After spending a few hours in the greenhouse, caring for the roses, Myungsoo and Sungyeol returned to the cabin.

Woohyun was sitting on the ground beside the door, tugging at the yellow grass. His head snapped up when he noticed them and he flashed a wide grin. "Oh, thank goodness you're back! I thought I would be waiting out here forever!" He stood up and brushed the little bits of grass and leaves off himself. "You'll invite me inside, won't you?" Woohyun asked, leaning against the doorframe as Myungsoo unlocked the door.

Myungsoo turned his head to glance Woohyun up and down. "No, I won't." He said blankly.

Woohyun's smile faltered. "Oh. Well. That's alright. I was just hoping to pop in for a little before heading to town, but maybe I ought to get on my way. I'll be back in a few days' time."

"If you'll be in town, could you bring back a few blankets?" Myungsoo asked.

He tilted his head, "What for? You don't even use blankets." He looked at Sungyeol for a moment, then back to Myungsoo, "Oh, I see. In that case, no."

"Do as you please." Myungsoo stepped inside without saying any more.

Sungyeol smiled awkwardly at Woohyun. "Have a nice trip." He said, before heading inside and shutting the door.

Woohyun rolled his eyes. "How boring." He muttered to himself.

Inside, Dongwoo was boiling tea on the stove.

"Good morning, you two! Coming back from seeing the deer?"

"From the greenhouse, actually." Myungsoo replied.

Dongwoo looked surprised. He turned to Sungyeol, excited. "And?! What did you think?"

"It was beautiful," he sighed dreamily, sitting down at the table. "I've never seen anything like it before."

Dongwoo joined him. "My thoughts exactly! But Myungsoo still isn't completely satisfied. He's been trying for years and years to come up with the perfect rose."

Sungyeol looked at him questioningly. "Really?"

Myungsoo shrugged. "It's only a matter of time before I get it."

"And what exactly is it?"

"Something entirely unique. I want a colour that nobody's ever seen on a rose before, but it has to be completely natural."

"Do you have a specific colour in mind?"

He looked directly at Sungyeol and smiled. "Blue. Because blue is… constancy. Blue is everlasting." He poured tea for all of them and sat down. "Dongwoo, I think it's time."

His eyebrows drew together. "Are you sure?"

Myungsoo nodded.

"Time for what?" Sungyeol looked back and forth between them.

They exchanged a glance, and Myungsoo spoke. "Sungyeol, are there any popular folk myths that make their way around the town?"

He thought for a moment. "A few, yes. It's only natural, being right next to the forest and all."

"What's the most common one?"

He looked confused, but went along with the conversation. "Werewolves, perhaps? Or maybe vampires?"

Myungsoo looked at Dongwoo, who gave a firm nod of reassurance. He continued. "What if we told you that one of those wasn't necessarily a myth?"

Sungyeol grinned. "Are you trying to pull a joke on me?" His smile fell when he noticed that both of them remained serious.

"Think about it for a moment. We're both extremely pale, despite spending so much time working outdoors. My hands are always cold to the touch. You never see us eat. Our bathroom has no mirror, and everything in this house that should be made of silver is made out of brass."

"But I did see you eat! That morning I made you oatmeal!"

Myungsoo grimaced. "That was an exception. I would've felt bad if I'd declined."

"You can't expect me to believe that you're…" He didn't want to complete the thought.

Dongwoo spoke up. "It's true, Sungyeol. We're vampires. But we would never harm you. I need to make that clear right now."

He was quiet for a long time, staring down into his cup of tea. Finally, he turned to Myungsoo. "Then tell me, why were you warm this morning?"

"Well, it has to do with our diet. While it's common knowledge that vampires drink blood, it's not a requirement for us to survive. Water or tea or other liquids are just fine; it's for the purpose of maintaining internal body pressure. But only blood keeps us warm for long periods of time. It gives us much more energy, too."

He looked horrified. "Then that means you...?" He whispered.

Myungsoo's eyes widened in realization. "No! No, we'd never! We've sworn off human blood. When we drink blood, it's from the deer."

"It's less wasteful that way," Dongwoo added. "When we sell the meat, it's much less wasteful to make use of the blood than dispose of it. You know, at first, we wanted to do catfish farming, because people drain the blood out completely before eating it, but catfish blood is known to taste muddy." He gave a small smile, trying to shine a bit of light on the situation.

It actually worked, and Sungyeol huffed in amusement at the thought. "This is all so hard to believe…"

"There's actually something else." Myungsoo cut in. "Sungyeol, this isn't the first time we've met."

Despite being raised religious, Sungyeol couldn't remember ever going to church. There was a very important reason for this.

The town he grew up in only had one church that most everyone attended. And in their church, there was a woman who claimed to communicate with greater powers on a regular basis. The people trusted her abilities and sought her guidance regularly (Is it a good year to grow corn? What will cure my brother's fever?) and her advice was always correct. She gained the title of town psychic.

The psychic loved Sungyeol's father, and when he married Sungyeol's mother, she was devastated. So when Sungyeol, their first child, was born, she sought revenge for something that should never have been considered an offence to begin with.

The young Lee couple brought their son to church for the first time when he was six months old to have him blessed. But before the priest began the ritual, the woman had risen from her seat and called out to the entire church:

"The baby holds the curse of the Devil! You must choose your fate! If you abandon it in the woods, your family will be blessed with health and longevity, but should you choose to keep it, you will live in suffering!"

Her words scared them. She had never been wrong before. Furthermore, her announcement had been in front of the whole town. If they kept the baby, everybody would know that a piece of the Devil was living in their home.

And so, despairingly, the Lee couple trekked out into the woods with their baby wrapped up in a blanket and left him in a little nook formed of tree roots.

Myungsoo and Dongwoo had just begun a new chapter of their lives, and were in the process of building the cabin.

While scouting out materials, Myungsoo had found the baby, tiny and helpless and bawling for its mother. He'd brought it back to Dongwoo right away, panicking, unsure of what to do with it.

Dongwoo simply told Myungsoo to look after it before disappearing to town to try and find out more, leaving his friend alone with the baby.

Myungsoo had no clue of how to stop the crying. He had no food to offer, and barely half a house to shelter it. But after fretting and fretting, trying to find something he could feed the helpless little thing, he discovered that simply picking it up and rocking it back and forth put it right to sleep.

But Dongwoo returned no wiser than he’d left -- just with a glass bottle of milk he’d bought in town.

And so, they put their construction on hold temporarily to care for the baby, feeding it milk and keeping it huddled in a little basket with a fleece blanket.

Each day, Dongwoo visited town to dig up more information, coming back empty-handed day after day.

Each day, Myungsoo was left alone in the half-built cabin, caring for the baby. There had been much less crying after the second day, and the baby almost seemed to have forgotten that it wasn’t supposed to be there. It loved to grab at Myungsoo’s fingers and squeeze them, giggling excitedly, staring up at him with big, brown eyes. He almost wished he could keep it at times.

After a week of investigating, Dongwoo finally found out the truth from some locals he met in a pub. One in particular, who had grown up with Sungyeol's father and the psychic woman, had mentioned the psychic's undying love for him. After that, it wasn't difficult to put the pieces together.

Myungsoo was beyond furious. That night, he placed the baby in its basket, draped a large black cloak over himself with the hood up, and stormed into town.

It wasn't hard to find the couple's home. He'd banged on the door so hard that it nearly fell off its hinges.

When Mr Lee opened the door, he was terrified to be met with a tall, hooded figure looming over him, face hidden by the shadow of the fabric, but a pair of unmistakable bright, red eyes staring down at him.

"The Devil has sworn to damn anyone who dares to abandon their own child. There was no curse to begin with. The woman is a liar." Myungsoo handed the basket to the man and his heel, striding off to his next destination.

He arrived at the psychic's home and knocked even harder on her door, splintering a long, vertical crack down the center.

She opened it and nearly screamed when she saw red eyes staring back at her.

Myungsoo stopped her with an ice-cold hand over .

"Should this mouth ever speak a lie again," he seethed, curling his fingers into her cheeks, "I shall return, and you will face the consequences of your wrongdoings."

When he took his hand away, the woman, flushed white and trembling, petrified, had whispered, "Are you the Devil?"

Myungsoo's gaze didn't falter for a second. "Believe me, Miss. I’m far worse."

Sungyeol sat silently for a long time.

“I know it’s a lot to handle at once. Maybe you should go rest for a bit.” Dongwoo coaxed, rubbing his shoulder comfortingly.

He nodded wordlessly, standing and retreating to his room. He lay down in his bed, simply staring up at the ceiling, processing everything he’d learned until long after sunset.

A quiet knock on his door finally woke him from his trance. Sungyeol cracked it open to see Myungsoo, looking a bit hesitant. He opened the door all the way to face him properly.

“Are you doing alright?” Myungsoo questioned, looking him in the eyes.

He nodded, “About as alright as I can be right now, considering… well, everything.”

Myungsoo looked away, biting his lip. It seemed to be a habit of his when he was nervous. “Would you like to come look at something with me?”

Sungyeol took a deep breath, smiled, and reached out to grab Myungsoo’s hand. It was still a bit warm. He gave it a light squeeze. “Lead the way.”

He gave a small, reassuring smile and began guiding Sungyeol through the dark house. They passed through the living room and climbed up the stairs, walking all the way down the corridor before stopping at the single door at the very end of it. Myungsoo twisted the knob and led Sungyeol inside.

The room was large and full of shelves upon shelves of leather-bound books lined up neatly, filling the bookcases which stretched from floor to ceiling along the far wall. A single wooden desk sat facing the sold window, topped with multiple thick stacks of paper and a jar stuffed full of pens. The wall opposite the bookcases had a burgundy sofa and a matching burgundy ottoman atop a fluffy cream rug. An antique lamp in the corner of the room shone warm, dim light throughout.

Myungsoo remained silent. He released Sungyeol's hand and went over to the desk, pulling it away from the window along with all of its contents. With nimble fingers, he unlatched the window and slid it fully open before turning around and holding his hand out to Sungyeol again.

Sungyeol took it without hesitation, mesmerized, fixated on Myungsoo's face -- washed golden from the lamplight on one side, and silver from the moonlight on the other.

They climbed out onto the roof through the open window, laying down arm-to-arm on a blanket that Myungsoo had spread out beforehand and staring up at the clear night sky. A crescent moon was embedded in the endless expanse of sky, glowing pure white, a stark contrast to an inky blue backdrop. Countless tiny stars winked down at the earth, promising wishes for those who called out to them.

Sungyeol turned his head to look at Myungsoo, who continued to stare up at the starry night, dark eyes housing a shimmering reflection of the entire universe above them. He couldn't believe that Myungsoo wasn't alive.