#enhaverse theories

[many-gay-magpies]

@honeyseungz @loabivey so that uh. that mini au that you had like a very small rb thread about yesterday (well over a few days ago now that im posting this). well uh. um . actually you know what im just gonna let you read it yourselves

so. heeseung, jay, and sunoo are all brothers. wether its actual brothers or just "brothers" by blood bond or whatever idk. but, regardless, they're brothers. im thinking that like, at first they aren't vampires, theyre just regular dudes yknow? (and just a forewarning, a lot of this isnt gonna be as compliant with the enhaverse theorizing we've done so far, it's just a little brain worm i wanted to play around with, throwing a little bit of enhaverse crumbs in here and there)

but anyway. they're not vampires, im thinking theyre just like... adopted/found family brothers, probably orphans or something. regardless they love each other a lot and its great. personality-wise everything is super different, but just for plot conveniences, heeseung, jay, and sunoo are the yunmeng trio (heeseung as wwx, jay as jc, and sunoo as jyl respectively), and jungwon is lwj.

the three brothers meet jungwon, probably brought together by this Big Fantasy Evil, maybe something involving the vampire queen as a character? idk. there's some big evil shit going down, and the three brothers somehow end up with jungwon and HIS big bro, who im imagining is jake (basically the lan xichen in this situation—very soft, kind, gentle; the vibes are right). both of them are vampires, not that our three orphan bois know that. they get caught up in the danger, and vampire bros jake and jungwon coms to the rescue.

now, a little bit of personality-mapping here: jay is outwardly very loud, fun, temperamental, and sarcastic, generally very much like he is irl; but inside, he's intensely loyal, protective, and loving, with a HUGE soft spot for the people closest to him. sunoo is very sweet, sensitive, and kind—the walking hug of the three brothers, who is certainly not without his bite and wont hesitate to talk back to anyone who hurts them. aggressively and without mercy. also he makes them soup for comfort and is generally best boy. heeseung is very goofy, playful, free-spirited, and bright, but insecure and sensitive underneath it all; generally a loud annoying mess of a boy. pure chaotic neutral and a gremlin if there ever was one. jungwon, on the other hand, is... not. he's nervous, quiet, cautious to a fault and intensely righteous, always standing up for what's right and refusing to waver from his chosen path. very lawful good vibes. he, naturally, is more than a little put off when jay, sunoo, and heeseung's chaotic ass come crashing into he and his brother jake's once-peaceful (ish) lives. and it doesn't help that heeseung is a... huge flirt, and apparently deadset on making jungwon his friend. fuck.

jungwon... doesn't know what to do. and it would all be so much easier if heeseung were dumb or stupid or unattractive or just a total asshole—but he isnt any of those things. he's beautiful, smart, insanely witty with a brain faster than any jungwon's ever seen—he can't help but admire him. but on top of that, he's wreckless as hell, unpredictable, and pushy, and gives jungwon heart attacks way too much for his liking. he doesn't even have a heartbeat. he's fucking dead.

it eventually comes out that jake and jungwon are vampires; the brothers are surprisingly cool with it. not the craziest thing that's happened to them.

the five boys get closer, staying together as they fight their foe (which im becoming increasingly inclined to make the werewolves), and through a series of convoluted events, jungwon learns that heeseung is not only gorgeous, smart, talented, and funny as all get-out, but also sensitive, caring, insecure, and thoughtful... and heeseung, who's only goal had been to break through the nervous and straightforward outer shell of his young dongsaeng, does just that. and jungwon, naturally, starts to fall in love.

somewhere along the line, though, things go wrong—as they were bound to do in an au loosely based off of the untamed. something happens to heeseung; he's fatally wounded after saving jay's life, and disappears, nowhere to be found. his brothers eventually assume the worse; that he's gone forever. but the queen finds him, takes care of him, nurses him back to health. turns him.

when he comes back, nothing's the same. the war is still going, and his brothers thought he was dead—but he isn't. but he's... different. jungwon and jake are quick to realize that he's been turned, how, they dont know—but they talk to him, teach him, try to help him, jungwon especially. of course he does; he's in love. heeseung, of course, is dismissive; doesn't take it seriously. ill be fine, whats so bad about this? or, perhaps, he doesn't let on just how hard he's taking it; fearing vulnerability more than he fears being a vampire.

inevitably, though, heeseung's wrecklessness leads to doom—he lets his bloodlust overtake him, relishes in it, no matter how much jungwon had warned him against it, pleaded with him to take caution. he says it's usefull—says he can help them take out enemies, help them win this war. jungwon warns him that he could end up getting more than he bargained for. heeseung doesn't listen.

heeseung helps them win the war; practically wins it for them. hes happy, bitterly, until he isnt. he's happy, until he sees his brother—sees sunoo. blood-covered, pale-skinned, drained.

no.

heeseung is broken. jay even moreso. jay yells at him; yells and yells and yells and yells. curses him out, tells him he hates him, tells him he's nothing but cruel evil—he doesn't mean it, of course, but no one knows it then, not even him. now he is only angry; so, so angry. heeseung, wrought with guilt and shame and grief, flees—hides himself somewhere secluded, does the closest thing a vampire can possibly do to death, the equivalent of a thousand-year hibernation. none can find him, he's made sure of that. in his guilt and shame and anger he stews, asleep, for hundreds, thousands of years.

after the anger passes, jay is more than anything in mourning—for heeseung as well as for sunoo. he has a realization, that being that, when, inevitably, heeseung comes back, he doesn't want him to be alone: even if he'll have jungwon and jake, it won't be the same as having his brother. so jay pleads, cries, begs for jungwon to turn him—so that they can search for heeseung together, so that when heeseung comes back, he'll have jay waiting for him, too. so, reluctantly, jungwon gives in and turns jay—after which he helps him deal with his newfound immortality and vampiric status—helping him handle his bloodlust and helping him learn how to feed. over the centuries that heeseung is gone, jay, jungwon, and jake grow even closer (j line eyyy), inseparable as they search for heeseung and even outside of that. jungwon and jay are the closest, jay growing a colossal soft spot for the boy and not hesitating to take him under his wing and protect him with all he has (initially, sort of as a replacement for protecting heeseung, but eventually jay's affection for jungwon grows into something all it's own). to be clear, no love triangle bullshit here, only sickening-sweet platonic soulmates jaywon and a jungwon that is still achingly in love with heeseung.

(okay for anyone thats actually watched cql/read mdzs, yes i KNOW lwj and jc did not get along at all and kind of hated each other but. this is my au i do what i want, and if i want to add soft jaywon into the mix then im fucking going to, goddamnit)

OKAY TIME FOR SOME WACKY SIDE-PLOT MADNESS

so. sunghoon. how does he fit into all this? how does he end up being the one to trigger heeseung's "resurrection"? how does heeseung GET resurrected in the first place? well, not to worry, you're about to find out! and i am too because i'm just figuring this out as i go along baybyyyy

sunghoon, im thinking, is a friend of jake's (lets throw some jakehoon in here too bcs why not), either from before everything went to shit and heeseung went and isolated himself, or sometime during the numerous centuries jakewon spent looking for heeseung with jay. either way, sunghoon is this boy who jake is friends with and cares about a lot, and is also maybe kind of in love with. while jaywon spend most of their time looking for heeseung, jake spends his with sunghoon—finding himself often alone, now that his little bother is going off on his own adventures.

in a situation quite similar to heeseung's, sunghoon probably gets fatally injured somehow and is near death, but jake, not wanting him to die, decides to turn him instead. niki is also involved, and it's a sort of package deal, because before meeting jakewon, heeseung, and everyone, they were their own little thing; not unlike jay, heeseung, and sunoo's brother's triad. they were both probably orphans, niki being the much younger one, and as such sunghoon took him under his wing and never looked back. when jake turned sunghoon, niki was basically like "m8 what the fuck" and demanded he be turned too, not wanting his sunghoon-hyung to live on forever while he grew old and died. jake, also having a soft spot for niki, was like "fine alright" and turned him too. so, now their little vampire coven numbered five, and all was (moderately) well.

or not.

the thing was, jake hadn't anticipated how powerful sunghoon would be—there's nothing in life that anyone's found yet that would indicate a person's level of power once turned, so jake had... pretty much no way to see this coming. but, anyway, sunghoon was... really, really powerful. like, insanely powerful. all the abilities vampires were said to have in legends, the likes of which were previously reserved for just legends, he had them; flawless teleportation, mind control, shape-shifting, the whole bit. and on top of that, he was controlled—insanely good at monitoring himself and keeping tabs on his own instincts. one of the most self-sufficient, well-mannered vampires jake had ever seen. it was... frankly insane.

the problem? the queen. this is where she comes in, because she's played a part in all the boys' transformations, albeit indirectly—when jake and jungwon first turned, it was she who turned them. she could sense sunghoon's power, and she wanted it for herself. jake and jungwon had done well at avoiding her, even forgetting about her for a while; but what she wanted, she took, and take she did. it was sunghoon she took: luring him to her in small increments and then all at once, taking control of him, turning him into a mindless puppet. sunghoon had always prided himself in control, and without it, havoc wreaked: bodies dropping left and right, people being killed seemingly at random, their only purpose being to instill fear and paranoia.

now, niki had heard tales, before, from his hyungs but also from regular townspeople to whom the legend had gotten passed down, of heeseung, and how great and terrible he was. heeseung, the townspeoples' folktales said, had been insane, unstoppable: a mad genius far too gone for redemption. niki also knew from his hyungs' fond stories that heeseung, more than evil, was kind and caring; he was loyal, and powerful in his loyalty, and niki thought that if anyone could save his sunghoon-hyung, it was heeseung.

so niki went on a journey. without telling jaywon or anyone else (and thus causing quite the panic), he spent years searching for heeseung, everywhere jaywon had thought to look and everywhere they hadn't, and twice more for good measure. and, by some stroke of luck, either due to his own sheer force of will of something else entirely, niki found him: locked away in an old castle that never quite seemed to stay put, constantly phasing in between realities. it made sense why no one had found him before then—he didn't want to be found. desperately, in fact.

but niki, too, was desperate. he enacted a ritual that was said (by jake, so of course it was to be trusted) to wake any vampire that had gone into hibernation, and, miracles continuing to work for the bitter young boy, it worked. heeseung awoke—startled to find himself staring into the face of a very teary, very angry (visibly) sixteen-year-old.

confusion passed, things and motives were explained, and heeseung (although bitter at having been woken up, and still riddled with enough guilt to last 1500 lifetimes) attempted to patiently tell niki that he had no fucking idea how to help sunghoon whatsoever. niki pretty much said "well you better fucking find a way because you're not going back to sleep now, the world's about to fucking end. also jay and jungwon-hyung have been looking for you for literal centuries, do you know how pissed theyd be if i went out looking for you, found you, then came back empty-handed? really fucking pissed is how much. also sad. did i mention sad?" and heeseung, notoriously weak and also kind of (read: very) in love, is just like "...jungwon? jay?"

so niki brings heeseung back to the others, the return journey taking a long enough time that the two become significantly close to each other, heeseung's long-forgotten big brother instincts (tm) kicking in around the younger vampire. niki has to basically drag heeseung out of the castle by his teeth, because as much as he misses his brother and jungwon, he's still so incredibly guilty, and completely convinced that he isnt worth love or life whatsoever and that jay still hates his guts. and, jungwon... he doesn't even want to think about jungwon. how he failed him. how he let him down. but, niki slowly works through the insecurities, bit by bit: assuring heeseung that, no, even though jay will definitely rip him a new one once he sees him again, he'll also cry and hug him for at least 24 hours because he misses him like hell and heeseungie hyung you have no idea.

they weather a lot together. storms, mental breakdowns, bouts of blood-starvation so severe heeseung thinks he'll lose it again: but they're there for each other. they hunt, talk, keep each other warm, and in it, form an unbreakable bond. niki had heard tales of the legendary lee heeseung, who wiped out entire armies in two seconds flat and comforted his friends when they were sad and annoyed jay to the very ends of the earth: but what he's faced with is a man with more insecurities than niki has hairs on his head—and he has a lot of hairs on his head.

by the time they make it back to the coven's home, heeseung has grown sufficiently attached to the enigma that is niki, and has almost completely but it out of his mind that he's here for his old friends, too. he's only doing this for niki: it's a fact he's comfortable with. so when they reach the front steps he just... freezes.

i have a very clear image of it in my head—jungwon, jay, and jake sense niki's presence, in some weird vampire-y way. it's been around 10, 15 years since he left at this point, so of course they rush out to greet him, ready with scoldings and lashings about how stupid he had been (after, of course, making sure he's unharmed and alright)—but it all dies on their tongues as soon as they see who's with him.

frozen. everything is frozen.

i imagine it's a lot like lulu and artzyy's post. jungwon is the first to move, stepping forward and whimpering out a broken "hyung", and all heeseung's guilt and avoidance is forgotten in favor of cradling jungwon to his chest, holding him close and whispering reassurances into the crown of his head, wonnie, im so sorry, hyung's so sorry; i didn't mean to leave you for so long, i'm here now, its okay. and of course then jay comes in, crying and screaming about how the fuck is it okay, how can it ever be okay, how could you just not mean to leave us alone for 1500 years?! how the fuck do you just expect to waltz back into our lives like nothing ever happened and pretend its all okay?!? and then he hits him, and hurts him, tries to make him feel even an inkling of the hurt he was made to feel for the past fifteen hundred years—but then punching him turns into fisting hands into the back of his shirt and sobbing into his neck and holding him so tight he wouldn't be able to breath if he had the need to and please, please don't leave, why would you leave, you asshole, why did you leave?

so yeah. things happen. reunions are had, tears are shed. some indirect heewon love confessions probably happen later on in the form of very intense devotions of life and self and all that. "walking on the single-log bridge in the dark really isnt so bad" you know the whole shbang. meanwhile jay salty in the background just like "cant you just say you love each other like normal human beings jesus fucking christ"

jayseung's relationship (or the reigniting of it) is, well, rocky. they're both conflicted—jay even more than heeseung. because, the thing is, heeseung killed sunoo. as regretful as he is, that doesn't make it any easier to forget. but he's back, and alive, and in one piece, and he isn't leaving, and jay knows it wasn't really his fault, he wasn't in control—but he killed him. he killed their brother. and it WAS his own stupid fault for losing control in the first place, for not listening to jungwon, so what the hell is jay supposed to think? he flip-flops between being intensely grateful that heeseung is back and okay and finally with them again, and then remembering what he's done, giving him the cold shoulder and not speaking to him for hours on end. and all the while, heeseung is riddled with guilt, and shame, and grief he'd suppressed for far too long; niki's stubbornness combined with jungwon's unwavering support being the only things keeping him from bolting into oblivion all over again. all in all, it's a difficult time—but they get there. eventually.

naturally, they save sunghoon. what else is there to do? they defeat the queen, break her control over their friend—and then jakehoon have their own teary reunion, not unlike heewon's, and sungki have theirs, not unlike jayseung's (although with a... considerable decrease in cursing and conflicted emotions, and a lot more immediate sobbing). they're a mess—sunghoon is traumatized, heeseung is traumatized, jay and niki are traumatized, they're all just fucking traumatized. jayseung will probably take a long time to get back to the way they once were, if it's even possible—there'll always be an empty space there, something gone, something missing, and it's one that can't be filled. jungwon barely lets heeseung out of sight or touch alike, and heeseung isn't much better off. jay's always been the more touchy one out of the three of them; but after years of missing, of longing, there's plenty of time to be made up, and heeseung is just... so, so soft, and warm, and being held by him is the loveliest thing jungwon's ever known.

AND NOW A SUNOO THING, BECAUSE THE IDEA OF ENHA LIVING HAPPILY EVER AFTER AS OT6 WITH SUNOO JUST FUCKING DEAD DOES. NOT WORK FOR ME

so like. sunoo isn't dead, or he doesn't stay dead, or not the soulless-unmoving kind of dead anyway. you know how necromancy and fierce corpses exist in donghua and shit? well they exist here too because fuck you and also i said so. i made myself sad and now im making it happy again goddamnit.

anyway. after he dies, sunoo gets found by the queen, too, and because she's all-powerful and whatnot she fucking necromances him—figures he'll be useful later. as he is, though, he's basically nothing more than a puppet; like wen ning and song lan were when they were being controlled. his soul isn't... gone exactly, just imprisoned, prevented from being able to come forward and command his body.

so. sunoo is still partially alive, and the boys (jay, jake, jungwon, sunghoon, niki, and whatnot)... don't know that. i imagine that for pretty much the entirety of the centuries that heeseung is gone, sunoo's status as a necromanced fierce corpse goes entirely unknown to them, and it's only after heeseung is brought back by niki that he starts to resurface. i imagine they realize it in a sort of tense, action-filled scenario: the boys have gone to investigate another attack, thinking it's sunghoon, but as it turns out the queen has had TWO undead corpses running around doing her dirty work instead of one. and one of them is sunoo.

heeseung and jay, of course, are stunned. they cant believe it's real; it isn't real, it can't be—and yet.

a lot of angsty plot stuff happens—i dont have the energy or enough shits to give to figure out what. the thing is, the queen only kept sunoo this long and brought him out as a tactic to lure heeseung, make him weaker; and it probably worked. in the midst of both fighting against sunghoon and fighting to SAVE sunghoon, heeseung is bent on saving sunoo as well, and there's probably a lot of very angsty talk wherein there are disagreements about who's life, really, is more important in this situation, and if heeseung is just trying to make up for what he did to sunoo. regardless, heeseung ends up saving sunoo and bringing his soul back to the surface. what he doesn't expect is for sunoo to forgive him—fully and wholeheartedly. and it feels wrong, because no, you should be angry with me, you should hate me and want to hurt me like i hurt you; but sunoo is just... happy. happy that he's back, happy that heeseung is back, happy that they're all together again. and its conflicting, to say the least. even moreso because sunoo isnt stupid—he didnt just act like heeseung was an innocent who did no wrong; he knew he had been wreckless, knew he was at fault, and he forgave him still. loved him still. that was something heeseung... hadn't been prepared for.

like i said in the last part, they save sunghoon; how, im not sure, but they save him, probably with a fair bit of sunoo's help, and they're together again. only the tiny difference here is that sunoo is with them too. sunoo is back, and the gang has yet another undead bestie to teach the ropes of being a vampire to. things are awkward, obviously, especially between the original brother's trio of heeseung, sunoo, and jay; because sunoo is his usual sweet and kind self while jay believes that he should be more angry at heeseung for killing him, heeseung agrees, and jay has some very conflicted feelings about how self-depricating his hyung is being (because like... yeah you killed sunoo and im supposed to hate you but you're not supposed to hate yourself, you idiot, what the fuck?)

(also like. if we're gonna take some more crumbs from cql canon here im gonna go ahead and say sunoo's death was at least somewhat self-sacrificial, even if it was heeseung that ended up causing it in the end)

(i kind of love how jiang cheng-y i made enhaverse jay here to be honest)

(okay this has been in my drafts WAY too long because ive been waiting for some miraculous Other Detail i need to add to pop up in my mind, but honestly i can just add anything else i think of in a reblog afterwards, this bitch just needs to see the light of day)

[bambihee]

sunghoon | cursive

and we will always be; we will always be alright

[eterni-ki-moved]

me 🤝 lulu

cracking part of the enhaverse code, until we backtrack and start all over again

[darkbloodmoon]

for the mutual ask game: 7 for magpie, 9 for me, and 11 for anyone :))) (kfndjdjdjjd i hope i got the numbers right)

7 - tell us what you like about [@many-gay-magpies] | well... she's just a very sweet and very funny person, i enjoy talking to her a lot and i really love her <33

9 - if you could meet [@just-a-demi-bean] what would you want to do | hmm... i'd wanna go out with you and do something fun together! do you... have any suggestions?

11 - a random thought/memory of a mutual [send url* OR not] | this was on my old account, when my enhaverse theory blog existed and i remember me, magpie @fushigojos and @scorbunna made fever 100 times gayer than it's supposed to be and made stories revolving around the y e a r n i n g. god those were good times </3

mutual ask game!!

[many-gay-magpies]

:O ASFKGGSHTDG YESSSSSS omg-- doitdoitdoit that would be so cool.. clone enha... that would be SO sick to write (does not mean ill be doing it motivation is sparing these days . but GOD if i did hsjfhdhfjg)

@many-gay-magpies MAGPIE MAGPIE MAGPIE MAGPIE

I HAVE AN IDEA CONCERNING THE DARK MOON (specifically let me in) AND ALBEDO'S BACKSTORY WITH THE FAILED EXPERIMENT (not a theory just a crossover)

so there are at least two enhypens in this universe let me in kinda confirms that.

but imagine.

imagine that the reason why there are two enhypens is because the queen made a copy of one of them.... the copied enhypen is the one that was in the storage room and then in the museum display case. and then the original enhypen is the one exploring the museum but was then placed in the cramped glass box at the end of the mv.

kinda like albedo and primordial albedo except... not exactly. cause i don't think the original enha knew about their copies until that one scene where the copied enha escaped-

i wanna make a whole au on this shit

because "as beings who set foot in this world, how arrogant are we in desiring to control our destiny, and in desiring to create?"

[0x1lovesungz]

✧theory boards

disclaimer: these are theories about the enhaverse and the music videos that i tried to represent via moodboards. if you for some reason want context to these moodboards, i suggest you go to my sideblog @drunk-dawn for the theories

♡ fever | burning & yearning

♡ day one | from dusk ‘till dawn

[bluejayjay]

flicker and mixed up sitting in the dungeons, eating mint choco ice cream while having an intense discussion over the theories of enhaverse

[bambihee]

enhaverse | handmade ego

sink my teeth into what is mine; hunt and kill so you can wine and dine.

[bambihee]

sungki | six feet under

would roses bloom? could roses bloom?

[bambihee]

nishimura riki | lavender dreaming

[bambihee]

lee heeseung | poison

push me away but my firе still burns; turn to ash but the flame still rises

[many-gay-magpies]

why are yall so bent on making me sob today i--

okay so, i found this fanart for a completely different fandom that i'm in, and the lines that were used...

"we've lived a different life, you and i. i mourn that life, the happier one that i don't remember. but here, today, you've never held my hand more tightly. never called for me with such concern. i am sorry that i cared for you most in a world not meant for us. but i am glad to have loved and been loved. i pray that next time will come quietly."

the entxt vibes i get from this it hurts me gkjsgreg

here's the link but here's some context for everything: two platonic husbands that lived in peace but eventually get caught in a war. during a major battle, one husband dies while the other survives another day. but once the other dies, they reunite in the afterlife in a world where nothing went wrong at all.

no bc it really does remind me of entxt 😭 but also my mind just immediately went to my sungki thing..... 😭😭😭 PAINNNN

[bambihee]

jayseung | bones

you love like you've always been lonely

[bambihee]

enhaverse | runaway

but now take me home, take me home where i belong; i can't take it anymore.

[bambihee]

sunjakeki | glitter hanahaki

just stay here forever, please.

[many-gay-magpies]

@loabivey @honeyseungz @angelhee @affectionaterainoflove @yixiangs @jungwon-luv-bot-pt3

so uh yeah i wrote a thing ! lulu and artzyy's discussion about vampire jungwon had me feeling things, on top of this brilliant fic i read yesterday, so... here u go hsfhchfvc

wc: .9k, tw for blood, smoke, vague descriptions of a car crash and descriptions of a dried-up corpse. other than that i think that's it, but if you see anything you think i missed let me know!

and with that i present to you: blood bonds.

He can feel the blood on his hands. He doesn't know how he got here.

The scent alone is enough to have his mind reeling again—but he's full, now, satiated, and he no longer feels the need to hunt, to feed as he once did.

Jungwon slowly blinks awake, taking a moment to survey his surroundings. Memories start to trickle back in as he does, far away and faded as if from a dream—how he'd stopped a car in the middle of a street, clambered up onto it's windshield; how good it had felt, to taunt them, to see the fear of it's inhabitant through the rain-fogged glass. How good the blood had smelled; sweet, sickening, the catalyst to his blackout.

He's in a car, Jungwon realizes. Not only that, but the car had swerved off the road some time ago, and now sits with its front properly bashed in by the post of a streetlight; an impact that had left Jungwon unharmed. He sits in the lap of a body, white-skinned, shriveled, limp; a man or a woman, he doesn't know. Two puncture marks sit on the right side of it's neck, though any amount of blood that could have been pouring from them is long gone, now.

No. Not gone. Jungwon licks at his fangs and tastes the last bitter remains; shivers, perturbed. Guilt prickles in his chest, but not nearly as much as he thought there would be.

Maybe it's the haze he has yet to fully shake, but everything feels strangely idealistic, unreal—he feels guilty, yes, but more than that he feels good; really, really good. He doesn't need to look in a mirror to know that his skin is practically glowing, his cheeks plump and eyes bright, the warmth of another's blood flowing like wildfire under his skin. He feels more alive than he's never been, and laughs at the irony of it, the taste of just how false that statement is like copper on his tongue.

He tries to reach through the haze, tries to grasp for any inch of panic he might be feeling, but the only things his fingers close around is this light, bright sensation; ecstasy and relief at the final satiation of his hunger. He's never been drunk before, or high, or any of those other things, but he imagines this is what it might feel like.

Jungwon carefully extracts himself from the body beneath him, stepping out onto the cold pavement. Smoke rises in a column from the car's front, bringing warmth to the once-chilled night, but Jungwon is warm enough on his own that he has no need for it.

A thought comes like a bolt of lightning: I need the hyungs. Because as guiltless as he is now, he'll have plenty to feel guilty about later, when his lapse in control finds them on the run again.

A few seperate thoughts turn around in his mind, old ancestors rolling in their graves in time with his quieting breath. He needs to get rid of the body, take it somewhere safe until he can figure out what to do with it, and he probably needs his hyungs' and Riki's help to do it. The consequences of someone finding it here—sucked dry and bloodless, with a human-sized bite mark in the side of it's neck—are more than any of them can afford.

A part of him knows, too, in the back of his mind, that the euphoria won't last forever—sooner or later the rush he has will drain away, and when it does, he'll need to find someone to cry on; someone who won't be crushed by the weight of his guilt.

If, a voice in his head whispers, if you even feel it. He shoves the voice away.

Jungwon looks at the corpse in the driver's seat with the same disconnected grief as someone looking into the casket of a relative they knew only distantly. It was a man, Jungwon recalls vaguely. Wearing a pressed business suit, the blazer of which now sits discarded on the passenger seat floor, the collar of a crisp white button-up stained with blood. He wonders what kind of life he'd had; if he had a partner, children he was leaving behind. Children Jungwon made him leave behind. He hadn't meant to, hadn't wanted to, but-- but.

His grief is slow, sludgy, like a pool of black tar, and the tears don't come even as he wonders if they should.

---

Heeseung knows what's happened as soon as he sees him. If it isn't the glow of his skin, the fullness of his cheeks, it's the dazed look in his eyes; the telltale dregs of euphoria that have yet to make their leave.

Although on second thought, maybe it was the blood that did it, trickling down his chin and staining his teeth and lips rust-red.

"I didn't mean to do it," he says quietly. In the background, Jay and Jake drag the body out of the car, and Sunoo and Sunghoon watch with Riki to make sure no one sees.

"I know," Heeseung says, voice soft. "I know you didn't." Then he opens his arms, and Jungwon falls in as readily as if he was born there.