Then open your eyes.

Sehun’s eyes flashed green.

It was all over.

Sehun’s father lived – thankfully. Kai also lived – but he was being kept in a high security facility and ersely only received Sehun as a visitor. Ri-ah was also alive but despite her protests, she’d been bound by both Set and Hana, as was her grandfather.

‘You don’t need to be too nervous,’ his mother told him at present. Regardless that she wasn’t his biological mother she would always be his mother. Sehun had accepted that his family was more real than anything he’d ever known and he'd be a fool to think it wasn't real just becasue of blood.

They were now at Set’s compound, with Sehun waiting to meet his grandfather for the first time in person.

.... and he was nothing like he’d expected.

In their conversations since that night, Sehun had pictured an ahjusshi who could pass off being a janitor – like Hana— but the man who came towards him was dressed in a suit and though his hair had grey running through it, he still looked tall (a couple of inches shorter than Sehun) and imposing.

‘Sehun,’ the two men shook hands, before Sehun found himself quickly engulfed in a hug.

Sehun felt his throat close up.

‘Grandfather,’ he acknowledged, and they just held each other like that for awhile. Set’s soothing hand on his head comforted him greatly.

After awhile, Sehun’s mother excused herself and grandfather and grandson took a stroll in the gardens of his large compound. Sehun felt both anticipation and fear in what was to come. He’d lain awake the last two weeks, wondering if he really wanted to know – or whether he should just be content with the peace he’d found in his situation.

At the end of it though, he did want to meet Set, and hear out anything to put the pieces together.

‘When you were born, your parents – my daughter and her husband – they wanted to live with you, as humans. I respected that decision and I let them go their own way. But Dul, in his anger that Hana and I refused to join him in his vengeance about what happened to his family – he wanted us to feel his pain. He hunted down your parents. After that, it became necessary to bind his powers.’

Sehun felt an extreme sadness for his parents that he would never meet, even more so when hearing that they'd wanted to live the human life that he’d valued all this time.

‘I’m sorry,’ he felt the need to offer his condolences. After all, Set had known and loved them.

Set smiled sadly, ‘You look just like them – sometimes when I received pictures of you, you’d look so much like your mother but in the next photo you looked identical to your father.’

‘You received pictures?’

He nodded, ‘That’s why I disappeared.  They started to find ways to figure out where I was and it would eventually lead them to you. So I had to get far away from you and I was resigned that it could be forever. But,’ he added strongly, ‘that was a price I was willing to pay to allow you to live your life, as your parents wanted for you.’

Sehun nodded, ‘Thank you, grandfather. I grew up happily, because of you.’

The two men smiled at each other.

+++

‘I really truly hate that guy,’ Hye Jin bit out, keeping her face purposefully calm and expressionless. She could hear giggles behind her and didn't want to give anyone the satisfaction.

Her locker was filled with red gift tissue paper – and she knew that it was the trademark of Sehun.

Now, now, don’t be like that.

Hye Jin spun around, probably looked like a maniac, as her eyes darted from one corner of the corridor to the other. She knew he had to be nearby because that was the only way their telepathy worked.

Quickly though, dig, dig!

Hye Jin sighed, how many times have I told you? You owe me NOTHING!! Stop giving me gifts!

Ever since she’d recovered enough to be able to come back to university (with an amazing scar from her collarbone to her hip) Sehun had been bugging her about how he could repay her for saving his parents’ and his little sister’s and maybe even his own life.

Hye Jin had told him time and again that it was just clearing her debt from the time she’d chosen not to save him but he refused to accept that, insisting that “he owed her”.

Open it! Open it! He chanted.

Finally Hye Jin found the box behind all the tissue and looked at it wearily – it was a shoe box…. Snake? Spider?

She kept it on the shelf and grabbed a ruler to use to cautiously fling the lid open.

She stared.

‘Do you like it?’ he said, actually standing next to her at this point.

‘Red Chuck Taylors?’ she stared at the shoes, then back to him, then back to the shoes, ‘Why? And why red?’

He shrugged, that adorable shrug that she couldn’t quite get over, ‘I don’t know – I thought we could match. It can be like our team uniform.’

Sehun had decided to join the League and put his powers to good use, despite both Hana and Set insisting that he didn’t have to. Hye Jin had also tried to convince him otherwise, knowing that if he joined he would be placed with her as a trainee and be even harder to shake off.

At that point the rest of his words registered and she glanced down at his feet, to find him wearing identical ones.

‘Gross! I don’t wanna be one of those couples!!’ she protested, ‘that’s so cheesy!’

‘AHA! Han Hye Jin – So you DO want to be a couple!!’ he wiggled his eyebrows and covered his mouth with his fingertips, as if pretending to be shy.

Hye Jin’s mouth opened and shut as she tried to think of an appropriate answer to that, ‘You…  do you even make sense? After everything that happened?‘

She’d made sure not to get her hopes up again.

Every time she saw him she’d felt the underlying fear that he was going to hate her again. That she’d wake up and they were back at the start – or maybe the middle – and every good memory they had was gone. It seemed like such a natural thing for him to hate her, she was starting to take it personally.

She didn’t think she could do it a third time.

‘Yes,’ it was his simple answer.

‘Yes?’ she repeated, cautiously.

Their eyes met and just as hers were full of insecurities, his was intensely confident. This was again a different Sehun from the ones she’d gotten to know. She just couldn’t resist wanting to get to know this guy too.

‘This makes the most sense to me, Han Hye Jin: Despite how much I hated you, despite even being brainwashed – I always came back to you. It's undeniable: I love you.’

A warm smile touched Hye Jin’s lips at those words she’d never thought he’d say again, ‘Ok, let’s get to work,’ she announced, turning away from him and placing the shoes on the ground so that she could change into them.

‘Hey wait! I just said "I love you" – you’re supposed to say it back! We’re supposed to have a moment!’

Hye Jin reached up to pat his cheek, ‘Yes, yes, okay. I love you too Oh Sehun. Now let’s go to work! Boss is calling,’ she lifted up her phone and true to form a message buzzed in.

And so another adventure begins.

This time as vampires, and this time as equals (well sort of, until he was trained anyway).

Author's Note: And we are done!! Many thank yous to the fantabulous readers and commenters! I couldn't have done this without you! Or rather, I wouldn't have wanted to. Your encouragement and support has been fantastic. Special thank you to XRC2Sehun who commented through it all! And also to j-ngin, SeKai94, Noonanunanoonim, shea_shariff, porini, hazza616, happiyehet096, xoxo_88_kiss and superdupper for your support while writing!

Just a reminder that this is for a comp, so if you got to the end and actually liked it - please drop me a comment, maybe an upvote, maybe vote for the story in the reader's choice .

This fic is approximately 28,000 words - by far the longest fic I've written in a long time. It was a massive challenge and I'd like to thank the Tender Rose Writing Contest for the opportunity!

Thank you once again! xKei