Small note: So sorry for the lack of updates on this fic!! I have been crazy busy. I'd list them all to help you understand, but there's no point in taking back lost time. So, forgive me, lovely subscribers, and please enjoy this new chap for this fic, which I intend to udpate more often in the future,

Chaeri snags a bite of her meal to prove her point, reminding Himchan that approving hypocrisy is an outlier. In their faults and lies, they are a united pair. He tries to eat his meal again, but the rich color of the sauce reminds him of the life that bled out of that woman's neck, so he leans back, adapting a posture of apathy to mask a congregation of squirming indecisions above his throat.

"Do you like it?" He asks, maneuvering the conversation to focus on her. "Is being a Niver something you like?"

"You're asking me if limbo is pleasant?"

"Well, describe it to me. You said you've been like that for a long time. I'm willing to hear your stories."

"How encouraging," she scoffs.

"I'm serious." It doesn't matter whose story he hears, actually. He just doesn’t want it to be his.

"I don't like talking about myself."

"Why?" Himchan persists, realizing only after the word has been said that his tone was too blunt, too insensitive, and too assuming.

"Does severe intrusiveness also cause you to be dense?"

"It's one of my more charming weaknesses."

She actually laughs. Even she looks surprised.

"Fine," she grudgingly decides and clears with a gulp of wine, "let's talk about my ex."

A sour topic, but Himchan knows she's trying to disperse his interest, so he encourages her to continue. "What about him?"

"I used him." Another sip of wine.

"Not one person has lived without using someone."

"He was the first person I used after I turned. Partly because he was cute and naïve. The other part was because his blood smelled so good."

Himchan looks down at his meal and pushes the plate away.

"It could've worked out, had I met him before I turned. He cared for me more than anyone I’ve ever known. He taught me that it was possible for a human to have such a selfless heart.” Chaeri pours more wine into her glass. Her knuckles tap the table, twice. "But I didn't like him enough to keep him safe. You should've seen me a few years ago. Every night, I went to parties with Nivers. Sometimes, he barged into a club filled with pure bloods without knowing what could happen to him and pulled me out of there, as if he was doing me a favor for saving me. But he never did that because he was over protective. He did it because he knew I was self-destructive."

Himchan feels like he's listening to a confession of a lead character in a soap opera, but he keeps his ears open. She sounds more like a remorseful elder than an angry adolescent, and he admires the truth.

“Did you like to drink?”

She smiles wryly. “Very much. That was one of the ways he accommodated for me. At times, instead of taking me away, he stayed for a drink. We made a game out of it. And then I brought him down with me.” Her glass is empty again. Himchan doesn’t understand how a person can drink so fast, and so much. “I was miserable, and I was jealous of those who weren’t, so I believed that the only cure was to make people as miserable as I was. It helped for a bit. But then I started tasting regret in every blood I sampled after I turned him.”

Himchan watches the waiter refill her glass. She doesn’t tap her knuckles this time. “Where is he now?”

Her head lazily rolls to the side as her fingers habitually carry the wine to her overtly red lips. Her voice sounds strained when she answers, “A different world.”

So he’s dead, then. That must be the reason why she was willing to discuss this. It must have happened years ago.

“I’m sorry.”

“You know, I’ve never understood that,” she slightly slurs. Himchan isn’t sure if she’s drunk, or if she is pretending to be. After all, she’s a Niver. Surely alcohol wouldn’t have an effect on an expired body. Still, with that same idle tone, she continues, “What does that even mean? Why do people apologize for things they didn’t do? Did you ruin my ex-boyfriend, Himchan?”

Himchan isn’t sure how to answer when faced with such a sardonic question. Yes? No? Nothing?

“Well? Did you?”

“No,” he answers poorly.

“Then why the heck did you apologize to me?” She asks him with more fury and helplessness than he expected. He hopes to calm her, but judging by the expression in her eyes, she’s gone too far.

But maybe he isn’t meant to save her. Maybe he’s meant to be with her as she jumps off a cliff.

The sound of mental suicide galvanizes him enough to respond, “Because I’m just as pathetic as you are.”

She stares at him. “I don’t find passive-aggressive people very funny.”

“I’m not trying to be funny.” Himchan knocks the table with his knuckles twice. His inexperience brings him an awkward sensation, so he does it again, more surely this time. “Let’s play a game.”

A shrill, ungraceful laugh stumbles from . “Are you trying to be stupid?”

“Show me the game you played with your ex.”

“Excuse me?”

“The game. Teach me. I’ll play with you.” He does the knuckle progression again. “This one. With wine, was it, or any kind of alcoholic beverage? It’s a drinking game, right? You finish a glass, you hit the table a couple times, and you drink again until you’re so drunk, you can’t remember which hand to tap with.”

“What are you saying?”

“I was watching. You only tapped with your right hand.”

She regards him cautiously. “I guess you’re not trying to be stupid. But that’s not the whole game, and I don’t want to teach the rest to you.”

“That’s fine. We’ll play until we’re drunk. Do Nivers even get drunk, seeing as they’re purebloods?”

She grins. “You’re getting comfortable with our lingo.”

Himchan shrugs and requests his glass of water to be replaced with wine. “It’s part of the game.” Once the waiter brings him wine, he tilts the glass, swallows the beverage, and pounds the table – twice.

The last time Sehun went on a date, he dragged himself to his old house’s porch in the middle of the night with blood encroaching his vision and pebbles digging into his stomach. He can still remember how the dirt tasted that day (it made his mouth dry, and his lips felt numb), and the imprints made by her hands around his neck stayed until the morning. It was a savage night that made his head twist so much, he felt as if he were being transported to a different universe. It was unpleasant; and yet, it was savory, in a way that bad things masked as good things are.

Therefore, Sehun feels the need to redeem that night with this one. He doesn’t aim to pretend to be more knowledgeable about the situation (although since his perspective was turned as well as his anatomy, then perhaps yes), but to handle the situation while being fully aware that he is in control. After all, the one who loves most is the one who loses all.

Dressed in a white button down and jacket, Sehun leaves his apartment the moment the sun dives below the horizon. The evening is warm, but it doesn’t bother him as he strolls toward the restaurant. When he arrives, he informs the hostess that he is expecting someone. That someone appears the moment he turns toward the door to see if Nana is here.

And she’s beautiful, and Sehun has to remind himself that all fleeting things are.

“Hi,” she greets. Without answering, Sehun follows the hostess, expecting Nana to follow him as they are lead toward their table. Once seated, he opens the menu and looks at her from time to time behind the protection of his tinted lenses.

“Have you, um, eaten Greek food before?” She asks as she flips through the menu.

“Yes.”

She waits for him to say something else, but when he doesn’t, she continues, “This is my first time.”

Sehun sets his menu aside and reaches over to help her. “I suggest this,” he points to a colorful photograph, “and this. And for dessert, baklava is a foolproof choice.”

“I’ve always heard about that, but never gotten to try it.”

“You can try it today.” Sehun returns to his menu, determined to remain detached until his apology is due. Observers might wonder: why invite someone on a date with the intent to keep her distant? It’s practice, Sehun responds to his imaginary audience. Self-control must be exercised in every setting, for any situation.

“Thank you for inviting me to this restaurant,” Nana says. “Actually, I wanted to ask you about some things. Of course, if you’re uncomfortable with it, I won’t ask,” she laughs nervously. “But, on a slightly unrelated note, you can take off your sunglasses. It won’t bother me.”

“What makes you think I’m doing this because I’m afraid to bother you?”

 She visibly hardens at this statement. “Since we’re inside … I mean, everyone would think you have beautiful eyes, but if you don’t want them to see, then I understand. But I already know what they look like. What I mean is, it won’t bother me; right, I know you’re not doing it because you don’t want to bother me, but I just thought I’d tell you that, in case it helped.”

Sehun watches the way she reacts to his blunt question, and decides that he will keep sunglasses on. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

Whether she means to pull it out of him or she truly doesn’t know, Sehun plans to be in control of this conversation. He cannot risk vulnerability again. The more it occurs, the more it will become a habit.

“I have my reasons for being harsh.”

“I know.” That’s why she’s given up asking him questions. Is it even worth it to rally her courage just enough for inquiry, only for it to be met with indifference? Her aplomb can only take so much bruising.

“I’m apologizing for not telling you those reasons. I assume you understand because you know, when you don’t. That’s ignorance on my part, and I’m not a child; I’m aware of how my words affect you.” Sehun sees a waiter preparing to take their order. With a subtle shake of his head, he keeps him away and continues, “I’m not promising to be kind, nor to be your friend. But I’m promising to be reasonable.”

“That’s … thank you, Sehun.” It’s the strangest apology she has ever heard, but she accepts it. Despite his churlish behavior, he can be rather perceptive. “Does that mean I can ask you something?”

“There’s a chance I won’t answer, but yes. What do you want to know?”

Seeing that his desire is to be unresponsive, Nana decides it would be best to ask him the more serious questions at another time. “What do you like to do in your spare time?”

Sehun wasn’t expecting that question. He was waiting for something such as “What are you?” or “Why are you like this?” He can’t manufacture an accurate response. “What do you mean?”

“What are your hobbies? What do you do on a regular day, or what do you enjoy doing?”

He’s never been asked that before, not even by his ex-girlfriend. Since he was turned, he doesn’t think of himself as a doer. Things simply are. As a pureblood, there’s nothing to be done; there’s only things to be.

The more he contemplates the question, the more he realizes how mundane his daily practice must look to an outsider. Before all this commotion happened with Nana and with that half-blood across the hall, he lived the same way – at night, he took a jog downtown, and in the morning, he watched TV. Sometimes he’d shake things up a bit by going to the bar, sleeping, getting coffee, writing, or talking to people, but not without much consideration. It was a repeated cycle of comfort, where he could manage what came his way because he never did anything.

Until he punched that scumbag in the alley.

“There isn’t anything I enjoy doing.”

“But surely you have – “ Nana stops, recontextualizes, then slowly replies, “Well, okay. For me, photography is an occupation, but I also enjoy writing. It’s a hobby, sort of how it might be with you … your poems are amazing. That’s, well … sorry. I sound better on paper.”

Sehun is thankful for his sunglasses, because otherwise, she’d see that his eyes are smiling.

“Do you like being alive, Nana?”

Startled, her immediate response is, “Yeah, I do.”

“Would you consider enjoying life, a hobby?”

Nana usually watches people’s eyes to further understand a question, but since such dark clouds block Sehun’s gray moons, she interprets his tone instead. “I don’t know that people would think of it like that, but I think it could be. I think that there are different ways to enjoy life. You can sleep, and that’s taking the time to rest. You can meet with friends, and that’s appreciating relationships. And you can go out to Greek restaurants when the sun goes down and ask unusual questions, because life can be lived that way. Otherwise, what would we be, if we didn’t enjoy what we were?”

“So what do you think are we?”

As if she were lulling a child to sleep, she replies gently, “Evanescent.”