There were lots of things that Chen liked to think he regretted in his life. Forgetting where he left his shoes. Accidently leaving the stable gate open and letting the horses escape. Not pushing his stepfather off a cliff when he had a chance. But out of everything, he probably regretted attending Luhan’s party the most. The lights still glimmered brightly, opulent even in an eight-hundred-year-old memory. The women still smiled. The men still bowed. The clothes still sparkled and the jewels wrapped around necks and wrists and woven through hair still shimmered in the dancing flames of the lit chandeliers. His first taste of riches. Chen would never forget it. The way powder made the women pale, but none as pale as that woman. The way her lipstick stained red like blood, its print left behind on his neck with two small holes. The poison as it pumped through his veins. The pain. The youth.

Young forever.

It sounded like a dream once—one that he’d shared late at night with Chanyeol and Kyungsoo, the light of a fire dancing across their cheeks and glittering gold in their eyes. Three fools, sitting in the mud and hoping they’d never grow old. In a way, they hadn’t. Chanyeol contracted a sickness no one could cure, passing away before his twentieth year. Kyungsoo died in a battle, caught between the enemy and an angry master with a sword. And Chen, he’d died in a bed of silk, a woman’s lips on his neck. It would’ve been a wonderful way to go, if he’d managed to stay dead. But he hadn’t. While Chanyeol and Kyungsoo got to rot away into dirt, peacefully still beneath grey stone markers, Chen jolted back with a burning throat to a world bathed in red.

It took a hundred years to get the bloodlust under control. In those hundred years Chen never left his silk prison. His sire, a dangerous woman named Junghee, sent in a shivering human once a month for Chen to feed. Each time she warned him, don’t look it in the eyes. Don’t look. It was a rule Chen remembered breaking more than once. There was something in those eyes, always stark and terrified and swimming in tears and horror that forced Chen’s humanity back to him, even if only for a second, before the bloodlust rushed back in and dyed the white silk in a shower of red. Looking was something Chen would never regret.

It took another three hundred years after Chen could control his bloodlust for him to break free of Junghee. In those three hundred years he did terrible things, all under order. Some would try to argue that he could have said no. Chen would argue back that a sire’s compulsion is a terrible and powerful tool. Her warning was always the same. Don’t look. the human, but don’t look. Kill the human, but don’t look. Don’t look as the life seeps from its eyes. Don’t compare them to marbles. Don’t remember that you too should be dead. Let the young ones cry. Don’t look. Don’t listen. Don’t hear. Killing Junghee was another thing Chen would never regret.

       The next four hundred years were boring. After the novelty of freedom wore off Chen found himself wandering the halls of a silk draped mansion—once Junghee’s, now his—dripping in rubies, a prisoner still. True, he’d rid himself of one owner, but time was a crueler master. Young forever. It wasn’t the dream Chanyeol and Kyungsoo imagined. Instead Chen stayed in his mansion, a ghost amongst stone walls, ever unchanging in a relentlessly revolving world.

       Perhaps he shouldn’t have kissed the human man.

Lay. That was his name. It was uncommon, even in Chen’s eight centuries of existence. Chen could still feel the man’s heat on his lips, the pulse beneath his fingertips. He heard the sound of blood rushing from heart to vein and back again. Tempting. With over eight hundred years of existence, Chen was considered an elder. He had iron control over his bloodlust. He was faster, stronger, more powerful than others. In his seventh century his ability had developed, an affinity with lightning that promoted him into the Council. Few tried to cross him, none succeeded. Those who could defeat him chose to call him friend. But Lay. Lay had the makings of disaster tied up in a kiss, and Chen could not make himself regret it.

       Chen had noticed many things about Lay after he kissed him. The way he cowered in his clothing like he wore a costume. The gauntness of his cheeks and thinness of his wrists. His voice, and the way he breathed as he spoke, tone rough and unaccustomed to use. The tinge of yellow around his neck and the way he flinched at every touch to his waist. It reminded him of Kyungsoo and the fear that flickered in his eyes with every crack of a whip. In a sad way, Chen had to laugh. Over eight hundred years of progress and humans remained nothing but poorly disguised animals.

       Perhaps it was because of those things that Chen followed Lay home, discretely flitting from shadow to dark shadow. He’d been right, Chen observed, watching as Lay shed his fine clothes shortly after leaving the party, stuffing them into a leather sack he must’ve stashed in the bushes before the party started. Chen looked away, waiting for Lay to change and relying on his hearing to determine when Lay began to move again. After a few minutes, Lay finished and Chen went back to following the intriguing man who now wore the tattered pants and threadbare shirt of a peasant. For a moment Chen found himself hoping that was all Lay was—a peasant. Instead he was disappointed when Lay turned down an overgrown path that led toward one of the many manors nearby.

       He was a slave. That much was obvious to Chen. He’d hoped it was anything else. Serfdom. An abusive family member. Not slavery. Eight hundred years later and Chen still saw the bruises on Kyungsoo’s arms, the handprints on his wrists, the death that settled in his eyes long before he breathed his last. He still felt the weight of Junghee’s gaze and the compulsion in his muscles even as his mind protested against them. He still smelt the blood. A sick feeling coiled in Chen’s gut and gold storms began to crackle on his fingertips.

       He turned from Lay to stare at the manor. Chen knew this manor. It was the home of a severe man with a swift hand. Chen no longer had to wonder where the bruises around Lay’s neck had come from. With a grimace he turned away. He could fix this. He would. If not for Lay, then for Chen himself. And if not for himself, then at the very least for Kyungsoo’s memory.

       It was easy to break in and easier to find the manor lord. Chen waltzed through the front door like he owned it with his teeth bared and glinting in the candlelight. He expected to be chased away or at least held back by someone, but no one approached him. Instead Chen saw the servants cower in his sight and scurry away. Eventually, a shaking dirt-covered boy in a torn shirt approached—a groundskeeper perhaps—and bowed. Chen felt a flash of sympathy but brushed it aside.

“Your lord,” Chen asked, his voice sharp in the darkness, “where is he?”

The boy flinched. “You’re a bloodsucker,” he whispered, voice barely audible. “My mum used to tell us stories about you.” Chen could hear his blood rushing in his veins. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Badum badum badumbadumbadum. Faster and faster, the siren song of fear.

“Your lord,” Chen asked again.

The boy nodded and turned to lead him, trembling. Chen followed, noting the bruises on the boy’s back where the shirt slipped down, mottled in blue and green and purple. He clenched his teeth. Master. Monster. The words sounded the same in the end.

The boy stopped at a door, standing with his head bowed and eyes on the ground. Agitation wafted from him, the smell of sweat pungent in Chen’s nostrils as the ba-dum ba-dum of blood rushed in his ears. “Lord is here,” the boy said. Chen nodded his thanks, too focused now on his task at hand to respond to the boy. Instead he opened the door, slipping silently into the room. It clicked shut behind him.

The lord sat at his desk, pen in hand, not looking up from his ledger to see who’d entered. “Boy,” he demanded, “where is my wine? I asked for it to be ready when I returned. There’s nothing here.”

Chen did not respond and the scritch of pen against paper slowed to a halt. “Boy,” the lord spoke again, his tone bordering on something dangerous. Chen would have been afraid of this man once, and the power he held. But now the lord’s voice evoked nothing in Chen but contempt. “It would be a shame,” the lord continued, voice pitching steadily lower, “if I had to remove my belt.” Chen didn’t miss the implication behind his words.

Chen’s lips twitched into a snarl. “It would be a shame,” he spoke for the first time, his tone thick and feral. “But you will have no time for that.”

The lord’s eyes flew from his paper to Chen, fear blazing brightly in his irises. Chen could see him swallowing, face pale and eyes blown wide. “You,” he breathed, “who are you?” Chen let his lips curl into a wide grin, candlelight glinting orange off his fangs. The lord paled. “Bloodsucker,” he gasped.

“Bloodsucker is such a crude term,” Chen crooned, letting his mouth smile wider. His voice dipped low and sweet. “Especially for something that’s just a fairy tale.” He drifted forward, close enough to trail a single finger down the lord’s neck. “Don’t you think you’re too old to believe in fairy tales?”

The man swallowed, a hollow gulping sound that echoed in the silence of the study. “What- what do you want?” Chen’s lip twitched up in amusement. False bravado only made the lord look pathetic. Chen walked to the other side of the desk, pulling out a chair and sitting down. He crossed his knees and clasped his hands.

“I’m here to discuss a business proposition.”

The nervous man visibly relaxed, melting back into his chair. “Business? If you need money I’ll give it to you.”

Chen laughed. “I don’t need money.” The lord stiffened again. “I am here for something different,” Chen said, leaning forward. “Something more, ah, alive.” He let his voice trail off then, staring intently at the man sitting across from him as the sound of blood rushed heavy in his ears.

The lord gulped. “Alive?” Chen nodded, leaning back in his chair. He presented a perfect image of comfort. The lord cowered in his seat, fiddling with his pen.

“More accurately,” Chen said, “I need to borrow one of your servants, and potentially not return him.”

The lord paled. “My- my servant?”

Chen cocked an eyebrow. “Or would you prefer I borrow your daughter?”

The pen in the lord’s hands snapped in half. “Not my daughter.”

“So, your servant then.” Chen smiled. The lord gulped, but nodded.

“My servant,” he replied. He hesitated, looking away before making eye contact with Chen again. “Would you like me to summon one for you?”

Chen paused, pretending to think. “No,” he replied, a grin creeping up his face. “I think I would like to find my own stock.” He stood, leaning across the desk to tap the lord’s nose. “I wouldn’t want you to try to cheat me out of something delicious.” Chen gave the shivering man a saccharine sweet smile. “You know how squirrelly you business types are. Isn’t that right?” The lord nodded, Chen’s hand on his shoulder a heavy reminder of what his reward would be should he disagree. Chen leaned back on his heels with a generous smile, as if he hadn’t just been leaning over the desk, teeth bared and fingernail trailing down the lord’s cheek. “Perfect.” And like a flash he was gone, leaving the lord blinking into empty space as his heart beat a staccato rhythm in his chest.

“Lay. Get up. Lay.”

Something firm and pointed nudged his ribs, poking at him relentlessly. Lay groaned, still half asleep, and rolled away from the feeling.

“Lay.”

The voice was louder this time, more insistent, deeper. Something about it felt strong, as if by ignoring it Lay was doing something wrong. Lay opened his eyes, squinting at the bright flame of a candle held mere inches from his face. He jerked back, panic rushing in his veins, away from the candle and the man holding it.

“Lay,” there came the voice again. “Calm yourself. I’m not going to hurt you. Breathe.”

Lay cowered, finding his breathing slowing despite himself. A minute passed. The candle didn’t move, and the man who held it remained shrouded in shadow.

“Who are you?” Lay croaked out, panic finally subsiding.

The man laughed, a warm, comforting sound that caught Lay off guard. “You mean you don’t remember me?” He raised the candle to cast light on his face, mouth twisted into a cheshire grin. “Even after I kissed you?” His eyes shone with something fantastical. “That hurts. Really.”

Lay stared at the man, the one from the ball, surely. The one who had kissed him in front of his master’s daughter, the one who had called him sweetheart. “You?” Lay gaped. “But what? Why are you here?” Lay was going to die, he knew this, he’d come to grips with it. There was no way that the young mistress hadn’t recognized him at that party. He would be doomed as soon as she returned home. So why was this man standing in front of him?

The man’s smile grew even wider. “Your lord and I have come to an, ah, agreement.” He held out a hand, motioning for Lay to take it. “You see,” he continued, “I’m taking you home with me. Lay.”

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#twoyearslater

whoops my bad.

Love you all!

Jay <3