02: TOMATO JUICE

Seulgi had been to many schools before. And she had to be transferred out many times.  It wasn’t always her fault.   Sometimes the parents found out that there was a vampire within the kid’s classes, they protested and refused to have her in their classes.  Other times, she had accidentally exposed her identity and frightened the other kids who refused to go close to her. 

The Vampire Protection Agency (VPA) had helped her family move and enroll in a school each time.  But she was sick of making her family move, sick of exposing her family’s identity each time.  If it were up to her, she wouldn’t attend school at all.   But the VPA wouldn’t allow that.  And if Seulgi disobeyed them, the VPA would not treat them lightly. 

They were sort of the vampire police who assisted vampires to fit into “normal society” and handled any rogue vampires who refused to fit in.

Seulgi was determined to finish school at this place.  She had gone to the bathroom to calm herself down prior to starting class.  Seulgi stared at herself in the mirror, double-checking that her eyes hadn’t turned red from smelling the blood from the bus before.  She had worn brown contacts just in case but even she knew if someone looked close enough, they would notice the glow of red behind the plastic contacts.  Her hands were still shaking but that was more from the fear of exposure more than anything.  The bus was very full and she could not imagine facing all those people if they found out her true identity.

From first glance, there was no difference between her and another normal school girl.  She had brown hooded almond eyes, porcelain white skin with thin lips that she had always disliked.  She wore the new school uniform neatly, her blue tie knotted perfectly in place and her white shirt tucked neatly in place.  She tugged her blue skirt, which felt tight but the next size up had been too big for her.  She pulled up her knee-high white socks that had fallen mid-way down her legs during her commute, and took a long, deep breath.

Seulgi bowed politely as the homeroom teacher, Mr. Lee, a tall straight faced teacher introduced her to the class.  All eyes in the class had been on her like she was a new attraction of a circus.  She stared back at them, hoping they couldn’t see how afraid she was. 

When it was lunchtime, Seulgi headed down to the cafeteria like everyone else and ordered the standard lunch like everyone else.  She took a seat by herself at a table in the corner and stared down at her rice and soybean soup with kimchi as a side dish.  She told herself silently, she was going to fit in.  No one was going to find out what she really was.  She slowly scrapped some of the rice into her silver spoon, dipped it in the soup and into . 

Her body almost reacted immediately to the unfamiliar tast