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Junmyeon is dew-dotted with rain by the time he steps off the dirt path. His naturally low temperature doesn’t drop or rise, but he can sense heat. Arriving home is passing through the wooden doorframe into a glow, damp replaced with a cosy warmth. The solid notes of pine and mud are rapidly overwhelmed with everything he’s missed during his trip into the village.
While he’s unlacing his boots Junmyeon notes every change in their small home. Minseok has replaced the flowers on the table. He’s been washing, earlier. Now there’s woodsmoke from the fireplace and an oilier heat from the kitchen. The vegetable peelings are already outside to compost, but the fresh scent lingers. Soup bubbles lowly inside the large steel pot they recently received from a widow. (They’d said— Junmyeon with his charm, Baekhyun with his puppy eyes— the meal is compensation enough for resolving her problem, really. But she wouldn’t let them leave empty handed, and Minseok deftly chose what he needed.)
“Stop right there,” Minseok calls from the kitchen area, and Junmyeon does. “Not another step,” Minseok says anyway, grabbing the tea towel hanging from the oven handle and whipping it over his shoulder, “Look at the state of you, Junmyeonnie.”
Junmyeon think his heart would ache if it weren’t so cold. Minseok dries him off in the doorway, tutting and smiling as he dabs water from Junmyeon’s hair and nape. There’s an arch of dried herbs above them, but with Minseok’s movement the tang of iron in the air overpowers it all.
Junmyeon’s nose wrinkles. Across the room, Baekhyun is bloated like a full mosquito.
So that’s been going on while Junmyeon was out, too. Junmyeon escapes the towel and two small hands ruffling his hair and nudges at Minseok’s collar to confirm what he already knows. Freshly cleaned punctures.
“I brought you persimmons,” Junmyeon says. He doesn’t lick at the wounds; Minseok always disinfects them with something bitter. “Could have been killed by villagers for hanging around and stealing over garden walls. It’s raining, but I saw them..” Minseok curiously tugs his drawstring bag from his shoulders, the thin jute rope pulling at his wet sleeves, “..so I got some for you.”
“I can preserve them. Thank you, Junmyeon.” Junmyeon gets a firm hold in return. Minseok cups his cheek, thumb pressed hard to his jaw. “That was very kind of you.”
For a moment Junmyeon absorbs Minseok’s human heat, enjoying the praise. Earned praise. His pupils snap tight and he pulls out of the hold to nod towards Baekhyun. “What did he do to deserve a snack, anyway.”
“Hmm? Oh, me? What did I do?” Baekhyun raises his hands in offence. It gives Junmyeon an opening to sidle onto the chair with him. His belly is soft and warm with fresh blood, and he grunts as Junmyeon presses his weight against him. “I provide us with a home, how about that?”
Yes, well. “That’s wearing thin after fifty..no, how many? Must be seventy years by now? You provided us with a damp box.” Junmyeon curls his legs up to nestle comfortably between the chair’s arm and Baekhyun’s lap. “It’s our Minseokkie that made it into a home.”
Baekhyun inherited a modest patch of farmland soon after the land reform program. As a human he’d have sold it if the plot had been worth the bother, but it really hadn’t. As a vampire his priorities changed, and once there were two of them Baekhyun thanked his ancestors for the chogajip. Reforestation begun in ‘61, and now they’re cozily secluded by pines. And maybe it’s true that before Minseok the cold had never bothered them. Having a warm human around the place reminded them of the good parts of life — more of those now than the time when they were alive — and suddenly their existence was vibrant.
Baekhyun shifts to get Junmyeon’s sharp hip away from his stomach, sneaking a kiss to his cheek when Junmyeon looks down. “Need to keep my strength up, Junmyeonnie. I’ve nearly mastered invisibility.”
“Have you now,” Junmyeon says, then turns away to call across to the kitchen, “Minseok, he’s lying, he’s been trying to learn invisibility since, like, the 80’s.”
Minseok hums placatingly, but his attention is back on his soup. The hand that isn’t stirring the pot is holding Junmyeon’s bag, the wet persimmons bulging through the fabric. For someone who lives with two bloodthirsty beings he’s adept at not letting situations escalate. He’s taught them how to stay and beg and keep their mess out of the house.
“Snitch.” Baekhyun’s fangs dig bluntly into Junmyeon’s upper arm. “My hypnosis has always been better than yours, though. Hasn’t it. Huh?” A harder bite; a comically loud chomp. “Huh?”
Junmyeon hisses instinctively, not fiercely. “Not that we need it all that often in the end anyway, after all that time learning it,” he mutters, pouting down at his sleeve to check for holes.
No, the nearby village had only needed subtle terrorising for two generations. Enough to build the legend that not all bloodthirsty monsters target young women. In these modern days the children all leave their mothers behind for the city; stable supply and demand.
The village has neat mossy lawns and large, flat grey stones leading to doorways neither of them can enter until their services have been requested. Minseok likes to take his time there when he shops, staying up to date on the gossip. Of course, initially Minseok was the gossip for moving out into that old waterlogged plot of land. They hear city boys own it and never visit. They hear there are spirits beyond the village near to the hills, and that those spirits only drift inward to feed on the souls of those cruel to their spouses. The offerings left at the border of Baekhyun’s land no longer go to waste since Minseok joined them.
“Soup soup soup,” Baekhyun chants, watching steam rise as Minseok ladles his afternoon’s work into a bowl. He drifts after Minseok as he heads to the table, a little high off the ground so he can get a good view. “Soup never looked that good when we were alive. I wish we could all eat the soup.”
Minseok nods along patiently. Soup night is always popular.
“Junmyeonnie, join us,” Baekhyun warbles across the square dining table, “I’m gonna watch Minseok eat.”
Junmyeon has since changed into dry clothing and taken up full occupation of the chair. In his lap are three books in varying stages of decay: 1986, 1998, 2003. 12 Month Journal 2010 is held so close to his eyes they’re crossing. “Busy.”
Minseok smiles over his shoulder. “Too busy to vicariously enjoy soup?”
“Just so you know—” Baekhyun chooses the chair beside Minseok rather than opposite, slouching across the tablecloth so he’s closer to the action. “—Whatever he tells you I said or did when he’s finished looking through those, he’s always caught up on journaling like a week after events have happened. Unreliable.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Minseok lifts the first spoonful to his mouth and gently blows the steam in Baekhyun’s direction. He looks caught between excited and desolate, inhaling through his nose but not daring to even playfully snap at the particles in the air.
“Is it nice? You can lie. Say it’s nice.”
“It is, not lying. But..” Minseok rests an elbow on the table and a dainty pout on his palm. “I’d love some of those handcrafted bowls they’ve started selling in the village. Have you seen the tourism centre there is down there now? It’s to encourage city people to take breaks and put money into the rural economy, or something. Anyway,” he stirs and Baekhyun watches, “They’re selling these beautiful bowls, but they’re so expensive.”
Baekhyun nods. “Well, you know the deal. Just figure out who’s making them, or maybe who runs the place. Bound to have a husband or a relative with one.” For a moment longer he watches Minseok eating, but that means watching his throat bob as he swallows, and that leads his eyes to the healing punctures from earlier. A more familiar stab of hunger. “It’d rea~lly help if I mastered invisibility, though. I was so close this time! I just need enough power to do it, y’know?”
“Hey—” Junmyeon pipes up, “I’m about to disprove that you’re anywhere near close to mastering anything. And you already had a snack earlier. Minseok will get tired,” he points out dutifully. He would never be so impolite as to say it’s definitely his turn on their shared human.
Baekhyun sticks out his tongue. It’s long and deep red and Junmyeon makes an affronted sound from across the room. “I’m sure you won’t mind not being rewarded for stealing some gross berries or whatever then.”
“He really likes them, actually.” Junmyeon flares up, not in his tone but in the way his fangs have extended below his lower lip into needle points. “And I didn’t say I needed anything in return for a gift.”
Baekhyun stands, his chair rumbling back. He slams his hands on the table and it lifts his feet an inch from the floor. “Ah, you’re expecting it though aren’t you? That’s why you’re always trying to be helpful. I’ve known you far too long, Kim Junmyeon.”
”We’ve both known each other far too long,” Junmyeon hisses back, and that’s what prompts Baekhyun to launch across the room to him, making the wooden table wobble on its old legs.
Without Baekhyun’s keen eyes on him, Minseok contentedly works through his bowl of soup. It’s good for the two of them to get some energy out at home if they’ll be needing to do some work in the village for him. Then he slips out of the middle of their bickering to go and refill his bowl, stirring up the grains and serving himself double. He’ll need the strength for all those rewards.