++1

February 10^th, 1994.

The woman with jet-black locks stood rigidly on the corner of the dim room where her kind chattered happily towards each other in every part of her large mansion. A tired sigh escaped out of her pink thin lips, as she didn’t even enjoy herself at their annual greeting event. She would laugh occasionally when they approached and told her about jokes she didn’t find funny at all, thus explained why her laughs sounded so fake though she was sure it was less noticeable for them. Only certain people could make out of her real expression and she was more than glad by that little fact. The lesser people knew, the better she would play on. She then gazed throughout the window, letting the full moon shine her face as time went by until she got tired watching it bloom against the dark skies.

“As boring as ever, I see.”

She heard the teasing tone and didn’t even bother to look back at the intruder of her peaceful time. She quietly sipped her drink, bringing it closer to take a look after having a taste of it. She watched as the red liquid inside her glass swirl around its surface—following her hand’s movement, obviously ignoring whoever that was engulfing her into a one-way conversation.

“It’s been over 100 years yet you’re still ignoring me...”

A pause before a unique small laugh accompanied her next words. “... Dear cousin.”

She sensed the person coming closer and heaved a long groan. “If you’re going to be your annoying self then I’ll gladly do it for another 100 years.” She finally responded, knowing by heart that this person would never stop nagging her.

The figure came to stop beside her, posing an amused look on her face as she briefly threw a side-glance.

“So, holding a grudge now?”

The woman finally angled her head towards her as she spoke, sarcasm tucked in every word she used.

“If you weren’t drunk enough and decided to barge in with your equally drunk friend in tow inside my house while screaming at the top notch that I am a vampire. When I so happened to feed myself, whereas my fangs were visible at that time, although I had quickly hidden it.” Irene narrowed her eyes at the taller person. “Causing him to flock out my house in a panic state, making neighborhood around mine rattle in a huge riot because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut even with my earnest explanation that it was ketchup and he was too drunk to realize.” She took a deep breath and exhaled in a hard way. “I’m very much surprised if anyone wouldn’t be pissed by your stunt.”

“Joohyun unnie my favorite cousin you’re rapping now.” The other woman laughed, clearly enjoying every bit of expression she got to witness. “But seriously, you are such a sore .”

“I’m not finding your jokes funny at all, Sooyoung.” Irene retorted as she glared back. “And stop calling my old name.”

“I will do just that if you stop calling me by that name as well. It doesn’t suit my cool personality.” The said woman only grinned, causing Irene to roll her eyes even more. She continued despite her cousin’s lack of response. “It’s a Joy for you.”

“Whatever.” Irene scoffed. “Because of your stunt, I got a human following me around almost every day at that time.”

“Oh, nice!”

“What’s nice about it, stupid?” She clicked on her tongue and brought her gaze back to her glass, examining the crimson liquid. She was by now, had ignored Joy’s open laughs that sounded far from pleasing to her ears. “I don’t know if he were indeed a vampire hunter in some way. Nevertheless, it really did ruin my activities. Humans will be forever annoying.”

“You know, I just want to make your boring life a little bit exciting... daring…” Joy opened her arms to emphasize her words. “Adventurous…thrilling…”

“So that risking our kind to be posted on daily newspaper’s headline is thrilling for you?” She raised her brows in disbelief. “Are you kidding me?”

“Why are you so worked up? Don’t be a chicken, please. Just relax.” The woman with blonde hair daringly back and it only made Irene want to rip that smirk out of her arrogant face when she added, “Oh. You hate chicken a lot by the way.”

“Yes. That’s why I hate you a lot too.”  

“Well that, hate is such a strong word.” Joy shrugged the declaration of hatred with a wide splitting smile. “They took it down almost immediately right? There’s no big deal, as you know vampire’s powers.”

Her wiggling eyebrows almost made Irene want to throw the glass she was holding straight to this playful vampire’s face.

“You’re unbelievable,” Irene muttered under her breath as she watched her cousin nonchalantly responding back.

She lifted her glass and downed the content in one go, showing her fangs as she opened wide in satisfaction.

“I told you to lay low, so-”

“I’d been laying low until you decided to destroy it, .” 

“Nice word, Irene unnie.”

“Thank you.” She commented lazily with a wave of her hand, grin plastered on her white complexion face.

“You know what?” Her blonde companion suddenly chimed, brows were moving up and down in a teasing manner yet again. “I will bring another friend the next time I visit you. So, expect some surprise~”

In a split of a second, the earlier woman had dashed out with such a speed, leaving Irene to stare at her with incredulity. She saw Joy already stood up with her body fully leaning on the railing of the second floor; head dove down, eyes on her with smirk hanging on her lips.

“I hate that stupid weird blonde to the core.” She mumbled before focusing her gaze back towards the large window, the moon above her was beaming and she strangely couldn’t take her eyes off it. “It’s full moon already.” She commented to herself. “Time surely flies then.”

+++

March 29^th, 2017.

“Humans are…”

Her eyes squinted towards the window as she slowed her car down at the sight of a traffic light. She caught a glimpse of a man walking sluggishly on the side path with a bottle in hand. She inwardly scoffed. “So wasted.”

Being the one who was a pure descendant of the vampire empire had been making Irene retrieve her movement around creatures called humans ever since forever. She demanded them stupid for not using their gifted brains to think thoroughly. She had lived long enough to note that none of their doing had caused the change of surroundings to be any good. Instead, everything had fallen into chaos. Nature had given them nothing but benefit to gain, to improve, and to be used wisely yet they took it for granted.

How selfish they were, how greedy they could be, how they would destroy everything without hesitation, just to please their egos even towards their own kind. She could only shake her head at how mindless humans could be. What she thought of them was no more than a mere blood bags, their blood supplier. 

And so, she couldn’t even understand why her annoying bubbly cousin was befriending such creature. By now, Irene could only sigh solemnly as Joy was being herself today and decided to annoy the hell out of her after an exact sixty-seven years the last time they met.

Apparently, Joy was a woman of her words, because what she meant by a surprise, was a literal surprise.

Saying that this time she would celebrate her cousin’s birthday, by turning her entire house into a place filled with humans partying with loud music and she was sure when the right time came, she wouldn’t hesitate to silence her damned cousin with a stab of a wooden stake across her heart. 

Irene focused her vision forward and stepped on the pedal when the light had turned green. She increased the pace of her ride as it came to suburb area. As she drove, she heard a muffled groan somewhere. It was almost inaudible, way too soft if it were not for her supernatural power. Nearing the end of the corner, she subtly raised her eyebrow when her nose caught a whiff of the all too familiar iron smell that she actually hated.

Blood.

She was about to take a turn on the rocky road when her eyes nearly bulged out at the sight before her. She quickly stepped on the brake pedal, stopping the vehicle immediately.

“What on earth...”

She got out of her car and squinted her eyes to see a woman sprawling down on the road with her bloody head and stomach that nearly drenching with red liquids. Her nose flared at the strong smell. She for one wasn’t actually fond of drinking blood. If it were not for the fact that her body would get devastated courtesy to the lack of blood-consuming, Irene probably didn’t even want to touch them at all.

And yeah, she did occasionally drink blood to maintain her condition, but she would never drink it directly from humans. It was horrible for her to act like that, as she thought to herself. She might not a human, but she still somehow behaved humanly than any other humans out there.

Irene looked up at the hill above her and saw nothing that could be the cause of this commotion. She brought her vision back to the woman again when she was sure, she heard something coming out of in a broken whisper.

“H-elp...me”

She raised an eyebrow at the sight of her teary eyes. Again, Irene, for one, was the kind who didn’t even bother to be involved in such a thing. Helping humans meant nothing, because it wasn’t her thing to begin with. She nearly scoffed and was going to head back towards her car, but paused momentary once she last heard her pleading tone.

“P-lease...”

“Who the hell are you into thinking that I will ever help human like you?” Irene crouched down to see the woman suspiciously. Face clearly displayed nothing but pain, but it certainly did nothing to move Irene’s heart. Whom she was kidding, she didn’t have any heart to begin with. But when she sensed the warmth of the woman gradually dropped, she hissed audibly. “To hell with this.”

Nevertheless, Irene found herself grunting in the entire ride for stupidly helping this human. Yes, helping. And the latter couldn’t get rid of that word as it kept on resounding inside her head countless time, mocking her in a loop.

“What the heck is coming after me…?” She glanced at the still figure resting on the back through a rearview and she wrinkled her nose in the heavy air surrounding her car now. The iron smell had been overcoming the scent of her favorite lavender and she could feel her teeth gritting in distaste.

“I would make you pay for making me do all this.”

Irene recalled she wasn’t this kind to anyone. Especially to a mere human. It must be the lucky day of that woman because Irene in her usual day would definitely stomp her way out without even glancing to anyone who sought her help. Like the spoiled vampire princess that she was.

As soon as she saw the light emitted from the place she planned to head on, she quickly made her way to pay a visit to her best friend this time around.

+++

The first word that came upon Wendy’s mouth after they had hurriedly, scratch, Wendy herself and her maids hurriedly trying to do their task of saving the guest Irene suddenly brought in the middle of the night was a hissed, “What”.

Regardless, her best friend was still doing her best meanwhile she planned to chill out instead‒by watching the television to kill her time.

Well, it didn’t turn out like what she originally expected. She found herself frowning towards the entire show.

And so, after forever being bored with the television that showed nothing interesting for almost thirty minutes, Irene felt herself being dragged by her fuming best friend towards one of Wendy’s personal rooms. Her brows shot up when the latter started to fire her with a trail of questions. 

“Why are you bringing her here?”

Coupled with “Are you committing a crime? Killing people that you hate so much and now, are you deciding to bring me down as well?”

“You were the closest one in this area and you are a doctor so I figured out, why not?” Irene commented calmly as she couldn’t really tell that her best friend was being serious or lamely joking. Because she would never find kill, death, or something similar to it amusing as a material of jokes. “Anyways, Wendy… Are you perhaps high?”

“No. No. No.” The latter waved her hands to brush her earlier question. “I must be the one asking you that. Are you high? Are you out of your mind?”

The woman in a white coat with a clear displeasure look on her face was approaching Irene. She pulled a chair in front of her harshly. “Are you really not out of your mind? Because what the heck is happening right now?!”

The questioned figure only shrugged in a nonchalant manner. “My car had rammed her as I was speeding halfway to visit some other place. I hate human and that fact will never change. But to think about it, I didn’t want to be a killer, so the least I could do was to save her.” She lied in between her teeth while turning her face away, trying her best not to look at her best friend in the eyes. It would be such an embarrassing thing to admit that she had turned soft towards a mere human she found in the middle of nowhere. Her pride would never take that excuse.

“Then again, I ask you,” The chestnut haired woman asked, accentuating her earlier point. “Are you out of your mind?”

Irene rolled her eyes at their circular conversations. “Wendy, cut to the chase already. What’s the verdict?”

“I will get to you later after this thing is done.” The woman sighed when Irene didn’t even spare her any glance, she then started reading her jolted note.

“First of all, she lost so much blood,” Wendy stated, listing what she had been writing on her clipboard. Meanwhile, Irene only nodded her head at the obvious fact, she urged her best friend to continue silently.

“And you have been lying to me.”

“What?” Irene quickly looked at her, how come she could be this easy to read. She mentally composed herself to look a bit convincing. “What do you mean by that? I’m not lying.”

“Yes, you are. After being checked, there’s no sign of her being rammed into your car.” Wendy flipped the content and displayed it to her. “She has pretty much broken her rib cages and some bones around it, but it wasn’t caused by running into your car. If so, she would not be here because there’s no way for her to survive being rammed with a speeding car judging as you told me that you were in a hurry before.”

Irene only stared at those words her friend had been pointing at, completely losing the other details. “Blows? Kicks?” She glanced up to see a frowning Wendy. “What is this? Is she being tortured or what?”

“Maybe and definitely not because of you. She got several kicks and blunt blows around her body, especially her stomach. It seems that whoever did this to her really tend to kill her and her child.”

“What child?” Irene raised her eyebrow. “She is all alone, Wendy.”

“Irene,” She spoke and turned another page, her best friend’s face changed slightly with an increasing sympathy. “She is pregnant.”

“Well, it’s a was.” Wendy put the plastic board down as she looked straight at her. “And her child obviously couldn’t make it. We need to remove it from her womb to be able to save the mother as well. It would be dangerous if she insists to keep her child there. She could recover soon if we do this sooner. They might not as fast as us in term of healing, but it’s possible really. As long as she follows the treatment, then it’s all doable.”

And Irene could feel her jaw hanging open at the thrown information. It was too much to process at once.

“Your point of telling me her condition is?”

“We will undergo several operations to remove her dead baby out of her womb and try to stop her internal bleeding. And in order to do that, I need your say in this.  You’re her guardian after all.”

“Uh… I think my head is going to explode.” Irene massaged her throbbing head. “By all means, please just do whatever you want to do. I really don’t care.”

She saw Wendy nodding and within seconds the latter had left her alone to stare at the white empty space of walls in wonder.

“I’m seriously growing weak, happy birthday to me,” Irene muttered with a scrunched nose and made her way to Wendy’s hidden storage while trying to reason out her weird behavior.

“I need to drink blood like right now as I feel like losing my mind already.”