chapter 4 | watered down wounds

The moment his eyes shot open, Wonwoo gripped the couch cushion quickly for support. His bones ached as he raised his hand to rub his bloodshot eyes. Confusion washed over him as he realized he was sticky from sweat and immediately jumped up when he saw the blood staining his chest and two new puncture wounds on the nape of his neck. Memories from the night before rushed back into his brain. How could he have been so stupid not to resist? He wondered how he could have possibly let this happen again.

Seemingly forgetting about all his classes today completely, he rushed into the bathroom with sudden thoughts of how sticky and disgusting he felt. Just the idea of germs collecting all over his body sent chills itching down his neck. Even his own blood was bad enough, but Wonwoo couldn't get the image out of his mind of someone else's mouth on his skin, filthy hands on his thoroughly washed clothing.

Stripping everything off of his body, Wonwoo hastily turned the shower knobs with shaking hands, not caring what temperature the water spraying onto his body was.

Steaming hot water pitter pattered on his skin, but that didn't matter. Knocking down some bottles while reaching for the soap, Wonwoo lathered his body layer, after layer. His calloused hands scrubbed and scrubbed even after the muscles in his wrists became numb and hard to move. Rinse and repeat. He winced, as if just realizing the boiling temperature of the water spraying down on him.

Only on the twelfth time reaching for the soap with sore arms, did Wonwoo see the blood dripping down his forearms to the floor, mixing with water and disappearing down the drain. With throbbing hands, he weakly turned the cold water on and shut the hot.

That meant it was working, so he continued. He scrubbed harder, quicker until the skin on his stomach and legs formed tiny cuts and sores that bled more than they looked like they would.

Finally, losing strength in his legs too, Wonwoo jutted his hands out to grab on the tiled wall as his feet slipped on the soap coated linoleum flooring. Blood seeped from his fresh wounds even with the shower water pouring down onto him, he bled out just as fast as the red liquid was washed away.

A groan escaped his blued lips as he shivered, bleeding hands pressed against the floor to support his numb body. Wonwoo weakly smiled, a quiet chuckle followed as he squeezed his eyes shut. Even if he couldn't be clean on the inside, maybe if he could clean his outside it would maybe be enough.

It was never enough. Wonwoo knew that.

Like some sixth sense, as if he could see Wonwoo's blood with his own two eyes, Mingyu froze in the middle of reading a paragraph from a textbook in front of his class. Mingyu knew what was happening and he couldn't stop it, even if he tried. As his fangs threatened to form, he grabbed his mouth like he was going to throw up and ran out of the room, leaving the chattering students behind. Once in the bathroom he quickly locked himself into a stall and leaned against the wall, both hands on either side of him gripping the brick wall as strongly as he could manage.

Even though he knew it would be of no use, he fumbled in his pants pocket looking for the small tablet of blood tucked away for emergencies. He ran to the sink and quickly turned the faucet on for water. Cupping water into his hands as best as possible, Mingyu dropped the tablet into the water while trying not to let any leak out. As soon as it dissolved he brought his shaking hands up to his swollen lips craving blood and drank as much as possible. Just as he swallowed everything, he ran back to the stall and gagged as he threw up his last meal into the toilet. He knew this would happen.

His teacher took this as a cue to walk into the boys bathroom at that moment.

"Mingyu, are you okay?" She asked sweetly and Mingyu despised the sound of her voice. He just nodded, whipping the side of his mouth with a swipe of his hand. "Maybe you should see the nurse." She added.

"I'm okay." Mingyu croaked out before giving her a fake reassuring smile. He knew he would definitely not be okay this time around.

The time somehow seemed to move even slower since the morning. The scent of Wonwoo's blood lingered in Mingyu's nose as he tried to calm himself down so there were no unplanned accidents. Mingyu would admit that he was a little worried about why he smelt blood though. Did something happen to Wonwoo? Did another vampire bare their fangs into his property? Unconsciously, Mingyu's hand tightened onto his pen, snapping it in half causing the students around him to stare weirdly. The fact that he could only sit there bothered him so much to the point where he had to restrain himself from getting up and leaving this moment.

Of course, he couldn't even begin to imagine what Wonwoo had done. Groaning as the lunch bell rang, Mingyu let his head slip from its place leaned up against his arm and banged his head onto the table.

"What's up barf boy?" A voice behind him cackled. Mingyu stayed quiet, struggling to hold himself back. A hand gripped his hair and pulled his head up from the desk. Mingyu was in a very sensitive state right now and it was not very helpful as it felt like little needles were being pushed into his scalp with every strand of hair being pulled. His hand tightened on the edge of the desk from the pain and his still swollen lips formed a straight line.

"Gonna stay quiet? I see how it's going to be." The boy- or better yet, Hansol his name is continued. He dragged Mingyu's head back down to the desk by his hair, banging his head against it and walked away like it was the funniest thing in the world. Saying Mingyu hated Hansol might be a little of an understatement. Mingyu had been tormented for years by the boy because he thought he was the coolest thing out there just because he was from New York, but Mingyu begged to differ. Why was it so satisfying for Hansol to go out of his way just to bother Mingyu to the point he wanted to snap his neck clean in half, because he knew he could if he wanted to. But unlike Hansol, Mingyu had some self control even though its beginning to slip away slowly, little by little.

As soon as the bell ending the school day sounded, Mingyu packed his bag as quickly as possible and jumped from his seat with only one destination in mind. His feet brought him to the small Seoul apartment like he'd lived there his whole life. Honestly, he didn't even know why

he was here because he honestly had no right to be here. Before he could change his mind, his fist met the metal door making a very unpleasing sound. Immediately he regretted his decision of coming.

What right did he have to be doing this? He had no idea of what state Wonwoo was in after last night. The amount of time it was taking to open the door didn't make Mingyu feel any better.

When the door opened, Mingyu didn't know how to react.

"Wonwoo, I- What happen?" Mingyu's eyes widened as big as saucer. All that was visible from the large white, cotton four quarter-sleeve shirt the shorter was wearing were small cuts coating his skin like a jacket. There was a slice larger than the rest right underneath Wonwoo's right eye that still had some dried blood, causing Mingyu to have to force himself to look away or things would get out of hand. Mingyu reached his hand forward to put on the olders shoulder but he quickly stepped backwards, surprising Mingyu.

"Don't touch me." Was the first full, coherent sentence Mingyu had heard come from Wonwoo.

"What's wrong? What happen?" Mingyu asked again as he stepped inside.

"Please don't come inside." Wonwoo pleaded with such an unfitting manner to the way he looked. Wonwoo had manly features. A nice broad nose, a sharp jawline, single lidded eyes. But somehow, at the same time, his features were very graceful. The curve of his nose was so

soft, the way his lips softly opened and closed when he talked, and how his eyes might have been mono lidded but met his eye perfectly. His ebony hair seemed as soft as silk, but now seemed a little fazed and frizzy, which was unusual. The cuts dotted on Wonwoo's

nice face and the bags under his charcoal eyes bothered Mingyu to an extent. Mingyu would describe Wonwoo just simply as handsome, but beautiful at the same time for all the same reasons.

"Wonwoo, really what happen to you?" Mingyu asked again, almost sounding as pleading as Wonwoo.

"You." The older replied coldly but suddenly laughed, surprising Mingyu yet again. "What am I, going crazy? I don't even know what's happening anymore, or even who you are." He grabbed his face roughly and rubbed his eyes. Wonwoo had a good idea about what was going on. He knew about vampires that didn't follow the rules, causing situations like this to occur.

"I-I can only drink your blood now." Mingyu was surprised he stuttered. He never had good people skills in the first place anyway.

"Are you kidding me? Please tell me you are. Vampires aren't supposed to be doing stuff like this anymore." Mingyu could tell something was definitely not right with Wonwoo right now. Even with the little information he received from his blood, he knew Wonwoo never acted like

this.

"Wonwoo are you okay?" He asked again because he didn't know what else to say. The shorter stumbled on his feet like they would give out any moment, so Mingyu grabbed his arm to steady him. "Don't touch me." Wonwoo groaned out, like the air he was breathing got stuck

in his throat. He ripped his arm out of Mingyu's hold, but would have almost dropped down to the floor if Mingyu hadn't quickly caught him as he leaned forward.

"Please don't touch me." Wonwoo cried out, gripping the sides of Mingyu's school uniform jacket. Mingyu didn't realize the tears streaming down his face and the shaking of the olders body until he had broken into a sob.

"Wonwoo, please calm down." Mingyu whispered as he decided to pat Wonwoo's head, not realizing it would probably make the situation worse.

Wahh, this is probably the longest piece of writing I've written so far (sad I know). This is around 1.8k words and I did this all in one day so I'm pretty proud of myself but I had just quickly reviewed this so I'm sorry for any errors, I tried to fix everything that I saw.