behind these lenses

"wh-what?"

how come ilhoon had told him that he needed him? had it all be a lie? a ruse? he wasn't sure anymore and he literally just froze in his actions, the tea being lowered to his lap and he literally just sat there, shell-shocked, his eyes wide behind his glasses before he ducked his head, auburn hair flopping into his face and he could feel his eyes being filled with tears, his vision blurry. had ... he been lied to ...? he felt as though everything he ever knew was crashing down around him and he reached up quickly to wipe at his eyes.

hongbin nodded through everything that the elder said to him, his mind not any of it and he numbly raised a hand to touch it gently to taekwoon's forearm when he heard his voice get choked up, though he wasn't even thinking about that anymore. had ilhoon lied to him? he had been one of his oldest friends before he became his familiar -- but if blue bloods truly didn't need a familiar until they were eighteen then ... what?

his eyes were blank as they gazed at the floor in front of him, quiet. he was glad his tea was mostly gone or he probably would've dropped it or something and he sits there, half in shock and half in the sheer agony that someone he had trusted so much -- with his life, both figuratively and literally -- would do something like this to him.

"... he lied to me ...?"

- safety ( by your side ) ; hongbin / leo

he exhaled quietly, shaking his head slightly. truth be told, he didn’t like it either. not when someone like hongbin was at stake. ilhoon should have found himself another familiar — it was a well-known fact that many blue bloods had more than one familiar and he quietly informed hongbin of that fact. “a familiar may only have one blue blood. but a blue blood can have many familiars. if you can, you should… keep your distance.” he said softly, his voice worried.

hongbin was too innocent for this life. he was too sweet, too innocent, too shy. if he could, he wanted to keep the younger as far away from all this as he possibly could. he would not risk hongbin’s life, not after soojung’s unexpected and in his mind, preventable death.

"there are also conduits." he continued quietly, moving back to the topic of his relationship with his recently deceased blue blood. "conduits are born into a family, predestined to serve a blue blood. my family has served soojung’s for generations. when i was born, i was already predetermined to be hers." he exhaled softly, closing his eyes and remembering the soft bubbling laughter of a child, running up to him as he scooped her up in his arms.

he had to stop himself before he actually let himself get lost down in memory lane, his eyes opening again and they were filled with pain as he glanced back at the younger male.

he shook his head, knowing he couldn't, not yet. "il-ilhoon doesn't feed from anyone else ... i know he doesn't," he said quietly, biting on his lip as he spoke before he shook his head again. "he was m-my friend before h-he ... bit me, so i can't exactly just say no ... he'd die." he wasn't sure if that was what happened when a blue blood didn't feed often enough, but humans died from starvation and he was just assuming that vampires would be somewhat like that as well.

glad for the topic change, he turned his gaze back to the older male, eyes curious at the story he was being told and he nodded slowly, finally understanding (somewhat) of what taekwoon had been to soojung and he sort of got why she had been so important to him and why he had been so dstraught after her death -- hongbin was assuming from everything he knew of the other that he probably blamed himself for her death.

his eyes were trained back to the cup of tea, the level of it diminishing at the rate he was drinking it, more than halfway finished his cup of tea and he shakes his head. "i didn't know any of this ... no one told me," he muttered, feeling a bit betrayed that neither of his friends who were part of this whole thing had told him anything and there's a slight pout on his lips at the thought.

though, if he really thought about it, he wasn't sure if he would've believed either of them if they had tried to tell him. he had believed that ilhoon was the only one of his kind for the past two years that he had fed him, and mark would've passed it off as a joke.

he sighed. what had he gotten himself into?

- safety ( by your side ) ; hongbin / leo

he nodded quietly in response, that answer alone telling him that there’s very little the younger male actually knows about the secret society of vampires that had somehow managed to stay hidden for so long. the thought of soojung didn’t hurt quite as much as he’d expected it to, funny enough — it was as though the presence of hongbin had chased away the pain and grief, if only a little.

"mm. blue bloods are vampires. red bloods… humans. us. halfs are rare." he summarized quickly before he closed his eyes with a soft exhale. "… soojung was a blue blood." he told hongbin quietly, his voice softening with the pain he still felt, though from a distance, with fondness that had not left him even with her death, and he sighed softly.

"blue bloods… have familiars. you’re ilhoon’s familiar, aren’t you? the one he feeds from." he whispered softly, his arm still warm around the other’s body, not quite wanting to let him go, even if it was to his other friends — there was an inkling of fear that one day, ilhoon would drain hongbin and he would be too late.

too late, again.

he couldn’t bear the thought. he had to be in time to save hongbin, he always would have to be. he couldn’t bear the thought of being left alone; the loss of soojung should have decimated him and yet, because of hongbin, he had made it through.

somehow.

#p:safety (by your side)#rbxleo

he doesn't say anything at the other's explanation about blue bloods and red bloods and half bloods, sipping quietly at his tea and just breathing in all the information about a hidden society he literally knew nothing about. in all honestly, he had no idea about anything about vampires in general and he was somewhat marveling in the fact that taekwoon seemed to know so much -- though, if he had grown up and trained to protect soojung, it was rather obvious that he should know a lot more than he did.

hongbin nodded slowly, glancing over at the older male for a second. "y-yeah ... he doesn't like it, b-but i know he hurts when he doesn't ..." he murmured softly, his gaze back at the tea in his cup, sipping at it again. he remembered the last time ilhoon had taken too much time between feedings and he had ended up almost passing out in the library and hongbin still worried whenever he thought about his friend's voice over the phone that day and he didn't want to hear it again, ever, forcing the vampire to feed when he needed to.

"mark told me he wanted m-me as his familiar too," he whispered, cheeks heating up slightly at the thought and he shook his head, remembering having been told something about how blue bloods couldn't share a familiar and he was ... glad for that.

"it ... scares me," hongbin glanced up at the older male, a small pout on his face and his eyes wide behind his glasses. "i get so tired after ... and i always wake up at ilhoon's house."

- safety ( by your side ) ; hongbin / leo

he didn’t elaborate on the meaning, not wanting to think about it, the thought of soojung still aching in his chest even though it didn’t hurt quite as much as it had when she had first died. the feeling of hongbin sitting in his embrace, warm and very much alive, reassured him that while he may have been too late to save her, he hadn’t been too late for hongbin. hongbin was still here, was still breathing, was still alive — and that wouldn’t change not while he had anything to say about it.

"… your mother had the right idea." he replied quietly, his eyes quiet and contemplative and he glances over at the younger with a melancholy expression in his eyes. he didn’t want to talk about dead people, not right now — he wanted to savor the living and relish the breathing they could still do, but if it made hongbin feel better, who was he to say no?

"the… one who died." he whispered softly, the words not really registering or clicking before his eyes widened slightly. "… oh, you mean soojung." he said softly, a faintly amused smile tilting up his lips despite the painfulness of the situation.

"soojung was never my girlfriend." he said easily before he exhaled quietly. "… you knew, right? about blue bloods." he didn’t know how much the younger had known about the hidden world that he himself had been born into. how much would he need to explain?

he took a slow sip from his cup of tea, exhaling slowly before he nodded. his mother. his dead mother. but she had passed onto him some lessons that were important and he was sure that a cup of tea being able to solve anything was one of them. (or he hoped it was true, because he really didn't have another solution for bad situations.)

he stared into the depths of the tea, the reddish brown color covering the lemon suddenly extremely interesting to him after he asked the question, feeling awkward and bad and just everything for having brought it up. the older seemed to be decently okay with it, though hongbin still felt bad. what if taekwoon wasn't ready to talk about it? that would be a horrible move on his part to have brought it up so suddenly though he was surprised to find that she wasn't his girlfriend. it had seemed so much like it that he had never actually thought it wasn't an actual relationship between them.

"... blue bloods ...?" hongbin schoed again, unsure of what those were. "are they like -- like ilhoon? vampires?" he asks, thinking that that was maybe what the other was getting at because he ... should probably be making sure his friend was okay even though he also knew that he had fed just the other day. "and mark right? because he told me he was half when he found out that ilhoon was drinking my blood ..."

he had no idea that the whole vampire thing actually had a name or anything of the sort and he was honestly, genuinely confused now. "i-i thought it was just them ... b-but i'm guessing there's more ...?"

- safety ( by your side ) ; hongbin / leo

he reached out silently, pulling the younger male into a tight embrace with a soft exhale, the pounding of the younger boy’s heart sounding quietly in his ears. “i was scared that i’d lost you…” he whispered softly into the other’s ear, pulling back slightly to look at him with a relieved expression. eventually, he released the other, sinking down onto the bed and patting the spot next to him, tugging the younger down when he took too long to seat himself. slowly, he took the cups of tea and handed one back to hongbin, holding the other one for himself.

"thank you," he whispered softly, "for the tea." he didn’t know if hongbin understood why he stole into his room every night, why he placed fingers against the other’s wrist, but that didn’t matter much. what mattered was that he was allowed to keep doing it, to reassure himself that the younger one wasn’t dead and that he wasn’t dying anytime soon.

hongbin’s question took him by surprise and he looked up at the younger from where he had been staring down into his cup of tea. “my… girlfriend?” he questioned quietly, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion. “i don’t have a girlfriend, hongbin…” he was at a loss as to what the younger male could possibly be talking about — he’d never had a girlfriend before ( at least, not to his knowledge ), and he doubted he ever would. soojung had taken up a majority of his time as they were growing up, and now that she was gone, hongbin was his priority. he didn’t have time for a girlfriend, not when soojung had been his entire world. he still didn’t have time for one now, because hongbin had taken over that position of being the one his world revolved around.

"l-lost me?" he echoed quietly, unsure of what the other meant by that but it didn't sound good, and he didn't want to be lost in any case and he just let taekwoon hold him in his embrace as long he needed. he sat on the bed, watching the elder for a few moments before he accepted the tea, blowing lightly and watching the steam curl into the air before he sipped at it.

"... it's nothing, don't worry." he almost doesn't know why the other was thanking him for making him tea when he was letting him stay at his place free of charge even, and he really had no other way to really repay his kindness besides doing the little things. he was trying, he really was. "my ... m-mother always made tea wh-when i was feeling down," his voice had dropped to a whisper, feeling strange for talking about her as he pressed closer to taekwoon subconsciously, feeling as if maybe if he spoke about her too loudly his father would appear and try to take him away from this world as well.

it was a hidden fear of his that perhaps one day he would be out alone and the man would appear and slit his throat as well, and he would be dead and he would leave taekwoon behind and he didn't want that, not when he knew how important it was to the elder than he was still alive.

hoongbin isn't too sure about how he was supposed to word the question, his eyes wide and curious behind his glasses as he stared into the cup of tea, dropping the slice of lemon into it and watching it. "y-you know ... the one that d-died?" his voice trailed off until it was almost inaudible, feeling horrible for bringing it up like that.

{ / text; beanie baby } i believe the phrase is ‘grand theft auto’.

{ / text; beanie baby } then admit you missed me <3

[ text → mark ] ... i'm going to try to ignore the fact that i might be associating with some large scale crime thing

[ text → mark ] fine.

[ text → mark ] ikindofmissedyou

#rbxmark

{ / text; beanie baby } he’s sent me to japan before.

{ / text; beanie baby } i will send you a 100 texts in a row waiting for the answer binnie!

[ text → mark ] still. what did you even do?

[ text → mark ] ... please don't do that.

#rbxmark #[ I CAN TRY ]

{ / text; beanie baby } yeah, i do that sometimes. my father takes the grounding thing seriously. and binnnnnnnie! answer it!

#rbxmark #[ casually ignores ..... ]

[ text → mark ] he sends you to america? really?

{ / text; beanie baby } awe, if i told you, you wouldn’t continuously think about it. and the question was, did you miss me?

#[ you #/are/ trying to kill me omg ]#rbxmark

[ text → mark ] you just disappeared! what else was i supposed to think? um ... next question please.

#rbxmark

rbxmark replied to your post:

{ / text; beanie baby } I was grounded in America for a few weeks. I did a thing. It’s fine now. But you didn’t answer my second question!

[ text → mark ] you did a thing? what is this thing? and um, what was that question exactly ...

{ / text; beanie baby } guess who is coming back? did you miss me?

[ text → mark ] you’re coming back?! …where did you even go?

#rbxmark #!ask #[ istg you're trying to kill me ]

- safety ( by your side ) ; hongbin / leo

he dreamed that he was safe, safe with hongbin in his sights and everything was okay, because he wasn’t too late, he wasn’t going to be too late, and even when the scene blossomed again to soojung, collapsing to her knees, an expression of horror on her face, the scream of utter horror he had let out as he watched the girl he had been raised to protect dying at his feet, in his arms, gone, gone, gone.

he was just waking up when he realized that there was no warmth against his wrist, no gentle thrumming of a pulse against his fingertips, and it was with a panic that he straightened up, jolting to his feet, rubbing at his eyes. he was just about ready to dart out of the room in search for the younger boy when the door opened and in came the very person he was looking for.

he almost visibly deflated, all his worry going out of him in a whoosh as he glanced up at the boy with palpable relief in his eyes, hurrying over to take the cups from the younger with a weak smile. “you scared me…” he whispered, setting the cups down on the nightstand, swallowing down the lump in his throat.

he had thought that he had lost the younger, just like how he had lost soojung weeks ago. if he lost hongbin too, he didn’t think he could survive. in fact, he knew he couldn’t. he would have given up, and simply waited for death to take him, because what was there to live for if they weren’t there?

"oh ... y-you're awake," hongbin stammered, awkwardly standing in the doorway of his own room. his plan had been to come back and gently shake the other awake and hand him the cup of tea, but that plan had gone out the window now. he could see the tense line of the other's shoulders, and as the cups were taken out of his hands he let a small smile turn the corners of his lips up.

"... i'm sorry." he hadn't meant to scare the older male, he had just wanted to do something for him. he had been taken care of by taekwoon the entire duration of his stay, and he would never be able to repay the other's kindness. but he hoped the little things he tried to do around the place would somehow lead him along. like what he was doing right now. when the other turned away from him, he sucked in a deep breath before laying a gentle hand on his arm.

he was sure that the reason the other stole into his room every night was because he was paranoid. the nightmares he had witnessed the older male have after soojung died were probably the source of this paranoia, this fear that he would be too late to save hongbin if anything were to happen to him. it was a hunch, because of the fingers that found the side of his wrist every night. that was a pulse point, and it was probably how he was assumed to not be dead all the time.

there was nothing he could do in his power to remove this fear from the older male, and he wished he could. he wanted to so badly just have him be okay, like how he had been before the other's death. "hyung ...." hongbin started, trailing off as he tried to form the sentence he was trying to come up with. "how did .... you and your g-girlfriend meet ...?"

cyqlic-deactivated20150904

#[ why are his shorts so short though really ]#!h

hongbinest

#!h

- safety ( by your side ) ; hongbin / leo

( ... )

he would explain it all in time, though.

it didn’t matter that he would wake up with an aching neck and subsequently be tired as he drove hongbin to school, waited for him on the rooftop during classes, and took them back home afterwards. everything he had done for soojung previously all translated over to hongbin now, and he could only hope that the younger wasn’t too confused.

he would explain, because hongbin was all he had anymore.

it was starting to become a habit to wake up to the slight pressure of fingers on his wrist and a weight on the side of his bed now. it had become almost a daily thing and he still wasn't sure why it was a daily thing. taekwoon had never said anything, just smiling at him and leaving the room each time he accidentally woke him up.

but this morning, it was still early, he was woken up the moment the older entered his room. he didn't move, kept his breathing steady and his eyes closed. he suspected the other needed this for some reason, so he wouldn't take it away from him. taekwoon had been edgy since soojung died, so he didn't want to push the other too much. but, hongbin was confused, very much so.

once he felt the other settle down on the side of the bed, and he could hear the soft breathing that indicated that the older man had fallen asleep, he got up slowly.

he carefully edged his arm out from taekwoon's grip before slipping out the door.

hongbin quickly made his way downstairs, he wasn't sure how long it would take for the other to wake up even if he was starting to sleep more without waking up at the lightest of movements like before. he heated up some hot water, and made two cups of tea. he wasn't sure why, but he knew taekwoon needed the comfort.

there was something in the way that the older man relentlessly stole into his room every night that worried him. and even though he knew he was only supposed to be staying there temporarily, he's not sure if he wanted to leave.

(he wasn't sure how taekwoon would stay sane if he was gone too.)

once the tea was made, he slowly made his way back up the stairs to his room, a steaming cup of tea in each hand, lemon slices on the edge of each and he had to stop outside of his room awkwardly before pushing open the door with his foot.

hakkyyeon-blog

#!h

rbxkris

Lunch Break || Kris & Hongbin

rbxkris

( ... )

He wondered whether the other boy had known it before it became a charred mess. Occasionally he would still hear the odd student discussing the location and how it was a shame such a grand old place went up in flames. No one, except for himself and a couple of others, knew exactly how it had happened, or what had happened during it. Kris let out a shiver with the thought, his back tingling as if on cue. It was time for a new topic. ”What classes you take?”