Meridian ◈ Seungjin

22 ◈ The Difference

"The symptoms match," Seungmin wheeled the chair to face away from the desk, his wrist stopping the spiraling momentum by colliding with the cheap wood hardtop. The bright glow of the laptop screen was flickering along the outline of his profile, silhouetting the seriousness of his expression as if he were a classical noir detective; A frown that told of the clues he found, a narrowed gaze honing in on the slick fallacies the slippery steps of snakes got caught and snagged on, revealing their trickery and lies in the ornate dance they played with cheats in their minds. His look denounced it, projecting his distain for their undercover words under his hollowed gaze searching for the truth.

That's what Hyunjin saw in his eyes.

The human explained, "Fevers, chills, you're experiencing that delirium because you consumed human blood."

Hyunjin glanced to the other. His pupils neatly rolling into the back of his mind as his body flopped back on the mattress, the springs squeezing under his weight. Underneath the squeak of the mice trapped inside, he muttered, "Lovely."

"But—," Seungmin's words halted themselves as he flipped his gaze to train back on the screen of the laptop, his eyes narrowing even farther to accentuate his search. As if he spotted a secret truth, buried between the selective ears hearing only what it wished to know and eyes only seeing what they chose to believe. He quickly clicked his tongue, shaking his head with a firm disregard as he closed the screen with a hopeless hand and a meager click of the plastic, "No, it's not important. How do you know nothing about this?"

"Never payed attention in health," Hyunjin shrugged.

Although he couldn't see the other from the angle he laid at, the only sight available to his entertainment once again being the wooden slots of the bunkbed's structure supporting the entire weight of a future generation on it's flush sides, the arrogant scoff from the human was louder than any sound that tried to occupy it's space. The loud chatting in the hall. The footsteps prancing above them. The banging of the wall next to them. The vibration of the floors below them. Despite it supposedly being in the middle of their lunch break, meaning the dorms were supposedly unoccupied, regardless of the fact that they clearly weren't, but neglect of the faculty in deference towards the student body tended to be a common factor in the academy.

As long as rules weren't broken, their attention wasn't needed. As long as their attention wasn't needed, the students had freedom. As long as the students had freedom, rules were broken.

Which allowed for them to conduct Seungmin's endless investigation into an event he shouldn't be or want to be involved in.

Hyunjin shifted his head on the mattress, angling himself to catch sight of the human sitting perfectly propped in his chair. Feet firm on the ground, elbows propped on the arm rest, a hand delicately placed to the side of his face, his fingers loosely gliding over his lips to frame them, and his gaze similarly trained on the vampire as if he was waiting. For what, again was anyone's guess. But it was the look of an investigator was they waited for a criminals admission of guilt for a crime they may not have committed. Hyunjin's eyes drifted to the two scabs on the human's neck, an exact distance away from one another to tell what they were, and the faux leather cuff bracelet Seungmin stole from his roommate to keep locked on his wrist to hide the reoccuring and renewing bites.

Finally, Hyunjin wondered, "What's the difference? Between me and the serial killer."

The edge of Seungmin's frown quirked into a mocking smirk,

"There is none. Delirious, violent— You two are the same."

The vampire tongued at the back of his fangs, a testing laugh of annoyance swiftly slamming into his chest like a sledgehammer bashing in the walls of his ribs and into the empty catacombs of his lungs. Somehow, Hyunjin couldn't bring himself to protest against that statement. Against that reality. In the eyes of the world, in the eyes of his friends, his pupils, strangers, broadcasters, article titles, his name is the same as the killer's. There are no lines drawn, no circumstances understood, no stories left to be told. The same, are we?