Nightingale (2012) // PG-13 // SHINee, EXO, OC W.C.: 5,128 Mild Warning!: bloodplay (consumption). A/N: Please be mindful of the warning.  Also, this looong chapter is my way of saying, “surry for dragging”. I’ve picked up the pace because I’m slow with details and my Muse likes disapparate WeaslyTwin’s style.  

 

Chapter VII

 

Let’s break it down into little, itty-bitty puzzle pieces. 

Vampires. Lo and behold, oh my ohmyohmy, vampires roam the earth. Take a moment to let that tidbit sink in, now think about your friends or colleagues, think of that one person who exceeds without evening trying.

There’s always that one person; that one guy who is handsome and smart, that one gal who is athletically inclined and never diets.

That person, by extension of Key’s definition, is--presumably--a vampire.

Idols and athletes; they seem too perfect to be real, to be human. Then again, not all celebrities and superstudents are to be mistaken as creatures prowling through the night. Believe it or not talented humans to indeed exist in the world(--estimated about one in every million).

As ridiculous as the statistics Key swears is true, it makes plausible sense.

Still Bea did not have time to reminisce about the extraordinary people she crossed in the past, because Key was insistent on not returning to his room alone, something about being the last to know of new bloods’ arrival to Bast.

The ordeal of moving rooms came at a cost of humiliation--though the humiliation that Bea endured was entirely internal, she’d made sure of that. Key didn’t bother to ask, he simply did, does; and once she submitted defeat after a powerful struggle that involved a great deal of thrashing, Key--quite literally--dragged her out into the hall with the two vampires quietly flanking both ends.

Frustrating as it was to be guided down the corridors as an idiotic child, she had to hand it to them: had this ridiculous turn of events not occurred, she would have absolutely no interest to stick around.

(Of course ‘mental ward’ is still near the top of the list, right above ‘mad overdramatic acting school’.)

“See here , we’re not about to let you roam around this campus alone. Not where a single whiff of your blood will have the entire student body in frenzy. One mistake and it’s ‘goodbye’ to your fluids; they’ll devour you till you resemble an ugly shriveled up raisin in the sun, and when I find your pathetic corpse the only thing I’m going to do is toss it like trash.”

“Excuse me. But by what means do you have the right to call me a ?” Of course Bea’s rebuttal has nothing to with ual advances. It’s just plain insulting for a stranger to tell her beforehand what her death would mean to him.

“Oh, please. I smelled from down the hall. By the time you understand the intensity of the situation you might as well take this trusty slicer and give the next bystander a--” Key loses momentum for the first time since they entered his dorm. “What’re you gaping at? Don’t give me that look, it’s a pocketknife, don’t act like you’ve never seen one before, get over it.”

“I value my life here, please put that away.”

“How cute you think your life has value.” Key twirls it once in a skilled manner and the situation has become more interesting by the mischievous intent that lurks behind those words.

Bea meets his sharp eyes as he flips the weapon closed with one hand and replaces it in his pocket. “You look like a cat.”

Abigail does very little to stifle a giggle.

Key, unbothered, raises his nose. “Why thank you for calling me a beautiful creature. You’re not so nonfeline-like yourself.”

“I look like a cat?”

“I’m saying you’re,” He spells out in a foreign language, “B-E-A-utiful.”

“Beautiful in English.” He clarifies at her blank stare then proceeds to layout the basic knowledge that will keep her from becoming a dried up grape.

They’re gathered in Key’s dormitory, the host sitting cross-legged on his bed and Bea at the desk; it’s the farthest spot from the two. . .vampires. . .that are standing; blocking; guarding; the entrance.

The academies format for the bedrooms are similar, same colour schemes and size, only differentiating in vanity mirrors for female bedrooms and a dark study desk for males--Key’s is littered in thick books with tabs sticking out of certain pages, a suspicious looking silver tumbler without a lid, and thick pencil shaving confetti.

Bea fiddles with the lavender scarf in her hands, Key had told her after ruthlessly yanking it off her neck not to wear anything that covers her neck. The students are easily attracted to new faces especially fresh feeders off the aeroplane, and the consequences if she were mistaken for one are peril.

By what Key took the liberty of excluding detail from, feeders literally do as their title states: feed students. She shudders at that, pieces clicking into place when she hadn’t understood Kai or Cheolyong’s terminology.

When she asked Kai to explain, he’d given a poor summary that made her believe feeders were chefs. She imagined him chopping vegetables and stirring stew, not being the meaty main course.

To her denial of relief Key added that most of the students come from prestigious milieu and therefore prefer to eat civilized, indulging in undercooked meat and red “wine” during meals, and occasionally calling in a private session with a feeder.

(Like a late-night bootycall, her mind offers unhelpfully.)

She’s processing information painstakingly slow for Key’s taste. He threw more and more information at her, some words standing out more than others to which she paid extra attention.

Guardians aren’t parental figures--no wonder!--They’re specially selected people(vampires!) that are trained from a young age to look out for the better interest of a single important family, or person in rare circumstances. It’s not common for a sole person to be ranked equal to an entire family unless they’re the last of that clan and have some importance to the vampiric laws.

(At this Key obnoxiously points to himself.)

Bast Academy is known for housing the heirs to family titles, but in secret the academy also recruits the future rank of guardians, in which they pass off as kin to important clans till they’re deemed suitable to protect. Abigail is Key’s unofficial guardian, (“How is that unofficial?” “They’re assigned at graduation. Our relationships are like training exercises till then.”), and Taemin is Bea’s.

Bea allows herself to feel special at that; as Key pointed out, not everyone can have one and when it’s done, it’s done in secrecy, and only the guardian, the guarded, and the Elders that assigned them together will ever know.

She makes a metal note to write a letter addressed to her aunt and Sgt. Walker containing many puzzling sentences and perhaps one or two choice words of profanity.

“Telepathy is. . .normal as well?”

“There are only two clans--one other student--right now that have that ability and then some. Watch out for the other guy, but as long as you’re near Abby she can detect mind threats.”

“That’s comforting.” Her mind will be sane, but he didn’t say about her body. “I’m not going to get jumped, am I? I already met a couple guys who called me a feeder.”

“Don’t worry about them. You’re here early so Taemin’s scent can overwhelm your human one. Stick to your guardian and no one will mess with you.”

That’s a blow to her esteem; Bea always took pride in her tough exterior and heightened senses, especially that of scent and sound, it’s what helped keep her out of trouble in school and around the neighborhood. But here, her sense of smell is off. Starting with Kai, whose scent is so plain and the two guardians smell faintly of outdoors and nothing else. Wherein Key smells so distantly ordinary, but far as it is it still lingers near something familiar that she can’t quite pinpoint.

Key’s lips curl like a Cheshire cat. “Strong, isn’t it? You smell like that too, and human.”

He caught her sniffing the air without her realizing she was doing it. She ducks her head and looks around his room, clearing .

“What you said about the blood--” She stops when Key rises off the bed and walks around it. He stoops down between the area of the other side and the wall, a suction sound comes and he returns with another “gift” in hand.

She doesn’t see the two vampires twitch.

“This.” He stands in front of her, pulling the sideboard of the desk open and picking out a straw. His lips are still amused, her eyes wide as she watches him stab the angled end of the straw into the pouch. He raises it to his lips and she’s following his actions, eyes on the tongue that flicks out before he closes his mouth around the straw and .

Dark substance swims up the straw, disappearing into Key’s mouth and when he lowers the pouch to his lips her stomach churns angrily at the crimson stains.

“This is the only thing in the world that can keep you from going insane, as you’ll find out when class is in session. We eat with the other students but it’s not like the academy publicizes alternatives and I know you don’t want to eat raw meat.”

She shakes her head. She never understood how uncooked meat became a delicacy or why it’s still practiced in exclusive restaurants.

“As there’s no way you’re not going to be noticed, you have to act like you belong here.” He shrugs, turning the packet so she could see the clear, labeled side of type B Rh positive content.

“Drink this in front of them, eat your vegetables and no one will be the wiser. The other girls diet this way.”

“That’s great and all, but I’m not drinking that.”

“That’s what I said and now look at me. You have no choice, Bomi. If you want to survive here, this,” he sways the pouch in front of her face, bubbles foam at the top. “Is mandatory.”

“And if I refuse are you going to report me to the director and have me expelled? Tell everyone I’m human?” If he does that she’ll say he’s one too.

Key straightens. “No, we’ll do it the Hard way.”

“What’s the hard way?”

“What I went through.” In that statement alone Key’s cockiness hides a smidge of depression that Bea can see express through his dark brown eyes. “I admit I was too forward earlier, but that doesn’t mean I don’t stand behind what I said. The sooner you can slurp these back the better.”

“So long as you don’t expect me to learn right away.” She tries to make it sound like she understands, but really, there’s absolutely no way is going anywhere near that and lying through her teeth with an unsettled stomach has never been more difficult to do.

So she goes for a lighter mood, “Um, since we agreed raw meat isn’t an option am I blessed to eat cereal forevermore in my room?”

“Blessed,” Key scoffs and just like that he reverts by adding a sarcastic laugh. “You think I’d let them keep me here without perks once in a while? The cereal you ate came from the stash I set up back when I was first dragged in.”

“It’s still sogging up in my room if you want it.”

“I don’t eat that stuff anymore. I’m fine with this.”

Bea dry swallows, the blood bag’s content mocking. “Where does the…blood…come from?”

Her imagination makes up some obnoxious story about ninja!chef’s behind the countries raising abduction rate; they’re responsible for slitting the victims throat and draining their blood into a drum, then they stick a stopper into the barrel and fill wine bottles and send them in harmless brown boxes all around the country.

It’s Taemin who answers this time, finally saying something instead of just standing there. “We have our own government, called the Council of Elders, who maintains peace between both worlds through union. They arrange meets where human donors donate blood willingly,”

“Blood drives.” She finishes an