jaeyong killed the wrong person once.

he was so sure she was a monster, but she was innocent, blood red and pure and all over his hands.

it was a shame-- an inconvenience, and since, he’s been careful not to jump the gun. he observes more, tracks more, spends a little more time letting his mouth do the talking before the knife does. 

but he has a feeling the man he follows now is a vampire. jaeyong observed him from his spot at the bar: the bartender that so rarely spoke. jaeyong didn’t make much small talk either, content enough to drink and oddly enough, leave the man be. the more he observed, however, the more suspicious he became. did he have a hint of fangs he was trying to hide? did he not want to open his mouth and let the blood in the room overwhelm his senses even more? there were many possibilities.

the only answer was to follow him for a while. if he sensed his presence easily, then jaeyong had even more reason to suspect vampirism. if not, maybe he was just a human on the silent side. boring. one way or another, maybe he could get him to open up a little. that in itself would be a fun task. 

so he tails him now, a safe distance away, putting all of his song clan tracking skills to the test, as quiet as he can be. the man stops at a corner, waiting for a chance to cross the street, and jaeyong catches up to him. he falls into place by his side, and grins at him. 

“hi,” he greets him, all seemingly sincere amiability. no matter how friendly he is, genuinely or not, he knows, no matters how hard he tries, that he will always carry a little of the scent of death. he searches the man’s face for any hint of alarm, never losing his own smile. “here we are, running into each other again. it must be fate,” and his eyes sparkle with mischief, smile turning a little more playfully crooked. “i’m jaeyong.” 

jaeyong needs coffee. 

as much as huangjun has converted him to the dark side (see: becoming a tea drinker) there’s nothing quite like two espresso shots with minimal water on a busy day. 

or a day after nightmares kept him awake most of the night, and he spent the morning running five miles in the chilling air of late autumn, per his parents’ demands. he has class this afternoon, and a paper due next week, and all the while, still, a recovering huangjun always awaiting his return, always needing-- no, more like deserving of --jaeyong’s attention.

even after a hot shower, he’s still cold somewhere deep in his bones, and he can feel exhaustion settling there too.

yeah, he definitely needs caffeine, and black tea won’t cut it. 

it’s why he steps into starbucks now, or maybe passing by the starbucks was what inspired him to get coffee. either way, he stands in line-- quite a long one too, he notes --and he inspects the holiday merchandise from his place in it. his eyes catch sight of a silly looking reindeer mug, and he picks it up from its place on the shelf. he wonders if huangjun could use a new mug. he drinks so much tea that surely he’d get use out of it, right? 

he doesn’t notice the door chime upon someone else’s entry, but he does feel the presence in line behind him, so he looks over, smile already prepared on his face for the stranger, only-- it’s not a stranger. it’s kang jihoon.

funny, because seeing jihoon here is far stranger than seeing a stranger (haha.) after all, kang jihoon should probably be dead. jaeyong ensured that, with a literal knife to the back and all. it seems like so long ago now, even if it was mere months. he wonders what he’ll be like by the time his next birthday rolls around, with how much he’s changed in the past few weeks alone-- wonders if he’ll even still be alive.

that smile stays on his face momentarily, before he pouts in mock confusion, then looks around a little wildly. his eyes eventually settle back on hoon. “that was weird...i thought i saw something. do you think this place is haunted?” the smile returns.

when his attention is brought back to the male in front of him, hoon takes notice on how yujin’s grip tightens on the glass. his eyes narrow just slightly before allowing his gaze to return to the other’s face as he speaks. “everything alright?” he usually isn’t one to really question things that others do, it was actually better at times if he didn’t stick his nose into someone else’s business really, though for the amount of time that he had come to know the other it just sort of become a thing for him to be able to pick up on the littlest things that the other male did.

part of it was also due to the fact that hoon was a hunter and he had been trained to notice little details about other’s actions, a way for him to even get by in the world that they lived in now.

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ —

yujin laughs a little at his mention of trying something new, and to that, he can just smile and go to take another sip of his drink. “that is true, though there is something about this drink that keeps me coming back to it everytime,” he explains, and listens to how his night had been so far.

“they’ve been rowdy, huh? and to think that i come here to relax,” he says, and realizes his drink is almost gone at this point, in the way that he’d been drinking it consistently. he has half a mind to slow down, half a mind to chase the rest of it in the same fashion.

he genuinely looks a little surprised when jihoon asks him if he’s okay, if only because he feels like he tries so hard to cover over all of the things that bother him. half of the time, he walks around feeling as if tall, large walls encase him, and he’s stuck down at the bottom, staring at the edges of the world he can see right over the tops of them. and he wonders if it’s a choice, if it’s something for defense, that he keeps himself so guarded.

yet maybe tonight, he hadn’t been keeping himself in check good enough. usually he isn’t so rattled by his parents, expects all of it at this point, but sometimes, it just continues and continues to pile up to the point that yujin feels frazzled at the edges, like the string of a sweater being pulled undone.

it doesn’t help when his dreams echo his reality, and he feels like he has nowhere to run.

“i’m okay,” he tells him, and it feels kind of empty, and he thinks he is just okay, but his okay means that he’s here and he’s got his jacket on, and maybe it was raining but he didn’t mind too much. “everything.. is as it is. though, sometimes, it’s a bit harder to swallow,” yujin tries to explain, because he feels like this bar isn’t the place to air out everything that is making his chest feel tight, but the dimness of the bar makes him still feel a little more hidden, a little more removed from being so exposed.

“i think that’s just kind of how it is sometimes? with life,” he continues, and with this, he finishes his drink, setting it down on the counter and drawing his hands away, feeling the damp coolness it leaves on his fingers and curling them together to try and gain back some of the feeling.

“it’s a bunch of these little moments strung together like a line of kites, and sometimes the wind is a bit stronger at different intervals, so it’s harder to keep them all together. to handle them. but eventually.. it’ll even out. they’ll all fly a little more easier, you just have to give time for the wind to change,” yujin murmurs, and he looks up to him and offers a soft smile, as he had been staring at the counter of the bar and tracing the shapes he could find in the swirls leftover from when it was probably run over with a wet cloth.

“if any of that makes sense— i don’t know if you feel like that sometimes, but that’s how it feels for me, at least,” he says, and runs a hand through his hair, still a little damp from the rain.

—JIHOON⋆ˊˎ

he notices the door to the bar open and looks over, recognizing yujin as the other makes his way in and hoon wastes no time preparing the other’s usual. as always he manages to have the drink ready and placed on the bar by the time the other male makes his way over and takes a seat. “here’s your usual.” he says this, voice slightly muffled behind the usual facemask that he wears nearly 24/7 (aside from when he’s home and no one is around that is). he takes a moment to lean forward against the bar, arms crossed a bit and resting on the countertop. “you know, if other customers came in and ordered the same thing like you, it would make my job so much easier.” he says this as he sighs softly at the thought, wishing it could be that simple with others.

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ —

it had been a very long day, when he walks into the last drop. one of those last minute decisions he makes, where just a half hour prior he had been sitting in his apartment, shrouded in darkness, trying to calm down the shaking of his hands.

they were clean, devoid of anything, but the nightmare he had woken up from was enough to make his entire body run cold, disorientation a fog in his mind as he struggled to grasp the fact that he was awake, this was real, taking in gulps of air just to prove it to himself.

the emptiness, the darkness, the quiet, he couldn’t take it. he barely looked to see the time on the clock as he threw on his leather jacket and jeans and his heavy, heavy boots, shoving his hands in his pockets as he felt the light falling of rain.

by the time he had made it to the bar, it was wet enough that he swept it back from his forehead, uncaring, settling down and shrugging out of his jacket just to try and find some semblance of drying off from the weather. it helped to see a familiar face— at his voice, yujin musters a smile, a genuine one, dimples settling in his cheeks as he looks up.

“hello to you too, jihoon,” he greets, picking up his glass and raising it up a bit towards him, he brings it to his lips to take quite a generous swallow. it was a familiar burn in his throat, one that he hoped would quell the lingering thoughts he still had from the dream.

“thank you for the drink, by the way, it’s exactly how i like it,” he tells him, and he is thankful that it’s gotten to the point now that jihoon makes him his drink as he walks in, trying to not dwell on the fact that it’s probably because he’s here much too often in the first place.

his words make it possible for a small laugh to leave his lips, and his fingers draw patterns in the condensation forming on the glass, feeling the little droplets rain down the sides just like how it was outside.

“ah— maybe i should start ordering something different? it’s too easy now,” he murmurs, but there’s still the hint of a joke lingering in the corner of his lips, taking another sip right after.

“not that a whiskey and soda was much too complicated anyways, but i like it for what it is. how’s it been tonight, busy?” he asks him, and all he wishes for is to get a little lost, here, in conversation, in the quiet background of it and the music, feeling a little more present in what is around him instead of his thoughts.

it’s a quiet wish, one that makes him grip the glass in his hand just a little bit tighter.

it’s a strange feeling: like he’s run for miles even though he hasn’t, without the ensuing high, without the labored breathing. no, his lungs are fine, he is just...tired, and maybe in the end he has been running. deep down, jaeyong knows it.

there is so much to run from, after all. the absence of his family, the baggage he took with him upon leaving them, a confession from his ex boyfriend, his disappearance, his actual boyfriend’s heartache. jaeyong has done such a good job of not thinking about it for the past two months. he loves his life. he loves his life. there is no reason to miss anything from before-- all the pain and deception and lies, all of the blood and bruises and failure. now there is love, real and concrete and consistent, and it is enough. it’s enough, it is, god he wants so badly for it to be enough. 

he wants it to be enough for him not to miss the feeling of his mother’s hands in his hair when he was a child, the way she would calm him down after nightmares. he wants it to be enough for him not to miss the way his father’s eyes would shine with pride when jaeyong told the gruesome tales of his latest kills. 

it’s like another life now, and there is so little left of it to be proud of. he misses when the blood made him feel like a hero-- when it felt like an honor instead of an obligation, like a purpose instead of something to cling to so he doesn’t lose himself altogether.

he always centers his thoughts back on huangjun when they drift where they shouldn’t. is huangjun okay? no. huangjun needs him, so jaeyong can’t be anything other than okay. he is okay, really. he’s better than okay. he is in love and he loves his job and he is free. what is there to not be okay about?

he just needs coffee. it’s just the combination of work and school starting and trying to cram hunting in whatever free time he has. he’s fine. 

he’s done with class for the day, but he works close at the record store today. his parents instilled in him a great talent for pushing through exhaustion, so it’s not a concern, but if he can avoid exhaustion to begin with, that would just be better. 

he greets the barista with a smile as always, makes her laugh with some cheeky comment about the weather as only jaeyong can, then retrieves his drink with a thank you and that same smile. when he turns to leave, he spots a familiar face at a table not too far from the door. 

it’s funny, because the last time he saw hoon was here too. good to know he didn’t ruin his appetite for starbucks coffee by running into him. it’s also funny because he’s been thinking about hoon, and his real story, now that all the lies of his life are unraveling.

he makes his way over, and when he’s close enough, asks, “is this seat taken?” with his usual crooked smile. he doesn’t wait for hoon to answer, and sits down across from him regardless. he takes a big sip of his absolutely still steaming hot coffee, which is enough to prevent him from immediately running his mouth again.

@feyhoon !

jisung finds himself alone most nights. there’s not much he can do at home, everyone usually ignores his entire existence and being left in his lonesome within the confines of his room doesn’t help quiet the voices in his head one bit. he can stuff his ears with music, but just being home puts him in a strange, melancholic state. jisung doesn’t like it—so it’s only natural that he avoids his home whenever he could.

lately, he only comes back home to sleep. he doesn’t know whether it’s part of his werewolf instincts or not, but he’d find himself wandering around the forest more often than not, in his usual casual attire and slippers. the grass on his feet feels welcoming, the trees that looms over him shielding him from everything else. the sight of the moon is rather calming, which is ironic considering what happens during a full moon.

he’s walking aimlessly, no set destination in mind. he has been here enough times to know how to walk out, he has a mental map in his head from the amount of times he had deliberately gotten himself lost and has to find a way out. jisung isn’t worried by the darkness before him, the music playing in his ears soothes him, keeps him calmer than if he were to stay back home.

( at this point, this forest is more of a home than his own house is. )

not everything is as it seems, though, and it looks like the world is attack him with the harsh reality—the reality that there is no space for him, that even the comfort of the forest won’t last long. he doesn’t miss the rustling of the bushes and the sudden change in atmosphere. he stops in his tracks, standing silent to make sure he isn’t sensing anything wrong. there’s a scent that hadn’t been there before—but there’s also a familiar one, and he’s left restless. the voices are screaming now, so much so that the music can no longer muffle them. he feels a sharp throb on the side of his head, clutching onto it with a hand.