The icy body of the South Pole instantly stiffened the first second their lips met with a strange sting that spread throughout his body. There was no kissing like Ailee usually did to him, their lips were truly just pressed together tightly. But, strangely, the sensation that arose was beyond reason, a sensation like being struck by a thousand volts of lightning with his head as if immediately submerged to the bottom of the ocean and filled with water.
In the third second of the kiss, Chen immediately pushed the woman away from him until she fell backwards. Strangely, the woman who had been called Asha smiled. She calmly cleaned the blood that had stained her purple clothes and part of her face. From here, Chen realized that the woman was not injured at all, but the blood that was splattered everywhere was clearly real human blood, not animal blood or anything like that.
Asha stood up, tossing her long, jet-black, slightly wavy hair down to her back. "I don't know who you are, butthanksYes, thanks to you, I won.Truth or Dare, here." The woman laughed with several of her female friends, including Lisa, who had been acting panicked.
Chen frowned in confusion; he didn't know what was so funny about that statement. Meanwhile, the people who had run to help, including Rafael, were looking around the rooftop building.
A blind man, Rafael, found a syringe lying around, he picked it up and asked, "Whose syringe is this?"
"Hey, what are Kai and Iken doing in the corner alone over there?" A man's voice caught their attention, where they saw a slightly plump woman wearing a headscarf sitting listlessly with a pale face, as well as a man beside her who had slightly dark skin with a minimalist nose, chapped lips and a pale face. It was as if the two of them had just been drained of their blood.
As the men went to help Kai and Iken, Chen remained unmoved, staring at Asha. "So this was all your doing?" he asked probingly. "Isn't this considered evil in the human dictionary? Why do you keep doing it?"
Asha, who had previously been indifferent to Chen, now began to pay attention to the man she had kissed, observing Chen's nerdy appearance from head to toe, and the woman who loved to bully others suddenly shuddered in horror when she realized that she had just kissed the kind of man she would never date. "It would be better if you didn't act like you were interfering," she replied, "want to give a lecture? At the mosque over there, since it's Friday."
"Is it only good people who diligently practice their religion who can give advice?" Chen approached Asha, feeling annoyed. "You'd better improve your behavior before you suffer the consequences of your own bad behavior in the future..."
Asha frowned in confusion when Chen suddenly froze, seemingly confused, and didn't even finish his sentence. Feeling like she had won the ridiculous argument, Asha draped her elbow over Chen's right shoulder as the man suddenly ran down the stairs, even pushing his way through the children who were trying to carry Kai and Iken to the infirmary.
"What the hell, you weird guy," Asha muttered with her arms crossed as she watched Chen leave, "God forbid I ever meet him again."
***
The vampire king ran breathlessly out of the campus grounds, pausing for a moment to gaze at the large octopus statue that had become the icon of KOCU University. Panicked, Chen watched the people passing by, swallowing a mouthful of saliva. Chen looked down at his sweaty palms, moving his trembling fingers. His temples were already beaded with sweat.
Without caring about his mission anymore, Chen rushed home, he had to talk to the others especially Hanbyul and Lay about why his vampire abilities were slowly disappearing and he was returning to being like a normal human.
Without a private vehicle or money for transportation, Chen usually traveled by running, making it easier for him to patrol and find prey. But now, things were different. Chen had only run a few kilometers and he felt like he was about to give up, his joints felt like they were about to pop, and sweat was pouring down his shirt collar. Meanwhile, his house was perched on the edge of a cliff deep in the forest.
"Does Lay's concoction actually have side effects?" Chen asked, resting under the shade of the tamarind trees, whose fruit had already ripened in abundance. Chen accidentally stepped on some fallen tamarind fruit when his sense of smell suddenly caught a whiff of a sweet aroma, accompanied by a loud, growing noise.
He touched his stomach as thousands of worms raced around him, making a gurgling sound; hungry. It was the same feeling every time Chen hadn't sucked the blood of a person or animal, but this time it was different. Chen wanted something the old man was selling as he walked around.
Chen rushed over to the man. "Can I have all of this?" he asked.
Meanwhile, the seller, who had initially been sour-faced, now smiled brightly. "Oh, that's fine. Just a moment, okay?" Because the putu cake he had been selling since this afternoon had finally been purchased.
With saliva dripping, Chen watched the vendors mix glutinous rice flour, then add brown sugar in the middle before rolling it into a long ball. For about 10 minutes, the dough was placed in a small cauldron, boiled over charcoal. Thin white smoke billowed as the cooked putu were placed on banana leaves and sprinkled with grated coconut. Chen had 20 of them, and he ate them immediately as the vendor continued making more until the ingredients ran out.
Chen burped, his stomach bloated while his tongue was beyond happy.
"Totaling it all, it's 200,000 rupiah, sir," the seller suddenly said when he saw his buyer's attitude of not giving him any money. "You have money, right?"
Chen shook his head—no, he quickly corrected his shake into a nod. "Actually, I just got pickpocketed. I'll pay for these pastries tomorrow, how about it?" Chen offered. "Let's meet here again at the same time. Promise, I won't break my promise, but if you don't believe me, you can go to the campus across the street. I'm an art student at KOCU University. My name is Chen."
Men wearing hatsbucketThe worn-out brown jacket stared at Chen suspiciously before finally letting him go.
Meanwhile, Chen himself had nearly reached the house where he and the hundreds of other vampires he had gathered had been hiding, as darkness fell. From about 3 meters away, Chen could see torches burning on either side of the building, dominated by large stones. On the path lined with tall vines, several vampires were seen standing guard when they suddenly became wary of Chen's arrival.
Sehun, who was also in the line, took his place at the front as the leader when they saw the silhouette of a man with an unfamiliar scent walking towards them with calm steps. Sehun frowned when he smelled the scent of a normal human, but the aura radiating from the silhouette was very strong. The last time Sehun had felt such a strong aura in a human was when he helped a rebel leader who was trying to escape from the pursuit of the colonial army several hundred years ago.
Baekhyun, who was also there, darted at the figure in the darkness until finally his red eyes caught the face of the unfamiliar figure. Baekhyun's two steps stopped abruptly half a meter in front of Chen, who was staring intently at him. The other vampires who had been silent now also began to move.
"Chen?" Sehun called out to make sure, "what really happened to you?"
***