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Yixing stood with his arms crossed against a metal table, looking down at the fresh corpse in front of him. He sighed deeply. Another dead person without family and no one to take care of of the burial, even less being able to accompany the dead on their last journey.

 

But before he would finish this one up, he had another preparation to take care of, an open casket burial, so he still had a lot to do.

He pushed the body back into the fridge before getting back to his current objective.

 

He also found the word undertaker somewhat bizarre and preferred to stick to mortician, so he listed it both on his business cards and on the sign in front of his funeral home. The sign was still very much new looking, having only settled in the city some ten years prior. He liked changing locations every few years despite losing the customers that trusted him. But usually, they only came once, or their families rather and he never saw them again. Not that he wanted to see them again, but he also preferred to not live in the cities he worked at, but rather close by and always on call in case of emergencies.

 

His current case got the most expensive casket he had on offer and the family feared no expenses for the head of the company their dead grandfather had been. But Yixing was aware that behind closed doors, the family were arguing about the will that haven’t been even read yet. It was just so disrespectable to do that at all, even more so in front of the dead body. Yixing had heard them but turned a dead ear. It wasn’t his business; he was only here for the money and to give the person a burial they deserved.

 

He pulled the chair closer to the metal table the old man lay upon after turning on the daylight setting of his otherwise cold-warm light setting and began to unroll his makeup tools, slowly matching the foundation and colours to make him look a bit more alive than he actually was. He had already embalmed, dressed and finished him up so far. They would pick him up the day after, or rather he would’ve had to drive the casket over. Everything else was not his job this time around.

 

His phone rang and he accepted the call, the speaker crackling violently in the sterile interior.

“Funeral Home Zhang, Zhang Yixing speaking.” He meticulously corrected the man’s face while listening to the call.

The people that called him were neighbours of a family of another deceased. A young man had tragically died during a car accident and Yixing assumed he might have a cremation at his hands, not a lot of work for him actually.

They had asked for an urn, so his hunch was right.

What a busy day it was… He also had an appointment later on with a widow that wanted to choose a casket for herself, setting up her will and taking precautions. She was terminally ill according to her own words and had no immediate family and the ones that were left…She wasn’t too happy with them. Similar to the case of the man in front of him currently.

 

Another call.

After his introduction and listening to the person on the other side of the phone, he took notes in his notebook while leaning on his elbow on the embalming table, “We’re sorry to ask this…”

“Please, don’t be. How can I help you further?”

“Are you also picking up our deceased father? Or is someone else doing it?”

“No, no worries, that’s also my jurisdiction. I might be alone, but I can handle the workload just well. What address is it? I’ll be on my way right away. I also bring the coffin to the funeral location and oversee the proper burial after the official part.”

 

He washed his arms and face thoroughly, running his wet hands through his hair before rubbing it dry with a hand towel. He changed into his black suit to pick up the deceased and after that, he would call it a day. It was already late enough.

 

The next day, he started early, being extremely lazy and turning up in sweatpants, a coffee to go, a sandwich and a slice of cake in a lunch bag, placing them onto the small secretary right at the door before switching the light switch on. The static humming of the light filled the room, and he swiped his eyes across the room. He sighed and shook his head in defeat. “Oh, man…”

The old man was done, Yixing just needed to dress him in yet another suit the family wanted and set him up into his casket and drop him off at the cemetery chapel; as long as he got his money, he didn’t care about the quarrels within the family.

He opened to doors to two of the body chambers, but he only pulled one body out to lift it onto his working table. He his radio before getting to work, mainly to remove the blood and bodily fluids, one eye on the open chamber.

“That’s the least I can do, give you some form of company and talk to you. Do you know how they found you?” He spoke to the male body he accepted the day before for the anonymous cremation while working on the young man that got into the car accident. “They want me to do an autopsy on you because you just dropped dead in a dark alleyway, you’ve even been stabbed.” He furrowed his brows, the accident victim in front of him barely let blood. He shrugged his shoulders; might’ve been from the accident when he was declared dead on site.

Having grown up under his grandfather who was an undertaker himself back in China had dulled Yixing from an early onwards regarding things like the finitude of life, especially those of humans. His grandfather never spoke to the deceased and talking was strictly prohibited in his workshop, but Yixing just sat by and watched. His parents even offered him money as not to follow his grandfather’s footsteps but soon after he moved countries to be free from the shackles of his parents and his surprisingly oppressive grandfather. He studied in England the art of undertaking as he calls it lovingly, but also studied in Egypt or Japan to broaden his horizon about traditional burial traditions. His favourite pastime might be walking through forest cemeteries or just through funeral parks in general; they had such a calm and relaxed aura and were so different from communal cemeteries. The older the better actually.

His grandfather would turn around his own axis in his grave if he knew Yixing was having chit-chats with the dead. A disgrace, that’s what he would call him. God, Yixing was so dead inside, he rather spilt the beans in front of people not being able to answer than speak to the living. Except for that one grandma though, he called her lovingly aunt in his mother tongue, yima. She’s cool and helped him sometimes by cleaning around his business and usually, she brought her cat with her. While Yixing usually would never allow animals in his office or workshop, the cat was an exception. It never jumped onto the tables and just swivel around his legs when he’s working, that’s why she’s allowed to be in the workshop at all. Or he. Yixing never bothered to either remember the name or the gender of it.

 

He sent the prepared body of the accident victim over for cremation that would take place the day after together with the urn. The next case was the family father that died the day before. But first, he decided to have lunch.

But first… he went up to the open door that contained the unknown male. Yixing crossed his arms against the upper opening, leaning closer and leaning his head against his arms, “behave and I leave the door open for you. I’ll be back in a bit, gotta catch some lunch at yima’s.” He knocked against the metal as some form of greeting, after closing it slightly, leaving it still open, and left his workshop.

 

After two hours he was back and when he peeled himself out of his coat, rolling the sleeves of his button-down up, he bellowed an “I’m back” to greet his temporary companions. He pushed the door to his workshop open with his hip, swiping his eyes across the room. He tsked, “Ungrateful brat.”

He put the cooling box away and marched over to the freezers, pulling the sliding table the unknown male laid upon out with more force than necessary, slamming his hands on both sides of the head and he saw what he was looking for. “If you want to be disrespectful and drink from my cases like that, I’m going to put you through autopsy for real, but after that, you don’t need to be that kind of brat anymore! Just because I’m nice enough to use the boy’s organs as a substitute for you, you thank me like that.”

He was fuming and his reflexes were quicker than the hands shooting him up to choke him. He pulled the body from the mortuary stretcher and slammed him into the ground, just to have the trashing body in a chokehold the next second and the trocar he conveniently grabbed off his embalming table in his other hand.

 

“The ?” The trashing boy stopped when he felt the trocar point piercing his chest over his heart, digging hard and fast, drawing blood.

“I’m the only one being allowed to ask questions. I let you stay in my mortuary, knowing you possibly feast on the blood of the dead. But because you’re dumb as , you don’t sniff out the blood bags that are two drawers over. Instead, you misdeal the deceased.” Yixing strengthened his chokehold around the neck of the vampire in his arms.

The vampire clawed into his arms, coughing violently, but he turned calmer. “What?”

Yixing let go of him and stood back up before kicking into the vampire’s side. “Pointless. Get up and dressed. I brought clothes for you this morning. You should’ve taken off when you had the chance.”

The vampire still sat on the ground, as the day he was born, heaving heavy breaths, black liquid trickling from his chest cavity where Yixing had pierced him anew over the scarring of the stab wound that was already situated there and that had led to his supposed death. Unknown to the humans.

“Can you say anything else despite asking monotonous questions and staring?” Yixing got annoyed fast and it showed. That’s why he hated dealing with the living. The vampire’s lips curled into an annoying smirk that was rather feline and reminded Yixing of the cat. The cat would hate that boy to the utmost. “Name, age and reason why you got stabbed by a human. Or was it a lover’s quarrel gone wrong? Another vampire maybe?” Yixing pulled back his upper lip in unconcealed disgust.

 

“You’re rather bold for a human. Be glad I’m so weak that you could handle me,” the vampire gave arrogantly back.

Yixing suddenly lost all will to fight and his expression fell. “ off. Just… just off.” If the boy wasn’t willed to be honest and explain how he, a vampire, ended up in the morgue, he had no reason to stay at all.

The vampire surprisingly left but Yixing knew it wasn’t the last he would see of him.

 

Half a year, six months and Yixing was already about to pack his bags again. Putting the elderly lady, her cat and his few belongings into a few suitcases and move somewhere else. Forged papers weren’t a problem, he had enough of those. But how did they get on his case? He had no idea. He didn’t even do anything illegal.

“Yima, you are sure you want to hightail out of here with me?” Yixing filed through his documents, thumb smudged with ink, the cat sitting in his lap where he was sitting outside in her small garden, a cup of something in front of him.

“Sure, I can sell the house without a problem, that ain’t a thing. Just get me the papers and I’m ready to go.”

“I think it’s either a stray or that stray causing all the troubles,” Yixing mused.

“Personal vendetta for throwing him out?” She asked, scratching her chin while squinting at some documents she brought closer to her eyes.

“I don’t think so. He’s dropping by when he thinks I’m not there, so I conveniently leave a window or door unlocked, or trash lying around for easy access, and the blood bags of course.” The old woman hummed in response before squinting into several contracts again.

“Can you read that for me?” She asked him, changing the subject.

“Sure, what is it you can’t read?” He leaned over to get the documents from her and the cat protested in his lap from being jostled awake.

 

When Yixing was ready to leave her place, his schedule mostly cleared for the next couple of days, her cat was very adamant that she (he had paid attention this time around, but the name already slipped his mind again) accompanied him. So, he was walking down the street, the cat a few strides ahead and waiting for him whenever he was too slow. At the traffic light, she sat down, swishing her tail while staring seemingly at the lights, waiting for them to change until Yixing came to a halt next to her at the busy intersection and she got up, twirling herself like liquid around his legs. Some girls next to him were cooing at the cat and most probably him and one dog got nervous. When the people moved, she did as well and Yixing followed until they reached his morgue and a figure waiting for them.

 

“Why didn’t you tell me you’re also a vampire?” The boy looked honestly offended by that. “And it was a lover’s spat back then, as you call it, but I hadn’t had blood in weeks and that’s why the human was able to overtake me at all. Didn’t know I’m a vampire though.”

“You behaved like a pig in my morgue, and you didn’t even introduce yourself.” The cat hissed at the newcomer. As expected, Yixing grinned smugly. Of course, she wouldn’t like him, he and yima were the only exception. Clever animal.

“Kim Jongdae,” the young vampire held his hand out. He eyed the cat with obvious disdain. “Thirty-three years old.”

“Zhang Yixing, according to yima I’m around 138, maybe more. I’m looking for someone to teach about embalming. Interested? We can also start right away. The apprenticeship would start the moment we move out of the country otherwise. She, the cat, myself and you. Also, you’d be staying with me and no roaming around. A mortician never rests, there are always poor souls and deceased to take care of and be respectful of them. That also means only drinking blood after they’ve been drained, and the blood is clear of any substances.”

The vampire, Jongdae, stared with wide eyes at him, a mischievous twinkle and a feline smile accepting Yixing’s offer.

 

He was a mortician long before he was turned into a vampire.

 

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