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Jake was about halfway through the tray of cheese tteokbokki when Heeseung walked into their shared apartment.
“Hey,” Heeseung said as he shouldered off his backpack. Then he paused as he observed the huge dish of rice cakes. “Where did you get that?”
“It was just sitting outside our door,” Jake explained, taking another bite.
“WHAT?!?” Heeseung shrieked. He immediately ran to Jake and held out his hand. “OH MY GOD JAKE! YOU’RE EATING RANDOM ASS TTEOKBOKKI?? SPIT IT OUT RIGHT NOW!”
“Wha? No!” Jake cried as he attempted to hold the tray out of Heeseung’s reach. “It’s really good! You should try some.”
“Hell no! What if someone left that there in front of our door to poison us?? You can’t just eat food without knowing where it’s from!”
“No!” Jake yelled.
The two boys started lightly wrestling with each other, Jake still precariously holding the tray. Heeseung pressed his waiting hand against Jake’s mouth. “Spit it out! Spit it out! Spit it out!”
“Hrrm Mrrm Mmph!” Jake grunted in response.
The door to their apartment opened, and the two men quickly turned to see Niki stroll in. “Sup guys. Your door is unlocked by the way.” He stopped and surveyed the scene. Heeseung had Jake backed into the kitchen counter with his hand over Jake’s mouth. “Oh my god. Are you guys boning?”
Heeseung released Jake’s mouth to point his finger angrily at Niki. “We are NOT boning, and we are NEVER, EVER going to bone. Also, you’re too young to be saying that word!”
“What? Bone? Boning? Boner?”
Jake raised his hand despite the lack of a classroom setting. “Isn’t Niki 18? I’m pretty sure he’s allowed to say ‘bone.’”
“Don’t!” Heeseung let Jake go to focus on putting his face into his hands. “I think I’m getting a migraine.”
“Maybe you should drink some water,” Jake advised. He took another bite of the tteokbokki.
“I just got here. How are you already this stressed?” Niki asked Heeseung.
“Jake is eating potentially unethically sourced tteokbokki,” Heeseung groaned. “Apparently it was sitting outside of our apartment door.”
Niki glanced at the tray that Jake was still holding onto. “Oh dude…that’s like…no bueno.”
“But it’s so good!” Jake argued. “It’s almost as good as the lasagna I had a few days ago.”
“What lasagna?” Heeseung asked.
“There was a dish of lasagna just sitting in front of our door the other day,” Jake began.
“WHAT?!?” Heeseung shrieked, again.
“And one thing led to another…”
“You ate the entire lasagna, didn’t you.” Niki rolled his eyes. “Classic Jake hyung.”
“It was awesome. I swear my jaw unhinged like a snake and I just shlurped it all up.”
“Ew, don’t say ‘shlurp,’” Niki complained.
“Have there been any other random foods sitting in front of our door?” Heeseung was getting hysterical.
“Yeah before that there was mac n cheese. It was good. It had bread crumbs.” Jake chewed thoughtfully. “And before that, a buffalo chicken dip. And before that, shepherd’s pie. And before that…”
“I need to go lie down,” Heeseung said. “Wake me up if Jake starts going into septic shock.”
***
Jake fortunately did not go into septic shock. In fact, he was still up and about one week after the tteokbokki incident. Heeseung claimed that since Jake had eaten so many of the mysterious dishes he must have developed some sort of tolerance. Like people who took little doses of poison to become immune. Or something like that.
Jake was noisily slurping on broccoli and cheddar soup when Heeseung, Jungwon, and Sunoo walked into the apartment. Jake and Heeseung were technically the only residents of the apartment, but since it was conveniently located next to campus, their friends liked to hang out there between classes.
“Let me guess,” Heeseung said with a sigh. “That soup was just sitting in front of our door.”
Jake shot Heeseung some finger guns. “Bingo.”
Sunoo raised an eyebrow. “Did you order delivery?”
Heeseung heaved another sigh. “There’s some mysterious force that keeps leaving food in front of our door.”
Jungwon blinked in surprise. “Mysterious force? But it’s obviously a courting thing.”
Sunoo let out a dramatic gasp.
“A what?!?” Heeseung gaped.
Jungwon frowned. “It should have been very clear during the first offering.”
“Oh yeah,” Jake said. “I think the first dish was like enchiladas. It came with an envelope, but I didn’t open it.”
“And you didn’t bother to tell me this?!” Heeseung cried.
“You also didn’t bother to open the envelope and read what was inside?” Sunoo asked, aghast.
“It didn’t seem important at the time.” Jake shrugged.
“Hyung…” Jungwon said slowly, “I think it would be really beneficial for you to read that letter. I don’t know how many offerings you’ve eaten, but if you’ve had a few, it’s giving a clear sign to the other party that you’re ok with them courting you.”
Jake made a face. “I’m not gonna lie guys. I think I threw it away.”
“YOU THREW AWAY THE ENVELOPE?!” Heeseung stood next to a wall and began to lightly tap his head against the wall.
“Hyung, stop that, you’ll get another migraine,” Sunoo chastised.
“Now we’re never gonna know who – or what – the hell is courting Jake,” Heeseung groaned.
“Oh well that’s obvious.” Jungwon said.
“Is it?” Sunoo asked.
“Sorry, I mean it’s obvious what is courting Jake. I can’t really say who though.” Jungwon amended. “It’s definitely a vampire that’s courting Jake. I can kind of trace the smell on the pot.” He gestured towards Jake’s soup.
“Hold on,” Jake said, lowering his spoon. “Vampires are real?”
Heeseung leaned his forehead onto the wall. “Think happy thoughts, Heeseung. Go to your happy place.”
“Jake…” Sunoo’s faced was pinched up. “Jungwon is literally a werecat…I’m like 50% siren. It’s still unconfirmed but we’re all pretty sure Niki is like a tiny bit troll…”
“Yeah but I thought vampires were just in stories.”
“I feel like vampires are more believable than werecats,” Jungwon snorted. “Aren’t you friends with those other Australian hyungs? I’m pretty sure one of them is a vampire too.”
Jake tried to picture the faces of his two older friends from Australia. “Felix hyung or Chan hyung?”
“I think we should give up on him,” Sunoo commented. “He can’t even tell the difference between a fae and a vampire.”
“Well it’s definitely from a vampire I don’t recognize.” Jungwon squinted at the pot of soup. “I’d be able to tell if it’s anyone we’ve met before.”
“When did he even have time to meet and seduce a vampire into courting him?” Heeseung asked, voice slightly muffled. His entire face was pressed into the wall.
“Maybe someone on his soccer team? Someone from one of his stupid physics lectures?” Sunoo proposed.
Jake cleared his throat. “Actually, I just remembered.”
“I’m already scared of what he’s about to say,” Heeseung said.
“I did run into a strange situation like two months ago.”
***
Jake was cheerfully walking back from the pizzeria with a brown paper bag protecting his precious pepperoni calzone. It was 10 PM and very dark out, but he didn’t mind. Heeseung had lectured him before on being outside late at night, but their neighborhood was literally a college town. It was a safe area.
“I’m gonna kill you!”
Ok, Jake was going to need to reconsider that statement.
“Wow, this is so not cool,” came a different voice.
Jake followed the voices towards an alley. There, he saw an older man pinning a younger man to the wall. The perpetrator held what looked like a sharp wooden stick.
“Heathens from hell! How dare you walk this Earth among humans!” the older man snarled. “I know you think you’re so clever. Slinking around in the dark in search of your next prey!”
“I was literally going to the convenience store for a fruit rollup!” the younger man snapped indignantly.
“Lies! You can’t even eat those!”
“Yeah I know! But I was gonna get one of those tattoo tongue rollups. Where you press it onto your tongue and it leaves a picture.”
An awkward silence took over the alley. The perpetrator almost looked embarrassed for his victim.
“Uh, hey guys,” Jake said.
The two of them turned their heads.
“What do you want?” the older man growled.
“I think you should let that guy go. He sounds like he really wants that fruit rollup,” Jake squeaked. He did not like how sharp that wooden stick looked.
“It’s none of your business. Scram!”
Jake proceeded to do something incredibly stupid. Although, to be fair, doing stupid things was kind of his standard practice. “Actually,” he held up his brown paper bag, “I have a butcher knife in here.”
The younger man’s eyes widened. The older man sputtered.
“You’re bluffing,” the perpetrator said, but his nervous expression gave him away.
“I’m really not. Also I get totally triggered by wooden sticks.” He gestured towards the man’s weapon. “They remind me of when Sleeping Beauty got pricked by that wooden stick and fell asleep and it totally fucked me up as a kid. So I’m feeling super emotional right now and I might just have to bust out my big knife on you.”
The younger man chuckled. “Ha. Your big knife.”
Jake couldn’t help feeling that now was not the time to be making dick jokes.
The older man backed away from the younger man. Somehow, Jake’s threat seemed to be working. “T-This is a tactical retreat!” the perpetrator yelled before hightailing it out of the alley.
The younger man dusted himself off. For someone who had just been held against his will with a threatening stick looming over his head, he seemed rather calm. “Do you seriously have a butcher knife in there?”
“Nah, just my calzone.”
The young man burst into laughter. “No way! You looked dead serious.”
Jake sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. “Just…trying to help out.”
The other man smiled. There was something oddly pointy about the smile, but maybe Jake was on the topic of pointy things after seeing that weird guy’s wooden stick. Seriously, what kind of weapon was that?
“I really appreciate your help. Not everyone is willing to go into a dark alley and help a guy out.”
“Ok, I’m gonna stop you right there. I do not like the way you said that,” Jake said.
The other man winked at him, but it came out as more of an eye spasm. “My name is Sunghoon. What’s yours?”
“I’m Jake.”
“Ok, Jakey. Can I walk you home?”
“Shouldn’t it be the other way around? You’re the one who was being held at…stick-point?”
Sunghoon laughed again. “You’re cute.”
Jake could feel his face heat up. Who could blame him? It’s not everyday that a hot stranger calls you cute in a shady alleyway after you threatened to knife a weird old guy. Yeah. Nevermind. Just another Tuesday for Jake.
“Um, anyways, I think I can get home just fine. And I thought you were on your way to getting a fruit rollup.”
Sunghoon shrugged. “I lost my appetite.” His eyes sparkled with mirth, as if he had just said a particularly funny joke. “Don’t sweat it. I’ll walk you home Jakey. We wouldn’t want anyone…or anything …creeping up on you, right?”
Jake found Sunghoon’s tone a bit odd. But whatever. If the hot man wanted to walk him home, who was he to say no?
They walked alongside each other as Jake swung his paper bag back and forth.
“Do you like calzones?” Sunghoon asked.
“I love calzones,” Jake replied passionately. “They’re ten times better than pizza. Pizza drips cheese and grease everywhere. But calzones have it all contained inside, and their pockets allow for a higher cheese to bread ratio.”
“You’ve thought a lot about this.”
“I’m always thinking about calzones.”
They walked past a bar, and Jake could hear the loud music and raucous laughter coming from inside. Suddenly, a graceful young man sidled up next to Jake. “Hey there–” But the man seemed to stop mid sentence.
“Um, hello?” Jake responded, slightly perplexed. Was this guy trying to hit on him? He was doing a shit job of it.
“I’m so sorry. Please have a lovely day.” The man quickly ran away from Jake, tripped, fell, got up again, ran more, tripped, and fell again. The process continued until the man was out of his line of sight.
“Oh my god. He didn’t even seem that drunk,” Jake marveled. When he faced Sunghoon to speak more, he faltered. There was something strange about Sunghoon’s face. Well aside from it being way too attractive. Was that a line? Focus, Jake. Sunghoon’s eyes were tinged with red. Or maybe it was just the bright lights of all the buildings. “Hey, everything good?”
Sunghoon grinned. Once again, very pointy looking. “All good. Tell me more about your love for calzones.”
***
Heeseung slapped himself in the face.
“Hyung, your migraines,” Sunoo warned.
“Ok. So we all agree this Sunghoon guy is the vampire courting Jake hyung, right?” Jungwon sighed.
“How do you know he’s a vampire?” Jake asked.
“Hyung, please. You literally stepped in when a vampire hunter was trying to attack him.” Jungwon grabbed one of Heeseung’s hands. “Sunoo hyung, can you help me grab Heeseung hyung’s other hand so that he can stop inflicting pain on his head?”
Sunoo held onto Heeseung’s other hand, successfully trapping the older man from further head injury. “Not like a wooden stake actually works. It would be like stabbing a vampire with any other vaguely sharp object,” Sunoo noted.
“Isn’t it bad to be stabbed by anything?” Jake frowned.
“Yeah, but vampires have regenerative abilities. He would have just healed himself in like a millisecond,” Sunoo scoffed. “Vampire hunters are so outdated.”
“So at least we know his name,” Jungwon hummed. “Hmmm…actually…hyung, how many dishes have you gotten so far?”
Jake slowly counted on his fingers. “This soup is the 7th dish.”
“Oh shit,” Heeseung said.
“What? What’s wrong?” Jake did not like the look that had crossed Heeseung’s face.
“Listen, man. I don’t know a lot about vampires. But I heard that when they’re courting, after the 7th offering, they basically kidnap you,” Heeseung said. He let out another pained groan. “My migraine is getting worse.”
Jake did not like the sound of that.
“Woah, let’s not panic here,” Jungwon interceded. “That was probably the case in the middle ages. But this is the 21st century. I’m pretty sure at most he would just ask you out on a date. I think. Hopefully.”
“Oh. Ok.” Jake could do a date. Then he thought about Sunghoon’s inhumanly beautiful face. “Actually guys, my tummy feels really gurgly.”
“Who says the word ‘tummy’?” Sunoo asked.
“He was like, really hot. Thinking about going on a date with him is giving me a tummy ache.”
Sunoo rolled his eyes so hard Jake swore they’d fall out. “You’re impossible. It’s fine, Jake. If you’re not up for the date you can just reject him when the time comes.”
“Are we sure it’s just a date?” Heeseung asked. “I feel like I heard this story about vampire courting and the kidnapping thing pretty recently.”
Jungwon bit his lip. “Well, it’s possible that different vampires interpret courting practices in different ways….”
“Haha. There’s no way though, right guys? Sunghoon seemed like a chill guy. He wouldn’t kidnap me.” Jake laughed nervously.
His three friends looked at him with concern.
“Right guys?”
***
Jake did not want to get kidnapped. It wasn’t a favorite activity of his, which meant that he needed to take matters into his own hands. First order of business, he online stalked Sunghoon. Thankfully, it was rather easy. Sunghoon was apparently on their college ice skating team (Jake didn’t even know they had that), and his social media account was public. From there, Jake found that they had a mutual friend through…Niki?!
Jake quickly called the younger boy.
“What’s crack-a-lackin’ dude?”
“You know Sunghoon?!” Jake cried.
“Uh yeah. We’re in the same club together.”
“What club?” Jake could not for the life of him imagine Niki and Sunghoon having similar interests. Unless Sunghoon also enjoyed annoying the shit out of other people, but Jake was confident that they don’t make clubs for that.
“Vampire Club?”
“Why the hell are you in Vampire Club?”
“Because I’m a vampire?”
“You’re a what?!” Jake hadn’t even known that vampires existed until two days ago. How did he not know that one of his best friends was a vampire? “Aren’t you like part troll?”
Niki snorted. “Trolls aren’t real.”
How was he supposed to know that? “How was I supposed to know that?”
“It’s chill. I never really go around talking about it. I wasn’t born as a vampire. Got turned when I was in high school, and it was kind of a lot.”
“Oh, Niki…” Jake felt a pang in his heart for his young friend. He couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to be turned. Hell, Jake barely knew anything about vampires in the first place.
“Nah don’t worry about it, man. Anyways, back to your thing. Are you asking me about Sunghoon hyung because he’s courting you?”
“...how did you figure that out?”
“I could tell when you were eating that tteokbokki last week. It reeked of him.”
“I don’t want to sound insensitive. But can all you supernatural creatures smell each other on stuff?”
“Yuh.”
“Also, why didn’t you tell me and Heeseung that I was being courted?”
“Because watching Heeseung get migraines is funny.”
That checked out. Classic Niki. “Ok, well now that I have this life-altering information that you’re a vampire. Can you confirm with me about this uh…kidnapping thing that may or may not happen in vampire courting?”
“Oh yeah, it’s 100% true.”
“Fuck!”
***
When Jake was set on a goal, he always saw it through. As a result, he found himself in the middle of a rager. Not just any rager. The super special annual Vampire Club Halloween party. Niki had gotten him in as a plus one. But Jake wasn’t here to party; he was here to find one particular vampire and beg said vampire to not kidnap him. Unfortunately, it was hard to spot Sunghoon in a sea of extremely attractive pale people with sharp teeth. Go figure. Searching for Sunghoon would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
“Dude you look like you’re gonna throw up and you haven’t even had any alc,” Niki said.
“I’m not here for alcohol. I need to convince Sunghoon to not kidnap me.”
“Good luck trying. You probably won’t even be able to find him.”
Jake balked. “You mean he’s not here?”
“No he’s definitely here. But the rule goes that the vampire is not allowed to see the person they’re courting until the kidnapping. He’s probably hiding from you.”
“He knows I’m here?”
Niki tapped his nose. “Stronger senses, remember?”
Jake groaned. “I just really don’t want to be kidnapped. What if I’m in the middle of taking a midterm?”
“Is that seriously the only reason why you’re worried?”
Jake let out a long sigh. Well, no time like the present to begin the search. He began to weave his way through people looking over everyone’s faces. He even went to the second floor that was big enough to have another living room area. How the hell did the Vampire Club get such a big house for a party?
“Hey Sunghoon, where are you going?!” someone called out.
Jake perked up. The voice sounded nearby. He moved towards a corner of the living area to see a window that was half open. A concerned looking man was hovering near it.
“Sunghoon, please don’t do this,” the man urged. “Somehow, this isn’t the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever done, but your measly social capital is about to suffer.”
As Jake got closer, he realized that there were a pair of hands peeking out from the open window. Was that…Sunghoon? And was he…hanging from the window ledge?
“Uhhhh, hey,” Jake said.
To his horror he watched the hands disappear from view, and the man who had been talking to Sunghoon let out a yelp.
“Oh shit!” Jake yelled. He stuck his head out of the window to see a figure lying on the grass. The figure quickly stood up and broke into a sprint, disappearing into the night.
“Well, there he goes,” the man next to Jake spoke up. He held out a hand. “Hi, I’m Jay.”
Jake shook his hand. “Jake.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Oh.”
“You’re kind of the reason why Sunghoon jumped out of a window.”
“Oh. Fuck.”
“Yeah.”
“So…are you a vampire too?”
“Nah I’m all human. But Sunghoon’s my best friend.”
Jake took in a deep breath, then exhaled. “Um, do you think you could ask Sunghoon to like…not kidnap me?”
“Kidnap you?”
“Yeah, you know, the courting…thing.”
Jay chuckled. “Oh, that’s funny.”
Jake pressed his lips into a thin line.
“Oh my god. You’re not joking.”
“Um, I’m definitely not?”
“HAHAHAHAHA!” Jay broke into real, genuine laughter, his entire body shaking as he tried to gasp in air.
“Can you please stop laughing at me?” Jake whined.
Jay pat Jake on the back. “Sorry bud, I can’t help you with that. But if it makes you feel any better, I wouldn’t call it a kidnapping. Maybe, more like, a very low stakes kidnapping.”
“You still used the word ‘kidnapping.’”
Jake was so fucked.
***
“AAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!” Jake screamed. It was an appropriate reaction. He had been snug as a bug in bed, set up with a nice 1 hour youtube video essay when a dark figure slid through his window. The worst part was that Heeseung was out at the library studying late. By the time he was home, Jake would likely already have perished.
“Hey Jakey!” the dark figure said brightly.
“Wuh?” Jake asked. Great, his attacker knew him, which upgraded the charge to first degree murder.
The dark figure turned on a lamp. “It’s me, Sunghoon!”
It really was. The beautiful man’s face was illuminated by the soft lamplight, and for a moment, Jake was mesmerized by how ethereal he looked. Then, Jake remembered that this gorgeous man was standing in his bedroom. His private, personal bedroom. “Please tell me how you got in here.”
“I climbed through your window.” Sunghoon quirked up a perfect eyebrow, as if the answer was obvious. Which, yeah, now that Jake was thinking about it, the answer really was obvious.
“Oh my god, is this the kidnapping thing?”
“Kidnapping thing? Oh! You’re talking about the old courting practice.” Sunghoon waved a dismissive hand. “No way, that’s so outdated. Nowadays, we vampires are much more respectful than that.” Sunghoon flashed a grin that was now 100% confirmed to be pointy. Maybe Jake should have realized that those canines were sharper than a regular human’s.
“Respectful…how?”
“Because now, we just break into our beloved’s homes and ask them out on dates!” Sunghoon continued cheerfully.
Yeah. Jay was right. This was a very low stakes kidnapping.
“And on that note, I’d like to take you on a date!”
“To…where?”
“There’s a nice Mexican place a few blocks from here. They have these burritos that get fried in cheese.”
“You seem to have an obsession with cheese.”
“That’s because I knew you like calzones, so I figured you like cheese! It’s why I’ve been giving you dishes with a lot of cheese.”
“So what happens if I say no to the date?”
Sunghoon’s smile dropped. “Do you want to find out?”
“Not really, no. Let’s go on this date then.”
***
“You didn’t read my letter?!” Sunghoon looked devastated. Jake almost felt bad.
“In my defense, I thought it was junk mail.”
“I taped it to the enchilada dish!”
“I get a lot of junk mail.”
Sunghoon pouted. “So then this whole time you didn’t know I was courting you?”
“My friends were able to sort of figure things out by the time I had the broccoli and cheddar soup.” Jake took a contemplative bite of the cheesy burrito. Wow, it really was good.
“I spent a week writing the poem that was on the letter,” Sunghoon said.
“Oof.” Jake made a face. “Maybe it’s a good thing that I didn’t read it.”
Sunghoon wilted. “You’re probably right.”
Jake tilted his head to the side. “Actually, I have a question. Why did you decide to start courting me in the first place?”
Sunghoon chuckled and looked to the side. He seemed bashful. “Um, it’s kind of. It sounds kind of stupid.”
Jake shook his head. “Don’t sweat it, man. I won’t judge.” Which was a total lie. Jake was definitely going to judge.
“It’s like…most people who talk to me, only ever talk to me about ice skating or being a vampire. They’re kind of the only two things I’m known for. Except for my best friend Jay. He talks about normal stuff with me. But that’s because we’ve known each other since we were little kids. You’re kind of the first person to just talk to me about normal stuff, and it was really nice.”
“...I spent half an hour talking to you about calzones.”
“And it was really sweet! I liked how excited you were about the topic.” Sunghoon cleared his throat. “I also…the moment I first saw you, I thought that you were really really cute.”
“Weren’t you being threatened? By some guy? In a dark alley?” Jake’s face was turning tomato red.
Sunghoon shrugged. “He wasn’t much of a threat. Just some weirdo vampire hunter with a wooden stake. I have to deal with that at least once a week.”
Jake nearly dropped his burrito. “You what?! You have people trying to stab you with wooden stakes every week?”
“Yeah, it’s pretty normal.”
“I have another question.”
“Ok!”
“Why aren’t you eating anything?” Jake pointed to Sunghoon’s side of the table, which was completely empty.
“I can’t eat human food.” Sunghoon pointed to himself. “Vampire. Remember?”
“So you can only have blood?”
“We get blood bags from a government program.”
Jake paused. “So that means…that every time you made me a cheese dish…you never actually tasted it?”
Sunghoon shook his head. “I would ask Jay to taste test them.”
Holy shit. Sunghoon was literally the world’s perfect man. Aside from the breaking and entering stuff.
***
Jake began to learn things about Sunghoon.
- Sunghoon really liked garlic. Jake did not expect that.
- Sunghoon also found Niki annoying (but then again who didn’t).
- Sunghoon was fond of photography, but he insisted he was only an amateur. Even so, Jake admired some of the pictures that the vampire was willing to share with him. They were always shots of people together looking happy. It made Jake feel warm. Deep inside, he had a feeling that Sunghoon was a very warm person.
- Sunghoon treated windows like doors. He kept breaking into Jake’s bedroom to take him on “kidnapping” dates for the courting thing. At first, Jake had been rightfully disturbed by the ease of Sunghoon’s breaking in. But as time went on, Jake came to enjoy the experience. Sunghoon seemed to take him on a cheese tour of the city. One day it would be cheesy Italian pasta. Another day, it would be a cheese fondue place. Thank god Jake wasn’t lactose intolerant.
- No matter how much he rambled about calzones, or soccer, or physics, or anything he could possibly think of, Sunghoon always listened intently. Of course, Jake’s friends were always open to his ramblings, but there was something different about Sunghoon. Sunghoon remembered everything he said and came up with thoughtful responses. It was like Sunghoon kept a compartment in his brain of just Jake facts.
- Sunghoon was kind of weird, but then again, so was Jake.
Jake was also beginning to learn things about himself.
- He was starting to get sick of cheese.
- He might have developed a crush on Sunghoon.
***
So, in case anyone was wondering, Jake ended up rejecting Sunghoon’s courting offer to be “mates.” Because after Niki translated that to normal human speak – “mates” being the human equivalent to marriage – Jake decided that he was a bit too young to be married. Even so, Jake had agreed to continue hanging out with Sunghoon. Just because they weren’t getting married didn’t mean they had to stop seeing each other. And Sunghoon had mentioned before that he liked talking about “normal stuff” with Jake. Sure. Jake could be normal.
“Hi Jakey, I like your sweater. It’s very cute.”
Like right now, Jake and Sunghoon were walking together to class. They both had lectures in the same science building.
“Wuh huh?” Jake asked intelligently. He was doing a very fine job of acting completely normal and cool about Sunghoon complimenting him.
“And your hair is so fluffy. You’re like a little puppy.” Sunghoon ran his hand through Jake’s hair.
“Bwuh?” Jake replied.
“Dear God, please put me out of my misery,” Jay said. Because he was there too. Although he was trailing about 3 feet behind Sunghoon and Jake.
“My hand is cold, Jakey,” Sunghoon said. He grabbed Jake’s hand and squeezed lightly. “Your hands are really nice.”
“Guh guh?”
“That’s it. I’m going ahead. I don’t want to be here.” Jay speed walked past the two of them. “I’ll see you in class, Hoon.”
As soon as Jay disappeared to the other side of the quad, a voice rang out from behind Jake and Sunghoon. “I’M BACK!!!”
They turned around and were met with a man. He had a wooden cross taped to his shirt, and he was holding the biggest wooden stake Jake had ever seen.
Jake squinted. “Oh my god…is that the weird dude from before?!” Indeed, it appeared to be the vampire hunter who had been present during Jake and Sunghoon’s fateful first meeting.
“I told you suckers that I was making a tactical retreat last time. Well guess what? I regrouped. I recuperated. And now I’m ready. You’re going down! Mwahahahahahaha!” The man laughed maniacally.
In the blink of an eye, the vampire hunter raised his large wooden stake and charged towards Sunghoon. Jake couldn’t react fast enough, and before he knew it, the man had stabbed Sunghoon clean through the chest.
“Perish, you creature of the night!”
Sunghoon fell to the ground with a sickening thud.
“Oh fuck!!!” Jake screamed. He bent down trying to touch the stake, and then Sunghoon’s chest. “Sunghoon?! Sunghoon? Oh my god!”
He stood up and faced the vampire hunter. “You piece of shit! You just stabbed my boyfriend!!” Jake pulled his shoe off of his right foot and began hitting the man with his shoe. “This one’s for trying to stab him that first time!” THWACK!
“Ow!”
The vampire hunter tried to run and dodge Jake’s hits, but Jake kept chasing him.
“This one’s for stabbing him just now!” THWACK!
“Shit man that hurts!”
“This one’s for being obsessed with wooden stakes! That can’t be good for the environment! You deforestation freak!” THWACK!
“Hey now!”
‘This one’s for being ugly!” THWACK!
“That’s mean! I can’t control how I look!”
“This one’s for having no self confidence to stand up for yourself! You shouldn’t let random strangers call you ugly!” THWACK!
“That’s not fair!”
Soon, the two of them ran out of steam, and they were both bent forward trying to catch their breaths. During the entire ordeal, Sunghoon had already pulled the stake out of his chest and was sitting on the ground watching the two of them bicker.
“You called me your boyfriend,” Sunghoon said with a dopey grin.
“Yeah, well, you feed me enough cheese, and somewhere along the way I have to fall a little in love.” Jake shrugged, but his face was burning. “No big deal.”
“You’re alive?!” the vampire hunter cried.
Sunghoon looked down at himself then back up. “I mean, yeah. Obviously.”
Jake pointed his shoe at the vampire hunter. “No more attempts on his life, mister. Or else the next time you try, I’ll have my butcher knife ready. Or something even worse.”
“Even worse?” the vampire hunter asked.
“A really mean 18 year old who can sniff out your insecurities like a truffle pig.”
The vampire hunter immediately ran away screaming. Jake wound his arm back and threw the shoe, hitting the vampire hunter right on the head. He fell to the ground, knocked out cold.
“Should we leave him there?” Sunghoon asked.
“Definitely.”
Sunghoon stood up and leaned forwards to plant a soft kiss to Jake’s cheek. “My hero.”
“Shut up.”
“We should get married.”
“The answer is still surprisingly no.”
“Do you want me to make you a baked ziti after class?”
“Actually.” Jake smiled. “Have you ever tried baking sweets?”