↱KISS YOU TOO↲ ⇾hyunlix⇽

Rest

"... have you started on your assignment, Felix?"

Silence. Chan sighs, a hand coming to rub at their forehead.

"Felix, if you truly can't do it, I can always remove─"

"I want to."

Chan falls silent, staring at the brooding hunter. The scent of blood had been pungent around them, and Chan stares at the rust covering Felix's fingernails, old blood caked onto worn knuckles and the dagger they twirled between skilled fingers.

"Listen, Felix," Chan pinches the bridge of his nose. "What you're doing now─ leaving trails of dead hunts for your family to clean up, coming back from bloodbaths each night, staining the ground of Seoul red─ this isn't you. You're not yourself, and I heavily suggest that you take some time to yourself if you can't handle it."

Silence.

Chan hums, and continues.

"As your director, I can't even begin to understand the morals of hunter laws, but I do understand morals. And your morals, Felix, have always been tested, no matter what you say.

"Take a break, Lix. Get some time for yourself, settle and rest up. You're in no shape to hunt, much less take on a fledgling. Go back and take a break, come back when your mind is ready for what's ahead."

At Felix's quietness, Chan looks back up at the younger, eye trailing over their face and the hand which had stopped twirling the dagger.

A pause. Then:

"...I'll be leaving now, hyung. Thank you."

There's a hint of a smile on Chan's lips as Felix leaves, the iron door swinging shut.

"Take your time, Lix."

—

It was a miracle, really, of how Felix had met Hyunjin for the first time.

A vamp, freshly turned, had been prowling the parameters of the dessert shop that Felix had always loved to visit after classes. He knows now that they were called rogues, fledgling abandoned by their so-called 'sires' who turned and killed without batting an eye, leaving these newborns staggering on their newfound bloodlust and inability to meet the sun's glare. Teetering on the edge of mania, unhinged fledglings were the worst of the vampires; always killing and feeding on anything in their way.

It was simply fate who had put them in each other's paths that day; candy spilling over the sleeves of Felix's too-big shirt and the small, scrawny boy who had managed to shove a pen between the snapping jaws of the rogue, the tinge of blood carving new pathways down dirty arms where the vampire had grazed soft skin with taloned hands.

Felix's guards had dispatched of the creature in an instant, nimble and quick enough so that the fledgling didn't even had time to bleed onto the pristine tiles as they dragged the corpse away under the sun, where Felix saw the vampire crumble to ash before his eyes. Beside him, the other boy shook, and slowly sank down to the floor, watching the flesh nearly melt back into the fledgling's skull as the sun blazed above them, a cruel eye to the monster vanishing before the two.

"..."

Felix stared at them, at how those arms shook with fear as the boy looked on, watching Felix's guards sweep away the remaining dust and tuck the tattered clothes into an unmarked bag, nonchalantly tossing it into a trashcan near the front. Slowly, carefully; he lowered himself to be at eye-level with the stranger, shuffling his arm around to offer up a purple lollipop to the boy sitting, watching sharp eyes dart between Felix's face and the treat held before them.

"Go on, take it," Felix had urged, gently nudging the candy towards them. "It's not anything bad, I promise. There's no reason to hurt you, anyway."

The boy's eyes slide up to meet his, gaze sharp and distrusting. "...your friends just... made that person disappear. They shoved his clothes in the trash, like he wasn't even there. Like he didn't exist."

Felix twirled the stick between sticky fingers, gaze falling to the scratches littering the other's arms. Without warning, his fingers press down on them, eliciting a yelp from the other and a look of hurt and confusion.

"What was that for?"

"That's what they do," Felix said simply, letting go on the candy held within his arms. A guard shuffles their way over, pressing a roll of white bandages into the young hunter's hands.

"They hurt without knowing, and they kill without feeling. I pressed down on your marks, not knowing that they hurt, but only because they looked pretty and I wanted to touch."

As Felix spoke, he gently grasped the bloodied arm, dipping a cotton ball into the iodine vial as he watched the cotton slowly turn rust brown before swabbing it over the blood smears, tightening his grip so that the other didn't move.

"They are creatures of the night," Felix whispers, letting go of their wrist to pick up the bandages, unfurling the roll. "They should not exist and feed off those who live in the day. Naivety does not excuse their actions, and it does not excuse the killings. They may be innocent, but there is no way for them to continue to exist without hurting another."

A pull. A twist of the two ends, looped and threaded back to back so that the knot would not slip. Felix stands after the ends are tied, watching the other fiddle with the bandage before he places the lollipop down again with his family's card.

"You have good reflexes, stranger," Felix grinned wolfishly, beckoning his two guards closer to shrug on his discarded jacket, pulling the leather straps closer to himself from where it came loose. "I'll see you around if you ever wanna come around to destroying these monsters."

Felix turned on his heel to leave the empty candy shop, dust swirling around his boots as he made his way over to the car; small puffs of ashes billowing up as a last reminder of what had once existed, and no longer does.

(His family gets a call to their private line a week later from a voice trembling from the other end, someone wanting to thank 'Lee Felix' for what they've done.)

(Felix meets Hwang Hyunjin properly a day afterwards, smirking as he grips the stranger's hand under leather gloves and thinks of warm, golden skin that reminds him of unfiltered sunlight.)