“Junhyung, you messed up!” Howon scoffed and threw a chair at Junhyung, who caught it with one hand.

“Okay, calm down first little boy.” Junhyung chuckled sheepishly and put down the chair. “Let’s not tear down the entire cabin.”

“I swear, Junhyung, if she remembers anything, I’ll be the one who sees that your thousand years of living goes to waste.” Howon narrowed his eyes at him.

“There’s no need to worry about it, I’ve already gotten rid of the entire thing. She’s not going to remember.” Junhyung waved his hand as if it was a small deal. “So what if I accidentally left my name behind? Now I don’t have to waste a few minutes introducing myself to her.”

“She was having nightmares about it last night.” Howon gritted his teeth and held onto a pillow, prepared to chuck it at Junhyung’s face. Pillows were soft, but when shot at someone at the speed of light, they could cause quite the damage.

“Aww, is our little baby Howon paranoid that she’s going to find out?” Junhyung rolled his eyes. “You can’t finish a puzzle piece if you don’t have all of the pieces.”

“Yeah, but you can always draw the rest of it on your own.” Howon bitterly remarked as he threw the pillow.

“In all seriousness, you need to stop acting as if you’re only a century old.” Junhyung swatted at the pillow with his hand, sending it flying off in a different direction. “This is your fourth time falling in love with the same person. Don’t you remember the other three times? Twice you scared her away, and the other time you made her decide to go through heartbreak instead of choosing to love someone who wouldn’t age or die.”

Howon appeared vulnerable now, his eyes clouded with remorse.

“You’re falling for the wrong person, Howon. She’s not the one you’re supposed to be with; you’re just obsessed with her for god knows what reason.” Junhyung grinned sinisterly as he knew that he had completely crushed Howon. “No one’s going to want to turn into a vampire, and no one’s going to want to spend their life loving someone who doesn’t age. Even if the latter happened, what are you going to do after she dies? Wait for her to come back in the next lifetime, and go through all the troubles again?”

“You’ve lived a thousand years, Junhyung. You’ve loved before within that time span.” Howon tried to find a way to snap back, but he knew he had lost.

“Once.” Junhyung stared straight at Howon, his eyes not leaving Howon’s. “But she was one of us, and not a human.”

Howon shut up and began questioning himself. Was there really someone else who was meant for him that was actually one of his kind?

“What a crappy prize for winning the ribbon hunt.” Eunhye felt like slapping her teacher in the face.

Howon cleared his throat as he observed the crowd of teens before him. “I think being the captain of choosing a paintball team is a pretty good prize. At least we get recognition, too.”

“We never even got the last ribbon, so how’d we win?”

“While you were spacing out, I climbed up a tree and got the last one.” Howon nervously pointed at a couple, telling them to join their team.

“All I remember is telling you about Joon…” She mumbled and furrowed her eyebrows, suddenly getting a headache as she tried to think about yesterday’s events. “Then…”

“Someone ran into you, and you hit your head pretty hard.” Howon made up a random scenario and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “I think you should go back to the infirmary and rest a bit more.”

“There’s no way I’m going to miss out on a paintball fight.” Eunhye jabbed Howon in the side with her paintball gun. It was a useless action since he was protected by a vest.

“Stop talking and choose your teams already!” The teachers scolded.

It took ten more minutes to separate the group of students into equal teams, with Eunhye and Howon being team A. The other team contained Joon, who Eunhye had purposely avoided in choosing. The teachers all blew on a whistle, and the couples ran off into the woods to hide before the second round of whistles went off.

“I say we hide the entire time.” Howon suggested as he split off from the main group with Eunhye.

“There’s no fun in that!” Eunhye pouted as she reached a long, narrow ditch in the middle of nowhere. It was a perfect place to hide and remain undetected, but it was an obvious giveaway that someone would be hiding there. “Let’s go behind the bushes here, and we can hit whoever comes by.”

“I never knew you were so vicious with this kind of stuff,” Howon remarked.

The two suddenly heard the faint sound of whistles that signalled the start of the paintball fight, and they both retreated into hiding.

They waited for five minutes until a couple from Team B came barreling down the path, wide grins on their face as they laughed over their victory against the opposing team. It hadn’t even been ten minutes in, and they had gotten someone else out. Sadly for them, they went down the minute Eunhye and Howon popped up out of nowhere and covered them in a flurry of blue paintballs.

For the entire game, Eunhye and Howon’s perfectly planned out hiding spot gave them the advantage of taking down the opposing team’s couples each and every time. That is, until Joon came along.

“Hey, let’s check out that ditch.” Joon said and he climbed in, curiously looking around and brushing branches out of his way so that he could search through the ditch. He shrugged when he found nothing, and jumped out of the other side of the ditch to find himself face to face with Eunhye.

“Hi!” She beamed and pulled the trigger. She inevitably missed when she was tackled into the ditch by Howon.

“Are you insane?! You completely forgot about Joon’s partner!” Howon huffed out. He would’ve said more, but his breath was taken away the minute he stared at her.

“Move before we get hit, you dingus!” Eunhye had to use a lot of self-control to stop herself from ogling at his facial features.

“Right,” Howon stammered and rolled over just in time to avoid a splatter of red paint.

“I say we run.” Eunhye got up, grabbed Howon’s hand, and began sprinting down the ditch. He glanced at her, surprised at how fast she could run.

“Eunni, you can’t escape me!” Joon laughed as he went hysterical on shooting. The greenery around them turned red due to his poor aiming skills.

“Joon, you idiot, stop before you run out of ammo!” Kyungjoo, who had happened to be his partner, scowled at him and whacked him up the side of his head.

“You have to shoot too, you know!” Joon snapped and refocused on aiming at Howon, who was behind Eunhye. He scoffed at the sight – how could Howon be slower than Eunhye? It made him look really bad.

As usual, Joon missed. Eunhye turned around and fired a few shots at Joon, a disappointed look dawning her face when she only almost hit him. Howon chuckled and raised his own gun. With centuries of experience, he pointed at Kyungjoo and pulled the trigger all within a few seconds. He didn’t even need to take aim.

“Out!” Eunhye laughed as she slowed down to a stop and shoot at Joon, even though his partner had been taken down already. She just wanted to feel the victory of hitting him with a paintball.

“Damn it!” Joon cried and glared at Howon. “Who ever knew that someone with nerdy glasses could be so great at shooting?”

“Lee Joon!” Eunhye screamed and shot him again. “You rude gangster!”

“Hey, hey – hey!” Joon sputtered when paint ricocheted off his shoulder and onto his face. “Jeez, watch the face!”

Howon reached forward and pulled Eunhye back, watching with relief as the red paintball landed on leaves. He glanced up and saw a different couple running at them.

“Instead of turning Joon into a blue man, how about we hide and save ourselves from turning into red people?” Howon grumbled and yanked her along as he ran down the rest of the ditch, hoping that it didn’t suddenly end.

“I have achieved my life goal, so therefore I don’t-” Eunhye cut off her sentence with a squeal as she tripped over something and tumbled forward. When she stopped, she groaned and didn’t move, feeling too crappy to get up and run.

“Are you alright?!?” Howon saw specks of blood on her, but when he was close enough, he realized that it was red paint from the other team.

“Woohoo!” Someone shouted in victory.

“Great.” Eunhye kicked at the leaves, making Howon laugh at her childish reaction to being out of the game.

"Don't worry, we can always go over to the stream and clean the paint off." Howon smiled as he sat down beside her.

"But I don't want to get wet," she complained and rolled over. There was a bunch of leaves tangled up in her hair.

"So are you just going to stay here for the rest of the game until it ends?" Howon raised an eyebrow as he plucked a red leaf out of her dark brown hair. He remembered how a few lifetimes ago, he would just be lying on a field with her for hours, and they would spend the entire time talking. His expression darkened as he remembered Junhyung's words.

"Why so depressed?" Eunhye looked up an noticed the change in the mood. She reached up and poked him on the nose, watching with amusement as he recoiled back and gave her a frown. "Sad that you got outed from the game?"

"Don't you mean I'm sad that you made me lose?"

"Shut up!" She threw a pile of dried leaves at him and guiltily turned away. "Stop guilt tripping me, you dingus." She mumbled the last part.

"Hey, Eunhye."

"What?"

"Eunhye."

"What?!" She whirled around, only to get a peck on the forehead.

"Stop being cute, then."

monkey-won is sad that he was outed from the game

k i'm sorry

sighs

isn't he beautiful?

Edited: 131223

Author's Note: Wow what am I doing omg ㅠㅠ