Chaeri coats her lips with red lipstick before dabbing her neck with her strong perfume. She meets her reflection in the mirror. Inside, there is a paler, thinner, and hungrier version of herself.

She should have asked for his number. It would be easier than having to eliminate all the places where she didn’t sense him. The residue of his scent would remain in all the areas he had been, making it more difficult for her to find his most recent self.

Perhaps she will receive a definite answer when she visits his café, although there is the possibility that his employees will view her as desperate. Even though she owns eternity, it still hasn’t been long enough for her to lose concern over her reputation.

Chaeri takes a taxi to Himchan’s café. Once she arrives, she grants the driver a hefty tip. She peeks through the glass windows of the store. There is only one customer. An employee is cleaning the counter while the other is brewing a drink. With a sharp elegance that is assisted by her lofty heels, she enters the store and smiles.

It hurts to smile.

“How may I help you?” Says the employee behind the counter as he hooks a rag over his shoulder.

“I’d like to order something.”

“Yes ma’am, what would you like?”

“Himchan’s address.”

She wants to laugh; He looks so surprised.

“Ah … well …”

“You were here the other day, right?” The other employee asks. “I remember you. You sat with our boss.”

“Were you watching me?”

He blushes. “I was just – “

“I was hoping you would have his address. Unfortunately, I forgot to save it when he gave it to me. I need to see him. Otherwise, it could become complicated between us.” She leans in. The shifting of her clothes allows her perfume to stretch and curl toward the employee. “I hope you understand.”

The employee swallows. “Youngjae, get her the address.”

“But – “

“Never mind, I’ll get it myself.” The employee disappears to the back room. In a couple of minutes, he returns with a yellow sticky note. Himchan’s address is written in the employee’s childish font. “Here you go.”

“Thank you.” Chaeri accepts it. Briefly, their fingers touch. The employee is struck by the ice-like temperature in her fingers. Chaeri turns around before she sees him rub warmth back into his hands.

She reads the address, and then crosses the street. Before she had visited the café, she had presumed that the heavy scent of Himchan’s presence was due to his repetitive visits to his workplace. In reality, it was because he lived across the street.

Chaeri enters the apartment complex and boards the elevator. According to the note, Himchan lives on the twelfth floor. As the elevator slowly carries her, she folds the note and drops it into the pocket of her jacket.

The bell rings. The doors open. She turns right down the hallway and follows his scent. For a fleeting moment, something blocks her senses. There was another scent on this hallway - one that smelled unusual and fresh, yet old and familiar. Before she can investigate, Himchan’s company hits her like a crash.

“You’re here.”

From his tone, he doesn’t sound shocked. Chaeri is slightly disappointed. She takes pride in her unpredictability.

“I promised you I would bother you.”

Himchan laughs. “Come in, then. Bother me all you want.”

Chaeri walks into his room and is immediately enveloped by his ripe savor. She stares at him as he closes the door.

She wants to grasp his shoulders and plunge her teeth into his neck.

She wants to hold his hand and kiss him until she learns how to breathe.

“Would you like a drink?” He courteously asks. “Or a snack, perhaps.” He lifts a fruit from the counter and bites it.

“Why do you eat as if you’re hungry?”

He pauses. “Habit.”

“You should know that consumption of foods is futile.”

“Food is hardly futile. It’s delicious.”

“You’re foolish.”

Cheeks plump with fruit, he smiles. “I do appreciate your company.” He opens a pack of cigarettes. Lighting a stick, he blows the smoke towards her.

“You smoke profusely.”

“Do you enjoy stating facts?”

“It’s your vice, isn’t it?”

Himchan chews on his fruit. “Among other things.”

“Every human, once turned, resorts to a vice. It’s a lifeline to the past.”

“Ironic,” he answers around the stick in his mouth. “Let’s say that it is what you say it is. What is your vice, then?”

She simpers. “Men.”

Himchan coughs and throws the fruit away.

“If you’re uncomfortable, you can turn me away.”

“No. I like you. You’re amusing.”

“Let me try that.”

“Try what?”

Chaeri pulls a cigarette from the pack and lights it. Without asking for his permission, she inhales the smoke, and gags instantly. “This is disgusting,” she spits.

“That’s what I thought, too, but I’ve gotten used to it.”

“You don’t like it, do you?”

Himchan pulls the cigarette from her hand. “If it affected me, I wouldn’t do it.”

“I’m glad you’re coming to terms with yourself.”

He shakes his head. “I’m not what you think I am.”

“But you are,” Chaeri says. “You’re the only one who doesn’t think so.”

“Prove it to me.”

“All I need is a mirror.” She reaches up and folds the collar away from his neck. She the scar. “Denial would prove you’re a child.”

“Would doing this,” he murmurs, grabbing her wrist, “be childlike?”

She snorts as she watches him take out the cigarette from his mouth. “I’ve been bound before.”

“Not that. This.”

He kisses her. He tastes exactly like she thought he would – smoke, coffee, and aggravation. It pushes her to the brink of life and teases her that if she were to jump, she would attain everything she ever wanted. Everything about his kiss is oxymoronic. She feels that he is saving her, but he was the one who threw her into the water. His lips are demanding, yet his tongue is innocent.

She could kiss him forever. She doesn’t need a break or a breath. She just needs his blood.

… Crap.

In her excitement, she had cut his lip. Himchan pulls back and wipes the small smear of red from his mouth.

“I’m sorry,” she pants. Guilty, she changes the subject. “Do you always kiss like that?”

With a smirk, he calmly the remnants of her taste from his lips. “The girls like it that way.”

The Tender had taken the girl, but he almost wished he hadn’t let him.

Sehun had liked the girl. She was naïve. It made her irritatingly appealing.

He switches on the lamp beside his bed and swipes the glass of wine off his desk. With one gulp, he finishes the bitter drink and slumps back into bed. He notices that his black sheets are spread across his shoulders and entangled between his legs. He straightens the fabric and readjusts his body to the side.

Will he ever see the girl again? It isn’t that he cares for her. Fate always seems to do the opposite of what is presented to him. Time and time again, when he realizes a notable occurrence, it ceases to appear. Perhaps this will be the case with her.

Truthfully, he doesn’t want her to disappear. He supposes she would be curious of him, too, after what he said to her. He doesn’t know any human who could make sense of his perspective of life, which is death.

It’s rather contradicting and exhausting to explain, but if she asked him, he might tell her. Not because he wants to inform her, but because he wants to know if she will understand.

But Sehun doesn’t remember ever having met someone who completely comprehended him.

Not even the girl who turned him. She made him feel like she did, but her actions were a self-satisfying ruse encouraged by her pride. She sought an end, like him. He couldn’t give her that. And so, like hundreds of others in that forsaken city, her heart overcame her body, and she made him into a kind he had never expected.

A kind that now wished it had waited for the dawn.

It has been two hours. He can’t sleep.

He doesn’t need to, of course, but it would have been nice to forget everything while temporarily losing his consciousness of what was, in his eyes, a mandatory visit to death.

His fingers search for the glass, but its weight is too light. Wanting to fulfill his vice, Sehun walks to the kitchen and opens a new bottle of wine. He drinks it once it reaches the brim. He doesn’t complete it this time.

Physically worn and mentally wayward, he drags himself out of his room and into the hallway. The air is unnaturally still. He considers a stroll through the streets, but then changes his mind against it. He had missed Mizu Tae’s weather prediction.

He hears a lock click against metal. He immediately smells a woman with a branded perfume that partially cloaks her true scent.

This scent was that of an old lover who had once captured Sehun’s heart, only to rip it to scraps and return it to the other side of his chest.

The woman, upon turning the corner, abruptly halts when she sees him.

“Sehun.” Chaeri timorously says. “It’s been a while.”