There are two urns that stand on the door-sill of Zeus. They are unlike for the gifts they bestow: an urn of evils, an urn of blessings. If Zeus who delights in thunder mingles these and bestows them on man, he shifts, and moves now in evil, again in good fortune. But when Zeus bestows from the urn of sorrows, he makes a failure of man, and the evil hunger drives him over the shining earth, and he wanders respected neither of gods nor mortals.

“I thought you gave up on that book,” a silky voice broke the deafening silence of the room. The book was taken out from the hands of the other, and the speaker, a mere child, laid it on the nightstand as he crawled into bed with his companion. They were in a hotel room, always a hotel room. Traveling from town to town, city to city, across states and countries. Never to be seen or noticed by anyone but each other. It was the only way to survive, or the only way they knew. “You’ve read it too many times.”

“There’s something I wanted to check,” the elder responded, his eyes still glued on the much-abused paperback book with dog-eared pages threatening to fall apart. His sight fell from the book and onto the small boy attempting to snuggle against his chest. “You know, there are two beds in this room.”

The younger jutted out his lower lip. “But, hyung, I’m cold,” he whimpered and tried to bury his face in the other’s flannel shirt.

“You’re always cold,” the other retorted with a light chuckle, threading his hands through the child’s long black hair, feeling his cold scalp underneath his fingertips.

The child hummed happily as he wrapped his arm around the elder. “And that’s why you’re here,” he murmured before closing his eyes and drifting off into sleep.

Sunggyu gazed upon the still face resting on his chest, white and smooth as porcelain. His long eyelashes were brushing against his round cherub cheeks. Sunggyu brought his knuckle against the child’s cheeks, as cool as death, which he was. The elder sighed, dragging his hand away from the cheek and instead resting it behind his head. The other hand was still entangled in the child’s locks. “That’s true,” he admitted with resignation as he stared at the ceiling, counting the cracks and the chips in the paint before drifting off into sleep himself.

He wanders respected neither of gods nor mortals.

And it truly felt like that for Sunggyu. He purposefully hid himself away from humans, but the gods, if they existed, were hiding from him. He roamed this either unnoticed or uncared for. Not a deity caring that his time on the earth was already consumed long ago, that he lived beyond the laws of nature. Or was this natural in its own bizarre and twisted way? An insane god’s design to keep mortals in check?

He had too much time to ponder these questions. And it distressed him. He wished that he could be like Sungjong, his companion, having been frozen with that childhood mindset of not caring beyond his own selfish needs. In fact, that’s why Sunggyu existed, because of Sungjong’s selfish needs. The child desired a brother, and Sunggyu was willing. They made an odd pair. Normally it would be the older-looking vampire who had turned the child into one, but Sungjong was unlike all of the other children. First, he was the oldest vampire that Sunggyu had come across to date, and second, Sungjong was mentally mature and controlled his impulses, either an enduring trait from when he was human or something he had learned over the many years he had roamed this earth. In comparison to his companion, Sunggyu often felt young and weak, and he always had to fight back the urge to laugh whenever Sungjong called him “hyung.” For Sungjong was older in ways that Sunggyu couldn’t even fathom.

The alarm rang throughout the hotel room. Sunggyu groaned and turned off the phone. He shook the shoulders of the boy still laying on his chest, not having moved a single inch. “Sungjong-ah, time to wake up,” he goaded.

The boy stirred. “It’s been a week already?” he asked languidly, sitting himself up and rubbing the sleep away from his eyes.

“Eung,” the elder responded, sitting cross legged on the bed in front of the kneeling vampire in front of him. “Where are we going this time?”

Sungjong yawned, his red tongue grazing the tip of his fangs. “First we eat, then,” he leaned in closer to his companion and whispered excitedly, “it’s a surprise!”

Sunggyu scoffed. “How is it a surprise when I’m the one driving?” he challenged.

The dark red eyes of the little one sparkled. “Hyung, let me drive,” he begged cutely, mimicking turning a steering wheel in his hands.

Sunggyu chuckled and ruffled the child’s hair. “No,” he said firmly after his laughter abated. “You look like you’re eight and how many times have you told me…”

“To not stand out. To go unnoticed. I know. I know,” Sungjong finished, frowning deeply. He stood up from the bed and adjusted his clothes before heading for the door. “It’s just that this is the last time,” he mumbled sadly and left the room.

“Yah! What do you mean last?” Sunggyu shouted after him, not moving from his bed. “Stupid cryptic kid,” he grumbled as he gathered both of their shoes (Sungjong had left without putting them on) and walked out of the door. Sunggyu could worry about what the boy had meant later, but after he stood up, he was hit with the overwhelming sensation of emptiness. There was a fire in his throat that needed to be extinguished. He had to eat.

Refusing to kill, to feed on humans, is a phase which most vampires go through. They cling onto their last vestiges of humanity for as long as they could and deny their new nature. It was truly just a phase of denial. But after watching generations of men become like leaves, the winds scattering the old leaves across the earth, giving way to the new buds to grow on the bare branches, and spring comes round again. As one generation comes to life, another dies away. Sunggyu had seen so many pass that taking the life of a person was nothing more than plucking a leaf from a tree before it’s time to whither and fall. A new one takes its place, and the tree survives. And that’s all that really mattered, that tree. Well, and satiating his hunger for his own survival.

He had accept long ago that he had grown separate from that tree. He was now a different being, a whole other species. And as he and Sungjong leave behind the two drained and twisted bodies in the alley way, Sunggyu didn’t feel a drop of regret or remorse.

“We are to be powerful, beautiful, and without regret,” Sungjong spoke as he wiped the congealed blood from his lips, staining his sleeve. Sunggyu groaned and lightly reprimanded the child for ruining his new shirt. He took a handkerchief from his back pocket, knelt down, and wiped Sungjong’s round face with it. “That’s what Armond always said,” Sungjong managed to speak as Sunggyu roughly cleaned his face.

“Armond? The man who turned you?” Sunggyu needlessly asked to clarify. The both of them didn’t know too many people, living the way that they did. Armond was one of the few acquaintances they did have. “Are we going to see him?”

“No,” the boy answered simply. “We’re going to the Meramec Caverns.” He smiled gleefully.

Sunggyu lowered his hand from the round face and rested it on his knee, still clutching the bloodstained cloth. “Again? But that’s all the in Missouri , and we’re in Seattle. Why?”

Sungjong shrugged. Sunggyu sighed. This was the childlike selfishness in Sungjong coming out again. He did as he pleased and rarely ever consulted Sunggyu. The elder often wondered if Sungjong only had an adult companion to make him seem less conspicuous because he could take care of himself well and the child didn’t seem susceptible to bouts of loneliness like he was.

In fact, that was the reason why Sungjong found him in the first place: Sunggyu was lonely. And during his days as a human, whenever he was lonely, he would walk along the nighttime streets looking for a distraction, hoping that the feeling would fade away with each step he took. But it never did, and he normally went home with a heavier stomach after 10 or 15 minutes of aimlessly wondering around. That night, however, he did find a distraction in the form of alcohol. He had always found drinking alone to be depressing, but that night his mood matched it. He had asked several people to meet with him, and they all said no. So after numbing himself with bottles of soju, he tried to stumble back home, but ended up stumbling into the knife of a pick-pocket. And there he lied in the dark and cold streets, dying in the way he feared the most: alone.

The child had followed the scent of fresh blood and began lapping from the pool surrounding him. “Armond said that not a drop should go to waste,” he his bloodstained lips as he began to undo Sunggyu’s shirt, searching for the wound. His glowing eyes met with Sunggyu’s flickering ones. “He also said that no good person should go to waste either.” His fingers left the buttons of the shirt, and Sungjong hovered over Sunggyu’s panting body, leaning down to whisper in his ear. “Do you want to be my friend? We can play forever.”

The answer slipped easily from his lips. It wasn’t that he was eager for death to stop, but for a friend he was desperate, and the promise of spending an eternity in someone’s company sounded like the dream he had been chasing his whole life, even if it was the company of a perpetual 8 year old.

From that point onwards, they became brothers. But Sunggyu would be hesitant to say that the loneliness had disappeared. 8 year-olds and 26 year-olds needed different kinds of love; Sungjong’s was more easily satisfied. And then there was Sungjong’s self-reliance. Intertwined with loneliness is the feeling of unwantedness. Sungjong didn’t make him feel wanted at times; in fact, he felt like a hindrance to the vampire.

“Always so slow. Can’t you speed up?” Sungjong complained, stomping his feet on the floorboards of their ’67 Impala. “You’re the opposite of him, I swear. He was always too fast.” The child was referring to the man he turned before Sunggyu, his previous companion. “Why can’t I find someone who matches me?”

Sunggyu ruffled the other’s hair, as he was accustomed whenever he deemed the younger was being ridiculous. “It’s not like we have forever, right?” he argued.

Sungjong rolled his head along the headrest to look at his companion. The pout on his face was evident, even to Sunggyu looking out of the corner of his eye. Yes, he was always 8, but he was by no means, a child. “Just go faster, okay? I’m getting impatient.” Then he grumbled under his breath, “We don’t have time to waste.”

Sunggyu just rolled his eyes in response and applied more pressure to the gas as he shifted into the next gear. Tantrums were one of the few things that showed Sungjong was still a child. And that’s another reason why Sungjong liked Sunggyu as a companion.  The other acknowledge and respected his actual age, but allowed him to still be a child at the same time. Finding someone to juggle both sides of his personality was hard to come by, but the moment he peered into Sunggyu’s kind and understanding eyes, Sungjong knew he found another companion.

The gods envy us. They envy us because we’re mortal, because any moment may be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed.

They were halfway to Missouri when they had to stop to feed again. They were in a small pocket of Wyoming, nestled between mountains. Sunggyu cursed looking at the sparseness of the place. The tree will sorely miss these leaves. He sighed and glanced over to Sungjong who was already stalking his prey. But it will survive.

After the kill, Sunggyu lit a cigarette. He liked smoking. He liked watching the white-grey stream dancing upwards into the night sky. He liked the feeling of holding fire in his hands, one of the few things that could destroy him. And it made him feel like he was breathing again, like he felt alive even though the nicotine rush never coursed through his still veins.

“Feeling nostalgic?” Sungjong asked, pulling the handkerchief from the other’s back pocket, wiping his mouth with it. “You always smoke whenever you pretend to be human.”

Sunggyu dropped it to the floor, watching the embers being snuffed out under his boot. “Remember the last time we went to the caverns?” he changed the subject, hating how transparent he was to the child.

“Eung,” Sungjong nodded enthusiastically. “You said you felt like bat. It was funny.”

“And you fed on our guide. We were lost for weeks,” Sunggyu added, taking the handkerchief from the other and wiping his own mouth with it before returning it to his pocket.

Sungjong’s red eyes glowed happily in the moonlight. “Good memories.”

Sunggyu slammed the door to the Impala as they reached the entrance of the caverns. “Well, we’re here. I hope you’re happy,” he joked. The both of them were completely covered in spite of the summer’s heat, which they couldn’t feel anyways, but it was protection from the sunlight.

Vampires don’t turn into ash in the sunlight, and they surely don’t sparkle. However, vampires are hypersensitive, and the sun was too warm and bright. So they shunned it. Thus they gained the reputation of creatures of the night. Well, that and the fact that they primarily hunted at night (the dark allowing them to sneak up on their prey more easily, and humans tend to be more reckless at night).

“Estatic,” Sungjong immediately responded, his black hair flopping under his hat with every bouncing step he took. Then he turned around, running back to the vampire leaning on the black car. His small hands grabbed his companion’s and dragged him along. “Let’s go, hyung! We have no time to waste. We have to follow the thread before it’s gone!”

As soon as they stepped inside, the child took in a needlessly deep breath. His eyes scanned the limestone deposits. “How do you feel, hyung?” he asked with expectant eyes.

“Like a bat,” Sunggyu fulfilled his expectations.

Sungjong stepped as closely as he could to the formations, trying to touch them. “Don’t you ever wonder why we don’t become them? I always asked Armond, but he would just say. ‘That’s how we are.’ It was annoying,” he mused.

Sunggyu nodded, gripping more tightly on the younger’s hand. “It would be nice to fly away sometimes.” He glanced down at the other who was looking up at him curiously. “It would be better than all of this damn driving,” he joked.

But Sungjong didn’t laugh. He only gave a small smile, laced with sadness. “You won’t be driving anymore,” he admitted, resting his chin on the handrail. “Not for a while.”

Sunggyu squatted down to meet with Sungjong’s avoidant eyes. “Why not? Don’t tell me you want to walk everywhere now,” he tried to lighten the mood.

“No,” Sungjong answered, finally looking at his companion. “We’re going home.”

Home, that was one of the few things Sunggyu and Sungjong had in common. They were both Seoul natives. However, Sungjong made him leave as soon as he turned, and they just about went to every other place besides Seoul (or what was now Seoul). When Sunggyu asked why, Sungjong kept saying it was too soon to return. People would still remember him, recognize him. That was still his answer a hundred years later. That was another childlike thing about Sungjong: if he didn’t want to admit the truth, he would lie and often horribly.

But now they were going home, flying home to be exact. Sungjong’s head was resting against his shoulder, fast asleep. Sunggyu couldn’t risk sleeping though. When they slept, they tended to sleep for weeks on end. And while Sungjong could sleep because he had Sunggyu to carry him around, but if Sunggyu had accidentally feel asleep as freely as Sungjong did, it would be problematic. But thankfully, Sunggyu wasn’t at any risk for falling asleep on this flight. There was a baby next to him, screaming his head off.

“I’m so sorry,” the mother (a Korean like himself) apologized, the blood rushing to her cheeks in embarrassment. She was rocking her child in her arms. “The pressure must be hurting his ears.”

Sunggyu just nodded. He wasn’t accustomed to talking to others that weren’t Sungjong. He turned away from the woman, putting noise canceling headphones on. The pressure and noise was affecting him as well, wanting to scream out in pain like the baby. Sungjong was lucky he could sleep through it all. But now with the headphones, the flight was tolerable, especially with the soft Classical music playing through it. Sunggyu chuckled softly at the sleeping face next to him. If he were awake, Sungjong would mock him for his old tastes, never wanting to experience the products of the ages they were in. Sunggyu couldn’t help it; he was just a relic of his time. If he could do so, he would still wear his old clothes. They were more comfortable than these thick pants called jeans that Sungjong forced him into. None of these trends mattered to him. Just like the leaves on the tree, they would soon be replaced with new ones. It would be a pain to keep up with them.

Then he felt a tap on his shoulder. He removed his headphones, blinking curiously up at the mother who looked even more embarrassed than before. “My husband isn’t here, and so I have no one else to ask.” Sunggyu nodded along, prompting her to continue. “But you look nice…and they way you are with your brother…I just thought…” She laughed a little, realizing that her words weren’t making sense. “Can you just hold him for a second while I go to the bathroom?”

“Ah, sure,” Sunggyu sputtered, saying his first words that day. After showering him with thanks, the young mother placed the baby onto his lap, which Sunggyu held lightly. And you’ve just gave your precious son to a killer. He could see the blood rushing under the soft skin. He could feel the heart softly pattering in his hands. It was so easy, so tempting. But it was a just a sprout. And although it would be sweet, it would also be ultimately unsatisfying. But what truly chased away his thoughts was when he realized that the baby wasn’t crying anymore. His large head was rolling over to rest on Sunggyu’s stomach. Sunggyu moved his hands from the blanket and brushed it softly against the black fuzz on his head. It was warm. It wasn’t the warmth of a fresh kill that he was used too. That was hot with panic. This felt warm and comforting like a wool blanket.

“Thank you so much,” the mother repeated, taking her son back into her arms. Then her eyes widened with surprise. “Oh! And he finally went to sleep,” she spoke in excited whispers. “You must be good with children.”

Sunggyu just nodded with a blank stare. Maybe there were some good things in this age.

From far away, all the leaves on the tree look green, but given a closer look, they are all different, with unique splotches of yellow or brown, with varied holes and scars from the abuse they endured, and even their edges had different dips and turns. Sunggyu had forgotten how to appreciate those little things, how to find the beauty in life. But he decided to start trying.

And he started in Seoul, the last place he “lived.” It was fitting.

Their stay in Seoul was already amounting to something different. As soon as Sungjong woke up (which happened to be two weeks later because Sunggyu had also fallen asleep after carrying the child into the hotel room), he insisted on finding an apartment, a home.

“But what happened to going unnoticed?” Sunggyu questioned.

“We’re here to be found,” Sungjong quickly answered before pulling Sunggyu outside to hunt with him.

Sunggyu had assumed that they were meeting with other vampires here. Such gatherings did happen on occasion, but they rarely participated in them. Maybe Sungjong was starting to feel the loneliness as well.

“Are we here to find your old companion?” Sunggyu asked months later after they hadn’t been “found” by anyone yet.

“Sungyeol?” Sungjong asked. Sunggyu nodded. The child shook his head and returned to his coloring book. “No. Have I never told you that he’s gone?” Sunggyu sighed. There Sungjong was hiding the things he didn’t want to talk about, allowing Sunggyu to assume that his old companion had run off with another.

“No you didn’t. What happened?”

Sungjong didn’t even look up from the pages of his book. “Sungyeol wasn’t able to handle it. He was weak. He grew tired of things too quickly,” the vampire explained with a resigned huff. “He had watched his great-great-grand niece grow old and die, and decided that he had been in between long enough and died with her.”

Sunggyu throat grew dry. “He killed himself?” he asked.

The child put down his crayon and rest his chin in his hands. “If you can call it that,” he responded, his red eyes were boring into Sunggyu’s. The innocence in them fled. They looked old and tired. “They number one killer of our kind is ourselves.” He picked up his crayon again and returned to his coloring. “But Armond always said that it was Irony that killed us because the world changed and we didn’t. I have heard people being killed by Iron, hyung, but never Irony.”

Sunggyu laughed heartily at his companion’s quick shift in personality. He patted his silken head. “You’re too cute.”

“Yah! I’m older than you!”

“Then act like it.”

Every so often, Sungjong would pull Sunggyu outside during the daytime to play, like to the caverns or parks. But this time, they went to a playground. Or to be honest, Sungjong was on the playground. Sunggyu was on a bench next to it, barely paying attention to his companion as he flipped through the pages of his beloved old book.

“What’s that language?” Sunggyu turned towards the squeaky sound to see a boy around Sungjong’s age, leaning against the armrest next to the vampire, trying to peer at the yellowed pages.

“Ancient Greek,” Sunggyu responded coldly, shifting away from the kid, hoping that he would take the hint and leave.

But he didn’t. He assumed that the vampire was making room for him to sit down. He squeezed himself into the small gap in between the armrest and the vampire. His chin was practically resting the in the crook of Sunggyu’s elbow as he looked at the book. “Wow! That’s cool. It looks like an alien language. You must be really smart,” he praised happily, smiling so widely that it exposed a severely crooked row of teeth.

Sunggyu stared at the kid curiously through his sunglasses. His nose was filled with the child’s sweet scent. His eyes drifted down and fixed on the veins, now rising to the surface as the child clutched tightly to the edge of the bench. The vampire his lips as he leaned down and whispered into the small ear, noticing the heartbeat pulsating in his neck. “When you’re as old as I am, it’s hard not to be smart,” he confessed. He pulled away and ruffled the boy’s hair. Something about the child reminded him of Sungjong, probably the age.

“Hm,” the child hummed in thought. “Then do you know this!” He challenged ing his forefinger between him and Sunggyu. “Hoi!”

“Ah, no I don’t,” Sunggyu stammered, staring at the pink finger. The boy looked up at him, laughing in his triumph exposing his protruding tooth. His finger was still poised in the air.

A small, pale finger touched the pink one. “Hoi!” Sunggyu turned to see Sungjong laughing along with the boy. “Do you want to play, friend?” the child vampire asked in his unique way.

“Sure!” The boy bolted from off the bench, and the two rushed over to the playground, climbing on the monkey bars (Sungjong more easily than the human) and sliding down the tube. Sunggyu closed his book and set it aside, opting to watch his companion play. The vampire almost looked normal if it weren’t for his abnormally pale skin and extraordinary amount of clothes. But he smiled as innocently and happily as the others. He hadn’t smiled like that in years, ever since we first got here.

But happiness soon turned into panic in a blink of an eye. Sungjong jumped down from his swing as it had reached the top of its arc in the air, gracefully landing on his feet and narrowly missing a wooden stake in the ground. The human boy, not to be outdone by his new friend, aimed to do the same. But he was limited by mortal constraints. He barely broke his fall with his small wrists, and the stake grazed the side of his face, cutting his soft skin.

Sunggyu smelled it before he saw it. The metallic scent of fresh blood, gushing in rivers of red down the child’s face, dripping into scarlet pools on the ground. Sungjong stiffened. His red tongue peeked out, wetting his lips. Sunggyu could practically hear him think, not a drop should go to waste.

With his inhuman sped, he gathered the small vampire in his arms and took him miles away from the sweet scent, leaving his book behind on the bench.

Sunggyu had picked up a new copy of the Iliad, but he missed the familiarity of the softened paper in his hands. He grimaced. He was stuck in his old ways once again, but since his old favorite wasn’t comforting him like it normally did, maybe it was time to turn to a new source of entertainment.

He set aside the book and picked up the remote control, turning on the television. The vampire flipped through the channels, waiting for something to catch his eye.  It wasn’t until his third round of flipping when he had found it. It was a drama, a simple one. Nothing in comparison to the complicated tale Homer had told, but Sunggyu felt himself drawn to it.

Sungjong walked into the living room and was confronted with a strange sight: his companion sprawled out on the couch watching a drama intently. The child watched the drama for a few seconds and sighed. “What is this?” he asked.

“A drama,” Sunggyu answered, moving his legs to make room for the child. Sungjong took the invitation and rested his head on the other’s thighs. “This girl is an angel of death, but she became human after saving his life,” he explained. “I think…I think they’re going to fall in love.” For some reason, his voice was unsure with that statement. After all, it was a teen drama. Them falling for each other was inevitable.

“Hyung, what’s gotten into you?” Sunggyu tore his eyes away from the screen and saw his companion looking at him with stern and worried eyes. “You know that’s not going to happen for you,” Sungjong reminded him.

Sunggyu sighed, wondering what Sungjong meant by “that,” whether it was becoming human again or falling in love. “I know. I know. I’m not stupid,” he retorted, absentmindedly patting the soft, cool hair of the child. His attention was focused on the screen again. “This drama is though, but I can’t stop watching. It’s addicting,” he confessed with a light laugh.

“Wishful thinking,” Sungjong quickly interjected before patting Sunggyu’s thighs urgently. “Can we watch the music show instead? Hm hyung?” he begged.

Sunggyu groaned and handed the remote to the other, but later on he rejoiced when he discovered the internet and the rest of the episodes.

But dramas wasn’t the only thing he found fascinating about this new Korean age. “Hyung! What is this?” Sungjong asked as he walked into Sunggyu’s bedroom. A sly smile flashed across his face. “This song has words.”

“Yes, it has lots of them,” Sunggyu retorted, turning down the volume and growing embarrassed. A small hand stopped him from turning the dial. Sungjong turned the volume back up.

The small vampire pulled back, listening intently to the song as the tapped along with the rhythm on his chin. If we meet again, I won’t ever let go of your hands / Don’t go far away from me ever again / Because you’re my everything. Sungjong burst out into laughter which almost sounded condescending in Sunggyu’s ears. The child clapped. “Now I know why you listen to and read the same things over and over again. You,” he emphasized, rudely pointing at his companion, “have horrible tastes.”

Sunggyu frowned deeply and turned the song up louder to drown out the other’s laughter. He agreed a bit. The lyrics were not very impressive, but he liked the sound of the singer’s voice. There was a feeling behind it that the lyrics failed to express. But then the song abruptly shifted into a fast drumbeat and the charming voice was replaced with a trio of high female voices singing cutely.

Sungjong pointed to the name of the band, which was some sort of strange candy. “This is what you should be listening to, hyung. This is what’s popular,” he lectured as he normally did.

Sunggyu rolled his eyes. He didn’t care for what was popular. He cared for what he liked, and this girl group wasn’t it. He turned it off, and Sungjong pouted. “This age has horrible tastes,” he commented.

Ruin, eldest daughter of Zeus, she blinds us all, that fatal madness—she with those delicate feet of hers, never toughing the earth, gliding over the heads of men to trap us all.

“Sunggyu,” Sungjong called out, putting his head over the threshold of Sunggyu’s room. His companion tilted his head. The child rarely called him by name. “Come with me unto the roof, okay?”

“Alright,” Sunggyu agreed hesitantly.

“Just wait five minutes.” Sunggyu wished that he didn’t obey that command. He hated how easily he gave into the child’s every whim. He shouldn’t have waited.

He went onto the rooftop, only to see the 8 year-old feeding a raging fire with newspapers and scraps of wood. And he was doing so carelessly, as if getting burned didn’t matter. It was obvious what was about to happen. What the old vampire had in his mind.

“Sungjong-ah…” Sunggyu croaked through his quickly closing throat. This was the most scared he has ever been since he first met the child. The flames were glowing orange-red in the moonlight, emitting a dark grey smoke into the sky. This time, Sunggyu didn’t enjoy the sight of the floating smoke. “D-don’t do this. Don’t leave me,” he begged.

Sungjong stood up from his crouching position, dusting the palms of his hands on his ashy pants. He avoided his companion’s gaze, staring up at the stars for one last time. “It’s time. We followed the thread to its end,” he cryptically spoke. His gaze fell down from the sky, and his red eyes were burning when they met Sunggyu’s. “Don’t look at me like that,” he reprimanded. “I forced you into this. I didn’t give you a choice. I know.”

Sunggyu marched up and pulled the child safely away from the fire. “You didn’t force me into anything. I said yes,” he yelled.

 “But I forced you to stay. I made it so you couldn’t leave me,” Sunjong argued and wrested his hand from the other’s grasp. Sunggyu opened his mouth to retort, but Sungjong in his ancient ways was able to shut his companion up with a narrowed glare. His mind was made up, and with his childlike stubbornness, nothing Sunggyu said could convince him otherwise. “You were never meant to be mine,” he growled, stepping backwards towards the fire. “Fate, it still exists even for the damned. Two people tied together by red string for all eternity.” He craned his neck back towards the fire, casting dark and yellow shadows across his white face. “I cut mine. I let her grow up and die without me. I found other strings: blue, gold, orange, liliac, green. But never red. Never red.” He faced Sunggyu again and took one more step backwards closer to the fire. “Hyung, you were pink. You were close, but you weren’t her.”

“Sungjong-ah,” Sunggyu’s voice cracked. Tears began blurring his sight, and they might as well. He didn’t want to see this.

“Hyung, when you find red, don’t ever cut it. Don’t let it go,” Sungjong issued his last command, and perhaps his most important one.

The vampire’s knees lost their strength; they collapsed. “Jjong, don’t do this,” he repeated. And although the other was right in front of him, the loneliness began to set in, setting up home in his dead heart. Sungjong didn’t want him anymore; he didn’t need him anymore. He’d rather not be than be with him.

“We are to be powerful, beautiful, and without regret,” Sungjong repeated Armond’s words. He shook his head. “But regret is all I have. I’ve been this for too long. It’s time.” His arms wrapped tightly around Sunggyu’s neck. He whispered into his ear, “Hyung, this doesn't mean that I don’t love you. I do. I love you.”

Sunggyu was about to embrace the little vampire and not let him go, carry him away from the rooftop, but he was too quick. The next thing Sunggyu knew was that he was watching the child’s body being burned, consumed by the red flames.

Although he was no longer human, his old habits followed him into this new life. Sunggyu began to wonder around Itaewon, looking for a distraction from the crushing loneliness, looking for Sungjong. He was surrounded by hordes of people, noises, and lights, but not a thing tore him away from his oppressive thoughts. He oscillated between depression, rage, relief, and longing. What was he to do? Sungjong was no longer there, dictating their time. Their time. He said his time was up. Did that mean it was Sunggyu’s time as well?

After wandering for an unknown time, Sunggyu had walked into a bar, hoping that the alcohol would numb him like it used to. It didn’t. He rested his head on the wooden surface of the bar, watching a candle in a round glass flicker. He reached inside the glass and pulled out the small candle. His fingers tried to grab at the tiny flame, relishing in the burning sensation. More I need more. He extended his palm over the flame, waiting for it to burn a hole through his hand. But it never did.

 “That’s dangerous,” a deep and familiar voice spoke and a white hand pulled the candle away from Sunggyu’s palm.

Sunggyu’s eyes followed the candle until he saw it rest next to a large array of empty soju and beer bottles. He glanced upwards at the owner who was smiling with closed lips, his head cradled in his hands. Sunggyu gestured to the bottles as he reached over to retrieve his candle. “That’s dangerous,” he argued.

“Tsk. You have no idea,” the other scoffed, looking at the bottles in front of him. “This doesn’t affect me,” he admitted with a grimace. “Not anymore.”

“Oh, alcoholic,” Sunggyu concluded with a nod. He squared up to the man, who was looking at him with a knowing glint in his eye. And Sunggyu didn’t like it; it made him frown even more. “You,” he began to lecture, pointing at the man in front of him. “Life is precious and beautiful. You’ll have no idea until it’s gone. Don’t waste it on something like this or all you’ll have is regret.”

The man immediately began to laugh, beginning with almost silent chuckles until it grew into a roar, making Sunggyu wonder why he even tried with this human, why he even abandoned his normal cold demeanor. But he knew why. Sungjong’s passing had affected him greatly. He had been itching to talk, to interact with anyone, but it seemed like he chose the wrong person. Or the right one. Sunggyu saw the lower lip move down to reveal the protruding tooth. The man’s hands left his face to clutch at his sides, aching from laughter. And Sunggyu could see a faint scar from his temple down to his cheek from where the stake had grazed him.  Not only remembered the scar and the tooth, but the face was etched into his memory from the drama he had watched a few years prior.

The laughter soon died down, and the man put his head back into his hands; his face was beaming. “You aren’t that sharp, are you?” he teased. And that’s when Sunggyu noticed one more thing, above that tooth, a new pair of shining fangs.

Sunggyu inhaled deeply smelling the faint scent of death off of the other, which was hidden under the stench of alcohol, food, and humans. “Don’t tell me. You?” he asked with a tilt of his head.

“Eung. Me. Vampire. You. Vampire. We. Vampires,” he explained in broken and simple speech, with gestures as he spoke.

Sunggyu frowned. “What happened?” he asked in a concern tone.

And the fellow vampire responded to Sunggyu’s frown with a widening grin. “Do you recognize me?” he sounded flattered.

Sunggyu nodded. “From the playground, when you got this,” he said as he traced the path of the scar. The other leaned into the touch. Sunggyu immediately retreated his hand and cleared his throat. “Then the drama.”

“You watched that?” the other was genuinely shocked but above all pleased. He leaned in closer and spoke in  a hushed tone as if it were a secret. “I remember you too. From the playground. You were reading that weird alien book.” Sunggyu scoffed at that, but that didn’t even trip up the other. It was almost like he expected it. “Then I began to see you several other places. Just for a second. But you always seemed to pop up whenever I was starting to doubt whether you existed or not: you never growing older with that kid at your side. You’re not very good at staying hidden.”

“Most don’t even notice,” Sunggyu replied honestly, his gaze dropping back down to the candlelight. It wasn’t so enticing anymore.

“I did,” the other muttered quickly. Sunggyu looked back up at him, noticing that the new vampire was craning his neck as he searched. “Where’s the kid?” he asked.

“Gone,” Sunggyu revealed. His throat felt like it was tightening again. He ran a hand up and down his face. “He died today. Or yesterday. Or weeks ago.” Exactly how long has he been wandering around the streets?

He felt a hand rest against his thigh. “I’m sorry,” the other offered, smiling slightly. He then bit his lip, wondering if he should ask his next question. He did, “Who turned who?”

“He turned me,” Sunggyu admitted, almost embarrassed at the oddity of it, but the other seemed to pay it no heed as he nodded. “What about you? You’re alone too.” His eyes had scanned the room, and no one else was paying attention to them. No one else smelled of death.

The smile finally fell from his face. He pulled away from the other, removing his hand as well. He just stared at the bottles in front of him, picking one up and rolling it in his hands as he confessed, “After the drama, I was given another offer to act in the ‘role of a lifetime.’ A role of a vampire. I just didn’t know that they were being literal.” He let out a deep sigh and set down the bottle. “The woman who turned me already had a companion, but not a son,” he spoke bitterly and then he chuckled, “I guess I am acting like her son and rebelling against her right now.” He shut his eyes tightly and shook his head. “I didn’t want this. Even though I said yes, I didn’t know…”

Sunggyu’s hand fastened to his head, and he patted it like he had done years before. But this time, he did so more gently. “They tricked you. You have every right to be angry,” he offered consolation.

“Did the kid trick you too?” he almost looked like he wanted Sunggyu  to say yes, so he didn’t feel foolish on his own.

But Sunggyu couldn’t lie. He shook his head. “He saved me, if you can call it that,” he confessed with a light chuckle. “I was dying, and he stopped it.”

“Sometimes, I wish it was like that for me…” The other continued to lament and tell Sunggyu his entire life story, including his name, Nam Woohyun. Although he wasn’t the best actor, his career seemed promising, and his simultaneous singing career appeared to  be on the same path. But that woman, who insisted on being called “mother,” had derailed the path completely. But more than his robbed path to stardom, Woohyun was infuriated that the woman was trying to replace his real mother, who was still alive. His real mother knew about Woohyn’s new condition and accepted it (making Sunggyu feel guilty because he diligently followed Sungjong’s plan and staged a funeral and later rose from his grave, rather than spending the last few years with his family).

Woohyun also went on about all the theories he had about Sunggyu and Sungjong as he grew up: that they were aliens, hallucinations, ghosts, really good-looking zombies, and finally (and recently) vampires. “I was kind of hoping that I would run into you,” he confessed with a diverted gaze.

Sunggyu cocked his head. “Why?”

Woohyun shrugged. “I felt like I could talk to you, and I needed someone to talk to.”

Sunggyu was wanted, needed by this fresh, young vampire. He laughed. And he had been following the whims of an 8 year-old for centuries, and he was being turned towards for advice. “Then I’m glad we met,” he said as he got up and paid the bar table. They both walked slowly out of the door along with the other lingering patrons, who didn’t want the night to end just yet.

“Maybe we’ll run into each other again,” Woohyun added as he leaned against the red brick wall, his eyes analyzing Sunggyu as if he wanted to remember every molecule arranged in his body.

Sunggyu offered a forced smile. “Maybe.” He put his hand up between them. Woohyun wrapped his own hand around the other’s and gave it a squeeze. Sunggyu glanced down at their connected hands, but then something caught his eye, a loose red thread on his sleeve just barely attaching a button to the coat. “Oh,” he quietly gasped as he  turned Woohyun’s hand in his and picked up the thread in his hands. Take it and don’t let go.

“Hm?” Woohyun was confused until he saw the thin line of red in the other’s hand. “Aish. Annoying. Just pull on it to cut it.”

Sunggyu’s grip tightened.  “But I don’t want to lose it,” he mumbled.

“The button? I can just…” Woohyun began, but the voice was stopped in his throat as Sunggyu’s hand widened to envelop his entire wrist. He pulled in the younger closer and placed his lips upon Woohyun’s. Then he quickly pulled away, realizing how strange and unexpected it must have been for the other. Or not. Woohyun’s eyes immediately shrunk from widened surprise into happy crescents. “Do you feel it too?” he said barely above a whisper, leaning in closer so that his lips brushed against the other with each word. He then kissed the elder.

“Uh huh,” Sunggyu answered awkwardly, still adjusting to this sudden shift. He pulled away, letting go of the wrist and the thread only to pick up Woohyun’s cheeks in his hands. His thumbs rubbed against the cool and smooth skin. “You’re mine.”

There is the heat of Love, the pulsing rush of Longing, the lover’s whisper, irresistible—magic to make the sanest man go mad.