Chapter Text
A few days passed—nearly a week—since that stormy night under the apple tree. And life slipped back into something that looked like normal. Normal for the village, yes. Chickens clucking, bakers yelling, children running. But for Anxin and Sangwon… whatever normal had been before, it had been quietly rewritten.
They share a cottage now. Sangwon’s old one sat half-collapsed beneath a skeleton of broken branches, its roof sagging as if exhausted by its own memories. Between the storm and Sangwon’s brief, violent loss of control, the place was more ruined than home. It would take ages to rebuild it. Not that either of them was doing anything about it.
Sangwon had settled himself easily into Anxin’s bunk, into Anxin’s space, into Anxin’s orbit. He tracked dirt on the floors, left his books open in odd corners, hummed old songs when he cooked. He’d even started planting things in the backyard—little rows of tomato bushes, a few stubborn squash, herbs whose names Anxin couldn’t pronounce but pretended he could. The garden was a mess of uneven rows and lopsided stakes, but Sangwon looked happy there. Peaceful in a way that made Anxin’s chest ache.
It felt… permanent.
Or as permanent as anything could be for a man like Sangwon, who technically wasn’t only a man.
Something had shifted between them after that night. It was impossible not to. But the shift wasn’t sharp or frightening. It was… warm. Like the moment after a fever breaks.
Sangwon was softer now, oddly so—more open with his thoughts, more willing to say the things he once kept guarded in the locked vault of his ribs. And Anxin, fool that he was, kept falling in love with him in increments he could barely track, like someone tumbling down a hill made of sunlight.
Sangwon fed from him, too.
Not often.
Never too much.
Every other day, maybe.
A few drops from Anxin’s finger, sometimes the wrist.Never the neck.
Not again. Not yet.
That fear lingered in Sangwon like a shadow that couldn’t be persuaded to leave—fear of going too far, fear of tipping from hunger into harm. He knew how thin that line could be. Mercy could turn to murder fast, faster than breath. The venom was quiet now, but Sangwon didn’t trust quiet things. Quiet things learned to whisper.
But he was older, wiser, less fragile with control. And living between human and monster had become something almost graceful in him, like a tightrope walker who had learned to dance instead of wobble.
Anxin asked questions sometimes. Soft questions. Curious ones. Nothing deep enough to draw blood. Nothing that dug beneath Sangwon’s scars. He asked about Sangwon’s origins, about the years spent alone, but he always stopped short before reaching the place where truth became heavy. Sangwon noticed. He noticed everything about Anxin. And he didn’t blame him. There were truths that could warp a heart if heard too early.
So they lived quietly, holding onto peace like it was something fragile and borrowed. Holding onto each other even more carefully.
The venom stayed quiet.
Sleeping.
Resting its teeth.
Waiting for the moment it would decide to bite again—back into Sangwon’s body… or into the new host it had already chosen on that storm-bruised night under the apple tree. And neither of them knew just how soon that bite would come.
“Hyung…” Anxin called out one afternoon.
The porch smelled of sun‑warmed wood and fresh paint. They sat tangled together on the swing they’d built with their own clumsy hands, the chains clicking softly as they swayed. Sangwon still had a smear of white paint drying on his cheek, and his finger absently traced a streak of it across Anxin’s arm, like he was marking him—not possessively, just fondly, the way a man marks the only calm he’s ever found.
“Yes?” Sangwon murmured, his voice low and unhurried.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
There it was—Anxin’s curiosity. Small, careful, like a bird that kept fluttering too close to a door it feared to open. He never pushed deep, never pried too sharply, but sometimes the questions rose like tidewater anyway.
“In this village… they…” He nodded vaguely toward the road: children shrieking as they chased each other, mothers snapping sheets in the wind, fathers lugging chopped firewood down the path. Life weaving itself in simple, harmless loops. “Do they know?”
Sangwon hummed, thoughtful, his fingers lazily slipping between Anxin’s, squeezing once as though anchoring both of them.
“My love, have you ever heard of Dracula?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Do you know what he’s afraid of?”
“Uh… the fire?”
Sangwon nodded. “And what holds the fire?”
“Uhh… I don’t know, people?”
“Yes.” His voice softened into something ancient. “It’s not only people who are afraid of monsters. Monsters are afraid of people too.”
Anxin stayed still, letting Sangwon’s words settle like dust motes drifting down in a sunbeam.
“When a being is outnumbered,” Sangwon continued, “its first instinct will always be to run. Not attack. The instinct to attack comes later, when fear curdles, when the teeth grow sharper than the reason that once held them back.” His thumb traced circles on Anxin’s hand, slow and steady. “No matter how terrible a monster looks, he can still be taken down easily by those who surround him.”
He breathed in, carefully. “A monster won’t survive long in a pool of people. No matter how much control he thinks he has, he will crack. And once he cracks, once he shows himself, people will know. People will attack. And he will be outnumbered.”
“Wait…” Anxin blinked. “By what you’re telling me is… a monster will only have a high chance of survival if he’s surrounded by his own kind?”
“You’re smart.” Sangwon’s lips curved faintly, admiration slipping into his voice like warmth into cold fingers.
Anxin turned, wide‑eyed, piecing it together.
“What did your grandfather tell you about this place?”
“That… that it’s quiet. Especially at night, sometimes too quiet. It’s near the mountain, the darkness, but it’s safe.” He could see the old paper, the handwriting, the stories whispered into the soft cradle of childhood. “He told me there are no wolves, or bears, or deadly snakes around here even though we’re so close to the mountains…”
“And have you seen one?” Sangwon asked.
“No.”
“Mhm. That’s because there are far more dangerous creatures here than them.” A little smirk tugged at his lips. His tongue swept across his fangs in a motion almost unconscious, almost mischievous.
“You’re all vampires…” Anxin breathed.
“Yes and no, my love. Not all. Not anymore.” Sangwon wrapped an arm around him and drew him close, his nose brushing Anxin’s neck in a way that felt almost like a bow—equal parts reverence and hunger.
“Most of them here… they became human the moment they turned away from Lilith. They killed their venoms and earned their humanity. After that, they could live like humans and eventually, die like humans.”
“Killed their venom? How?”
“I don’t know,” Sangwon admitted, voice lowering until it was barely wind. “I never found out. I was a coward then. I buried mine deep into the soil instead.” His breath warmed Anxin’s throat, though Sangwon himself was cold. “I wasn’t brave enough to end it. To forget that monstrous part of me.”
Anxin’s hand came up, gentle, grounding, threading through Sangwon’s hair as if the gesture alone could soothe centuries of ache.
“They’re much braver than I am,” Sangwon whispered. “And look at them now… happy.”
“Are you not?” Anxin asked softly.
“I am,” Sangwon answered without hesitation. “Because I have you. Although…” He exhaled shakily. “I wish I could love you more humanly.”
“I just need you to love me,” Anxin murmured, “in any way.”
“And I will.” Sangwon pressed a kiss to Anxin’s pulse—careful, reverent, trembling—as if tasting a promise rather than blood. He burrowed deeper into Anxin’s warmth, as though stealing every bit of comfort offered.
“Hyung… if everyone here is like you… does that mean…”
“No.” Sangwon didn’t let him finish. His voice gentled, softened with a strange sorrow.
“Grandpa Zhou was the only human among us.”
Anxin froze, breath caught.
“Many here had already turned human when he arrived,” Sangwon continued. “So it didn’t look strange. But he saw through things. He watched us. And deep down, I knew he already understood.”
“Did he try to run away?” Anxin whispered.
“No.” Sangwon chuckled, nostalgia flickering like a candle flame. “You’re as stubborn and foolish as your grandfather, Anxin.”
“Am I?”
Sangwon nodded. “He was there… he…” His voice wavered. He cleared his throat, pulling back just enough to meet Anxin’s gaze head‑on.
Anxin caught the shift immediately—the tightness in his shoulders, the fracture in his expression. “Hyung?”
“Anxin…” Sangwon swallowed.
“Your grandfather was the last person I fed on.”
Anxin’s breath hitched. “What?”
“Before I surrendered myself,” Sangwon began, voice thin as paper, “I was attacked in the mountains. I came home dying—my flesh rotting, my venom eating me alive.” His gaze drifted somewhere far beyond the porch. “Your grandfather found me. Treated me. But time was slipping. My fingers had started to blacken. I was turning into something feral.”
Anxin’s hold on him tightened.
“And like you,” Sangwon whispered, “he offered himself. Just one bite. Just one drink. And I did.”
The swing creaked in their silence.
“But I drank too much.” His jaw trembled. “I lost control. I almost… I almost killed him.”
“But you didn’t. Right?”
“No.” Sangwon shut his eyes. “He pushed me away. Hard. And that’s when everything sank in—what I had become, what I had nearly done.”
He inhaled, as if breathing in that memory’s cold.
“And that same stormy night… I prayed. I surrendered. And I buried everything beneath the soil.”
“And then?” Anxin whispered.
“He took me in.”
Sangwon’s voice carried something ancient—tired, tender, almost reverent. His eyes softened, focusing somewhere far beyond the porch, as if watching a memory play out in the ghost‑light of the afternoon.
He remembered it all.
The way the old man’s hands had shaken when he pulled him up—shaken not with fear, but with urgency. How Grandpa Zhou had wrapped Sangwon’s fingers in cloth though they smoked with venom, how he guided him into his cottage with no hesitation, like he was bringing home a wounded dog instead of a dying monster.
Grandpa Zhou fed him real food. Warm, human food. Bowls of broth, torn pieces of bread soaked in herbs. He wiped Sangwon’s blood‑red tears whenever he trembled, whenever Lilith’s whispering hiss clawed through Sangwon’s mind, whenever the venom begged him to sink his teeth into the nearest heartbeat.
He was the first person Sangwon learned to surrender to.
He let the old man take care of him—let him hold him steady when his knees buckled, let him hum lullabies while Sangwon tried not to break apart. Grandpa Zhou’s warmth was different from the burn of blood; it was gentle, grounding, the kind that seeped into the cracks of a creature who had forgotten softness.
Sangwon hadn’t felt love like that in centuries.
“With him,” Sangwon murmured, “I learned how to be human again.”
Anxin leaned closer, almost unconsciously, as if afraid any distance would disrupt that delicate memory.
“He took care of me,” Sangwon continued. “Taught me gardening, cooking. How to gut fish, how to fix leaky roofs, how to stop losing my temper when the tomatoes won’t grow.” His lips twitched. “He taught me how to live. Like a child being raised by a father. He practically raised me for five years.”
Anxin smiled. His grandfather had never written about this—not directly—but suddenly it was so easy to imagine. Grandpa Zhou standing on a stool to hang herbs. Sangwon grumbling while trimming plants. The two of them tending the garden together, one mortal, one not, but both stubborn in the same exact way.
“And in those years,” Sangwon said, exhaling, “he told me about you.”
“Me?”
He nodded, turning so he could hold Anxin the way he wished he could’ve held him back then. “He never failed to tell me about his pride and joy. The boy who knew every color and every stroke. He said you saw the world like a palette—that even your sadness had shades.”
Anxin flushed, warm and shy.
“He told me you’d come one day,” Sangwon continued. “That you’d grow up and wander. That you’d find your way here. And he…” Sangwon’s voice softened to a fond whisper.
“He claimed that I’d like you. And that you’d like me. He said we’d get along.”
“And we did, didn’t we?” Anxin’s eyes sparkled.
“We did.” Sangwon lifted his hand and kissed the back of it, the way he used to kiss his own knuckles in prayer.
“But there’s still one thing,” he said.
“Hm?”
“On his deathbed,” Sangwon whispered, “I asked him something.”
The porch seemed to still. The afternoon quieted, as if even the distant children sensed the heaviness of this moment.
“I asked him if he wanted to live forever, and wait for you with me.”
Anxin’s breath caught. “You asked to turn him?”
Sangwon nodded, slow and mournful.
“But he refused,” he said. “He said he didn’t want me to sacrifice my years of control just for him. That he didn’t want to chain me back to hunger. And then…” A small, cracked laugh escaped Sangwon. “He asked me to watch over you. To welcome you. To make you feel safe. To make you feel at home.”
Anxin’s eyes warmed. “And I am, hyung. Safer than I have ever been.”
Sangwon huffed, a soft disbelieving sound. “Even surrounded by monsters?”
“Especially surrounded by monsters.”
Something melted inside Sangwon—something old, something lonely, something that had been starving long before venom ever sank into his body.
He smiled and surged forward, capturing Anxin’s lips with a hunger that wasn’t monstrous, but deeply, painfully human. Anxin pulled him closer, fingers sinking into Sangwon’s black hair as Sangwon’s hands curled around his waist, holding him like a promise fulfilled.
“I love you,” Anxin breathed into his mouth.
“I love you,” Sangwon returned, voice trembling with truth.
Their nights fell into a rhythm, quiet and ordinary, yet entirely their own. Shared dinners and stolen kisses, laughter spilling over simmering pots. They took turns cooking—one busy at the stove while the other hovered nearby, tasting, teasing, sneaking in kisses between boils and simmering minutes. Afterwards, they’d eat together, sharing warmth and conversation, before washing the dishes side by side—hands brushing, laughter lingering in the warm kitchen air.
Once the kitchen was clean, they’d migrate to the living room, settling on the wide window sill. Sometimes Sangwon read a book while Anxin sketched, sometimes the roles reversed. Sangwon would watch Anxin’s careful strokes, admiring the way he captured the world, while Anxin read aloud from one of Sangwon’s ancient texts, testing the strange words on his tongue.
Like tonight.
“Hyung,” Anxin called softly, setting his book aside to focus entirely on him.
Sangwon hummed, looking up. “Yeah? Found another word you didn’t understand?”
Most of Sangwon’s books predated Anxin’s time, filled with archaic words that often needed translation. Sangwon always obliged, patiently explaining the forgotten tongues of the past.
“Yes,” Anxin said, shaking his head. “But that’s not it.”
“So, what is it?”
“I just realized… I never asked how old you are.”
Sangwon paused, lips parting as if considering how to answer. “Uh…”
“Are you… like a thousand years old?”
“No. Isn’t that a bit… much?”
“I don’t know.”
“Let’s just say I’m twenty-two, okay?”
Anxin raised an eyebrow. “How long have you been twenty-two?”
“Anxin—” Sangwon shook his head, half exasperated, half amused, lightly shoving him away. “This is not Edward Cullen and Bella Swan.”
“Oh, but it is! Except Bella Swan is the vampire here, right?”
“Why am I Bella?”
“Well, you’re the one taking it,” Anxin said with a sly shrug, a mischievous smirk spreading across his face.
“Oh? You do know I can play the other role too, right?” Sangwon teased, leaning a fraction closer.
“Wait… can you really?” Anxin closed the book, moving closer, nearly climbing onto Sangwon’s lap. “Can it… really go hard? I mean, vampire biology is different in every vampire fiction, and obviously it’s my first time meeting a real one so I have no idea how this works in your world. But… can it really? Can I see?”
“Anxin—” Sangwon’s hands were faster, catching his, holding them firmly. “What are you doing?”
“You said you can do it… so can I see?”
“What?”
“Come on, hyung…” He reached again, bold, insistent.
“ANXIN!” Sangwon shouted, half exasperation, half laughter, tugging him back.
Anxin froze, eyes wide, then slowly grinned, breathless. “You’re blushing.”
Sangwon sighed, covering his face with one hand. “You’re impossible.”
Anxin wriggled just slightly, enough to press closer into Sangwon’s lap, his smirk widening. “Come on, hyung. You said you could… so I want to see if it’s true.”
Sangwon groaned, leaning back against the sill, one hand pinning Anxin’s shoulders lightly. “I said I could, not that I would let you just paw at me like some impatient child.”
“Child?” Anxin tilted his head, mock offense in his eyes. “I’m a very curious adult.”
“And I am a very ancient, very tired adult,” Sangwon replied, rolling his eyes, though the corner of his mouth twitched with a smile. “You do realize what you’re asking, right?”
“I do.” Anxin whispered, lowering his voice into something silkier, something dangerous. “And I want to know… how it feels. If you… can really do it.”
Sangwon’s pulse quickened, just a fraction, betraying the calm he tried to maintain. “You’re deliberately pushing me, aren’t you?”
“Maybe.” Anxin’s grin widened. “And maybe I like seeing you flustered.”
Sangwon exhaled sharply, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Curiosity will get you eaten someday.”
“Then I’ll die happy,” Anxin said cheekily, leaning in to press a soft kiss to Sangwon’s jaw, teasing just behind the ear. “But if you’re the monster… I’m curious about that too.”
Sangwon’s hand slid from his shoulder down to his waist, cupping him carefully. “Curious about the monster, huh?” His voice dropped low, heavy with that playful warning tone that always made Anxin’s heart skip.
“Y-yes,” Anxin stammered, just a little, feigning innocence. “I need to… see… feel… understand.”
Sangwon leaned in, hovering close enough that their breaths mingled, teeth just barely visible when he smiled. “Understand the monster? Be careful what you wish for.”
“Oh, I’m ready,” Anxin said boldly, shoving his hands into Sangwon’s chest. “I’ve survived your fangs before, hyung. I can handle it.”
Sangwon chuckled, low and amused, shaking his head as he tilted Anxin closer, pressing him flush against his chest. “Bold words. You really think you can survive this time?”
“I know I can.” Anxin’s smirk returned, confident and teasing, his lips brushing Sangwon’s collarbone. “Because I want to. Because I trust you. Because… you love me, right?”
Sangwon’s heartbeat stuttered—not from fear, but from the mix of desire, affection, and something dangerously sweet that only Anxin could pull from him. “Always. You know I do. Too much sometimes.”
“Then… show me?” Anxin whispered, letting his hands trail lower, daring.
Sangwon froze, one hand tightening around Anxin’s waist. “Show you… what, exactly?”
“You.” Anxin’s answer was a soft, steady confession, brushing lips against Sangwon’s shoulder. “The other you. The one that can’t be tamed… the one that’s mine.”
Sangwon exhaled slowly, leaning into the touch, eyes glinting with warmth and warning all at once. “You really are impossible…”
“I’m persistent,” Anxin teased, eyes bright with mischief, “and you like it.”
A laugh escaped Sangwon, warm and rough, shaking his head as he pressed a gentle kiss to Anxin’s forehead. “Maybe I do… maybe I like it far too much.”
The window sill groaned under them, the evening settling around their shared warmth. And even as Sangwon felt the pull of his older, hungrier instincts, he let himself savor the moment—the teasing, the trust, the love—because monsters, too, could find peace… if only in the hands of the one who dared to tempt them.
The following morning, Sangwon was up early—far too early for someone who barely slept—hovering over Anxin like a worried ghost. Anxin, meanwhile, lay sprawled on the sheets with the tragic air of a martyr, refusing to greet the world or even acknowledge its existence.
“Love, get up now.”
A hand emerged from the blankets like a doomed creature and flung a pillow at him. “I hate you,” Anxin croaked. “I hate you so much.”
Sangwon caught the pillow with a lazy hand, smirking. “Didn’t I warn you? I am a very weak creature, Anxin. You know I fold the moment you start begging.”
Anxin groaned—an embarrassingly familiar sound, the kind that had echoed endlessly through the room the night before. Sangwon’s ears reddened at the memory, but he leaned forward anyway, pressing a kiss to Anxin’s knuckles. His fingertips lingered there, mapping the warmth, carving the moment into his mind.
Last night burned through him like a fever. The teasing. The impatience. The way Anxin’s laughter thinned into gasps. The way Sangwon felt his restraint unravel thread by trembling thread until he was sinking his fangs into the base of Anxin’s throat just as he spilled inside him. The mix of sweat and blood-red tears drying on their skin. The way Anxin held him after, whispering nothing words that felt like absolution.
He hadn’t done that in decades. Not like that. Not with surrender and hunger tangled together. It was clumsy and greedy and almost too much. Yet somehow, because it was with Anxin, it had become the most human thing he’d done in a century.
“Come on, love,” Sangwon murmured, brushing a stray hair from Anxin’s face. “We need to go to the mountain with Mr. Han. Help with the harvest.”
“You think I still can?” Anxin groaned dramatically, clutching at the blankets like a woman in a tragic opera. “You made me limp, Lee Sangwon. Limp. I hope you’re proud. That will never happen again.”
Sangwon chuckled softly, the sound warm as morning sunlight. “Alright. Next time, I’ll take the pain.”
Anxin cracked an eye open. His voice softened. “Can’t I just stay here?”
“Can you be alone?” Sangwon asked gently. “I’d stay with you, but Mr. Han is already pacing outside like a restless spirit.”
“I can handle myself,” Anxin mumbled, pressing Sangwon’s hand to his lips. “I just need more rest. And maybe new hips. And a new spine.”
“Rest,” Sangwon repeated, kissing him tenderly. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
“I love you,” Anxin murmured, eyes half-lidded.
“I love you.”
Sangwon stepped away, but—
“Hyung.”
That single word froze him mid-step. He turned immediately.
Anxin was struggling upright, wincing at every movement, and Sangwon rushed to steady him. With a tired determination, Anxin reached toward the drawer beside the bed, fingers fumbling at first before finally pulling something free.
He pressed it into Sangwon’s palm.
“What’s this?”
“A part of me.”
Sangwon looked down.
Not a trinket. Not a charm.
A silver vial necklace, filled with—
“Anxin,” he whispered, eyes widening.
“Take it,” Anxin said, guiding Sangwon’s fingers around it. Only then did Sangwon see the thin slit across Anxin’s fingertip, the faint smear of red.
“You’re insane,” Sangwon breathed.
“Is that even news?” Anxin snorted, leaning up despite the soreness to kiss him. “Now go. Mr. Han’s waiting, and you know he hates when people are late.”
Sangwon fastened the necklace around his throat. The vial rested against his chest—cold, heavy, and terrifyingly precious.
With one last kiss, he finally stepped out of the cottage.
“Mr. Han,” Sangwon called, joining the older man with a smile that felt too big to hide. “Shall we?”
The sun caught everything at once—the sharp gleam of his fangs, the softness in his eyes, and the silver vial glinting at his throat, filled with Anxin’s blood.
A quiet promise. A dangerous tether. A piece of someone he loved more fiercely than he ever thought he could.
Meanwhile, left inside the cottage, Anxin sighed and the cottage seemed to sigh with him, like it finally had the permission to breathe. The bed dipped where Anxin lay sprawled, legs shaking with every attempt to move.
His whole body complained.
His whole mind replayed.
He buried his face in Sangwon’s pillow, inhaling the cold-lake scent Sangwon always carried. “You’re awful,” he mumbled into the cotton. “And I hate you. And I want you again. Everything is terrible.”
He rolled onto his back with a groan, then onto his stomach, then onto his side—nothing helped. Every position reminded him of Sangwon’s hands, Sangwon’s teeth, the way the night had ended with blood-tears on his skin and a shiver that nearly buckled him.
He forced himself upright.
Slow, sore, shivering.
His feet touched the floorboards—cold as river stones—and just as he pushed himself up, a faint sound tapped against the window.
Not a knock.
A brush. A whisper. Like scales sliding across wood.
Anxin blinked blearily toward the sill.
There, curled like a ribbon of midnight, lay a small black snake. Its body thin as a finger, its eyes bright and unblinking. It didn’t strike. It didn’t coil in threat. It simply rested there, gazing at him as though it knew him.
As though it had been waiting.
A prickle lifted the hairs on Anxin’s arms.
“You’re… new,” he whispered.
The snake lifted its head slightly, tongue flickering once, tasting the air—tasting him. A shiver ran across Anxin’s shoulders, something cold and familiar slipping down his spine, the way Lilith’s hiss once echoed in the orchard.
But the snake didn’t lunge. Didn’t flee. It simply watched him with unsettling calm, like it was making sure he was awake. Like it recognized something inside him.
As if the venom that once lived in the apple tree had sent a messenger to its new host.
The snake tapped its snout delicately against the glass.
Once.
Twice.
Then slid off the sill with liquid grace and disappeared into the base of the porch, vanishing between the boards like smoke into soil.
Anxin exhaled shakily.
“Great,” he muttered to himself. “Now even reptiles are dramatic.”
He staggered toward the washbasin, splashed water on his face, and tried to convince himself the world hadn’t shifted under him.
But deep in his ribs, something coiled, warm and quiet.
Alive. Awake.
Days slip by in a warm blur—shared meals, shared chores, shared nights that still leave Sangwon shaky in the morning. And after dinner one soft evening, they wander into Sangwon’s orchard. Fireflies blink between the branches, the air smells like damp soil and recovering sunlight. Anxin walks close behind him, humming a half-melody, the kind that makes Sangwon’s shoulders ease even when they shouldn’t.
They reach the old apple tree—the one that watched their undoing, the one that offered its last poisoned fruit before surrendering its burden.
Sangwon stops beneath it and lays a palm on the trunk. “It feels lighter,” he murmurs. “The venom… it’s gone from here.”
Anxin smiles privately, knowing why. Knowing where it went.
Before Sangwon can say more, the tree gives a gentle shake—just nature being nature this time, nothing dark in its roots—and an apple drops, rolling to a stop near Anxin’s foot.
Sangwon crouches beside the trunk, running his fingers over the bark. “Strange. It’s producing early again. I need to check the—”
He rambles, distracted, comfortable in the false safety of botany.
And behind him, Anxin picks up the apple. He weighs it in his palm. Feels nothing thrumming beneath its skin. No heat, no pulse, no whisper of corruption.
It’s just an apple. Empty. Ordinary. Harmless.
“Hyung?” Anxin calls softly.
Sangwon goes still, like prey before it realizes it’s the predator. He turns.
Anxin steps closer, the apple tucked gently between both hands—an echo, a memory, a deliberate invocation of the night everything changed.
“Are you hungry?” he asks, voice smooth as warm honey.
Sangwon’s throat works around nothing. “Anxin… don’t tease about that.”
“It’s not teasing.”
And Anxin bites into the apple.
The sound is simple, clean. But something in Sangwon snaps anyway—not because of the fruit, but because Anxin’s eyes glow with that quiet, dangerous pull he now carries in his veins.
From a low branch above, a small black snake stirs, its slender body coiling like ink on bark. Its forked tongue flicks, tasting the air. It watches them with a patience older than the orchard itself, a silent sentinel of the venom now quietly housed in Anxin’s veins.
The tree does nothing else. The world stays still. The apple remains just an apple.
But Sangwon feels his hunger rise sharp and uncontrollable, as if awakened by the sight of Anxin tasting something sweet. Not because of magic. Not because of venom. Because the venom has a new vessel, and it smiles at him through bitten fruit and juice on its lips.
Anxin swallows, wiping a drop from the corner of his mouth with his thumb. “Look,” he says softly. “It doesn’t react anymore.”
Sangwon’s voice comes out cracked. “No. But I do.” He can feel it rising inside him—not the venom, not the curse, but the instinct that knew Anxin long before the first storm ever cracked open the sky.
Anxin lifts the apple between them. Juice gleams on the curve where his teeth sank in, and Sangwon watches that small crescent mark like it’s an open wound.
“Then take it,” Anxin murmurs, voice steady, dangerous in its softness. “Take me.”
Sangwon should step back. He should laugh it off, call Anxin ridiculous, scold him gently.
He doesn’t.
He reaches out.
His fingers close over Anxin’s, warm skin against warm skin, and he leans in. The orchard holds its breath. Leaves rustle as if leaning closer to watch.
The snake above flicks its tongue again, silent, patient, a shadow of hunger and vigilance, a witness to the choice being made below.
Sangwon brings the fruit to his mouth.
He takes a bite.
The sound is clean—a sharp crack of sweetness, nothing poisonous, nothing monstrous, nothing but the taste of a harmless apple and the lingering ghost of where Anxin’s mouth has been.
And that is what ruins him.
Not the fruit.
Not the past.
Not the curse.
Anxin.
Always Anxin.
Sangwon chews slowly, eyes locked on him. Juice runs down his thumb. Anxin watches that, breath hitching, and something in Sangwon gives up pretending he’s immune.
He drops the half-eaten apple. It tumbles from their joined hands, thudding quietly onto the soft soil, an innocent sound, the end of a long, terrible story no longer theirs to carry.
Before the fruit even settles, Sangwon cups Anxin’s face and kisses him—hungry, deep, grounding, like he finally understands that temptation isn’t something he’s supposed to resist anymore. It’s something he’s allowed to choose. Allowed to love. Allowed to return.
And Anxin, with venom humming warm and harmless in his veins, kisses him back as though the orchard, the night, and the universe itself have been waiting for this exact moment to breathe again.
The apple lies forgotten at their feet. The hunger no longer belongs to the tree. It belongs to them—shared, balanced, chosen.
And somewhere above, the black snake coils lazily on its branch, eyes glinting in the firefly light, patient, watchful, a quiet reminder of what sleeps, waits, and lives in the spaces between love and hunger.
And all it took was one single bite.