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The Tender looks up from where he stands as he takes a break from dismantling the already dismantled table on the sidewalk. He can see the balcony outside of Sehun’s room and the curtains that wave hello as the open window ushers the wind inside. Without grumbling, he places the remaining wood inside a trash bag and ties it up in one, two, three knots. Tossing it into the bed of his truck, he jumps into his vehicle and drives away.

After a quick shower, Himchan changes into clean clothes before meeting his neighbor. He doesn’t want to look insane when he knocks on his door and begs for answers. Since that day, he’s felt anything but himself. His confidence bled out of his fingers as if someone had chopped them off. Cocky is what he once was. He has become infirm.

He knocks a trembling hand on the door. His voice cracks when he asks “Hello?” and his feet shift from side to side in his impatient nervousness. He thinks he hears footsteps, perhaps the sound of a TV turning off, or the loud scratch of metal against granite, but in ten minutes, no one opens the door. Giving up, Himchan kicks the wall and limps to the elevator.

The doors disclose Chaeri. “Oh, hello, Himchan. You should be resting.”

Himchan stares at the mysterious femme fatale. “Why?”

“You were hurt – “

“What happened to me?” He screeches. “You obviously know. I’m tired of playing games with you. Tell me what happened.” He staggers into the elevator, the doors closing behind him with the same shudder in his shoulders. He backs her against the wall, his two hands framing her face, his body leaning into hers in both attraction and anger. “Who am I?”

Her cold laugh freezes his face. “You’re a Daver.”

Over the course of a morning, Nana rewrites Oh Sehun’s poem into her journal. She wonders if he lost the papers and needs them returned to him, although she suspects by the jagged edges of the manuscript that he intentionally tore them. He must have greatly despised his poetry as to throw it away.

But why? It’s a beautiful piece of work.

After copying the poem, she binds the torn pages with a staple and creases them into an envelope. If, by chance, she sees him again, she will return it to him.

He’s inspired her now. She flips to the last pages of her journal where her unfinished poems lie. Phrases such as “A world filled with greed” and “Love was a wheel I couldn’t turn” have faded and smudged onto the forgotten pages. Her poems were such despondent things. Seeing Oh Sehun’s work made her want to encourage him through a way he might never appreciate.

And so she begins her poetic response.

“What?”

“A Daver,” she repeats. “I’ve called you that before. You don’t remember?”

“No.”

“Unfortunate,” she ponders aloud. “If you had listened to me earlier, I might have been able to explain it to you with a lot more grace. But now,” she pulls him toward her by his collar, “I want to choke you until you scream.”

“Tell me what it is, and maybe I’ll let you,” Himchan rips her hand from his collar. Her fingernail scratches the scar on his neck. Himchan wipes the seeping line of blood as Chaeri stares at the reopened wound.

As if she were reciting a mantra, she says, “A Daver is a human bitten after dawn. No human can be turned completely during the day. This makes you a half-blood. A dense one.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Oh, please,” she scoffs. “You don’t grow old. You’re always cold. You’ve done whatever you wanted since you changed, haven’t you? You saw you could be anything, and so you were. A money mongrel. A womanizer. What’s on your agenda these days, Himchan? Are you planning to become a cannibal?”

“You don’t know anything!”

“Then why did you ask me?”

Speechless, Himchan steps backward, his hand firmly protecting the bleeding cut. “Get out.”

“We’re in an elevator. There’s nowhere to go until those doors open.”

Himchan punches the button for the first floor with his free hand. Pinning her beneath the sharp glare in his eyes, he says, “I don’t want to see you ever again.”

“I’m not that easy to discard.”

“Why are you here?”

“I came to visit you,” she pouts. “I was concerned.”

“For me? Why? Did you want some of this,” he shows her his bloodied hand, “is that why?” Shoot. Realization pushes him to the elevator doors.

“See?” She steps forward. “Somewhere in that obtuse mind of yours is a subconscious awareness of who I am. It’s one of the privileges of being turned. You learn to recognize your ilk. That’s why you liked me so much.”

“I was attracted to you because you .”

“Don’t be so sheer. I know that’s not the case. Not all of it, anyway.” She smiles. “I don’t know why you’re petrified. I’m not going to eat you.”

“I hope I’m not alone in saying you liked me back.”

He’s falling back on his harsh charm. She is weak to men who know how to manipulate a situation.

“Am I that transparent?”

She walks into intimacy, her hands creeping up his chest and her sigh wrapping spells round his ear. As desirable as she is, Himchan is dizzy, and he is convinced that if he could pinch her neck like she did with his, he can swallow down this unnatural feeling. But he’s never done that before.

As if she read his mind, she says, “You’ve already tainted your teeth. Why not do it again?”

Again?

“Go on,” she provokes. “Pierce me.”

Again?

“Hold on. What happened to me? And I don’t mean about who I am, I mean what happened to me, maybe three, four days ago?”

She sullenly answers, “I wasn’t there.”

“But you know what happened to me. That’s why you came here. Because you wanted to know if I was okay.”

“Do you get off flattering yourself?”

“I was in an accident,” he says, pensive hands on head, eyes on the gridded tile, forgetting for a minute about the thick blood on his neck. “And then I woke up in my apartment. I’m missing one piece, and I don’t know how – when – I don’t … again. You said again. What do you mean by that?”  Her expression consternates him. “For goodness sake, say something!”

“You were in an accident, so your blood was spilled. You were debilitating. Your neighbor helped you.”

His neighbor helped him? How?

“You’re going to need more blood,” she says when the doors open. With a backward glance, she suggests, “Come find me when you do.”

Himchan lets the doors close before he can do anything irrational like chase after her. Slumping to the floor, he presses his face to his knees. He’d be mad to listen to her, but he knows she was honest. He can feel his veins stretching in starvation. Perhaps he should have done it when she beckoned.

He stands up when a woman walks in. Without looking at him, she asks that Himchan press the button for the fifth floor. He presses twelve instead.

“Excuse me,” he says when the elevator begins to lure them to his penthouse. “I have a request.”

“I need to order a refill.”

The Tender doesn’t refrain from polishing the glass when Sehun pounds the near empty bottle of pills onto the counter. “Tender. Are you listening to me?”

“I hear you.”

“I need more pills.”

“You asked me to get rid of a table from the sidewalk earlier.”

“Yes, I did.”

He swipes the bottle from the counter. “I’m not your lackey.”

“I didn’t say you were. But you’re a Binder. You’re the only one who can give me these pills.”

“There are plenty of other Binders in this city,” he notes as he uses a key from the lanyard in his pocket to open a drawer.

“I have an affinity for you.”

“Really?” He laughs. “That’s the best you’ve done in saying you didn’t hate me.”

Sehun accepts the refilled bottle with a microscopic, upward curve on his lips. “I can’t hate you when you give these to me for free.”

The Tender begrudgingly gives him a shot of liquor. “Have you seen your neighbor?”

“Nope,” He exhales after sampling the bitter drink.

“I have to check on him later. He’ll cause trouble if I don’t.”

The Tender watches Sehun as he uncaps the bottle. No matter what the Tender does, Sehun doesn’t show a smidgeon of curiosity towards his neighbor. A shame. The Tender was hoping they would become friends, if only to heal his conscience.

“I hope I’ll die before these pills taste any worse.”

“They’re planning on releasing a new series in the summer.”

“Lovely,” Sehun reponds. “I should be dead by then.”

Uncomfortable, the Tender cleans yet another glass as Sehun uses his thumb to roll the pills in and out of the clefts on his palm. The Tender turns before he has to watch Sehun process the pills.

“Excuse me.”

Nana approaches the Tender with an envelope in her hand. “Could you give this to your friend?”

Startled, he stutters, “I – “

“The one that I talked to you about.”

“He’s the – “

“It doesn’t have my number or anything like that,” she rushes. “I wanted to return this to him.” She places the envelope onto the counter, clueless that Sehun, the person for which the letter must be intended, is beside her. “Tell him that, uh, if he’s going through anything difficult, he’s not the only one. That’s kind of small consolation, but it’s a comforting reminder to know you aren’t alone. Anyway,” she flushes, “I have to get going. I just wanted to drop it off.” She jogs out of the bar precisely as Sehun lifts his head.

“Being a tender sounds so bothersome.” He frowns as he massages his head.

“It’s a letter,” the Tender nudges the envelope to Sehun. “For you.”

“I don’t get letters.”

“First time for everything.”

Sehun glowers. “I hate that phrase.”

“Sorry.”

Sehun opens the envelope to find a stapled centimeter of papers. His eyes glide over his own words. The Tender can’t quite pinpoint his tone when Sehun asks, “Who brought this?”

“Nana.” He points at the envelope. “I think there’s something else.”

Sehun unfolds a square note from within the envelope. The paper is thin. The Tender can see Nana’s letters straight through the ruled paper. He tries to read it, but Sehun leaves the counter, forgetting both the envelope’s main contents and the bottle of pills.

Written on the top margin is “Death Wish: A Response.” Sehun shields the letter from the wind as he walks back to his apartment, his mind intrigued by the pensive writing.

The question is this:

“Is there a difference

Between living and existing?”

It’s as if

There’s a separation

Between leaving me without saying goodbye

And saying goodbye before dying on me.

“Life is dull”

“Life is worthless”

“Life is exalted”

“Life is fleeting”

So you say that life is constant in its dreariness?

At least it’s constant.

I have yet to hear

“Existence is dull”

“Existence is worthless”

“Existence is exalted”

“Existence is fleeting”

Everyone wants to live.

Nobody wants to exist.

Because existence is merely a presence

And life is evidently a message.

The answer is this:

“There is a difference

Between living and existing.”

Because there is a separation

Between a farewell for finality

And a final farewell.