TRACK 110 | DAISY (feat. Julia Michaels) by Zedd

Baekhyun was standing with his classmates on the open grounds, watching Chanyeol and Rara talking at the entrance of the gate. It seemed like Chanyeol was concerned about something but Rara kept nodding her head like she was trying to reassure her older brother. She was, after all, absent from school for three days. Chanyeol patted the top of his sister’s head and headed towards the opposite direction while Rara greeted her own clique.

Rara was feeling a little bit fine after she paid her grandmother a visit. However, even an excellent vampire like her grandmother was not able to change her resolve. She couldn’t help but be bothered by everything that has happened and will happen. She was glad that she hadn’t bumped into Baekhyun yet because she felt nauseous and a little bit nervous at the thought of what she was going to say to him. She didn’t even tell her parents or her older brother that apparently, she found her partner. The odds were in her favor as her schedule today did not allow her to collide with Baekhyun, but it would only be a matter of time before their paths crossed because whatever grade the students were in, everyone had lunch and dismissal. While lunch was easy to avoid, dismissal was not, because one way or another, everyone had to go home, and everyone had to pass by the gates to do so.

She was walking towards the gate of the school, determined to go home early because even with the minimized interaction she had today; thinking had taken too much of her energy. She felt like the fire inside of her was reduced to such a low amount. Vampires were immune to sickness and fatigue. But if she was human, she knew this is what exhaustion felt like. Her thoughts kept ringing in her ears until a hand on her shoulder put her movements, both body and mind, to a stop. However, the sudden pause and her failure to react immediately to the sudden contact was not due to her being dazed all day—it was because she recognized whose touch it was without looking at the person; the very one she tried so hard to avoid the entire day.

“Hey.” Baekhyun smiled gently.

God, here we go. Rara gave him a half-smile. “Hey.”

“You seem a little off.” He remarked, peeking at her with a playful yet concerned grin.

“And I probably am.” She said exasperatedly.

“Do you mind company?”

Rara swallowed and looked in another direction. “No, not really, um, I...I meant to talk to you anyway.” Then she looked at him. “But we need to be somewhere safe and isolated...like the forest.”

Rara was scary when she’s all mouth and angry, but she’s even scarier when she’s silent. It was like she was a different person; someone who Baekhyun did not create bonds with. So as they traveled towards the forest in deafening silence, he could tell that whatever she was going to tell him was perhaps unchangeable and very serious.

Now that they were deep into the woods surrounded by only the voices of the swaying trees and rustling leaves, they stopped.

Rara leaped back a little from him as if Baekhyun was about to explode. “You know, I think you should be in wolf form right now because I feel like I could hurt you in the middle of this conversation.”

A speck of fright spread across Baekhyun’s body but he was determined to brave this storm. “Whatever this is, Rara, I don’t want to fight you with it.”

Rara grinned a little. “Wow. That’s an enormous amount of trust.”

He shrugged. “No point building a relationship with doubts and fear.”

Rara tilted her head a little, hinting the slightest bit of arrogance. She was always like that. Intimidating. “I was gone for a few days.” She started. “Maybe Yeol had told you that I had gone to our grandma’s. You see, on the day of the blood moon, I thought I was going to die. My throat was on fire and I was staggering, fighting for my breath. There are only two ways to kill a vampire. One, disembody them, and two, starve them. But on the lunar eclipse, I thought maybe the second scenario was happening to me on the night of the blood moon. Yeol wasn’t around to help and my parents were out on a business trip so I had gone to our grandmother’s.”

“Your throat was on fire...?” Baekhyun asked confusedly; he didn’t know if she meant it literally.

“I was really, really thirsty.” Rara explained in a strained voice. “I’m usu