My mother was working late, and I had Mina and Momo come over as friends. Chaeyreong took a liking into Mina immediately and even dragged her upstairs to her room to put make up on her. It was hilarious seeing Mina so flustered and she gave me those ‘help me’ looks. Momo took charge of dinner and I told her no Jokbal since it was too hard for Chaemin to eat. She was super upset, but she just went with a stew instead.

While she was busying around in the kitchen, I tidied up Chaemin’s endless toys and made her take a bath. When I peeked into Chaeryeong’s room, Mina was already wearing a flowery dress and a headband. It suited her, but I didn’t think she liked it by the look of distain on her face. She made a cut-throat gesture at me and I responded with a thumbs up and a cheeky smile, leaving them at it.

It was fun to have dinner with my friends, I don’t think I’ve ever done this before. I never really had friends after Sakura… But it was also nice to see that they got along with my family. We ate through Chaeyreong’s never-ending rant about dumping her ex-boyfriend because he said that he didn’t like her style anymore and I had to hold my tongue on that because I thought back to how I had warned her about dating boys.

Although Mina and Momo couldn’t physically digest food, they were good sports and ate a bowl anyways to not seem suspicious. At least they could enjoy the flavour of it, that’s what gets Momo kicking after all.

Chaemin demanded that our guests watch Frozen with her and she sat between the two vampires, all three of them singing whenever the characters would break out into a musical. It was a cute sight and I couldn’t help but snap a picture of it. At some point Chaemin had fallen asleep in Momo’s lap and for some reason the vampire did as well. Another photo taken, and I poked Momo awake and told her to put Chaemin in her bed.

‘’They make a perfect match, don’t they?’’ Mina remarked as she used a cloth to dry the dishes I had washed.

I finished my last plate and put it on the rack, dying my hands. ‘’Really? I thought you and Chaeyreong made a better match.

She glared at me and then down at the bright flower dress she was still wearing. ‘’Please don’t let her do this me next time. I like her…. just not her style.’’

‘’Yeah, well in that case I’ll tell her you loved it and would love to do it anytime you’re over’’

She threw the dish rag at my face, ‘’Do that and I’ll leak all your sleeping habits to the student body.’’

‘’Wh-what sleeping habits? You’re bluffing! I don’t have any!’’ I threw it back at her, but she batted it away and smirked.

‘’Oh, I have so much dirt on you.’’

‘’You’re weird for watching me sleep.’’

‘’Its not like I have a choice, plus, I ran out of books to read in your room.’’

We went upstairs and found Momo had crashed on Chaemin’s bed, Momo was spread out on the bed like a starfish while my younger sister was lying on top of her. I could not understand how that could ever be a comfortable position to sleep in.

After I had taken a shower and called it a day, I found Mina looking at the old photo of me and Sakura at the park. I had it framed after that day, I couldn’t imagine losing something as precious and authentic as that.

‘’Have you thought about when you would marry Sakura?’’ She asked me suddenly.

It caught me so off guard that I had to take a second to breathe again. ‘’Uhm, I’m not so sure yet… why?’’

Mina stayed quiet for a bit and then pointed at my family picture. ‘’Once you get married, you’ll have to leave this life behind, I’m sure Queen Yoona already informed you.’’

‘’She did.’’ I sat down on my bed and played with the towel I used to dry my hair. ‘’Honestly speaking, I have no clue when I would be ready to leave them. Its such a big leap. I want to see my sisters grow up and become adults, I want to see my father again and I want to stay with them but…’’

‘’But you love Sakura.’’ She finished for me.

‘’Right, I love Sakura. Its so selfish of me to choose one over the other. I can’t even tell my family why even if I wanted to.’’

This is a dilemma that I had to battle every night when I thought about it. I knew I would have to be changed in the future, but I don’t think any child was ready to say goodbye to their family forever. It was painful to even think about. Death was a natural course and inevitably I would have to watch my family leave one by one as I remained. I wished that I could have Sakura change them all, so that they could stay with me. But she had already answered logically.

She couldn’t change them because there was a strict law about the number of vampires in this world to keep the feeding to a minimum. The more vampires, the more humans are needed to feed them. The only way you could become a vampire was get married into a family or be born as one.

Of course, vampires could always change humans on a whim but a vampire who must learn the ropes without a properly experienced vampire, will die. There was so much to learn. They wouldn’t survive with all those werewolves outside hunting them.

Even vampire royalty couldn’t change that law.

‘’Take your time. Don’t be in such a rush, you’re still young. Its not like Sakura will be leaving you.’’

I was going to tell her that I wasn’t worried about that but more about the fact that I might die before I could even have a chance at saying goodbye to my family.

…………...

We had one last dance practice on the Saturday (today), the school allowed us to