Chapter Text
Snow crunched beneath Sunghoon’s boots as he moved soundlessly through the forest.
The woods were still half asleep beneath the pale light of dawn. Frost clung to the pine branches overhead, glittering silver whenever weak sunlight slipped through the canopy. Somewhere in the distance, a river cracked beneath shifting ice.
Sunghoon heard all of it. Every creak of bark. Every rustle of feathers. Every heartbeat.
He paused beside a snow-covered bush, tilting his head slightly. A rabbit was hiding several yards away beneath a fallen log, trembling softly. Its heart fluttered so quickly that Sunghoon could practically feel it against his own ribs.
His stomach twisted painfully. He hadn’t eaten since yesterday. For a moment, something sharp and hungry stirred beneath his skin. Then he forced it down.
“I’m not that desperate,” he muttered quietly.
The rabbit bolted suddenly, disappeared deeper into the woods before he could reconsider.
Sunghoon exhaled through his nose, white fog curling into the frozen air.
Lately, everything felt harder to control. His hearing was too sharp. His senses were too strong. Even the smell of blood from a scraped knee could make something ugly wake inside him. His mother said it was because he was getting older and stronger. More dangerous.
The thought sat heavily in his chest as he continued through the forest.
He carried a woven basket against his hip, already filled with herbs and roots buried beneath the snow. Most people would have missed them entirely beneath the frost, but Sunghoon had spent his entire life in these woods. He knew every hidden path, every stream, every patch of healing plants that survived winter.
He needed more. His mother’s fever had gotten worse overnight. The memory of her coughing made his chest tighten.
He quickened his pace.
The deeper he wandered into the forest, the quieter the world became. Thick pines blocked out the wind, wrapping the woods in eerie silence. But silence never truly existed for Sunghoon. Not with ears like his.
He could hear distant wolves somewhere far to the west. They were too far to threaten them, but still, instinctively, his shoulders tensed.
His mother hated wolves almost as much as she hated vampires. Sunghoon had never understood why.
“You never trust anybody,” he’d complained once as a child.
Her expression had gone strangely hollow at that. “That’s how we stay alive,” she had said.
At the time, he hadn’t understood what she meant.
Now, at eighteen, he understood a little more.
Not enough, never enough. His mother kept secrets the way the forest kept shadows, deeply buried and impossible to reach.
Sunghoon stopped beside a cluster of thorny bushes poking through the snow.
Moonroot.
Relief loosened his shoulders immediately. Carefully, he crouched and brushed snow away from the pale blue leaves hidden underneath. Moonroot was rare during winter. If he brewed enough of it into tea--
A violent coughing fit echoed in his memory. Blood on his mother’s lips.
His hands tightened around the plant.
No.
He couldn’t think like that. She would survive. She had to.
She was all he had.
Sunghoon gently placed the herbs into his basket before standing again. As he straightened, a strange feeling crawled down the back of his neck.
He froze.
Someone was nearby.
The realization hit instantly, violently, every instinct inside him sharpening all at once.
His heartbeat slowed. The forest suddenly felt too still.
Sunghoon turned slowly, golden eyes narrowing as he scanned the trees.
Nothing.
But he knew. Someone was watching him. He could feel it.
A faint scent lingered in the cold air, something unfamiliar. Sweet, metallic, dangerous.
Blood.
No, not blood. Something colder.
His pulse jumped.
Vampire.
Sunghoon stumbled back a step automatically. His mother’s voice echoed in his mind immediately.
Never trust them. Run if you smell blood and winter together.
Fear tightened around his ribs, but anger quickly followed behind it. He wasn’t a child anymore. He could defend himself.
“Come out,” he called sharply.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then a figure stepped from behind the trees.
A boy about Sunghoon’s age. At least, he looked like it. Tall and pale beneath a long black coat, dark hair falling softly across his forehead. Snowflakes drifted through the air between them, catching against his clothes without melting.
His eyes were a striking, deep crimson.
Sunghoon’s body reacted before his mind could. He lunged backward, lips peeling away from his teeth in an instinctive snarl.
The stranger blinked in surprise.
“Woah,” he said quickly, raising his hands. “Easy.”
His voice was soft, calm, not threatening. Which somehow made Sunghoon even more suspicious.
“You’re a vampire,” Sunghoon snapped.
The boy glanced at himself dramatically before looking back up. “What gave it away?”
Sunghoon stared at him.
The vampire smiled slightly and for some reason, that irritated Sunghoon even more.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Sunghoon said.
“Probably not.”
“Then leave.”
Instead of leaving, the vampire tilted his head curiously. “You live out here?”
Sunghoon said nothing. The stranger’s gaze drifted briefly toward the basket in Sunghoon’s hand. “Those herbs are hard to find this time of year,” he said.
Sunghoon’s grip tightened. “How do you know about moonroot?”
“My family uses it too.”
Family.
The word sat strangely in Sunghoon’s chest. He had never met anyone outside his mother before. Never spoken to someone his own age. Never looked into unfamiliar eyes and wondered what kind of life existed behind them.
The realization unsettled him.
The vampire took a step closer and Sunghoon immediately bared his teeth.
The boy stopped. “Okay,” he said slowly. “Definitely not helping. What’s your name?”
“Why are you here?”
The vampire hesitated briefly before answering. “I got lost.”
“That’s a lie.”
A quiet laugh escaped him then, warm enough to startle Sunghoon. “You’re right,” he admitted.
Something about his honesty threw Sunghoon off balance more than another lie would have.
The vampire looked around at the forest. “I’ve never seen this part of the woods before.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“Maybe.” His crimson eyes returned to Sunghoon. “But I’m glad I did.”
Heat crept unexpectedly up Sunghoon’s neck. Annoyed by his own reaction, he turned away quickly and knelt beside another patch of herbs just to avoid looking at him.
The vampire lingered nearby. Sunghoon could hear his heartbeat.
No, not heartbeat. Vampires didn’t have one.
That emptiness should have terrified him. Instead, it fascinated him.
“You never answered my question,” the vampire said after a moment.
Sunghoon looked up sharply. “What question?”
“What’s your name?”
His mother would hate this. Sunghoon knew she would. But the loneliness inside him had been aching for so long that it overpowered caution before he could stop it. “...Sunghoon.”
The vampire smiled again. This time it felt softer somehow. “I’m Heeseung.”
The name settled strangely in Sunghoon’s chest. For a brief moment, neither of them spoke. Snow drifted lazily around them. Somewhere overhead, birds scattered from the trees.
And for the first time in his life, Sunghoon realized the forest no longer felt empty.