•••¤ Chapter 1 ¤•••

“Where is she?”

The clock was ticking and my patience starts to grow thinner as each seconds passed. I, Han Su Jeong, walked into a coffee shop. The heat in the coffee shop was awful than outside that I had to take off my blue knitted scarf as soon as I set my foot in. Empty as always. People hate to stay the fact that the shop has a bad wireless reception. On the other hand, all the pastries were complementary delicious.

“Ni hao,” Mr. Lee, the owner greeted. “It looks like you are having a bad day.”

English, great thank God. I would not want to reply in Chinese. I sighed and sat myself across the counter. Not taking my eyes away from the delicious brownies, muffins, cheese cakes and more. He settled me with an English afternoon tea, with some raspberry scones and his signature chai tea. “Thanks. You look happy even though there is no customer around.”

“People normally buy my pastry, rarely stay,” he said. “And, I have always wanted to chat with a beautiful lady.”

I chuckled, “Are you trying to ask me out?”

“No,” he blished. “You are too beautiful for me and my petite shop. Anyway, what brings you to Hong Kong? Award Show? Vacation?”

“Or waiting for my friend.” I continued with an answer.

The shop phone rang. “I have to answer that. Enjoy your tea. It is my treat.” A huge bright smiled pasted on his face as he left in to reach out the phone.

This was not my first time I have been dragged across country for helping my friend, South Korean idol A-Pink singer, Jeong Eunji. I am willing to do anything before she started feeding on her other A-Pink members. Oh yes! You guessed it correctly, Eunji was a vampire. It was a year ago that she turned into a vampire when she was on her way home. Stupid vampire made her drank vampire blood but after being threatened, the vampire killed her.

There were two ways creating vampire: One, the master vampire injecting their poisonous venom into its victim, and two: dead while vampire blood circulating in your blood. Being a vampire, you will have eternity, which means immortality - you will live forever and never grows old.  But, the price for immortality was a human’s blood. The vampire’s blood consists of fast healing - leaving no scar, free from any disease in comparison to human’s, slow and suffering.  Your instinct sharpened – hearing, reflex, speed and vision were better than black ops. Yet, the consequences for having all the above was sunlight – if they got too much, vampires’ burn into dust. Only a master vampire can withstand the sunlight.

Shaking me away from my imagination which had something to do with the first time meeting Eunji, two hooded figures were greeted by Mr. Lee. I thought it was Eunji, but my hope was shattered when I heard two men voiced out. And, apparently they were not the only hooded figures as I looked outside. But this one seems busy answering his phone frustratingly - perhaps from a girlfriend? Hmmm …

 The first hooded man abruptly stopped when he saw me causing his short friend getting bumped behind him. I just gave them a sideway glance. Aish! They were Korean. I cleared my throat well not wanting to be rude if I snort, they would know that I understood them. I am used to the amount of attention. My beauty and attire invited them. Aside from my blue knitted scarf which I had tossed away behind my chair, I wore a pair of white boots, a trendy blue skinny jeans and a white sweater with a giant black snow flake on the front as a lovely design. This look was completed with blue ribbon hair clipper on my long brown dyed wavy hair – this combination that makes people think about coolness.

“Three vanilla muffins, three blueberry cupcake and ah ... Min Seok-ah what else?” said the first hooded man ordering in Chinese but talked to his friend in Korean. Oh okay. A half-Chinese or a half-Korean? Whatever.

“What are you ordering? We are here for coffee not pastries. Kris …” He paused while tilting his head outside without leaving his eyes to the first hooded man, “… will get angry if we are late for the show.” His eyes widened as he looked at those delicious pastries with his rounded single eyelid eyes. “On the second thought, add the chocolate muffins.”

“But you said that – ” Lu Han stopped to his words as he saw Min Seok’s expression that looks like he was about to drool. He exhaled deeply, shakes his head and place both of his hands at the edge of counter, “Three chocolate muffins and three black coffee, please.”

“Yes,” answered Mr. Lee while punching through the counter buttons.

Boys are able to eat at anything without gaining much weight. I sat uncomfortably as they sat beside my table, glancing at me while I was not looking. Both of them were whispering to each other while not leaving their eyes off me. Now, they are starting to piss me off. Buzz! Buzz! My incoming text from Eunji: ‘Su Jeong-unnie! My manager would not let me out, I am trapped.’

Ughh! I stormed out of my chair angrily. How could her manager not let her go outside secretly? Popular celebrities sure have a tough life. You have a hungry vampire on your human boat. Lost in my thoughts, I almost banged into the front door, which someone grabbed my arm from behind.

“Umm ... You forget your scarf,” The first hooded man said.

“Thank you.”I took my blue knitted scarf, “for your kindness ...”My angry eyes turned soften instantly. I look deep into his eyes and in such clarity that I kind see my own reflection. What a pretty boy he is. He was a few inches taller than me, probably a teenager, with a porcelain skin just like a baby and his brown hair – it was hard to tell, with the hood up covering his head.

His cheeks were flushing in bright pink not sure for what, but my thankfulness sure has an effect on him. He quavered, “Lu Han…” He paused when Min Seok suddenly whistles and waves his hand to him while raising both of his eyebrows as Lu Han quickly turned his head to Min Seok, and then back to me. “… My name … In case you want to ...”

Lu Han did not get to finish his sentence. His gaze was behind me. Eventually, Kris appeared upon us leaning on the slightly open door. He was ten inches taller than Lu Han, early twenty, dyed blonde hair and looking lazily at us. Lu Han gasped, not that he was afraid of him simply I-screwed-up expression. Awkwardly, I manage to get myself out from those two. Maybe it was my imagination when I glanced at Kris’ eyes, it flashed yellow.

 The concert that Eunji is going to attend later is the Mnet Asian Music Award 2013 which was held in Hong Kong. It took me two hours in search for an empty parking slot to park my rental car which was blocks away and, another hour walked passing through noisy crowds.  I had forgotten to look where I was going when I suddenly stumbled, not mistakably to destroy a banner, which was torn out by my staggering steps. I slowly regained my balance, yet someone was pulling me up. It was a girl. Thank God it is hard to find kind hearted these days. She had a bad bleached hair, smudgy eyeliner around her eyes like a racoon and wore black EXO T-shirt.

“How dare you tear down our banner! What idol are you sworn to?”

“What?”I asked. What happened to the kind hearted girl? Did she transform into a hulk?

“Do not play foul around me. Was it SHINee? BEAST?”Her long nails clawed my arm, tearing through my sweater. Damn, it was painful.

“What?” I asked painfully. Shiny, was I wearing too much make-up? Beast, do I look like a monster to her?

“It is too bad that there are not here tonight. Boohoo! EXO is going to win!” She continued and I frowned.

This was wasting my time. I launched an attack by shoving her hard enough to make her fall and sprinted through the crowd before she caught me into her stupid fight again. I heard those EXO fan in hot pursuit, and fled faster, until I ran right in front backstage security. I quickly pleaded them to help me. After glancing at each other, they reacted and asked me to stay. The hell yes, I would do that. It was my chance to slip inside.

The backstage looked exactly the way something called ‘Behind the scene before an award show’. The show was just about to get started. People ran around with glittery outfits, large make-up kit boxes, tissue boxes and tons of hair spray. I peeked at the labels as they passed by, in hoping that maybe it could improve my choice of makeup and fashion.

However, the peeking was immediately over when suddenly a familiar pale figure dragged me away heading towards the roof access staircase. Nobody was around this perimeter, what a poor security I must say.

“There you are. I was worried thinking you might have left me to starvation,” said Eunji. She sniffed before she continued,” You smell delicious.”

“It‘s my natural scent. Recently injured from a small incident,” I produced a Styrofoam lidded cup from my bag, which I passed over to her. I told my short version adventure, leaving out the details of meeting Lu Han and Kris’ eyes.

“Lucky you, survive the horde. Those girls are EXO’s saseangs. They are crazily passionate and scary too, not to miss that out – very.” Her paled skin turned much livelier except for her black exhausted black eyes, they flashed red colour. This was what happened if a vampire got regenerated with blood. It will take a few hours to disappear depending on how much she drank. She noticed my unsteady gaze on her eyes. “Aish! I forget to use my contact lens.”

 “Lucky? I was almost murdered,” I said. Handing over her extra contact lens from my bag, “By the way, you look gorgeous.” I added.

She spun around her gorgeous black golden dress. “Thanks. Everyone was worried about me for not being able to eat anything just now. Just a little though but I was still hungry. Believe me. I nearly tried to bite Chorong-unnie just now.”

 “But if you did bite her, kiss goodbye to your career,” I chastised. “I told you – ”

She interrupted, “Never drank directly from human. It will violate the law...blah, blah ,blah.”

“Good,” I sighed. “You should return before they notice your absence.”

Her lips turned into thin lines, relieved that I was here and then hugged me tightly. I barely could even breathe before she released me from her tight grips. She stood up and was about to leave. Somehow, I felt relieved when my work here was done not until something fell from above.

I stayed where I were, frozen, hearing something fell down. Things has gotten worst when something actually was actually someone: male, black styled hair, white skin, bloody mouth and fancy pale brown outfit. Quickly I kneeled down beside him checking his pulse - too late he was already dead.

“Su Jeong-unni, I heard – gahh!” Eunji, who was about to leave went back to me as she heard the commotion. She was the same shocked as I was. I could see her fangs went out because of the blood splat from this poor man. “Is he dead?”

“Get back,” I warned her. “Yes, he is dead. It looks like he was pushed …”I paused to my words while examining his head, tilting them from right to left. “… No, no, no.”

“I appreciate that you remembered my song but this is hardly the time for you to sing it out loud. Maybe I should call the –”

“No,” I snapped her. “Eunji! He drank a vampire’s blood before someone broke his neck.”

“Drank a vampire’s blood? He-he will turn?” Eunji stuttered to her words while I hesitated. She carefully moved towards the man to identify him. “Oh my god, he…he…is L!”

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