"I'll assume you always enter without asking?"

The muscles on the nape of Hyunjin's neck strained as he lifted from the hands encompassing his head; A light layer of sweat building on the creased palms burning from the friction of another fever stabbing into his temples, the weak grip his fingers kept tangled in the back of his hair releasing to lay themselves on the chill of the communal desk he sat patiently at to wait for the one currently leaning against the door. A smile, lips tight against the teeth of that consuming beast of a human, chin tucked in a way that shadowed the condescending taunts in the intensity of his eyes as he stared down the visitor in the dorm room.

His dorm room. Not Hyunjin's. He didn't belong in this room, nor this building, simply existing in it brought tremors to his leg and a jolting feeling to dive for the window behind the desk. He pressed his palm against the wooden surface. Against that heat, it was cool. Frozen. For a second, he was tempted to lay his forehead along it for a hint of relief.

He stopped himself. His eyes drifted to the other addition in the room, raking over the form of the human that had annoyed him to the ends of the world, chased him through the nine layers of Hell his fangs were born of until he was cornered in the umbral cover of the dorms. An ache tugged at the edge of his vision, a permanent sickness settling in, and an undeniable gluttony tore into his gut.

Still, he let himself watch the human, Seungmin. Ever confident, ever knowing, ever jeering, pressing his back flush against the door of the room as one of his hands rested on the metal knob opening into this inferno Hyunjin purposefully trapped himself within.

Options ran thin. Where else was he supposed to go? Besides here, giving in to the twitching joints shocking themselves with volts of grime and the clogging lump in his throat begging for a drop of ichor.

His eyes narrowed at Seungmin. The other's wound were tightly bound, the bandages yet to be removed from their duty around his throat and palm hanging limply by his side. He let his gaze drift to the one on the metal doorknob. A perfect incision discolored the back of his hand. Nearly healed and old enough to not have been from the most recent events in the dance room, he could recognize the laceration almost instantly. A rounded shape, almost torn, as if an animal hesitated to bite, and retreated against the skin instead. There was only one way he could have received the mark, and instantly, Hyunjin knew.

"You did this. You're the reason I'm feeling like this. When you cut your hand on my fang in the dance room," Hyunjin realized. He watched the hand slip from the metal knob, trailed after the scabbed skin. There was a reason vampires were banned from ever touching human blood, there was a reason they had been 'tamed' as his friends would say, there was a reason they followed the authorities, and were at the end of a barrel whenever there was wrong. The bullet that pierced them, encased in decrepit silver, wedged itself between his teeth and the harder he bit, the more he could taste blood in his mouth.

The more he could hear the other's heartbeat. The more he could smell the sage aroma of the human. The more he could become a him which was outlawed. This was why. The wound on the back of his hand drifted down, and Hyunjin could imagine it; A cold revolver aimed at the vampire's head as he braced himself in the desk chair, hammer cocked, cornering him, trigger twitching under his fingers, him centered in the reticle, the crosshair tangled around his skull.

"It wasn't a conscious choice. In fact, this was complete accident. I'll admit this isn't what I was hoping for, and it's the complete opposite of a favorable outcome for me, but it doesn't matter now," Seungmin confessed to him. Although he revealed his defeat, as small as he made it seem despite the obvious threats waiting to be pinned against the other, he didn't lose his air. He didn't lose the quirk in his features, nor the condescension waiting on the serrated blades of his edges prepared to cut through him. The human seemed to brush it off, ignoring the imminent flurry of anger beginning to brew inside the sharpened eyes of the vampire. He simply scanned him over, hip buckling to prop an elbow on the doorknob as he leered, "You should have come to me sooner."

Of course he could be calm. Hyunjin pressed his nails into his palms, watching the tough crescents dig into the soft patch beneath as he drew in sharp inhales turning to depriving puffs leaving his chest. The window flooded a crimson hue across the shaded floors of the unlit room, the afternoon sun ushering in a curfew past the glass panes, he never felt such an intense want to take a nosedive before. He could use the brick encasing outside, or the thin ledges of the windowsills to scale the sides of the dorm. He could escape to the roof if no one spots him. There, wasting to the elements thrashing his spirit, was more appealing of an idea than having to sit and watch the human's smug expression. Of course he could be relaxed. It wasn't his life at stake. 

"And how exactly are you going to 'help' me, like you said?" Hyunjin probed, his tongue contracting in a tightness that reminded him of the sour sting from the potato chips. It was nothing.

Not when compared to the sweetness under the sage coat wrapped around the other. For the quickest second, that thought crawled over his skin. Skittering across the goosebumps rattling him, like thousands of centipede steps tickling over his nerves, that unnerving notion tempted him. He forced it to stop. Like a guillotine blade slicing down, it ended any other wandering ideas spawning from the aching fever. Hyunjin rested an elbow on the desk next to him, eyes drifting down as he murmured,  "Are you going to shove your hand in my face again?" 

With that, the light click of a lock snapping into place resonated within their tension.

Hyunjin's gaze shot back to the other in time to watch his fingers slip to the plastic cufflink buttons of his collared uniform shirt and begin to roll his sleeve back.

Fuck.

"You're kidding."

Seungmin's eyes fastened into a testing glare at the baffeled comment. When he wasn't given another response, Hyunjin's blood ran cold.

"Understand, I hate this idea as much as you do," The younger sighed bitterly. On the edge of his features was that same lordliness belittling him to a filthy peasant beneath his polish loafers, and yet, there was a seriousness to it.

A serious carried on the way his chin untucked from it's stabled jeer, in the way his usual tight lipped smile covering the true snarling teeth behind the pantomime he entertained the unknowing audience with. Hyunjin noticed it in the odd rhythm of his heart, not hurried or slow, oddly relaxed for a situation such as this, and still as loud as the first time he was able to hear it.

He pressed back against the chair as Seungmin stepped closer, the pads of his fingertips pressing on the throbbing vein running a prominent shade of blue. For the first time since they knew of each other's existence, Seungmin looked him in the eye without a taunt, "But it's either this or you die. I'd prefer avoiding the latter option."

However tempting the offer was, Hyunjin forced himself to look away from the other's wrist. He muttered, "I would prefer dying."

"Sorry, then I was being polite," The firm click of the human's tongue slammed to life on the vampire's sensitive eardrums, his irritated words hiding in the sarcastic reverberation they created within the empty room save for their rotten souls each as guilt ridden as the other. Though, the human never seemed that way. No matter what he did, no matter the selfish action or apathetic word, he never took the words back. Even if he could, words which were like sparrows are never able to be captured again. No matter how much they managed to irk the vampire senseless. As if reading his thoughts, Seungmin continued, "I don't care if you die. But until that moment, don't you recognize what this is? You're delirious and one delirious vampire turned serial killer in the city is enough."

"You're not selfless enough for 'murders' to be the only reason," Hyunjin pressed farther back in the desk chair with the quiet challenge, gaping a distance between them to give him ample time for consideration and not to be bombarded with that soothing incense bearing down on them with the human standing nearby and drawing dizzy on his senses as he was unable to decide, how much of this is it all in my head? It may have been. Every inch of this daydream could have been. But the steady heartbeat drumming on in the veins wasn't only in his imagination, and the riveting gluttony thrashing him between two worlds wasn't a figmented reverie. That was real, more real than most cloudy days he trudged through without too much of a care or reason.

"You caught me there. First, I realize that this was my fault and that means if anyone knows I was the one who sends you on a potential rampage in the future, I will also be in trouble with the law," Seungmin admitted. When he chose to look back to the younger, he was fiddling with the plastic pearl cufflink of the sleeve scrunched above his folded elbow. For anyone else, it wouldn't have been an unusual gesture. But for the human, it was. For someone as proud and egotistical as him, he wouldn't have adopted a habit such as fiddling from a sudden split second decision. His face seemed to wrinkle in the same way his sleeve did, a reluctance to his features that clarified why he was fiddling with the cufflinks. With a loathing twinge, he justified, "Second, I'll try to keep you alive this way. In exchange, you have to help me with something. A personal project."

"If I disagree?"

"Regardless of how I'm involved, you're wanted for aggravated assault. At worst, they'll charge you for attempted murder. If you disagree, I'll turn you over to authorities, and make sure you're charged for the worst. If you agree, my blood is yours."

"You're blackmailing me into this," Hyunjin clarified.

"You are the one who attacked me, intentional or not," Seungmin calmly told, the firm words silencing the vampire to rigid brimstone prepared to ignite at the slightest vexation. Again, he couldn't bite back with a flat truth. Regardless of how bitter he felt about it, or how much he resented the rough road leading him to this point of no return, this was the meadow he found himself astray in. As if it would make him feel better, Seungmin compromised, "We'll call this extortion, not blackmail."

"This is highly illegal, for both of us. We can both be expelled if anyone even finds out I'm in the human dorms, you're saying I'm obviously now a wanted felon, and on top of that you're offering me your blood which is banned across multiple nations," Hyunjin leaned forward in the desk chair. His heel was bouncing in response to the cued aggravation, tapping in sixteenth notes to the steady rhythm of the tantalizing thumping in his ears wearing thin on his last few shreds of civilized humanity. Despite working so hard, harder than anyone else he knew to be the farthest he could from that voracious beast he was, that all crumbled in a second. It all crumbled to his feet, and those tendencies came back stronger than ever before. Even if he tried to fight it, his tongue danced over his fangs as he continued to rationalize to himself, "If someone finds out about any of this—"

Seungmin cut him off, as sure of his words as if he were talking about a test, "They won't. Do you agree or not?"

He hesitated. Although it seemed the most logical solution to satiate his hunger, to wash himself free of the grime, even if it were a temporary answer, a part of him hesitated. Or, it didn't want to admit. A part of him didn't want to admit how far he had fallen from the start of it all, and now, someone who proclaimed to hate him was offering to be a lifeline. He was attempting to drag him aboard a lifeboat adrift on the open water, unable to call for help, with no one in the vessel but one another. A sad truth. His friends wouldn't be able to help him. They wouldn't accept him if they knew, he saw their reactions to learning of the attack. As much as he loathed the tenseness in his muscles, the disgust at the thought of admitting it, Seungmin might be the only person allowed on the adrift lifeboat set for a destination to nowhere.

Unsure; Lightly testing the waters as he grabbed the other's elbow very carefully and slid to sit with him on the floor of the dorm room, a slight tremor threatened his nerves as he brought the wrist closer to his mouth, It will be fine if it's only his wrist. Don't bite as hard as you normally do.

"One rule," Seungmin stopped him. His eyes sharpened into a hardened scowl, a look as barbed as the fences curled atop cement walls of prison blocks as his lips curled back into something like a snarl rivaling the deepest bellows of wild beasts, "Don't ever think about biting my neck again."

Hyunjin paused. The pointed fangs hovered over the vein as he agreed,

"Deal."

✘