Oh no, she was in trouble.

She was in big trouble.

No matter how much she told herself that she was just imagining things, reality was knocking insistently at her door.

Spring had finally come for Hye Jin.

As a member of the League, it was safe to say that romance wasn’t one of her top priorities. In fact, it was even safe to say that it wasn’t in her top 10 priorities… but apparently that didn’t matter at all right now. Because the fact of the matter was that she was falling in love for the first time in her life.

It started with the little things.

The tiny leaps of anticipation in her heart when she saw Sehun (especially now that they only saw each other at school – because he was still insistent that he couldn’t control himself close to the full moons), the slight weakness to her knees when he called her by name with that “husky” voice, and heck even when they sparred during club activities – his concentrated gaze under the armour was causing her heart some stress.

‘Hye Jin!’

And here we go again!

Hye Jin turned towards the voice to find Sehun jogging towards her quite adorably. She snuck a quick look at the other students whispering (not for the first time in the past week) about the chummy nature of their interactions.

She didn’t blame them. Their unmasked disbelief was the only real reminder of what life was like prior to the bite(s).

‘Hi, finished with your meeting?’ she asked, feeling a little bit awkward. It always started off like this, whenever they met each other. It was as if there was fear within her that everything between them was just a really long dream – and that she would finally wake up and instead of the smiling Sehun she would be faced with the Sehun full of hatred. The hatred directed at her.

Her heart ached momentarily at the thought of that.

But how long could she really be afraid about that?

‘Yeah, Suho-sunbae drags things on too long sometimes,’ he said, the affection in his voice clear. If there was one person Sehun had always looked up to, it was Suho-sunbae, ‘oh by the way, Luhan messaged-- he’s running a bit late…’ Sehun began.

This surprised Hye Jin. Luhan always picked her up right on time, just to appease Sehun that he was taking his role as her bodyguard seriously.

‘Oh, that’s rare…’ she said, not sure what else to say.

‘Yeah, so I was thinking… that maybe we can go have some samgyopsal and then he can meet us there. It will also be a good opportunity to thank him for taking care of you… it was supposed to be me doing it after all,’ Sehun suggested cautiously, trying to gauge her reaction.

Hye Jin could barely contain the excitement she was feeling – it took every ounce of her willpower to play it cool and prevent her lips from tugging at the corners of . Pretending like it was such a novel idea that hadn’t ever crossed her mind, ‘That’s a great idea – I should thank him too!’

‘Awesome, so I’ll message him and he can join us when he’s done.’

‘Yeah, that’s a good idea,’ Hye Jin agreed.

+++

‘Hey, do you want to maybe hold up on the meat,’ Sehun teased, ‘I can only afford so many serves you know – and Luhan isn’t even here yet.’

Hye Jin grinned up at him cutely, with full of said meat – not even stopping to swallow her food first she retorted – , ‘I love meat!! It must be the full moon that’s making me hungry,’ she winked at him.

It should’ve been too soon to make jokes like that.

Sehun knew that if this was any other person he would’ve reacted differently. But she was just too adorable, sitting there with her hair in a no-nonsense ponytail “because I don’t want the smell of barbeque to stick to my hair”, her orange jumper’s sleeves rolled up to her elbows, and side dishes built like a fort around her bowl of rice.

‘Funny,’ he said drily, ‘as you well know – if it was even close to the full moon we wouldn’t be here right now.’

Sehun wasn’t yet fully comfortable with what he had become. Half-human, half-something else. He was trying his best to not let it affect his life, but he knew that this could only go for so long. This half-existence… it wasn’t something he knew what to do about and this helplessness was affecting him. Try as he did to keep his feelings light, the darkness was right there lurking.

‘Sehun? Are you okay?’

He snapped back to present, and swallowed the rogue lump in his throat, when he saw that Hye Jin was staring at him, eyebrows knitted in barely hidden concern.

‘Yeah,’ he forced a smile, ‘I guess it was too soon to joke about it after all.’

There was an awkward moment’s silence, which he hated because that was the last thing he wanted between them.

‘I’m sorry,’ she broke in quietly.

He shook his head, not wanting her to feel bad. Taking a deep breath he tried to gather his thoughts, ‘it’s stupid isn’t it? Worrying about this…’

‘How is it stupid?’ she shook her head emphatically that he almost thought it would come off from the vigour of her shaking, ‘there’s no way it is!!’

They were the words he needed to hear, even though she was probably only saying it precisely because he wanted to hear them. But nevertheless, he was grateful.

‘I’d rather die.’

Finally.

There.

The words were finally said.

The words he’d been thinking for the last few weeks… a month… two… however long it had been since his life had changed. But he’d never verbalized it, because somehow it felt like it would be real. But he’d been thinking it each and every night, maybe even a few times a day, maybe even more than that…

‘I’d rather die than become a vampire,’ he completed the sentence.

He look at Hye Jin who was eyeing him with something he couldn’t decipher. It wasn’t pity necessarily, and it wasn’t confusion. He knew that she knew what he was saying, but he couldn’t understand what she was feeling at that moment.

So instead, he just kept speaking.

‘I guess I took it for granted – just being human. Getting hurt, breaking bones. Growing older, getting married. Getting fat, having kids. Growing even older… dying. I don’t know how I would feel if that was all suddenly taken from me. And knowing just how close I came to losing it all before I even knew it…I’m scared Hye Jin. I’m scared that I won’t get a chance to die. That they’ll get to me before I can make that choice for myself.’

Hye Jin put her chopsticks down and nodded slowly, not taking her eyes off of him.

He didn't even realise he was holding his breath as he waited for her response.

‘I understand.’

+++

Their conversation had recovered somewhat from the somber mood when Sehun got a call from Luhan.

‘What? You have to stay at work later? Okay, I’ll take Hye Jin home,’ Sehun hung up, ‘you heard that, right?’

Hye Jin nodded.

The idea of Sehun entering her sanctuary again actually made her nervous. He hadn’t been there since he’d stomped out after his episode – and definitely not since she’d started having these feelings for him. Of course there was no telling what his feelings for her were, so maybe she was getting ahead of herself.

‘Are you ready to go? I don’t want to keep you out too late…’

‘Yeah, I am,’ she said, tossing down a final shot of soju as a bit of dutch courage.

They walked the dark streets in silence, with Hye Jin trying to be discreet as her eyes darted from person to person that crossed their path. The soju which should’ve hindered her senses actually made her more alert (or maybe more paranoid) and her fingers toyed with the blade in her pocket.

She hadn’t forgotten her mission of protecting Sehun.

She was so engrossed with the job at hand that she hadn’t even paid attention to Sehun himself, until he finally let out a tongue click of disapproval.

‘What?’ she looked at him, a little bit alarmed.

He looked thoroughly annoyed.

‘How am I supposed to try and hold your hand if you’ve got both of them buried deep in your pockets?’

She stared at him, not really registering what he was saying.

‘Huh?’ she asked, stupidly.

He walked towards her until he was right in front of her and she barely had the presence of mind to let go of the blade when he fished her hand out of the pocket, to hold it firmly in his.

‘I said I want to hold your hand.’

She stared at where her hand was touching his very rough one, where familiar calluses as a result of their sport scarred his hands. She suddenly thought of her equally scarred hand and tried to pull it away in embarrassment, but as if sensing her train of thought, he held firm.

‘Uh-uh,’ he shook his head, ‘stay here awhile.’

So she let him hold her hand a little longer. She stared at their hands, such a foreign sight to her – so fascinated that she didn’t even realise that he was staring at her face until she finally thought to look up to him.

And then at that point, his head inched towards hers, and if she hadn’t fallen for him already, the moment those lips touched hers, it was all over.

She’d fallen in love with Sehun.

A/N: Another chapter done!!! Hope you guys enjoyed!! xKei