You idiot! Howon screamed at himself. He had completely forgotten the scavenger hunt they had completed together, and all the conversations that happened in between. He already knew everything, yet he still asked.

A huge tornado of insults directed to himself raged through his brain. How had he not made the automatic assumption between her parents and the visual appearance of a vampire? Disappointment in himself was the only thing he felt, and he wasn’t focused on the scene in front of him.

“Howon? Hey, Howon?” Sunggyu shook him, bringing him back to earth.

“Huh?” Howon quietly said as he turned to look at his roommate.

“Did you space out the entire time? Jeez.” Sunggyu looked annoyed. “I… projected my tea at Eunhye by accident and she needs a change of clothes, but all her clothes are dirty from the trip. I would lend her mine, but you’re smaller than I am so your clothes would fit her better.”

“Oh.” Howon stood up. “I guess… come with me then? Actually how about I go grab it for you myself, err, no… I mean I don’t know if you’d be fine with what I’d choose for you, but I don’t think you’d-”

“Can we please go already?” Eunhye rolled her eyes and interrupted his blabbering as she shoved him towards his room.

Howon smiled sheepishly and opened the door to his room, taking note of the messy bed. He would have to tidy it later on, even though it would revert back to being messy each morning. Honestly, he saw no point in tidying it, but Sunggyu was extremely about being clean.

After rummaging through his closet, he pulled out a black sweater that was two sizes too big for Eunhye. “It’s the smallest top I have in my wardrobe, so…”

“Thanks.” Eunhye mumbled and took it, turning around quickly so that she could escape and go to the washroom to change.

“Wait.” Howon gently grabbed onto her arm. “I should’ve known what had caused you to panic. I’m sorry I asked. I didn’t make the connection despite the obvious.”

“Hundreds of years of education is a waste of time, isn’t it?” Eunhye looked at him with amusement.

Howon stared at her for a while, his eyebrows furrowed. “That’s… exactly what Yunhee said.”

“Your ex-girlfriend?”

“You from a century ago.” Howon breathed out as he let go of her. “Forget what I said, just go and change first. We can talk after.”

Eunhye nodded and walked off, stopping at the door for a short moment. “Oh and, Howon?”

Howon hummed questioningly and raised an eyebrow at her, even though her back was facing him.

“You’re not an acquaintance anymore,” Howon frowned, thinking that she was demoting him back to just a stranger who bothered her. It wouldn’t be a surprise, considering how she probably saw him as a predator.

“You’re obsessed.”

“No, I’m not obsessed. I just happen to be extremely loyal.” Howon groaned as he pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. He had been explained everything to her – the special functions and needs of a vampire, the backstory of the time he had disappeared after acting weird, and the reason why he was attached to her.

“What is this, the fourth time you’ve tried to woo the same person?” Eunhye scoffed. “You haven’t even told me how you fell in love with that Siyeon person in the first place!”

“It was really simple and basically a story out of a drama.” Howon’s eyes glossed over as he recalled his memories from centuries ago. “You were-”

“I’m not her, I’m just faintly related to her.”

“Still as sassy as usual,” He smiled slightly as he mumbled under his breath. “She was my girlfriend of two years, and we were university students. The night I was turned, I attacked her because I had no self-control.”

“.”

Ignoring Eunhye’s commentary, Howon continued. “I bit into one of her jugular veins. I realized my mistake instantly but there’s really no going back after that.”

“, times two.”

“It all happened too fast, and I explained as much as I could to Siyeon. There were two choices – die or get turned into a monster.” Howon rubbed his temples and closed his eyes, trying to feign a headache when he was really only trying to hide tears. “Obviously, she decided to go with the first choice.”

Eunhye opened to say something, her eyes already glinting with judgement. She was definitely going to insult him again, probably along the lines of ‘king of the s’.

“I’d appreciate it if you would just listen without making your snarky comments!” Howon stood up and shouted, his eyes flashing a blue hue, but he instantly calmed down as he went to open the door. “Sorry. I think that’s as far as I can go today.”

Eunhye blinked a few times before she got off the chair she had been sitting on. Maybe she had been too snappy during her talk, but at least she had learned something out of it. Now that he was out of the room, and that it would be awkward to go outside and sit around a frustrated Howon, she decided to explore his bedroom.

“Don’t feel bad,” she consoled herself as she began looking through Howon’s desk. “In his centuries of living, he’s probably committed plenty of crimes compared to this.”

Frowning when she found nothing significant, she moved on to searching Howon’s closet. She was about to give up when she noticed a stack of black books in the corner. Curiously, she took one and opened it to a random page which revealed contents that resembled a scrapbook.

After two pages, Eunhye could instantly tell that this was definitely not Howon’s scrapbook – the delicate details and neat, precise handwriting was definitely not the work of his hands. Furrowing her eyebrows, she flipped to the very front.

Cho Yun Hee x Lee Howon
January 7, 1889

Eunhye stared at the book for a while before quickly browsing through the book, feeling as if her eyes were playing tricks on her. The girl in the photos resembled her quite accurately; she was just missing the dark circles and a few small details in the eyes and nose.

Putting down the book, she pulled out the entire stack of books and began going through them, realizing that they were all photo albums and scrapbooks. It freaked her how similar she looked to Yunhee, but she was also intrigued at the same time.

Two books later, she found a scrapbook that Kyungwon had made. Of course, there were no photographs in this one – but the date she read on the front page was baffling.

Cho Kyung Won and Lee Howon’s Story
Beginning on July 15, 1791

“This is ia, isn’t it?” Eunhye whispered to herself as she read through all the pages. “How old is he, really?”

Eunhye reached for the oldest book which sat at the bottom of the pile, completely confused on how she should be feeling about her discoveries. Judging from what Kyungwon and Yunhee had wrote, Howon was the cheesiest gentleman alive.

That was a teensy bit disgusting to know.

“1607?” Eunhye nearly dropped the worn-out book. Judging by the messy quality, it was probably handmade by Howon. “There’s almost two years between this and Kyungwon’s, though…?”

I never thought I would find someone else like me.
According to Yong Junhyung, I’ve been looking in the wrong places for the past fifty years.
To rub this information in, he pointed out all of the places I had always had the convenience to go to, yet never did.

- March 10, 1607

Delicately closing the book, Eunhye placed them all back into the closet in their sad little corner, making sure that they looked untouched. A storm of thoughts was raging through her mind, and she had no idea how to feel.

Just as she closed the closet, she was startled by someone knocking on the door.