“But what does it mean that he can only drink my blood…?”
Song Hanyeong said that when he was injured by his uncle’s attack, someone gave him blood, and it was the blood of a vegetarian. That’s why he could only consume vegetarian blood.
If the only blood Song Hanyeong could drink now was solely Surim’s—his blood—then the person he met that day would also be Surim.
If so, there should be Song Hanyeong in his memories from age fifteen, before establishing the contract with Nasol, but there was no such meeting at all in Surim’s memories. Song Hanyeong didn’t have a common face either, so it was absurd not to remember meeting him.
Did they… erase the memory?
Surim hugged both arms with a creepy feeling.
It was an absurd thought, but they were vampires. They might be able to do it. He couldn’t be certain whether to trust his memories. A fear he’d never felt before suddenly flooded in like a tide.
Surim trembled while hugging both arms.
Meow. It was then that he heard Kkamang’s crying and the sound of claws scratching the front door.
“Kkamang-ah…!”
Surim flung the door open and scooped up Kkamang standing in front of it. As he embraced the warm body temperature, his unstably beating heart gradually settled. Kkamang, who seemed about to resist at first, soon became docile as if sensing Surim’s condition.
Surim, whose trembling had barely subsided, put Kkamang down on the wooden floor and smiled weakly.
“Thanks for coming, Kkamang-ah.”
While Kkamang was here, he could avoid continuing these frightening and anxious thoughts recklessly.
* * *
“No. You’re a house cat now.”
Grr, Kkamang cried in dissatisfaction. Still, it couldn’t be helped. A stray cat would need to adapt to living as a house cat, but in the long run, house cat life would be much happier.
“I’m doing this all for you. Let’s live happily together. Okay?”
The preparations were already complete. He’d bought all the necessities for a cat. The cat tower wasn’t here yet, but he planned to buy one soon.
Not only that, he’d also finished preparing to confine this large black cat at home. He’d locked all the windows overnight, and the door was firmly secured with both the door lock and a bolt lock. There would be no way for this cat to escape with its soft paws.
Surim smiled satisfactorily and stroked Kkamang’s head, only to have his finger bitten.
“Ow, that hurts…”
Surim gripped his finger where blood was gushing out and glared. As he brought tissue to press firmly on his fingertip and worried about how to take that fierce cat to the hospital, he suddenly recalled that the bathroom window was open. The bathroom window was small and had iron bars, but for a cat that was close to being a liquid creature, it would definitely be an escape route they could exit without much difficulty.
It was when Surim entered the bathroom on guard so Kkamang wouldn’t follow, firmly closed the window, and came back out to the living room.
Beep-.
A familiar electronic sound came from the entrance. When he turned around in surprise, he could only see the black cat’s butt between the door gap. Looking at the door that had closed with a click again, Surim sat down on the floor in dejection.
“Ah…”
For a cat to know how to open not only the door lock but even the bolt lock—just how smart was it? Dejected, Surim sighed deeply and ruffled his hair.
‘What if it doesn’t come back because of today?’
Since he’d tried to catch it recklessly, from the cat’s perspective, it would read as an attack and kidnapping. He’d heard that if you fail to catch a stray cat, it becomes more wary and harder next time…
Surim thought that if capture became really difficult, he should at least install a cat house in the yard. He’d give delicious food and build up favor again, then prepare more thoroughly next time to catch it.
“……”
When the house was engulfed in silence, his heart pounded heavily and anxiety surged up, as if being fine until now had been a lie.
Song Hanyeong’s statement about using him as bait wouldn’t leave his mind. In fact, even while with Kkamang, Surim had thought about that statement intermittently. He couldn’t help it.
After thinking and thinking repeatedly like that, the conclusion he reached was as follows:
“That could be…”
The reason Song Hanyeong used Surim as bait was to find the culprit who killed his family. It was to find the accomplices of his uncle who murdered his father.
If there was a conspiracy behind his hyung’s death, Surim would also have tried to reveal the truth using everything without looking back.
Moreover, Song Hanyeong was an existence that couldn’t be judged by ordinary human standards. He was a vampire different from humans, and also a starving animal.
Surim wanted to understand Song Hanyeong.
It wasn’t that he wasn’t upset by the word “bait,” but in this enormous incident surrounding death, his feelings seemed like nothing at all.
Besides, wasn’t he a stalker? Although a half-officially recognized stalker, a stalker was still a stalker. For such a person to harbor any expectations just because he’d become someone who gave blood to Song Hanyeong was blasphemous. The thought that Song Hanyeong might like him was an absurd delusion.
So Song Hanyeong.
“…Yeah, that could be.”
After organizing his thoughts, his heart felt surprisingly light. It was all about how you thought about it. For a stalker, wasn’t reaching this level of relationship already a great achievement?
It was when Surim, who had finished breakfast, completed his preparations for work and was about to put on his shoes.
Surim rolled his eyes at the suddenly surging nausea and quickly ran to the bathroom.
“Urgh…”
Retching sounds continued several times. When he finally came out after rinsing his mouth, Surim’s complexion was deathly pale.
“Again… why is this happening?”
What he ate this morning was seasoned tofu wrapped in seaweed and grilled. He ate it with soy sauce seasoning. There were no hard ingredients at all, and the menu itself was one he’d been eating frequently lately, so the menu couldn’t be the problem.
Surim clutched his aching stomach and sighed lowly, then recalled the fact that he’d be late for work at this rate and rushed out of the house.
* * *
Ding— When the door opened with a bell sound, gazes gathered toward the elevator then scattered. Song Hanyeong didn’t care about the researchers in the lab and crossed the underground laboratory to find his desk in the deepest area.
Since he’d been busy with Jin Surim recently and couldn’t come down, reports were piled up. Seeing that, Lee Myeongho, who had been lying on the floor in the corner, approached.
“Master, what brings you here?”
“Is there a problem?”
“No, it’s just that you haven’t come down to the underground much lately…”
“Just do your work.”
Song Hanyeong flipped through the reports as if to shoo Lee Myeongho away annoyedly.
“I actually have something to report, so this works out well.”
“Speak.”
“It’s about Song Chanhyeok.”
Song Hanyeong, who had pulled out one report file, put it back down at his uncle’s name. A sharp gaze turned toward Lee Myeongho.
“That slow-moving bastard has started to move. I heard he called in the Senior Researcher from Lab 8 a few days ago.”
“…So he’s starting to believe Jin Surim is an important existence to me.”
“It seems so.”
“Strengthen protection for Jin Surim.”
“Um, me?”
A cold gaze turned toward Lee Myeongho. Lee Myeongho, who rolled his eyes as if troubled, bowed slightly and spoke secretly.
“At the company, he’s stuck with you the whole time, and lately you leave work together almost always and take him home, and you stay attached to that house after that too. There’s no room for me.”
“……”
Song Hanyeong frowned. He hadn’t thought he’d been stuck to Jin Surim like that until now. But hearing Lee Myeongho’s words, it was certainly true.
“If you order it, I can stick with you even when you two are together…”
“Never mind.”
“Then how…?”
“Deploy more bats in the company.”
“Understood.”
When Lee Myeongho, who had saluted exaggeratedly, didn’t leave his spot, Song Hanyeong raised his head again. As if waiting, Lee Myeongho opened his mouth again.
“Um, but do you know what that crazy bastard Nasol is doing? I’m concerned since he’s been quiet lately.”
“He’s probably cooped up in the mansion paying attention to Song Chanhyeok’s movements.”
More precisely, he’d be monitoring Song Chanhyeok with eyes blazing, soaked in alcohol and drugs without sleeping, watching whether even a finger movement might be some signal communicating with the outside.
“If you’re concerned, why don’t you go to the mansion?”
“No, it’s not that much.”
“Go see him. He’s your father.”
“…Understood.”
Lee Myeongho was originally an orphan. Nasol, who highly valued the dying Lee Myeongho’s qualities, picked him up, turned him into a vampire, and made him Song Hanyeong’s guard and servant.
Generally, vampires regard the existence that made them a vampire as their parent, so the two could be said to have a family relationship. However, Lee Myeongho seemed to have fear and anger toward Nasol due to the extreme and harsh training. Nevertheless, seeing him occasionally worry about his well-being like this, it seemed there was some affection.
Song Hanyeong glanced at Lee Myeongho retreating with a sullen face, then turned his gaze back to the reports. However, unable to concentrate on work, his fingertips began to tap the desk rhythmically.
