lot of food.”
“Our cupboards are like the weird police phone box thing from that TV show that Yoohyeon likes with all the aliens and robots and the immortal guy and stuff. The Margherita or something. Professor What.”
“You mean the TARDIS from Doctor Who,” Yoohyeon corrected. “Our cupboards are like the TARDIS though. Our bags are like Mary Poppins’s bag as well.”
“That’s not the problem. You said it would take you 20 minutes to get home about a minute ago.”
Yubin smirked. “A sorceress never reveals her secrets.”
“Apart from how to unload the dishwasher without everything slipping onto the floor and smashing. And how to fix the washing machine,” Gahyun sighed. “And we can’t go on the roof this year. Have you seen the weather forecast?”
“Also we tried to get on a bus but they suddenly had a strict ‘no supernaturals’ policy.” Yubin muttered.
“I hate them so much. They probably only realised because I’m wearing sunglasses in the middle of winter.”
“Gah, can you tell Siyeon that you’ve arrived back?”
“Sure thing.” And she ran down towards the lake, quickly shifting into a fish while simultaneously praying that Siyeon didn’t accidentally eat her.
A few minutes later, the seven of them were gathered in the living room, not wanting to speak. Minji and Bora were staring at each other, Siyeon was drying herself off with the hairdryer, Handong was reversing further into the fire, Yoohyeon was silently twisting her hair and fiddling with her hat and sunglasses, Yubin was deep in a book on the history of sorcery, and Gahyun was rapidly shifting from nervousness.
“So is no one going to talk about anything?” Minji said quietly.
“Huh? I can’t hear you over the hairdryer!” Siyeon shouted, accidentally turning the hairdryer towards Yoohyeon’s face. “Sorry, Yooh.”
“You know you don’t need to hide them from us,” Bora said once Siyeon had switched the hairdryer off. “We all know, we’re all supernatural.”
Yoohyeon took her sunglasses off and ran her fingers through her hair. “They’re a bit sleepy,” she whispered. “It’s an after-effect of Binnie’s magic. Shouldn’t you be talking about your plans for tomorrow?”
“We can’t go on the roof,” Siyeon immediately said. “It’s going to rain.” She stared out of the window almost longingly.
“Singnie, for the last time, you can’t eat tree.” Bora quickly pulled Siyeon away from the window and plonked her down on the sofa. “Just eat normal food like you normally do.”
“Says the woman who hardly consumes anything other than blood.” Gahyun muttered.
“Don’t fucking try me, Gahyun.” Bora hissed. “You know that sets me off.”
Minji stood up and sighed. “Come on, Bboya, let’s get you something to drink.”
The remaining five stayed sat down, ignoring the muffled sounds of screaming that came from the basement roughly a minute later.
“I wasn’t trying to set her off.” Gahyun muttered.
“Then maybe don’t mention blood around her.” Siyeon unexpectedly growled. “One day you’ll be on the receiving end of hungry Bora.” And, without Bora there to tell her off, she ran outside to try and eat some of the tree.
“Siyeon.” Yoohyeon said with a stern stare. “Bora may not be here, but I am, and I’d really like you to stop eating that tree. Loads of animals live in that tree, and wood isn’t very good for you.”
Siyeon sighed defeatedly and walked back inside. “Sorry, Toni.”
“Your girlfriend still the only thing that makes you fold, I see.” Handong laughed.
“Ahem! Wife!” Yoohyeon corrected. “Nearly 200 years we’ve been married, get it right, Crown Princess of Hell.”
Yoohyeon woke up the next morning to Minji screaming.
“Gahyun, I know I’m immortal but please stop biting me! I get that you’re trying to wake me up, but it hurts.”
The subsequent distant hiss from Gahyun caused Yoohyeon to sit up, her blue hair slowly deteriorating and being replaced by the snakes she was more used to.
“Ah, morning, my darlings. How are you today?” She sighed. “Another birthday. You can’t stay out all day, you know. You only have to be out when Bora’s awake, she prefers us to ‘embrace our true selves’.”
“Still don’t know what that means in terms of me,” Yubin said with a smile as she walked in. “Happy birthday, Hyeonie.”
“Thanks, Binnie. Do you know what Gah’s shifted into?”
“Some kind of black mamba.”
Immediately on hearing that, Siyeon appeared in the doorway, and did a pose that Yoohyeon presumed was supposed to be from aespa’s Black Mamba, but just ended up looking like Black Widow. Yoohyeon couldn’t help but laugh at her wife contorted in a weird position on the floor.
“Black mamba, not Black Widow, Siyeon.”
“Also, put your weight on your other leg, and have both arms down in front of you,” Yubin interjected. “No...not like that...shit, you’re going to break so many bones, Siyeon.....Yoohyeon, I think your wife is broken.”
“Not what I expected to hear on my birthday, but okay.” Yoohyeon sighed and crouched down next to Yubin, who was trying to untangle Siyeon’s limbs while the latter was wincing in pain. “How the heck did you do this?”
Yubin defeatedly clicked her fingers and Siyeon almost immediately looked like a normal person rather than a weird human spider creature thing. Apart from that she was lying face down on the floor. “I can’t believe I had to resort to using magic again.”
“Legs are overrated!” Siyeon said with a smile (which the other two couldn’t see because the siren was face down on the floor looking, almost fittingly, like a fish out of water). “Tails are much better.”
“You’re a siren, Singnie. You live in water.”
“Morning!”
The three turned around (or rolled over in Siyeon’s case) to see Minji smiling with a snake attached to her arm.
“Min, you’ve got a Gahyun on your arm.” Siyeon said, attempting to wriggle towards her.
“Ye- Aaaargh, no, Gahyun, stop, let go!”
“Gahyun. Shift back, now.” Yoohyeon calmly but sternly said. “Before you get more than just angry me.”
About an hour later, once they had got changed, Yoohyeon and Yubin were sitting in the living room with a pile of blankets- I mean Handong. They hadn’t really decided what to do, because they didn’t really think it was worth doing anything party-like before Bora woke up.
“You good under there, Dongie?”
The pile of blankets slightly moved. “I’m fine, Yoohyeon.”
“You sure on that?”
A low growl came out of Handong’s throat. “I said I’m fine.”
“Sorry, Handong,” Yoohyeon murmured. “I just don’t know what to do.”
“How about making a cake? You can ask one of the others to help you make it and I’ll be on standby if any breakages or fire happens,” Yubin said with a small flicker of a smirk. “Then we can decorate it while you have a rest or something.”
All in all, the cake baking was fine, apart from the bit when Minji almost burned the whole kitchen down while trying to melt chocolate over the stove because a cloth caught fire (“this is why you should’ve used the microwave, Kim Minji”). Also apart from the bit where Gahyun came in for a snack and nearly got hit with a hot pan. All that was left was for Bora to wake up and them all to be gathered.
The moments just after they were all gathered were Yoohyeon’s favourite moments of the day. Bringing out the cake, Handong lighting the candles, everyone singing to her, eating the cake...it was beautiful.
“Wait, so how old are we all now?” Siyeon suddenly said with a mouthful of cake. “I’m, like, 500-ish.”
“517.” Yubin corrected. “And I’m only 113.”
“2085,” Minji sighed.
Bora leaned back on her chair. “2119, give or take.”
“I don’t even know anymore,” Yoohyeon said with a smile. “I like to let historians speculate my family history. Plus I lost count years ago.”
Gahyun span around and smirked. “16, as much in my prime as you are.”
The seven stayed quietly eating their cake until Yoohyeon turned her head. “Dongie?”
“Over 10,000.” Handong whispered. “Up to half of that on earth.”
Eventually they all ended up squashed together on the sofa watching films.
“Well, I can’t say it’s the best birthday I’ve had, because I’ve had so many that I can’t remember how old I actually am, but it’s definitely up there.”
Siyeon smiled. “That’s enough for my favourite woman.”
“And you’re still my favourite woman. Even if you try to eat trees.”
“Argh, no, no, get the lovebirds away, not in front of my noodles.” Gahyun attempted to wriggle out but was quickly restrained by an unusually-hooked Yubin.
Yoohyeon smirked. It was indeed a very good birthday.