“Now kiss me.”

I didn’t question her order. My head started moving towards her face. I closed my eyes and my heart was beating rapidly fast. The only thing I seemed to keep control over were my thoughts.

What am I doing? I can’t kiss her! But I want to…

I got closer and closer to her. The anticipation grew and I wondered how her lips would taste and when I could feel her warm breath on my lips, I got shoved back.
“See? You had no control over your actions, right?” I opened my eyes to see her look at me with a cheeky grin.
“What just happened?” Her eyes were back to normal and no red shimmer was left.
“What do you think happened?” She asked me back.
“I don’t know. My body was moving on its own. I didn’t want to...kiss...you.” She fake gasped with one hand on .
“How dare you say that!” Then she turned away, crossed her arms and pouted.
“Hey, I didn’t mean to...I just.” I sighed, not knowing what to say. I could’ve said that deep down I liked it, but what would it make me look like?
I didn’t want to be perceived as a guy who would kiss someone without meaning to it.
“So you had no control over your actions.” Dahyun spoke up, drawing my intention to her. “Sana controlled your mind. But not really your mind. She ordered something and you couldn’t help but to comply. That’s the skill I was talking about.”
“What do you mean she controlled my mind, but didn’t? I’m confused.”
“That’s a question we can’t answer. We don’t know what’s happening. But we can’t possibly get in your head and control you.” That left me with more questions. When even they couldn’t answer it, who could?

“Hmm. So basically you could make me do everything you want?”
“Not really. You could work against it with all your willpower if you really didn’t want to do something. And it works better the closer you are. It’s not possible for us to tell you something to do from the other end of the room.” Then she smirked and glanced over to Sana. “And it benefits the process if the human is attracted to the vampire.”

What does she mean by that?

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Sana looking innocently at me and it clicked.

Ooohhh....

I felt my face heating up. “Seeing that you instantly acted when Sana said it…” Dahyun didn’t need to finish the sentence for everyone to know what she was implying.

Sana then clung again onto my arm. “I find you attractive, too. I can’t wait for our first kiss and the first-”
Suddenly Tzuyu made gagging noises. We all turned our attention onto her.
“Can you please shut up and change the topic? You two interacting that way is disgusting.”

“You two”? I didn’t do anything.

“Excuse me? Sana said that. I didn’t do anything.”
“Whatever. Just don’t act like that in my presence.” Sana just stuck out her tongue towards the Taiwanese girl.
Dahyun cleared . “Please don’t fight. But Tzuyu’s right, let’s talk about something different. Have you any more questions, Seungjae?”
After thinking for a moment, one question popped into my mind.
“You’re nine. Is that normal? Like, how did you all end up together?”
“Ah, good question.” Dahyun grabbed her chin and pursed her lips. “Nayeon, Jeongyeon and Jihyo kind of started the group. I think they all seeked refuge at the same place with their families back then in the 1880s and fate brought them together. I don’t know the exact year. Unfortunately they’re the only survivors of that group. Everyone else was killed during the Korean War.”
“Oh, wow. That’s, just wow.”
“Yeah, well, soon they kind of found me. I was bitten and turned into a vampire in 1940 when I was 12. I got sent into a hospital but a vampire family stole me from my parents. They explained what happened to me and that I couldn’t return to them. I still hate them for it, though they were in the right.” She wiped a single tear away and Momo caressed her back, showing her support.
“Must’ve been very hard for you. Sorry to hear this.”
“I learned to live like that and now living with all the girls here together isn’t bad either. Anyway, my vampire...guardians and I stumbled upon Nayeon, Jihyo and Jeongyeon in 1959. They were only a few years older than me, well, the state their bodies were in was only a few human years further than me. We befriended each other and eventually I joined them when they wanted to move on to a different city. My guardians realized and understood that I didn’t really want to be with them.” Again a pause from her to take a breath.

“Momo and Sana are actually childhood friends. They were born as vampires and we met them in 1965 when we moved to Japan. But I think they could tell you their story themselves, if they like to.” Dahyun first turned to Momo before giving Sana a questioning look.
The short black haired Japanese gave the cut spider monkey next to me an reassuring nod.

“We were both born in 1780.” Sana started. “Though we are vampires, we lived a pretty quiet life. Nothing noteworthy happened. We moved places quite frequently and luckily had no problems of being hunted or something like that. At least until World War 2 broke out.” Her voice became quiet and her grip on me got tighter.
“You don’t have to tell me. I think I know what happened and I want you to know that I’m sorry. I know what it feels like to lose it’s parents.
I caressed one of Sana’s hands and nodded towards Momo.
After a couple of minutes in which nobody said a word, Sana went on.
“So, we met the four after school one day. Momo and I were on our way back home when we saw three young women and a teenager arguing where to eat. They asked us for recommendations and something felt off about them. We ended up eating with them and when we noticed holes in their stories, we got more suspicious. For example, our little Dubu here told a school story about her time before she got turned and said by accident it happened in 1937.” She grinned cheekily at the blue haired one.

“Please don’t remind me of that. I still can’t believe I made such a rookie mistake back then.”
“Rookie mistake my .” Sana replied. “You were blinded by our beauty.”
“You wish.” I had to chuckle at their frantics and it went on for a good ten minutes. Basically what I learned was that Dahyun was a nervous wreck and couldn’t answer some questions about their past. The four Korean girls told the Japanese ones that Dahyun was the cousin of Jihyo, but she didn’t know which of her parents were related to which part of Jihyos parents. That got Sana and Momo thinking that the four girls had something to hide and it was only one of the few things that was sketchy about their stories.

“And it got proven-” Sana was curling up in laughter and everyone but Dahyun already joined her. “-when the other three had enough and wanted to leave. Momo told them it was nice meeting vampires and it was always her dream speaking to one and Dahyun just said she was glad to fulfill her wish.” Laughing, Sana slid off the couch and still couldn’t stop. The look Dahyun had on her face was priceless. It must be one of the things your friends keep telling you for years and they still find it funny. Considering that this happened 55 years ago, I can’t imagine how often Dahyun had to hear this story.

After everyone calmed down, Momo continued telling the story.
“In the end we invited them to live with us and I still remember how Dahyun got scolded by the other three. Sana and I weren’t able to sleep until deep into the night. A good thing our neighbors couldn’t understand Korean.” And again we all fell into a fit of laughter.

When Dahyun stood up to leave, Momo begged her to stay. “You can keep going to tell the stories. I’m sorry, okay? But it’s your own fault being so dense back then.” Dahyun sighed deeply before sitting back down. Without minding the still giggling Japanese girls she started to continue with her story.

“The next one to join us was Tzuyu. It was in 1982 and she decided to study for a couple of years in Korea. Sana met her in university and one day she noticed Tzuyu’s eyes glowing when she got angry at a guy.”
“Her eyes started to glow because she was angry?” I asked, remembering Sana and Mina’s eyes glowed earlier. “So was Sana...angry at me? You know when she controlled my mind.”
Dahyun laughed. “No. The color of our eyes intensifies and they start to glow when we experience strong emotions, not just anger. But what she felt while looking at you can only she herself answer.” As on cue I turned to the girl next to me. She gave me a weird look, blinking fast and pouting slightly.
“You didn’t feel anger, right?” She shook her head no.
“Then what?”
“Try to guess.”

Emotions, emotions, emotions. Happiness? Sadness? Fear? Wait…

“Don’t tell me it was…” I gulped before finishing my sentence. “...lust.” She didn’t say anything at first. only formed to a sly grin.
“Carry on, Dahyunnie.” She then averted her attention to the story teller.

Oh my...so Sana felt lust earlier? That’s...what am I going to do? That’s one hell of a day for me so far.

I decided to not mind it.

It will only get