Chapter Text
‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙
Everyone had come home tired and aching in some way or other. Seonghwa had rushed off to get a first aid kit for Hongjoong only to discover that his bruises and cuts had all healed up, as if nothing had happened. Seonghwa had then told the other boys to line up and get themselves surveyed by him and the others had complied easily, but Seonghwa got the feeling they’d only been humoring him, seeing as most of them didn’t even have a scratch. Yunho had tried ducking off, but had been caught by Mingi. Seonghwa had left the two alone sensing that they needed to talk something out.
The rest of them were hanging out in the living-room, the ambiance was light and jovial and Seonghwa could almost feel the literal burden lifted from Hongjoong’s shoulders as he laughed and spoke with his friends and held Seonghwa close. And Seonghwa felt equally freed. It was as if he could finally breathe again. No threat of impending doom loomed before him, Hongjoong’s friends – his friends, he reminded himself, were now free to do with their time as they pleased and didn’t have to babysit Seonghwa like the most goofy bodyguards ever. And he was happy for them too. Yeosang and Jongho had gone out for snacks and would return shortly and they were all staying over to watch movies and rest up.
“Hyung, I’m sorry I couldn’t contribute to taking down the vampire” Wooyoung complained. “I feel like I did nothing to help.”
“Hey” Hongjoong said seriously “you had THE most important job; which was keeping Seonghwa safe.” He said and squeezed Wooyoung’s hand. “If he’d taken us all down or spotted Seonghwa somewhere it would have been up to you to stop him with that deadly high pitched voice of yours.”
Banshee, Seonghwa reminded himself. Wooyoung was half-banshee. His voice was literally lethal.
“But still..” Wooyoung pouted.
“No buts. I trusted you with the love of my life. That you kept him safe means everything to me.” Hongjoong said to everyone’s amazement. Hongjoong just didn’t say these things lightly. Even Seonghwa gasped, a deep blush coloring his face prettily, and a surprised smile that he shared with the others.
“You really mean that?” Seonghwa asked, still looking shocked and amazed. Hongjoong just smiled at him, it was warm and intimate. So intimate Wooyoung and San almost felt like they were intruding on a private moment.
“I do.” Hongjoong said firmly and kissed Seonghwa, just a light brush of lips.
“Ugh. You guys are doing it again. You’re being gross.” Wooyoung pretended to be put off, but both Hongjoong and Seonghwa could see the hint of an endeared smile play at the corners of his lips.
“Hm” said San, taking the sweet display as a challenge “Let’s see if we can beat them, baby?” he said tilting Wooyoung’s chin up to his face and started kissing him, all tongue and lips smacking.
Hongjoong threw a pillow at them to stop. “No. We were being sweet. You guys are being disgusting for real.”
When their lips parted and they moved their heads to change the angle of the kiss, Hongjoong could see their tongues. He made a disgusted sound. “Stop, please for the love of god, please stop!” While Seonghwa laughed heartily beside him.
‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙
Yunho was about to duck out of the whole after-fight gathering they had at Hongjoong’s apartment when he heard someone call his name as he passed the kitchen. As he entered the room Mingi was sitting at one of the stools of the kitchen island, motioning for him to come in and take a seat. Honestly, since that day when they’d devised the plan to take down the rouge vampire and Yunho had inadvertently revealed how he knew about healing vampire saliva, well, things hadn’t been right between him and Mingi. And Yunho knew exactly why.
Seeing as Yunho is a werewolf and not a vampire, he still had cuts and bruises marring his face and hands. Especially where the vampire had scratched him across the brow. Mingi wordlessly fetched some hot water and some tissues and started cleaning up the blood and dirt on his face. They sat in perfect uncomfortable silence for a minute or two until Mingi had mostly patched him up and he looked at him seriously.
“You lied.” He said, his voice was dark and calm. It was a statement, not a question.
Yunho couldn’t meet his eyes. Didn’t speak.
“It was a kiss.” Mingi said firmly.
“I know” he answered.
Mingi swallowed hard, looking the most serious Yunho had ever seen him.
“It was also a lot more than a kiss.”
“I know” Yunho said, still feeling shame wash over him in cold violent waves.
“And I’m not talking about the sex.” Mingi stressed.
“I know” Yunho whispered and finally met his eyes. Mingi regarded him calmly. Yunho wasn’t stupid, he knew. He knew there was something more between them the day Mingi had healed his lip cut in the sexiest way possible, and they’d kissed, made out and gotten off together. He’d known there was something more between them for months. Even before Mingi, he suspected. Although he couldn’t know for sure.
That day when they’d first kissed Yunho had been exhilarated. He’d never felt as seduced and desired in his whole life, and to have that moment with Mingi. His best friend who was a vampire that would live forever. Well, maybe that scared him a little bit and maybe that’s why Yunho had lied that day when he’d let slip about the vampire saliva knowledge, instead of shutting up, the way he should have. That incident between them had been months ago. Before the whole Seonghwa/Hongjoong thing. And the both of them had tried to move on as if nothing had happened ever since. For the sake of their friendship. But maybe they’d both been lying to themselves. Because even now with Mingi soft and sullen and quietly tending to his wounds, Yunho still kind of wanted to kiss him again.
“I’m sorry” he said finally. He’d been meaning to say it for a while.
“Do you regret it that much?” Mingi asked, his eyes were watery, something Yunho didn’t expect even though he should have and it made some part of his heart ache.
“Was kissing me and doing that other stuff with me that awful?” Mingi asked, and Yunho’s heart was in pieces.
“No!” he said, quite strongly, clearly surprising Mingi. “God no, that’s not it at all. What we did..making out and the sex stuff” he forced himself to say, because he had to deal with the fact that he’d had sex with his best friend, after all. The more he said it, the more he could accept it “it was probably the hottest thing that’s ever happened to me. And I think about it all the time. I don’t regret it.”
Mingi nodded slowly as if considering his words, but didn’t look convinced.
“Then why did you act like that? Why’d you deny everything?”
Yunho sat back and sighed loudly, ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t know” he said honestly.
“I guess I panicked because you and I haven’t even talked about that day and what that means for us. And then everyone else kept acting like we’re together. And. I don’t know. Maybe part of me also thought you’d want me to deny it? Like, maybe I thought that if you did, it would confirm something to me.”
“Like what?” Mingi asked and looked halfway between surprised and curious.
“Like maybe...” Yunho said, hesitated to say it, why was it so hard to say it?? “Like maybe that what’s been between us for the last few months wasn’t real. Like maybe it was all in my head?”
“Did you want it to be?” Mingi asked. And Yunho looked pained. As if his heart could truly break in this moment.
“No, of course not.”
Mingi’s shoulders relaxed when he heard that and he sighed lightly. They were both silent for a long time. Yunho didn’t know how to continue after something like this. They’d just sort of admitted that there was something between them and that the kiss and the subsequent sex had been more than just a casual fuck-buddy thing, or a one-time thing. Now what? Were they not best friends anymore? What would happen?
Mingi cleared his throat in the middle of Yunho’s line of thought.
“If I have to admit to it, I have been thinking about it too, all the time. Or well, some of the time. But often enough.” Mingi said, but still looked a bit fragile. As if Yunho would reject him again. Even though Yunho was fairly certain Mingi even uttering those words showed he trusted in Yunho’s feelings for him. Even if the trust was a kind of brittle right now.
Yunho placed his hand on top of Mingi’s, gave him a soft smile and Mingi just looked at him like a deer caught in the headlights as he leaned in and brushed their lips softly together. A kiss so soft and sweet and tender it had Yunho’s heart jumping double speed inside his chest.
“Where does this leave us?” Yunho asked, smile still on his face as he leaned back to look at Mingi.
Mingi visibly swallowed hard, his Adams apple bobbing up and down. Yunho’s eyes followed the movement.
“I don’t know. But I definitely think you should kiss me again so we can come closer to finding out the answer.” Mingi said cutely.
Yunho chuckled and leaned in again, happy to comply. Whatever Mingi asked, he’d always give it to him. And this time he gave Mingi all the kisses he wanted.
‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙
The doors were wide open to the hanok. Hongjoong’s vampire coven had done their best and decked out the place with beautiful antique vases, decorations in gold and red, candelabras illuminated the darker spaces, as was vampiric custom, and everyone were dressed in formal attire.
Hongjoong wore a dark blue hanbok with a gold print and white trimmings, underneath he wore white jeans. It was a more modern look than what the rest of the coven wore. Seonghwa suspected Hongjoong had always been like that, treading the fine line between tradition and the modern. Rebelling in his own way. He’d dressed Seonghwa too in a similar style with a turquise hanbok with white trimmings. A white belt with golden flowers sown onto it. Together they looked quite striking.
Hwanwoong had hugged them both upon entry, with that warm smile of his, and he led them to the room where the ceremony would take place. This was Seonghwa’s official acceptance ceremony into the coven. The room was equally as prettily decorated as the other rooms Hongjoong had shown Seonghwa. There were some 15 vampires in the room, some Hongjoong knew, others he’d just met in passing. There were the members of the coven of course, and then also some leaders of other allied covens here to witness the human’s ceremony and subsequent transformation into a vampire. The turning itself wouldn’t be witnessed by anyone. It would just be Hongjoong and Seonghwa. And Hongjoong’s Sire, Leedo would be in the other room, in case anything were to go wrong.
Hongjoong had insisted that Mingi be there, it would be his first time witnessing such a ceremony too. He’d claimed it was for the sake of propriety, but Seonghwa knew it was for emotional support. And as a special favor for Hongjoong’s first re-born fledgling, Mingi’s boyfriend Yunho had been allowed inside the vampire home, even though he was a werewolf and no one in the entire vampire community had seen such an unholy alliance take place. Yunho looked around nervously, but Mingi held his hand firmly and proudly and Hongjoong regularly checked on him, clapping him on the shoulder to show his support of the odd pair to the other vampires, lest they step out of line and say something inappropriate.
All the vampires sat in rows on both sides of the room, creating an isle for Hongjoong and Seonghwa to walk down until they reached the end of the aisle, where a small altar had been built and Leedo was standing, looking regal in a black hanbok with gold prints.
The pair kneeled before the Sire, as they had practiced at home. And they bowed in unison, their foreheads almost touching the ground. When they straightened up again Leedo smiled at them approvingly. Leedo asked them a bunch of questions they’d prepared for, whether Seonghwa was willing to leave his old life behind to be with Hongjoong and this new life that awaited him. Whether Hongjoong promised to always take care of and assume responsibility for his new fledgling and promise to see to his well-being until the end of his days. Whether they both understood the severity of what they were doing, willfully ending a human life and entering said life into a world more dark and dangerous and wholly transformed. The answer to all of these questions were ‘yes’ for the both of them. At the last one Hongjoong reached out his hand, still kneeling before his Sire and looked at Seonghwa with a soft smile, and Seonghwa took his hand and smiled back. And then the Sire announced Seonghwa as a new member of their coven.
When the ceremony had ended all the vampires in the room stood up and cheered loudly. It dawned on Seonghwa that this was a little bit like a vampire’s version of a wedding. The members of the coven congratulated the pair, many of them saying Seonghwa will make ‘a fine vampire’. And they were glad that the wayward son, Hongjoong, who had always ran away from his Sire had finally settled down with a mate of his own. Hongjoong couldn’t help but blush at those comments. But he supposed it was true. Seonghwa was his mate, his soul-mate, if nothing else. And they were partners in all things from now on.
As Hongjoong waited for his boyfriend to complete the transformation from human to vampire, he looked back on the time they’d spent together. How 2 years ago Seonghwa had moved in with Hongjoong, an innocent student at the Uni trying to make his way through life. How in the beginning of their rooming together they’d clashed, not a whole lot, but things hadn’t been as smooth as Hongjoong had hoped. And then, how Hongjoong had started getting feelings for Seonghwa. How he’d enjoyed his company and always felt like there was something unique about Seonghwa, something he couldn’t put into words. And it had perplexed Hongjoong and he had desired him all the more because of it.
Memories flooded his mind of Seonghwa out on the balcony, looking gorgeous and his blood thrumming in his veins. Memories of kissing Seonghwa and almost biting him in his uncontrollable desire. Memories of Seonghwa smiling at Hongjoong while they watched a silly movie on their couch. A blush on his face, his lips bitten red. How warm and sweet they tasted. He remembered how Seonghwa had opened up to Hongjoong about not having a family, and how frail he’d looked, but how his smiles had been even warmer once Hongjoong showed him that he wasn’t alone, and that he’d be his family from now on.
He remembered the relieved look on Seonghwa’s face after they’d killed the rouge vampire, and how they’d that night foregone the chains and Hongjoong had fucked him, good and proper without any restraints, and how it had made Seonghwa keen and moan and whimper and elicit the hottest sounds Hongjoong had heard in his over 100 years on this planet. And finally how proud Hongjoong had felt that he’d been able to restrain himself from biting Seonghwa. And maybe also how he was just proud of Seonghwa in general. That had been a year ago.
Now, a year after that night, only a few months after Seonghwa graduated from school and had said good-bye to his old life, he was being reborn as a vampire.
Seonghwa opened his eyes, the color a deep violet and softly glowing. He didn’t take a breath because he didn’t need one, and Hongjoong was there to take his hand. His was the first face that greeted him into the night.
Seonghwa looked around curiously. The world had stayed the same, yet he was different. His eye-sight sharper, he could feel his body was lighter, as if it would take nothing to break into a lengthy sprint. He looked at Hongjoong.
“Seonghwa?” Hongjoong asked, “Baby?” his voice sounded worried, his face expressed the same. He could now hear the attractive timbre of Hongjoong’s voice like never before, how his name sounded melodious coming from Hongjoong’s voice. From his lips. He leaned in and kissed him. And when he drew back there was a gorgeous smile on his boyfriend’s face. Or was it husband now? Seonghwa didn’t really know yet. But there was one thing he knew for certain, and that was that no matter how much he’d changed he still loved Hongjoong more than anything in the world now and forever.
The End.