Pant. 

Pant.

Kwangmin ran.

His heart filled with pure terror.

Another door.

Another turn.

Darkness was surrounding him.

His legs burned in exhaustion.

Why am I running?

Faster!

He had no time to look back.

He could already felt the monster’s footsteps approaching from behind.

NO!!

He screamed.

The pain was unbearable.

His heart was ripped out.                                                                                                                                                                                         

He was dead. The monster had torn him apart.

He couldn’t remember how it looked like.

It was too dark to make out a face.

Still, the memory of its yellow iries burnt into his soul, leaving a permanent scar.

“Kwangmin?!”

Kwangmin's eyes shot open as Youngmin shook him awake.

Lost and scared, the brunette clung onto his twin immediately.

"Shh... It's okay. It's just a bad dream", Youngmin soothed him, his arms wrapping around the younger’s thin frame.

Kwangmin closed his eyes, trying to catch his breath. Though he had seen that nightmare before, it still made his heart raced like it could burst out of his chest every single time.

"Jimin noona, could you bring us some water?"

The servant came in the moment Youngmin finished his order, a glass of water already prepared on her tray.

Kwangmin took it gladly and downed the whole glass in one breath, his hand too shaky that Youngmin had to help hold onto the glass.

"Do you need anything else, young masters?", the maid asked politely. At her position, she could not act nosy, though her eyes still showed great concerns for the younger twin.

Kwangmin forced a small smile at the maid and shook his head, dismissing her. Youngmin continued holding him, rubbing smooth circle on the younger’s back, until his breathing somewhat returned to normal. As Kwangmin broke the hug himself, the elder reached out and lightly brushed his hand over the closed curtain. That was when Kwangmin noticed tiny rays of sunlight shining through the thick layer of cloth, and realized how early it was.

"Sorry for waking you up", Kwang apologized, feeling really guilty since his twin had to work till late the day before.

 The elder just shook his head, planting a kiss on the younger’s button nose.

"It’s okay. I woke up a long time ago. I was about to get change when I heard you whimpering in your sleep", said Youngmin, as his hands pressed Kwangmin’s shoulder gently, urging him to lay back down.

Kwangmin frowned, "Why? You have to work today as well?"

The brunette sighed, noticing the obvious disappointment in his brother's voice.

"I'm sorry. Something pops up last minute and father really needs me to go with him. But I promise I will stay with you tomorrow, okay?"

"…Kay", Kwangmin nodded, his sad eyes betraying his words.

There was no way he would feel happy spending time in this large and boring mansion alone.

"Try to get some sleep, Kwang"

The elder said, brushing the stray hair on Kwangmin's forehead away and pressed another kiss there. Kwangmin flashed him a pleading look, not ready to part with his brother yet. Youngmin just chuckled, giving in and climbing onto the bed next to his twin again. Kwangmin smiled happily and hugged the elder like a koala, letting Youngmin’s warmth and sweet scent lured his mind to sleep.

When Kwangmin woke up the second time, the "day" had already started. Youngmin and his father had gone out for work again.

The brunette male let out a tired yawn, just as the door opened and his butler stepped in.

"Good evening Kwangmin", greeted Minwoo cheerfully.

Right…

Their "day" started at 6pm. Somehow after the wake, even that kind of small details became foreign to Kwangmin. 

They did not have many young vampires in Sacred but he had seen two friends around his age starting their Changing ritual in the past months. Both of them came back from the three nights looking as disoriented and lost as how he used to be. Youngmin went through it a year before the younger twin did, so he had already fully recovered all his old memories. Poor Kwangmin could only pray every day for his past to come back, dying to know more about his childhood.

It had been a good six months and twenty-three days, how much longer must he wait?

"Training starts at 8pm. Please don’t forget", Minwoo reminded the young master while his hands busied buttoning the other’s shirt.

Kwangmin sighed.

Yes, he had trainings every day, to acquire combat skills and know how to better control his vampire power. Thanks to those lessons, he could kill his time, and also learnt to not break random window or make things around him combust out of nowhere. It was not hard actually, maybe because he had already learn the control it before. However, he still had to go through more trainings to master all the power he could use. Trainings would be good to kill time while Youngmin was not around anyway.

"Could you tell the servant not to prepare breakfast?", Kwangmin asked, "I want to go hunting, just for a short while"

"Sure", Minwoo nodded and neatly arranged Kwang's collar, "just be back before the time. You know Key doesn't like it when you come late"

"Got it"

**************

"Hope you have a good time, young master. Please stay safe!"

Kwangmin smiled at the two guards and wished them the same, walking though the wooden gate that separate Sacred town and the great forest. It's pitch dark but he could easily spot every corner in the wood with his sharp vampire senses.

Taking soundless jumps, the brunette started roaming the forest. He liked the fresh air in here. It was not that he hated the Sacred town. Everyone there knew him, loved him and respected him, not only because of his status, it was just how the vampires were. However, without his memories, he felt somewhat detached, like he was not one of them, like he was not supposed to be who he was. If there was one time when he felt truly safe, it was when Youngmin was beside him. It could be because of the twins bond, though the reason did not matter. Only the elder's presence could make him feel like he truly belonged here, and Kwangmin knew the feelings were mutual.

Nonetheless, since the 6-minute elder brother disappeared too frequently, Kwangmin had to seek comfort by going around the forest.

The wind, which was like Youngmin presence, never failed to put him at ease. In here, he felt as if he was free from his status. No trainings, no troublesome manners, and he could do all sort of things, whatever he liked.

Sometimes, he even imagined himself going out in the day. Kwangmin loved the lights, because everything was only a boring shade of grey and black in the night. To his despair, vampires’ skins were too sensitive and just a few seconds under the sun could give them terrible burns. Even though they could not die from that, it still stung, especially in the eyes. As a result, their race only operated during the night, hunting for blood from animals in the great forest. They took responsibility to maintain the food source. Never waste unnecessarily, never kill the females, those were the few rules to obey. They also “grew” the food ourselves, breeding the animals in the few farms at the outskirt of the town.

Their land is enormous but not without boundaries. Where exactly, Kwangmin did not intend to find out. His father had told him, again and again, as many times as he could in the past months, that the youngest should never approach the borders. Werewolves were always waiting there to jump at any wandering vampires, and if they captured Kwangmin, the problem would not be only about him breaking the law, but the whole clan would be affected.

The irony, however, was that at sixteen years of age, and being only a few minutes older, Youngmin was allow to follow his father outside Sacred, while Kwangmin was deemed less capable and locked up within some imaginary bars.

Even though the brunette himself recognised the gap between him and his twin brother, having that fact rubbed in his face times and again still hurt his ego.

He just wanted to have Youngmin all for himself, and to be wherever the elder was.

Rustles.

Kwang stopped his footstep at the li