“Oh, I see you have the basket with you,” she flashed a small smile, her eyes almost narrowing into prominent crescents.

Dongwoo looked down at the weight in his right hand, suddenly becoming so aware of the forgotten meal Bong Sun had prepared. He was starting to buy the idea of a solo, unarranged picnic outing with himself. How very convenient of her to pack supplies sufficient for more than one person. How he found this to be such a coincidental event, that the princess would be present at the spot he was suggested to go to.

He cleared his throat. “Would you like to share?”

“Can I?” Soojung asked back warily, although she was already sitting at the base of the tree trunk, smoothing out a mat on the grass. She wanted to be sure that he was offering out of his own free will and not common courtesy.

“Yes.”

The basket was then handed over to her as a sincere reassurance. She gladly accepted and put it down. Dongwoo created some extra space between them, grateful that the surface area of the cloth was widespread. She waited until he had settled down, cross-legged and still before she started opening the cover to probe at the contents inside.

He stared hard at the food she had brought out at first. There were sandwiches, shortbread cookies, cream tarts, wheat muffins and dry fruits. As the amount she took out increased, the more he felt like burying his face in a hole. No wonder the basket felt heavy! Even a ravenous vampire wouldn’t be able to finish this much on his own. When the boy caught her glancing at him skeptically, he thought of clarifying that the cook must have overestimated. Dongwoo’s better judgment told him better to stay mute.

The unpacking process finally came to an abrupt end as she removed the last items from the carrier. Instantly, he could almost taste something mouthwatering. And it was not the food.

There were two bottles of liquid.

One was filled with bright, red blood. The other contained clean, clear drinking water.

However, he was not that hungry or desperate as to horde the bottle with blood. He was going to move the bottle all vampires would have chosen towards her side when her hands, quicker than lightning took the water and pushed the other substance away from her simultaneously.

Soojung hastily uncapped the canteen and drank thirstily, water trickling down her chin as if she had been dehydrated from walking long distances in the hot desert. The sight of her was pitiful and quite unladylike. still felt dry, but she forced a smile and raised her flask.

“T-this is mine,” she stuttered while making the claim.

“I can share.”

“No.”

And the firmness in her voice put a full stop to it. Her tone carried every bit of rejection her response implied. She did not give the blood as much as another look and proceeded to munch on a vanilla muffin. He could see her swallow nervously as he drank the blood she ignored. Her legs shifted a little and her body turned sideways slightly, away from his direction. She took another large bite and chewed faster.

It reenergized him, the vital fluid. Vehemence drove through his whole system. The feeling was similar to being able to see after a fog had subsided. He could take in everything at once. He was able to appreciate the preciseness of the shapes around him, the pulse of life that burst through the fertile environment. He could even smell the vanilla scent that lingered on her lips even as she was about to put a raspberry into her waiting mouth.

What she didn’t know, is that he could detect her tense body relaxing soon as he screwed the cap of the bottle tight and placed it out of sight. She shifted back to her original position. It amused Dongwoo, the fact that she was trying to hide something in her subtle language, yet he could see it so obvious that she didn’t like watching him feed. He wondered if she had fed too, would she be able to see him working hard on tearing his gaze away from her, yet failing at his task. He wondered further, what it is about her that was so familiar to him, that he could interpret her smallest actions into something comprehensible.

Soojung had a sweet tooth, he could decipher. She only ate a piece of the meat sandwich and the rest she took were pastry and berries. She drank a lot of water, more than what a vampire needed to keep moist. Her habits were almost…human.

Dongwoo was finishing his second helping when she popped another raspberry happily. The juice of the fruit stained her bottom lip dark red. It painted her pale face well.

He could almost imagine that the red on her lips were blood. 

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*Short update! Mid-terms will end next Friday and my holidays will begin. Hopefully this means more chapters then! Remember to comment! I've been deprived of comments for so long XD

I know the story is slow, but character development has always been one of my weaknesses :(

Why is Dongwoo always deep in thought? Why doesn't Soojung drink the blood that Dongwoo offered her? Why does Dongwoo sense familiarity towards her? Who is this mysterious 'he' Bong Sun and Soojung are always talking about?

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