Chapter Text
To a vampire, what’s love if not a cage that uses devotion as a trap–and then closes the gates?
Those that are claimed in that love can never walk away again.
– Crimson confessions, Vol II
♱
“They tell you that’s how it begins, love designed to feel like you are being kissed by the brightest carmine.
They tell you it all exists bound by the promise of eternity.
Is it love? You ask, hoping the devotion doesn’t reveal itself later as nothing but a pretty mask.
It is love, you hear them say, then you take their hand, their fangs on your skin leave a claim.
When you wake, the elation blurs your thoughts, you don’t know if your steps led you into forever, or you gave your heart away willingly–knowing fully more than it would be caught.
You wonder if that crimson downpour was just the permission you gave to be bound to a cage.
I love him, you say–and the blood that travels down your neck sings to them and seals your fate.”
The last word that echoes against the walls is the one that shouldn’t taste like a threat. Fate, that’s the one word that people write love epics about–but today, it feels like each word has been delivered tinted with scarlet. Vowels that can make you bleed, letters that were shaped with blood itself.
It’s meant to be just pretty fiction. Pretty words. Pretty vows made out of a condition called love–so they say. If that can be called love.
“Feels like a warning rather than romance,” someone says, the comment originating from the back of the classroom, a little bit of teasing, a lot of mockery all nicely packaged in one little remark.
There is some truth to it though, at least that’s what Jungwon thinks briefly. Today, Professor Choi read the words with the gravity of someone warning you.
All that’s scarlet is not love, all that’s crimson is not romance abound. Red is a sentence, a mirage, a knife to the heart, a rose telling vowing you are the one while the thorns stab you in the back.
Jungwon shakes his head, getting rid of the words from some ‘vampire hunter chronicles’ he read years ago–fiction or reality? He doesn’t really know. So his only focus becomes the red on the whiteboard, the laser pointer that his professor uses to circle the word cage.
The highlight is evident, his professor’s position too.
Unless he’s got into a very specific ‘be wary of toxic relationships’ type of persona today after his recent break up with Professor Hou from the arts department.
Professor Choi clears his throat, zooms in, the projection on the screen showing the letters bigger now, so much the screen fills with nothing but that.
Cage. Cage. Cage. Until there’s no space for nothing and even the word is constrained.
“This specific passage that we saw still remains one of the most influential portrayals of vampiric affection,” Professor Choi begins, pacing in front of the whiteboard, “It shows us how relationships are handled from their side, their feelings show us a case of volatile emotions.”
“But they are romantic!” Someone says, a girl that just recently changed electives and made it to Jungwon’s class says.
“Obsessive, binding and irreversible.”
“That’s so romantic though.”
Jungwon doesn’t add much to the discussion, not right now even if he already knows the pattern of how his supernatural literature lectures go: study the provided books, research others, make mention of your thoughts if you’ve read the books only.
All the books for this specific semester surround texts that focus on vampire romance. Jungwon only chose it after learning the programme.
Logic tells him that someone like him shouldn’t be here, not really. Not when his thoughts operate on logic most of the time–but something about this specific topic has always made his rational side disappear.
A light switch almost. From ‘this makes no logical sense in the real world’ Yang Jungwon to… ‘the only supernatural thing that makes sense in the world may be vampires.’ Yang Jungwon.
Those are two truths that co-exist inside Jungwon.
The majority of students in this elective treat this like a book club because of their interest in paranormal romance or in the occult–for Jungwon, this interest extends beyond that.
It’s not that he is there to debunk the myths and tales that make the majority of books he’s read–it’s not even that he likes reading that much. But there is more than just the stories guiding his interest, more than anonymous accounts that logic says could border on delusion, more than internal romantic hoping for eternal love. Jungwon says he is only amplifying his research, his best friend Sunoo says this literature club is only feeding ‘his childhood hyperfixation’.
Jungwon can’t say he doesn’t have the liberty to explore any interest that surges, he has the resources for that. The type of parents that are understanding enough to give him the necessary permissions.
But everyone in this elective gets looked at weird. Judged a little–but the reasons differ.
“Honestly though, Professor Choi,” someone says under their breath, a girl, “It’s actually romantic as hell... I agree with Lim.”
Jungwon hears the murmurs from behind: they must love dark romance. All those books are just fantasies. People love the fantasy but imagine if it really happened to them.
The girl’s seatmate backs up her friend, “Actually! If a vampire ever fell in love with me? I’d be a goner and I’d allow that.”
Jungwon knows what comes after a comment like that–a claim of that sort always brings in judgment no matter how unreal the scenario sounds like.
On cue, the snickers ripple–an attempt to drown the romance and make it fall to the very depths.
Profesor Choi finds no amusement in it, Jungwon can tell, the frown on his face, the way he turns around, zooms out on the screen and changes the slide.
“Can you elaborate on how it can be remotely romantic?”
A brief silence befalls the class, the invitation to make this a debate seems clear.
“Being claimed like an object, how is that romantic, Hwang?”
“If the vampire is handsome,” she sighs, a little dreamily, like she is remembering a fantasy that has lived in her soul–Jungwon tries not to think too much about the tone,“then who would say no? I think it would be akin to love at first sight.”
It takes that comment, and laughter takes over the class–there is a guy that Jungwon regards as a sunbae, Kang Taehyun if he remembers right, “I guess what you want is a hot boyfriend who happens to be immortal?”
The girl responds with a shrug, “And? He'd be hot forever.”
She is rewarded with more laughter, after all, Jungwon notices that this is being treated exactly as it is: an elective class that focuses on paranormal romance as a theme, whether it’s fiction or things named as recollections and memoirs–all is still treated as fiction.
Tone lighthearted, words brushed with longing for the magic.
Jungwon wishes he could see it like that too. But he’s never been able to file this as a mere fantasy.
And that knowledge makes something tug at his chest. Like a hidden thread was wrapping around his heart and telling he that he is wrong for even approaching books like that.
Like they are real and he should be apprehensive about them. About what it’s portrayed as love.
“Does someone who actually did the reading and doesn’t have a romantic fantasy want to say anything?”
No answer. The professor sighs in defeat.
“Yang Jungwon?”
Jungwon freezes upon hearing his name, not because he doesn’t want to voice his own thoughts–or what his rationality tells him he should voice–but because it makes all the eyes in the room look at him in unison.
Not at Yang Jungwon, classmate, fellow student in this elective.
But at Yang Jungwon from Yang Corporation. All eyes on the heir to one of the most influential families in the country. All eyes looking at him with wonder because how can an heir to such an important family be taking part of his time into something as ‘surface level’ as this.
Jungwon gulps, sits straighter. His sight set on the projector in front of him, he only picks the faint humming sound from it.
‘Cage. Devotion. Trap’ the words stare back at him, like an alarm sign made of love melted into a twisted carnelian neon sign.
He closes his own copy of Crimson Confessions, vol II. There is a blue post-it that that peeks through the edges, Jungwon fidgets with the borders briefly.
An inhale, he clears his throat soon after, “It’s possession,” he says, calmly, with finality wrapping around the statement on the outside, some truth holding those words on the inside, “I don’t think that’s love, not even close.”
The way he says this as total truth makes a couple of students groan.
It figures, they see the romantic side of it. They don’t know romance can be stripped from something like this in the blink of an eye.
“You’re so bleak, Yang Jungwon.”
“You just don’t believe in love!”
Jungwon tries not to let that get to his head–they really don’t know his view on feelings. But sometimes, Jungwon feels like he doesn’t know them 100% either. What does forever mean if you are not even sure if forever means the same as it does to you? If someone even wants forever to begin with?
And if forever is tainted, shackled, then what type of forever is that?
A part of Jungwon tells him: love feels ephemeral. That’s his logical side talking, the one that shaped him like this, not the hopeful one.
“Vampires connect in a different ways than human, based on instinct,” he starts, his index finger tapping on his book lightly, in a rhytmn, “That is, if they existed. But they would claim someone based on an instinctual pull–they would take over someone because of control.”
A guy two rows back leans forward, clearly entertained by Jungwon’s explanation, “But what if it’s fate? You know—immortal soulmates and all that?”
“Wouldn’t granting immortality mean that they had to take someone’s humanity for that?”
Professor Choi nods, the exchange between Jungwon and the other student seemingly pleasing the debate expectations he had.
Jungwon hears his professor’s words addressed to him now, “So Yang Jungwon–you view vampiric affection as fundamentally dangerous?”
Jungwon’s hands grip his desk. The adjective sinking hard into his cells–dangerous. A risk. Something vicious. Unforeseen.
Blink and the alarms blare. And the room turns into scarlet.
Jungwon’s hearts skip, once.
The type of skip that tries to warn you, the one that arrives when dread wants to settle in your veins.
He bites his bottom lip.
Dangerous.
It sounds too personal. Wrong and right.
He doesn’t want to unpack it, not now. He prefers to put the thoughts on the back burner–they will come back alive when he is on his own anyway.
Yeah, that’s right. Crimson is never safe. Not at night. Not even in daylight.
“Falling in love with something like that?” Jungwon raises his eyebrow, “Probably only if you want to die.”