As soon as Taehyung tasted the blood on the tip of his tongue, he sighed in content and put his arms around Jungkook's shoulders to gain further access towards his neck, feeling the energy flow back into him gradually.

From a distance, it might have looked like these two were just innocently hugging for a long, long time. But of course, it was nothing like that.

As for Jungkook, getting his literal blood sucked out didn't hurt as much as he expected it to. The fangs digging in did make him wince a tiny bit but apart from that, it didn't feel heavily unpleasant. He almost dared to think that getting his blood sucked by a vampire felt a little like receiving a hickey, just much more extreme.

When he did start feeling drowsy after a while, he removed one of his hands around the redhead and pushed his head away softly. After blinking heavily, his eyes returned back into its dark colour and his teeth shrunk significantly. Taehyung immediately took a step back, worrying that he might have already lost all his control.

"You feel better now?," the younger asked calmly, wiping away a drop of blood that ran along the vampire's chin and threatened to stain his pearly white marble floor. Said vampire nodded and just gazed at him in worry. "Of course, but what about you? You just lost a lot of blood, and--"

"Me? I'm fine. Okay, I do feel a bit dizzy and weary. But one nap and two bowls of cup noodles and I'll be in perfect health in no time." Taehyung didn't look very convinced as he licked the remaining amount of blood off his lips and kept gazing at him with wide eyes which almost made Jungkook laugh. "C'mon, don't look at me like that. It's okay."

"You know, there may be something you might not know yet. I know a way to heal your blood loss immediately, it works like magic." The ravenette nodded, expecting a special potion or magical herbal tea that Mina might have shown to him. What he didn't expect was for Taehyung to bite his own wrist and come closer towards him.

"Vampire blood is a better cure for injuries than any sort of medicine known to mankind. You can cure anything except for things like cancer. It's part of why people tried to capture us back then. Please drink it?" The look inside Taehyung's eyes was so pleading that Jungkook hesitantly agreed despite all his doubts and grabbed his arm so his wrist and the blood trickling from it were exposed.

Vampire blood surely wasn't very tasty. Jungkook snapped his eyes close as he slowly drank it and felt much like a sick child forced to take a spoonful of cough syrup by its overly concerned mother. And by that thought, he started to think about his own childhood and how his mother had visited his bed each morning and made sure he would drink his daily cup of tea- with vervain, of course. Little Jungkook had never enjoyed drinking it and had thought that it tasted rather dull but had never complained since he did not want to hurt his mother's feelings.

As unpleasant as the blood tasted, Taehyung had been right about its astonishing effects. Only seconds after, he felt perfectly healthy again. In fact, his physical condition seemed so amazing he wouldn't have minded running three marathons at once. "Are you okay? Do you feel fine now?," the redhead immediately asked which he honestly found extremely adorable. Taehyung might not care about many people but he surely showed a completely new side of himself for the ones that he did care about. Could Jungkook count himself as part of those people? He surely hoped so.

He jokingly fanned his face with his hand and sighed dramatically. "You know, I think I do need a little something to feel completely fine again... Maybe a kiss?" And the vampire, who had looked panicked at first, narrowed his eyes and huffed.
"You jerk! And I thought something was actually wrong!" But when Jungkook couldn't contain his laughter and started snickering, his bunny-like front teeth poking out, even Taehyung couldn't help but smile a little.

He was too embarrassed to admit that he maybe, maybe would've actually given in to Jungkook's request.

°○●○●○°

The next day, Jungkook was late for his first period again, which was Business & Economy. It had been a while since he'd been late for class but nevertheless, when he entered the classroom panting and catching his breath, Mrs. Jang practically resembled a fuming dragon, threatening to spew out fire any moment. If this were high school, she would have probably given him ten hours of detention at the very least.

The day was just like any other day at first. At lunchtime, Jimin couldn't contain his fondness for something that Taehyung would've least expected him to be a fan of and spent the entire lunch break ranting about it.

"Oh, we really need to go pony riding sometime! Doesn't it just sound like so much fun? And ponies are just the cutest little things, I adore them!," he gushed while chewing on his rice happily, his eyes full of adoration directed towards, presumably, ponies. Jungkook immediately sighed, probably not the biggest fan of pony riding.

As expected, Namjoon had a valid counter-argument. "Jimin, we live in the middle of the city! You won't find any ponies next to skyscrapers and shopping malls. We'd have to drive all the way to the countryside for that!" The blonde looked quite crestfallen about that for a moment but then seemed to have gotten another amazing idea.

"We could go on a camping trip sometime, maybe in summer! We could drive to a nice countryside and ride ponies and visit a farm or something- milk cows and collect chicken eggs and all that!" Taehyung suddenly felt the urge to scream. Camping in the countryside sounded like his absolute worst nightmare- no luxury furniture, no soft goose-feather bed, no fancy glasses to drink blood champagne from...

Jungkook looked over to him and immediately saw the disgust practically written all over his face, he found it quite amusing to imagine the almighty, kind-of snobby Kim Taehyung camping in the countryside, riding ponies and collecting chicken eggs in the morning. He really had to try hard to not break out in laughter.

The lunch break ended with Namjoon complaining about them not having enough budget for a camping trip and Jimin pouting and telling him to 'stop being such a party pooper'. While they bickered, Jungkook excused himself to the bathroom and Taehyung, still mortified by the horrible camping idea, heaved himself up the table with a sigh.

What he didn't expect was for Jungkook to grab his wrist from behind and pull him out of the cafeteria, right into a deserted hallway. "What is it? Do you need me to watch over you while you pee or something?," he asked in confusion. Now, Jungkook was the one looking mortified.
"What-- No! That was just an excuse, I want to show you something!" And just like that, he had Taehyung's attention.

Looking hesitant and secretive, he pulled something out of his backpack. A stack of newspapers!
"You said you wanted to check the news because of the blood bag thing. I figured you weren't the type to make newspaper subscriptions so I bought the most recent newspapers instead. And you're right. There is something fishy going on, just take a look at this." He unfolded the newspaper and put his finger on the photo printed on the front page: A blood bag with a blurry hospital bed in the background.

'Blood Crisis- Local hospitals in dire need of blood bags,' read the headline. The redhead gasped, confusion taking over him. He kept reading fearfully.

'This morning, Haesung Hospital, Tosung Hospital, Eunha Hospital and Woojoo Hospital have confirmed that they have completely run out of their usually so full stock of blood bags- horrible news for both nurses and patients.
"We don't know how this could have happened," Kang Mo Yeon, a nurse of Haesung Hospital, reported with shock written all over her face. "Just yesterday, we had more than enough blood bags to treat our newest fifty patients, all suffering from most ominous cases of blood loss. There are strange bite marks all over their necks and local pedestrians have confirmed that they witnessed the injured lying on the streets, unconscious, before an ambulance was called for help. We suspect that there might have been animal attacks but cannot be sure. As for the blood bags, we have no idea how this situation could have occured. Thievery would be the most plausible explanation, but who would do such a cruel thing and steal blood bags?"'

Forcing his eyes off the paper, he looked over to Jungkook, who looked quite worried himself. "Taehyung... Have you ever sleepwalked? Or has your hunger for blood ever made you lose control really badly so you might've gone a little berserk but can't remember it properly? I won't judge you, you can fix--" The vampire shook his head persistently.

"I literally swear on my immortal soul and body, that wasn't me. Believe me, I have experience. I wouldn't rob complete hospitals for blood bags. Like I told you, I don't have any. And I would never bite people in the middle of the streets. You've got to believe me on this one, that could never have been me. There might've been times where my cravings were a little stronger than usual, but never this strong." After a while, the younger nodded and folded the newspaper back together.

"Okay, I believe you. But who could this have been then? Wait... Does Mina drink blood?" If the situation weren't so serious, Taehyung would've laughed. "Witches don't drink blood. They're mortal. Same goes for werewolves. Plus, Mina and Chaeyoung live all the way down in Jinju. No, no, this was a vampire's doing. And a hell of a reckless one by that." At that, Jungkook frowned.
"What are you suggesting? There are other vampires here beside you?" At the pure thought, a shudder went through the redhead's body.

"I-- I don't know. It's the only plausible explanation. But if there is, it can't be a very witty one. Maybe a newbie? If they keep going on like this, we're gonna be exposed and hunted all over again. Oh, how I hate this. I never got along with other vampires!," he complained but felt a little soothed due to Jungkook's reassuring hand patting his back.
"Don't worry, I'm sure we'll find them soon enough." The vampire sighed.

"Maybe. Ugh, this is stressing me. I need a shopping spree, that way I'll calm down." The human smiled at him. "Shopping spree or stealing-and-compelling-the-staff-spree?" Suddenly, Taehyung felt embarrassed.
"Whatever. I have my unique ways to shop." He flipped his imaginary hair.

Jungkook purposefully didn't mention how he had 'bought' Taehyung's present for Christmas Eve. The jewellery store still haunted him in his mind and so did the mysterious figure that he kept imagining probably due to guilt. But he ignored it.
"I'll come with you," he stated which made the vampire widen his eyes. Apart from the meetings for the diary analyzations, the two of them had never spent time alone. "Fine. If you want to," he answered curtly, then wanted to add something but hesitated.

"Thanks for believing me, by the way. Especially since I took so long to believe you," he eventually decided to add quietly, which took him a lot of persuasion. Something that Jungkook highly appreciated. "You got betrayed before. Naturally, you wouldn't let your guard down that easily to prevent it from happening again. It's okay." The two of them smiled at each other wordlessly, wondering if they should take each other's hand but appearing too timid to do so.

But unfortunately, they got interrupted just like that. "Taehyung? There you are, finally I caught you!"
The redhead turned around, and his jaw dropped in horror.

It was his secret admirer, his Valentine that had humiliated him in front of everyone. And of course, he had to come just now. He didn't know if Jungkook had seen the embarrassing hallway-confession and if he hadn't, he sure had a lot of explaining to do. He tried to smile awkwardly, purposefully not looking at the ravenette beside him.

"Uh... Hi. What's up?" The admirer positioned himself right in front of him. "Will you finally give me an answer? Will you go out with me? How about tomorrow?" Taehyung repressed the urge to smack him in the face and blinked, overwhelmed.
"Oh, yeah. Umm... I-- You see... The thing is, I'm kind of busy tomorrow."
"Doing what?" You bitch. Out of all moments you could have picked!
Taehyung tried not to give him a murderous death glare.

"Umm... Oh, you know, just doing some--" 
"He's with me," Jungkook butted in. The brunette boy now stared down Jungkook, not looking too pleased about this. "Doing what?"

"None of your business," the ravenette retorted a little harshly which made the other narrow his eyes into slits. Taehyung, who noticed the bad tension between the two didn't want any drama and decided to loosen it. "Just looking at some old newspapers!," he said airily.

"Newspapers?," the admirer spoke in disbelief. "Fine, then what about the day after tomorrow?" Taehyung sighed. "Actually, I'm having a bit of a busy week, and--"

"He's with me again. We need to do some emergency shopping. Together, you know." Jungkook grimaced, hoping the boy would take a damn hint and just leave. He decided to make his point even further by standing a little closer to Taehyung and grimacing forcefully. The vampire smiled apologetically when in reality, he was not sorry at all.

"Whatever, I'll just ask you again next week." The still nameless boy seemed to have caught the hint after all and stalked off, not looking very satisfied. Jungkook looked after him with nothing but resentment in his face, clicking his tongue. "You're definetely being too nice to him," he commented. "People like this need to be told off properly. They're like pesky old houseflies, you won't get rid of them unless you take a fly swatter and smack them dead." Taehyung raised an eyebrow.

"You want me to kill him?" Jungkook shook his head, though it didn't look very sincere.
"No, I was just metaphorically speaking. I saw what he did to you on Valentine's Day, it made me wanna puke. I suggest you tell him off once and for all." Taehyung decided to tease him a little, exactly knowing what was going on.
"And what if I don't want to?" 

Suddenly, Jungkook held his wrist and looked him dead in the eye earnestly. "Trust me, I know you do. At least that's what your lips said when we--" Taehyung decided that now was the perfect time to escape and avoid this particular situation, releasing himself and dashing out of the hallway.

"Goodbye," he called. "You're cute when you're jealous!"

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

(A/N: i actually liked this chapter alot, can you believe it? :D
i'm considering actually making them go on a camping trip or sth sometime but like i never went camping (and plan on keeping it that way bc mosquitos and cold nights skskjjfj nope) so i can't promise i'll do a good job lmao

i'm also happy to announce that all my tests etc are over so i have no school worries for the following few weeks but i do have a cello recital this saturday and it's stressing me alot so maybe wish me luck? :(  my parents will probably film me and i practised like 4h almost every day for the last week (and i'm even considering 5 or 6h for the rest of this one) so if i fuck this one up i won't ever forgive myself asdjfls

anyways thank you so much for reading and ily bye bye <333 *insert purple hearts again uwu*)