Archive of Our Own

Full fic HERE

En route to Doha, her second and final stop before Seoul, a flight attendant slid a tulip glass of whisky onto her table. Its condensation droplets fell on the coaster, a few hitting the back of her hand. She lowered her book to look at the attendant, who smiled at her. “Knappogue Castle, aged 12 years,” the attendant said.

Closing her book, she ran a finger down the tulip bowl of the glass. “I didn’t order this.”

“A gift from Ms Park. She wished you an enjoyable flight.” The attendant shifted her glass to let a corner of the small paper between the coaster and the glass show. “Enjoy your gift, Ms Shon.”

She put her book down, took the glass, took a sniff of it, took a sip. Her time in Chile had accustomed her to savory, ofttimes too tannic wine much lighter on the senses than Old World whisky, but Sooyoung knew her liquor. She’d miss Sooyoung’s mean highball, really.

She took the paper, flipping it between her fingers. The handwriting was neat—Sooyoung’s. She read it once and did as instructed: went to the upper deck, headed to the left side restroom, found the attendant who served her whisky earlier leaning against the restroom door. The cabin was unlit, and most of the passengers were asleep. “Hello again, Ms Shon,” she said, straightening up.

She took the attendant’s hand just as she was pulled into the restroom. It’s bigger than a regular restroom and she’s smaller and shorter than the attendant, so they fit inside. She put down the toilet lid and sat down on it, and the attendant sat on her lap and wound her arms around her shoulders. The attendant was about to undo her hair bun when Wendy stopped her. “Keep it that way,” she said.

The attendant hummed. “Easier access, no?”

She slid an arm around the attendant’s waist, another going for the dip between the collar of her shirt. “How long have you been a bleeder?”

“Paid for my college by being a reg at Ms Park’s bar.“

“All good?” Her fingertips inched under the white shirt. Cold skin met warm skin, its quiet throb pulsing as if calling her. She caressed a line down the hipbone, and her girl shivered.

“Mm-hm. Got what I needed. The bonus was good, too. It’s like sex without the pregnancy or STD risk.”

She couldn’t help but chuckle. “Good to know.” Her other hand inched to pull the girl by her nape. “Lean down a bit.” She nosed the skin to find where the vein was. It took her only a few seconds now, courtesy of more than a century of practice. When her fangs did pierce, her girl let out a soft moan. She hoped it’s more pleasure than pain, but most of the time it’s a mix of both. Pleasure is pain, darling, she remembered Sooyoung’s guidance in her first time feeding of her own will. Live food will feel hot and delicious for you, and if you can find it in you to be generous to your food, you can make it feel good for them, too.

She too remembered the night she gained her new life. A call of her birth name, in barely restrained panic and in desperation, a cool hand reaching into the hole in her side, another cool hand pressing her chin down, cool blood in her mouth that turned her, her broken ribs realigning themselves, her fingers trying to grasp at emptiness. She mouthed a name, then rasped it out. I’m here, she remembered hearing. I’m here, Seungwan.

The throb traveled through her girl’s whole body, and this time they both moaned. Wendy drank and drank until she’s full, the throb in her own body feeling like a constant buzz all over. She pulled away and supported the weight of her girl, who slumped against her, head lolling on her shoulder.

“Okay?” she asked, touching the puncture wounds on the girl’s neck, her other hand rubbing her back. The wounds would scab and heal in no time. Her girl would need to replenish her energy, and she’d recover. Wendy didn’t take, never took more than she needed.

“Mm.” Her girl sighed. Maybe it’s her sense of duty as a flight attendant, or maybe it’s how normal humans behaved after a bleeding session, known creatures of curiosity and oddity, but Wendy was a bit surprised when her girl swiped two fingers across her lower lips, smearing blood and lipstick altogether. The girl put her fingers inside her mouth, and she cleaned them. Wanting to return the benevolence, she slipped her hand past the waistband of the girl’s dress pants but was stopped by a hand on her wrist. “I’m okay, thanks. God, I forgot how good it felt. You’re good.”

“Practice makes perfect.”

“What is there in Korea for you? Final resting place?”

“Already dead, remember?”

“Right, right. Well, I hope you’ll survive December 26, Ms Shon.”

“Thank you.”

“And if you do, lemme know if you’re in Madrid again, okay. I’m sure you know more bars than just Ms Park’s.”

She left the restroom first, clean and tidy, not a single drop of blood on her clothes. She’d always been a neat eater, something that didn’t change even when she did. Returning to her seat in the lower deck, she found that her table had been cleaned. Even her whisky glass was taken away. What a waste of such good whisky, she mourned with a sigh.

-.-.-

There was no dinner to be had, and Joohyun didn’t come out of her room at all. Weird, Wendy thought. She’s the guest here, and yet the host had made herself scarce. Seemed like she’d made it a habit to cause Joohyun to retreat. She made herself at home on Joohyun’s couch, TV on a low volume and feet up on the coffee table. Breaking news from the development of the Jakarta riot were on, and Wendy thought of Sooyoung, who could’ve been there, could’ve stopped it before it even began, but was ignored by Night Children bureaucracy and then decided to sulk in, of all places she could’ve been, at Adolfo Suárez. Knowing her old friend and mentor, it wasn’t surprising, but she doubted that the Park Sooyoung would really choose to rest in an airport lounge.

This just in: the right-wing civil militia had just broken through the police’s line of defense and had now occupied the Menteng precinct. They are demanding that the perpetrator of the riot, a rumored underground overlord, be handed to them. Police Chief Masrani is expected to address the militia in fifteen minutes. We’re going to join our reporter Sonny Sun in the location. Sonny, can you pl—

The channel droned on with what she’d grown to recognize as standard reporting procedure when it came to Night Children business. Underground lords were the code for unincorporated hives, unclaimed by no dens. Private equity, holding, or invitation-only clubs were for official bleeder bars, operating technically with a government’s knowledge but officially unnamed and publicly unmentionable. Clashes among local groups were a sign that either an unruly Son or Daughter got into problems with the community in general or got caught in the act. No society wanted to admit that they had Night Children among them, but all societies wanted to do business with them because old power and old money did the oldest trick in the book. Wendy hunted when she had to, but she almost always went to official bleeder bars for food. Visiting them made a good trip, and bleeder bars gave her a chance to be supportive of the Night Children’s socioeconomic structure.

We take care of our own, Sooyoung said the first time she asked her why she would bother taking her under her wings back in Madrid.

The night she broke free from her grave, gasping for air her lungs no longer needed, looking for food she’d struggle to accept for years to come, Joohyun was the first she saw. Joohyun who knelt by her side, who was waiting for her return, who was hoping that she’d still love her all the same after what she’d done. Joohyun who was told instead to leave. I want you gone, she’d seethed, words slipping unbridled through gritted teeth. I want you to leave my city, my country, my life. I don’t care. I don’t—I can’t see you again.

She’d told Joohyun she would take care of herself when Joohyun said a fledgling Daughter like her wouldn’t know what to do or where to go or how to cope. And she did. For almost the next two hundred years, she did, except for the few first, rough months. She’d lived in Provence, Marrakesh, Bamiyan, and Nara, but found herself drawn to cities like Athens, Luang Prabang, Vancouver, and Valparaiso. She tried Seattle once, but found it much too rainy for her, not unlike how West Lothian in Scotland was too damp and London too gloomy. Rain always reminded her of Joohyun and that fateful night, which she didn’t want to recall too often.

Two in the morning, she woke up to the pitter-patter sound of rain and Joohyun’s going out through the back door, bright yellow rain boots on and an umbrella in hand. She left the couch to follow Joohyun, who’s now checking a hole on the lower trunk of a moringa tree. A faint meowing greeted her as she approached closer. A half-wet brown cat appeared from behind Joohyun’s boots.

“You have a cat,” she stated, part amused and part disbelieving.

“More like a neighborhood cat who takes me as her favorite biped.” Joohyun stood up, umbrella now sported on her left shoulder.

“Does it have a name?”

“Toronto.”

“Toronto,” she repeated incredulously. “Don’t tell me you brought a cat all the way from Canada.”

“No. She first showed up when I was watching a documentary about Toronto, hence the name.” Joohyun offered to share her umbrella, which Wendy accepted. Joohyun twirled it once, splattering water all around. Toronto the cat hissed in displeasure at them. “My neighbor Toronto.” She grinned.

Now Wendy did roll her eyes. She looked up, and past Joohyun’s umbrella there was the moon. She hadn’t seen the moon over Korea for a long time, and it seeped all sarcasm out of her.

“We’ve been to the moon, and the shape of an umbrella remains the same.”

“Hm?”

“Just something I remember a Seattle poet saying.”

“Of course, troubadour.”

She looked down, seeing Toronto trot between Joohyun booted feet and meow again. She returned it with a meow on her own, and it made Joohyun laugh, albeit small and fleeting, too fleeting.

They headed inside once Joohyun made sure Toronto was inside the moringa tree hole. Joohyun handed her a towel, and instead of drying her own hair she did Joohyun’s first. Joohyun let her. “I missed talking about the most mundane things with you,” Joohyun admitted.

“I missed talking to you,” she agreed.

-.-.-

“You really never turned anyone else?”

“No. No one else.”

“...Huh.”

“Why? Is it so surprising? I know I made a mistake, but you know I’m—”

“Human?”

That earned her a thin, deprecating smile. “I was going to say not perfect.” Joohyun sighed. “I wished I could say human, though.”

“But you’re not. We’re not.” She drew her right leg up and folded it underneath her left, twisting halfway to face Joohyun, an arm draped over the back of the couch. She drew a line down Joohyun’s neck with a finger, and Joohyun visibly shivered. Such a pretty neck, she mused. “Not mortal, all guilty.” Pressed her finger harder that its nail left an indentation on Joohyun’s skin, a mark she knew wouldn’t last long. Watched it gone. Accepted it. “But to me, the entirely beautiful.”

She drew her hand back, and Joohyun slid to lay her head on her lap. Her eyes closed, her hair falling over them, and Wendy couldn’t resist running her fingers through it. Her other hand made light, nonchalant circles over Joohyun’s arm. Joohyun clasped her hands over her mouth in what looked like either a praying or muffling gesture.

It had been a long time.

“I want to be forgiven,” Joohyun whispered.

“I can live with your mistake. I have been.” Her hand slid to Joohyun’s elbow, which she cupped. “Can you?”

“I think so.” Joohyun drew a shuddering breath in. “Yes.”

-.-.-

On Christmas Eve, Joohyun broke.

They were lying on the couch, watching mindless news updates on TV but registering none, then Joohyun turned around and clutched at her, hands grabbing everywhere and nowhere, as if trying to climb onto and into Wendy. “I don’t want to die,” she gasped out, touching and stroking and clawing and pulling at Wendy, who returned it all as desperately. There’s so many places she wanted to go with her, Joohyun said. So many sunrises she wouldn’t be able to share with her, Keepers to introduce, Overseers to visit, museums to sneak into after closing hours, peach trees to harvest from. “I don’t want to end like this.”

“Joohyun.”

“I don’t want to die, Seungwan.”

“Stay, Joohyun. Stay.”

“I don’t want to die.”

“Say my name, Joohyun. Call me.”

“Seungwan. Seungwan.”

“Joohyun, god. Joohyun. I don’t want to die.”

They kissed and kissed and touched each other and touched each other again. She tasted salt everywhere. Dying once was terrible. Dying twice, especially now, especially right now, was unbearably cruel.

-.-.-