The bell rang, marking the end of class. Suzy rose from her seat and walked out. Myungsoo, on the other hand, remained in his. He hadn’t realized that class was over. He was still thinking about Suzy's sigh. As he watched other students leave the classroom, he was consumed with further confusion. He finally realized what was going on and followed them out. He could see Suzy’s silhouette get smaller as she walked further away from him. He decided that asking her more questions would annoy her. He walked slowly out of the classroom, and decided that he should leave her alone. For now.

An announcement rang throughout the building,

   “ATTENTION EVERYONE. THIS IS THE END OF YOUR FIRST SCHOOL DAY. PLEASE LEAVE THE SCHOOL BUILDING. TOMORROW IS YOUR FIRST FULL DAY OF SCHOOL. ARRIVE ON TIME. THANK YOU.”

Myungsoo started to think about his new surroundings.

His new high school already had several surprises. Instead of placing him in a junior class with people of his age, they put him into a sophomore class.

   I guess they supposed Seoul kids were too stupid to be placed in the right grade?

   Huh.

Also, on the first day, they only had one class instead of the whole schedule.

   If you want to get used to the school schedule, shouldn’t you have all periods? How ridiculous, he thought.

He finally contemplated over the most surprising part of the new high school. That rude girl. He wanted to dismiss any thoughts of her, she was so hurtful. He attempted to think about other things. 

   What do I even think about regularly?

 That’s when he realized, his mind was usually blank, and empty. He had no aspirations or goals. This girl had brought upon him a wave of feelings that hadn’t existed before. Myungsoo didn’t like this change. He decided that it would only confuse him further if he thought about her.

 He tried to keep his mind busy. He skipped, danced, ran, and sang all the way home. None of this worked, however. She still stood out in his mind like a sore thumb.

  Her eyes had left him with so much curiosity.

 He didn’t know whether to avoid her, or follow her more closely.

 First things first, he was terribly lonely because of how he different he was from those around him. He could never open up to tell them about his illness.

   Telling someone about my illness would be nothing like one of the vampire movies you see nowadays. A human would never be able to understand.

 Myungsoo didn’t even have friends in the first place, but if he did, they wouldn’t react positively. They’d tell some kind of higher authority and screw him over. He’d be thrown into scientific experiments, or even worse; locked up.

  Myungsoo himself had been human once. He knew that if he was still a human, he wouldn’t want to associate himself with a creature of the night. He would have been scared.

   Sure. I’ll stay away from humans. But, Suzy’s a vampire. Why can’t I get close to someone who’s like me?, he wondered.

 Suzy, now that he thought about it, seemed like a safe harbor for him. He thought of her eyes, and the color within them. They were identical to his own. They seemed so warm, so heavenly, to him as he thought of the things it could bring.

 Friendship, accompaniment… Love?

   On the other hand, though, she could be an enemy, he thought.

What if she had been mutated, to capture him? Myungsoo had very limited knowledge about vampires, and mutated people, as he usually stayed away from those of his own kind. 

The few things he did know weren’t very useful. They were all characteristics that were identical to a vampire’s. He knew that the mutated people had the same eyes as a vampire. They were purposely disguised as vampires to trick them, to gain their trust; and then to eventually hunt them down.

He had a violent encounter with one of the mutated people before. Although the encounter was brief, and completely in the dark, it left him sore for weeks.

He thought of Suzy’s pale, sweet face again.

   Mutated?

 He shuddered at the thought.

 His mind was engulfed with possibilities and conclusions that didn’t seem to match up.

   What if she had just been wearing contacts?

   No, no one ever wants to wear yellow contacts. That’s so ugly.

  She’s unnaturally pale, though, just like me.

 He decided that he would ask her a few questions the next day; after all, they were in the same homeroom. They even sat next to each other. Myungsoo now had something to look forward to during school.

He felt excited.

   Excited about a girl who smacked you, and told you that she doesn’t want to know you?

 He reflected on his life, his life with no friends. He felt surges of loneliness and abandonment creep on him. He was becoming excited about a girl who had been so rude to him.

   This is the kind of stuff that excites me nowadays?

 He frowned with self-pity.

Once he reached the doorstep of his house, his mood changed. He remembered that he had a few people that liked him. They weren’t vampires like him, however. They were human.

  It was true, he had promised not to interact with people, due to fear of causing trouble. For his family, however, he had no fear of hurting them. His parents were never home, and he loved his brother too much to hurt him.

 Hiding his super-naturalness had been tough from him. His brother was curious about absolutely anything and everything. Fortunately enough for Myungsoo, though, the only physical difference between humans and vampires was the eye color.

Doctors had simply diagnosed it as a mutation of eye pigment.

--

 He plodded down the steps of his house, into the back entrance of his home. The keys he had only worked for the back entrance. He didn’t mind, though. He preferred it if people didn’t see him entering his house.

 He turned the keys in the lock of the door, unlocking it, and grasped the handle of the door. He gave it a slight push, and entered with ease. He strutted into the warm atmosphere of his home. He sighed with exhaustion. The weather outside had been getting colder recently, he realized.

He left his coat clumsily to hang on a rack on the wall, and he kicked off his shoes, when he was greeted by a young boy.

   “Hi, hyung!” the boy greeted. “How was your day?”

Myungsoo smiled.

   “It wasn’t terrible, Woohyun-ah.” he replied, implying that his day had been good. He brought him in for a hug.

--

The two sat on chairs that were in front of the countertop in the kitchen, and idly munched on leftover slices of pizza from the previous night.

   “Mom and Dad are late to coming home.. Again!” Woohyun remarked.

   “I know. They’re just busy, I guess. They’re working hard for us, you know?” replied Myungsoo.

Woohyun sighed, giving no reply.

They both missed their parents.

   “Anyways, hyung, what’s up? How was your first day at the new school? Anything cool happen? Any pretty noonas you can tell me about?” asked Woohyun, with a wink.

Woohyun, expecting the usual “Nope!” from Myungsoo, was about to talk about a new project he had at school, but to his surprise, Myungsoo didn’t say no.

   “Actually… There is a pretty noona… Now that I think about it.”

Myungsoo was surprised at his own words.

He fixed his gaze into his pizza slice, consumed with deep thought as he thought of the rude girl again. 

If he was going to be honest with himself, he knew there were a lot of pretty girls he saw in school; not only the infamous Suzy.

He thought about her face again. Her nose was arched at the perfect angle, and her lips were a nice shade of pale, rosy pink. There had also been no hint of makeup on her face. That was a rarity for Korean girls. 

Her eyes were what had separated her from the rest of the girls the most, he thought.

   She’s special for that, he concluded. And her rudeness.

   “What!?! You finally think someone’s pretty?” asked Woohyun.

   “That’s a first…” he concluded.

   “That’s not necessarily true, Woohyun. There are pretty girls out there. This noona is different though. She has a cute face but the body of a model. She has simple looks, but they stand out to me. I guess I think this noona is pretty to me mostly because of her eyes. Her eyes are just like your hyung’s.” said Myungsoo, meeting Woohyun’s amazed eyes.

   “Whoa! She has the yellow eye thing going on too, huh? That’s pretty cool.”

   “You guys can be twinsies!” remarked Woohyun, causing Myungsoo to laugh.

   “Is she Asian though?” he asked. “For Asians, the yellow eye thing looks so weird. I mean, for people of other races, I don’t think the different colored eyes is a big deal.” He concluded.

 Myungsoo gave him a playful glare. “Hey! Watch what you say. Your hyung has yellow eyes…”

   “I know.. It looks weird, but it also looks great! Sometimes I wish I could have your eyes. It makes you different from everyone else. If I had them… I’d be glad. I guess it would be easier for Mom to find me in the crowds at school!” he defended.

   “And we’d look more like siblings.” he added.

Myungsoo extended his arm out to pat his younger brother’s head. Cute, he thought.

 He considered the younger boy’s words again. Ethnicity. He pondered about Suzy’s for a moment. There was no doubt about it. Suzy was obviously a native Korean. Her Korean pronunciation was perfect.

 She couldn’t be a foreigner. It’s not like a foreigner would move to Gwangju and attend the same high school as him. Gwangju had several tourist attractions, but it wasn’t as special as Seoul. A foreigner enrolled in a Gwangju high school was as absurd as the thought of a tourist going to the slums of Brooklyn for an adventure in New York, instead of Times Square.

   “Anyways, yeah. She’s Asian. She speaks Korean too… Isn’t it great?” asked Myungsoo, with a smile.

   “Definitely! You should become friends with her, and bring her over to play one day.” said Woohyun.

   “But, then again… You shouldn’t be so biased.” he continued.

   “Gosh, hyung, just because her eyes are green doesn’t mean she’s all that. You should be friends with people with brown eyes too, like me! Pft. Brown eyes… I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that. Do you dislike people with brown eyes? You like me, don’t you? Don’t’cha, hyung? Don’t’cha?” he asked.

   “You talk too much!” Myungsoo replied, ruffling Woohyun’s hair.

The rest of the night went by with routine. Woohyun eagerly rambled on about his new friends and assignments. Myungsoo helped him with his homework, and then played with him.

After tucking Woohyun in for bed, Myungsoo was left to brood over Suzy. Again.

Woohyun’s words had affected Myungsoo. It wasn’t that he hated people that weren’t vampires. When he was a human, he had many friends. Those friends couldn’t understand him when he suddenly started to avoid them. He avoided them because of his hunger, the constant thirst for their blood. It wasn’t possible for him to be around people for very long. His school days back then felt endless.

       One day he had to stay late after school for a project. It was a group project. His friends had fallen asleep, and he had involuntarily started to nibble on one of his friend’s throat. Myungsoo realized what he was doing only after her had left a deep blood stained gash on his friend's neck. He was so frightened. Frightened of his own actions, his power. He couldn’t believe what he had done. He was so disgusted with himself. He didn't want to kill his friend. It took all his might to stop eating him.

      Myungsoo desperately looked for anything to cover it up. He took the sharpest object nearby, and made the gash in his friend’s throat deeper. He did this to cover up his own biting marks. It was a relief that his friend hadn’t woken up. His friend was normally like that; he slept like a bear. When his friend had woken up, he said that a steel rod had fallen upon him.

  The friend that Myungsoo had bitten was the friend Myungsoo started to avoid first. Each time he saw the scar on his friend’s neck, he was moved to the point of tears. It was a memory Myungsoo could never forget. He had never wanted to hurt anyone again.

 Feasting on blood that night gave him a momentary surge of energy. The next day, people had told Myungsoo that he looked a lot healthier. His hair was shining, his teeth were brighter. Myungsoo was shocked at their words, but he knew they were right. He himself had felt healthier.  

  As time passed, he started to feel weaker again. He was becoming weaker because he wasn’t feasting on flesh. He knew what was going on, and tried to ignore it. Since then, he became weaker and weaker, his health deteriorated day by day.

   His vision became more blurred as time passed; his hair thinner, and his skin paler. Myungsoo knew what he had to do to stop it. He didn’t. He couldn’t.

 Years passed, and Myungsoo had started to get pains and aches throughout his body on a regular basis. He did the only thing he could do to endure it. He ignored it. Or at least, tried to.

 He had eventually gotten used to it, but still kept his distance from people. Eating human meals was enough for Myungsoo to get through the day, but definitely not enough to live healthily. When his parents had become worried and taken him to the doctor, they said that Myungsoo had blood circulation problems.

   What a joke.

--

His thoughts drifted back to Woohyun. He wished that Woohyun never had to go through the same agony that he did. He wished that he could protect him, forever. He knew that he would never hurt him. He loved him too much.

Myungsoo thought about Suzy again.

  Does she feed on humans, or is she like me? Does she ignore the urges too?

Myungsoo’s mind drifted off to other things. He thought about himself, and how strange he was acting.

That conversation with Suzy was the first he had with a girl for something other than a pencil, or a “What was the homework again?” for a very long time. Not only had he talked to her, he flirted with her! He had also done so much thinking today. It was a change.

It was overwhelming.

Myungsoo shut his golden-emerald eyes from exhaustion and drifted off to sleep.