“So?” Taemin asked, when Jonghyun looked at Kibum and frowned. “What’s the problem?”

“Zhou Mi is the problem.” Jonghyun answered, finally looking at Taemin again. “He threatened me.”

“What are you talking about? Why would he do that?” Taemin looked confused.

“Zhou Mi? The vampire who turned you?” Minho asked, looking as confused as Taemin. “Weren’t you two supposed to be friends?”

“Well, not anymore.” Jonghyun said, trying to find an easy way to explain everything. “When Zhou Mi turned me into a vampire, he said that I’d have to follow two rules in order to survive: not turn anyone unless they’re about to die and never ever turn Taemin.” He paused, glancing at Taemin who was widening his eyes. “And, well, I turned Taemin and he wasn’t about to die.” He gulped, feeling Jinki squeezing his hand.

The other people in the room froze, not knowing what to say. They all understood the meaning of Jonghyun’s words.

“He wants to kill you.” Kibum broke the silence, widening his eyes when he noticed that he spoke out loud. “Sorry, I-“

“Minho, I think I gave you an order.” Jonghyun interrupted, glancing at Kibum and then at Minho. “What is he doing here? What did you do?”

“Jonghyun there’s no problem. I’m sure I’m not going to hurt him, I’m in control now. We’ve been together and-“

“What? What did you just say? How long has it been since you started to disobey my order?”

“Just listen to me!”

“You’re the one who’s going to listen to me, Minho! You know those nightmares? The ones I had for a long time? They were about him! About him killing you!” Jonghyun said, pointing at Kibum with an anxious expression. “So, please, listen to me once.”

“W-What?” Minho asked, paying full attention to him. “Are you sure?”

“No, he’s not. He is obviously lying to keep us apart.” Kibum said, anger in his eyes.

Jonghyun saw how Minho looked at Kibum. He seemed to notice that something was really wrong. In fact, Kibum was too focused on Jonghyun, as if he could see through him.

"Kibum, are you okay?” Minho asked, having no answer from the other. “Kibum?”

“Minho, shut up.” Kibum said, still looking at Jonghyun, who was starting to feel uncomfortable.

“No, look at me. That’s okay, he’s not going to do anything, don’t worry.”

Kibum didn’t answer and started to walk towards Jonghyun, who instinctively took a step back. At the same time, Minho appeared in front of him, touching his face and making him look at him.

“You don’t want to do this. He won’t do anything, I promise.” Minho said to a furious Kibum.

At first, he thought that his words had no effect on Kibum, but as he stayed as he was, caressing his cheek, the other started to tremble and covered Minho’s hand with his own.

“Minho, I don’t know what-“

“I know.” Minho interrupted, holding him against his chest. “It’s okay now.”

"You see?” Jonghyun yelled, pointing at Kibum again. “We can’t trust him.” He continued, although he didn’t fully believe his own words. He knew, and he was sure about that, that something was wrong with Kibum, but, at the same time, he saw how Minho managed to bring him back. Maybe he was safe after all.

“If you don’t mind.” Taemin said, preventing Jonghyun to keep talking about that, knowing that it wasn’t a good idea to get on Kibum’s nerves. “I think there are more important things that we have to deal with, instead of your nightmares.” He paused, looking at Jonghyun. “You’re not having them lately, are you?”

Now that Jonghyun was thinking about it, he couldn’t remember when was the last time he had those nightmares.

“Yeah, they seem to be gone.” Jinki said, finally finding something to say. “So let them be together. We can keep an eye on them, if it makes you feel better.” He smiled at Jonghyun, who smiled back, agreeing. “We need to talk about Zhou Mi and figure out what to do about him.”

“Hm.” Taemin started, making everyone look at him. “Zhou Mi was always telling me how bad it was to be a vampire. One time, when I was younger, I was about to fall and he ran so fast to catch me that I couldn’t even see him. I was so amazed that I said that I wished to be a vampire too.” He paused, frowning. “And he freaked out. He asked me if I wanted to see all my loved ones die or if I wanted to depend on drink blood to be able to live.”

“He hates to be a vampire.” Jonghyun explained. “And he sees you as family, he loves you. That’s why he didn’t want you to be a vampire too.”

“But why is he threatening you now?” Minho asked, still confused at everything. “It’s not like you turned him today or this week. Why after so many time?”

“Maybe because he thought we were together?” Jonghyun guessed. “But now he saw me with Jinki. And somehow he seems to know Jinki’s father, who will not be particularly happy with us being together, too.”

“Why? What happened between you and his father?”

Jinki looked at Kibum who was staring at the two of them and was still leaning on Minho’s chest. “My father left Jonghyun to die.”

“We always had to met in secret because his father would freak out every time he saw us together.”

Jinki sighed and looked at Jonghyun. “For some reason, he couldn’t stand the thought of me loving Jonghyun. He said it made me weak.” Then, he stared right at Kibum who was focused on the conversation. “I don’t blame him. Love is a weakness.”

**

“What are you going to do about it, sir?”

“I’m going to kill him, of course.” Lee Kwangsoo said without any sign of remorse. “That poor excuse for a vampire has already caused enough problems as it is.” He scoffed and took another sip from his cup. “Then I’m going to get my son back. I’m going to bring him back to this house and he’s going to learn to not disobey me.”

“I don’t think that’s wise.” Another voice said.

“And what do you know, Sooyeon?” The vampire shot as her, baring his fangs. “You’re just some girl I pitied enough to bring into this house. I don’t think you’re entitled to have an opinion on this matter.”

Sooyeon gulped but didn’t back down. “But sir-“

“Shut up! Go read or something like that and leave us alone.”

The girl bowed and left the room, closing the door behind her without another word.

“Sir, I wanted to ask you a thing about all of this.”

He rested his chin on top of his hands and crossed his legs, looking at the vampire sitting in front of him. “Tell me, Zhou Mi.”

“When do you plan to make this happen? And where?”

"I believe that’s none of your concern.” Kwangsoo frowned but laughed when Zhou Mi moved on his seat, clearly uncomfortable. “I can only tell you it will take place at their house. And everyone who gets in my way will be eliminated.”

“I understand.” Zhou Mi nodded. “I don’t know if this will interpreted as rude but… Lee Taemin.” There was a paused before he began to speak again. “He has to come out unscratched. No one lays a finger on him.”

“That’s a lot to ask, don’t you think?”

“No, I don’t. I’ve brought you valuable information that you didn’t have until now. The least you could do is grant me this wish.”

“It’s alright, you can rest assured that nothing bad will happen to Lee Taemin.”

While Zhou Mi and Lee Kwangsoo discussed some more details of the plan to take over Minho’s house, Sooyeon couldn’t help herself but to listen to the rest of the conversation.

Although she was very grateful that he took her from the streets, Sooyeon didn’t agree at all with the methods he used to guarantee his power in the vampire world. Jinki had always been her friend, he was the only one in the house that didn’t look at her like she was some kind of disease and she only wanted to see him happy.

Ever since she learned about Jinki and Jonghyun’s story, she always hoped for them to be together. And now that they, apparently, were, Kwangsoo wanted to destroy it. Sooyeon couldn’t let that happen.

She would find out were Jinki was and she was going to let him now about his father’s plan.

Finding Jinki was not an easy task but eventually she caught up with his scent and it led her to a nice but small building in the suburbs of Seoul. As she was getting near, another scent caught her attention but she pushed it aside because the most important thing in that moment was to find Jinki.

She pushed the bell’s button and immediately listened to the rushed footsteps.

When the door opened, however, her voice was caught up in and she couldn’t bring herself to speak. The reaction seemed to be the same on the other side and tears started to build up in her eyes.

“Soojung? Is that you?”

“Krystal, who is it at the door?”

Someone asked from the inside of the house and that seemed to wake up the girl from her dazed state.

“My-my sister.”