Lovers in the Night | Yang Jungwon

XXIII

It had been a couple days since she'd been taken captive from the Strays, and Danah had been slowly going crazy.

Honestly, she didn't even know if it was a couple days anymore. The sun never came out which drove her and her love for the sun mad. She wanted to escape this Vampire realm, she despised it here.

She just wanted to go home and never come back here again.

She'd been isolated the entire time, however she was fed generously by Rose. Danah didn't know as to why, but in reality, Rose was doing this in order to get ready to eat her.

Danah defeatedly sits on the corner of her empty room, curled up into a ball. She refused to eat anything that Rose offered, she was too stubborn, only giving in when she was force fed by one of her minions. It was noticeable that she lost weight.

Her body was extremely weak and so badly needed vitamin D. Since she'd been deprived of the sun, she'd been lacking sleep and felt sick. Furthermore, her bones would ache. To counter this, Rose tried giving her oranges, as if that'd fix anything.

Adding on, since there was no sun, there was barely any heating. Most of the time, it was cold in her attic. None of the Strays could help her that much even if they wanted to, they're naturally cold-blooded creatures. Rose simply told her to "suck up" to it.

How did I get myself into this? Why am I even here? To suffer?

Throughout her captivity, Danah could only think of one person. It wasn't even her family, either. They probably didn't even notice that she had been gone, they were never home anyway.

The one person she continuously thought about was Yang Jungwon and what Rose informed her a while ago.

"The moon is beautiful, isn't it?" continued to latch onto her brain like a disease. She still thought about what Jungwon meant when he said it. However, either way, she was done with the moon.

Suddenly, she flinches to the sound of screaming and thudding from downstairs. "What the fuck man? Killing them was not a part of the plan!" A muffled voice annoyedly exclaims.

"Bro, my bad." The other man begins in English then reverts back into Korean, "His face just annoyed the crap out of me, Heeseung hyung."

There were a bunch of loud footsteps below, so Danah was confused as to if this was a break-in that was being executed horribly or an accidental murder. Could be both.

"I kind of want to touch this," someone says in an intrigued voice. Then a sound of shattering follows after. "Oops."

"You guys never fail to blow my mind with your stupidity," an extremely familiar female voice groans in utter frustration.

"Shut up, literally no one even wanted you here!" the suspected murderer defends himself. Danah was amused by the ordeal happening below her and didn't care what was going on. She wanted Rose to suffer for keeping her here, so if this is what it takes, so be it!

At this point she was apathetic; lethargic. She had no strength to do anything else to help Rose's case anyway, so she just sat still.

"You guys are so fricking loud!" someone else hoarsely exclaims, thinking that merely adjusting the clarity of his voice would make him sound any quieter. "Might as well blast some dramatic music while were at it!"

"So true, we've basically announced our existence to every Stray in the world at this point. I advise we kindly play BOSS by NCT for when they all arrive to kill us," another sarcastically says. Danah swears she recognizes a few of the names being brought up.

What the fuck is going on?

"Gosh, where is she?" the female voice appears again. I wonder who they're looking for. "That dumb Human must be around here somewhere." Wait, are they looking for me?

"What is Jungwon going to say if he finds out about what you did, Jake?" an aegyo-like voice whines, presumably looking at the dead body from earlier.

"We need to hurry up, we don't know how long Jungwon will be able to hold off Rose."

Jungwon. Hearing that name, she musters enough strength to get herself up. When she's up, she wobbles a bit and had to place her hand on the wall for stability. Slowly, she walks towards the door. Knocking, she calls "Hello?"

"Danah?" In a second, someone rushes up the stairs and unlocks the door. On the other side revealed the last person she'd expect here.

"M-Minji?" Danah's jaw slightly drops, freezing. She couldn't react too much, she was too weak to. "What are you doing here—"

Minji cuts her off, pulling her into a tight embrace. Her voice shook, "Thank God you're okay." She was more relieved than excited.

Danah couldn't hug her back for some reason, her body was fighting against her. She simply looks downstairs from Minji's shoulders, seeing some of Jungwon's friends. They could only look at her with empathetic and sorrowful expressions.

"Where is Jungwon?" Danah asks.

"Don't worry about it," Minji sighs, releasing herself from the empty embrace, a bit hurt that her best friend's main priority was a dude over her. Now, she analyzes her body, jaw dropping. "I'm going to kill her," Minji says about Rose.

"Where. Is. Jungwon?" Danah repeats more firmly and Minji quickly felt intimidated by her own best friend.

No one knew if they wanted to answer her honestly. "He, Niki, Sunghoon, and Jay are dealing with Rose and other Strays right now," Heeseung is the only one who responds to her.

"Take me to him," she commands.

Heeseung apologetically shakes his head, "No, we were specifically instructed by him to escort you to safety—"

"Please," she begs. She tried to be strong, but something started failing in her.

"But—" Before Heeseung could finish his statement, Danah blacks out. Her body limps, and everyone else in the room yells in shock.