Seungcheol gasps like he’s resurfaced from being underwater. His eyes snap open and he sees the starry night sky above him, sees the snow slowly falling around him.

Everything hurts, but moving all his limbs tells him nothing’s broken. He’s probably bruised, but okay. He gingerly sits up, chest aching, but bearable.

Then he sees the bicycle above him, wheels still spinning as it lies against the railing by the road above, and he remembers. He was cycling to the convenience store, to fill up their instant noodle supply. Jihoon was the only other one fully awake and willing to go with him. He was with Jihoon.

Jihoon.

Seungcheol gets to his feet shakily, mind in a flurry. Jihoon. Where’s Jihoon? He turns around and finds him a few metres away, lying on his side in the snow by a pole, unmoving.

Seungcheol stumbles over to him, feet uncoordinated and steps uneven.

“Jihoon?!” he calls, voice high and breaking at the edges. He can’t bring himself to care about that.

Jihoon isn’t moving. His shoulders aren’t even rising and falling to indicate he’s breathing.

Seungcheol is beginning to panic as he falls to his knees in the snow beside him.

“Jihoon, hey, answer me, come on,” he says, voice desperate as he shakes Jihoon’s shoulder. He can see the snow by his head is kind of pink. There’s a pole behind his head and Seungcheol feels terror seize him. Jihoon hit his head in the fall. Jihoon is bleeding and -

“Jihoon,” he calls again, and there’s the beginnings of tears in his eyes. “Jihoon, please. Please answer me, Jihoon, please,”

He shakes Jihoon again, but the boy is unmoving, a limp doll in the snow. He touches the skin of Jihoon’s neck, which is still warm, but there’s no dull thump of a pulse beneath his fingertips. Seungcheol is struggling to breathe, but he moves his fingers, hoping he's just missing the vein in his panic, but he still doesn't find a pulse, and the warmth from Jihoon’s skin is fading.

“Oh god,” Seungcheol has tears sliding down his face, stinging in the cold, but he can’t stop. “Jihoon, please, wake up. Please, Jihoon, please,” his eyes squeeze shut and tears roll down his face. He chokes on his sobs. He breathes in like he’s drowning. He feels like he is.

“Help!” he whirls around to the deserted intersection. The car Seungcheol had swerved to avoid before crashing into the railing and falling down the adjacent slope to the next road is gone. It’s the middle of the night. There’s no one around. “Help!!” He screams, getting to his feet.

“Help! Someone, please! Help!” he makes it two steps before he turns around and gasps, stumbling back in surprise at the tall man standing there.

He’s dressed in a long black coat, everything covered up. He looks calm as he glances at Seungcheol, and then at Jihoon, lying motionless in the snow.

“Your friend is dead,” he says, matter-of-factly. Seungcheol chokes.

“No, no, please, you have to help us,” he says, “he can’t die. We’re about to debut, he’s a genius, he has to live, we - ”

“He’s dead,” the man says again and Seungcheol feels all the breath leave him.

“No… no, please, no,” his face crumbling as the tears fall. He turns back to Jihoon, stepping towards him. “Jihoon, no - ”

He’s stopped by the man grabbing his arm. Seungcheol stares at him. “What are you doing?” he chokes out.

The man regards him carefully. “You want to save him?”

“How can I?” Seungcheol cries. “I don’t know first aid or anything - ”

“You can save him,” the man answers.

“What?” Seungcheol breathes. “But… how? You said he’s dead, but he can’t be, he can’t - ”

“You can make him breathe again. He’ll be alive, but… not quite human,” the man says.

“I don’t understand,” Seungcheol answers.

“Do you want him to be alive?”

“Yes!” Seungcheol cries, desperation in his eyes.

The man looks at him calmly, dark eyes calculating. “Then you’ll have to give something,”

“Anything, please, just, don’t let Jihoon die,” Seungcheol gasps out.

The man doesn’t comment that the other boy lying in the snow is already dead, instead reaching a hand over to cover Seungcheol’s eyes.

Seungcheol shifts a little, confused and scared, especially as his vision is all dark. But nothing is more scary than the thought of Jihoon being dead. He can’t die. He just can’t...

“Your blood will suffice,” a voice says, and then Seungcheol’s mind goes dark.

Seungcheol wakes up to the starry sky, snow falling gently all around him. He blinks twice and then there’s a face hovering over him. Jihoon.

Jihoon?!

Seungcheol sits up too quickly, head spinning, but he whirls around to look anyway. Jihoon stares at him, confusion all over his features.

“Jihoon? Are you okay?” Seungcheol asks.

“I’m fine. You’re the one who took ages to wake up,” Jihoon says, sarcasm dripping in his voice and Seungcheol can’t help but grin. That’s the Jihoon he knows.

Was it a dream then? Seungcheol thinks. Jihoon looks fine, the bike is still on the rails on the road above. What a horrible dream, he thinks. He can’t believe he dreamed Jihoon died.

“Come on, I’m hungry,” Jihoon says and Seungcheol laughs. But when he leans on his hand to get up, a sharp sting of pain makes him fall back onto his .

“Ouch,” he mutters.

“What happened?” Jihoon asks, leaning over to see.

“No, my wrist just hurts,” he says, pulling back the sleeve of his jacket and shirt. “Did I sprain it - ?” the words die on his lips when he finds a thick line of red, a cut deep into the skin of his wrist.

“What the hell?” Seungcheol murmurs. It’s too precise for it to have been from falling off the bicycle. Almost like someone purposely cut his wrist to -

Seungcheol looks up at Jihoon and feels his blood run cold. Jihoon’s eyes are fixated on his wrist, and he looks dazed, almost like he’s delusional.

“Jihoon…?” Seungcheol breathes. Jihoon’s gaze lifts and Seungcheol gasps. His eyes are red, like he’s put contacts in. But Seungcheol knows Jihoon isn’t wearing contacts now.

“What - ?” but Seungcheol doesn’t finish, Jihoon’s hands grabbing his arm and hand, mouth latching onto the wound and Seungcheol cries out. He can feel Jihoon’s mouth on his wrist, but it’s not warm, and he can feel the blood coming out of his wrist, out by Jihoon. Seungcheol gapes, but he can’t wrench his wrist free, Jihoon’s grip like iron even though Seungcheol has always been the stronger of them. The feeling of his blood being out is surreal and lasts several seconds before there’s a cool, wet feeling against the wound and Jihoon pulls away slowly, sitting back down in the snow. Seungcheol stares at him, and then at his wrist, which is now completely clean and healed. It’s like there was never a wound there.

Jihoon sits there, eyes glazed over, but brown again. He looks completely dazed, staring somewhere above Seungcheol’s head.

“Jihoon…?” Seungcheol calls tentatively, but the boy doesn’t answer.

Seungcheol crawls over to him and touches his face. He’s ice-cold, and not just in the sense of being in the snow too long. He’s cold, like he’s not alive. Seungcheol pulls his hands away sharply. Jihoon still looks dazed, but he’s breathing, blinking occasionally. Jihoon is alive, but he’s cold, like he’s dead.

Seungcheol thinks of the strange man. He looks around, but the two of them are alone in the street. So it wasn’t a dream then…?

He thinks of the blood at his wrist, how Jihoon on it like it was a life source. Like it was -

”Come on, I’m hungry,” Jihoon’s voice echoes in his head.

Seungcheol in a sharp breath. Feeding on blood?

He glances at his best friend, but Jihoon hasn’t moved. He’s still breathing though. He’s alive, even though Seungcheol can see the blood that dried in his hair from before. Jihoon was dead, but now he’s alive and… feeds on blood.

Seungcheol feels his heart shudder in his chest, fear crawling across his skin. What is going on?

“I was beginning to worry where you were,” Jeonghan says when Seungcheol steps back into the dorm, Jihoon in his arms.

Jeonghan immediately frowns when Seungcheol steps into the living room and he sees Jihoon, limp and unmoving in Seungcheol’s arms. Jihoon usually wouldn’t be caught dead showing any kind of weakness, being carried included.

“What happened?” he asks.

“Fell off the bike,” Seungcheol mutters. “Jihoon… hit his head. He’s kind of dazed, so I’m going to put him to bed. If he wakes up feeling bad we’ll … go see someone,” he realises with a cold feeling that he can’t take Jihoon to a hospital. What person feeds on blood and is ice cold? He can’t take him to a hospital. Ever.

Seungcheol also realised when he was cycling back that Jihoon had no heartbeat.

But he breathed, and he looked perfectly fine, just a little paler, but Jihoon was always pale.

He takes Jihoon back to the room, Jeonghan trailing behind uncertainly, looking at Jihoon worriedly.

Seungcheol takes off Jihoon’s shoes and outer jacket. But then Jeonghan lets out a gasp and Seungcheol sees him yank his hand away from Jihoon’s forehead.

“He’s ice-cold!” Jeonghan hisses and Seungcheol hushes him. Jeonghan glares at him like he’s mad and Seungcheol realises he has to explain everything. Jihoon is alive, but ice-cold.

He sighs, brushes Jihoon’s hair from his face, and then explains everything that happened.

“Seungcheol, that’s crazy,” Jeonghan says when he’s finished. “He was dead. He was dead. So how is he alive? How is this even possible? You can’t bring people back from the dead,”

“And yet, somehow, Jihoon is here, alive, and breathing. Even if he’s cold, and has no heartbeat and… feeds on blood supposedly,” Seungcheol says heavily.

Jeonghan stares at Jihoon, then turns to Seungcheol. “It’s like a vampire, in the movies,” he says. Seungcheol looks at him, expression confused. He knows the vampires in the movies, but this… this isn’t what happened. Is it?

Jihoon can’t be… ?

Jihoon moves just slightly at that moment, and the two of them turn to him. He blinks several times, seemingly coming to his senses.

“Jihoon….?” Seungcheol calls tentatively and it takes Jihoon a moment before he looks over to the older of the two staring at him on his bed.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, blinking at them. “Why do you two look so nervous?”

Seungcheol his lips, glancing at Jeonghan. “Do you remember what happened?”

“What do you mean?” Jihoon answers, eerily calm.

“Where were you just before this, Jihoon?”

“We were going to the convenience store,” Jihoon answers.

“And then?”

Jihoon furrows his brows, thinking hard. “We… you took a while to wake up, but then you hurt your wrist and….” his brows furrow more and Seungcheol in a breath.

“So you don’t remember,” he breathes and Jeonghan looks worried. Jihoon glances at both of them.

“What’s going on? What don’t I remember?” he says.

Seungcheol wonders how he’ll explain this. He takes a deep breath. “Jihoon…. Are you hungry?”

JIhoon looks at him like he’s crazy. “What are you talking about?”

“Just answer the question, Jihoon-ah,” Jeonghan says softly. Jihoon looks at him quizzically too but Jeonghan knows what Seungcheol is trying to do. Neither of them say anything more, just wait for Jihoon.

“Well, yeah, I guess, a little,” Jihoon answers uncertainly.

“What do you want?” Seungcheol asks. Jihoon still looks confused but then he focuses, thinking about what he wants to eat.

“Jjajangmyun?” he says after a while. Seungcheol glances at Jeonghan.

“What about this?” Seungcheol asks and lifts his hand, where there’s a decent sized cut across the back of his hand, the blood dried and dark against his skin.

Jihoon leans forward to inspect it, and his eyes flash red for a moment, before he his lips and sits back, looking a little confused.

But instead of asking how Seungcheol got the wound, Jihoon shakes his head like he’s trying to push thoughts out of his brain. “No. No, what the hell?” he says. Seungcheol looks at Jeonghan, and he knows the second eldest has seen it too.

“Jihoon…. The bit you can’t remember…. My wrist was bleeding. You… you on my blood and then healed the wound,” Seungcheol says quietly.

Jihoon looks between horrified and confused.

“No, that’s ridiculous,” Jihoon laughs, but it’s forced. “Have you been watching too many movies again, hyung?”

“Jihoon…” Jeonghan says. “Your eyes just turned red when you looked at Seungcheol’s hand. You… you wanted it, didn’t you? The blood,”

Jihoon shakes his head. “This is some weird prank, isn’t it?” he laughs again. “Ha ha ha ha ha, got me. Now is Soonyoung behind the curtain, holding a camera?”

Jeonghan looks grim. “No, it’s not a prank, Jihoon. You... you’re ice-cold. You don’t have a pulse.”

Jihoon’s hand immediately reaches for his neck, trying to find a pulse. His eyes look confused before he moves his hand, as if he’s just gotten the wrong point on his neck. He does it three more times before he lifts his head to stare at them, lost. “No. No, no. This isn’t happening. This is just some weird, messed up dream and - ”

“Jihoon,” Seungcheol says. “You were dead. You hit your head and you were dead. But this guy said I could save you and I don’t know what happened, but you’re alive - ”

“But now I’m some monster who feeds on blood?!” Jihoon cries. “Who gave you the right to decide if I continued to live?”

“Did you want to die?” Jeonghan asks quietly. Jihoon doesn’t answer that and avoids his gaze.

Seungcheol sighs. “I’m sorry. I was panicking. I just couldn’t process you… being dead. But whatever it is, you’re here now, and we’ll work it out, okay?”

“No, no, this is just some weird dream, and I’m going to wake up soon and this will all just go away,” Jihoon laughs again, delirious disbelief all over his face.

Seungcheol looks grim. “I thought I dreamt you dying…. Then I realised it was real,” he murmurs. “This is real, Jihoon. I don’t know what to think either, but we’ll work this out, okay?”

Jihoon keeps shaking his head, hand still trying to look for a pulse. “No. No. What the ? This isn’t real, this can’t be real,”

Jeonghan pulls him in for a hug, his hair comfortingly, looking at Seungcheol over Jihoon’s head with pain and fear in his eyes. Seungcheol is sure he looks just as unsure and worried.

They don’t know what to do from here, but they’ll have to work it out.

Debut is just around the corner, and Jihoon is now a vampire.

Jihoon doesn’t sleep that night. Seungcheol knows from the couple of times he wakes up in the middle of the night, hearing Jihoon tossing and turning, and also by the dark look on Jihoon’s face in the morning. The others assume it was just a late night, and keep their distance. Seungcheol and Jeonghan keep silent about the previous night.

Jeonghan whispers to him halfway through the day while they both watch Jihoon push his food around his plate, that he has a family friend in the blood donation institution, and they might be able to get some blood bags for Jihoon.

“Let’s see what happens first,” Seungcheol says quietly. But no one comments on Jihoon’s apparent lack of appetite.

Jihoon barely eats anything, but doesn’t say anything either, just going through the day, despite looking more and more tired as the day progresses. He also looks paler, but it seems like everyone else puts it off as the harsh lights of the practice rooms.

Just after dinner, Jeonghan and Seungcheol go to the blood donation institute and get a couple of bags of blood before returning to the dorm. When Seungcheol asks where Jihoon is, they’re told he locked himself in the studio. Jeonghan hurries everyone to bed as Seungcheol leaves, blood bags hidden in the large pockets of his hoodie.

Seungcheol pushes in the code to the door and it swings open. Jihoon growls at him to go away.

Seungcheol drops a blood bag on his keyboard.

Jihoon freezes and then whirls around to face him.

“No,”

“You need to feed, Jihoon,” Seungcheol says. “Whether you approve of what you eat or not, you need to eat to survive,”

Jihoon pushes it aside and Seungcheol sighs. He puts the other bag beside it, both of them near Jihoon’s computer, before leaving, door closing behind him with a click.

Seungcheol pushes in the code, door swinging open as he steps into the room and kicks one of the blood bags.
He looks further into the room, following the trail of several strewn blood bags on the floor, to the boy huddled under the desk in the far corner.

Seungcheol sighs.

“Jihoon…”

A head whips towards him before an almost animalistic growl is heard.

“Get out,” Jihoon snarls.

Seungcheol makes a face. He doesn’t see any empty bags, which means - “Not until you eat something,” he says.

“I’ll let myself rot before I consume any blood,”

“What’s the point in that, Jihoon?” Seungcheol sighs, picking his way through the blood bags to the other end of the room. “You have so much to live for. What happened to making music, making it big? We’re about to debut,”

“You think I can still debut when I’m like this?” Jihoon cries.

Seungcheol’s gaze is even, unwavering.

“You’re a vampire, but you’re still Jihoon,”

Jihoon’s gaze flickers to the ground, whole face crumbling.

“No… No, I’m not. I’m a monster who needs to feed on other people to survive,” he says

“You feed on blood, Seungcheol says, “You don’t have to kill to live."

Jihoon curls back into a tighter foetal position under the desk. He has barely left the room in days, only enough to keep up the facade to the company and the other members that he’s still alive. Whatever that means.

Seungcheol bends up to pick up a blood bag and Jihoon turns away from him.

“Jihoon,” Seungcheol sighs.

Jihoon shuffles his feet in the tiny space he’s occupying under the table. “The blood bags taste gross,” he mumbles eventually.

Now Seungcheol understands a bit better why Jihoon hasn’t been eating. He sighs, crouching beside Jihoon. Jihoon flinches in response, turning away more.

“You … you should stay away,” he murmurs. “I don’t want to hurt you,”

Seungcheol just smiles. “You won’t hurt me, Jihoon,” a hand reaches out and gently caresses his cheek. The skin is ice-cold. “But you need to live, and to live you need to feed,” he looks at the blood bag in his hand, “and if you won’t feed on these, then you need to feed on - ”

“I won’t,” Jihoon cuts in, stubborn. “I won’t feed on a living, breathing person. I’ll let myself rot first,”

“Jihoon,” Seungcheol sighs. He dangles the blood bag in front of him and Jihoon scrunches his face at it. “If you don’t eat from the blood bag, I’ll cut my wrist and bleed until you feed from me,”

“No!” Jihoon’s eyes are wide, finally turning towards Seungcheol a little. “No, Seungcheol, you can’t - ”

Seungcheol just holds up the blood bag in answer.

Jihoon swallows thickly, fear and conflict clear in his eyes. Seungcheol waits a moment before standing up and reaching for the scissors on Jihoon’s desk, but Jihoon grabs his pant leg and tugs him back down, snatching the blood bag away from him.

Seungcheol knows it’s already been a few days. Jihoon wouldn’t survive much longer if he didn’t feed.

Jihoon tears at the corner of the blood bag tentatively, hands shaking. He brings the edge of the plastic to his lips, the red liquid into his mouth. His face is wrinkled in disgust the whole time, but he feeds, head down. Seungcheol feels relief flood him and he reaches over to ruffle his hair.

Once he’s finished the bag, the bag falls away from his lips slowly, before he tosses it almost lazily to the side, like it was contagious.

“Good job, Jihoonie,” Seungcheol murmurs. Jihoon doesn’t answer, head still bent over and Seungcheol gently reaches over to lift his head up.

Jihoon’s eyes are dilated, fading out from the angry red to its usual soft brown. His lips are smeared with blood, expression totally dazed. Seems like he’s always like this after feeding. Seungcheol gently wiped the blood on his lips with a thumb. “You can’t die,” he whispers, right before he leans over and, very gently, kisses him softly.

It continues like that - Jihoon resists the blood bags vehemently until he’s nearly about to pass out. But he feeds on the blood bags and they manage to navigate through the days like that.

Debut showcase happens and Seungcheol convinces Jihoon to eat before it, and Jihoon shines like he was always supposed to.

Jihoon also begins to eat normal food again, if only to keep up the pretence of being normal - he says it doesn’t taste like anything to him anymore, and doesn’t make him feel any different, but the members stop giving him worried glances, so he usually forces some food down at meal times.

It gets difficult when they get more busy, but Jeonghan and Seungcheol have created a small storage of blood bags and Jihoon keeps them hidden in his studio, in locked drawers, away from sight.

Travelling for award shows and things like that make it hard too, but they manage somehow.

They make comebacks and even gets their first win on a music show, while Jihoon gets used to the routine. He pretends to eat normal food during the day, feeding on blood in the privacy of his studio late at night where he pretends to spend only a couple of extra hours before sleeping. The reality is, he can’t sleep anymore, so he just spends most of the night there, until it’s almost time for one of the members to wake up and he slips back inside wordlessly, pretending he’s been there for hours.

The routine shatters the day Seungcheol is with Jihoon in the studio to write some lyrics, and he slices his palm on one of the music sheets.

Paper cuts aren’t unusual in a group of 13 rowdy boys, but Jihoon has always averted his eyes from the red and pretended to be busy.

But this time, it’s Seungcheol, and it’s late. Jihoon hasn’t fed yet, and that’s what he blames it on when he leans over and, very delicately, the palm of Seungcheol’s hand, the wound closing up immediately.

“Jihoon…” Seungcheol breathes, eyes wide.

“There wasn’t much blood, don’t worry,” Jihoon shrugs, though he himself is a little shocked at his own actions.
Seungcheol just nods quietly and finishes up his lyrics before leaving Jihoon for the night.

And Jihoon realises he’s messed up when he feeds that night and the blood bag tastes even more bitter and bland than usual.

It doesn’t compare to the sweetness Seungcheol’s blood had.

It takes a full two weeks before Seungcheol realises, and by then they’re finishing promotions and preparing to go on a tour through Asia.

It’s their last week of promoting when Seungcheol wakes up late at night to hear someone in the bathroom. It sounds like someone throwing up.

Immediately, Seungcheol climbs out of bed, ignoring Jihoon’s empty bed, because it’s always empty.

He pushes at the door, but it’s locked. But as he looks down at the light shining under the door, he sees it: red liquid. Blood.

He knocks on the door very gently and the retching sounds and sniffles pause for a moment.

“Jihoon?” he whispers. “Jihoon, it’s me. Are you okay?”

A tiny sound, like a broken child wailing for a lost toy, is his only answer and Seungcheol jiggles the door handle again.
“Jihoon. Jihoon, let me in,”

“No…. no,”

“Jihoon, what’s wrong?”

“I … I can’t feed,” Jihoon sobs. He sounds broken, desperate. “I don’t know why, but I can’t feed. My body keeps rejecting the bags, I just… it’s everywhere. I can’t feed,”

Seungcheol is fumbling to try and unlock the door.

“Jihoon, open the door, please, I’ll help you fix this. It’s going to be okay,”

“N-No,” Jihoon cries, “you have to stay away. If you come in, I might…. ”

And Seungcheol realises what Jihoon is so scared of - feeding on Seungcheol.

“Jihoon, it’s okay, you won’t hurt me, just let me inside, please. We’ll work this out,”

A sniffle, but no sound of movement. The door remains locked.

“Jihoon, please, please open the door. It’ll be okay, I promise.”

Another sniffle and then the sound of the door being unlocked. When Seungcheol opens the door hesitantly, he finds Jihoon was right. There’s blood everywhere, all around the toilet where Jihoon had been throwing up, but there’s also half open bags on the floor that have spilled all over the floor, streaks of it on the walls, on the shower curtain, from Jihoon’s bloodied hands.

Jihoon himself has huddled back to the shower area, behind the curtain, watching Seungcheol fearfully, eyes flashing between brown and red. He needs to feed, and soon.

Seungcheol hushes him quietly. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” and he immediately grabs one of the fluffy towels left behind in the bathroom and mops the floor a little, at least so that it won’t seep out of the bathroom. He belatedly wonders if he should get Jeonghan to help, but the shower curtains shift, Jihoon shaking behind them, and Seungcheol knows he has to help Jihoon first.

“Hey, hey it’s okay, look, it’s getting cleaned up, see?” Seungcheol says. He feels like he’s talking to a terrified child. Jihoon looks like one, covered in blood and shaking from behind a shower curtain.

After he’s mopped up some of the blood on the floor and poured the half full blood bags into the toilet and flushed it down, Seungcheol reaches for Jihoon. He notices his own hands are bloody but Jihoon isn’t looking at him with fear because of that. It takes Seungcheol a moment to understand.

“Jihoon, do you… do you want to feed on me?” Seungcheol asks quietly.

Jihoon has tears running down his face as he shakes his head. “I don’t want to,” he sobs, “but I know… it’s all my body wants to feed on, but I - I can’t… I can’t -”

Seungcheol hushes him and slowly reaches for him. He touches Jihoon’s hands on the shower curtain gently. Jihoon jerks away and falls over into the shower area.

Seungcheol crouches in front of him. “Shh, it’s okay, Jihoon. It’s not your fault. I - I was the one who didn’t want you to die, it’s my fault you’re like this, so it’s okay if you need to feed on me to live,” he says, smile a little wry. “Besides, it’s not like you’ll kill me,” he smiles again and Jihoon stares at him. “I know you won’t hurt me,”

Jihoon stares at his blood covered hands, guilt swimming in his eyes.

“Jihoon, it’s okay,” Seungcheol whispers and Jihoon stares at him.

“I’m sorry,” is all Jihoon whispers before he reaches for Seungcheol’s wrist and opens his mouth, bloodied fangs sinking into Seungcheol’s skin.

Seungcheol hisses at the first sting and Jihoon glances at him worriedly, but then he tastes the blood and Jihoon begins to feed.

Seungcheol watches with confused interest. It’s horrifying but also fascinating, watching Jihoon, covered in blood, feeding on his wrist, which stings a little but otherwise he just feels like the exhaustion of the day is catching up to him.

Like the first time, Jihoon finishes by the wound, which heal up immediately and Jihoon falls back, eyes dilated and expression dazed.

Seungcheol reaches for him, pulling him to his chest and running a hand through Jihoon’s light hair, before realising he’s leaving blood behind, giving Jihoon pink streaks. He murmurs an apology to the silent room and kisses Jihoon’s blood streaked hair.

Jihoon leans against him like he’s half-asleep, a dazed doll unaware of his surroundings. Seungcheol sighs heavily, holding him tightly, waiting for him to come to his senses. From experience, it can be as little as a few minutes to as long as half an hour.

His is getting cold though, sitting on the tiles of the bathroom, and he should probably clean up the bathroom before the other members wake up. With that realisation, Seungcheol tries to get to his feet, to put Jihoon to bed and then come back to clean the bathroom, but instead, a wave of dizziness washes over him and Seungcheol hurriedly sits back down. It takes a long while for the world to stop spinning.

He sighs and leans back against the wall, hugging Jihoon to his chest tightly.

“Just for a few minutes,” he mumbles to himself as he rests his head back against the cool tile and closes his eyes.

Jihoon always comes out of his daze slowly, like waking up groggily, half aware of things and unsure if he’s still dreaming or actually awake.

The first thing he’s aware of is warmth, all around him, like a cocoon.

It doesn’t take lon