Nobody understood vampires. 

That fact was certain whenever Joohyun found herself sitting with her group of friends. Being that one friend who worked in some kind of mythical creature field somehow slapped an invisible arrow right above her head, pointing to her that stated in big, bold, capitalised letters: PLEASE, ASK ME ANYTHING. 

They always went through the checklist of how are you, oh i love what you've done with your hair, and my have you lost weight? And by the time they got down the list and had a few glasses of wine in them, they always settled on their most favourite topic, and to be honest, the only real topic: mythical creatures 101. Joohyun blamed shows such as Twilight, Vampire Diaries and Teen Wolf for chalking up such cliches and romanticised everyone involved. They were exotic and anything different always became the hot topic and talk of the town. 

Well, if anything, it became the topic between her group of friends. 

She's not one to complain, though. She loves her job, what she does, and why she does it. And having a good group of friends who find an interest in her interest, albeit it for different reasons, Joohyun is glad and clings onto whatever bottom of the barrel reasons they may be. 

Some call her an activist, fighting for equality and rights. Others call her a weirdo who protects creatures close to abominations. Joohyun likes to think of herself as a pencil pusher who writes up policies and fights for them to be made into law. But at the end of the day, she guesses she is all three bottled up into one entity. 

Nonetheless, she has met her fair share of mythical creatures, and her friends gobble up any stories she tells them. However mundane they are, like the mermaid who resides at their local lake who wasn't having any of it with teens these days that enjoyed hooking up in her "backyard" as she liked to say. 

Right now, however, they've all seen the bottom of their glasses enough to be cozied in their seats, and stare bug eyed at her as they await her answer. And what is she to say? It isn't really in her field of expertise to know this answer. How she despises those shows for rotting her friends' minds up. 

I heard a vampire's bite is euphoric.  

Now how in the world did they expect her to know this. Yes, she has met her fair share of vampires, but has she ever found the need to bring this rumour up to any of them? No. 

"Ah, yes, sir. We will make sure these UV light protection tinted windows are made mandatory for offices. Oh, and, by the way, when your partner bites you, does it get you going? No? Maybe? Yes?" 

Just what do her friends think she does for a living? 

"I haven't come across any studies so far that says they do." Not that she even tried to find them. Hell, no studies have probably ever been conducted anyways. 

"That's boring. Come on, I know you've gotta have some coworkers that are vampires. Got any good goss'?" 

"I heard that they like to bite on pleasure points. Gives you a good hit as an added bonus." 

"You know, I read somewhere that-" 

Joohyun's phone vibrates in her lap, and she takes this chance to disassociate herself from this entire conversation. Not that she'll be missing much anyways. The ualisation of mythical creatures. That was what she had to grasp onto from her group of friends. 

Yes please! The usual, no garlic! 

Joohyun smiles at the message notification. Locking her screen before facing it down onto her lap once more, she stealthily grabs the attention of a waiter to place the takeaway order. Easily assimilating herself back into the table's conversation, her fingers continue to drum against the back of her phone's case, waiting for the order to come so she can excuse herself and call it a night. 

🦇🦇

Joohyun mumbles lowly under her breath when a loud pop echoes through her quiet apartment. These air vacuum containers are fine and all until it needs to be opened. Kind of a nuisance, she reckons, but it's better than having her fridge smell like a meat market. 

She waits for a second, her ears trying their hardest to pick up any sound of someone waking up. When no noise comes from the bedroom found down the hall, she continues her task of pouring the crimson liquid over a reheated, piping hot plate of spaghetti bolognese. 

In the midst of stirring everything in, and to make sure the heat of the pasta mixes with the coldness of the added liquid to warm it up, cold arms encircle her waist as a forehead thumps heavily into her shoulder blade. 

"Sorry, did I wake you?" 

She doesn't know why she whispers it. The peacefulness of the dark apartment, minus the warm yellow light coming from above the stove, begged to be kept. Somewhere in between too late to be night time but still too early to be the morning, there was this unspoken silence that was comfortable, hidden away in the shadows of her apartment. 

She gets a drawled out whine as a response. The forehead resting upon her rubs against her a bit, a habit she's come to adore, an act of trying to physically wash the sleep away. "Was already awake,” is huffed out, voice still clearly thick of sleep. 

She calls bull, but the lie was cute, so she'll let it slide. Like she has a million times before. 

"Morning," Joohyun sighs, letting the fatigue of the entire day calm through her.

She leans back into the sturdy body behind her, rubbing the cool arms tightly wound around her like a python, feeling the warmth of her body heat settle into the skin underneath her palms before it dissipates away back to coldness. It's a redundant show of affection that she has done countless times before, and she'll continue to do because she's heard no complaints so far, if anything, only reciprocation. 

The arms around her pull her in tighter, a patch of chilly air tingles through her shoulder as the person behind her takes a deep breath in before relaxing once more. "You mean night, babe." 

It's a back and forth they've had multiple times, but never been settled and never has it not made her chuckle. "It's morning for you so it's morning for me too." 

"Smartass." 

Joohyun feels a nip on her shoulder before the arms around her finally lets her go. The tiny bite leaves a scrape on her smooth skin, she knows that much without having to look at it. Because, well, experience gives her that knowledge. 

"Breakfast is served. Hurry up before it gets cold." 

She leaves the kitchen to go get ready for bed, not expecting a reply from the half asleep person she's left behind. 

🦇🦇 

Her friends were always keen to pry every last detail from her when it came to her job and the creatures she's come across. 

The 101 of Mythical Creatures she liked to dub it. 

Too bad everything was confidential when it came to the juicy parts. 

Too bad too, that it never crossed their minds to ask her if she ever had any personal experience when it came to all their topics. Professional experience? No. Personal experience? Yes, yes, and yes. 

The 101 of Kang Seulgi, her vampire girlfriend. 

She could give them answers to an abundant amount of their questions. From the boring, the Hollywood rumours of garlic to, well, yesterday's topic of biting. 

Garlic was to vampires what lactose was to some humans. An intolerance. It varied in everyone, and tolerance can be slowly built, or if anything, it's the modern world, there's pills to dodge that bullet now. 

Seulgi was on the pathetic spectrum of intolerance. She had one bad experience with garlic, her one and only experience with it to be exact, at the tender age of five. Her words specifically: I thought I was going to die on the toilet that night. She cried that entire night apparently, and that experience scarred her forever. 

What's next? Bats. The bane of her existence. Vampires can definitely turn into bats. When Seulgi had first done it, Joohyun nearly sent her flying to her death with a frying pan, she was screaming and swinging blind in fright. But with time, a long long time, she finally got used to it. If anything, she found it adorable because what didn't stick to the rumour that was created for people to fear them, was that with their tiny form also came the shrinking of their voices. Seulgi's was the tiniest squeak and Joohyun squeals every time she talks in her bat form. 

What Joohyun hates about Seulgi's bat form is that her girlfriend tends to shift into it as a childish defensive mechanism when they get into heated arguments. It looks almost comical, really. Seulgi in her bat form, squeaking at the top of her tiny lungs, hanging from the corner of the ceiling, with Joohyun yelling at the top of hers staring at this tiny creature splat on her ceiling like a bug. 

When they tried discussing this unconscious mechanism of hers, Seulgi admitted that it was a habit of hers since she was a wee baby. Something about removing herself from stressors, and as she got older, just trying to fly away from her problems physically. Apparently, her parents indulged her behaviour, and hence, she never grew out of it. 

It's okay, though, because Joohyun loves her bat form more than she'd ever admit, especially when Seulgi sneezes so hard that she accidentally shifts, and all Joohyun is left with is the sight of tiny, bat Seulgi being blown backwards like a deflating balloon. 

A topic that hits close to home, especially with Seulgi being a part of her life, that her friends never seem to fathom, it's honestly probably not even on their radar, is the effort for normalcy. They, mythical creatures, still live in a human society. And with it came prejudice and the need to fit in. 

What her friends didn't know was that Joohyun spends an hour every late night, huddled on Seulgi's lap, filing down her fangs. Morning teeth, they dubbed it. Fangs aren't retractable, as shows would have people to believe. They do, however, grow back. Regenerate, if you will. And to live in a human society, one needs to have a human looking set of teeth. And as vampires do not have reflections, Seulgi can't do it herself. So, sitting in Seulgi's lap, with her girlfriend's arms wrapped around her to keep her balance, Joohyun files away at her fangs, leveling them with the rest of her teeth. 

It's a long process, one she had to get Seulgi used to because it was painful for her at first, eventually down to uncomfortable, and now she's used to the routine enough that when she gets bored she Joohyun's fingers since she knows it ticks her off when she's 'in the zone'.  

Joohyun could write a book about vampires if she knew everything there was to be known about vampires. 

But for now, she could write novels about the only vampire in her life, and the only one she needed to understand: Kang Seulgi, her needy vampire girlfriend. 

Also, back to the main topic at hand. Yes, their bites are euphoric. And yes, it's a hit of an added bonus, alright. Where her one is, is a secret. It's hidden and that's all that matters. 

And ironically, Seulgi isn't the biter in their relationship. 

🐾🐾

On the other side of town 

"I heard they throw you in cages!" 

"My cousin rolled into bed with one by accident once, she's been itchy ever since." 

Seulgi was on the verge of falling asleep in her seat. This topic was a dime a dozen with her useless group. The horrors of the human species. Hearsay of a brother, of a friend, of a cousin twice removed from across the world. Seulgi was tired from her long day at work, and her fangs were tingling to settle in again, and all she wanted was a quick drink up with her friends, but here they were not shutting up about the same old story, and somewhere in the back of her chest fluttered something small, and she knew well enough that it was her bat wanting to fly far away from this table, but all she does is take in a big swig of her can, drop it back on the table, only to exclaim, 

"Your cousin has fleas. Tell her stanky werewolf to take a bath once in a while." 

A waiter saddles up beside her with a to-go bag, and Seulgi takes that as her cue to head home to prepare Joohyun her breakfast. 

a/n: as should be expected, there were zero attempts at editing this fine piece of work 

only the best for my readers, enjoy :))