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The King of Darkness is paper thin and moonlight pale this night when he opens his doors to the world and accompanying his hundred yard stare is the hunger in his eyes. They gleam red like the sun, as per his remembrance of it. He has not seen the face of sunlight longer than his entrance has been bolted. He does not say a word. There are memories beneath this doorway which seem now like lifetimes lost. They torment him in the form of phantoms pulling at his clothing; an insult upon the name of purity, he has always been, but tonight they are in disagreement with his white collared shirt which falls open in a manner unbecoming of an emperor. And the white which so deeply contrasts his decrepit train of thought is a type of trickery. His loss of composure can only add to a mounting pile of his delinquencies but Jeongguk has long since not been revered and remembered for his inherent goodness and he will not start today.
He is starved. Hungry. Every bone trembling. The world is black and white when he peeks. Stepping foot outside is a gamble for there is this resident nightmare which loops in his mind and in it brews the very horrible image of his body dropping dead the moment he escapes his mansion. Like a leaf in the wind, dry and deadened, some other shade than it was in its youth, veins large despite their demise. He wonders calmly if he will float away.
But the King of Darkness, a very pallid vessel , lives tonight. The world is marvellously changed beyond his estate but briefly, as long as he remains contained within his premises, his surroundings are reminiscent of when the world was neither black and white nor red and white but only a person and the colours he chose to wear. Jeongguk learnt of colour from him, such as the blue in his bruises and the yellow-brown in his eyes and the red in his wrists and neck and lips and thus devoid of him is this never ending black and white. Except for Jeongguk’s eyes. Except for the sun. They might as well be one and the same thing. A cautionary tale which went around a couple of centuries ago mentioned something along the lines of never looking the monster which lives in the deeper woods in the eye for bloodlust lives in its crimson flames, and for a creature perpetually immured in the dark, this is no less than adulation. Him and the sun are some variant of sworn enemies but Jeongguk suffers from a debilitating case of diffidence.
All of this deliberation points to a singular fact, which is that Jeongguk is not ashamed of the horror in his eyes. He is hungry and thirsty and licking up the crisp slabs of starlight with great joy— explaining his emaciated form. Just this air is enough for his body. He falls to his knees some twenty steps into his getaway and breathes deep enough to risk expanding his lungs into his ribs. There is not a beating heart to protect in there so he does not mind the jeopardy, giving his dead being a taste of life. His bones dig into the ground as if his body were his own premature grave, one he’s rotting away in, but Jeongguk is unbothered about the stench of spilled blood emanating from his withered self or his unmannerly appearance. Gifted with dashing appearances— although for the lone purpose of compensation because creatures like him cannot wear the ugliness they house inside— Jeongguk has never before considered the state of his person prior to exiting the estate. Today is no different, aside from the fact that he has not left the estate in what has to be millennia, and it is nothing short of a miracle that he looks the way he does.
There is a certain crazed aspect to the eyes. He cannot quite focus them right. Too intense or too jaded, as if there exists very little balance between the two. Despite the outlandish presentation and the slightly agape mouth and the sharpened teeth indenting the bottom lip, where they ache in hunger, Jeongguk is devastatingly attractive. His body is a great replication of a walking, talking skeleton, with what trivial muscle he has been able to maintain, and it is the culmination of these inhuman features which emphasise on the extent of his beauty, a path of self destruction.
Which is to say, had it been anyone but him, there’d be little difference between body and corpse, but Jeongguk’s hollow cheeks and hollower eyes are suitable to the bleak composure and train of thought he maintains. He is as good as dead. Not a single whisper worthy of immortalisation has come to him during his years in penance. The manner of his charm is, then, fictitious, nonexistent outside of fables and nightmares, and the sky, beggared due to a depravity of him, pulls apart at the sight of the king on his knees in hunger. It grumbles.
Today is the day. Jeongguk reaches for the ground with his right hand and bundles it up within his fist. Today is the day.
Vile urges begin to resurface before his eyes. The smell in his clothes is that of murder and nausea. When did he wear this? Has he been wearing this for as long as he can remember? There was, once, the scent of something which felt as if it could and should never be contained which resided in his white shirt— if he thinks hard, he can remember everything. It is torturous but he has the ability. One which is evocative of vanilla and jasmine and rose and lemon in this shirt he wears but those scents do not speak of his body odour in the same way this shirt did not originally belong to him.
His hunger grows. His gums pulse in anticipation. His body thrums. But Jeongguk has difficulty comprehending the passage of time and the consequences it brings, so he very naturally tamps down on the hunger. His suppression will bring him control. He will not drool as he rises back to swaying feet again. He will not bite so hard into his lips so as to draw his own blood. He most certainly does not swipe with the back of his hand at his crimson mouth, thus smudging on lipstick made of blood.
Today is the day. Somewhere far, a heart beats to a familiar rhythm.
“It’s fascinating.” Seung is somewhat delusional with her daydreaming. Taehyung’s wondering whether this is a good time to have a tiny intervention. Wondering if there even is any time known as a good time for such an intervention. “The guy could get his hands on practically… practically anything he’d like. Any type of person. Any status. Any vague preference, doesn’t matter. Because he’s rich, you know?”
“Yes,” says Taehyung, because he is still a good friend, and he is still interested, and there is not an eye catching interaction going on in this bar which could be attributed to the fact that he has his mask up and sunglasses down. And this odd anxiety claws at his throat, for which distraction is the best medicine. “Because he was a king and etcetera. Beloved vampire prince.”
“Exactly. And then, boom. Curse. Guy can’t feed off of anything for actual strength, it’s like if all of his victims had anemia.”
“So, this is just… vampire supper gone wrong?” Taehyung would laugh but his nervousness is that which cannot be attributed to any rational reason. He feels the need to remain here and hear this story, because a storm stirs beyond the walls and the world will come crashing right down upon him if he dares to brave its incensed downpour. “So does he just have bodies piling up and down his place, then? Sick, but I personally am not into that sort of thing.”
“You cannot call vampirism “sick” and then continue to rally against it. Pick a side, Taehyung. But that’s what the book said. Keep in mind that the amount he feeds on hardly makes a difference— he will search for however long he has to to reach that one person who’s capable of nourishing him. A bloodthirsty creature on the prowl for someone’s heart.”
Taehyung’s skin wakes in dread, gooseflesh despite his recently shaved arms. “You didn’t tell me this part of the story.”
“There’s hardly anything mentioned about it,” she says, looking Taehyung in the eye despite those shades obscuring his face. “But did you really think the tale of a curse on a vampiric prince would lack romance? I’m sad, actually, that it wasn’t as detailed as I would’ve liked. Apparently, the guy has been searching for this blood bond reincarnation his entire miserable, carnal life.”
Taehyung scoffs, circling his umbrella stirrer in his drink, uncomfortably full upon the mention of this leg of the fable. “Fake.”
His pulse starts against his skin uncomfortably fast. It rains harder. Seung’s scrutiny does not abate, and instead narrows down on him. Her lips pull into a smirk which resembles her bastardly nature when she responds, “Real.”
Which it is because in spite of the disguise, unbeknownst to him, Taehyung has been recognised for a reason entirely other than his fame by someone infamous.