Immortality’s a tricky concept. Firstly, it’s not a certainty. Hunger, mortals, and fire are unpredictable variables of a vampire’s everyday afterlife — witches don’t like to burn alone. Secondly, being young gets old. Friends last for as many years as naivety ignores unchanging, youthful skin. 

“I could turn myself in,” I offer Hanbin an ultimatum. We vampires deserve beautiful friendships. Similarly cursed individuals provide companionship. The “beautiful” bits come from skewing our perspectives. 

Junhoe was my first “friend.” Boundless effort went into tolerating his romantic period — categorized by piercing optimism and a hopeless taste in women. Playful nibbling on his nymph lover brought their interspecies relationship to a bloody halt. In the end, our palates were just too different.

Hanbin is my partner. Prince. “Poof!” He pops red lips. “That’s the sound of 20 years going to waste.” 230 years of friendship goes deeper than the stomach’s appetites. 

“Do you believe in Hell?” I ask for a grander viewpoint. 

Hanbin doesn’t answer. “We’re already a stretch of the imagination.”

“Do I belong there?” I posit. He doesn’t respond, finding it difficult to pass one-sided judgement. “Vampires keep the cobblestones clean. Wasted life turns into daily sustenance; in the era of innovation, we’re a necessity. We don’t belong in hell — this place needs us too much.” 

“She was pregnant, Bobby,” Hanbin argues he’s on the low road.

Junhoe the eavesdropper reveals himself from the forest brush, wondering aloud, “Smell that?” A human-based diet dulled his most common of senses. 

Smoke poured over the canopy. Wisps whine, flickering blue as they pass. Our friendly, two-headed ghost weaves circles round Junhoe. Somewhere far off, a fire is spreading; remember immortality’s first downside. 

“You said there were three,” a fair-haired valkyrie of even complexion criticizes. Black wings settle to a silent flutter at his sides. Battle axe slipping from clipped vestments, he assumes the worst, “I thought you said ghosts didn’t lie, Seunghoon.”

“They didn’t use to, Taehyun,” Seunghoon answers, plump cheeks reflecting affluence. Two healthy birds against two malnourished snakes; that’s disastrous by even a simpleton’s calculations. Junhoe feels the pressure, but we’re mere distractions — what are friends for? 

“Three they were then,” Chanwoo observes. “Two they are now!” Yunhyeong leaves their curiosity unsatisfied, begging, “Put the fire out now?” Chanwoo seconds the sentiment, head spinning fast, “Put the fire out now!” 

“Sorry.” Taehyun shrugs with a mortal disregard for the future. “But it’s too late for that.”

Immortality — third, no one knows what happens when it ends.