UPDATE YOU GUYS!! WE SURPASSED 20,000 words for this story!!

The silhouettes danced on the walls behind the flickering candles, like the devil who sat with a crooked smile and played with the fire. Flowing like a thick black liquid sticking to the worst threads of thoughts that stretched from mind to mind like a long endless garland. He hooked his sharp claws into one of the threads and wrapped it together with another until the reaction bubbled with unbearable thoughts threatening with death and destruction.

His eyes had fallen sadly, and the faint flickering light did not even reflect on the glassy surface. There was not even the slightest sign that he was alive anymore. His soul has led astray, far beyond the oceans of the world, where it was stranded in the middle of the open sea. There was no help to be found anymore. He was ashamed of his actions.

The tall, dark-haired man sat on the soft material facing him. He had a thoughtful look directed at the blonde as he continued to tap his fingernails against the flat table in front of him. It beat the silence out to become a ticking bomb that just waited until the countdown ended. But the count just seemed to turn red and soon run out into infinity. A drip from one of the candles that hit the floor made the man look away and over at the running liquid.

"Maybe you should just forget all about him."

His gaze fell further into the tabletop now, his dark eyes widening.

"Maybe I should just forget about him," he repeated monotonously. He had never wanted to disappear more than right now.

The thought of the look he had received at the very moment it had dawned on him, what he had done wrong, tore deep wounds inside him where no one else could see them. But Hongjoong could feel them as the most disgusting burn marks every single time he took the slightest step away from his thoughts. They caught him, like a monster caged inside behind bars.

How could he ever forget him?

The other man drew in an anxiety-provoking amount of air in and exhaled again. The movement caught Hongjoong's attention, and he looked over at the other, who seemed to find another position to sit on the mat, which was placed on the old floor. They made eye contact and Hongjoong's pupils seemed to dissolve in a harmful amount of acid. His gaze screamed in pain and horror.

"I don't think you should visit him again, for your own sake."

Mingi's deep voice resounded as an echo to his ears the longer he looked at him soullessly. It just kept getting more and more empty, even though the words held on to one for comfort.

He swallowed dryly, "Mingi, why did I do it?"

The man in front of him removed his gaze and looked over at the old broken window as he seemed to put together some sort of answer. Then he withdrew and slowly leaned across the table towards Hongjoong, who had barely managed to register how the man's face had unfolded in a more mysterious and sneaky way. He raised a smirking smile.

"You probably know that better yourself, Hongjoong."

The question was passed on to himself again. He could not help but feel it tighten inside, but still, he didn't have the answer to why. And it disturbed him boundlessly that he had the feeling of what was wrong, but no indicative answer to it. It only made the reality even clearer: he had ruined everything. It was all tumbled so far into the abyss that it was impossible to pull up again, no matter how much you had the will. Seonghwa no longer existed in his life. Hongjoong had to learn to accept that.

He rose from the floor and shook his pants-legs back in place before sluggishly following the road after the other. His laces weren't tied, and his sneakers kept rubbing themselves up and down his heel as he tried to keep the balance of all the thoughts that weighed down his shoulders. The energy had drained out of him and the slight dizziness meant that Hongjoong did not even notice how he had been placed on a chair with a glass in front of him.

"Drink," Mingi said, tapping his index finger on the tabletop next to the glass. His other hand squeezed reassuring around Hongjoong's shoulder.

The blonde boy first stared at the red liquid, and then confused up at the tall boy, "Where did you get it from?"

Mingi shook his head, "Don't think about it, just drink it."

"It's okay, you will only get better afterward," he continued, as Hongjoong still made no sign of lifting the glass.

The aroma from the red liquid slowly enveloped the man, and though he didn't really felt like drinking it, another part of him had a different opinion on the issue. His eyes slowly flowed out in a reflective color to the drink. Unconsciously, Hongjoong wetted his lips, contrary to what he was sitting and thinking so strongly about. He just had to get used to this.

He emptied the glass faster than he had expected. Blood ran down his chin in long strips as he jerked his head up in the direction of Mingi again. Hongjoong's eyes were wild and fickling

____

It was already about 7 weeks ago that he had run into him. Song Mingi. Hongjoong barely remembered that he was too intoxicated by the outside world to have captured and stored the whole situation in his memory, but what he could remember were the eyes that had pierced him like cold steel. In that second, he had stopped and regained consciousness for a short time before being torn away from his surroundings. Hongjoong's bloody clothes had been extremely inappropriate for the situation in the crowd of people on the street.

It was Mingi who had taught him all about what needed to be learned for his new adaptation to who he was. And the first thing on the list was blood. The young musician had been extremely skeptical and was still a bit opposed to the new view he had gained of the fluid. He was still getting used to it all, but Hongjoong was slowly accepting his fate. After all, he couldn't put up with it anymore. He was living on blood now.

Hongjoong had never thought this was how his life would end. Not even had he had the slightest suspicion of what the figures of darkness were hiding at all when no one else was looking. But the impossible had happened to him anyway, and he still had a hard time wrapping his mind around his own presence.

And it all started with him leaving the studio later than he used to. Actually later than what he had actually planned, but that's irrelevant now. Hongjoong usually took the city bus, which ran once an hour during the day, but because it was around midnight, the last bus had already run past the nearest stops. With a quick glance over the midnight traffic, it was almost deserted. Of course, he could also have just called a taxi, but the young man had fallen into a long series of creative thoughts, which he had a hard time pulling away from again, so he chose to walk instead. And then he would probably still have to spend some time waiting for the taxi to pick him up at all if he chose the other option. Then it could hardly be worth it.

He had his black computer bag swung over his right shoulder as he unwrapped his headphones and put them in to turn up for some music, even though he had made nothing that day other than listening to music. What could he say? That was his life now. Luckily for Hongjoong, the sky was starry and the wind was mild, even though autumn was blowing in his neck. It felt nice and quiet to walk along the sidewalk where no one else was seen on a high and holy weekday evening. He could hear nothing but the music that tapped him sweetly into his cochlea.

He had no idea why it was going to happen, why it was him. As the tears burned down his throat, he felt the oxygen suffocate him like a poisonous gas. What was it that happened, why could he not have seen it coming? He could have gotten a warning. He should have gotten it, the way it strolled into him and suddenly painted his life with a strange and unknown color.

Hongjoong toppled backward as a black figure hit him and without any hesitation vigorously pushed his head back into the hard surface and then sank its teeth into his throat. The pain flooded all his senses and he did not even register how he screamed out or how he kicked around in the tight grab the stranger had around him. It all blackened before Hongjoong's gaze before he fell far away from reality and woke up in a completely strange place. He never got to see who had knocked him down, but the person had left him unconscious, cold, and dying on the deserted sidewalk. Or...

Hongjoong was not present when he rose from the dead again as if he had been sent from hell back to Earth again with only one goal in this new life: blood. That was where Mingi had found him, in the middle of his absent-minding state, far from his rightful sense. Hongjoong had been ill ever since. Suffering from a perpetual disease that wouldn't be able to be combated by already known methods.

Hongjoong was diagnosed as a vampire.

†