“Are you smiling...” I quickly hide my phone on my lap when I hear Sehun’s voice. “.. to your phone?”

I’m once again in the living room, sitting on the ground in front of the couch instead of on it, so that it’d obscure my smaller body behind its structure. But apparently, I underestimated Sehun’s length, his big height, as he easily stands behind the couch, peering down at me with puzzlement. I shoot the man a wide smile to hide my nervousness, squeezing my thighs closer so my phone can dip between them, securing it from Sehun’s calculating, intellectual eyes.

“No, I’m not.”

“Are you sure?” He quickly retaliates, dipping his chin downward in a small tick to point at my phone, which is hidden for now. There’s a glimmer of well-hidden amusement in his eyes at my inability to hide my feelings like him, and I purse my lips. “I saw you smiling.” He continues, his voice nothing more than a lazy drawl. 

He’s wearing his neat business suit, his blonde hair perfectly slicked back. He’s also wearing another new watch around his wrist. He’s ready to leave for work, and I frown. This is the first time he’s actually talking to me like I’m his friend without any intention for me to help him with anything, and it’s a little odd. Does my knowledge about his past relationship gives me a few steps forward to be closer to him than before? Is that why he’s pointing out some of my antics instead of ignoring my existence (unless he wants me to do something for him) and leaving the house? 

Whatever it is, I entertain his questions.

“Yeah, but I was smiling at my new fingernails,” I clear my throat, putting on a Sehun-like--face, showing him both of my hands so he can look at my fingernails. I’ve had then done the previous night at an expensive, exquisite nail salon. Not for him of course, but for Baekhyun. They’re painted black with white vampire fangs drawn on them artistically. Some of my fingernails had accessories on them too, sparkling ones. It was one of the prettiest patterns and the girliest thing I’ve ever done in a long time. “Look at them, are they not pretty? I like them a lot.”

“They’re pretty,” The small twinkling amusement in Sehun’s concealed eyes disappear, and it’s his turn to clear his throat. A glint flashed through his eyes, a glint I can’t understand. “But are you sure you weren’t smiling at your phone?”

“Yup,” I nod my head in what I hope is a reassuring nod. Sehun raises his brows. “Super sure.”

“You can tell me,” Sehun says, now smiling. Not a whole smile that shines rainbows and glitter, but a smaller smile, a dull one. A smile holding no purpose aside being a plastic figure to distract the other party. However, it’s still a smile, and I grimace. “I don’t mind, nor do I understand why you’re refusing to admit it.”

“Okay, fine,” I grumble, fiddling with my pretty, glinting fingers, watching my nails with awe and amazement. “I was smiling at my phone.”

“Okay, fine,” he repeats what I say, walking away from the couch and from me, heading to the door. I watch him leaving while blinking. “The conversation is now over. That wasn’t so hard to admit, right?”

I continue to watch him in stupefaction. That’s it? That’s all he’s going to ask? Is he not curious? Is he not wondering who or what made me smile? Well, what is it that I was expecting anyway? Sehun rarely talked. He rarely smiled, and he rarely buzzed with life, with wonder for petty things like gossip. He was and still is just a pile of rocks, a bundle of mountain high metal. No source is his source of entertainment, no words are his point of excitement, or wonder, or curiosity. He’s just.. empty, his soul vague, vast, and everything aside from full. 

I attempt to go back to my phone, unbothered by his all time actions and reactions, when he halts in front of the door, turning to me. I blink my eyes at him, the glasses which I’ve had on my head falling back to my nose swiftly. Neither of us pay it any attention.

“Is he the one?”

What?

“What? Who? What?” I express my surprise, my puzzlement that matched his from before, and he snorts, his eyes falling down at my phone again, the device between my legs. 

“The one you are smiling at on your phone, is he the one you kept asking about my relationships for? Are you guys dating?”

“You’re chatty today, Sehun,” I murmur, my cheeks burning into deep, rooted red. Like dark velvet, like blood. I don’t know if Sehun notices I’m trying to change the subject, or he notices my blush accentuated by the black glasses I’m wearing. He keeps staring at me with his normal, undivided attention. “And you’re curious.” I add.

“You don’t have to answer, you know,” He murmurs, surprisingly soft, and my heart grows gentle at the tenderness his eyes flash with. “Why are you acting so defensively?”

“I’m not acting defensively.” I deny quickly, widening my eyes to show my sincerity, and Sehun’s face returns, a small quirk to his left brow in irritation at my denial, and I sigh, relenting so fast I feel ashamed of myself for not holding on more. 

“Am I really acting defensively?”

“Yes, Jangmi.” 

“Well, okay fine,” I take my phone from between my legs and put it on my lap in a way that’s obvious for Sehun to see, and his eyes flicker downward for a millisecond before looking back at me, waiting. I exhale again, the sound heavy and littered with tension. “I’ll tell you. It’s Baekhyun. I’m talking to him, he’s.. interested in me, and he’s giving me a chance to be courted by him.”

There, said it. I let it out of my chest. However, I don’t feel as relieved as I should after letting out what’s been haunting me for the past couple of days. I don’t dare look up to see Sehun’s expression, hearing his footsteps getting closer to me, which means I caught him by surprise. 

“Mr. Byun? For real?” True to myself, Sehun’s voice came out laced with surprise and stupefaction. “The Mr. Byun that’s my partner in the company?” I feel him getting closer, until he’s standing right in front of me. I furrow my eyebrows.

“Partner? I thought he bought more than half of the company?”

Sehun looks surprised at my words, suddenly feeling awkward and uncomfortable in his own skin. He begins to scratch his chin in a totally non-Sehun like gesture, nerves clear and unconcealed in his eyes, like he wants me to see his surprise.

“How did you know that?”

“So it’s true, he is now your boss?” I claim, huffing. I’m not angry that Baekhyun is capable of buying damn large parts of anothers company, but I’m rather thrown off of my boat to know our company is at risk of being taken away completely. I also don’t know what made Sehun decide on such agreement with him. Even if the deal was done with his father, shouldn’t he have a say? At least a bit? 

“I don’t really have any time to discuss this,” Sehun murmurs. “But for now, yes, he’s my boss.”

“Well...” I murmur back, a little bit sourly. Maybe also a little bit shyly, remembering what happened a few days ago at the party with him, and the conversation we’ve gone through. “He and I are sorta.. dating?”

It feels weird to be discussing such intimate things with Sehun, the Sehun that rarely smiles, the Sehun that doesn’t care, the prominent Sehun who’s priorities are unclear to the world. But in a sense, it feels also like he’s the only person I've got, the only person who has gone through something similar, dating someone out of wedlock while still bonded to another. Whether Sehun’s the perfect person for such a thing doesn’t matter. Whether he’s unaware of his scowls, or his discouraging ways through discussing things. Whether we’re intimate creatures or not, it feels delightful to be talking openly about an experience he had once felt.

“You’re not sure?” Sehun catches to the hesitance in my tone, the question through my statement, and easily asks me about it. I blush again, but I manage to roll my eyes from under my glasses.

“Um, well, it’s not that I’m not sure,” I say, a small radius of a stutter in my tone. He doesn’t show any expression that tells me he notices. “He’s clearly interested in me, and he told me that he wants us to be... more,” I blush when I remember what happened between the two of us, and because I’m actually telling this to Sehun. It’s so odd. “But, he’s a vampire, and I don’t know how things work for them, there’s also this issue where I’m married...”

“Where you’re married to me?” He clearly states, caring not about the way I dragged out the words. I huff, but helplessly nod. He takes a deep sigh, looking down at his watch for a second.

“There’s no harm in playing around for a while. We’re also not in love, and I don’t mind what you do as long as everyone around thinks we’re married,” he crosses his arms over his chest. “However, it’d be amazing if you kept that between the two of you. Can he be trusted?”

My jaws spread apart, my lips fall in a gape. Why is he taking the matter so easily? Should I mention that it isn’t merely playing around on my part, and probably from Baekhyun’s part too? I decide not to say anything about that matter, knowing that it can cause a rift in Sehun’s face, a change in which I’m not prepared to fight with right now, not when I’m happily talking with Baekhyun.

Another ding for a new message rings around the place, and Sehun and I both lower our heads to my lap to watch my phone. I reach for the device and I find a new message from Baekhyun.

My heart instantly reacts to that.

‘Are you alone? Can I come over?’

“I’m going to go now,” I hear Sehun say, as if knowing what kind of texts I just received. I try to mask the fluster growing in my cheeks at Baekhyun’s text message, and I succeed in dulling my widened eyes, but I cannot stop the raising speed of my pulse. Sehun, fortunately, can’t hear them; my accelerated heartbeats. “I’m already busy for work as it is and Mr. Byun, in spite of being lenient sometimes, doesn’t tolerate being late.”

I give Sehun a look, and catch him fixing his wrist watch without an evident sentiment on his face, no trace of any emotion, like usual; and I turn back to my phone to text Baekhyun back quickly, my heart once again feeling like it’s lodged in my throat, the size of it disabling me from swallowing it down.

‘Sehun’s leaving. You know the location of my house?’

Baekhyun’s reply comes instantly, like he hasn’t even left my page, and I catch my breath as I wait for the reply.

‘Of course, sweetheart, I know everything about you.’

Well, that’s not creepy at all.

“Just,” I hear Sehun again, and I snap my head back to his direction, eyes wide. He hasn’t left yet? “Don’t get yourself in.. a difficult situation, vampires are, well, they’re not the friendliest of creatures.”

Is he trying to tell me not to get myself hurt? Is he worried about me? His face didn’t show much, and his lips are pursed in displeasure, or distaste, or whatever it’s that makes the man’s mood flip; but I merely smile, not giving him the satisfaction of deterring me away from my decision to pursue after Baekhyun. 

“Okay.”

-

After kissing, over and over again at the party, Baekhyun and I actually sit down to talk about things. He, considering there were no places for us to sit down in the stuffy balcony, drags me to sit on his lap as he wholeheartedly plop down on the ground with his sophisticated glory.

I had squealed at first, wondering why he’d want to ruin his perfect white suit on a dirty ground, but he wrapped his arms around all of me, one arm going to my shoulders, the other around my waist, and he smothered me with his scent, his warmth, his ability to make me the shyest girl in the universe. He cradled me like a baby, placing my head on his collarbone, my forehead tickling the curve of his neck. For a vampire, a cold creature of the night, he was - is - undeniably warm. He glistened with a type of fire mixed with a shriveled tornado of sorts. He radiated heat, but he also stung with iciness, like when he let go of my waist to cup my buttcheek over my dress. A spark of icy sensation had spread, and I squealed like a child, clinging into his neck, unconsciously moving my body closer to his other source of his and away from the coldness of his hand. He dropped his hand quickly away, but I didn’t miss the amusing twinkle in his eyes. 

Aside kissing, we talked a lot without letting go of me, and surely, I began to cling into him too, refusing to let go. He told me of his deep desire to be something more, to make me fall in love with him. He didn’t particularly explain in solid words why we felt so massively desired to be intimate with each other when we just met, and he didn’t tell me vocally why so tuned to each other we were. But he told me to fall for him, naturally, like the wind falling over a sheen of earth. He told me to grow closer as people, as friends, as crush-mates, and as lovers. He wanted to be all to me. He explained in grieve details.

“Let me court you,” he had said, a smile of mischief and yet tangled with softness appeared on his face. “Let me do it the old style. Vampires are quick creatures, beings of speed, and I want so badly to take you now as my everything, but It wouldn’t be fair or justified for you. So I’ll take it slow, date me, let me take you in cute little dates, to bookstores of your choice, to cinema houses, cafes, parks and every place of your desire. We’ll hold hands first, like a first level sort of thing, I’ll kiss you shyly under the moonlight in the next one, and I’ll make sweet love to you on our third.  Allow me to give you the whole experience of what dating a person of your choice, a person which you have an unexplained desire toward. Allow me to be your date; then your boyfriend, and something more if fate allows us.”

His words had been nothing close to sweet, as they were laced with flirtation and deep, deep persuasion. His eyes glinted soft red, and I had fallen into them like a pit of fire. He made me feel more than desired, he made me feel worthy of being desired. I said yes in a heartbeat.

I didn’t go to the party the third day on his request, and Sehun hadn’t questioned me a lot about it, seeing my anxiety he’d say no. He told me yes so easily, and went alone. Baekhyun and I had exchanged phone numbers before, so he was easily able to reach me, telling me to meet him in the park near our area. He lived in my area, I had recalled, and raced down the park with a flimsy T-shirt with jeans. 

I had seen him first, I’ve met with him while he was there already. I had thought I’d have to wait for him, but he seemed into punctuality. He was there before me. I caught his brown hoodie first, a brown hoodie swallowing the gorgeous body beneath, with blue, washed jeans and sneakers. His eyes flickered red when he met me, a smile growing over his blank, cold face. I had thought he’d kiss me the same way I had been kissed in the party, but he merely gave me his hand, a hand I didn’t hesitate to take.

I knew what kind of a person more clearly that night. He told jokes way past his early age of twenty six, and he made me laugh like it was the first time I’ve laughed. I thought his hands were cold the same way they were yesterday, but they were not. They evolved mine in an infinite warmth, and when he suddenly pulled me in his arms, twirling me around in a slow dance without music, only his blinding smile and his red, red eyes, I knew I was a goner. I knew he was the one, instantly. None stood a chance against him. 

I went back home without a kiss that night, something that had grown a big deal of disappointment throughout my heart, but I realized, while I lied on my bed, eyeing my ceiling and fighting off a smile, that that disappointment stood with nothing against the happiness he went ahead and planted in my heart.

He didn’t take me anywhere after that for proximately three days, him being busy with work. But disappointment hadn’t visit