Chapter Text
⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆⚰︎⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺
𝔡𝔯𝔬𝔴𝔫𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔦𝔫 𝔡𝔞𝔯𝔨𝔫𝔢𝔰𝔰
He was a silent killer.
Always one with the shadows, never against them.
He watched his targets, studied them. Their routines. Their personalities. Their pastimes.
Everything.
Because even if he missed a single thing, no matter how miniscule, no matter how trivial, everything would go to waste. All of his efforts. All of the time he invested.
All of it.
And in this modern day and age, he couldn’t afford that.
He could afford a lot of things, that was something his lifestyle guaranteed.
But he could never afford that.
Missing a meal would mean the possibility of death. If not death, then the prospect of becoming weak. And spoiler alert: he despised being weak.
So he had to learn to be careful, to plan accordingly, to never lose sight. To stay focused, come what may.
He’s successfully done so for the past few hundred years. It was a timeless method. Inexhaustible. Perfected throughout the torturous ages he’d spent lingering on this earth.
That is, until he saw him.
Him.
What made him so different from the thousands whose life he had snuffed out without so much of a second thought?
Perhaps it was the allure of his innocence. The sweetness that permeated the air with every step he took.
He oozed with it. Dripped with it.
It left his mouth watering in ways he’d never experienced before. Made his lifeless body throb with an inexplicable heat.
All the years he’d been like this, he had an affinity towards selecting wrongdoers. The banes of society. The outcasts. People whom the world would seldom remember.
If at all.
It was easy that way. Uncomplicated.
Part of him felt he was doing mankind a service.
Get rid of the bad ones, and only the good ones shall remain.
But once in a while, he craved for something that was not so…bitter. So hateful; laced with corruption, with maleficence.
He ached for it.
His senses, already dialled to eleven as it were, became feral.
Animalistic.
It was moments like these where the crystalline blue of his irises would fade into a bright crimson. Flushed with the promise of sustenance.
Blood.
Good blood.
And his?
The best he’d ever smelled.
He salivated whenever he saw him, like some mindless Pavlovian experiment, overcome with the ecstasy that washed over him in the form of the human’s scent.
His heartbeat.
The way his carotid simply begged to be pierced by the needle-like fineness of his fangs.
He desired to feel the aliveness of his flesh beneath his icy fingertips, to bask in the undeniable warmth of his living, human skin.
To lave his tongue along the column of that delicate throat.
Run his nose against the artery that beats in tandem with his heart. A constant, steady lub-dub that advertised just how mortal he was.
How weak and vulnerable.
How absolutely divine.
He felt that ache again.
This time, travelling beyond the confines of mere thirst. Bounding free from the perimeters of control he so painstakingly crafted throughout his immortal life.
He felt that ache everywhere.
Running through every crevice in the breathtakingly beautiful vessel that was his body.
Lust.
For the human’s blood, yes.
For something more, absolutely.
To bring him to the highest calibre of euphoria…
To hear him moan, feel him writhe beneath his ministrations as his lips travelled to the most sacred of places a human possessed...
That was his goal.
After all, blood infused with the headyness of desire was oh, so delectable. Unparalleled, really. A luxury few members of his species truly indulged in.
As he stood shadowed by the darkness, his eyes flashed.
Fangs protruded into the plushness of his bottom lip, drawing a bead of blood that travelled slowly down his chin, a morbid display of the intensity of his fantasies.He wiped it away, unblinking as he observed the human intently.
He was alone tonight.
Ripe for the picking.
Across the way, he monitored his every step with feline eyes. And the human, well…he was none the wiser as he walked on, oblivious to the monster he had captivated for the better part of three years, now.
He wondered why the human had such little regard for his safety. Didn’t he know of the dangers that lingered in the dark?
How utterly reckless.
He heard a rustle nearby, indistinct to the human ear yet perfectly audible to his own.
On high alert, he looked past and into the shadows that surrounded the human, cursing inwardly when a familiar scent wafted through the atmosphere. Sickeningly sweet, tinged with the rancidity of death.
Another vampire.
He watched with mild intrigue as a figure misted onto the sidewalk, far enough from his human that he couldn’t perceive the unwanted presence.
He scoffed, shaking his head, wisps of dark hair curling against his pale cheek.
Amateur.
Newly turned, no doubt.
The figure snuck up behind the human, silent as the night as one of their sallow hands came to take hold of his arms. The boy screamed then; the vampire’s other hand came around to latch against his mouth, however, rendering him silent.
He watched on, disappointed at the gross lack of tact displayed by the newborn. Unaware of the simple effectiveness of the gifts their kind were graced with.
Compulsion, more specifically–a vampire’s bread and butter, really.
The little human fought valiantly in his offender’s hold, he’d give him that. But he was more intrigued by the lesser version of himself, as they struggled in vain to maintain eye contact with him for the compulsion to take.
He chuckled, reminiscing in the memories of when he had been newly turned himself. Though, he could not recall ever being so painfully hopeless.
Of course, that was all due to his mentor. His sire. A man hailing from Australia who had taken a liking to him almost immediately.
Christopher Bang, he was called. Though he much preferred to be called Chan. At least, by those who he held dear.
Chan had taught him everything he knew; enlightened him to the advantages of seduction, made him aware of the true senselessness of mortal men, how fickle and easily influenced their feeble minds were.
He had taught him how to hunt, how to waste not one drop of blood as he drained his victims dry.
Everything Chan did was lined by an edge of expertise. Intertwined with a wisdom only someone of his age would know.
Every motion. Every gaze. Every decision.
Every pearly-white smile adorning his handsome face.
But most of all, Chan had taught him his most valuable asset yet: the ability to profit off of his beauty.
He had been beautiful before he died.
He had become otherworldly after.
And it was something he used as bait for baseless men and women easily inveigled by the allure of his countenance and the weight of his wallet.
He had thrived in death. In ways his human life could have never provided. Could have never even conceptualised.
Indeed, he owed much of his success to Chan. Hoped that wherever the elder vampire was now, he was living as well as his undead being could. The way he always had. A taste for the finer things, a partiality to the inaccessible.
Things like him.
Speaking of…
He was beginning to lose his resolve.
As valiant as he had been, he was human after all. Easily exhausted.
And even if the vampire that sought to eat him was an idiot, their strength was nothing the human could ever hope to withstand for a prolonged period of time.
In the crossfire, they had managed to secure their lips around his wrist, tearing into the delicate skin there.
He cracked his neck, feeling his eye twitch from the sheer audacity they had to get a taste of what was rightfully his.
Hero time.
In less than the blink of an eye, he had made it to his human. Plucked the inexperienced vampire from his person without so much of an exertion of his muscles. They flew back, crashing into a nearby tree, splintering it in half.
The human gasped, eyes wide as he staggered over his feet. He held his wrist in his hand. The red essence of life oozing out of the gaping wound and dripping onto the asphalt below. Such a waste.
He turned back to face the newborn then, the ghost of a smirk on his face. Running towards them, he felt power flood his veins.
The newborn snarled, dark veins branching from the glowing red of their eyes as they surged forward, fangs bared.
In the split second he had, he considered putting on a show for the human. Yet the hunger within him had other plans. He ducked beneath the newborn’s outstretched arms, appearing behind them instantaneously.
And within that very same moment, he held an unbeating heart in his hand.
The human screamed, hands coming to cover his mouth.
The newborn fell, body greying.
Dead.
He tossed the heart aside carelessly, wiped his hands with a handkerchief from his breast pocket, and turned to face the human. “Sorry about that,” he apologised lightly.
He stepped over the body.
“That doesn’t look too good,” he commented, gesturing to the mottled flesh of the boy’s wrist.
His eyes fell to his arm. “I…”
He watched, enraptured.
He smelled even better up close. He had to force himself to not salivate like some starved dog.
“I…thank you.”
Transfixed, he nodded. “Not a problem, Mister…”
“Felix. Please, call me Felix.”
“Felix...” he repeated, getting a taste for the name on his tongue. “I would advise against travelling at night, Felix,” he continued, “especially alone.”
“I usually don’t. I guess I just…I hadn’t realised how late it had gotten…”
He said nothing more.
Felix didn’t either.
Even as his sudden saviour approached him languidly, as if walking was a form of art itself. Felix did not stray away.
“I thought vampires were a myth…” he started, undeterred by the shortening of distance between them.
“Most do,” he answered knowingly, coming to a halt right in front of him.
Felix looked up at him then, brows raised. “How did you know to do…that ?”
“Experience.”
He tilted his head to the side. “Are you a vampire hunter?”
“Of sorts.”
Felix hummed. “You don’t talk much, do you?”
His eyes, now back to their normal blue hue, flashed with something akin to excitement. “I prefer to observe.”
“Silent watcher type?”
“You could say that.”
Felix exhaled an uneven breath. The human was feeling uncomfortable now, he could tell.
He was a stranger after all.
“I never got your name…”
His body thrummed. Mouth going pathetically dry from hunger.
“I never gave it.”
Felix’s mouth fell open, “right…”
He smiled, eyes softening as they formed into crescents. “Only joking. My name is Hyunjin.”
The human sighed, relieved. “Nice to meet you, Hyunjin-ssi. Thanks again for…you know, saving me.”
His name never sounded as sensual as it did rolling off Felix’s tongue. Pronounced with the smooth intonation of his voice.
He wanted for the only voice that spoke his name to be his. A saccharine timbre eliciting sinful responses from the deepest recesses of his undying soul.
“Just Hyunjin is fine. And don’t thank me just yet. We should get that stitched up.”
“Y-you don’t need to do that. You’ve already done enough.”
He waved the human off, elegant fingers cutting through the air.
“Nonsense. I insist.”
“No, really. I can’t ask you to-”
“I said, I insist. At least, for the sake of my peace of mind, allow me to see you properly taken care of.”
Hyunjin’s voice was unlike anything Felix had ever heard. He couldn’t help but accept, nodding without even knowing he was.
Weren’t his eyes blue? He could have sworn they flashed red, for a moment.
It was probably the blood loss talking. And the adrenaline his freshly traumatised brain was still leeching off of.
“Come, follow me. There’s a hospital nearby.”
He offered Felix his arm. Felix took it.
Too focused on the sidewalk ahead, he missed the way Hyunjin’s eyes glowed. The way his fangs poked out from beneath his upper lip.
He missed the devilish smile that graced his angelic features.
He got his human.
Hook. Line. And sinker.
The scent of his blood nearly awakened the monster within.
But he quelled it.
Promising himself that the rewards of his patience would make the victory of obtaining his human all the sweeter.
In due time, he thought.
In due time.