i hid a skz/3racha reference in this chapter — can you find it? mu ha ha

enjoy!

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All night, and into the morning, kneeling by Minho's bed, I thought about us and what we were to each other. He wanted me to let him in, to be his boyfriend. I wanted that, too. Why had I rejected him?

I could say it was for so many legitimate reasons — vampire law, our secret, the danger, the fundamental difference between us — but it was more.

I was afraid to let him in because I was afraid to let him go. And I would have to let him go, one way or another — humans die, and whether we were boyfriends or not wouldn't change that. But it might change how painful it would be. For me.

It was selfish. It was so incredibly selfish. I hunkered down and pressed my forehead to the floor, begged for the massive weight of shame to be lifted off my shoulders.

My brain was too hyper to pray. I got up and paced back and forth across his room.

In my agitation, I'd forgotten about Felix's Big Two. He said I would either kill Minho or turn him, that there were no other possible outcomes. I was just as stubborn about it now as before; Minho would die when he was old and contented — not thrashing in pain with my fangs in his throat — and he would not live forever, either.

Which brought me back to my original question.

Minho had the blanket up over his head — I was afraid he might suffocate — but then he pulled it down, turning on his side. Lost in dreamland. Just looking at him was relaxing me. I didn't know a lot about sleeping but I had the feeling my love was talented at it. I was so proud of him.

Then it hit me.

My reason for shutting him out wasn't entirely self-centred. It was about Minho, too. Even if he wanted me romantically, was it what he deserved? An emotionally stunted ice cube who wanted to devour him?

I went to him and hovered my hand above his cheek. He turned away from it, feeling the cold. I hid my hands, backed into the corner of the room, against the wall. The shame was only getting heavier.

No, he didn't deserve me. He didn't deserve the life that came with loving me. Moving every five or six years to a new home, a new country. The age gap that would march forward with every passing second. Not being able to explain who I was to his family, the rift he'd feel, one foot in the vampire world, the other in the human one. Always looking over our shoulders, worried that the Volturi would come out of the blue and...

It wasn't that simple — my selfishness, Minho deserving better — it was a thousand little things telling me not to mess with him, not to be irresponsible with his life. I was going to destroy him, I didn't know how yet, but one way or another, I would leave my mark.

All I could do was pray that it wouldn't be violent, that it'd be peaceful, like he was now, a smile on his lips, hand cradling his cheek.

~ * ~

It was early morning when I ran back to my house. The garage door was wide open — Seungmin was behind the wheel of Jeongin's convertible, adjusting the mirrors, and Hyunjin was next to him, head banging to the blaring radio.

"Rock on, Jisungie," he yelled.

"Okay, bud."

I went inside and sat at the piano. I played something sad so my family would know to handle me with care.

"Uh oh," Haseong said, coming down the stairs, "is that Chopin? Say no more, I won't talk to you."

I glanced up, down, and then up again. He was wearing a tailored suit, houndstooth patterned, a lovely brown colour.

"Jesus Christ," I said.

"Thank you," he replied, spinning.

"Party City?"

"No — thrift shop."

"What's the occasion?"

"A police file regarding the destruction of a molasses factory is about to" — he winked — "go missing. And then Chan and I are having a picnic. One doesn't just waste a suit like this."

"You look like a god," Felix said, leaning on the railing above our heads.

"I know, Lix, I know. Okay, I'm outta here. See you later."

"Have fun, Dad." Felix waved as Haseong darted out the door. He leapt over the railing and landed by my side. I know you're playing Chopin, but I got an update about the meadow.

"What is it? Or, as a responsible seer, are you not allowed to tell me?"

Ha ha, chortle chortle. In some futures — not all — but some — it ends... badly. Not all. But some. We should go hunting. Precautionary measures.

"All right, who's coming?"

Changbin is game, Jeongin's still on the fence. Let's go to White Mountain, yeah? Good deer up there.

"That's too far away. We'd have to leave school early — we wouldn't even make it back before dawn."

Every future where Saturday goes right starts with White Mountain.

I huffed. "I don't have an option, do I?"

Not lookin' like it. He poked my cheek. Don't frown, bro. You can go three seconds without seeing him.

"Every second counts."

You have to turn everything into life and death.

I opened my mouth, about to argue, but I let it go.

I've been thinking, actually — today would be a great day to meet Minho, right?

"Why would you think that?"

The two of us are destined to be friends. I'll just stroll in, say hey and skedaddle — or are you still not willing to share? Why must you keep us apart, Jisung?

"I'm not keeping you — whatever. Do whatever you want."

Sounds good. Hey, you wouldn't happen to know if Minho's a jewelry person?

"No, why?"

I wanna give him a friendship bracelet. He held it up. Hyunjin made one for each of us.

"Felix, those are literally teeth, don't give him that."

You're such a dictator.

"Do not. Give him. A bracelet. Made of teeth." My hand travelled down the bass notes to enunciate each syllable.

Fine. I'll just give it to Chan when he gets back. He smirked. See you at lunch. He got up and walked away, twirling the bracelet on his finger.

~ * ~

Throughout the day, everywhere I looked was a reminder of the Big Decision.

Minho's eyes were full of the usual sparkles and excitement. He was happy to see me. Days of my whining and evasions, yet he still wanted to hang out with me. It just confirmed what I'd been thinking. He was much, much too good for me.

It was heartache after heartache, leaving him between each of our classes. It felt like a taste of what was to come. It hurt just as bad as I'd thought, even though I knew I'd see him again in an hour or so.

But the relief was strong as well. I felt overjoyed, inspired, every time we met up again, like I could have written a dozen songs just about the way he said hi, the way his face lit up when we locked eyes.

Seeing him after Trigonometry felt like stepping out of an iron maiden. We had time now — the walk to the cafeteria, all of lunch, the walk to Bio — free to talk all we liked...

And then I remembered White Mountain. I nearly growled aloud. It was necessary but it felt like a spike in my gut.

I was still trying to rein in my mood when Minho took my wrist.

"What are you doing?" I was a little bit frozen.

He started fussing with my sleeve, his thumb pressed gently into the crook of my palm. "You have a thread."

"No, I don't."

"Hold up, hold up, I see it." He was squinting at nothing.

"You're just holding my wrist."

"There's a thread."

I could have pulled away so easily. I didn't.

Minho let go in the cafeteria. We moved into in the lunch line and then got settled at our table. He inhaled his sandwich like he'd never eaten before in his life. I asked him not to choke — teasingly, but I was hovering an inch over the chair, ready to give him the Heimlich.

Eventually I got the question of the day out. "I wanna make sure I won't brutally murder you tomorrow, so I'm gonna go hunting with my freak brothers instead of goofing off with you — though I'd rather be doing that, because I'm totally and utterly in love with you. That good?" I phrased it differently.

We talked a bit more, planned our trip to the meadow, and Felix finally got his introduction. It went about as well as it could have. I had to admit that Felix could control himself when he was told to.

Then it was time to go. Minho's heart was on his sleeve, emotions advertised like a banner above his head. He'd miss me. I wished I could have described what I felt when we were apart. It was more than 'missing,' more than an unbearable ache, a hole carved out of my gut. It was endlessly more, a word meaning agony and then doubled and tripled.

All I wanted to do was make him feel better, and I knew how to do it. It wasn't safe, wasn't responsible, but for a second, I didn't care. I just wanted to make him feel better.

I walked around the table, took a seat next to him and carefully lifted his hand from his side. His skin was so lovely and warm. It was hard not to think about how warm his embrace would be, his body against mine. I shook the thought out of my head and looked up to meet his eyes.

"See you tomorrow," I said.

"Hurry," he replied.

When I got to the parking lot, Felix was behind the wheel of my car, Changbin and The Baby in the back.

I leaned down to the window. "I gotta get Minho's truck for him."

Felix honked the horn for no reason. "Meet ya on the highway."

"Right."

Felix drove my car home, and I ran to Minho's house — he had told me where he stashed his keys so I could deliver his truck to school. I found the sock stuffed under his bedside lamp. Inside were his keys (I pocketed them), his wallet and...

The lollipop I gave him a week or so ago. He had kept it. He had kept it? Wouldn't he have eaten it or thrown it in the garbage or something? I palmed my forehead, leaned on his bedside to steady myself. He kept it because I gave it to him.

I reassembled his room and flitted out his window, into his truck, and drove back to school. I left it in the spot my car had been in — hopefully he would find it without any trouble.

I met my brothers on the highway, and we cut through the tangled forest toward White Mountain.

~ * ~

Felix wrestled a deer to the ground — fighting against its thrashing legs — and pinned it, dragged his teeth through its skin. It whimpered, slowed, sagged, blood draining from its veins. Felix's "requires constant supervision" t-shirt was drenched in it.

I was rolling my own corpse into a bush. Hidden but not so hidden that a predator couldn't find it and finish it off. Jeongin was hunting in the surrounding forest, and Changbin was behind me, making a disgusting slurping sound as he sucked a crow dry.

"I don't know why you drink those things," I said, settling down next to him. "There're deer everywhere."

Jeongin dropped down next to me with a whole buck in his arms. "Why are you even asking, mindreader?"

"I'm focussing on Forks, just in case—"

"Minho needs you," the two of them finished for me in harmony.

"He might need me!" I yelled. "I'm not the freak here — Changbin drinks garbage birds."

"It's food for thought." Changbin rolled his eyes as if I should have known. "Humans eat food, and after they've consumed it, they toss out the leftovers and wrappers like trash. Crows eat trash, and I drink crows. Ponder me this — what happens to me?"

"You get eaten by me." Felix pounced and attacked him with kisses. "Nom nom!"

"Don't do that," Jeongin said, "I just drank."

"Fine." Felix curled up with his head in Changbin's lap. "Shall we pray? Should be a bit easier without those pagans hanging around."

I shifted onto my knees and hung my head. Jeongin did the same. Changbin chucked his bird and pressed his hands together. We each came from religious families — it carried into our vampire lives, the urge to thank a higher being, the earth, whomever we felt most connected to that day. I focussed my thoughts toward Minho, hoping he could feel it somehow.

"I can't believe God is leaving me on read," Felix muttered. "Not cool, mega bro."

"Shut the hell up." Jeongin slapped his hands over his mouth. "Shit, sorry."

"Both of you, shh."

We kept our prayers to ourselves. I turned my attention back to Forks once I was done. I had accepted that trying to keep an eye on Minho was a placebo. I knew it had no effect yet I let myself get deceived.

"What's going on in Forks?" Jeongin asked.

"No clue. We're too far away."

"What are you even looking for? Minho can't still be out this late."

"Maybe someone will see if his house is on fire. Or hear screaming. Or find his car in a wreck... maybe it'll be on the news..." I squeezed my head between my knees. "I almost blacked out there."

"I thought you would calm down, like" — Felix shrugged — "a fraction of a percent once you'd found someone like Minho, but obviously that was just a fever dream."

"On the contrary, I get to stress about a whole new sequence of things."

"Especially now that Minho put his foot down, huh?" said Changbin.

I groaned, pinching the bridge of my nose. "Felix, please tell me what I'm gonna do."

"You haven't decided a single goddamn thing yet. It's all over the place, nobody's ever tied me up like this. I saw Watergate before it happened and it was less complicated than your love life."

"It doesn't affect the... long run, does it? The Big Two?"

"No. Long Run is still yay or nay. Undeath or death. Vampire or the regular old pyre."

I held my face in my hands.

"Look, I don't wanna tell you what to do, but rejecting him now would be goddamn moronic. Why are you so averse to it? And we've already heard the surface level arguments — get deep."

"You can't tell me to get deep."

"Just did, though."

I counted the blades of grass. "It's just that I'm... afraid. Afraid of when he's gone and I can't take it. It'll hurt worse, right? If I put myself out there like that, let him love me, let myself get attached to him? More attached than I already am?"

"You sound like Hyunjin and his gopher," Jeongin said.

"I know." I dropped my face onto my knees. "Jesus, I'm selfish. But it's not like I'm only doing this for me. What kind of a life would it be for Minho? The bad... outweighs the good, doesn't it? I should at least give him a chance."

Bullshit, Felix thought.

"Nuanced argument, dude."

He rolled his eyes. This wall you built is bogus, totally made up.

"No — it's safe."

It's safe — for you. You're not thinking about Minho, you're not thinking about anyone.

"All I ever goddamn do is think about him, Felix, what the hell are you saying?"

Felix pulled himself up and looked into my eyes. Do you know what it's like, Jisung? To watch your brother torture himself for a century, finally find something — one single thing — that makes him happy, and then refuse to accept the happiness into his life?

"That's — that's not what we're talking about."

Isn't it?

"Can you guys speak out loud?" Jeongin said. "We're only getting half of the conversation here."

"I don't wanna talk about this," I said.

"You just hate hearing the truth," Felix hissed. "You wanna have control over everything. Get over it, you can't control shit."

"I've been doing pretty well so far."

"Don't you see that you're still on track? On exactly the track I foretold?"

"He won't turn, he won't die, it won't come true — I won't let it!"

"What you 'let' happen has zero percent impact on the future, pop tart."

"I will punch you in the face, Felix, I swear to God."

Felix got up. "Come at me—"

Changbin yanked Felix back down. "That's enough for today."

"You can't stop us from fighting in our minds," Felix said. Whiffle-whaffle whiner deadbeat son of a—

"I can try. Quick, what's everyone's favourite type of pesticide? I'll start: larvicides."

"Insecticides," said Jeongin.

Felix crossed his arms and didn't answer. I put my head back between my knees.

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i have this idea in my head that haseong becomes a super talented spy when he's out of the house. like, he just strolls into the police precinct, effortless slips past the other cops, grabs the file without raising any suspicions, and flicks his sunglasses off in slow-mo as something explodes behind him, illuminating his figure in bright orange flames...

yes i think about this kind of stuff a lot

the meadow chapter is getting closer and closer 😓 i really hope you like jisung's version as much as minho's

hope you guys are doing good <3

bye!