Chapter Text
“I don’t want to,” Soobin pouts, looking at the shot glass of blood in front of him and crinkling his nose.
“Ha!” Beomgyu is annoyed but never annoyed enough to not be amused. “After I went through all the trouble to put it in a glass for you because you won’t feed off a human, and I know you're sitting here hungry.”
“It’s gross,” he mumbles.
“Are you sure you’re a vampire?” Beomgyu laughs.
Rolling his eyes, Soobin snarls his lip and points emphatically at the sharp fang there before resuming his pout of disgust.
They go through this every few months. Beomgyu is his cousin and best friend, and most recently, roommate, after they chose the same college two years ago. He'd never choose to not have Beomgyu around, but sometimes, like now, he wonders if it wouldn't be easier on his self esteem.
Beomgyu tries a different approach, voice softening. "Are you sure you don't want to give it a try again? I mean, maybe it wouldn't be so bad..."
The look on Soobin's face has him sighing in defeat. “Just down it. The blood capsules are supposed to be delivered on Saturday.”
He exhales loudly and grimaces as he raises the glass to his mouth.
“You know thinking about it makes it worse,” Beomgyu laughs. "Just down it."
Beomgyu’s right, but still. With a held breath, he tries his best to toss the liquid to the back of his throat so he doesn’t have to taste it.
“Bggghhhh,” he moans and shivers in disgust.
“Here, you big baby.” Beomgyu sets a glass of ginger ale in front of him to chase away the taste.
“God, so gross. It’s like eggnog but worse.”
The chair across the dining room table creaks when Beomgyu pulls it out. “Is not.” He pulls his knees up to his chest, perched on the little wooden chair. “I don’t know how you manage to survive on blood capsules, honestly.”
“And the-”
“Yes and the powder in your smoothies, I know.” Beomgyu grins and looks tired. To his credit, he looks tired for him, not of him. "And you really feel okay? I mean, you're always tired..."
Soobin looks away. He knows Beomgyu worries about him, that they all do. “Yeah, I feel fine. Maybe vampires just don’t need blood as bad as they think they do.”
“Ha! Nope. That’s just you. Maybe you’re the next stage of evolution or something.”
Face slumped against his hand, Soobin sighs and shuts his eyes against the distant bass boom and lets the disco lights dance over his eyelids. Taehyun is in town and somehow that led to Soobin being talked into going to a club, the kind of club where vampires go to find humans who want to be found by vampires.
It’d been two hours since they arrived, and 45 minutes since everyone else had slipped away with someone and left him sitting here on a velvet bench at the end of their table. Huffing another sigh of boredom, he downs the last of his drink and smooths his pants.
At least it’s nice to dress up every so often, he tells himself, sitting up again to stare at the lights swirling and swooping through the smoky air of the club.
“Hi.”
Someone slides into his lap, knees bracing around his hips. He’s pretty in a way Soobin hasn’t really seen before, pink hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, black mesh shirt and tattered black jeans. There’s a silver ring through his lip and glitter smudged in the corners of his eyes. He hovers around Soobin, smirking when Soobin does nothing but stare back, wide eyed and slack jawed.
“I’m Yeonjun.” He holds up one hand between them to show the silver band around his wrist that marks him as someone safe to feed from, someone consenting.
A little frown eclipses the smile when Soobin continues to stare. “If you want? I mean, isn’t that why we’re here,” he chuckles.
“That’s not why I’m here,” he says quickly. “I just- my friends wanted to-” The words escape him as hands trail down his chest.
“But don’t you want to?” The words are spoken so close to his lips. “Don’t you think I smell good?” he teases.
“You actually… really do.” Soobin melts when the stranger arches his throat in front of him. Inhaling him is like a gulp of hot chocolate, sugary down his spine. His mouth waters, his brain fades to saccharine fuzz.
“You really do…” he sighs and drags his fingers up his neck, watching as his thumb disappears into Yeonjun's mouth.
Shocked at his own hand moving without his permission, he jerks away. “But I don’t- um. I don’t feed from people.”
“What?”
He knew shock would be the reaction but it doesn’t stop him from feeling embarrassed. A shrug. “I don’t like it,” he mumbles.
“You don’t like it?” Yeonjun laughs, as anyone would.
He nods. “Don’t like it.”
“But you might like me.” Yeonjun says it with a smile, tilting Soobin’s pouting face up to look at him. The smile grows when Soobin’s eyes fall back to his throat. “When was the last time you tried it?”
“Four years ago,” he mumbles, zoned out on the pulse beating in Yeonjun’s throat. Steady and strong, warm and so sweet, sweet like nothing he’s encountered before. All his friends talk about how delicious someone smells, but he always thought they were exaggerating. His mouth waters again and Yeonjun exclaiming four years ago?! fades into the background.
Distracted, he nods and skims the back of his hand down the side of Yeonjun’s neck. Somewhere in his scent-fogged brain, he's alarmed at how he's fixated. It's like his body is acting on it's own and he can't quite seem to regain control, lost in Yeonjun's soft skin and strong muscle and the dip behind his collarbone.
“...hm?”
Yeonjun bites his lip and shakes his bangs out of his eyes, pleased that Soobin was too busy admiring him to hear his question. “I said, how are you not feral right now? Or like… dead.”
“Blood capsules,” he murmurs. “Freeze dried blood in my smoothies. Very rare steaks. I dunno.”
“I’d taste so much better than that.” He traces a finger over Soobin’s top lip, pushing against it to reveal a sharp fang. “If you wanted to try…” He drags the pad of his finger over the sharp tip, not enough to break skin but almost.
Trying and failing to keep his chest from heaving, Soobin squeezes his eyes shut and pulls his head away.
“I’ve never had to convince a vampire to bite me before.” Yeonjun laughs and Soobin tries not to look ashamed of himself. “It’s okay if you don’t want to.”
Yeonjun lifts from his lap and it’s so odd; he should be relieved but instead he’s aching to drag him back down. It doesn’t make sense, he doesn’t like feeding from humans, he doesn’t. He doesn’t want to, so then… why does he want to?
Yeonjun stands between his legs and smiles down at him for a moment, thoughtful, disappointed perhaps but good-natured. “Have a good night, yeah?”
He gives Soobin’s cheeks a squeeze and disappears into the loud darkness of the club.
Of course all the copies of the book he needs for history class are already checked out. With a frown, Soobin fiddles absently with the crumbling corner of some biography and tries to remember if he needs it for next week’s class or not.
A yawn overtakes him. Despite today being the first day of classes, he stayed up way too late last night playing games and drinking before Taehyun went back home on the first train. His body feels like microwaved leftovers. "Just one more class," he mutters to himself, blinking hard.
He freezes, muscles clenched, eyes blown wide. He knows that smell.
He ducks and scans through the bookshelves for a glimpse of pink hair but doesn’t find it. Hunched over still, he walks along the long stretch of library aisle and peers through the gaps.
Nothing. Frustrated, he whips around to check behind him and slams directly into who he was looking for.
Irritation is followed by a smile when Yeonjun looks up to see who body slammed the books out of his hands. “It’s you,” he grins.
Befuddled by being a “you” in Yeonjun’s world, he just nods in reply. “Yeonjun,” he finally confirms.
“Yeah, that’s me.” Yeonjun’s eyes travel all over him, taking stock of all his features here in the bright fluorescent light of day. He wonders what he looks like to Yeonjun, no longer a dark and mysterious vampire in a night club. Just a sleep deprived student in jeans and a t-shirt.
“You never told me your name, you know.”
“Soobin.” He stares a moment longer before he snaps himself out of it. “Sorry, I’m not usually this-”
This shy, he was going to say. Embarrassing, considering the reasons why.
“This what?” Yeonjun asks, laughter in his eyes.
“This- you know. Weird.” Hadn’t really meant to say that, either.
Yeonjun bends down to pick up the books he dropped. “Do you not usually hang out with humans or something? Am I making you weird?”
“No I-! Well-” Well yes, yes he was, but not because he’s human. Although, in a way because he’s a human, who smells so good, who is so pretty and biteable though Soobin as a rule does not want to bite.
He stands there perplexed before he realizes he’s frozen up again. “No, I have lots of friends. Human ones,” he clarifies. Another embarrassing thing to say, somehow.
“Is it because you think I’m pretty?” Yeonjun teases with a smile like he already knows the answer is yes.
Soobin scoffs, annoyed at someone making him feel so off-kilter. He’s usually good at this, teasing and befriending. At being kind, and aloof. At making others feel flustered without much effort. At the basic act of speaking, but just now he can’t seem to get any words out.
Yeonjun watches him a second longer and Soobin can’t tell if he’s amused or annoyed. “Anyway, I should go,” he says, waving a book.
“Okay-” He wants to say anything else, anything at all, but he’s choked up by the desire for Yeonjun not to go and how pretty he looks from behind, messy pink ponytail and the way his delicate yellow sweater stretches over broad shoulders.
The more he thinks about it over the next few days, the more mad he gets. This isn’t like him; people don’t make him nervous like that. He can be a little quiet, a little bashful, sure. With new people, he may be at a loss for what to say for a while but he’s never been like this, whatever this is.
He scowls every time he thinks of Yeonjun, he scowls every time he realizes how much he thinks of Yeonjun. A few times, he considers telling Beomgyu about it, but he knows how that will go. All Beomgyu will hear is "I want to feed from someone" and he'll never let it go. He tells himself that's not even what this feeling is; he doesn't want to feed from anyone, Yeonjun just smells nice. And looks nice. And has a really enticing neck.
Being reasonable, he allows himself that. He is after all living in a vampire body, it's natural that it'd react to someone every so often. But it doesn't change the fact that he wants to gag at the thought of someone's blood filling his mouth, all warm and thick and... bloody. It makes him grimace just thinking about it, and that's all the sign that he needs. He knows who he is. If he sees Yeonjun again, he'll just... be normal. He'll have a hold of himself. He'll put this behind him.
It was a tiring third day of the semester, sitting through boring first classes where the teacher drones on about the syllabus and grading scales. Yawning, he walks into the cafe on campus and gets into the long line.
The big cafe is crowded, everyone getting a lunch break all at once it seems. He scans around, wondering if there’s even an empty table or if he’s gonna have to sit in the grass with his smoothie.
His eye catches on bright pink. Sitting crosslegged at a table in the corner, frowning down at one of several notebooks: Yeonjun.
I should pretend I didn’t see him, not like we’re friends or anything. But then he catches a hint of his scent, and then he craves the way a smile looks on Yeonjun’s face, and already he feels all blurred and buzzing.
He’s irritated again. I don’t have to be like this, he's just some guy.
Before he can overthink himself into a befuddled state of silence again, he turns from the line and walks over. Yeonjun jumps when he slides into the seat across from him.
He grins and doesn’t miss the way Yeonjun’s gaze catches on his fangs. “Whatcha doin?”
Yeonjun gives him a look and sweeps his hand over the cluttered table. “Studying, obviously.”
“In the first week of class?”
The irritation melts into a pout. “I know! Both my teachers today assigned like 5 hours of homework, it isn’t right! And I have biology at 2:00 and then work tonight-”
He buries his head in his hand to compose himself.
“Oh? Wednesday and Friday biology at 2:00?”
Yeonjun nods, distracted by his worries.
“Biology with me?” Soobin says, puppy eyes and an exaggerated gasp, leaning forward on the table. He’s relieved, some muscle memory of how to be around people coming back. Stupid pretty Yeonjun won’t get the better of him.
But it finally clicks in Yeonjun’s eyes and he leans forward on the table too, smug when it makes Soobin’s breath catch on an inhale. “Oh yeah? Wanna be my lab partner?”
“Sure.” He blinks and feigns innocence of any attempts of Yeonjun to fluster him. “You look different than when I met you,” he says after a moment.
Affronted, Yeonjun pushes up his glasses and looks down at his blue jeans and holey vintage sweatshirt and back up. “Yeah? So do you,” he jabs his chin toward Soobin’s workout clothes. “What, are you on the basketball team or something,” he mutters and fidgets with his pen.
“God no,” Soobin laughs. “Just wanna be comfy,” he trails off, suddenly shy at how Yeonjun may look different but he still looks… good. Like he got dressed on purpose, whereas he knows he himself looks like he fished out whatever track pants and t-shirt was on top of the laundry basket. Because he had.
“Yeah well, me too!” Yeonjun looks irritated but laughs anyway. “Not gonna dress for class the same way I’d dress to go to a club where vampires go to suck your blood,” he said pointedly, satisfied when it makes Soobin pout at the table.
“Not like I asked you to throw yourself in my lap…” he mumbles, and feels a bit bad. He didn’t mean to get sulky, but it’s a sore point, his perceived lack of vampirism.
Yeonjun’s eyes flick up at him. “And I didn’t ask you to interrupt my studying, yet here you are.”
There’s a grin on his face that makes Soobin want to shove him. Or kiss him.
With all the willpower he has, he doesn’t allow Yeonjun the satisfaction of a reaction. Instead, he blinks and smiles back until Yeonjun’s gaze flickers to his dimples and the softer distraction breaks him.
He snorts and looks away, busying himself with sipping at his coffee. “What,” he grumbles when Soobin laughs.
He shrugs in innocence and stands. “See you in biology.”
Arms full of his coat, backpack, phone and peach smoothie, Soobin walks into class just before the professor does, trying to hold open the door for her and failing with an awkward hello and sorry. He catches sight of Yeonjun’s pink hair a few rows up. There’s an empty seat to Yeonjun’s right, but he's already talking to someone to his left. Soobin goes shy again, and he hates himself for it a little. Panicking when people start to look up at him, he sinks into the last desk in the back.
He tries not to stare at Yeonjun, he tries not to look at anyone at all. There’s always someone a little too interested in a vampire in class, or another vampire that thinks they’ll have something in common.
Sure enough, the chair next to him is pulled out and someone slides in with a smile at him that lingers too long. He smiles back and wishes he wasn’t the type to automatically smile back at anyone.
Resolute, he stares at the whiteboard. But that gets boring, teacher still setting up as the room fills with conversation and the sound of notebooks, and it’s not his fault that Yeonjun happens to be in front of the window that he wants to stare out of.
Out of the corner of his eye, the head of pink hair turns and glances around the room for a second, quick like he’s trying to be nonchalant.
A thrill shoots through him. Was he looking for me? He keeps his gaze trained on the sway of trees and tries not to smile.