heaven's a heartbreak away

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/42852042.

Rating: Explicit
Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Category: M/M
Fandom: 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Relationship: Jeon Jungkook/Kim Taehyung | V
Character: Kim Taehyung | V, Jeon Jungkook, Kim Seokjin | Jin, Kim Namjoon |
RM, Min Yoongi | Suga, Jung Hoseok | J-Hope, Park Jimin (BTS),
Original Characters
Additional Tags: Vampires, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Enemies to Lovers,
Vampire Kim Taehyung | V, Fighter Jeon Jungkook, Drug Use, Graphic
descriptions of violence, Blood and Violence, Blood Drinking,
Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Morally Ambiguous Kim Taehyung |
V, Morally Ambiguous Jeon Jungkook, Plot, Switch Kim Taehyung | V,
Switch Jeon Jungkook, Explicit Sexual Content, slight exhibitionism,
Explicit Language (lots of it), Worldbuilding, Minor Character Death, this
fic is unbeta'd and if the plot has holes it's because taehyung bit it,
taekook wanna beat each other up but they also want to make out
sexily while doing so, Angst with a Happy Ending
Language: English
Collections: Sanguine S2
Stats: Published: 2022-12-11 Chapters: 6/6 Words: 72645

heaven's a heartbreak away

by lovelyjjkth

Summary

The Underground is dead, something wants to play with its corpse, and it all comes back to
this: nature. Predators and prey. Taehyung, Jeongguk, and the blood pooling on the floor.

Notes

hello and welcome to my fic.

i hope you're ready for a wild ride because this is going to be a very wild ride. i just want to
bring up a few points:
- there will be very graphic descriptions of blood and violence (after all, jeongguk is a
fighter, and taehyung is a vampire).
- there are vague descriptions of child abuse; more specifically, neglect. please proceed
with caution or click out now if this is a sensitive topic for you (nothing too explicit is
described, but it is hinted at and expanded upon at one point throughout the story).
- please heed the other tags.
 now, after all of that is done, please feel free to dive right in. see you on the other side <3

(and to the prompter, i hope you enjoy).

Prompt:

One of the favorite activities for rich vampires is to watch human boxing. Taehyung, a
vampire, finally decides to watch one of the matches, and Jungkook, one of the best boxers
piques his interest.

DW: angst with the happy ending

See the end of the work for more notes

 Chapter 1
Chapter Summary

“This habit of leaving his blood on my hands is really becoming a problem,” Taehyung
murmurs.

If he has to finish the rest of the bottle of wine to distract himself from the distracting
smell of Jeongguk’s blood, then he does so in silence.

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

Dead things don’t die peacefully.

The crowd wants more blood. It’s thirsty, disgustingly so for something inevitably mortal: death.
Humans clamour in their seats and shout obscenities riddled with cigarette smoke and the heady
smell of drugs. They’re a different kind of natural disaster; a tsunami of rage-filled voices, a
hurricane of dirty, corrupted adrenaline.

If something dies, it’s meant to stay dead. Humans don’t like the ugly feeling of jealousy. They
abhor it. When something dead rises again, it’s blasphemy. It’s disgusting, hated, envied. Who
decided to give something dead another chance? Who decided to bestow the blessing of life back
into the sickening remains of what someone once was?

Nature. It all comes back to nature. Predators and prey. Nature decides who the predator is, nature
decides who lives, who dies, who suffers from this blessing.

And it’s not a blessing, not by far. Taehyung thinks it’s more of a disease, an endless curse.
Immortality as a vampire is something many humans wish for. It’s something that many vampires
hate. Taehyung has learned to make peace with it, but the humans…

They always want more. When they see something that they want, they will take it. If they can’t
take it…

“Finish him! Crush his head!”

Taehyung watches unflinchingly as the vampire inside the cage is tossed to the ground. Beaten,
bloodied up, hanging onto the last thread of consciousness even when it’s clear he does not want to.
Even he wishes for his own death.

If humans can’t take a vampire’s immortality, then they’ll remind the pitiful creatures of what
mortality feels like.

“Golden! Golden! Golden! Kill him!”

A human towers over the vampire. A tapestry of tight, corded muscle and scars along his back.
Dark ink snaking its way up his arm, over his shoulder, shimmering with rivulets of sweat. His
chest is heaving, breaths coming out stuttered. Hands wrapped in bloodied bandages, body
blooming with bruises.

He raises his foot and brings it down on the vampire’s head. Crack. Again, again, again. Crack,
squelch, blood, blood, blood.

The crowd loses its mind. Taehyung feels sweaty bodies press up against him in an effort to see
more of the grotesque scene in front of them. Being in the front seats has its perks; this is not one of
them. There’s a whistle barely piercing the air above the noisy din, the sound of a bell.

Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner.

A medal is thrown into the cage; no one wants to get their clothes stained from such a dirty scene.
The human moves to pick it up. He leaves bloody footprints behind.

There’s a chant permeating through the air: “Golden! Golden! Golden!”

Golden holds the medal in his hands. The ribbon around the shiny piece of metal has soaked up
some blood from the floor. Still, he hangs it around his neck and displays it proudly. Head thrown
back, he revels in the cheers and wild cries of the crowd, the cruel, reckless energy they burn with
like wildfire.

Then, Golden tips his head back down, chest still heaving with deep, panting breaths. He’s
beautiful. So undeniably breathtaking, even if his shirtless chest is covered in blood, sweat and
bruises, his pants ripped with claw marks.
He looks over at the crowd, searching.

Then, his eyes meet Taehyung’s, and he gives him a slow, chilling smile.

——

Not too long ago, give or take 152 years, vampires were just a myth.

Then, something shifted. Myths unfolded into truths when a tightly-held secret broke free from its
leashes. All it took was one bloodthirsty fledgeling to slip through the cracks and into the human
world. All it took was a night of horror and madness.

Vampirism spread just like that; out of control, messy, bloody. Neither the humans, nor the
vampires, were ready. It took decades of fighting before this mess formed any semblance of control
— the human world was almost a wasteland. Decades before order happened; treaties, rules,
punishments.

A new type of law was created. A new world emerged. One of humans and vampires.

Then, something shifted again, and the world was knocked on its ass. With the fear from vampires
gone, another emotion rose up, ugly and vile like poisonous gas. Jealousy. Thick, dark jealousy.

Why should vampires be held on the same pedestal, be given the same rights, for all the mess and
pain they caused? Why should they be pardoned with no punishment? They should be kept under
control, they should be made to feel the same pain that humans felt.

But the law likes to play fair. It likes to be righteousness and goodness and justice — the
lawmakers argued that vampires did not mean to cause such a tragedy. Their species was also
harmed, the very foundations of their cultures disrupted. They deserve no punishment.

A heartwarming gesture to creatures whose hearts did not beat anymore. The law is good and fair,
but only on the surface.
Vampires are still hated in human society. Humans are hated in vampire covens. It goes a little
something like this, now:

Vampires live in their little corners of the city, humans have their own sides. If a vampire tries to
enter the human community, they will face discrimination, hatred, and — more often than not — a
fist in their face. If a human tries to encroach on vampire territory… either they leave with a new
set of nightmares to haunt the rest of their nights, or they don’t leave at all.

But in the nitty gritty corners of the Underground, this hatred does not exist. How peculiar it is that
the most lawless places in the cities uphold the laws of fairness far better than the law itself does;
down in the Underground, no one cares about race, or species, or gender. All anyone comes down
here for is violence and money.

If you can provide both, you’re honoured. If you can’t, you’re trampled.

“You’re not seriously considering it, are you?”

“Of course I am, Jimin.” Taehyung swirls his glass, watches as the blood trickles to the edge but
never quite reaches it. “Of course I am.”

In the Underground, anything dark and dangerous reigns. Illegal boxing is a crowd favourite —
one of Taehyung’s favourites, too. It is just like normal human boxing, except there are no rules
and the winner is the last one standing. A fight to the death, but it brings in money like no other.

Staying in the Underground during the boxing season calls for trouble. It’s the time when most
people come crawling out of their concrete apartments to mingle and trade and steal. People in the
Underground are dangerous; mobsters, leaders of gangs, powerful businessmen, street rats. Staying
in a dark alleyway, just outside the boxing venue, is certainly not recommended.

Yet, here Taehyung is, lounging against the brick walls with a smoking cigarette stick in one hand,
the other hand in his pocket. A rat scurries along the wall of the other building in front of him. He
takes a drag, blows out the smoke. Staring at the grey fog now lingering in the air, Taehyung
recalls his conversation with Jimin.

“This is stupid,” Jimin says. “You’re going to regret this, you know.”
“I won’t.”

“No, you don’t. You have no fucking clue what you’re getting yourself into.”

Taehyung simply places his glass to his lips and drinks the last trickle of blood. It tastes as bitter as
his lie when he says, “I know what I’m doing.”

The Underground has torn, cracked skin and rotting maggots underneath. There’s a perpetual mist
crawling on the ground. It swirls around people’s feet and becomes more potent at night time.
Hazardous gas trickling on the lower levels of this shithole.

Sometimes, when it clears, he can see the crumbling asphalt and stepped-on rat shit littering the
place. There’s this constant, nauseating smell of corpses and blood, piss in the alleyways, and
cigarette smoke scratching the whites of his eyes, trudging with hooks down the windpipe.

It used to be a city complex — rich and bustling, the peak of urbanisation. Then, the vampirism
plague hit and it crashed. Turned into a wasteland, a home for the damned. There are no rules here
— just big players, big risks, small rewards.

No one wants to live here.

They just have nowhere else to go. The highrise buildings block out the sun and everyone is pale,
shaking, either from the cold or the drugs or blood loss.

As more people came, they sucked the blood out of the Underground. Offices looted, territories set
by gangs, lowlives huddling in empty office spaces with the cockroaches and termites. Electricity
barely works. The only time someone can get the lights up and running in a building is if they went
to the city first to buy a generator. Electricity, power, water — all of it is cut off in the
Underground.

Sometimes, the sewer water or puddles from vaguely acidic rain is better than dehydration. Until it
isn’t, because everything is infested with bugs and shit and empty syringes here.

In the Underground, every piece of metal is rusty. Paint peeling on the walls, overgrown vines,
graffiti and grimy tiles. The constant smell of gunpowder, the faint sound of guns firing, the cheers
of another fight somewhere in the distance. Drunken voices slurring, the waft of stained clothes and
soiled underwear, twitchy eyes and bleeding noses and pill-popping mouths at every turn.

It’s shit, it’s dangerous, it’s a haven of poison.

Taehyung loves the Underground.

Above Taehyung, the sky is pitch black with a smatter of stars. Groups of people mingle on the
road outside the alleyway in fits of drunken laughter and slurred words. The night air brings with it
the tangy smell of sweat and the coppery prickles of blood. He closes his eyes.

After all, the people here know not to cross Kim Taehyung’s path unless they have a painful death
wish.

And, tonight, it seems that someone does.

Taehyung smells the blood lingering on someone’s skin, hears the sound of someone’s footsteps,
before the cigarette is ripped out of his hand. He blows out the smoke trapped behind his lips
before lazily peering at the intruder.

Tattooed hands throw his cigarette to the ground, before a boot crashes down on it. The toe swivels
on the ground, tamping out the splutters of an ember and leaving a pile of ash on the concrete. How
rude.

“Reliving your great victory?” Taehyung drawls. “That was quite a dramatic win. Still riding on
your ego high, hm?”

Golden cocks an eyebrow, tilts his head to the side. “Just wanted to give you a show.”

“Who doesn’t?”

“Everyone does,” Golden says. He steps closer and places a hand on the wall, right next to
Taehyung’s head. Leaning in, he murmurs, “but we both know that I do it the best.”
“Cocky.”

“It’s the truth.”

Golden is an enigma, a contradiction. Wide eyes, pouty lips, but the edges of his face are sharp. He
likes to dress in all black, just like now — oversized black hoodie, black skinny ripped jeans, black
boots — but he dyes his hair all sorts of colours. Today, it’s an ice-blue. Last month, it was blonde.
Under all the baggy clothing, Taehyung knows he hides thick skin riddled with scars and tattoos
and blood on his hands.

Under the beauty on the surface, Taehyung knows there’s something darker in him. It could be in
the way he moves — strong, powerful, sharp, just like he’s dancing. The way he revels in blood
and violence, the way he wins every single time. It could be that look in his eyes. Intense, fiery,
almost unhinged. One wrong move, one wrong breath and he’ll throw you to the ground.

He’s one of the Underground’s best fighters. Because of that, he’s caught Taehyung’s attention.
Because of that, he thinks he can get cocky and arrogant with someone like Taehyung.

Golden comes closer, invading Taehyung’s personal space. Fearless, maybe. Stupid. “Made a
decision yet?”

“Hm, no.”

Anger flashes in Golden’s eyes before he speaks, low and serious. “That fucking show wasn’t
enough for you?”

“If you think acting all macho and crushing someone’s head under your boot is enough to get my
sponsorship, then you need to think again.”

“What else do I need to do?”

Taehyung pretends to consider it, keeps his face immaculately blank, even when they both know
he’s doing all of this just to rile Golden up. “Give me a sales pitch.”

“A sales pitch?”
“Yes,” Taehyung says. “Sell yourself to me. I want to know what I’m getting myself into.”

“You already know what you’re getting yourself into.”

“Do I?” Taehyung smiles humorlessly. “Sales pitch, Golden.”

“Who are you to order me around?”

“I’m the sponsor you’re begging to get.”

“I’m not begging.”

“And I’m not hearing a sales pitch,” Taehyung quips. He tuts, shaking his head lightly. “So I’ll
take my leave.”

“Like hell you will.” Golden places a hand on his chest and pushes him back into the wall, eyes
narrowing into a glare. “You want a sales pitch? I’ll give you a fucking sales pitch.”

“Good,” Taehyung says, reaching up to encircle his hand tightly around Golden’s wrist. A warning
to take his hand off. Still, Golden doesn’t move. His hands stay where they are; one on the wall
next to Taehyung’s head, one on his chest, pressing him back.

“You want power. I’ll give you power,” Golden says quietly, “I’ll fight for you, I’ll kill for you.
Your name gives you a lot of power, but I know you. I know the people you surround yourself
with, and you can never have enough. Never too much.”

Taehyung keeps his mouth shut.

“You want more? Have my name associated with yours, become my sponsor,” Golden continues,
“and no one would try to touch you. Think about it — your name, my reputation — shit, you could
make so much more money. People would kill to meet you. Want to get your hands dirty without
doing the work? I’ll do it. We both know I don’t mind blood on my hands.”
Taehyung tightens his grip around Golden’s wrist. “You’re willing to be my dog? Sit, boy. Roll
over. Kill.”

Golden laughs, but it’s empty. “We both know it won’t be like that. Equal power between the two
of us, yeah? Let’s not forget, Kim Taehyung, that I know your past. Out of all the lowlives in this
goddamned place, it’s me who knows.”

Taehyung stiffens. “Oh, I haven’t forgotten.”

“Good,” Golden says in the same tone Taehyung did before. Mocking him. He leans forward,
places his lips right next to Taehyung’s ear and whispers, “know your damn place, I’ll know
mine.”

“This sales pitch is shit.”

Golden leans back and scoffs. “Yeah? You get what you paid for, and you haven’t paid yet.
Sponsor me and I’ll give you something better.”

“Another show?”

“As many shows as you want.”

“That’s more like it.”

“So, you agree?”

Golden is something straight out of the vile pages of fairy tales, but the stories have been twisted
into something gory. Horror, psychologically traumatising. He's the cocky villain. Licks blood
dripping from his fingertips, chases the innocent protagonist, and ends the story in three pitiful
pages. Then, he terrorises the next book.

There's something in his gaze, the way he talks — he's used to getting what he wants. Not because
he was born into power, but because he clawed through hell and back to earn it. Now, he's
something invincible bulldozing right through Taehyung's useless bullshit, and Taehyung's too
tired to keep up the act.

Golden won't stop until he gets what he wants anyway. The prime example of a textbook villain;
fucked up morals, self-destructive, a snake eating itself. Ouroboros. That fucking snake. This game
has been going on between them for so long. Taehyung is tired.

A breeze blows, Golden shifts, and Taehyung presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth.

“Meet me tomorrow night. I’ll have a contract ready,” Taehyung says. “You know where to find
me.”

“I want my say in this contract.”

“And you will,” Taehyung promises. Then, he scrunches his nose lightly in disgust. “Now get the
fuck off me, you reek of blood.”

“Ah, my bad, I forgot.” Golden grins and comes in closer, hand pressing further into Taehyung’s
chest for a moment as he murmurs, “it’s only the smell of my blood that you like.”

With that, the arrogant little prick shoves himself off of Taehyung, gives him one last cocky look,
before walking away. Taehyung watches him go, half in irritation at the blatant disrespect, half in
muted shock at Golden’s stupid fearlessness. Talking to Golden feels as pleasant as shoving his
hand down a paper shredder.

When Taehyung straightens his suit, he feels something warm and wet stick onto his fingers.
Lifting his hand to the moonlight, he finds the stain of something sanguine red left behind. The
blood smells coppery like normal human blood, but this — this has undertones of sweetness, an
addicting layer taunting him.

Tempting him to place his fingers on his tongue and taste the blood. Just to try a tiny, little bit.

But Taehyung shakes off the urge. He wipes Golden’s blood back onto his clothes, makes sure
every trace is gone from his hand.
Then, with the sickeningly sweet smell still lingering on his clothes and Golden’s voice whispering
in his mind, Taehyung makes his way back home for the night.

——

Humans are so fickle in a way that makes them easily pleased. So picky about certain things, but
once you get it right, it gives them some sort of high that they just can’t get enough of.

Neon lights, booming bass, crank up the heat, pass around the drugs, and the Underground bursts
to life. Not all of it. Just a particular corner — one building in the seedy depths, drowning in sweat,
shots, and everything unholy. Taehyung stands right in the middle of it. This is one of the things
that humans and vampires alike love to flock to: his nightclub.

Both creatures can come to this space; share spit, share blood. One transaction of a tequila shot for
a nip on the wrist. Tonight, it’s packed. It’s always packed. Wasn’t always like this — took a few
tries to get it right. The amount of lighting, the songs, the DJs, the space. Taehyung must have
moved the position of the poles and the stage a million and one times before he was adequately
satisfied.

The energy during the night is always different. When he comes in, there’s something new going
on: a new performance on the poles, new currency dropping on the floor, new strain of a drug
being passed around.

What he’s created isn’t simply a place for people to leave the real world from: it’s a whole other
world of itself, complete with its own inhabitants and a toxic ecosystem.

As someone who isn’t always keen on rubbing bodies against other beings, Taehyung often
frequents the VIP section whenever he deigns to come in. Now, he can almost leave the club to its
own devices. People know the rules, newbies get closely acquainted with it, and it’s simple:

There are no rules.

Someone could be having the time of their life on the dance floor while someone else is getting
stabbed in the bathroom for looking wrong at someone else. Someone, someone, someone.
Everybody’s a nobody in his club, except for the people who matter.
Taehyung has a list of the people who matter in his head, and the first and last name carved on it
with stark black ink bleeding on the pages is Kim Taehyung. Himself.

Coming here is dangerous, and so is every part of the Underground. Taehyung’s no priest. He’s no
saint. People risk their lives coming here, and it’s that adrenaline rush — the taste of fear, the
heady lights, the smoke in the bathroom — that keeps them coming back until their lungs give out
and the festering ache inside their kidneys breaks loose. Whatever happens in this club happens.
The next day, it’s cleaned up, and the club is back to life that same night.

The VIP section is an enclosed, air-conditioned room with floor-to-ceiling windows. Taehyung can
leave them as be, or he can turn them into one-way mirrors. Sometimes, he prefers the two-way
transaction of looking out at the crowd from beyond his glass palace and letting them see him, too.

Sometimes, he prefers that extra cover of privacy — letting the crowd see nothing but smoke and
mirrors while he glares at them, disgusted and revolted and proud, from inside. From inside,
Taehyung can see out. From outside, everyone sees their own fucked-up, glassy-eyed reflections.

Tonight, it’s the latter, the one-way mirrors. He has business to take care of. Sinking back into the
couch, the door opens, and a ratty looking adolescent boy steps through. No more than 18 — face
still pockmarked with the kisses of puberty and voice always on the verge of cracking whenever he
opens his cracked mouth.

“Alex,” Taehyung greets him. The boy bows, hands twitching. He sniffles. He’s high. Of course he
is. “How are the runs?”

“Good, yeah.” Alex grins at him, eyes bloodshot. “Got a lot of ‘em done yesterday.”

“You dropped to Major last night, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. He took everything. Even asked for more.”

“Motherfucker’s addicted, isn’t he?”

“So addicted, sir. How’d you do it so quickly? Swear he only started doin’ this shit days ago.”
Taehyung just hums. “Might’ve laced his last batch with something.”

Alex laughs. A hacking sort of laugh, mumbles something along with it, but his tongue must be
feeling heavy or numb or both because Taehyung can’t make out what it is. Doesn’t matter, though.
The kid’s too far gone in his high to realise that Taehyung’s not laughing with him.

Another one. He’s got another one clutched by the balls, begging for more. See, here’s the thing:
owning the biggest, dirtiest nightclub in the Underground gives him money, power, respect. But
that’s all. People don’t fear him just because he can run a fucking club and call it a night. Lots of
people do that in the Underground — Taehyung’s just happens to be the most popular. The best of
them because it’s the worst.

But Taehyung wants the Underground in his palms, and he wants people to fucking stop bothering
him. Asking him for VIP entrance, or for a discount on drugs, or trying to buddy up with him. The
only way to do that: fear. Have a status so highly-elevated that people would be scared to come
near, to even talk or breathe near him, as soon as he steps into the room.

The Underground has a bunch of big players — people who pull the strings, people with lapdogs
and minions. Gangs, cults, fighters, more. All sorts of groups pop up in the Underground. Not all
survive, but from the ones that do, some serious shit happens and they get tougher as they bite
more bullets than they can count. Those people instil fear. Those people are the ones that
Taehyung wants to play like a puppet.

And, he does. Most of the big leaders in the Underground are cupped in the palm of his hands.
Either they want some shares of his club, or they want drugs, or both. Taehyung doesn’t always kill
mindlessly. Only sometimes, when he’s really pissed off. The only other time he kills in the
Underground is if someone doesn’t want to do things his way, which happens quite a lot,
unfortunately.

If Taehyung wants to have someone wrapped around his finger, but they’re just so goddamned
stubborn on trying to deal with things their way, then it’s bound to get bloody. Taehyung may not
fight everyday, but he knows how to fight. Has known since he was a child, and he’s honed it with
the edges of the Underground.

The ones that don’t want some of his money, or his drugs, or have had the unpleasant experience of
meeting him and his fists smartly avoid him. And that’s what he wants: that avoidance. That power
over others. Fear, respect. Everything intangible thing he could ever crave for.

For years, he built that up. Years and years of fucking waiting, and planning, and pretending to be
civil with someone until they get a little too hooked on him, and he can drop the act while they
flounder uselessly on the ground, their money or their sanity tied to Taehyung’s money and drugs.

When Alex finishes laughing, he thinks Taehyung’s silence is an invitation to keep talking.

“Boss, have you seen the fights recently?” Alex asks. “They’re gettin’ interesting. There was a
fight last night, apparently, and can you fuckin’ guess it—”

“Shut up.” Taehyung knows where this is going. The first prickles of anger begin to rise from
under his skin like needles.

“This fighter — he’s my favourite — this fighter, Golden, fucked up Bruno. Bruno was this big
vampire, pretty popular. He was probably in my top 10 list. But Golden just— messed him up.
Threw him around, boss! It was—”

“Alex,” Taehyung grits out. “Shut the fuck up.”

Anger expanding to his chest. Golden this, Golden that. Golden is fucking everywhere. Taehyung
hates him. Hates the fighter and his shows. Taehyung has hated that despicable human ever since
that day they found themselves in a dressing room together. Fucking despised him ever since, but
the Universe must love to punish him — fucking karma — because ever since then, Golden’s
name, Golden himself, has been following Taehyung around like a curse.

“And then Golden just— crushed his head! Fuckin’ stomped on it, like this—”

It takes everything in Taehyung not to stand up and throw the couch at the windows. Watch the
glass shatter and sprinkle in the strobe lights. Hear the crash mix in with the muffled bass and let
the stench of booze and weed infiltrate the clean room. Takes everything to stop himself from
throwing Alex through the glass.

Shit, something inside him is trembling. The variety of ugly emotions — anger, hatred, disgust.
Just one mention of the fighter and he’s already this fired up. Golden has this stupid hold on him
and Taehyung hates it, hates how the mere mention of his name makes Taehyung’s blood boil. But
there’s nothing he can do about it now, except try to ignore it, or try to make it go away. Make
Golden go away. Just go away.
Taehyung stands up, movements eerily fast, and comes to a stop before Alex. Quietly, he says, “I
told you to stop talking.”

Alex finally, finally , closes that mouth of his.

“You’ve put me in a bad mood.”

Without a word, Taehyung takes Alex’s face into his hands, and twists it. The crack of his neck
isn’t as satisfying as the shattering of glass would be, but Taehyung still gains a small sense of
relief from it.

For the rest of the night, Taehyung stays in the VIP room. The muffled booming sounds and the
corpse in the corner of the room would be better company than the silence of his home for now.
Still, even with the million and one distractions, Golden lingers in the back of his mind for the rest
of the night.

Taehyung throws his head back, looks up to the ceiling, and sighs tiredly.

——

Winter creeps in like a mist. Slow trickles of cold first; trees losing leaves, the breeze leaving a
chill in its wake, red-tinged noses and cheeks. Then, it thickens until people wear layers under
layers under layers of clothes and the snow traps everyone inside. The chill travels from a lazy
twirl on your skin to dig its claws deeper, under, invade your body and the very hollow of your
bones.

An endless, ruthless cold scraping along your ribs with every shuddering breath. Numb fingers, the
landscape is a dream that glows and blurs because the mist is everywhere now.

It is always winter for Taehyung.

Even when the rest of the world feels summer — the hazy, sweltering heat, the sticky, sickly-sweet
taste of strawberry ice-cream, sweat-lined bodies and the greasy smell of sunscreen — everything
inside Taehyung feels unbearably cold. Summer, understandably, is not his favourite season. Even
if he were to step out into the sun, the warmth does not penetrate past the icy layer under his skin.
Winter is here to stay.
But he feels the slightest bit less alone when everyone else feels the bite of the cold. When the
layers of clothes, though thick and expensive and made with fine fleece, is not enough to bring the
sneezing and headaches, the shivers and constant craving for warm beverages.

It’s not as if Taehyung will express his loneliness. He would rather survive this endless winter and
suffer with the gnawing emptiness in his home than complain about his isolation, but he likes to
think that, inside him somewhere, there’s a hidden section of summer. A small part, unknown to
even himself, that hasn’t surrendered to the cold, dark mist.

For now, though, winter reigns.

Taehyung doesn’t like loneliness, but he likes to be alone. Deep in the forest just outside of the
city, he lives in a designer home made of the finest materials. It’s filled with subtle displays of
wealth; fur-lined rugs, rare paintings, items from the past and technology of the future. Inside the
woods where the smog of pollution does not dare to roam, the winter is harsher.

The clothes he wears — a skin-tight protective thermal shirt with a padded vest over the top, cargo
pants, fingerless gloves, a mask, combat boots — is not enough to stop the chill.

Taehyung is used to it.

Used to pulling on the gloves, used to running the plan over in his head, used to staring for one
more moment outside his window and into the forest, the darkness of midnight dimming his vision,
before a hand clamps down on his shoulder.

He’s used to Seokjin’s whisper of, “let’s go” before he has to tear his gaze away. Nothing is
different now.

Taehyung takes off after the killer. Seokjin is nothing but a dedicated professional through and
through. There’s no one Taehyung would rather trust than the vampire in front of him, weaving
through Taehyung’s home with practised ease. Even now, with his heightened abilities, Taehyung
is unable to hear any sounds from Seokjin. It’s eerie. It’s what makes him money.

Outside is an inconspicuous black car. Sleek, shiny — reeks of wealth, but blends in easily enough
within the city. Seokjin has always been the prideful type, but Taehyung doesn’t shame him. No,
that would be too hypocritical. In a world like theirs, vampires would rather lose everything else
before their pride. Rip out the fangs, tear off the fingernails; none of it would hurt more than
crushing humiliation.

The more power you have, the harder it is to touch your pride. The more pride you have, the harder
you fall. Taehyung makes every careful decision to protect what’s his; he scatters pride on
everything he owns, everything he touches. One wrong move is a challenge to his pride. One
wrong move is a death wish.

And a lot of people seem to want that from him these days, if Seokjin’s recent report is anything to
go by.

Apparently, the killer had heard of a rumour crawling around the back alleys of the city. A new
vampire was on the rise; someone to match the Big Three’s power. Something is stirring in the
Underground.

The Big Three — the most powerful vampires in their territory, bound together by treaties and
alliances. Taehyung is not one of them, but he does not want to be. Too much responsibility, really.
But they know of him, just as he knows of them. They know of his connections in the
Underground. They may rule the covens on the surface, but they know who holds real sway in the
this lawless place they abhor.

And they know that there’s no one better they can order around to do a reconnaissance mission in
the Underground than Kim Taehyung himself.

Driving out from the safety of his estate and into the city is always a dreadful affair. Taehyung
laments the loss of nature, of solitude, as Seokjin guns it down the dirt paths and swerves into the
packed city lanes. There are old songs playing from a crackly radio station, and the small broken
high-pitched noises irritate Taehyung’s ears, but he knows Seokjin will not change the channel.

The Underground is not really under the ground. No, the Underground barely exists, until it does. It
only exists on certain days, spread by word of mouth. When the day passes, everyone leaves, and
what is left behind is nothing but rundown streets and abandoned, trash-lined buildings. Still, some
people stay. They linger in the crevices and shadows of where the fun and revelry used to be, either
grasping for those lingering moments of ecstasy, or because they have nowhere else to go.

Seokjin drives straight into the heart of the Underground. It is night, and their dark clothes make no
rustle, but there’s really no hiding down here. There are eyes everywhere, ears in the walls, and the
stars make the shadows that people hide in.
Once Seokjin parks at the curb in the middle of a seemingly empty road, Taehyung pulls on a
balaclava. Seokjin does the same. The press of a knife is an empty comfort to Taehyung; he much
prefers to kill with his bare hands, but Seokjin would not let him proceed otherwise.

They slip out of the car and down the street. Seokjin makes sure the car is locked, but the truth is,
if someone from the Underground wants that car, a simple lock on the door isn’t going to stop
them. They walk down the street, turn to the right, slip through an alleyway and jump a wall.
Down another road, wordless, fingers curling in the biting air of the night, then slipping through a
hole in the fence, before walking up to a warehouse.

Tonight, the air smells like the icy fingers of winter and cigarette smoke. In the faintest corners of
Taehyung’s senses, the smell of weed drifts by. The obvious smell of sex, then a hint of blood.
There — that gunpowder smell still lingers. The Underground is complex with its senses, and it
tastes like damnation and heady adrenaline at the same time. Rests heavy on the tongue and
Taehyung wants to swallow it all down until it burns him from the inside out.

There’s no use trying to slip from shadow to shadow in the Underground. That would raise more
suspicion than two men, fully covered-up with balaclavas over their heads walking through the
streets strapped with weapons. People always die in the Underground. No one cares who died, or
who did it, until it’s happening to them.

Eyes are always watching, but the eyes so easily forget because they’re selfish, and they don't give
a single fuck about other people.

The warehouse is dark and looming, and every bit the perfect set for a B-grade blood-filled horror
movie. But, then again, any part of the Underground is.

Seokjin speaks into an ear-piece. "Open up."

Two simple words, then the roller doors of the warehouse are creaking open and the sound echoes
into the empty-not-so-empty streets. Behind the doors is a room, no bigger than a garage, but
unlike most garages, there's a bruised and battered shell of a human tied to a wooden splintering
chair and a rucksack shoved over their head.

Unlike most garages, this room is inhabited by two vampire sentries with knives strapped to their
bodies and dried blood staining the corner of their lips.
With a nod from Seokjin, the sentries leave. Taehyung follows him into the room, the roller doors
fall shut behind them, and a B-grade horror movie turns into real life when Seokjin pulls out a
knife.

"Now," Seokjin starts, "we gave you a chance, an easy way out. You didn't take it."

The human lets out a weak whimper under the rucksack.

"Every second you stay quiet, you lose an easy way out. It's only going to get harder from here,"
Taehyung informs the human. He steps closer, almost gags at the pungent smell of blood riddled
with drugs and other shit, but forces it down. "Even if we end up cutting your tongue, we will make
you talk. So, why don't you choose the least painful option?"

The human's head lolls to the side. Taehyung rips off the rucksack.

The human, a man with a buzzcut and a fresh scar down his right eye, peers up at him with pain-
glazed eyes and a busted nose. His lips are glossy with spit and swollen from the punches of
vampires high on violence and drugs, body riddled with fresh scars and rope burn.

Still, he says nothing.

Taehyung hears Seokjin go deeper into the room. Then, something is being dragged onto the floor.
Heavy, sturdy, metal clinking inside. He sighs.

"You really won't talk?"

The human gives him a low croak of nothing and everything. Nothing, because it's fucking useless
and a waste of oxygen. Everything, because it tells Taehyung everything he needs to know about
how this night will go — the human is so fucked up on drugs and pain that he won't be able to talk
coherently for a long, long while.

Fortunately, for immortal beings like them, a long, long while is something they're used to.
Taehyung and Seokjin can be very patient for a long, long while.
The sound of a drill whirring echoes in the empty space. Seokjin's found his choice for the night.

Taehyung presses his lips into a thin line. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

He steps away, and the lightbulb above them flickers. The human kicks weakly at the dust covered
ground, and the whirring of the drill gets closer.

Taehyung is hypocritical, but he never claimed to be otherwise, never claimed to be good. He may
think Golden a villain, but he can't deny that he's a villain himself. Equally as fucked up, equally as
prone to evil as moths burning in a flame.

As the man screams through the night, Taehyung wonders how much money he'll get from this
particular endeavour. Seokjin will certainly gain more, but Taehyung should get a hefty amount as
well. The Big Three know better than to rip him off.

And, really, this whole thing is useless. One look at the guy and Taehyung knows what's
happening, knows what the deal is about.

One look at the tattoo on the man's collarbone is enough for Taehyung to know that this particular
problem isn't for the Big Three to lose sleep over, it’s for him. But they still should — the Big
Three should still lose sleep over this. Just because the problem isn't directed towards them doesn't
mean they should let their guards down.

No, this whole thing points back to Taehyung, but no one knows about that. One look at the man
and Taehyung knows that he's in the middle of a hurricane of incoming fuckery and shitstorms, and
the Big Three are most certainly threatened even if they're not the intended audience.

One look at the man, and Taehyung wonders if this show coming up can rival the shows that
Golden gives him. Maybe not. Probably not.

The man screams again, Seokjin hisses something at him. Under the swaying glow of the lightbulb
above them and the sweaty skin of the pale, shaking man, the snake tattoo twists and converges
with pain. When the man hunches over, it doesn't look so circular anymore, but Taehyung still sees
the way the snake eats its own tail.
"Who's your Master?" Taehyung asks. Forces down a laugh because he already knows.

The man lets out a guttural noise of pain in response.

Seokjin starts the drill, picks up a hammer too.

Taehyung stands in the corner, bites the inside of his cheek, and spends the next few hours holding
back a smile.

——

"You're late."

Golden stands in front of his front door, a Balenciaga hoodie draping down to his thighs and
sweatpants riddled with stains. His shoes are caked with dried mud, hair a mess of knots and
tangles, eyes tired.

He looks like he didn't give a single shit about his appearance before coming here, before coming
to sign his life away. He looks—

"Impressive," Taehyung says.

"What?" Golden raises an eyebrow. "The fact that I broke through your front gates? Or the fact that
I waited politely for you before breaking in through your front door too?"

"The fact that you even remembered to come here.” In the background, Taehyung hears Seokjin
back out of the driveway and leave. The revving of his engine echoes through the forest as
Taehyung walks up to his front door and swings it open. It's unlocked. He'd left it locked. "Be
honest, was my front door easy to lockpick?"

"Nah. It was just like you." Golden trails in after Taehyung, muddy shoes and all. "Extremely
fucking difficult and a waste of time."
"If I'm a waste of time," Taehyung says, noticing a set of muddy footprints already by his couch.
On his couch. "Why are you here? Oh, and don't make yourself at home. Seems like you've done it
already."

Golden laughs and stomps past Taehyung to the couch. He steps over his previous set of muddy
footprints, falls over the velvet cough and kicks his feet up. "I'm here because I want to sign a
contract. That's all."

"That's all?"

"What else would I be here for?"

Taehyung doesn't say anything. He walks past the living room and into the hallway, heading for
the office. No need to tell Golden to stay put or wait for him. He'll just do whatever he wants,
because he gets whatever he wants, and if he wants to follow Taehyung, he will.

"Your house is boring as shit."

"I could not give a single fuck about how you perceive my house, Golden."

Golden hums. "Where are we going?"

"I'm going to my office."

"And me?"

"I don’t care about where you go."

"Can I go to your sex dungeon?"

Taehyung sends him a look over his shoulder. "That's not in this house."
He relishes in the sudden, momentary burst of shock on Golden's face. Just as he walks into the
office, Golden lets out a hoot behind him.

"So, you can make jokes!"

Taehyung offers no response. Just heads to the bookshelf in the corner, picks up a bottle of wine,
and pops it open. His office isn't anything special, just a space free from distraction, filled with old
knowledge. Panelled wooden walls, a fireplace in the corner, a window looking out into the forest.

The kind of place to sit in and relax after a long day of torturing people, the place to reminisce
about simpler times and get wine-tipsy with a book in your hands, creating more bends in the spine
as the chest warms up with the fireplace and bubbles of intoxication.

But there's none of that now. No.

Golden has slipped past him and taken the chair behind his desk, hands clasped over the desktop,
eyebrows furrowed as he looks over at Taehyung.

"Welcome," he says. "I've been waiting to meet you for a while, Mr. Kim."

"You sound really stupid," Taehyung says, "you look really stupid. Get the hell out of my chair."

"Is that the way to talk to a future business partner?"

"Golden, get out of my chair before I make you."

Golden grins, the little shit that he is. "What will you do to make me? Pick me up and carry me? I'd
like to see you try."

Taehyung takes a swing of wine straight from the bottle. He saunters over to the desk just as
Golden swivels the chair to face him. Places a hand on the desk, the other still curled around the
wine, steps between Golden's legs and leans in.
"Do you always have to be so difficult everytime we meet?"

"Yes." Golden cocks his head, plays with his lip ring, before muttering, "it's what makes our
meetings so fun, don't you agree?"

"Don't act like you give a shit about my opinion."

"You're right, I don't."

"You're still in my chair."

Golden leans in and tips his head up. From this angle, Taehyung is looking down at him, but the
look on Golden's eyes make way for no submission despite the compromising position. In fact, he
looks content at the current lack of proximity between them.

"And you still haven't done anything to make me get off," Golden says.

Taehyung swipes his hand across the desk to gather a bunch of familiar papers stapled together. He
brings it across, dangles the stack in front of Golden's face. Knows that Golden reads the words,
"Terms of Contract" written in bold on the title.

Taehyung feels a small rush of power when he leans in, enough to feel Golden's breaths on his lips,
enough for that rush to turn into an explosion of adrenaline. He leans in and sees the reflection in
Golden's gaze, the darkness in them coalescing to form the most fucked up thoughts in the prettiest
eyes.

"Get out of my chair," Taehyung whispers, "or I'll burn this fucking contract right here and now."

Golden stiffens. "You'd actually do that."

"I would."

"You're enjoying your power trip a little too much, aren't you?" Golden laughs sardonically. When
Taehyung makes no response, he says, "how can I get out when you're blocking the way?"

Taehyung sends him a look. Annoying. Golden is annoying, and messed up, and evil. He's a
villain, a fighter, and he's everything the Underground wants to be, everything the Underground
wants to swallow up.

But the Underground could never win against someone who challenges a powerful vampire, looks
Taehyung in the eye with a stupid fucking smirk on his pretty pierced lips, and whispers, "move,
darling."

Taehyung's eye twitches.

In a millisecond, he's moving away from Golden and towards the fireplace, the contract in hand. In
a millisecond, the Underground's prize treasure is leaping out of the office chair and rushing to
Taehyung, telling him to "fucking stop!"

Jaw clenched, Taehyung throws the contract in the fire. Golden stops behind him, shoulders
barging, as he stares, jaw-dropped, at the flames engulfing the paper. The corners of the contract
curl in on itself, fire flickering in fiery bursts and calm waves over the black ink.

"What did you just do?" Golden whispers.

"I taught you a lesson," Taehyung says. He turns away from the fire, looks at Golden.

For a moment, panic becomes beautiful. Panic becomes Golden staring wide-eyed at the flame,
black iris tinged with depthless reds and oranges and yellows, piercings glinting in the firelight.
Panic becomes fists clenched at Golden's side, the hitch of a breath, body tensing and Taehyung
knows of the taut muscle under layers of baggy clothing. Panic becomes beautiful. Golden is panic.
Speechless, breathless, loveless.

"Feel free to rate my lesson," Taehyung adds, "just know that I won't give a fuck about your
feedback, just like I don't give a shit about your opinion, and you don't give a shit about mine. The
real contract is over here."

Golden jolts. "What?"

Taehyung doesn't indulge him. Just moves to his desk and reclaims his rightful seat on the plush,
leather office chair. It's still warm from Golden's body.

He leans over the desk and tugs on a drawer. Pulls out a stack of papers, straightens them, and
spreads them out on the desktop. Golden comes over, panic melting away, and confusion and
exasperation becomes the new beautiful.

"You tricked me," Golden says, eyes glazing over the real contract.

"Because you stole my chair," Taehyung quips. "Don't do that ever again."

"Don't tell me what to do."

"Careful, Golden. I don't have any more fakes to throw into the fire." Taehyung taps the contract.
"Keep this up and I might have to throw the real one in."

Golden says nothing. Just clenches his jaw and stands on the other side of the desk, hands pressing
on the surface, body leaning forward — tight with stress and tension.

“Good boy,” Taehyung croons.

Golden’s gaze becomes lethal. Taehyung lets his smirk bloom in full.

“Now, let’s do the honours and get this over with.” Taehyung nods to the chair beside Golden.
“You might want to sit down. This will take a while.”

Predictably, Golden does not take the seat. Instead, he narrows his eyes at Taehyung, still silent
and petulant. Leans forward for a moment, lips pressed into a thin line — leans close enough that
Taehyung feels the warmth emanating from his body, before he pushes back, takes a deep breath,
and all the tension melts from his body.

He rolls his head from side to side, stretches his arms, and Taehyung watches, wholly unimpressed,
as Golden saunters over to the couch in the far side of the room and falls down on it. As if his
anger was never there, Golden kicks his feet up, faces the fire, and closes his eyes.

“What are you doing?” Taehyung asks.

“Taking a seat. You’re gonna do most of the talking, right?” Golden’s voice tilts up at the end,
posing for a question they both know the answer to. “Talk away. If there’s one thing I like about
your shitty existence, it’s your voice.”

There’s not many people immune to Taehyung’s glares. Jimin likens them to stab wounds slowly
twisting through the parts of the body where Taehyung’s gaze lands; intense, scathing. Burning, but
the white-hot icy kind of burn that lingers in the skin hours after and leaves phantom marks.

Golden seems to like the pain, though, that messed up fucker. In fact, his lips twitch into a smile
the longer Taehyung glares at him.

Taehyung has to remind himself to breathe, even though he doesn’t need to, just so he does not rip
the contract apart with his hands. Bites back all those stupid petty remarks he wants to spit because
he’ll be damned if he descends to Golden’s level of immaturity. Just raises the contract to his eyes,
tries to ignore the overwhelming presence of the human laid out on his couch like an offering, and
starts.

“There are thirteen clauses to the contract—”

“Thirteen? What the hell—”

“And I’ll talk through each of them accordingly. If you wish to add or change anything, speak up,
and I’ll decide whether I hear you and change it or I become selectively deaf and gain the
miraculous ability to ignore your voice.”

“Rude.”

“Clause 1: Duration of the agreement. This talks about the length of our contract and how long
each clause holds for…”
The past week has been nothing but an accumulation of bullshit. Some weeks are just like that. The
Underground is dynamic; one day can never be the same as another. It’s an unspoken rule.
Routines don’t exist in a fucked up place like this, unless the routine is to lay in a rotten coffin six
feet underground for the rest of forever.

Predictions and expectations are useless. Hopes and dreams only exist in the context of making it
through another day; most hope to have enough food for breakfast that isn’t riddled with cockroach
faeces. Another’s dream is to walk from Point A to Point B without getting a knife stuck in their
gut.

Taehyung’s dealt with a lot this week, but at least he hasn’t been stabbed. Can’t say the same for
the poor guy caught walking with a brand new (stolen) watch down the backstreet near the
intersection in the Underground. It happened on Thursday. Thursdays are never good days to walk
there. Thursdays mean the gangs like to come out and play, and they’re nothing but stress for
Taehyung, but it’s not Thursday anymore and Thursday is coming.

Taehyung is so, so tired.

“Clause 7.2 states that this is an exclusive contract. If you accept any more sponsorships from
others, these terms apply: 7.2a, our contract is immediately voided. 7.2b, you will receive no
further sponsorships from me. 7.2c, I will not ask you to fight for me anymore. 7.2d, no further
contacts are allowed between us,” Taehyung reads.

Golden hums. “Bit harsh, don’t you think?”

“We’re putting our reputations and, therefore, our power on the line, Golden,” Taehyung says. “We
need the highest level of loyalty from each other. It’s that, or nothing at all.”

“Hm, fair point. You may continue.”

“Clause 7.3 states that you need to shove your words up your ass and I don’t need your permission
to do anything.”

“You should cross that clause out. I don’t like it.”

“Clause 7.4 states that you’re an annoying little pest and—”

“These clauses are starting to sound more and more like insults.”

“Clause 7.5 states that I’m surprised you could make such an observation. Your skills of
perception are truly unmatched.”

“Okay, dickwad. I get it.”

Even now, with the most boring piece of document in front of them, Golden somehow irritates him.
Retorting back to everything Taehyung says, acting like he owns the place. He’s an arrogant little
fuck and his words — his every breath — makes infuriation crawl in the depths of Taehyung’s
skin. Speaking of skin, Taehyung wants to skin Golden alive.

He doesn’t know why he’s putting himself through this, not really. Call it curiosity, call it
boredom. Golden was weirdly adamant on making Taehyung his sponsor. Something in the way he
chased after Taehyung for weeks despite being able to get anyone and everyone else in the
Underground. Maybe, maybe, maybe that flattered Taehyung. Just a little. Just maybe.

Golden knows how to play this game, how to get what he wants, and it seems as if he got
Taehyung right where he wanted: with a contract in his hand despite the burning bridges between
them.

Manipulative son of a bitch. If Taehyung didn’t hate him so much, he would applaud him. But he
does. He hates Golden, so, instead, Taehyung wonders for the millionth time that night if he should
really go through with this.

Taehyung straightens the papers in his hand and continues. “Clause 7.3 states that the rules of this
contract apply to us and us only…”

Taehyung’s not an impulsive person. Far from it. He’s someone who likes to plan things ahead of
time, and plan for time ahead of time. Likes to wrap things up nice and neat with a bow on top.
Likes to leave the crime scene sparkly clean and splattered with blood and viscera arranged in his
own artistic style.

Something about Golden draws Taehyung in, he can’t deny that. Fingers flicking through page
after page, every word carefully extracted, dipped in acid, and stuck onto the pages of this shitty
contract. He feels compelled to keep going; he’s started it, can’t back out now. This spontaneous
act is so out-of-character for him and Taehyung almost feels blindsided by his own actions, but he
doesn’t want to pull out now. Doesn’t wanna seem like a goddamn coward.

He likes to finish what he started.

Finally, Taehyung reaches the end of the contract. The page between his fingers is thin. He can rip
it so, so easily. He can end this arrangement before it even starts. Before he can, though, his words
are in the air. “That’s it. Now, all we need are signatures.”

“That’s all?” Golden mumbles. “Fuck, I actually have to get up now?”

“Yes.”

Something that always catches Taehyung off-guard is Golden’s ability to move through the world
with a lethal sort of gracefulness. Even with a body tightened with muscle and chiselled edges, the
way he lumbers off the couch is soundless, feet gliding over the carpet as he makes his way over to
the desk. When he’s fighting, a different sort of gracefulness overtakes him — sharp and
controlled, every punch measured, every kick aiming for a blood-filled knockout.

Taehyung picks up a pen. He takes the first leap, signs his name in ink on the dotted line at the
bottom. Then, he flips the paper to face Golden and sends it his way. Golden does the same.

It all comes down to this: maybe Taehyung is doing this because he’s bored. Maybe he’s curious.
Maybe it’s the thing drawing him to Golden — this weird attraction, perverted because it follows
him everywhere he goes. Maybe it’s something else, something bigger in the world other than
them. Maybe it’s pure stubbornness — an object in motion must stay in motion and all that shit, so
Taehyung has to keep going.

He’s never had a fighter before.

Their signatures are stark black against the paper.

Taehyung takes the contract back and flips the page. The final step — their fingerprints on the
page. He dips his thumb into an ink stamp and presses it into the page. When he lifts his hand, the
edges of his fingerprint stare back at him.
This time, Golden doesn’t wait for Taehyung to pass the contract. He takes it himself, hand
brushing Taehyung’s. Taehyung watches as he brings his thumb up to his mouth. Watches as
Golden flicks his gaze up to Taehyung, before bringing his skin between his lips and biting down.
At first, the drop of blood that emerges is small.

Golden doesn’t look at it. Keeps his gaze on Taehyung as the drop grows bigger, until the sanguine
threatens to fall from his thumb. Then, he presses his bloody thumb to the page and leaves a red
mark, his fingerprint immortalised in blood. The scent of his blood fills the air entirely and
Taehyung’s mouth waters.

“Why do I feel like I just sold my soul to the Devil?” Golden asks.

“You did,” Taehyung says. He tilts his head to the side. “But if I’m the Devil, then you’re Satan.”

“Aren’t they the same?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“If you want them to be the same, then they are. If you don’t want them to be, then they’re not. No
one can make you think otherwise, you stubborn little shit,” Taehyung mutters.

Golden grins, edges sharp. “Just like I prefer to call you Taehyung rather than the Devil, I’d prefer
to be called Jeongguk rather than Satan.”

Taehyung leans his elbow on the table and props his chin on a fist. A very tight-clenched fist. The
name tickles his brain like a piece of dust blown through the air. Dust from a blank, confusingly
familiar memory. A memory he can’t see, but he can feel how it resides in his mind like an
invisible sculpture of the past. “Jeongguk?”

“My real name,” Jeongguk says. He dips his head low, body pressing against the desk as he moves
closer. Silhouetted against the fireplace in the background, he looks as if he’s surrounded by a
halo. Ironic, considering the look in his eyes is entirely unhinged, gaze intensifying. “You’re the
only one that knows that in the Underground.”

In his words is a threat. Taehyung is the only one to know, and it better stay that way. He knows
Taehyung’s past, Taehyung now knows his Taehyung doesn’t know how much Jeongguk knows of
his past, but from what he’s seen — what he saw in that dressing room, the almost sickening
nostalgia of his name — Jeongguk certainly knows more than he lets on.

Somehow, this sharing of secrets is more binding than the signatures and fingerprints. It feels more
like a collar wrapped around both of their necks than the whole contract.

“Am I right in assuming that this is the end of our meeting?” Jeongguk asks.

“It is.”

“Well then, no use wasting time.” Jeongguk pushes his chair back and stands. He arches an
eyebrow when Taehyung stays seated, but holds out his hand all the same, his grin never giving
way. “Pleasure doing business with you, Taehyung.”

Taehyung stares at his hand. The same hand that wrote a signature, the same hand that pressed a
fingerprint into the contract. The contract now locking both of them to each other.

The phantom shackles feel heavy on Taehyung’s wrist — tight and cold, metallic — as he raises
his hand to Jeongguk’s. Jeongguk’s grip is firm, almost too firm (definitely too firm), when they
shake hands. Taehyung reciprocates by digging his fingers into Jeongguk’s skin hard enough to
leave bruises. His bruises.

Jeongguk is now his, just as he is Jeongguk’s.

“The pleasure’s all mine,” Taehyung murmurs, dropping Jeongguk’s hand.

Jeongguk leaves without much fanfare. Taehyung does not wish him well, or tell him to take care
while making his way home in the dead of night. Instead, he drops his gaze to his hand. There, on
his skin, a blur of red is streaked along the back of his hand. Jeongguk’s blood, still fresh from
where he bit the skin of his thumb.
“This habit of leaving his blood on my hands is really becoming a problem,” Taehyung murmurs.

If he has to finish the rest of the bottle of wine to distract himself from the distracting smell of
Jeongguk’s blood, then he does so in silence. But nothing can really shake off the feeling of
Jeongguk’s hand in his, his blood pressing into Taehyung’s skin. Burning, but the white-hot icy
kind of burn that lingers after and leaves phantom marks, like Jimin said Taehyung’s glares felt
like. He wonders if this is what his glare feels like to other people.

Just like Jeongguk seemingly ignored Taehyung’s glare, Taehyung ignores the lingering warmth of
Jeongguk’s hand on his own.

That night, he finishes two bottles of wine. The contract stays on his desk, flipped to the page
where their fingerprints lie; one dark black, the other a startlingly bright red.

——

It’s a quiet morning, and Taehyung is winding down. Running a drug empire and a nightclub while
keeping track of the parasites that feed off him can be so draining. Who would’ve thought?

The paintbrush is familiar in his hands. The knobs, the crack along the side, the bristles — some
hard, some soft, some tapering off to a point, some stained with paint. If there’s one thing that
Taehyung takes care of, it’s his paint brushes and canvases. Maybe the paint, too. Everything else
can fuck off and die.

Today, it’s gouache. Today, it’s a lake — a cloudy lake. He paints this lake often. Too often?
Maybe. Not something Taehyung likes to ponder on. A record player crackles in the background
and this is exactly what he needed. Maybe he’s being stereotypical — vampire loves arts and older
music — but this is a stereotype he loves to perpetuate. Keep it coming, Taehyung would rather
this than anything else right now.

But because the Universe hates him, and Taehyung hates the Universe, he gets a phone call.

There’s this setting on his phone that Seokjin set up, and it’s mildly infuriating. Just a touch. If he
doesn’t answer a call and the person leaves a voicemail, the voicemail plays automatically. How
rude, how disgusting.
Taehyung doesn’t want to hear anyone else’s voice most of the time, and Seokjin knows that
Knows that Taehyung can go days and weeks without contact with anyone else, but shit’s always
happening, and Seokjin needs to get a hold of Taehyung when it does.

As expected, Taehyung doesn’t answer the call.

As expected, Seokjin’s voicemail plays automatically anyway.

“The Big Three are expecting us soon. Tomorrow night. I’ll come by, we’ll go together. Don’t be
late. ”

And that’s it. Goddammit. Three sentences, but it’s enough to ruin Taehyung’s mood. Enough to
distract him from painting, and the agitation digs deep. The strokes of his paintbrush turn sharp,
almost demanding. Energy flowing out in waves and he’s taking it out on a fucking painting.

The lake is dark — gouache is always dark when it’s first applied, but Taehyung likes how it looks
now. Borderline gloomy. It’ll brighten once the paint dries but Taehyung doesn’t want it to.

With a sigh, he packs up his things.

When he’s in this mindset, when something even touches his good mood, it disappears. Flashes by
like a bullet in the air and Taehyung is left reeling, wondering what to do with the empty, crawling,
restless feeling inside him. An emotion is always there to fill it up though — this time, it’s
restlessness. Turbulence. He needs to move, needs to do something other than paint.

Soon enough, Taehyung finds his way back to the Underground. Always back here. He doesn’t
travel through the city close to him much — not in the vampire territories or the human
communities. The filth there doesn’t scratch the itch festering in the depths of his soul. He needs
something dirtier, something to get hooked on.

If people are addicted to money, drugs, power, then Taehyung is addicted to the Underground.

And he’s there, walking through the streets, and it’s inevitable at this point: he finds a fight. Here,
people harness the exact energy that he’s craving. Crass words, unfiltered mouths, there’s a stench
of corruption and a thirst for violence in the air and it comes out in a grey smog. The fight is in
some abandoned parking lot this time, a makeshift ring set up with some poles and a rope. No
crash mat underneath because the ground is another weapon.

The fighters are both human today. One bigger, less muscles, but his hands are bruised and bloody
with the scars of old fights. The other human is smaller, but the bulge of his muscles is intense.
Cropped hair, missing teeth, eyebrows shaved off. He doesn’t have any battle scars, and Taehyung
is quite intrigued to see who’ll win.

They start to fight, and things get bloody. The veteran throws the newbie to the floor, but the
newbie kicks the legs of the veteran out from under him. The crowd hollers when the veteran falls,
the newbie crawls over, and starts throwing punch after punch. But the veteran isn’t a veteran for
nothing. Fingers scrabbling on the ground, he tears a chunk of asphalt off and swings it up to the
head of the newbie. More blood spills. Head wounds are always so messy.

They scrabble and use every dirty trick in the book. For some reason, as he’s watching, Taehyung
can’t help but compare them to a certain fighter always lingering in his mind.

Jeongguk would never be so crass as to tear asphalt from the ground and use it like a rock. That’s a
move for cavemen, for the primitive. No, Jeongguk would much rather grab his opponent’s head
and smash that into the asphalt — grind it in, laugh while doing so, maybe sing a song or chant
some fucked up prayer under his breath.

The newbie gasps and stumbles back, almost out of the ring. But then he surges forward and
tackles the veteran to the ground. Knocks the asphalt rock out of the veteran’s hand and he bites.
Bites the veteran’s arm hard enough to draw blood. The veteran lets out a guttural roar as teeth dig
into his skin, his muscle.

In the midst of the fighting and the shouting, Taehyung looks across the crowd.

Lo and behold — lo and fucking behold — on the other side of the ring, Taehyung locks eyes with
Jeongguk.

Jeongguk, watching the same fight as him. Jeongguk, already looking at him. Staring. A smile
starts to creep on the fighter’s face.

The veteran manages to grab the arm of the newbie and twists it. The ensuing crack is lost in the
crowd’s desperate screams, because they want more. More blood, more battering, more bruises.
The newbie is struggling on the ground now. Shame, he seemed to have so much potential.
A woman beside Taehyung squeals in delight when a trail of blood slips out of the ring and stops at
the edge of the crowd. In delight, she barges past everyone bends down to touch it, fingers shaking
as she dips it in the red.

Like a tsunami, more people do the same. Clamouring over each other to touch the warm, coppery
liquid. Piranhas, all of them. Taehyung simply shakes off the people who dare to try to shove him
to the side or touch him. Maybe he snaps a wrist or two whenever someone tries to shove him
aside, but people get the idea eventually. They stay off him as they race to the blood, race forward
to see the action.

On the other side of the ring, Jeongguk still watches him. The fight is going on, but Jeongguk's
eyes are on Taehyung. Taehyung fucking hates those eyes, hates how he loves that they’re on him
instead of the body being smashed into the asphalt inside the ring.

For the sponsorship, they both decided on their roles: Taehyung would organise Jeongguk’s fights
and get them the most money. He’ll use his connections to get exclusive fights, and he’ll promote
Jeongguk at his club. Give Jeongguk VIP access. If he wanted to, he could get in on Taehyung’s
drugs — none of the hard ones, Taehyung doesn’t want a constantly intoxicated fighter, but
anything that might pique his interest.

In return, Jeongguk fights for Taehyung. He’ll win every fight, turn down every other opportunity,
and he’ll be bound to Taehyung. Every fight Taehyung schedules for him, he’ll turn up, he’ll win,
and he’ll do it again and again until he can’t. That’s the compromise. Taehyung pulls the strings,
Jeongguk throws the punches, money rains, and they both get 50/50.

When the fight ends, the crowd surges forward to press against the parameters of the ring.
Taehyung goes, too. But it’s not the mangled corpse in the centre of the ring that catches his
attention, nor the veteran with more battle scars now holding up a medal. No, it’s Jeongguk.
Jeongguk, who’s moved forward with the crowd, too.

He’s on the other side, and they’re closer than before.

Jeongguk smirks, catching his eye. Then, his gaze drifts to the big fighter — Murdkey, Taehyung
thinks the veteran’s name is — and back. Teasing, meaningful. Taehyung understands the look,
even with all the screaming and bloodlust shattering his ears.

Jeongguk wants to fight this guy. Taehyung scoffs. Of course he would.

 Jeongguk grins, baring his teeth at Taehyung’s annoyed reaction. His hands come up to clutch at
the rope, and Taehyung sees the tremble in his fingers. Jeongguk really wants to get into the ring
with this guy.

Shit — his eyes are insane, body leaning forward, like he’d get in now if Taehyung allowed him
to.

Instead, Taehyung shakes his head. He turns, and he swears that, amongst all the voices violating
the air, he hears Jeongguk’s. Hears a very clear, very unhinged shout of “fuck you! ”, and it’s
Jeongguk. It’s obviously Jeongguk. Even now, Taehyung can pick his voice apart from everyone
else’s.

Taehyung leaves.

Chapter End Notes

hi! i understand that it was a little slow to pick up, but i had to lay the foundations of
the story down. nevertheless, i hope you enjoyed and that you'll come along to the
next chapter <3

please feel free to drop your thoughts below or come talk to me on twitter or on
retrospring if you would like to !

and if you liked this, please consider checking out my ko-fi <3
 Chapter 2
Chapter Summary

In the background, the silence huddles closer to the walls, scared and dreadful. In the
background, a million and one things happen and they all revolve around Jeongguk.
And in the background…

Tick… tock…

Taehyung closes the front door behind him, breathes in the cold air, and welcomes the
silence.

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

The stars are hiding.

Behind the splintering of sun rays through thin, wispy clouds and the morning dew dripping from
the grass, the stars flit out of existence for another few hours. Sometimes, Taehyung stays up all
night just to bid them goodbye. The stars — they’re a sentimental sort of special to him.

When he was younger, the stars were his only constant companions. They were brave, those stars.
Even in the worst conditions, Taehyung could look out of a window and see them in the night sky,
chests puffed and shoulders back to let out the full extent of their light like gods in a distant
universe galaxies away.

He remembers how he would look for them every night while handcuffs chafed his wrists and the
gag in his mouth slowly tasted more and more like sweat. The small window in the dungeons
barely did anything to let in the moonlight, but Taehyung would always do his best to fight against
the chains pinning him to the wall, just so he could stick his nose through the bars and breathe in
the crisp night air.

And, there, amidst the pain in his ribs and the gnawing of his stomach, Taehyung would always see
the stars. Those gods, shining bright and true. Those gods, watching him suffer every night and
doing nothing. Coming back for more, and more, and more. Sadistic fucks.
Taehyung hates the stars. They like to watch him bleed. The way they twinkled, almost happily,
almost in joy, whenever he cried out in that fungus-riddled dungeon was nearly sickening. Their
light felt cold, empty, their pride feeding off the crumbling remains of his.

The stars remind him of Jeongguk, who glares at him now like he’d like nothing more than to
watch Taehyung bleed out on the floor.

“I hope you fucking bleed out on the floor,” Jeongguk says, fists clenching at his sides.

“Well, now.” Taehyung picks at a bit of dust under his fingernail. “That isn’t very nice.”

“I despise you.”

Taehyung scoffs. “You’re acting like you’re in the worst place in the world.”

“I am,” Jeongguk snarls. “Any place with you is the worst place in the world. This place is pure
hell, Taehyung.”

“You’re just being dramatic.”

Jeongguk stares at him for a moment, half in disbelief, half in incredulous irritation, before gritting
his teeth and turning away. Taehyung watches as he runs his hands through his hair, agitated.
Truthfully, he’s not being dramatic at all. This place is utter hell, and Taehyung chose it for
Jeongguk’s fight because of it.

Here’s the thing about Jeongguk: he’s adrenaline personified. Every fight that Taehyung’s seen
him participate in, he’s fighting someone bigger than him, or they could be faster. Someone with
more wits than him, someone with faster reflexes. Someone who could truly stand a chance against
him, because just like Jeongguk likes getting blood on his hands, he likes putting his bloodstained
middle fingers up to death. Quite stupid, really, if he wasn’t so unbelievably good at fighting.

Here’s the thing about Taehyung: he likes to see things break. Minds, blood vessels, hearts.
Boundaries. He wants to test Jeongguk’s boundaries, see how far he’s willing to go with this whole
contract. See how far he can taunt the fighter before Jeongguk makes him regret it.
This place — some shitty building in the shittiest part of the Underground — is not popular at all.
It’s very lowkey, known only to a select few. Not that the select few are important, no. It’s just that
this place is so pitifully unpopular that no one really knows of it at all. Jeongguk himself didn’t
know of it, until Taehyung dragged him here tonight.

“You’re sick in the head, you know that?” Jeongguk grunts, pulling on the bandages wrapped
around his hands.

“Everyone in the Underground is, Jeongguk. Why else would we be here?”

“Because I can at least handle the sickness in this place.”

“You’re part of the sickness of this place.”

Jeongguk finishes wrapping his hands up and flexes them, testing the tightness of the bandages.
“Damn fuckin’ right I am.”

Here’s another thing about Jeongguk: the crowd gives him energy. He was born to be in the
spotlight. Taehyung can’t think of any time that Jeongguk could ever have been in the shadows.
Everywhere he goes, Jeongguk attracts attention. He feeds off of it, finds a new type of high in the
vicious, guttural screams of a million voices begging him to kill, kill, kill.

But in this place, there’s no crowd. No. There’s only Taehyung, Jeongguk, their opponent, and a
scraggly bunch of people scrambling about for any sense of excitement.

The waiting room they’re in is no bigger than a closet, but at least there’s a plastic chair shoved in
the corner that Taehyung has claimed as his own. Jeongguk’s duffle bag filled with first-aid kits
and spare clothes is shoved in the other corner, with Jeongguk himself pacing before the door like a
caged tiger.

“At least tell me I’m fighting someone worth fighting,” Jeongguk says.

Taehyung cocks his head to the side. “I don’t know who you’re fighting.”
“You’re fucking with me.”

“No. This hellhole of a place is so disorganised that they pick anyone who wants to enter. I think
they picked your opponent just tonight, actually. A few hours before we came,” Taehyung says.
“At least, that’s what they told me.”

Jeongguk breathes out harshly through his mouth. “This place is a joke.”

Taehyung continues, voice light, “No idea what your opponent’s like, but for my sake, I hope
they’re nothing like what you want.”

Jeongguk stalks closer and cages Taehyung in, placing his hands on either side of the chair, fingers
wrapped around the plastic arm rests. He narrows his eyes. “For your sake, you better hope they’re
exactly how I like them, or you’re getting in that goddamned ring with me.”

“You think you can win against me?”

Jeongguk tilts his head to the side, eyes calculating. “Wanna find out?”

Taehyung stares at him, pleasantly surprised by the unexpected reaction. Jeongguk isn’t backing
out, but he’s exactly like Taehyung predicted — a firecracker, reckless, utterly impulsive.
Spontaneity makes a home in the very fibres of his brains and tugs on them according to the
emotions rushing through his veins. Like there’s always a spark inside him, waiting, hoping for any
chance to be lit and start a wildfire in the world around him.

Taehyung doesn’t need to breathe, but he finds a strange urge to want to as he feels Jeongguk’s
breath fan over his lips. What a strange human, challenging a powerful vampire to a fight. Still,
some part of Jeongguk must truly believe he can beat Taehyung if he challenged him so seriously.

And Taehyung has no doubt that if he ever found himself in a ring across from Jeongguk, the
fighter wouldn’t hold back.

The air in the small room seems to tighten, stretching thin and getting thicker at the same time.
Jeongguk doesn’t move. Taehyung can throw him off, but he makes no inclination to.
Jeongguk’s eyes are wide in an absurdly innocent sort of way when he’s this close, and — shit —
of course. Of fucking course there would be a small twinkle in them, the reflection of light so
distant and muted that it looks like a star.

A goddamn star, right in Jeongguk’s eyes.

Taehyung hates the sight of it, hates having Jeongguk so close, hates this strange battle of
dominance that they’re both struggling to pull.

Still, he doesn’t look away. Stares at that damned fucking star in Jeongguk’s eyes, stays seated
primly in the creaking plastic chair, and sets his jaw. Jeongguk doesn’t look away either. Such a
cocky little human with too much pride in his bloody, bloody hands.

Taehyung despises him. Absolutely despises every inch of this human standing so, so close to him.
It takes every inch of self-control within Taehyung to not throw Jeongguk through the door and rip
his throat out.

Taehyung licks his lips. “You—”

There’s a knock on the door.

Jeongguk whips his head around and directs his glare at the piece of wood.

A muffled voice filters through. “Sirs, the fight is ready to begin.”

Jeongguk curses and pushes away from the chair. He runs his hand through his hair one more time
before turning back to Taehyung, an eyebrow raised. “You coming?”

“Of course.” Taehyung takes his sweet, sweet time standing up from the chair. He smiles
humorlessly when Jeongguk looks on impatiently. “Didn’t you hear? We’re bound together now.
Wherever you go, I’ll always be there. And wherever I go, you better be there.”

Jeongguk rolls his eyes, reaches for the door, and almost rips it off its hinges swinging it open.
“Fuck you and your bullshit words.”
Without further pleasantries, Jeongguk steps out. Taehyung follows and shuts the door behind them
with a bang that echoes in the hallway. Jeongguk is already halfway down it before Taehyung even
starts walking. How depressing — it seems that Taehyung’s done something to piss him off.

As if hearing his sarcastic thoughts, Jeongguk flips him off over his shoulder without looking back.
Not waiting for him, Jeongguk comes to the archway at the end of the hall, the entrance to the
fighting ring, and steps through. Taehyung sighs at the petulant display. How immature. He raises
his middle finger to Jeongguk’s back.

The archway opens up into a small arena, one of the smallest Taehyung has ever seen. There’s only
five people — one of them being an antsy vampire pacing the other side of the ring inside the
arena. Everyone else looks half-dead and ready to rot where they sit. There’s an empty look in their
eyes; cold, depressed, lifeless. Not much use for existence, anymore, and this seems like a
desperate, last-grab attempt at feeling something in their frozen hearts.

Still, something sparks in their eyes when Jeongguk walks in, followed by Taehyung. Someone,
most likely the referee, scrambles to stand up. In his hand is a rusty whistle riddled with mould,
viruses, and other nasties that Taehyung would rather not think about as the referee lifts the
damned thing to his lips.

Taehyung forces his eyes away and looks to Jeongguk instead as the whistle blows. The noise
breaks in the middle and turns into hacking coughs. Jeongguk doesn’t break his stride. Instead, he
steps past the ropes, up into the ring, and something in him switches.

He brings his hands up to protect his face, muscles flexing, but his heels have grown wings. He’s
wearing a shirt this time. Taehyung can only see the tattoos on his arms, but he knows the ink
running underneath the black shirt Jeongguk dons. Knows how they might move and slither across
the scarred expanse of skin with every breath Jeongguk takes.

The vampire on the other side has turned a ghostly colour. It’s a marvel, really, that he manages to
make blood run out of his face when he has no blood running through his veins to begin with. Still,
Taehyung thinks that anything is possible when you’re scared enough. Anything seems real,
everything becomes all too real, and everything seems a million times more horrifying.

After all, no one would expect Golden himself to fight in a run-down building like this. The
vampire raises his arms though. They’re shaking, skin pilfered with bruises.
The referee blows the whistle again.

Taehyung watches, almost fascinated, as Jeongguk takes a deep breath in. He curls his fists tighter.
Then, he moves.

When Taehyung was younger, on the days he’d been good, sometimes, he would be let out into the
garden. There, he remembers a pond. The pond was nothing special. Nothing grew in it, not even
fungi. It was a horrible pond filled with mud and the floating bodies of dead bugs. But Taehyung
loved that pond, because there would always be origami flowers there. Someone would make the
flowers, and leave them there, and Taehyung would collect them and keep them safe in the darkest
corners of his room.

But the pond — the water was murky. Taehyung remembers trying to cup the water in his hands to
see if it would still be cloudy without the dirt and residue underneath. He could never see the
water, though. It always slipped through his fingertips, no matter how much he grappled at it with
his tiny fists.

That’s how Jeongguk is when he fights. He moves like water, trickling free from anyone’s hands
with a few select moves. Vampires are fast, inhumanly so, but Jeongguk is another sort of fast.
Something that no one else can replicate, inhuman abilities or no. His speed comes from a second-
quick calculation of predictions, chance, luck, and skill.

Mix those three together, add a shitload of hatred and anger into the fray, and you have something
lethal enough to deliver blow after blow after blow, until the vampire is shaking under Jeongguk,
thrashing to get the fighter off him.

Just as Jeongguk is about to deliver the final blow, though, the referee blows the whistle. Taehyung
looks over, surprised. No one has ever stopped a match so close to the end before.

Jeongguk pauses, fist raised in the air. His chest is heaving, a thin layer of sweat kissing his skin.
His jaw ticks, clearly pissed off at being interrupted. Under him, the vampire lets out a weak
whimper.

“Golden wins!” The referee states, voice high and wiry. “The prize—”

“What?” Taehyung cuts him off. “He hasn’t won yet.”

The referee turns to him, eyes wide. His voice shakes slightly as he says, “I declare that he’s won.
He doesn’t— doesn’t need to do anymore.”

“What do you mean? His opponent isn’t dead.”

“I declare that this isn’t a fight to the death. Just a fight to win—”

Taehyung’s thin thread of patience snaps. “Who the fuck fights with those rules in the
Underground?”

The referee begins to shake like a leaf, face paling. “I—”

“Forget it,” Jeongguk spits. He shoves the vampire into the ground and stands up, dusting himself
off. He glares at the ground, breathing harsh, and says, “This was bullshit from the start.”

Taehyung watches him slip out of the ring easily, body coated with a sheen layer of sweat, hair
matted to his forehead, and walk back down the hallway. Jeongguk’s angry, that much is clear.
He’s furious.

Taehyung can practically sense the icy waves of the brooding, cold-hearted Jeongguk that’s going
to meet him sooner or later, can almost feel Jeongguk’s glare on his neck even when Jeongguk’s
back is to him, disappearing down the hallway.

He turns back to the referee, barely keeping his own temperament in check. “Why’d you stop the
fight?”

“Like I said, he— he won already—”

“No, he didn’t. These are meant to be a fight to the death. As far as I can see,” Taehyung says,
sending a scathing look at the pummelled vampire whimpering inside the ring, “he’s not dead yet.
Just suffering.”

The referee gulps. “I— I—”

“Shall I put him out of his misery?”

“No! Just— just leave. I’ll pay you however much you need, I promise—”

“You’re an odd one.” Taehyung looks at the referee like he’s inspecting an odd creature. “You
don’t finish these fights to the deaths, and you make promises in the Underground. How absolutely
foolish.”

The referee pales even more, somehow, and gulps.

“We’ll leave. Keep your filthy money.” Taehyung’s lip curls up in disgust, and gestures to the
pitiful creature now curled up inside the ring, writhing in agony. “You’ll need it if you want to
salvage what’s left of him. ”

When Taehyung comes back to Jeongguk, the human is quite understandably pissed, to say the
least. Taehyung barely avoids getting punched in the face when he steps back into their waiting
room. Jeongguk’s fist brushes the tip of his nose and stops when he misses, an inch from the door.
His eyes are narrowed into a dangerous glare, chest heaving.

As much as Taehyung feels his own anger bubbling underneath the surface, he knows letting it
loose would most likely end in something more than harsh words and venomous glares.

He takes a deep breath, lets faux-nonchalance wrap around him like a fur coat. Pastes a mildly
disgruntled look on his face and sighs lightly, as if nothing more than slightly disappointed in the
turnout of tonight’s events.

“Taehyung.” Jeongguk’s voice is shaky, barely keeping his emotions in check. A bomb counting
down to the last seconds.

“Look, before you say anything, in my defence,” Taehyung says calmly, “I didn’t expect him to
just cut the fight off like that.”

“You brought me to this shithole—”

“It’s not so bad. They have some nice decor. Did you see the hornet’s nest in the corner of the
room? Priceless.”

“You’re not even fucking listening to me.”

“Oh, I am. I just don’t know what you want me to say. Want me to apologise? Tough fucking luck,
Jeongguk. There’s no way I’m doing that.”

Jeongguk scoffs. “I want you to acknowledge that tonight was bullshit. You messed up. Or maybe
this was your plan all along — humiliate me, waste my fucking time.”

“For someone who was so willing to be my dog just the other day,” Taehyung quips, “you’re
getting very picky about your fights.”

“This isn’t just about the fight. It’s about basic respect.”

“What have you ever done to earn my respect?”

“Kept your goddamned secret this whole time, you fucking moron,” Jeongguk mutters.

The temperature in the room is rising. Every second they spend inside this tiny room riles
Jeongguk up even more, everything Taehyung says sparks a fire. Truly, this night didn’t go as
Taehyung planned. Everything was meant to be a controlled mess. This was meant to be nothing
more than a little show for himself, a fun way to fuck around with Jeongguk.

Taehyung rarely fucks up. This time, though, he thinks he may have played around just a little too
much. Jeongguk looks more than pissed off. He looks almost sick, nearly trembling where he
stands. There’s something more in his eyes, though. Something deeper, darker than the surface-
level anger and humiliation that he should be feeling.

“Go home,” Taehyung says. “I’ll give you your check in the morning.”
“That’s it?” Jeongguk laughs, venomous. “You don’t even want to talk about the shit that
happened tonight?”

“We’re not in the right mood to talk. Either we both fuck off, or we’ll start a fight in this damn
room, Jeongguk.”

Jeongguk clenches his jaw, opens his mouth to say something. But he must find a small sense of
truth behind Taehyung’s words, because he keeps his words to himself and, instead, opts to pick
his duffle bag from the floor. Hiking it over his shoulder, he barges past Taehyung and almost rips
the door out of the wall when he opens it.

Neither of them say a word as Jeongguk leaves.

Not until the front door clicks open in the distance. There, Jeongguk mutters a few words, loud
enough that Taehyung catches it, but soft enough that he has to strain to hear it.

“I fucking hate you so much.”

Then, the front door slams shut.

——

A hierarchy exists to maintain peace and resolve conflicts through power and responsibility.

Taehyung thinks that’s utterly ridiculous.

A hierarchy exists because the world would be in shambles without it.

Fucking bullshit.

A hierarchy exists because it is normal human and vampire nature to create it.
Maybe that one holds some truth to it. Still, humans nor vampires don’t like to hear that one.
Makes everything sound too realistic.

A hierarchy exists because—

“Kim Taehyung, appointed representative from the Underground. Please rise.”

A hierarchy exists because a bunch of dickheads wanted power, and those dickheads happened to
be very, very good at making lies and using excuses to get their ways. It exists because the masses
like to feel a sense of safety, and a smaller group of people can never have too much power on their
hands. They want more, they crave more. They’re just like Taehyung, in that sense.

Somehow, though, these people at the top have deluded themselves into thinking that they stand
for righteousness. Wires crossed in the brain, thoughts stitched together using a rusty needle and
broken thread. They manage to hold themselves to a higher regard than even the ones they’re ruling
over, which is really a feat.

Most of the time, they’re dirtier than the rabid-infested dogs they spit on.

But formalities are formalities, and Taehyung would like to keep his pretty head on top of his body
for now.

So, he rises. Stands up from the knee he was kneeling on and executes a graceful bow once he’s
back on his feet. Beside him, Seokjin does the same.

The room they’re in can’t be much bigger than Taehyung’s living room, but he has to give it some
respect. Somehow, the Big Three have managed to find a room larger than a dog’s kennel in this
godforsaken city and keep it relatively clean. No mould on the wall yet, at least, but Taehyung sees
a small leak in the ceiling.

The Big Three don’t live in the Underground. No, they live in the city close to Taehyung’s house.
Different places — the city is the haven for humans and pockets of vampire covens in the specially
decrepit areas. The Underground is a bit further away, a shithole of misery and an eyesore.

As much as humans love to adore the traditions of vampires and the grandeur of royalty and flowy
clothes, that’s all in the past. The future comes in like it always does — with an unexpected punch
that knocks you to your knees, breathless.

If you’re lucky, whatever the future holds might let you writhe around in pain for a little while
longer as you try to find your footing again.

If you’re out of luck — maybe you ran out of money, maybe you’re homeless, and maybe you ran
to the Underground in hopes of… something, anything — then the future will simply put its boot
on top of your head and—

“You may present your report.”

The future doesn’t favour ancient traditions and sweeping halls anymore. No. What the future
holds is sitting uncomfortably in front of him in high-backed chairs, dressed to the nines in pressed
suits and slicked back hair. A stark white handkerchief against obsidian, velvet material and golden
jewellery kissing flawless skin.

The Big Three don’t wear fancy, colourful clothes. They attract attention through a subtle sort of
superiority, nepotism, and exploiting those under them. They strut around in designer suits and sit
in penthouses all day, hosting meetings behind their marble desks and personalised pens like the
world should suck all the knowledge out of their dry, crusty asses.

“Three nights ago, you ordered us to carry out an information extraction procedure from a potential
spy,” Taehyung says, enunciating each word precisely. That night with Seokjin and the warehouse,
the drill, the tattoo. “I would like to elaborate on our findings and recommendations for actions in
the future.”

Despite being named the Big Three, there are only two people behind the desk. The one on the left
with silver hair and slanted, dragon eyes is Kim Namjoon. Strategist, analyst. He’s logic and
wisdom twisted into something sinister, something that craves violence. His power comes from
tearing apart the scraggly, brittle bones of anyone who tries to go against him. With a million
different assassins under his name and spies in every goddamn shadow in the world, there’s
nothing he doesn’t know.

The one on the right likes a different kind of death. Min Yoongi doesn’t even have to lift a finger to
let you know that your mind is currently being torn asunder under those cold, cat-like eyes of his.
There’s something unequivocally discerning about his gaze. Locking eyes can feel like your skin
slowly being stripped off, every vulnerability laid bare. While Namjoon loves the physical aspects
of blood and violence, Yoongi delights in mental torture and suffering.
But somehow — some fucking how — they still think they’re the goodness of the world. They
think they’re the right powers of justice.

But since Taehyung is just one vampire, and Seokjin would most definitely ditch his ass for Kim
Namjoon and Min Yoongi’s, he doesn’t say any of that out loud. Doesn’t display any sense of his
disdain towards them.

“His name was Jeonhyun. Lived in a rental apartment near the park with the leaky fountain,
worked as a janitor at the local elementary school. Nothing remarkable about his childhood and
early adolescence, except that he was kicked out of his parental home due to marriage issues
between his mother and father. Adulthood is when he faced his harshest difficulties,” he says.

Beside him, Seokjin stays completely still.

“He was pulled into a pyramid scheme and left with tons of debt. Tried to gamble it away, ended
up with more debt. Tried to deal with loan sharks. Dug a deeper hole in debt. Tried to scam the
banks and run away. Debt, jail,” Taehyung lists off, “after years of that, he tried one last trick — he
tried to escape from the human world into ours.”

Something flickers in Namjoon’s eyes.

Humans sneaking into vampire territory is viewed as an abominable mistake for some. A human
sneaking into vampire territory due to being on the run from their own mistakes, as if the vampire
world was nothing more than a trash can they could throw themselves into, is sacrilege.

Seeing the vampire world as the lesser of two evils is a blow to pride; vampires seem to have a kink
for being intimidating and powerful. Taehyung can’t criticise too much, though. He’d rather not be
too much of a hypocrite. He likes to be seen as intimidating and powerful, as cliche as it sounds.

“He found his way into the Underground and became the lapdog of a few power hungry vampires.
Started causing chaos, stirring rumours, leaving his blood around to trigger bloodthirst. Basically
causing a mess. It’s why he was brought to our attention in the first place. We—” He gestures to
himself and Seokjin, “are currently searching for his boss. All he could say was that his boss wore
a mask, a voice changer, and referred to himself as ‘The Wolf’.”

Neither Namjoon or Yoongi speak. Seokjin stays ramrod straight beside him. Taehyung just wants
to shove this story out of his mouth and finish this meeting as soon as possible.

“When I asked for more information, he would not relent. I found it odd, though, that while
physical — uh — extraction methods did little to break his character, he only gave out information
when I began to mock his master’s pride.”

Namjoon narrows his eyes. “Mock his master’s pride? How?”

“I called his master a furry. I simply did not refer to his master as ‘The Wolf’, and, instead, referred
to his master as a furry with a superiority complex and daddy issues. He did not take kindly to
that.”

“And what information did he provide?”

“His master is still in the Underground, and that he does not know that Jeonhyun has been
captured. This ‘Wolf’ is possibly looking for Jeonhyun at the moment. For now, Seokjin and I have
dispatched spies and sentries in multiple locations around the Underground to capture any potential
news of anyone looking for someone of Jeonhyun’s description.”

Namjoon nods. He doesn’t say anymore.

Again, nothing. On the desk is a clock. The second-hand ticks and ticks and ticks. It is the only
thing moving in the room as Namjoon and Yoongi take in the information and store it in their sick,
twisted minds. Taehyung stands straight, Seokjin a pillar of stone and silence next to him.

“Our future recommendations are to follow our leads and see where it takes us. It would most
likely be wise to consider the fact that The Wolf may also only be a rumour. I believe we will
require permissions for future information extraction, shall our leads provide us with valuable
individuals relating to this incident,” Taehyung finishes.

When the Big Three must speak during a meeting, which they — more often than not — do not do,
it is almost always Namjoon. Very few vampires have heard Namjoon’s voice. Fewer still, have
heard Yoongi’s. Of those select few, only a handful are still alive. Taehyung is one of them.

Today, it seems that it will only be Namjoon’s voice he will hear.

“We appreciate your cooperation,” Namjoon states. “Your pay will be provided via electronic
transfer into your nominated account. We will keep in contact with you throughout this
endeavour.”

Taehyung nods.

Namjoon stares at him. Taehyung can also feel Yoongi’s stare prickling on the side of his head,
right where his temple is. The weight of their gazes is almost suffocating. The second hand of the
clock ticks, and ticks, and ticks.

Finally, Namjoon utters the blessed words: “You may leave.”

Taehyung takes very great delight in doing so.

——

Jeongguk is two hours late.

Not much of a surprise, really. What shocks Taehyung more is the fact that he still showed up
despite what happened earlier. The vampire would understand if Jeongguk completely ignored him
for the next few days, maybe even weeks

Still, under the midnight stars and the fog curling at his feet, the fighter treads his way down the
street, getting closer, closer, closer. The air feels crisp against his skin but it smells stale — too
still, too dusty. The air doesn’t feel alive. It’s unmoving, lifeless. Dead. Taehyung does not know
how Jeongguk does not choke on it.

Taehyung adjusts the gloves on his hands, flexes his fingers in them. The leather creaks. It’s louder
than Jeongguk’s footsteps. The familiar feeling of the padded vest over his chest, the combat
boots, the protective clothing covering his skin brings him a weird sense of comfort.

In his mind, Taehyung knows that whenever he dons this gear, blood will spill. Whether his, or
someone else’s — most likely someone else’s — the cracked cobblestone pathwalks of the
Underground will taste blood.
Jeongguk stops just in front of him. The bottom half of his face is covered by a mask, every inch of
skin from his fingertips to his lace-up boots is covered with dark fabric. The only thing exposed is
his glare, sharp and wicked and borderline murderous.

“What the fuck are we doing here?” Jeongguk asks.

“We’re about to have some fun.”

Jeongguk stares at him blankly, jaw ticking. “Fuck off.”

“I’m serious,” Taehyung says. In the distance, he hears something scampering on the ground, nails
scratching against the concrete. Rats. “If you want to stay angry, then walk away.”

“You’re really irritating when you try to be cryptic, you know that?”

“Oh, I know.” Taehyung gives him a small grin. “That’s why I do it.”

Jeongguk scoffs and steps closer, almost butting chests with Taehyung. “Do you take every single
chance you have to get on my nerves?”

“Not every single chance. Just 98.56% of them.”

“You pull that shit you did yesterday, then you message me at 3-fucking-AM in the morning to
meet you here—” Jeongguk mutters, voice low, “all so you can piss me off even more?
Goddammit— I know you hate me, but we’re stuck together now. Why do you have to make this
so hard?”

Taehyung cocks his head and says, “I’ll tell you if you come with me.”

Jeongguk’s slight intake of breath is his only warning before he steps back, curls his hands into
fists, and sends a punch straight to Taehyung’s face. Taehyung dodges it, feeling the slightest brush
of Jeongguk’s knuckle on his cheek. He barely gets a sound out of his mouth before Jeongguk is on
him again, sending punch after punch, feet working quicker than lightning to dance around
Taehyung.

“Stop—” Taehyung ducks and swerves to the side, just as Jeongguk punches the air where his face
used to be. “Jeongguk—”

“No. You stop fucking—” Jeongguk grabs hold of Taehyung’s vest and pulls him close before
sending a knee right into his side. “Moving.”

“You’re gonna wake everyone up.”

Jeongguk stumbles back when Taehyung lands a hard shove to his chest. “I don’t care.”

“You have to.” Taehyung stays light on his feet, ready to dodge if Jeongguk decides to come at
him again. “Do this with me and I’ll put you in a fight with big prize money against someone who
could snap your spine like dry breadstick.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Not surprising, huh. I don’t trust you fully, either. Just because we have a contract and shit doesn’t
mean we should trust each other, and I know I messed with you yesterday, but this…” Taehyung
hesitates. God, this almost sounds like an apology. How disgusting. “This is my way of evening
out the bad with a little bit of good.”

“Is this an apology?”

“Fuck no.”

“Good.”

“Just…” Trust me. “Come with me. I’m not purposefully trying to piss you off with this whole
thing. I truly think you’ll have fun with this. I’m not an asshole 24/7.”
“Really?” Jeongguk says. “Could’ve fooled me.”

“A lot of things could fool you, you gullible fu—”

“Taehyung.”

“Just saying,” Taehyung murmurs. Slowly, he falls back into a comfortable standing position,
watching as some of the tightly-held tension bleeds out of Jeongguk’s stance. “You ready?”

“Ready for what?”

Taehyung gestures back to the house in front of them. It’s a familiar sight, looking in the exact
same pitiful state as it did the last time they were here yesterday morning. Under the shadows of
the dead of night, it looks a lot more dilapidated, cold.

It’s the place where Jeongguk fought that bullshit fight and had to walk away with his opponent
alive and suffering. Where Taehyung had to force himself to walk away from that goddamned
referee without ripping his head off.

There’s a mist pooling on the ground and the breeze nipping at every vulnerable part of their skin.
The house glares back at them, daring them to enter, and the stars mock him and mock him and
mock him and tell him that no matter where he goes, he’s trapped. The night is cold, and nothing
warm runs under Taehyung’s skin. Everything is cold.

The cold washes out the creak of his leather gloves when he places it on the doorknob. The cold
slips through the crack of the front door when Taehyung pushes it open. It slips between his
shoelaces and the strands of his hair, through his eyelashes and the tips of his fingers.

There’s a general rule that Taehyung has always abided by — red is warm, blue is cold. Humans
seem to like that rule, too. Blood, fire, summer haze, pinot noir. Ice, night skies, the frigid breeze
threading between the particles of every breath. This house is blue — everything is a dark shade of
blue, from the shadows on the walls to the slight creak in the floorboards.

The silence, too, sticks onto the walls and drips from the ceiling. Taehyung feels it trying to slip
through his clothes. He uses it to his advantage, no step louder than a breath. Behind him,
Jeongguk too is wrapped in the sticky silence. The only signs of life are the occasional huff of a
breath, the scuff of a shoe against a splinter in the wood. Silence is in another dimension to time,
but it tries to find it anyway.

A fruitless effort, because time is ticking loudly. So loudly.

It always ticks. Second after second, moment after moment.

Tick…

They pass by the small waiting room. The silence gives way just enough for Taehyung to hear the
past echoes of their arguments inside.

Tock…

The hallway is filled with still air. Every dust particle, the atoms, the electrons — they’re
suspended in waves of silence and the cold. Taehyung brushes through them and feels the
aftereffects latching on like cobwebs.

Tick…

A few more steps and the silence rears back. There… the sound of deep, rhythmic breathing.
Taehyung pauses and cocks his head to the side, focusing. There’s one… two… three people
breathing at different tempos.

Tock…

He creeps forward. Behind him, Jeongguk follows.

Tick…

Past the archway, into the small arena. The ring is still there, but the blood has been scrubbed off.
Well, most of it. Small splatters here and there adorn the scratched surface of the ring. Here, the
silence is at its weakest. The cold, too, seems to hesitate.
Taehyung remembers standing in this spot, watching Jeongguk rain hell upon his opponent. Can
almost hear that damned whistle blowing again, and again, and again. The glare of Jeongguk
resting on his skin like molten lava, the sound of his footsteps receding into the hallway — loud,
frustrated.

There’s none of that now, though. Around the room, slumped against the walls, faces pressed
against the cold hardwood floor are the referee, the vampire — now covered in bandages and
bruises, and one of the earlier spectators.

Taehyung finds it surprising how soundly they sleep on the dirty, bloodied floor, but he supposes
that spending day after day trying to run a shabby scamming scheme takes quite a physical and
mental toll.

Jeongguk steps up beside him. The cold withers away at the touch of Jeongguk’s body warmth, his
muffled breaths. Taehyung can almost sense his confusion thrumming under all the anger and
threads of fire under his skin.

Still, the only thing he whispers is, “leave the vampire alive.”

Jeongguk looks at him, gaze calculating.

Taehyung nods.

The silence pauses when Jeongguk takes a step forward and tips his head up to the ceiling, eyes
closed. He takes a deep breath. When he opens his eyes, there’s something dark in there. Darker
than the cold, the shadows hiding in the corners of the room. Something dark enough to spark a
burning sensation under Taehyung’s skin, and Jeongguk is fucking beautiful like this.

Jeongguk is beautiful when his eyes lock onto his target, and he takes a step forward. Loud,
dragging, an announcement. The vampire wakes up with a jolt. Fear always tastes so good when
it’s palpable enough to leave a bitter aftertaste in Taehyung’s mouth, and it’s here now. Bitter,
staining the air, choking its way out of the vampire’s mouth.

When Jeongguk steps forward, Taehyung can almost see the smile under his mask.
The vampire whimpers. The referee and the spectator wake up. From back here, it looks almost
like a play, a tragedy.

The referee scrambles to his feet, face pale, sleep draining out of his tired, tired eyes. He tries to
run. It’s almost ridiculous how he tries to run, scampering on the ground on his hands and knees to
the door.

Taehyung blocks him, the sole of his boot slamming on top of the man’s hand. “The rats are
getting big these days, don’t you think?”

In the arena, Jeongguk laughs darkly.

And the silence runs, because the screaming starts.

——

There’s two things Taehyung needed to know before targeting that house.

Two things that Jeongguk didn’t know. Two secrets that fell out of his reach, until now.

“I didn’t make you fight here just to piss you off,” Taehyung says, tightening the rope around the
vampire’s wrist. He eyes the red marks, the blood dripping from his hands and onto the floor. “I
actually had a reason.”

“Yeah?” Jeongguk grunts, tying off the rope around the vampire’s ankles.

“Mhm.” Taehyung steps back to check his work. The vampire is slumped over in a chair, hair
knotted with blood. With his wrists and feet tied, he has nowhere to go. A classic, cliche technique,
but one Taehyung loves so dearly. Simple but effective. “One of my… colleagues was doing work
around this area, and overheard something interesting. This fighting ring would accept people only
by private invitation, and only one to three spectators can watch.”

Jeongguk finishes off his knot and looks up at Taehyung, a silent command to keep going.
“Can you tell me why people fight in the Underground?”

“The poor need money,” Jeongguk says, standing up. “The rich want entertainment.”

“Correct. But here’s the thing: there’s no prize money advertised for this fighting ring. It has no
connections to anyone rich that would want their own private show,” Taehyung says. “It gave me
something to wonder about, and I just couldn’t figure it out.”

“So you chucked me in here and hoped to see something that answers your questions?”

“Correct again.”

“Well?” Jeongguk cocks his head. “Did you see what you wanted to see?”

“Definitely.” Taehyung gestures around the arena. The referee lays on the floor, unmoving. Death
in its final form. The spectator followed in his footsteps, face down on the floor. “It’s why we
came back.”

“Mind telling me what you found?”

“It’s a set-up. This whole thing isn’t for fighting,” Taehyung says. “These people find someone
desperate enough to accept a shoddy fighting job, someone poor enough to accept the terms and
conditions and overlook the fact that there’s no prize money advertised, and they beat them up. Of
course, a vampire would usually be stronger than anyone malnourished and dehydrated enough to
step into a fighting ring in one of the shittiest places in the Underground.”

“And then?”

“If anyone manages to win, they have no choice but to stop the fight before it gets too much.”
Taehyung gestures to Jeongguk. “You saw it for yourself. They didn’t let you kill this vampire. So,
he must be something special. Special enough to tell us what the hell is going on. Tell us why no
one who has ever stepped foot in here and lost has ever left — not even their corpses or bodies
were found again.”

“Ah, shit, I get it.” Jeongguk says. “Is this part of your mission from… the Humongous Trio—”
“The Big Three.”

“You’re some sort of secret spy?”

“Sometimes.”

“That’s so fucking lame,” Jeongguk snickers. “You’re their bitch on a leash.”

“Funny you should say that.”

Jeongguk grins. There’s a splatter of blood on his cheek. “Woof.”

“You definitely had too much fun here. I can’t believe you’re actually in a good mood.”

“This is one way to relieve my anger.”

“What’s another way?”

Jeongguk cocks an eyebrow. “You really wanna know?”

“What, do you have angry sex with someone everytime something pisses you off?” Taehyung
drawls. “Do you angrily play games on your phone?”

“Piss me off again and maybe I’ll show you.”

“Easy.”

The vampire in the chair stirs, head slumping to the side.

Taehyung is full of contradictions, and these contradictions keep him sane. With a life of
immortality looming above him, a life where he’s done some shit and has had shit been done to
him, a life where he has to live with all of that, all of him, something’s got to give.

Something’s got to make way for all the dark, stupid, silly crap that keeps him up at night, staring
at the ceiling and wondering why the taste of fear tastes new everytime when he should be used to
it.

That something is a little part of his sanity, piece by piece, breaking off every day. And that’s
where the contradictions come in — a few quirks here and there to fill in the empty void where
sense used to rest, a few unique characteristics to hide the downward spiral spinning ‘round and
‘round and ‘round and down and down and down.

Taehyung likes bitter things, but he hates coffee. He likes classical jazz music, but he hates
thinking about the past. He loves pissing others off, but he hates being pissed off. He can’t sleep
(not for the sake of vampirism, but because he simply can’t keep memories at bay in that period of
time between closing his eyes and taking the next breath), but he still goes to bed every night. He
hates waiting for others, but expects to be waited on.

And he loves being an interruption, but hates interruptions.

Right now, the vampire slowly waking up in the chair is being a very big interruption to his and
Jeongguk’s fruitless conversation. A shame, really, because this might possibly be the first
conversation they’ve had where someone isn’t trying to bite someone else’s head off.

Taehyung wonders if he should worry that something as messed up as this brightens Jeongguk’s
mood. Then he remembers that Jeongguk is part of the Underground. He decides not to worry.
Maybe this — the thrill of violence — is what took place in Jeongguk’s mind where his sanity
disappeared, piece by piece, breaking every day.

Whereas Taehyung’s contradictions thread together the shattered pieces of sensibility in his mind,
Jeongguk’s violence is what keeps him moving and breathing and moving and punching and
moving and punching like it’s as easy as breathing.

“Do you know how lucky you are?” Taehyung asks, once the vampire gains enough consciousness
to open his bloodshot eyes. “You looked like you had such a nice nap. I haven’t had one of those
in… hm… ever.”
The vampire groans.

“It’s time to wake up now.”

The vampire twitches, face scrunching up in pain. He tries to move. Realising he’s tied down, he
panics, eyes widening in fear. His gaze trembles in the most satisfying manner when Jeongguk
comes closer, steps dragging on the bloody floor until he comes to a stop just behind Taehyung’s
shoulder.

“You here with us? Can you understand me?”

The vampire struggles even more against his restraints. Nothing escapes his mouth except noises of
pain. To some extent, Taehyung understands that feeling of panic. He knows what it’s like to be
trapped, a butterfly pinned against a corkboard by the wings. Knows what it’s like to struggle
helplessly while power and violence and the promise of pain looms above with sickening
satisfaction.

Taehyung knows. He just doesn’t care. The vampire can look as pitiful as he wants, he can
whimper and groan and struggle like hell, but he won’t find a drop of sympathy in Taehyung. By
the way Jeongguk sighs impatiently behind him, Taehyung knows that none can be found in
Jeongguk either.

“This is getting a bit ridiculous now, don’t you think?” Taehyung asks cordially. “Just stop
struggling. You know it’s over.”

“What do you want to know?” The vampire gasps out.

“What’s been happening in this place? Usually, I don’t give a single flying fuck about these kinds
of things in the Underground, but lately, I’ve had to. Can’t tell you why, though. Wouldn’t want to,
anyway.”

“Nothing—”

“Don’t bullshit with me,” Taehyung snaps. “I’ve just found out that hurting people puts Golden in
a good mood. Golden in a good mood means he doesn’t piss me off as much, and I can actually
tolerate his presence—”

“Fuck you,” Jeongguk mutters.

“—So,” Taehyung continues, “if you don’t start talking, Golden might just find himself in a really,
really good mood very soon.”

The vampire strains against his ropes one more time before slumping over. In all his life of
suffering, Taehyung has found pathways of reactions. It’s all a little predictable, really. When
someone is hungry, either they find food, they deal with it. When someone wants a new hobby,
they can start one or they can lament about wanting one or they can ignore it.

When someone is on the verge of passing out from fear, either they try sucking up to their captors,
running, hiding, praying, or fighting. Fight or flight comes in many different forms. Taehyung is
familiar with all of them.

“Who are you?” The vampire spits between gritted teeth.

Taehyung has an inkling that this one is stumbling into a fight response.

“You know us,” Jeongguk says. “We know you know us.”

“I know who you are, Golden.” The vampire shifts his pained gaze onto Taehyung. “Kim
Taehyung.”

“So why ask?”

“Because why the fuck are you doing this?”

Taehyung sighs. They just went over this. “I can tell you again, but that would cost a punch.”
“What—”

“I’m not telling you why we’re doing this,” Taehyung says anyway. Then, he steps forward, hauls
the vampire closer by his torn short, reels his arm back, and punches the vampire full force in the
cheek. When the vampire topples over in the chair and onto the ground howling with pain, all
Taehyung does is stare blankly and say, “Oops.”

A low whistle sounds out from behind him. “Impressive.”

“Yeah,” Taehyung says to Jeongguk. “You can have the next punch.”

The vampire spits out a disgusting array of blood and fragments of broken teeth on the floor, before
sneering weakly at Jeongguk. “What are you, his dog?”

Jeongguk comes forward and gets down to a knee in front of the vampire, crouching low to pull his
head back by his hair. “Here’s the thing: I can tell you, but that would cost a kick to the ribs.”

The vampire tries to draw back. “No—”

“Woof,” Jeongguk says. Then, he stands up, and Taehyung knows where this is going. Everyone in
the room knows what’s coming, but it still doesn’t stop the vampire from letting out a pained,
wheezing sound when Jeongguk’s kick lands so hard that the vampire slides across the floor with
the chair.

Taehyung gives him a clap for that. “Nice.”

The vampire sags on the ground. He continues to sag like a pathetic piece of shit even as Taehyung
hauls him back off the ground so he can sit properly on the chair.

“Now, let’s do this again, shall we?” Taehyung asks.

Any sign of the will to live is completely gone from the vampire’s gaze when he lifts it long
enough to look in Taehyung’s eyes. All signs of wanting to die replaces it, and Taehyung knows
they’ve broken him. That took a little less time than Taehyung thought it would.
Taehyung tilts his head. “What’s been happening here? Either you answer that, or you receive
another prize: a punch to the—”

“Fine! Fine, I’ll— I’ll tell you.” The vampire takes a moment to collect his thoughts. He wheezes
and coughs, breath rattling between his broken ribs. “A few months ago, I was approached by… by
Ola. The referee.” His eyes slide over to the body of said referee, grimacing at the sight. “Said he
needed someone to fight for him. He would sponsor me. You know how things are down here— I
was desperate, he wanted a fighter.”

“Mhm. Keep going.”

“I only had one rule to keep: I couldn’t kill anyone. Even if I win, I can’t kill them. In turn, he stops
people from killing me.”

“Why?”

“Because he wanted the people. After the fights, he would take them and drive off somewhere.”

“Interesting. You know, Golden, I think we killed the wrong person,” Taehyung says. “We
should’ve killed this one and kept the referee alive.”

The vampire presses himself into his chair, eyes widening.

“Yeah. We should’ve kept all of them alive, really,” Jeongguk says. “Got a bit carried away, I
guess.”

“It’s alright. At least we have someone who can tell us everything we want to know, hm?”
Taehyung eyes the vampire. “You’ll tell us where he takes the people, right?”

The vampire nods slowly. “I’m not meant to know but… I followed Ola a few times. He meets
someone at a different spot every time, and hands the person over to someone else. Then, he goes
home. That’s all.”
“That’s all you know?”

“...Yes.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

Taehyung nods. “Okay. You’re useless now. You know what happens to useless things?”

“I— I can tell you more.”

“Why would you want to?”

“Just… just let me leave after all of this,” the vampire pleads. “Please. I— I was never part of
anything. I’m telling you all that I know.”

Taehyung pauses, and pretends to consider it. “If your information is good enough, I might just let
you live.”

“The Wolf! The Wolf, you know him? Yes— yes you do. You’re interested in this, right?” The
vampire can barely get the words out fast enough. “Ola doesn’t tell me many things, but he told me
that we have a special guest coming in next week. He said The Wolf was coming.”

Taehyung can sense Jeongguk’s confusion behind him, but he knows that Jeongguk knows not to
show it. There’s a new expectation weighing heavy on his left shoulder, close to where the fighter
stands: he needs to tell Jeongguk about The Wolf later. Later. Not now.

“This is interesting.”

The vampire nods. “I could… I could tell you more, but you have to— to let me live.”
Taehyung shrugs. “Sure.”

Desperacy is a breeding ground for gullible, malleable minds. This vampire is a classic example of
that, words running faster than the blood trickling down his chin. “Ola said The Wolf had a fighter
of his own, so Ola started looking around the Underground for another fighter.”

“Why?” Jeongguk asks, even when they both know why.

The vampire gulps. “The Wolf was coming over for a fighting session. The Wolf’s fighter was
going to kill me.”

“Oh, so we’re a blessing in disguise, then?” Taehyung says. “We stopped your inevitable death,
didn’t we?”

“You did.” The vampire nods eagerly. What a fucking suck-up. “You did. Ola— he can’t stop The
Wolf. And apparently The Wolf likes to finish fights, so…”

“Seems like The Wolf and I have that in common.”

The vampire pauses at that. “...yes.”

“And you know how the fight from earlier never finished.” Taehyung hums disappointedly. “Such
a waste of our time. It left a bad taste in my mouth.”

“Please…” the vampire whispers. There’s that beautiful, luscious tremble in his voice as the fear
seeps back in and he realises what’s happening. Realises that Taehyung lied about letting him live,
lied about giving him mercy. “You said you would let me live.”

“Mhm. And I will abide by that,” Taehyung says. Then, he turns to Jeongguk. “Golden, on the
other hand, promised no such thing.”

At that, Jeongguk cocks an eyebrow at him, the one with the piercing.
Taehyung knows pathways of reactions. The vampire was scared, and he tried fighting. He was
scared, then he tried sucking up to them by giving information. He was scared, and he tried
escaping. He’s scared, but he can’t hide. There are no other options left. He’s helpless, and
everyone knows it.

There’s one last reaction to come to — acceptance.

Slowly, the vampire stops struggling. He just… stops. Eyes glazing over, face blanking. He knows
death is coming.

“You’re such a conniving piece of shit, you know that?” Jeongguk asks, even as rolls up his bloody
sleeves.

“Never said I wasn’t,” Taehyung counters. Then, he steps back and hands the reins over to
Jeongguk. He taps on his wrist. “I’m gonna step outside for a bit. Smells like shit in here.”

“Mhm. Don’t die out there.”

Taehyung snorts at Jeongguk’s fake concern. He didn’t even try to make it sound real. “Make it
quick. I have a check to give you, and I’d much rather do it over a bottle of wine, but I don’t like to
drink wine when it gets too late in the morning.”

All he gets in response is a middle finger in the air.

Taehyung turns around and walks back past the archway, to the front door. The silence welcomes
him like a clingy partner, but its hold on him is loose. Because, in the background — always in the
background, it never leaves — is the ticking. Time falling, spiralling ‘round and ‘round and ‘round
and down and down and down.

Tick…

The sound of ropes falling to the ground. There’s a scared whimper.

Tock…
Taehyung’s shoe scuffs against the carpet. The sound of a punch hitting flesh.

Tick…

The sound of blood splattering onto the walls. The crickets outside chirp noisily, blissfully
unaware.

Tock…

Taehyung reaches the front door. It opens with a creak. In the background, Jeongguk’s boots leave
bloody, noisy footprints on the ground. In the background, the silence huddles closer to the walls,
scared and dreadful. In the background, a million and one things happen and they all revolve
around Jeongguk. And in the background…

Tick… tock…

Taehyung closes the front door behind him, breathes in the cold air, and welcomes the silence.

——

The nightclub is alive and the lights kiss the bruises on Jeongguk’s fists.

This is Jeongguk’s first time inside the club, not because the club’s exclusive, but because he’s just
never been here. The high of the fight wasn’t enough for him. He’d wanted more, craved more, so
Taehyung caved in just the tiniest amount and brought him here.

Once they got inside the VIP room, Jeongguk absolutely hated it. The only thing he loved was the
secret stash of drugs that Taehyung kept under the cushions of the couch. The best strains, reserved
only for the most important people. Drugs don’t really affect Taehyung, see, but they affect
whoever else takes them.
Taehyung lets Jeongguk have them. Not too much — Jeongguk knows his own body’s limits, but
he still pushes it to the extreme when he snags a few bags up with a wink and steps back out into
the dirty, sweaty dance floor. Not long after, Taehyung sees him with a beer in his hands, chugging
it down like there’s no tomorrow. Irresponsible dumbass.

He turns off the one-way mirror reflection of the windows. Now, the people outside can see him as
he sees them. It’s much easier, this way, to see Jeongguk. As much as Taehyung wants him to
celebrate tonight, he doesn’t want his fighter to drop dead because he took one too many poisons.

It’s odd. Taehyung’s not used to being on good terms with Jeongguk, but at the end of tonight, they
seemed almost civil. Barely a fight as they travelled to the nightclub, and Jeongguk actually seems
to be in a good mood, from the way he’s bouncing on the floor — hyper, eyes blown wide, the
bottle shaking in his hand.

Taehyung hopes he’s as high as a fucking cloud. Maybe that’ll shut out the demons that Jeongguk
faces in his head, give him a night of reprieve.

The music pounds, and it changes to something slower. The words crooning, and dirty, and
harmonious. The bass ripples on the floor and the people lose their fucking minds. Hands in the
air, veins littered with syringe marks, smoke curling in the neon lights. Jeongguk, for some reason,
hasn’t gone to the centre.

No. Taehyung’s fighter hangs around the edge, close to the VIP room. Right where Taehyung can
see him.

The heat and humidity of the club has finally started to affect Jeongguk. Sweat running down his
forehead, glistening as it drips from his jaw. Clothes sticking to his body, cheeks flushed, hair
plastered to his forehead. Taehyung doesn’t envy the conditions out there — he would much rather
stay in the clean air inside the VIP room, being blasted by the air conditioner.

But he can’t deny that his loss is Jeongguk — he can’t see Jeongguk any closer, though he wants
to.

As infuriating as Jeongguk is, he’s beautiful. There aren’t many attractive people in the
Underground, much less fighters. But Jeongguk — he’s got people crowding around him. Hands
grabbing on his shirt, his pants, his thighs. And he’s smiling, loving all the attention. Clearly, other
people can see his beauty.
Clearly, other people are bold enough to act on their attraction. Clearly. Too fucking clearly for
Taehyung’s taste, but at least they don’t have him like Taehyung does.

They don’t have Jeongguk tethered to them, mutual collars around their necks.

No. Only Taehyung does. Only Taehyung has Jeongguk.

Then, the Jeongguk grabs someone from the crowd, spins them around, and presses his chest to
their back. What a bastard. Taehyung can see the clear gasp of Jeongguk’s dance partner, the way
her eyes flutter shut in ecstasy and her hips roll, and it’s clear that Jeongguk is controlling
everything from behind. He’s rolling his hips to the beat, hands clutched tight around his dance
partner’s waist. Hard enough to bruise.

Taehyung pokes his tongue to his cheek, trying to tamper down the irrational jealousy. There’s no
reason for him to get jealous. He knew this would happen — Jeongguk would find someone to
dance with, someone to spend the night with, to blow off steam. To celebrate a mission complete.
Taehyung doesn’t know, though, why seeing him actually show interest in anyone makes him feel
irritated.

Jeongguk’s dance partner leans their head on his shoulder, exposing her neck. Jeongguk grins,
wolfish, as he plants his mouth along the sensitive skin. Taehyung clenches his jaw.

Then, Jeongguk flicks his gaze up, and his eyes are so fucked out, so delighted, when they meet
Taehyung’s. He flicks his tongue out, licks a long line up the person’s neck. Taehyung sees the
glint of saliva on his tongue, the trail he leaves behind, and a burst of jealousy hits him so hard that
Taehyung is left reeling.

Where the fuck did that come from?

Taehyung scoffs at himself. He’s jealous of Jeongguk, not Jeongguk’s dance partner. Maybe
Taehyung’s just hungry. He’s just jealous that Jeongguk has a neck so close, and Taehyung doesn’t.
That’s the only rational explanation.

He grabs his phone from his pocket and dials one of the bodyguards. As soon as they pick up, he
growls, “bring me someone from the crowd. Anyone. Now.”
Not a moment later, the doors to the VIP lounge are opening, and a man steps through. Tall,
almost as tall as Jeongguk, but not quite as bulky. Dressed in a mesh crop top and leather pants,
makeup smudged, lips puckered red. He seems to know what he’s in for as he saunters towards
Taehyung.

“Hey, handsome,” the human purrs, words trailing off into a seductive tone.

But Taehyung isn’t in the mood to play around tonight. Seeing Jeongguk dancing with that human
left a bad taste in his mouth, and he wants to wash it out. Wash it out with blood.

As soon as the human is close enough, Taehyung grabs him by the wrist, hauls him close. Tilts his
head to the side and ghosts his lips along the human’s neck. The human seems to get the idea,
pressing closer and tilting their head to the other side to give Taehyung full access. Taehyung runs
his nose against the human’s skin. The scent of sweat, alcohol, and weed greets him. Under all
those layers — blood.

Taehyung almost groans in pleasure. Fangs shooting out, he gives no warning before he’s digging
in and piercing skin. The human almost falls to their knees straight away, but Taehyung keeps a
firm hold on their hips. A moan permeates the air and Taehyung isn’t sure if it was from him or the
human, and he doesn’t really care right now. Fuck, fuck, blood tastes so good. So good.

Taehyung doesn’t usually have fresh blood like this, but when he does, euphoria usually hits him in
waves. The first taste is a burst of euphoria. When the pleasure hits the human — usually in the
form of an orgasm — comes the second burst. And finally, when the human is so lost in the throes
of wanton lust and mindless passion that they’re willing to be sucked out and dried and littered on
the ground like a used cigarette — that’s when the third burst hits. Because that’s when they start
begging and begging and their life is in his hands. Their life is in Taehyung’s bloodstained hands.

God, that always feels so fucking good.

Blood fills his mouth, and Taehyung gulps it down greedily.

Just as the second burst of euphoria is about to hit — Taehyung can feel it, the human is trembling
against him, hard-on pressing into Taehyung’s thigh and rutting up against it the human is about to
climax — the door to the VIP is thrown open. In the next second, Taehyung’s blood bag for the
night is ripped out of his hands. The human finds himself on the ground in the next second, hazy
eyes confused, neck bleeding out.
Taehyung licks his lips and glares at the intruder. Blood drips down his jaw.

Jeongguk stands there, fists clenched, body tense. His gaze is fiery, jaw clenched, as he goes after
the human on the floor. Hauls the poor guy up, all out-of-it and riding on a vampire venom high,
before Jeongguk sends a punch across his jaw. The human smacks the glass of the VIP room.
Smears of blood trail down the glass as the human slides down with a faint moan of pain.

He probably feels numb right now, probably doesn’t realise that the wound on his neck isn’t
healing like it’s supposed to; he was ripped from Taehyung before Taehyung could properly close
it.

Jeongguk isn’t done. He grabs the guy by the shirt and drags him across the floor. Taehyung
watches, unimpressed, as Jeongguk throws the poor guy outside the room, bleeding to death. In the
crowd, Taehyung sees a few interested eyes look this way. Vampires, sensing a free kill.

“Are you fucking joking right now?” Taehyung snaps. “I was eating.”

Jeongguk scoffs and rolls his eyes. “I didn’t like him.”

“Why not?”

Jeongguk doesn’t answer. Just crosses his arms over his chest, glaring at Taehyung.

“Were you jealous, Jeongguk?” Taehyung asks. “Really?”

“Don’t fucking play that card with me right now, Taehyung. I saw your face when I was dancing
with that girl. Pissed you off, too, didn’t it?”

Taehyung barely holds himself back from attacking Jeongguk. From pressing Jeongguk against the
glass walls and ripping his throat apart for the rest of the club to see. From experiencing those
bouts of euphoria with Jeongguk pressed up against the glass, his fangs in Jeongguk’s skin, his
tongue licking up the streams of Jeongguk’s blood.

In the high left behind by drinking fresh blood, Taehyung’s inhibitions are lowered enough that he
can admit it to himself: he wants Jeongguk. Wants Jeongguk’s blood.

Wants him so fucking much that holding back hurts.

“Don’t stay if you can’t watch me feed on someone, Jeongguk. I’m hungry tonight,” Taehyung
says.

Jeongguk laughs lowly, voice devoid of amusement. “Yeah, I could fuckin’ tell.”

Taehyung stares at Jeongguk for a moment more. In his mouth, the taste of blood still lingers.
Jeongguk is looking at him, gaze dark and unreadable, and the neon lights won’t fucking stop
kissing the bruises on his skin.

Taehyung wants to kiss the bruises on his skin. Wants to press down on them until Jeongguk hisses
in pain, wants to dig his fangs in every inch of Jeongguk’s golden skin. Wants to taste his tattoos
on his tongue, the blood on his hands, and this is fucking insane.

It’s insane to hate someone so much but want them at the same time, but that’s how it is with
Jeongguk. Another contradiction. Hate and desire and Taehyung wonders if Jeongguk’s blood
would burn his tongue if he ever got to taste it. His body is taut from keeping himself in place, and
Jeongguk isn’t moving either. He’s barely breathing, eyes locked onto every single one of
Taehyung’s tremors.

It feels like one move — one wrong breath from Jeongguk — can send Taehyung over the edge.
He’s close to snapping. So fucking close. He just wants a taste. Wants a taste of Jeongguk, because
he’s hungry, but not just for anyone. He’s not hungry unless it’s Jeongguk’s neck under his fangs,
Jeongguk’s body pressing against his, rutting against his thigh, euphoria, euphoria, euphoria.

Eventually, Jeongguk leans back, voice barely audible past the music outside the room when he
says, “I’m done for the night. I hope you eat your fucking fill.”

Taehyung doesn’t utter a goodbye as Jeongguk leaves, and the door slams hard enough to shake the
glass.

——
(3:03AM)

Message from: Taehyung

Message to: Golden

I’ve scheduled a fight for Thursday.

You’ll be up against Murdkey. Big guy, caved someone’s head in with his hands once or twice.

The one you wanted to fight just a while ago.

(3:29AM)

Message from: Golden

Message to: Taehyung

fuck you

(3:30AM)

Message from: Golden

Message to: Taehyung

[Golden is typing]

(3:42AM)

Message from: Golden

Message to: Taehyung

[Golden is typing]

(3:48AM)

Message from: Golden

Message to: Taehyung

[Golden is typing]
 (4:04AM)

Message from: Golden

Message to: Taehyung

i’ll be there

Chapter End Notes

i brought you a spicy dose of jealousy, you're welcome <3

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 Chapter 3
Chapter Summary

Weeks pass.

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

Jeongguk comes back. He always does. So does Taehyung.

Gasoline and fire — their stubborness. Neither of them want to back out of the agreement first, and
no matter how many fires they light, fights they start, neither of them break the agreement.

Taehyung keeps dragging Jeongguk around to every fight, watching him win check after check.
Jeongguk frequents Taehyung’s club more than Taehyung himself, and he sure takes advantage of
the VIP room. Taehyung often finds traces of Jeongguk in there — drugs thrown about the room, a
cigarette stump here and there, empty shot glasses.

Taehyung’s not particularly worried, though. Jeongguk knows his own limits, can take care of
himself. Meanwhile, Jeongguk trusts that the fights Taehyung puts him in are suited to his desires
and abilities. They only talk when they need to.

Jeongguk doesn’t seek Taehyung out at the club so they could dance together, Taehyung doesn’t
invite Jeongguk to his house for lunch. They don't do that friendship bullshit. No small talk, no
pats on the back and, god forbid, no smiling at each other. If Jeongguk makes a joke, it's to laugh
at Taehyung, not with him. And if Taehyung makes a cutting remark, it's not sarcastic. It's real, and
it's blunt, and it's often along the lines of "Jeongguk, you're a fucking mess and you need to pull
your shit together, but you won't, right? You like being fucked up."

They’re close (not by choice; they're close because they have to be, much to Taehyung's endless
dismay), but only business-wise. And when they’re not talking about business…

“I said, Jeongguk, stop fucking leaving your mess behind in here,” Taehyung says, looming over
Jeongguk, arms crossed, eye twitching.
In the VIP lounge, stupid strobe lights whirring in the air, Jeongguk lounges on the couch, head
lolled against the cushions. His eyes are blown wide, lips sticky with alcohol, and hickeys stain his
neck like a collar of bruises and wild, reckless debauchery. He laughs. “Yeah? What’re you gonna
do if I don’t?”

“Make you clean it up.” Taehyung shoves down the bursts of anger and irritation clawing at his
veins. He’s gotten better at it — controlling his reactions around Jeongguk. “Now get the hell up.
Why’d you drink so much when you know you have a fight tomorrow?”

“So I can be hungover.”

“That’s gonna make you feel worse, Jeongguk.”

“I know.” Jeongguk rolls onto his side, loopy grin on his face, eyes fluttering shut. Cheek pressing
into the cushion, a dreamy sigh escapes his lips. “The fight will hurt so much more tomorrow.
God, I can’t wait. Can’t fuckin’ wait.”

Taehyung resists the urge to smack the back of Jeongguk’s head. Instead, he turns the one-way
mirrors on and starts to pick up the empty bottles around the room. Taehyung leaves him sleeping
there for the night. Safer there than to let Jeongguk roam around the streets of the Underground,
drunk and out of his mind.

It goes on like that — something civil, still teetering on the edge of hateful, but they’re learning to
deal with each other. Slowly, slowly.

Weeks pass.

Seokjin gives them more fighting rings to check out, and each one becomes as shady as the last.
Investigations are coming to a standstill because there’s just fucking nothing happening. Taehyung
and Jeongguk break up the fighting rings, torture a bunch of people for information, and get the
same things over and over again. The rings are an organisation to smuggle people, but where?
That’s the question that makes Taehyung’s head pound.

Who’s the Wolf? Where are these people being smuggled to? Who’s been staying long enough in
the Underground to create an elaborate system like this? The people in the fighting rings don’t
know anything more than the basics, and neither Taehyung or Jeongguk can pretend to lose to be
smuggled in. Their faces are too well known, Jeongguk’s skill too infamous, no one would fall for
it. They’d be caught out in an instant.

It’s impossible to trail people. The Wolf seems to know when to smuggle people through and when
to not — seems to always know where Taehyung and Jeongguk are. Taehyung fucking hates that
the Wolf seems to know where they are the whole time.

It grates against his nerves, and he can tell Seokjin is starting to become agitated from the constant
game of cat-and-mouse and Taehyung wants to rip the Wolf’s face of it’s head. Even Seokjin's
messages are getting shorter, more curt, so different from his long-winded messages of before.
Taehyung's glad he's now the only one losing his fucking mind about this.

Taehyung had told Jeongguk of the Wolf some time ago. The fighter hadn’t really cared that
Taehyung kept it from him. Seems to delight in the fact that Taehyung can’t figure it out. That
fucker.

Jeongguk doesn’t get less infuriating, but Taehyung likes to think he’s slowly starting to get the
hang of being able to talk to the fighter without either of them wanting to bite each other’s heads
off. Still some explosions of anger, bouts of irritation, but they deal with it.

Taehyung does his job, Jeongguk does his, they get the money, they separate. That’s it. That’s their
transaction.

But sometimes, desperate times call for different measures. Not desperate measures — god forbid
Taehyung actually becomes desperate for Jeongguk. But in times like this, when Jeongguk is
barely holding onto conscience and he can barely hold up his own weight after a fight, their usual
transaction is disrupted.

Usually, the end of a fight warrants a curt nod, stacks of money passed between them, and then
they leave.

Now, though—

“Let me go,” Jeongguk slurs, head falling onto Taehyung’s shoulder.

Now, though, Taehyung needs to—

“I can— can take care of… m’self.”

Taehyung grits his teeth and secures his arm more tightly around Jeongguk’s waist. Now, though,
Taehyung needs to take Jeongguk to the backrooms, where their bags are, and—

“Jus’ give me my money and…” Jeongguk lets out a hacking cough, almost tripping over his own
feet. He would’ve, if it weren’t for Taehyung. “Go. ‘M fine.”

“Jeongguk, shut up.”

The cheering of the crowd drowns out behind them as Taehyung busts kicks through the door
leading to the hallways in the back. Today, Jeongguk fought at another warehouse. Not one of
those smuggling rings that Seokjin calls “leads”, but an actual fight. A fight for money. A real
fight, because Jeongguk insists, and because Taehyung can hardly say no to a good show.

Today, Jeongguk had an unusually rough time. His opponent brought out the brass knuckles, but
the fucker tipped the surface with some sort of drug that slowed Jeongguk down. One brush on an
open wound on Jeongguk’s body and the drug had acted quickly. Still, Taehyung’s fighter won.
Jeongguk came out on top, smashing the guy’s head in with his own brass knuckles.

Not without injuries, though.

Their waiting room is small. Taehyung barely fits them both inside without bumping Jeongguk into
the doorframe. He deposits his fighter onto the ratty couch in the corner of the room, digs through
Jeongguk’s bag for his first-aid kit. He finds it and opens it up. Swears under his breath, too,
because most of the shit in there is either expired, half-used, or broken.

“You really need a new one of these,” Taehyung comments.

Jeongguk just groans in pain.

An improvement, at least. The first time Taehyung tried to heal Jeongguk, the fighter attacked him
with scissors until Taehyung backed off. All he could get in was one stitch before Jeongguk kicked
him off, almost ripping the needle through his skin.
Back then, Taehyung had to use all his strength to keep Jeongguk from lashing out, from
aggravating his injuries further, because the dumbass doesn’t seem to understand the concept that
he could actually bleed out, that his wounds could get infected. That he’s not invincible.

Cleaning Jeongguk’s wounds is time-consuming. Mostly because Jeongguk himself keeps

squirming around, making everything harder. It’s his way of protesting this, but—

“Keep still, or I’ll re-open your wounds by choice,” Taehyung warns him.

Jeongguk sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth, and he exhales in a shaky laugh. “Do it.”

“You’re crazy,” Taehyung mutters, hand pressing into Jeongguk’s arm, checking for a possible
break in the bone.

“Feelin’ me up, huh?” Jeongguk grits out. No doubt, the drug is still in his system. Taehyung isn’t
quite sure what it is, but he’s also seen Jeongguk down pills, weed, alcohol, and a disgustingly
absurd amount of mac’ and cheese in one sitting before, so he’s not too worried. Whatever this
drug is can’t be worse than that. Jeongguk flexes. “I’m tough. So tough.”

“Sure you are.” At least he can still voluntarily move the muscles in his arms. “Think you broke
your ribs this time?”

Jeongguk shrugs, then winces as the movement pains some part of his body. “Probably. Everythin’
hurts.”

“You’re speaking more clearly now. That’s good.”

“And you’re—” Jeongguk coughs. “You’re speaking like a mother hen. I’m fine. Swear it.”

“Your promises mean shit to me. Especially when it’s about this.”

“Right, right.” Jeongguk rolls his eyes, wipes a stream of blood from his split lip. A fresh stream of
sanguine mixes in with the dried, crusted blood on his knuckles. “Almost forgot — you need to
have your products in good condition. Nothin’ less for the great Kim Taehyung.”

“That’s right. That’s why I need to treat your wounds so you don’t die, Jeongguk. You could die
from this, you know?”

Jeongguk shrugs. “‘Kay, and? Will you be sad? Would you miss me?”

“I’d drag you back from the dead,” Taehyung says. No broken bones in his arm. “Take off your
shirt.” Jeongguk complies, wincing with every move. Taehyung raises an eyebrow impatiently.
“Hurry up. I’d drag you back from the dead. I made a whole contract for you, you can’t break it.
Contract said you need to win every fight.”

“Got it,” Jeongguk hisses painfully, finally pulling his shirt over his head. His chest is littered with
scrapes and bruises, but his ribs… Oh, yeah. He’s definitely got a broken rib or two. “You’re
healing me ‘cause you don’t like damaged products, and you don’t want me to die ‘cause of the
contract.”

“Hit the nail right on the head.”

Jeongguk leans his head back on the couch, eyes shut, as Taehyung tends to the rest of his wounds.
His body stays tense, though, no matter how much time passes.

It took a long time and a lot of fights for Jeongguk to finally let Taehyung take care of his wounds
without a fight. Being this vulnerable with someone, even if it’s just physical, is clearly not
something Jeongguk is used to.

“You know,” Taehyung says after a while. “One good thing about you getting smashed in the
fighting ring is that you’re quieter after the fight. Less irritating.”

“Oh, fuck you, Taehyung,” Jeongguk says, weakly kicking at him.

——
Taehyung doesn’t like to keep track of what Jeongguk does in his spare time. No, he’s far too busy
for that.

After all, listening to the upbeat tempo of Ferdinand Morton’s The Crave while sipping red wine
and painting whatever comes to mind on a blank canvas takes precedence over almost everything
in Taehyung’s life.

This time, Taehyung is painting in shades of red. Today, he woke up feeling a little tired from the
cold. Some days, he’s used to it. Other days, like today, he’s so used to it that it feels sickening. It’s
draining. Some say cold is an absence of warmth.

Taehyung thinks that the cold is more than that — it sucks the warmth out of the air and spreads in
the room like an invasive species. To him, the cold is sentient because he’s sentient and the cold is
part of him. Always, always, always.

The only time when he wasn’t cold was during his childhood, which is stupid, because his
childhood was the worst part of his life. For the life of him, Taehyung can’t remember why, but he
remembers flickers of warmth past the flames. Oh, the flames…

That was the warmest he’d ever felt in his life.

Flames, fire, burning. That damned dungeon swathed in tones of oranges and reds and yellows.

Taehyung pauses when the track on the record player finishes. He leans back to look at his whole
artwork. Then, he downs the rest of his wine in one go and pours another glass. The once-white
canvas is filled with dizzying shades of red and swirling oranges. Splattered across the colours are
small specks of white — embers. But they don’t look like embers.

They look like stars.

Taehyung hates this painting.

The stars stare back at him. They hate him, too.

And, suddenly, there are booming knocks on his door and a muffled voice filtering through. “Open
up, asshole!”

Speaking of stars…

Taehyung sighs and puts his glass of wine down. The record player starts up again, old and
staticky and just the way Taehyung likes it. Jeongguk keeps knocking on the door because he
knows it pisses Taehyung off, Taehyung walks slowly and stops to admire a painting he hung up in
the hallways because he knows Jeongguk hates waiting.

When he finally opens the door, Jeongguk wastes no time barging in and bringing a cold breeze
with him.

“Good morning to you, too,” Taehyung says, shutting the door.

And Jeongguk, because he’s Jeongguk, doesn’t bother with pleasantries and, instead, makes
himself at home. He heads straight for the living room, waits for Taehyung to trail in behind him,
before throwing himself onto the couch and saying, “this couch still feels like shit, that music
sounds like shit, and—” he points at the painting, “I like that.”

Taehyung rolls his eyes. “I’m doing well, and you?”

“I thought you didn’t drink wine late in the morning? It’s very late in the morning now.”

Taehyung sits back on his stool, picks up his wine, and swirls it around. “What if I told you that
this isn’t wine?”

“What, you want me to think that’s blood?” Jeongguk scoffs. “I know what blood looks like. I also
know what expensive antique wine looks like. I know what they both taste like.”

“Then, yes, this is wine. I’m drinking it because I know I’ll need it for this.”

“For this?” Jeongguk raises an eyebrow. “You mean because I’m here?”
“Precisely.”

“Glad I can make you break your rules,” Jeongguk says. “How does it work, by the way? Your
whole I’m a vampire thing. I’ve never actually seen you drink blood except that one time in the
club.” Under his breath, he adds, “petty motherfucker.”

“That’s because I don’t feel the need to excessively drink blood.” Taehyung takes a sip of wine. “I
drink just enough to sustain myself. Usually, food can curb the hunger for a while.”

“Are you a vampire fuckboy?” Jeongguk doesn’t even take off his shoes before throwing his feet
onto the couch. “Do you bring someone new home every time you need a drink?”

“No.” Taehyung glares at his shoes on the couch. Jeongguk, the asshole, settles them more
comfortably on the velvet cushions. “I usually drink from blood bags donated by a hospital in the
city. The occasional human if I feel like it.”

“Shit.” Jeongguk laughs. “That’s fucked up. You get your blood from the hospital? You know
other people need that blood, right?”

“And why should I care about them?”

“Hm, true. You don’t care about anyone other than yourself.”

“Correct.”

Jeongguk hums before closing his eyes. He says nothing more.

Taehyung sips at his wine and looks for a moment. He just looks at Jeongguk, the profile of his
face, the small cuts on his fingers, the lackadaisical posture of his body. Here’s a man of corded
muscle and quivering hatred under the thick layers of violence and adrenaline. Someone who isn’t
afraid of Taehyung, and he doesn’t know why.
For a moment, Taehyung wonders what secrets Jeongguk holds. Someone like Jeongguk would
have a million secrets, because he’s complex, and he’s Jeongguk. Taehyung has a million
questions, and he doubts that most of them will never see the light of day. Jeongguk must have a
million questions, too, but he keeps them at bay.

For a long, long time, they never interacted. For as long as Taehyung has been in the Underground,
Jeongguk has been there, too. As far as he can remember, Jeongguk wasn’t always like this —
some hotshot fighter with spectators kissing his feet and sponsors lining up at his door. No, they
both rose to power slowly.

Taehyung saw Jeongguk fight, saw him rise through the ranks. Similarly, Jeongguk must have seen
him at the fights. Must have heard of Taehyung’s name through the grapevine. That one vampire
who came from nowhere and stayed. That one vampire who owns everyone worth owning in the
Underground. That one vampire that leaves and comes back everyday, every night, like he actually
likes it here. That one vampire… That Kim Taehyung.

They simply ignored each other’s presence.

Until, one day, Jeongguk came up to him after a fight. He simply jumped down from the ring, his
medallion swaying across the broad expanse of his bruised chest, found Taehyung in the crowd,
and told him, “come with me to the back rooms?”

Taehyung expected sex, or money, or curiosity. That’s what everyone else expected, too, judging
by the jealous glares they sent his way when he followed Jeongguk past the arena and into the
maze of hallways in the back area. In hindsight, that was a stupid expectation. Jeongguk wouldn’t
do something as cliche as that, at least not to him.

And when Jeongguk had led him into a waiting room, that was the first time Taehyung saw his
bag. The bag that he carries everywhere, that he brings his gear in. The same bag he still uses now
— battered up, stitches broken, but it’s his. That was also the first time Taehyung saw Jeongguk’s
wrist. He’s always seen Jeongguk with the bandages on, wrapped just a little past his wrists.

But that day, he unravelled them and bared his wrist to Taehyung. Showed Taehyung something
that he really shouldn’t have.

That was the first time Taehyung ever attacked Jeongguk. That was the first time Jeongguk sent a
fist flying to his chest to knock him back. That was the first time Taehyung felt hatred for this
hotshot fighter, Golden, and he knew that Jeongguk felt the same about him.
That was when Jeongguk said, “become my sponsor.”

And Taehyung replied, “fuck you.”

That was when their fighting started, and Jeongguk would go to every fighting ring that Taehyung
frequents. He turned down other sponsors, upped the dramatics, and, like a broken fucking record,
told Taehyung to become my sponsor.

God, he’s always been so annoying.

“You’re quiet today,” Jeongguk says. “What’re you thinking about?”

“You.”

“I’m always on your mind, huh?”

“Like a clingy dog with separation anxiety.”

“That’s weirdly specific.”

“You asked, I answered,” Taehyung says.

“Woof.”

And they fall back into silence.

These past few weeks, things have been getting a little easier. Whereas before, putting Jeongguk
and Taehyung in one room would cause enough anger and energy to light an atomic bomb,
Taehyung’s gotten used enough to Jeongguk’s petty insults to brush most of them off. Jeongguk
has seemingly calmed down as well.
Now, they can stand to be in a room for more than three minutes without trying to bite each other’s
heads off.

Taehyung has placed Jeongguk in more fights and paid him handsomely for it. All in all, the
arrangement is mutually beneficial. The more Jeongguk fights, the more fights Taehyung attends,
the more people see them together and put two-and-two together to realise that Kim Taehyung is
Golden’s sponsor. If people respected them before, they respect them even more now.

Taehyung has never had so many people sucking up to him before just to get a chance to fight
against Jeongguk. Anything he wants in the Underground, he’ll get. It’s a power trip that Taehyung
fears is getting to his head, but Jeongguk seems to be revelling in it. Seems to like going to
Taehyung and saying I turned down five new sponsors today. You owe me a good fight this
weekend, as if he wasn’t the one who desperately wanted the sponsorship in the first place.

Leads are slow. Seokjin’s found a few more shady places for them to check out, and a lot seem to
be in the same business that Ola and that vampire was. Shady fights, no killing to the death,
smuggling unconscious people across the Underground. Sure, it could be a simple case of people
trafficking, but Taehyung has a feeling there’s something more to it.

Every single smuggling fighting ring he’s been to has mentioned The Wolf. Even when they left a
fighting ring alone to lie in wait hoping The Wolf would visit it, he never has. As if he knows what
rings Taehyung and Jeongguk have found, and knows to avoid it. The Wolf never made the trip to
see Ola’s fights. Taehyung would know, he monitored it personally over the week after his and
Jeongguk’s information extraction session, but nothing.

He’s closing down, though. Getting close. There’s only so many places to hide in the Underground,
and Taehyung knows half of them. The one who knows the other half is currently laying on his
couch, eyes closed.

“Why am I here?” Jeongguk asks.

“Because I wanted to tell you that you have a fight coming up soon.”

“Could’ve told me that over the phone.”

“I wasn’t finished,” Taehyung quips. He hates being interrupted. Jeongguk smirks because he
knows, and he knows that Taehyung knows that he knows. “You’re also coming with me to a trip.”

“A trip?”

“In ten days,” Taehyung says. “You need to pack your bags for a week away from here.”

“Shit.” Jeongguk opens his eyes and turns his head to Taehyung. “Are you serious?”

“Why would I lie about this?”

“Because you’re a piece of shit who lies about a lot of things,” Jeongguk says, sitting up. “You’re
telling me that you want me to come with you on some… some trip that lasts a week.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because something is about to happen and I want to know more about it.”

Jeongguk drawls, “remember what I told you about how I felt when you say cryptic shit like that?”

“Cryptic or not, you’re coming with me.”

“The hell I am,” Jeongguk scoffs. “Give me one good reason why I should.”

Taehyung levels him a look, drinks the rest of his wine, and says, “because we’re going back to
Seoul, South Korea.”

Jeongguk freezes.
Taehyung stares.

The record player plays on in the background, and it’s the same song. It goes back to where it
started because it’s broken.

Jeongguk murmurs, “Tell me you have another bottle of wine.”

As Taehyung rises to get it and another wine glass, Ferdinand Morton’s The Crave starts playing
again.

——

The cotton ball shrivels at the touch of hot, warm blood, and there's this thing about gloriousness
— it doesn't last long.

There are moments in life filled with sparks and fireworks and a feeling that rises in your chest, so
warm and deep and like a tidal wave that it almost tears you apart at the seams. Those moments are
few and rare for Taehyung, but he finds them all the same. Somehow, somewhere, the cold inside
him loosens its hold and gives him this privilege, this childlike feeling of wonder.

The first time he felt it in the Underground was when he was standing in a room filled with dead
bodies, a bullet hole in his shoulder, and a shitload of cash and approval from the Big Three
waiting for him because he completed a mission.

Another time he felt it was when he was walking along a busy pathway, and whoever looked at
him looked at him. Not past him with the dazed, glassy eyes that everyone seems to favour in that
hellhole of a place, but with attention. They looked at him and they moved out of his way.

Really, now that Taehyung thinks about it, all his moments of gloriousness are brought about by
power. Power over everyone else, power over his actions. Power coursing through him, adrenaline,
fire at his fingertips.

See, the first time Taehyung felt the rush of gloriousness in the Underground was when he was
surrounded by dead bodies. The first time Taehyung felt the rush of power in his life was when he
was surrounded by fire.
Crackling, smoky flames burning everything to the ground. Almost burning him to the ground, and
Taehyung honestly wouldn't have minded if it did.

Another cotton ball shrinks as it's dipped into antiseptic. A moment later, accompanied with the
sound of a pained hiss and a toned body tightening with pain, it shrivels into shades of sanguine
red.

These days, the rush of gloriousness is far and few, but Taehyung has been stealing moments of it
now more than ever. Really, he doesn't want to acknowledge why, but it's unavoidable.

It's all thanks to—

"Shit, could you be a little more gentle?"

Taehyung grits his teeth and presses the cotton ball harder against the bloody wound. It's all thanks
to—

"I could do a better job than this with my eyes closed and my fingers cut off, what the hell."

"Well, I can certainly arrange for that to be tested," Taehyung forces out between gritted teeth.

It's all thanks to Jeo—

"Are you trying to kill me or heal me?"

All thanks to—

"Jeongguk." Taehyung drops the cotton ball in the trash can beside them and sighs. "You've been
through worse shit without flinching. Stop overreacting."

"Yeah, I've been through worse," Jeongguk retorts, "but I've also been through a lot tonight, and I'd
really 'ppreciate a bit of sympathy and warmth."

"The only warmth you'll find here is from the toilet seat that’s touching your ass," Taehyung
deadpans.

Still, neither of them mention it when he softens the presses of the cotton balls just the slightest.
It’s all thanks to Jeongguk that Taehyung even gets a glimpse of that sweet, addicting taste of
power on his tongue.

It’s almost difficult to accept, but even the fights were losing their flavour. The only reason
Taehyhung ever went to them anymore was to try to feel something, some desperate attempt to
force life to have meaning again.

Taehyung has days of monotony. Peaceful, quiet, mornings filled with nothing but birdsong and
leaves swaying in the breeze. Days of monotony so easily give way to the hundreds and millions
and thousands and infinite painful thoughts in Taehyung’s fucked up mind. Sometimes, painting
and wine works to keep them at bay. Sometimes, he needs the fights — the violence and blood.
Someone else’s blood on the floor, not his. Never his.

With every sip of wine he took, every punch whipping through the air that he saw, Taehyung had
to admit to himself that he was slowly losing control. Power whittling down into the barest bones
of what it once was. He realised that can run from physical torture, but maybe he should have
considered the emotional pain. He was spiralling down.

Then, Jeongguk came and showed him something that made him feel something. Jeongguk came
and forced anger and pettiness out of Taehyung, and made him feel something other than relentless
monotony and peace and it felt fucking fantastic.

So good, so addictive, so rushing that Taehyung eventually caved in and made that damned
contract because he couldn’t let it go. Couldn’t let Jeongguk go.

And, now, whenever Jeongguk wins, Taehyung feels that rush of power like Jeongguk’s blood
itself is running down his tongue in thick, red rivulets, igniting that fire in the pit of his stomach.

But Taehyung would never admit that out loud.

“Tell me, do you ever,” Jeongguk says, “want to taste my blood?”

Taehyung pauses. He would never admit that, too. “No.”

“Liar.”

“I really don’t,” Taehyung says casually. He resumes cleaning Jeongguk’s wounds. “I drink blood
before I come to see you every time. I’m never hungry when you’re around.”

Liar. Taehyung hasn’t drank blood in a while. Something is off — they taste off. No matter how
many different blood bags he tries, they taste flavourless. Cardboard mixed with the slightest tinge
of printer ink. Nothing like the sweetness and peaches they used to taste like, and it’s infuriating.
Sometimes, Taehyung can force himself to choke it down. Usually, he would rather starve.

“Is that how it works?” Jeongguk asks. “Because I know that even if you’re full, you can still smell
my blood.”

Taehyung refrains from saying that he can always smell Jeongguk’s blood. Can smell it under the
sweet, soapy scent of his skin. Can almost feel it on his tongue from how potent its scent is —
coppery laced with something more. Something that Taehyung wants to drown in.

The room they’re in is definitely not the grandest that either of them have been in. No, that would
be the fight from two weeks ago, when Jeongguk got knocked on his ass two times, got back up a
third time and knocked his opponent down ten times before snapping a few bones. That fight was
in some old, abandoned shopping subway on the outskirts of the Underground, refurbished to look
like cheap luxury.

All the old shops were stripped bare and turned into waiting rooms, with the largest turned into the
arena. At least there, Taehyung had enough room to rile Jeongguk up just enough that he stormed
the arena with anger hungry enough to kill. There, he could dodge Jeongguk’s barbs and punches
before the fight, then heal him properly afterwards with a big fat check in hand.

Jeongguk always fights dirtier when he’s angry beforehand. Taehyung loves it. Loves it so much,
and that’s why he likes to rile Jeongguk up before a fight whenever he gets the chance.

Here, the fight was a little less glamorous, a bit more dirty, and Taehyung swore he saw a rat
scamper across the corpse of Jeongguk’s opponent before they made their way back here. They
only have a small, cramped bathroom with mouldy tiles as their waiting room. Taehyung didn’t
even dare to play around with Jeongguk’s temper, didn’t want to taunt Jeongguk to a fight with a
shitty ass toilet as their only company; just told him to do his shit and win. Jeongguk didn’t
disappoint.

But their every word echoes, even the smallest of whispers.

And it echoes when Jeongguk leans down and breathes into Taehyung’s ear, “do I smell nice,
Taehyung?”

Kneeling on the floor, bandages in his hands, Taehyung stills. Usually, he wouldn’t be so easy to
rile up. It would take more than a few suggestive words and a breathy whisper to make him lose
his cool but — goddammit — it’s been so long since he’s had blood. Been so, so long.

Taehyung grits his teeth. “Shut up.”

He can sense Jeongguk’s triumph, and the little shit continues to mock him. “You just want to
drink it all up, hm?”

“Jeongguk, I’m serious.”

“What would you do if I keep talking?” Jeongguk asks. He still hasn’t moved back. “Rip my throat
out? Kill me? Take every last bit of my blo—”

“Jeongguk.”

The air feels thick. In this tiny, cramped bathroom where the tiles are cold, Taehyung feels a
foreign feeling run down his back, under his skin. It’s different from the cold. There’s a flash of it
— just one moment, and it happens when Jeongguk laughs low and dark in his ears and his breath
hits the side of Taehyung’s face, and Taehyung realises what it is.

Heat.
Fuck.

Jeongguk leans in even closer, so close that his lips brush the shell of Taehyung’s ear when he
murmurs, “what if I told you that I’d let you? Let you drink from me?”

Taehyung clutches the bandages tighter. “What are you trying to do?”

“What you do to me.”

“What do you mean?”

“You rile me up,” Jeongguk says. “Before every fight, you rile me up, make me angry. You want
me to play dirty, but you didn’t see it tonight, did you?”

Taehyung holds his breath. With every word Jeongguk says, Taehyung loses control over his
sanity and the smell of Jeongguk’s blood grows stronger. The heat flashes by again and Taehyung
almost jolts.

“But I can still play dirty,” Jeongguk promises. “Just ‘cause I’m not fighting anymore doesn’t
mean I can’t.”

“So, this is it?” Taehyung mutters. “This is you playing dirty?”

“Revenge, for all those times you made me almost lose my fucking mind.”

“Does it taste sweet?”

“I don’t know.” Jeongguk curls one hand in the fabric of Taehyung’s shirt, just above his chest. He
leans back and drags the vampire along with him, before holding up his other hand to Taehyung’s
face, red and bloody, knuckles raw from bruising punches. Jeongguk smiles, wicked and cruel and
bloody and beautiful. “Why don’t you tell me?”

Shit.
Every single instinct inside Taehyung is screaming at him to take the plunge, dig his fangs into
Jeongguk’s hand. Just bite, bite, bite. Take every last drop and savour it, bite into Jeongguk’s skin
until the fighter screams. Let go of every inhibition and just get even a taste of what he’s wanted
for so, so long, because Taehyung is starving and Jeongguk is teasing, he’s offering, and he’s so
tempting.

His voice, low and dark and suggestive, his breaths, his eyes, his— everything. Everything about
him makes Taehyung want to take until those fucking stars in his eyes blitz out, one by one. Wants
to feel the power in Jeongguk’s body burning in his chest, wants to taste the adrenaline in his
blood. Desire is something Taehyung has never struggled with, because he’s always gotten what he
wanted.

And Jeongguk…

Jeongguk is the one thing in the world he wants right now.

A moment of stillness. Jeongguk watches him, eyes wide and that unhinged, crooked grin on his
pretty face. Eyes dark, broken, cheeks flushed. Taehyung wants and wants and loses his mind.
Jeongguk’s blood is right there. Jeongguk is right there, and—

A touch of water drops from the tap in the corner. It hits the sink with an audible plink.

Taehyung snaps out of it.

He pushes Jeongguk away roughly and throws himself back. Jeongguk, the goddamn bastard, just
stays seated and he laughs. Closes his eyes and laughs, like this is some twisted joke. Like he
doesn’t know how close he was to losing his life.

“You’re insane,” Taehyung spits. “Really fucking insane, you know that?”

Jeongguk cracks a grin at that. “I know. I did it, didn’t I? Rile you up? Your eyes are red.”

“I wonder why.”
“Did I tempt you that much?” Jeongguk tilts his head, clearly enjoying this. “Thought you weren’t
hungry.”

“Just shut up.”

Madness comes down to this: disguise. Either you hide it or you run with it. Either way, there’s no
sanity in anything you do. If you hide it, less people might know. At least people who run with it
don’t have that added stress in their lives; they just fuck everything up and laugh while lucidity
slips out in droplets over cracked, split lips.

Jeongguk doesn’t even try. He’s out of his mind, batshit crazy, and he knows it. Taehyung knows
it. Someone who constantly taunts death and reigns death on others isn’t sane. Someone who seeks
out danger with an obsessive craving isn’t sane. It would be terrifying, seeing Jeongguk doubled
over in breathless laughter with his body bruised and battered, if Taehyung was sane.

And here’s where another difference lies between them: Jeongguk runs with the madness,
Taehyung tries to hide it. He’s broken, he knows. Something in the wires of his brain doesn’t click
right — never has, since his childhood. He sees the world in shades of red and black and he fills
himself with contradictions to distract himself from the fact that the shadows of his past still find
him, no matter how much power he has.

Even if others put him on the highest pedestal, nothing can escape the memory of that dungeon —
isolation, loneliness, too much darkness and the light so far away. Stars, watching him cry.

“Jeongguk,” Taehyung says. “Who are you?”

Jeongguk stops laughing long enough to let out a curious, “hm?”

“Who the hell are you?” Taehyung asks. He gets onto his feet and takes a step towards the broken
fighter. Looms over him. “And what are you doing?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean. Why did you ask for my sponsorship?”
“I told you,” Jeongguk says, lazy grin twitching. “You’re one of the most respected here. We both
get power from this arrangement—”

“Bullshit. There’s something more,” Taehyung cuts him off. “I know it. Know you’re hiding
something.”

Jeongguk’s grin drops immediately, something dark shuttering over his face. “Secrets? We both
have them.”

“But yours involves me.”

“Yours involves me too. You just don’t know it.”

Taehyung freezes.

Jeongguk stands up. They’re so close that there’s no room to move, no room to breathe, but
Jeongguk does it anyway and their chests brush with every inhale. “I know everything, Kim
Taehyung. Where you came from, what you went through, the fire… your paren—”

Taehyung’s hand shoots out, almost of its own accord. Hand curled around Jeongguk’s throat,
Taehyung shoves him past the toilet and onto the wall to the side, hard enough to have the fighter’s
head bouncing off it with a smack.

Jeongguk’s words — the conviction behind them, the dark sincerity in his eyes — they’re too
much. Everything is too much. Taehyung’s feelings aren’t under control anymore, and every breath
Jeongguk takes makes him want to snap. There’s too much going on in his head. Where you came
from, what you went through… Memories swirling: a grassy field, a dusty, barred-up window,
handcuffs. The fire. Flames. His dungeon burning in that beautiful glow. Your paren—

“Who the fuck are you?” Taehyung sneers.

One of Jeongguk’s hands encircle Taehyung’s wrist. He squeezes tightly, hard enough to leave
deep bruises, his muscles tensing. “Someone you’d want dead. The only one in this shithole that
knows who you are.”
“What do you know?”

Jeongguk smiles, lip splitting even more. A droplet of blood escapes the new cut. “Everything.”

“How?”

“How what?”

Taehyung narrows his eyes. “Stop acting stupid, Jeongguk. How do you know who I am?”

“Because you don’t remember me.” Jeongguk looks Taehyung in the eyes, not a hint of fear in
them. “If you did, you wouldn’t want to kill me.”

Taehyung feels like he’s shaking, but his grip on Jeongguk is steady. The world feels shaky. He
hates this. Hates not feeling in control, despite being the one with a hand wrapped around
Jeongguk’s throat.

“You won’t tell me,” Taehyung says.

“No, I won’t.” Jeongguk leans his head back on the wall, closing his eyes for a moment. He’s
beginning to get tired. “It’s better if you find out yourself, hm? I know you won’t believe shit that
comes out of my mouth. You don’t remember anything before the fire, do you?”

“No.”

“When we get back to Seoul, you will. You’ll remember it all.”

Slowly, Taehyung loosens the hand around Jeongguk’s throat. He lets it drop back to his side.
Jeongguk watches him, body wary but still devoid of fear.

“I think I understand it now,” Taehyung mutters, “when you told me you hated it when I spoke
cryptically. I get why.”

“‘S not fun, is it?”

“Fuck no,” Taehyung scoffs.

“Eat shit.”

“You know.” Taehyung glares at Jeongguk’s cocky grin. “It’s always two steps forward, five steps
back with you.”

“What? Did you think we could ever be friends?” Jeongguk lets out a harsh laugh. “In your
dreams, Taehyung. Only in your goddamn dreams.”

“You—” The sound of Taehyung’s phone ringing interrupts their conversation. Taehyung sighs
harshly. He hates interruptions. “Oh, for fucks’ sake.”

Jeongguk holds himself up on the wall, fatigued body slumping against it. Taehyung pays him no
mind as he takes out his phone and rolls his eyes at the number calling him.

He answers, and greets with a curt, “what?”

Seokjin’s voice comes through from the other side, dry and unimpressed. “Did I interrupt
something?”

“Take a wild guess, Seokjin.” Taehyung glares at Jeongguk to quiet down when the other starts to
have a coughing fit. “Why’re you calling?”

“Remember Ola?”

“I wish I didn’t.”
“One of my spies just contacted me. Said one of the people who disappeared from his fights —
someone he smuggled out — was spotted.”

Taehyung straightens up. He whacks Jeongguk’s shoulder when the fighter knocks over a bottle of
pills as he tries to bandage himself and whispers, “shut up.” Ignoring the fighter’s livid glare, he
says to Seokjin, “where?”

“In the Tri-fold Arena. Downtown, around the corner where Hong’s gang likes to play.”

Taehyung stops. Tri-fold Arena. That’s where they are now. “Seokjin…”

“I know you’re there now. My spies told me that, too. You’re there with Golden, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, this person… they know where you are, too. They seem to have targeted you. One of you.”

“What?”

Suspense tickles the back of his neck, spreads its fingers through his hair. There’s something in
Seokjin’s voice that’s bordering on hesitant and Taehyung does not know how to navigate it.
Seokjin has never been hesitant, never doubted himself, his spies. Still, there’s a nanosecond of a
pause in his words — a massive space filled with ambiguity and twinges of apprehension.

Taehyung’s grip tightens on the phone. Jeongguk must sense something in his voice because he
quietens down, eyes trained on him.

“Taehyung, my spies told me that…”

A scratching sound comes from the door of the bathroom. Taehyung stills. Jeongguk pauses, head
snapping to the door. He picks up the medical scissors.

“They’re outside your room.”

 ——

Taehyung finds his evening filled to the brim with three things he hates the most.

One is Jeongguk.

The second is Min Yoongi and Kim Namjoon, the Big Three.

The third is Jeon Jeongguk and Min Yoongi and Kim Namjoon in the same room.

Some things are never meant to meet. This combination of people is one of them.

Nevermind the glassy-eyed, numb-looking girl in the corner with her arms tied in front of her and
the ouroboros tattoo shining dark and stark on her arm. Sweat rolls off her greasy face and into her
eyes. She does nothing to wipe it off. Just continues to stare forward — stare straight with that
dead-fish look. Stare right at Taehyung with the intensity of a marshmallow and a burning steel rod
at the same time.

At least Seokjin is here with him, not that he’s much help. He doesn’t display any of it, but
Taehyung knows that he’s just as uncomfortable as he is.

Taehyung knows the hierarchy exists to maintain peace and resolve conflicts through power and
responsibility, and because the world would be in shambles without it, and because it is normal
human and vampire nature to create it. Taehyung also knows that that’s all bullshit.

A hierarchy exists because, once upon a time, the Big Three used to be composed of three people,
but someone craved the power too much and decided to leave.

The hierarchy might be built off bullshit righteousness and power corruption, but it can still send
Taehyung’s head flying through the clouds and his body dragging through the mud.

The problem is that as much as he hates the hierarchy, there’s someone else in the room that hates
it more. Jeongguk. Taehyung literally had to force Jeongguk to kneel by shoving him down by his
shoulders, and even then, the fucker only knelt for a second, before spitting on the floor and
standing back up defiantly, still in his bloody cargo pants, torn shirt, and cracking leather jacket.

“Kim Taehyung, appointed representative from the Underground. Please rise.”

When Taehyung gets up from his knee, he avoids Jeongguk’s eyes. Something under his skin
crawls at the thought of Jeongguk seeing him submit to someone else. He can’t afford to get
distracted right now, every single word makes the difference between a step towards the exit and a
noose tightening around his neck. Still, even with his valiant efforts to ignore Jeongguk’s stare, he
can feel it.

Such a little bitch. That’s what he hears in his head and, unsurprisingly, it comes in the form of
Jeongguk’s voice.

At least the fighter has enough sense to not say it out loud. Taehyung knows that he wants to,
though. He likes to create trouble wherever he can, and he likes to tempt death. His chance to kill
two birds with one stone is here, and Jeongguk never hesitates to kill.

Kim Namjoon speaks once more. “You may present your report.”

Taehyung clears his throat. “Five weeks ago, you ordered Kim Seokjin and I to carry out an
information extraction on a potential spy, now known as Jeonhyun. From him, we learnt of a figure
threatening your power — they are referred to as The Wolf. Thereafter, Seokjin and I have been
conducting a reconnaissance mission throughout the Underground.

“We have found that The Wolf frequently visits smuggling rings. These smuggling rings have
either been operating for a long time or began recently. What sets them apart is their methods of
extraction — most trafficking organisations simply take people from the streets. Rarely do they
organise fights with referees and spectators, along with the costs of the prize money and
equipment, just to smuggle one person. The Wolf seems to control these somehow — sometimes,
he reportedly participates in the fights by bringing his own fighter.

“Information extraction sessions on the owners of these rings bring little information. For this
mission, we strategized a particular form of extraction. Instead of simply torturin— I mean,
extracting information from all the participants of a smuggling ring together, we do so
independently. One participant after another. Make them believe that everyone else is dead, that
they’re alone in all of this. In that way, we can lessen communication between the, uh, suspects so
they have lower chances of implementing a collective lie.”
Beside him, Jeongguk shifts. Taehyung can feel every movement of his. Right now, he’s looking
at the girl in the corner. Always so impatient, that fire in his veins. Time is running thin, but only
because Jeongguk is one touch too close to exhaustion and one second away from snapping.

Taehyung shifts, nudges Jeongguk subtly. A silent message to stay calm. Jeongguk nudges him
back, not so subtly. A loud message to go fuck yourself, I am calm.

“For example, in the case of one referee under The Wolf’s dominion — which we now know as
Ola — we… incapacitated each suspect within the premises. Then, we made them believe each
other was dead as we interviewed them one by one. In doing so, we increased their sense of
helplessness and removed any sense of power.

"They give information away much more easily when they believe that it’s the end for them. From
there, it was easy to sense discrepancies in everyone’s stories to figure out which factors were lies
and which information contradicted.”

Min Yoongi shows no signs of approval. Kim Namjoon speaks next. “What information have you
collated?”

“The Wolf knows how we move. No matter how quietly we travel to his smuggling rings, he
knows almost immediately and avoids it. Most likely to evade us. We are closing in on him,”
Taehyung reassures. “He only has a handful left, and they are under our watch. I have avoided
visiting them to reduce the chances of The Wolf finding out, but it appears that the mission is
stagnant for now, until The Wolf makes his next move.”

Kim Namjoon nods. “And the girl?”

Taehyung eyes the girl in the corner, still staring at him with that dead, dead gaze. “Earlier this
evening, Seokjin was informed of her appearance in the arena that Golden and I attended. She was
one of the people allegedly trafficked out from Oli’s smuggling ring. She was found outside the
waiting room that Golden and I occupied. She tried to run when she realised we knew of her
presence, but we managed to catch her and bring her here.”

“Does she speak?”

“No.” Taehyung tilts his head to the side. The girl blinks. Stares. “Her tongue is cut off.”
“And what of the tattoo on her arm?” The tattoo of the snake eating itself. Ouroboros.

“I…” Careful, careful. Taehyung needs to tread carefully about this. “I am unsure about that, but…
if that tattoo is related to what I believe it is, then this situation is much more grave than we
initially anticipated.”

Kim Namjoon clenches his jaw slightly. He, too, knows the meaning of that tattoo, and Taehyung
knows he hates it. Probably not as much as Taehyung, but enough to send him on edge. “Find out
immediately.”

Taehyung nods. “We will. I have already made plans to do so.”

“Good.”

In the echoing silence, Taehyung becomes familiar with the clock on the desk once again. The
second hand ticking down, down, around, and up. If he tries hard enough, he can probably stare at
the girl’s face and see it reflected in her eyes. Her blank, emotionless eyes. Whatever happened to
her has turned her into a shell of who she used to be.

Whatever happened to her is a warning. A warning to him.

Maybe they have found him. Maybe they are coming to find him. Maybe they are just toying with
him. What ever the case, Taehyung knows that there’s something looming over his shoulder.
Something bigger than the current problem they’re facing, but he’s a coward. He’s a fucking
coward, because he’s too scared to turn around and face it.

He doesn’t want to think about what this means — why that tattoo keeps following him around
everywhere. Jeonhyun, the girl, and — fuck — Taehyung wants to run from all of this but he can’t.
He’s bound to Jeongguk, and Jeongguk’s bound to the Underground, and Taehyung knows this will
come for his head sooner or later.

She keeps staring at Taehyung. Staring, like she can’t even fathom doing anything else. Like the
wires in her brain unstitched and were forced together in some grotesque fashion that tells her to
stop eating, stop drinking, don’t sleep, just watch. Watch. Watch him. The tips of her fingers are
blue. She’s cold.
“We appreciate your cooperation,” Kim Namjoon finally says. “Leave the girl with us. We have
other means of extracting information apart from verbal confirmation. We shall schedule another
meeting when required.”

Beside him, Jeongguk shifts again. When Jeongguk shifts, the whole world shifts and Taehyung
struggles to stay straight-backed and upright. He can almost feel the heat under Jeongguk’s veins,
the lines of his body tense, his heartbeat slow and deep.

“You may leave.”

Taehyung looks at the girl one more time before he bows and leaves. He feels her eyes glued to his
back like hooks; staring, staring, staring.

Stop eating, stop drinking, don’t sleep, just watch.

Taehyung reaches the door and almost rips it off its hinges throwing it open.

Watch.

Seokjin steps out first.

Watch him.

Then, Jeongguk. Jeongguk shoves past him, shoots him a glare over his shoulder, before stalking
out. His powerful body cuts a striking silhouette in the dark hallway.

She’s cold. Cold, cold, cold.

Taehyung follows. He knows that whatever happened to that girl is a warning to him. A message,
loud and clear, that says this is what will happen to you. I want this to happen to you. It echoes in
his mind with the voice of his mother.
As soon as the door shuts behind Taehyung, he is out of sight of the girl.

Through the thick muffled wood, Taehyung hears her start to scream. Garbled and desperate and
Taehyung knows she’s pleading for him to come back. Come back so she can watch. And he knows
that the more she screams, the more she’ll feel it.

The phantom pains of where her tongue used to be.

——

Outside, Jeongguk slams Taehyung against the walls of the building. It’s dark enough that no one
is out, and the only ones who are are out of it — hallucinating, stumbling, intoxicated with grief
and regret and anger and drugs.

Seokjin pays them no mind. He just keeps walking. No goodbyes or good luck s. No need. He just
walks away into the night. He’ll contact Taehyung if he needs to.

But Jeongguk — he’s a whole different story.

Now, Taehyung can feel what he’s been holding back inside the meeting room.

His whole body is trembling, eyes burning with anger. So much anger bursting out — a lot more
than what Taehyung sees before a fight. He’s overflowing with it, forehead lined with sweat, the
arm pressed across Taehyung’s chest digging deep and tight. The tattoos over his knuckles flex as
he curls his hand tightly.

In a voice, so low that Taehyung struggles to hear it above the screaming of the stars, Jeongguk
mutters, “don’t ever kneel like that again. Not to them. Not to anyone.”

Before Taehyung can say anything else, Jeongguk shoves him into the wall one more time. Then,
he walks away.

In the concrete jungle around them and the maze of empty streets, Taehyung watches his fighter
walk away.
And the stars keep him company as he makes his way home.

——

It occurs to Taehyung to realise why Jeongguk reacted the way he did only a few nights later.

Taehyung understands it: the horror, the ugly feeling in your gut, that comes with watching
someone so powerful fall down to their knees. He gets it now — how Jeongguk must have felt. It’s
a sickening feeling and there, that tinge of helplessness that comes with it, makes him almost
nauseous.

“Jeongguk!”

The scent of blood fills the air. Where it would usually make Taehyung at least pleasantly
interested, now it only serves to intensify the piercing migraine building in his head, the soreness of
his limbs. Every movement brings a knife carving a trail down the inside of his throat, because the
scent of Jeongguk’s blood is everywhere. It fills the air, moves with the wind, follows Taehyung
wherever he turns.

A bullet whizzes past but Taehyung pays it no mind. He sprints from the bushes and into the open.
Red dot laser sights follow, but it’s night. Nighttime is Taehyung’s element. The shadows cover
him; they blur his movement, his unnatural speed.

Jeongguk is on his knees on the lawn, blood spilling out of the wound in his arm. Taehyung swears
and runs faster. His fighter almost looks small — bowed over, a hand clutching his weeping arm.
But almost, because even from here, Taehyung can see the rigid frame of Jeongguk, the fiery
trembling of his body, the glare in his eyes.

Adrenaline mixing with pain, and Jeongguk is used to it.

Jeongguk thrives in it.

But this is not the time to play around, to tempt fate. Taehyung needs Jeongguk alive, and as
invincible Jeongguk believes himself to be, he’s not. He’s nothing against the bullets pointed at
him from the warehouse up ahead.

Taehyung reaches him just as something grazes his cheek. In the madness running in his veins, he
barely feels the aftereffects — the sting, the feeling of something cool dripping down his face.

“Jeongguk!” Taehyung grits out. He doesn’t stop running, not even when he reaches his fighter.
“Get up. Get the fuck up.”

Jeongguk’s head snaps towards him, eyes wide and burning so, so bright. “The fuck are you doing
here—”

Taehyung goes to Jeongguk’s unharmed arm and hauls him up, before dragging him over back to
the bushes. “Shut up and run, goddammit.”

Jeongguk pulls back against him. “This wasn’t part of the plan—”

“Fuck the plan!” Taehyung feels something get his arm, his leg. He falters, but when Jeongguk
lets out a pained hiss behind him, he picks the pace back up. “We’re going to— shit! — going to
die if we stay there.”

“Let go—”

Taehyung throws Jeongguk into the bushes and dives in after him. As expected, the fighter doesn’t
look pleased. Eyes ablaze, jaw set, he’s stumbling back to his feet. Undoubtedly, he’s going to try
and get back out there. Face the fucking bullets and rain his own hell down on that warehouse.

That goddamn warehouse.

They never should have come here.

Taehyung’s blood is on fire — from the bullets that grazed his skin, the shots hitting everywhere
around them, Jeongguk’s gaze. When he moves to grab Jeongguk’s arm again, his fighter moves
out of his reach. Gritting his teeth, Taehyung glares and tries again.
“Jeongguk, don’t be stupid.”

“I can take them,” Jeongguk sneers. “Don’t try to stop me.”

“I just told you to not be stupid,” Taehyung snaps. Without a pause, he reaches for Jeongguk’s arm
again — the injured one this time. Jeongguk lets out a pained noise behind closed lips, eyes
fluttering from the pain. “You’re already about to pass out just from this. How many more bullets
can you take? You wanna find out right here and now, in front of some shitty warehouse with only
me as your company?”

Jeongguk breathes heavily, cheeks flushed. He stumbles on his feet. Another bullet whizzes by.
Less are coming by than before, but only because the snipers don’t know where to shoot.
Taehyung thanks everything in the world that these bushes are as thick as they are, that it’s windy
tonight and every movement they make on the bushes is covered by the breeze.

“We’re going.”

This time, Jeongguk doesn’t argue.

Taehyung lets go of his arm and circles around Jeongguk’s trembling body to the unwounded arm.
Slinging it over his shoulder, Taehyung slowly leads Jeongguk to their exit point. It’s times like
these that Taehyung appreciates his heightened senses — he slips them from shadow to shadow,
eyes seeing clearly in the dark. Even with Jeongguk’s muscular frame, Taehyung can bear his
weight.

This area of the Underground is one that’s rarely visited by any inhabitant. Nothing but industrial,
open roads and flickering streetlights, everyone knows this is the place to go to if you want to get
killed. Even if it looks deserted, there’s always something waiting around the corner — gangs,
knives, a hostage begging to be set free.

The crossroads of desecration, desperation, and the murder of morality.

The warehouse they went to is right in the middle. The bushes come from a lack of care and too
much abandonment — nature taking back what it used to have. Every corner of this damned place
is littered with graffiti, weeds, and piss on brick walls. Taehyung uses them as cover. They prickle
against his skin and rub on the bullet wounds, but he powers through.
Jeongguk leans on him more and more with every passing moment. On the other side of the
bushes, Taehyung hears Jeongguk suck down a deep, choking breath. He swears.

Their getaway car is parked two streets away. Taehyung gets them there as quickly as possible, but
it’s difficult when Jeongguk wants it to be. Stubborn as hell, determined to finish the fight, he
struggles weakly against Taehyung’s hold to turn back. Let me go back, Taehyung!

Every second counts, he knows. Out in the open, away from the bushes, anyone can attack them.
Though Taehyung heard no one run after them from the warehouse, he’s still cautious. One, two,
three seconds. Tick, tock. Racing against time, because Jeongguk won’t stop bleeding, and
Taehyung can still hear gunshots in the background.

Five seconds in and Taehyung can see their getaway car. Three seconds before that, he heard the
sounds of footsteps shuffling around it, the sniffles and wild cackles circling it. Someone — a
group of people — have found their car, and they seem to have taken a big interest in it.

“Shit,” Taehyung whispers.

They don’t have time for this. Jeongguk leans against him heavily, words slurring now. Taehyung
doubts that he knows what’s going on. The blood loss and pain must be getting to his head. Bullet
wounds are different from punches and kicks, different from the pain of knives and lethal hits to
the face.

Taehyung leans Jeongguk against the wall of a nearby building. Places him in the darkness of the
alleyway, out of reach of the flickering streetlight and the moonlight hiding behind thin clouds.
Jeongguk almost slides down, but he catches himself. Droopy eyes meet Taehyung’s alarmed ones,
but Taehyung can’t baby him now.

“Wake the fuck up, Jeongguk,” Taehyung breathes, “and stay awake, yeah? I’ll be back in a
second.”

“Shut up,” Jeongguk slurs. His words come slowly, head lolling to the side. “Don’t… tell me what
to… do.”

“Stay here.” Taehyung pats Jeongguk’s cheek harshly before heading off.
True to his assumption, three people surround his car. Two women, one man. All wearing hoodies
and masks, but they speak loudly. Taehyung can’t understand them — they must be speaking
another language. One that even he doesn’t know.

There’s this tactic that he uses whenever he’s unsure about a situation — Taehyung acts sure. Fake
it ‘til you make it, but a million times more dangerous, because faking something in the
Underground is the difference between getting your head lopped off or walking away unharmed.
Steps sure, chest up, shoulders back, Taehyung saunters towards the group with confidence. Like
he wasn’t just being shot at, like he doesn’t have Jeongguk bleeding out behind him.

Slow, sure steps. He walks on the road, out in the open, right towards the group.

They notice him. Of course they do. Whispers in the Underground tell Taehyung enough about
how other people perceive him. He walks like he owns this place. Arrogant piece of shit. Don’t
look him in the eyes. That’s Kim Taehyung — the powerful one, the strong one. The side of him
that the Underground sees, the side of him that he wants people to see.

“Find something interesting about my car?” He asks.

The three stop their bumbling about and become still, eyes locked on him. Not a word escapes their
lips. Taehyung can barely see their eyes under the thick hood, can barely make out their face from
the mask they wear. Still, he can sense hostility when it comes, and it’s here. It’s here.

“I’d appreciate it if you all stepped away,” Taehyung comments casually, “insurance can be so
expensive these days.”

A cock of a head, the tightening of shoulders, a flash. Knives in their hands, hands in their pockets,
fiddling with something — another knife? A gun? A phone? Taehyung can’t be sure. All he knows
is that he needs to finish this quickly. These guys don’t look like they’re willing to cooperate with
him. How unfortunate.

One of them takes a step forward. Taehyung quirks an eyebrow, slightly amused despite the hellish
situation. Either they’re new to this area, or they don’t know him, or they’re plain stupid. Maybe all
three.

“I said fuck off or die,” Taehyung says, harsher this time. Voice hardening, glare snapping into
place. They hesitate.

A beat passes. It almost seems as if they’re going to leave, as if they’re re-thinking their decisions.
Running away is their best bet. They might not know it yet, but Taehyung does. It’s not just his life
on the line right now — it’s Jeongguk’s. That makes him even more furious, a little less merciful.

And then, they do the unthinkable — they attack. They attack. Taehyung almost laughs. They all
go in at once, words thrown about in ways that Taehyung can’t understand. He doesn’t need to,
though.

Their movements are predictable enough. Rough scrabbling and pub brawls might be all they’re
used to, because there’s absolutely no finesse to the swing of their knives, the drag of their feet on
the concrete.

Here’s the thing: Jeongguk fights like it’s the end of the world. He throws punches and lands them
hard enough to shatter bone, plays with every dirty trick in the book just to get his hands even
dirtier. It’s hard to find pride in the way he fights — vile and cruel and messy, bruising and bloody,
but he does it anyway. And when Jeongguk wins, a gold medal shining on his tanned chest, bloody
smile bright and wide, Taehyung feels that dirty, dirty pride, too.

But Taehyung fights differently — he fights in the opposite way. Fights like time will never end,
like this fight could go on forever and he’d still win until eternity ends. He likes to toy with the
other person; cat-and-mouse, playing with his food before he strikes.

It’s a disgusting play on humiliation, and he knows how his fighting style makes his opponents
feel: frustrated, helpless, pitiful. He’s always one step ahead, and they know it, and there’s nothing
they can do.

Taehyung doesn’t fight much, but when he does, there’s bound to be blood. When he fights, all
sense of morality goes away. But this time, he’s not fighting for himself. There’s a voice in his
head — this stupidly smooth, airy voice — saying Jeongguk, Jeongguk, Jeongguk, and it sounds
like that man himself. Usually, Taehyung likes to toy with his food before he rips their heads off.

But there’s no time for fun now. Jeongguk’s blood lingers in his clothes, in his mind.

Taehyung grabs the hand that comes for him. It’s one of the attackers, carrying a small butterfly
knife. She winces at his grip — a small, momentary show of pain that they try to hide. But
Taehyung sees it. He sees it, and he loves it, and he especially adores the way that wince turns into
a full-blown bellow of pain when Taehyung twists his hand and flicks her wrist in just the right
way. It snaps.

She crumples to the ground, clutching and moaning at her arm. Taehyung wastes no time on her.
The other two rush him on both sides, but they’re slow, and they’re clumsy, and it’s clear they’re
intoxicated. He makes quick work of the other woman. Grabs her arm when she dares to get too
close and sends a brutal kick to her stomach. He swears he hears her shoulder pop before she flies
back and out of his grip, straight into the pavement.

The last man seems to hesitate, but Sir Isaac Newton has a different plan. Years and years ago, the
physicist created the law of inertia: an object in motion stays in motion. And this man is already
swinging, a pistol in one hand and a knife in the other. He’s going in for a kill — pistol pointed at
Taehyung’s head, knife crossed over his chest, protecting his body.

Taehyung sees the trajectory of his movement. Watches, almost in slow-motion, as his eyes widen
while he watches the ease at which Taehyung beats his friends. Then, he stops. Stops, because
Taehyung’s hand is on his pistol. Taehyung hears his breath hitch.

“I gave you a warning,” Taehyung says, voice low. “You should have left when you had the
chance.”

The man splutters something. It sounds like an apology. It sounds like a plea for mercy. It’s too
late.

Taehyung crushes the piece of metal in his hands, watches as the blood drains from the man’s face.
Pale and shaking, he tries to let go. Taehyung drops the crumpled pistol, smiles, and grabs the man
by the throat. He barely exerts any effort when he lifts the man up. It’s almost comical — such a
slapstick gesture — when the man wriggles around as he’s lifted into the air, his airways
physically blocked off by Taehyung’s grip.

The man drops his knife. It falls on top of his pistol with a clink. Taehyung hears the panicked
wheezing of the two women behind him, their pained groans. Bodies crawling away, back into the
darkness. They’re leaving him behind. Good choice.

Taehyung slams the man into the ground. He lets out a breathless sound of pain as the asphalt
cracks under him. Taehyung sees the moment he realises what happened, sees the moment the
shock sets in. He sees the moment the pain descends upon the man’s body, and then he’s writhing,
choked words coming out in a weak, trembling stream with the drool and splatters of blood coming
out of his mouth.

Then, Taehyung is standing up. The man gasps for breath on the ground, but Taehyung doubts
he’ll find it. Maybe if his windpipe survived, he might have a chance. Alas, Taehyung doubts that,
too.

He turns around. Once again, his assumptions are proven correct — the two women have left.
They’ve crawled on their asses away from this mess, realised the extent of their mistakes. Better
late than never.

Maybe Taehyung could hunt them down. It’s been so long since he’s hunted anyone, and with the
thrill of a fight in his veins, he realises he wants to. He wants to chase them. Wants to toy with
them. Wants to let them think they have a chance, but they all know he holds the power in the end.

Taehyung makes to step towards a scuffle in a nearby alleyway. They’re there. Only now,
Taehyung realises how hungry he is. How thirsty. He hasn’t been able to drink in weeks - all blood
from the hospital tastes atrocious. Hasn’t felt adrenaline like this in so long. He can chase them and
then drink his fill. The scuffle sounds again, and a pained whimper follows. They’re there—

Jeongguk.

No. He can’t be distracted. Jeongguk. Jeongguk is waiting for him. Jeongguk needs him, whether
the stubborn asshole knows it or not.

Taehyung fights the urge to give in to the chase. He steps back. Steps away from the alleyway. The
whimpers — taunting and tempting and tantalising — want to draw him back, but he resists. He
retraces his steps to the alleyway where he left Jeongguk, hands curled into fists, body strung high.

But every thought — every wayward desire — flies out of his head when he reaches Jeongguk
again. Because his fighter is on the floor, pale and eyes glassy, a strip of fabric tied messily around
his bullet wound. His whole side is soaked in blood. He’s sweating, teeth gritted against the pain,
breathing harsh.

“Shit.” Taehyung crouches down before him. “Jeongguk. Hey, you with me?”

“Yeah—” Jeongguk sucks in a sharp breath. “Yeah. I’m… good.”

“Sure you are.” Taehyung reaches for his uninjured arm and gently hauls Jeongguk up. He catches
his fighter when Jeongguk stumbles, staggering against the sudden weight. “Help me out a little.”

“Shut up. Just—” Jeongguk’s slurring has gotten worse. A lot worse. “Just use your vampire…
strength.”

And Taehyung does. He gets them out of there as quickly as he can without aggravating
Jeongguk’s arm. The walk to the car seems to take forever. Neither of them pay attention to the
unconscious man on the asphalt, nor the crying and whimpering in the nearby alleyway. Taehyung
unlocks their getaway car and shoves Jeongguk in the passenger seat, ignoring his pained huff. No
time for niceties now.

He slides into the driver’s seat and starts the engine. A cloud of dust gathers behind them,
streetlights beginning to blur, as Taehyung speeds off, wheels screeching on the road. Home. He
needs to get them to his house as soon as possible. Then, he needs to treat Jeongguk.

Just as they’re on the outskirts of the Underground, Taehyung gets a call from Seokjin. He answers
it, with the Bluetooth connection sending Seokjin’s voice straight to the car speakers.

“What the hell happened?” Seokjin starts.

“I’ll tell you what,” Taehyung snaps. “The warehouse you gave us wasn’t a fucking fighting ring.
It wasn’t even empty. It was fortified and we got shot at. Jeongguk’s bleeding out in my seat and I
have a goddamn migraine.”

“Will he make it?”

“He better,” Taehyung mutters. “If he doesn’t…”

Seokjin pauses. Taehyung doesn’t make threats often, but even without completing the sentence,
it’s clear that this one is. If Jeongguk doesn’t make it, then Seokjin’s head will roll. Seokjin, the
one who sent them to the warehouse. It was another fighting ring, he’d said. Something about it
being suspicious, like all the other ones they went to. Said he saw an unmarked car make multiple
stops there.
So, Jeongguk and Taehyung went to investigate. But they weren’t met with another normal fighting
ring — no. They were met with an arsenal of bullets and a hasty retreat, and now Jeongguk’s blood
is staining the leather seat of the getaway car that Seokjin readied for them, and Taehyung’s about
to lose his mind.

“I wanna know what’s inside. What’s so important that they need to defend the place with guns?”

“I don’t fucking know, and right now—” Taehyung takes a sharp turn. “I really don’t care. You
can find out on your own. I have something more important to attend to.”

Taehyung ends the call without a goodbye. Right now, he’s in such a shitty mood that he can’t bear
to hear anyone’s voice. Can’t even listen to the own voice in his head because it’s asking him
stupid questions that he doesn’t know the answer to, like why are you so worried about Jeongguk?
Is he really this important to you? I thought you hated him. Don’t you hate him? Why do you seem
like you… care—

Taehyung swears harshly and picks up the pace. Jeongguk groans in his seat, eyes beginning to
flutter shut, but he fights to keep them open. Taehyung doesn’t even try to comfort him, or to say
something stupid like stay awake, we’re almost there. Just 5 more minutes. Stay awake.

It’s the longest 5 minutes of Taehyung’s life. He almost busts through his front gates when they
don’t open fast enough. The wheels leave rubber marks on his driveway when he skids to a sudden
stop. Then, the world rushes by in a blur as he rushes himself and Jeongguk into his house.

A flashback comes to his mind, unbidden, as he lays Jeongguk on the couch. The memory of
Jeongguk breaking into his house and throwing himself onto Taehyung’s couch, shoes on, carefree
smile for the world to see. It’s so different now, because Jeongguk is hissing in pain, and he’s on
the verge of unconsciousness, and Taehyung doesn’t even care if he has his shoes on.

He retrieves his first-aid kit from the kitchen and takes off Jeongguk’s jacket, going slower every
time his fighter winces in pain. At least Jeongguk is wearing a short-sleeved shirt underneath —
less layers that they need to take off. Taehyung looks at the wound.

“The bullet didn’t completely make a hole in your arm,” he says. “It grazed the side, pretty much
took a chunk off. It’s close to some major blood vessels. Since you’re active, your heart is used to
pumping lots of blood. You’re also high on adrenaline, too. Probably why you’re bleeding a lot.”
“‘Kay,” Jeongguk breathes out, leaning his head on the couch. “So fix it.”

Taehyung doesn’t even retort. He starts cleaning the wound with a saline solution. Once the blood
is cleared away, it looks less life-threatening. The relief that floods through his body feels like a
foreign emotion, but Taehyung can’t even care about it right now — can’t care about how intense
it is, how it calms his mind just a little more.

“I’ll need to stitch it up,” he warns Jeongguk.

“Do it.”

Taehyung grabs the needle driver, the forceps, the thread and needle, and the scissors. The world
around him freezes as he completely focuses on patching up the wound on Jeongguk’s arm. The
stitches are in, then the antibiotics, then the gauze and bandage on top. The whole thing either
takes forever, or it takes no time at all. Taehyung can’t tell.

All he knows is that Jeongguk is barely holding onto consciousness at the end of it. Taehyung
takes his vitals and gets him to drink some painkillers.

“Sleep,” Taehyung says.

Jeongguk doesn’t need any more encouragement. He closes his eyes and knocks out almost
immediately, breathing deepening, body relaxing into the couch.

Taehyung stares at him for a moment more. Jeongguk, such a stubborn fighter. Not many people
would be willing to face a barrage of bullets to finish some mission, especially with a bullet wound.
Not many humans would be able to withstand a bullet wound and that much blood loss for so long.
But Taehyung… Taehyung is glad that Jeongguk could.

Some part of him — some secret, small part of Taehyung is overwhelmingly relieved. Taehyung
doesn’t dwell on it. Something in him is scared to, because feeling happy that Jeongguk is alive —
feeling at ease because he saved Jeongguk’s life — implies that he actually cares. That Jeongguk
actually has value in his life other than to provide him with more power, something mutually
beneficial. Like Jeongguk is actually important to his emotions.

Which, he isn’t. Jeongguk isn’t. He’s nothing more than a business partner to Taehyung, a means to
an end.

Jeongguk’s eyelashes flutter in his sleep. Taehyung’s never realised how long they are.

He rips his gaze away. Forces himself to step back, keep his eyes trained away, and it’s only now
— when Jeongguk is asleep and the world is quiet — that he realises that he has his own bullet
grazes. None as bad as Jeongguk’s, but certainly something he should tend to.

With a sigh, Taehyung gets the first aid kit. For the whole night, as he cleans his wounds, he
doesn’t know why he stays by Jeongguk’s side.

——

“Pack your bags,” Taehyung says.

Jeongguk pauses, mouth stuffed with toast. He’s in Taehyung’s kitchen, finishing off the groceries
Taehyung bought for him. 6 days did him well. Jeongguk doesn’t complain of any pain. He acts
completely normal, and he even flipped Taehyung’s couch over the other day while looking for his
earring.

Either Jeongguk doesn’t want to show pain, or he has a high pain tolerance, or both. Most likely
both.

“Mmph?” Jeongguk asks.

Taehyung scrunches his nose in disgust as his fighter attempts to shove more toast in his already
full mouth. “We’re leaving tomorrow for our trip.”

“Mm trimmph?”

“Yes. The trip I talked about earlier, you goddamn animal,” Taehyung says, exasperated. “So get
your ass out of my house and pack a bag at yours. Meet me back here tonight.”
 “Cmm fin’mmm my… toas’mmph?”

“Yes, Jeongguk,” Taehyung sighs. “You can finish your toast. Then fuck outta here. I can’t believe
I let you stay at my place for 6 whole days.”

Jeongguk just shrugs before slowly munching on the bread in his mouth.

Taehyung turns around and walks out of the kitchen just as Jeongguk, that damn idiot, chokes on
his toast. He rolls his eyes (serves Jeongguk right) and goes to his own room. He pulls out a duffle
bag, his passport, and begins to pack.

In the corner of his eye, he sees them: the two flight tickets on his dresser. Two flights to Seoul,
South Korea.

Chapter End Notes

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 Chapter 4
Chapter Summary

Anyone would be happy to have such a house; white-picket fence and quiet
neighbourhood.

Jeongguk lets out a shaky breath beside him. “It still looks as horrible as ever.”

Taehyung can’t help but agree.

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

When Taehyung was young, he was scared of heights.

When Taehyung was young, he was scared of a lot of things. The shadows, his parents, that
dungeon. Punishments, expectations, ouroboros. He was scared, because he was small and
powerless, and his parents wanted only the very best in the worst way.

Taehyung can’t remember much of his childhood: just bits and pieces. He wishes all those bits and
pieces have been wiped away, though. He’d rather disconnect himself entirely from the past —
make it seem like someone else’s story, because thinking about it as his own makes him sick to his
stomach.

On this chilly Monday morning, Taehyung thinks about the smaller, younger version of him and
how he used to fear heights. How he fought through that fear to get away from that cursed family
house and found his way into a nicer hell.

He thinks about how that younger Taehyung couldn’t imagine anything but a future of pain and
suffering, but here he is now, in a first class seat, reclined with a glass of wine in his hand and jazz
filtering through his headphones.

If he thinks too hard about it, Taehyung can sometimes see memories that came before the fire:
sneaking around dark halls, the hint of laughter — sometimes childlike, sometimes cruel, origami
flowers floating on a cloudy lake. Other memories are locked away. For the better or worse,
Taehyung doesn’t know.
“You’re a wine addict, you know that?”

And then there’s Jeongguk.

Taehyung sips on his wine. “I know that more than anyone.”

“What do you drink more,” Jeongguk says, and he must be feeling brave because he takes the
initiative to shove Taehyung’s headphones off his head so Taehyung can hear his annoying voice
more clearly. “Wine or blood?”

Taehyung sighs. “Why would I keep track of my wine to blood consumption ratio, Jungkook?”

Jeongguk shrugs. “Because you always do weird things like that. The other day, you told me that
you use 34% more Pantone 310C blue on your cool-toned canvases than you use Pantone 4059C
on your warm-toned canvases. Whatever that means.”

“Because it’s true. I do.”

“So, tell me. What do you drink more: wine or blood?”

“Why are you so interested in this?”

“‘Cause I’m bored.”

“Then find something to entertain yourself with.”

Jeongguk grins, all teeth. “I have.”

Here’s the thing about Jeongguk, he’s a part of Taehyung’s past. How, or why, or when, Taehyung
doesn’t know. Someone — somehow — he knows things that other people don’t. Knows things
that other people shouldn’t, and now he’s following Taehyung around just as things are stirring in
the Underground.
There’s something suspicious about him. For now, Taehyung will keep him close until he can
figure it out. He’d rather have Jeongguk as an ally rather than an enemy for as long as he can.

With Jeongguk nagging him every five minutes, the flight feels like it takes days. When they
finally touch down, Taehyung is quick to grab his carry-on bags and walk out of that damned
plane. As much as he loves seeing the views from the sky and enjoying some fine wine with jazz
playing through his headphones, Jeongguk has just about pushed him to his limits.

Lo and behold, the little shit follows him with a self-indulgent smirk.

For a period of time, Taehyung used to be into travelling. He’d jump on a plane and lose himself in
every part of the world because his home never felt like home and the rest of the world felt too big.
No matter where he went, though, nothing could ever feel like home. For that, Taehyung is glad.
Home for him is a place of suffering.

On the other hand, Jeongguk looks as if he’s completely new to all of this. It’s quite a comical
sight — Jeongguk, dressed in a long, black coat that reaches his ankles, black baseball cap on his
head, silver piercings dangling from his ears as he towers over everyone in his boots. There's a
black mask covering half his face and, somehow, he still manages to convey his wonder and
excitement with wide eyes and a tight grip on his backpack.

“You look like you’ve never been to an airport before,” Taehyung comments.

Jeongguk spares a glance at him. “I have. Once.”

The morning travels with them like this: in the back of a cab, their suitcases in the trunk, and faint
pop songs on the radio. It streams along in fits and bursts of roadside stalls and buildings vying for
the sky’s attention.

There’s a chill in Seoul that feels all the more foreign and familiar to Taehyung; the air welcomes
him back, and it brings tendrils of memories that Taehyung would like to forget, but he needs to
breathe.

It’s nostalgia wrapped in the faint scents of bungeoppang and the hustle of overworking for the
sake of working. It’s coming home to a place you’ve never really loved but held dear to your heart,
anyway. Jeongguk seems like he gets it.
Staring out of the car window, completely engrossed in the city laid out before him. Out of all the
places Taehyung has gone to in the world — Moscow, Cancun, Johannesburg, more, more, not
enough — he’s never dared to set foot back in South Korea.

Until now.

Their hotel room is nothing too extravagant. But Taehyung’s extravagant and Jeongguk’s
extravagant are clearly different, so he can’t really say for sure. Taehyung’s not sure of much these
days, but he’ll take what he can get.

“So, tell me again.” Jeongguk’s on the couch, boots on, complimentary orange juice straight out of
the hotel fridge in hand. “Instead of getting us two separate hotel rooms, you decided to rent out a
2-storey penthouse apartment with two bedrooms, their own ensuites, walk-in robes and a pool on
the balcony?”

“Yes.” Taehyung looks at him, so entirely out of place in this world. “Got a problem with that?”

“Fuck no. Oh— oh my god, Taehyung. This seat has a massage option.”

Taehyung just heads upstairs to rest before the afternoon gets too late. They have somewhere to be.
No use wasting time when that’s all he’s been doing for the past few years, and now everything’s
come back to bite him.

There’s this thing about darkness that Carl Jung once said: One does not become enlightened by
imagining figures of light, but by making darkness conscious. Some fancy way of saying that shit
that people hide, the thoughts they tamper down — the bad memories, the regret, the shame and
anger and fear and disgust — can change their understanding of their self-concept. How they view
themselves.

He frames it like knowing all of the dark things makes someone better, increases their
consciousness, and Taehyung knows that’s probably true.

He is Kim Taehyung, all the good and the bad, and the bad will always be there, whether he
accepts it or not. The more he can deal with the pain, stomach the memories, the more he can live
with himself.
He’s not the Kim Taehyung that people want him to be — there’s this incongruence between his
ideal self and who he really is, and sometimes he feels so unbelievably disgusting when people see
him as this powerful, respectable being when he’s still scared of the dark, still scared of fire.

No matter what, though, the darkness finds a way to creep in.

It taunts him from the edges of his mind, whispering and cackling and they sound like his parent’s
voices. Just gurgles and indistinct hisses, whiplash words and cutthroat syllables but it sounds like
it makes sense. Sounds like it’s telling him how hopeless he is, how he’ll never be good enough.
How he needs to stop eating, stop drinking, don’t sleep, just watch. Watch. Watch him.

It gets stronger when, in the late afternoon, he and Jeongguk get back into another cab. This time,
the afternoon treads wearily with them. No suitcases in the boot, jet lag dragging them down. It
creeps along through the busy streets, and the sun begins to descend like it, too, wants to hide from
what’s coming.

Jeongguk doesn’t speak much. It’s one of the times when Taehyung almost wishes he would, but
he’d never ask. Jeongguk stares out of the windows again, at the busy streets and streetlights
turning on, but it’s not in wonder. It’s anticipation. The day has gone by slowly, and it’s gone by
too quick.

They cut straight through the city. Here, Taehyung can see touches of vampirism like he could in
every other city. Empty blood bags spilling out of the bins, flyers for vampires posted on the walls,
pointing and staring and people huddled in groups because they’re different to us. It’s no wonder
how complicated politics can get when two selfish, hugely territorial different species try to co-
exist, but it’s clear: as much power Taehyung has in the Underground, he has none here.

It’s almost freeing, in a way, to be rid of all that responsibility, to be unknown for a while, but not
at the cost of this.

The cost of stepping out of the cab on the outskirts of Seoul, right in front of private property. The
cab drives away, and the afternoon tries to go with it. Running. Because the night has started to fall
and it’s not afternoon anymore, but Taehyung wishes it was because he’d rather be anywhere else
than here. He’d rather be walking at that intersection in the Underground on a Thursday, but he’s
not there.

Because he’s here. He’s here.

Before them is a wide expanse of land, trapped in its perimeter by a fence. There’s a nice house
sitting behind it — all bright colours and a fresh coat of paint, bright curtains behind clean
windows and neatly-trimmed grass. Anyone would be happy to have such a house; white-picket
fence and quiet neighbourhood.

Jeongguk lets out a shaky breath beside him. “It still looks as horrible as ever.”

Taehyung can’t help but agree.

——

There’s this thing about darkness that Carl Jung once said: One does not become enlightened by
imagining figures of light, but by making darkness conscious. He frames it like knowing all of the
dark things makes someone better, increases their consciousness, and Taehyung knows that’s
probably true. The house… that’s the light. That’s the happiness and the joy, the white-picket
fence and neatly-trimmed grass.

That’s the façade.

Underneath it is where the darkness lies, because that’s where the truth rests, bloodied and bruised
with handcuffs around red wrists and a small, trembling body begging to be let out. The darkness
isn’t pretty, and the darkness wants to leave, but it can’t when there’s no light, and the only light it
sees are the stars from millions of infinite miles away, laughing and twinkling.

Ouroboros. That fucking snake, eating its own tail. Eternal suffering because dead things don’t die
peacefully. And the darkness reigns, until the fire explodes.

Fire and light and so, so much light. Too much light.

And there’s the pain and the agony but it’s the pain and agony of freedom. The fire never touches
the origami flowers floating on the pond, but they bear witness to the screams. The dungeon, the
snake, the fire. Broken pieces of memory and years of hate and fear washed away by the taste of
wine. It all comes back to this.

It all comes back to this: Taehyung and Jeongguk climbing over the fence, stalking their way to the
house. It’s empty. Of course it would be empty.
Taehyung’s parents wouldn’t let anyone else live here, not after what happened. Even they
wouldn’t live here. Not anymore, it seems.

It comes back to this: Picking the lock on the front door and walking past the dust-covered
furniture. The curtains are bright on the outside, but they’re fraying at the hems and the curtain rod
is rusty. Taehyung can see its imperfections clearly when he’s looking from inside.

It comes back to this: walking past the kitchen and into the living room. Pulling the rug to the side
and staring at the trapdoor hidden in the floorboards. Looking at the shadows leaking out from the
basement, and there are char marks all around the edges. Standing almost frozen, paralyzed with
fear, and Taehyung can’t move, can’t breathe.

Jeongguk whispers, “you ready?”

No. Taehyung nods. “Yes.”

All of it— every look, every fragmented memory — everything. It all comes back to this: Jeongguk
pulls open the trapdoor.

There’s a small slit in the curtains where a bit of night sky shines through, and a glowing patch of
moonlight lands perfectly on Jeongguk’s wrist. On his snake tattoo — the snake that eats itself.
Ouroboros.

As they descend, Taehyung takes one look back. The curtain gives way more than it should, and he
sees the stars.

They’re looking right back at him, and they’re starting to smile.

——

The descent down the steps, their footsteps echo.

There’s a faded memory and it’s screaming, but the words are a whisper, loud and clear. “You
shouldn’t have done that, Taehyung. Why did you do that?”

There’s no warning or preamble. The steps finish on rough cobblestone floor coated with dust. Not
even one step away are the bars of a cell, rusted and broken. Here, the scorch marks are even more
apparent: they slither on the floors and lick the walls, tasting the soot and grime and fear
condensing, dripping down, down, down.

The doors to the cell are open. Jeongguk hesitates, but Taehyung steps in.

The dungeon is small. Smaller than Taehyung could ever—

“...remember?”

There are hands on his face, and suddenly, Jeongguk is there. He’s forcing Taehyung to look at
him, mouth moving. His lip piercing shines in the low light and Taehyung can’t make out his
words because the memories are pouring in. They’re pouring in, wave after wave, white noise
drowning everything out in a wild frenzy.

Handcuffs, chains, screaming. One drop of blood every three days — enough to trigger his
bloodlust, enough to starve him, enough to let him live. Just.

There’s so much noise, so much happening, and this is the darkness Taehyung has always been
afraid of. This is the darkness that he never wanted to be conscious of. Never again. But it’s here,
against his will, and— is it really? Is it against his will? He came here on his own volition,
knowing what was going to happen.

He just didn’t think it would be this painful.

But there’s Jeongguk again, screaming, this time, eyes bright and fiery and determined. “Listen to
me. Listen to me—”

White noise. A woman screaming, but not out of fear. Of joy and excitement, and Taehyung is
screaming too — voice younger, breaking. Scared. Let me out.
“Taehyung!” Jeongguk presses their foreheads together. He’s breathing heavily, breath fanning
across Taehyung’s lips. “Do you remember?”

This place has so much pain. Even far away, it hurts him, makes him scared. Turns him back into
that little vampire who knew nothing about the world and too much about pain. Even now, it has a
hold on him like no other, and Taehyung is so scared of it but he’s tired. He’s so fucking tired of
being scared, and if this is what it takes to be free, then—

“Kim Taehyung.”

The white noise is rising. Like a discordant crescendo, it rises and rises and Taehyung feels like his
ears are going to burst. If his heart was still beating, it would be racing — thumping and slamming
against his chest but it feels so utterly empty and devoid down there. Nothing but dread and
foreboding filling him from his frozen legs to the bitter, poisonous taste in his mouth. His blood.
He’d bitten the side of his cheek, and Taehyung can taste his own blood.

If reliving his memories and bringing all the darkness to consciousness is what it takes to finally
rid himself of the dark thoughts, the fear of something he doesn’t even remember, then— the noise
comes to a deafening volume— screaming, laughter, handcuffs and chains clanking and a young
boy looking past his tears to stare at the stars and another young boy crying and—

Wait.

Another young boy?

They scream, together. The sounds in Taehyung’s head threaten to knock him out and the world is
spinning, and Taehyung can’t make sense of what’s up and down and who’s holding him and—

“Taehyung,” Jeongguk whispers. The noise stops. Pin drop silence, and Taehyung can hear
Jeongguk’s small intake of breath, just before he breathes, “do you remember?”

The noise comes back, an explosion in his ears, his mind, every dark crevice of his conscience.
Taehyung falls to his knees, hands pressed against his ears, and he screams.

——
Kim Taehyung was a little vampire born on the outskirts of Seoul to two loving parents. Except, the
parents didn’t love him. No. They loved power, and greed, and corruption, and every blasphemous
thing under the stars.

Kim Taehyung wasn’t born to be nurtured. He was born to suffer, born to be the successor of a
throne made of agony. A throne made for agony. Everyday, he had to be perfect. Read this, read
that, remember this, don’t remember that. One wrong move and the consequences were fatal.

Kim Taehyung was meant to be nothing more than a machine — something perfect and prim and
proper that his parents could display.

But they couldn’t display him too proudly or publicly. After all, why would they want to, when he
was the reason they ran away in the first place? Ran away from the clutches of the Big Three and
the tempting whispers of the Underground. They ran away because what they wanted for
Taehyung was against the law, against every fucked up moral code of the Big Three.

Really, that’s how the Big Three became two. Taehyung’s mother was a powerful, powerful
woman. She used to be a part of the Big Three; it was never clear whether she left, or if they kicked
her out. Maybe both.

She wanted more, and his father never tried to stop her. It was a toxic cycle feeding into itself; she
wanted power, he wanted power through her. More and more and more, blood spilling, alliances
broken, running and running for the chance to perfect a monster. They encouraged each other’s
delusions and there was no one else to blame but Taehyung, simply for being born.

And blame him, they did. Every day they placed their expectations and burdens on him — training,
reading, learning, writing, how to drink properly, the most painful way to rip someone’s throat out,
how to fight through the pain of a broken wrist.

Every day, there was a new lesson, a new form of punishment for something he shouldn’t have
been punished for. Every day was a battlefield.

But ruling with the Big Three gave Taehyung’s mother some privileges she was never ready to
give up on. One of which — no housework. As ridiculous as it was, someone like Kim Eunmin
didn’t wash the dishes, or mop the blood off the floor, or sew together the torn up shirts. No, she
needed to have maids for that.
And she did.

One special maid — a lovely woman named Mariah — worked for her. Sweet, lovely Mariah, who
took the brunt of the punishments whenever one of the other maids did something wrong.

Precious, kind Mariah, who would sneak down to the dungeon whenever Taehyung was punished
for this and that (maybe he didn’t brush his teeth properly, or he took 4 seconds too long to drink
from a human captive) and give him blood, or a blanket, or a hug.

Mariah had a son. Not really her own. No, she had an orphan son.

His name was Jeongguk.

Jeongguk was younger than Taehyung. This wide-eyed human boy, lightning quick on his feet and
ignored by everyone else. Practically a shadow. He was the first friend Taehyung ever made. He
was where Taehyung’s meaning of friend came from.

For someone sculpted into the face of a monster, all the empathy that Taehyung felt in his cold,
empty chest rested on Jeongguk. He couldn’t express it — no, that would’ve sent his parents into a
fit. He could show it in other ways, because Jeongguk was small, and he didn’t deserve the pain
that Taehyung did.

So, whenever Jeongguk gained the slightest bit of attention from Taehyung’s parents, Taehyung
would act out. He would act out even when Jeongguk told him not to. Act out when it was
Jeongguk who ate the last blood-laced cookie, sticky fingers caked with red and tears in his eyes
because he didn’t understand what was happening. Act out when Jeongguk, so young and bright
and full of life, would laugh too loudly at one of Taehyung’s jokes.

Taehyung’s first sparring partner was his father.

Jeongguk’s first sparring partner was Taehyung. Taehyung would always go easy on him, would
never hit him too hard, only small bruises here and there. He had to leave bruises. No bruises
means he didn’t go hard enough, and Jeongguk would go up against Taehyung’s father because
everyone needs to feel pain under this household.
Again, and again, and again. They only had each other. Kim Taehyung and Jeongguk.

“Hyung, look! I can make paper flowers!”

“Really? That’s… nice. You’d need to hide them. Mother and father don’t like these kinds of
things.”

“...oh.”

“How about we take them to the pond? Let them float on the water. There, they can be…”

"Be what?"

"Be free."

“That sounds nice. Let’s do that! Let’s go, let’s go…”

Until…

Kim Eunmin grew tired of Mariah. She grew tired of everyone eventually, and everything was
going too smoothly. The thing about tripping on power — you need to feel that rush again and
again, in higher doses every time, because the last time wasn't quite enough and the next time
won't come soon enough. Just do whatever feels powerful because you can, because you want to.

Eunmin accused Mariah of sleeping with Taehyung’s father and fought to hell and back with her
argument. Not because she didn’t think anyone would believe her — everyone was obligated to
believe her — but because she wanted to humiliate Mariah. Humiliate her until her last breath.

When Jeongguk, a mere 8 years old, found out about the death of his mother, he was scared. He
never saw his mother’s body. Taehyung made sure of it. He cleaned up the mess in the dungeon
after Eunmin was done with her, and laid her to rest in a beautiful grave in the backyard. He’d
worked all night on it, and, in the end, he placed one of Jeongguk’s flowers atop the soil.
But at 8, you think you’re invincible. Jeongguk never thought otherwise. He did something he
should never have done.

He attacked Kim Eunmin. Little fists flying, tears in his eyes, scream caught in his throat.

The next person thrown into the wide, gaping maw of the dungeon was a wide-eyed human boy
named Jeongguk.

And Taehyung found himself down there, too, but on the opposite side of the bars. Jeongguk was
behind it, sobbing in the last place his mother died. Taehyung, on the steps, clutching the rusty
bars as the trapdoor closed behind him. Words still echoing in his mind about the last thing his
mother said to him: “stop eating, stop drinking, don’t sleep, just watch. Watch. Watch him.”

Watch him suffer.

Taehyung did. For many days and nights, they stayed on opposite sides of the bars. No one came to
check on them. No one came to give them food. No sweet Mariah to sneak down. Just Taehyung,
Jeongguk, and the stars. Those goddamn stars.

“I… I hate the stars.”

A smaller voice whispers back, “you shouldn’t. They’re protecting us.”

“No they’re not. They’re watching us die.”

Just as both boys were about to truly die, someone came down. A lighter in hand, a small blood
bag barely larger than Taehyung’s thumb, and a bowl of slop for Jeongguk. Taehyung never
wanted to be the monster his parents tried to make him become. But Jeongguk was suffering, and
the stars were laughing, and Jeongguk thought the stars were protecting them, but they weren’t.
They never were. It was all Taehyung. All up to Taehyung.

Taehyung attacked the maid.

She dropped the lighter, dropped the blood. The slop splattered against the wall. But Taehyung
wasn’t interested in her. No.

Little Taehyung, barely 10 years old, had picked the lighter up in his nimble little hands and raced
back up. To the living room, quickly. To the curtains — switch, flick. The lighter switched on and
the sparks tasted the stale air, the sheer fabric of the curtains. The flame lingered, and they grew
when Taehyung held it to the soft material. To the ferns in the corner of the living room. To the
kitchen, he turned the stove on high, he let it burn. Let it all burn. Fire, red. So much red.

Small hands tearing the fridge open and ripping out all the blood bags. Throw them out, let them
spill. Taehyung was so, so hungry, but he knew how to deal with hunger. This anger was different
— it was burning and searing and it felt like the fire that was starting up behind him. Smoke,
smoke everywhere — in his lungs, in his eyes, and it touched the ceiling.

Red, red. Glorious red. Everything up in flames.

People tried to stop him, of course they did. But they had trained a monster, and Taehyung clawed
and scratched at everything like he’d never done before.

Somehow, the little vampire found his way back down to the dungeon. The doors were open. The
maid that Taehyung attacked had opened the doors. Taehyung found her helping the Jeongguk up,
and Jeongguk looked so, so small.

Footsteps rushed down the stairs, voices shouting and there — amongst the chaos and the crackle
of fire — there. Kim Eunmin’s booming voice and the voice of Taehyung’s father. Looking for
him. Looking to hurt him.

In the dungeon, there was a small window where the stars used to look at them and laugh. A small
window just above ground level. Taehyung shattered it. With the help of the sweet maid who
didn’t deserve what would have undoubtedly happened to her next under the wrath of Kim Eunmin,
two small boys scrambled out.

Two little boys, hand in hand, pain gnawing the inside of their stomachs and the tiredness of their
brain, ran. They ran down the streets, barefoot and desperate.

They ran until they couldn’t anymore and collapsed, right on the side of some random backstreet in
a city they've never been in.
Jeongguk fell unconscious before him.

The last thing Taehyung remembers are footsteps coming closer, before a voice — familiar and
low in timbre, a voice that not many people hear (only a select few, and of those select few, only a
handful are still alive). “I found you, Kim Taehyung.”

——

When Taehyung comes to, he’s lying on the cold floor, Jeongguk standing protectively in front of
him. But Jeongguk's back is turned to him, body facing someone else.

Jeongguk raises his fists at someone outside of Taehyung’s vision. “Who are you?”

Taehyung’s throat feels parched, eyes bleary and dry. The world spins when he blinks. As far as he
can see, they’re still in the dungeon. There’s a sick feeling in Taehyung’s stomach, a bone-deep
tiredness in his mind that has been there for a lifetime and will stay for a lifetime more. He wants
to sleep, but sleep cradles him in nightmares.

“A vampire hunter,” an familiar voice says. High and strung tight with tension. “Park Jimin.
Who’re you?”

Jeongguk doesn’t indulge him in conversation. “Leave.”

Park Jimin takes a step towards them. “Tell me who you are.”

Jeongguk shifts his stance to match Jimin’s movement. “If you’re going after him, don’t even try.
Don’t even think about it.”

‘Him’? Taehyung can only think that Jeongguk means him as in Taehyung himself. It would be
nice to appreciate how protective he’s being, if only Taehyung didn’t already feel like death.

“I don’t want to hurt him. I know who he is,” Jimin says.

“I said,” Jeongguk grits out, “fuck off, Park Jimin.”

“He’s Kim Taehyung. But you…” Jimin trails off. “Who are you? Wait, I think I know who you
are. Were you that person that Taehyung mentioned months ago? Golden?”

“No. I’m someone who’s about to knock you the fuck out—”

“I’m not here to hurt him. I’m hunting him down because there are others out there who want to
hurt him, and I’m a curious little shit. I wanna know what the big deal is about,” Jimin says, trying
to placate Jeongguk. “I know him, he knows me, we met in Berlin 3 years ago. We talk.
Sometimes. Only when Taehyung feels like reaching out to me—”

“Leave.”

“I swear to—”

Taehyung sees Jeongguk tense, his left foot inching back, body bracing as he strengthens his core
and no one else would be able to see the signs, much less this Park Jimin, but Jeongguk is about to
throw a punch. And when he throws the first punch, the fight starts. A fight to the death, because
that’s all Jeongguk has ever known.

Taehyung groans to catch his attention.

Jeongguk freezes.

Park Jimin tuts. "He's awake."

Jeongguk scoffs. "Yeah, no shit."

"Let me talk to him."

"If you couldn't tell, he can't really talk right now."

"You're a huge asshole, you know that?"

"Everyone in this goddamn room knows that, Park Jimin."

Here's the thing about Jeongguk's snark; it bites. Even the small comments have enough sharp
teeth to gnaw through the thickest muscle, because his words, the cadence of his voice, the venom
and coldness — there's nothing quite like it.

There's a restless anger inside him and it slips in everything he does; the bloody knuckles, the
busted lip smiling through the pain, chasing that adrenaline high.

Park Jimin is the poor soul to get the full brunt of it now. It's almost nice, not being the one to take
it all. Almost, if not for the nauseating memories Taehyung is still reeling from, the revelation that
Jeongguk was his childhood friend.

Jeongguk…

Taehyung looks up at him, squinting through the blurriness in his vision.

Jeon Jeongguk, someone who shared his hell with. Someone who's been in Taehyung's world for
most of his life, even from afar. Someone who Taehyung saved. Saved and forgot. Repressed.
Pushed back into the darkness where all of his memories are locked up.

For all these years, Taehyung never remembered Jeongguk. All these years, Taehyung pushed
every memory away. All these years, Jeongguk had to watch Taehyung drift away, run away,
forget him completely.

Origami flowers on a pond. “Hyung, look! I can make paper flowers!”

Jeongguk, standing tall in front of him. Bracing himself for a fight to keep Taehyung unharmed.
That's all he's known, it's all he's been doing — fighting in the Underground, fighting for
Taehyung, fighting to survive against the memories only he can remember, because Taehyung was
too scared to do so. Because Taehyung is fucked up beyond repair.
Park Jimin sighs. "It's getting late. You're really gonna keep this up?"

"I know how to wait," Jeongguk retaliates. "If you think I'm letting you get near him when he's like
this, then you need a new fuckin' brain put inside that thick skull of yours. I'd be happy to help with
that."

"What, are you gonna fight me because I want to talk to him?"

"I've fought for Taehyung for less."

Park Jimin pauses, the silence heavier now. When he speaks next, his voice is low, drop-dead
serious. None of the lightness carrying it from before, but deep with meaning when he says, "so
you are Golden."

Jeongguk draws himself up and cocks his head to the side. "I'm his fighter."

That… It shouldn't. It really shouldn't. But that phrase— that simple, three-word phrase (I'm his
fighter, I'm his fighter, I'm his fighter) creates a blooming expression in Taehyung's chest. It's a
completely strange feeling; so much so that it's almost indescribable, but even someone filled with
so much self-hatred as Taehyung knows what pride feels like.

Pride. He's proud of Jeongguk. Proud of his fighter.

God, Jeongguk would punch him if he knew how Taehyung was feeling right now, but the vampire
can't help it. After all that Jeongguk has been through, he's still here. He's the one trampling people
under his feet, the one out for blood.

Park Jimin seems to be on par with Taehyung's fighter, though, in terms of stubbornness because
he tries one last time. "Taehyung, if you're listening, which I know you are, you should go see Jung
Hoseok. You know who I'm talking about. Find him."

"Who the hell is that?" Jeongguk asks.

"Ask Taehyung. He'll tell you."

There’s a limit to Jeongguk. Taehyung could see it before, blurry and behind a cloudy piece of
film, but it’s clearer now. There’s this limit stretching from the tips of his fingers to his toes, to
every curl on his head. Every agitation pulls it, tightens it, until his lean muscles lock tight and
there’s a certain stance to his powerful body that signals attack. A wolf ready to pounce.

Taehyung sees it now, stretching tighter and tighter with every second Park Jimin stays in their
presence, and as much as he knows that Jeongguk can hold his own in a fight, he doesn’t want to
see the fighter go up against a vampire hunter.

People from the Underground fight because they need to. Vampire hunters fight because they’ve
been trained to, and that makes the difference between a brutal, bloody fight and a clean cut to the
throat.

So, Taehyung pushes past the sickness. Pushes past the weighing down of his body, like there’s a
thread pulling down on the sleeves of his jacket, tied to the earth’s molten core. He drags his body
up into a sitting position. It’s an arduous process, but more ironic.

Here he is, inside this very same dungeon years and years later, weak on the floor like he always
was.

Irony is a bitch.

Jeongguk doesn’t turn to look at him. He doesn’t dare take his eyes off Jimin.

But Jimin takes a glance. His next words are to Taehyung, “find him soon. I can’t spend all day
here in this town, and neither can he. Things are on the move, but you know that.”

Taehyung could do without the ominous warnings. First, he’d rather deal with this stupid headache
splitting his head apart. Then, he’ll deal with the fact that something’s about to come, something is
happening right now that he doesn’t know about, and it’s heading straight for him. Straight for his
neck.

“Yes, I know that,” Taehyung says. His voice is hoarse, it scratches against the inner linings of his
throat. “Leave.”
“I’m not here to hurt you.”

“I know. But it’s either you leave, or…” Taehyung glances at Jeongguk. “Shit gets crazy.”

Park Jimin snorts, amused. “Fair enough. But you will find him, won’t you? Hoseok?”

“Why is it any of your concern?”

“Because I have my reasons,” Jimin says. He regards both of them, before straightening up and
taking a small step back. A surrender. “I’m getting the idea that neither of you want me here.”

“Take the fucking hint or I’ll make you take it,” Jeongguk snaps.

“Okay, okay.” Jimin holds his hands in the air placatingly. “I’ll leave. Just… don’t say I didn’t
warn you. Find him.”

With that, Taehyung watches as Jimin turns around and walks back up the stairs, shoes echoing on
the floor. Though he shows them his back, Taehyung knows that Jimin has it guarded. Knows he
can still hear every one of Jeongguk’s breaths, every shift of Taehyung’s clothing. He knows that
neither of them would attack — Taehyung’s still on the floor, and Jeongguk’s not going anywhere
because of that.

A beat later, the front door opens and closes with a quiet click. Taehyung hears from this distance.
It sounds all too familiar, and that familiarity brings a bitter taste to his tongue.

Then, Jeongguk turns to him and crouches down. Finds him at eye-level, and there’s something
different about his gaze. The edges aren’t so harsh anymore. That brutality that Taehyung has
always associated with him — the mortal bloodlust, the addiction to violence, the reckless fights
— the cover of the book is cracking, the pages spilling out. Words and words of depth; there’s
more to Jeongguk than just blood and business, isn’t there?

“What are you thinking about?” Jeongguk asks.

Nothing, everything. You.

“We have to move,” Taehyung says. “There’s nothing here for us anymore.”

“No.” Jeongguk grabs Taehyung’s arm when the vampire moves to stand. “What happened to
you?”

Taehyung was never one to be open. He’s never been prone to vulnerability, never really seen any
advantages to it. He’d rather keep everything locked away because all he’s known in life is pain
and loneliness, and that’s what he’s comfortable with.

To give someone enough trust to know what fucked up mess is happening in his mind… in the
Underground, pride is everything. One scratch could be the difference between being the one to
watch people fight, and being the one desperate enough to be in the ring.

Telling Jeongguk what happened is much bigger than saying, “I’m sad” or “I’m happy” or “I feel
so lost”. Taehyung’s never said those to anyone, and that’s surface level vulnerability. Telling
Jeongguk that his childhood messed him up so much that he lost memory — that’s a part of
Taehyung that’s so deep that he struggles to comprehend it himself.

But…

Origami flowers on a pond. “Hyung, look! I can make paper flowers!” Jeongguk, looking at him
now with those softened edges.

Taehyung’s words feel sticky with unfamiliarity when he says, “I got them back. The memories.
They came back.”

Jeongguk mulls over it, eyes searching Taehyung’s eyes for something. Then, he nods. “Okay. Shit,
okay. Can you get up?”

“Yeah. Just— one moment.”

Jeongguk doesn’t give him a moment. Instead, the hand gripping Taehyung’s arm suddenly
tightens, he stands up, and Taehyung finds himself being hauled onto his feet. The world sways,
but Jeongguk’s grip is tight — almost bruisingly tight — and Taehyung finds some sort of balance
in all the hysteria.

Jeongguk doesn’t offer kindness. He never has, not outright at least. But there’s a certain sort of
kindness to the way he doesn’t comment on Taehyung’s weak state, but treats him like he’s still
standing on his feet, ready to tackle the world head on. Like he just didn’t see Taehyung fall to his
knees and pass out; the most formidable vampire in the Underground on the damp, dirty floor of
some suburban house in the middle of nowhere.

“What are we doing now?” Jeongguk asks.

“Getting the fuck out of here,” Taehyung responds. “And we need to meet Jung Hoseok.”

“Explain.”

“I know Jung Hoseok, and I know where he can be. I just don’t know where he is.”

“Explain.”

“He has a lot of places he likes to go to, but he’s not someone to be found. He’s someone who finds
people. He talks to whoever he wants to talk to.”

“You have a plan for him?”

Taehyung nods. “Of course. Jeongguk, have you ever heard of a dhampir?”

Jeongguk cocks his head to the side, tongue pressing against his cheek, before slowly saying, “a…
half human, half vampire?”

“Yes. Not many people know about them. Not many people think they’re real, but they are.”

“This Jung Hoseok is one of them?”

“Mhm. And tell me, what would a half-human half-vampire being, who despises what he is, hate
most in the world?”

Jeongguk’s eyebrows shoot up. “A mirror?”

Taehyung rolls his eyes. “Humans and vampires being friends, having a relationship, doing
anything together, Jeongguk.”

“Shit— how was I supposed to guess that?”

“It’s common sense.”

“No the fuck it’s not.”

“Do I look good?”

Jeongguk levels him a deadpanned look. “You have a red mark on your face from when you fell to
the floor, your hair is sticking up on one side, you look pale as hell and sick, and your shoelace is
untied.”

“That doesn’t answer my question. Do I look good?”

“Yes.”

“I know. That’s also common sense.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Jeongguk says, and there’s a hint of a laugh in his voice. Just the smallest tinge,
but Taehyung hears it loud and clear. He ignores how that makes him feel better, even when he still
feels on the verge of passing out.

“You look fine, too. Which means…” Taehyung tilts his head to the side. “How do you feel about
hitting up a bar right now?”

“Now? At ass o’clock and with jetlag still dragging me down?” Jeongguk scoffs. “Is that even a
question?”

“I asked.”

“Then maybe you should’ve used your so-called common sense, Taehyung.” Jeongguk hums
disappointedly, before dragging Taehyung by the arm to the stairs. “There’s never been a more
perfect time to drink my troubles away.”

“We’re not actually going to get drunk, you know.”

“But you thought about it.”

And Jeongguk marches on at a relentless pace, Taehyung struggling to keep up behind him. Yet,
even as Taehyung struggles to keep his feet under him, to not smack into the walls with every
corner they turn, Taehyung stays upright. Because Jeongguk holds on to him tight, and he
counteracts Taehyung’s fumbles with a confidence that gets them out the front door and into the
dead of night.

The pads of Jeongguk’s fingers dig into Taehyung’s skin, and they’re soft and warm. Jeongguk
calls the cab for them, shoves Taehyung unceremoniously into the backseat and lets him tell the
driver the name of the bar. As the car moves through the streets, Jeongguk doesn’t look through
the windows anymore. No, he looks at Taehyung.

Even now, with the shadows curling on Jeongguk’s face and the static of the radio hissing in his
ear, Taehyung can see the moonlight kissing the silhouette of Jeongguk’s skin. Softened. And
maybe, it’s not Jeongguk who changed. Changed with the memories, changed over all of these
weeks they’ve spent together, all the injuries they’ve healed on each other.

Maybe, just maybe, Taehyung thinks it might be himself.

——
“The Cypher,” Taehyung explains to Jeongguk as they head in, “is Hoseok’s favourite bar.”

“Any reason why?”

“You’ll see.”

Inside, it’s nothing too shabby. Rich wooden floors and glass-stained windows, a chandelier or two
on the ceiling. It’s big enough for a suburb but too small for the city — it’s right where it needs to
be, in an environment where weekdays say goodbye to 9-5 workers and weekends say goodbye to
corporate responsibility. The bar is decadent, much more so than the rest of the venue, but it fits in.

Wooden benchtop, wooden stools, empty shot glasses stacked in a pyramid for decoration and
antique liquor on the shelves behind them. It’s nothing special, if not a bit expensive for its area.
But the people keep it well-funded. Both the patrons out the front, and the ones…

“In the back,” Taehyung says, leading Jeongguk through the small crowd of people milling about,
“The people at the back are the ones we want to get the attention of.”

Inside, it smells like burnt cigarette butts and hard liquor. There’s some old pop music playing on a
jukebox, but it’s staticky. The clear, breathable air lays low on the ground while the grey wisps of
smoke dominate the top, weaving between the muttering of people and the shots of alcohol.
Jeongguk follows close behind. He steps where Taehyung steps, almost beside him, but not quite.
Letting Taehyung take the lead.

There are a few men by a door in the back wall. They look like a normal bunch — just t-shirts,
jeans, a bottle in one hand or a tall glass, the occasional booming laugh. Taehyung senses their
eyes, though, the closer he and Jeongguk get. Sees them tense up, fingers tightening around their
drinks. The toilets are at the other end of the bar, no one comes over this side unless they need to.

Taehyung makes eye contact with the one closest to the door. “Is there hope inside?”

The man pauses, regarding him closely. Then, in a low voice, he mutters, “Not yet.”

Taehyung nods. He turns, tugs on the door, and moves through without another look. They let him.
See, there’s this thing with secret societies — anonymity is free, and it comes with a price. No one
knows anyone else. No one knows who’s part of the club, or who’s lying to get their way in. No
one dares to remember a face, give out a name, but word gets around. These men don’t know that
Taehyung isn’t part of him, but they can assume so. It’s the only thing they can do.

Anonymity is guaranteed, but you still need to know one person to get in. It’s a futile cycle for
someone who doesn’t already have an in, someone to guide them through. But that’s what keeps it
secret. Taehyung’s in is Hoseok. Or, as Taehyung’s parents used to know him, Hope. Hope’s
codeword to let people into the club is ‘is there hope inside?’.

On the other side of the door is another bar. It’s almost anticlimactic, just the bar from the original
venue mirrored. It would be completely the same, if not for the blood on the counter, in people’s
glasses, on the shelves. The bar tap lets out streams of blood and the evidence is on the floor —
splashes, spills, droplets. Sanguine red all around. The patrons at the front are humans. The ones at
the back are—

“Vampires,” Jeongguk breathes. He’s close to Taehyung. Very, very close. Chest almost pressing
to Taehyung’s back, his breath just hitting Taehyung’s neck.

A few vampires turn to look at the newcomers. Taehyung can see straying eyes lingering on
Jeongguk; the human who dared to step into vampire territory. Eyes on Jeongguk. They’re looking
at him. They’re looking at him.

Why the fuck are they all looking at him?

The dizziness clinging on with tight claws to the fuzzy outer edges of Taehyung’s mind turns into
this: a glare, lip curling up, possessiveness. Every foggy thought takes flight in this new emotion
that rips its way from Taehyung’s chest, into the seething expression on his face.

Sudden emotions are new to Taehyung. He’s always usually in control, but this — seeing those
hungry, curious eyes locked onto Jeongguk — it plays at the strings of self-control holding him
back. Taehyung steps forward, shoulders back, blocking more of their view of Jeongguk. The few
vampires that dare to try and look even more are met with Taehyung’s withering stare, the clench
of his fists. Every part of him feels strung up.

There’s a small huff of laughter behind him, humourless. “The hell are you doing?”

“Just shut up,” Taehyung mutters, throwing a dirty look to everyone else, “and follow me.”
“What’s gotten into you?” Jeongguk whispers. “A few eyes are on me and suddenly you’ve got a
stick up your ass?”

“Are you really teasing me right now?”

Taehyung prowls through the floor to the back. There, in the far corner, is a booth. It’s free.
Almost as if the universe had seen this coming — seen him coming — and felt nice enough to offer
it. Taehyung knows how it goes, though: one good thing turns into two bad things. Two wrongs
don’t make a right, they don’t cancel out like that.

“No.” Jeongguk sounds one millisecond too far away. In an instant, Taehyung turns around and
grabs his arm, grip vice-like. Jeongguk arches an eyebrow at the sudden movement. “I’m just
stating the truth as it is, Taehyung.”

“I said stay close to me.”

“You’re being possessive.”

“You wanna talk about this now?”

Jeongguk narrows his eyes, but takes a step closer. Taehyung hates that it relieves him — this
small space between them lessened even more. “I’m just thinking that maybe you wouldn’t have to
be so physically possessive if…” He licks his lips and takes one more step, now chest-to-chest, and
Taehyung can see every single one of his eyelashes. “You’d just fucking bitten me, hm? Left a
mark on me.”

The words hit Taehyung like a goddamn truck, and he lets out a harsh breath. “You’re crazy, you
know that?”

“Look who’s talking,” Jeongguk mutters. He barges past Taehyung, shaking the vampire’s grip off
his arm and throwing himself into the booth with a carelessness that doesn’t belong in a seedy,
secret vampire bar on the outskirts of Seoul. No, Jeongguk doesn’t belong here at all.

The way he drapes himself over the couch — a leg thrown up, head tilted back, the sleeves of his
jacket riding up to give the smallest tantalising peek of his tattoos — it’s almost magnetising.
There’s the Eiffel Tower, and the Taj Mahal, and the Aurora Borealis. Ice caps, luxury yachts,
rooftop restaurants with strung-up fairy lights. Beauties of the world, captured in one setting.
Moments that made Taehyung pause, tilt his head up, and close his eyes because it’s too beautiful
— it’s too much, and one glimpse is enough. Enough to let him know that these are the images he
wants burned into his mind.

But Jeongguk — Jeongguk can’t be contained to one place. Taehyung knows that now. Whether
he’s in the ring, fighting like there’s a fire at his heels and blood is his aphrodisiac, or in
Taehyung’s home, making it his with cocky grins and boots on the couch. Whether he’s in the
grimy streets of the Underground, a streak of dirt on his cheek, a split lip, piercings too shiny for a
place so dark. There’s something so reverently beautiful about him that it feels almost sinful to
look.

For Jeongguk, Taehyung doesn’t want to close his eyes. Jeongguk is already burned into his
memory, his every stage of life. A searing wildfire, turning every other thought into smouldering
ash with one goddamn look. Taehyung hates him, but he doesn’t. Not really.

Taehyung hates him, because he doesn’t know any other emotion. It’s only now, that he’s looking
at Jeongguk, and Jeongguk is looking back at him with eyes unreadable but dark enough to let
Taehyung know that the thoughts he’s thinking are far from innocent — it’s only now that
Taehyung realises, maybe it’s not hate.

Strong emotions are hard to interpret, after all. But if it’s not hate, then—

“What is it?”

Taehyung breaks out of his thoughts smoothly and drops into the seat beside Jeongguk. “What?”

“You were just standing there.” Jeongguk drops a hand on the table, trails a finger along the
surface. Some random pattern with no meaning, probably, but Taehyung can almost see a black
trail leaving the tip of his finger. He’s hit with a strange urge to see Jeongguk’s tattoos. “Staring at
me.”

“I can’t be possessive, I can’t stare,” Taehyung says. He slips into the booth beside Jeongguk.
“What can I do?”

Jeongguk clicks his tongue disappointedly. “Telling me to fight was your only upper hand in the
contract, Taehyung. There was no talk on possessiveness and staring.”
“And there wasn’t any talk on protecting me from someone who didn’t want to hurt me.”

“Park Jimin?” Jeongguk scoffs. “He was a vampire hunter, dumbass. In case you didn’t know,
you’re a vampire.”

“Oh, I know.”

“And I’m your fighter,” Jeongguk says, and there are those words again. I’m your fighter. I’m his
fighter. His, his, his. Taehyung’s. “I’m contractually obligated to fight anyone who tries to come
near you.”

“Yeah, in the fighting ring.”

“That was never specified in the contract.”

“You’re a little shit, you know that?”

Jeongguk grins, wolfish. “Only with you.”

He’s feeding into it, and Taehyung knows it. Jeongguk knows that Taehyung knows it. Jeongguk is
feeding into Taehyung’s irrational possessiveness, using all of these tricky little words, using just
the right sentences. I’m your fighter… only with you. He knows what the words do to Taehyung.
What they’d do to anyone who likes power, craves it like a string of sickly sweet blood dripping
from an endless pool above.

The eyes are back on Jeongguk, and they’re on Taehyung, too, but neither of them pay attention.
Worst comes to worst, Taehyung and Jeongguk will fight their way out of a predicament. Neither
of them are any strangers to fighting and violence, and these vampires have probably never heard
of the Underground.

The Underground and its rabid way of fighting — desperation like fleas spreading from one person
to another, people foaming at the mouth for more, reckless, all bark and bite.
“Of course the first time I hear of a full-blood walking in here with a human, it’s because of you,
Kim Taehyung.” A man slides into the chair across the table. Oversized red leather jacket, a
bandana pulling back his hair, gloved hands and cargo pants. Jung Hoseok, one eye permanently
red, the other brown. “And you must be Jeongguk.”

“How do you know me?” Jeongguk asks. Not a tinge of fear in his voice, but plain curiosity.

“Word always gets back to me, even when it’s about a vampire who ran to a whole different
continent.” Hoseok shifts his gaze back to Taehyung. “Especially when it’s about a vampire who
ran to a whole different continent like this one. You two are famous in the Underground. The only
way I wouldn’t know is if I was dead. Not half-dead, fully dead.” Then, he laughs. Throws his
head back and lets out a loud chuckle, one that reverberates from the chest, and it’s almost manic.

Taehyung just stares, hiding his confusion behind a stoic mask. “The last time I heard from you
was from a letter you sent 7 years ago. The one telling me you found me, that you know about me.
About where I was.”

Hoseok finishes laughing and wipes a fake tear from the corner of his eye. “Hm, yes. You know, I
truly wasn’t sure if that letter would ever reach you. I wasn’t even certain you were in the
Underground in the first place, but the letter didn’t come back to me. That’s how I knew.”

“Did you tell my parents?”

Hoseok just smiles. “What are you doing back here, Kim Taehyung?”

Taehyung leans forward, jaw clenching. “Did you tell my parents where I was?”

“If I did, do you think you’d still be alive, talking to me now? Alive and well, back in the place
where it all started?” Hoseok’s smile widens, not an ounce of happiness behind it. He’s forcing it.
The pain in his eyes tells Taehyung as much. “What are you doing here?”

“Something’s happening. I know it, you know it,” Taehyung says. “What the hell is going on?”

“Now, now. This isn’t very productive.” Hoseok leans back, his wide grin turning into a grumpy
frown in one second. “We keep answering each other’s questions with questions. I can tell you
what’s happening, but with a price.”
Taehyung leans back, too, body tense. He’s only ever met Hoseok once in his life — it was back
when he was young, still under his parent’s clutches. Hoseok had come over one day, and
Taehyung caught a glimpse of him just before he disappeared into the office of Taehyung’s father.
That one glimpse, though, was enough to leave a long-lasting impression on Taehyung, even with
his blurry memories.

Because, even back then, Hoseok had been smiling that same, dead smile he wears now. The smile
that even the darkness curls away from, even as his lips curl up. The smile that whispers don’t trust
me, but the words that flutter behind those cracked lips are enough for anyone to take the risk.
Hoseok is a dhampir, and a secret-keeper. Nothing escapes his net.

Taehyung can’t trust him, but Hoseok just smiles wider. He curses under his breath.

“What’s the price?” Jeongguk asks, taking over. Taehyung shoots him a sharp look. Jeongguk
ignores him. “Name it.”

“Jeongguk, Jeongguk. You’ve grown up a lot, hm?”

“The price, Hoseok,” Jeongguk reiterates slowly, words sharp and cold. “What is it?”

“I wonder,” Hoseok murmurs, gaze swinging back and forth between Jeongguk and Taehyung.
That smile — that fucking smile — turns colder, more chilling. Empty. “Is there something going
on between you two?”

Jeongguk, thankfully, keeps his mouth shut. Taehyung turns to look at him. Now, the sharp curve
of his jawline is prominent as he clenches his jaw, the smallest of furrows between his eyebrows.
He’s trying to work Hoseok out, trying to see what’ll make him budge. It’s fruitless, though.
Hoseok’s been in the game longer than they have, he knows more than them.

“That information,” Taehyung cuts in, “comes with a price.”

For a moment, the smile drops from Hoseok’s face. If it’s even possible, the blank stare — no
smile, dead eyes, lips twitching relentlessly — is even more chilling. Then, his lips break out into a
heart-shaped, open-mouthed smile that widens as he laughs. He laughs, and laughs, and in-between
the chuckles spilling out, he says, “you, Kim Taehyung, you’re smart. That’s funny. Oh, that’s
funny.”
Jeongguk and Taehyung share a look. Between them, the unspoken words of he’s insane scream
louder than the choking, wheezing breaths that Hoseok sucks up as he finishes his laughing fit.

“Tell you what, I’ll tell you my price, and I’ll give you two things in return: what happened after
you left, and where your parents are now,” Hoseok says. “On your end of the bargain, you give me
what I ask for, and you leave. You get the fuck out and never cross me again, okay?”

“Deal,” Taehyung says easily. Beside him, Jeongguk shuffles around into a more comfortable
position, but not really. Comfortable, because his foot is right next to the leg of Hoseok’s chair,
ready to topple him over or trap him in if the dhampir makes any sudden movements. “What’s the
price?”

Hoseok tsks and shakes his head. “I’ll give you that information after I give you the other
information.”

Taehyung reigns back the sudden burst of irritation. This dhampir is slowly starting to grate on his
nerves. “Fucking fine.”

Hoseok smiles, pleased and lifeless. “After you left, the house burned down. All the servants and
maids in it, too, you ruthless little boy. The garden at the back did as well, the pond dried up from
the flames, and the fire department got there too late to salvage anything. In total, they found 5
bodies, burnt to a crisp. Not one of them were your parents, but I think you already know that.

“I did a manhunt on them not long after. Curiosity got the best of me, after all. They were hard to
find — near impossible, really, but I found them. They were licking their wounds off some random
cabin in the woods, hunting animals like animals and living like animals and crying like animals.
A big blow to their pride. A big, big blow. Now, if they knew that I knew where they lived, what
they were doing, they would kill me. I know that much. So, I stayed away.

“Then I got to thinking, what happened to their little boy?” Hoseok exaggerates a pondering face,
lips pouting, chin jutting out, a finger on his chin. “That’s when I started to look for you, and you
were even harder to find than your parents, but I found you. Sent you a letter that never came back.
While you were gone, you might be pleased to know that your parents lost their minds. Even more
than they already had.

“They were deadly serious about finding you. But, you see, I was avoiding them. I’m smart and
sneaky, and I had a vampire hunter to hide me whenever things went south. If they ever get ahold
of me,” Hoseok sighs sadly, “I’m afraid they’ll kill me. My vampire hunter too. A shame, really.
I’ve grown the tiniest bit attached to that little pest. If there’s one thing that your parents would kill
someone over, it’s their pride. You know that, too.”

“They’d kill for far less than that,” Taehyung mutters.

Hoseok nods rapidly. “Oh, I know, Kim Taehyung. But, see, they’re starting to move again.
They’ve recovered enough and — somehow, somehow they found you — and they’re coming for
you. But, see, my vampire hunter told me to find you because you’re my only chance of living. If I
live, my vampire hunter lives. We can both keep going back to the shit we always do, the shit that
doesn’t concern you. If I tell you where your parents are, you’ll kill them, yes?”

“Is that your price?”

Hoseok giggles. “No. Oh, no. You’ll kill them whether it’s my price or not, and we both know that.
And I want you to kill them because I want to live, and they’ll kill me because I know the one
thing that takes a blow to their pride. I know that they lived like animals.”

“That’s it?” Taehyung asks.

“Hm, it appears so. You burnt the house down, they left, came back, and now they’re looking for
you. They’ve built a… station of sorts. Some place where they’ve been smuggling people into, and
I don’t know much about it because it’s not here, you see. It’s there.”

“There?”

“Closer to you than to me.”

It hits Taehyung like a punch. The warehouse. Taehyung feels Jeongguk tense up beside him. That
goddamn warehouse.

Taehyung lowers his voice. “Is that—”

“That’s where they are now!” Hoseok cackles, clapping his hands. “They’ve been so close to you
for a long time, could you imagine? Just outside your door, waiting in the bushes. They’ve been
looking through your windows, following you around, and they’re hot on your tracks.”

Taehyung feels colder than he ever has in a long, long time. His parents… were there all along. For
how long?

Jeongguk jumps back in the conversation, voice rough, “you’re saying they found us.”

“Hm, not really, no. I wouldn’t say that. More like, they found your general area, but not where
you two exactly are.” Hoseok smiles, stretching it painfully wide. “A game of hide-and-seek.
They’re not here anymore.”

“Shit,” Taehyung breathes.

Hoseok watches as Taehyung and Jeongguk process the information. The whole time, his smile
never leaves his face. Almost as if it’s glued on. Taehyung hates it — hates the sight of that thing.
That smile, heart-shaped and innocent and so, so dead. A smile stuffed with mindless cotton —
taxidermy on a living, half-dead creation.

“And my price,” Hoseok says, tongue darting out between his lips. “I’m ready to collect it now.”

“What is it?”

Hoseok tilts his head to the side, gaze sliding from Taehyung to Jeongguk. “Jeongguk’s blood.”

A surge of anger hits Taehyung so fast that he almost lunges across the table. “No.”

“You can’t break the deal. A price is a price. I delivered my end of the bargain—”

“Fuck no,” Taehyung sneers. “Anything but that.”

“You can’t just say no, Kim Taehyung.” Slowly, Hoseok’s smile starts to drop from his face. That
horrible blank stare is coming back. “You can’t just back out like this. Not with me.”
“Pick another fucking price, Hoseok,” Taehyung says, barely holding back. His gums hurt, fangs
threatening to drop out. “You know you can’t have him—”

“Taehyung.” A hand on his shoulder, warm and true. Jeongguk is there, hauling him back from the
table, lips right next to his ear. “Taehyung.”

“What?” Taehyung mutters to him, eyes locked onto Hoseok.

“It’s okay. We gotta hold up our end of the deal,” Jeongguk says.

“The fuck?” Taehyung whips towards his fighter, incredulous. “What are you saying, Jeongguk?”

“I’m saying,” Jeongguk insists, looking Taehyung deep in the eyes, “keep it together. I’ll give him
a bit of my blood. So what?”

“So what?” So what?

So what? Jung Hoseok will get a taste of Jeongguk’s blood before Taehyung? Hoseok will get to
sink his teeth into Jeongguk’s skin? Hoseok will get that close to Taehyung’s fighter to drink from
him? Jeongguk is Taehyung’s, Taehyung is Jeongguk’s. Even the thought of someone getting close
to Jeongguk’s neck has Taehyung clutching the table in front of him with so much force that the
wood cracks. It splinters, loud and clear, and the murmurs of the bar quieten. So what?

“Hey, motherfucker, look at me.” Jeongguk forcefully turns Taehyung’s face so their eyes lock.
“Trust me.” There’s something more in Jeongguk’s eyes — insistent, almost desperate. “Just trust
me, yeah?”

“Jeongguk—”

“Trust me, Taehyung.”

They’ve never talked about trust, but they’ve done it before. Jeongguk has trusted Taehyung with
his life — trusted Taehyung to not throw Jeongguk into a ring that’ll get him killed. Taehyung has
trusted Jeongguk to always come back, to hold up his end.

Taehyung reels back every thread of instinct telling him to tear Hoseok’s throat out. It wouldn’t do
good to start a fight in Seoul, in a place where Hoseok is certainly more favoured than Taehyung.
Wouldn’t do good to anger the vampire hunter that Hoseok is friends with. Wouldn’t do good to
spill more blood in a seedy bar on the outskirts of Seoul, where Jeongguk looks beautiful and
Taehyung’s headache is fucking pounding.

Taehyung gives Jeongguk a miniscule nod, decides to hand the reins over. “Don’t mess this up.”
The words scratch his throat as they come up.

“I won’t.” Maybe it’s the light, playing tricks on Taehyung. It could be his mind, still muddled
from the aftereffects of his memory. Or maybe it’s real. Whatever it is, Taehyung sees the small,
comforting smile Jeongguk shows his way. It’s faint, barely lasting a second, but it graces
Taehyung’s eyes. Somehow, it soothes the tense daggers twisting inside Taehyung’s gut. “I’ve got
this.”

Taehyung watches, almost in slow motion, as Jeongguk rises from his seat. Hoseok follows suit,
smile wide on his face, black eyes full-blown and shining. Jeongguk moves around the booth,
towards Hoseok in the open area. Taehyung can’t help himself. He stands up, too. Follows
Jeongguk like a puppet on strings. Maybe Jeongguk’s not the only dog on a leash between them.

Hoseok ignores him. He makes his way slowly towards Jeongguk with a predatory gleam in his
smile, his eyes. A giggle bursts out of his mouth. He tilts his head this way and that, appraising
Jeongguk. Eyeing his next meal, toying with it. Jeongguk stays perfectly still. Now, the bar is
deadly silent. All eyes on Jeongguk. All eyes on Jeongguk, and Taehyung wants them to look away.

Taehyung holds himself as still as Jeongguk. Control. Taehyung trusts Jeongguk. Trust.

Hoseok stops in front of Jeongguk and takes a big, deep breath. Jeongguk stares over Hoseok’s
shoulder with an unreadable gaze. Taehyung stares at Jeongguk, at the junction of his throat that
Hoseok ghosts his lips over. Fuck. Fuck. Taehyung wants to tear Hoseok off him now. Wants to
tell everyone to get the hell away from him. Jeongguk is his. Jeongguk is his.

Hoseok laughs, bright and airy and Taehyung wants to crush his laughter. His fangs snap out just as
Hoseok’s do. Hoseok’s fangs are smaller, all jagged edges as opposed to the clean lethal curve of
Taehyung’s. Jeongguk swallows, body tense. All eyes on him.
Taehyung clenches his fist so hard that his nail cuts into his palm. It draws a prickle of blood.
Jeongguk is his. His fighter.

Hoseok moves in for the kill.

Just as his fang grazes Jeongguk’s skin, about to pierce, Jeongguk moves. He moves so fast that a
blink would miss it, a millisecond could kiss it goodbye. One second, Hoseok is hovering before
him, ready to bite. The next, Hoseok is being flipped into the air and slammed into the ground.

There is a moment of confusion. An equally shared confoundment of what just happened? One
breath, another, and it clicks. Hoseok is still on the ground, dead eyes gazing at the ceiling, frozen.
Jeongguk takes a step back, cracking his knuckles.

The first vampire moves to attack, to stop Taehyung and Jeongguk because they initiated the fight,
so they’re fair game. Taehyung is one step ahead. He rips the table beside them from the floor,
bolts clattering to the ground, and throws it at the mass of incoming vampires. Glasses shatter,
blood spilling. Hoseok stays on the floor, still staring up at the ceiling, but he’s laughing now.

Chaos — vampires hissing, scrambling over each other. Glass cutting delicate skin, rivulets of
blood splashing on the walls, some on the ceiling. On pristine suits, cotton white socks. A mess,
because there are two intruders starting fights and one of them is a human. A human in their
territory, bringing violence and temptation wrapped in tattoos and corded muscle. Jeongguk.

Jeongguk, who’s already half out the back door, waiting for Taehyung. Together, the two of them
burst out. The sound of bottles falling to the floor see them out, the guttural hiss of vampires a
short distance away. Taehyung has one hand on Jeongguk’s arm, gripping him tight as they run.
From here, he can feel the warm rush of Jeongguk’s blood under his skin.

The dead of the night follows them. Midnight, weaving between the icy brush of wind against their
skin, the tang of adrenaline and recklessness on their tongue. It cuts through the dark back-
alleyways and the fences they jump.

Midnight throws shadows on them dark enough to hide, slips under their shoes in fits of silence, so
that not even a single footstep scuffles across the cracked pavement.

Midnight listens to the pounding footsteps behind them slowly fall behind, one set of feet at a time.
Midnight rejoices when the voices fade. Midnight takes them back into the depths of the night,
away from the two running under its greedy stars.

Taehyung keeps ahold of Jeongguk’s arm, and Jeongguk doesn’t shake him off. They run together
into the city, and midnight runs with them.

——

“What the fuck are you trying to do?”

Every single quiver magnifies into an earthquake. Taehyung can barely control the jerkiness of his
fingers, can barely think through the cloudiness of his mind. Vision blurring, legs straining to keep
him up. This is weakness, and if Taehyung had the energy to hate himself even more, he would.

The plastic thing in his hands — cold and squishy — is ripped out of his grasp. A despaired groan
forces itself out of his mouth. He needs that. He doesn’t know why, just knows that he does.

Then, there’s a warm hand on his face, forcing him to look up. The first thing Taehyung’s shaky
vision focuses on is an eyebrow piercing. The next — eyes slitted into vicious glares. Two eyes
turn into a blurry four, before coalescing back into two.

“What is wrong with you?” Jeongguk’s voice sounds muffled. “You’re shaking.”

“Back,” Taehyung manages to murmur. He reaches fruitlessly for the blood bag Jeongguk keeps
out of his grasp. “Give it… back. Need it.”

Jeongguk doesn’t let it go. Taehyung feels so, so weak. Body wracked in tremors, mind dull and
slow. This, he thinks, is the effect of not having blood for a long time. He’s never had this problem
before. Never been one to shy away from the delicacies of blood. But recently, it’s all tasted so, so
bitter. Even when he tries to choke it down, it comes back up.

It’s only been a few hours since they ran from the bar, since the confrontation with Jimin and
Hoseok, but it feels like forever. Now, Taehyung is on the cold tiles of the kitchen floor begging
for blood like a fucking dying animal.
“You’re not drinking this.”

“Yes I am,” Taehyung says, lips barely moving. He thinks he’s sagging against Jeongguk now, the
fighter holding him up. He can’t be too sure, everything feels like nothing. “Need blood.”

“You’ve already tried to drink three times from this. You threw up again and again.”

“Let me—” Taehyung chokes on a breath and coughs weakly. “Try again. Let me…”

“No, Taehyung.”

If Taehyung knows the taste of fear, he thinks it would taste like shadows looming in, a thread of
darkness lingering in every bright memory, just waiting to taint it black. Fear would probably taste
like the worst sort of adrenaline — survival, running, don’t look back. Fear would taste like the
scream trapped in your throat, the tears stinging your eyes. Fear is scraped knees and holding your
breath, body shaking when the footsteps draw near.

Fear is this: Taehyung doesn’t know what’s happening, but his body is failing him. It’s choked
breaths and the smallest of whimpers when there’s something hard under him, and he realises it’s
the ground. Fear is the sound of Jeongguk cursing, of a blood bag dropping.

Fear is trying to reach the puddle of blood spilt on the tiles, but there’s a hand stopping him.
Tattoos, a serpent eating itself. Jeongguk draws him back from the mess.

It’s been a long time since Taehyung has tasted fear like this. It’s the kind of taste that lingers,
whether you like it or not. An aftertaste to match the disgusting combination of flavours; bitterness
on his tongue for years to come.

Then, Jeongguk is there, and he’s yelling in Taehyung’s ear. Or maybe he’s talking normally.
Maybe he’s whispering. Maybe he’s not saying anything at all. “What do you need? Taehyung,
listen to me— What do you need?”

Head spinning, the tiles feel cold. Then hot. Cold, hot. Maybe it’s him, under his skin, the muscles
spasming and he needs— “Blood. Jeongguk—”
“I’ve got you.”

The sound of a butterfly knife clicking open. A moment passes, a small pained hiss. Then,
Taehyung smells it. Above the chaos in his mind, the numbness of his senses, he smells it. Blood.
Fresh blood. Sweet with an undercurrent of addiction, laced with hormones and adrenaline and—
It’s right under his nose.

The blood, fresh and warm and so, so tempting. It’s under his nose, right where he can smell it.
Close to his mouth. He’s practically kissing it already. This blood smells heavenly. It smells like
everything he needs. This blood—

“Drink, Taehyung.”

This blood is Jeongguk’s.

Taehyung fights back every instinct inside him begging him to drink. “Jeongguk—”

“It’s okay.”

“‘M going to hurt you—”

“It’s okay, Taehyung. I know.”

Taehyung screws his eyes shut. “Don’t wanna hurt you—”

Jeongguk is more than just his business partner. Jeongguk is so, so much more. Taehyung doesn’t
want to hurt him. Not anymore.

There’s a hand on his shirt, pushing him to sit up. Taehyung feels the wall behind his back as
Jeongguk props him up on it, then fingers on his chin. Head tilting up, the world still spinning, and
the smell of blood is so strong that Taehyung almost feels sick with it.

Jeongguk pushes his wrist to Taehyung’s mouth, just as he leans in to whisper in Taehyung’s ear,
lips brushing against his piercings, “I don’t give a shit if you hurt me. Just drink. I can take it. You
know I can.”

Taehyung holds off for another second, even if his fangs drop. Jeongguk’s blood splatters against
his lip.

“You need to drink, Taehyung,” Jeongguk says. “Drink from me.”

“Are you sure?”

“You’re so stubborn. So goddamn stubborn. I’m sure, Taehyung.” Jeongguk leans back, presses his
wrist more intently to Taehyung’s mouth. “Drink from me. Drink for me.”

Taehyung tilts his head back, a sudden bout of dizziness hitting him.

Jeongguk curses. “Taehyung—”

Taehyung grabs Jeongguk’s arm. In one swift move, he sinks his fangs into Jeongguk’s wrist and
tugs the fighter forward. Jeongguk barely catches himself, one hand braced against the wall, as
Taehyung finally gives in to his temptation. He groans lowly, a hint of pain laced in his voice.

Taehyung drinks like a man starved. This blood — Jeongguk’s blood — it’s nothing like Taehyung
has ever had before. Dead things don’t die peacefully, Taehyung knows that much. But if they
could, and if they could touch heaven, this is what it would feel like. Sweetness bursting on his
tongue, euphoria slamming down his throat in a rush of awe and brilliance. There’s something
inside of him, clamouring for more, wanting more.

There’s never enough. Never enough, because Taehyung has wanted Jeongguk’s blood for longer
than he could ever dare to admit, but it tastes so unbelievably perfect that he almost regrets
drinking it at all.

Jeongguk groans again and leans heavier on the wall, presses closer into Taehyung. His scent, his
warmth, his very presence — god, he’s addicting. Jeongguk is addicting. Blood in his mouth, body
wrapped around him, Taehyung believes that Jeongguk is temptation and sin staining the heavens
above and the heaven in his mouth.
He’s been starving for so long. So long.

A deep, incurable ache in the pit of his stomach feeling emptier with every moment, and Jeongguk
— Jeongguk is the treatment. Some miraculous wonder that leaves Taehyung reeling, because he’d
never felt so hungry before this, never felt so full as he does now.

Bursts of euphoria, the edges of Taehyung’s seams unravelling to the pleasure making its way
down his throat, slathering itself over his tongue.

More, more. He wants more. Taehyung wants everything Jeongguk can give him. Every last
fucking drop—

Taehyung takes his fangs out of Jeongguk’s skin and throws himself back against the wall. His
head hits the plaster and he’s sure he hears a crack, but everything feels so buzzed. A new sort of
trembling to his fingers, a rush in his chest. It’s been so long since he’s felt warmth, but he can
sense it now.

Inside his veins, spreading, spreading to his chest, his head. That thread of warmth unfurling into
something more. Almost searing hot, the longer that Taehyung keeps looking at Jeongguk.

Jeongguk’s head is hung low, arm trembling from where he braces it against the wall. A thin trail
of blood leads from his wrist, down to the floor. From his wrist, dripping from Taehyung’s lips.

“Jeongguk?” Taehyung rasps out.

Slowly, Jeongguk lifts his head. Face pale, eyes blown wide, lips bitten red raw. He’s a vision.
Fuck— he’s beautiful. His breathing is erratic. Taehyung can almost hear the rapid pace of his
heart, can feel the slight tremors in his body. They’re both shaking.

They stare at each other for a moment, wondering what the fuck just happened. Taehyung’s mind is
reeling, but it’s clearer than it has been for days. So clear, and that’s a curse. That’s bad, and it’s
horrible — the worst thing that could possibly happen because, now, he can clearly hear the dark,
sinful whispers that tell him just how much he wants Jeongguk.

The blood is rushing to his head. His mind is clear, and his pinpoint focus is on Jeongguk’s lip, the
droplet of spit on the corner of his bottom lip, the fucked out look in his eyes.

Jeongguk looks back at him. He does nothing to hide the desire in his gaze, how his hand turns into
a fist against the wall and he doesn’t move back. Breaths hot in Taehyung’s face, body warm —
almost burning feverishly. Gazes locked and neither of them say anything, because what they both
want is clear. So fucking clear.

“Do you still hate me?” Taehyung whispers.

Hate him, because Taehyung forgot his childhood friend. Hate him, because Taehyung left him
alone in the Underground to fend for himself. Hate him, because all Taehyung has felt for him for
years was nothing, and then despise. Hate him, because when Taehyung ran from his problems, he
left Jeongguk to deal with them. Hate him, because—

“I never really hated you,” Jeongguk breathes.

Then, Taehyung is curling a hand into Jeongguk’s shirt, hauling him forward, and their lips find
each other’s. The kiss is messy and brutal. It’s a mixture of confessions and the thrumming of
Jeongguk’s blood between them, Taehyung desperacy.

It’s the result of despisement and tension building up, a wave of it crashing now. All of those
moments — the snarks, the insults, the I hate you ’s — burning in Taehyung’s blood, in
Jeongguk’s breaths, in the space between them. The lack of space between them.

It’s messy, and it’s cruel. Jeongguk biting Taehyung’s bottom lip, Taehyung diving back in for
more, more, until Jeongguk can’t breathe. Messy hands, Jeongguk’s fingers in Taehyung’s hair,
pulling his head back and tilting it this way and that to deepen the kiss, Taehyung’s hand curled in
Jeongguk’s shirt, the other keeping a tight, bruising grip on Jeongguk’s hip.

Then, Jeongguk is hauling him up. Still against the wall, they kiss, Taehyung feeling every inch of
the wall against his back and every inch of Jeongguk around his front, his sides, everywhere. Lips
on his, lips on his jaw, lips on his… His neck. Jeongguk is kissing his neck. Jeongguk is kissing his
fucking neck, hand curled in his hair tilting his head to the side for more access.

“Fuck— wanted to do this for so long,” Jeongguk murmurs against his skin. “Been waiting for so
fucking long.”
But Taehyung is impatient. He brings Jeongguk back for another kiss on the lips, tongue diving in,
and Jeongguk meets him halfway with a deep groan. Somehow, they stumble from the kitchen and
up the stairs. The walls of the house feel their presence with every body slammed into it, with
every makeout session they can’t tear themselves away from.

A door falling open under the weight of their bodies. Jeongguk hits the edge of the mattress first
and goes down, dragging Taehyung with him. Hands curled in sheets, desperation rearing its head
anew, and Taehyung wants more. Wants everything Jeongguk can give him, and Jeongguk’s eyes
are alight in a way that tells Taehyung he would. He would.

It’s Taehyung now, trailing kisses on Jeongguk’s neck. His neck. A kiss, long and open-mouthed,
desiring, is placed on the pulse point. Jeongguk shivers under him and Taehyung’s eyes almost roll
back from how goddamn receptive his fighter is.

Hands in his hair again, and Taehyung thinks Jeongguk might just have a thing for that. Then, he’s
being flipped over, Jeongguk on top. A bruising kiss to his lips, a hand on his hips pushing him
down. Keeping him still.

Taehyung laughs, humourless and hot and the world could be burning down around them and he
wouldn’t care. “That all you can do?”

“Oh, baby,” Jeongguk mutters, voice rough and dragging against the back of his throat. “The show
hasn’t even started.”

Then, he throws his shirt off and Taehyung’s seen him shirtless countless of times before. Muscles
gleaming with sweater, blood sticking to his tattoos. Power and grace and brutality making another
appearance in the ring; victory in the medals kissing the golden, scarred expanse.

Taehyung’s seen Jeongguk without his shirt off, but never like this. Lean body pressed up against
his, Jeongguk’s breath catching when Taehyung rears up and presses an open-mouthed kiss to his
collarbone.

Jeongguk groans, pressing further into the body underneath him. The bedsheets feel like silk and
the warning of regret when Taehyung pushes Jeongguk off, the fighter sprawling on the bed.
Taehyung almost rips his own shirt off, because he needs — needs, needs, needs, needsneedsneeds
— to feel Jeongguk’s skin on his.
Desire has never hit him so hard. Jeongguk wastes no time in dragging Taehyung closer, an arm
looping around his waist, and Taehyung braces himself on his elbow next to Jeongguk, the other
hand cupping Jeongguk’s cheek keeping his head still for another kiss, and everything is burning—

The phone rings.

Taehyung ignores it. Jeongguk curses and kisses him hard enough to make him see stars. Whispers
things filthy enough in his ears to drown out the noise of the ringing. You’re so fucking hot. The
things you do to me— shit. You don’t even know what you do to me. God, Taehyung. Taehyung.
Taehyung. Just like that—

The phone stops ringing. The voicemail plays automatically, and Taehyung regrets ever letting
Seokjin set his phone up to do that.

Seokjin’s voice plays in the tense air. “Taehyung, come back. Come back now. The people that
we’re missing, they’re back. Every single one of them.”

Those words are enough to knock the heady atmosphere out of orbit. Taehyung freezes.
Underneath him, Jeongguk stills, eyes still blown wide, chest heaving. They lock eyes, wide and
disoriented.

“Every night, they scour the Underground. They’re looking for you, Taehyung. They know you’re
here. They’re in your club. Your drug runners are going missing. It’s fucking hell over here.”

Slowly, Taehyung gets off Jeongguk. Jeongguk lets him and, after a while, he sits up. Seokjin’s
voice plays on, muffled and staticky and nothing more than a quiet murmur.

“The Big Three got a message this morning. Whoever planned this wants to you to be handed over.
You know who they got to deliver the message? Some vampire with a wolf head mascot. Namjoon
decapitated him on the spot. And— shit. It’s a mess.”

The Wolf. Or maybe someone pretending to be the Wolf.

“Come back. We need to figure this shit out, because it’s bad. It’s really bad. There were more
people missing than we thought, and they’re all back. There’s enough of them to start a war,
Taehyung. Enough to take over the Underground, and the Big Three want to see you. Hurry up.”
 The message ends with a beep. Taehyung stares at the phone on his nightstand. Somehow, they’d
ended up in his room. Seokjin’s words ring in his head. They’re back… enough to start a war. The
Wolf, the missing people, his parents. Jeongguk. They’ve come for him.

Taehyung looks back at Jeongguk. Jeongguk is already looking at him. It goes without saying, a
message passed silently, but it screams and thrashes in the boundaries of its noiselessness. We’re in
deep shit.

Wordlessly, Jeongguk slips off his bed.

Taehyung looks away and reaches for his phone. “I’ll book the first flight back.”

Neither of them speak as Jeongguk leaves the room and shuts the door behind him.

Chapter End Notes

when you fight a vampire bar together then get blue-balled by kim seokjin that's
#couplegoals <3

please feel free to drop your thoughts below or come talk to me on twitter or on
retrospring if you would like to !

and if you liked this, please consider checking out my ko-fi <3
 Chapter 5
Chapter Summary

He wouldn’t mind dying like this. Wouldn’t mind dying for Jeongguk. Taehyung turns
his face to the side, tucks his nose into Jeongguk’s hair, and waits. He wouldn't mind.
Taehyung was never going to die peacefully anyway.

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

When there’s a calm before the storm, a stillness like no other descends. Everything that knows
what it means runs. Birds, blue skies, thinning rays of sunlight. Warmth becomes humidity — a
sticky sensation, sweat pooling inside the sheer fabrics of clothes, breaths tinged with water.

Nature fleeing from itself. Nature. It comes back to nature.

See, Taehyung knows the pathways to reactions like fear. And he knows the predictable steps that
people do in the face of such quiet calamity: either they know it or they don’t. If they know that
the temporary tranquil state of their environment is nothing but a warning for the hurling, vicious
mess coming at them, they’ll brace themselves.

They’ll take precautions, chase after things they previously left alone because somehow,
somewhere, they think that this new thing will save them. Prepare for an unseen battle, fight
against the unknown — it might be fruitless, but some special people prefer the reckless
scrambling to quiet, destitute acceptance.

Some might try to run, some might try to hide. Whatever the case, at least they know. At least they
know that the winds will pick up and every safeguard they have wrapped around their flimsy
bodies will be torn off by the vicious claws and jagged teeth of misfortune.

And then the people who don’t know…

Well…

Taehyung and Jeongguk step through the threshold of Taehyung’s home. The air is still and the
silence — something that used to be sticky, clingy, a layer of black tar dripping from the cracks in
the walls — has turned rigid. A shell of what it used to be. Every one of Jeongguk’s breaths is
magnetised by a thousand howling winds, and it almost seems to echo in the empty space of his
living room.

Jeongguk is right behind him. The door clicks shut behind them, the moonlight gleams in from the
windows, and something is wrong.

There’s a crawling feeling trailing along Taehyung’s skin. Seokjin had told them to meet up at
Taehyung’s house as soon as they arrived. Now that they’re here, Taehyung wonders if this was a
good idea. Wonders if coming back was ever a good idea. Something in his mind itches, his gut
twists.

The silence is rigid. It’s intangible already, but it feels as if it’s hiding even more. Trying to turn
invisible — unmoving, not breathing, playing dead. Or maybe it’s already dead. Maybe it’s not
playing. None of this is a game anymore.

Never was, but Taehyung has a foreboding feeling that maybe, just maybe, he’s losing. It’s a
terrible, terrible feeling that has him almost hesitating, but he forges forward despite the warning
bells in his head.

One step, two. The floorboards don’t creak under him, but the walls seem to shrink in. Jeongguk is
tense behind him, body burning hot.

The moonlight floods the room almost blindingly, and something is wrong because Taehyung shut
the curtains before he left.

The rigid silence is broken by a familiar breathy voice. “Taehyung?”

From the darkness, Seokjin steps out. He’s in his gear. The ensemble is familiar, Taehyung’s seen
it a million times, but it seems to fit wrong tonight. The edges warped, the buckles too tight and too
loose, the black faded and cracked. The cold depths of the sea, pitch black and lightless, wrapping
around him and he seems so cold, distant. A stranger.

Taehyung tenses up. “Seokjin.”

Seokjin looks at him emotionlessly, arms hanging limp by his sides. “Forgive me.”

Then—

Chaos.

The walls explode with some unseen force from outside. Bombs, maybe. A grenade. A million or
just three, Taehyung can’t tell. The window, once clear and dizzyingly smooth, shatters from the
impact of dozens of steel-capped boots. Even the ceiling caves in around them, explosions raining
with pieces of shrapnel and the crumbling remains of Taehyung’s domain.

The room is shattering around them under the force of a battalion of men — no, vampires.

Brightness everywhere. There’s a piercing silence, hearing overwhelmed from the blast of noise,
before it comes back in a rush. Tumultuous, discordant sounds smashing through the eerie silence
— words hissed in the open air (Get them while they’re surprised! Don’t waste time. Alpha group,
on me. Bravo, over there—) , boots pounding on shattered glass, and Taehyung can’t make sense
of what’s to the left of him, what’s to the right. What’s happening up and why the ground is
shaking beneath his feet.

Foreboding fills his gut from the bottom up. Dread, scrabbling up his throat with sharp claws and
Taehyung has to force it back down because it’s tearing him apart inside, nails digging into the
muscles under his skin — icy cold, ruthless. Surprise is something he hasn’t felt in a long time, and
it catches him off-guard now. A dirty, terrible surprise.

The noise is a pain to Taehyung’s hearing. It blows every thought out of his head and leaves
nothing but a pounding, dull ache. But it keeps going — the noises don’t stop. The shouts of men,
the explosions around his house. In the distance, birds scream as they fly away from the mess and
destruction of Taehyung’s home.

The noise presses in on his sensitive ears like knives slowly twisting through all the way to his
brain. Every sound pushes the knife further in and in and in and Taehyung feels himself almost fall
to his knees.

It happens in a flash, so quick that Taehyung barely has time to comprehend anything before he’s
whirling around, his back to Jeongguk’s. Smoke dusts the air and dirt spills in on his carpet.
Jeongguk is coughing, Taehyung feels his body jerking as he tries to expel the dirty particles from
his lungs.

In the midst of it all — the millisecond explosions, the thundering of vampires, every quick jolt of
Jeongguk’s body against his — Seokjin slips away. There are hands everywhere, too many to fight,
and Taehyung feels a prickle in his neck.

“Shit!”

Taehyung turns to see a dart sticking out of Jeongguk’s neck. He lifts a hand up to his own, eyes
widening when he finds a similar dart in his own skin. A tranquiliser.

The world shakes and it dims. Threads of moonlight slip between the dust particles and spill onto
the floor. Boots caked with dirt and mud step over it, over his carpet, over the places where
Jeongguk’s muddy shoes used to go.

Jeongguk falls to his knees first. No. Taehyung tries to pull him back up, but his own muscles feel
numb. No.

Everything happens in a snap second. Or maybe it happens in minutes. Senses overwhelmed,

Taehyung can’t fight properly. The vampires around him have gas masks and there’s some misty
fog in the air and the ground won’t stop shaking and there’s an owl outside, hooting, but why
would there be an owl outside?

Surely, it would fly away from the noise with all the others. The noise and disruption and chaos of
vampires tearing into his home, fangs out and ready to fight.

It occurs to Taehyung, then, as he falls beside Jeongguk, that maybe the owl isn’t real. There are
hands all over his body. Taehyung tries to fight them away but his limbs are numb, the poison in
the dart moving through his muscles. Vision becoming cloudy, taste turning numb, he can’t smell
anything anymore. Behind him, he feels Jeongguk slump over.

The restless energy in him doesn’t even have time to give way to helplessness — it’s panic, it’s
dread, it’s those horrible tinges of fear, then—

In his mind, the owl hoots again. The sound is cut off abruptly. A hiss, something slithering on the
floor, and a crunch. A snake eating the owl.
In the last moments between consciousness and the feeling of his plush carpet pressing into his
cheek, Taehyung realises that the owl must have had a broken wing. It must have tried to fly away
but fallen to the ground in all the commotion. It must have met its bloody, gruelling death to the
jaws of a snake on the prowl. Must have died with its broken wings littered with dirt and sticks,
body trying to fight the inevitability of its fate, blood pooling on the floor.

Must have, must have, must have.

Nature. It all comes back to nature. Predators and prey. Nature decides who the predator is, nature
decides who lives, who dies.

Taehyung blacks out.

——

Taehyung wakes up with cold cement under his cheek and the taste of blood in his mouth.

The world is spinning when he tries to open his eyes. Or maybe it’s him. Maybe it’s everything
inside him spinning like a broken record player. A noise almost escapes his lips but he shoves it
back in, keeps it locked tight as he squeezes his eyes shut again.

His senses are confused — there’s nothing to hear, and too much at the same time. Whispers, but
they’re muffled. Boots, but they sound so, so far away. The smell, too, is disorienting — the acidic
scent of antiseptic, familiar and foreign smells bleeding into each other.

There’s something warm beside him.

It could be minutes, or seconds, or days, or years — it could be whatever time decides it to be, but
after a while, Taehyung feels the warm thing beside him move. If he focuses — truly focuses, until
his head pounds with exertion and fatigue — he can hear a heartbeat. He can hear breathing, and
the hiss of clothes scraping against the cement.

Even without opening his eyes, Taehyung knows who it is beside him. Jeongguk.
Despite the endless hurricane of emotions inside him, Taehyung feels one overtake his whole body
for a moment: relief. Relief. Jeongguk is alive. He’s barely breathing, heartbeat weak, but he’s
alive. By the sounds of it, still asleep.

He drifts into a mindless state. Blackness overtaking one moment, then too much light in another.
Cords around his neck — tightening, then loosening. Tight, too tight, loose, too loose. He feels like
he’s choking, then he doesn’t. He feels numb when he doesn’t. Taehyung doesn’t know which one
he prefers.

Eventually, his senses dull down from their hyperactive state, and everything begins to make a
little more sense. The world stills — everything inside him stills — and the voices begin to make
sense.

“...their dose was too high?”

“No. Better more than not enough. They’ll…”

“They better wake up soon… bored… Jeongguk… so tempting.”

Taehyung expects to feel far worse than he does. It’s a little surprising — the good kind, this time
(the best kind in a shitty time like this) — when he barely feels aftereffects. He supposes that the
nausea broiling in his gut, the dizzying stream of anger prickling him from the inside out, is the
product of his emotions.

Stupid goddamn emotions, stripping away all sense of self-control. He wants to give into them,
wants to tear the throats of whoever did this to them.

But he’s not arrogant (not excessively, at least), and he’s not stupid. In this place — with the cold
cement and the familiar and unfamiliar voices, he’s not the one in power.

He can’t lay around forever. Sooner or later, Jeongguk will wake up. Sooner or later, they’ll have to
face this storm they’ve been trapped in.

Better now than never. Taehyung would rather meet his fate head-on than try to cower away from
it.

Taehyung opens his eyes. True to his assumptions, he lays on the ground. Body sprawled and sore,
muscle aches hitting him in waves and cramps. He pushes himself to sit up, arms straining against
his weight, but Taehyung feels it — the faintest stirrings of his strength, returning with every
movement he makes. The voices quieten down, watching him. Waiting. Predators circling prey.

Now that he’s up, mind running again, Taehyung can place what the smells are. Can see where it’s
coming from, can see where the voices are whispering from. And he knows — he knows — he
brought this on himself. Came back here despite Hoseok spelling it loud and clear for him that
coming back would mean facing this:

His parents, standing outside the arena they’re trapped in, wide smiles on their faces. And beside
them, hands locked behind his back, chest up and eyes averted, is Seokjin.

Taehyung is in a cage, Jeongguk too. His fighter is still passed out beside him, but Taehyung can
hear his heart stronger now. He’s on the verge of waking up. The smiles on his parent’s faces
widen as they watch him slowly figure it out, piece it together. Rusty needle, broken thread, a
patchwork quilt made of his shitty past, his shitty present, his shitty future. The thread is short
now. His time is almost up.

“This was the most lacklustre, dramatic reunion I have ever been a part of,” Taehyung says. “Do
you always have to be so shitty at everything you do?”

Kim Eunmin’s smile drops. “After all these years, you still have that mouth on you.”

“I do.” Taehyung tilts his head to the side. “And, look, it’s learnt some new tricks: fuck you.”

“Insolent child.” Eunmin glares. She comes up to the cage, the steel bars circling the arena. Fingers
pressing into the metal, she seethes, “how does it feel to be back in another dungeon, hm? Because
of me. Because of me again. You never learn.”

“You’re a bitch of a woman. Can’t even be bothered to call you my mother, because you aren’t.
You never were.” It’s true. Taehyung just realises it now as he says it, but it’s true. Kim Eunmin
was never his mother. She was a monster, still is, and she could never gain the title of something
as caring as mother. “Locking me in another dungeon? Why, because you’re scared of me? Scared
to come in here with me?”
“You’ve gotten braver. What do you think will happen when you taunt me, hm? Think it’ll make
me angry?”

“You’ve been angry all these years. Angry before I was even born, angry after, angry while you
were hunting down bears in some middle-of-nowhere forest because I burnt everything down—”

“Shut up!” Eunmin smacks her hand against the bars, and they rattle violently with the force of her
swing. Taehyung’s hit a spot. A very sore, sensitive spot. He smirks. She seethes, “I’m done with
you. You should be grateful, you piece of shit. We gave you everything. Everything, so you could
be perfect. The perfect vampire, the perfect—”

“Killing machine?”

Eunmin smiles, eye twitching. Almost like Hoseok’s, but on another level of deranged — while
Hoseok’s is empty, this one is filled with emotion. Too much emotion. Anger, paranoia, agony.
“Yes.”

Anger like nothing before makes an appearance in the very hollows of Taehyung’s chest. The
darkness where his heart no longer beats. He’s felt anger before — strong, wildfire, booming.
Hands slamming on desks, hands running through his hair and gripping and almost tearing it out,
teeth gnashing and knives tearing and violence and blood and where everything is so fucking
wrong that Taehyung just wants to tear the world apart, piece by piece.

He’s felt that, been through it, and he’s lived through it. Sometimes, he wishes he hadn’t.

This anger, though, is different. It’s slow and curling. With every drop of sand in the timer, a new
wave of anger washes into the endless, churning sea inside him. Cold, bitter waters filled with
memories of the past, and there’s blood in it. Blood in the waters. Dripping and diffusing in bursts
of sanguine red. An anger that Taehyung has never touched before, because putting out a wildfire
is easier than stopping a tsunami.

There’s a dam holding it back, but it’s weak now. Cracks forming at the edges, and Taehyung
realises that maybe he saved it for now. This infinite pit of anger growing his whole life, waiting
for this moment.

Taehyung’s eye twitches. He wants to kill his parents.

Beside him, Jeongguk stirs. With a groan, he opens his eyes, breath turning heavy as he hauls
himself up. Arms wobbling as he pushes against the ground. He swears under his breath, head hung
low, and Taehyung knows that the world is spinning around him.

Taehyung sees Eunmin looking at Jeongguk, and a new wave of anger slams into him. Brittle and
icy, freezing fingertips luring him down. He wants to drown in it. Jeongguk is his, why is she
looking at him? Why are any of them looking at him?

He holds back. Not now. Not now.

“Tell me I’m imagining that voice,” Jeongguk mutters.

“Unfortunately not, sleeping beauty.” Taehyung looks at him closely. He has bruises on his face, a
busted lip. Eyes slightly glassy, hair knotted and messy, and when Jeongguk looks back, Taehyung
can’t fucking understand how he’s still so beautiful. “How’re you feeling?”

“Like a marshmallow punched me.” Jeongguk directs his gaze to Eunmin, eyes locked onto hers
boldly. “That all you got? Really?”

A human taunting a powerful vampire. Not something someone sees everyday, but Jeongguk says
the words like he does it everyday. He has done it, but only to Taehyung, only in the Underground.
He does it now, too. Not an ounce of fear, razor sharp steel backing every syllable. A weapon. A
fucking lethal weapon, despite what just happened to him, what he must be feeling now —
disoriented, confused.

“So he wakes,” Eunmin says. “Tell me, Jeongguk. Did it feel nice to be hated by someone you
pined over relentlessly for all these years?”

“Yeah. Felt real fuckin’ nice.” Jeongguk chuckles humourlessly, tilting his head and shifting his
gaze to Taehyung. He grins, callous. “I’d do it again.”

Taehyung just blinks. Jeongguk… pined over… someone? For all these years? What the fuck?

A small, almost scared voice whispers in his mind. Tells him to stop running from the truth,
because it’s staring him in the face. Jeongguk is staring at him, that smile playing on his lips and
there’s blood clotted on the side, but he still looks charming. That voice tells him he knows. Knows
who Jeongguk pined over.

“You’re an asshole,” Taehyung says bluntly. Pretends like that news didn’t just hit him like a blow
to the stomach. “It’s me, right? You fucking pined over me.”

Jeongguk winks. “Might as well say it now. May not get a chance to say it later.”

“‘Course you will. We booked a fight for next Wednesday. Can’t miss it.” Taehyung tucks the
information away for later. Now's not the time to dwell on it. Not now. Not when he can't capture
Jeongguk's lips with his own like he's been wanting to do for a long time. Too long.

“True, true.”

Eunmin slams her hand on the metal bars again. “You’re both like two unruly dogs, yapping about
this and that. Shut the fuck up. Shut up. I hate you both so much.”

“Are you just gonna stand there and keep talking?” Taehyung asks. He stands up and dusts himself
off. Beside him, Jeongguk does the same. Everytime he has to talk to that woman, he feels
disgusted. Disgusted by her presence, her palpable hate, but he hides it. “You’re unhinged.”

“Oh, you’ll wish I was talking. You’ll wish I kept talking.” Eunmin glares at them, and in her eyes,
Taehyung can see nothing but sick, twisted hatred. “I tried to talk to you one last time, Taehyung. I
tried. You didn’t listen. Big, bad Kim Taehyung. Made a whole empire here, didn’t you? Drugs,
sex, money, power. Oh, you would’ve been able to do more — so much more — if you’d just
stayed and listened to me.”

“I’d rather have nothing than listen to you.”

“That’s the problem,” Eunmin whispers. “You never listen, do you?”

In the background, something creaks. A gate. It’s opening, slowly. A new smell fills the air —
rancid, curdling, acidic. A low rumble begins to fill the air. Like the crowd just before a show
begins — holding their breaths, suspense suspended in the air. Hands gripping their seats tight.
Anticipation for blood.
Taehyung resists the urge to look back. Beside him, Jeongguk stiffens.

Eunmin forces a smile on her face, and it doesn’t reach her eyes, but none of her smiles ever do.
This smile is sick with cruelty and some old, wretched darkness. It’s chilling, slow. “Maybe if you
listened, maybe if you just worked harder to be the perfect boy, maybe if you never set that fire,
you wouldn’t be here now.”

Chains rattling. The hissing behind them gets louder. The rancid smells gets closer, and there’s a
footstep shuffling towards them. Then, another one. More, more, more. Enough that Taehyung
loses count. The scent permeates the air like hazardous gas, radiation. Something is coming.
Taehyung hears a raspy breath being sucked in, then another. Another. A million atoms of oxygen
scraping through dry, desecrated throats.

“Last chance, Taehyung. Come back and learn from me, and I’ll spare you. Both of you,” Eunmin
says.

Taehyung glares. “I would rather rip out my fangs and go fuck myself with them than go back to a
filthy, disgusting bitch like you.”

Eunmin’s glare deepens. Her eye twitches. Her anger is so palpable, so obvious, and she does
nothing to hide it. White-knuckled grip on the metal bars, she’s shaking. For a moment — one,
two, tick, tock — she just stares at him. A stare filled with so much hatred and deranged longing
for a son she could never have.

“Fine, Taehyung.” Then, steps back from the edge and joins the others — Taehyung’s father,
Seokjin — at a safe distance. Eunmin spreads her arms out. A conductor controlling a symphony.
“Let the show begin.”

The breaths behind them get closer.

Taehyung whips around and bears the sight of something so disgustingly grotesque that he
momentarily forgets about the vampires watching them. Jeongguk turns around, too.

Then, he wretches dryly beside Taehyung, almost doubling over from the force of his revulsion.
Now they know where those dead, lifeless breaths are coming from. Nausea tugs at his gut,
forceful and harsh and Taehyung feels revulsion claw its way up his throat.
Taehyung knew that Eunmin was despicable, the lowest of lows, but this…

More raspy, tortured breaths permeate the air. The chains rattle as bare feet move across the rough
concrete.

This is worse than inhumane.

“Holy fuck,” Taehyung whispers.

Feral vampires march out from the gate, handcuffs on sickly thin wrists. Their skin is pale,
decomposing. Peeling off their bones in some places, muscles atrophied. Their eyes are murky,
teeth rotten, fingernails hanging by a thread. Around each one of their wrists are a pair of handcuffs
— bloody, rusty, lined with burning silver. One of them, Taehyung can take.

But there’s a lot — too many to count. A whole group of them, ambling slowly from the shadows.
Their smell — their fucking smell — makes Taehyung’s stomach turn. Jeongguk heaves next to
him again, groaning from the mere scent and sight of them. One of the vampires sucks in a raspy
breath and jerks against its handcuffs.

Dead things don’t die peacefully. Sometimes, Taehyung really wishes they do.

These things, these undead corpses, should be lying in the ground covered by dirt. Their bodies are
vessels for nothing, minds already corrupted and broken into numbness. Taehyung knows who
they are, who they used to be — the people stolen from the fighting rings. Poor souls on the last
stages of desperation looking for something more and hitting a point lower than they ever thought
possible.

To become this feral, this mindless, requires months of mind-destructive bloodlust. See, bloodlust
starts off small. Pangs of hunger, thoughts of feeding overtaking everything else. Then come the
impulses. Easier to control until they take over the unconscious, then the subconscious, then the
conscious. If it gets really bad, the vampire might go around in their sleep, body commanding
itself, as it searches for blood and finds it in any way it can — blood bags, humans, animals.

If it is still not sated, the mind is attacked next — thoughts devolving into one thing: blood. Then
comes the rage and pain, anger and shame, as the bloodlust slips in like a knife between the optical
nerve, and it strikes quick.
Blind to their own actions, vampires often lose control in a heightened bloodlust state. To get here,
it takes weeks of no food. And then — only then — if this bloodlust is still not satisfied, the body
shuts down. Energy suspended, preserved. Muscles whittling away, the mind breaking down. Only
the barest necessities keep going: arms, legs, the head. Husks of what the vampire used to be.

Bloodlust slams in like a wave and settles like a calm sea. It is a parasite, and once a vampire
reaches the last stage — zombie-like mind, an unquenchable need for blood, muscles peeling in dry
strips — it is impossible to come back.

Right now, these things — these things must have been starved for months. One drop of blood
every three days or so. Enough to keep them alive, enough to let the bloodlust keep going. No
mercy for hygiene or comfort. No leeway. They amble forward into the light, a moan rattling
through the air.

Taehyung doesn’t feel pity often, or ever, really, but now, he thinks he feels it. This small curl on
the edges of his heart. These beings have lost all sense of sanity or conscience. They’re not living
anymore, just existing.

It’s now that Taehyung realises where they are — the warehouse. That fucking warehouse. It’s
almost ironic to think that, just a few nights ago, Jeongguk was outside, bleeding out. Maybe if
they got through the guns, they might have found this. Might have been able to catch Kim Eunmin
and her husband off-guard, might have been able to free these creatures, but they were too late.

Too goddamn late.

Inside, the warehouse is huge — large enough to house the enclosed arena they’re in and the
smaller cage that the feral vampires are stumbling out of.

And here’s the thing: these ferals might be numb to the world most of the time, but once one of
them senses even a single drop of blood…

Jeongguk shifts beside him, arms coming up in a defensive position. His split lip shines under the
light.

One of the feral vampires pause in their shuffling. Nose upturned, they sniff the air.
Taehyung settles into place beside Jeongguk, eyeing the ferals. “Hey, Golden?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t die. Give us a good show.”

“I won’t,” Jeongguk whispers. “You can’t die either. I’m gonna need someone to stitch me back up
after this.”

Taehyung hums. “If— No. When we make it out of here alive, I’m gonna give you the biggest
fucking paycheck you’ve ever seen.”

“And I’ll give you the best blowjob you’ve ever had?”

“What?”

Jeongguk smirks at him and nudges his shoulder, nodding to the ferals slowly approaching. “Eyes
on the prize, vamp. Let’s fuck ‘em up.”

There — it’s that smile, that cocky, arrogant expression — that stretches the skin of Jeongguk’s
bottom lip. A drop of blood escapes. All the ferals still. Taehyung tenses up. Jeongguk begins to
regulate his breathing beside him, sinking lower into his heels.

Heads begin to turn towards them. Cloudy eyes lock on the target. From behind them, someone
clicks on a button. The handcuffs drop from the ferals, metal clattering on the ground. Another
rattling breath rises from the crowd.

Dust from the ground rises and catches in the light. Taehyung realises, between every beat of
Jeongguk’s racing heart, every inhale passing through his lips, that he’ll give his all. He won’t let
Jeongguk die. He protected Jeongguk when they were younger, and he’ll do it again. He’ll do it for
fucking eternity. Jeongguk raises his arms into fists and takes a shaky breath in.
Taehyung would die for him.

Jeongguk… Golden… His fighter… Jeongguk…

Jeongguk exhales.

One of the vampires scream, and another. Another, another. Blood. They’ve found blood. And the
countdown starts.

Tick…

All of the ferals rush at them in one large incoherent group. Taehyung and Jeongguk take the full
force of it head on. Taehyung knows Jeongguk’s fighting style — quick and dirty and bloody,
bruised knuckles and blood-stained cheeks. Fingertips tearing through flesh, punches shattering
bone. He’s ruthlessness vibrating between restless, twisted pieces of corded muscle under thick,
cut-littered skin.

Jeongguk is Golden, the hotshot fighter of the Underground with blood on his hands, in his mouth,
in his hair, and in the medal around his neck.

Taehyung fights like there is no tomorrow. No time to toy with his opponents, like he usually does.
Now, it’s punch after punch. Something connects with his fist — a kneecap, perhaps, from the way
it pops under the force of his knuckles. Something else scratches his face — it could be teeth, or a
protruding bone, or a broken fingernail. Hisses surround them in multitudes, agonised whimpers,
hands reaching for blood.

He tears off a feral trying to scrabble towards Jeongguk in the fray. Grabs it around the waist and
throws it onto another incoming one. The two feral scratch and hiss at each other, nails tearing
against paper-thin skin.

Jeongguk dodges the swipe of a feral and throws his own kick — it flies back, scrabbling on the
concrete. The skin on its fingertips tear and dull, red scabby blood begins to leak out. It is all
Taehyung can do — throw punches, jab with his elbow, kick, punch, punch, punch, fucking move.

Anything — do anything to keep them off Jeongguk.

They’re not going for him, no. They’re going for Jeongguk, and he’s holding up well on his own,
but the world’s a blur. With every cut Jeongguk gets on his golden skin, the ferals become more
vicious. Taehyung feels nails claw along his back a flash of pain so potent hits him that he almost
doubles over.

He grits his teeth and fights through it, reaching up to flip the feral climbing on his back and
slamming it into the ground.

The cement cracks, but another is already scrabbling past him. Taehyung aims for the neck,
muscles aching, and snags it. It screeches weakly in his grip. The sound cuts off suddenly when
Taehyung gets two hands around it and twists.

Broken doll, marionette with cut strings. It falls to the floor, twitching, neck bent at an unnatural
angle. It’s not completely dead yet, just unable to move, but Taehyung doesn’t have the time to
give it the mercy of death.

Jeongguk swears from somewhere in the crowd.

Taehyung’s stomach drops when he realises he’s almost lost him — his fighter. Taehyung tears
through the thick crowd, throwing ferals in the air, slamming them into each other. A feral sends a
kick to his leg and Taehyung lets out a grunt of pain as it’s leg bone shatters, rips through skin, and
makes a long cut down his thigh. Shit.

Everything blends in together — his movements, the injuries littering his skin. Every moment, he
gets closer to Jeongguk. It’s his only objective — get to Jeongguk. Find Jeongguk. Protect
Jeongguk. Don’t let him die.

Don’t let him fucking die.

Soon, he reaches Jeongguk. A small victory, but Jeongguk is covered in blood. Whether it’s his or
the feral’s, Taehyung can’t tell. He’s slowing down, though. Tiring out. So is Taehyung. They both
only have so much energy before it sputters out. Still, they’re fighting for their lives.

Jeongguk is used to this — used to knowing when to conserve his energy, when to dodge. Wings
on his feet, iron on his knuckles, he’s knocking the ferals down before they get too close to him.
But it’s not enough. It’s not enough. There are too many ferals and only two of them, and
Taehyung’s leg is shaking from where pieces of the feral’s shattered leg bone remain.

That ugly, ugly foreboding creeps in again. Shoves the panic away and whispers in his ear, it’s
over. It’s over.

Jeongguk lets out a hacking cough, blood splattering on the ground. They lock eyes. The ferals
scream in excitement at the smell, the phantom taste of it. It’s over.

No it’s not.

Taehyung attacks with renewed vigour. His next punch goes right through a feral’s chest, and he
flings it into an oncoming group. The group pays the feral’s body no mind, climbing over it with
reckless abandon, sharp fangs on show.

Jeongguk takes a step back and bodies a feral that leaps through the air to tackle him. They hit the
metal bars, their force almost bending the steel backwards.

As Jeongguk slams its head again, again, again on the metal, Taehyung tears the head off another
one sprinting towards his fighter. It’s endless. The ferals are endless. Spilling out of that cramped
cage like a rushing river, because they smell blood — can practically taste it in the air. And they’re
so hungry. So hungry.

Time is running out. The last of the sand slipping through the timer to the other side, and
Taehyung—

Not like this. He doesn’t want Jeongguk to die like this.

Tock…

The warehouse doors burst open and gunfire starts. A mess to combat with the one Taehyung and
Jeongguk are right in the thick of. The sound of artillery drowns out the grumbling and snarling of
ferals.
Jeongguk backs up into Taehyung, breathing hard, and Taehyung shoves his fighter behind him.
Arms up, he lets Jeongguk take a breather as he braves the ferals coming in for the kill.

Behind him, Jeongguk drops to his knees, greedily sucking down air. He hacks out a bloody cough,
hand coming up to clutch at the bars for support. There are voices, screaming and loud outside
their arena. Chaos — the smell of gunpowder and the rancid breaths of ferals, the sound of voices
shouting orders and ferals grunting with torn vocal chords, smoke grenades and dust in the air.

Then, someone is cutting through the bars of their arena.

Taehyung does not know what’s happening outside. His focus isn’t on his own survival, but
Jeongguk’s. A feral scratches his cheek and Taehyung feels its nails leave deep marks in the skin.
He grabs the offending hand and snaps it off too easily, but there’s another one coming.

A feral bites his side, jagged teeth dragging along the skin. Another one has managed to crawl
towards them, even if its spine is protruding out of its body. It lunges for Taehyung’s feet. He
stumbles over it, teeth gritting as he fights like he’s never done before.

“Hold on! Two minutes to go,” someone yells. Someone cutting the bars in the arena. Taehyung
can barely hear them above the fray.

Jeongguk coughs wetly behind him. “Tae—”

“Stay back. Stay back there, Jeongguk—” Taehyung grunts as two ferals pile onto his legs, nails
scratching. Taehyung tries to kick them away, but there’s a feral’s hand in his hair and another
aiming for his neck, and there’s too many. Too many.

Something falls against the bars. Taehyung, always so attuned to Jeongguk, hears his pained hiss.
Then, the sound of grappling, a feral moaning, and Taehyung desperately shoves the ferals away.

Some of them move — just enough for him to turn around and grab the one clamouring for
Jeongguk by the neck. Something stabs his back and Taehyung forces a pained cry to stay behind
his lips.
Jeongguk has a wound on his stomach. He has wounds everywhere, but he’s clutching his stomach
with a white-knuckled grip, breaths choking. Choking on his own blood.

Shit. Shit.

Taehyung abandons his fight. Instead, he staggers over to Jeongguk. Places his hands on the bars
next to Jeongguk’s trembling, exhausted body and traps him in.

“Stop,” Jeongguk mumbles. His hands come up to Taehyung’s shoulders, weakly pushing at him.
“Tae, stop.”

“No.” Taehyung bites his tongue as a feral digs ints claws into his thigh, but he doesn’t move. He
stays hovering over Jeongguk, body a physical shield against the slaughter. Taehyung would die
for Jeongguk. He will. “You have to— have to live.”

“Let me fight. I can f— uh—” Jeongguk chokes on his next breath and coughs it out. Blood drips
from his lips. “Fight. I can—”

“It’s okay. It’s okay, Jeongguk,” Taehyung says. Tries to say it in comfort, but there are ferals all
over them now. Jeongguk tucks his head in the space between Taehyung’s shoulder and his neck.
The wet, bloody strands of his hair tickle Taehyung’s cheek, and Taehyung wouldn’t mind dying
like this. “I’ve got you. I— shit. I’ve got you.”

There’s a hand around his throat. The ferals his behind him, their teeth and nails and punches
hitting Taehyung like a wave. There’s nothing he can do except take the pain, and Jeongguk can
barely stand.

Taehyung doesn’t even know if his fighter is conscious, body sagging against Taehyung’s, but at
least he’s shaking. At least Jeongguk's heart is still beating. Taehyung can feel it from the close
press of their chests.

He wouldn’t mind dying like this. Wouldn’t mind dying for Jeongguk. Taehyung turns his face to
the side, tucks his nose into Jeongguk’s hair, and waits. He wouldn't mind. Taehyung was never
going to die peacefully anyway.

The pain is almost too much now. Almost. He can’t give up. Has to hold on for as long as forever,
because Jeongguk deserves to get out of here. Jeongguk should leave and make a million paper
flowers. He should leave and taste adrenaline on his tongue again. Leave and never have to fear his
past again.

A feral hisses in Taehyung’s ear, a nail drags across his jaw. Pain bursts as the broken, jagged nail
sinks into his skin and tears a line down. Jeongguk takes a shuddering breath. Taehyung presses a
kiss to his head.

Then, the bars start clanging.

Steel bars, dropping to the ground as people finally cut through them. People start pouring
through. People with full body armour and combat boots, guns in their hands.

Some of these people sound like humans, some sound like vampires. The way they move, the
intonation of their words, their breaths. All of them have guns, and the ferals go flying one by one
as bullets rain hell upon them. The ferals hiss at the new attackers, but Taehyung feels their weight
slowly dropping. One by one, they fall and twitch, riddled with bullet holes.

Someone grabs a hold of Taehyung, someone hauls Jeongguk up, and they’re being pulled out. Out
of the fray, and the ferals try to go after them, but rapid fire shots riddle their fragile skin until
they’re nothing but wailing, squirming creatures on the floor.

“Stand up,” Seokjin says, holding both of them by the arms. “Get the fuck up. We have to move.”

“What the hell?” Jeongguk rasps out. His hand is still his stomach, cheek littered with scratches.

There’s a scream — a terrible, terrible scream that Taehyung knows all too well. Eunmin. It
becomes clear why when Kim Namjoon and Min Yoongi walk in, still in their goddamned suits,
hair slicked back. As if the bullets can’t touch them. Bulletproof. Chests out, eyes dark and
calculating. Not one ounce of emotion.

Kim Namjoon presses something in his ear and talks. An earpiece. The chess player moving his
pieces around. He steps forward, a smile tugging on his lips when he comes to the place where
Eunmin and her husband are trapped, silver leashes around their necks.

Min Yoongi doesn’t stop to view the pleasant sight. He heads straight for them, the burst of gunfire
deafening the tense air. Taehyung feels Jeongguk trembling in exhaustion beside him. Blood loss,
too. Seokjin keeps a firm grip on their arms.

Afternoon sunlight pours in from the open warehouse doors. It’s strong. Seems like the afternoon
wants to join in the fun, then. It travels with Yoongi, wisps of sunlight curling around his shoes, as
he makes his way to them. Brings a breeze in — hints of flora, the smoke of the Underground — as
Taehyung sways on the spot.

Black dots permeate his vision. He’s tired. So, so tired. If it wasn’t for Seokjin holding him up,
he’s sure he would’ve dropped to the ground by now.

Min Yoongi reaches them. Few have heard Yoongi’s voice. From those handful, even less are
alive. But Taehyung knows it all the same, feels like he’s been hearing it all his life, when Yoongi
says, “I found you, Kim Taehyung.”

Just like he did back then, when he found two young boys collapsed on some sidestreet on the
outskirts of Seoul.

Eunmin screams again. It sounds like heaven to Taehyung’s ears. He looks over Yoongi’s
shoulder, and Yoongi smiles like he knows what happened.

The head of Eunmin’s husband now rolls on the floor, torn clean from his body. It stops at Kim
Namjoon’s feet, face turned towards them. Namjoon puts a foot on top of the head and settles into
a comfortable stance. Taehyung stares at the man who called himself his father in the eyes and
revels in the satisfaction unfurling in his chest.

“Let’s go,” Min Yoongi says. “I think you have some unfinished business to take care of.”

Taehyung musters up the last of his energy as they walk behind Min Yoongi. Walk towards Kim
Eunmin. He doesn’t know what his body is doing anymore, how it’s still moving. He just follows.
Moves his feet, one step at a time, listens to Jeongguk’s harsh, stuttering breaths. Towards Kim
Namjoon, still with that listless smile on his face, boot on the head.

A product of exhaustion, or maybe his own sick, twisted thoughts, Taehyung wonders what it
would be like if Namjoon kicked it. Like a soccer ball. Kicked it so it hit the wall. Fuck, that’s
messed up.
“What are you smiling about?” Jeongguk mutters to him.

“Nothing.” Taehyung shakes his head and rips his eyes away from the head. “Nothing at all.”

Then, they’re in front of the woman. Kim Eunmin. There are guards around her — a human man
with a gun pressed to the back of her head, a woman vampire holding the leash around her neck,
the keys to Eunmin’s handcuffs in her pocket. She nods at them as Taehyung comes to a stop
before the kneeling monster.

Out of everything in this warehouse — the ferals, Kim Namjoon stepping on a head, Min Yoongi
with delight in his eyes at the mess in here, Taehyung, Jeongguk — she’s the monster. The stuff
that nightmares are made of. Taehyung’s nightmares. Jeongguk’s, too.

“You think you won?” Eunmin spits. “You think this is victory? ‘Cause you planned this?”

“Oh, don’t give him credit for this,” Namjoon comments. “It was all us. Taehyung didn’t know
about a single thing.”

They used him as bait. Neither Kim Namjoon or Min Yoongi look guilty, and Taehyung wouldn’t
expect otherwise. Of-fucking-course they would use him as bait. Seokjin looks ahead stonily, face
set, grips tight on their arms. By now, the hissing of the ferals has died down. So has the gunfire.
That’s it, then. No better mercy for the ferals than a bullet to the head.

“What now?” Eunmin asks. “What are you going to do with me now?”

“Originally, I just wanted to kill you on the spot,” Namjoon says. “But that’s not enough. No,
that’s not the right way for you.” He nods to the arena. “Go.”

The vampire holding the leash jerks on it, and Eunmin almost splatters forward. She barely gets to
her feet before the vampire is off and dragging her, past the bars, into the ring. Blood pools on the
concrete. Sanguine stains, sickly-copper scents.

It’s almost too much, but the joy of seeing that monster struggling in her silver confinements are
more than enough to make Taehyung endure the pain.
Then, Min Yoongi is beside him. “Go on. This is your prize.”

Taehyung turns to him. “What?”

“I know you’ve wanted to do this. We’ll never apologise for using you as bait, but…” Yoongi jerks
his head towards Eunmin. “Thought it would be fitting for you to have the final kill.”

Something begins to roar in Taehyung’s blood at the implications behind Yoongi’s words.
Taehyung lets go of Seokjin’s grip and is surprised (pleasantly) to find the ground stable under his
feet.

The last vestiges of adrenaline pumping through his body, everything is shaky at the edges.
Everyone else has cleared out of the arena — all except for Eunmin, shackles around her neck, her
wrists. The vampire that held her leash comes back with a remote in her hands.

Jeongguk nudges him. “Hey, Taehyung?”

Taehyung looks back at him. “Yeah?”

Jeongguk grins, teeth stained with blood, eyes haunted. He is so fucking beautiful. “Give me a good
show.”

Taehyung heads to the arena and slips through the hole in the bars. Behind him, someone
scrambles to cover up the opening. Eunmin eyes him from behind her shackled confinement, and
Taehyung circles her. Eyes sharp, body thrumming with energy, he’s waited for this for so long.

So fucking long. Every day, he’s craved something like this. Craved exactly this.

The remote is pressed. Eunmin’s shackles fall off. She wastes no time attacking. And Taehyung…

Taehyung’s parents have always wanted him to be a killing monster. Someone to tear blood and
viscera apart in a battlefield, inside a ring. Someone to be feared. Ruthless, emotionless. Someone
with a lust for blood even when he’s full, because you can never have enough power. Enough is
never enough. So, they locked him up.
Threw him in a dungeon whenever he did something slightly wrong. They dared to look at
Jeongguk, dared to threaten him. They tried to turn Taehyung into their picture-perfect vampire.

Eunmin’s first swipe misses. Taehyung moves faster than he ever has before — so fast that even
his own punch is a blur before his heightened vision. His fist knocks straight into Eunmin’s chest.
She flies back so hard that she hits the bars. They bend backwards as her body pummels into them.

This is the monster that threw him down and kept the glittering key in her hand. This is the
monster he’s had nightmares about for all his life. This is the monster waiting in the dark, the
monster with the stark black tattoo on her collarbone — ouroboros.

The mark of Eunmin’s bloodline, of this particular Kim coven. Ouroboros.

The same mark that burns on Taehyung’s back, on Jeongguk’s wrist.

That fucking snake, eating itself over and over again. Endless pain.

Taehyung saunters towards Eunmin’s body, just as she pounces up from the ground and leaps
towards him. Arms out, claws sharp, she only manages to make a paper-cut thin slice on
Taehyung’s forearm before he has a hold of her elbow. Taehyung looks her in the eye as he twists
and—

Eunmin screams. Pop.

The anger inside him — that dark ocean, ebbing and flowing. It rushes by in a torrent, and the dam
breaks. White, icy-hot anger fills him from the chest down. It shoots to his toes, aims for every
crevice inside his head. It fills him to the fingertips and Taehyung can feel it rushing about, this
wave of intense, burning pain.

So hot that it’s frigid, so frigid that it has him biting back a pained scream.

The next few moments are a blur. Vision turning red, Taehyung doesn’t know what happens —
what his body does — as Eunmin screams and screams. Well, he knows. He knows what happens.
He turns into the monster that Eunmin has always wanted him to be. Ruthless, merciless.
Someone who toys with his victims. He lets Eunmin run around the arena before starting his next
attack, wearing her down little by little, and it’s fun in the most fucked up way possible.

Taehyung is fucked up.

From outside, Jeongguk cheers for him. Jeongguk is fucked up, too.

It’s wonderful, it’s glorious — this freeing feeling. Taehyung’s felt power before, the kind that
bursts at the seams, but this is different. This is pouring out of him in waves and explosions, heat
skyrocketing inside his very veins as Eunmin’s blood sprays the ground.

For years of pain, years of nightmares, years of running and hiding and self-hatred, he lets it all out.

His parents wanted to see their son become a ruthless, sadistic killer. Taehyung grins. Well, he’s
here. The son they’ve always wanted to have. He’s fucking here.

It’s like he’s watching himself from the outside. Watches as he tosses Eunmin’s body to the ground
one last time, and she doesn’t get back up. She just stares at the ceiling. Serves her fucking right.

A monster who locked young children in dark dungeons, a monster who tortured countless
vampires from the Underground until they were nothing but brainless ferals. A monster with
morals so low that even hell wouldn’t accept her.

Then again, Taehyung shouldn’t be one to judge someone else’s morals. He doesn’t want to be too
much of a hypocrite.

“I hope you fucking rot,” Taehyung says, standing over her. Eunmin’s pained eyes meet his,
trembling and glassy and so out of it. Her blood stains the arena around them. “Not even the stars
will keep you company here.”

With one last look, Taehyung makes his way out of the arena. The metal cover they used to close
the opening is lifted away, and Taehyung slips through the bars. Jeongguk is waiting for him on
the other side, a towel in one hand. It’s bloodied — someone must’ve given it to him to clean
himself up. Instead, he just holds the ends with both hands and slings it around Taehyung’s neck.
Taehyung lets himself be tugged forward by Jeongguk. The soft bristles of the towel slip against
his skin, wiping away the blood dripping down.

Jeongguk is smiling, and it reaches his eyes. A fucked up smile. Head tilted to the side, eyes
scrunched up, teeth on display and he has a dimple. So fucked up, because it’s beautiful. It should
be impossible to be this beautiful. And he’s smiling because Taehyung just practically murdered
his mother — toyed with her before delivering the final blow, then leaving her to suffer in her last
moments.

“Good show. Almost as good as mine,” Jeongguk says.

“Yeah. Almost.” And Taehyung can’t help it — maybe it’s the adrenaline, or the fact that they
somehow survived the fuckery that just happened to them. Maybe it’s something in the air, or in
Jeongguk’s blood, or in the look in Jeongguk’s eyes.

Taehyung can’t help it: he kisses Jeongguk.

He slips a hand in Jeongguk’s hair, the other cupping his face. Jeongguk drops the towel and hauls
him closer with one hand on the shoulder, the other on Taehyung’s hip, and it doesn’t start off slow
— no, it’s heated from the very beginning. Lips sliding against each other’s, Jeongguk’s tongue in
Taehyung’s mouth, Taehyung tasting Jeongguk’s blood, and it’s messy, loud, right in front of
everyone, and Taehyung doesn’t give a fuck.

They only pull back when there’s a hand on each of their shoulders, physically tearing them apart.

Taehyung glares at the intruder as Jeongguk catches his breath.

Seokjin looks back calmly, an eyebrow raised. “Are you both staying to watch her die, or are you
going?”

Ah, Kim Seokjin. The traitor.

“What do you think?” Taehyung asks, a humourless grin on his face, teeth bared. “I’m gonna
fuckin’ stay until she’s really dead, this time. Why? You gonna stay with us? Watch your master
—”

“She’s not my master,” Seokjin corrects him. He doesn’t seem to mind the twisted glares pointed
at his face. “I was a double agent. Hired by Yoongi and Namjoon to pretend like I wanted in on her
team. She thought I was a double agent for her, but I double-crossed her. Had to keep pretending I
was her little bitch until she got you both in here and The Big Three could catch her. We killed
Eunmin’s shooters outside; took ‘em out before busting in here and saving you both.”

“Nice. Real nice, Seokjin,” Taehyung says dryly. He’s too tired and worn out to feel the anger he
would usually feel. He just wants all of this to be over, just wants to kiss Jeongguk again and again.
“So you sent Jeongguk and I on a wild goose chase this whole time? You knew what was
happening?”

“Yeah.” Seokjin shrugs, like he doesn’t have two dangerous people currently shooting glares at
him. “The disappearances, the fighting rings, the Wolf, all of it — I knew what was happening.
How’d you think I knew which fighting rings you needed to target?”

“Wasn’t Eunmin pissed that you were targeting her smuggling rings?”

“She didn’t know it was me.”

“And the Wolf?”

"You didn’t know it was me.”

Taehyung stares at Seokjin, unimpressed. “Honestly, Seokjin, fuck you.”

The Wolf. That goddamn Wolf. Taehyung couldn’t figure it out — spent sleepless nights trying to
figure it out. And that whole time, Seokjin must have been laughing at him. Laughing in the safety
of Kim Namjoon and Min Yoongi and Kim Eunmin’s protection.

“We couldn’t catch the Wolf because he was always one step ahead of us, huh. You always knew
where we were.” Jeongguk lets out a humourless laugh next to him. His body is tense, and
Taehyung knows he’s holding back from punching Seokjin. “I’m too exhausted to even be angry.
You all played us well, huh.”
“Worked out good enough for everybody,” Seokjin says, and he’s got a point. Taehyung’s killing
partner is always so prim, so proper — emotionless, but Taehyung swears the smallest hint of
amusement enters his eyes. God, Seokjin is so fucking annoying.

“If you knew where Eunmin was the whole time, couldn’t you have caught her off-guard? Bust in
her home or something? Kill her there?”

“No.” Seokjin shakes his head. “I never knew where Eunmin was. She always sent me messages
on burner phones, told me to keep an eye on you and The Big Three. Told me how to run the
smuggling rings.”

“Seokjin,” Taehyung says, “I hate you. I'll kill you at another time, I swear.”

“Feeling’s mutual.” Seokjin claps his shoulder, and Taehyung hisses when he hits a wound. “See
you around, kids. Don’t die.”

“You’re an asshole!” Jeongguk calls out as Seokjin steps back.

The killer walks away without a glance back. At the warehouse doors, Kim Namjoon and Min
Yoongi are already waiting. Seokjin joins them. The colours of the afternoon sun have shifted —
something more gold-toned now, the shadows darker. It’s sunset. Their crew is waiting outside for
them.

It’s now that Taehyung realises that he and Jeongguk are the only ones left in here with Eunmin’s
dying body.

The Big Three nod at Taehyung. Taehyung nods back. Jeongguk flips them the middle finger, and
Taehyung laughs. No one would ever dare to do something like that, especially not to them. But
Jeongguk keeps it up until they walk out the doors, keeps it up for another minute or so.

They disappear without a goodbye or blessings for the future. That’s how things work around here.
They leave quieter than they came, only their footsteps left in the dust.

Taehyung sits on the concrete outside the arena, outside the bars. Jeongguk joins him. The ground
is cold under them, but Jeongguk burns hot beside him. Taehyung leans on him.

Jeongguk makes a disgusted noise and says something like you smell fucking horrible, but he leans
in anyway. Loops an arm around Taehyung’s shoulders and buries his face in Taehyung’s hair as
the vampire watches Eunmin bleed out on the ground.

She’s twitching in pain. Vampires don’t need to breathe, but she’s trying to suck some breaths in.
Eunmin must be in a lot of agony. Good.

“How are you feeling?” Jeongguk asks.

Outside, the shuffle of footsteps leave as The Big Three file out from the vicinity. The quietness of
the Underground sneaks back in and clings to the walls, sticky tar once more. It’s not so lifeless
now. The afternoon sun dips lower, the colours of its rays mixing and mixing and the shadows
lengthen.

At one point, the sun reaches Taehyung’s fingertip, the edges of Jeongguk’s hair.

Nature. It all comes back to nature. Predators and prey. Nature decides who the predator is, nature
decides who lives, who dies, who suffers from this blessing. Nature has decided to turn Taehyung
into the predator, Eunmin the prey. So different from what it used to be.

And the blessing — this immortality — is two sides to the coin. Live forever, but your only way
out is to die painfully.

Taehyung knows.

He knows.

Dead things don’t die peacefully.

Eunmin chokes out one final breath, before she stills, eyes turning glassy. Taehyung knows she’s
dead this time — truly dead. Her blood spills on the ground, body unable to survive. He’ll let the
Big Three deal with this mess tomorrow. But for now…
Taehyung leans on Jeongguk, places his head on his shoulder, and they stare. They fucking stare at
Eunmin’s corpse like they’re watching the sunset outside, and he smiles.

His first genuine smile in… He doesn’t know. Maybe it’s the first smile he’s ever made out of this
warm emotion in his chest. Is this happiness? Is this what contentment feels like? Taehyung
doesn’t know the emotion, but Jeongguk is beside him, and that’s all that matters.

So, Taehyung turns to Jeongguk and presses a soft kiss to the corner of his lips. “I feel good.”

Jeongguk smiles back at him.

——

Out of all the places Taehyung has never been to, one of them is Jeongguk’s apartment.

He never had a reason to. Every meeting they held was either over the phone, at Taehyung’s house,
in the club, or in the arenas. Jeongguk never invited Taehyung over, Taehyung never had any
inclination to go. However, since Taehyung’s house is currently lying in smoke and ruins, they
have no other place to go except Jeongguk’s.

“Cute,” Taehyung comments, struggling to take his shoes off. Jeongguk had glared at him the
moment he entered with his blood-stained boots. “I like the vibes.”

Jeongguk cocks an eyebrow at him. His fighter is leaning against the wall, catching his breath after
having taken a boot off. He’s got an arm clutched around his waist, and Taehyung suspects he has
broken ribs. Again. Maybe a few cuts there that need stitches.

“Shut up.” But Jeongguk’s lips twitch into a smile.

The place is tiny. Nothing but an apartment with three basic rooms: a kitchen, a bathroom, and a
room for everything else. The kitchen holds a portable stove, a toaster, a sink, and a kitchen bench
complete with two plastic plates and plastic cutlery scattered on top. There’s a ratty looking
microwave in the corner which, in Jeongguk’s words, should never be used because I swear it’ll
explode, Taehyung. Not many things I’m scared of, but that microwave — it terrifies me.
The bathroom is barely big enough to fit one grown man. It has nothing but a toilet shoved in the
corner, a vanity, a mirror, and a shower in the other corner.

Meanwhile, the room for everything else has a mattress on the floor, blankets thrown haphazardly
on top, a milk crate next to the mattress, and crudely made dresser.

“This,” Jeongguk says, stepping into the room for everything else, “is home.”

They take turns having a shower. Granted, it takes both of them a whole lot longer than it usually
would. Moving around with the wounds they have causes a lot of pain, but they both unanimously
decided that, even if they died in the shower from slipping and falling and cracking another bone,
at least they were clean.

Plus, it’s hard to stitch someone back up if every inch of their skin is caked with dry blood and bits
of decayed skin.

Taehyung feels a whole lot better as soon as he finishes his shower. Jeongguk placed a spare set of
clothes outside the bathroom door. Taehyung takes a while putting them on. Since his fighter
showered first, Taehyung isn’t surprised to step out of the bathroom to smell something cooking in
the kitchen. Jeongguk must be starving by now.

A moment later, Jeongguk steps out holding a steaming bowl of ramyeon. He steps over the clothes
littered on the floor, sits his ass on the mattress, and places the bowl on the milk crate. Seeing
Taehyung just standing there, he tilts his head.

“You hungry?” Jeongguk asks.

Yes. Taehyung’s hungry, but not for food. He shakes his head at Jeongguk. “No. If you don’t
remember, I fed quite a bit from you before we left Seoul.”

“Oh, yeah. I remember.” Jeongguk’s eyes darken, even as a teasing grin lights his face. “Greedy
bitch.”

The lighthearted insult doesn’t faze Taehyung. Instead, he heads to the kitchen and rummages
around for a first-aid kit. Luckily, he finds one. Jeongguk seems to have heeded his advice from a
while ago: the first-aid kit is new. Taehyung clutches it in relief and heads back to the room for
everything else.

As Jeongguk slurps down his food in big, disgusting mouthfuls, Taehyung sits down on the floor
across from him and starts to tend to his own wounds. Neither of them say a word, completely
engrossed in whatever they’re doing. When Jeongguk finishes his food, he breathes a sigh of relief,
tips his head back, and closes his eyes for a few moments.

Then, he pushes the milk crate aside and sits on the floor, too, right in front of Taehyung.

Jeongguk holds his hand out for the first-aid kit. “Give it. You have shit on your back that we need
to clean.”

Jeongguk treats the rest of his wounds. Fingers pressing into Taehyung’s muscles, warm puffs of
breath kissing his skin. Taehyung’s always wondered what it feels like to breathe. Having been
born a vampire, he’s never felt the need to.

Nothing changes in his body when he breathes — he doesn’t need air, just blood. But maybe it
feels like this — like Jeongguk, taking slow, measured breaths as his hands explore the vast
expanse of Taehyung’s body.

It feels like the slow hours ticking by as they patch each other up. A bandage over a particularly
nasty cut, antiseptic pressed into irritated skin. Stitches and needles, ice on the swollen areas,
foreign objects diligently picked out of open wounds. Neither of them are medical experts, but they
make do with what they have.

They’ll live.

Jeongguk will keep on breathing — he’ll keep inhaling, exhaling, through early mornings and lazy
afternoons and dangerous nights, the fog of the Underground — and Taehyung will keep on
breathing through him.

It’s odd — what would it feel like if Taehyung’s chest expanded with every breath in? What would
it feel like to have shaky breaths? Would Taehyung’s body tremble with every staccato, would his
fingertips feel the molecules of air slipping from his lips? What would it feel like if he fell into a
deep pool of water and couldn’t re-surface?
“Jeongguk,” Taehyung says. His fighter hums, fingers parting the hair on Taehyung’s scalp. He’s
looking for head wounds. Taehyung closes his eyes, body relaxing at Jeongguk’s rhythmic
motions, the press of his fingers. “What does it feel like to drown?”

“Why d’you wanna kow?”

“I’m curious.”

“Well… Your throat starts burning, your heart starts pounding. It feels like the world is going to
end. It’s painful at first. Really fuckin’ painful. Feels like you’re burning, and, suddenly, your
vision is going. Body goes into panic, mind into overdrive, and it’s hard to tell which way is up.
Then, everything shuts down. It’s calm, then. That’s when you know you’re about to die.”

“I see.”

When they’ve finally had enough of first-aid kits and the tangy smell of antiseptic, they pack away
the measly remnants of Jeongguk’s bandages. Jeongguk throws it across the room. It smacks
against the wall and falls to the floor. Taehyung could easily pick it up in less than two steps. He
doesn’t move.

Jeongguk yawns and drags himself back onto the mattress. “Hey, Taehyung?”

“Yeah?”

“You look good in my clothes.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“‘Course I do. That’s common sense, remember? They feel like shit, though.” Taehyung wrinkles
his nose at the cheap quality. He’s not used to such fabrics, but at least they smell good — the faint
scent of detergent, hints of vanilla (they smell good because they smell like Jeongguk, but
Taehyung adamantly refuses to acknowledge it out loud).

“Stuck-up fuck,” Jeongguk says, huffing out a laugh. He throws himself over the blankets and lays
spread-eagled on the mattress. “What are you still doing there?”

“Where?”

“On the floor.”

Taehyung furrows his eyebrows, confused. “I’ll be sleeping here. Where else do you want me to
go? In the kitchen?”

“No, dumbass.” Jeongguk peeks a bleary eye open and turns his head to face Taehyung. Cheek
squished against the mattress, he says, “get on here with me.”

“On there,” Taehyung deadpans. “With you.”

“Yeah.”

“Jeongguk, I doubt that mattress is gonna fit both of us.”

“Don’t care. ‘M not letting you sleep anywhere else.”

Taehyung stares. Truth be told, he doesn’t want to sleep anywhere else, either. Jeongguk used to be
someone he hated, someone he despised, but… With a jolt, Taehyung realises that he hasn’t truly
hated Jeongguk in a long time. He doesn’t know for how long.

All he knows is that some part of him, or maybe every part of him, has come to think of Jeongguk
as someone special to him. In whatever way, Taehyung doesn’t know.

Just knows that he despises every single other human and vampire in this world, except Jeongguk.
Jeongguk is his only exception, his fighter.
Jeongguk was Taehyung’s first friend, and he’s the one that’s been here to witness every single
thing Taehyung’s gone through. Whether he was far away, or nearby, Jeongguk was there. He was
there when they both moved into the Underground, and Taehyung forgot about him.

He was there when Taehyung hated him, there when they went through that weird stage of not
hating each other, of that ambiguous, endless space between friendship and the first heated kiss. He
was there when they both nearly died — both in their childhood, and now — and he’s still here.

He’s still here.

Still here, still waiting for Taehyung, and all those years — all those fucking years of no
communication between them, then hatred, and everything else in between — Jeongguk had been
pining for him.

Looking at him from afar and taking the brunt of Taehyung’s hate and, now, he’s still looking at
Taehyung with a sleepy gaze, and it’s vulnerable. This is the most vulnerable that Taehyung has
ever seen Jeongguk be, and it’s one of Jeongguk’s most beautiful moments.

Taehyung’s scared of his memories. Even after Eunmin and her husband are dead, he’s still
terrified of the nightmares. But if he had a choice to, he thinks that he’d keep those memories
through all the years he forgot them, if only to be able to remember Jeongguk. He wonders what
would have happened if he did remember. What would’ve changed between them. How everything
would have unfolded.

“What are you thinking about?” Jeongguk asks.

“You,” Taehyung says bluntly.

Jeongguk smiles, and an old memory resurfaces. The words taste familiar in the air when he says,
“I’m always on your mind, huh?”

Taehyung nods. He is. “Like a clingy dog with separation anxiety.”

“That’s weirdly specific.”

“You asked, I answered.”

“Woof, Taehyung. Woof. Now get your ass on here, I want to sleep.”

When Taehyung doesn’t move, Jeongguk sighs and leans over to grab his arm. Forcefully hauling
Taehyung onto the mattress, he grins wider when Taehyung finally clambers on.

Taehyung makes a noise of surprise when Jeongguk practically crawls over him and lays his whole
body on top of Taehyung’s, arms on either side, legs tangled, his head on Taehyung’s chest.
Taehyung can feel the warmth of Jeongguk’s body, Jeongguk’s muscled chest pressing against his
stomach.

“What are you doing?” Taehyung asks, feeling tense. This is the closest anyone has ever dared to
get to him like this. Taehyung has never cuddled before, but he’s heard about it. He thinks this
should feel invasive, uncomfortable. Instead, it feels oddly… nice.

“Shut up,” is Jeongguk’s answer.

In a few moments, Jeongguk is asleep. He snores, chest pressing against Taehyung’s even more
deeply with every breath in. Hesitantly, Taehyung makes a decision. There are no eyes watching
them now, no one to see what happens inside this room. The darkening night is cloudy. There’s a
small window in this room for everything else, and the gloomy grey outside greets Taehyung
goodnight when he stares outside.

There are no stars tonight, no eyes. Just him and Jeongguk. Taehyung should rest. For the first time
in a while, Taehyung wants to rest.

Jeongguk snores extra loudly, mumbles something incomprehensible, and snuggles into a more
comfortable position on top of Taehyung’s body.

The sight of him makes something in Taehyung’s chest unfurl, a string of warmth bleeding out
from the cracks. Taehyung brings a hand up to brush some strands of Jeongguk’s hair back from
his face. With a start, he realises it’s shaking. His hand is shaking.
 Jeongguk’s face, bruised and littered with cuts, meets Taehyung’s vision. His eyelashes really are
quite long, and Taehyung feels the strange urge to kiss his nose. Tomorrow, he decides. Tomorrow,
he’ll kiss Jeongguk’s nose. Jeongguk’s lips turn into a pout when he sleeps, and there’s a small
furrow in his eyebrows that smooths out when Taehyung leans down and brushes his lips against it.

The night slows down with Jeongguk’s breathing. Outside, an owl coos. The Underground never
sleeps, but tonight, it seems to be quieter than usual.

The night plays out like a symphony — harmonies bringing the molecules of clouds together, and
Jeongguk is the climax. Music crashing, strings overlapping each other, woodwinds and brass
instruments fighting for the spotlight and in the background, a piano, and the sight of Jeongguk
brings it all together into a beautiful, splendid mess.

An orchestra for the way Jeongguk makes Taehyung feel, but it’s not enough.

When the climax crashes down, the world holds its breath, the piano rings out a single, haunting
note, and in the silence, that follows, Taehyung loops his arms around Jeongguk’s body, brings
him closer, and whispers in his ear, “you make me feel like I’m drowning.”

Then, he closes his eyes. The nightmares don’t come to him that night.

Chapter End Notes

wow, some things really happened in this chapter, huh? hope you're liking this so far.
one more chapter to go, you can do this <3

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retrospring if you would like to !

and if you liked this, please consider checking out my ko-fi <3
 Chapter 6
Chapter Summary

The days slip by and slip out of their hands. Neither of them would know if it’s
Monday, or their birthday, or if the world has ended around them. For a few days, or
maybe weeks, or months, certainly not years but it could be, it’s just them. Just
Taehyung and Jeongguk.

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

To: Kim Taehyung, Golden

You probably know who this is already, and you’ve probably (most definitely) already cursed me
to hell and back in your minds. Yes, this is Seokjin.

Regardless of our little… mishap yesterday, I do hope that you take the time to read this. I
understand I betrayed you. Yes, I did lead Eunmin’s minions to your house, Taehyung. Yes, I did let
them shoot tranquiliser darts with extreme doses of sedatives. Yes, it was me who ultimately led
Eunmin to you. To both of you.

Taehyung, your mother and father, your parents, your creators have been here longer than you
thought. During the times that Eunmin messaged me through burner phones, she revealed that she
had been in the Underground for months beforehand. Now, don’t get me wrong — I have not been
working for her all that time. No. The time when you started this whole investigation on the Wolf
and the smuggling rings was around the same time I started spying on her for the Big Three.

Speaking of the Big Three, they knew about your creators as well. Before this whole thing started,
before you even had an inkling of the chaos about to disrupt, a letter had reached Kim Namjoon
and Min Yoongi. It was from an unnamed vampire hunter and a dhampir; an unusual duo, but one
you may be familiar with. There was no return address, just a message detailing Eunmin’s
presence in the Underground.

That is why Kim Namjoon and Min Yoongi kept a close eye on the Underground, on you, on the
missions. Why they deployed me to spy on Kim Eunmin. While she was hunting after you, you were
hunting after her, so were the Big Three. It came to a unanimous decision to use both you and
Golden as bait — I was to lead you on a goose chase for as long as I could. This whole thing was
an act: the meetings with the Big Three, the Wolf.
See, there’s this balance to planning a murder:

If we’d attacked Kim Eunmin too early, left her defenceless, she might have fled again. Found some
other sanctuary to lick her wounds before coming back like a cancer.

If we attacked her too late, then… I believe you both know the answer to that. None of us would be
alive.

I had to keep both you and Golden in the Underground, together. No better way to keep an eye on
you than to have you chasing an imaginary ghost, right? And, I thought to myself, why not kill two
birds with one stone? Why not keep an eye on you and slowly weaken Kim Eunmin’s plan at the
same time?

Because, you see, her plan the whole time was to slowly smuggle vampires from the Underground,
turn them feral, capture you, and set them loose on both of you. Just as she did in that warehouse to
you both, just as she failed to succeed in. So, I sent you both to her smuggling rings, let you both
unknowingly weaken her with every successful mission, and watched as her texts slowly became
more and more agitated the more you slowed her progress.

Oh, it was quite a pleasurable scene.

That night you both came back from Seoul, the people who I told you were roaming the streets
never existed. The Big Three never wanted to see you; unless, of course, it was in that warehouse,
because that meant that things were going according to plan. They never decapitated some poor
wolf-headed individual.

That was all a lie to make you come back, fast. When I said “forgive me” after you were both
captured in your house, that was a lie too.

I do not want you to forgive me.

Unfortunately, we could not tell either of you about our plan. You and Golden are quite
unpredictable, you see. You both act on your emotions quite often. Telling you of Kim Eunmin’s
presence might have motivated you to go after her and, well, that would have ruined our plans.
And now — well, it seems everything worked out just fine for me and the Big Three. For you two, I
believe you have some wounds to lick clean. For all your unwilling participation in this master
plan, the Big Three have graciously wired you copious amounts of money. You may spend it
wherever you like. Neither of you will ever have to fight for money ever again.

They are sending me off to another mission overseas. I will not get to see either of you for a long
time, which might be for the better. I know perfectly well how you are both able to hold onto
grudges for excessive amounts of time.

While I’m gone, try not to die.

— Kim Seokjin

“This fucker.” Taehyung stares as the note crumples easily in his fist, pages curling in. “I hate
him.”

The note appeared on Jeongguk’s windowsill this morning. Crazy, because Jeongguk’s windowsill
is 13 storeys above ground. Crazier, because no one should know where Jeongguk lives. Not so
crazy, considering the note is from Kim Seokjin and, in Taehyung’s recently updated books, Kim
Seokjin is a sly, conniving asshole. So are Min Yoongi and Kim Namjoon, and Taehyung doesn’t
really hate them, but he doesn’t like them either.

Jeongguk reads the note after him. Hands it back with a blank face, lips pressed into a thin line,
dark bags under his eyes and hair ruffled. Then, he gets to his feet and sighs, “I need some fuckin’
coffee. It’s too early for this shit.”

Taehyung watches him leave. Jeongguk’s feet drag on the cold tiles, and the barest hints of sun are
starting to make their way into the room.

Morning wakes up with the phantom feeling of mattress springs digging into Taehyung’s back, the
bitter smell of coffee in the air, and a piece of paper burning on a rickety portable stove.

——

They spend a few more days resting. Doing nothing.

Taehyung’s house is still in a state of disrepair. No amount of money could fasten the repair
process, but at least Jeongguk isn’t kicking him out.

He learns more about Jeongguk. Learns that Jeongguk has some weird obsession with some
fictional human heroes, that he likes to hum when he’s showering. He learns that when Jeongguk
can’t get food, he has to go to the city for it. One time, they’d ventured out together with their
injuries carefully hidden.

That’s when Taehyung also learned that Jeongguk spends an outrageous amount of time grocery
shopping, looking for the best deals, then bargaining with the cashier for a discount even though he
has more money than he knows what to do with now.

Taehyung often has to be Jeongguk’s fighting partner. Being cooped up in such a small
environment is hell for someone who’s used to fighting, to always moving. So, Taehyung finds
himself in a wrestling match with Jeongguk often. None of the romantic shit that happens in books
happens to them. There’s no moment of staring at each other as someone pins the other down, no
giggles or laughs.

No. When they wrestle, they fight. They almost break through one of the thin plaster walls when
Taehyung throws Jeongguk against it. Jeongguk almost tears his wounds open when he throws
punch after punch at Taehyung, fists vicious even as his stitches protest.

The days slip by and slip out of their hands. Neither of them would know if it’s Monday, or their
birthday, or if the world has ended around them. For a few days, or maybe weeks, or months,
certainly not years but it could be, it’s just them. Just Taehyung and Jeongguk.

Waking up to a sunless morning because the stacked, condensed buildings in the Underground
don’t allow for such a privilege, and finding things to do until afternoon drifts by in a hazy wave.
Then, when night falls, the stars try to spy on their business, but Jeongguk’s window is small and
Taehyung pays them no mind when they manage a peek.

Jeongguk sighs, “I’m bored.”

“So you’ve said for the—” Taehyung counts in his head. “Fifth time today.” They only woke up 15
minutes ago.
“As soon as I’m healed enough to fuck shit up,” Jeongguk says matter-of-factly, “I will fuck shit
up.”

Taehyung doesn’t respond. Just stares at the buildings outside and the lack of sun and waits for
that day to come. The day when he and Jeongguk can leave without fear of worsening their injuries
and, as Jeongguk had so eloquently called it, fuck shit up.

The silence lasts all of 3 minutes before Jeongguk pipes up again. “You wanna fight?”

Taehyung sighs and sends him a withering look. Still, he gets up, and he definitely doesn’t do it
because he likes the self-indulgent grin that pops up on Jeongguk’s face. Of course not. (Of course
he does. Jeongguk’s smiles to him are coming easier these days, and the warm feelings in
Taehyung’s chest aren’t so shy anymore. He likes Jeongguk. He likes it when Jeongguk looks
happy. Likes it when he makes Jeongguk happy).

The days pass by like that: slow, unhurried, always on edge and waiting — waiting waiting waiting
with bated breath — for the granules of sand to pass through the bottleneck quicker. For the timer
to stop counting down.

——

3, 2, 1…

“Fuck it,” Jeongguk says three days later. “I’m going out. You can come with or not. I don’t care if
I tear my fuckin’ stomach open, I can’t stay in here a moment longer.”

Taehyung rolls his eyes. “You’re such an idiot. We’re not going anywhere, especially not—”

——

Tonight.

The organs of the nightclub die tonight. Usually, it is able to breathe — lungs working overtime to
compensate for the stuffy humidity created by body heat and abysmal beer-stained breaths, but
tonight, it chokes. Its kidneys falter and every toxin built up over the night is trapped inside,
accumulating into something dangerous, potent, and the clubbers pour it in cracked glasses and
drink it up, lips catching on shattered glass.

There’s no special occasion tonight. Taehyung doesn’t count himself as a special occasion.

Unfortunately, this sentiment is not shared by everyone. It’s been a while since he’s been in the
middle of the crowd. Been so long since he’s let hands touch his body so carelessly, the
invasiveness of it all disgusting and abhorrent and Taehyung feels dirty in the best way possible.

There’s someone else’s sweat on his skin, someone else’s arms slung around his neck, someone
else’s eyes on the curves of his ass, and he feels fucking filthy.

Taehyung throws his head back and lets the bass pound over the dead rhythms of his heart again,
and again, and fucking again.

The heart of the club is long gone. The club is dead, and it’s crawling with every demon
imaginable. Vagrants, cheaters, sinners. People with cocked guns in their back pockets, others with
syringes still stuck to pasty, trembling skin. Some have crawled out of their hellholes of a home,
others crawl from the side alleyways, and they all converge like sickly parasites to a bloody
carcass.

The club is dead, and Taehyung knows that if it ever dies down, it won’t do so peacefully.

Taehyung’s eyes snap open when the arms around his neck are torn off. The body moving against
his flies back, and suddenly, Jeongguk is there. He’s there, with beer bottles clutched in one hand,
the other shoving back some nameless, faceless person.

Wordlessly, Jeongguk plucks the warm beer from Taehyung’s hand and throws it somewhere in
the crowd. If the bottle lands on someone’s head with a dull thunk, or lands with a shatter and crash
on the floor, neither of them know. The music keeps pounding, the people keep screaming, and the
ears of the club bleed with the words spilling out from sinful people’s mouths.

Jeongguk pulls Taehyung close and presses his lips to Taehyung’s ear, breath smelling like alcohol
and weed and his smile is wobbly as he shouts, “does beer even do anything to you?”
Taehyung shakes his head. Only blood can make him feel high, drunk, wasted.

Jeongguk laughs, and Taehyung thinks that sound has had more effect on him than all the shots and
rum and vodka he’s been chugging down the whole night.

It’s been a few days since everything happened. Days spent healing, re-bandaging wounds, buying
another first-aid kit, then another, then another. Days spent holding Jeongguk back from walking
straight into the underbelly of the Underground, scraped fingers itching for a fight. Days spent
shoving back Taehyung’s need for blood, locking it into the deepest recesses of his mind whenever
he has to get close to Jeongguk.

(He still can’t get the taste of Jeongguk’s blood out of his mind, the thickness and viscosity of it
stays like a phantom lake on Taehyung’s tongue, from the very back to the curling tip).

It had been Jeongguk’s idea to come here — he wanted to celebrate. Wanted to get the taste of
nightmares and sleepless nights out of his mouth, wanted to see something other than the haunted
look in Taehyung’s eyes, the dark circles under his own. Taehyung doesn’t blame him.

So, here they are tonight.

Taehyung’s club is slowly drowning in the lights and dramatics, the rush and thrill because word
has gotten out: Kim Taehyung is out of the VIP booth. Kim Taehyung is in the club. In the club.
He isn’t hidden behind the mirrored walls, sipping red wine like a god untouchable.

No, he’s out, and he can be felt, and he can be dragged this way and that for something fun,
something dangerous and something dragging, dirty.

They dance together for a while. Anyone who’s been to a club knows that the club is the place to
find someone to talk to, but it isn’t the place to talk. Music too loud, the bar overcrowded, the lights
dizzying and the numbness of your tongue is nothing compared to the slurred slosh of words
coming out of cracked lips and smudged make-up.

So, Jeongguk doesn’t talk. Taehyung doesn’t either, and it always comes back to this:

Jeongguk dances with him for a while, then disappears to god knows where. Sometimes, he comes
back with new drinks in hand. Sometimes he comes back with hair more mussed up than ever, new
hickeys dotting his neck. Sometimes, he takes ages to come back, but his eyes are blown wide and
the smile on his lips is trembling and Taehyung knows that, if he stepped into the bathroom, it
would smell like sweat and weed and regret.

But he always comes back. No matter where Taehyung finds himself in the crowd, Jeongguk
always finds him. Always throws off the person, the people, the anything clinging onto Taehyung
just so he can have him to himself. Selfish. Taehyung would be mad, except he isn’t.

It’s a fun game — trying to pretend like they don’t want each other, lips brushing against each
other’s in the darkness, before someone moves away. Before someone makes a move to make the
other jealous — Taehyung dancing with someone else, Jeongguk with hickeys, but neither of them
get mad.

Taehyung knows that Jeongguk only wants him. Jeongguk knows that Taehyung would only ever
want to sink his teeth into Jeongguk’s skin.

Jeongguk finishes the last of his beer, and he’s really fucked up now. He’s everything that a model
clubber is not. He doesn’t place his empty beer bottle on a nearby table, out of the way. No. He’s a
fucking menace because he has this habit of throwing his beer bottles in the air, and he doesn’t
give a shit if it cracks someone’s skull open or leaves broken, lethal shards on the floor. It’s not in
his hands anymore, and that’s all he cares about.

Someone’s life for the sake of his own convenience. Jeongguk grins, wild and reckless and
Taehyung wants to bite him. Wants to devour him and watch him come undone in his hands.

Jeongguk pulls him close. He feels like scattered stars in the Universe, like Taehyung could try to
hold him and he’d dissipate, every part of him further away than the distant moon. He’s vibrating,
glowing, and Taehyung hates the sight of him like this because he looks fucking tantalising.

He looks messed up, fucked out, ready to drop, and Taehyung wants to press him against the wall
and drag his tongue against every single inch of skin on Jeongguk’s body.

Jeongguk, hair plastered to his forehead, piercings glinting bright in the dull light, and he’s looking
at Taehyung with glassy eyes filled with heat. His limbs press into every part of Taehyung’s body
— hands on his waist, on his hip trailing down, one curled in his hair, then it clutches tight.
Taehyung hisses at the sting. Jeongguk smiles and tightens his grip.
Jeongguk brings Taehyung’s head close to him. Lips pressed right up against Taehyung’s ear again,
Taehyung can feel the warm metal of his lip piercing catch on the inner curves, and Jeongguk says,
“y’know what I fuckin’ hate, Tae?”

“What?”

“Hate when people breathe near you,” Jeongguk says, voice rough. “Hate when other people look
at you. I hate— ” He breaks off into a laugh, grip loosening momentarily. Then, he comes back
with a vengeance, and Taehyung’s hair is nearly ripped out of his scalp when Jeongguk sneers, “I
hate when other people touch you.”

“What do you want to do?” Taehyung asks. He’s enjoying this way too much. “When they touch
me, what do you want to do to them, Jeongguk?”

“Kill ‘em.”

God, fuck, he’s perfect. Taehyung presses closer and the bass drops when he presses their hips
together. Ruts against him to the slow-moving vibrations of the song, they rhythmic pulses that
drive Jeongguk fucking crazy, and Taehyung can feel Jeongguk’s half-hard dick pressing in the
lack of space between them.

Jeongguk groans and drops his head on Taehyung’s shoulder, grip loosening in Taehyung’s hair.
“The things you do to me. Shit.”

Everything becomes a million times faster after that. Jeongguk panting into his ear, Taehyung
slowly unravelling, and they’re both fighters, they’re both murderers and heathens but Taehyung
almost feels ready to drop from the explosive rush of hormones drowning out every other
throughout in his body.

Jeongguk sounds sinful, delightful, and when Taehyung grabs his ass, he fucking moans. Moans.
Voice high-pitched and keening and Taehyung’s eyes almost roll to the back of his head from the
mere sound.

If anyone told Taehyung a few months ago that one night he’d be rutting against Jeongguk in the
middle of his own club, drinking in Jeongguk’s needy moans and chasing some faraway ecstatic
high, he would’ve decapitated them on the spot. But Taehyung can’t think about decapitation right
now, can’t think about anything right now. Nothing except Jeongguk gripping his shirt so tight that
his nails leave marks in Taehyung’s skin.

Taehyung wants Jeongguk’s nails to drag and leave marks behind. Their faces are pressed close to
each other. Taehyung can feel every drip of Jeongguk’s filthy sweat on his skin, Jeongguk’s
overheated body against his, and they fit so damn well together.

“Taehyung.” Jeongguk surges up and his lips go for Taehyung’s jaw, suckling small bruises along
it. “Taehyung. Come on, come on.”

“What do you want?”

“More. Give me more.” Jeongguk leans back and Taehyung can see the glare on his face, the
impatience in his eyes, and Jeongguk’s movements are erratic, dozed over by the hormones pulsing
in his blood.

Taehyung feels heat coiling in his body. He leans in and nips Jeongguk’s ear with his canines.
Delights in the shiver that wracks Jeongguk’s body, in the whine that slips out of his fighter’s lips.
“I said, what the fuck do you want, Jeongguk?”

Jeongguk pushes him back, chest heaving. The space between them flares up Taehyung’s irritation.
Jeongguk’s smell is weaker, his warmth further away, his voice lost in the crowd. But then
Jeongguk whirls to someone in the crowd, brings them close with a hand curled in their shirt,
throws them away with a fist to their face and his lip curling up disgustedly.

Blood splays across his fist, on his cheek, as he snarls, “you fuckin’ touched him.”

The poor clubber goes down without a fight. From the punch alone, they’re knocked out, blood
trailing out of their split lip. Taehyung didn’t even feel their touch. They probably just brushed by
and accidentally stepped too close to Taehyung, too close for Jeongguk. Maybe they didn’t even
touch Taehyung. Maybe Jeongguk just wanted to punch someone. Whatever the case, Taehyung
doesn’t care. Couldn’t care. Because Jeongguk.

Jeongguk…

Shit. Taehyung can’t stop staring.

Jeongguk’s shirt clings to his muscles, his ripped jeans wrapping so tightly around his thighs. His
clothes don’t hide the muscles of his body, and the tattoos appear darker than ever. They look alive
on his skin, in the flashing lights, and across them: blood. Blood staining Jeongguk’s skin, and
Jeongguk looks furious. Red everywhere: in Jeongguk’s gaze, on his skin, his lips.

Taehyung is hungry. So goddamn hungry.

Jeongguk finally lifts his head and meets Taehyung’s gaze. Suddenly, all anger leaves his body and
he’s laughing — maniacal, violently. His laughter doesn’t cut off even when Taehyung pulls him
closer forcefully, movements almost involuntary because he’s starving and Jeongguk looks
delicious. Smells so captivating, and Taehyung feels his venom stirring as his fangs drop slowly,
piercing through his gums.

“What’s so funny, hm?”

“Your eyes,” Jeongguk says. He laughs in Taehyung’s face, grin wide, teeth bared. He smiles
when Taehyung clutches his chin with one hand, the other on Jeongguk’s waist. He licks his lips,
taunting, teasing, and tells him, “your eyes are red.”

“I’m hungry, Jeongguk.”

“So?”

“You said you wanted more? Well, Golden,” Taehyung says, pulling Jeongguk’s face forward. He
presses his lips to Jeongguk’s ear like Jeongguk has done many times before, feels Jeongguk press
desperately into his touch. “Too fuckin’ bad, because I’m taking. I’m going to take so, so much
from you.”

Then, they’re tugging and pushing. Tugging into each other, shoving people away when all
Taehyung wants to do is tug Jeongguk into his body and shove his tongue down Jeongguk’s throat.
The people part for them easily, the VIP rooms comes into view, and Jeongguk shakes the very
foundations of the club when he throws the door open and drags Taehyung inside.

Door closing, Taehyung can barely fumble for the remote and turn the one-way mirrors on before
Jeongguk is there, pressing him up against the glass and kissing him. Rough, messy, wet and
Taehyung can taste the alcohol still on his tongue. Jeongguk’s hand has found its way into his hair
again and he tugs. Taehyung’s head tilts back from the force of it and he can’t help it — the burn is
so pleasurable, the digging of Jeongguk’s fingernails in his scalp, shit — he moans.

Jeongguk curses under his breath. Does it again, and when he kisses Taehyung next, he misses
Taehyung’s mouth and plants open-mouthed kisses to the corners of Taehyung’s lips, down his
jaw, eerily close to Taehyung’s throat. No one has ever come so close to his throat before. Not
since Jeongguk, not since the last time they kissed.

Taehyung can feel Jeongguk’s fluttering heartbeat from here. The way it pounds into his chest like
a ticking time bomb. His heart is racing, on the verge of exploding. The thought excites Taehyung
so much more. Their hips roll together and Taehyung can't help the whine that escapes his lips
when Jeongguk presses in that much more. The friction is pleasurable, so fucking good. Jeongguk
is being so fucking good to him right now.

“Drink from me,” Jeongguk pants. “Not my wrist. My neck.”

Taehyung groans low in his throat. Jeongguk saying that in his hoarse voice, with those desperate,
daunting eyes. His fighter is a little more sober now, but Taehyung can still taste the inebriation on
his tongue. Jeongguk’s not in his right mind.

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Taehyung says. “Jeongguk, you—”

“Don’t fucking play with this shit right now, Taehyung,” Jeongguk hisses. “I’ve wanted you to bite
my neck so much these past few days. Had to stop myself every damn second from pushing you
into the wall and shoving my neck into your mouth.”

“Shut up.”

“You think I don’t notice? The way you look at me, even when you don’t think I can see you. The
way you act when I get too close, how your eyes turn red when I so much as touch you. You don’t
think I see how your body reacts to other blood but yearns for mine? It’s clear as day. Clear as
fuckin’ day.” Jeongguk smiles, cold and cruel and sharp. “You want me.”

“You’re drunk and high. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Everything’s pretty much worn off at this point. And don’t you dare take some sort of moral high
ground now, you freak,” Jeongguk says. “You’ve never done it before, why do it now?”

Taehyung curls his hands into fists. He knows what Jeongguk is doing, knows that he’s trying to
get a reaction out of Taehyung. Knows that his words can so easily play with Taehyung’s temper
like it’s nothing but a marionette.

“You want me, don’t you?” Jeongguk whispers in the muffled silence of the room. His smile
drops, eyes lustful, and leans forward to nip at Taehyung’s bottom lip. Licks over it softly before
whispering, “then come get me, vampire.”

Every thread of Taehyung’s self-control snaps.

He rushes Jeongguk into a kiss. Feels Jeongguk’s smile in it all, feels his elation in the way his
body tremors when Taehyung’s fangs drop down and pierce his lip. One of Taehyung’s fangs
catches on Jeongguk’s lip piercing and Taehyung pulls. Jeongguk hisses at the pain, grip tightening
in Taehyung’s strands, and Taehyung feels arousal tug at his cock.

He breaks free of the kiss and walks forward, pushes Jeongguk backwards. Jeongguk hits the
couch with a thump and falls back. Taehyung takes a moment to appraise the way he lounges; head
tilted back, eyelashes fluttering, lips bitten red raw and glistening with saliva, body spread out like
he owns this place. Like he owns the whole damn Underground.

He’s so tempting. An addiction waiting to happen, and Taehyung can hear the voices in his head
scream at him to take. He can feel every muscle tensing, every desire in his mind captivated by
Jeongguk. It’s almost overwhelming, this feeling of wanting him. Taehyung has not felt so
strongly, so lustfully about someone, until Jeongguk. Until Jeongguk and his dirty fucking mouth
and dirty looks, and that smirk on his lips like he knows — he knows what he does to Taehyung.

The air turns hot. Taehyung feels a flash of heat lick its way up his spine.

Then Jeongguk is tugging him back in, lips insistent, body thrumming for more, more, more.

Taehyung gives him just that.

He breaks off the kiss, fangs dropping to their full height, and the last thing he hears is the hitch of
Jeongguk’s breath, the start of a whine building in his throat and spilling out of ruby red lips,
before he leans into Jeongguk’s neck and sinks his fangs into the warm skin.

Jeongguk hisses in pain. His whole body jolts at the sudden surge of agony he must be
experiencing, but Taehyung is far too blissed out to care. The taste of blood, of Jeongguk’s blood,
is far better than he remembers.

That sweetness he’d been craving, the viscosity and the thick taste of iron sticking to every crevice
of his mouth is enough to make Taehyung see stars — the kind he doesn’t hate. The kind he wants
to keep seeing. They burst in his vision, leave trails behind, and Jeongguk’s blood weaves a
fucking galaxy in his mind. His neck — Taehyung is drinking from his neck and it's so much better
than the wrist. Blood pools into his mouth and sits heavy on his tongue, clinging to the gums of his
teeth and Jeongguk's blood is fucking gliding its way down his throat, smooth and sweet and dirty.
So dirty.

He could drink forever. Taehyung could drink Jeongguk’s blood forever, for his whole immortal
life, and he would never get tired of it. Maybe it’s a drug or a poison. An aphrodisiac. Something
sacred. Taehyung wants to worship it.

And he thinks that Jeongguk wouldn’t mind either if Taehyung drank until he dropped, lifeless,
bloody, euphoric. The pain has subsided for him now, and the vampire venom seems to have
kicked in with the way Jeongguk lets out a long, drawn-out moan. The moan tips high at the end,
strains his vocal chords. The venom of vampires is something predatory — it uses arousal to keep
its victims complacent, to give the vampire a chance to keep drinking.

Jeongguk has fallen prey to it willingly, Taehyung is the predator. Nature. It all comes back to
nature and primal urges. Euphoria, coming in waves and bursting again and again and Taehyung
has felt high as shit when drinking blood before, but never like this. Never like this; lightheaded,
eyes rolling back, dick pressing so goddamn hard against his pants that it almost hurts.

Taehyung sinks deeper and gets another mouthful of heaven. Jeongguk is almost sobbing now,
body thrashing for some sort of release. Taehyung shifts and shoves a leg between Jeongguk’s
thighs. In less than a moment, less than a blink of an eye, Jeongguk is rutting against it. He’s
moving his hips against the muscles of Taehyung’s thigh, fingers digging deep into Taehyung’s
back.

Jeongguk groans and says, “More. Drink it all. Drink— shit, yeah. Go on. Drink it all.”

His words are slurred. Too slurred. Not the effect of alcohol or drugs, but…
As much as Taehyung wants to keep drinking, Jeongguk sounds too fucked up. Not in a good way.
Not in the way Taehyung wants. Taehyung slowly retracts his fangs from Jeongguk’s skin. He
licks the wound free of any blood, applies pressure with his tongue until the holes in his skin clog
up. There’s some science behind it; something about how vampire venom acts as a clotting agent.
Helps to close up the wounds that it makes. If anything, it’s there as an evolutionary advantage that
allows vampires to preserve their food for future feasts.

Now, though, Taehyung savours the last droplets of Jeongguk’s blood just as the wounds close up,
scabbing over. With his body full of Jeongguk’s blood, his mind makes a little more sense. He can
see clearer now, the way Jeongguk still lays on the couch, eyes blown wide and feverishly bright.
There’s a small flush on his cheeks, but the rest of him is pale.

Taehyung can also see the wet patch on Jeongguk’s jeans, right above his crotch. He can feel his
own arousal so much clearer now.

Just because his mind is clear doesn’t mean it’s any more sane. Jeongguk’s blood has driven him to
a high he’s never experienced before. It takes him a moment to get used to it — head spinning in
the clouds, mouth almost numb. He’s hyper aware of his senses and they’re all attuned to
Jeongguk. Jeongguk has taken a moment to catch his breath, eyes fluttering open and shut as he
takes deep breaths in and out. He’s still hard.

“You okay?” Taehyung asks.

“Yeah.” Jeongguk’s voice is scratchy, broken. “Yeah. Gimme— give me a moment.”

“‘Course.” Taehyung leans closer and listens for the sound of Jeongguk’s heartbeat. It’s there,
albeit a little fast. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m sure, Taehyung.” Jeongguk opens his eyes and cracks a grin. “I can take a little bite. Just need
a moment because if you make a move on me right now, I’m so wound up that I’ll just come.”

Taehyung laughs lowly, pleasantly surprised. “You can come untouched? Just from my bite?”

“Don’t stroke your ego with that.” Jeongguk leans up and brushes his lips against Taehyung’s. “Let
me stroke your dick instead.” Then, his hand is palming the erection in Taehyung’s pants, fingers
splayed over the fabric. Taehyung falters and hangs his head low to watch the scene, a groan
escaping his lips. Jeongguk laughs in his ear.

When he slips his hand into Taehyung’s pants, Taehyung chokes on air. Jeongguk certainly knows
how to make the world tremble, how to make him feel shaky. He jerks Taehyung off slowly, using
his precum and spreading it all over. It feels like a wildfire spreading slowly through his body as
Jeongguk strokes up and down. Then, he passes his hand over the head, right over the sensitive
bundle of nerves, and he applies just the right pressure.

Taehyung almost buckles.

He hisses a curse through his teeth. Jeongguk is watching him, wide eyes fixed on every
expression on his face. He’s biting his lip, the other hand coming up to push Taehyung’s hair back
from his forehead. Taehyung feels Jeongguk card his fingers through Taehyung’s hair before
pulling his hand out of Taehyung’s pants.

Taehyung watches as Jeongguk brings his hand to his mouth and, god, he’s filthy. He’s depraved
and horrible, and he licks his hand from the palm to the fingers, smiling the whole time.
Taehyung’s dick twitches.

“The things you do to me,” he mutters.

Jeongguk replies with a breathy, “the things I want you to do to me.”

It doesn’t make sense. Their conversation doesn’t make sense, but now’s not the time for lucid talk
anyway.

Taehyung lifts Jeongguk’s shirt up, fingers quick and tugging insistent, until Jeongguk’s chest is on
display. Without warning, he takes a nipple into his mouth. Jeongguk bucks up with a cry, pressing
his chest to Taehyung’s face, cry turning into something keening and desperate when Taehyung
sucks and licks, drool slipping on his skin.

Jeongguk moves all too eagerly when Taehyung starts unbuttoning his jeans. Unfortunately, he has
to stop playing with Jeongguk’s chest to help Jeongguk shuck off the sinfully tight denim off his
legs, but he gets back into it soon after.

Maybe Jeongguk has a thing for gripping hair. Maybe Taehyung has a thing for getting his hair
tightly held. Maybe it’s both. Whatever the case, Jeongguk seems to love doing it. Does it again
when Taehyung flicks his tongue over the other nipple while pinching the other one with nimble
fingers.

When Taehyung has deemed enough attention to the buds, he leans back and kisses Jeongguk. It’s
messy, spit everywhere, and Taehyung moans into it as Jeongguk licks inside Taehyung’s mouth,
tongue brutal and cruel and demanding.

“Wanna eat you out,” Taehyung breathes against Jeongguk’s lips.

Jeongguk’s only answer is a quick scramble to get out of his underwear. Taehyung gets off the
couch, gives enough space for Jeongguk to take his shirt off too and then he’s naked. Fully naked.
His dick is hard, curling against his stomach and smearing precum against the golden skin. It
glistens where his tattoos kiss the scars and perfect flaws of Jeongguk’s body.

Jeongguk’s wounds are illuminated by the strobe lights — battle scars, stitches. A trail of violence
so brutal that Taehyung wants to tear the stitches and cuts open just to see if heaven would leak out.

“Hands on the wall,” Taehyung says.

Jeongguk gazes blankly at him for a moment, before his eyes shift to the glass walls. The one-way
mirrors. “Are you serious?”

Taehyung grins. “Dead fucking serious.”

Slowly, Jeongguk stands up. He pads over to the mirrors, steps almost dragging. Not hesitant.
Anticipatory. He looks back at Taehyung, almost shaking with excitement. “You’re really serious
about this.”

Taehyung nods, moving to stand behind him. There’s some sort of satisfaction, some insane
contentment, at being fully clothed while Jeongguk stands there before the crowd, naked and
vulnerable and so fucking beautiful and his.

He places his hands on Jeongguk’s hips, his lips to Jeongguk’s ears. Taehyung whispers, “hands on
the wall, darling.”
Jeongguk places his hands on the wall. His body trembles from impatience, from the wait. His
breathing is harsh, stuttering, and Taehyung can smell his spike of arousal. Jeongguk is so fucking
perfect and filthy.

“Can you see it? The crowd? Isn’t it fun, doing something so lewd right in front of their eyes, and
they don’t even know,” Taehyung murmurs. Jeongguk nods, shivers intensifying for a moment.
“Watch them. Look at them. Keep your eyes on them while I fuck my tongue inside your pretty
little hole.”

Then, he’s bending Jeongguk over and dropping to his knees. Taehyung takes a moment to admire
the view first. He takes a nip of Jeongguk’s ass, smiles when Jeongguk laughs quietly at him.
Then, he licks a thick stripe up Jeongguk’s anus and the laugh cuts off. Jeongguk pitches forward,
forehead thunking on the glass as Taehyung goes to town.

He swirls his tongue in circles around the rim and licks again. Plays around with Jeongguk’s pretty
hole and watches as it flutters when he leans back. Listens to Jeongguk’s lewd sounds, the thunking
of his head against the glass as he feels wave of pleasure after pleasure, the wet sounds as he jerks
himself off to the timing of Taehyung’s tongue. He’s hot. So fucking hot and Taehyung could do
this all day.

Jeongguk is dirty, too. Just like he fights dirty, he talks dirty. Won’t stop babbling about how
Taehyung should “your tongue— just like that. Like— like that, baby. Shit. Shit, you’re so good at
this. So good. Wanna suck you off so bad— shit shit shit. Make me feel so good.”

Taehyung circles his tongue around Jeongguk’s rim, and his fighter lets out a long, wanton moan.

Jeongguk doesn’t let up on the dirty, depraved talk. “They don’t even know what’s happening
outside. They don’t know you’re fucking eating me out so good. That’s it, baby. That’s it— fuck!”

Perks of being a vampire, he doesn’t need air. He licks until Jeongguk asks him to stop. Until
Jeongguk is fully trembling against the glass, elbows leaning into it, head hung low. His breathing
is deep, heady, and his words almost a slur.

“‘M gonna come if you keep going.” Jeongguk’s precum is dripping down his thighs. “Tae, god.”

“And how do you wanna come?”

Jeongguk looks over his shoulder. “Do you even need to ask or are you a fucking idiot?”

Taehyung tsks. “That mouth of yours.” He shakes his head as Jeongguk slowly stands up. “Get on
the couch, I’ll grab the lube.”

Jeongguk scoffs. “Just because you’re putting your dick in me doesn’t mean you get to order me
around.”

“Yeah? But it means I can make you shut the hell up.”

Jeongguk laughs mockingly. “Sure. You can try.”

And Taehyung does try. Later, three fingers deep in Jeongguk, lube squelching obscenely around
them, and Jeongguk on all fours on the couch, face pressed into the cushion to muffle his moans,
Taehyung thinks he succeeds.

He twists his wrist, finds the spot that makes Jeongguk buckle and cry out. He adds a fourth finger,
Jeongguk a writhing mess below him now, and Taehyung wonders if he can breathe with the way
he’s pressing his head so deeply into the cushions. Maybe he doesn’t want to breathe.

Soon, Jeongguk’s telling him to “shove your dick inside me or I swear to god I’ll blue ball you”
like he isn’t the one completely wrecked and fucked out already.

Taehyung picks the condom out of his pocket, pulls his pants down, shoves his underwear off.
Then, the jacket and the shirt go next, thrown somewhere into the dark corners of the room. He
rolls the condom on with shaky hands.

When he sinks into Jeongguk, they both groan in unadulterated pleasure. Jeongguk lifts himself
onto his hands while he adjusts to the stretch. Finally, when he nods, Taehyung bucks up and
Jeongguk hisses in pain and Taehyung realises he was never really ready. Jeongguk didn’t want to
be. He wanted it to hurt, because that’s how he finds pleasure. Depraved piece of shit. Taehyung
loves that messy, dirty side of him.

Taehyung starts slow, Jeongguk moving back against him in tandem. Then, the pace picks up.
From here, Taehyung can see the cushion where Jeongguk’s face was previously pressed into.
There’s a big drool stain, and Taehyung wishes he could see Jeongguk’s face right now — the
bliss, the euphoria, the mess. Dried drool on the corner of his mouth, eyes screwed shut in pleasure,
hair sticking to his face and, fuck, even just the thought of Jeongguk looking like that makes
Taehyung’s thrusts stutter.

Jeongguk feels so good, so tight. Outside the glass windows, the clubbers party with no idea what’s
happening inside. Taehyung doesn’t miss the way Jeongguk’s face constantly turns towards the
window, wide eyes staring glassy with pleasure at the crowd.

Like he wants them to see, like he wants the thrill of being caught. Taehyung almost pulls out, just
the tip left in, and with his hands on Jeongguk’s hips, he pulls Jeongguk towards him and thrusts
forward. Bottoms out and grinds into it, teeth gritted from the sheer pleasure it brings him.

Jeongguk moans loud, head thrown back, hair falling into a mess over his forehead. Taehyung does
it again and again, Jeongguk becoming more desperate every time. He knows he hits his prostate
over and over again because Jeongguk is a blubbering, stammering mess. His words aren't even
making sense, sweat dripping from every inch of his skin, and when Taehyung reaches over, grabs
ahold of his hair and yanks his head back, Jeongguk just moans loud and high-pitched and so
fucking needy. Then, Taehyung takes that hand out from Jeongguk’s hair and reaches forward to
clamp it around Jeongguk's mouth.

Then, he bottoms out. He stays there, shifts his weight, and Jeongguk jolts when Taehyung's dick
hits his prostate and applies just the right pressure. Then, Taehyung grinds into it. Slow, circular,
maddening motions of his hips, and Jeongguk fucking drools. Wanton groans muffled into
Taehyung's hand, his saliva drips down from Taehyung's fingers and the vampire can feel it —
warm and wet, Jeongguk's hot breath sticking to his hand.

Then, Taehyung takes that hand off his mouth and reaches down to jerk Jeongguk off. There's
already enough precum gathered on Jeongguk's dick, but Taehyung still wanted Jeongguk's spit,
and he got it. His hand turns into a sticky wet mess when he plays with Jeongguk's body like a
fucking violin — a thrust, a stroke, another thrust, and he applies pressure on the head of
Jeongguk’s dick. Jeongguk is so lost in the throes of pleasure, and Taehyung is there with him.
Mind fuzzy, head throbbing, and his fangs ache. He wants to dig them back into Jeongguk's neck.

“What if I turned the one-way mirrors off, huh?” Taehyung asks roughly. “Let them see what I’m
doing to you. Let them see how the Underground’s best fighter takes dick so easily, so fucking
greedily. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

Jeongguk groans, panting. “Tae. Shit— I— God, you feel so good. Feel so good.”
“You’d want them to watch, but I wouldn’t. I want to be the only one to see your face like this, hear
your voice like this,” Taehyung mutters, “I want to be the only to see you fucked up like this. On
your hands and knees for me like this, fucking back on me like this.” He delivers a particularly
hard thrust that has Jeongguk’s breath hitching.

The music thumps outside, and Taehyung knows that Jeongguk is close. His body is trembling like
a high-strung wire, his heartbeat pounding against his chest. Taehyung knows the pathways to
human reactions, and this, in his opinion, is the most beautiful. This, being someone coming
undone. The someone being Jeongguk.

Jeongguk falling apart, arms trembling and straining to hold him up as he comes, is the most
beautiful thing Taehyung has witnessed. The muscles on his back strain as he tenses, veins evident
and the tattoos are glistening with layers of sweat. Jeongguk’s voice is broken as he grunts through
the orgasm, and his hole tightens around Taehyung’s dick so tantalisingly that it tips Taehyung
over the edge, too.

Taehyung releases a string of swears as he rides it out, the overwhelming rush of his release turning
his body into putty.

He catches himself before he falls on top of Jeongguk. Pulling out slowly, Jeongguk doesn’t even
wince. His fighter is catching his breath, still on his hands and knees. Sweat drips from Jeongguk’s
body along with the mess down his thighs. The glass walls have fogged up slightly. The strobe
lights blur in the humidity.

The people outside continue to party, unknowing of what happened inside the glass room.
Jeongguk seemed to enjoy that aspect a little too much — the risk of getting caught, of fucking
with glass walls, like everyone can see them. Taehyung can’t deny that it brought a thrill to him,
too. A sickening, beautiful thrill.

Jeongguk finally lifts his head and looks over at Taehyung, just as Taehyung pulls out. Lube
gathers on the back of Jeongguk's thighs, come stains on the couch. “We should’ve fucked out our
hate for each other way earlier.”

——

The next morning, in Jeongguk’s apartment, they do it again. They fuck again.
This time, Taehyung gets to experience the heaven that is Jeongguk licking and fingering his ass at
the same time. Gets to see Jeongguk’s blissed-out face in its breathtaking entirety as he bends
Taehyung over in front of the mirror and fucks him like that, eyes locking him in place through
their reflections.

He finally gets to see Jeongguk’s expression when he comes — mouth popping open into a sigh of
pure pleasure, spit-licked lips glinting, eyes fluttering shut, eyebrows furrowed like he never wants
the feeling to end. Gets to see what his own face looks like when the orgasm hits: eyes drooping,
teeth catching on his lips, a whine escaping his lips only to be captured by Jeongguk’s when the
fighter leans over, tilts his head, and draws him into a long, messy kiss.

And Taehyung realises that Jeongguk is right. They really should have fucked out their hate
earlier.

——

(Yeah, they definitely should’ve done this earlier. Way before they had to get all fucked up from
Kim Eunmin’s insanity in that warehouse. They both realise this when they have to tend to their
newly irritated wounds, but at least they can kiss each other’s scowls away and give each other
“soothing, healing blowjobs”. Jeongguk’s words, not his, but Taehyung swears that Jeongguk’s
blowjobs do have some magical healing ability.)

——

Taehyung’s memories trickle from the innermost crevices of his thoughts and slip into the
unsuspecting vulnerabilities of his vision. Sometimes, his vision is shaky — clear, sturdy at best,
cloudy with a nightmarish fog and tinted red at the worst.

When those times come, the world turns into a hellscape of abstract shapes and colours that drip
dull, tasteless on his tongue, and the memories are the only thing to ignite his senses.

It happens now. Now, with Jeongguk’s arm pressed against him, their shoulders leaning together,
and Taehyung’s car polluting the crisp night air with harsh beams of headlights. The world is
covered in a midnight mist, and the lake before them swirls but the water is still.

They’ve gone out of Jeongguk’s apartment, outside of the Underground, past the city, and
Jeongguk led them to this grassy field in the middle of nowhere. Told Taehyung to stop the car in
front of this lake, and Taehyung does not know how Jeongguk knows of it, but he does not care to
ask.

Calm waters — mirror-like, tranquil, deep and slow like the breaths puffing in and out of
Jeongguk’s pink lips. Calm waters, but Taehyung looks at it and feels hints of nausea and
dizziness, a sickening rush, pulling up from the bottom of his stomach to the top of his head, and
everything seems to spin and stay in place simultaneously from the memories trying to creep into
his vision.

“You never told me, you know,” Taehyung says, and wonders if the words swirl in the air like the
waves in the lake do, “why you wanted me to become your sponsor so adamantly. The timing was
coincidental at best.”

“Self-preservation.” Jeongguk’s reply is curt, sharp. Taehyung feels a sting of relief with it. At
least that — the quick-cut corners of Jeongguk’s words — is something stable. Something to hold
on to while his senses struggle to separate reality and the nightmares of his past. “You run away to
your fancy house every night. You don’t stay in the Underground.”

“So?”

“The Underground is my home, Taehyung. Y’know that feeling when someone shifts something in
your house, and you can’t quite place it, but you know that something’s wrong? It could be the
dresser you never use, shifted 3 centimetres to the left. Nothing significant, but it bothers you ‘til
you’re almost out of your mind.”

“You felt it. A shift in the Underground.”

“Yeah. It’s stupid, y’know. The reason why I wanted you to become my sponsor.”

“Tell me.”

Jeongguk takes a moment to respond. Taehyung selfishly uses that moment to bring his unreliable
gaze to Jeongguk’s moonlit figure.

It was seemingly on a whim that Jeongguk brought them here. Said he wanted to talk to Taehyung
about something, and Taehyung didn’t care if it was 11:32PM. Wouldn’t have cared if it was
2AM, or any other unspeakable time of the day. He would have come willingly — not for the lake,
but for Jeongguk.

“I didn’t want you to leave again,” Jeongguk confesses, just as a breeze whispers in the space
between them, and Taehyung’s vision is upended once again. “I thought you would leave, and I
was done being left alone. Didn’t wanna be left alone this time. Whenever something happens in
the Underground, or something reminds you of them, you always used to leave. For days, or weeks,
or months, you left, and I couldn’t follow.”

The strands of Jeongguk’s hair play a game on his face, brushing the dewy curves of his cheeks.
Taehyung follows their trajectory across Jeongguk’s skin so thoroughly that he can almost see the
invisible trails they leave behind, the sweet sounds of their dreamy sighs as they feel his warmth.
He is envious of them. Wants to trail his fingers across the golden expanse of Jeongguk’s face as
well — press his fingertips to the dip of Jeongguk’s temple, and trail it down the apples of his
cheeks to the plush corner of his mouth.

Pry his lips open and taste the confessions coming out of his lips in cascades and barely-there
breaths.

“I’m sorry,” Taehyung says. This is the first time he’s ever said it. Surprisingly, it comes out
almost smoothly. The words catch in his throat briefly in the space between I’m and sorry.

“For leaving me? For running?” Jeongguk scoffs. “You don’t need my forgiveness for that. You
weren’t obligated to stay. Hell, you didn’t even remember me.”

Weirdly enough, Taehyung wants to say sorry for that, too. Though he knows it’s not his fault,
knows he didn’t consciously choose to process his trauma like that, he wants to apologise.

Taehyung’s never been good at comforting others, and Jeongguk’s always been good at hiding his
hurt, and tonight is the night where both of their weaknesses come alive.

Taehyung tries to comfort, Jeongguk fails to hide his hurt, and the lake is still swirling but the
waters are calm.

“It was selfish, but it was a last resort. I knew if I showed you the ouroboros tattoo, you’d stay.
You’d probably want to kill me, but at least I would’ve gotten your attention. And I did, and you
stayed.”

“But I hated you.”

Jeongguk shrugs. “I was selfish enough to deal with it. As long as you stayed, I could deal with it.”

“Jeongguk,” Taehyung asks, and it’s getting harder to speak, too. Harder to see, harder to speak,
and all Taehyung can lean on are Jeongguk’s words, curling briefly in the misty air. “Didn’t you
hate me, too?”

“I did, but not really. Hated you for leaving me, for forgetting me, for hating me. Hated you so
much, but not in reality. I wanted to, but I could never truly hate you”

“And now? Do you still want to hate me?”

Jeongguk turns to him. “Do you still hate me, Taehyung?”

The breeze slows down and the world listens as Taehyung sucks in a deep breath, his mouth a
black hole for the noises filling the space between their touching bodies, and he knows that the
only thing the world will hear is the shattering truth as he says, “no.”

Then, Jeongguk smiles, says, “I don’t want to hate you either,” and Taehyung releases a shaky
exhale.

And the black hole explodes outwards in a feat that defies the laws of physics and astronomy as
sound bursts around them — the ringing in his ears, Jeongguk’s breaths, the brush of their clothes
as they move, the whispering of grass swaying in the breeze, the waves lapping in the still lake.

Jeongguk is still facing him, and they’re sitting on the hood of Taehyung’s car. There’s so much
space to the sides, but they’ve squished themselves in the middle, and Taehyung can feel
Jeongguk’s warmth tip-toeing its way from his skin and onto Taehyung’s, slipping through the
cracks in his skin and finding a home in the layers underneath.

Jeongguk’s facing him, and Taehyung can’t help but turn to him, too. Entrapped, captivated, lured
in — whatever the word is, Taehyung can feel it. Jeongguk’s got a hold on him, and Taehyung
can’t turn away. Doesn’t want to turn away.

The hold grips his cheeks, keeps him locked, and the phantom pressure of it digging into his flesh
is addicting.

Jeongguk inhales. The world blurs around the edges. He exhales, and his breath hits Taehyung’s
lips. The blurs sharpen and everything becomes all too acute. Buzzing in his fingertips, that ringing
still in his ear, and the state of his vision is fickle — too dreamlike and real at the same time,
suspended in an empty ghost town between his past memories and the present.

Taehyung licks his lips and whispers, “do you see it, too, Jeongguk? The mist? Do you hear the
waves on the lake?”

Jeongguk tilts his head to the side. “Taehyung, there’s no mist. The lake is silent. You’re hearing
ghosts.”

“I know,” Taehyung says. “I know.”

It’s his memories clawing their way out of the dungeon they’d been confined in for so long,
memories setting the boundaries between the past and the present alight in a blazing fire.
Memories, grabbing his attention with chubby, child-like hands, and it points to the lake. Hyung,
look! I can make paper flowers!

“Anything I can do to make them go away?” Jeongguk breathes, even as he’s already leaning in.

“Yeah,” Taehyung murmurs. Just as Jeongguk’s lips tease his, the barest of brushes, he whispers,
“fight them for me.”

“My pleasure.” Jeongguk’s lips curl into a grin just before Taehyung closes the distance between
them and kisses him.

This kiss is the slowest they’ve ever shared. Something easy and heavy at the same time. Slow,
unrushed, time trickling in sand granules too big to fit through the glass bottleneck. When
Jeongguk kisses like this, he doesn’t taste like fire scratching at the back of Taehyung’s throat, like
a shot of whiskey and tequila and everything intoxicating.
No, he feels like a crisp breeze on the cusp of spring, and there’s a hint of pollen and something
floral in the way he takes Taehyung’s bottom lip between his own. He kisses like the moon should
hide behind a cloud to give their intimacy some privacy, kisses like he truly feels something,
something more than the emotion they’re both too scared to say out loud.

When Taehyung closes his eyes, he sees the memories of a cloudy lake adorned with origami
flowers. The air around the lake is misty, and the humidity tastes like dread tainted with sweet
bursts of reckless freedom. Of secret paper flowers sinking to the bottom of a muddy, overgrown
lake in the abandoned corner of an old garden.

Then, Jeongguk breaks them apart for air, Taehyung leans back, and he opens his eyes. The lake
before them is still, mirroring nothing but the stars and the moon above them. He swears a shooting
star passes by and thinks, the stars are crying. A beautiful, beautiful sight.

The air is clear, the mist has faded, and Jeongguk is still in the centre of his vision.

The memories have crawled back where they belong — back in the dark recesses of his mind, and
Taehyung is on his way to accepting them. He’s not there yet, but he’s getting there. Getting used
to dealing with them and the nightmares and the shitty days, but Jeongguk is going through the
same thing, too.

They’re both stumbling and staggering, but they keep each other up.

Taehyung feels deeply for Jeongguk. An emotion he does not quite know how to interpret, but he
knows he would die for Jeongguk. He also knows that he wants to take Jeongguk’s hand in his and
kiss his lips again and again. He knows that Jeongguk makes him feel warmth, makes the eternal
winter inside him leave for a while.

Taehyung knows that Jeongguk is the single most important person in his life, and that their nights
tangled up in each other bring as much intense emotions as their lazy afternoons together.

Taehyung kisses Jeongguk again. Jeongguk hums pleasantly into the kiss, and Taehyung swallows
up the noise softly, greedily. When they break apart, Taehyung presses a kiss to Jeongguk’s nose,
and Jeongguk huffs out a laugh.

“Been wanting to do that for a while.”

“Yeah? Stay with me?” Jeongguk asks.

“Of course.” Taehyung can’t comprehend leaving him again. Not after all of this. “Jeongguk, I—
you make me…”

“Hm?”

“You make me feel… like….”

Jeongguk’s laugh is airy. It flutters into the night sky, followed by the sound of Jeongguk’s voice
saying, “I make you feel like what?”

“Yeah. You make me feel…” Taehyung thinks for a moment. Then, he takes Jeongguk’s hand in
his and presses it to his chest, right above where his heart would be beating if he was alive. “Warm.
And…”

Dead things don’t die peacefully. Sometimes, they die choking and writhing on the floor, or maybe
through a slow, drawn-out agony, kicking and screaming, pain erupting in fires, or maybe they
drown. That’s a fact, and the very threads holding the seams of the Universe together accept it.

But just because dead things don’t die peacefully doesn’t mean they can’t take every opportunity,
every burst of wonderful, glorious chance, to be—

“Alive,” Taehyung says, “you make me feel alive.”

Jeongguk takes a moment to respond, eyes staring into Taehyung’s with piercing intensity, and
Taehyung is reminded of how unfairly beautiful Jeongguk is. So fucking beautiful, it almost hurts.

A moment passes, the threads of the Universe tighten with intangible pressure, and under the
crying stars and the shy moon, next to the silent lake, and treading among the phantom whispers of
Taehyung’s ghosts, Jeongguk laughs loudly and says, “That was so fucking corny. I’m disgusted,
what the fuck? Never say that again. God, I hate you. Hate you so much.”
 Then, he leans in and kisses Taehyung again, and for the first time in his whole existence,
Taehyung does not want to run away. Jeongguk presses a soft kiss to the corner of his lips, breath
fanning over Taehyung’s skin, and Taehyung feels that warmth.

It’s true — he feels the truth in the threads holding the Universe together, in the threads holding
him together, and in the breeze drifting by with a promise of forever: he does not want to run away
anymore.

Jeongguk makes him want to stay.

Taehyung will stay.

Chapter End Notes

and we're here at the end. thank you very much for sticking around, i hope you
enjoyed their journey. i also threw in a bit of smut (who am i kidding, this chapter is
mostly smut) for all the sexual tension and blue-balling they experienced.

please feel free to drop your thoughts below or come talk to me on twitter or on
retrospring if you would like to !

and if you liked this, please consider checking out my ko-fi <3

End Notes

hope you're enjoying so far <3

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