hey there is this series i was trying to find for a while, and i wanted to try and get your help in finding it. the fic was set in prehistoric korea? or maybe japan… not sure. its jungkook x oc and jungkook is from a higher class of society in the fic and the oc was set to be arranged married to jk. i remember the plot twist being that the oc was not the actual girl who jk was supposed to be married and was the maid of the actual girl. i dont really remember that many details rn. i am sorry about that.
🌷Hi there! Sorry I just saw this ask but it sounds like a fic series by @54daysormore! Let me find it on their tumblr and will edit this post later, once I'm able to =). (you may also check their blog for the masterlist and links)
Edit: Posting the link to the masterlist here. The fic is The Lie Untold. I remember reading this on ao3 so you may also search it there (it's the same handle I think)
I hope this isn’t an insensitive question! Do you plan on writing more x reader fics? I love your writing regardless. But I know your reader insert fics would be fantastic too 💕
Hiya! I've gone back to teaching full time, so I haven't had time or brain power to write in months. I'm not opposed to writing any type of fic, but unfortunately life has me too busy right now to even consider 💜 I hope you're well and taking breaks for yourself!
Hi B! Just wanted to wish you a happy new year! I hope 206 treats you kindly. I’m wishing for you to be healthy happy and safe in the coming year. Sending you love!💕
Hi B! How are you? How’s life going? Been so long but I was happy to see you answer some asks! I’m sending you love and hugs!
Hello lovely! I started teaching again, so work has been all-consuming. I feel, as I have the past three or more years, really distant from the fandom right now, especially in the writing scene. We all know COVID created a shift in sharing anything we created for free and fun. AI is now making the situation even worse. I have many thoughts. I mostly feel lost and lonely. I long to write because it really brings me joy like nothing else, but years of few interactions have left me feeling like there's no point. Of course, I'd never say that to anyone else! I'd always encourage people to share!! Anyway. Thanks for checking in 💜. I am still around if anyone needs anything 💜
Kintsugi by @dpr-moni (104k)
In a fit of spiteful, post-break-up self-improvement, you sign up to a baking class. Yoongi, in a bid to appease his demanding girlfriend, signs up, too. Determined to make him your friend, you end up with more than you ever imagined.
so it goes by @prodagustd (57k)
You and Yoongi have been hooking up, having dates and spending most of the week together for almost seven months. He was comfortable without a title, until the last two weeks, when you couldn't see him because of your busy schedule, Yoongi can't understand why he misses you so bad if your relationship is just sex to him. Or maybe he does, but he's too much of a coward to admit it.
the road not taken by @prodagustd (outgoing)
To have the job you’ve always wanted and the life you’ve always dreamt of you had to break a few hearts, including your own. Four years later after running away from your home, your family and friends, you realized that maybe you fucked up; you’ve been a bad daughter, a bad sister and a bad friend. Getting your shit together seemed difficult enough, you didn’t expect that it included facing the first man who ever broke your heart: your brother’s best friend
Dating Advice by @taleasnewastime (54k)
It’s been months – ok, it’s been years – since you last went on a date. And you’re sick of it. Sick of seeing couples kissing and holding hands in the street. Sick of your friends settling down. Sick of everyone buying houses and having families. You’re going to do something about it. You’re going to snap up a man, you’re going to tie someone down, you’re going to finally commit, you’re going to – you’re going to need a bit of advice.
you like because, you love despite by @gunwoo-bh (outgoing)
Your friendship always made sense to you and those around you. It wasn’t difficult when both your parents grew up together as best friends too. Your moms always used to refer to your friendship as being written in the stars, whereas your dads believed it impossible for you two, being girl and boy, to be best friends. Your mothers constantly remind them how wrong they’ve been to believe that.
look down on me like that by @here2bbtstrash (124k)
your asshole coworker min yoongi has made it his personal mission to ruin your life.
please be naked by @floralseokjin (61k)
Recently heartbroken, it feels like you’ll never be able to get over it. But a chance encounter with a guy you haven’t seen in months changes everything…
Mixtape by @sailoryoongs (68k)
You’ve had a crush on Yoongi for most of your life. On a holiday trip to the cabin, you’re reunited with Yoongi after not seeing him from two years and things go less than according to plan.
Oh, Darling! by @yoongiofmine (108k)
Starting your second semester at one of South Korea’s most prestigious universities should be stressful enough. Between juggling classes, good grades and a social life, your plate was full. Hoping to spice up your academic career, you thought it was a good idea to enroll as an assistant for your literature professor, whom you've held a very secret and very forbidden crush on for the past several months. What will happen now that you’re forced to work closely together? And what if your crush isn’t as one sided as you thought?
Pink Bird House by @54daysormore (157k)
Tae really wants a pink bird house, but his dad is definitely too busy to make one with him. Enter Y/N. Then exit Y/N. Right?
Hello queen 54 (idk your name and I’m sorry!!) just wanted to check in. I hope you see this message. Your fics (especially pink bird houses I’m sorry if you’re tired of hearing about people loving that fic) always bring me such comfort and joy and I hope you yourself are getting some joy in life. I adore you and love you and I hope you’re well.
I will never grow tired of hearing that my words have helped someone somewhere somehow. I'm glad BTS and the characters I wrote inspired by them are still helping others feel joy 💜 Thank you for reaching you. I hope you're well.
I am IN LOVE with your yoongi fic, pink bird houses. you cannot tear me away from this story. yoongi is so!! frustrating!! and Tae is such a cutie ☹️ only three chapters in and I'm bouncing in excitement. I'm gonna go back to reading after sending this in, I just nEEDED you to know what utter brilliance you write.
THANK UUU
(after this series is finished I WILL explore each and every story in your masterlist, guaranteed. your work? chef's kiss 🤌. I regret not stumbling upon your fics earlier :( )
Thank you so much! Tickles my heart that this is still my most popular work on Tumblr!! I'm so glad you're enjoying it!!
it’s no secret that tumblr writers have been leaving or deactivating their blogs, especially in the last year or two. and i think the reason why is even less of a secret.
the fact that writers have to practically beg for feedback and interaction on a site where they post their works for FREE is ridiculous. the fact that most of the people who are reading and consuming these works don’t even spare 10 seconds to add a nice tag to their reblog (if they even bother to do that) is borderline enraging. this is tumblr, not instagram or twitter. likes on tumblr do nothing for the writer. i don’t care if you think that it helps them appear in the tags, or if you think that seeing yet another “___ liked your post” is encouraging to them, because it doesn’t and its not.
and speaking of likes, why is the ratio of likes to reblogs so fucking huge? and before you think i’m being dramatic, lets take a look at some of the notes from my own works.
at the time of me writing this, my one-shot, dream lover, has 821 notes. that’s pretty good right? but let’s see how many are empty likes and how many are reblogs.
769 likes.
52 reblogs.
out of those 52 reblogs, 35 of them are empty. no tag, no comment.
one of my reactions currently has 2,038 notes. you may be thinking that’s a lot, which it is and i’m incredibly thankful for how many notes i’ve gotten on it. but how many are likes and how many are reblogs?
1,924 likes.
113 reblogs.
out of those 113 reblogs, 81 of them are empty.
one of my headcanons currently has 1,110 notes.
1,069 likes.
41 reblogs.
28 of those 41 reblog are empty.
why is it so hard to reblog things and give feedback?
“oh but it won’t fit my blog theme!” if you’re so fucking concerned about what your precious tumblr blog looks like, then send an ask. they’re just as appreciated.
“i don’t know what to say tho!” we’re not asking you to be shakespeare. if you’re really that no thoughts head empty just put a keyboard smash, if nothing else.
“but i’m shy and embarrassed!” the anonymous option is there for a reason, and most writers have it turned on. being shy when you have the option of keeping your identity a secret is no excuse.
and yes, i’m aware that some writers don’t have the anon option on, which brings me to my final point.
stop. demanding.
if a writer has requests open, be a decent human being and use your manners. going into their inbox and saying “____’s reaction of this.” is no way to request something. saying please, thank you, or even “hey, could you do a reaction of _____?” is a thousand times better than just telling them what you want them to write.
writers spend hours of their time and energy to write things for you to read, and leaving an empty like is meaningless to them.
if your liked a writer’s works, reblog them and maybe add some nice fucking tags while you’re at or send an ask to them about it. because sooner or later, after so many likes and barely any interaction, more and more writers are going to leave.
stop making them desperate for any spare crumb of interaction and start leaving feedback if you love these writers so much.
I haven't gotten a reblog in FOREVER. I'd kill for anything like this person's numbers. But it's just about the facts, not even the numbers. Glad my fics are still here for you to read. Glad I started on tumblr. Glad for all the interactions I had then. But that was, like, five years ago. No one comments or reblogs or talks to me here, so I'm in return just not here 🤷♀️
This is all very silly :p I hope you like it! Hobi and JK are very cute in this chapter, I think!
Warning: Blood! Some bad words. Mention of sex (sucking/jerking off)
AO3 masterlist
Chapter 1
Chapter 2: GoldenCloset
Chapter 3: Bloody Love
Every love story had to start somewhere.
Preferably, at the beginning.
A look. A whispered word. A special touch. Even a silly joke.
Hoseok had perhaps grown up watching too many romantic movies cuddled up next to his mom, but he would know love when he saw it.
And one night it had been standing right in front of him.
Seeing Park Jimin lean out of his window shirtless and glorious had been the start of Hoseok’s crush. But last Halloween had been when he had fallen in love.
He still hadn’t worked up enough courage to meet the guy, so longing looks up at his window while he did tours had been all Hoseok had managed. So when Jimin’s fraternity house was throwing a Halloween party, Hoseok knew that had to be the best opportunity he was going to get to finally meet Jimin.
He had gone dressed as a vampire. Frilly shirt, velvet cape, tight pants, fake teeth.
If asked where his interest—Hoseok knew he had to stay healthy and not call it an obsession—started, Hoseok never really could say. He had pictures of himself dressed up as one, the fake fangs filling in where he had recently lost a tooth and loved to grin with his whole face to show off the gap. His dad, a college literature professor, had obviously been at least a slight influence. And movies, sure. The glamorization of the mythical creatures as monsters and yet so sexy no one ever seemed to mind was too appealing to pass up. He wasn’t sure if it was the power they exuded that gave off that energy or if it was the leather pants they always seemed to wear.
It was probably the leather pants.
But everyone had a hobby, and Hoseok’s was reading and watching anything he could about vampires.
Besides, he couldn’t go to a fraternity literally named after Dracula’s author and not go dressed as a vampire!
He only felt slightly silly when he showed up and no one else was dressed up. Way too old to get embarrassed about what other people thought and way too trained now in knowing how to work any outfit to his advantage, he only faltered at the door for a second. He had tried to convince Chaewon and Lucy to come with him, but the two fashion majors had insisted they had no place at a frat party.
“There will be girls!”
“Yeah, and all of them will be ogled at and in some weird competition to see who can beat the other one into some boy’s room,” Lucy had said with a roll of her eyes.
“That would be me,” Chaewon had giggled before her friend pulled her away with only one more comment over her shoulder.
“Besides, like I’d set foot in Wordsworth house. They’d probably all try to kidnap me.”
“That’s just one theory,” Hoseok had grumbled before letting them go, since it was mostly his fault for telling her all about how she shared a name with Wordsworth famous heroine.
“Not famous, and she doesn’t sound like any hero to me,” Lucy had scoffed.
Hoseok wasn’t sure if he was glad or extra disappointed that his friends hadn’t come, though, since once he showed up there wasn’t a girl in sight. In fact, while he hadn’t been to too many frat parties—freshman year he admits to going all out and getting the full college experience, and he had drunk enough alcohol to last his life by the age of nineteen—he knew this one was small. Almost dead, even.
While he knew it was Halloween, he still screeched when an animatronic reached out from under the porch as he scaled the stairs to grab at his ankle. The two hanging bats were super lifelike, too, and fluttered their wings enough for him to duck under them and shake as he knocked on the door, his eyes scanning all around for other jump scares.
“Is someone at the door?” he heard from within.
“Why the fuck are they knocking?” a gruff voice said.
“Maybe it’s Tae—get the blood ready!” Only half regretting his decision to come and three-fourths regretting coming alone, Hoseok stood up straight and adjusted his cape in his best attempt to look cool as the door swung open.
“Oh, look,” a tall and, frankly, gorgeous man with a face that might have been covered in glitter said, “a present.”
“It’s not Tae,” the shorter boy beside him said with skin as pale as the moon before slinking off. He was holding a giant metal bucket, and while Hoseok couldn’t quite see inside, he had a suspicion it was the “blood” they had talked about behind the closed door.
“Why, hello there,” the tall boy said again as he leaned on the doorway, “who might you be?”
“Oh, I uh, I heard there was a party?”
“Oh,” the guy said, his face lighting up even more. “Is there?”
“Uh, is there?” Hoseok echoed back, a little confused now.
“Do you have an invitation?”
“Oh, uh, they all got taken down,” Hoseok said.
“Taken down?”
“The big sign—in the dining hall. It said, ‘Come if you like to suck.’ I think, uh, I think campus security thought it was inappropriate.”
“Oh, that does sound suggestive,” the guy laughed before yelling over his shoulder. “Everyone, we’re having a party! Make sure to thank Tae later!”
“What?” someone yelled back. “People are coming over?”
“Yes, people,” the boy at the door called back before turning back to Hoseok and sticking his hand out. “I’m Seokjin, president of Stoker. Welcome to our party!”
“Thanks?” Hoseok said before glancing over his shoulder. Jolting, his eyes exploded as he looked back at Seokjin. “Wait, where did the bats go?”
“Bats?” Seokjin poked his head out the door and then half his body as he looked at the now-empty porch.
“There was—you have a machine under the porch that grabbed me. It’s—they’re not decorations?”
“Oh, goodness,” Seokjin laughed again, something slightly terrifying about it that made Hoseok swallow. “That would be our lovely neighbors. They’re just big pranksters. Doesn’t sound very scary, though.”
“Right,” Hoseok said slowly.
“Well, come in, come in, let me finish the food! What are we having?”
“Uh, no idea,” Hoseok said as he came in.
“Everyone, party time!” The whole house seemed to groan, so Hoseok felt extremely awkward as doors started to open.
“Forcing us to have a party,” the pale boy grumbled from the couch as he sat with the metal bucket in his lap and shook his head. “That’s truly diabolical. He’s really outdone himself this year.”
“Text Vlad, tell him we need drinks.”
“What, Sprite?” the other guy scoffed.
“I love Sprite,” Hoseok said before pressing his lips together and clearing his throat. “Can I, uh, help with anything?”
“Oh, no, you’re our guest! Let us know what we can get you! Yoongi, music?”
“Only if no one complains about what I play,” the pale boy, Yoongi, said as he got up with a groan. Hoseok nodded his head to all the boys who came into the living room, but his mind was elsewhere as Seokjin introduced them.
“Is—that everyone in your frat?” he said once the two boys, D’Arcy, who started to help Yoongi set up music, and Zane, who started to help Seokjin in the kitchen, were introduced.
“Oh?” Hoseok said, his palms suddenly sweating as he swallowed. “He’s, uh, busy?”
“Studying. Always studying. He’s a nursing major,” Seokjin said.
“Oh!” Hoseok gobbled the fact up. He knew his name now. And his major. And where he lived.
“Don’t you have any friends? Why’d you come alone? If it’s a party, let’s party,” Seokjin said.
“Oh, they were afraid there’d be too many guys.”
“They’re girls?” Zane said as his head snapped up only to bow back down to the plate he was making as soon as Seokjin slapped the back of it.
“Down, boy. Invite them! I promise I won’t let Zane bite anyone.”
“It’s Jimin I’d worry about,” Yoongi mumbled, and Hoseok felt his heart plummet. Because of course. He had just thought—he wasn’t sure what he thought. Jimin had waved to him. Had smiled at him. It hadn’t meant anything. Of course such a pretty boy would like pretty girls. Hoseok understood. He liked girls, too. Remembering that made his heart rise again. Maybe Jimin was like him. Maybe there was hope still.
“Invite them, invite them!” Seokjin told Hoseok as he pulled out his own phone. “I’ll see what’s taking everyone else so long. Really, it’s fashionable to be late, but it’s rude to just not show up. Everyone, invite your friends.”
“I don’t have any,” three voices echoed back.
“Please, why did you make it sound like that’s my fault?” Seokjin said before shooing his brothers away. “Come on, come on, dance, party, eat and be merry.” Hoseok wasn’t sure what he had expected, but it wasn’t standing with a glass wine filled with grape juice by an emptyfire place while four other guys sat in the quiet living room while some music played.
“Really, this won’t do,” Seokjin said after one song. “Yoongi, dance with me.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Guest, dance with me.”
“Hoseok,” Hoseok said as he shook his head. “But that’s okay.”
“Come on, you came to party! Unless you’re into other stuff,” Seokjin hummed for a second, and Hoseok’s heart skipped a beat as he looked at everyone in the room, wondering what the guy could possibly mean. “We have board games!”
“No,” Zane groaned as he whipped out his phone. “I’m telling Vlad to hurry.”
“You know, if you have to rely on alcohol to have fun, you’re a boring person,” Seokjin huffed. “Let’s play charades!” The collective groan was quiet this time, but soon the apprehension lifted. They randomized teams since they had an odd number and soon Hoseok found himself rising to match the energy level that Seokjin brought no matter what team he was on. Hoseok had been on Yoongi’s team twice already and beaten Seokjin’s team when Seokjin threw up his hands and shouted,
“You’re cheating somehow!”
“I just get him,” Yoongi shrugged.
“How could you get that?” Seokjin said as he mirrored what Hoseok had pantomimed.
“Maybe if you read more often,” Yoongi shrugged again.
“Certain Dark Things? What even is that? How did you get that?” Seokjin sounded exasperated, but Hoseok couldn’t help grinning still. He hadn’t expected Yoongi to know the book, but they were just going through books with vampires in them, and Yoongi seemed to be as well-versed as Hoseok was. They were in the middle of another round, this time of movies—Yoongi and Hoseok separated to “be fair”—and Hoseok was pointing at Seokjin’s face over and over again and then making fangs with his teeth because, hello, glittering vampire equaled Twilight so obviously, but Seokjin kept shouting out action flick films when the door opened. Not really desperate for a drink, Hoseok trooped over with the boys to meet Vlad, a huge, quiet guy who looked him up and down more than twice before seeming to give him an approval.
Hoseok wasn’t sure what he expected. Vodka and beer and whatever it was college boys drank.
“Dibs,” D’Arcy said as soon as a red drink appeared.
“I believe you ordered Sprite,” Yoongi said as he pulled a liter out of the plastic. Nodding, Hoseok twisted the cap slowly as he watched more sodas came out.
“Oh, Yoongi, we’ve been so rude,” Seokjin said over the rustle. “You should give our guest a tour! I’ll finish making drinks.” Holding onto his Sprite, Hoseok followed Yoongi. The guy shuffled slowly, like he was exhausted. That wasn’t too surprising. He looked a little like a ghost, and that was how a lot of college students looked. If looking good wasn’t literally part of Hoseok’s job, he would probably stay up late and eat greasy hamburgers more. He was swamped in a hoodie, too, which was the garb of ninety-precent of the campus population.
His face was really like no one else’s, though, and while Hoseok opened and closed his Sprite nervously, he also felt a calm around the guy he couldn’t quite explain. Even though Hoseok had seen him perk up as they played charades, he was clearly a guy with a chill aura. Maybe that’s what it was—Hoseok wanted to be chill around him because that would be cool.
The Stoker house was certainly old, but unlike the image Hoseok had of frat houses in his head—days of dirty laundry piled in corners with dried socks and underwear with absolutely no starch in them, sinks full of dirty dishes complete with flies and ants in sticky traps, overflowing trashcans with beer bottles and used condoms—the place was clearly cared for. The paint looked new and wasn’t chipping at all. The baseboards didn’t have a layer of dust on them. The wood floor looked like it was recently waxed. Even the bedrooms that Yoongi showed him were clean. Unmade beds, sure, but it wasn’t a stock photo. Evidence of studying, sure, but overall, the place looked organized.
“The younger guys are downstairs,” Yoongi explained before they went up the stairs. The wood creaked a little, which might have been scary if Hoseok was alone or the lights were off, but he felt his heart start to beat faster, anyway. He held his breath at each door, but Yoongi showed him his room and Seokjin’s on the same side of the house first.
Yoongi’s room was—not at all what Hoseok expected, though he wasn’t sure what he was expecting in the first place. A large bed with an extremely fluffy looking gray comforter sat in the middle of the room with a giant canopy hanging from the ceiling. Its black curtains shrouding the bed reminded Hoseok of a pall over a coffin for some reason, though the room was actually quite light. The window had a blackout curtain that was currently drawn, but an elaborate chandelier fit for an art museum hung in the center of the room. The walls were all black except for the one his desk was facing; it was covered in white wood with shelves at various levels. There was a tiny hammock not big enough for a person in the corner by the window and an impressive white desk neatly organized with a sketch pad on one end and a large computer with speakers and other devices Hoseok didn’t recognize on the other. There were no pictures or artwork hanging anywhere, so the room didn’t seem to have much personality, but it was impressive. Cool, just like Yoongi.
“I’m an architect major,” Yoongi mumbled as he shut the door again. “And music.”
“Oh, wow, that’s super cool! What a strange mix. Do you want to, like, design music studios?”
“Oh, uh,” Yoongi said as he pushed Seokjin’s door open. “Never really thought about it.”
“Oh,” Hoseok blinked, not wanting to say “That’s odd” since that would be rude. He had to blink again at Seokjin’s room, anyway, which wasn’t necessarily messy but was a huge contrast to Yoongi’s room. Not that colors had genders, fuck that, but Hoseok had never seen so much pink in a guy’s room. He wasn’t even sure what to look at first.
There was a large unicorn head stuck to the wall that Hoseok almost thought was stuffed for a second before he remembered the mythical creatures were just that and not real at all. Its huge horn had various bags and ties and scarves hanging off of it. His desk was a beautiful mahogany wood desk that looked like it belonged in a king’s room, and the chair matched it. The mixing of décor is maybe why Yoongi groaned.
“This guy—looks like five different people live in here. He’s hopeless.” Grinning, Hoseok noticed several plushies on the bed and a gaming console on Seokjin’s nightstand. There was a poorly drawn picture of someone whose face had been badly marred multiple times hanging on one wall. The darts still sticking into the poor person’s cheeks and forehead were the clear cause of the rips and holes. Oddly enough, next to it was a much better drawing. It was so good, in fact, that Hoseok could tell it was Seokjin. He was leaning forward on a stool, one hand between his legs and the other on his thigh, staring straight forward. He just had on blue jeans, but the large scoop neck of his white shirt was showing off his collarbones exceedingly well. Whoever drawn it had done a fantastic job. Hoseok half expected to see the guy’s eyes smoldering at him, but there was a playful smile on his face instead. Still, Hoseok felt himself swallow nothing.
The guy who had greeted him at the door was certainly something. Cool, but in a much different way than Yoongi was. They both probably didn’t give a fuck what other people thought of them, and for that, they were intimidating in a way. Seokjin’s room was just proof the guy wasn’t trying to please anyone or fit into any sort of mold. Hoseok had to admire him for that.
“Jimin’s down here. He faces the street.”
“Yeah, I know,” Hoseok said, his heart slapping his mouth as Yoongi looked up at him. “Shit, sorry, that sounded so rude, no, like, I mean, he’s the last one, and there’s a window out front, so it must be. Sorry.”
“All good,” Yoongi shrugged before opening the door without even knocking.
Hoseok gasped.
His mother had raised him to always knock. That’s why.
It had nothing to do with the shirtless glory he caught a glimpse of.
Hoseok had never had brothers or roommates, so he supposed it was normal for Yoongi to just walk into Jimin’s room, especially as the guy didn’t yell or seem to react much at all. Still, he paused as the door swung open, the shirt he was putting on simply stuck on his arms for a moment as he raised an eyebrow at them.
“Hey,” Yoongi said with a hand raised. “Done studying?”
“Yes,” Jimin said slowly as his eyes started to look Hoseok up and down as he pulled on his sleeves. Hoseok froze a little like a deer in headlights. He wasn’t even sure why. He knew why. His heart was pounding. He had forgotten how to breathe. Park Jimin was so fucking beautiful, Hoseok didn’t even notice the guy’s room. Who cared?
Jimin had on leather pants.
“Who have you brought into my room without even asking, Yoongi?” Jimin asked. There was a slight mirth to his voice. A little teasing. He wasn’t angry. Intrigued. Curious. He was interested in Hoseok!
“Jung,” Hoseok said as he threw a hand out before whipping it back and blinking, wondering if he should bow or get on his knees or turn around and never be perceived again.
“Uh huh,” Jimin nodded slowly as he started to button his shirt up. His lips started to curve as Hoseok watched his chest disappear. “Yoongi?”
“He’s here for the party.”
“The party?” Jimin repeated again. His voice was nothing like Hoseok thought it would be. But it was perfect. Not too low and not too high. Sweet and yet so sexy, Hoseok kept trying to swallow. For all the books he had read, for all the stories he knew, for all the papers he had written, he wasn’t sure how to describe what Park Jimin’s voice sounded like.
“Music,” he’d sigh stupidly later, probably. “Magic,” he’d dream of it later with a dopey look in his eye. He didn’t really care, though. Maybe he wasn’t as cool as Yoongi or Seokjin was, but he had learned long ago to stop being ashamed of what he liked. And he liked Jimin’s voice. The guy had on these dangling earrings that danced in the light coming through the guy’s window. There was a desk against the wall covered in books and paper. A mess of a bed in the corner. Clothes lying around everywhere like he hadn’t been sure what to wear.
“Which party is ‘the’ party tonight?”
“Ours, apparently,” Yoongi shrugged.
“We’re not throwing a party,” Jimin said, his eyebrow quirking again as Hoseok swallowed as the last button was finished. Jimin undid it right away, though, and reached into a pile to pull something else out. Leather, too; a corset that wrapped around his waist and had Hoseok’s lungs feeling constricted as Jimin started to lace it together.
“We are, and you’re going to invite people you know.”
“Why would I do that? We never have parties,” Jimin scoffed slightly. “It’s Halloween. I’m going out.”
“Please stay,” Yoongi said, the slightest bit of whine in his voice. “Tae put up signs about us throwing a party. A costume party.”
“Oh, that explains the—what are you?”
“Jung Hoseok,” Hoseok said as he snapped his eyes away from Jimin’s fingers and to his face.
“Right,” Jimin smiled. “What are you dressed up as?”
“Oh! A vampire!”
“Right,” Jimin said again as he looked him over all while lacing his corset up without even looking. Why that was so hot, Hoseok wasn’t sure, but he had him swallowing again as Yoongi sighed beside him.
“Come down, Jin’s making drinks. For us,” Yoongi said as he patted the doorframe.
“It’s Friday, Yoongi. I’m going out.”
“But tonight you can stay in. The fun will come to you.”
“Sure,” Jimin said before looking Hoseok up and down again. Hoseok felt like he was in one of those scanners at the airport, and he stayed positively still every time Jimin looked over at him, a loud breath escaping his lungs the second Jimin looked away over to his friend. “You’re sure he’s not part of Tae’s plan?”
“Who, Hoseok here? He played charades with us, Jimin. He’s cool.”
“Charades. God, no, I am not staying here and playing charades. What are we, twelve? And a costume party?”
“You don’t have to dress up.”
“Though you make a great vampire,” Hoseok said as he waved a finger at Jimin’s outfit, his white shirt billowing out of the corset Jimin pulled tight to close as his eyebrows rose a little. “Or, uh. Pirate? Thief? Dancer?”
“I’m not wearing a costume,” Jimin said.
“Unless all clothes are but costumes we wear, just like the masks we put on every day—” Yoongi started, a soft chuckle leaving him when Jimin glared at him.
“Have you been in your whiskey that much already?”
“Please, we’re drinking soda,” Yoongi scoffed. “I’ll shut up if you promise to stay.”
“You know such manipulation never works on me, and, no, you can’t promise I will have fun,” Jimin raised a finger as Yoongi opened his mouth again, but Yoongi shut it again with a grin. His eyes glanced at Hoseok again, and the guy didn’t have piercing eyes. They weren’t sharp or scary at all, actually. They looked super pretty and had a soft wave shape. But the second they narrowed, Hoseok still felt intimidated. He had felt his heart race so many times since he came through the front door already. He felt a little lame to admit it was just because he hadn’t been to a party in a long time. So maybe it was something else.
“Do my chores next week,” Jimin said to Yoongi after he seemed to make up his mind.
“Hell no. Make Jin. I could care less if we had a stupid party. But you know now all he’s gonna care about is having a good time just to make Tae’s plan fail. We just have to help him make that happen, and you’re the one with friends.”
“Who I don’t invite over for a reason,” Jimin said with narrow eyes again.
“Don’t worry,” Yoongi said. “And once it gets going, no one will notice if you slip off. Come on. It’s just one night.”
“I’m hungry, Yoongi,” Jimin said.
“Jin’s cooking,” Yoongi shrugged, the two looking at each other for another second before Yoongi turned to shuffle down the stairs. Alone suddenly with Jimin, Hoseok desperately wished to be cool, but he felt his back straighten as Jimin looked him over again.
“A vampire,” the guy huffed as he shook his head. “Why are you dressed up as a vampire?”
“Oh,” Hoseok said as he had the pleasure of watching Jimin put on his shoes—leather, too, with sharp laces and an even sharper point. “Well, I love vampires.”
“You do, huh? Why’s that?” Very used to people making fun of him for his interests, Hoseok wasn’t sure if Jimin was curious or just waiting for an opportunity to call him a weirdo, but no matter how long Hoseok had looked up toward the guy’s window hoping to catch a glimpse of him, he had been confidant in himself even longer. If Park Jimin ended up being an asshole, Hoseok would pine for him until he got over it, and life would go on. He would find someone someday who understood or at least tolerated his interests.
“Well, there’s the typical of them just being super sexy,” Hoseok said after clearing his throat a little, his saliva getting caught as Jimin looked up at him. “Though, well, okay, so, most stories pitch vampires at the bad guys, right? They’re monsters. But the thing is, most narratives only make them a bad guy because people want to relate to the hero they read about. So the human ends up being the good guy even if they’re actually a villain. The vampire, as an other, becomes the monster simply because they’re different. Sure, some are really bad. They go around killing people or, uh, kidnapping children. That’s not cool. That’s—gross. I’m not into that.”
“What a relief,” Jimin said, his voice sounding amused as he stood up and tapped each of his feet once against his floor before putting his hands on his hips as he cocked them a little. “So, what, you’re into roleplay? Have a blood kink?”
“Huh?”
“You said vampires are sexy. They don’t really exist, so you must just mean the idea of them. You’re into biting or something.”
“I’m—” Hoseok said, his face flushing.
“Oh, no judgment here,” Jimin said with a small smile. “Whatever gets you off, sweetie. Just curious about your interest in vampires.” Hoseok blinked before his mouth dropped open.
“Really?”
“Really, what?”
“You’re interested in my interest?”
“I’m interested in vampires, too,” Jimin shrugged.
“You are?” Hoseok breathed, pretty sure his eyes had just turned into hearts like they did in the cartoons. His heart might be bursting out of his chest, too, in the fake shape everyone drew hearts as while they spoke.
“Don’t piss yourself,” Jimin giggled as he pulled his door shut behind him. “What are you drinking?”
“Sprite,” Hoseok said, still trying to process what Jimin had said.
“Sprite?” Jimin laughed, a twinkle like fairy wings tickling Hoseok’s ears. “That’s cute. You didn’t let Jin make you one?”
“Oh, uh, no, should I?”
“Probably not,” Jimin said with a wink that had Hoseok’s heart fluttering. “Not everyone likes them. Come on, let’s go get this party started.”
“S-sure,” Hoseok said, his whole body swiveling to follow as Jimin went down the steps.
So there Jung Hoseok found himself, standing in front of Park Jimin, a Sprite in his hand and some concoction from Seokjin in Jimin’s, halfway leaning on the fireplace and halfway just hoping something kept him from leaving Earth’s gravity while he explained everything he knew and liked about vampires at a frat party that slowly started to look like what it was claiming to be.
And falling a little bit in love each time Jimin nodded or looked at him remotely or sipped on his drink or licked his lips or leaned in to hear him better or hummed like a cat purring that set the hair on Hoseok’s arm to attention.
“So, wait,” Jimin said after his third drink. His cheeks had started to gather that flush Hoseok knew well. While he was always DD even when they didn’t drive—sometimes that simply meant steering bodies—he knew how to tell when someone was drunk. But Jimin didn’t have the familiar staggering swaying of a normal drunk, especially not like Chaewon who seemed to always lose a shoe or break a heel the second she started to stumble. Jimin had slipped away through the growing crowd—where everyone came from, Hoseok wasn’t sure and didn’t really care—a few times with a touch and a promise to come right back, and Hoseok had watched him under the light of the kitchen pouring himself a drink each time, wondering at how Jimin moved as fluid as the liquid he was pouring. He would come back each time and ask Hoseok if he was positive he didn’t want anything else to drink, and Hoseok would lift his now-empty glass of Sprite and assure him he was good.
He was pretty sure he was dreaming, anyway.
Any flushing his cheeks were doing had nothing to do with alcohol, that much he was sure of.
“So you’re saying,” Jimin continued as he leaned in a little. D’Arcy, who Hoseok wasn’t sure if had added the D to his name because he wanted to be a DJ or if he his parents had literally named him that, had taken over the music and had cranked it up. Someone had produced glow sticks, and Seokjin was flailing on top of the dining room table like a crazed traffic controller on a hazy runway strip, and Hoseok couldn’t stop laughing every time he looked over at the guy. He was slightly concerned Seokjin was going to get a headache or fall right off and hurt himself, but Jimin assured him he’d be fine.
Yoongi was playing bouncer, or something, that bucket of fake blood in his arm again as he stood by the front door that was currently open. Some people had already come and gone, but some were trying to become permanent fixtures along the wall or on the couch or by the liquor that had slowly gathered on the kitchen island. Nothing had broken yet, and everyone seemed to know that kind of party foul wouldn’t be tolerated in the old Stoker house. Maybe if Seokjin did the breaking, but no one else could.
Even with all the activity going on, Hoseok wasn’t having a hard time concentrating. He couldn’t look away from Jimin, really. He willed his body to stay still every time Jimin had left, the,
“Stay here, I’ll be right back,” rooting him even as he craned his neck to watch Jimin in the crowd. He was pretty short.
“What you’re saying is you really think vampires are real.”
“I think they could be real,” Hoseok said, resisting the urge to lean closer to Jimin, too. “So there’s the Polidori’s theory—that his story wasn’t actually fiction. The theory carries over to Le Fanu and even Stoker—they weren’t writing about vampires that we might think of today with fangs who transform into bats but purely rich sickos who metaphorically drain the life of people. Whether that’s sexual or not is up for debate. But the theory encourages the idea of reading all vampire literature, at least the first ones during the 1800’s and such, as twisted fact more than fiction. Real people who acted like monsters.”
“You’re such a fucking dork,” Jimin grinned. He had said that multiple times already, and Hoseok never felt the sting of an insult when he did. In fact, Jimin leaned in a little more each time he said that. “Why give them fangs and stuff, then?”
“Well, so then there’s the Serbian theory. Again, two normal humans who killed people, possibly with their own teeth. Mauling, blood drinking, all that good stuff. It’s older than Polidori’s theory, actually. Well, thought of later than, but, like, they lived in the 1700’s. This theory is more the monster theory—that people, unable to comprehend other human beings are capable of such violence, ascribe ‘monstrous’ traits to anyone who acts inhumanely. Think of Beaumont’s ‘Le Belle et La Bete.’”
“Okay,” Jimin said before grinning wider. “I don’t know what that is.”
“Oh. Beauty and the Beast. The original story,” Hoseok said.
“Oh, okay, right, right—what about it?”
“The beast—well, there’s no description of him being furry or anything like a lion or whatever the movies make him into. Anyone at the time that didn’t look like ‘normal’ humans—” Hoseok made his quotation marks so huge his hand bumped into his empty glass on the fireplace’s mantel. “—was considered a beast. Hunchbacks, for instance. Shunned from society. Anyone with a birth defect. Outcasts. So vampires, if you follow the Serbian theory, might just be that. Humans who were a bit paler than other people and who people needed a reason to blame for something.”
“Okay, I can see that. Look at the freak, let’s blame them for our problems,” Jimin said as he cocked his hip and drummed his fingers against his glass. He had on three rings on three different fingers, and they clinked every time he did. “You are seriously a huge vampire nerd.”
“Yep,” Hoseok said, not a single apology on his lip as he smiled. “I like the Wordsworth theory, too, that Lucy Gray is kidnapped by a creep. Such an old dude obsessed with little girls. But we call him a vampire, because we need a villain. A monster to blame. Plus, I mean, the lack of footprints in the snow is super weird.”
“No idea what you’re talking about,” Jimin grinned, “but it sounds like all your theories still make vampires the bad guys. Is there any hope for us?”
“I mean, we don’t have to believe the theories. But I don’t think they really point to vampires being the bad guys. I mean, if you kidnap a little girl or rip people’s throats out with your teeth, yeah, you’re a bad guy. But the theories prove to me more that society is often the bad guy. We turn people into villains just because we’re prejudice or racist or simply because we’re afraid. Maybe vampires are just creatures who happen to need blood to survive,” Hoseok shrugged.
“Maybe,” Jimin hummed, his eyes still stuck on Hoseok’s as he sipped his drink. Hoseok was used to being looked at. It was literally part of his job. There was just usually a camera doing the looking, and it was never quite as intense as the curve of Jimin’s eyelashes. “So, long story short, do you think vampires are real?”
“Oh, yeah,” Hoseok beamed, the rise of Jimin’s eyebrow making Hoseok rub his hands together for a second. “I mean, look, I want to believe. I know I sound like some conspiracy theorist to most people. I know I sound crazy. But just think—if they were real, do you think they would tell people? Like you said, they’re always the bad guy in the stories. Coming out and going, ‘hey, I’m a vampire!’ Damn. Splat. Spike. You’d be killed immediately. I mean, maybe no one would believe you. They’d think you’re crazy or just into some weird shit. But it would only take one, you know?”
“Yeah,” Jimin said slowly. He dropped down to put his drink on the edge of the fireplace, and Hoseok saw his shiny shoes step closer to Hoseok’s as Jimin stood back up. “People would definitely lose their shit if they found out vampires were real. Everyone except you would, I guess. You’d just be—”
“I’d be so fucking excited. That’d be the coolest thing ever,” Hoseok beamed.
“Even if that meant—” Jimin wasn’t yelling over the music, but Hoseok heard him loud and clear as he stepped even closer. “—they might want to bite you?”
“O-oh,” Hoseok blinked, knowing full damn well his face blushed faster than if he had drunk half a bottle of vodka as a shot. The low lighting did nothing to hide it from Jimin, either, whose smile wasn’t soft and cute but slightly cruel. A smirk that had Hoseok’s gut feeling heavy. But they had been talking for well over an hour, and Hoseok knew Jimin wasn’t making fun of him. He hadn’t judged him. He had really just listened. He had asked good questions. He was genuinely interested.
“Let’s say, hypothetically,” Jimin reached one of his hands toward Hoseok, who was frozen, and played with the long string of the velvet cape hanging loosely on Hoseok’s shoulders. “That vampires were real, and they did bite people. Would you want to get bitten?”
“Well, it depends.”
“On?” Jimin’s eyebrows lifted again—he couldn’t seem to only lift one, so they both went up together, and Hoseok wasn’t sure if that was the fucking cutest thing about the guy or if it was his tiny fingers that were almost touching his chest or the little tooth slightly crooked in his mouth or the slope of his nose or the—
“Well, there are three options,” Hoseok cleared his throat.
“Oh, you’ve thought about this.”
“Yeah, totally. So, there’s someone bites me to kill me. Not a fan. I’m not really looking to die, so, if that’s the only option, no thanks. Second is to be turned into a vampire. Which—like, I love vampires. Being one sounds super cool. If they can really turn into a bat—flying around would be super fun. But mostly it just sounds like a sad life, so I don’t want to be one.”
“Why sad?”
“Wouldn’t it be lonely? Not being able to tell people who you are?” Hoseok asked. Jimin blinked twice, his eyelashes truly the epitome of “fluttering lashes” that made Hoseok’s heart beat along with them, before his smile changed into something Hoseok hadn’t seen yet. “Plus, like, if they do live forever, that sounds super boring. Maybe it’d be fun for a few years, but then what? Plus, watching people die one after another. That’s sad. So, I don’t know—if they were biting me to turn me into a vampire, it would depend on what vampire life is like.”
“If it’s just to feed?” Jimin’s fingers went from toying with the edge of the cape’s tie to tracing the edges of the frills on Hoseok’s shirt. He might as well have been running his fingers over Hoseok’s naked chest with the way goosebumps started to break out all over Hoseok’s arms.
“That, uh—” Hoseok blinked. Cleared his throat. Licked his lips. He wasn’t sure where the lines between fiction and reality were anymore, but Jimin seemed like someone who understood. Like someone who cared. “Yeah. Yeah, I’d let them. Him. I’d—love to get bitten.”
“Really?” Jimin hummed, his fingers splaying across Hoseok’s chest. There was a strange sensation that coursed through Hoseok’s whole body immediately. Horniness. Lust. He was incredibly horny. That’s what it was. He clenched his fists to avoid grabbing Jimin. He took a deep breath that probably sounded like someone after they coughed up gallons of water, a hurgle gurgle that had him almost choking, but he had to do everything in his power to not pop a boner right there in that living room.
“Even if it hurts?” Jimin said up to him, his fingers trailing to Hoseok’s waist as his body was suddenly only an inch away.
“Well, I’m, uh, not super into pain, so I know it probably would hurt,” Hoseok rattled on as Jimin’s other hand found the edge of his pants on his other hip. “But I bet vampires have, like, that stuff that snakes do. Numbs the pain.”
“Isn’t the point to feel it, though? You, what, want an anesthetic? Just go limp?”
“No, no, that’d be boring,” Hoseok swallowed as Jimin’s knees bumped into him. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Seokjin wasn’t flailing anymore, and he saw Yoongi glance over at him. And in that moment—Hoseok knew what was going to happen next. He had a fleeting thought that he hoped Jimin’s housemates wouldn’t tease him too much after while knowing the whole time they definitely would. Hoseok felt his whole body burn for a second before he felt the cool touch of Jimin’s rings on his neck and the chill tickle of his breath into his ear.
“I can bite you, if you want,” Jimin said, the thrill of his smile sending a shiver down Hoseok’s spine. “Come to my room.”
It was just a fantasy, but it was Hoseok’s biggest one. The ultimate dream. To find someone so easily and so quickly, and someone he was already into, be so down to do that for him—he groaned. He whimpered. He almost came in his pants. He wasn’t drunk at all, but he stumbled as Jimin pulled away. He felt intensely cold for some reason even if he had a dab of sweat on the small of his back.
But there was no way he wasn’t going to follow Jimin. He twisted through the crowd Jimin had floated through and stumbled up the stairs Jimin’s feet had barely even touched. He took the corner and shuffled into the bedroom where the window he had looked up into so many times already was open. The moon was peeking in along with some stars, but the street below was empty. The door shut with a click that might as well have been a bang, and Jimin’s fingers were unlacing his corset already.
“We’re just going to make out,” he said, and Hoseok nodded as he watched. “We’re just going to make out. Understand? Repeat what I said.”
“We’re just going to make out,” Hoseok swallowed, the words tumbling out so easily. He didn’t care if that’s all they did. He didn’t care if they didn’t even do that. He was leaning against the door just watching. He was getting to watch.
“Take off your shirt,” Jimin said as he finished unlacing his corset. “Cape first.” Nodding, Hoseok tugged at the strings and heard the cape drop first before pulling off his shirt quickly. He didn’t question it at all. Skin to skin while making out with Jimin’s crooked little tooth against his neck—Hoseok cleared his throat as he felt his chest flush as Jimin pulled his own shirt off much slower.
“I might—sorry if I—shit. You’re so cute.”
“Cute?” Jimin said, his grin just that as Hoseok saw his chest again. “No, no. Sexy.”
“Cute, sexy, lovely,” Hoseok rattled as he counted Jimin’s abs and marveled at how soft he somehow still looked. Hard edged and flowing. These contrasts that made no sense but worked so perfectly on the boy’s body.
“Whatever,” Jimin laughed delightfully before pointing toward his desk. “Sit down.” Nodding enthusiastically, Hoseok did as he was told, the chill of the night cooling his spine and making the hair on the back of his neck rise. He put out his arms as Jimin glided over and sat down on his lap without another word. His fingers felt so tiny and yet all encompassing as Jimin grabbed Hoseok’s neck. Hoseok couldn’t stop looking at his eyes. There must be pearls in them. Stars. Diamonds.
“We’re just going to make out,” Jimin said again. “And you can tell anyone you want about it, if you want. That’s what you can tell them. That we made out, and then you left the party perfectly happy. Got it?”
“No, let’s keep that between ourselves,” Jimin grinned, something in the gleam of his eyes and teeth making Hoseok shiver. “So. That’s what we’ll do. If you’re sure you want me to.”
“Yeah,” Hoseok nodded. “Thanks, by the way.”
“You’re the one who’s cute,” Jimin laughed softly as his thumb rubbed along the tendon in Hoseok’s neck. “Can’t believe my luck. You just walked in the door—”
Luck had nothing to do with it, in Hoseok’s opinion. He couldn’t say what did, though. He did know he was the luckiest guy in the world, or that night, at least, to have Park Jimin sit in his lap. Hold his neck. Kiss him slowly.
It maybe wasn’t the best place to start. Right there on his neck. Only because it sent Hoseok’s head into a tailspin. He gripped Jimin’s sides tightly and struggled to remember to breathe all while trying not to think of what was in his pants. Besides his legs. He had to walk out on those later, so he did need to remember how to use them.
But Jimin was soft—plush lips, wet tongue, warm breath. Smooth skin, caressing fingertips, tickling whispers. And Jimin was hard—or maybe that was Hoseok. But no—sharp nails, tight grip, piercing teeth.
They made out.
Hoseok had no idea for how long.
He didn’t care.
The cool breeze of Halloween kept the hairs on the back of his head raised all while his chest heaved against Jimin’s. He knew when they started, but he wasn’t sure when they ended. He knew he wasn’t drunk, so he didn’t wake up the next day with a headache. A little sore on his neck, but Jimin hadn’t even left a bruise. They had just made out. But for Hoseok, that was the start of more than just his crush on Park Jimin. And that wasn’t something set to end any time soon. That story had only just begun.
GoldenCloset hadn’t posted for three days.
For the three hundredth time since he had watched the boy behind the screen walk into Namjoon’s house, Yoongi clicked the refresh button on the Youtube page. Still nothing. It was four in the morning. Of course there would be nothing. For the three hundredth time, Yoongi looked through the sliver of his pulled curtains toward Namjoon’s window, knowing the guy was alone in his room. Of course he would be. It was four in the morning. And it was Namjoon, for fuck’s sake.
Sighing, for the three hundredth time, Yoongi stretched out his back and arms and wiggled his toes before curling up again like the shrimp he would one day transform into, his fingernails tapping on his desk and then mouse. He glanced at the Youtube page one more time before pushing play on a random video.
It was a good one. Yoongi remembered it immediately because it started with a giggle. Then a clatter.
“My roommate’s girlfriend said I could have her old makeup supplies. Don’t worry, don’t worry, I have my own brushes,” Goldencloset—Jungkook. Yoongi knew his name now, and Yoongi bit his lip as he watched the boy sitting down in front of a vanity mirror. He obviously had known the guy was Korean—he slipped out these soft curse words sometimes under his breath that his viewers probably didn’t know the meaning of unless they were also Korean or had gotten curious enough to look them up. Yoongi was pretty sure by now everyone knew, but he found it enduring. Of course he did.
Sighing, for the three hundredth time, Yoongi damned himself once again by closing his music program and putting his chin on his palm to watch the boy swipe a makeup brush back and forth over his palm as he talked about his day. He went with pinks and blues for his eyes—
“Oh, a cloud! Let’s do clouds! I don’t know if I can do them,” Jungkook said with another giggle. His face was so pure—not a blemish in sight, though Yoongi could remember a video where he got on once to complain about his “little friend” growing on his chin. He rarely even had any stubble, something the boy had complained about in another video once as he rubbed at his hairless chin.
“I just can’t get it to grow,” he had pouted as he leaned in close to the camera to show everyone nothing. There wasn’t a mark on him except the smears of makeup he started to apply, so Yoongi knew it was just the time that made him blink and sit back a little, his heart beating as he saw flashes of blood covering the boy’s face.
Yoongi was used to blood. He literally fucking drank it every day. But seeing someone covered in it—that had been violent. Yoongi’s memories flooded back just as quickly as he tried to blink them away. Faster than he had been able to blink his tears away that first time his dad made him bite into a live animal. Hurting others was simply monstrous, and Yoongi was no monster. Whoever had done that to Jungkook had been more than just a prick. They’d been evil. And for the three hundredth time since the weekend, Yoongi took a deep breath and pressed his nails into his palm to calm down. He couldn’t just go around ripping people’s heads off. That wasn’t him.
It wasn’t that he didn’t care about other vampires in the area—he’d always been just a bit of a loner. He grew up way too scared of letting anyone know what he was, so he wasn’t out going and had very few friends. Some days he still wasn’t sure if joining the Stoker house was a blessing or a curse. Some days he wondered if he should know other vampires. Some days he wondered if he should find more human friends. Some days he just wondered and wondered, and before he knew it, he was three hundred videos into Jungkook’s channel requestioning every life decision.
Sometimes that was just how things went.
Sighing and rubbing his eyes as the video ended, Yoongi turned back to his other monitor, knowing he simply had to finish what he started before it was too late.
It had been three days since GoldenCloset posted his last video with vague references of going out. Three days since his last picture of his outfit that had come back torn and bloody. Three days since he had slumped onto the bed Namjoon was currently staring at and fallen asleep.
Mornings were the absolute worst and simultaneously best part of the day.
Waking up was never super enjoyable. It felt like being pulled out of quick sand, but you were the one who had to pull yourself out while being stuck in it at the same time. It made no sense, like mornings usually didn’t. Namjoon’s head woke before his body did, and it was like a dam had broken up there. He had billions of thoughts he couldn’t all chase down or follow, and some mornings he just laid on his bed taking deep breaths, wondering what he was even supposed to be doing with life.
Most of the time the flood brought debris from his past back, logs of regret and trash piles of guilt bumping into where he was just trying to cool his feet in the shallow part of the river while life began around him. He always felt naked then, even in the winter when he had on pajamas. Just striped and bare and exposed, and sometimes he just laid in his bed and dug his palms into his eyes and groaned, totally unsure of what to do.
Some mornings the flood was refreshing, actually, just wet and cleansing. It had him gasping and hanging on for dear life, still, so he didn’t get washed away. He would just lay in bed and get carried away before the rest of the world woke up, his own hands tight around himself. He could make a mess in the mornings. Could chase his dreams. Could relax for just a little before facing the freak outs of the day.
Mornings were the worst because of the floods, but they were the best because the water was only rushing in Namjoon’s mind. The rest of the house was quiet. He could swing himself out of bed and sit in his chair by the window and watch the birds on clear mornings. He could sit and look at Yoongi’s window with its curtain pulled tight and think of good things only without any junk clouding his eyes yet.
He liked to roll over in bed or curl up on his chair and check for any new GoldenCloset videos, too. The boy usually posted in the evenings, and while Namjoon could watch them immediately or even live, he had stopped doing that last year. But they were little rewards now. Something to look forward to waking up to.
And he hadn’t posted in three days.
Namjoon rolled onto his back and slung an arm over his head, sighing up at the ceiling and remembering Yoongi climbing through the window, the goosebumps from the cold prevalent on his arms. He thought of what Yoongi had said. Not just about Jungkook being bitten and possibly being turned, but about what Yoongi always brought up. About Namjoon’s obsession with the guy. About how, yeah, okay, sometimes on the mornings he grabbed his stiff cock, he thought of the little nose scrunches and hard abs the boy pouted down at even as he showed them off sometimes. Namjoon thought and thought and thought before swinging himself out of bed and standing at his window, glaring over at Yoongi’s room.
It wasn’t a competition. Except everything was. Of all of his traits, Namjoon hated that about himself the most. Even as he told himself it wasn’t, it was. It—grades, degrees, how fast he could read, how good of a boyfriend he could be, his looks, his friends—everything was a competition, and no matter how hard he tried to not care, he always would.
Mornings were the worst, because as he looked over at Yoongi’s window, all Namjoon could think about was the game he had fucked up so badly. There had never been a bigger L in history. It might as well be branded on his forehead.
But mornings were the best, too, because Namjoon remembered the competition wasn’t over. He wasn’t quite out of the game yet. So he was going to keep fighting.
Still, he turned to look at the empty bed in his room and shuffled back to check his phone with zero notifications on it. GoldenCloset hadn’t updated in three days, and while Namjoon tried not to think about the boy behind the camera, about Jungkook, the person he had finally met for real, he found himself succumbing to what he so often did. He thought about him. And thought and thought and thought.
That was just how his days began.
Jungkook was not going to call his mom.
He wasn’t dying.
She would coo, she would fret, she would rush to an airport to come and make him soup.
So he was not going to bother her.
He had a cold.
A fever.
He was dying.
He couldn’t stop sweating.
He couldn’t stop shivering.
He felt nauseous.
He was starving.
He kept waking up with his heart freaking out and his lungs feeling like someone was squeezing them, and he kept grabbing his neck and arm and even his leg, his clothes pushed aside to see what was there.
He was going crazy.
There was nothing there. Not even a bruise. Even though he felt like some alien was about to burst through his skin, nothing even wiggled.
He was totally fine.
The longest weekend of his life passed, and Monday morning came.
He woke up. He stretched. He put on his running clothes. This was how he started his days. He ran around the campus. And then he ran again. And again. And the sun still wasn’t up.
He slowed down on his fourth lap, but not because he was tired. He blinked up at the dark sky and then down at his watch.
“What the fuck,” he mumbled, his hand wrapping around his throat. He was being so dramatic, but he felt like he couldn’t remember the last time he had a glass of water. He sounded like some mummy coming out of a sandstorm. He had tried several times over the weekend to make a video, but each time he looked at himself in the mirror he thought he looked horrible. Eyes red or drooping, face flushed or completely pale, hair greasy or sticking up with static. He kept looking up “alcohol poisoning” and “side effects of getting drugged” because he simply couldn’t remember what happened, and there was no reason why he should feel and look like utter shit.
He was just glad his roommate had been gone because he had tossed and turned for days, only letting his phone die so he didn’t resort to calling his mom.
He wasn’t sick.
He was totally fine.
He had somehow just done his entire run three times in thirty minutes. That wasn’t normal. So he must be fine.
He walked down the sidewalk with his brow furrowed until he started to recognize in the dark where he was. It was hard not to, as the two houses came into view. They were both dark, only the porch lights on. That seemed normal. Most people on campus weren’t up before seven on a Monday. Rubbing at the back of his head, Jungkook sniffled and shivered, his body temperature still fluctuating, and then hugged himself tightly. He couldn’t stop the groan that dragged out of him as he doubled over a little. His stomach was eating him alive. He had a parasite. He had to. It was going to burst out of him. He put his hands on his knees and panted down at his feet, only one mantra on repeat in his brain:
What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck—
“Jungkook?” Whipping his head up at his name, Jungkook threw his hand up in a wave before he even saw who was talking. So few people knew his real name even if they knew his face, but there was no way he was going to let some stupid bug mess up his reputation. It was probably just the adrenaline making him run faster. It would pass. He’d go have breakfast and get coffee, two, since it was Monday, and he would take it to—
He blinked, the streetlights nearby not super helpful as someone in all black with his hoodie raised stood on the sidewalk in front of him. Jungkook felt his shoulders rise—felt his lips dry out—felt his heart quicken—felt his nose scrunch—felt his head pound—and took a step back, his hand slapped over his mouth as he almost shouted,
“I’m sick, watch out, man.”
“Jungkook, it’s Yoongi,” the guy said as he pointed to himself with the coffee mug in his hand. “We met this weekend? We brought you back from that bar?”
“Oh. Shit,” Jungkook breathed, his hand wiping at his brow where he had suddenly and profusely started sweating. “Hi. Sorry. Didn’t recognize you. Of course. Yeah, you live here. Yeah, good morning, hi, you’re up early.”
“Still up, more like it,” Yoongi mumbled before he cleared his throat and lifted his right and then left foot one after the other. Jungkook’s eyes snapped to his movement before Jungkook even knew what he was doing, and he shook his head to stop being such a weirdo. “How, uh, how are you feeling?”
“Me? Great! Totally! You?”
“Fucking exhausted,” Yoongi huffed as he lifted his coffee cup. “Had to go get some shit.”
“Yeah, I love shit,” Jungkook nodded before his brow furrowed again. “Did you just get one?”
“Huh? Yeah, why?”
“I don’t know,” Jungkook said before laughing awkwardly. “I always get two.”
“Need a lot of caffeine, huh? You seem to run fast enough without it.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s—do I? I did. I did run fast,” Jungkook said as he looked down at his watch again and laughed so weirdly he felt himself shudder. “So weird. I don’t know how I did that.”
“You sure you’re alright? Are you hungry?”
“Starved,” Jungkook said before he shook his head. “But I’ll go eat. You going to sleep?”
“No, need to finish a project. Kept—getting distracted,” Yoongi said, his own nose sniffling in the cold as he cocked his head and looked Jungkook up and down. Jungkook did the same right back. He couldn’t even hold eye contact sometimes, so he wasn’t sure why he was even doing it.
“Sorry, I’ll let you go,” he said, but Yoongi took a step to his right as Jungkook moved to his left.
“Come in and have breakfast. You have time, yeah?”
“I, uh—no, it’s okay, I don’t want to bother you.”
“I wouldn’t invite you if it was going to be a bother. Come in. You—can I be honest?”
“Sure,” Jungkook nodded.
“You look like shit. Did you go to the doctor? Jimin—he’s inside, he’s a nursing major, he could check you out, if you want.”
“Oh, no, no, I’m okay. Just a cold or something. I’ll be okay.”
“Jungkook, seriously,” Yoongi said, and Jungkook felt a groan leaving his body again even as he tried to chuckle. He grabbed his side and smiled and felt like a limb was being ripped off his body. His knees buckled, and Yoongi rushed toward him to catch under his arm. “Yeah, fuck no, inside, come on.”
“I’m really alright,” Jungkook mumbled as he felt his head bumping into Yoongi’s sweater. “Maybe just for a minute. I’ll just catch my breath. You smell good.”
Jungkook tried to freeze, but Yoongi was helping him up the stairs. Mortified, just absolutely in pain for so many reasons, Jungkook groaned out a quick,
“Sorry, that was super weird.”
“It’s alright,” Yoongi actually laughed, something warm on Jungkook’s face making its way all the way to his stomach. He started to pull his shoes off at the door, all pain leaving his body as Yoongi bent down to do it for him that he almost fell over as he flailed.
“I can do it! I got it! I’m okay, I’m okay, really.”
“Don’t bend down,” Yoongi said up at him before leaving his own shoes by the door in a neat little holder. “Sit down somewhere. I’ll get you something to drink.”
He had left the frat house without really looking around to avoid being rude over the weekend, and he did the same, now, as he slumped into a kitchen chair. The lights were all off, and he resolved to be as quiet as possible.
“Running, seriously,” Yoongi mumbled as he opened the fridge. “If you’re sick, why are you running?”
“Thought I was better.”
“You’re supposed to rest when you’re sick. Drink this.”
“What is it?” Jungkook said as he looked up at Yoongi with his hands in his hoody’s pockets. “I mean, sorry, I appreciate it.”
“No, it’s okay. It’s Gatorade. For electrolytes. Nurse Jimin would suggest it, so here you go.”
“Ah,” Jungkook nodded as he picked up the pink drink and gulped it down. “Thanks—” The glass clattered on the table, but Yoongi was fast to pick it up as Jungkook smacked a hand against his mouth. “Oh my—oh god.”
“Are you going to be sick?” Jungkook shook his head furiously and then nodded and then shook his head again.
“Tasted like—god, tasted like socks.”
“Socks,” Yoongi repeated even as Jungkook felt his face burn.
“I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know what socks taste like. But—I’m so sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Maybe it’s Covid.”
“Uh huh,” Yoongi said before turning back to the fridge. He stared into it for a second before pulling something out, but Jungkook had his head in his hands, groaning, and only lifted the weight attached to his neck when he heard another glass clink in front of him.
“What’s ‘s?” he said, picking up the glass and sniffing it.
“Milk. Good for your bones.”
“Why’s it pink?”
“Strawberry milk.”
“I like banana milk,” Jungkook mumbled before taking a sip instead of chugging it, barely missing Yoongi mumbling,
“I know.” The sip was wise. Because he stuck his tongue out immediately and pushed the glass away. “God, tastes like a pixie stick.”
“Is that bad?”
“Why is it so sweet?”
“I have an idea,” Yoongi said as he poured the rest of the glass down the sink and then pulled his chair up close to Jungkook’s. “How are you with surprises?”
“Huh? Uh, like a surprise party?” Jungkook said, his heart rate spiking again as he looked around. “Not great, honestly. Is—should I be worried?”
“There’s no party, sorry,” Yoongi mumbled. “How, uh, do you deal with bad news? Like if you, uh, get a bad grade?”
“Uh, usually curl up into a ball and cry,” Jungkook said before laughing the weird laugh he was apparently developing.
“Well,” Yoongi said slowly, his eyes flitting to the door they came in through and up the stairs. Jungkook swiveled his head to do the same, not sure if he feared a clown or a cake in his face or what. “I can tell you what I think is up with you, or I can have Namjoon do it.”
“Namjoon? Why would he know?” Jungkook swallowed.
“Because it happened to him. And he’s annoyingly a bit of a genius, so he probably knows more than I do about it,” Yoongi huffed as he crossed his arms over his chest and stretched his legs out. He looked like a shrimp minus the pink skin.
“Knows more about what?”
“Everything. But what’s going on with you specifically.”
“I thought you said Jimin was the nursing major.”
“He is. He could help, too. Any of us could. We get the gist of it.”
“Of what?” Jungkook blinked, his stomach seemingly shrinking as they spoke.
“Of what’s going on with you. You’re hungry, right? But food doesn’t seem to be filling you up?”
“Yeah, I can’t get full. I haven’t thrown up or anything, though,” Jungkook rubbed at his stomach. “I think I’ve got a parasite.”
“It’s not that. But I can promise it will settle. You just need to eat the right thing.”
“Oh, like I’m nutrient deficient? I need more protein?”
“No,” Yoongi said slowly. “You didn’t like either of those drinks?”
“No, sorry. I appreciate it! I normally like Gatorade. And milk! I’m telling you, it’s probably Covid. You know they say it’s a blood disease more than anything now. Maybe that’s why my heart keeps freaking out.”
“It’s not Covid,” Yoongi said again, and for whatever reason, even if he wasn’t the nurse and Jungkook didn’t really know him, Jungkook did believe him. Yoongi looked off out of the kitchen, though, and as Jungkook followed his gaze, all he saw through the morning light was the house next door. “You seemed to like Namjoon, so he should probably tell you. I just—I know what you would probably like, and so maybe I should just explain—”
“You both could?” Jungkook said, his fingers wiping at his pants when Yoongi looked back at him. “I mean, I got the, uh, impression you two don’t like each other, but, maybe a little truce? Just to help a stranger out?”
“You’re not really a stranger,” Yoongi said before he scrubbed at his face. Jungkook stared down at his lap and said,
“Oh,” softly before clearing his throat. “You watch my channel.”
“Yeah,” Yoongi almost sounded like he was groaning behind his hands. “Sorry I didn’t mention it earlier.”
“It’s okay! But I’m just a guy, so, like, please don’t treat me like some celebrity or anything. Thanks for watching.”
“You sound just like you’re signing off,” Yoongi said as he pushed his hood back and revealed his ruffled dark hair and clearly tired eyes.
“Habit,” Jungkook smiled shyly. “Namjoon, uh, he watches, too?”
“Yeah,” Yoongi nodded.
“Cool, cool.”
“I would have helped you either way,” Yoongi cleared his throat. “Just to clarify. Even if I hadn’t recognized you.”
“That’s good. Thanks.”
“Yeah, no problem,” Yoongi mumbled before he fluffed out his hair and patted his cheeks a few times. “Alright, let’s get this over with. Shit.”
“I can go alone, if you don’t want to come! I really don’t mean to bother you. I’m totally fine.”
“You’re totally not, so the sooner you stop saying that, the better.”
“Sorry,” Jungkook said as he stood up as Yoongi did. The guy looked him over again as he stuffed his hands in his pockets before sighing.
“I’m sorry. It’s not an excuse, but I am very fucking tired. And stressed. And—worried about you. And not super excited to go see Namjoon in the morning.”
“We can—go later?”
“Like I said, the sooner the better, for your sake. Seriously. Come on,” Yoongi said, oddly not going to the front door but out through a back one. He grunted as he picked up a ladder and rattled it against the Wordsworth house until it was in position against a window. The window was already opening as Yoongi started up the rings.
“What the fuck are—oh. Shit,” Namjoon said from out his window, his head disappearing as Yoongi got higher. Without a word, the small guy climbed in and then stuck his head down.
“Can you climb up? Be careful.”
“Oh, yeah, I got it,” Jungkook said, the ladder shaking and clanging a bit as he scaled it. The morning felt colder now, for some reason, and a gust of wind almost pushed him into the window as he reached the top. The two guys were standing there, Namjoon’s mouth open and Yoongi with his arms across his chest, so Jungkook nodded and flashed an awkward smile. “Morning, hi, sorry about this. Not sure why we didn’t use the front door.”
“Yoongi always comes through the window,” Namjoon said, “though usually—uh, what’s going on?”
“I know he likes you,” Yoongi waved between them, “so I figured it’s time you tell him what’s going on.”
“With wh—”
“He knows we watch him,” Yoongi said, and Jungkook was surprised that it was Namjoon’s cheeks, not his own, that started to turn red. “So we need to tell him what’s going on.”
“Going on with—with what?”
“Him,” Yoongi said, and for a second as Namjoon stared at the guy, Jungkook knew he should look away. He should have. There was something going on, but he found himself looking between Namjoon’s bed head and Yoongi’s hoody hair, fascinated by the coloring of their faces. Namjoon’s mouth started to open, and Jungkook couldn’t make out his silent words, so thankfully Yoongi sighed and said,
“I gave him O and A, and he thought A was socks and O was a pixie stick.”
“W-what about B?”
“B is an acquired taste, and you know it.”
“B is for best,” Namjoon mumbled as Yoongi rolled his eyes.
“My point exactly. Wear your barrette and eat a baguette while you drink it, you snob. I just figured he could try mine.”
“He—” Namjoon said, his eyes going wide before they turned toward Jungkook who was shifting on his feet.
“Hi. Not sure what’s going on,” he said as he almost doubled over again. “Just hungry and, uh, in pain. Please don’t let me interrupt. Thanks for watching, by the way!”
“You sound like your send-offs,” Namjoon said.
“That’s what I told him,” Yoongi said with the slight hint of a smile before he reached for Jungkook’s arm and pulled him toward the made bed. “Sit down before you fall over. You look quite heavy. Namjoon, go ahead and explain to Jungkook what’s happening.”
“You’re sure it’s happening?” Namjoon shut the window while stage whispering.
“I’m positive.”
“Then why wouldn’t he like O? Everyone likes O.”
“You didn’t for a while.”
“Yeah, well,” Namjoon said as he shared another stare with Yoongi that Jungkook was definitely interrupting. “I don’t know if what you’re suggesting is the best idea.”
“Want me to grab him a squirrel, then?” Yoongi said so seriously Jungkook actually clutched his stomach and slapped a hand over his mouth as he shook his head.
“Fuck, please, that sounds disgusting.”
“Yeah, they’re not super tasty,” Yoongi said. “Look, kid, if Namjoon won’t tell you, I will. You’re going to freak out. Please don’t freak out. Are you close with your family?”
“What? Yeah. Why?”
“Fuck,” Yoongi sighed before sitting down on the bed opposite him. Namjoon opened his mouth to stop him before clamping his lips together. “You have a roommate, right?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Ever think about joining a fraternity?”
“Yoongi, slow down,” Namjoon finally said as he ran his fingers through his hair. “I got this.”
“Okay,” Yoongi shrugged. He brought a leg up onto the bed, Namjoon’s bed, and stared across at Jungkook, and instinctively Jungkook sat up a little straighter. He felt like he was at the doctor on an examination table.
“Okay, so,” Namjoon said as he ran his hands down his shorts and licked his lips. “You know that Guy de Maupassant quote, ‘For those who fought for it, life has a flavor the protected shall never know’?”
“Nope,” Jungkook said.
“Come on, Namjoon,” Yoongi mumbled.
“It means, like, you aren’t alive until you have to fight for it.”
“That’s dumb,” Yoongi snorted. “Plus, all life is fighting. What’s that even mean?”
“I just mean, or, he means, that Jungkook’s new life started this weekend.”
“Did I die?” Jungkook blinked.
“Rude to assume he was living a cushy life beforehand. We don’t know him,” Yoongi said.
“No, I didn’t mean to assume,” Namjoon gasped. “No, I just meant—shit—this weekend—you did almost die. You almost died. Jungkook. You—almost died.”
“Yeah,” Jungkook said slowly before he took a shuddering breath. “Yeah? Okay. You think this is just trauma? Like my body reacting to the stress? I was in bad shape, huh?”
“You lost a lot of blood,” Namjoon said, a look exchanged briefly with Yoongi. “Someone took a lot of your blood.”
“Right,” Jungkook nodded before blinking at the weird words Namjoon had said. “Wait, what do you mean they took my blood?”
“I mean you weren’t just beat up. Someone punctured you.”
“I got stabbed?” Jungkook gasped, his hand flying to his stomach like he had felt a knife go in.
“No. Well, yes. Not with a knife.”
“If you’re going to tell him, tell him, Namjoon.”
“Why didn’t you?” Namjoon wheeled on Yoongi, his eyes huge. “Why’d you bring him over here?”
“You don’t want him?”
“He’s not—I’m not—he’s not a puppy.”
“Yeah, I’m not a puppy,” Jungkook said, hoping his pout didn’t look like one since he had definitely been told it looked like several different baby woodland creatures before.
“Someone punctured you with their teeth,” Namjoon said slowly as he turned back toward Jungkook. “And—sucked your blood.”
“Someone sucked my blood,” Jungkook repeated. “With their teeth.”
“Yes. With their teeth.”
“Their teeth.”
“Teeth. Yes. Fangs.”
“With their fangs.”
“Yes.”
“Someone sucked my blood with their fangs.”
“Christ,” Yoongi huffed as he stood up, one of his hands pushing his sleeve up. “Jungkook, don’t freak out on us, but over the weekend you were bitten by several vampires. They sucked almost all of your blood out. On top of that, one of them who bit you had the power to turn you into a vampire. And that’s what’s happening to you. You’re turning into a vampire.”
“I’m turning—into a vampire.”
“Is he going to repeat everything again?” Yoongi mumbled to Namjoon.
“It’s probably the shock.”
“It’s probably the shock,” Jungkook nodded before blinking at the pair of them. “This is a pretty good prank.”
“It’s not a—”
“I get it. Frat bros. Pranking each other. It’s funny. Haha, I want to suck your blood,” Jungkook said as he made his fingers look like claws for some reason and opened his mouth to flash his teeth. It was ridiculously silly, except his throat made an odd hissing sound, and his nose wiggled at the scent of something sweet in the air, and his stomach called out, the loudest groan he had ever heard that had him gasping and clapping a hand over his mouth again. But he did it so fast, his lips weren’t even closed yet, and he felt something sharp against his palm. Like a razor sharp paper against dry skin, a tiny cut that would burn for days every time he used hand sanitizer. He drew his hand away and stared at the tiny line of red and then stared up at the two boys standing in front of him, his eyes wider than theirs even if theirs were giving a full moon a good run for its money.
“I—want to suck your blood?” Jungkook repeated in a tiny whisper.
“Yeah,” Yoongi nodded. “You probably do.”
“But—how did you know? You’re—you’re—oh my god. No, this is a super elaborate prank. I’m still dreaming. I was drugged. I’m sick. I’m totally fine.”
“Take a breath,” Yoongi said.
“The most important questions—” Namjoon said as he pressed his hands together and leaned toward Jungkook. “We don’t live forever. You can’t tell anyone. You do need to drink blood, but you can still eat normal food. You can’t change into a bat, unless that’s your power. You can eat garlic. Stay away from wooden stakes because, duh, one in anyone’s heart would obviously kill you.”
“I’m a—you’re—you’re one, too?” Jungkook said, not sure why his heart wasn’t erratic as Namjoon nodded slowly.
“Yes. Me and Yoongi are. The Stoker and Wordsworth houses are vampires only.”
“Vampires,” Jungkook repeated, a silly giggle bubbling up and out of his chest. “Sorry, sorry. It’s not funny. It’s hilarious. It’s so funny. You’re both so good! Great acting. I really almost believe you. I do believe you. I believe you,” he said, his body sobering super quickly. He stared down at the cut on his palm only to see nothing. Gasping, he showed it off to the two. “I have magic powers!”
“Maybe, but I think your power’s going to be super speed,” Yoongi mumbled. “You’re still so new, you’ll heal quickly for a while, but it might not last.”
“Oh my god,” Jungkook stared at his flawless skin again. “Super speed. I’m a super hero.”
“No. Vampire.”
“I’m a bad guy?”
“No,” Namjoon frowned. “You’re just you. We’re just people. Who happen to need to consume blood. Which is why Yoongi brought you over here in the first place. If you have any questions—you can ask me anything.”
“You want me to drink blood?” Jungkook said, his nose wiggling on its own again and his whole mouth feeling dry and yet full of saliva at the same time. Like someone had put a juicy steak in front of him.
“You need to, yes,” Yoongi said, his sleeve pushed back up again as it kept falling down. The hoodie was clearly two sizes too big for him. “So you’re going to drink from me, and Namjoon is going to make sure you don’t take too much.”
“I—” Jungkook gaped. “No way. What? There’s no way I would ever—what the fuck are you talking about?”
“Turned vampires usually drink from their sire,” Namjoon said as he wet his lips. “But we’re not sure whose yours is. I’m not even sure if they know what they did.”
“My—sire. Oh my god. If he dies, do I die?”
“What? No,” Yoongi snorted softly. “That’s just in the movies.”
“You’re just in the movies,” Jungkook said, pointing at the two. “Vampires aren’t real.”
“We are.”
“But you said you don’t even turn into bats!”
“I do,” Yoongi shrugged. “It’s my one very, very useless power.”
“It’s not useless,” Namjoon said before looking away from Yoongi who glared at him. “At least you have a power. Look, Jungkook, I know this is scary. Trust me. I—I was little, but I was turned, too.”
“You were?”
“Yeah,” Namjoon said as he licked his lips again. “My parents made that decision for me, so, yeah, it’s whatever. I’m sorry you had no say in it happening. We, well, I promise to help you if you want it. You will need to be careful.”
“Can I—go out during the day?”
“Yes,” Yoongi said. “Again, that’s just in the movies. We’re just people.”
“Who drink blood.”
“Who drink blood,” Jungkook nodded. “Right. Blood. You want me to drink blood. You—holy shit, you gave me blood!”
“Yes,” Yoongi actually winced, his whole body flinching a little. “Sorry. Yes, I put a drop in each of those drinks just to see.”
“But they were both gross! I can’t be a vampire! Isn’t that proof?”
“It will take a while to adjust. You may end up only liking certain types. Or blood from certain places. Again, think of it like food—you like certain foods more than others, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Jungkook nodded.
“You’ll like certain bloods.”
“What if I—don’t?”
“Then you’ll probably die at a young age. Your bones will definitely get brittle. What’s funny is all the stories say vampires drinking blood are pale and skinny when it’s the opposite—if you don’t drink blood enough, you’ll turn out that way,” Yoongi explained.
“Is that why you look the way you do?” Jungkook asked before bowing his head and groaning a little. He missed the way Yoongi raised his eyebrows and exchanged a look with Namjoon. “I’m so sorry, that was an extremely rude comment, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Your body is changing,” Namjoon said, and Jungkook almost laughed, the trauma of getting “the talk” way too real. He was sitting on a bed across from two older adults, after all. “So soon it will need blood. That’s the simple explanation.”
“I should drink some blood.”
“Yes,” Yoong said, his feet shuffling toward him and his arm suddenly out in front of Jungkook’s face. “You should drink my blood.”
“Why? Dude, that’s—” Jungkook said, his mind repulsed but his rebellious nose leaning his body toward the other boy. “Isn’t that cannibalism?”
“I said drink my blood, not eat me,” Yoongi huffed surprisingly softly.
“I—I don’t like hurting people,” Jungkook mumbled.
“Me either,” Yoongi said right back into his eyes. “It only hurts for a second, I promise.”
“How do you kn—oh. You’ve done this before. Someone’s done this to you before. No way,” Jungkook shook his head. “This is crazy.”
“It’s not common, I’ll admit,” Yoongi hummed. “Most vampires don’t like the taste of other vampire blood. But I know my blood’s good.”
“I know it’s scary,” Namjoon said softly, his voice soothing and reassuring enough for Jungkook to sit up a little straighter as he stared at Yoongi’s arm. “But Yoongi wouldn’t offer if he didn’t mean it. And I know it will help you. I’ll—like he said, I’ll make sure you don’t go too far.”
“Can’t you just—put some in a cup for me or something?” Jungkook mumbled.
“I can do that, if you’d like,” Yoongi nodded.
“I’ve heard—in the movies—they—the bites—it’s like a snake’s?”
“Why does everyone always say that?” Yoongi laughed softly as he started to run his fingers up and down his forearm. “I won’t go limp. If you’re a vampire, yes, the area you bite will heal up quite quickly after. But I will feel it. There’s no floaty feeling or bliss or whatever.”
“He might get hard, though,” Namjoon said through a rumbling cough.
“He might?” Jungkook gasped. “So it is like a snake bite?”
“What snake bites a mouse hoping to have sex with it? Would you two shut up? That’s so stupid, stop comparing it to that,” Yoongi said.
“But you might get hard,” Namjoon said. “That’s just a fact.”
“Yeah, alright, I might. This isn’t some weird kink shit, though. Kid, I’m not fucking asking you to bite me because I want to come at seven AM, god. I just don’t want you to be sick anymore.”
“You don’t even know me,” Jungkook mumbled.
“I know I don’t,” Yoongi said back. “I’ve watched your videos, and I know it’s not the same, but, well, I think you’re a good person. And I know that you’re scared. And I know what it’s like to go without blood for too long. And I know what the solution is. So I know we don’t know each other, but, hi, I’m Min Yoongi, and I like to fix things. I know you’re not a thing, but, look, do you want to bite me or not?”
Jungkook absolutely did.
Not.
Did not.
The negative adverb was very important.
The adverb didn’t exist.
Jungkook wanted to.
Bite.
He wanted to bite the arm sticking out in front of him.
It was like a fresh, steaming, juicy chicken leg at a renaissance fair.
He put his hand out slowly and curled his fingers softly around the arm Yoongi put into it gently.
“Even though it’s what they do in movies—avoid the wrists and neck. The major arteries are dangerous. The thigh is a great place, to be honest, but—look, do not, under any circumstances, bite anyone else without a vampire you trust around. Do you understand? Shit, wish I had hypnosis sometimes,” Yoongi mumbled, but Jungkook nodded.
“Don’t worry, there’s no way I—I’m not going to—god, I’m going to, aren’t I? I think I might be sick.”
“You won’t be,” Yoongi assured him. “Just here—” his finger—it was long with a perfectly trimmed nail—tapped at the part of his arm right past the inside of his elbow. “And Namjoon will count for you. Once he says stop, stop, okay? Otherwise—well. We don’t want you to get sick.”
“I’m sorry,” Jungkook swallowed. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Yoongi said. He had a really deep voice. It rumbled low in Jungkook’s gut and felt warm on his neck. “Like Namjoon said, I wouldn’t offer if I wasn’t okay with it. And don’t ever apologize for who you are.” His finger tapped against his arm again, and then the clear skin was just there. Waiting. For him to bite it. He was going to bite this guy’s arm. He already knew it. There was no point in delaying it. He opened his mouth only to close it again when he heard Namjoon say,
“Get a bit closer, Yoongi.” With an incomprehensible mumble, Yoongi did, and Jungkook realized he had been leaning off the bed a bit much. He sat back now, his hand still wrapped around Yoongi’s arm, and opened his mouth again.
“Sorry,” Yoongi mumbled down to him as he looked away. “If I do get hard. Sorry.”
“Oh. Yeah, I’m sure, uh—it happens?” Jungkook shrugged before licking his lips and opening them again. “Do I, uh, need to call them out?”
“What?”
“My fangs.”
“Say, ‘I want to suck your blood,’” Yoongi said.
“I want to—” Jungkook started to chant, the arm he was holding shaking as Yoongi laughed.
“He’s just fucking with you,” Namjoon rolled his eyes a little. “Just bite him. They’ll come.”
“Okay. Okay. Okay, here it goes,” Jungkook took a deep breath and opened his mouth wide before clamping his teeth into Yoongi’s skin.
It was surely in his imagination.
He squeaked.
Like a little dog’s toy. He pulled away, his eyes wide, to find Yoongi and Namjoon staring at him.
“Did you—” Namjoon said before Yoongi started to cackle.
“Oh my god—he made a—oh, fuck, fuck, he made a ‘chomp’ noise—oh, shit, that’s so funny,” Yoongi said as he held up his sleeve. “No, no, seriously. Bite me. I’m not a chew toy. You have to break the skin. Oh my god, that’s hilarious.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Jungkook mumbled.
“You won’t. Hurry up before I have to ask Namjoon to do a demonstration.”
“Oh, no, that’s—” Namjoon started to say. Ever the competitor, though, a flaw he really needed to work on, Jungkook tried again.
He bit Yoongi’s arm.
And they were right—he would find they usually were.
His teeth didn’t need a command. They just came out. And went in just as quickly.
Jungkook knew sometimes he got dramatic. When he was overexcited, he wiggled and bounced and was told multiple times growing up to calm down. When he ate something good his face would twist in disgust—it was just unfair how good it was! When he found a new hyper fixation—his bike, makeup, a new camera, a celebrity—he could ramble and ramble about it for hours. So he knew. He knew it was a bit dramatic to say gnawing on Yoongi’s arm and sucking his blood into his mouth was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted.
That was definitely something he couldn’t share with his viewers.
Apparently, he wouldn’t be able to share any of this with them, and it made him sad. He whined against Yoongi’s arm, and both boys couldn’t have known what he was thinking of, so their combined reassurances didn’t really apply, but they still helped.
“I’m fine, keep going,” Yoongi told him while Namjoon said,
“You’re okay, just a little more.” Jungkook knew, distantly, that Namjoon was counting like he said he would, but Jungkook had always been really bad at math, so the numbers meant nothing to him.
“It must taste good,” Yoongi said above his head. Their voices felt floaty. Or Jungkook was the one levitating. Maybe he could fly. That would be his vampire power. He was thinking of all the stories he’d seen where people lifted cars off of babies or dashed in front of a train to save someone and wondered if those people had been vampires, too. He’d seen enough Spiderman to know he could use new powers for good. Finding blood to drink, though—how did these guys do it?
“He spat the other stuff out so quickly,” Yoongi was still saying, his voice sounding like a whisper and a gasp and a ghost’s, though Jungkook didn’t feel scared at all. For whatever reason, he could tell Yoongi wasn’t afraid, either. He had hissed when Jungkook actually punctured his arm, but he hadn’t made any sounds or shown any signs of discomfort yet. As someone who was constantly on edge about bothering other people, Jungkook would have noticed.
Instead, he almost felt like Yoongi was enjoying it. That spurred Jungkook on, just a little. He was pretty positive Yoongi was, actually, because while Jungkook didn’t have any personal sexual experiences, he knew what moans meant.
“Namjoon,” Yoongi said through a second one, and Jungkook felt something tugging on his shoulder and then his hair sharp enough for him to pull back, a hiss shooting through his still sharp teeth.
“That’s enough,” Namjoon was telling Jungkook. And not to be dramatic, but it took Jungkook a good second to feel normal again, whatever that meant. He knew even if he couldn’t feel that his teeth lost their edge. He thought the blood would start to taste gross then as he licked his lips, but it was still the perfect mixture of sweet and salty and even spicy. There was a dribble running down the arm slightly shaking in front of him, and Jungkook looked up to Yoongi only to find the guy had his eyes closed, his lips partially open. So to Namjoon Jungkook turned, who nodded at him.
“Clean up,” Namjoon said, swallowing himself. He had a nice deep, voice, too. Probably because he had barely woken up before they climbed into his window. He needed his morning coffee or tea or—blood. Ever the sharer, Jungkook held Yoongi’s arm gently and offered it up.
“Do you want some?”
“Oh, that’s—” Namjoon started before Yoongi’s eyes flew open and he was scrubbing his lingering blood away with his hand.
“Absolutely not. You can not fucking offer that, Jungkook.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“I would have explained, Yoongi,” Namjoon huffed. “You don’t have to be mean.”
“I’m not someone’s leftovers, fuck,” Yoongi scowled as he pushed his sleeve down. He had been right about the puncture marks—Jungkook could barely even see them before they disappeared under Yoongi’s hoodie.
“I’m really sorry,” Jungkook mumbled as he bit at his lip. “You taste really good.”
“I know,” Yoongi said, something gruff in his voice that made Jungkook want to apologize again. But there was such a color in his cheeks. And when Jungkook lowered his eyes, there was an obvious bulge in his pants.
“Oh,” Jungkook gasped before pointing a finger that was honest to God red around his fingertips. “Do you want me to help with that?”
“What? No, absolutely fucking not,” Yoongi blinked at him before rolling his eyes and pushing between them. “You deal with him, Namjoon.”
“Oh, but—wait,” Jungkook said, surprised at how quickly Yoongi disappeared.
“I’ll be right back,” Namjoon mumbled as he followed after Yoongi who at least hadn’t climbed back out the window. Still, Jungkook eyed the top of the ladder and wondered if he shouldn’t make a run or jump for it. He could test out if he could fly now. He flopped his hands into his lap and sighed before sticking his red finger into his mouth. He frowned, his whole face scrunching. It shouldn’t taste good. It was blood. Someone’s blood. It definitely shouldn’t taste so good.
Frustrated, incredibly so, and confused, Jungkook felt his chest shudder as he sucked on the tip of his finger, his tongue rolling around the edge of his nails. Exhausted, suddenly, the excessive running and the tossing and turning all weekend and the millions of questions in his mind had him lying down. He could apologize to Namjoon later. But he brought his legs up onto the bed and curled up a little, his finger still in his mouth as he frowned the whole time. Being excited and sad at the same time was confusing, too. Running fast was undeniably cool. But drinking blood? Not being able to tell his family? Jungkook hugged himself tightly, unable to stop the way he started to shake.
“I’m so sorry,” he said over and over again, especially when the door opened again.
“Oh. Shit,” Namjoon said.
“I’m so sorry,” Jungkook started to sit up. “I’ll go.”
“No, don’t, it’s okay, really,” Namjoon said as he came over to the bed and pulled a blanket up to Jungkook’s shoulders. “It’s good to cry. I waited way too long to after my, uh, first time, and I ended up just being a little shit. I was really angry. Do you feel mad? Are you mad at Yoongi? Or me?”
“No,” Jungkook sniffled honestly as he wiped at his wet face. “I don’t know what I am. What am I?”
“You’re still yourself,” Namjoon shrugged a little awkwardly. “You like to ride your bike and do makeup videos and eat good food and play video games and take—oh, shit,” he took a step back, his eyes wide. “I’m so sorry.”
“’so’kay,” Jungkook said. “Yoongi told me you two watch my videos.”
“I—sorry, I should have said something. I—didn’t want you to—I don’t know, get the wrong impression.”
“Would you have let me stay here if I wasn’t GC?”
“Yeah, of course,” Namjoon said as he sat down on his bed with a sigh. “More just—I didn’t mean to make it weird. Do you feel sick or anything?”
“No,” Jungkook almost laughed. “The exact opposite. But I’m tired.”
“You’re welcome to use the bed. Really. Cry all you want.”
“Thanks,” Jungkook said with another watery laugh. “I feel stupid.”
“Don’t. Seriously. This is a lot. It will be, too. Hopefully just for a while. I’d suggest—well, I would suggest staying here with us. Or Stoker house. So we can help.”
“You want me to join your frat?”
“I’ll talk to Taehyung,” Namjoon said. “Rush is literally next week. We have the space. We’d be honored to have you.”
“Thanks,” Jungkook said as his eyes welled up again. “Sorry, I don’t know why—god.”
“Really,” Namjoon nodded, “cry it out. I’ll be here if you want to talk about it. Let me, uh, I should go move the ladder, though. I’ll bring you some water. Need anything else?”
“No. Thanks. Seriously, you two—you’re very nice.”
“No worries,” Namjoon mumbled as he left again. Shifting on the bed, Jungkook told himself what he had heard so often—stop being dramatic! But he turned over and kept crying. It seemed perfectly reasonably to. Because he hadn’t died. But he had. He was the same, but he wouldn’t be. His life wasn’t over, but a new one was beginning. And all of it was frustrating and confusing and exciting and overwhelming, so Jungkook cried himself to sleep, not even knowing when his tears ended. All he knew, though he had no idea what it meant, even when Namjoon answered all of his questions later, was that his life as a vampire had begun.
I promised JK would be fine! I hope you enjoy the chapter more than you enjoy my stupid little pictures, haha
Warning: Blood!
AO3 masterlist
Chapter 1
Chapter 2: GoldenCloset
Any good chef would tell you that the kitchen is a battleground. Not just because of the number of knives. But juggling multiple dishes, prepping recipes, finding the best ingredients—all of this took organizing, planning, strategizing. And, of course, the kitchen had to have a competent chef who could lead his men to victory.
“What do you think?”
“Of your interview speech for an interview you don’t even have yet?” Yoongi mumbled as he hugged himself tighter in the cold.
“That’s exactly the point!” Seokjin tried not to sound exasperated, but, really, he couldn’t understand what Yoongi didn’t understand. “I need to prepare!”
“Your reign has been filled with lots of mistakes, too, though,” Jimin hummed as he walked beside them.
“Thank you for calling it my reign, I appreciate you,” Seokjin said before thinking a little. “Of course mistakes will be made in a kitchen. But any good chef will know when to give grace or cut out the weakest links.”
“Look, for the last time, I was taking a nap,” Yoongi muttered. “It’s not my fault I didn’t hear them on the porch. You know I turn my ears off when I sleep.”
“Do you really?” Seokjin asked, impressed. “I wish I could turn my ears off.”
“No, stupid. I’m just annoyed we’re still talking about this.”
“Well, I’m not talking about it,” Seokjin said as he pointed down the street. “Come, we’re here to celebrate.”
“I want to go home,” Yoongi mumbled.
“Oh, come on, you never come out with me,” Jimin said as he reached across Seokjin to take Yoongi’s hand. “I’m so excited. We got our rush paperwork in, we got some nice fire kindling from our lovely neighbors, and now we’re gonna get sloshed.”
“Absolutely not,” Yoongi tsked even if he didn’t pull his hand away. “You’re not even old enough.”
“Hasn’t stopped me before,” Jimin giggled. “So, can I take you to my normal spots?”
“We need food,” Seokjin said as he pushed between them and threw an arm over each of their shoulders. “So we can discuss next weekend. I want the best rush ever.”
“I thought you put all the plans in the paperwork,” Yoongi sighed.
“Paperwork is simply there to show the bureaucracy I can follow their rules. In reality, my dear friend, I am a rebel. The paperwork is meaningless. It’s all for show. Nothing that’s written down is true. You don’t find me following anything written down, do you? Not me. I am your fearless leader, leading you past the constraints of mere to-do lists and rules on paper that—”
“So what about recipes? Those things written on paper?”
“Guidelines,” Seokjin cleared his throat with a wave of his hand. “A chef needs to have creative license still. I just looked up what other frats do and wrote down some of their ideas. I did this last year, too. Don’t worry. If there’s a narc, we’ll just kill them.”
“Ha,” Yoongi said before pointing down the street. “Can we go there?”
“Ew, no, it looks boring,” Jimin said.
“And not a restaurant. I need substance. I can’t party on an empty stomach.”
“You should have had a bite before we left, then,” Yoongi said.
“Are you offering?” Seokjin grinned, his teeth flashing for a moment, two of them suddenly long and sharp before they retracted as the guy laughed.
“The place looks chill, that’s all. Let me get a whisky in me, and then we can get food. How about we each pick a place? Does that sound like a good compromise?”
“Aw, that’s my little vice-president,” Seokjin said, his jabbing finger deflected by Yoongi’s palm.
“Secretary. Don’t give me more responsibility than I already have.” Lanton was not known as a “party school,” but like any typical college, there was already a party to be found. Seokjin wasn’t especially partial toward them, but he knew Jimin longed to let loose after studying nursing almost all hours of the day. But Seokjin understood the importance of camaraderie, so doing things with the house members was important.
Vlad always said he was too busy, which Seokjin didn’t really believe, but he didn’t want to risk the guy stabbing anyone in public with the first sharp object he got a hold of, so Seokjin never pressured him. Zane had a strict no drinking rule, unless it was blood or energy drinks, and Seokjin wasn’t going to start judging him about how bad those were for his health because he knew alcohol wasn’t that much better. And D’Arcy—well, the guy wanted to be a DJ, but he needed to perfect his craft before getting too crunk in the real world, so maybe next year.
“How about we vote afterwards. On which place was the best.”
“What’s the winner get? Because I already know I’ll win,” Jimin said.
“I can assure you, I will never vote for any place that thinks a drink should be ninety-five percent sugar and only five percent alcohol,” Yoongi huffed.
“You’re so boring,” Jimin sighed before grabbing Seokjin’s arm. “But he’s right, the voting won’t be fair. Yoongi would vote for this dingy little place. You’d vote for food.”
“Rock, paper, scissors, then,” Seokjin suggested. “That’s always the best way to solve conflicts, anyway.”
“Deal,” Jimin said, his eyebrows raising and his hand reaching over to shake Yoongi a little as the guy didn’t agree, too. He had gone completely still, actually, and Jimin’s soft fingers turned hard as they grabbed his shirt, his eyes looking around quickly. “What do you smell?”
“Oh, please, as if we’re hunters in the forest,” Seokjin blew out a noisy breath through his lips, though he stopped, too, his eyebrows raised, and leaned in close to Yoongi’s ear. “What do you hear, boy?” Waving them away, Yoongi pointed toward the bar in front of them at a motorcycle, the only vehicle in front, parked by it.
“That’s GC’s bike.”
“Who?”
“Goldencloset.”
“Golden—who?” Seokjin said to Jimin.
“That youtuber Yoongi’s obsessed with.”
“I am not,” Yoongi muttered as he shook them off.
“How do you know that’s his bike, then?”
“Because he showed it in a video,” Yoongi said as he walked over slowly toward the sleek, black vehicle.
“Go ahead, caress it,” Seokjin encouraged him, a grin on his face as he looked at the bouncer standing by the door. “So, what, you think he’s inside?”
“Yeah, probably,” Yoongi mumbled, his fingers just hovering over the bike for a second.
“Well, let’s go, then,” Seokjin said as he grabbed Yoongi’s arm and hurried him toward the door.
“No, wait, we can’t just—wait—”
“No, it’s interesting, now. Hello, fine sir,” he said to the man at the door. “Need our IDs?”
“Place is closed.”
“Oh, but—” Seokjin said, not exactly seeing an Open sign anywhere so not really sure how to prove the guy wrong.
“But there are people inside,” Yoongi said.
“Private party,” the bouncer shrugged.
“But—my friend—that’s his bike,” Yoongi said, and Seokjin and Jimin raised their eyebrows. Yoongi could help them come up with pranks if pressed. He could help organize and keep the house clean. He could fix anything that broke. But he wasn’t a liar. “He’s got—he was wearing a plaid jacket. Silver chain. Black slacks.”
“Like I said, private party. Off you go, now,” the guy said definitively.
“What the fuck was that?” Seokjin hissed as they walked away. “Think you suddenly have hypnosis powers?”
“Oh, I could try,” Jimin said.
“No,” Yoongi said as he looked again at the bike before walking around the store’s corner. “He posted a picture of his outfit early. And I wouldn’t risk trying, Jimin. He’s one of us.”
“What? No way,” Jimin gasped. “How can you tell?”
“Never doubt when Yoongi goes full dog mode,” Seokjin whispered. “But, uh, hey, I didn’t have sneaking into a bar on the agenda tonight. Can we go?”
“Just let me check—I smell—” Yoongi said halfway around the building, his hand reaching out to grab the brick wall. “Can’t you smell that?”
“You know if it’s not garlic or the biggest plate of spaghetti you’ve ever seen, chances are I don’t,” Seokjin huffed. “It’s an alley. There’s trash.”
“Yoongi’s right,” Jimin said as his little nose wiggled up and down. “There’s blood.”
“Well, if that guy at the door was a vampire, maybe there are some inside. And if that’s the case,” Seokjin said as he turned around, “I definitely don’t want to mess with them.” Yoongi sucked in a breath and staggered forward a little. “Guys,” Seokjin hissed once more before Jimin followed after him. Groaning, Seokjin stepped over a broken bottle to stick with them.
“Shit. Shit, shit, shit,” Yoongi hissed as he moved as fast as he probably ever had around the corner. “Fuck, Jimin—”
“Oh, damn,” Seokjin said with a hand to his mouth as he saw what Yoongi was crouching down next to. The palm over his mouth wasn’t just because he felt his teeth trying to elongate. That would have been beyond embarrassing. He could almost feel his mom’s hand on the back of his head from the first and only time he had accidentally let them come out in public. It was because while some vampires might grow hungry at the sight of such a bloody mess, Seokjin knew spoiled meat when he saw it. Not that the kid on the ground was spoiled. Or meat. Well, humans had muscles. So he had meat on him, in a sense. He just wasn’t—
“Seokjin,” Jimin hissed, the sound of urgency in his voice, not his powers, making Seokjin bend down next to them.
“Is—is this him?” Seokjin whispered as Yoongi lifted the boy’s head up while Jimin felt at his wrist.
“Is he dead?” Yoongi asked before shaking his head. “I can hear his heartbeat. Fuck, fuck. Fuck, Seokjin, fix him.”
“Now, hold on,” Seokjin raised his hands.
“Quickly. At least enough for us to get him home,” Jimin said.
“You know it’s not—it works on me, not other people—”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it,” Yoongi said, the sharpness in his voice sharper than the teeth he flashed at Seokjin. “You want me to go full dog mode?”
“No, no, okay,” Seokjin said, his hands still wavering. “There’s just—a lot of blood.”
“Don’t you dare taste it, either,” Yoongi said as he tilted the boy’s head slightly. “Here first.”
“You know in order for me to—”
“Just don’t swallow, asshole, hurry the fuck up.”
“Okay, okay,” Seokjin said. Jimin was doing his nurse thing. Checking the kid’s pulse or wrapping his arm or something. Seokjin looked at the boy’s face for a second. He was a cute little thing. Seokjin could see why Yoongi was obsessed with him. Feeling his mom’s hand on the back of his head again, Seokjin bent down quickly to the clearly visible punctures in the boy’s neck. Without thinking too much about it, he placed his lips over them and then his tongue. Squeezing his eyes shut, he willed his teeth to stay normal. It ended up being easier than he expected. It wasn’t that the kid didn’t taste good. He surely did. But it was the smells that made Seokjin sit up and spit anything he had collected in his mouth out as fast as he could.
“Fuck, that’s gross,” he gagged as he wiped his mouth and stuck his tongue out.
“Do it again,” Yoongi said. “Hurry.”
“He’s all—it wasn’t just one,” Seokjin said before bending back down.
“Fuck,” Jimin mumbled. “I guess that makes sense. He’s got bites on both arms.”
“Fuckers,” Yoongi said through gritted teeth. “Sick fuckers. Hold him, Jimin, I’ll go in—”
“Oh, I think not,” Seokjin spat out as he cleaned his mouth again. “Give me his wrist.” It wasn’t that he didn’t agree with his friend. Whoever had done this clearly hadn’t been raised right. Their mother must have never smacked the back of their head when they brought their fangs out around a human.
“They obviously left him here to die,” Yoongi said, the hardness in his voice turning into a warble.
“You think it was Tae’s group?”
“No,” Yoongi almost laughed. “Not at all. Namjoon’s—no, it definitely wasn’t them.”
“Yeah, definitely not them,” Seokjin spat again after letting go of the boy’s wrist. He didn’t even wipe the blood off his lips this time before reaching for the other wrist.
“Who else could it be?” Yoongi asked. “Who else is there?”
“Let’s think about it later,” Jimin said as he patted Yoongi’s arm lightly. “He looks a bit heavy, but I can probably carry him on my back.”
“You want us to take him home?” Seokjin gaped.
“We can’t leave him here. Yoongi, his heart’s still going?”
“Yeah, it’s faint.”
“Seokjin is healing him, and then I will, too. He’ll be okay.”
“I don’t even know if it’s working,” Seokjin said. His power was for when he cut himself. For the time he broke his finger and refused to miss a class so only wrapped them up to not make anyone suspicious even if they only felt slightly bruised by the next day. It wasn’t something that worked on humans usually. If it did, he would have been a nurse like Jimin and gone around saving people until he went viral enough and got crucified for being some Jesus wannabe. But Yoongi’s plea had gone straight to Seokjin’s soft heart, so of course he had to try.
“Help me get him up. We’d better go behind a few buildings to avoid that bouncer,” Jimin said. Grunting as the boy really was heavier than expected, Seokjin helped put him on Jimin’s back. Yoongi stood up and brushed himself off, his nose sniffing hard.
“One second,” he said as he pressed himself against the back door for a few seconds before nodding and leading the way out of the alley. Keeping a hand on the kid’s back beside Jimin, Seokjin followed after.
He hadn’t thought his silly analogy would come to life so quickly, but they left the bloody battlefield behind, the wounded soldier not a part of the plan at all. But as any good chef knew, the kitchen was all about improvising, so Seokjin could adapt.
While Kim Seokjin thought he had defeated Taehyung by taking down the effigy they had made of the guy, in reality that was all part of Taehyung’s plan. He had stuffed leaves from their backyards into those black bags and puffed them just right until they resembled the man’s perfect plump form. It was his real masterpiece. He should have submitted it for a class project. He felt a little sad, like seeing your son return from war, when it showed up on their porch, its head ripped off and its guts spilling out. But Taehyung had dumped the soldier out back into the field of leaves and then raked enough of them up to jump into, so he knew who the real winner was.
War was like painting, though. It was art. Mostly because it was messy. There was even a book called The Art of War, so Taehyung knew he wasn’t the only one who thought this. Sure, he hadn’t read the book even though Namjoon had encouraged him to, but he knew enough about art to see the point. You had to get creative. You couldn’t be afraid. You had to blow the other person’s mind, and one day they would be so impressed they would admit you were good. No, great. Better than them. That would be how you won for good.
Grinning as he leaned against the cold steel of the ladder, Taehyung gripped his window marker carefully and drew a white circle against the glass.
“Keep an eye out, yeah?” he called down to Namjoon.
“I am, I am. I’m more worried about you falling than anything else,” Namjoon hissed back up at him. He stuffed his fingers under his arms for a second before grabbing the ladder again, his feet continually lifting up and down. If he had only put on pants instead of keeping his sleep shorts on, he might not be freezing at the moment. “You sure you don’t want me to do—keep your feet on the ring!”
“It has to be perfect,” Taehyung said as he put his foot back. It didn’t feel quite right, as he needed to lift his leg to get the right angle, but he didn’t want to fall. The ladder was pretty rickety. “And you’re not the right height.”
“I’m as tall as Seokjin.”
“You’re taller,” Taehyung said down to him. “I’m his exact height.”
“How do you even know that?” Namjoon muttered.
“What is it you always say? ‘To know thine enemy is to know thine self?’”
“So you did read the book.”
“What book?” Taehyung said as he leaned back a little to look at his handiwork. “Wow, I’m so good. It looks just like him.” He had drawn the circle exactly where Seokjin’s head would sit when he stood up from his desk. He had added a perfectly red, round clown nose and the wig to make him look truly silly. He’d even added a speech bubble that read “Here to suck,” a play on “here to serve” as well as just a huge diss because the guy was so lame, he sucked. Taehyung couldn’t wait to look out his window and see Seokjin standing there like the clown he was.
“If I do say so myself, my dear friend,” Taehyung said down to Namjoon. “This might be my best prank yet.” Used to him saying that, Namjoon just gave him a thumbs-up before his head whipped toward the street.
“Get down! Someone’s coming.”
“Oh,” Taehyung giggled, because running from the battlefield the most exciting part.
“Why are they back already?” Namjoon said as he lifted his feet anxiously as Taehyung climbed down.
“It’s them? Wow, didn’t even last an hour. I knew his stamina wouldn’t be great, but wow, think he got drunk first? Maybe it was Yoongi. He’s just a little guy.”
“Shut up,” Namjoon hissed, his eyes glancing up at the window before he pushed himself away from the ladder as Taehyung jumped down. “Leave it for later.” Nodding, Taehyung followed his friend to the trash cans between the houses and squatted down to peer around them into the street.
He didn’t need super hearing to know who was coming. The guy was so loud. There were nights Taehyung could hear him singing, and even stuffing a pillow over his head didn’t drown the guy out. He was really the worst vampire, because he had no idea of how to be sneaky or quiet. He was just so loud. His lips just flapped, flapped, flapped, and—
“Holy shit,” Taehyung hissed, his fingers digging into Namjoon’s arms when he saw a body, a literal body, not an effigy of a bag stuffed with feathers or leaves or whatever, hanging over Seokjin’s back. The guy, Seokjin, was complaining with every step.
“He’s heavy—why can’t I fly—someone help me. Why is this my life? Get him off. Ah, I think he moved! Shit! Is he alive?” He wasn’t alone. Yoongi and Jimin were walking on either side of him, their hands on the guy’s back slung over Seokjin’s back, and Taehyung stared at Namjoon with his mouth open as his friend slowly swiveled his head to look at him.
“Is that—did they?” Taehyung said. Namjoon licked his lips as the three Stoker boys climbed up their steps. “No, no way, this is some trick. They’re planning a prank on us.”
“Tae, that was definitely a real human.”
“Maybe he was drunk.”
“Even I could smell him, Tae. And he clearly was not drunk. I’m not even sure he was—”
“Don’t say it,” Taehyung hissed, his mouth covering Namjoon’s hand before he whipped it away, his eyes super wide. “Let’s just go inside.”
“No way, we have to help that guy!”
“Uh,” Taehyung said. “We can’t reveal that we’re here.”
“We live next door, Taehyung. They know we’re here.”
“I mean here, here. Pulling a prank.”
“We always pull pranks. Tae, what if that guy is dead?”
“Then we’ll—call the police.”
“And, what, help explain bite marks on him? We have to go help him. Now.”
“But you said we can’t actually kill anyone. I’m not looking for a fight.”
“Please,” Namjoon said as he stood up and brushed his clothes off. “They’re not going to fight us.”
“I think they will, in fact,” Taehyung said as he followed his friend slowly toward the Stoker front door. “This would be a great opportunity for them to finally strike! We’re walking into enemy territory.”
“Taehyung, at the end of the day, what matters more? Winning this little war against this stupid fraternity house, or making sure we aren’t accomplices to murder?”
“Well—” Taehyung said, only cowering a little as Namjoon stared at him.
“It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt. This is serious.”
“I thought it was ‘it’s all fun and games when someone gets hurt,’” Taehyung said, pouting and then sighing when Namjoon glared at him even harder. “Okay, okay, I’m kidding. Of course it’s not cool that they’re—” he swallowed. “That they—I mean, do you think they—but they’re—I mean—”
“They’re vampires, Tae. Sometimes shit happens just like it does with humans. Come on,” Namjoon said as he tugged on Taehyung’s sleeve. “We have to go help the guy.”
“Let me call Vladamir! Three on three is better!”
“That guy went out hours ago. Hurry,” Namjoon said as he climbed the steps and pounded on the door before Taehyung could stop him. Groaning and taking a deep breath, Taehyung climbed the steps after him, his eyes scanning the doorway for any traps. The door opened faster than he expected, and Taehyung swiveled his hat around backwards, ready for a fight as Yoongi stood in front of them.
“What do you want?”
“I saw,” Namjoon said, his finger pointing past the guy’s shoulder. “What the fuck did you do?”
“None of your business. Go away,” Yoongi said. The door started to close, but Namjoon stuck his foot inside and put his hand on Yoongi’s shoulder. The guy stared at it momentarily, and Taehyung saw Yoongi’s lips curl.
“Yoongi.”
“You’re supposed to ask for permission to enter, you know,” Seokjin’s voice sang out behind him, his smile appearing behind Yoongi’s shoulder. Taehyung felt his teeth showing and pressed his lips together as he snorted a little.
“Like we’d ever ask for permission. You both know Namjoon could break your door down if—”
“Oh, please, this nerd?” Seokjin scoffed. Namjoon was still looking at Yoongi, who was meeting his gaze in such a hardcore way Taehyung had to wonder if the guy had developed mind reading powers. If he had, he couldn’t find out about what they were up to, so Taehyung came up under Namjoon’s arm and started to push his body against Yoongi’s.
“Let us in.”
“No, fuck off,” Yoongi grunted.
“Yeah, go home to your finger paints and sippy cups.”
“They’re called straws, and—”
“They’re bad for the environment! Planet killer!”
“Person killer!” Taehyung shot back, Seokjin actually gasping before poking at him around Yoongi’s body.
“I’ve never killed a person in my life! You take that back! Paint fumes killed your braincells, you absolut—”
“Everyone knows straws aren’t the real problem,” Namjoon said loudly as he looked at Yoongi one more time before taking a step forward. “Especially not right now. The real problem is that kid you just brought home. Who did it?”
“Not one of us,” Yoongi said up at him before he sighed and sagged back. “Stop pushing against me, fuck. Move, Jin, god, get out of the way, this is so stupid.”
“I’ll defend my fortress until the day I die,” Seokjin said, his arms spread out and his feet wide.
“Good, good, I’m going to help Jimin.”
“You can’t come in here,” Seokjin said. “I haven’t given permission.” Namjoon and Taehyung looked at each other before both taking a step past the threshold. Taehyung looked up and around, waiting for a bucket of garlic water or glitter mist to spray on him but only saw Seokjin. Grinning triumphantly, Taehyung took another step. Seokjin’s mouth opened wide, and suddenly a high pitch sound came out of it. It was guttural, too. Like he was crying and moaning and screeching like a banshee and possessed demon goat all at once, and Taehyung wasn’t sure if he was more impressed or shocked or—something else. Yoongi was only halfway up the stairs, and he turned around and somehow shouted over Seokjin’s noise as he slapped his hands over his ears.
“Jin, shut the fuck up! Not now!” Seething, Seokjin crossed his arms over his chest and stared at Taehyung and Namjoon before following after them. Taehyung had been inside the Stoker house before. It was nothing special. In fact, there was nothing really to see. A clean kitchen table. No dirty dishes in the sink. A living room void of passed out dudes. Very pretentious and boring. There was no life in the place. Which reminded Taehyung that there might literally not be a life in the house. He knew Yoongi’s room was next to Seokjin’s while Jimin’s was on the other side of the house and the younger guys lived downstairs. Glad Seokjin’s door was closed so no one saw his masterpiece yet, he shuffled into what must be Yoongi’s room.
He didn’t gasp.
Namjoon did.
“That’s GC!” he pointed to the body on the bed.
“No way,” Taehyung said, because while he didn’t follow or watch the guy himself, he had caught Namjoon on multiple occasions doing just that. And perhaps a little something more one time. He knew what the guy meant to Namjoon, in other words. But he couldn’t share that with the enemy in the room.
“Yes, yes, I’m positive,” Namjoon said as he got out his phone, his fingers shaking a little as he opened up an app.
“Not you, too,” Seokjin said with a loud sigh behind them as he pushed past them into Yoongi’s room.
“Can I—can we come in?” Namjoon said as he showed Taehyung the picture on his screen.
“Oh, suddenly he has manners,” Seokjin huffed. Taehyung looked at the picture on Namjoon’s phone and the boy on the bed. It was definitely the same person.
“Yoongi?” Namjoon asked, but the guy didn’t answer as he hovered with Jimin over the guy on the bed. “What are you going to do with him? If you’re planning some sick joke, this is too far. Even you have to know that, Seokjin.”
“There’s no joke here,” Seokjin shrugged. “Sadly. I wish something funny was happening tonight.”
“Oh, I’m sure it will,” Taehyung said, his smile making Seokjin scoff at him.
“You’re right, seeing your face always makes me smile because you look so funny. It’s funny, how you think you’re really better looking than some people.”
“I never said that,” Taehyung said as he put his hands on his hips. “You said, in fact, that you think—”
“If you’re going to argue, please go do it somewhere else,” Jimin said. If Taehyung was afraid of anyone in the Stoker house, it was Jimin. He could seem so sweet, but Taehyung had first-hand experience of how sour he actually was. Huffing a little and crossing his arms over his chest, Taehyung leaned on the doorframe and watched Namjoon hesitating. Nudging him a little, Taehyung mumbled,
“Just go in. Maybe it will be like Romeo and Juliet, and if you kiss him, he’ll wake up.”
“That’s not at all how that story goes—” Namjoon started to say while Seokjin rolled his eyes.
“I already tried that, so no point in—hey!” Yoongi had thrown the nearest object—his headphones—at the guy, and Taehyung felt his eyes go wide. There was dissention in the house. He could use that to his advantage. Seokjin wasn’t the perfect leader. Anyone could see that. And if even Yoongi wanted to throw things at him—Taehyung could give the guy plenty of ammunition to throw something else if he really wanted to. But Seokjin’s second “Hey!” caught everyone’s attention as he pointed to the bed, his screech not quite like the alarm one from earlier but still a bit goat-like.
“Oh, shit,” Yoongi said as he scurried off the bed. Jimin didn’t move at all but continued to hold the guy’s wrist in his hand even as the not-corpse’s eyelashes started moving.
“I hear that sometimes a dead body can move,” Taehyung started to explain.
“He’s not dead! We made sure he wasn’t,” Yoongi hissed without looking away from the boy on the bed. He definitely was starting to stir more than a dead body would. He was making sounds, too.
“Sloppy job, really,” Taehyung said. “Think your hypnosis will stick this time, Jimin? I get being hungry, but three on one sounds a bit unfair.”
“For the last time, Taehyung,” Jimin said, that same fake sweetness in his voice that boiled Taehyung’s blood, “you have to stop lying about things you think I’ve done.”
“—nt –ed” the boy on the bed groaned.
“Shit, what if he turns into a zombie?” Seokjin whispered as he put his fingers against his lips.
“Zombies aren’t real,” Yoongi said helpfully. “He shouldn’t be turning into anything. Hey, kid—” he put a hand on his bed and leaned forward over the boy’s legs. “Can you hear us?”
“Mmmnh.”
“Sounds like a zombie to me,” Seokjin said.
“Can you tell us your name?”
“You can’t ask him that,” Namjoon said, his hand not quite reaching Yoongi as he waved at him.
“What, don’t you want to know?” Yoongi looked back at Namjoon who shook his head then shrugged.
“—am I?”
“You’re in the Stoker fraternity house,” Jimin said, as he must have heard the boy’s whole question.
“The best on campus,” Seokjin added.
“The lamest on campus, you mean,” Taehyung said before saying a bit louder, “next door is Wordsworth, definitely worth more than this slum.”
“That’s a bit offensive,” Namjoon muttered. The boy on the bed groaned deeply, and everyone stared back at him as his eyes fluttered open.
“Where—how did—” he struggled to say, a hiss leaving his mouth as he sat up a little. Jimin helped him, and Yoongi scurried back again like a scared little cockroach.
“We found you behind a bar.”
“I—I’m drunk?” the boy said as he looked at his body, his eyes widening as he looked at his wrists Jimin had been bandaging up. “Wha—what happened?”
“You were pretty beat up,” Jimin said slowly. “Do you remember anything?”
“I—had a date.”
“A date?” Yoongi said as Namjoon said,
“Oh, a date.”
“With who?” Jimin asked, but the boy on the bed just frowned.
“I—don’t remember. Who—who are you?”
“I’m Jimin,” Jimin said with a hand on his heart before he pointed to everyone in the room to introduce them.
“Pay no attention to them,” Seokjin said when Jimin introduced Namjoon and Taehyung. “They don’t live here.”
“We live next door in a far superior mansion,” Taehyung said proudly.
“I—I’m sorry to bother you,” the boy said. “I—should go.”
“You definitely need to rest. Don’t worry,” Jimin said. “You can go in the morning if you feel better.”
“I’ll be fine,” the boy said, though he groaned as he scooted off the bed a little. “Whose bed is this? I’m sorry.” Yoongi just raised his hand but shook his head.
“We have an empty bed at our place,” Taehyung smiled. “You wouldn’t bother anyone there.”
“He should stay here,” Seokjin said. “We have nicer beds.”
“He should come with us,” Taehyung combated.
“He should stay with the nurse, obviously.”
“He should go where he wants, obviously,” Taehyung said as he waved his hand at the boy. “I’ll even help you go home, if you want. Who do you want to stay with?”
“Stop treating him like he’s some lost puppy,” Namjoon muttered as he crossed his arms over his chest. “Let him decide for himself.” The boy looked around at all of them, though his eyes came back to Namjoon’s after a moment. Taehyung knew that look. While he didn’t understand it, as he saw Namjoon’s hairy thighs on a daily basis, he did know the power thighs could have on certain eyes. He was about to point it out when Seokjin rolled another die and failed spectacularly.
“We could rock, paper, scissors for him.”
“Again, he’s not a dog,” Namjoon huffed.
“Could I—come with you?” the boy said, his eyes on Namjoon who startled and dropped his arms and then nodded.
“S-sure, yeah, I can carry you.”
“Oh, I can—” the boy said as he stood up, though he immediately wobbled. “Oh my god, what happened to me? I feel like shit.”
“Look, I’m not sure if I licked him enough,” Seokjin said.
“You licked him?” Taehyung gasped.
“You licked me?” the boy gaped.
“It helped with the healing,” Seokjin said with a dismissive hand wave. “But you shouldn’t take him away. He might need me to lick him again.”
“Come with us, you poor child,” Taehyung said, his hand reaching out to guide the boy out of the room. “We promise not to lick you in our house. God, you’re such a creep, Seokjin.”
“What? If you have a booboo, I can lick you, too.”
“Hurry, Namjoon, take the boy and run,” Taehyung shouted. “I’ll hold them off!”
“With your tongue?” Seokjin grinned as he stuck his own out.
“On second thought, every man for himself,” Taehyung said as he scurried to the hallway. Having a dog in the house wasn’t allowed, but Taehyung had always wanted a pet. He was pretty excited, as Namjoon helped the boy out of the room and down the stairs, about getting one of his own finally. Smiling sweetly at the three grumpy loser pusses following after them all the way to the doorway, Taehyung pranced down the stairs and over to his superior house with a new puppy in-tow.
A door slamming politely in one’s face sounded like an oxymoron, but that’s exactly what Namjoon did to Taehyung as soon as they got the boy upstairs. Only huffing a little, but not really up for cleaning any puke up, Taehyung scurried off to his room and stared out the window, waiting for Seokjin to find his new makeup.
“Sorry about everyone,” Namjoon mumbled as he helped the boy sit down on the bed opposite his no one used anymore. “Everyone’s a bit intense.”
“They seem nice. Lively. You must be good friends.”
“Uh,” Namjoon scratched the back of his head. “More like mortal enemies, but okay. Let me get you some water. You okay for a minute?”
“Yeah,” the boy nodded as he looked around the room.
“Sorry, it’s not super clean,” Namjoon muttered as he picked up his jeans slung over the back of his chair.
“Are you kidding? This is super cool.”
“Thanks. Be right back,” Namjoon said before hurrying out of the door. He shut it softly behind him and took a deep breath, though, because he could not believe this was happening.
He also had no idea if he should tell the guy he knew he was GoldenCloset and was a huge fan. He started to run the scenarios as he got the boy and himself some water, his head shaking the whole time.
“I’m a huge fan. I’ve watched all of your videos.”
“Oh my god, you’ve kidnapped me!”—Jungkook crashes out of the window and plummets to his death.
“I was wondering if I could get an autograph.”
“Oh, sure. You’re a fan?”
“Oh, huge. I’m a little in love with you.”
“Oh. Uh.”—Jungkook stabs Namjoon with the pen to defend himself.
“I’ve seen all your videos! You’re so cool! And hot! So much hotter in person!”
“Oh, thank you, hehe, you’re hot, too, you want to make out?”—Namjoon needed to throw himself out a window.
Taking a deep breath, Namjoon went back into his room determined to say nothing to avoid any mistakes.
“Thanks,” the boy said as he took the glass from him. “I’m Jungkook, by the way. Jeon Jungkook.”
“Oh,” Namjoon blinked, all of his ideas coming back to him and flying out the window at the same time, even if the only sound was a little breath he sucked in. “Namjoon,” he stuck out his hand and shook the boy’s—shook GoldenCloset’s—shook Jungkook’s hand. The name fit him perfectly. It sounded soft, somehow, but the hard K sounds were strong. Cool. He was definitely as cool as Namjoon had thought he would be.
“I remember. You really don’t mind that I crash here?”
“I really don’t. No one uses that bed anymore,” Namjoon said as he sat down on his own after pulling back his green comforter.
“Cool—thanks for helping me out. I promise to get out your hair ASAP in the morning. I just—I’m pretty embarrassed. I don’t drink, so I don’t know what I did to end up like this,” the boy—Jungkook laughed a little, and Namjoon had to clear his throat and swing his legs into bed to avoid having his cheeks burn when he saw Jungkook blush a little. At least it gave the boy a bit of color. He had never and would never stick his teeth into a human unless he somehow met someone he wanted to marry who was cool with it. But that would never happen with him. He was either going to be single forever or win back his first love. Rolling his eyes at himself and sighing, he cleared his throat again and picked up his book from his desk.
“Don’t even worry about it. As long as you’re safe.”
“Do you have people crash here a lot? As a frat house and all?” Jungkook said as he laid down slowly, his body curling up under the thin mattress as he faced Namjoon.
“Oh, uh, well, we don’t really drink much, to be honest. We’re—not your typical frat.”
“Oh? How so?”
“Uh. We’re—we seek to sate our immature beastly natures in other ways.”
“Huh?”
“I mean instead of getting drunk and making dumb decisions, we just make dumb decisions,” Namjoon shrugged, smiling a little when Jungkook did. The boy had the tiniest curls around his ears and these stud earrings that might as well be the spotlight in a lighthouse guiding the way right to his cute face. “Anyway, let me know if you need anything. Do you mind if I study?”
“Not at all, sorry for bothering you. I definitely want to sleep.”
“Cool, sleep well,” Namjoon said, no pages turning for several minutes as the room went quiet. He looked over a couple of times to see the boy’s eyes were closed. He sometimes stared at that side of the room and saw someone when he knew they weren’t there. That was just an old habit. Jungkook didn’t look anything like that boy did, though. And yet Namjoon knew looking for too long would be a mistake. So he did try to read, his head perking up when he heard some yells from next door. Figuring Seokjin had found the clown painting, Namjoon shook his head and did concentrate for a good while. His eyes were starting to droop when he heard another noise at his window. Knowing Seokjin was probably already retaliating by throwing old dumplings at them or something, he got out of bed slowly and shuffled to the window to peek around it carefully.
“Jesus, fuck,” he hissed when he saw the black bat thudding against the glass. “Absolutely not. Go away!” The bat continued, though, and then sat on the seal with its hands on its hips—that wasn’t possible, but Namjoon could see it, nonetheless—and tilted its head at him. “Okay, okay, god, one second.” Making sure Jungkook was still asleep, Namjoon rummaged through his closet for a robe he didn’t use anymore. Opening up the window slowly, he held the robe out and turned his head toward Jungkook as the bat came in.
“Shit, it’s cold,” Yoongi’s voice rumbled as the robe left Namjoon’s hands and the window clicked.
“Maybe if you came through the front door with clothes on, you wouldn’t be cold,” Namjoon mumbled as he crossed his arms and stepped toward Jungkook’s bed. “What do you want?”
“We have to talk about him.”
“Do we?” Namjoon asked. “I don’t think you’re ready for that conversation.”
“Namjoon,” Yoongi sighed as he mirrored his stance, though he looked a little more annoyed than angry. He always looked like that, and something about it just made Namjoon madder.
“It’s late, so get to your point.”
“He was bitten.”
“Obviously. Are you ready to tell me by who?”
“I don’t know. We found him like that.”
“Right.”
“Someone—it was multiple people, Namjoon. They left him to die.”
“Right,” Namjoon said, though his voice had dropped as his arms did, too.
“So if you can stop caring about fucking winning for a second, and listen to me—”
“I’m listening.”
“You need to be careful.”
“What?”
“He may wake up tomorrow totally fine. Groggy, dizzy, okay, his blood will come back. He’ll go back to his dorm and probably back to his normal life, and you’ll go back to staring at him on your little screen with your hand down your pants—”
“Hey, fuck you,” Namjoon said as he threw a finger toward Yoongi. “Like you don’t do the same now.”
“Only because I’m single. I’d never cheat on anyone,” Yoongi shrugged.
“Look, if you came here to—”
“The other option,” Yoongi said with his eyes narrowing, “is he wakes up and isn’t normal. He wakes up turned.”
“Tu—turned? No way.”
“I have no idea who bit him, Namjoon. It is possible.”
“Yeah, but—that’s not allowed.”
“It’s not like we have laws against it,” Yoongi snorted dismissively. “No one even knows we exist, Namjoon.”
“Which is why we shouldn’t be turning people.”
“No shit.”
“But—only some people can. We don’t know—”
“Exactly. I don’t know how many people bit him, and I don’t know who did. They may not even know.” Namjoon frowned, suddenly deeply unsettled. He knew Jungkook was probably going to get up in the morning and leave. And Namjoon would go back to just watching him on his screen. He knew that. He hadn’t even thought about him turning. He wasn’t even sure what that would mean. But he did know there wouldn’t be a way of knowing for a few days. And while he would never forgive whoever did this to the boy, he had to acknowledge the person didn’t necessarily know exactly what they were doing.
Vampire powers were more like gifts one was just naturally born with. If they weren’t honed, however, they wouldn’t be strong. That was one reason why Namjoon had tried so many things growing up to see what his might be. Having his parents acknowledge that their son just might not be special was devastating for him, but he really didn’t seem to have any power. Sure, he hadn’t tried jumping from a high surface to see if he could fly or turn into a bat, but he wasn’t Taehyung level of dumb enough to.
“What should I do if—” Namjoon started, but Yoongi shook his head.
“He won’t show any signs for a few days if it happens. I just thought you should know. Since I know you’ll be stalking him.”
“I don’t stalk—look, if you—”
The window was opened, and a cold blast of air made Namjoon freeze, but so did the robe suddenly dropped to his floor as Yoongi turned around. Yoongi had one hand and knee on the windowsill before he transformed, and Namjoon scowled as he snatched up the robe and locked the window behind the guy. He watched the small bat glide back into its window and then Yoongi’s pale skin appeared again. He waved back at Namjoon and then gave him a middle finger which had Namjoon rolling his eyes and slumping back to his bed with a huff.
As much as he hated to admit it, though, Yoongi was right.
He usually was.
Jungkook was already gone by the time Namjoon woke up. A note on his desk had a scribbled thank you was something Namjoon’s groggy head wanted to frame, but instead he sat on his bed staring at the empty one across from it. It was made for the first time in over a year. And while Namjoon knew Jungkook was going to leave, he felt his chest twinge like it had the last time the bed’s previous occupant had left for the last time.
Clearing his throat and taking Jungkook’s water cup to the kitchen, Namjoon did what he did best, though: He thought about something else. Mainly, his classes, sure, but also whatever Taehyung’s plight of the day would be. And later, when GC made a video, he would snuggle into his chair by the window or curl up under his covers and watch it. Because it was just going to be another normal day like nothing special had happened at all.
Summary: Two frat houses, not alike in dignity as neither really had any to begin with, in [generic college campus] where we lay our scene--a feud as old as time between Kim Seokjin, with his faithful friends Yoongi and Jimin, and Kim Taehyung, with his genius friend Namjoon, unfolds. When streamer Jungkook and tour guide Hoseok enter stage right, a war of more than just pranks will begin. Who will suck the worst, no, best--no, the most? No, the hardest!? They all will, considering the frats are made up of vampires. Let the sucking begin!
So I wanted to write something silly after such a heavy story (“Cops & Chaebols”). A friend, the lovely Lovelyhobs, wanted me to write this idea well over a year ago, so I’m finally getting to it! This story is just going to be as dumb and silly as possible! Don’t think too much about it! I did, however, think a lot about it. I didn’t want to do “typical” vampires, so I’m using some pretty “normal” lore and then coming up with my own thing. The vampires in this world have evolved to be almost like humans. They are not known (people would still freak out if they knew there were vampires out there!). They can walk in the sun and sleep at normal times, and they can even eat normal food. But think of them as having a rare immune system disease that requires them to eat certain things in order to stay healthy, aka, blood. Just like normal humans, each vampire requires different types of blood, and some even thrive better on animal versus human blood, etc. They can be seen in mirrors, and garlic isn’t their weakness (except Jin, who’s allergic). If you drive a stake in their heart, they’ll OBVIOUSLY DIE, DUH, OW. Not every vampire has every “typical” vampire power you might think of. Only some can turn into bats, only some can do hypnosis, only some have super speed, etc. Just like how some humans are gifted at birth with special talents, so are some vampires! Hopefully this is enough background to get you going! I’ll try to reveal more things as we go, but I really have no plan for this, I’m just writing :p Let me know if you have any questions! I hope this is fun! This year hasn't been "great" for my writing, and I can't promise posting often. I have four chapters of this so far (150ish pages), so I do want to post what I have before the year is over.
Setting: Generic; didn't put a specific place, but it's probably an American campus somewhere; set during 2022-2024.
Character notes: I made them all 19-22 to make sure they're all Freshmen-Seniors to all be at school at the same time.
Ships: TaeJin is supposed to be the "main" ship, but typical of me, there are two side ships that might seem to get more attention at first. We have the lovely Jimin and Hoseok and then a lovely trio of Yoongi, Namjoon, and Jungkook. Solo shippers can go away <;3
TW: I'm all about consent, so I will do my best to explain all of that to the best of my ability. But this is a vampire story--if someone drinking someone's blood bothers you, please just don't read this. This is a funny (or attempted to be funny) story more than anything else, so it won't concentrate on any violence.
Rating: M for now
I don't really know anything about frats, so if nothing is "realistic"--uh, it's a fictional story.
Warnings: THERE WILL BE BLOOD!! It’s VAMPIRES!! Also some smut, but idk how much or what kind yet. Also bad words. Some characters deal with some anxiety and self-deprecating thoughts for us to get through.
AO3 masterlist
Chapter 1: Stroker versus Worthless
Perhaps it wasn’t the best place to start. The quad or dining hall or state-of-the-art nursing facility with fancy animatronics that would definitely give certain people nightmares as their too-human and yet scarily fake eyes lolled toward you might have been the “best” place. But the boy with a nametag shining into the sun and a heart-shaped smile wasn’t the best tour guide on campus for no reason.
“My name is Jung Hoseok. Let me be the first to welcome you to Lanton Academy, Middle Earth campus!” he called out with a clap of his hands. The moms and dads settled down, and the kids snapped to attention. He used to be surprised at how quickly the parents made friends with each other, but he had figured out a long time ago that most of their chatting was just trying to figure out how to one-up the other.
And the kids—scrawny and wide-eyed or bored and uninterested looking on their phones—he could tell now who was here because their parents wanted them to be a legacy child versus the kid who had been dreaming of this university their whole lives for some reason versus the one who had decided college wasn’t for them at all and would probably drop out after a year at the most versus the one who was too anxious to make any sort of huge decision about their future so would tour twenty campuses until they all blurred into one.
“As you may know, Lanton has four campuses now,” Hoseok said as he moved his arms in what he called the “airplane stewardess” motions. He pointed to the West, North, and then down West as he explained the other campuses’ locations.
“There is Science & Tech, Nursing & Education, and Totally Everything, all within a quick tram ride of each other. Today we’ll cover all four campuses, so make sure to get a hot chocolate or coffee when we stop by the on-campus tea and coffee spot, Sip Home in Transylvania. If you’re curious, ask me later about where that name came from! Now, we’re starting today at two of the most famous fraternity houses on the school’s entire ground. All frat houses are here on Middle Earth campus, while you’ll find all the ladies on the west campus, S&T.”
He tried to keep the history lessons short, but it was the parents with the money he had to impress, not usually the kids. Everyone was looking up at the buildings he started to describe, anyway, and he couldn’t really blame them. He didn’t get to come to this campus except for work, but ever since he saw one of the frat boys leaning out his window when Hoseok was having some pictures taken outside, he had found any excuse he could to come by the place. He was even going to rush this semester, and Hoseok had never had any desire previously to join the fraternity life.
Perhaps he glanced a bit longingly up at the window he hoped was open, but the morning was still a bit too cold. Warming himself with the packs in his pockets and the memories of golden hair dancing in the autumn breeze while small hands ran over a pale, smooth chest before they waved down at him, Hoseok cleared his throat to carry on with his tour.
“On the left you’ll see Stoker house, named after the man himself, Bram Stoker, author of the iconic Dracula. On the right is Wordsworth house, named after, you guessed it, William Wordsworth. Does anyone know his most famous work?”
“‘The Tyger,’ probably,” a boy with huge glasses who looked like a cross between Arthur the aardvark and Draco Malfoy said. “Tyger, Tyger, burning bright, in the forest of the night. Or perhaps ‘I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud.’ It’s probably that one, isn’t it?”
“Oh, wow, a fan,” Hoseok said, not making fun of the boy at all even as a few people laughed. “Do you know the Lucy Gray ones, then?”
“Oh, yes!” the boy looked excited now, and Hoseok would bet a million dollars he didn’t have on what the kid’s major was going to be. “The one about the child being abducted!”
“Good lord,” a mother muttered.
“Or about vampires,” Hoseok leaned his torso in.
“Vampires? It’s not about vampires.”
“And why isn’t it? The moon—her disappearing without any footprints. A vampire turned into a bat and stole her from the bridge.”
“A—” the boy said before going silent. Letting him sit with the theory, Hoseok pointed back up to the houses.
“The oldest building on campus—”
“It looks it,” a dad said under his breath.
“—it used belong to Steven Lanton, who founded Lanton in 1909. A lover of literature, the school started out as a Fine Arts academy and grew from there. Today, the Wordsworth house is the oldest fraternity on campus and thus one of the most prestigious. Though we can’t forget Stoker next door, home to some of the most famous families in the area. Rumor has it, these two are the hardest fraternities to get into.”
“Are you in one?”
“No,” Hoseok said with a shrug. “But I’ll rush this semester.”
“What year are you? Aren’t you too old?”
“Not at all. You can join even as a senior. I’m a junior this year, though.”
“Do you major in literature?” the boy with the glasses asked again.
“Not at all,” Hoseok said with a flourish of his coat. “I’m a fashion major.”
“Then—why’d you come to this school?” someone else asked.
“Oh, my dad’s a professor here. Literature,” Hoseok said. Someone softly gasped in the crowd, a whispered,
“Nepotism,” making Hoseok force a smile.
“Which one is better to join?”
“Obviously the Stocker one,” a dad pointed. “Look at the structure. The other one’s completely falling apart.”
“Funny you should ask,” Hoseok grinned. The dad did have a fair point. With its white brick, black window frames and door and railing around the stairs and porch, the house certainly looked more interesting from a design perspective. It was two stories tall with a tower in one corner that might have housed a bell at some point or, if the local rumors were anything to go by, a gargoyle.
In contrast, the building next door looked like it was in disarray. The fading blue wooden walls were barely hanging onto the window shades. The porch and stairs had at least one spot where you might lose a foot if you stepped incorrectly. And the yard hadn’t been trimmed in a while but also had spots of dead grass. They also had decorations up from various holidays, mostly Christmas lights with a mixture of Halloween ones. Several fake bats were hanging along the porch that Hoseok swore had been moved every time he brought a different tour by. The only clean part of Wordsworth seemed to be a garden off to the side which stayed vibrant no matter the season, though with the snow still melting from the weekend, it was currently covered in several sheets littered with tiny bears on them.
He looked up at the window on the building on the left and tried not to sigh seeing it was closed and still dark inside.
“I myself am hoping to join Stoker,” he finally answered the original question, “but don’t let appearances deceive you! Like I said, Wordsworth has some of the brightest and most talented minds on campus! Have you heard of Kim Taehyung?”
“No,” a chorus of voices rang out, but Hoseok didn’t let the negativity dissuade him.
“A junior, like me. Recently had one of his pieces showing in the MOA. The MOA!”
“The moan-a?” a mom whispered to another one as Hoseok started to walk backwards. One foot behind the other, he stuck a huge grin on his face.
Perhaps the two frat houses that were the hardest to get into wasn’t the best place to start his tour. None of the kids in the circle following after him would probably get in even if they tried. Hells, he might not get in, and everyone liked him. But as Hoseok looked back up at the shut window one more time, he knew they had to start somewhere.
Every story did.
The beginning to any good dish, as any half-respected chef would tell you, was the selection of ingredients. Forget the recipe. The recipe means nothing. There is no recipe. Just the fresh zucchini, just the ripe pears, just the blood dripping out of the recently butchered meat. And to select the finest ingredients took a nose, an eye, even a tongue skilled beyond one dipped into the salt bath of fast food or corrupted by the sordid, flashing videos of the Tik-Tok. It took a knowledge beyond the super market, an ability to forage as nature intended for the best selections, a wisdom surpassing one’s years that—
“Jin. Please,” the thinnest and palest boy sitting at the table said as he slumped his face into his palms. “Can we please eat?”
“Yoongi, I am trying to educate you,” the tallest boy in the room huffed as he put his hands on his hips.
“There’s some O in the fridge,” the blonde on the couch said. “Want me to get you some?”
“No, what Jin made smells delicious. If only he would let me try it,” Yoongi glared up at the boy standing in front of the table who finally flopped his hands to his sides.
“Fine, you monster. Tear into it.”
“Not sure how one tears into eggs,” Yoongi mumbled before picking up his fork. The three other boys at the table did the same.
“So today we have scrambled eggs with a hint of chipotles in adobo sauce. The extra dark color and slightly sweet taste is coming from the blood Jimin so lovingly procured for us. I do hope you savor your meal and—oh, you’re done.”
“Thanks,” the boy with a white buzzcut said as he hopped up.
“There’s no more?” the frowniest of the group asked. When Seokjin picked up the empty dish and shook his head sadly, the boy thrusted his fork hard enough into the table to leave two small puncture marks, but no one even startled before he grumbled and slunk off.
“Jimin, you didn’t even get any, I’m sorry,” Seokjin frowned.
“He wasn’t at the table,” the last boy shrugged before collecting the plates, the lack of sleep as heavy as a weighted blanket on his movement. “Yoongi, could I show you a song before you leave? I was up all night coming up with it.”
“We heard,” everyone in the house said before Jimin dragged himself out of his chair.
“I’m not hungry, Jin, really. Still feel full from last night.”
“Still feel hungover, is what you mean.” Yoongi leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest as he watched the blonde stretch. “You really have to watch how much you drink.”
“I think you will find, you pale little bitch, that it’s a matter of quality, not quantity. Everyone tastes so gross.”
“You find them in clubs. Of course they taste gross,” Yoongi snorted softly.
“Oh, where should I find them, then?”
“Perhaps you could be a bit more like me,” Seokjin said with a palm against his chest, “and procure your blood at the finest establishments in town.”
“The campus dining hall is only one step above the dumpster, but keep letting yourself be delusional,” Jimin said with a pat to Seokjin’s arm before he stumbled back up the stairs.
“You’ll be late for class,” Yoongi called out to him, the finger sent back down his way making him roll his eyes. “Speaking of delusional,” he said as he sat back up straight and tapped the table to get Seokjin’s attention who was running his finger through the pan to stick into his mouth to suck on. “Your plans for rush. No. Absolutely not. Maybe, like, fifty percent of it will work.”
“What? Why not?”
“Because we can’t throw people off the ceiling to, quote, see if they can fly.”
“Well, it worked with you,” Seokjin said innocently.
“And you’re lucky Jimin was around to make everyone forget they saw someone literally turn into a bat before he went splat. Realistic, Jin. We have to be realistic.”
“But I just want to make sure we get a good one this year,” Seokjin huffed as he handed the dish over. “Not sure if I want another Vlad added to our mix.”
“He can hear you,” the boy washing the dishes hissed.
“No, that’s Zane.”
“And every day, I wish I couldn’t!” a yell from down the hall came.
“Vlad needs to take up fencing or something,” Yoongi suggested. “Get all that stabby-stabby out of him. Look back at the list, Jin. Make some cuts. I haven’t even let Jimin look at it yet, and you know the ‘obstacle course in a re-constructed graveyard’ is out of the budget.”
“Nothing’s out of my budget,” Seokjin said as he sat down and put his feet up on a nearby chair.
“And you know we’re not supposed to use personal money for the house budget.”
“The house budget comes from my family’s money,” Seokjin huffed. “I don’t get why any of that matters. Besides, we have to beat Worthless.”
“Worthless,” the boy washing dishes repeated.
“Worthless!” a shout from down the hall came, two more echoing from throughout the house after it.
“Worthless,” Yoongi nodded, the chanting never quite his thing. “Yes, yes, you know we will. It’s not even going to be a competition. They’ll probably be finger painting and sitting in a circle talking about their feelings again. Just look at the budget, please. D, show me that song?”
“Oh, yeah,” D’Arcy—who was always called anything but that—said, his fingers still dripping as he hurried to his room as fast as his sluggish form could. Following much slower, Yoongi shuffled into the boy’s room where Zane was getting dressed, his regular giant coat with what looked like a lion’s mane around the neck ruffling against Yoongi on his way out.
“Nine AM classes suck,” he groaned as the pair gave him a solitary look of sympathy. The boy gave Seokjin a salute on his way out, and Seokjin, pajama shorts and t-shirt still on, shivered when the blast of cold air came in. He shuffled upstairs to his room and yanked his blinds open, his hands on the windowsill as he pressed against the glass to look across the yard between his house and the ratty one next door.
“I know you’re in there,” he whispered, a fog gathering around his lips until he couldn’t see. Sputtering a little, he pushed himself back and plopped into his desk chair, the files he had been looking at well into maybe nine PM last night giving him a headache already.
He was the proud owner of five vampires.
Tapping the papers against the desk to make sure they were all even, he looked at the first page and smiled. Seokjin was destined to be president of the Stoker house because of his family heritage—a great-great grandfather from England in his pursuit of the best tea in the world had traveled to Korea and bit off a little more than he could chew, a phrase which, to Seokjin, made no sense, since one didn’t chew on tea.
But Min Yoongi had gotten to join the house merely because he was the luckiest bastard in the world to have met Seokjin. Seokjin was humble enough to acknowledge he was lucky to meet the guy in return. The first time the guy slid his coffee over and watched, albeit a little creepily, until Seokjin took a sip was when Yoongi still worked at the campus coffee shop, and Seokjin had known right away he was a fellow vampire. It just took a little work to find out how Yoongi had known Seokjin was.
Because unlike one of the many ridiculous beliefs about vampires, Seokjin didn’t go around knowing who was who with a mere sniff. Sure, if he bit someone, he would know, but there were rules. They weren’t savages. Yoongi, however, at least on what he called a “good day,” could tell with one smell. Yoongi had been almost impossible to convince to join the house. He wanted nothing to do with anything “the masses” were doing, and he’d “rather jump in front of the wagon than in it” even if there was a fun band playing. Not at all a trend follower, he only saw the errors of his ways when he realized what he knew all along—all life was war, and joining the winning side was always the smart thing to do.
A man of great organizational skills, he had become the fraternity’s secretary upon joining. Seokjin grinned at the little picture paperclipped to the file, Yoongi’s hand halfway in it as he wanted to block the camera.
“So feisty,” Seokjin laughed before putting it face down on the desk. He knew Yoongi’s strengths well. Not only were his powers extremely useful—because being able to smell or hear or see the enemy coming before anyone else could always meant they had the upper hang—but his skills were, too. Having only played “dignified” instruments growing up like cello and piano, Seokjin knew more classical music than what Yoongi and D listened to, but he could tell Yoongi was talented. His double major in architecture always seemed random to other people, but he had fixed the house up a lot in the past two years, so Seokjin would never trade him for the world.
He wouldn’t trade Jimin, either. Without him, they might have all been surviving off of ramen. Without blood. Seokjin shuddered thinking about it as he looked at Jimin’s file, the boy’s smile with his cute little twisted tooth making Seokjin smile back at him. A junior, Jimin had been one of the only people Seokjin had ever met who he felt intimidated by. His hypnosis power certainly had something to do with it. Some days the boy’s moral compass confused Seokjin. Jimin was always the first one on board with doing a prank, but he had “limits.” Seokjin shook his head just thinking about how many times Jimin had said “Well, I can’t do that.” Why he didn’t use his hypnosis to just make the stupid house next door lose its members or fall apart or disappear somehow was beyond Seokjin.
But Jimin had a mutual enemy of Seokjin, and when he had met the boy when he transferred over, they had become allies. And now they were friends. Trying not to wrinkle the paper as he thought about the boy they both hated, he wished some of the dumb powers people wrote about vampires having were real. Mainly, as he looked at the poster full of holes on his wall labeled “Public Enemy #1,” he wished his fingernails could come off so he could fling them like sharp little knives.
Taking a deep breath, he put Jimin’s file on top of Yoongi’s, knowing his powers and personality were invaluable. The last three files Seokjin went through quickly.
Vlad Akasha was their newest recruit, mainly chosen for his incredible strength. Seokjin foresaw standing behind him in battle, the guy’s body keeping Seokjin safe, and the moment had been momentously monumental. In reality, he wasn’t turning out to be very controllable. The stereotype of big but dumb just wasn’t really true, and even Jimin had trouble making him do anything. Then again, hypnosis didn’t work on other vampires like it did on humans, but still. Seokjin had hope, and it had been dashed, or stabbed, the first time Vlad took his fork at a house dinner and plunged it into the table.
“You missed your meat,” Seokjin had said cheerfully, only growing half afraid the boy wanted to eat the table when he did it again before he managed to get the beef in his mouth. So far, he hadn’t taken that fork, or any other sharp object, to any of them or to any humans—that Seokjin knew of—so in the past couple of months they had just started to see his constant but spontaneous stabbing as a fun little quirk! The boy was studying physical education, and sometimes Seokjin found him and Jimin studying muscles together, so at least they had that to bond over.
The next file was for D’Arcy Enkil, who had pursued Stoker house after Yoongi joined. It wasn’t that Seokjin hated to admit he had a little celebrity in the house. He was one himself. In a totally different field. So they weren’t competing. He used it to his advantage. Yoongi was the most private celebrity Seokjin had ever met, but he supposed that was part of his appeal. The brooding, mysterious type. Seokjin went for the tall and handsome part, and together they made an excellent team.
Trying not to get distracted by himself, Seokjin read through D’Arcy’s file again. He studied music and had no discernable vampire skills, but that was no fault of his own. Some vampires just didn’t. He was good at keeping the house clean and followed orders well, so Seokjin considered him a wonderful asset to the house.
Finally, Seokjin came to Zane Maharat’s file who had been in the house his four years at the university but was a follower with no desire to lead. The Maharat family was one of the most famous vampire lines, so Seokjin was honored to live with the boy. Zane was studying business in order to take over the family’s when the time came, and he was one of the most boring people Seokjin had ever met. Plus, he had this strange habit of talking about werewolves.
He had thankfully calmed down over the past four years, but his obsession with liking them had turned into wanting to be one, and Seokjin wasn’t one to judge people, but he had his boundaries. Sure, werewolves weren’t actually real, and whoever had written about the first fight between them and vampires might as well have written alien versus predator—with the vampires being the predators, obviously, who would always win against the nasty little abominations of nature—but it was the principal of the matter!
The poor boy—a good little boy, really, who had maybe recently cut most of his hair off because he was tired of Seokjin cooing at him while rubbing his head as he scratched behind his ear—had excellent hearing, so they were used to him wearing headphones most of the day just so he wouldn’t have to hear every little thing. Seokjin assumed it was a little like having an ASMR video playing constantly in your ear, and that would drive anyone crazy.
“Well,” he said as he put the files back together and leaned back in his chair to stare out the window. Ability wise, the Stoker house was far more superior than the one next door. They had more prestigious families. They had more money. They had Seokjin, for god’s sake! But Seokjin wasn’t out to just win. He was out to annihilate them. Their leader had made the mistake of embarrassing him once, and Seokjin would never let that happen again. Standing up, he approached the poster on the wall, his drawing skills not the best, but the guy’s face clear in his mind, and stuck a sharp nail right up under where his nostrils would be if he had drawn any of them.
“Hope you’re ready to rush, buddy. Right to the bathroom to shit your little pants,” he said, laughing before flinging his closet open to get dressed.
The house he was in charge of was like a complicated recipe, and rush was the opportunity to find the next perfect ingredient. As long as he made sure next door’s result was a pile of shit equivalent to a can of spam, his was sure to be as fancy as Kobe beef with a carrot puree infused with O negative with stuffed rigatoni and grilled asparagus with shaved truffles and parmesan on top.
“Shit, I’m hungry,” Seokjin almost moaned at the thought. If anything, he needed to start the day right. The battle, after all, was about to begin.
If he started from the top, it would take forever to get to the bottom. It was just so—so long. Just an absolute disaster from head to toe. There was no point in even starting. It would never turn out right. Sighing as his robe fell open, the tail trailing along the floor, Kim Taehyung snapped his fingers softly before sighing again when no flames appeared in the fireplace he had been staring into.
“I’m cold,” he mumbled before leaning his head back off the couch a little. “I’m bored.”
“Perhaps if you help me with rush plans. Or study. Or go to class. Surely you have class.”
“Not until four,” Taehyung said as he rolled over to stare at the man sitting in the chair that could only be described as a sinkhole. How Namjoon ever got back out of it was a mystery. The top of his hair was a bit ruffled, and his huge glasses were pressed up high on his nose, and he had long, fuzzy socks on. Starting from the top of Namjoon would be easy, but that wasn’t where Taehyung wanted to begin.
“How long have you been there?” he mumbled.
“Since last night. Fell asleep reading.”
“Typical,” Taehyung said as he watched the guy continue to do just that. Taehyung had also fallen asleep on the couch without being sure of what time it had happened, but he hadn’t been reading. He had been thinking. Plotting. Of how to get back at one person in particular. A typical night for him and his friend, really. The house was quiet, the morning only barely beginning, but by the afternoon everyone would rouse and be thumping around so much Taehyung would wonder, not for the first time, if someone was going to fall through the top floor. Rolling back over, he flicked his finger at the blinds to no avail. They didn’t open. Sighing, he shuffled to the kitchen to make hot chocolate. First, though, he had to find a clean cup.
“Why are there no clean dishes?” he huffed.
“No one can find the chore chart,” Namjoon told him.
“We have a chore chart?” Taehyung hummed as he looked around for it for a second, too, before shrugging and going back to his drink.
“You should drink something real,” Namjoon tsked at him as Taehyung came back over to the couch.
“Says the man who drinks three b-cups every morning.”
“They’re tasty. Least there’s blood in them,” Namjoon mumbled before he threw a stack of papers onto Taehyung’s lap. “Rush.”
“No thanks,” Taehyung said. “I like my mornings slow and boring. Unlike them.” He couldn’t actually hear anything from next door. He couldn’t see them, either. But he knew. They all got up and lined up like the Van Trap family, their bowties on tight enough to make their lungs screech. Like little brainwashed soldiers, they traipsed off to class singing their leader’s praises.
Kim Seokjin! Kim Seokjin! Kim Seokjin!
Taehyung growled just thinking about him, so he whipped the papers up and rummaged through them before throwing them back on the table.
“We aren’t going to be like them. We’ll do what we always do.”
“The paperwork is due Friday, though. So we kind of have to know what that is.”
“Make something up. I trust you,” Taehyung shrugged. “Just make sure it’s better than next door.”
“Yeah, well,” Namjoon mumbled. “I feel like we need a strategy, at least.”
“The strategy is find out what they’re doing so we can sabotage it. Let’s get Louis to hack them.”
“You know Kim does everything on paper.”
“Because he’s too dumb to use a computer,” Taehyung said before pretending to spit on the floor. “Don’t speak his name around me! Can’t stand hearing it. Kim,” he shuddered before sticking his tongue out. Namjoon took his glasses off slowly.
“You’re a Kim. Shit, I’m a Kim.”
“Ugh,” Taehyung said. “Thankfully no relation. It’s really a shame he’s stained our name so offensively.”
“What did he do, ag—”
“So, no hacking,” Taehyung crossed his legs and bounced the top one as he tapped his fingers against his mug, his ring clicking against the glass every time he did. “I could convince a woodland creature to sneak in and—eat the paperwork.”
“The last time you did that, Seokjin just befriended them.”
“Yes, that fucker,” Taehyung growled, his hands tight around his mug’s handle. “Stealing innocent creatures like that. Making them his slaves!”
“I think he let them go, actually, but occasionally I see him feeding them outside. So ma—”
“What, is he a fucking Disney princess?” Taehyung said as he stood up and flung his robe behind him. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”
“Yours, obviously,” Namjoon said as he put his glasses down and stood up to cross his arms over his chest. “Don’t use your fangs on me.”
“Sorry,” Taehyung muttered as he stalked over to the window and pulled one plastic blind down to stare into the other house. From an angle he could see into the corner room at the top of the house. Kim Seokjin’s room. Feeling his lip rising, Taehyung tried not to snarl. The guy was just sitting at his desk. Like a nerd. Reading things. Taehyung bared his fangs, just temporarily, thinking about how long Seokjin’s neck looked. If he bared it just right, Taehyung could chomp just right and—
“God, I hate him,” he sighed as he flung himself back onto the couch and slowly picked up the papers. “Maybe the board would help.”
“Sure thing,” Namjoon said. He soon returned and cleared off whosever’s homework was on the coffee table and put down what used to be a Monopoly board. Taehyung had created his own squares on the back, and here he laid out the battlefield. On the left, the Stoker house. Rummaging around in the drawer that should maybe hold TV remotes if they had a TV in the living room, Taehyung pulled out and dumped out the bag of supplies. No dice were needed. Just the world’s tiniest toy dicks that he set up. He knew each by heart, so there was no need for labels or name tags.
Wiggling the smallest of the group, a pink plastic dildo with as much personality as Kim Seokjin himself, Taehyung arranged them all as he got on his knees and sorted through the other miniatures.
A giant bear, majestic on its hind legs, was him, of course, followed by an owl bear, a creature he knew didn’t exist but was wise and strong so therefore represented Namjoon. Next was the lion, for Louis Lee himself. A computer science major with a bit of a temper issue, Louis was a strong contender for the second smartest in the house and came from a long line of royal vampires—he would probably be king, or president, of the fraternity when he was older.
A wolf figure was for Vladamir Petrov. While Stoker had a Vlad, Taehyung had the real deal with a Vladamir, no cowardly abbreviations here. The guy was an ox. Well, a wolf as Taehyung didn’t have an ox figure. Stronger than two of Stoker’s Vlad’s put together! Really the same size. They could be twins if they wanted to be. But Taehyung would never allow it. They even shared classes together because they had the same major for some reason, but Vladamir never brought back any useful intel. Probably because Vlad was too dumb to be interesting.
Finally, two ravens were placed beside the rest for the twins, Thomas and Tomas Quinn. The only literature majors in the house, they had this habit of going “Quoth the raven!” before turning into bats to sleep which made no sense to Taehyung. There was literally a fraternity named Poe, so he wasn’t sure why they hadn’t joined that one if they were so obsessed with the guy. It probably had something to do with not wanting to freak normal people out about the whole changing into a bat thing.
“Alright,” Taehyung pondered for a moment as Namjoon sat back down and got back to his reading. Whether he was working on his philosophy or psychology, Taehyung wasn’t sure. He couldn’t keep up with most conversations with his friend, but he valued his insight even if sometimes he did come across as way too diplomatic.
Picking his bear up, he pretended to devour the pink dildo with the bear’s mouth as he made roaring noises until he put the figure back down and leaned onto his elbows to evaluate the playing field.
“They do the same thing every year. They pride themselves on it. Vampire tradition and all that,” Taehyung said as he moved his fingers as if someone snooty was talking. “So we just need a way to poison their blood samples.”
“We can’t kill them, Tae.”
“I’m not talking literally! Just—make them a little sick. Could douse everything in garlic.”
“Again, we can’t kill them,” Namjoon reiterated.
“Only Seokjin is allergic!”
“No killing,” Namjoon said one more time. Sighing, Taehyung thought of termites in their coffins but knew he wasn’t allowed to damage school property and he wouldn’t be able to control the little vermin once released.
“Maybe we’ll just make our initiation tests who can make the biggest dick out of snow on their lawn.”
“That’ll really get them,” Namjoon said without looking up from his book.
“I’ll come up with something,” Taehyung hummed as he put his finger on the pink dildo and wiggled it back and forth a few times before flicking it over. “I’ll come up with the best plan ever.”
“You always do,” Namjoon said.
“This year,” Taehyung said as he stood up, his robe flung behind him as he put his hands on his hips, “I’ll win rush so bad, Stoker will be rushing home to their mommies.”
“Yep,” Namjoon nodded.
“Yeah,” Taehyung said as he went back to the window and stared out at his arch nemesis. “I’m coming for you. Just you wait, Kim Seokjin. I’ll get you this time.”
Getting to the bottom of it would have meant starting at the beginning, and that would be just a bit too much. He was a bit too long. Turning to go and get dressed, Taehyung whistled as he went, the start of the world’s most masterful of plans about to unfold.
To begin—
Six AM, wake up and run.
Start from his dorm in the east and run down the street past the two fraternity houses. Carry on to the north and then south and west until the circle of the university is done. Make a protein shake while standing by the window catching his breath. In the winter, his cheeks bloomed as he warmed his lungs up. Plug in the illegal burner and wake his roommate up to the smell of bacon or eggs or both and give him a plate while his eyes were still half-shut. Shower and get dressed and take a picture to post in the dingy standing mirror in the corner. Then sling his camera over his shoulder before heading out knowing he wouldn’t see his roommate until the next morning. Stop by the coffee shop to get two coffees and get to class early. Always early.
He was swiveling in his chair a little, balancing a pen on his finger, the beanie on his head only showing the ends of his hair. He was thinking of the class project and of a video and of what to eat for lunch later when the door open and someone staggered in. Smiling with his lips pressed together, Jungkook watched his friend struggle up the steps.
“Ran into one of those tour groups this morning,” the guy said as he took off his jacket, his high ponytail only slightly askew. “And you wouldn’t believe what one of the kids asked me.”
“Oh no,” Jungkook tried not to laugh. “How’d he know?”
“Had my nametag still on like an idiot. I really need to leave that pancake place. But the food’s so good,” the guy said as he sat down with a small sigh. “Sometimes I wish my parents had named me something else. Do I look like a Gray?”
“Any half-respecting literature major would have asked you the same thing, Dorian,” Jungkook teased before sitting up straight and tapping his pen against his leg. The guy always did look a little gray, but working night shifts and running on caffeine alone would do that.
“Or just an asshole,” Dorian said, his lips slowly rising as he reached out for the cup in front of him. “You know, you don’t have to do this.”
“It’s no problem,” Jungkook shrugged as he looked down at the empty screen where the professor would start to show them pictures soon. He left the guy to wake up which gave him an opportunity to steal some glances at the tattoos on the arm that was always next to Jungkook. He was thinking about how Dorian had said,
“Take a picture, it will last longer,” a few days ago. It had left Jungkook blushing, but he was thinking about the project. About what to shoot in black and white.
“What’s the video plan for today?” Dorian finally asked over the plastic lid.
“Oh—not sure yet. Maybe about the project. Food? My bike? Why, would you watch?”
“No,” Dorian shook his head with a laugh. “I promise. No offense.”
“All good,” Jungkook said, actually relieved. He wasn’t anyone famous, but enough people had figured out in his freshman year that he was GoldenCloset on the internet. The account covered his games he streamed and his random videos ranting about school. He was known for doing how-to’s with makeup and with fixing up his motorcycle. And plenty of people followed him because of his outfit of the day or just to watch him eat. It had gone from weird to a bit co-dependent, so Jungkook tried to keep things professional and not let it all go to his head. When he had met Dorian, he tensed as he always did, a bit afraid he wanted to talk to him because people seemed to think that would bring them friends or money or success somehow, but Dorian had assured him he didn’t.
“I’m a bit too old fashioned and not a fan of all that tiktok stuff. No offense.”
“None taken,” Jungkook had assured him, and they had hit it off quickly discussing cameras. Jungkook had used a digital one for ages. Editing was one of his favorite parts of the whole process. Using a manual one was brave to him, and the way Dorian could just point and shoot and come up with something amazing still blew his mind. One day he would get to visit the darkroom. Dorian promised the next time he got to use it, Jungkook could come.
“The second you don’t have any viewers, just text me. I’ll get on,” Dorian said like he always did. “Or if anyone’s being weird.”
“I will. But don’t worry,” Jungkook started to swivel again. He definitely had, at one point. He still did. The haters and the trolls and the weirdos, for sure. But he was more confident with blocking people now, and he had, well, he hated to call them fans, because that seemed weird, but he had loyal viewers who would jump to his defense. They tended to see things before he did if he saw them at all.
“What, that SugarBat dude?”
“What?” Jungkook blinked.
“Is that who you’re thinking about?”
“What, no, what?”
“Oh, come on, it’s how I know I have no chance,” Dorian laughed. “You’re always thinking about your hero.”
“He’s not—he just doesn’t take crap from people.”
“It’s him or, what was it? Betterthan? What an asshole.”
“BetterThanBS,” Jungkook corrected him with a small pout. “But, no, he doesn’t comment as much. I think he’s too smart to. Most people are just looking for—wait, what did you say about you?”
“When?”
“You said,” Jungkook said as he pointed his pen at the dude. “You said—what do you mean you have no chance?”
“With you,” Dorian said back, a whisp of hair falling out of its tie and tickling his cheek and neck enough for him to brush it back behind his ear.
“What do you mean, with you?”
“Oh, come on, Jungkook, I’ve been flirting with you for over a month,” Dorian said as he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, the crucifix tattoo surrounded by these purple flowers that always reminded Jungkook of dandelions. “Or—oh my god, have you not? You’re just—you’re just a nice person. You’d get coffee for anyone. Oh my god, I’m so sorry—”
“No, wait,” Jungkook reached out, his fingers retracting before they could touch the guy’s arm. “No, I—I’m bad at this.”
“You’re young. Not that, sorry, no offense, I didn’t mean it like that. You’re just—are you into guys?”
“Yeah,” Jungkook whispered softly before clearing his throat. “Yeah, I’ve done a couple videos on it.”
“Oh? Should I watch them?”
“No. No, really, it’s okay. They’re just me—whining, mostly. About being single.”
“I see,” Dorian hummed, his eyes darting down to the door as a couple of students came in. “Well, how about this. If you want to just keep bringing me coffee and casually flirting with me, that’s fine. But if you want anything more—come get a drink with me.”
“I can’t. I’m not old enough.”
“Shit, right. Okay, a non-alcoholic drink. I know this chill place. Or something you want to do. I’d invite you to mine, but my roommates are—” Dorian stared off into space for a second before shaking his head. “They’re not super cool with guests, that’s all. No offense.”
“Yeah,” Jungkook said. “And mine is—well, hardly ever there, but it’s just a little dorm room. We could go out to eat?”
“Ah, I’m not big on—sorry, I’m not big on food.” Jungkook looked at the guy’s tattooed arm and then the vein almost popping out of his neck and then his entire frame, his eyebrow raising as Dorian started to laugh. “You look like my sister! Look, I’m sorry I got the family gene of never gaining or losing a pound since I was sixteen! Don’t look at me like that.” Shaking his head as the room started to fill up, Jungkook gave Dorian a side eye before biting his lip for a second.
“Alright, drinks. I’ll eat before I come.”
“And I won’t,” Dorian grinned. “Friday? Unless you’re busy.”
“I’m not. I can do Friday.”
“You’re not in a frat, right?”
“Huh?”
“Oh, rush starts soon, so I just wondered. Will you go for one?”
“Probably not,” Jungkook shrugged as he pulled his beanie off and shook his hair out.
“No? Not even Stoker or Wordsworth?”
“Why would I?” Jungkook furrowed his brows.
“You’re on that campus, right? Just wondering. Sorry, no offense meant.”
“All good. Just don’t think that’s the life for me,” Jungkook shrugged, their conversation paused as the professor came in. It begun as it always did, and the Monday continued as they normally did.
Jungkook went to his other classes and came home to an empty dorm room. He thought for a while before doing a simple video of just talking while he ate, his beanie back on and pushed back a bit as he adjusted his lights while his ramen cooked.
“Have some questions for you all today and maybe an announcement? But I don’t want to spoil it or set myself or you up for expectations, you know? It would suck if it didn’t work out,” Jungkook said as he sat down to get settled. “But first question, so leave your comments for sure, is—do you have any friends who are picky eaters? I don’t even know if picky is the right word. And I’m not talking about eating disorders, so let’s be careful. Just—they don’t have to eat a lot. Crazy metabolisms or something. If you do, what do they like to eat? I know this is a bit vague, I just—know a friend. Anyway, second question, to rush or not to rush? I’ve honestly not even considered it before,” Jungkook said before rambling a little about the pros and cons he had heard the whole system. He paused occasionally to look at comments while slurping his noodles, and his nose scrunched a little as he leaned in when he saw two familiar names.
Sugarbat: you should rush. Join my house
BetterthanBS: ours would be better
Sugarbat: **** off. You wanna talk about BS? You’re BS
BetterthanBS: wow, yes, a really great comeback. Let me list the reasons why our house would be better:
Sugarbat: 1. It smells like farts 24/7
Sugarbat: 2. You can wear everyone’s underwear
BetterthanBS: if you really think this is going to convince him
BetterthanBS: you’ve been in the dark for too long
Sugarbat: oh, let’s not get metaphysical
BetterthanBS: I mean literally, you stupid bat
BetterthanBS: also, it’s metaPHORICAL
Sugarbat: no stupid here, only sweet
“Alright, you guys,” Jungkook laughed a bit nervously. “Maybe this is one reason I don’t want to join. It all seems very competitive. And you know me—I’m very competitive. It might get a bit toxic, that’s all. Well, we’ll see. I think I’ll game some before I work out. Last question is about my class project! I have to do something black and white, and I’m thinking tattoos, but if anyone has a cooler idea, let me know!”
Sugarbat: bats. I know a guy
BetterthanBS: if you want rabies
Sugarbat: and if you want to be bored out of your mind, go with BS
BetterthanBS: for the last time, the BS stands for you
Sugarbat: that’d be SB, stupid
BetterthanBS: only smart people get it
Sugarbat: get how to spell? Guess I’m smart, then
“So that’s that!” Jungkook said a bit loudly as if he could really hear the two bickering. “Have a good meal everyone, and stay warm! I’ll do another video before the weekend. And then I’ll update you about—the thing I mentioned. If it goes well. Or, no, either way, probably,” Jungkook laughed a little nervously before waving goodbye.
He didn’t play his best that night, but it started out well. He just kept thinking about his date. He had a date. Nineteen, and finally. A date.
And then, to end, he started with how the day begun.
Move, sweat, breathe, the gym always a bit too crowded but not nearly as bad as the spring and summer.
That was the way Jeon Jungkook’s start to irregular days began.
Since he usually only posted one outfit post a day, his followers were already commenting up a storm when he posted what he had on for his Friday night outfit, though the reason was left out of his post. That morning he had jogged as always, his regular route only slowing slightly when he went past the two fraternity houses on his campus.
He had gotten used to them and had stopped batting an eye when he saw weird objects in the yard or signs hanging from balconies. That morning’s bright red “I’m with stupid” clearly constructed on butcher paper and perhaps written with someone’s hands instead of an actual paintbrush it was so messy did make him stop for a second. With his breath gathering in front of him, he lifted his legs while looking at the beaten down house. He followed the arrow to the house next door where what looked like a black mummy was hanging from the porch’s roof. A sign was stuck into its head with a giant wooden stake that read “STOOPID” in the same red paint. Shaking his head before jogging away, he wondered how long the guys would take to notice it. And what they would do.
He remembered last semester coming by one morning to find a maze had been constructed in front of the Stoker house made out of hay blocks. Another time long strings from Wordsworth house went all the way to the sidewalk with signs attached that said, “Pull me.” Of course Jungkook had to pull one, his shoulders shaking when he heard what sounded like a balloon popping and a scream coming from inside the house. He hadn’t stuck around to see what he had done but high tailed it out of there ASAP. The school paper had even hired him to take pictures of the houses during the last rush as they really seemed to go all out.
Jungkook remembered something about turning the school’s fountain red and some poor freshman getting in trouble for it. And that, the fear of getting into trouble, was probably the main reason he hadn’t joined a fraternity yet. Convincing his parents he could ride a motorcycle safely without any connections to a gang had been hard enough. He was a good kid.
Which was maybe one reason why he also hadn’t dated anyone yet. He didn’t want to make trouble. He knew it would upset a lot of his followers, too, if he announced a boyfriend or girlfriend. But he couldn’t live his life by his parents’ rules alone. Or by random people’s.
So he was excited. Nervous. If it didn’t start with butterflies, that probably would’ve been a bad sign.
Stopping the hum of his bike, he fidgeted with the silver chain around his neck a few times before stepping into the bar. Fumbling a bit at the door when asked for his ID, he only frowned slightly at the giant M marked on his hand before he looked around. Dim and a bit too hazy like they were trying too hard to be edgy, the place was probably like any other bar. The bartender eyed him heavily, so Jungkook was relieved when he saw Dorian wave him over.
“Wow,” the guy said as he stood up to greet him.
“Uh, no, you,” Jungkook said, feeling a bit underdressed even if he had put on slacks instead of jeans and thrown a blazer over his plain black t-shirt. In contract, Dorian wore a super low silk shirt with a maroon corduroy jacket, and Jungkook was reminded once again of how fucking cool the guy was.
“Sit, sit,” Dorian said with the slightest touch to Jungkook’s waist as he directed him toward a booth. “What do you want to drink? Something virgin? Or just a soda? Maybe a bloody Mary.”
“I don’t know what that is,” Jungkook said, a bit embarrassed as he sat down.
“Really? Oh, no offense, I thought you might have gone out at least some.”
“I really don’t,” Jungkook shrugged. “If you think I’ll like it. As long as there’s, uh, no blood in it.”
“As if,” Dorian laughed before he sauntered off. The drink was apparently tomato juice with celery in it, so absolutely disgusting, but Jungkook sipped it politely when Dorian brought it back. “They’re mostly used for hangovers, to be honest,” Dorian said as he seemed to enjoy his much more than Jungkook was. “But this place is known for them. So.”
“So,” Jungkook said. He had sat by the guy for over three weeks now, but those swiveling chairs had kept some distance between them. Now, Dorian’s arm settled on the booth behind him and his leg pushed against Jungkook’s. It wasn’t nearly as hot as Jungkook thought it was going to be. Temperature wise. Since bodies had a lot of body heat. It was hot. He heard his brain do a little funny noise garbled noise like when his camera lens whirred.
Oh, Jungkook liked girls enough. They were soft. And really pretty.
But boys.
Sometimes he just couldn’t stop thinking about boys.
“Is this silver?” Dorian said, the place thankfully not blaring music so they didn’t have to yell at each other. His fingers came right up to Jungkook’s neck and ran down to the end of his necklace. He picked it up just a little to examine.
“Oh. Yeah.”
“No offense, but I’m not a fan. I mean, on me,” Dorian said as he dropped it, the slightly chill metal falling lightly against Jungkook’s chest. “Looks good on you.”
“Thanks,” Jungkook swallowed as he looked around the place a little. “So, you come here often?”
“Well, isn’t that the oldest pickup line in the book,” Dorian laughed. “But yeah, I do. At least once a week. I’m not an alcoholic, though! Promise. Just—the atmosphere really fills me up.”
“Fills you up?”
“You get it, right? As a creative. You just need—” Dorian took a deep breath as he followed Jungkook’s gaze around the place. There were two people who seemed to know each other at the bar, but otherwise it was pretty empty. It was barely ten. “I get inspired here.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, though it’s nothing like how you do.”
“I inspire you?”
“Yeah,” Dorian said before he raised a finger. “Please don’t say a thing about that damn book.”
“I wouldn’t, I swear,” Jungkook laughed, his giggle melting when he felt Dorian’s fingers run from his shoulder up to his neck.
“I don’t want to freak you out. You’ve never been with anyone, right? I just—you’re really fucking hot. Adorable, too. I just haven’t stopped thinking about you since I first saw you. Does that make me a creep?”
“N-no, I don’t think so,” Jungkook’s heart pounded as he twisted toward the guy and dared to put a hand on his thigh. Dorian eyed it before looking up slowly, his eyes seeming to linger on Jungkook’s earrings long enough for Jungkook to withdraw his hand and put his fingers around them. “Are they too much? I want to get more some day, but I don’t know. Plus, they’re expensive.”
“They’re gorgeous,” Dorian assured him, his hand moving Jungkook’s away. He didn’t quite drop his hand, but his grip was loose as he put his palm against the center of Jungkook’s chest. “You’re gorgeous. Really. May I?”
“Oh. Sure,” Jungkook swallowed, his hand falling limply back to the guy’s thigh. He wasn’t really quite sure what he was saying yes to, but he had a general idea. At least about what they would start with. Beyond—he wasn’t sure. Where it would end—he had no idea.
How could he have known?
Jungkook didn’t even think about the bartender or even the other patrons in the bar.
Dorian’s fingers were slightly cold. He supposed he knew that, with the amount of times Jungkook had passed him a coffee over and shivered a little when their fingers touched. They sent goosebumps down his arms. Dorian’s fingers held onto his neck and tilted his head, and the first kiss against Jungkook’s skin right above his necklace was so tender. So soft. Jungkook heard himself suck in a breath before apologizing with a whisper. Dorain grinned against his neck. Jungkook could feel his lips.
“Don’t even worry about it. Make whatever sound you want,” Dorian whispered into his ear. Jungkook’s fingers tightened a little on the guy’s thigh. His heart was racing faster than his first solo bike ride. All he could think about was how his breath smelled like tomato and celery, and there was nothing about to be sexy about this kiss.
Dorain kissed his neck again, though. A little harder this time, and Jungkook thought of hickies. Of what his followers would say if he wore a turtleneck or a scarf indoors. He thought about how he didn’t give a fuck, though. Because he was thrilled to get one.
He felt just the brush of Dorian’s teeth against his skin, just their hardness compared to his soft lips. He felt the man’s fingers tighten on his neck, so Jungkook tightened his right back, and with a loud gasp no one in the bar heard, Jungkook’s eyes went wide as he felt something sharp against his skin.
“Wha—” he sputtered out, but Dorian’s knee was suddenly in his lap like a seatbelt, and Jungkook heard the table rattle as the guy climbed into his lap, his lips, no, his teeth not letting go.
Jungkook had wiped out once on his bike. Before it had a motor. His skin had scraped against the concrete and burned. He had heard it tearing as he skid to a stop. That pain was nothing like this, though. He had broken a bone once, too, when filming. He wasn’t watching where he was going, and he stepped back right off a small cliff. The snap of his arm hadn’t even sounded as bad as the camera shattering. But that pain had been nothing like this, either.
This was a puncture. A stab. Two of them. Searing and sudden but not over in a second. The pain did stop. Jungkook felt his body panic and then stutter, like it didn’t quite know what to do. The shock. He was in shock. That was why he didn’t feel any pain. But he could feel it. Dorian had bit him. There was blood running down Jungkook’s throat. His eyes were so wide when Dorian pulled away, his tongue licking up all the red around his lips that had nothing to do with tomato juice.
“Who else wants a taste?” Dorian said, his eyes shining. Jungkook’s were. He knew they were, because he felt the prickles of tears collecting there. He opened his mouth to tell Dorian to stop. To shout. Curse. Jungkook was a fighter, so being polite be damned. But all that happened was his heart racing harder when he saw the two people at the bar walking up to their table.
“Let me get another bite, then you two can have some,” Dorian said. So casually. Like this was normal. Like this is simply how he ended his day. “Where’s Jasper? Is he not coming tonight?”
“Who cares. He’s not at the table to eat, so he doesn’t get any,” one of the guys said. Jungkook tried to shudder, tried to shiver, tried to do anything as Dorian leaned in and pressed his lips against his gently.
“Oh, I knew you’d be so good. So sweet. You’re going to fill me right up.” The teeth were back. Jungkook heard them more than felt them sink back into his skin.
He tried to think. Of his bike parked outside. Of that day the professor had taken attendance and Dorian had “not been on the list yet due to some paperwork issues.” Of all the things his mother had warned him about growing up. Of stories. Of how long it might take before his roommate noticed. Of his project. Of his runs. Of everything. Of anything.
But all he could do was close his eyes. He couldn’t even stop the tears sliding down his face.
It started with Dorian biting his neck.
Jungkook had no idea where it ended.
But the last day of Jeon Jungkook started as it always had, with a jog around campus. And it ended as no normal day ever did, with his blood being drained out of him.
AN: Thoughts so far?? I PROMISE JK WILL BE OKAY!!! I'm @ 54daysormore everywhere!
