Nadir ◈ Seungjin

15 ◈ Pistol

Jisung looked across to Hyunjin, "Number?"

"Three," The vampire answered.

"Uh... Zero?"

"Zero."

Seungmin blocked out their chatter, muting their miserable sounds in his eardrums as he kept a foul scowl pointed at their backs brushing side by side. His arms folded tightly over his chest, fingers digging into the jacket and firm repose of the muscles laying in silent ache beneath, the block he frequently put up providing the same barricade he trusted in to protect him from those two months sauntering down the backroads ahead of them. Their echoing steps sending chills down his stiff spine, their charming words on the lapping tongues forcing him to go rigid beneath their tonal static, their occasional glances back to him with a friendly upturn of their lips causing him to freeze.

An ice that spread through him in an instant. Mercilessly leeching the life from his veins. The heat from his body. As he was left underneath the blizzard of those sharp gazes offering their welcome. Their hospitality. Lies piled up, stacked on lies, laying as it builds and crushes his body beneath the never-ending night those claws forced him in. False feigns and fibs, lingering on the tipping of their lips as the demons talked between one another casually, as if they were nothing more than a normal pair of friends walking along after work or classes, when in reality they left anyone they touch for dead. For the vultures which swarmed after the snowstorm when the sun rose, to peel apart the frozen bodies lying in the thawing dark.

Seungmin inhaled the night air deeply, sighing out a breath he hadn't known locked up in the aching prison of his lungs. Caged in by the bones of his ribs. The only bars protecting his heart from spilling free, but the only jail keeping his beats behind a key.

His eyes drifted down to the human's back, where his shirt crumbled unnaturally around the back of his jean's waistband.

He glanced to the vampire traveling beside him. A wide space kept between them, Seungmin avoiding the hardened disgust crumpling up his features and the clenching of his fists by his sides as the nails gritted into his palms as harshly as his fangs on his teeth. A clear square of his shoulders, rigid and tough, chest puffed up in a way to make him appear bigger. Grander than the monsters sauntering before them. Each harsh breath from him sucked in painfully, pushed out forcefully from his nostrils, the furious sounds no doubt carrying across to the sensitive hearing of the vampire walking ahead of them. Even if he acted oblivious to the silent hurricane raging after the pair, there was no chance, no way he was completely ignorance to the fury Minho directed toward him.

Soon enough, the saving lights of a familiar convenience store slipped into view. Approaching closer to them in the same location it always perched at.

The two monsters glanced back to Seungmin and Minho, stopping in their tracks. Framing the entranceway.

Hyunjin opened the door for them. Though his eyes shifted up to the rooftops of the buildings surrounding them.

Neither of them spared either a glance or a gratitude at the gesture as they escaped inside.

Again, the liminal aisles met his stinging eyes. Endless products in offensive colors.  Obnoxious lettering. Blanched floors banal and bleached. A gleaming shimmer from the freshly cleaned floors. A chemical smell assaulted his nostrils as soon as the glass door fell shut behind them, locking them in as the other two entered after them. A soft jingle from a set of polished door chimes announced the presence of the four inside the glowing lighthouse. The safe haven. The location that may have saved his life, exchanging it with another much younger, with more potential than he ever had. A similar muted bass from recently song played above. The delicacy of the song flushed out by the poor speakers and humming fan spinning in the store.