Eternal Love

Heartbeat

Love, at first sight, seemed impossible.

For how could anyone ever love a person at just a mere glance?

This had baffled Jimin for nearly all of his life. Sure, his parents had fallen in love but not at first sight. They were arranged and gradually fell in love. The same went for his grandparents, they had a rough start he had heard, but eventually came to tolerate each other, he grimaces thinking of it.

So when Taehyung, his ridiculously hyper cousin whom he considered his best friend, rushes up to him with an unusually wide grin on his face declaring he'd fallen in love "at first sight", he can't help rolling his eyes.

"Is it a human?" he deadpans staring at the other.

"Does it matter?" he replies dryly.

Wrinkling his nose in annoyance he sighs "you shouldn't play with your food, it's not nice".

Taehyung frowns at his distaste "you're just upset you've never fallen in love" he whines tugging Jimin by the arm in an attempt to show him the woman who had stolen his heart.

Jimin has no interest in his cousin's fantasies and merely ignores the other, walking back towards the marketplace of this boring little town they've settled in for a while.

He does manage to find a few good meals here and there, doesn't have to worry much about hiding any bodies seeing as his guards handle that for him.

He doesn't understand his cousin's fixation on this being, humans were frail, temporary in their fleeting existence. "It's a curse" he once told the other who had eyed him in confusion. "Their mortality I mean. Imagine living your whole life knowing that one day would be your last, what a waste" he sighs, licking a drop of blood from his finger as he shoved his latest meal to the floor in a heap of unmoving, cold limbs.

The town, despite lacking in liveliness, makes up for it in scenery.

His mornings were filled with dream-like pastel colors tugged along by the sun as it rose, melding together like paint upon a canvas.

Nights were covered in glittering stars against a twilight blue sky, and the moon, the ever so dazzling moon would gleam down at him, enchanting him.

He perhaps believed in love at first sight, for the moon had stolen his breath and captivated him.

He found that he had a better view of the moon from within the woods, he loved the serenity of the trees swaying with the wind and the fresh, earthy scent of everything around.

One particular night, he finds himself standing in a clearing, a spot he's never been in before and he's pretty sure he's lost but he's too captivated by the moon to care.

He's so lost, gazing at the moon, that he barely registers the sound of a twig snapping behind him. He can feel their presence, anxious. There's a heightened pulse that beats from within them and while he was simply enjoying the view above him, he wouldn't mind going for a snack about now.

He doesn't understand the feeling in his chest the moment he turns around and catches sight of the being before him. He's quite literally breathless at her beauty.

Her round eyes, despite stricken with fear, are wide and dream-like.

Her lips are pink and plush, he briefly wonders how they would taste against his own.

Her hair drapes over her shoulders, long and silky as it flowed with the wind.

Could this be? Love at first sight? he wonders taking in the sight of her as though she would disappear any moment.

He wants so much to reach out and brush away the strands of hair that obstructs his view of her wonderful eyes.

Time doesn't move as he drinks in her features hungrily, he wants to steal her away, wants so much to claim her as his.

She on the other hand is adamant to leave and the only thing he manages to take from her is her name, a soft melody that doesn't leave his head long after she's runoff.

"Ye Rin" he mumbles to himself.

He pursues her madly from that moment on, searching all over town and in every shop he can find to no avail.

It isn't until weeks later that he receives info on her whereabouts. From there he continuously begs her, pleads with her to choose him, to be with him, and each time she ignores him only succeeding in making his heartburn fervently for her each time.

Taehyung had laughed at him for his sufferings only to quiet down when he had seen her, "I think I understand now, this love, at first sight, you spoke of" he smiles at the other who merely stares at him with an unreadable expression.

After months of failing to coerce her into his arms, his desperation leads him to a mad rampage, he murders an entire tavern of humans, bleeding them dry as he falls into a heartbroken, blood-induced daze.

Taehyung, who had become oddly quiet the past few months, suggests that he turn her into one of them for she would have no choice then but to be with him.

He doesn't forget that night, the way her blood had tasted as he drained her life. Her delicate body lay limp in his arms and he felt as though he held the world in his grasp. She was sweet, intoxicating, irresistible and now, she would be his forever.

Even as her eyes opened, gleaming a beautiful red and her new life with him started, he didn't regret it one bit for, despite the hatred she held for him, she had nowhere else to go, she needed him and that was enough for him.

As long as she was beside him, he was happy.

🌙

Happiness, of course, was merely a delusion. A fleeting moment like that of a quick rain shower or a cool gust of wind on a sweltering summers day.

For the ones whom he held so dearly had betrayed him in the end.

Taehyung's eyes are remorseful as he watches from above Jimin struggling to breathe. He wants to laugh at the expression of the other for why look so grim when he himself had orchestrated this.

It's at this moment he understands whom the human woman his best friend had fallen madly in love with all those centuries ago is.

Beside him Ye Rin's pretty lips pull into a sinister smile, for this was how she truly felt. He knew it all along, she had always despised him. Her eyes that could never be filled with any form of adoration for him, were always filled with contempt.

And despite knowing this, he still wants to beg her, scream, and cry at her feet asking why? why can't you love me?

She was beautiful, despite her cruel, poisonous hatred, he still longed for the touch of her soft skin.

His eyes sting as tears spring forth and his throat constricts painfully. Gasping for air, his chest aches. It feels as though needles are pricking him from the inside out and despite the betrayal and lies kept hidden from him, nothing kills him more than the heartbreak.

Even as his limbs stiffen and he's unable to move, his breath begins to slow and his eyes slip close as drowsiness pulls at his eyelids. The last thing he sees in clouds of fogginess and numbing exhaustion is his beloved, glowing under a haze of pure moonlight.

"You're mine".