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/ yangcheon-gu is a beast lying on its side tonight. wonwoo feels stupid, standing in the shadows behind a 7-11, hot oil-scented air venting into his face like the city’s dying breath. “i’m back,” he whispers into the alleyway.
it is empty, and then it isn’t. “why?” asks the vampire. he is standing so close that it makes the hair on wonwoo’s arms stand up. “i already told you no, didn’t i?’
“thought it was worth trying again,” wonwoo says. “weird, right? usually i give up easier.”
“you must really want to be a vampire.”
“i really do.” wonwoo steps closer to him, against his better judgement, something overriding every prey instinct he has. there would be breath on his skin, if the man in front of him was alive. maybe the hot, coppery breath of a monster; maybe the sweet and floral scent of something worse than that.
the vampire smiles, baring teeth that look no sharper than normal. “i never actually said i was a vampire, did i?”
“no, you didn’t.” his teeth are sharp now. no, they always have been, of course. wonwoo doesn’t know how he hadn’t noticed them before, or he knows but can’t remember. that seems like proof enough. proof of what, again?
“i think you should go home, wonwoo.”
“how do you know my name?” he asks, but there is no longer anyone in the alleyway to answer him. had there ever been? he tries to recall a person, the vague shape of a body, the way long hair falls into eyes.
wonwoo walks back to the street, buys a pack of taquitos at the 7-11, and makes it a few blocks away before he remembers why he’d been there in the first place.
“fuck,” he says passionately, and goes home. /
/ “there are really vampires in yangcheon-gu?” soonyoung says around a mouthful of now-soggy taquito. mouth round, eyes round, head cocked. “and you didn’t die?”
“did you think i was going to die?” asks wonwoo.
“welllll,” says soonyoung. “no, because i didn’t think there really would be vampires there.” he blinks slowly. “that’s weird, isn’t it, that i just guessed and i was right?”
wonwoo shrugs. “that happens a lot, soonyoung-ah. maybe there are vampires behind every 7-11 in seoul.”
“i hope not,” says soonyoung. “there are a lot of 7-11s in seoul.” /
/ the closest thing to a burial ground near wonwoo and soonyoung’s apartment is an office building where a cemetery used to be. wonwoo doesn’t really need a burial ground, but it feels right. he takes the elevator to the top floor and then the stairs to the roof. no one comes to find him.
that’s what he wants, but it still makes him feel lonely. he sits cross-legged on the roof and watches the sunset, a smoggy purple affair, and turns a long silver knife over and over in his hands.
vampires are people who die alone , says soonyoung’s voice in his mind, an echo of conversation over their instant sundubu jjigae. mm, this is spicy. some vampires are cursed, maybe? i guess that’s jiangshi, more like zombies.
wonwoo still isn’t sure how soonyoung knows all this, but soonyoung has always been smart about unexpected things. so just, anyone who dies alone becomes a vampire? with like, super strength and bloodlust and mind control? he’d been curious, and soonyoung had been willing to entertain him.
i think typically they’re suicides.
so here’s wonwoo, on a roof, about to kill himself. by the knife seems a messy way to go, but it’s like the burial ground--it feels like he’s meant to do it this way. like a sacrifice. one life for another.
he waits until the city is a big glittering mass against the sky. wonwoo has thought about killing himself before, never very seriously because, well. someone would have to clean up after him.
that’s not a problem now, though, because he’s going to come back to life and simply walk away. or fly, maybe. who knows what powers vampirism will grant him. wonwoo would be happy to have eyes that are just a little unsettling, or to not show up in photos, or to have people inexplicably drawn to him when they pass by on the street. anything to be less normal. and if it doesn’t work, well. someone will have to clean up after him.
the knife feels like ice when it meets his skin, and he won’t remember where; it won’t matter where. all that matters is blood pouring out of him, so much of it, he didn’t even know he had that much blood in him, and the knife falling from his hand. all that matters is that wonwoo dies. /
/ the first thing wonwoo notices when he rises from the dead is that his mouth tastes terrible. the second is that his head hurts, and the third is that he’s alive.
he’s alive and there’s someone holding him, his head cradled in their hands like he’s a dead bird or a newborn calf. he jerks weakly in their grasp. “stop moving, idiot,” says the vampire. “i’m trying to help you.”
it’s the vampire from behind the 7-11. “my name is jeonghan,” he says slowly, carefully, as if to not startle a skittish wild animal. “i was hoping you would give up and i wouldn't end up having to tell you.”
“i didn’t give up,” wonwoo says.
“well, obviously.” jeonghan rolls his eyes. they’re pretty eyes, a brown so dark it’s nearly black, the kind that make you want to know what’s behind them. maybe pretty is a bad word. flowers are pretty. jeonghan’s eyes inspire a sort of morbid curiosity, the kind that makes humans keep going down to the bottom of the ocean just to see what’s there. “can you stand? we need to go get your stuff.”
“what?” wonwoo sits up blearily. “why?”
“you’ll be hungry soon,” says jeonghan. “and for some godforsaken reason, you’re my responsibility now. let’s get off this roof.” /
/ it’s late, the city not silent but still noticeably sleeping. by the time they make it back to wonwoo’s apartment, he feels ragged. if there was still breath in his lungs he would pant, but instead his throat just works helplessly, dry and itching. his skin feels tight and fragile, like it’s just paper stretched over bones. he’s starving.
jeonghan helps him into his room and pushes him to sit on the bed. “anything you can’t live without for the next week needs to be packed,” he says, then looks thoughtful. “figuratively speaking, i guess.”
under wonwoo’s direction, he packs a bag. wonwoo is too weak to be mad at him for shoving clothes into it haphazardly instead of folding them. they both try to be quiet, the threat of soonyoung waking up and freaking out looming over them ominously.
wonwoo pauses to leave a note before they go, something just to make sure soonyoung doesn’t call the police. family emergency. everything will be fine. i’m okay. don't call. he scribbles on a sticky note and sticks it gently to the table. “this whole seeing in the dark thing is cool,” he remarks to jeonghan. “do i even need glasses anymore?”
jeonghan shrugs. “probably not. at least not after you feed, you--”
he’s interrupted by a tremulous voice, calling “wonwoo-yah, is that you?” down the hallway, and a light flicking on. soonyoung is standing in the doorway of the kitchen, looking afraid and childlike in his giant t-shirt and shorts, hair sticking up. he blinks at the two of them sleepily. “oh, wonwoo,” he says. “what did you do?”
wonwoo can’t answer him. he can barely hear him, really, over the roaring in his ears--not his own blood, but soonyoung’s, thrumming through living veins. he takes his glasses off, just to test a theory, and his vision is so sharp he thinks he could count every pore on soonyoung’s face. his skin crawls.
“wonwoo, no, ” says jeonghan, but wonwoo is already lunging, teeth bared. when his new fangs get in soonyoung’s neck, everything goes warm. it’s like he’s alive again, except wonwoo can’t even remember ever feeling this good when he was alive.
the blood rushing into his mouth is hot and coppery and sweet, and he can feel how strong he is, how soonyoung is like a rag doll in his hands. soonyoung has always been easy to throw around, but this is different. he struggles against wonwoo’s grasp, jerks violently, gasps and chokes like a wounded animal. he is a wounded animal. wonwoo is hurting him.
but wonwoo can’t stop. he drinks for what feels like forever, although it must only be a few minutes. he can feel jeonghan trying to pull him away, but wonwoo is so strong, so full of someone else’s life. eventually he lifts his head from soonyoung’s throat and jeonghan shoves him backwards, slamming him against the floor.
“you idiot,” he’s saying, but it’s to himself, not wonwoo. “fuck. this is so bad. this is awful. wonwoo, this is really awful.”
wonwoo just stares up at him, blood-drunk. jeonghan looks beautiful in the dingy light of wonwoo’s kitchen, an angel among men, those terrible, pretty eyes wild with fear. “‘s okay, soonyoungie won’t mind that we’re vampires,” wonwoo slurs.
jeonghan shakes his head. “soonyoung won’t mind because you killed him, wonwoo. he’s fucking dead.”
“no, that’s not right,” wonwoo says. he sits up, marvels at how he can feel every muscle move perfectly and individually, how easy it is to use his body. he can smell blood everywhere, thick and warm, and underneath it all the normal scents of his apartment multiplied by a thousand. the floral scent of soonyoung’s lotion, the clean laundry thrown over the couch, the dirty laundry on wonwoo’s floor. a smell like ancient books that he thinks might be jeonghan. “i can’t have killed him. i would never kill soonyoung.”
he listens for soonyoung’s heartbeat before he even looks at the body on the floor. wonwoo would rather find out this way, the dull silence that meets him, than by staring at the bloody ruin of his best friend, the pitiful way soonyoung had curled into himself as he died. as wonwoo killed him.
“i would never kill soonyoung,” he says again, his body trying to cry and nothing coming out, his throat clenching furiously. he draws his knees to his chest and sobs dryly, more like a wail. “i wouldn't. fuck.”
“we need to go, wonwoo,” jeonghan says softly. “i’m sorry. this is my fault. you can yell at me about it later, i promise, because i really shouldn’t have brought you here right away, but we need to get you somewhere safe before you hurt anyone else, or they hurt you. come on, let’s clean you up.”
wonwoo lets himself be steered into the shower in a daze. jeonghan peels him out of his clothes and washes the blood off of him methodically. somehow it seems to have gotten everywhere: matted into his hair, streaked up his forearms. of course smeared around his mouth. if he thought there had been a lot of blood when he died, this is more, an impossible amount. the water takes a while to run clear.
when he’s dressed again, they leave, stepping over soonyoung’s body, and it’s so surreal wonwoo has to try not to laugh hysterically. he feels it bubbling up in his chest, whatever type of adrenaline his new nervous system creates. they take the elevator down to the ground floor because it doesn’t matter, they don't show up on cameras anyways, no one will ever know they were there. someone will find soonyoung dead in his apartment. maybe jihoon. wonwoo hopes to whatever god he’s still allowed to believe in that it’s not chan.
“they might not figure out it was you, but you still can’t go back,” jeonghan tells him as they walk through the city. not towards yangcheon-gu, like wonwoo expected. “we’re going somewhere really far away, and you can’t go back. okay?”
“okay,” wonwoo says woodenly. “where are we going?”
“i haven’t decided yet,” jeonghan admits. “it’s been a long time since i had anything to run away from.” /