#based on the vampire!enha lore

[dat-town]

we bloom at night

Characters: vampire!Sunghoon & vampire hunter!female reader

Setting & genre: urban fantasy au, angst, almost lovers to enemies to lovers (romeo and juliet-esque?)

Summary: They say almost is the saddest word. You thought it was ridiculous. Until Sunghoon became your almost.

Warnings: minor character deaths, guns, canon-typical violence, MC gets slapped by her father, mentions of blood, ambiguous ending, possibly annoying amount of moon references

Words: 3.2k

Author’s note: inspired by the untold concept cinema - the last scene is set immediately after the end of that; title from moonstruck; @restlessmaknae you can call me out on writing so much for bonedo but can we talk about how this is also my 3rd Sunghoon story this year? (and all of them are angsty oops)

It was always going to end in a tragedy.

From the moment you knew who he was, what he was, there was no other way. It didn’t hurt any less though.

The first time you met Sunghoon he was playing piano at the Moonlight Gala. You couldn’t help but think that he was beautiful, unearthly so. The white overhead light painted him pale, his dark hair a stark contrast like ink against snow. You were enchanted, both by his music and his appearance.

Your father scolded you for not paying attention to the chairman who was asking you about your after graduation plans. As if you had much of a choice! It didn’t matter that you were born a girl or that you hated violence more than anything. Three generations of soldiers serving the country… you couldn’t break the family tradition. Your opinion never really mattered because in your household, your father’s word was law and outside of it, you had no choice but to agree with the colonel. No disobedience was allowed, you learned that early on.

The gala was held in the name of charity for orphans but in reality it was just another chance for the chairman to show off his influence and pretend to be a good samaritan while using the charity funds to buy his second wife a villa on Jeju. You hated him and their equally two-faced, egoistic son who thought girls should stay quiet and just be pretty. Your cheek still burned from the memory of your father’s slap after you dared to indulge in an argument with the guy over rights and things such as equality because how dare you disrespect the heir?

You couldn’t wait to get away from the crowd and from your family, so you used their distraction during speeches to slip away into the gardens and it seemed like the pianist preferred the silence of nature as well, now that his services were temporarily not needed while the rich and influential were busy praising themselves inside. He stood by the fountain, the moon reflecting on the water and its shine highlighted his beauty. You might have been too mesmerized, too obvious, because when the boy looked up, he immediately caught your gaze.

From a young age you were taught to own up to your mistakes and to always act like what you were doing was intentional because you couldn’t allow yourself to bring shame to your name by showcasing anything else than perfect composure, so you didn’t shy away. You kept eye contact even when the pianist tilted his head in question and you raised your chin as you closed the distance between you with a few light steps.

“What was the song you played last?” You asked because the melody was like no other you heard before yet it was stuck in your mind.

“It’s an original. It’s called Moonstruck,” he said and even his voice was beautiful, mellow and soft.

His answer was followed by brief silence but it wasn’t awkward. Your fingers mimicked the way his fingers moved over the black and white keys over the railing and oh how you wished you were taught to create music instead of how to hold a gun.

“You are the lieutenant's daughter,” the boy spoke up again and it wasn’t a question, you both knew. Anybody could tell from the way you were pestered around all night.

“First and foremost, I’m Y/N,” you said because being your father’s daughter was one thing but you were your own individual without your family’s influence as well.

Your correction made the pianist smile a bit. The small gesture looked good on him.

“Nice to meet you, Y/N. I’m Sunghoon,” he introduced himself and looked at the moonlit water again. There, under the full moon, you traded secrets unlike strangers usually do. He told you that he had grown up in an orphanage, befriending his best friends there, and you told him about how your older brother was like your own best friend, your only supporter under your father’s regime. He was the golden son, good at everything and making the family proud with his achievements in the military already as a rookie. He promised to put in a word for you after he earned himself a promotion, that he would ask your father, so you wouldn’t have to follow down this path.

It was such a comfort, this little bubble you created in which you weren’t judged, where you were actually listened to. But the idyll broke when you heard your name being called and it brought a frown onto your face.

“I need to go,” you excused yourself, apologetic, and the boy nodded, understanding.

“I should probably go back to my post as well,” he muttered with a half smile and your paths diverged.

But before the end of the night, Sunghoon slipped a napkin into your hand smoothly, asking when he could see you again. It made your heart flutter like nothing before.

You thought it was romantic: sneaking around, sending handwritten letters, keeping the ones from him under your pillow. The political unrest shown on TV due to the emerging vampire attack cases not being handled efficiently was just an afterthought in the back of your mind, your father’s complaints at the dining table fading in the background because all you could think about was seeing Sunghoon again. 

But then everything changed when your brother died. His throat was torn and bloody, fang marks clear and you swore over his dead body in the hospital’s sterilized table that you would avenge him.

Joining the military’s new government founded vampire hunting unit seemed like the right choice. The president was finally taking steps against the threats that have been lurking in your country for a while now. Needless to say your parents were proud and even though you knew you could never replace their favourite son, it didn’t stop you. You weren’t doing this for them after all, you were doing this because your brother was the best thing in your life and his death was unfair.

You didn’t expect Sunghoon to support you, after all it was a dangerous job and the complete opposite of what you had wanted to do previously but you thought that he would at least understand you and why you needed to do this. But maybe you didn’t know him as well as you thought, not even after weeks of talking and sharing stories nobody else knew.

“You said you didn’t want to go down this path,” he said quietly, his shadow even taller than him in the alcove you found your temporary safe haven.

“That was before. I have to do this,” you argued because you were angry at the world and you felt lost without having a purpose. Sunghoon’s reluctance to accept your choice hurt more than you expected it to be. Maybe you wanted him to embrace you, to stroke your hair and tell you that everything would be alright. But Sunghoon’s eyes were sorrowful for reasons you weren’t aware of and his distance cut deeper than the knife you accidentally hurt yourself with during training.

“Y/N…”

“You can’t change my mind,” you cut him off because you didn’t want to hear more. You ripped yourself away before he could have touched you and walked away, the lonely moon showing you the way in the night.

That was the last time you saw him as a human. Or at least when you thought he was human. Because the next time you met, it wasn’t one of your secret night rendezvous behind your parents’ back. It wasn’t apologies whispered or heartfelt letters exchanged. It was your first field mission as a rookie of the vampire hunting team.

The past few weeks you pretty much lived on the military base, drowning yourself in training and practice. You wanted to be the best, you had so much to catch up on. On days when it was particularly hard, when you had new scars on your hands, soreness in your muscles and received insults for being daddy’s little princess and just wanted to cry, you missed your brother the most. It would have been so much easier with him by your side. Then you started missing Sunghoon too and something you never really had and you had to snap out of it because you couldn’t get distracted.

(You had no idea that he had spent those weeks visiting your house, watching your window, hoping to see the light or for you to lean outside of the window, any sign that you were well. You had no idea that one of his friends had been caught while stealing blood bags from a hospital and the military was on their trail. You had no idea that he missed you too, like waves missed their guiding moon.)

The mission you joined was supposed to be an easy one, just a quick in-and-out at a warehouse that supposedly had frequent vampire activities. The team’s job was to check on that and if confirmed, get information about the approximate number of bloodsuckers hidden there.

Maybe it was the nerves or the pressure to prove yourself but you wandered off after noticing movement in one corner and no amount of training could have prepared you for the sight of a teenage girl with bloodshot eyes and blood dripping from her sharp fangs. You had a gun in your hand, the same type you had shot with during practice. You knew the feel of metal and just how hard you needed to pull the trigger. You knew exactly how many seconds it took and yet, you stood there frozen. You always imagined vampires as ugly villains from children's stories or faceless murderers from horror movies, but this girl looked so human, even covered in blood. She was just a child…

A child that was attacking you.

Everything happened so fast. Before you could even lift your arm and aim, the girl was on you, baring her teeth, then the next moment she was yanked off you with a strength you didn’t think was possible. You gaped at the person who did it, even more so when you recognized him in the dim lit warehouse.

“Are you okay? Did she hurt you?” Sunghoon asked with worry in his midnight dark eyes, with a cold hand against your cheek to check you for injuries.

He didn’t look afraid at all, if not for you and you were the one with a weapon in hand, that was the first thing you noticed. Then you put two and two together: the reason behind his pale complexion and flawless beauty, why he wasn’t fond of the government’s stricter rules or why he was especially wary of your sudden change of heart.

“You… You are one of them. Those monsters,’ you whispered with a gasp in shock. It felt like a betrayal, a knife straight to the heart. Even if he wasn’t the one who had killed your brother, he was one of them.

Sunghoon hissed like your words could actually hurt him as he pulled his hands back, looking scared that even his touch was repulsive to you now.

“Y/N…” He called your name softly, like he had called you so many times before but its sweetness turned sour to your ears now. His being alone changed so many things.

“Leave,” you gritted your teeth, trembling fingers curling around your gun firmer. It was heavier in your hand than it was supposed to be. But Sunghoon didn’t move, so you looked up, straight into his eyes and repeated. “Leave. This is the last kindness I can give to you.”

This beautiful boy looked at you with such sorrowful eyes that you could feel your eyes tear up. He didn’t understand. He had to leave. If others saw him…

“Please,” you begged and lifted the gun, pointing at his chest, right at his broken heart but you could have pointed at your own too.

You both heard the footsteps coming and it was then when Sunghoon disappeared as swiftly as wind, leaving only a breeze of his musky scent behind. The moment he left, you fell to the ground, and a comrade found you like that.

It didn’t take long after that for word to get around. You were a weakling. A shame. But none of it mattered with a broken heart.

The sound of palm meeting skin echoed in your childhood bedroom. Your cheek felt hot even after your father pulled his hand back and you forced your gaze to the ground.

“Don’t you see, stupid girl? He was using you to get information about us,” he claimed as if he knew the boy whose picture was now on wanted posters all over the city, him and all his friends from the orphanage too. Everything came to light quickly after that: his appearance at the gala, your late night talks, the secret letters hidden in your pillow  and your weakness for a beautiful boy with a mole on his cheek. A vampire.

You disappointed your father once again.

“He isn’t like that,” you argued because even in the light of the recent realization you were not willing to believe that Sunghoon played pretend the entire time and none of his softness or kindness was genuine.

“Did he or did he not know about your connection to the military?” Your father pressed and you couldn’t deny that. He knew who you were before you even talked. But who didn’t at that party? Your father liked to show off your family.

“Yes but…”

“See? You’re so naive. I should have known better than to believe you can avenge your brother,” your father didn’t even let you finish and turned his back on you. End of the conversation.

Now, it felt like a cosmic joke that the next time you met Sunghoon, it was in an abandoned music store with broken glass and soldiers’ bodies lying all around. He was sitting in the car that crashed into the building and listened to the music coming from the cassette player. Light piano music like the first time you had seen him.

The government had called for an aggressive attack on all known vampires to ‘clear’ the cities that morning. Everything was closed down and every active soldier was on the field. You heard of the first troop opening fire at the car with seven vampires and how they stopped reporting back to the base. That was when your lieutenant father came up with his great idea: to send you in, alone, because one of the vampires trusted you and you knew a deal when you saw it: it was your chance of redemption if you ever wanted him to consider you as his daughter again. You weren’t sure you wanted though. Still, you agreed because not going was the worse choice both for you and Sunghoon. Even if you were supposed to be a martyr.

“Are you part of the backup they sent?” Sunghoon asked without looking up, his fingers drumming on the steering wheel as if he was playing the last few notes of that pretty melody.

“I’m supposed to be the distraction,” you admitted, voice tight, limbs nervous. Not because you were in the middle of a battlefield and if your father gave the command, you would go down with everything around you. Not because soldiers in bulky uniforms were scattered behind you injured or dead. Not because you were afraid Sunghoon would hurt you. Even his friends let you pass by them without a word, some didn’t even glance at you, others followed you with their gaze but didn’t get up from their place, didn’t stop you either. You were trembling because you weren’t sure how Sunghoon would treat you after you had called him a monster. But you should have known better than to doubt him.

When he got out of the car and turned to you, he didn’t look at you with hatred or disappointment, he looked at you with care, worry. He didn’t approach you as if he was afraid that you would push him away like last time.

“You need to leave, Y/N. It’s going to be hell when the backup arrives,” he warned you as if you didn’t know, as if there wasn’t a gun tucked inside his pants just like you had one taped to your thigh. You were prepared for hell.

“You… it wasn’t you, right? You didn’t kill the mass like they claim, right?” You asked, almost desperately, because you needed to know. They plastered the city full of their faces, calling them murderers, killers of dozens, but you couldn’t imagine him doing all the atrocities that were pinned on them and you knew how the government needed scapegoats just to prove the funding had gone to a good place, so you wouldn’t have been surprised if it was all a lie, you just needed to be sure.

“We only kill if necessary. Like now, they attacked us first,” Sunghoon explained and you knew that he was telling the truth about the letter because you heard your superior say that the vampired wanted to leave town quietly. You also saw the bullet holes in his Sunghoon’s jacket.

“They are everywhere. They surrounded the area. They say they will burn down the neighbourhood if they have to and I…” You started rambling because you didn’t know what to do, what you could do at least and you were starting to panic because it had already been some time and what if the soldiers were already on the move and…

“Hey, shh…” Sunghoon cooed, quiet and kind, like he was reassuring a child as he cradled your face in his hands and pulled you onto his chest. He smelled like smoke and metal but he was warm, you nuzzled closer.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered into his shirt, fingers curling into the sleeve of his jacket to keep yourself steady.

“We’ll get out of here alright, okay?” He said under the watching eyes of the rising moon and you wanted to believe him so badly.

You wanted to get far, far away and start a new life. You wanted to sit next to him and watch him play piano. You wanted to be with him without hiding, without holding back. You wanted to believe that you had a future despite his immortality and your human fragility.

“Okay,” you forced a hopeful smile and Sunghoon slid his fingers into the seam of yours to intertwine them.

He led you to his friends and asked what you knew about the ambush the soldiers were preparing, so you tried your best to tell them all the small details you caught on while waiting in front of your father’s office. And just like that, you really became the traitor he already thought you were. But between a father who kept you in a cage and never wanted you the way you were and a boy who wanted you despite everything, you chose to follow your heart.

Even if it led to hell. At least Sunghoon was holding your hand through it.

[jayflrt]

bloodlust is literally everything. any plans to make another fanfic centred around vampires? AND a twist? OMG it was perfect. deserves so many awards <33

— new follower !

AHH anon thank you so much for reading bloodlust !! it makes me so happy that you liked it & thanks for the follow as well ! 💝 i actually had intended to write a series based on enha’s lore but i wanna wait for more mvs so i can build my theory some more :’))