Felix walked me to Biology, arm tight around my shoulders. He laid out what I should do with Minho, what I shouldn't, how to ensure my part in a future where he would live. Felix used a lot of hand gestures to make his point. It must have looked weird to the other students; his lips didn't move once.

Minho is already in the room, he thought. Try not to startle him. Don't sit too close — at least nine inches apart. I don't think I have to tell ya what happens at eight inches.

I bit back a grimace.

Myles Vargas is gonna walk by at one point — pencil sharpener — and it's gonna mix up the air a bit, so I advise you turn away when he passes. Mr. Banner's fan is outta juice, so there won't be 'upwind,' 'downwind' issues, etcetera, so that's good luck.

"Are the windows open?" I spoke too quickly, too quietly, for anyone other than Felix to hear.

Beth Ford could find a hardboiled egg in her backpack and open the window, but her Dad didn't make it to the Thriftway on Wednesday — because of the gout — so that's not a problem anymore.

"You know the strangest things."

It's a gift. Alrighty, you get in there, remember not to kill him, and flirt your little ass off.

"I'm not gonna flirt."

He flicked one of my shirt buttons open. I scrambled to do it up again.

You're such a prude, he tut-tutted.

"Okay, thank you, leave me alone now."

Fine. See you tonight.

He spun on his heels and headed to his next class. Once he was out of sight, I undid the button again.

I stalled at the door to class. I was nervous. If I'd had natural blood in my body and a heart to pump it, my pulse would have been racing. I sucked in one last breath before I stepped inside.

Minho was sitting at my table — the one students usually left open for me — hunkered over a notebook, foot tapping on the floor. I still couldn't hear his mind. It wrapped my brain up in a fuzzy silence as I approached. I redid the top button last minute.

I pulled my chair out, letting it screech against the floor. He froze, and his pencil stopped entirely. I sat down and hesitantly angled myself toward him.

"Hey."

He looked up carefully, slowly. His eyes flicked around like he expected me to be speaking to someone else. No, I wanted to say, only you.

He was silent, so I continued. I had enough breath left to speak a little while longer.

"I'm Jisung. We didn't get a chance to talk yet. You're Minho Lee, right?"

He exhaled in a puff, batting his big, pretty eyes. "Why are you talking to me?"

He sounded like he was annoyed with me already. It caught me off guard — my head tilted to the side.

"Should I stop talking to you?" But that would be so anticlimactic!

"I dunno." Neutral. Indifferent. "What do you think?"

I smiled a bit to hide my disappointment. "I don't know, either."

"I don't k-know," he stammered. Shit, did he see my fangs?

A chair pulled out at the table across from us. Myles Vargas headed down the aisle. I murmured an "Okay," turned away, and clenched my teeth together. I still didn't allow myself to take a breath, but my lungs were starting to need it. I wasn't sure how much longer I could hold out.

"Get started," Mr. Banner said. I'd totally forgotten to be listening. I tapped into my classmates' thoughts — the phases of mitosis. I knew enough to get by.

I looked at Minho — he was already staring at me. Our eyes got stuck.

"Do you want to go f-first or what?" he asked. Was he nervous? Or did he have a stutter?

"You can go first." It was hard to get the last word out. I didn't need air to live, but I needed it to speak. I couldn't refuse to talk to him for the rest of the project — I didn't want to anyway. He'd said twenty-three words to me in all. It wasn't enough.

Minho turned his attention to the microscope. While he was occupied, I leaned away and sucked in a breath. God, he smelled perfect. Flames licked up my throat. My hands fisted.

"Prophase," Minho said quietly.

I was grasping at any distraction, anything to take my mind off his blood. "Do you mind if I look?"

He waved his hand stiffly. I peeked through the eyepiece.

"Prophase," I parroted.

"Don't ever doubt me again." His tone was grave, face expressionless. A joke, I think. I laughed an ugly sound and didn't let the air back in. I turned to the microscope again.

"Anaphase," I said, writing it down.

He cleared his throat. "May I?"

I pushed the microscope his way.

He looked through the eyepiece and paused. Then he stuck his hand out in my direction. I realized he wanted the next slide, and I handed it to him.

"Interphase." He passed the microscope to me before I could ask. I pretended to look — knowing he would be right — and wrote the answer down.

We finished before time was up. I looked at Minho and didn't think to look away. Pretty nose, pudgy nose. What rhymed with nose? Hmm.

I was still staring at him when he turned and met my eyes.

His eyebrows pulled together, creasing his forehead. "Did you get contacts?"

I flinched hard. "No." It was a mistake. I should have remembered my eyes were black last he saw me. Now they were gold — I had hunted just last night. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

It was silent for a moment. I prayed to God he would forget about it, about everything. A sudden case of amnesia would be great right now. Make it two — then maybe I could let go of this idiotic fascination.

"Hey... buddy," Minho said abruptly. "Why were you acting so weird last week?"

I evened out my tone, breathing through my teeth. "Was I acting weird?"

"Yeah, you were."

"I barely remember what happened last week." I smiled innocently. "Were you thinking about me?"

He wheezed. "No." Something happy blew up in my chest.

"If I was acting weird, then it was because of familial" — how could I put it? — "er, matters and whatnot, so I'm sorry if I gave you too much to think about for the last days."

"Who the hell says 'whatnot' anymore?"

I started shaking faintly — it happened when I was nervous. "Don't attack me like that, we were just talking!"

He smiled. I memorized the way his eyes narrowed, how the corners of his mouth curled.

Mr. Banner suddenly appeared at our desk, startling me.

"Jisung, did you give Minho a chance to use the microscope?"

"Minho identified three of the five, actually."

Mr. Banner turned to Minho. "Have you done this lab before?"

"Not with onion root."

"Whitefish blastula?"

"Uh-huh."

"Were you in an advanced placement program in Phoenix?"

"Yup."

Mr. Banner considered that. I did, too. Minho was intelligent. I wanted to know what was happening inside his brain. I had a hunch I wouldn't be able to guess if I tried.

"Well, I guess it's good you two are lab partners," Mr. Banner finally said. He added, "So I can deal with the know-it-alls at once" under his breath. I frowned in his direction once he'd turned away.

Minho was doodling again, staring down. I wanted to hear his voice.

"It's too bad about the rain, isn't it?" The weather was a safe topic.

"Not really."

"You don't like the cold?"

"Or the wet."

"Forks must be killing you."

He sighed in response — it was a beautiful sound. I couldn't take my eyes off his face, even when he glanced up and caught me staring. He stared, too — very intense, definitely overdoing it, but that was fine with me.

"Why did you come here?" I asked.

"To class?"

"To Forks."

"It's... complicated."

"I can keep up." I smiled, trying to be encouraging. His eyes flitted to my lips; he pitched to the side like he'd lost his balance. I closed my mouth to hide my fangs.

"My mom got remarried," he said.

"And you don't like her partner."

"No, Phil is okay. He's nice. Kinda dumb and vanilla, and he owns a weird amount of socks. But my mom loves him — they love each other. So, whatever, I guess."

I was getting happier with every word out of his mouth. "Why didn't you stay with them?"

"Phil travels a lot. He plays one of the sports for a living. I don't remember which."

"And your mum sent you here. So she could travel with him."

He shook his head quickly. Maybe that was a button for him.

"No, I sent myself here."

"I don't understand."

"Oh, so you can't keep up?"

I laughed, fixing my posture. "I can keep up, I can keep up — please explain more."

His eyes narrowed, and then floated up in his head. "My mom stayed with me at first, but she missed him a lot. She was truly unhappy... so I decided to spend some time with Charlie."

"But now you're unhappy."

"Yup."

"That doesn't seem fair." It was a little too sharp. He noticed and raised one eyebrow.

"Life isn't fair." He shrugged.

"Like I haven't seen that one on every fridge magnet for the last one hundred years."

I clamped my teeth shut. I was speaking to him like I would with my family, like he was in on the secret. Stupid, stupid.

"I know life isn't fair," I said, trying to cover up my mistake. "Life is cruel and stupid and meaningless."

He was quiet for a second. "Uh, great." I watched his hands fly up and drop down to his lap. I returned to his face. "Then that's that."

He didn't make any move to look away, so I let myself take him in. We had been laughing and smiling... I wondered if he would be smiling if he knew what I was. If he knew that there was a part of me that wanted to tear my teeth into his skin every time I breathed.

He was staring blankly now, frowning with his eyebrows pulled down. That irritated look I was coming to know. I was suddenly anxious; had I overstepped? Of course I had. All of this was a mistake, I was a mistake, we were a mistake — there was no 'we.'

"Am I annoying you?" I asked. He flinched like it startled him.

"Um. No."

Thank God!

I smiled and turned away, sighing in relief. I made the mistake of breathing in again. His appeal hit me like the ground hits a skydiver. I could barely choke out a goodbye before I was marching out of the room. I wasn't even sure class was over.

I tipped my face to the sky, stuck my tongue out all the way, and breathed in deep gasps. Raindrops fell into my eyelashes. I pretended I had been cloud-watching when a couple of students snuck up behind me.

Freak, one thought. Tip of the iceberg.

My mind was a circus for the rest of the day. Changbin and I had Spanish together; when he felt my emotional state, he got very overwhelmed, very quickly.

Jesus, Jisung, he thought. You killed him, didn't you? And you still came to Spanish? You sick shit.

"Har har. I didn't kill him. Everything about him just — just works me up."

I need to have my wits about me. Keep it under control, chico malo.

"Si, pollito."

He kicked my chair.

~ * ~

My brothers and I headed to the car at the end of the day. Hyunjin was hyper because it was movie night, and finally it was his turn to choose after eight long months.

"Nancy Meyers movie marathon — who's with me!"

Crickets.

"I'm tired of those movies," said Jeongin.

"I kinda feel like a nature doc," said Felix, "what about you guys?"

"But it's my turn!" Hyunjin yelled.

"Who's gonna drive home?" Seungmin asked. "Or, preferably, off a cliff?"

"I'll do it." I opened the driver side and got in.

The roar of an engine sounded across the parking lot. I turned to see a rusty red Chevrolet a few spots down.

Minho was behind the wheel.

I didn't think. I got out of the car, spun around a few times, and leaned back against the door. I couldn't believe myself as I stood there, waiting for nothing in particular.

I knew he was driving past me, but I didn't look up right away. When I did, he was staring at me, mouth open. We locked eyes. He flinched violently.

I smiled and waved, and he returned it. He looked back to the road in front of him.

Once he was out of sight, I turned and sank back into the car.

That was hard to watch, Seungmin thought.

"Hyunjin, please tell me you got a picture of that," said Changbin.

"Sure did, little buddy."

Felix made a whip sound.

I pulled out of the lot — pretending to be annoyed. Day one was a success. There was a nervous flutter in my stomach as I thought about what could possibly happen on day two.

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it was super cool to write minho actually talking and stuff from jisung's POV. i put in little references to the equivalent chapter bc i'm obsessed with my own fictional universe

hope to see you next week!