The last thing Chanyeol sees is a pair of really bright lights coming closer at an alarming speed. His body jerks at the same time as there’s a loud crash. The night air is filled with the sound of metal twisting and glass shattering. Everything is cold and wet. He hears a woman screaming (Yura? His mother?) and rushed, panicked voices. Sirens ring out from somewhere far away, steadily getting louder.

“Chanyeol!” That’s definitely Yura’s voice. “Come on, stay with me.” A warm hand cups his cheek, wiping away some of the wetness gathered there.

Chanyeol feels numb.

Then Chanyeol doesn’t feel anything at all.



When he wakes up it’s pitch black. His limbs are stiff but there’s really not a lot of room for him to move around anyway. After a moment of struggling, realizes that he’s trapped, there’s only enough space for the area his body takes up. A million questions float through his head (Who would put him in here? Why? Where is here anyway?), but he finds no answers in the darkness.

“Help!” he tries, but it sounds more like a garbled mess of syllables than a word. Chanyeol tries again and again until he successfully can force the words, “someone get me outta here,” from his throat. His voice sounds much deeper than he remembers and eventually he gives up calling for help when he gets nothing in response.

He can’t hear anything from outside of the box. It’s as if the world on the other side has been muted, the only sounds are his frantic breathing and the pounding his knuckles make as he slams his fists against the wood. Chanyeol doesn’t know how long he lays there hitting the top of the box, but eventually he hears a crack. Dirt and rocks trickle in through the break he made in the wood.

Has he been buried alive?

The more Chanyeol pushes against the wood, the more dirt falls through, covering him. He takes a deep breath and keeps pushing and pushing. The wood eventually splits, creating an opening big enough for him to fit through and he climbs out of the box, clawing his way up until he reaches the surface. There’s a smooth, flat rock above him and he uses that to pull himself the rest of the way out of the ground.

Chanyeol doesn’t bother brushing the dirt off as he stands up on shaky legs. He feels weak and vulnerable, scared. He doesn’t know who would want to try to bury him alive or why and he’s not sticking around to find out.

Chanyeol runs, nearly tripping over another large stone sticking out of the ground in his haste to get away. It’s a dark and eerie night, but somehow Chanyeol can see perfectly through the darkness now. His ears pick up every sound. Every bird, every animal, even the bees buzzing from flower to flower, Chanyeol’s hears it all and it hurts, the beginning of a headache setting in, pounding against his temples.

When his stomach growls really loudly, Chanyeol presses the palm of his hand against where it rumbles beneath his skin in an attempt to quiet it. He’s hungry, so incredibly hungry that his teeth ache - is that even possible? He doesn’t know how long he was in that stupid pine box for, but it must have been quite some time. When was the last time he had anything to eat?

Finally, after running for what seems like hours, Chanyeol thinks he might recognize some of the landmarks down the current street that he’s stumbling down. He slows to a walking pace, trying to figure out where the hell he is so he can get his home. He’d call the police, but after checking his pockets, he discovers that he doesn’t have his cell phone on him and he hasn’t seen any payphones around.

Another few minutes of walking and Chanyeol realizes that he knows exactly where he is. Taking the shortcut behind a coffee shop, Chanyeol sprints through the kiddie park as fast as he can. He ends up on another street, one that he has been down many times before.

It’s not his own house that he comes to a stop in front of, but his best friend’s. He makes his way around the side of the house, like he always does when he wants to sneak up into Sehun’s room. He climbs the tree in the yard right next to the house, all the way up to Sehun’s window. Thankfully the light is on, so he knows he won’t be disturbing Sehun’s sleep.

Except when Chanyeol goes to open the window he finds it locked. Sehun’s window is never locked. The curtains are drawn closed too.

What the is going on?

Chanyeol taps his knuckles impatiently against the glass. Sehun needs to hurry the up or he might end up falling out of the tree. All he wants is to be somewhere safe and familiar. And maybe he just really needs a hug too. Sehun always gives the best hugs.

There’s no answer. Chanyeol knocks again, softly calling Sehun’s name.

The curtain opens so suddenly that it startles Chanyeol and his hand slips. He falls forward and ends up with his cheek pressed up against the glass. Well, at least he didn’t fall. It takes him a moment to steady himself enough so he can push up and away from the window. As soon as Sehun gets it unlocked and opened, he pulls Chanyeol through.

“Chanyeol, is that really you?” Sehun asks, like he’s surprised to see him.

“Yeah, it’s me,” Chanyeol replies, staring right back at Sehun with a raised eyebrow. “Who else would it be?”

He’s distracted momentarily by the delicious smell of something – Chanyeol can’t pinpoint where exactly it’s coming from – but he comes back to reality when he notices the strange look Sehun is giving him. Almost like Chanyeol shouldn’t even be here.

Maybe he’s been missing for longer than he thought.

“I’ve was kidnapped or something. Buried alive.” He explains before Sehun has a chance to ask, dramatically throwing his hands up in the air as he talks. “Then I clawed my way out of the ground. After I figured out where I was, I came straight here.”

Sehun doesn’t really react to Chanyeol’s story. Sehun just calmly walks up to Chanyeol, until he’s standing uncomfortably close. The delicious scent is stronger with Sehun up close and personal. Must be some kind of new cologne or something, but whatever it is, it’s making Chanyeol want to eat him up.

Sehun studies him closely for a long moment before he nods. “It really is you,” he mumbles under his breath.

Chanyeol frowns. Sehun’s acting weird. Weirder than normal.

The first thing that Sehun does after confirming that he is, in fact, the real Chanyeol, is shove him into the bathroom with a towel thrown over his head. “You’re filthy,” he tells Chanyeol before shutting the door in his face.

Chanyeol stares at the bathroom door in confusion for a moment before deciding that taking a shower isn’t a terrible idea. He barely has the water temperature turned up very high, but already it feels warm to the touch as it pours from the showerhead onto his hand. One by one he begins to peels off the layers of clothes, wondering where the hell they came from, because he certainly doesn’t remember buying them, let alone putting them on. Once he’s free of the stuffy, dirty clothes, he steps into the shower, letting the water cover him. He takes his time, using Sehun’s body wash and shampoo until he’s satisfied that there’s not even one grain of dirt left on him.

After drying off, he walks out of the bathroom with only a towel wrapped securely around his hips. There should be some of his clothes kicking around from the amount of times he has slept over at Sehun’s house. He’s probably spent more time her than he has at his own place. But after a minute of rummaging around in Sehun’s dresser, he doesn’t find any.

“Hey,” Chanyeol begins, “where did you–”

Sehun jumps from his spot at his desk, where he was idly clicking away at his computer. He quickly minimizes every page he has open until only his desktop background can be seen. Chanyeol raises an eyebrow at him. “What, were you watching or something?”

Sehun bristles, but his ears are turning red and his cheeks are that cute, embarrassed pink. “No,” he denies way too quickly to be believable.

“Uh huh,” Chanyeol says, clearly not buying it. But that’s a conversation for a time when he has pants. “Did you move the clothes I left here?”

“Right,” Sehun nods, as if he’s been so distracted that he only just noticed that Chanyeol’s standing in his bedroom wearing nothing but a towel. He gets up from his desk and gently shoves Chanyeol out of the way so he can get into his dresser. It only takes a second of digging around for him to pull out a shirt and a pair of sweatpants. “Those should fit you.”

Chanyeol frowns, staring at the garments hanging over his arm – a shirt that’s too big for Sehun, and the loosest pair of pants he owns, the ones he never wears anymore. “But what happened to my stuff?”

Sehun doesn’t answer, he just turns around to give Chanyeol some privacy as he pulls on the clothes.

There’s definitely something weird going on. Sehun’s keeping secrets from him, which is very un-Sehun like. Did he get a boyfriend without telling Chanyeol or something?

Sehun’s clicking away at his computer again by the time Chanyeol’s finished getting dressed. Once again he closes the page too quickly for Chanyeol to figure out what kind of page he was surfing, spinning around in his chair when Chanyeol announces that he’s done. It looked like a bunch of text and a few black and white pictures scattered around. So not then.

He’s still staring at Chanyeol like he doesn’t believe that he’s is real. Sehun’s been doing that since he dragged Chanyeol through the window, and it’s really starting to freak him out.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Sehun asks suddenly. “Before... Before you came out of your gra– out of the ground.”

Chanyeol opens his mouth to answer, because that should be easy. Except the words get caught in his throat as bits and pieces of the memories jump into his head. There’s flashes of lights, the sound of terrified screams, Chanyeol’s own pain-filled groans.

“There was... “ He starts, not entirely sure that he’s not making it up. It feels like a dream. “A car crash?”

Sehun nods like this isn’t anything new to him. Chanyeol’s so confused.

And then dread sets in. “Yura was in the car too! And my–”

“Your sister and mother are fine, Chanyeol.” Sehun interrupts, before Chanyeol really starts to panic. “Your mother just got a few cuts and bruises but your sister broke her leg and cracked two ribs.”

“Okay, that’s good, I guess,” Chanyeol says, relieved that his family members weren’t injured worse than that. “I just remember Yura kneeling over me when I passed out.”

“Yeah, about that,” Sehun trails off, rubbing the back of his neck like Chanyeol’s seen him do so many times when he’s uncomfortable. “You didn’t pass out, you died Chanyeol.”

Chanyeol just stares blankly at Sehun. “What do you mean, I died!? I’m not dead, I’m standing right here!”

Sehun looks just as lost as Chanyeol feels. “I don’t understand it either. I mean, I thought you were dead? I went to your funeral. I watched them lower your body into the ground… It was about a month ago.”

“But I’m not dead!” Chanyeol repeats, feeling a bit hysterical. This has got to be the worst practical joke ever.

“About that…” Sehun’s rubbing at the back of his neck again. This can’t be good.

“What now?” Chanyeol snaps. He immediately regrets it when Sehun flinches away from him. That’s when he notices he can hear a gentle sort of beating sound – has that always been there? – which slowly starts to pick up in speed. “I– Sorry.”

“Do you think– I mean, I’ve been looking it up online a bit, and…” Sehun trails off, glancing back over to his computer.

“What?” Chanyeol asks, doing his best not to raise his voice again.

“This might sound weird but, did something happen before the car crash?”

Chanyeol narrows his eyes at Sehun. “What do you mean? Like what?”

“I don’t know,” Sehun replies, shrugging and looking away. “Like, did you get bitten by anything?”

Chanyeol opens his mouth to deny it. He wants to ask Sehun if he got hit in the head recently. Or if he’ll let Chanyeol hit him so he can knock some sense into him. But then it occurs to him that Sehun just might be right.

There was something that bit him before he got into the car on the night of the crash. He never did figure out what it was… He remembers waiting alone in the parking lot for his mother and Yura to finish up in the restaurant. There was a blur of colour, something moving too fast for him to see, and then a pain in his neck. It bled a little, but not enough for him to be concerned about it at the time.

“Chanyeol,” Sehun asks after a long moment of silence. “Do you think you could be a vampire?”

The question catches Chanyeol off guard. No, there’s no way. Vampires don’t exist... Do they? But it does explain a few things. Chanyeol’s been trying to ignore the fact that his teeth ache and he’s been trying to ignore the all the new sounds his ears have been picking up that he shouldn’t be able to hear (like Sehun’s heartbeat). And not to mention the fact that he’s starving, but somehow he doesn’t think a bacon double cheeseburger is going to hit the spot anymore.

Chanyeol shoots Sehun a helpless look as he holds out his arm. “Do I feel cold to you?”

Sehun’s fingers are really warm against his skin as he drags them over Chanyeol’s arm. “Yeah,” he confirms. “You’re definitely cold.”

“Oh my god,” Chanyeol says, his bottom lip quivering a bit. “I’m a vampire!” He makes this kind of unnatural half hissing, half wailing sound before Sehun shuts him up by clamping a hand over his mouth.

“Keep it down, my parents are sleeping!”

He just blinks down at Sehun for a second before slowly nodding. This close he thinks he can smell the blood pumping through Sehun’s veins, and it does nothing to help him forget how hungry he is.

“I’m starving,” Chanyeol complains uselessly because it’s not like he can just go down into the Oh’s kitchen and raid the fridge for a snack like he usually does when he’s hungry.

With a loud sigh, Chanyeol falls down dramatically onto Sehun’s bed, and lands face-first on the mattress. The scent of Sehun is stronger here, and it only makes his hunger worse. Chanyeol whines, rolling over to breathe fresh air – which he realizes now that he doesn’t really need to do – as he mumbles angrily about being a ing vampire.

Sehun joins Chanyeol on the bed, flopping down next to him like he's done since they were kids. There's not much room on the twin size bed, and Sehun has to snuggle into Chanyeol so he doesn't fall off. Chanyeol appreciates the warmth, but his teeth – fangs – ache. He tries holding his breath so he won’t be tempted to sink his fangs into something soft and warm like Sehun’s arm. Just thinking about it has his mouth watering, but he quickly pushes the thought away. He will not turn his best friend into a chew toy, but breathing is a hard habit to break.

“It can’t be all that bad,” Sehun says, trying to cheer Chanyeol up. “At least you’re still alive. Well, sort of.”

Chanyeol rolls his eyes. “I’m not alive, Sehun, I’m undead.”

“Look on the bright side, you'll get to live forever,” Sehun points out.

Chanyeol thinks about it for a moment. Everyone he knows is human. He doesn’t want to spend the rest of eternity by himself. “Yeah, it’s great. I’ll get to be alone forever. It’s not like I can take you with me. You’d die of old age in like eighty years or so.”

Sehun lifts his head up off the bed to look Chanyeol directly in the eye. They’re so close, too close. Another inch or two and the tips of their noses would be pressed together. Chanyeol picks up on everything this close, from the dead serious expression on Sehun’s face to the quickening pace of his heartbeat. Sehun has never looked as beautiful as he does now and Chanyeol tries to push the unrequited feelings away.

“What if I could go with you?”

Chanyeol gapes. “What do you mean?”

Sehun shifts until he’s practically lying on top of Chanyeol. While they’re definitely not new to skinship or sprawling on top of each other, it’s never been quite like this before. It’s just this side of too intimate for his liking. If Chanyeol’s heart was still beating, he’s sure that it would be match the pounding of Sehun’s.

“What if you made me a vampire too?” Sehun clarifies.

Chanyeol’s first instinct is to ask Sehun if he’s kidding but the look in his eyes says he’s anything but. Sehun’s heart is beating so fast now as he waits for Chanyeol’s reply, the rhythmic sound of it is so loud. Chanyeol is at a loss of what to say. “I couldn’t ask you to do that,” he blurts out after an uncomfortably long period of silence.

Sehun looks disappointed, but no less determined. “You didn’t ask. I offered.”

“But, Sehun–”

“Just shut up for a minute,” he interrupts as he suddenly sits up and Chanyeol tries to focus on Sehun’s words instead of the fact that Sehun’s now sitting on his crotch, warm thighs hugging either side of his hips. Sehun has definitely never sat on him like this before. “I already lost you once,” he continues, his voice trembling as he tries to get the words out. “I don’t want to lose you again.”

Chanyeol swears he sees tears well up in Sehun’s eyes before the younger leans back down again, pressing their lips together. He gasps, but it proves to be a really bad idea because it fills his head with Sehun’s scent and makes him ache with desire. The old feelings for Sehun that he has pushed to the back of his mind bubble back to the surface. He’s stuck frozen in place though, hardly able to believe that Sehun would ever feel the same way about him.

Sehun sits back up after a few seconds, looking anywhere but at Chanyeol as his face and ears gradually turns red. “Sorry,” he mumbles, the disappointment ringing clear in his voice. He moves to climb off, but Chanyeol’s quicker, holding him in place with hands on his hips. Sehun gives Chanyeol a confused and helpless look.

Chanyeol stares down at his own thumbs, gently digging into the soft skin just below Sehun’s hip bone. “How long?”

Sehun makes a kind of unimpressed noise before he sighs. “Since we were kids?” Sehun admits. “I dunno, when exactly, but you’ve always been really special to me.”

Chanyeol squeezes Sehun’s hips until the boy is looking at him again, staring into his eyes like he’s afraid of what Chanyeol’s going to say. Sehun has never been able to handle rejection very well. But he’s got nothing to worry about. “Me too,” Chanyeol confesses, watching as Sehun’s eye widen in disbelief.

“Wh-what?” Sehun sputters. His heart is beating so fast now, it’s so loud that it drowns out every other sound in the room.

“I like you too–” Chanyeol starts, but he’s cut off as Sehun surges forward again press their lips together. He comes in a bit too fast and it hurts but Chanyeol’s never wanted anything more than he wants Sehun right now. He wraps his arms around Sehun’s waist, stealing his warmth and keeping him close. Sehun’s lips part easily for Chanyeol’s tongue, allowing him to into his mouth, deepening the kiss. “I always have.”

Sehun squirms, letting out soft, pleased noises as Chanyeol’s hand slides down his body to his . “Turn me. Take me with you,” Sehun begs against Chanyeol’s lips. “Please.”

Chanyeol only needs to think about it for a moment before he realizes that Sehun’s right; there’s no point in living forever if they can’t be together. “Okay,” Chanyeol replies, running his fingers through Sehun’s hair with his other hand as he pulls him in for another soft kiss. “Okay.”

Chanyeol doesn’t need anything else as long as he has Sehun by his side.