HEY GUYS!

I'm sorry I was gone for a long while. I disliked the last chaoter with a passion yet didn't know how to fix it, so I sat staring at it for a while before distracting myself with something else. Like watching stupid social media for days! I haven't cracked a good book in months, too! I don't know what the heck I was doing with my life!

I finally got the courage to disregard the previous chapter and to write this one, hoping that I wouldn't have to look at it again. Don't worry, I did not abonden this story, even though it took me a while to get back to its groove. I knew my daily updates would cease up. I did not have a single frame of mind AT ALL.

ANYWAY. ENJOY THIS CHAPTER!!

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The next day, you wake up fairingly early despite having slept really late in the morning. It's six AM and you remember falling asleep at least two in the morning, having dropped dead exactly where you have been conversing with Junmyeon. You try to sit still and your neck gives a squeeze of pain. You feel uncomfortable with the position you fell asleep in and a blanket falls down from your back. You realize there's a warm, weighted blanket wrapped around you, courtesy of no one but Junmyeon, and you look down at the grey quilt with a warm smile.

He's not as cold as he likes everyone to believe.

You decide to continue sleeping in a better equipped bed and you walk down the stairs; but your stomach relases a sound of hunger from the deep end. Thankfully, no one's around to hear and you take a detour to the kitchen to have a snack.

Before you can reach the interval between the living room and the kitchen, you pass by a waiting room small enough to resemble a closet, and you come to a dramatic halt when you notice a stranger sitting in one of the couches, staring at you.

You blink, slowly.

His face is sharp edged and profound; lips so thin he looks perpetually angry, but the small smirk makes his dissatisfaction look frail, like a mask he's putting on. His eyes are as gold as Junmyeon's eye, and the resemblance makes you uneasy. His mop of dark black hair gives him a touch of youth that none of the others around you have, but you believe one hundred percent in your guts that he's older than all of you. The way his eyes are locked on your body as you stay frozen fills you with distaste, and a strong feeling of escape overwhelms you.

"Um," you begin. "Hello?"

His smirk widens into a smile, but it's deceiving and unfriendly. "Hello, dear."

Your face shifts into the usual blank face you mastered throughout the years; the one Junmyeon managed to shatter in half a second. "Don't decieve me with nicknames. I'm not gullible."

He opens his palms innocently, his face the picture of childlike naivete. "Never said you are, dear."

You raise a brow. You know he's a vampire; a dangerous one at that, but you're the most reckless woman you know, so you don't let him intimidate you. "Who are you?"

He stands up from where he's sitting, shoving his hands inside the pockets of his dress pants, and smiles at you. His canines are wide and elongated, which you realize he's having on display to frighten you, but you're only annoyed and irritated. "It's rather the other way around, dear. Who are you?"

"Are you a friend of Junmyeon and the rest?"

He folds his eyes at you. "Are you a friend of Junmyeon and the rest?"

"Do you want me to appear childish and raise the fact I asked first?"

He shrugs. You notice that his shoulders are broad and the gesture strikes similarities to you, but you don't know to whom. "I can't control how you wish to appear to people."

You roll your eyes and turn around swiftly to continue your way to the kitchen. If he's not going to answer questions like an adult and drop his haughty belief he's better than you, then you don't have anything else to say to him. You open the fridge and grab a bottle of milk to pour on your cereal, but a swift breeze passes by you and suddenly, you find yourself back against the fridge with the man hovering over you.

His presence and the slam he shoves you against the fridge is so hard and so sudden that your lungs collapse in their capacity to provide oxygen, and you gasp against his chest, spots so dark blanketing your vision. He presses an arm against your throat and pins your thighs to the wall with his knee, making you unable to move at all.

He brings his face closer to yours and you take a breath of his minty exhale. You want to throw up. "I don't play nice with little girls, dear, especially ones who are rude and offer me their backs so easily."

You look him straight in the eye; your gaze hard and burning. He squeezes the arm against your neck harder, wishing to intimidate the face you put on by pain, but you only glare at him, showing no weakness. You bring an arm he let looss around his elbow, slamming your own against his and making him drop the arm as pain flared. You seperate your legs apart so his knee would fall in between, and raise your heel against his thigh, hard, making him bend forward, which you quickly punch his stomach in, making him growl.

In his moment of weakness, you attempt to push him away by your body weight, and he flies away so far from you his body connects to the wall ahead. You stare wide-eyedly. You don't have that kind of power, at least not against vampires.

You're right, and Junmyeon is standing next to the man, his fingers wrapped around the back of his shirt, having pulled him off of you in a single yank.

Junmyeon brings the man back to his feet while still holding him by the scruff like a naughty child, bringing their faces together and completely ignoring the scowl the man is directing to him.

"What are you doing here?" Junmyeon's voice is calm and laden with annoyance, like he's dealing with a buzzing fly he can't extinguish. Your heart races to your throat, and he spares you a single glance with his eyes before looking back at the man. They're of similar height, and you realize that standing next to each other, they kinda... look alike.

The man flings his hand against Junmyeon, and Junmyeon lets him go and allows him to stand up with dignity. You both watch as he brushes himself up and dusts imaginary dirt from his pristine, black suit blazer, giving the both of you a cold, disinterested stare. He doesn’t fool either of you; you can both guess the desire in his eyes.

"You think I wouldn't be able to tell you have a human in your tower, Junmyeon?" The man hisses, eyes aflame. "Your stupid underlings flaunted her around the shopping mall and wandered around with her on a leash. I could tell right away that she belongs to you."

You want to say you are no one's, but you sense Junmyeon's infallible mood and stay silent. Junmyeon glares daggers to the man.

"And? So what if a human is in the vampire faction of the world?" Junmyeon murmurs. "As long as she has papers and her entery has been approved, what else matters?"

You don't think your papers have been approved, or at least you don't know of it. You have been sent here by thieves you don't know anything about, so whether they entered the vampire faction legally or not is a mystery to you. You know for sure that Junmyeon knows this, but you also know that this stranger doesn't, so a little lie wouldn't hurt anyone. You remain silent.

The man doesn't care about legalities. "You think I'd allow you a human pet so easily given your status and your bizzare stance against the royality?"

"It doesn't matter what I believe in," Junmyeon mutters, raising a brow. "It doesn't m