The class is noisy when Sihoo steps in. There’s the usual chatter going around, the usual anti-vampire jokes circulating and there Baek Mari sits, smiling without a care in the world. Because uh, Jaemin is practically her world.

But Sihoo’s moved on from jealousy to merely cringing at her mushy sentiments (that emanates from her body. She might as well be holding up a “I LOVE JUNG JAEMIN” poster). She’s happy though. And so, he’s okay.

When he sits down, he senses Ahra staring at him from the middle of the classroom with furrowed brows.

He stares back. Intensely.  Just to be obnoxious, you know.

With a squeak, she quickly turns away and replies Ae-kyung with something that sounds like “I’m fine, I just had a migraine yesterday, I swear I’m better now!”

He could get used to this; flustering Jo Ahra is pretty damn entertaining. Although, Sihoo does feel better since yesterday; it’s nice to get his uh, big fat bloody secret off his chest and it’s nice that someone human who knows isn’t freaking out and treating him like the scum of the earth. It’s the first time actually – the last time someone had figured out about him being a vampire was in middle school, and that kid had run off screaming. The next day, the guy’s gang had wanted to stone him to death in the playground with Beyblades.

They were nine anyway, they didn’t know better.

Suddenly, Beomsung runs into class and shakes Jaemin’s shoulders vigourously.

“You’d never guess who’s wanting to see us!”

“What are you talking about?”

Sihoo can’t really hear the rest of it - haha, who is he kidding; his super senses can pick up every tiny detail, but he’s just tuning them out as per usual. Either way, he’s being dragged up by Mari and brought to the band room with the rest of the former band members.

Apparently, the band they had formed had fizzled into insignificance after Jaemin, the leader, had lost all memories concerning Mari, and after both he and Mari had disappeared.  Beomsung explains this to the CEO of Sjun Entertainment nervously, and Ahra eyes Sihoo curiously when they bring up the topic of his four-month absence.

He mouths “what?” at her from the corner of the room. It’s not like they would understand that he went through a hellish process of resurrecting from the almost-dead. Sihoo spent his four-months becoming the Jesus Christ of all vampires; the only difference? Jesus gave His blood to save human souls, and Sihoo absorbed human blood to save himself. There’s also that detail that Jesus took three days to resurrect and he took four months, but whatever. If anyone found out about the recovery process, they’d probably just be horrified that I intook so much human blood and overlook the fact that what I went through was pretty much a huge blood transfusion extravaganza.

“But wait… your lead singer is a vampire?” The CEO questions worriedly. “Then this may cause many problems in the future…”

Mari looks down and sighs sadly. Oh man, she’s commencing her self-blame thing again. It’s not her fault; when will she understand that this prejudice is a fault in the mentality that humans themselves have to rectify?

The CEO ponders for a while and finally speaks with a hopeful smile on his face. “How about this; we’ll take on your band, and just replace the vocalist. How about that?”

The members look around uncertainly, and even Ahra who used to be jealous of Mari, frowns at the idea.

“Hey, we’ll sponsor you and your activities while you’re under Sjun Entertainment and we’ll even provide you with the all the training that you need.”

Soori and Beomsung’s face brighten a little at that prospect, but it turns back into uncertainty when the CEO turns to Jaemin to consider the idea. “After all, you’re the leader, so what do you say?”

“As the leader, I think we should let the rest of the members’ opinions be reflected in our decision,” Jaemin says with conviction. But for me, I think that without Mari, our band can’t go on.”

“Okay, so what do you guys think? I’m posing an already good offer though,” the CEO says and looks at the rest of them.

“In my opinion,” Ara begins to speak up, before Soori interjects.

“Me too – I want Mari to stay. We need her, she’s irreplaceable.”

The CEO looks on doubtfully.

So like, this display of teamwork and camaraderie is heart-warming and all, but there’s no way the CEO’s gonna accept us, Sihoo thinks as he leans against the table and sighs. They probably think Mari’s the critical problem here, but huh.

“It’s okay, sir. I agree that you take in Orange Marmalade and replace me as vocalist. In fact,” Mari smiles painfully and goes all self-sacrificial like she always does; “Soori is a pretty good singer too.”

I’m like, so close to head-banging the desk.

“Yah, dumbpire, don’t you understand what’s going on?” Sihoo says and gets up from his spot near the back tables. He takes a step towards the CEO and looks him right in the eye.

“If you’re going to replace Mari as vocalist, then you’ll have to replace another one. Bassist.”

The CEO and his secretary both raise their eyebrows in confusion at the same time.

“I’m a vampire too.”

Sihoo takes in the look of shock on both their faces, as well as the ones written all over Beomsung and Soori’s. Jaemin looks like he’s on the brink of resignation, Mari’s shooting him an aghast look that says, “How could you sell yourself out?”.

Ahra just leans against the table ledge, her lips curled into a half-smirk, half-smile.

Nice.
 

After Jaemin, and Mari both take him outside of the room for lecturing on different purposes, he’s finally left alone as he walks towards the abandoned bleachers in front of the indoor basketball court.

The CEO’s decided to call off the offer. However, he didn’t leave without telling them about how good they were in the past, and had egged them on towards continuing the band.

Now that the tomato juice packet was seen interchangeably with the pig’s blood that Mari the vampire drinks during lunch, he’s more careful to not be seen with the same packaging. Sihoo didn’t even have time to find a filled hand-packaged carton of blood, so he had only managed to fill his black opaque Nike sports bottle with synthetic blood.

Blegh, synthetic blood.

Suddenly, a familiar figure strides into the vicinity and peers through the darkness to make out Sihoo sitting by himself in the top row.

Oh yeah, I only half a row of lights; I’m saving energy anyway. I’m just one person in such a big space, and it’s easy for me to see in the dark.

 Ahra begins climbing up the stairs to his row, and he wonders what the level’s most popular girl is doing in his deserted makeshift self-cafeteria.

“So like, are you here to give me my third lecture of the day about how reckless I was, proclaiming that I was a vampire to the heads of one of Seoul’s biggest entertainment companies?” Sihoo calls out as she strides towards him. “Because Mari and Jaemin have already, you know.”

“You can see me?”

“What do you think?”

Ahra sits at an awkward body-length’s distance away from him.

“So like, Mari drinks at an open courtyard, and you here?” Ahra comments as she squints hard to see Sihoo’s face in the dark.

“Where else? The library?”

Ahra mutters something like, “true, true…” under her breath.

“What are you doing here anyway?” Sihoo asks.

“To tell you that uh, just now what you did…GGWP.”

“GGWP?”

“Good game, well played. The vampire thing.”

Sihoo laughs in disbelief into the emptiness of the indoor basketball court. “Jo Ahra, using gamer language on me?”

“It was appropriate for the situation,” Ahra justifies and crosses her legs over each other in a dignified manner.

He rolls his eyes.

“Do you think I was reckless?”

“I-” she starts, but he shifts towards her, dangerously close. Sihoo can feel her breath catch in .

“Do you?” he whispers.

Ahra’s eyes dart downwards as she nervously squeaks. “Reckless? As in young and reckless?”

Oh my god, did she just try to crack a joke? Are you serious? It even came out to the tune of Blank Space.

“So you think it was fine?”

“I don’t actually think you give two s as to whether it’s alright or not,” she begins, her voice surprisingly level considering the distance, or lack thereof, between their bodies, “but I think it was good. There are some things to say, reckless or not, that can’t be kept inside forever.”

Sihoo doesn’t exactly expect her to say that, but if he were to describe Ahra, pretty, talented, strong-headed but easily flustered in his presence, he’d say, an onion. Because uh, she was unpredictable, and peeling off each layer revealed a new, weirder one. It’s fun though.

He wonders if he should freak her out again.

“So you’re okay with it?”

He leans nearer, the body-length of space between them long gone, and his breath on her earlobes sends shivers down her spine.

“I already said-”

“Wanna do something else that’s reckless?”

Ahra swats him away with the force of a volatile Yoda, and screams “HELL NO.”

And runs away.  Of course.

And he chases her. Of course.

“I was kidding! For god’s sake-”

“BYUNTAE!” she goes at it again, as they run past the music block and towards the more populated areas where students usually hang out during lunch.

Huh, did I go too far this time?

“Wait, no I’m not, what-”

Ahra disappears into the throng of students in the cafeteria, and he stops running.

“What’s Han Sihoo oppa doing out here, running? Is he going after somebody?” he hears some girls say.

“Heol, Han Sihoo in the cafeteria? Come to think of it, I’ve never seen him here during lunch,” a group of guys from the next class mutter among themselves as they pass him by. He can hear all of this, of course.

Ah, whatever. She’ll probably understand. Still, the look on Ahra’s face was priceless.