It was late into dawn. Jessica flipped over to the other side on her bed. The noise outside of her room is disturbing her sleep. The girls were having a party for ending the promotions for Oh!. She flipped to the other side again and pulled her blanket up over her head. She felt that she was burning.

Resisting herself to bolt out of the door, she breathed in and out heavily and suppressed herself.

****

Krystal quietly got up from her bed and sneaked out of her room and went to the door. Putting on her shoes, her eyes flashed into a bright light blue of ice crystals and quietly dashed out of f(x)’s dormitory and sped off towards the direction of the neighbourhood’s playground and head home. Every 2 weeks, she had to sneak out of the dormitory without getting caught.

Krystal opened the door and her parents were waiting for her already. She sat down at the dining table already all set up by her mother. “Dig in, Krystal.” said her mother as she brought a bowl of fresh red blood before her with a spoon. For humans, it may look disgusting, but for Krystal, she thinks it looks like soup. Red. Fulfilling. Tomato. Soup. In fact, that is real blood that is freshly extracted from animals by her parents.

During the day, Krystal and Jessica’s parents work in the office like any other office workers but at night, they hunt for animals for blood to feed their family. Though they are termed “vampires” by humans, they preferred the term “Night-Hunters” since they not only hunt for animals, but evil creatures or spirits that are part of the underworld as well. Moreover, they don’t even drink human’s blood unless it’s a critical situation, of course. Since drinking human’s blood means that the human will become a Night-Hunter as well, and the human will have to find a way of survival from the underworld. Although they don’t need blood every day, every fortnight they had to replenish themselves or be paralysed and die.

*****

Jessica was feeling really hot down . She sat up from the bed. She couldn’t stand it anymore. The party seems like it won’t end until daylight and she would be in serious condition by then. Promotions period was always hard for her. Busy schedules means that her blood level gets drained by the strenuous activities.

She has to make up her mind quick as time is running out for her. If there’s a digital measurement of her blood level, it would be like this: [Jessica’s blood level: 10%]

She opened the window and looked down. She then jumped down 4 floors from her room of the dormitory and landed safely and as light as a feather. Just as she was about to dash back home in full speed, a hand tapped on her shoulder and held it.

*

“Why isn’t Jessica back yet?” asked Jessica’s father who was sitting at the short end of the dining table facing his wife and daughter, Krystal.

“No idea. Must be some crazy party going on at SoShi’s dorm. They ended their promotions and I heard that their managers allowed them to open a party.” said Krystal and continued sipping blood from her bowl.

“Then how on earth is she going to get out from there without the other members noticing?” asked Jessica’s mother anxiously. “Should we bring this to her instead? She can’t stand long with all that much of humans around her and with such low blood level.” Without any blood in Night-Hunters, they would just be paralysed, and without blood for the next 2 hours, they die.

“Let’s wait a little more. If she still doesn’t reach within the next 15 minutes, we’ll go to her dormitory” Jessica’s father said. And with that decision made, they sat down and talk about other things instead while waiting.

******

Jessica felt the hand was familiar and stopped her shriek just in time before the whole building hears her.

“Jessica, where are you going?” says Taeyeon.

Being petrified by Taeyeon, Jessica has little time to think and answers truthfully. “Home.” Regaining herself within the next split second, she added, “They were too noisy, I couldn’t sleep.”

“Can I come with you? I can’t sleep too. Please.” Taeyeon requested.

Jessica stared at Taeyeon blankly and wondered if she should take the risk. If she sped home with her generic speed, she would make it in time definitely but her house is close, so she could let Taeyeon tag along.

Looking at Taeyeon’s puppy eyes, she couldn’t reject her and let Taeyeon tag along.

She made a mental note to knock her door to her house in the secret code her family made if visitors are coming to their house so that they could hide some things or prepare for humans.

“Thanks, Sica.” says Taeyeon.

“Sure.” The neighbourhood was pretty safe, to say the least as they walked side by side in the dark night and enjoying the light breeze blowing on their faces. They chatted casually and laughed every now and then.

“Do you remember when Tiffany and you were like ‘Right now it’s TaeNy Generation’ then I budged in after that and said ‘How could you do this to me, Taeyeon-ah?’”

“Hahaha. And then we went with ‘Right now it’s TaengSic Generation!’ Haha! Can’t believe we said that on air.”

“I know right, hehehe.”

******

“Alright, let’s go.” said Jessica’s father.

They all got up and Jessica’s mother quickly packed the blood into a few bottles and used them to disguise as tomato juice.

They then sped off in the night past the rooftops of houses towards SoShi’s dorm to reach Jessica as quickly as possible.

However, when they looked into Jessica’s room from another apartment opposite, Jessica was not there.

“Mommy, Daddy, I’ll go back to my dorm first alright? I still have a schedule early in the morning later.” whispers Krystal to her parents.

Her parents nodded and Krystal sped off in the night back to f(x)’s dorm.

Between her parents, both of them were thinking where Jessica could be and decided to drop back to ground and act as normal humans and walk swiftly back home to try finding Jessica.

*****

Approaching the neighbourhood playground, Jessica spotted a shadow lurking around the cars parked on the side of the street between them and the playground.

“Taeyeon-ah, you trust me right?”

“Yes, of course. What’s the matter?”

“Um, can you turn around and face this side?” Jessica turned Taeyeon’s body with her hands on Taeyeon’s shoulder and rotated her facing opposite the direction of where the shadow was spotted. “Just for awhile.”

“What? Why?”

“Um.... Uhh... Just do so. I won’t be long.”

Noticing it’s best not to preach further, Taeyeon sighed and said “You’re not going to leave me here and run back home and shut the door and lock it, are you?”

“No... silly. Just give me a moment and I promise I will let you in my house” Jessica said as the shadow lurking around the cars are moving further away down the street.

“Promise?” Taeyeon held her pinky out.

“Promise.” Jessica smiled lightly and hooked their pinkies.

She quickly pushed aside other thoughts and in a flash, her eyes changed into bright light blue, the colour of ice crystals. She sped to the direction of the shadows as her sharp nails extended from her fingers and plunged her nails onto the shadow’s back.

[Jessica’s blood level: 5%]

The shadow deformed and revealed its real self. A werewolf. Werewolves are part of the underworld, out to hunt for vampires. Werewolves have thicker skin than any other creatures of the underworld, which makes them really difficult to be killed by humans.

Problem with werewolves is that they need to be killed by silver bullets. However, an advantage of being a Night-Hunter is that they just need to pierce a werewolf’s heart with their nails.

Without making further ado, Jessica quickly kicked the werewolf further away from where Taeyeon was at to reduce the sound effects.

The werewolf was lurking around the neighbourhood when Krystal had sped past and managed to pick up a small scent of the young Night-Hunter and tried to track her down.

However, just as Jessica was about to finish off the werewolf, the werewolf managed to get back up in a flexible motion and made a counter-attack move on Jessica. Jessica was scratched on her belly and fell on the ground.

[Blood level: 2%]

Disadvantage of being a Night-Hunter? Night-Hunters are as vulnerable as humans.

Jessica clench on her teeth to not make any sound and in a blink of an eye, did a high kick to the werewolf’s head and pierced her nails into the werewolf’s heart on the spot and grabbed the heart out. The heart and the werewolf’s body immediately vaporised into black ash and dispersed by the wind of the dawn.

With herself injured, she has no choice but to walk back towards where Taeyeon is. Luckily the fight ended within 2 minutes as Taeyeon was going to look for Jessica once she counted to 3 minutes.

Looking paler than before, Jessica tried to hide her wounds by putting her arms over her stomach to hide the blood staining her clothes.

“Let’s go. We’re almost there.” Jessica lightly smiled.

[Blood level: 1%]

“Where did you go?” Taeyeon asked questionably.

“Heheh, just did what I was supposed to do. It’s cold right?” Jessica said, using cold weather as an excuse to hide her wound and to avert attention from what she did. She quietly moved both her arms over her stomach and covered her wounds out of sight.

Looking at Jessica’s pale face, Taeyeon could not help but not pretend to be oblivious anymore and immediately said, “Jessica, take my blood.”

J: “What?”

Taeyeon calmly replied, “I said, take my blood. I know you’re a Night-Hunter.”

J: “...”

T: “Fast, you look really pale right now. Please, just drink my blood.”

Despite the temptation, she managed to resist and said, “I won’t...” (drink your blood)

T: “You need it.”

J: “But how...” (did you know I’m a Night-Hunter?)

T: “I only knew when you transformed just now.” Taeyeon embraced Jessica into a tight hug.

J: “What do...” (you mean?)

T: “Drink now. Talk later.”

Taeyeon then gently pushed Jessica’s head towards her own neck.

J: “I’m sorry, Taeyeon...”

Jessica hugged back Taeyeon and transformed into her Night-Hunter self. Instantly sinking her fangs into the side of Taeyeon’s neck and drank her blood.

Taeyeon squirmed a little when the fangs first sank but regained herself after.

Patting on Jessica’s head, she gave an assuring smile. “I’m not a human myself so I could sense who you are.”

After that night, Taeyeon waited for Jessica to accept the fact that she knew and for her to ask more about her own background. On the other hand, Jessica was afraid that she would desire for more of Taeyeon’s blood as it was the best she has ever tasted given the circumstances that Taeyeon wasn't all human too. Under their own circumstances, their friendship within the group began to drift apart.

=END=