𝟏𝟔𝟔𝟏 | 𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐤

1 year later

- ♦♦♦ -

After Yunho's incident, it seemed like San had knocked some sense into the older - with Seonghwa only assuming so. The threatening gaze that he several times had caught San sending Yunho was his indication of how he must be right about his assumption.

Seonghwa had only been more careful of heading out following the knowledge that the villagers had discovered the cadavers of the group of travelers a couple of weeks after the incident had happened. This time though, it did not seem like they believed that it had been the doing of a wild animal. But another human. A few months later he heard stiffly from his fledglings that they had attended the execution of the murderer.

How humans were so blind.

By that time, Yunho had only just been allowed to roam freely outside the hanok.

Seonghwa had for a long time been thinking of moving away from San's homelands, believing that it must be the right time to move on as they'd caused too many horrors on these grounds. But he simply just has not found the right time to inform them of a departure. For several months now, had Seonghwa been preparing chests for storage of his most valuable belongings, waiting for the weather to change from biting frost to a warm shade of early spring for easier traveling. And now that the sun's rays dripped down his face like golden liquid he found the time perfect.

Seonghwa sighed in the warmth embracing his cool body, eyes closing as he enjoyed his seat in the sun and fresh forest wind.

But in that same seat Seonghwa also soon had to make a drastic change to his plans. His fingers twitched when he sensed someone silently trailing along a path behind the hanok. Seonghwa furrowed his brows at the disturbance and sniffed the air, trying to figure out who it may be. But the smell was too faint, drowning in the wilderness. Seonghwa opened his eyes and put his legs down from the stone he bathed on, letting his body twist around to his right and looking for the intruder.

The sight was nothing he had prepared himself to find. But neither one there should have surprised him to that extent.

It was San. Carefully stepping over a few branches with a little fawn bunched up in his arms. His newly cut hair had Seonghwa see his worried expression perfectly. Then he smelled the blood. Everywhere.

Slowly, Seonghwa got up from his seat when San came trotting the rest of the way over to him.

"Seonghwa-ssi!" he called and Seonghwa pursed his lips with dissatisfaction.

His eyes locked with San's, seeing how the other swallowed nervously. Seonghwa's eyes slid down on the innocent animal, before returning to the younger vampire again, "What is this now?"

"I.." San started glancing down at the fawn, "I found him before the hunting villagers would.. they... I saw them kill his mother."

At the named dead mother deer, the fawn suddenly made a tiny snort, its legs loosely kicking around as if it understood what was said. San calmly handled the little creature and waited until it paused again. He mostly looked apologetically toward it.

"San, you should not bring wild animals home. They are meant to live in the wild - not to be domesticated."

The younger desperately looked up at him, sadness swirling around his pupils, "I told you his mother was killed! I saw it with my own eyes!"

Seonghwa folded his arms, "Then you should have let him be."

Offended, San let a gasp slip out, his gaze hardening as if he forgot who he was talking to, "He would die on his own. He is only so young that he still needs help with finding food."

"Death is natural, San," Seonghwa told him.

"But it's not his fault that his mother was killed by humans."

Seonghwa held the younger vampire's gaze for a long time as he weighed the other's earnestness. San would not butch however Seonghwa would tell him to bring the fawn back to where he had found it. San pressed his luck. But fortunately for him, he pressed it right into Seonghwa's soft spot.

He pursed his lips once more, somehow unable to tell him no. "He will be your responsibility until the day you decide to rid of him."

♦

There was no doubt that Seonghwa was growing soft, he realised once more as he watched how San and Yunho bolted across the grass around the hanok, followed by the playful young buck. As it neared San, who had turned around in a challenging manner, the vampire tumbled to the ground, causing the buck to make a high jump and snort loudly into the air. He shook his head, running right into where San was still rolling around in the grass, and collided with him. Soon Yunho jumped into the wrestling pair, adding to the sound of laughter as he and San tumbled around and the buck jumped excitedly around them. Its short tail waggled happily.

Seonghwa flipped the fabric that he held in his hands, expertly letting his fingers adjust the pieces that he was stitching together and sorting out his sewing thread before continuing with his work. He nearly dropped his needle when he noticed that growls and barks had died down and a damp snout was now reaching out for his hand instead. With a slight smile at the sweet being wanting some attention from him, Seonghwa let his fabrics rest in his lap while he reached down and rubbed the buck behind his tall round ears. Slowly, he let his eyes wander to find where the sound had gone, seeing how his fledglings had suddenly indulged deeply with each other. Seonghwa's face flushed at the sounds of kissing, momentarily feeling feverish in a befuddled manner as his fingers unconsciously gave the buck a little harsher scratch. He did not seem to mind it, though.

But his ears were still clicking with the boiling tenderness - the glaze of his eyes still catching how Yunho's large hands seized around San's waist, suddenly making Seonghwa so aware of how loosely his hanbok fit around him.

Seonghwa pushed his sewing work aside, got up, and ushered the buck to follow him inside the building again.

♦

Seonghwa had just finished restocking their storing of blood when San found him closing the hatch to the cellar, a bowl full of sloshing blood in his hand which caught San's senses off-guard for a moment before he looked up at Seonghwa again. Eyes crinkled and cheeks dimpled as he smiled brightly and lifted the larger buck a little closer into his body. He had been growing so much the past summer and early fall.

Seonghwa felt unfaced.

"I have to show you something," San started, walking closer to the lantern hanging on the wall. Then he freed one of his hands from the bunch of fur and carefully held it around the buck's head instead, bringing his thumb down and pulling its mouth slightly ajar.

"Look!"

A second later the buck shook his head, pulling out of San's loose hold around it but Seonghwa had already been noticing the changes a week earlier. The upper canine teeth had grown enough that they had started showing outside his mouth. For now, they were nothing but a pair of baby teeth, but eventually, they would be growing into a pair of long, curved tusks, that somehow would resemble a pair of-

"He will grow fangs? Like us?" San questioned as he bent down and let the buck on his legs again. His hands cradled the animal's face with adoration there had Seonghwa stare.

"San, they are not fangs, they are called 'tusks'," Seonghwa stated. The younger stared up at him with his lips slightly apart and Seonghwa answered his question, "But yes, he will."

- ♦♦♦ -

𝟏𝟔𝟔𝟑 | 𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐤

2 years later

- ♦♦♦ -

Years had passed without further severe troubles had been caused. Seonghwa lived peacefully in the shadows of his fledglings' happiness and that was fine. The weather was turning cold again, which made it easier to prey on the villagers when they scouted the forests or mountains alone or in smaller groups without being suspected. There was enough spilled blood for them all.

Surprisingly, the buck had stayed around in all these years, healthy as he could be. San had taken his responsibilities very seriously and made sure that the water deer was fed every day with whatever he and Yunho could harvest around in the forest. Ahead of winter, he made sure to stock a spare room with all kinds of greeneries for the buck to be fed with through the cold winter.

It was only recently that he had started wandering off alone into the forest in the daytime, but loyally coming back before dusk at night. Yet Seonghwa had already suspected that this would not last.

So when San had anxiously been trailing around the stretching lands around the property in search of his dear friend, he was heartbroken when he weeks after came to the same surmise that the buck would not come back.

For many following nights Seonghwa leaned against the wall in his chamber and listened to the soul-wrenching cries of a young heart that had been broken too many times already. His fingers dug deeper into the cool and rough materials as he despised the feeling prodding in his guts. This time, he could not make it go away.

- ♦♦♦ -

𝟏𝟔𝟔𝟔 | 𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐤

3 years later

- ♦♦♦ -

It was first on a rainy spring day that Seonghwa noticed a change in the air. A wild flock bustled in the shrubberies of the forest down the hill. He could see the many shiny, black eyes looking his way and without any awareness, he hugged the silky fabrics of his hanbok closer around him. Seonghwa nearly did not believe what he was seeing out there in the distance. When one stepped forward, the rest started following along; soon a curious nose lifted and smelled the misty air as it scouted around the stretching grass.

Seonghwa had to lift his hand for his mouth when delight started warming in his chest. A sensation so rickety that his unneeded breath was staggering as if years of heaviness were finally being lifted off his shoulders.

The buck was not alone. Hesitantly, three females were following him, four little fawns leaning against their mothers' legs as they came along.

When Seonghwa brought the news to his fledglings, San was hesitant to believe such words coming from his mouth, even if Seonghwa never had been one to deceive. The sight, however, he was met with when San met his little friend was unlike anything Seonghwa had seen in a time. His fangs peaked from the blinding smile he sent the ancient vampire once he had embraced the deer with a settling peace around him.

The herd of water deers stayed around the hanok for a few more days before they headed off again. But this time there was no reason to grieve the farewell.

San had found peace in the once little buck had found his family.

As Seonghwa added the last letters of their affair with the little buck, his wrist swirled the quill around until it formed the words 'Vampire deer' in his journals to forever be remembered.

His gaze floated along the walls of his chamber as he took in the emptiness of his room. Only a few of the larger furniture would remain back as they would leave for a journey of decades. Somewhere within Seonghwa, there was a little tiny smouldering spark that had been looking forward for this day to come.

He would be showing them a different side of the world.

∞