It’s ten o’clock, the sun having turned in for sleep long ago, and Seoul’s nightlife coming to fruition. Irene finds herself within Seulgi’s and Wendy’s neighborhood once again, the familiar streets and alleyways appearing much warmer and closely knitted than the barren, upper class neighborhood Irene resides in. Couples walk by her, wrapped in bundles of clothing and clinging onto each other as if they were one another’s lifelines. It’s around twenty degrees, but Irene feels nothing. Even in a flimsy sweater and jeans.

The cold doesn’t sting her nose, doesn’t bite at her toes, nor does it send shivers through her bones. She simply doesn’t feel a thing. And though it had never bothered her before, Irene realizes that it had been that way because you simply can’t miss what you’ve never experienced before.

Irene misses it. Humans are weak and have the tendency to break under the most insignificant of weights, but there’s also a beauty to the fragility that exposes itself one way or another. Humans are openly vulnerable but that’s how they know they’re alive and kicking. Emotions are a thousand times more potent and pain is even more so, but that’s how they learn not to make that same mistake again.

Humans are filled to the brim with life, and Irene feels like an empty shell with an exterior of steel.

“Irene? What are you doing out here? It’s freezing!”

Irene’s eyes had already flashed over to the person of consequence before they even got to talk. Her expression softens when she meets the gaze of the one person who can make her feel something - a slight flutter in the chest, not as fierce as it had been before, but still there.

Irene suddenly feels an overwhelming sense of shame; shame at the realization that to humans, she’s nothing but a bloodsucking monster hidden in the recesses of the night. She finds herself taking a step back, hands clasping behind her and eyes carefully directed away from Seulgi.

“Irene?”

“I - I don’t really want you to see me like this. I understand why you feel disgusted by our kind, and we’re nothing better than leeches, really. I think it would be better if we just - .”

Irene’s stopped with a hand against her cheek and gentle fingers urging her to look into pools of chocolate brown, dark as the night sky above them yet dazzling with stars and galaxies that Irene finds herself reeling.

“I know that’s what I said when I first met you, and I believed it then. I really did. But, you proved me wrong. Just like how humans aren’t all the same, vampires can’t be all be the same either, and you’re as far away from a bloodthirsty monster as anyone else.”

Before Irene can even think to reply, a voice interrupts the conversation, cutting in with knife-like precision.

“Hm, this is interesting, isn’t it?”

Irene recognizes that cold, soulless voice resounding into empty air behind her. It sends chills down her spine, something the icy wind couldn’t do, and she whips around with a snarl etched into her features and a protective arm thrown out to cover Seulgi.

“What is this? The crown princess of Korea having relations with a human?”

Joy’s expression is lax, and like any vampire would, easily takes hold of the dominance that had lent itself to her grasp and keeps an iron grip upon it. Joy is effortlessly elegant and stands with a relaxed, yet perfect posture of a top model. Without her mother’s shadow casting over her, Joy’s full presence makes itself known.

It’s strong, but Irene still has her years to back herself up. Plus, they’re in her domain.

“What brings you here, on this beautiful night?” Irene says, voice bordering on plastic.

Joy doesn’t take a step forward, and Irene knows that the vampire knows who the true master of the game is at the moment. Irene lowers her arm, unlocking her knees from her crouched position, and straightens up, blue irises flashing under reflected light from white snow.

Joy isn’t stupid, no matter what clan she’s from, and Irene knows that with brains come the lack of recklessness, and if Joy is as smart as Irene thinks she is, she wouldn’t dare attack Seulgi in front of her. The stand-off becomes mild with the position of dominance sorted out in a silent mind game, and Irene stares Joy down, blue against metallic green until the vampire drops her feint of power.

“Oh, just taking a nice look-see at your little city,” Joy replies finally.

Irene nods minisculely, accepting Joy’s offer of peace. “Well, we’ll let you go on with it then. Have a good night.”

“Likewise.”

Then, in a blink of an eye, the vampire is gone and Irene and Seulgi are left in a silent vortex of snow.

“So there’s a new vampire book club in town, is that it?” Seulgi says, eyes flashing towards Irene who looks away as if burned.

“Well, sort of? I mean, they’re here for political reasons.”