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zerocoded · 8 hours ago

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summary: your estranged grandmother left you exactly one thing in her will: a sprawling luxury apartment in the heart of seoul — the kind of place that could singlehandedly cover your entire college tuition if you ever decided to sell it. now you had a penthouse all to yourself, a pink-tiled kitchen you weirdly adored, and a hopeless, slow-burning crush on the absurdly attractive neighbor who barely looked your way.

authors note: look, this chapter is massive, so it's ok if y'all won't read it in one sit (i'm talking about length and content). pls read the warnings for a comfortable and safe reading! i love writing sunghoon's pov because i'm melancholic as hell and he is too. anyways, i hope you have a nice reading and pls tell me what you think of this chapter when you finish! #vamphoonforthehotties

warnings and tags: yearning!sunghoon OMG y'all are not ready for him • graphic vampire blood consumption description (animals and blood bags) • this could trigger some, so pls be careful! • gore, violence and action • suggestive! • angst • self-inflicted wounds on hoon's part • the word 'suicide' is mentioned but no suicidal thoughts (in this chapter) • detailed description of gore and violence • dark content • i drag everything too much bc i'm melancholic ok • sunghoon is fighting for his life on the whole chapter • jay and hoon fight a lil hehe • sunghoon and his sad boy agenda • he takes probably 6 showers in this chapter lol.

word count: 21.6k.

previous chapters: series masterlist.

the first symptom was blood.

not the thirst for it. he was used to that. no — it was the sound. the pressure behind his ears. like something had ruptured and rewired the way he processed everything around him.

sunghoon could hear it — all of it. the blood in the streets, in the pipes, in the people. the rhythm of footsteps two floors below. the drip of a leaky faucet in apartment 3a. a dog barking across the han river. and still, layered beneath it all, unmistakably—

you.

he tried to ignore it. fed from animals. warm-blooded things that gave him no comfort. drained two blood bags in one night and still felt like he hadn’t eaten in a decade. he’d hunted out of habit. bitten out of hunger. and still — the ache lingered.

your scent under his tongue. your pulse crawling up the inside of his spine. you were becoming the itch he couldn’t reach.

the others noticed.

niki was the first to say it out loud. “you’re losing it.” on the first morning after the greenhouse accident.

sunghoon didn’t answer. just stood under a cold shower for hours that night and hoped it would drown something. it didn’t.

monday bled into tuesday like a bad wound. he fed — twice, maybe three times — but the blood felt wrong in his mouth. no texture. no weight.

the bags sat like lead in his gut and made his gums ache. he bit into a live deer at one point, deep in the mountains past namsan, hoping instinct would override obsession.

it didn’t.

the heartbeat under his hands didn’t thrum like yours did. the pulse didn’t echo through his body like yours had when he’d touched the air around you. it wasn’t enough. none of it was enough.

by wednesday, his body started to fail.

not in a human way — there were no fevers, no normal symptoms. it was stranger than that. unnatural.

he couldn’t regulate his hearing anymore. everything sounded too loud, or too far. voices rang like sirens. even his own footsteps echoed like gunshots in his head. and when he tried to sleep, your name was the only thing that calmed the noise — but also the thing that set him on fire.

thursday he collapsed in the middle of the living room.

they found him curled near the base of the couch, pupils blown, heartbeat erratic — not slow, not fast, just wrong.

jake tried to drag him upright, but sunghoon clawed at the floor, hissed something in a language none of them had heard him speak in years. old tongue. blood tongue. something primal that made niki’s skin crawl and jungwon go still.

they tried to talk him down. it didn’t work. he kept saying the same phrase over and over again.

“she’s hurting.”

the way he said it made jake nauseous. he was the only one with a human bond among them and he recognized that voice. the break in it. the way a bond feels when it starts to tether too tight — not with affection, but with need.

and maybe, for a moment, jake was scared. not of sunghoon. not even of what it meant to have another human soulmate among them. but of the fact that sunghoon was six hundred and thirty-three years old, and even him didn’t know how to survive this.

jake had found his soulmate six years ago. a blink, in his time. barely a dent in his age, but long enough to rewrite everything he thought he knew about control. she was human — all warmth and teeth and bad taste in cereal — and she wrecked him in ways that didn’t heal, not even with time.

he hadn’t meant to keep her. hadn’t meant to fall that deep. but the bond made it impossible to exist otherwise.

they’d moved into an apartment next to seonghyeon jaega last year. quieter, safer.

the others called it a retirement plan. jake called it survival. because it wasn’t about the sweetness or the devotion or the dumb sitcoms they watched curled up on the couch. it was about not going feral every time she got a paper cut. it was about waking up and knowing she was real and near and his — and still managing to breathe through it.

jake had learned to live with it — the tether, the madness, the relentless urge to sink his teeth into someone he’d die for. he’d learned the rhythms, the boundaries. he had his girl, his home, his rules.

but watching sunghoon now — four centuries older than him, twice as powerful, and unraveling in half the time — made all of that feel like borrowed peace.

jake stood at the edge of the living room, gaze fixed on the man writhing silently on the floor, and understood: there was no learning this. no blueprint.

sunghoon wasn’t surviving the bond. he was being consumed by it.

friday was war.

sunghoon came back to himself just long enough to shower again. the mirror fogged. his shirt stuck to his chest, plastered by sweat that hadn’t dried properly in three days. the water didn’t soothe — it scalded and chilled all at once, a sensation that was almost… human. that alone made his teeth grit.

he wasn’t supposed to feel like this. not anymore. not after six hundred years. but even that ancient part of him, the one that had survived famine, fire, and kingdoms falling, was beginning to fray under the weight of her.

of you.

when he caught his reflection, he flinched. not because he didn’t recognize himself — but because he did. and he looked like a man starving. haunted. wrong.

his eyes wouldn’t shift back anymore. the red clung to his irises like fresh blood under glass, bright and feral.

it wasn’t a hunger he could reason with, not a thirst he could put off. it was something older, deeper. something that pulsed under his skin and made his fingers twitch like they’d forgotten what stillness felt like.

he could hear you again.

your laugh, but weaker now. your pain, stifled. your breathing patterns during sleep — except you hadn’t really been sleeping.

the bond had opened too fast, too hard, and now it was tangled in the roots of him. even when he tried to block it out, you found him. or maybe it was the other way around. sunghoon didn’t know anymore.

the worst part wasn’t even the ache — it was the power. it was changing. shifting. growing volatile with every hour he ignored the call.

he couldn’t touch metal without burning it. couldn’t speak without his voice trembling with something darker. the walls around him had started to hum with static, like even the building felt the shift.

the air turned heavier when he walked past. the lights flickered. niki joked about it once — called him an electromagnetic emo ghost — but no one laughed.

by the time the sun set on friday, his nails had darkened — claws, really, bone-etched and sharpened at the tips, curling just slightly as if his body already knew what they were for.

his skin had gone pale and glassy, almost translucent near the temples, like the light was trying to escape him. and the usual cold blood that once made him still, composed — that kept his urges buried deep beneath centuries of control — it boiled. literally. it churned inside him like molten tar, too hot, too fast, too loud.

he could feel it screaming under his skin.

your voice was there too, cutting through it all. not with words, but with sensation.

the ache in your spine. the shortness in your breath. the way your body kept fighting to stay upright. he felt it like a second heartbeat. sunghoon was no stranger to pain — he’d bled through wars, watched empires rise and rot — but this? this tether to you? it was different. it wasn’t grief or fury or guilt. it was panic. pure, human panic. and it was poisoning him slowly.

when jake stepped into the room that night and said his name, sunghoon didn’t respond.

he didn’t even blink.

his eyes were locked ahead, black around the edges and burning crimson through the center. he walked out of the bathroom, dripping cold water in his wake, bare feet silent against the hardwood floor.

his shirt clung to him, half-buttoned and soaked, and when he reached the front door, it wasn’t with urgency — it was inevitability.

he wasn’t leaving to find you. he was being pulled. dragged. like gravity had picked a new center and it was you.

they blocked him before he could even reach the elevator.

jake, niki, jungwon, heeseung, sunoo, jay — all of them. the inner circle. each one braced for impact, spells already burning under their skin, marks activated and defense lines cast like they were facing a threat, not a brother. but sunghoon didn’t flinch. didn’t blink. just said, “move,” and the temperature in the kitchen dropped ten degrees. frost curled over the doorknob in front of him.

niki, ever the first to test fate, surged forward with speed that blurred his outline — and sunghoon didn’t even touch him. just flicked his wrist, eyes still locked on the door, and niki slammed against the wall with a guttural choke. the drywall cracked.

jungwon followed next, his arm glowing with a binding rune carved in thick, geometric spirals — one of the old languages, strong enough to stop a rogue turned at birth.

even he only made it two steps before sunghoon moved. he grabbed him by the throat, slammed him to the ground with a single arm, and for a moment the mark on jungwon’s skin dimmed. blinked like it was afraid.

“you don’t get it,” sunghoon said, voice low, scraping raw through his teeth. “she’s dying.”

he meant you.

every time he breathed, it felt like ash filled his lungs. your scent, your heartbeat, your fatigue — it had infected him like a plague.

“sunghoon,” jay warned, stepping forward, his own energy humming just beneath his skin, “you’ll kill us.”

“then die.” sunghoon’s voice cracked, and with it, so did the lightbulbs overhead. glass rained down like glitter.

his power wasn’t contained anymore. it wasn’t neat. it roared out of him like a wildfire — light bending, shadows twisting. the walls groaned like the building itself was trying to expel him.

a heartbeat pounded in the air — not his. yours. and it was getting weaker.

sunoo tried a barrier spell. heeseung added a pressure hold. riki used sound manipulation to stun him — but it didn’t matter. sunghoon fought like he had nothing left to lose. and maybe he didn’t. not if you slipped through his fingers first.

it took all six of them to subdue him.

sunoo was the one who finally struck the injector deep into his spine. an experimental compound, made to mimic old blood magic. it shouldn’t have worked on someone his age. but it did. barely.

sunghoon collapsed, eyes wide, teeth bared — still trying to crawl forward even as his body gave out under him. his fingers scraped across the floor, reaching for something invisible. and just before the sedative overtook him, he whispered your name.

he almost won, he could swear.

even half-starved, even frenzied — he still managed to break free. to slam jake against the doorframe so hard the plaster cracked. to shove heeseung back with one hand, dragging claws down his arm. blood spilled. fangs bared.

but jungwon had trained for this. had been the one to sedate sunghoon once, two centuries ago during the underground uprisings, and he remembered where to aim. not the neck. not the arm.

the back of the thigh, near the femoral artery.

sunghoon dropped mid-snarl. not all at once. his body twitched first, then his mouth parted, breath ragged. he collapsed to his knees, hands shaking. and still — still — he looked at jungwon like he’d betrayed him.

it wasn’t poetic.

there was nothing noble in the way he collapsed — nothing cinematic in the aftermath. their living room looked like a lion cage after slaughter. furniture split open like bone. claw marks on every surface. blood — his and theirs — smeared across the floor, thick and drying. the scent of it clung to the walls, sour with fury, old with shame.

it wasn’t the kind of story people told with reverence. not the kind of love that inspired paintings or survived the centuries. not even the kind that made sense in his own mouth.

because this wasn’t love. not yet. not even close. this was biology. cruelty. inevitability. the bond had pulled him apart molecule by molecule, until even his instincts turned against him.

he wasn’t protecting anything. he wasn’t fighting for a future. he was reacting. like an animal. like a weapon without a name.

and that was the ugliest part of it.

his body still trembled on the floor. not from pain, but from something deeper — humiliation, maybe. grief for a self that had once known control.

nothing about this was beautiful.

not the ache.

not the silence after.

not the way jay stared at him like he was already halfway gone.

they left the city that night. no warnings. no notes. just silence in the apartment halls and an overnight drive to the edge of nowhere. jungwon’s family old camp house hadn’t been touched in years — but it had the seals, the space, the distance. it would have to be enough.

the drive itself blurred. hours passed in cold silence, only the occasional shuffle of clothes or the creak of leather breaking through. no one spoke. not even niki. the back seat was too quiet with sunghoon half-conscious and still burning from the inside out. he twitched once — then again — murmuring sounds that barely formed words.

your name was among them.

jake kept his eyes on the road, knuckles white on the wheel, like if he focused hard enough, he could outrun what this meant.

by the time they reached the camp house — tucked in the woods and frozen in time — sunghoon had stilled again. not at peace. not asleep. just… emptied. like his body was saving its final flickers of strength for something even worse.

they carried him in without ceremony. laid him down in the old sunroom beneath a ceiling of cracked glass and stars. and when morning came, he didn’t stir.

sunghoon didn’t wake until five days later, on the monday after. five full days of stillness, of near-catatonia.

his body remained motionless beneath layers of wool blankets they couldn’t tell if he needed. the fire in the hearth had long gone cold, but the heat inside him hadn’t. it pulsed, erratic and wrong, like his blood had forgotten which direction to flow.

sweat clung to his skin in waves, soaking through two shirts and the mattress beneath. sometimes he flinched. sometimes he spoke. but mostly, he just lay there — jaw tight, brow drawn, like even in unconsciousness he was fighting something.

they’d placed ward marks on the walls and runes across the ceiling, spells meant to contain whatever version of him might try to wake too soon.

jungwon’s sigils burned with faint light. jay replaced the restraints every twelve hours, the silver lined with mountain ash and regret.

no one said it, but they all saw it — the way his veins lit up crimson whenever your name passed someone’s lips. the way his claws never fully retracted, even in rest. and worst of all: his eyes. open, just for seconds, sometimes. blood-bright and unseeing.

he didn’t wake like a man returning to himself. he woke like a creature crawling out of something ancient.

heart lurching. throat dry. vision bleeding red at the edges.

and the first thing he registered wasn’t the room. wasn’t the pain.

it was your fear.

a livewire emotion, distant but clear, slicing through his chest like a blade. it echoed through the mark he didn’t realize he gave you, dragging him from darkness with the violence of instinct.

his wrists jerked. his fangs scraped his lip. and the restraints — thick and triple-bound — cracked against the floorboards with a sizzle.

he woke to voices.

not loud. not urgent. just low enough to assume he was still asleep. still weak enough not to matter.

sunghoon didn’t move. didn’t breathe differently. just let his head rest against the pillow, eyes half-closed, and listened.

“…can’t rush it,” jake was saying, somewhere near the porch. “he’s still recovering. the last thing we need is another—”

a pause. footsteps on wood.

“he’s not stable,” that was jungwon — sharp, always — even when he whispered. “you felt it too. yesterday.”

“i know.” a sigh. niki, probably. “but she’s probably peaking by now, don’t you think?”

your name wasn’t said. it didn’t need to be.

something in sunghoon’s chest cracked at the edges. not pain, not yet. just the shape of it forming. jagged, slow.

jake again, quieter. “he’s going to feel it the second we cross the incheon bridge.”

“he already does,” jungwon said. “he just doesn’t know how to hold it.”

a chair scraped. someone stood.

“so we go back,” jay said, final.

sunghoon closed his eyes again.

what kind of punishment was this?

he had been a decent vampire — by his own standards, at least. didn’t abuse his power. didn’t chase conflict for the thrill. he held restraint like a badge of honor, the oldest among them not just by age, but by the unspoken weight of responsibility.

he was the one who cleaned up after their messes. the one who kept the coven quiet during purges, who forged papers, silenced rumors, relocated them every fifty years with surgical precision.

he was the one who stayed behind when niki spiraled in the 1960s, when his bloodlust turned clinical and his fascination with anatomy earned headlines.

he’d carried heeseung out of a burning church once. wrapped him in coats soaked in blood and memory, when grief had made him forget he wanted to keep living. after she died. after the bond snapped and left him with nothing but the echo of a heartbeat that wasn’t his.

he’d stood between jay and the world more times than he could count — whenever jay’s cold logic turned inward, whenever his distrust poisoned the air around him. sunghoon had talked him down from leaving. from disappearing. from becoming one of the monsters they used to whisper about when they were young.

and now here he was.

lying in bed like a corpse.

unable to even lift his limbs without effort. chest sunken, skin tight and pale in all the wrong places. vampires didn’t get sick. their bodies didn’t wither. but his had begun to — slowly, methodically. not in decay, but in surrender. like it was trying to fold into itself, trying to lessen the distance between him and whatever it was that tethered him to you.

and god, he hated it. hated the thought that you — some human girl with soft hands and sharp sarcasm — had reduced him to this. not through cruelty. not even through magic. but through something ancient and irreversible.

the bond.

——

the return to seoul was wordless.

they didn’t tell him. didn’t need to. sunghoon woke on the second day to the sound of tires on gravel, the low hum of the highway embedded beneath it, and he knew.

the scent of the city clung to the hem of jungwon’s coat when he entered the room that morning — concrete, pollution, metal, humanity — the unmistakable imprint of the capital, already sinking into the seams of their clothes.

the shift in pressure was immediate. louder air, faster wind. too many voices outside the windows. too much static in the distance. the countryside’s silence had disappeared. it made his pulse spike.

by the time the sun slipped above the edge of the trees, they were home. back at seonghyeon jaega.

if home was what you called a sterile luxury penthouse where every room had been soundproofed and enchanted to keep in the consequences of who they were.

jungwon had already redecorated the living room. of course he had. no more blood. no broken wood. no torn fabric. even the wall where sunghoon had slammed jake’s body had been repainted — dark olive now, maybe to match the black steel accents of the new bookshelves.

too intentional. too curated. nothing left of the chaos, not even a dent. just polished floors and shadows, the kind you could bury a memory inside of.

sunghoon was brought to the guest room and didn’t leave. not that day.

his limbs still felt like they belonged to someone else. every joint resisted movement, like his body was still deciding whether it trusted him again. the inhibitors were wearing off, but not fast enough. he could feel them in his bloodstream — not quite gone, not quite alive. everything was dulled. even his hunger. even you.

but something in his chest had begun to stir again. something sharper. something not easily ignored. it was you — it had always been you — and, fuck, sunghoon didn’t have the strength to pretend otherwise. not anymore.

the bond coiled tight around his ribs, filled his mouth with the taste of ash and inevitability.

again, he was tired, not stupid. this was a soulmate bond. the kind that wasn’t supposed to exist anymore. the kind most vampires dismissed as fantasy, or prayed for in secret, or wasted centuries searching for and never found.

he remembered the stories now, the fragments he’d skimmed without care, when he was young enough to think knowledge was optional. when he still believed strength was enough. dusty books, passed between old covens like contraband, filled with the kind of lore that blurred the line between warning and temptation.

that a vampire with a human soulmate could only feed from them. that if the human rejected the turning, the vampire was doomed — to hunger, to madness, to death that stretched out slow. that the bond gave the human stolen power — glimpses of eternity without the curse, the echo of strength without the fangs. but it made them dependent. fragile. their health tied to the vampire’s care, their will slowly fraying at the edges.

and worse. in the pages he’d ignored, the ones wrapped in silk covers and tucked behind locked doors — the records slipped into the kind of literature vampires didn’t speak of in the daylight.

how having a human soulmate was the erotic dream of many. the ultimate fantasy. to be seen as both ruin and worship, a creature loved not despite the monstrosity, but because of it.

to be needed with a hunger that had nothing to do with blood. to have a human — the ones who called themselves normal since the beginning of time — look at you like you were both salvation and destruction, to see your darkness and still reach for it. to feel that devotion pour from their veins with every touch, every breath, every trembling glance.

sunghoon had never paid attention to any of it. never cared for myths. never cared for power beyond what he already carried in his veins.

he had been the strongest for centuries. he didn’t need to study the horrors of his kind. he didn’t need to dream of bonds he’d never wanted.

but now — now he felt desperation like a human again. for the first time in six hundred years, sunghoon wished he had never been turned. wished he had died before this could happen. before this could become real. before you.

heeseung left first.

said he needed air, needed to walk, didn’t say where. no one stopped him. jake was asleep, sunoo buried under headphones. niki just muttered something about surveillance and leaned back against the kitchen counter, arms folded tight. the quiet wasn’t tense — just expectant.

twenty-two minutes later, the elevator clicked open again.

heeseung stood in the doorway. his red hair looked darker under the low lights. his coat — long, black, double-breasted — was still zipped, but the breeze had followed him in.

“she was there,” he said.

everyone froze.

no clarification. no name. like they didn’t need one.

niki straightened slightly. “where?”

“elevator,” heeseung answered. slower now. his eyes were distant. “she looked sick. worse than before. she didn’t see me.”

the silence stretched. you could feel it recoil in their chests.

“did she say anything?” niki again.

heeseung shook his head once. “no. but the scent—” he paused. his gaze dropped to the floor like it was safer to look there. “she’s changing.”

sunghoon, from the far side of the apartment, felt it like a tremor behind his ribs. something cracking back open. as if the very mention of you was enough to loosen whatever cage he’d been trying to build inside himself.

he pulled the blanket tighter over his shoulders. tried not to notice the way his hands shook again. tried not to think about the hunger crawling back into his chest. tried not to remember the shape of your voice in his dreams. the warmth of your pulse. the scent of your skin.

he was tired.

tired of hurting.

but worse — he was tired of pretending he didn’t want to see you again.

——

at first, sunghoon didn’t have a plan. his slowly rising consciousness had made peace with the weight pressing down on him, the heavy, dull ache of his body after six straight days of suppressants.

everything felt thick. slow. like his blood had been replaced with tar, like his bones had forgotten how to hold him up.

the guest room was quiet in a way that felt intentional, stripped of anything sharp or reflective, the air still humming faintly with the leftover magic jungwon had laced into the walls.

as the hours stretched thin and the bond pulled tight enough to burn, sunghoon felt the last of the suppressant haze slipping from his veins. he felt the cold of the floor beneath the bed. the hum of the city beyond the windows. the quiet voices of his brothers somewhere in the penthouse.

and underneath it all — louder than anything — he felt you.

even though you were probably on the other side of the city right now. even though you were probably in a hospital he couldn’t name.

he felt your heartbeat. faint, uneven, too slow in some moments, too fast in others.

the bond snapped taut inside him, and he knew, without needing to move, without needing to ask, that something was wrong.

the first sign was the nausea.

sunghoon had just taken his first shower since he arrived in seoul, still groggy, body heavy from the remnants of sedation. the water had done nothing but clear his head enough for the hunger to return, sharp and immediate.

the sickness curled low in his stomach. his claws broke through before he realized, tips digging into his palms, the sting grounding him for a breath. his fangs grazed his lower lip, venom pooling under his tongue, a burn he hadn’t felt in years.

your heartbeat was in his ears now, louder than the water dripping from his hair, louder than his own. faint, but there. uneven.

he was still thinking of what heeseung had said it — how you looked sick in the elevator, how you hadn’t seen him at all, how your skin had lost its color. he’d replayed it in his head too many times since his morning shower, trying to convince himself there was time, that he could hold out. but now he knew better.

because you were back. not at the hospital, not safe under fluorescent lights and the hum of machines — you were in seonghyeon jaega.

he felt the exact moment you stumbled out of the taxi and tried to keep it civil. it wasn’t just your heartbeat anymore — it was the whole of you, the ache in your bones, the tremor in your breath, the way your knees wavered as you stepped onto the marble floor. it was like your bodies were sharing the same symptoms, like sunghoon could feel your body trying to make space for what it was about to go through.

you were close. too close. the bond snapped so tight it felt like it might drag him through the walls if he resisted. and as his claws dug deeper and his breath hitched against his teeth, he noticed.

he was about to collapse into bed again, to give in to the weight clawing at his ribs, when sunoo knocked on the guest room door. his voice came before the door opened, tight and breathless, like even he could taste the desperation hanging in the air.

“are you okay?” sunoo asked, though the answer was written all over him. sunghoon nodded anyway, slow, deliberate, like that small motion was the only thing keeping him from breaking.

“is she here? can you feel it?”, can you feel her? sunghoon knew that sunoo meant to ask that instead.

another nod. smaller. sharper.

he could feel everything. too much. and for a flicker of a second he swore he saw you, saw the shape of you, saw the soft, slouched figure of you inside the elevator burned against the back of his eyelids. it made him tremble. not from fear. not from hunger. from knowing. from the awful certainty that he was running out of time.

he heard sunoo curse under his breath, the low sound of him calling for jungwon, for anyone who might be able to hold back what was already rushing forward like a flood.

the nausea hit sunghoon again, harder, tearing through him like fire, clawing up his throat, turning his veins molten. your weakness bled into him, your pain filling his mouth with the taste of copper and the weight of regret.

the final blow came like instinct. like gravity. like all the forces in the world had been quietly waiting for this moment to shatter what was left of him.

he felt it first in his bones — the hollow thud of you collapsing, knees giving out against marble, the soft gasp of air leaving your lungs as your body crumpled under the weight of everything it had tried to endure. the sound echoed inside him, more than sound, truth, like the earth itself had cracked beneath you.

and sunghoon snapped.

the guest room seemed to shrink around him. the runes on the walls pulsed once, as if in warning, then flickered out beneath the storm rising inside him. his claws tore through his own palms as he tried to ground himself, tried to breathe, but the air felt like fire in his throat. his fangs sank so deep into his bottom lip that the taste of his own blood flooded his mouth, bitter and copper-sharp, mixing with the venom that had nowhere left to go.

he stumbled back, hit the wall so hard the plaster cracked beneath his shoulder blades. his head fell back, jaw clenched, breath heaving like he was drowning. he saw you — saw you, not with his eyes, but behind them, burned against the dark like a brand. your slumped figure on the floor, your skin pale, your lashes resting against your cheeks as if you’d simply fallen asleep, but he knew better. god, he knew better.

and he broke.

his powers lashed out, wild and hot, snapping through the room in bursts of heat and pressure. the glass of the window splintered at the corners. the metal of the bedframe bent beneath an invisible force. the marks jungwon had carved into the floor glowed once, then bled out, powerless against what was rising. the air thickened, electric, heavy with a fury so old it felt like the world itself should kneel beneath it.

sunghoon didn’t kneel. he staggered forward, hands tearing at his own hair, his shirt, anything he could grab, anything to stop himself from clawing through the walls and tearing the world apart to reach you.

he groaned — low, raw, a sound that vibrated in his chest like something feral. his knees hit the floor. his claws raked down his thighs through the fabric of his pants, deep enough to tear skin, to mark himself before he could mark you. his body was burning. shaking. his mind unraveling thread by thread.

he heard sunoo and jungwon entering the room again, their footsteps quick, the air splitting with the weight of what they must have felt from the hall.

jungwon saw it all — how red sunghoon’s eyes had turned, no trace of human left in them, just blood and fury and ruin. how his fangs had split his own lip, dripped red down his chin, how his mouth glistened with venom that had nowhere left to go. how he salivated, like a creature starved too long, like instinct had overtaken reason and left him shaking in its wake.

sunghoon could barely lift his head, barely keep his hands from tearing at the floorboards, at his own skin, at anything that might keep him from doing what the bond begged him to do.

he looked at sunoo, wide-eyed, wild, trembling like a man on the edge of ruin. his voice came out hoarse, broken, almost unrecognizable. begging.

“please,” he rasped, the word raw, ripped from somewhere deep, deeper than shame, deeper than pride. “please. i can’t — i’ll tear this place apart. i’ll tear her apart. sedate me.”

sunoo froze for a breath that felt like it stretched the length of the room.

he heard the words — please, sedate me — but it wasn’t just pleading that filled the air. it was a demand, thick with something ancient, something dark.

sunghoon’s voice was wrecked, yes, but his eyes — god, his eyes — they burned dark crimson, the kind of red that didn’t just glow but devoured. they pinned sunoo where he stood, made his breath hitch, made his pulse race in his throat.

sunoo felt his mouth go dry. his hand twitched at his side. he glanced at jungwon, needing something, anything, some signal that he wasn’t imagining the danger coiled in the air between them.

jungwon met his eyes, silent, unreadable, but the tension in his jaw betrayed him. he wouldn’t say it out loud — wouldn’t admit the fear — but sunoo saw it. saw the worry that matched his own.

and then jungwon nodded. small. firm. enough.

sunoo moved. fast. because if he waited, he knew he might hesitate, and there wasn’t time for that now. he turned, heart thudding in his chest, and went for the small locked box they’d kept hidden — the one with sunghoon’s name carved into the underside in hangul.

this suppressant wasn’t as strong as the first one they injected on that day — not enough to knock him out cold, not enough to steal all the fight from his bones — just enough to dull the edge. to stop him from spiraling at the sight of you.

sunoo’s hands shook as he unlocked it. as he loaded the injector. but he didn’t pause. couldn’t. because the longer he waited, the more sunghoon’s power filled the room, the more it felt like the world might break apart beneath them. and because sunghoon, even like this, was begging for something he couldn’t give himself: mercy.

and sunoo owed him that much.

he could’ve sworn he heard it — soft, wrecked, barely a breath of sound. a thank you, dragged from sunghoon’s throat when sunoo injected the suppressor on the side of his neck.

his body gave, collapsing against the bed, the weight of him sinking into the mattress like a man who’d been fighting gravity for too long. sunghoon’s limbs twitched at first, sharp and restless, his body rejecting the drug in the first burst of instinct, but the suppressant did its work.

after a few seconds, the fight dulled. he stilled. not asleep. not yet. just high enough for the edge to blur, for the bond’s pull to quiet to a whisper instead of a roar.

but sleep didn’t come. not for him.

if he’d been younger — centuries younger — maybe the suppressant would’ve been enough to drag him under completely. but sunghoon was too old for that. too strong. the drug numbed the hunger, muted the storm, but it didn’t free him.

it left him stranded somewhere between awareness and haze, sweating through his suit, tie twisted and damp against his throat, fabric clinging to his skin in all the wrong places.

his hair stuck to his temples. the sheets felt too warm, the air too heavy. his breath came shallow, uneven, his body trying to settle, failing.

he heard the door open again. soft. cautious. another presence crossing into the storm-thick room.

there was the faintest scrape of shoes on wood as jay stepped in, his voice low as he murmured something to jungwon — something sunghoon couldn’t catch, not fully, through the scramble of his thoughts.

and then jungwon left. the leader’s presence pulled back like a tide going out, leaving jay behind to watch over the wreckage.

sunoo and jay tried to speak to him. tried to ground him, to bring him back to reality. but sunghoon couldn’t make sense of the words.

his mind was a scramble of conscious and desire, tangled so tight he couldn’t tell where he ended and his desire began.

his body felt wrong, too heavy, too hot, too hungry in ways he couldn’t name without shame. so he lay there, twitching under the weight of it all, listening to jay’s voice, trying to hold on. trying not to drown.

his senses began to steady after a few minutes, the storm of hunger and fury dulling to a deep, hollow thrum in his chest. the drug worked — not fully, not enough to silence the bond, but enough that his veins no longer felt like fire and his vision no longer blurred with the red haze of want.

his body felt numb, heavy, the same way it had the first time he’d woken after being five days out of it, dazed and disoriented, like his limbs didn’t belong to him anymore.

sunoo and jay were still there, close but cautious, watching him like he might shatter again at any second.

sunghoon finally lifted his gaze, met theirs without feeling his irises pulse with that desperate, crimson hunger.

he could see them properly now — sunoo’s tight jaw, the worry hidden beneath his sarcasm; jay’s calm mask, the tension in his shoulders betraying him.

sunghoon cleared his throat, the sound rough, like it scraped the inside of him raw. slowly, deliberately, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed, sat up, ran shaky fingers through his damp hair, loosened his tie, and tossed it aside.

the fabric hit the floor with a soft, final sound. his fingers worked at the buttons of his dress shirt under his jacket, the first few undone, baring his throat, letting the too-warm air touch his clammy skin.

he felt his cold blood vibrate for a moment — the bond tugging, insistent, your scent curling around him like smoke. his pupils dilated, his mouth filled with venom, the taste of you too close, too real.

but he didn’t move for the door. he held himself steady, fists clenched against the mattress, his breath ragged but controlled, the suppressant working.

jay’s voice broke through the haze. “she was out cold, man. so weird. it’s been two fucking weeks and now she’s peaking like she’s on heat.”

the words made sunghoon’s throat work, a thick gulp he couldn’t stop, his body reacting before his mind could catch up. even the thought of you — the idea of you, vulnerable, near, his — made him tremble inside.

“i’ve never seen anything like it,” jay added, quieter this time, and the weight of his words sank into the room like a stone.

“i’m worried. i don’t want murder inside our apartment again, i swear that was so fucking disgusting—” sunoo’s voice cracked through the thick air, half a joke, half real fear, his nerves fraying at the edges. and then he looked at sunghoon on the edge of the bed. “you gotta keep it together. we’re running out of suppressants, hoon.”

“no one’s murdering no one,” he said, low and worn, that deep timbre of his carrying more weight than volume. “go after more suppressants. ask your family. anything.” sunghoon was too tired to entertain sunoo’s pouting, too close to the edge to play along. he barely realized his tone sounded more like a demand than a question.

park sunghoon wasn’t aware of his own strength sometimes.

his body ached from holding it all in — the restraint, the hunger, the bond’s gnawing pull — and their voices, their teasing, their familiar chaos, only made it harder.

he liked how sunoo and jay cared for him, but he felt too out of it to entertain their questions.

sunghoon knew they were about to come. eventually.

“you know what you gotta do, right? when she wakes up.” jay’s voice was quieter now, but no less brutal. he stood, looked right at sunghoon, steady and serious. “it’s a human, she’ll be weak.”

see? sunghoon knew.

the words hit him like a slap. he blinked once, twice, fighting the red that threatened to bleed back into his vision.

his fists clenched at his sides, nails biting into his skin. he was so out of it he felt the urge — the need — to punch jay in the face for even saying it out loud. for reducing you to that. for daring to name what sunghoon was already terrified of.

it was probably some side effect of the inhibitor, but sunghoon felt the urge to be alone in that moment. sunoo and jay bicker? made his blood boil.

“actually,” sunoo cut in, voice cautious, careful, as if he could feel the storm about to break between them. “she seems strong. because she survived all this time. that’s not nothing.”

and sunghoon wanted to thank him. but the words were tangled up in the mess of hunger and guilt and fear choking him.

“she’s not feeding until we figure something out,” sunghoon said at last, voice like gravel, like it hurt to speak. he kept himself seated and stared right back at jay, impatient. “she’s not. i don’t care what it does to me.”

“seeing her in pain will make no good for you or any of us,” jay bit out, tone sharp, colder than the room deserved.

he stood with his arms crossed, black dress shirt rolled up at the sleeves, dark slacks neat despite the chaos, every inch of him too put-together, too unshaken.

his eyes, dark and cutting, fixed on sunghoon with a predator’s focus. “if she wakes up in pain again, you feed her. that’s how it works. stop pretending otherwise.”

sunghoon exhaled, slow, feeling the room tilt, his body lightheaded from the suppressant still thick in his veins.

maybe that’s why his patience hadn’t cracked yet. maybe that’s why he hadn’t punched jay in the face right after he said that.

he was high as a kite.

“she needs to accept the bond first,” sunghoon said, voice low, the sound of it like a warning. “she’s a fucking child. i’m not about to ruin her life forever like that.”

the second the words left his mouth, they tasted wrong. because you weren’t a child. not by the world’s standards. not by the years marked on paper. not by the way he knew you — twenty-something, grown, human in every way that mattered, someone who deserved respect, who deserved the right to choose her fate.

but he said it anyway. because with jay, it was necessary. because jay didn’t see humans as creatures who stood beside them — he saw them as lesser. fragile, fleeting, something to protect or use, but never as equals.

sunghoon knew jay had come from that older branch of their kind, the ones who still clung to the idea that vampires were the superior species, the rightful rulers in the dark.

he hated saying it, hated referring to you that way, but he needed jay to understand what was at stake. needed him to feel the weight of it, even if he wouldn’t admit it.

and also he needed jay to fuck off right now until his suppressant’s side effects slowed down.

jay didn’t blink. didn’t soften. his voice stayed even, too even that made sunghoon’s cold blood boil. again.

“sunghoon, you know the stories. the human’s choice doesn’t make a difference. you’ll die. you let her choose, you’re gambling your life. you have to give her something first so she can see she can’t live without you. it’s suicide if you let her choose.”

that’s it. that was it. jay reducing you to some gambler term? that was foul.

sunghoon’s jaw tightened. his body moved before his mind caught up. he stood up from the bed, the weight of his height, his power, rolling off him in slow, dangerous waves as he stepped closer, close enough that he could see the faint glint of jay’s fangs behind the cool mask.

“glad to know it isn’t your choice, park,” sunghoon said, voice quieter now, deadlier. “this shouldn’t concern you.”

jay didn’t back down. not an inch. he never did. “it should when you lose every time she’s near. or not near at all, in fact.” his tone didn’t rise, but the force behind it hit hard. “are you really going to let her decide your fate? you’ll die.”

the room crackled with tension. sunoo shifted, finally breaking the standoff with a strained, desperate tone. “guys… now really isn’t the time…”

but jay’s eyes stayed locked on sunghoon’s, and his words didn’t stop. “will you let some human destroy your legacy?” he repeated, like it was fact, like it was already written.

sunghoon felt something in him crack — clean through. the room tilted with it, his breath hitched, the burn in his chest sharper than hunger, sharper than any thirst he’d ever known.

and when he spoke, his voice was low but brutal, the edge in it cutting deep, meant to wound.

“what i know,” sunghoon said, eyes burning into jay’s, “is that i won’t take lessons on humanity from someone who’s too scared to admit that humans are real, that they matter, that they’re not just pawns for us to use up and throw away. you don’t know shit about love. you don’t even let yourself feel it.”

jay didn’t flinch. he just narrowed his eyes, voice clipped, measured, cold like always. even when it hurt, they were all too dead to take offense in their bickerings.

“this is a bond, sunghoon. that’s all it is. that’s all she is. and you’re letting that fact tear you apart. if you don’t get ahead of this, it’ll be the end of you. and maybe us too.” his arms stayed crossed, posture too controlled, like nothing could touch him. like this didn’t touch him.

sunghoon felt the snap coming, felt it in the way his breath hitched, in the way the room seemed too small, too tight.

the air buzzed, the weight of his power pressing out from under his skin, uncontrolled, the way it hadn’t been in days. the light above them flickered, once, twice, then steadied — but not before the air crackled like a storm was coming.

sunoo stepped in, fast, voice low but firm, cutting between them before it could go too far. “enough, both of you. stop.” his tone held more weight than usual, sharper at the edges, the kind of tone he saved for when it mattered.

his eyes flicked to the ceiling, to the light that still pulsed faintly from sunghoon’s power, then back to sunghoon’s face — seeing how close he was, how tight his fists were clenched, how the red still threatened at the edges of his gaze.

sunoo’s hands came up, half-raised, ready to push them apart if it came to that. “this isn’t helping. you’re both too close to snapping.”

he didn’t stop there. he turned to jay, voice dropping, but no softer. “jongseong, you’ve never had a bond. you don’t know what it feels like. so leave it be.” his gaze stayed steady on jay, no mockery, no venom — just the truth, and the sting it carried. “you don’t know what this is doing to him.”

the room held quiet, heavy, the tension still thick but on pause, sunoo’s words cutting through enough for now. enough to keep them standing. enough to keep them from breaking.

“she’ll wake up soon,” sunoo said, quieter, steadying the room the best he could and now turning to sunghoon. “and when she does? she’s going to be sick, confused, scared. you know that. we all know that. so what’s the plan, huh? you gonna stand here fighting jay when she needs you?”

sunghoon dragged in a breath, tried to calm the way his body wanted to tear through the room, tear through anything that dared speak your name like it was theirs to hold. because that’s what it felt like. every time either of them said her, it burned inside his chest.

he ran a hand through his hair, tried to force the red from his vision. god, he almost snapped over jay’s stupidity, what was this suppressant even made of?

“we’ll figure it out,” he said at last, voice rough, breath still uneven. his eyes found jay’s, calmer now but still firm. “but don’t talk about her like that again.”

jay stared at him for a beat, dark eyes unreadable, jaw tight. then, finally, he stepped back, tension still in his frame but the fight gone out of him. he nodded slowly and stared at the ceiling.

they stayed like that for a whole minute until the atmosphere was controlled again. jay went back to sitting on the chair, sunoo breathed loud and clear trying to read the mind of his hyungs. after a while, he gave up and sat beside jay too.

“you feeding her or not, simply looking her in the eyes will relieve some of her pain,” sunoo said, voice quieter now, but sure, steady like he’d been waiting for the right moment to say it. “my mom was once a human. remember that? i know what can make her feel better without you feeding her your blood.”

sunghoon turned, gaze snapping to sunoo, and for a second it was like the weight on his chest eased, just barely. he looked at his best friend like he had hung the moon — and sometimes, that’s exactly what it felt like. sunoo always had a way of grounding him, of cutting through the noise, the panic, the hunger.

of reminding him that the lines between species didn’t have to matter. that none of this had to be about power or blood or legacy. sunghoon liked that about him. always had.

he stared at sunoo with surprise, because god, now that he thought about it, he didn’t know much about vampire-human bonds at all. not really. not beyond the scraps of myth and the warnings he’d ignored for centuries.

sunghoon’s chest heaved once, nostrils flaring with your scent so thick in the air it nearly knocked him down again. the world swayed, just slightly, and he forced himself to move, to break free of the heat and weight of his suit.

his jacket hit the floor, fingers fumbling at more buttons of his dress shirt.

sunghoon was tired. tired of waiting, tired of himself, tired of the storm of the new, raw emotions tightening around his chest in ways he didn't know how to name.

he exhaled, slow, rubbing a hand over his face and over the dried blood on his chin. his eyes flicked to where jay and sunoo lingered in the room — silent, watching, knowing better than to speak now.

his gaze dropped to the floor, to where his tie and suit jacket lay abandonened, wrinkled, like proof of how far from composed he really was.

these suppressant — god, these suppressants — they were making him crazy. dulling the hunger but sharpening everything else. making him feel too much and not enough at the same time.

he wanted them out of his system, his vampire needed them out. he wanted you on his sight. and for once, he didn't want to think about what that meant.

——

sunghoon didn’t trust himself to go check on you — on your unconscious body, on the soft sound of your breathing that echoed louder in his head than anything else — not until niki came through the door.

niki, breathless, hair a mess like he’d been pacing the hall, voice tight in a way that didn’t suit him. “she’s peaking. even while she’s out. it’s bad.”

sunghoon had counted the minutes. every one of them. you’d been passed out for five hours now.

five hours of him sitting there, forcing himself still, staring at the clock on the guest room’s bedside table as the second hand scraped its way around, dragging toward noon like it might never get there.

he’d taken another shower, water cold as ice, hoping it would clear his head. it didn’t. he still felt high, slow, like the suppressant clung to his bones.

sunoo didn’t leave him for a second. stayed at his side, steady, talking about anything and nothing, trying to keep sunghoon distracted, trying to keep him anchored so he wouldn’t tear the door off its hinges and go to you. trying to stop him from snapping.

jay had left them the second jungwon asked him to handle something outside — no hesitation, no question. he slipped out in a blink.

since then, sunoo and sunghoon stayed inside the guest room.

niki announced your condition, and sunghoon was on his feet like lightning, faster than his mind could catch up with his body.

it was the first knock on the door since jay had left, and the sound felt louder than it should’ve, like a crack splitting the tense, fragile air.

he didn’t even register what niki’s face looked like at first — just that the words she’s peaking hit him like a blow to the chest.

he glanced at sunoo. their eyes met, that silent understanding passing between them: now. go.

he didn’t hesitate. no more holding back, no more waiting. sunghoon bolted, feet quick and sure across the floor. he ran to your room, heart pounding, breath sharp, the weight of it all crashing down at once.

and the second sunghoon stepped out of the guest room — the first time since yesterday night — he felt it.

like walking into a storm. the weight of you inside the apartment. thick. suffocating. like the air had changed, like the walls had shrunk, like the entire building was groaning under the force of your suffering.

the others didn’t notice it, not like he did. they couldn’t smell it the way he could. couldn’t taste it in the air, thick and sharp and wrong.

they thought it was just your blood, your scent, your presence. but sunghoon knew better.

what they were breathing in — what coated their throats and filled their lungs — wasn’t just you. it was your panic. your fear. your pain.

and it was everywhere. drowning him. and he’d never hated his own helplessness more.

to make everything worse, they’d chosen his bedroom to keep you in. of all the rooms in the penthouse — the empty guest rooms, the study, even jungwon’s — they’d put you in his.

the realization hit him as soon as niki guided him to the second hallway towards the penthouse's study. he looked at niki in confusion for ten whole seconds before his mind comprehended what they had done.

fuck.

some deep, buried part of him, that animal part he hated to acknowledge, felt relief at that. like it was right. like it was natural for you to be there, near, inside his space.

but his human consciousness — the part of him that still clung to control, to decency — it panicked. it worried that this would be the thing that made him crumble. the final crack.

he turned to niki, voice tight, trying to hold himself together. “why my room?”

niki barely blinked, still catching his breath from the rush. “jungwon’s orders,” he said. simple. like it explained everything. “he said it was the safest. you wouldn’t let anyone hurt her there.”

sunghoon wanted to curse. wanted to tear the walls apart for how much harder they’d made it without even realizing.

but all he could do was sigh, long and ragged, because the weight of you inside his room was too much.

he braced himself as he opened the door to his own room, fingers tight on the handle like it might be the only thing keeping him steady.

the familiar scent of his space hit him first, layered now with yours — thick, overwhelming, filling every corner of the air.

the curtains were drawn shut, the room dim despite the sun climbing high outside.

for a moment, the strangeness of it settled over him, sharp and clear. it was noon — the sun high, the city alive beyond the windows — and you were the one asleep, the human, the fragile one, caught in a world you didn’t ask for.

and yet, all the vampires — the ones who by nature should have been dead to the world at this hour — were the ones awake. every one of them. watching. waiting. unraveling quietly in their own ways.

at the center of it, sunghoon stood, feeling the absurdity of it all press in: how wrong it was, how right it felt, and how impossible it was to untangle the two.

it would’ve been funny, if it didn’t hurt so much.

he glanced around, took in the exhaustion on his brother’s faces, the tension in their shoulders.

jake caught his eye and nodded once, silent, slipping out of the room like he knew sunghoon needed the space, like he didn’t want to make this harder than it already was.

sunghoon felt grateful for the gesture — more than he could say. the room felt too tight already, too charged, and jake’s quiet exit gave him one less weight to bear.

sunghoon’s gaze then dropped to you, and it nearly undid him.

your cheeks were hollowed, skin pale where it had once been warm, radiant. your color was gone, replaced by that cold, sickly stillness. the scent of you was wrong too — not just blood, not just hunger, but sickness, panic, the kind of scent that clung to the back of his throat and made his stomach twist.

the warm glow you’d carried with you through his greenhouse two weeks ago, through his every fleeting glance, was gone.

and god, he hated it.

he saw that you were still in your own clothes — and for one brief, saving breath, his human mind clung to that.

at least they hadn’t dressed you in his. at least they hadn’t crossed that final, unthinkable line.

because if they had — if he saw you wearing something of his, draped in that final intimacy — that would’ve been the end of him. the last thread snapping. he wasn’t sure he would’ve come back from it. not this time.

sunoo stood behind at the door, quiet, steady, a shadow of support sunghoon didn’t ask for but couldn’t push away. the others had left, one by one, knowing there was nothing more they could do, nothing more they should do.

this was sunghoon’s storm to weather now. his bond. his mess.

he didn’t move at first. just stood there, the weight of it pressing down on him, watching you like if he stared hard enough he could will your color back, your warmth, your strength.

but all he saw was the way you shook, the way your body fought even in sleep, the way your scent filled the room like a reminder of everything he was failing to protect.

and it hurt in a way he couldn’t expect. in a way he didn’t want to. because it wasn’t hunger. it wasn’t love. it was something darker, heavier — the awful, aching need to make it stop. to make you safe. to make this right.

sunghoon didn’t want to make your pain stop because he loved you, or because he cared — it wasn’t that. it was because his biology demanded it, instinct thrumming through every inch of him, merciless and raw.

there was no romance in it, no gentleness, no noble intent. it was selfish, animal, the bond clawing at him to ease you only so he could ease himself, to quiet the storm in his veins by breaking your fever, by giving you what the bond wanted, what he wanted — not for you, but for his own survival.

you were peaking, and he felt it in every part of him. he was reacting the only way the bond allowed: as a partner, as a soulmate, as the other side of the thread that had tied itself to you without his permission.

your pain became his ache. your fever became his heat. the way your breath hitched, the way your hands trembled, the way your body burned beneath the weight of what neither of you had chosen — it all echoed through him.

it felt wrong. so wrong. the crushing realization of what was about to unfold the moment you opened your eyes — of how much it would change for you, how much you didn’t know was waiting.

it felt wrong not to clear the room, not to take you somewhere private, not to make everyone leave so it could be just you and him, the way some deep, dangerous part of him insisted it should be.

because deep down, sunghoon was certain — too certain — that he was enough to make you safe, that he was all you needed.

but despite the weight of it, despite how much it burned, he swallowed thickly, forced himself to stay still, to let the moment pass without snapping, to wait until sunoo left to call the others, to bring the help they all thought they needed. because that was what he had to do.

even if it felt like it would kill him.

it felt weird to say that, to even think like that. sunghoon didn’t know you that way — didn’t know you at all, actually — and that was the most fucked up part about every supernatural bond: the yearning for someone you don’t know.

it was deep, it was humiliating, it was raw in a way that stripped him bare, and hell, sunghoon had never been the romantic type to begin with.

but here he was, feeling like a failure for not having done it right — for not courting you, for not learning the shape of your laugh, the sound of your voice in anything but fear.

he’d been in love before, in his long, fractured life. he knew what that felt like, what it was meant to be. and even if this wasn’t love — not yet — it felt like he was already falling short of what you deserved.

his chosen one.

the words echoed through him like a curse. you were the chosen one, and he didn’t even know your full name. it was like his brain was only catching up now, drowning under the weight of what this meant, what he’d failed to do, what he was already losing.

you were a stranger. and yet right now, in this room, in this moment — he felt everything about you.

it sounded wrong, incomplete, unnatural. to connect with someone he didn’t know at all on a level this deep, this consuming, like the bond had skipped all the things that should’ve come first — words, moments, choices — and gone straight to this.

sunghoon closed the distance between himself and the bed where you lay, slow, measured. he lowered himself onto the makeshift chair they’d dragged beside the bed, the one that felt too small, too human for what he was, and for a moment, he just looked at you.

he traced the details of your face with his eyes — the soft curve of your lashes against your pale cheeks, the faint freckle near your temple he hadn’t noticed before, the way your lips parted slightly as you breathed, fragile and stubborn at once.

details he hadn’t had the peace of mind to see earlier, when everything had been fire and panic and restraint.

he breathed you in now, guiltless, trusting the suppressants still thick in his veins, trusting the ragged scraps of discipline he had left to keep him seated, to keep him from leaning too close.

he let himself have that moment — one minute of stillness, of committing every piece of you to memory, overthinking, analyzing, aching.

but the bond wouldn’t let him stay in his head for long.

you shifted. small, unsteady, but enough. like it was mocking him. like the bond was yanking him out of his thoughts, reminding him that this wasn’t something logic could touch, wasn’t something he could reason his way through.

he saw it — your hand, small, fingers twitching slightly against the sheets, reaching without thought, drawn toward him, toward where his arm rested against the bedframe, as if even in sleep, even in this fevered haze, you knew.

it was like the bond wanted to prove its point: this wasn’t about choice or fairness or sense. it just was. and sunghoon felt it hit him like a wave, sharp and deep, as you sought him even in sleep.

his breath hitched, surprise flashing in his eyes, sharp and bright.

he didn’t let you touch him. couldn’t. the fear was too strong. he pulled his arm back fast, like your skin might burn him if it so much as brushed his.

he stood up from the makeshift chair, breath caught in his throat, hands clenched at his sides. his gaze shot up to the ceiling like it might offer answers, like it might calm him.

and in the corner of his eye, he saw it — he swear he fucking saw it: your features softened. your brow eased. the tension in your body let go just a little compared to when sunoo was still in the room, like your body knew he was the only one near, like it recognized him even before your mind could.

your peak lessened — he felt it, clear as breath, clear as the slow, reluctant calm that spread through his chest the moment your fingers reached for where his arm had been.

the panic that had gripped his heart, tight and relentless, eased just enough for him to catch a real breath.

he heard voices outside — faint, muffled, the others returning, moving closer, unaware of the line they were all standing on. but it wasn’t them that twisted something deep in his gut, sharp and certain.

it was you.

he felt it like instinct, like fact, like inevitability. you were about to wake up.

the bond thrummed with it, the air shifted with it, and sunghoon knew — without looking, without thinking — that everything was about to change.

that whatever came next, there would be no stepping back from it. and for the first time, he wasn’t sure if he was ready.

——

your bite was sexy as hell — and it hit sunghoon harder than he could’ve ever prepared for. it turned him on, confused the hell out of him, made his body tense in ways that had nothing to do with the bond.

honestly, at this point, he didn’t even know what he was feeling anymore. all he knew was that the second he saw how his gaze alone seemed to offer you relief, he had to get out of that room before he lost what little control he had left.

sunghoon felt the exact moment your mind woke up from the deep slumber you’d been trapped in.

it was like a light switched on inside you, and the ache that had been gnawing at him since your hand had almost brushed his minutes earlier — that small, stupid, desperate ache — vanished the second you were fully aware again.

he could hear the way your eyes moved, tracing the room, trying to piece together where you were.

he could smell every emotion pouring off you — fear, confusion, stubbornness.

and more than anything, he could taste your blood in the air, thick and sweet and so close it made his head swim.

he was aware of everything. too aware. and at the same time, he felt like he wasn’t in his own body at all.

his tongue felt heavy, mouth dry and wet all at once, his limbs sluggish, still swimming through the fog of the suppressants. sharp for your movements, your voice, your scent — but slow, disconnected, robotic when it came to himself.

and maybe it was the bond talking — that awful, tangled, biological mess of instinct and need — but the second he smelled your relief, the oldest vampire of the whole korean peninsula was wrecked.

ruined in ways he hadn’t even known were possible.

it was weirder than he’d imagined, because it was physical. not something he could power through with logic or reason, or some forgotten lesson in an old book. it hit deeper.

it was in his blood, in his fucking bones.

jungwon, niki, and sunghoon stood there, watching you try to pull yourself together. you glanced at them at first, eyes sharp despite the haze, trying to act like you were fine, like you weren’t seconds away from collapsing again.

sunghoon pretended too. pretended his mouth wasn’t watering at the smell of your sweat alone. pretended he wasn’t losing his mind every time your gaze flicked his way.

he felt numb. weird. like his body was just along for the ride, while his mind scrambled to keep up. and jungwon — of course jungwon — saw right through it.

didn’t say a word, just caught his eye at the right moment and pulled him out of the room as soon as you stopped bickering with yourself.

you were stubborn as hell. god, so stubborn.

sunghoon hadn’t really registered it the first time you met — or maybe he had, but now, now that you were his cosmic girlfriend (your words, not his), he was starting to see it.

starting to feel how deep it ran. starting to realize how completely, helplessly wrecked he was about to become for the next few days.

as soon as the door clicked shut behind them and niki was left alone with you in his bedroom, jungwon didn’t waste a second.

he turned to sunghoon, eyes sharp but voice steady, calm in that way only jungwon could pull off when everything else felt like it was falling apart. “you good?”

sunghoon cleared his throat, trying to swallow down the dizziness, the heat still burning under his skin. he took a breath that didn’t help, blinked hard like it might steady him.

“she’s not in pain anymore,” he said at last, voice rough but honest, “at least there’s that.”

jungwon didn’t waste a second. as soon as sunghoon spoke, as soon as he caught the roughness in his voice, the strain in his posture, he turned to where sunoo lingered near the end of the hall.

“how long?” jungwon asked, low, calm, but direct. “the suppressant. how long until it wears off? until he peaks again?”

sunoo didn’t even have to think about it. he’d been watching, reading the room the way only he could. his arms were crossed, gaze flicking between sunghoon and jungwon, thoughtful but steady.

“hard to say exactly,” sunoo said, voice quieter now, but sure. “hoon is unpredictable. could hold for a while, could crash fast if she moves, if she looks at him, if anything shifts. but if it’s holding like i think… maybe two hours. give or take.”

jungwon nodded, already bracing for it, already calculating what two hours could mean, already glancing at sunghoon like he was a timer ticking down.

and sunghoon just stood there, swallowing hard, feeling every second slip by like it might be the one that undid him.

he had two hours — two hours to get his shit together, to brace himself, to try and steady the storm inside him before he had to face you and ask the one thing that would change everything: would you accept the fucking bond, or not?

——

you and sunghoon woke at the same time — not planned, not gentle, just there, like the bond flipped a switch and decided that now was the only time.

you’ve been out cold since noon, body heavy from sickness, from the peak, from everything.

sunghoon and the others tried to hold the line: niki posted near your door before inevitably passing out cold somewhere on the floor; sunoo slumped half-upright, trying to guard sunghoon through the suppressant haze.

but vampires weren’t meant for this — guarding and waiting in the daylight.

sunghoon passed out for some minutes after sunoo did, exhausted and groggy.

but now, it’s five in the afternoon — the hour the coven usually stirred to life, the hour the night began.

but here? here it’s quiet. everyone else is out, sprawled and snoring in corners like the weight of the day dragged them under.

and sunghoon? the bond dragged him up the second you stirred. his senses snapped back online like a flood. his room, thick with your scent, your presence, that low thrum of you being awake. it pulled at him in a way that felt physical — his body already moving before his brain caught up.

he felt different now. the haze of the suppressants was gone, burned off in the force of your nearness. his mind was clear for the first time in seven days. no dullness, no fog — just sharp, raw awareness.

sunghoon felt the tips of his fingers tingle back to life, felt the supernatural pulse of his own body return to its natural rhythm — steady, powerful, unchained again.

it was like his body knew — like every part of him sensed how close he was to imprinting, even though imprinting wasn’t part of sunghoon’s plan, not now, not anywhere near this week. or ever.

but still, he felt it: that lightness, that fullness, that flicker of health that vampires weren’t supposed to feel.

then he heard it — your voice, rough, small, but still trying to stake out space in their apartment, still trying to armor yourself in sarcasm. “great. still kidnapped by the world’s most dramatic interior decorator. nice curtains.”

his lips parted like he meant to respond, but no words came. for the first time in centuries, sunghoon found himself at a loss, the bond tugging at him so hard it blurred his thoughts.

without the supressants, the tension in the room clung to his skin like a second layer, heavy and hot, and he realized he needed space — needed to clear his head before he lost what little grip he had left.

without a word, he turned, deciding another shower might buy him a few minutes of sanity.

the cold water, the distance, anything to cool the fire burning low and constant beneath his ribs.

sunghoon let the cold water hit him, sharp and clean, washing away the heat of the room, the weight of the bond, the sound of your voice still echoing in his head.

he stayed under the stream longer than he needed — long enough to breathe, to try and quiet the storm clawing at his chest.

when he stepped out, he dragged a hand through his damp hair, pushing it back, watching his reflection for a beat.

his eyes were clearer now, the red faded to a duller brown, but the hunger, the pull — that was still there.

he dressed in fresh clothes, the routine grounding him. black slacks, low on his hips; a dark fitted shirt, sleeves rolled to his forearms, collar loose, the first button undone. simple, clean, controlled. he felt better. or at least, like he could pretend to be.

when he stepped out the shower, he tried to move without a sound, every step measured, controlled, like the predator he was and didn’t want to be right now.

he didn’t want to wake anyone — not sunoo, half-curled on the couch, breath slow and deep, finally asleep after days of tension.

not niki, sprawled out on the floor like a dead weight in front of your door, limbs a mess, hair in his face, snoring soft enough to remind sunghoon they were all too exhausted to be useful anymore.

sunghoon stopped before the door of his room and lifted his hand, knuckles brushing the wood. he knocked once — out of habit, out of decency he didn’t really feel.

he stood there for five seconds before he pushed inside.

he couldn’t wait for your permission. the bond wouldn’t let him. the air beyond that door felt thick with you, and his body, newly unshackled from the suppressant’s haze, hummed with the need to be near.

his room was dim, shadows stretching long across the walls where the heavy curtains muted the late-afternoon light. it smelled like you — thick, rich, wrong in how right it felt.

his gaze swept the space out of reflex: the chair where he’d stripped off his jacket, abandoned; the books on the nightstand, untouched; the corner where his boots rested, dusted with the dirt from the camp house. and you — curled small on his bed, in his sheets, clutching his pillow to your chest like it might save you.

you didn’t even know.

you didn’t know the weight of the mattress beneath you was his. didn’t know the pillow you hugged was the one that still carried the faintest trace of his scent, of nights he’d stared at the ceiling, thinking he’d outrun this kind of fate.

he wondered — for a dangerous, fleeting second — if that was why you clung to it. if it brought you some comfort, even now.

he stepped inside, shutting the door behind him with a soft click.

sunghoon could see every detail.

the bond made the sight of you too much — too vivid, too loud. he could feel your confusion like static in his chest.

your voice broke the heavy quiet, small and hoarse. “niki?” you mumbled, half-asleep, still caught between the edge of waking and whatever fever dream the bond had dragged you through.

he saw the exact second your eyes opened fully, saw them flick to him, saw the surprise bloom there — surprise and something else. something you tried to smother beneath the weight of your pride, beneath the armor of your confusion.

sunghoon didn’t move closer. not yet.

he leaned back against the door, arms crossed, boots planted firm on the floor. his hair was still damp from the cold water he’d splashed on his face, dark strands falling over his brow, pushed back with his fingers in that careless, sharp way he always did.

“not niki,” he said, voice low, steady, the sound of it filling the room like a storm about to break.

he could see it — how you tried to piece it together. the heat, the ache in your chest, the way your pulse raced without reason, how your skin felt too tight.

sunghoon pushed off the door, slow, deliberate, closing the space between you with the kind of measured grace that only made him more dangerous. more magnetic.

“i know you weren’t expecting this, but the ache will pass soon.” his voice softened as he neared, enough to take the edge off, but not the tension. “it’s the bond. it’s me. it’s us.”

he stopped at the edge of the bed, gaze dropping to your face, to the pulse at your throat that jumped when you met his eyes.

your eyes locked on his, wide at first, then narrowing like you were trying to mask the surprise. trying to rebuild whatever walls you thought would hold.

and there it was — that flicker of defiance, of stubbornness, like this wasn’t happening, like you could joke your way through the weight crushing the air between you.

“oh,” you rasped, voice rough, dry, but still laced with that sarcasm that had sunk its claws into him from the start. “great. you. so this is the part where you tell me i’ve got six months to live unless i drink your blood or marry into your vampire mafia?”

sunghoon felt the corner of his mouth twitch — almost a smile, but not quite. too much hunger behind it. too much restraint.

god, you were tired. he could feel it in the bond, in the way your pulse lagged then sped up again, in the way your breath came shallow.

you were exhausted, confused, and still pretending none of it scared you. he could taste the fear beneath your pride like smoke on his tongue.

he watched you as you shifted, as you propped yourself up on trembling elbows like you didn’t want him to see the weakness.

and that — fuck, that made something inside him burn.

as he stood there, he saw it — things he hadn’t let himself notice before.

the delicate line of your throat where your pulse fluttered fast.

the curve of your jaw when you tilted your head, still challenging him, still fighting.

he noticed that spot, your skin pulling him in like a magnet — the same spot his eyes had found in the greenhouse that first day and obsessed over it, the same place that had haunted him since. now it drew him in again, sharp and magnetic, the bond tugging at him like a leash.

on that first encounter, sunghoon hadn’t known — hadn��t realized his body had already chosen you. he hadn’t understood why that one spot on your neck made him crave, made him lose control.

but now he did.

it was the bond from the start, pulling him in, tying him to you before either of you saw it coming. supernatural. inevitable.

sunghoon drew closer, slow, smooth, the tension thickening with every step. his eyes stayed on yours, sharp, unblinking, dark around the edges, crimson at the center.

“no,” he said, voice low, eyes glinting with something sharper now, “this is the part where you admit my curtains are actually fantastic.”

you rolled your eyes, exasperated, but he caught the way your mouth twitched — like you wanted to smirk but wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. and damn, he liked that too much.

“are you always this full of yourself?” you muttered, voice scratchy but laced with bite.

sunghoon tilted his head slightly, eyes glinting, stepping just close enough that you could feel the weight of him. “only when i’m right.”

you huffed, trying to shift back, but the bed and the bond had you trapped. “you’re annoying, what are you doing here?”

he smiled — slow, crooked, too confident for someone holding himself together by a thread. “this is my room, doll, and you’re hugging my pillow. i'm the one supposed to ask you that.”

your cheeks burned, but you didn’t let up, the sting of embarrassment drowned out by the sharp need to keep some grip on control — even as the realization sank in, deep and disorienting: you didn’t even know what room you were in. where you were. what was his, what wasn’t.

it made your skin prickle, made the instinct to fight back all the stronger.

“maybe i’m planning to suffocate you with it,” you shot back, fingers tightening on the pillow like it might give you some leverage.

sunghoon let out a quiet laugh, low and warm, the sound sliding under your skin. “you’d have to let me get close enough for that.”

your breath caught — just for a second — and he saw it. saw the spark behind your eyes, saw the fight in you, saw the way the bond dared both of you to see who would break first.

“try me.” you said, chin lifted, voice steady even as your pulse raced.

sunghoon’s gaze dropped to your throat, the flutter there like a beacon, and when his eyes met yours again, the hunger was buried deep, but not gone.

“i didn’t think you’d survive this long with those symptoms,” sunghoon admitted, voice low, eyes sharp as he leaned back against the window frame, arms crossed.

you shifted, clutching the pillow tighter, refusing to break eye contact. “yeah, well, some sick vampire contaminated me and ran off without telling me.”

the corner of his mouth twitched — not a smile, more like a warning. “technically, you were the one who ran away.”

your jaw tightened, pulse racing in your throat, but you kept your voice level, biting. “yes, because you begged me to. almost demanded, actually”

the air between you crackled, thick enough to taste. his eyes darkened, crimson bleeding at the edges, the bond humming like a threat beneath your skin.

he straightened, slow, deliberate, every inch of him danger wrapped in control.

“are you mad i didn’t reach out?” sunghoon asked, voice dripping with smugness he didn’t quite feel, leaning just a little more into the tension like he was testing how far it would stretch.

you shot him a look, sharp despite the haze still clouding your head. “i’m livid because i’m being kept hostage by my weird set of neighbors, and my brain keeps fogging up.”

your words hit like a slap and a challenge all at once, and sunghoon felt it — the flicker of guilt, the pulse of the bond, the pull to you that made his chest tight.

“i’m sorry about that night,” he said, voice lower now, rougher around the edges, trying to accommodate the new feeling of guilt. “that wasn’t supposed to happen.”

you didn’t miss a beat. your brow arched, that sharp edge in your voice cutting clean through the heavy air.

“what part? the part where you had an allergic reaction to me? or the part where you looked at me with murder on your mind and told me to get lost?”

“i wasn’t expecting to react like that. it wasn’t under my control.”

his voice was low, honest in a way that made the tension heavier, not lighter.

he meant it. you could see it in the way his eyes stayed on yours, steady, like he refused to look away this time. like he owed you that much.

you didn’t soften. not yet. your pride wouldn’t let you. but some part of you registered it — the way his words weren’t an excuse, just a truth laid bare.

“you didn’t scare me.”

sunghoon caught it — the faint waver in your voice, the crack you tried to hide but couldn’t. it hit him harder than it should’ve.

“i felt unsafe, but, somehow… deep down, i guess i knew what this was all along. i just didn’t want to admit it.”

your words hung in the air, raw, real, and sunghoon felt the bond hum like it agreed, like it had been waiting for you to say it out loud.

his chest ached with the weight of it, the pull to you sharper now, more dangerous. he stepped closer, slow, eyes dark and unreadable.

“you know now,” he said quietly, and god, he wasn’t sure if it was a warning or a promise.

“in fact, i don’t,” you shot back, voice rough but steadier now, like saying it out loud gave you something to grip. “niki sucks at explaining and… i don’t think i believe in it. like, sure, vampires exist, fine. but why me? why would your — i don’t know, supernatural, whatever it is — choose me?”

the room felt too quiet after your words, the bond thrumming between you like it wanted to fill the space your doubt left behind.

sunghoon hesitated. for the first time in too long, he felt off-balance. on the spot. like you’d peeled him open without meaning to, like you’d asked the one question he couldn’t answer with confidence, with power.

he dragged a hand through his hair, eyes never leaving yours, pulse pounding loud in his ears.

god, you didn’t even realize it — how that crack in your armor, that small flicker of uncertainty, made you beautiful in a way that wrecked him.

he took a slow breath, words hard to find because everything in him screamed to close the distance instead, to show you what the bond was instead of explain it. but he forced himself still.

“i don’t know,” sunghoon said, voice low, like confession. “i’ve asked myself that every hour since it happened. why you. why now. but the bond doesn’t ask permission. it doesn’t care if it makes sense. it just... is.”

he saw your guard slip then — just for a breath, just enough for him to see the fear behind the sarcasm, the ache behind the fight.

and it made him want to protect you. it made him want to fall to his knees.

that was what rattled him most. because the instinct didn’t feel powerful — didn’t feel like the predator’s drive to claim or guard what was his. no, it felt fragile. human. it felt like weakness.

that need to shield you, to fix what had already unraveled, scraped at his pride. it unsettled him, hollowed him out in ways he didn’t expect. he wasn’t supposed to feel this raw, this exposed.

sunghoon hated it. hated that you, without even meaning to, had made him feel like something breakable.

“niki said you felt it too… my symptoms. is it true? how is that possible?” you asked.

sunghoon leaned against the dresser, arms crossed, the cut of his frame sharp against the dim light filtering through the curtains.

he watched you carefully, eyes dark, steady — too steady.

“yes. everything. lessened, of course, but i felt it.” his tone was steady, no softness, just facts. “i’m a vampire. human health issues usually don’t concern me the same way. but it was there. couldn’t ignore it if i tried.”

you stared at him, trying to piece it together, trying to find some logic in it.

“how is that possible?”

sunghoon noticed it then: how your gaze kept darting away, how you couldn’t hold his for more than ten seconds without your breath hitching, without your fingers tightening on the blanket like it might anchor you.

he exhaled slow. “the bond makes it possible. somehow, that night in the greenhouse... when you got too close, i marked you. my vampire did, at least. probably without me even realizing it, that’s how soulmates work with vampires. we don’t necessarily have souls so we imprint physically. that’s why you started getting sick after we parted ways. and after a few days... i fell ill too. but in different ways.”

you went quiet for a second, gaze flicking to the sheets, thoughtful.

“so... you don’t know why your vampire chose me? isn’t that you?”

he huffed a dry laugh, no humor in it. “yes. but it’s more complicated than that. i’m supernatural. i might’ve chosen you before you were even born. vampires don’t get a say once it happens. the bond just takes what it wants.”

you squinted at him, still processing, voice sharper now. “and what do you mean in different ways? did you really need to get out of seoul?”

sunghoon’s jaw ticked. “you think they sedated me for fun?” he shot back, gaze dark. “i couldn’t stay. it was that or rip through the city to get to you.”

the tension coiled again, heavy between you, your pulse loud in his head — and he hated how much he wanted to step closer.

“oh.” it slipped out of you, small, surprised — like you hadn’t meant to say it at all. like the weight of it was only just sinking in.

you didn’t even realize, not really. not yet. that you had him — the oldest, strongest vampire in seoul — under your fingertips without notice. that the bond had tied him to you so completely he hadn’t stood a chance. that you were probably the most powerful human in south korea in this moment.

and god, seeing that realization flicker in your eyes — seeing the power shift, even for a heartbeat — it did something to him.

“is it dangerous? like, for me?” the question caught him off guard. the shift in your tone, the crack of real fear beneath it — not hidden by sarcasm this time, not dulled by pride.

“what do you mean?”

he watched as you scrambled for words, saw the way you sat up straighter, trying to regain control, to feel less small. you pulled the blanket over your legs again like it might shield you from the weight of the truth.

“like… will i die? do i have a chance?”

and fuck, sunghoon felt it hit him, deep and sharp — that sudden, violent urge to hand you the world, to promise you safety, to strip the fear out of your voice.

it stole his breath, knocked him sideways in a way he didn’t need, didn’t expect. it made him grimace inside, made him hate the part of himself that wanted so badly to reach out.

“no. not necessarily.” he answered.

“what kind of answer is that?”

for a moment, he saw it — that fire again, your bite slipping back through the cracks of your panic. it hit him like a jolt, familiar and grounding, and god, he liked it too much.

“i’m trying not to go into cardiac arrest here, sunghoon, so i’d appreciate a little honesty. this—” your voice wavered, and suddenly your gaze dropped, like anywhere but his eyes was safer. “this whole thing is too much for me. it’s too… i don’t know. i’m not even sure this isn’t a cult yet, and niki is so smug it pisses me off, and you... you piss me off as well.”

he should’ve smirked at that, maybe. teased you. but not now. not when you sounded like you were about to snap apart at the seams.

“i’m a human. i’m twenty-three. i’m about to start college next month.” your voice was tight, but steady. “us humans don’t simply do soulmates. that’s not even a topic in our heads to begin with actually.”

sunghoon stayed where he was, watching you, feeling the bond hum between you like a thread pulling tighter with every word.

“you have to give me more than that,” you added, eyes fierce despite the crack in your breath. “if you don’t want me sprinting out of this room the second i see the opportunity, you need to be honest with me. please.”

and god, that fire in you — that stubborn refusal to just let the bond dictate the terms — it made sunghoon want you more.

“you won’t die, y/n,” he said, voice firmer now, steady in a way that surprised even him. “not if you accept the bond.”

your head snapped up, eyes blazing with frustration.

“and what the fuck does that mean?”

“it means you’ll become mine,” sunghoon said, voice low, but fierce now, no space left for pretense, no softness to soften the blow. “it means we are bound. that our biology, our instincts — they’re tied together for the rest of our lives. no reset, no undoing it. that’s what the bond is. that’s what you are.”

his eyes burned into yours, crimson at the edges, sharp and unflinching.

“you’re my human now. whether you like it or not.”

there was no threat in his voice — just truth. raw, inevitable, undeniable. and god, he hated how much his vampire nature meant it.

he saw it — that flicker in your eyes, sharp and startled, recognition hitting before you could stop it.

“mine?” your voice was tight. “like… forever? does that mean i’m turning into one of you?” the room felt smaller, the bond thrumming louder, daring him to say yes, to claim it. but sunghoon just held your gaze, steady, unblinking.

“no,” he said. “not unless you choose it. but either way — you’ll be bound to me. and i’ll be bound to you.”

his words hung heavy in the air, as inevitable as the pull between you.

“are you fucking joking right now?” you blurted, panic edging into disbelief. “like—why are you describing marriage? is that what you’re saying? what do you mean i’m yours?” he saw you spiral, “oh my god, i’m too young for marriage!”

sunghoon blinked, dead serious, but the corner of his mouth twitched — just once. because god, watching you spiral, watching you throw sarcasm at something so much bigger than either of you, was maybe the first thing that had made him want to laugh in days.

“it’s not marriage,” he said, but there was the faintest trace of amusement in his voice now, like he couldn’t help it. “no vows. no rings. no cake. unless you want one, i guess.”

you stared at him, horrified. “i can’t be yours, that is not even legal! are you guys traffickers? do you think this is funny?”

his expression stayed composed, but his eyes glinted red at the edges, like the bond was just as entertained by you as he was.

“a little,” he admitted. “you’re cute when you panic. but no, we’re not traffickers… not human traffickers at least.”

and that, of course, only made it worse.

“what the fuck is wrong with you? this is serious!” you were full-on spiraling now, voice rising, eyes wide, practically vibrating with outrage. you shoved the blanket off like it offended you, like it was part of the problem — and in doing so, revealed the most tragically adorable blue bear pajamas sunghoon had ever seen.

his jaw clenched, fighting the urge to laugh. god, he wanted to. the sight of you, fuming, tiny blue bears marching angrily across your legs, made the tension snap in his chest in a way that almost felt good.

“why would you do this to me?!” you demanded, throwing your arms up. “this isn’t funny! you have to stop it! i can’t get married to someone i don’t know.”

sunghoon pressed his lips together, trying to look serious, but his eyes betrayed him — shining with barely contained amusement.

“believe me,” he said, voice tight from holding in the laugh, “if i could stop it, i would have already, doll.”

and that — that — made your glare sharpen like a blade, which, of course, only made it harder for him to keep the grin off his face.

you stormed toward him, blue bear pajama pants swishing like you meant business, fists clenched, fury radiating off you in waves. you stopped right in front of him, chest heaving, and it hit him — the scent of you, raw and real and his, filling his lungs like the first breath after drowning.

god, you were so close. closer than you’d ever been with his head clear, with the bond thrumming clean through him, no suppressant dulling the edges.

he breathed you in like his favorite sin, his favorite kind of ruin, and for just a second, it almost soothed him.

almost.

but you weren’t soothed — you were collapsing, unraveling, right in front of him.

“there has to be a way!” you snapped, hands flying up in frustration. “you said you didn’t even choose me — why would you want this? oh my god, you don’t even want this, do you?! this is serious! doesn’t vampires have moral compasses?”

sunghoon’s lips parted, caught between trying to answer and trying not to laugh at the pure chaos of you.

“niki said you were strong,” you fired, voice pitching up with frustration, hands thrown wide like you couldn’t believe you were even having to say this. “why don’t you do something?!”

sunghoon just stood there, leaning back slightly against the window, watching the storm that was you unraveling in front of him, blue bear pajamas and all, and damn — he couldn’t look away.

“i… we… we don’t even know each other!” you kept going, breath quick, cheeks flushed with heat, eyes blazing like you might actually hit him if he didn’t say something useful. “i don’t even know if i like you at all! you just made me feel nauseous for fourteen days straight!”

he raised both brows, finally letting the grin tug at the corner of his mouth, slow and infuriating.

“yeah,” he said, voice low, full of that dangerous calm that only made everything feel more charged. “great first impression, huh?”

“what are you on about? this is serious!” you shouted, voice cracking at the edges, furious — like a kid who couldn’t contain the storm of emotions building up inside you.

and god, sunghoon found it cute. again. too cute for his own good.

the way you glared up at him, cheeks flushed, eyes bright with that fire, small fists clenched at your sides — it shouldn’t have made him want to smirk. it shouldn’t have made the bond hum even louder between you, tugging him closer.

he tilted his head slightly, watching you like you were the most fascinating thing he’d seen in centuries.

“you’re adorable when you’re mad,” he said, voice smooth, deadly calm, and so amused it made your blood boil hotter.

“why are you acting like this is nothing?” you snapped, exasperated, fists clenched at your sides.

“doll,” he said, low and sure, “we don’t show our emotions like humans do. but yes, i chose you. yes, it’s not practical but i want this. my vampire does. there’s that.”

his words hung heavy in the air, final, like it was as simple as breathing to him — and yet, you could feel it in the bond, humming beneath his voice, how much it meant.

sunghoon stepped around you, slow and measured, letting the tension ease just enough to breathe as he crossed to the dresser. he tugged a drawer open, pulling out a towel, running it through his still-damp hair like it gave his hands something to do besides reach for you.

when he turned back, you were exactly where he’d left you — standing there, small in your fury, blue bears and all, unmoved. it almost made him smirk again. almost.

but then he felt it.

the bond tugged at him, subtle at first — then sharper, clearer, like a thread pulled too tight at the corner of his mind, behind his right ear where the bond always whispered loudest. and this time, it wasn’t panic. wasn’t anger.

it was sadness.

deep and quiet and raw. it hit him harder than your shouting ever had.

he let the towel fall over his shoulder, his stance softening as he looked at you.

“hey,” he said, voice low, steady, something gentler threading through it now. “i know it’s a lot right now. i’ve been a vampire for longer than i was human. i’ve seen bonds… but bonds don’t have to be the end of it. we can make an arrangement if that’s what you want.”

he took a step closer, slow, deliberate, careful not to crowd you.

“we could start off as friends, get to know each other first.” god, saying it felt strange on his tongue — but he meant it. meant it more than anything else he’d said tonight.

“you don’t get it, do you? this is not normal, not for me.” you turned on him, voice rising, and sunghoon stilled.

because this wasn’t just anger now — he saw it, clear as day. the shine in your eyes, the way your breath hitched, the way your hands shook like you didn’t know where to put them. you were on the verge of breaking.

“i’m young,” you said, voice cracking, “and i don’t even know you. i found you hot at first but that was it! you could be a criminal for all i know!”

sunghoon felt the bond thrum painfully at that — like it didn’t want to hear you say it, like it ached at the distance you were putting between you.

he exhaled slow, trying not to let the pull drag him too close, trying not to touch what he wanted so badly to protect.

trying not to tease you for the fact you just admitted you had found him hot.

“i know it’s a lot,” sunghoon said, voice calm, steady, like he wasn’t standing in the middle of a storm. “that’s why we’re coming up with a plan first. jungwon will help me and i won’t force you to do anything, doll.”

“stop calling me that.” you snapped, arms crossing tight over your chest, cheeks warm with frustration. “you don’t know me so you don’t get nickname privileges.”

sunghoon smirked, slow, infuriating.

“it suits you.”

you scowled, chin jutting up. “we’re not in the 50s anymore, you oldie.”

“still,” he said, eyes gleaming as he leaned back against the dresser, watching you like you were the most entertaining thing he’d seen in centuries. “it suits you.”

you huffed, pouting, glaring at him, but it only made your cheeks glow hotter, and he had to fight the urge to laugh again.

“whatever,” you grumbled, arms crossed tight, trying to mask the flood of panic and confusion behind the usual bite in your voice. “what’s the plan? who is jungwon? are you sure y’all aren’t in a cult?”

sunghoon actually laughed — a low, rich sound that filled the room and made your stomach flip in a way you refused to admit.

“jungwon’s our leader,” he said, straightening up from where he leaned, his eyes still glinting with that amused edge. “he is the only one who has royal blood so he runs the coven. keeps us in line. keeps the city quiet. you’ve already met him.”

he crossed the room, slow, controlled, like he didn’t want to spook you.

“and no, we’re not a cult,” he added, voice smoother now. “seonghyeon jaega’s our building — our territory. this penthouse? this is the coven. where we stay. where we keep things… contained.”

he stopped a few feet from you, watching you like he could see every thought racing through your head.

“you’re safe here. even if you don’t believe it yet.”

“and what am i doing here?” you demanded, frustration flaring as your arms crossed tighter. “why didn’t y’all bring me to the hospital first?”

sunghoon’s gaze darkened, serious now, the amusement fading. “human medics don’t know how to cure a bond illness,” he said, voice even, firm. “you’re safer here, closer to me.”

he stepped closer, not enough to crowd you, but enough that the weight of his presence filled the space between you.

“you should be here for the next few days,” he added, gaze steady on yours. “until we both stabilize.”

and the way he said it, like it was fact, like it was final — it made the air feel heavier, made your heart race despite yourself.

“i’m stable. i feel fine. i won't let you keep me here forever,” you snapped, chin high, defiance burning through the confusion.

sunghoon’s jaw flexed, his patience thinning just enough for it to show. “you’re only stable because i’m here, doll,” he said, voice still smooth but edged now, the bond’s tension starting to wear at him.

he took a slow breath, forcing himself calm, but his eyes stayed locked on yours, dark and unblinking. “your soul is satisfied — it’s making space for the bond. that’s why you’re not feeling hungry even though you haven’t eaten in more than twenty-four hours.”

you froze for half a beat, thrown off, then scowled. “i— how do you know that?!” you sputtered, crossing your arms tighter like it might shield you from the truth of it. “and i’m hungry! you’re wrong!”

sunghoon’s grin was slow, knowing, and infuriating. “sure you are, sweetheart.”

and god, that only made you glare harder, which made him want to smirk more.

“i don’t believe in you,” you fired off, hands thrown up in exasperation, pacing now like you might actually bolt for the door. “y’all dress like mafia leaders from the 20s! how do i know this isn’t some national trafficking scam? i’ll call the police!”

sunghoon blinked, then actually laughed — a deep, sharp sound that filled the room and only made you glare harder.

“you’re welcome to try,” he said, smirk curling at the edge of his mouth. “but i don’t think your cops are trained for this kind of problem.”

he gestured between you, calm, composed, the glint in his eyes dark and amused.

“if you want to, i can show you the bond,” sunghoon said, his voice low, a challenge hidden beneath the calm. “this ‘soulmate’ thing you don’t believe in.”

he took one more step closer, slow and sure, close enough that you could feel the weight of him, the air between you charged, heavy. he looked down at you, and god, that height difference — it made you look even cuter to him, made his restraint pull tight like a leash.

one brow arched, daring you to call his bluff, daring you to look at him and say you weren’t curious.

“go on,” you shot back, voice sharp, chin high, a dare in your eyes that you hoped masked the way your heart pounded. “prove yourself right. i doubt you can prove this is anything but bullshit.”

sunghoon’s smirk deepened, slow and dangerous. “are you sure?”

you hesitated — just for a second — and that was enough for him to take a step back and look you in the eyes.

“i’m going to show you,” he said, voice lower now, rich, steady, like he was explaining something inevitable. “this is serious, doll. i’m not going to hurt you. i swear i won’t drink your blood. but i can prove the bond. just… trust me, for a second, ok?”

“i don’t trust you,” you snapped, taking a step back so you could breathe better. sunghoon sees you crossing your arms tight over your chest, trying to ignore how your breath hitched. “pick something else.”

“this is the easiest way you’ll feel it,” he said, soft but firm, gaze locked on yours, voice steady like he wasn’t asking — like it was just fact.

“that’s what evil vampires would say in a situation like this.” you shot back, eyes wide, taking half a step back, pointing at him like it might stop him. “i’m not letting you get near my precious neck, weirdo.”

sunghoon’s lips twitched, that smirk threatening again. “evil vampires?”

“yes!” you snapped, crossing your arms, heart pounding so loud you were sure he could hear it. “you and your friends are evil! find another way, dracula.”

“trust me,” sunghoon said, stepping closer, voice low, smooth, but edged with amusement now. “this is the safest way to show you, doll. you don’t want to know the other ways i have in store.”

your mouth dropped open, scandalized, and your cheeks flamed hot.

“creep!” you barked, backing up until the bed hit the backs of your knees. “we’re not married yet! stop your pervert thoughts right there!”

sunghoon let out a low laugh, sharp and genuine, eyes gleaming.

“yet? are you considering marrying me already?” sunghoon teased, the grin tugging at his lips pure trouble. “we didn’t even exchange blood yet, doll.”

your jaw dropped, horror and fury mixing as your hands flew up in defense.

“exchange what?! you must be out of your goddamn mind if you think i’m letting you do that!”

sunghoon laughed, low and smooth, leaning just slightly closer, eyes gleaming with mischief.

“i’m joking,” he said, clearly enjoying how flustered you were. “you’re so easy to rile up.”

“you’re an evil vampire!” you hissed, cheeks burning, pointing at him like it was an accusation. “just like your friends! i’ll call the police, i swear!”

he smirked wider, crossing his arms, watching you like you were the most fun he’d had in centuries.

“we won’t exchange blood, i swear,” sunghoon said, voice low, trying to sound reassuring — but that glint in his eyes gave him away. “not yet, at least.”

“you’re crazy!” you shot back, practically vibrating with outrage, your heart racing so loud he could feel it.

he took one slow, deliberate step closer, tilting his head, gaze locked on yours.

“don’t you want me to prove it to you?” he murmured, the bond thrumming between you like it was daring you to say no. “can’t you trust me for a second?”

and god, the way he said it made it so much harder to breathe.

“you have to promise me you won’t kill me,” you demanded, arms crossed, trying to sound firm, though your voice betrayed a flicker of nerves.

sunghoon’s smirk softened just enough, eyes dark but steady.

“sweetheart,” he said, voice dropping lower, rich with truth and something that made the air feel too tight, “killing you might do me more bad than good. trust me.”

and for a second, the weight of that honesty settled between you, thick and undeniable.

finally, with a huff, you gave a small, reluctant nod. “fine. but if you bite me, i swear—”

“i won’t,” he promised.

sunghoon took a slow, measured step closer to the bed, the tension in the room tightening with every inch that closed between you.

your blue bear pajamas shifted as you shifted — small, unconscious movements that gave you away. your fingers clutched at the blanket behind you, your legs drew in just slightly, like you could make yourself smaller, like you could hide the way his nearness made your nerves fray.

he noticed everything. the quickened breath. the way your gaze darted from his eyes to his mouth and back again, like you couldn’t decide where the real danger was.

sunghoon bent down, slow, measured, his hand lifting to gently brush your hair back, fingers grazing your cheek, sending shivers racing down your spine. his palm cradled your jaw, tilting your head just so, exposing that spot — the spot — the one that had haunted him from the first day in the greenhouse.

his breath was warm, his face so close now you could see the sharp line of his jaw, the flicker of crimson in his eyes. you felt the air shift, felt the bond hum louder, felt something inside your chest crack open.

before his teeth even touched you, your knees buckled — the rush of heat, of emotion, hit you so fast, so hard, you couldn’t hold it back. the sound slipped out of you, soft, helpless, half a gasp, half a moan, shocking even yourself.

your eyes widened, the reaction catching you off guard, and your hands shot up, circling his wrists where they cradled your jaw, as if grounding yourself, as if stopping him.

“wait,” your voice came out strained, shaky with the weight of it all.

sunghoon froze, hands loosening instantly, letting you breathe. but he didn’t step back. he couldn’t. the tension between you was too thick, the bond too loud, the way your combined scents filled the room too much — sweet and sharp and addictive.

he looked at you, really looked — and saw the tears in your eyes, saw the overwhelmed flicker of confusion and something deeper.

“what was that?” you whispered, looking up at him.

he shook his head, voice low, honest. “i didn’t do anything yet, doll.”

you seemed embarrassed, nodding, trying to pull yourself back together, hands still trembling slightly where they touched him.

“i’m not going to force you,” sunghoon said, voice softer now, but the weight of the bond still thick in it. “this is just so you can see—”

“no, it’s okay,” you cut in, breath unsteady but resolve flickering in your eyes. “just... just go slower this time. i wasn’t... i wasn’t prepared.”

he nodded, steadying himself, steadying you, and leaned in, slower this time, as the air between you all but vibrated with what came next.

his hands cradled your face once again, cool and steady, his thumbs brushing your cheeks so lightly it sent a shiver down your spine. he bent, slow, deliberate, the sheer height of him folding toward you, his breath ghosting warm against your skin.

the scent of him wrapped around you — clean, sharp, something dark and sweet that made your head swim.

every inch of space between you disappeared as his lips hovered at your neck, the heat of him, the weight of him, the bond thrumming so loud it felt like your heart beat with his.

this time, it wasn’t any different. your knees buckled before you could stop it, before your mind could catch up, before you even realized you’d started to give in. the rush of heat, of emotion, of him so close — it stole your breath, made the room tilt, made your body betray you all over again.

sunghoon caught you before you fell, his arm sliding around your waist, holding you up, his lips ghosting the skin of your neck.

and then he nipped — just a brush of his incisors, no pressure, no break of skin.

the connection slammed into you like a wave. your body melted against his for a heartbeat before panic seized you.

you stumbled back, breathless, almost collapsing onto the edge of the bed as your hands pushed against his chest, desperate to put space between you. your fingers flew up to your neck, wide-eyed, stunned, your chest heaving.

“what was that? what did you do?” you gasped, voice high with panic, your hands checking your skin like you expected to feel blood, like you couldn’t believe what had just happened.

but when you saw nothing — no bite, no mark, just the burn of where his breath had touched — sunghoon straightened, watching you, chest rising and falling, his own pulse hammering harder than he wanted to admit.

“i told you,” he said, voice low, steady, but his eyes burned with everything he wasn’t saying.

“no...” you shook your head, still holding your neck like it might stop the feeling that still tingled down your spine. “that’s sorcery! you’re a witch!”

if sunghoon weren’t fighting for his life right now — fighting to steady his breath, to rein in the hunger clawing at his ribs, to clear his head after the littlest taste of your skin — he would have laughed. god, he wanted to.

because the look on your face, the panic, the way you clutched your neck like it might save you from him, from the bond, from everything between you, was too much. too human.

too you.

“that’s the bond,” he said, voice rough with the weight of it. “no sorcery, doll.”

“why… you can’t do this to me!” you blurted out, voice shaking, breath ragged, hands still guarding your neck like it could shield you from the heat still rushing through your veins. “never again, you hear me? you can’t do this to me ever again.”

sunghoon just stood there, chest rising and falling, eyes dark and locked on yours, the bond humming loud in his ears, louder than your words. he wanted to answer, wanted to promise, but god — he didn’t trust what would come out of his mouth if he opened it.

“do you believe me now?” sunghoon said after a minute, voice low, rough around the edges, still catching his breath. his eyes burned into yours, dark and unrelenting. “it’s out of our control, y/n. the more you fight it, the more insane you’ll become.”

he took a slow breath, steadying himself, gaze softening just enough to show he meant it.

“trust me,” he added, jaw tight. “i know.”

you were too stunned to respond, lips parted like a word might come, but nothing did. your mind was racing, but the storm inside you left you lost, grasping for something solid.

sunghoon watched, silent, seeing it all — the confusion clouding your eyes, the way your breath came too fast, the way your hands still cradled your neck like you could hold yourself together.

you sank down onto the edge of the bed, shoulders tense, gaze distant, like you couldn’t quite focus on anything in the room. emotions rolled off you in waves — panic, disbelief, anger, fear — and beneath it all, the bond thrumming loud between you.

if he was being honest, sunghoon wasn’t any different, not really. his pulse still raced, his senses still burned with the memory of your skin, your scent. but he held it in, forced himself still. this — this was harder for you.

he knew how this was everything for you.

he wasn’t human anymore, hadn’t been for longer than he’d lived as one. but he’d existed alongside them long enough to know this moment: the collapse of what you thought was real, the weight of a new truth crashing in. he knew what it could do to someone. and he knew now wasn’t the time to push.

quietly, he stooped to pick up the towel that had fallen from his shoulder earlier, fingers curling around the fabric. his gaze stayed on you as he approached, slow, careful, the tension in the room still thick, but his steps light, measured.

you didn’t look up — not yet. just sat there at the edge of the bed, small in the storm, and sunghoon, for once, just wanted to ease it.

he stood right in front of you, towering over your small, shaken frame, the tension between you still thick in the air. his eyes searched your face, dark and unreadable, but his hand was steady as he offered you the towel.

“are you okay?” he asked, voice quieter now, almost careful.

you didn’t answer right away. your hands stayed at your neck, fingers hovering where his lips had brushed your skin, as if you could still feel the ghost of him there. sunghoon waited — waited for your breath to steady, waited for your heart to slow, waited for you.

finally, your hands fell from your neck, and you looked up at him — those big, wide, tear-glossed eyes meeting his.

“i don’t have a choice, do i?” your voice came out small, barely above a whisper, trembling at the edges. “if we don’t… stay next to each other forever, i’ll start getting ill again, won’t i?”

you still sat on the edge of the bed, blue bear pajamas rumpled, hair a mess from sleeping since noon. vulnerable in a way that made something in sunghoon’s dead chest ache, tugging at parts of him he didn’t know he had left.

“yes,” he said, reluctant, but honest. you deserved that much. and god, he didn’t know why, but lying to you didn’t feel like something he could do. not now. maybe not ever. “we don’t need to imprint, not right away. but it’ll become unbearable at some point.”

he hesitated, the weight of it pressing down on him, before adding, softer, like the words cost him something.

“i’m sorry.”

“did you know it?” you asked, voice still small but steadier now, curiosity breaking through the fear. you looked up at him, eyes searching his face like you might catch him in a lie. “like… from the start? since you handed me my email that first day?”

sunghoon hesitated, just for a breath — the first flicker of uncertainty in him since this all began. his gaze dropped for a second, jaw tight, then he nodded slowly.

“that day… i didn’t pay much attention,” he admitted, voice low, honest in a way that made your chest tighten. “you were the first human i’d talked to in years. i thought— i hoped— it was a normal reaction.”

he exhaled, rubbing the back of his neck, eyes dark and steady when they met yours again.

“but that first day in the greenhouse? yeah. i guess i knew it from there.”

saying it out loud made everything more real — too real. the words felt heavier in the air, as if they anchored the bond between you, made it undeniable, unescapable. sunghoon still gripped the towel, fingers tight around the fabric like it might steady him, like the simple, human gesture might remind him how to breathe.

he watched you, eyes dark, unreadable, but something stirred beneath — an emotion he couldn’t name, foreign and unwelcome, but there all the same.

then, without warning, you stood up — sudden, fierce, no more confusion in your gaze. your head nearly knocked his chin, the motion so quick, so sure it startled him.

sunghoon instinctively took a few steps back, towel still in hand, heart racing faster than it should, pulse loud in his ears. and for a breath, the space between you felt like it might ignite.

“you suck at explaining things,” you snapped, eyes blazing now, all that confusion burned off in the heat of your frustration. “and you are banned from breathing next to me for the next week, you hear me?”

sunghoon blinked, stunned for half a second at the shift, then the corner of his mouth twitched — because just like that, your fire was back.

he held up the towel between you like a peace offering, smirk threatening at the edge of his lips.

“noted, doll,” he said, voice low, amused. “i’ll try my best. but no promises.”

“no, you don’t get it. i mean it,” you fired back, jabbing a finger at him like it might keep him at bay. “you have to be at least two steps away from me. always. do you understand?”

sunghoon raised a brow, watching you with that infuriating calm that only made your blood boil hotter.

“no smirks. no eyes. no flirting. no saying hard words to make me confused. no talking about blood exchange, and absolutely no touching my neck. that is a no-no zone!”

he stood there, towel still in hand, trying — really trying — not to let the smirk win this time.

“got it,” he said, but the glint in his eyes said otherwise. “no-no zone. two steps. no smirks. no eyes. seems manageable.”

he crossed his arms and looked at you.

“does that mean you accept staying here until we manage an arrangement?” sunghoon asked, voice careful, though that glint of amusement hadn’t entirely left his eyes.

you crossed your arms imitating him, glaring up at him like you were daring him to push his luck.

“it means i need rules because you are all evil vampires,” you shot back. “i'm not accepting anything. we’re just… we’re just having sleepovers for the next week. that’s it. because i might be scared, but if i throw up first thing in the morning one more day, i think i’m going to collapse.”

sunghoon watched you, fighting the smirk again, towel still forgotten in his hand.

“sure,” he said, voice low, giving you that small victory. “your calls.” he cleared his throat before continuing. “if you’re so compliant, then i’ll show you around later,” sunghoon said, that familiar, maddening calm back in his voice. “right now? i can see you need a shower.”

he offered the towel again, holding it out like it was a peace offering. again.

your mouth dropped open, scandalized. “are you saying i stink?! how dare you!”

sunghoon just raised a brow, gaze steady, lips twitching, this close to letting the laugh out.

you snatched the towel from him anyway, muttering under your breath, cheeks burning hot as you turned, clutching it like it was a shield.

“unbelievable,” you grumbled, stomping toward the doorway. and just because you couldn’t resist — because it was you — you threw a final jab over your shoulder. “you stink too!”

sunghoon’s smirk deepened, watching you go, that unshaken calm still in place, but the glint in his eye said it all — he was enjoying every second of this.

you slowed at the door, frustration giving way to genuine curiosity, brows furrowing as you glanced back at him. you didn’t even know if that door actually led to his bathroom — god, you hoped it did.

because if you had to turn around now, if you had to ask or worse, walk past him again, the embarrassment might actually finish you off faster than the bond ever could.

“how do you guys even shower?” you asked, voice edged but sincere. “also, why does everything here smell good? why are you being nice? don’t you guys like… murder people?”

sunghoon let out a low laugh, dark and amused, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe you.

“you're asking a lot of questions for someone who just accused me of stinking,” he said, but his tone was light, almost fond.

and that smell you were so enchanted by? that was him. you just didn’t know it. being near him made the air shift like that — warmer, sweeter, like everything was touched by him. but he wasn’t ready to tease you about it.

not yet.

“and we feed blood. not necessarily murder people. don’t let the stereotypes blind you, doll.”

you stared at him for a beat, mouth opening like you had one more comeback loaded — but then you huffed, spun on your heel, and stormed off toward the bathroom.

“fine. whatever. i need that shower anyway,” you muttered, mostly to yourself, clutching the towel like it was your last shred of dignity.

sunghoon watched you go, the door clicking shut behind you. a low laugh slipped out, quiet and genuine, shaking his head at the chaos you left in your wake.

but as the quiet settled over the room, the amusement faded, replaced by something deeper — heavier.

that pull on his chest returned, sharp, immediate, the bond’s hum louder now that you were out of sight. it was stupid, it was irrational, it was everything he hated about this.

but god, he felt it. the hollow ache of not having you in the room. and the worst part? he already knew — he’d feel it every time you left.

sunghoon exhaled, slow, raking a hand through his hair, and braced himself. because this was only the beginning.

and he knew — god, he knew — how it would only get harder and harder to not have you around now that you’d both stopped fighting it.

you hadn’t said it out loud yet, hadn’t given him the words, but he could feel it all the same.

the burn behind his ear, that constant, maddening thrum of the bond, didn’t sting as sharp as before.

what did that mean? it meant you were willing to try. to stay. to give this a chance, even if you didn’t know it yet.

for now, that was enough.

for now, sunghoon would be content with that.

author's note: i LOVE to write desperate and helpless men can you guys tell. and let's pretend he didn't took six showers in this chapter ok. reblogs and comments are appreciated! if this sucks like i feel it does, pls keep it to yourself, all of my back pain was poured onto this. send me a request • my masterpost

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