𝟏𝟔𝟒𝟕 | 𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐤

10 years later.

- ♦♦♦ -

Seonghwa stayed away from the younger vampire, only feeding him his blood when it became absolutely necessary. And even that task had been largely decreased when he discovered how frequently San nursed Yunho's blood. Yunho, who had Seonghwa's blood a few times every month.

Seonghwa stayed to himself all those years and let his fledglings about themselves.

As time passed, wounds healed but Seonghwa could never forget the hunger that had pierced him like a raw piece of meat still pulsing with the thick red of vitality. And it was haunting him on lonely nights. When muses of hushed sounds of secrets painted the walls with emotions that Seonghwa could not understand. Often, he took his leave into the nights of the forest. But not even there could he be let alone.

The hanok on the other side of the river became a tale of horror. Every man who dared take a step onto the property was said to never return. Seonghwa made sure of that. The lure of exceeding what any other man had done spread through nearby villages and assured them all three were well-fed. Humans were stupid. And Seonghwa was convinced that they would not grow wiser with time either. But now Seonghwa would not show rudeness for the ease the outcome had made his life. Enough passerbys came around for them to now only rarely hunt villagers down when hunger stroke a little more rashly than at other times. Many lads' lives failed on those grounds, as they were brutally killed on their brink of unmindful acts and Seonghwa could not care any less.

Perhaps, he found it the most joy he had had in a long time. But that may also just be an exaggeration.

Seonghwa dipped the point of his quill into the inkwell, drying off the excessive amounts into the edge of the little container before making a soft move back to his parchment and continuing his drabbles until the quill ran out of ink again. The blend of sharp edges and soft bows of the hanja cutting through the dim white with its blackness revealed a lifetime like no one had ever experienced.

Putting down the quill onto the table again, Seonghwa sealed the inkwell, got up from his chair, and moved out of the room steadily. He flexed his hand a few times before he stretched his arms above his head, feeling satisfied with how this day's remembrance had turned into characters on the parchment.

Seonghwa's steps throughout the corridors of the hanok were unheard of. Tensile movements followed along the raw walls when his attentive eyes were caught in a moment of tension. The scent of blood was in the air.

Yunho was leaning against the tabletop situated up against the wall, hands clenching around an half-empty bowl with blood as droplets of the red liquid rolled down his chin. A step away, San stood, his own empty bowl crashing against the floor when it slid out of his slack hand. The item rolled across the floor in a circular motion before it finally stopped. San's eyes followed the rolling blood drop with sober precision, his height about the same as Yunho's when the latter bent the slightest down. The blood drop reached the point of his chin, gathering all its trailing mass into a larger drop before its weight pushed it down until falling. Suddenly, San skipped forward, his mouth landed on Yunho's chin before his body bumped into the other's bowl, sending the liquid slopping into the sides of the wood and splashing down San's hanbok. The vampire did not bat an eye at the mess seeping into his clothes when he instead clumsily skirred closer until his middle touched the other vampire. San's fingers wandered up along Yunho's silhouette until they curled around his hips in a knowing pattern that he used to steady his own greed up against. And Yunho let him. Soon, the near-empty bowl was shoved onto the table in a stuporous manner, the bowl making an ear-scraping sound that neither of them seemed to hear as Yunho's large hands picked up on San's biting desperation.

Seonghwa could not move from where he was situated by the doorframe, eyes attentively flicking back and forth between the way San's mouth moved upward and how Yunho's arms were slowly wrapping themselves around San's shoulders, pulling him into a closeness that felt a little more than just closeness.

It was like diving into an ancient story of forbidden secrets when San's lips melted against Yunho's with a tender sigh.

Sins tasted like blood on their lips, a mutual understanding of how an intimacy like this played together. Seonghwa's feet rooted into the ground as he tilted his head at the scene with scrutinized eyesight, trying to apprehend the emotions floating in the air.

Suddenly, a low growl sounded from a throat and Yunho's flat hands slid a little further down San's back when he coerced his legs into weaving with his own. San tilted his head slightly before deepening the kiss, hands turning white from how strong his grip was around Yunho's hips. The move had Seonghwa's nails scrape down the framework he was holding on to.

Closed eyes snapped open and the new angle gave a perfect aim to where Seonghwa's own were burning red at the scene. Yunho eyed him out of curiosity but did not hold back his current activity with the younger fledgling. Instead, his wandering hands turned more daring and reached a little further down San's body until his backside. Holding eye contact with Seonghwa, both of Yunho's hands squeezed the flesh through the fabrics, making the younger squirm at the touch, a purr soon exchanging with the slick sounds of lips kissing.

Seonghwa needed not to see any more.

♦

It should not have come as any surprise, Seonghwa acknowledged, finding his own footsteps through the fallen leaves. They had grown closer through the last decade, even if Seonghwa's honesty did not quite understand why or for what reason. Even if Yunho and San mostly had been keeping to themselves, Seonghwa still had an eye on them as time passed.

And he had seen small acts of instances of revolving. A slow change through time into a settle that Seonghwa found odd for any to be at. He understood the importance for humans to couple in order to reproduce offspring but for a man who simply lived like an undead - in a state between living and dead for eternity did simply not need to interfere in acts of intimacy. Which only explained nothing about why his fledglings were being so touchy around each other. Quite literally.

Seonghwa had just always decided to turn a blind eye to them and let them do whatever they wanted to do with each other, as long as they still complied with Seonghwa's rules.

And they did.

That was the most important thing.

Deftly, he jumped the sturdy branches of the tree, making his way up to the height before finding his usual spot where the trunk made a parting. His toes and fingers tingled from the long fall down but he ignored the sensation, focusing his eyes on the beautiful scenery of the landscape fusing into bleeding colours.

For a long moment, he let his eyes trail with the lightened lanterns of the village further down. They doubled as he counted them. Spreading out as they lined up with the glinting stars appearing like little dots in the dark sky. Seonghwa had always enjoyed the tranquility of this time; when the day was fusing into the night and the known world was closing its eyes to the mystique of shadows. There were so many paths running across the sky that he could spend hours trailing his fingers along until they vanished by the break of dawn again. Seonghwa had heard stories of how people from faraway lands had found a way for the eye to travel closer to those wonders mapped around Earth and he so desperately wanted to try to come closer the only thing that had stayed with him since he came to this world..

The stars.

The vampire's gaze lowered again, as he folded his arms around himself. He had not been in the village in bright daytime ever since the night he had found San poisoned. For good and bad. Despite his carving hunger for bloodlust, he always sent Yunho when they had run out of blood, knowing that he had entered a period of time where he would not be able to hold back had he first started.

He brought horror wherever he walked, a menace playing by the end of the table. Perhaps it was time they should move out of those lands before the tales of horrors regarding his property spread too far and reached the wrong people.

∞