8,445 words

“Can you tell us, Baekhyun, when was the day you found out what he truly was?”

The boy was silent, his mind appearing to wander. The interviewer repeated the question. Halfway through, Baekhyun snapped to attention.

“Oh. I’m sorry, what?”

“The man you met… the man you claim to have fallen in love with…” The interviewer was annoyed when he started to repeat himself a third time.

“Oh.” Again Baekhyun interrupted him. “You mean, the exact moment? It wasn’t an exact thing, I don’t think. I mean, he was pretty mysterious and I always thought there was something… off about him. But, I can’t really tell you for sure. In fact, I’m still not even sure about what I saw.”

The interviewer sighed. Behind him, two detectives crossed and recrossed their arms, looking glum and unhappy with the pace of this investigation. Beyond them, behind a dark muted window, sat more investigators, recording equipment playing.

“You’re not sure about what you saw or about when you discovered that he was a vampire?” The interviewer’s voice grew louder, more impatient.

Baekhyun quibbled. “You mean that for sure then? That he… he was a vampire?”

Another exasperated sigh later, the interview picked up his stack of folders, shuffled through the papers, pulled out a couple documents then straightened the rest of the pack noisily on the table between them.

“Mr. Byun, as you have already stated, this man here,” he held up a dossier with a muted black and white photo, “was your lover for quite sometime before you reportedly, in an unofficial statement, realized he was a vampire.”

“I’m sorry,” said the boy. “Is this or is this not just an interview? Am I under investigation for perjury? Look, can you really expect me to make sense of everything that’s happened? I had a boyfriend, he was more than a lover, thank you very much, that it turns out I never really knew. I thought I did and now I find out some weird and I don’t half trust my own mind anymore, except here you guys are telling me he’s a vampire.”

Ignoring this outburst, the interviewer collected himself again, read a point on the file and said, “But you did claim on November 2 of this year that you saw a vampire, and it had the appearance of your, at the time, boyfriend.”

“It was November. Two days after Halloween. I saw a lot of ‘vampires’ that weekend. I was also drunk out of my mind. Also, we didn’t officially break up. I just, kind of stopped seeing him.”

As if sensing a lead, the interviewer smiled and perked up. “When did you stop seeing him?”

Baekhyun thought for a moment. “Last time I saw him was maybe the second week of November.”

The interviewer wrote that down. “So, sometime after you think you saw him in vampire form?”

“You make it sound like there’s a human form, and them bam! A totally different kind of vampire form. No, I didn’t see any kind of transformation. As I mentioned, I was drunk. Something was weird. I’d been to a party, maybe somebody spiked my drink with some kind of hallucinogen. All I know is that I was scared less for a while and then later I wasn’t, but then he was gone. I saw him once after that, and he didn’t exactly say he was leaving but then you guys showed up so now I think you’re trying to frame him for something and as I’ve said before, I don’t know enough to actually help you!”

The two detectives deflated a little in the background. The interviewer grew silent. He looked over the record in his hand, eyes straining for something enlightening but when he couldn’t evidently find it, all he said was, “So… you can’t actually confirm that what you saw was a vampire.”

Baekhyun simply closed his eyes.

The interviewer continued. “Let’s start at the very beginning then, shall we? Do Kyungsoo. When did you meet him?”

It could be said, the night Baekhyun met Do Kyungsoo was already a weird night, the tail end of a strange and bizarre day. Baekhyun was on volunteer duty in the hospital, the night shift, which shouldn’t have been his to take except he needed the hours and he was trading with a friend.

“Curse that idiot,” he complained lazily of his fellow student. Beside him, another night shift volunteer passed a cup of cheap styrofoam coffee into his hands. Baekhyun didn’t even like coffee but as he contemplated how genuinely wonderful he was to switch with his bestie who had an exam to study for tomorrow, he gulped it down anyways. The liquid stained his tastebuds and burned all the way down his throat. On the second sip, he choked a little and a few dribbles of coffee escaped his mouth, this time staining the front of his volunteer’s coat.

“So it’s gonna be that kind of night too, huh?” he said to no one in particular.

That morning he had woken up on the wrong side of the bed, or… to put it differently, in a different bed in a different house altogether. He barely remembered getting there. Then, later on he received a paper back from his biology lab displaying one of those big, red letters, the likes of which Baekhyun had never received in his entire life. He spent an entire hour waiting for and then persuading his professor that a TA must have lost part of his report; investigation and grade still pending.

None of that could beat his drive over to the hospital though. As he rounded the corner in his parents’ old discarded car with the bent-in passenger side door—courtesy of Baekhyun’s non-expert driving skills—he’d come face to face with death, though not actually his own. A man was crossing the street two blocks from the hospital. Baekhyun never even saw him there until he caught a vision of black hair and pale skin right in front of his headlights. He’d slammed on the breaks, swore he hit something, then immediately jumped out of the car.

There was nobody there. No body, no blood, just another newer indentation on the hood of his car, barely noticeable to the untrained eye except Baekhyun knew… this was not going to be just another average night.

“You said you met him working in the hospital.”

“I was volunteering that night, yes.”

“Tell us about it.”

The boy took in a deep inhale, entwined his fingers together in front of his chest, then inverted them in a nice long stretch, preparing to begin the tale.

“It was evening, I was assigned to the stockroom unpacking stuff and getting it organized so everything could be sent to the right department.”

“What kind of stuff? Test tubes or blood bags?”

Baekhyun gave a wry smile. “No, blankets and sheets mostly, other disposables like that. You think they let volunteers just play around with medical samples?”

“I’m sorry, please go on.”

Baekhyun rolled his head side to side, letting out a few cricks.

The interviewer, however, said, “Did you find anything unusual about that night so far?”

“I thought you were going to let me continue.”

“Ah, once again, I apologize.”

Baekhyun let him sit there for a few seconds, until he was sure he could actually speak.

“No, nothing weird happened. Everything was just normal.”

Except that it hadn’t been of course. Baekhyun had left the room with a stack of boxes, none of them heavy but enough to make walking a bit of a burden. His destination was the blood lab, one of the minor stations he’d visited once before but not recently.

Once again though, he turned a corner and bumped into something. Boxes of medical supplies and the files of inventory paperwork scattered across the floor.

“Damnit,” he cursed under his breath. He bent to collect the papers first, frustrated that they would now likely be out of order. And that’s when he noticed the person he’d bumped into.

The man was still, frozen as if in shock. His eyes were narrowed, brow furrowed. He remained on his feet while Baekhyun dropped to the floor.

“I’m sorry, but could you please help me? Since, you know, you kind of didn’t move out of the way.”

He looked around Baekhyun’s age. He wore a similar kind of outfit, marking him as a volunteer too. His expression, however, grew even more fierce at Baekhyun’s outburst. Baekhyun had to laugh.

“I’m kidding, kind of.”

A moment later, the man stuttered and fell into a crouch beside him, reaching for the nearest box. “O-oh.” Yet he maintained his frown.

Baekhyun assembled the paperwork, then worked silently to stack the boxes. The stranger did too.

“Where are you headed?” Baekhyun asked him.

“What?”

“I was just curious if you were going anywhere near Blood Lab No. 3. If so, you could help me carry this stuff. They’re all light, just annoying to juggle.”

“I could go that way,” said the stranger after another long moment. Baekhyun took that opportunity to look at him further. Pale skin, dark hair. A quick vision of the body he’d almost run over two blocks from the hospital… but of course that couldn’t be right. Baekhyun was probably seeing things then. Just seeing things.

“I’m Baekhyun,” he said for way of introduction. Then, both of them still on their knees before the pile of assembled boxes, he held out his hand to shake.

The stranger took it hesitantly. His hand was pale unto death, and painfully cold. Baekhyun may not have been a doctor yet, nor would he be for years, but the man looked sick.

“Kyungsoo.”

“Nice to meet you Kyungsoo.” He flashed one of his billion dollar smiles and was rewarded a second later with the barest hint of a smile, just a corner of Kyungsoo’s mouth twitching upwards, but it was a start.

“You didn’t think anything was strange about him that night?” asked the interviewer.

Baekhyun pretended to think about it. “No?”

“But later on you found out supplies were missing from the Blood Lab, the same lab you attended with Do Kyungsoo?”

“I was informed of it the next time I went in to work, got the interrogation of a lifetime—believe me, it was nothing like this—but they eventually dismissed me as a suspect because the entire time I was in the lab, I was in view of the security cameras and I’d done nothing wrong.”

“What about Kyungsoo?”

“What about him?”

“Was his time in the lab recorded in the cameras too?”

Baekhyun shrugged. “How should I know? I was questioned alone, therefore I assume the hospital did the same to all employees and volunteers.”

“The hospital has no record of Kyungsoo on their roster, either on staff or as a volunteer,” said the interviewer with a smirk.

“Really?” asked Baekhyun. “Well that’s weird, isn’t it?”

“Isn’t it.”

Truly, Baekhyun hadn’t expected to meet Kyungsoo again, especially outside the hospital. For a few weeks he’d looked, keeping an eye out for his friendly-unfriendly acquaintance who’d so nicely helped Baekhyun scoop up his supplies, but there was no sign of him. Baekhyun went back to working afternoons though and the occasional morning. It was probably no wonder he didn’t see Kyungsoo again. Until at least one late evening when, on his way out of the parking lot he decided to stop by a small diner and order take-out for his supper.

“Oh, wow, hi again!” said Baekhyun cheerfully when he spotted Kyungsoo standing in the shadows. He was just outside the bright glow of the street lamp. Baekhyun vaguely wondered how he’d even spotted him there. “It’s Kyungsoo, right?”

Hesitantly, the man stepped forward. “Yes.”

“Are you here to get food?”

“Kind of.”

“Oh good! Eat with me then. I was going to take it home and eat pitifully by myself, but now I don’t have to.”

“So, he was stalking you outside of the diner?”

Baekhyun snorted. “Stalking me? I was just there to eat. He was too. What’s wrong with two guys happening to be in the same place and getting food together?”

“Mr. Byun, you do realize that, given what we know of… Mr. Do’s nature, it seems highly likely he had been following you around for sometime. Two coincidental meetings like you had, that’s unusual.”

“Right. Because he’s a vampire, and it’s so strange that we would meet once in the hospital and once at a diner just a few blocks from the hospital. A lot of people from the hospital eat there. It’s close by and convenient. I don’t see how that means anything.”

“So you never once had the feeling of being watched? Even when you couldn’t detect anyone around?”

“Watched? Like how, exactly?”

Eating across a small table with Kyungsoo had been a strange affair. Baekhyun was starving, he practically ravished his plate. Kyungsoo mainly picked at his food, chasing bits of it across his plate with his fork and eating the rare bite while Baekhyun chattered enough for two. Baekhyun still thought he looked sick. Perhaps it was the bad lighting, but Kyungsoo looked paler than normal. The skin beneath his eyelids was hallowed and dark.

“You ever get out much?”

“Hmm?”

“Like in the sun. You look like you need it. How about Vitamin D? Are you getting enough of it?”

“Oh. Probably not.”

“You work nights?” Baekhyun prodded.

Kyungsoo nodded.

“Guess that means you sleep a ton during the day.”

“Yeah, just about.”

“How about on your off days? You ever get to live a normal 9-5 life? Like, you know eat breakfast after waking up instead of after a long shift? I guess you’re heading to the hospital after this to clock in, huh?”

Kyungsoo dodged the first set of questions and admitted yes to the last one.

“Shame,” said Baekhyun.

“What’s a shame?”

Baekhyun frowned, the cute pouty petulant expression he knew he could do well. “Because that means we’re on opposite schedules. Isn’t that a shame? Hey, maybe we could hang out sometime when you’re not working?”

And because Kyungsoo didn’t say no to this, Baekhyun offered him his number, got Kyungsoo’s in return, and the two parted ways. Not before Baekhyun had finished his meal though, and most of Kyungsoo’s as well. His new friend didn’t seem to particularly care for what he’d ordered but he had no qualms about letting Baekhyun eat off his plate. Which Baekhyun did with great gusto. It distracted him from the fact he had now had Kyungsoo’s number. He had the number of a hot guy his own age, sickly pallor aside, Baekhyun couldn’t but admit Kyungsoo was handsome, just his type of guy.

It also distracted him from Kyungsoo’s nerve-rendering gaze, how he didn’t say much at one time, but his eyes… they often seemed to pierce right through Baekhyun’s soul. Was that his way of showing attraction? The start of mutual interest? Baekhyun didn’t know but he wanted to find out. He caught himself trying to stare right back, although obviously he was better at smalltalk than interested gazing.

Once though, he swore he caught a flash of discoloration in Kyungsoo’s eyes. The door of the diner had just been opened though. It was probably a trick of the light.

“What are these?” Baekhyun asked, as the interviewer pulled out another stack of files.

“Pictures. Go ahead. Take a look.”

He picked the first one up in his hand. Then another, then another.

“I don’t understand,” he said.

“Oh, I think you do,” said the interviewer with a clipped smile.

In each of the photos there was a man that could have been Kyungsoo. They weren’t always so clear. Most were grainy, some were obviously taken from a great distance and then blown up. If Baekhyun hadn’t known what or who he was looking for, he probably wouldn’t have recognized the person in each picture as his boyfriend, or former boyfriend, however they should now be defined.

The strange thing in each picture though was the setting, the lighting. Half of the pictures had the defined edge of history, straight out of another era. A few looked more modern and these ones, the only pictures that were in color, appeared to depict Kyungsoo with the same pallor Baekhyun had come to recognize. One of the photos even showed his eyes a bloodshot kind of red. One of the oldest pictures even made it seem like Kyungsoo had fangs.

“This one’s definitely photoshopped, right?” he asked, pointing out the last one.

“It’s not.”

“But you like, know that absolutely? You were here the day this picture was taken so you know it’s an original?”

“We can tell when a photograph has been tampered with.”

“I don’t know, I think some of these are a stretch.”

“You’re the one who knew Kyungsoo the best. You tell us. Is this Do Kyungsoo, the man you know as your boyfriend, in each of these photos?”

Baekhyun flipped through each of them again, a frown growing on his face. “I guess? Like yeah a lot of these really look like him. But seriously, this one? With the fangs?”

The interviewer held out a hand, beckoning Baekhyun to continue.

“Can’t be real.”

“You’re sure about that.”

“Mister, look. You said it yourself. He was my boyfriend. That means I did stuff with him. Like, kissing and stuff. I think I would have known if my own boyfriend had fangs the size of which could pierce my tongue.”

“Perhaps they were just retractable.”

“Seriously!?” Baekhyun threw up his hands. A few of the photographs slid off the desk, but neither he nor the interviewer made any gesture to pick them up. Instead, one of the investigators bent to collect them. Meanwhile Baekhyun stared the interviewer down. He’d been with Kyungsoo for practically a year. He knew now how to stare someone down.

“You’re going to ask me next if he ever my blood, aren’t you?” barked Baekhyun.

The interviewer’s eyebrows shot up. “Did he?”

Armed with Kyungsoo’s number, Baekhyun could now call him whenever he wanted. Sometimes, Kyungsoo even called him first. There was something extra thrilling about that, like Baekhyun had won a prize he’d never even asked for in the first place, eliciting the attention of someone as attractive as Kyungsoo. They met at the diner several times as they traded shifts, Baekhyun on his way home, Kyungsoo on his way to work. He said he worked in one of the other blood labs. Occasionally they talked shop about the hospital, but most of the time Baekhyun talked about himself. Kyungsoo did not discourage him.

Finally, one evening Baekhyun got the guts to ask him out for real.

“So, when’s your next night off?”

They had met up in the park right outside the hospital. Baekhyun claimed a bench just beside the little duck pond a few feet back from the sidewalk which trailed around the entire campus. Kyungsoo sat beside him, their take-out boxes strewn between them. Kyungsoo was still a picky eater, so Baekhyun ate out of everything.

Kyungsoo was silent for a moment, as if counting the evenings. Eventually he answered, “Saturday, I think? Yes, Saturday.”

Baekhyun’s eyes lit up. “Really? Me too. We should do something that day!”

Something, meaning something vaguely like… a date. Baekhyun schooled his voice to make it sound exactly like this.

However, Kyungsoo shook his head, and for a short heartbeat Baekhyun’s hopes plummeted. “I still wouldn’t be able to do anything until the evening.”

“Oh?” Some of his hopes crawled back to life.

“Sleep pattern will still be messed up. I don’t want to change it much.”

“Right! Of course!” Baekhyun quipped. “I don’t mean we have to meet at the crack of dawn or even noon. But like, you must wake up sometime in the afternoon or… early evening?” He was reaching, anything to get Kyungsoo out of his shell and fess up to wanting to spend at least a little bit daylight hours with Baekhyun.

“I do, yeah, but I’ll have some errands to run. We could meet for dinner though, and then afterwards…”

Baekhyun liked the sound of that ‘afterwards’ so much, he let everything else go.

“When did you first start officially dating?”

Baekhyun counted in his head. “A few months after we first met, I guess? I mean, we hung out quite a lot before that, but just in passing.”

“What did you do when you hung out?”

“We ate dinner, that’s all.” Baekhyun leaned back in his chair, obviously growing tired of this boring line of questioning.

“And Kyungsoo ate?”

“I’m sorry, what are you asking?”

“I mean, you saw him actually consume human food.”

Baekhyun scowled. “Well, he wasn’t eating the little pellets for the duck pond, that’s for sure.”

“But you never noticed anything odd about his eating habits?”

“He was a picky eater! No harm in that, lots of people are. But yeah, he ate food. Many times. Trust me, I was there.”

“You never saw him vomit any of it up afterwards.”

“Uhm, no? I think that would be a little noticeable. I’m pre-med, not some kind of idiot. I think I’d know if someone was bulimic around me, and Kyungsoo definitely wasn’t.”

The interviewer sighed, sensing another dead end. “Tell me then about when you started dating. How long after you became intimate?”

“Woah there! Hold on, that’s a little quick of you,” Baekhyun immediately exclaimed. “Not to mention, totally a private thing to ask.”

“You’ve already admitted to kissing him ‘and stuff,’” said the interviewer.

“Uhm, yeah. I volunteered that information. How about you let me get comfortable enough that I actually care to volunteer more about our private lives? Emphasis on the private lives part of this conversation?”

Baekhyun, once he got on a roll, never took anything slow. The moment he had Kyungsoo in his apartment for the first time, he was kissing him. It definitely shocked the other, but after a few sloppy missed exchanges, Kyungsoo got over it and started kissing back.

They didn’t go very far the first time, nor the next few visits after that. But there was no doubt Kyungsoo was starting to soften up around Baekhyun. He was more relaxed, more natural. He talked more, which is to say he asked a lot of questions about Baekhyun’s life and replied more frequently to Baekhyun’s chatter without giving up too much of his own life instead. That plus all the kissing was a step in the right direction, Baekhyun definitely thought. Kyungsoo was still kind of distant in a cold, impersonal way, but around Baekhyun he was thawing. Everything except for his body temperature.

“Are you like, always this cold?” asked Baekhyun one night when he had Kyungsoo pinned down on his couch.

Kyungsoo’s hands were like icicles. So were his feet. Baekhyun was seriously considering getting him some socks and perhaps a pair of mittens. His palms especially were 90% of the time cold and a little sweaty.

“It’s because I’m nervous. My hands always get this way when I’m nervous.”

Baekhyun leaned over and pecked him on the lips. “What’s there to be nervous about?”

Their faces inches apart, Baekhyun stared into his eyes, loving most of what he saw. Kyungsoo’s large dark eyes, staring back at him, a little hesitant, a little scared, completely adorable and endearing.

“You make me nervous,” Kyungsoo admitted at last.

Baekhyun completely sank into him then. “Oh, Kyungsoo,” he whispered into his neck. It was the last words they spoke that evening. Baekhyun fancied he warmed Kyungsoo up super quick after that. Or perhaps it was his own body temperature overheating from the way Kyungsoo lit him up. The way the other wrapped his lithe body around Baekhyun’s, hands seeking comfort beneath their clothes, legs entwined, thighs glued together.

When Baekhyun woke up, it was already morning. He was in his bed with the sun shining through the window, an apology note stuck to the lamp from Kyungsoo saying he had to run, but he’d left some muffins in the kitchen. The bed beside Baekhyun was wrinkled, an indentation on the pillow proving Kyungsoo had fallen asleep next to him.

Baekhyun yawned, feeling happy, as he dragged himself out of bed. His back hurt from prolonged exposure to heretofore infrequent make-out positions. There was a sharp pain in his neck, probably for the same reason.

“Did anything change between you, after you got together?”

“How do you mean?”

“Your relationship. Were there any noticeable differences, either in you or in him? How was your health? Did you ever find yourself… say, losing track of time or having periods where you didn’t remember something?”

Baekhyun strained to remember. “I don’t think so?”

“And you felt totally fine around him? Or after he left. What about Kyungsoo himself? Did he change in any way?”

“Uhm, I guess you could say we both changed a little. But like, for good reasons.”

“Can you elaborate?”

“I can try,” Baekhyun suggested unhelpfully. “Don’t people usually change though when they’re in a good relationship? I mean, I was a lot happier. He was a lot happier. He laughed more, that was a really good sign. I liked that about him.”

“He never laughed before you were together?”

“Kyungsoo, before you got to know him, was kind of distant? A little off-putting, you know the type. Kind of a loner, I guess I would describe it. But afterwards? I think we just complemented each other well. He even started to look better. There was color in his cheeks. I think he was so lonely before he met me that he didn’t take good care of himself.”

The interviewer scribbled more words down on his tablet. Baekhyun stretched his head to see what he was writing, until the man covered it up again.

“‘There was color in his cheeks.’ Describe that. What did he look like before, compared to after?”

“I mean just like I already said. Before he was kind of sick looking, like he didn’t take care of himself.”

“But you took care of him?”

“No,” Baekhyun insisted. “He took better care of himself.”

The interviewer sighed audibly then perused more of his notes. Baekhyun listened to a clock ticking briefly while he tried to anticipate what question would come next.

“Did you ever see Kyungsoo… during the day?” came the question, finally.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because like it should be obvious by now. He worked nights. Which meant he slept days. Also I was at school all day, and I usually had homework or the occasional seminar in the later part of the day that I wanted to get done before I could go see Kyungsoo.”

“You were dating for months but you never made an effort to meet during the day.”

“We were dating, not living together or hundred percent engaged. When you’re a student dating a med staff night owl, you do what you have to to make a relationship work. It’s not that unusual.”

“And did either of you ever express dissatisfaction with this arrangement?”

Baekhyun huffed. “Well, yeah, occasionally. But what else were two guys like us supposed to do?”

“Do you ever think about the future, Kyungsoo?”

They were laying in bed, cuddled beneath blankets. Kyungsoo’s skin was chilly again, despite the fact they’d just made love under half an hour ago.

“Not really. Why, do you?”

“Just wondering.”

Baekhyun shifted his body, rotating so he could press his back up to Kyungsoo’s chest. Kyungsoo’s arm immediately wrapped around his middle, and Baekhyun sighed. It was peaceful like this, pleasant. So pleasant Baekhyun could imagine many nights exactly like this one, Kyungsoo forever at his side. The way their bodies pieced together just right, the way Kyungsoo nosed the tender skin along his neck, kissing and nipping so gently that never a mark there was made.

Baekhyun quivered oh so slightly, his body on edge, skin tingling with that warm sensation he’d come to associate with having Kyungsoo around. It bespoke of promises, or passion, just a hint of danger, one that Baekhyun welcomed wholeheartedly. He was so into Kyungsoo by now, so much in love even though he didn’t dare say it out loud and take the risk that it wasn’t reciprocated the same way. That’s what the future was for: taking changes Baekhyun couldn’t commit to now, not now when everything was perfect.

“I think about the past a lot.”

Baekhyun was so sleepy he almost didn’t hear Kyungsoo’s voice. “The past? Why?” he murmured lazily into his pillow, head arching back as Kyungsoo continued to administer attention to his neck, sometimes with his mouth, sometimes with his fingertips.

“Because the past didn’t have you,” said Kyungsoo softly.

“Why, Kyungsoo, that may be the cheesiest thing you’ve ever said to me,” Baekhyun chuckled. “Say it again, say it some more.”

Kyungsoo smiled against his skin, right hand trailing down to clutch Baekhyun low on his belly. “I’m saying how happy I am I met you.”

“You make it sound like you never had anyone your whole life. I’m not your first lover, surely?”

“No,” said Kyungsoo apologetically. “You aren’t. But you’re definitely the best.”

Baekhyun preened, because who wouldn’t in that situation?

“Let’s get back to the situation that happened a month ago.”

“You mean, the lame reason you guys picked me up in the first place?” Baekhyun sighed.

“Precisely.” The interviewer shuffled around more stacks of files until he found the document in question. On November the 2nd, two days after your ‘fight’ with Kyungsoo, you said to your friend, and I quote: ‘He was terrifying. I thought I was going to die. My boyfriend is a vampire.’ Is this not what you said to him?”

“You said, he said, I said. Need I remind you I was drunk at the time, we’d been to a Halloween party and I don’t have vivid recall of what even happened that night, except that I was mad at Kyungsoo. I went drinking again with my friend, and… well, you get that quote, which is obviously bull, anyone could tell.”

“So you did lose track of time and perhaps a few memories.”

“No…. I was drunk.”

“You don’t remember what happened. Whether or not you were drunk, can you tell us what happened in exact detail, every second of the night in question?”

“No.”

“And you don’t remember what happened with Kyungsoo, or where he went after that?”

“No.”

“So your memories are not intact.”

“Y-yes…” Baekhyun had to admit. He slumped his head.

“There seems to be a lot missing from your side of the story, Mr. Byun. How about we piece things together to the very best of your knowledge, along with several eyewitness accounts I have on file here.”

Baekhyun’s head shot up. “Wait, you have witnesses? To my fight with Kyungsoo??”

“Yes, will that be a problem?”

“I… I… I guess not.”

“You’re dressing up like a vampire, Kyungsoo? Really?” Baekhyun just had to laugh at his boyfriend’s get-up. Because truly, it matched his persona well.

“The one day a year I can be who I truly am, Baekhyun.” Kyungsoo winked seriously. A second later he burst into laughter, and the two of them went merrily down to Baekhyun’s car.

It was one of the first times they had gone out together in public to a place where Baekhyun knew people. It was kind of hard to explain later, but for the most part they had always been just the two of them, together alone or together among strangers. Baekhyun wasn’t ready to share Kyungsoo with the world; Kyungsoo never asked to meet Baekhyun’s friends.

Their arrival at the party together signaled a great change in the air. Friends, acquaintances, and everyone who knew Baekhyun flocked to their side. They wanted to meet this elusive boyfriend, this fabulous person of whom they only knew a name. Baekhyun made introduction after introduction, showing Kyungsoo around with a delightfully possessive charm. He lost count of the number of drinks they had between them. Somehow, most of Kyungsoo’s beverages ended up being added to Baekhyun’s. He was thoroughly drunk by the time he drew Kyungsoo into a slightly less crowded corner of the house.

“These fangs,” he complained between kisses, “they’re in my way. Can’t kiss your properly.”

“Want me to take them out?” Kyungsoo whispered back.

“Please,” Baekhyun whined, shoving himself against his boyfriend with all his might. “And then, then I want to dance…”

Kyungsoo chuckled. “But there’s nobody dancing here.” Evidently it wasn’t that kind of party.

“You assume there’s only one way to dance,” Baekhyun murmured.

The fake fangs ended up somewhere on the floor, Baekhyun never saw them again. Another drink ended up in his hand. The two of them found themselves locked in a bathroom making out like they’d never done it before. Kyungsoo’s costume was partially undone, Baekhyun’s clothes were starting to gather on the floor. There was a hand on his hip, another one on his shoulder. Kyungsoo mouthed at his neck.

“Ow!” Baekhyun suddenly shrieked, pulling away and putting a hand to his neck. Kyungsoo looked stricken. In the mirror, Baekhyun’s eyes dilated wildly and his hand came away bloody. “What the ?!” He stared at his hand, several droplets of his own blood smeared across his fingers. He reared around to see his neck. From two tiny incisions, more blood flowed. It shouldn’t have been enough to make him dizzy, but Baekhyun’s entire head began to swim.

“Baekhyun! I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! Baekhyun… Baek, please, don’t, don’t look. Here, I’ll stop the bleeding.”

Kyungsoo caught him before he could fall and leaned him up against the counter. He grabbed the nearest towel and pressed it to the wound. Baekhyun fought with consciousness. He was drunk. He’d had too much to drink. Kyungsoo bit him. Baekhyun was bleeding… Swirls of emotions, annoyance, receding pain, he could not get a handle on himself.

“I thought,” he began, words wobbling on his tongue, “you, you t-took out those fangs.”

Kyungsoo didn’t answer. He held the towel to Baekhyun’s neck, pressing hard until Baekhyun could hold it himself. Then he grabbed Baekhyun’s bloody hand and, hesitating for just a moment, ran it swiftly under the water faucet. As his blood drained down the sink, Baekhyun swore he saw red eyes. Another trick of the light? He tried to shake his head, but a wave of nausea crept in, so he averted his eyes instead. To the mirror, to himself, to Kyungsoo’s torn face. To his open mouth…

There, where his canines had been, where they’d always been just normal… emerged two large fangs instead.

“Fangs,” Baekhyun repeated. “You said you…”

But they didn’t look right, they didn’t look like the ones Kyungsoo had worn all evening, and Baekhyun couldn’t stop himself from wanting to touch. Nor did Kyungsoo stop him. He made no move when Baekhyun explored his mouth, first touching those soft lips which mere moments ago he’d been kissing. He didn’t close his mouth either when Baekhyun trailed his fingers along the upper ridge of his teeth, to the long canines which had pierced Baekhyun’s neck.

“What are you?” asked Baekhyun, even as he knew the answer.

It should have been comical, with the remnants of Kyungsoo’s vampire costume. But it wasn’t. There wasn’t anything funny about this entire situation. Suddenly everything clicked into focus. Kyungsoo’s nighttime obsession, his finicky food preferences, his white skin, his cold body, the sickly pallor of his cheeks before he’d become Baekhyun’s boyfriend, before they began sharing a bed. Before Baekhyun starting falling asleep with Kyungsoo beside him, tiny pains in his neck which showed no mark but instead, the next time he saw his boyfriend, Kyungsoo was healthy looking again.

He threw the towel away from his neck. The wounds were gone, not even a trace remained of where they’d been. Only the blood which came away with a wipe of his hand.

“Baekhyun…” Kyungsoo began.

Baekhyun, however, was already barging out of the restroom.

“Baekhyun!”

“No, Kyungsoo! I am not doing this now, no!”

“Baek!”

“Get away from me, Kyungsoo!”

It seemed to go on endlessly, Baekhyun running through the house, out to his car. He was too drunk to drive so he bypassed it entirely and kept on walking. Kyungsoo shouted, Baekhyun turned him away. People stopped to stare, to gawk, to whisper about love gone wrong. And somewhere down the street, down some lonely, darkened street, Kyungsoo stopped trying to follow him and Baekhyun was alone.

“We have three witnesses from the party itself who said they saw you arguing before you left.”

“Uh huh, right. Because that says a lot.”

“You can’t elaborate about what your fight was about?”

“It was a fight. Lovers have them all the time. We were drunk, I’m sure stupid happened, and look where we ended up, huh? I have no boyfriend, and instead of getting to wallow in self-pity in some bar, I’ve been brought in for questioning for no discernable reason other than you suspect—and this is the really crazy part—that my boyfriend, Kyungsoo, was a vampire!”

“Is a vampire.”

“Excuse me?”

“We expect he is a vampire,” the interviewer clarified.

“Whatever.”

For a few moments, no one spoke. Baekhyun chewed on his lip and looked angrily away. The interviewer paused as if deciding how to go about the next set of evidence.

“They found a towel in the bathroom, Baekhyun. It had your blood on it.”

Baekhyun did not answer, nor did he look at the interviewer.

“I’m sure you’re aware we can verify absolutely that it was your blood.”

Baekhyun snorted, like that made any bit of difference. “I had an accident. I cleaned myself up, there was no lasting damage. Why, would you like to inspect my body for possible holes or puncture marks? Are the cameras running? How would you like me to strip? Top down or bottom up?”

“Mr. Byun, while we appreciate this is a delicate matter, I assure you there’s no need to be cheeky with us. You are not a suspect, nor are you required to strip.”

“If I’m not a suspect, then who is, and why am I here?”

“Your boyfriend, Kyungsoo, is a suspect.”

“For what?”

“For murder.”

Finally the interviewer had found a word that shocked Baekhyun into silence, true silence. His breath went still, his eyes ceased to blink. He stared at the woodgrain of the cheap table between them and did not speak. The interviewer waited. An entire minute passed but it felt like an eternity.

Then, Baekhyun looked up and his voice was small. “Tell me.”

“Five years ago I was in Chicago,” Kyungsoo explained chillingly.

Baekhyun wouldn’t let him into his house. In fact, he was rather pleased that when Kyungsoo showed up two weeks after the party, without knowing it, the house has locked itself up from the vampire’s presence. His boyfriend… or was it former boyfriend now, had met something of a force field upon the entryway. His eyes filled with remorse, but he did not beg entrance, and Baekhyun did not offer it. Neither did he shut the door and turn Kyungsoo away. He felt reasonably safe like this, enough to allow Kyungsoo to talk and for himself to stay and listen.

“Was that when you were turned?” he asked.

Kyungsoo shook his head. “No. No that happened… many, many years ago.”

“How many years ago?” After all the lies and vagaries, Baekhyun now wanted concrete answers.

“Over two hundred.”

Over two hundred years ago, Baekhyun mouthed silently, his head exploding from the sheer impossibility of it all. A legend turned fact, standing right before him. Kyungsoo, the man he’d fallen in love with, was a vampire.

“What happened in Chicago then?”

“I killed a man.”

“Who?”

“My maker.”

“Another vampire.”

“Yes,” Kyungsoo admitted. “Another vampire, and a cruel one at that.”

“How are you different from him?” Baekhyun had to ask.

“I’m not cruel like him. I don’t like killing people.”

“Not even to feed?”

“Especially to feed.”

At least that was something, Baekhyun had to admit. Still though. “You fed off of me, didn’t you? And you never told me.”

Kyungsoo hung his head. “It wouldn’t have hurt you, ever.”

“But you never asked me if you could. You just did it, and I never knew. Kyungsoo, were you ever going to tell me?”

The vampire still wouldn’t lift his head to meet Baekhyun’s eyes. His expression reeked of guilt, but there was another emotion there. Sadness, perhaps? How could Baekhyun be sure, with all the things Kyungsoo had hidden from him.

“Probably not.”

“Why not?” asked Baekhyun. “You were just going to be with me and take my blood forever or… until you lost interest? I don’t understand how you could do that, or why?”

“I never wanted you to know!” Suddenly, Kyungsoo seemed sure about something, and it was this apparently. “I didn’t want you to…”

“But why?” repeated Baekhyun, growing exasperated. He leaned against the wall inside the doorway and for the first time realized he wasn’t afraid; he was mad.

“Because of what I am. You would have been terrified, or you might have run away. Or…” His voice trailed off but Baekhyun wouldn’t let this go.

“Or what?”

Kyungsoo lifted his head. His eyes were red again, but not from bloodlust. He looked tired, upset. His skin had faded again to a dangerous shade of pale. Baekhyun felt somehow responsible, but at the same time he realized it was because Kyungsoo must not have fed off anybody else in the two weeks they’d been apart.

“Or I might have wanted to… to eventually turn you. Or you might have asked me to.”

Baekhyun’s jaw slackened. “Is that such a bad thing?” His own words shocked him.

“It’s not… not a terrible thing,” Kyungsoo admitted, “except… it would probably break my heart to do that.”

“Why?”

Kyungsoo took a step towards the door, not close enough to challenge the field along the threshold, but enough that Baekhyun could see him in earnest, see how his eyes shone from unshed tears, tinged pink from the coloring of his eyes.

“You’re so full of life, Baekhyun. I couldn’t… I didn’t want to do that to you. To make you like me, you’d become like me, something darker.”

“And you couldn’t have asked my opinion on that before you made a decision to never tell me?”

Kyungsoo lifted a hand like he wanted to touch Baekhyun. It drew close to the threshold. Then, as in slow motion he retracted it and took a step back. He was leaving, Baekhyun realized. He was leaving and he might never answer Baekhyun’s question again. Perhaps he would never see Kyungsoo again, and that thought worried him more than anything had so far.

“What happened in Chicago?” Baekhyun asked instead. “To your maker? Some guys were around here the other day asking me if they’d seen you. They didn’t say why though. Does it have something to do with… that? Are you about to leave? Will you ever come back?” His voice warbled on the last question.

“I killed him to be free of him,” said Kyungsoo quietly, still backing away from the doorway. Baekhyun almost stepped past the doorframe. “He was a known figure, the authorities thought he was human. I was seen.”

The hallway behind him was dark. It was past midnight sometime, and there was nobody around. Kyungsoo turned most of his body around and gave one last mournful look in Baekhyun’s direction.

“Kyungsoo?!” Baekhyun’s voice startled them both. Kyungsoo halted for one last moment, long enough for Baekhyun to swallow heavily and get his traitorous voice back under control. “You won’t… disappear for good, right? You won’t. You can’t.”

For an answer, all he got was the shadow of a smile.

“Do Kyungsoo,” the interviewer’s voice droned monotonously. “We haven’t even seen his face since the arson/murder case five years ago.”

“Until he showed up at the party with me,” Baekhyun replied.

“Correct.”

Baekhyun dropped his elbows and forearms to the table, little fists balling up at the end of his hands. “And there’s no chance you could have made a mistake about his identity? You’re sure it was him? You’re sure he’s tied to that case?”

“We’re positive.”

“But like, there could be a mistake somewhere. What if he was framed? And what about that case makes you think he’s a vampire? It doesn’t make sense.”

The interviewer gestured to the myriad of pictures he’d already shown Baekhyun, the supposed proof of Kyungsoo’s long history. In the documents there were probably other cases, other murders, other crimes they would love to pin down on a centuries-old vampire.

“All evidence points to what he is,” explained the interviewer. “We realize incidents like this don’t often venture into the common tongue, at least not with any truth, but Baekhyun, there are departments that specialize in cases like these. In creatures like these. We also specialize in helping their victims.”

Baekhyun lifted his head and met the man’s eyes. “Huh?”

“You, Baekhyun. We can help you.”

“Help me how?”

The interviewer shrugged. He sat back in his chair, acting casual, too casual in fact. “Given your association with this Kyungsoo, we can conceive but two options. Either you were never aware of what he was, which is in keeping with your story, or… you do know what he is, but you’re too afraid to say so. We can help you, Baekhyun. We can protect you so you don’t have to feel scared.”

“I still don’t understand how you can protect me? From a vampire? What do you do exactly, assign a squadron of hunters to support me 24/7? Have someone shadow me for the rest of my life?”

The interviewer had the audacity to laugh. “No, no, no, nothing like that. Although of course we could provide you with temporary backup for as long as you feel necessary. But Baekhyun, we’re more in the business of getting these creatures off the street.”

“You mean kill him?”

He nodded. “They’re already dead, but yes… we would make sure he is good and properly dead. Forever.”

Baekhyun scoffed. “This is ridiculous. Seriously. Seriously, you guys and whoever is behind you are plain mad. Look, you want to catch a guy you think is a murderer, I get that. But a vampire? Who even needs to make up a story like that?”

“You don’t believe me?”

“I think it should be more than obvious that I don’t believe you,” said Baekhyun.

“You look upset.” The interviewer tried a different approach.

“Of course, I’m upset! I broke up with my boyfriend, and now I find out he’s possibly some sort of criminal who might have killed a man in Chicago. Can’t you just leave me with that without making up the tiest of fantasies? Isn’t it bad enough that I slept with a possible murderer?!”

The interviewer frowned. “There’s still your testimony about him being a vampire—”

“Go my supposed testimony! I already told you I was drunk that night, and two nights later. He’d been wearing a vampire costume. Shouldn’t all of your witnesses agree to that? I’m starting to think it’s you guys who are on something. You know what? I’m done with this whole thing. Put men on to tail me, watch my apartment, whatever you want. You’ve got my statement now. I’m done. Done you with, done with this ‘interview’, done with Kyungsoo. I want to go home.”

Sadly, the interviewer sat up and began drawing his files back into a neat little stack. “Certainly we can do that, if that is your wish. Just one thing before you go…”

“And what is that?” Baekhyun snapped with more force than he meant to.

“If you see Kyungsoo again, would you promise to notify us immediately?”

Baekhyun bit his lip and tried hard not to cry. “You think I wouldn’t contact somebody if a murderer turned up at my door?”

Evidently pleased with his final statement, they let Baekhyun go.

The first month passed by in relative silence. Baekhyun didn’t socialize outside of his committed obligations. He went to school, he did his labs, he attended group study sessions. Outside of school he went to the hospital during his normal volunteer hours, and though he looked for Kyungsoo around every blood lab he visited, he never saw the man. Kyungsoo had disappeared, not just from Baekhyun’s life, but from everything. After two months, someone from the investigative team contacted Baekhyun to let him know Kyungsoo hadn’t been found, but he also hadn’t been seen by anyone since. ‘If Baekhyun still required protection in any way…’ Baekhyun waved them away and said he would be fine.

Another month went by, then a few more. A semester ended. Baekhyun began seeing his friends again, and nobody dared ask him about that boyfriend they’d only met once last year and then never heard from again. In a way, Baekhyun was relieved. He could put Kyungsoo behind him once and for all and get on with his life. But sometimes, at night… he still missed him. He missed the warmth when they snuggled together, when Kyungsoo’s body turned warm. His missed his laugh, the brightness of his eyes, the rosy blush of his cheeks after they’d… after Kyungsoo had started…

Sometimes Baekhyun touched his neck and wondered, how much blood had he inadvertently donated during those short months they’d been together? He’d gone to a clinic after Kyungsoo left and had himself tested. There was nothing out of place, no blood disease, no deficiencies, no anemia. He was as healthy as he could be.

But what if Kyungsoo was not?

At some point Baekhyun had to train himself to no longer care. He taught himself to forget, to not worry, to never in fact think about Kyungsoo again. After a while he even persuaded himself that the interviewer and investigative team really were psycho, and everything Baekhyun had seen was truly a product of his overactive imagination.

It almost worked.

A full year later though, when someone knocked on the door, Baekhyun realized hastily, it hadn’t worked.

“Kyungsoo?” He could not keep the sound of hope slipping from his tongue. No trick of the light this time, no fantasy now to delude him. It was Kyungsoo just as Baekhyun remembered. “Do you… want to come inside?”

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