Nadir ◈ Seungjin

7 ◈ Euphoria

"You're not serious about going after them?"

Seungmin barely sent the trailing vampire more than a glance over his shoulder, eyes narrowed and focused on the never-ending corridor expanding before them. A tunnel bordered with a listless tilt. Matching the flipping of his once grounded world. A passageway, littered with the divots of doorways, leading to other worlds behind their locked knobs, guiding to other realities. Other lives. Other solutions. Ones those thundered footsteps carried by, though he never shifted his eyes off of the focal point his scowled expression stabbed into the door ahead. The doorway that waited for him, for the vampire, for both of their hands to press open, for both of their steps to fall into and never be able to escape from again. That was the reality that waited for them at the end of catacombs.

By his sides, his fists bundled up. Meager punches, ready to be thrown at the shadows watching their gradual descent into the dark. Meager pains, aching and burning a stable tingling as the needle points of his fingertips cut into his fleshy palms. Cut into the maliable skin. How weak it was. The scar from fangs that once ripped his palm. Seering numbing sensations into his nerves. His jaw set tightly. As if bolts turned and twisted his bones into a locked place. Teeth gritting down. Their grind slicing him. For a second, the seething that twisted his expression wishing his teeth weren't human. Wishing he had fangs, pointed daggers of his own to bite down. To sink and never yield.

"Seung, come on!" Minho shouted after him. A hand, no doubt the vampire's, slammed down on Seungmin's shoulder. Stinging. The spot burning as the human was reminded of a painful fact; Vampires were stronger than him. They could break his bones, rip his skin, pull his body apart, limb by limb, and the only reason Minho didn't, was to save his own reputation, not because they were friends. That palm rooted him in his spot, digging down into his shoulder, fingers arching as those filed down nails pressed into the human's flesh. Minho pleaded, "Be logical about this."

Seungmin flinched and knocked him off with a slap to the hand, the force wheeling him back to face the vampire. Pointing that seething gaze at the wide eyes and loose expression that gaped at him. Softly. Flickering through him. Darting. Pathetically. The human pulled his lips back into a snarl, "I am being logical about this, and, logically thinking, there's only one set of people who can be responsible."

"I just don't think you're thinking this through," The vampire tried, his voice containing itself from breaking to shattered pieces they both would be forced to sweep up underneath the harsh lights of the apartment complex's hallway. He stepped in, that same expression loosening even more. Unwinding. Untangling from any lingering knots that may have been sitting behind the eyes staring Seungmin down. Refusing to leave him. Refusing to allow the human to be his own person for more than three seconds without being obsessively worried for him. That expression only made his blood boil up faster as Minho continued to rationalize to him, "What are you going to do if you're right? What if you do find them?"

"I don't need to find them. I'll make them chase me," Seungmin finalized with a bite.

He didn't give the other more time to object before he turned back on his heel and marched on, continuing down the plotted warpath laid out in front of him. Sweeping the last stretch of the apartment hallways.

If those marks meant anything...

If those bites were truly made by that man.

Pieces fell into place.

The apartment break-ins could be explained by his— Their tenacious nature. Sneaking, slithering, the serpents, the devils that crawled along the floor on knees and knuckles, he knew they were the reason his Rubik's cube went missing when he left the window to his dorm room accidentally unlocked and tie fastened, shortly after they disappeared for good. The murders could be explained by a typical vendetta. That foul desire surrounding them both like swarming flies on a miserable summer day. The known names, the shadow knowing Seungmin and Minho's name, of course he knew them, they knew him and Minho. The creeping dark, following him, watching him as he continued on a normal life, he always preferred the nighttime to conceal his movement. He preferred the dark.