Tok tok tok.

I awoke with a jolt to the knocking on my door. It was past midnight, who could it be?

I got up from my bed and opened the door. Outside was waiting a tall burly man dressed in the uniform of the Royal Army, the Emperor's Seal emblazoned on his left shoulder shining in the light of the full moon in the sky.

"Jang Dongwoo, your presence will be expected early tomorrow morning at the Imperial Palace." He said in a commanding tone and handed me a decree that would allow me to pass through the palace doors, then he turned around and marched away from my door before I could ask him why I was being summoned there.

Shrugging, I closed my door and went back to sleep.

In the morning, I woke up extra early to have a bath – when you get summoned by the Emperor, you don't go meet him stinking of the sweat of the previous day's work – then dressed in my best clothes – which isn't saying much, since they were the clothes with the least amount of mismatched patches. I picked up the decree and headed for the palace.

The look the guards at the gate gave me changed when I showed them the decree, and they treated me – a commoner – with the same amount of respect due to a noble. That freaked me out, to say the least.

As I walked in the courtyard following the directions the guards gave me, an old man with a long swinging beard greeted me and asked me to follow him to the Emperor's Quarters.

"But why would the Emperor summon a commoner like me to his presence?" I asked incredulously.

"Are you not the man who won the Emperor's League for the cards category?" The man asked.

"Yes, I am. But what does that have to do with anything?"

I had won the competition a week ago, and the money I gained had gotten me rid of the debts I would have had to work till my bones eroded deep in the earth to pay off. However, not a penny was left to account for it now.

"The Emperor had decreed to the nobles that this year he would have a game with the winner of the League, as he was bored with their incompetence at such a game." The man answered me.

Oh boy, the Emperor wanted to play me. Should I lose on purpose if it seemed like I was going to win?

"Walk through that door, the Emperor is waiting." He said and left.

I cleared my throat and walked through the door.

"Ah, looks like he has arrived, my Emperor!" One of the seated men in luxurious clothes said.

I bowed my head to the Emperor and the nobles, then knelt and said "I have arrived here at my Emperor's request. It is an honor to be here."

"Get up, and come sit opposite us. We are getting impatient for this game." The Emperor said.

I hurried to the seat he had indicated, and the game started.

He was a good player, and the game went on for even longer than the last match in the League. I struggled at certain points, but managed to pull through all the same. The match was eventually won by the Emperor, and he complimented me on my playing and asked me to come by the next day for another game.

A week passed, and every day I would play a game against the Emperor and he would win. On the seventh day of such a routine however, the Emperor made a small mistake in his play, but as often happens, small mistakes cause bigger damage than huge ones. I was stuck with a problem. Do I lose on purpose? Or do I continue with the game as I would with anyone else?

Eventually, the idea of winning against the Emperor became too appealing, and I acted as I would have had he been anyone else. I played a hand that had him at an enormous disadvantage, and he eventually lost that game.

That night, five men of the Imperial Army came and dragged me from my house to the local prison, saying I would be hung the next morning.

"So you're the man who caused the Emperor to lose face in front of the council of nobles today, huh?" Said the man in the cell across from mine. He had small line like eyes, and it was extremely hard from even this small distance to know if they were open or not.

"Yes. Apparently I should have lost on purpose. But I never imagined he would order my hanging." I said incredulously.

"Emperors have a right to do what they want without anyone questioning them."

"But this is just ridiculous! It was a game for God's sake!" I said outraged.

"So you feel wronged, but you are going to die anyway." He said in a way that had me thinking he was enjoying my situation.

"You think this is funny?" I asked threateningly.

"Hehe, you can put all the menace you want behind your words, but you're stuck in that cell until morning. You won't be able to do anything to me." He said tauntingly.

"Cheh!" I spat on the floor.

A guard came over and stood between our two cells. "You two mind keeping it down? We're tryin' to have a nice little game of dice, and you're distracting us!" Saying that, he left to continue the game, muttering about lost money.

"Oh, goody, finally able to attract that one over here. Thanks for the help man. By way of repaying you, how about I get you out of there before they decide to drag you off to the noose?" The annoying man said.

"Get me out? How are you gonna do that? You can't even get yourself out!" I said in a lowered voice so as not to attract the guards again.

"With this, obviously." He said, holding up a key.

"What the… How did you get that?" I felt my eyes grow wide.

"Snatched it from the guard who just came here." He said, looking at me as if he was explaining an extremely basic thing to a three year old.

"But I didn't see you move!"

He just smiled a vague smile. "You're about to see some magic my friend." And in a blink, he was there, right outside my cell, holding up the key to it and twisting it in the lock.

"How in the seven blazing hells did you do that?!" I whispered furiously, as I got out of my cell.

"Easily." Was all he said. "Now stay quiet, I don't want to have to carry you out of here."

I kept my mouth shut as we snuck around to the gate, then out of it and to our freedom. Incredibly, not one guard showed up while we were doing that.

"OK, now do you mind explaining exactly what the hell you are, and how you got that key?" I said, as we were nearing the edge of the nearby forest.

"Oh, so you're decidedly being rude, are you? Fine, I'll introduce myself first. The name is Sunggyu, and I could get the key without apparently moving because I can freeze time." He said, so matter-of-factly, I burst out laughing like a hyena.

"Yea, right!" I choked out between wheezing peels of laughter.

He just stared at me like I was the insane one. I finally halted my laughter at his expression. "You can't be serious!"

"Why can't I?"

"Because, no human being can freeze time! Heck! I've never even heard of a mystical being that can freeze time!"

"Well, it makes sense if you know that the power to freeze time had been a lost power for the past two millennia or so." He said with a shrug.

"… Uhuh." Was all I said.

"You still haven't told me your name, and you do owe me your life, don't you think?"

"Dongwoo. Jang Dongwoo. And yeah, thanks about that, I guess." I had decided to ignore the raving madness the man had spouted a few moments ago.

"You're very welcome. Oh, by the way, that was some game with the Emperor, I enjoyed every second of it."

"Huh? How could you have?" I asked, surprised.

"Hehe, I was there watching it. Why do you think I was in that cell across from you? I got caught while laughing my head off at the Emperor." He said with a smile.

"Oh… I see. Well, thanks." I said, embarrassed. Though it had landed me with a death sentence, it was the game I was most proud of. "Where should we go from here?"

"Hmmm… There's a country right next to this one where we can go to escape any pursuit by the Emperor's guards. What do you say, you up for the journey?"

"Yeah, I guess. I have nothing to keep me here anyway."

We walked on for days in the forest, talking to each other, getting to know the other guy better. We became good friends, had some good laughs.

After a while however, I noticed him getting paler, and he started keeping his distance from me. When I asked him what was wrong, he would say nothing.

We were nearing the edge of the forest when he stumbled and collapsed.

"Sunggyu, are you ok?" I ran up to him to help him up.

"Stay away!" He said so sharply that I stumbled back a couple of steps.

He got to his feet, but his stance was weak, his knees trembling. "Knew I should have eaten before walking at a human pace for more than a week." I heard him mumble.

"Yah, what's wrong with you? We ate two hours ago!"

"I'm not talking about human food." He said in a pained voice, still not looking my way. "You're starting to smell more and more appealing." He buried his face in his hands.

"What the…? Don't creep me out man!" I said.

"Actually, you should be afraid, not just creeped." His voice muffled with his hands.

"Ok, what the hell is wrong with you?" I was furious now.

"I… I can't really tell you. Let's just say I have a disorder, and I need a special type of food to sustain myself."

"And what kind of food is that?" I asked as I neared him again.

"Stay away Dongwoo, it's not safe for you near me."

"Would you cut the melodrama and tell me what you need to eat already? Maybe I can do something about it." Exasperated, I stood in front of him and yanked his hands off his face.

He took a deep shuddering breath, and finally looked me in the eye. "It's blood." He whispered.

"Blood?" I asked, not comprehending.

"Yes." A hissed whisper as his gaze travelled to my throat.

"Holy –" But I was cut off before I could continue my sentence.

He grabbed me and pushed me against a tree. "Just a sip…" I heard him say softly, before I felt his teeth tearing through my throat. I felt my skin give under his fangs, the blood rushing from my veins to his mouth, him gulping it down eagerly, and when it was too slow for him, I felt him it out, swallowing huge mouthfuls. My vision became hazy, I could feel my heart beat slowing, slowing to a crawl.

"Sunggyu…" I managed to chock out, and that seemed to jar him back to reality. He stopped at my neck, stopped swallowing my blood, and looked at me with wide eyes.

", I took too much."

I collapsed to the ground when his weight lifted off me, my knees too weak to carry me.

". !" He kept swearing.

My vision blackened out for a few seconds – or was it minutes? – and the next thing I was aware of, was him pressing his cut and bloodied wrist against my lips.

"Drink." He said – no, ordered.

I tried to refuse, and perhaps I was able to make some type of movement, because he pressed his wrist harder to my mouth and said "Unless you want to die within the next two minutes, you had better drink my blood." He sounded frantic, so frantic it made me involuntarily swallow a mouthful of his blood.

"Good. Again." And he sounded a bit relieved. I swallowed a couple more mouthfuls before he withdrew his wrist. "You can go to sleep now, my friend." He whispered in my ear as I passed out.

***

I came to what seemed like ages later. I could hear a fire crackling somewhere nearby, and I knew I was in some sort of room because of the heat I felt. I could hear voices speaking softly some distance away. I tried to open my eyes, but they remained shut. Giving up on them, I tried listening to what the voices were saying.

"Did I do something wrong Sire?" I recognized Sunggyu's voice.

"No, if what you said you did is true, he should be fine." Another man's voice came, one I didn't know.

"Then why isn't he waking up? You told me that on average the process takes two to three days!" Sunggyu had that anxious lilt in his voice. Why does he keep worrying himself to death, I wonder?

"On average, yes. Some take longer. I knew a case where it took about nine days for the subject to wake up." The other man said indifferently.

"But –"

"Enough of your worrying Sunggyu! He will be fine. Besides, you did take a little more blood than was necessary, if I go by what he looked like when you brought him over."

Sunggyu groaned.

"It's ok; this will be a lesson for next time."

"I don't want there to be a next time." Sunggyu sounded appalled.

"You don't have to act like the bratty child you are, you know. There might be a next time whether you like it or not. Lady Fate decides that."

"Lady Fate has hated me since the day I was born."

"That's because you didn't know how to flirt with her before you reincarnated to your present life." The man said amusedly.

"It's all about flirting with you, isn't it?" Sunggyu grumbled, and the man burst into a fit of chuckles. "I hope he doesn't hate me for turning him."

"He might, for the first few years." The man said more soberly.

"Thanks for the boost of confidence." Sunggyu said dryly. I could only imagine the look that came with that tone. It made me chuckle, and I was surprised that it was audible.

"Dongwoo?"

I tried opening my eyes again, and this time they obeyed me. I glanced around the room I was in until I found Sunggyu's eyes. "Good morning." I said with a slight smile.

"Oh, thank God!" I saw his shoulders slump with relief.

The man next to him got up and helped me sit up on the bed I had been lying on, then he handed me a huge mug of some dark liquid. "It's not exactly fresh, since we expected you to wake up about twenty-four hours ago, but it should keep the edge of the burn off until we can acquire something a bit more fresh."

I glanced at Sunggyu. "Is this what I think it is?" I asked.

"Yes." He said, looking to the floor. "It might have not been by your choice that you were turned, but you were none the less, so you need to drink that. I'm sorry for taking your choice from you, you should have been able to live the way you wanted to."

"My life has been yours to do with what you like since you got me out of that cell, so cheer up. Don't beat yourself up over something that can't be changed." I said. "Oh, and I don't hate you. I'm planning on sticking to your side till you beg me to leave you alone." I smiled, taking the first sip from the thing that would constitute my diet for the rest of my life.

He looked up at me, smiling, with a sparkle in his eyes.