𝟏𝟓𝟗𝟐 | 𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐞

- ♦♦♦ -

The following days, Seonghwa felt as if a shadow was looming around in the corners of his hanok, breathing him in his neck whenever it thought he wouldn't notice. But indeed Seonghwa felt the way Yunho's slender hands graced the slightest of the ends of his long hair - a finger invisibly pulling it to the side so that he could scent Seonghwa's blood better.

But every time Seonghwa turned around to see him, he had fled the scene. And Seonghwa wondered if it was out of fear or shyness.

One time when his eyes raked the morgue where he just had fetched his meal, he found Yunho sitting on top of the beams crossing the room where he had found him before. It did not surprise him. The morgue was as clean as it could be, not a single corpse or bowl had been touched and it had Seonghwa furrowing his brows.

It was weird the way Yunho was acting. Despite Seonghwa's own memories that he barely remembered from the time at such an age, he still had the feeling that he definitely wasn't so sane after being turned. How could it be Yunho mastered such self-control?

Tilting his head a little to the side, he perceived the other's state of mind. Yunho's eyes were glassy as he stared soullessly down at him, looking nowhere like the warrior he had saved from death's claws. His bravery seemed to have withered, leaving behind the empty corpse of a young, ill man. Seonghwa could not understand it.

"What are you doing here?" he finally asked, lifting the bowl to his lips and taking a sip.

They had not talked since Seonghwa let him taste his blood and Seonghwa suspected the reason to be of that matter. He took another sip as he tried not to slip from his conscience state of mind. But Yunho only stared down at him, expression falling heavy.

Seonghwa licked his front teeth as he thought of the situation, "Have you fed today?"

The other still didn't move any bit, "No?" he questioned, raising a brow. Yunho was more silent than the stillness of the wind.

Unraveling, Seonghwa placed the bowl down onto the framework of the draining-table before he turned around to face Yunho again. His long fangs broke out when he threw his body against the wall and climbed to the beam where Yunho not even a second after was knocked down into the floor. A loud crack filled the room and soon Seonghwa was crawling after the young man scrambling away from him across the floor, moaning in pain. Seonghwa did not mind his agony any bit. He cornered Yunho against the wall and instantly tore him closer by his clothes, "Answer me when I ask you of something!"

Yunho flinched at the sudden change of tone, eyes widening in fear of what he would do to him. There was no mercy left in Seonghwa's eyes.

"I have given you more than one could ask for; you have food, a place to stay, and I even granted you an entirely new life! And yet, you have the audacity to ignore me when I ask you simple questions!? Your disrespect gives me no other choice but to end your second chance. I will kill you, I will bloody murder you here and now before I hunt down your family and do the same to them! No one will ever remember your existence, I will make sure of that," Seonghwa was fuming, his chest rapidly heaving and sinking as if he pulled on the air to breathe. His hands writhed his clothes around, nails piercing through the fabric and digging down into Yunho's chest.

Frantically Yunho turned his head away, "I-I just wanted to have time pass," he answered, closing his eyes clearly afraid of the monster nailing him to the floor.

Annoyingly, his expression had Seonghwa pressing his tongue to his teeth as he kept more seething words from sounding aloud. Something about Yunho looking so scared had him feel a disgusting pity for him.

Then he lifted his hands away from him, legs straightening as he got up from the floor in a fluid motion. "You want to have time pass," he said coldly, "And yet you were the one begging me to save your life. How disrespectful."

Seonghwa's piercing eyes went through the limp body on the floor.

"What do you want from me," he stated, stepping a little closer again, "Despite how generous I have been, you are still not satisfied. Your eyes are droopy and I do not like it any bit."

Seonghwa felt threatened by the looks in his eyes, wanting to eliminate it right away.

The man's voice was barely a whisper when he after a long moment finally mouthed his answer, "I want to live."

"Then live!? What else have I given you than a second life! Prove to me that you mean it!" Seonghwa exclaimed, his long fangs extracting along with the outburst.

"Seonghwa-ssi I am afraid that you do not understand me..." Yunho whispered, eyes never leaving a specific blood stain on the floor.

The ancient vampire pursed his lips, barely even considering the other's situation as he must have known of the consequences before making the decision of being Seonghwa's personal experiment. "Then tell me."

"I.." Yunho started, fidgeting with his clothes, "I just miss my family."

Seonghwa didn't move an inch when he gave him his answer right away, "Yunho, you told me that you did not care about your family. If you want this life, then you must move on; you cannot go back to them ever again; you have been killed in the war - you are supposedly dead. And the dead do not come alive again."

But he knew that he was lying.

"You had your chance," he said, without leaving the expression on the younger's face, "You lost in life. That is just how it is - we live and then we die. But for some of us has fate chosen our paths to be of eternity wandering of greed and misery. Aren't we just such blessed?"

Nimbly, he could see how fear fought with bravery in the younger man's eyes; how the faint tinge of red glazed his irises. Seonghwa knew he had pressed a sore spot and silently reveled in his triumph. The corner of his mouth ticked.

Yunho was not elated at all.

"Seonghwa-ssi.. I am afraid that.. I think drinking your blood is the only way for you to keep me alive...."

Seonghwa paled.

"I believe I must have figured out what is the cause of my illness or rather, what I am lacking to stay healthy.." Yunho's voice was nothing else but a whisper, "Your blood".

♦

Everything that Yunho had told him, made sense. The illness, Yunho's sudden aggressive behaviour toward him, and how he wouldn't drink the blood from the dead bodies - Yunho's body must only be capable of ingesting Seonghwa's blood. Although Seonghwa wasn't sure if this was true, all pieces of evidence pointed in that direction. He didn't know what to think of that.

There would be both upsides and downsides to this matter; now he could be sure that Yunho would at least stay around his hanok if he wished to survive, but it also meant that Yunho would also be dependable on him much more than Seonghwa had thought to begin with.

Seonghwa wished he could find the true explanation behind this, but he didn't know where to search or what to search for. It was always difficult finding the places where other vampires hid as most of them weren't interested in having attention brought upon them. But his wanted answers could only be found by those who knew of their kind's existence.

Until then, Yunho was essentially bound by blood to him. Seonghwa had been the one asking for this in the first place despite the preeminent lack of knowledge.

It was apparent that Yunho was scared of him, said warrior had turned his head away from where he sat, shrinking in size as if he wanted to become out of his sight. Seonghwa had specially told him to sit there until he had finished discarding some of the drained bodies into the forest, leaving them to decay as any other lifeless body naturally would.

Yunho's face did not find his when he returned to the hanok, wet soil sticking to the bottom ends of his hanbok. They had not spoken for a few days after Yunho's observations had been brought upon them, but now Seonghwa felt like he at least had to try and see if Yunho was right, because Yunho was growing weaker again.

He went to the corner and pulled the stool all the way through the room before letting go of it again, taking place right in front of the other. Seonghwa's stance was heaved as his slender fingers grabbed Yunho's chin and forced him to look at him. His gaze drew across how hunger grew across his pale and ashy features.

"We will try out your surmise now," he said, tapping Yunho's chin before pulling away and rolling his sleeve up from his underarm.

"I-I can?"

"You are allowed to, yes. Make sure you are fully satisfied before pulling off again. I want to see how much blood you will need to be sated."

Bringing his arm up to Yunho's face he felt how a hand crept around his elbow, holding his arm still while he parted his lips more and more around his wrist. Lips touched his skin a moment before Yunho's fangs twisted down into his hide and Seonghwa nearly had to pinch himself to keep calm. The instinct to fight him off was overwhelming all of his senses.

Keeping his attentive stare at every one of Yunho's moves, he watched how he continued shifting closer, feeling how their knees bumped together and Yunho's free hand closed around the lower of his thigh. Seonghwa shuddered at the feeling of the fangs working themselves deeper down, pressing amounts of blood out that Yunho sucked from his skin. His tongue flicked around the wound, helping the blood to flow faster.

Suddenly, Seonghwa's hand moved on itself, clasping around Yunho's shoulder as he leaned more and more in over him, craving to fit impossibly more blood into his mouth. Seonghwa felt the shift of demeanor when Yunho's fangs retracted the slightest.

"Yunho," he said, warningly while he prodded a thumb into the other's shoulder. The newborn vampire answered him with a low rumble, ignoring every little sign of forewarning as he lifted his mouth from his skin and bit down further up his arm. Seonghwa jolted in his seat, pulling his arm all along. The sudden move caused Yunho's body to follow with him, his legs straddling Seonghwa's lap as his teeth still latched onto the wounded limb, hands desperately gaining their hold around Seonghwa again. His dark hair had tousled around his head and now it reached all the way down to tickle Seonghwa's skin.

"Do I really have to drain myself every time you crave something to quench your thirst? Behave!" Seonghwa sneered at him, poking the hollow of Yunho's cheek with a stern finger, "Stupid little monster." He adjusted in his seat before moving his concerned eyes down at Yunho's mess again, more than ready to poke his eyes out if necessary.

Seonghwa would not hesitate.

Although, Yunho remained silent for the next passing time, quietly licking the running blood until he finally felt sated enough and let go with his teeth. Seonghwa fluttered with his eyes, suddenly urging to tuck the loose strands of hair behind Yunho's ear again as if cradling something... something...

It didn't matter anyway.

Yunho had calmed down, slowly dozing off with his head resting heavily against Seonghwa's chest as if he never had feared him in the first place. It unsettled him.

"All better?" Seonghwa asked him, his guards still pulled high as he leaned his head away from how the tall man clung to his own lean form. Merely, Yunho hummed in return and twisted his fingers deeper into the fabrics of Seonghwa's hanbok, his eyes shut. It seemed he did not even realise what position he was still in.

So, naturally, Seonghwa got up, his arms loosely grabbing around Yunho's body, and lifted him from the ground before walking straight over to his arranged bed and throwing the man into the bed linens without any care of how he would land. Then he gathered himself and hurried off as quickly as possible, shaking off the odd feeling in his chest as he left the mountains of his home.

It had been a long time ago since Seonghwa last had done this activity. His eyes shone red in the hollering darkness and his tastebuds craved for the sweetness to enter his system again. His body moved fluidly through different alleys of the crooked village, his senses picking up on the sleeping heartbeats safely tucked into bed. His silent steps graced the ground. Seonghwa scented the air, not many seconds passed before he caught the woman stumbling along a wall around the corner a few buildings away. He was on a hunt. His very first hunt in a long time.

And he was unsated.

Seonghwa nearly stumbled forward himself, the crowded eagerness cracking inside of him and he could not wait to taste the blood of sweet horror.

∞