Birthday present for a friend of mine~ :)

There was blood on his lips.

He spat and reached up to wipe it off with the pad of his thumb, staring at the way it turned his skin red before it was washed off by the fat rain drops that fell slowly – plop, plop, plop – to earth. He didn’t like feeding this way. It was messy and he didn’t like the mess. He didn’t like the way deep red blood, so deep it was almost black, would stain the ground and his clothes and his skin. It was easier to take his time, silently follow someone, get close, then casually slip his fangs into their neck when they least expected it, letting the life slowly seep out of them as they went limp in his arms. Running and trapping and breaking bones was such a messy way to eat.

He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jacket as the rain fell and he wandered down the alley way out into the street. It was dusk and the small shops were starting to light up and the sounds of happy laughter and stupid conversations filled the air; no one would notice that one missing janitor, no one would care. He walked past a small café and he faltered for a minute, breathing deeply. He missed human food. He’d tried eating it after he’d been turned, but it never tasted quite the same; it didn’t have much of a taste at all now, much to his displeasure. He sighed softly, the taste of blood still fresh in his mouth and reminding him of his primary diet, but had almost decided to go into the store anyway when the plop, plop, plop of raindrops flattening his hair to his head suddenly stopped.

He looked up and then over, following the line of the umbrella handle to the man holding it – a tall, lanky Chinese man with a bright smile and bright eyes. He blinked in surprise; he wasn’t normally noticed. He was the quiet-and-a-little-strange man dressed usually in black who drifted through the city with barely a sound, not the one who someone would share an umbrella with.

“Did you want to go in?” The man’s Korean was accented but perfectly understandable.

“No—”

“Let me treat you!” Without any further discussion, the Chinese man grabbed his arm and pulled him inside the café, that bright smile never leaving his face.

---

“I didn’t introduce myself earlier! I’m Zhou Mi!” The Chinese man was sitting across from him, a plate of crumpets between them in the middle of the table.

“Kyuhyun.” He kept his answers short and curt; he was doing his best to make it painfully obvious that he would rather be anywhere but there, but this Zhou Mi didn’t seem to take the hint. Or maybe, Kyuhyun thought with a disgusted sigh, he’s just ignoring it.

“Kyuhyun…” Zhou Mi tried it out, rolling the sounds around in his mouth and smiling brightly afterwards. “Very musical! What do you do, Kyuhyun?”

Kill people. Wander. Pretend nothing exists. “I’m looking for a job. Just moved here.” And will be moving on soon enough. This town is boring.

“Oh. I work in the music store! Sometimes I give piano lessons to kids too.”

I didn’t ask.

“It’s fun. I moved here not too long ago, but if you need anything, just ask, okay? I’ll be glad to help!”

Leave me alone.

Kyuhyun didn’t say anything else. He took a couple bites of a crumpet before deciding that the ashy aftertaste it left wasn’t worth it and he left the rest lying there. Zhou Mi talked enough for both of them, telling him about places around that were hiring and good apartment complexes he could move into and nice places to go. When they finally parted ways, Kyuhyun didn’t say goodbye.

---

Usually, Kyuhyun stayed in one place for a couple of months, half a year at the most, before he got bored and traveled somewhere new, looking for something to eat. He couldn’t control his hunger much longer than that. That’s why, when he realized it was nearing his tenth month in the city, he decided he needed to find a way out.

He wasn’t sure when Zhou Mi had moved into his apartment. One day about four months ago, he’d just come home to find the Chinese man setting up camp there. He did what he always did when it came to Zhou Mi; he quietly left him to his own devices, figuring it was easier to let him do what he wanted than argue with him.

Zhou Mi was, upon reflection, what had probably kept him there this long. After that day in the café, he made it a point to run into Kyuhyun again. And again, and again, until he deemed them close enough to be friends, even though he still knew very little about Kyuhyun’s life, since the younger man never offered up any information. His persistence was why Kyuhyun stayed; he’d never met another person who was so interested in him, so very desperate to be his friend. It was something new, something that a part of him longed for.

But he knew he was going to have to leave. It was getting harder to look at Zhou Mi as a person and not as the blood coursing through his veins.

When Zhou Mi got home that night, Kyuhyun was sitting on the couch. (Kyuhyun never did find a job – he didn’t want one – but if Zhou Mi was upset by it, he never showed it and never said anything.) The Chinese man was surprised to see his younger friend sitting there; he usually stayed holed up in his room or floated silently through town by himself.

“What’s up, Kyuhyun?” he chirped cheerfully, sitting down in one of the armchairs after shrugging off his coat.

“I’m leaving.”

“What?” Zhou Mi’s eyes widened before his brows furrowed in confusion. “Leaving? Why? Was it something I did or—?”

“I can’t stay here.”

“Why not?”

Kyuhyun hesitated for half a second before answering. “I’m not like you.” It was the closest he’d ever come to telling the truth.

Zhou Mi laughed. “That’s okay with me! I don’t mind that you’re a little quiet.”

“I’m not like you,” Kyuhyun repeated through clenched teeth, rising to his feet. Why wouldn’t Zhou Mi just let him leave? No one else would even notice he was gone.

“And I said that doesn’t matter!”

And then years of pent-up anger came boiling over and Kyuhyun’s eyes turned black as he tipped the sofa over onto its back. “Don’t you get it? I’m a ing monster, Zhou Mi!” he roared and, to his surprise and fury, the older man merely laughed.

“I’m glad you finally said that, Kuixian. I knew something’s been bothering you all this time.” Zhou Mi sat calmly in his chair, peering carefully up at the man above him. “You’re not a monster.”

Kyuhyun let out a growl of frustration, shooting forward and sticking his face in Zhou Mi’s, opening his mouth and revealing his fully extended fangs that looked so sharp then, so ready to bring death.

Zhou Mi’s eyes fluttered closed for a moment, but he didn’t flinch or back away. “So what?”

“So what? So what?” Kyuhyun stared at the older man for a moment, shocked, then sat down on the coffee table, threw back his head, and laughed. “So what!”

“W-what’s so funny?” Zhou Mi hated the way his voice faltered when he asked.

“I could kill you. I could reach out right now and snap your neck. Drain your body of every last drop of blood and then vanish.”

“But you won’t.” The Chinese man’s voice was quiet, but he sounded so very sure of his statement that Kyuhyun nearly laughed again.

“And what, pray tell, makes you so sure of that?”

“You don’t want to be alone.”

Kyuhyun stiffened, his fangs retreating back into his gums.

“You don’t want to be alone anymore,” Zhou Mi repeated softly, knowing he was right. Every cell in his body screamed at him to run, but he stayed; it was just Kyuhyun, after all. Kyuhyun had a secret, Kyuhyun was different, but he was still Kyuhyun.

“I’ll always be alone, you idiot. I’m a vampire.”

“I’m here.”

“And you’ll die and I’ll still be hanging around, drinking the blood of poor innocent little humans.”

Before he knew what he was saying, Zhou Mi muttered, “I don’t have to.”

In that moment, Kyuhyun could have sworn, if his heart had been beating, it would have stopped.

---

There was blood on his lips.

He spat and reached up to wipe it off with the pad of his thumb, listening to the plop, plop, plop of fat rain drops against the window panes and thinking about how the last time this had happened, it had been someone he didn’t know and he had been outside in the rain.

He glanced down at the pale figure on the couch and, for the first time in a long time, he let a glimmer of hope shine through in his heart.

He sat down on the coffee table, wrapping his legs up and folding them neatly as he stared; he sat like that for a day and a half, barely moving a muscle but his mind whirling faster than it ever had. This was such a risky move, such a stupid one, and had probably cost him the only person he could have ever hoped of being his friend. He was no expert in turning people into vampires, only making meals of them. He dug his fingernails into his skin as the idea that he’d killed him flashed through his mind. He almost snuffed out the flicker of hope burning in his chest when he caught the slight movement of fingers curling out of the corner of his eye.

Then, Zhou Mi opened his eyes.