Title: Lesson One
Pairing: Seola/Luda
Summary: (vampire/twilight!au) Luda reminds Hyunjung how to be human.
Contains: Codependency, unresolved issues, violence at the end, questionable motives, even more questionable personalities, flash forward scenes, slight angst, sort of a character study, very self-indulgent, just plain old word vomit without any motive ykwim
A/N: an excerpt from one of my unpublished aus that I needed to get out of my head. twilight vamps minus the sparkling. black and gold will continue after this chapter.   as always, no beta. we disintegrate like vampires in the sun. 

- Kevin Young, opening lines to “Greening,” Kenyon Review (vol. 33, no. 2, Spring 2011)

Beneath overcast sky, the school flag ripples with the breezes of wind that sweep over the open parking lot. Students flock in groups, copying assignments and buzzing about the track team on car hoods and at the back of pick-up trucks. 

New student Lee Luda huddles close around the welcoming committee nobody asked for and passes her chemistry notes. Across the parking lot, her eyes land on a girl leaning against a silver Volvo, reading a pocketbook. Pale, long jet-black hair, full lips; like Snow White in the flesh. Beautiful beyond words.

“You’re staring at Kim Hyunjung. Prettiest girl on campus,” Minnie takes the liberty to make her known to Luda. Curiosity must have been plastered all over her face.

“I wasn’t staring,” Luda says, defensively. She looks away for a second, knowing full well that she was caught. 

When she turns back, Hyunjung is looking right at her, the book deliberately angled away to reveal a small smile on her lips.

--

“Hello,” prettiest girl on campus speaks to her first. "My name is Kim Hyunjung."

Luda looks around the classroom, unable to fathom why Snow White took the seat beside her in a sea of people. Only an arm’s length away, she couldn’t take her eyes off Hyunjung’s smooth flawless face, the beauty mark under her eye, long lashes, high cheekbones, slightly parted lips—breath-taking in every sense of the word. Her dark eyes wait for an answer, a reaction other than the flailing around and the reddening of her cheeks. 
 
Luda clears . "I'm Lee Luda.”

--

Every day, Hyunjung waits outside Luda’s classroom and walks her to the parking lot. 

She tells Luda a lot of things between the door of the classroom to her bike: the rainbow that forms on puddles after the rain, the color and the names of the cats she rescued, the flowers in the spring.

Luda tells Hyunjung almost nothing, that she’s more of a listener but Hyunjung says it's okay and tells her about how lonely winters could get. 

Luda claims they’re just friends to her other friends. But her other friends say they’ve never seen Kim Hyunjung talk to anyone the way she talks to Luda—or even talk to anyone, so for once in her life maybe Luda is as special as she thinks she is.

--

Something’s not quite right with Hyunjung’s… well, everything. 

Luda noticed it right away but couldn’t put a finger on it. Maybe it’s something in the way Hyunjung moved, in the fluid, graceful coordination of her limbs, in the hypnotizing velvet of her voice or how she's never out in the sun.

It’s not about Hyunjung’s unusual attractiveness or her misplaced attitude that’s got Luda waking up feverish in the middle of the night or the inexplicable way her skin stands on end with gooseflesh when they walk too close together. 

"Unnie, what color are your eyes?" she blurts out on a rainy day, under Hyunjung’s umbrella. 

Hyunjung furrows her brows, baffled by a question whose answer should speak for itself, "Black."

Luda purses her lips, "I thought so.” The last she remembered Hyunjung’s eyes were black. And they were, right before they left the cafeteria. She had gotten a good look. 

But now, Hyunjung stares at her like she’s not the same person ten minutes ago. It’s as if the black had melted and made way to an indiscernible swirl of honey and warm amber irises. Gold near the edges.

--

Hyunjung invites Luda to her house, a modern paradise hidden in the forest: three-storey, full glass windows, white curtains, hardwood floors, warm colors. 

Dozens of graduation caps decorate a side of the staircase. On the other side is a wall full of framed pictures of cats. The last one on the bottom right is a picture of a black and white tabby cat. Underneath is a name written in beautiful script: Yangmal, 2014.

“Are these the cats you rescued?” Luda asks.

"All of them," Hyunjung nods.

Luda tries to read each name one by one: Kopi, 2011. Sangchu, 2005. Moja, 1997. But then the years don’t stop, 1991, 1986, 1979, and by the time her eyes reach the very first frame, a vintage photograph of an orange and gray tabby kitten: Nabi, 1921, thoughts are running in her head. 

“Wow. Talk about fresh. We haven’t had a visitor in decades,” someone says by the doorway.

Hyunjung introduces Luda to her family, her adopted siblings. 

Son Juyeon was the tallest one with broad shoulders, long legs and dark hair perfectly framing her strong jaw. Beside her was Kim Jiyeon, petite, with elegant blonde hair and a blinding smile that could disarm anyone.

Despite their varied appearances, they all look alike. The chalky pallor, the golden eyes brighter than Hyunjung's and the shadows underneath them. These faces were so surreal and perfect, like ones that would come up when the most beautiful faces in the world were combined using a computer program. 

Luda feels struck, not in the same intensity as when she stared at Hyunjung for the first time, but it tugged the figments of her imagination together and formed a believable picture of a happy family feeding in the night.

Hyunjung showed her the signs of caution, waved the red flags, laid out her cards and left her to decide what to do with it. 

Warning: you are there, said Hyunjung’s eyes. We are here. 

We are not the same, said Juyeon and Jiyeon’s cautious eyes.

--

“You’re a vampire.”

Hyunjung stares at the girl on her doorstep, contemplating as if there was any other answer than: “Well, yes, I—” and then, sniff, “Lee Luda, why are your pockets full of garlic?”

Luda responds in something between a grunt and a flush of panic. She makes a beeline to the coffee table, s her bag and takes out all its contents: more cloves of garlic, a wooden crucifix, silverware, face mirrors, a thick leather-bound King James Bible, and a polaroid camera. 

“Wow, you… if only Sojung saw this—” Hyunjung looks at her strangely, brows furrowed, then breaks into a melodious laugh. Long slender fingers toy with the camera. “This is amazing but I wish you didn’t waste your energy getting all of these,” she aims the polaroid at her face and snaps. The film that rolls out has her face close to the lens.

“That’s right. Laugh at me,” Luda sighs in exasperation, snatching the polaroid picture from her hands. 

Hyunjung laughs at her, really, not in mock amusement but at the sheer effort and courage it must have taken her to march up to her doorstep, to a house full of vampires, with nothing but her bike and a backpack full of toys.

“Are your siblings here?” Luda asks, sitting on the couch.

Hyunjung clears uneasily, “They’re out hunting.”

“How convenient for you,” Luda takes the hair tie from her wrist and gathers her hair in a ponytail.

“I don’t follow,” Hyunjung narrows her golden eyes.

“Stop pretending, unnie,” Luda leans forward, showing her neck. “I’m not stupid.”

In all twenty-three years of her life, Luda considered herself lucky. She’s one of the clumsiest people she’s ever known and she catches cold easily but she’s never been admitted to the hospital for getting in an accident or for being sick. The frailest of the healthy. 

Yet all her luck went down the drain the moment Kim Hyunjung spoke to her. There was no use running. It wasn’t the best choice but she figured it would be less painful if she saved her strength and didn’t fight with the supernatural. 

For all she knew, Hyunjung might have been looking at her like the walking, talking, breathing blood bag she is.

“No,” Hyunjung says, sternly. 

“What do you mean no,” Luda blinks. “You drink blood, don’t you?”

Hyunjung’s expression turns to horror, eyes wide and mouth agape. Her balled fists are white by her sides. “We don’t feed on humans.” 

“You mean ever?”

“Not in fifty years, no.”

“You said your siblings—”

“Jiyeon and Juyeon hunt animals.”

Luda exhales for what feels like forever, unsure if from relief or from embarrassment of being rejected by a vampire on a special diet. 

“Why did you approach me then, that day you said hello if you didn’t intend to feed on me?”

The silence that settles around them has a life of its own, a blanket of uncertainty, its breath held by the seconds around its neck. 

Hyunjung’s answer comes with a shy smile, “I wanted to be friends with you.” 

--

“What year were you born?”

“1894.”

“What year were you turned? Bitten?”

“1918. Bitten.”

Luda quickly does the math in her head. “You’re a hundred and twenty-five years old.”

“Already? I didn’t notice.” 

On a cloudy Saturday, they walk along the small trail behind the house that lead to the forest. Hyunjung offers Luda stories years before her grandparents were born, places that were not quite what they looked like last century. Life post-war made up