Nadir ◈ Seungjin

16 ◈ Lights On

Seungmin's numbed focus was interrupted when the elevator binged loudly, announcing he arrived to the desired floor. His fingers running over the grooves of the spare key he held in a firm hand as the metal doors opened to the typical sight. His gaze scanned over the length of the hallway in front of him. A corridor, now becoming familiar to his routine, it's painting plastered in his mind and on his eyes. He could have lived here for a month, for a year, for a second, and the scene that met him would have been the mundane palace he always grew up in. He always walked those halls, always saw the same sheer coloring of the doorways and their numbers, always treaded beneath the dimming lights, flickering above him as he flinched in their dark.

He carefully stepped out of the elevator.

"I thought you would have told your friends about your bites."

"How could I? And they're not my friends," Seungmin shot the answer back, stare hardening into a scowl at that toxic tone slicing into his ears. That damn voice, charming and chilling, a king of an underworld where the most vile of creatures crawled thrived in pits turning over one another, tangling and twisting with slick scales, pointed crowns of horns stabbing into their veins. How they were poured, drowning in gasoline set aflame, and the world quaked underneath the flames. How the world became a playground for that disgusting tone. As he listened to the sinking of that monster, he folded his arms over his chest and turned to him, "What are you doing here?"

Hyunjin shrugged, his shoulders leaned up against a small impression on the wall. A sharp corner turned out where the residents could get ice. A place to conceal his existence within the building. His gaze tipped to the ground as he sighed gently, "Waiting for you, I guess."

"That's creepy and obsessive," Seungmin snapped back at him, his arms pressing closer to his chest. Hoping at this point the bones would become melded, devoured in as a permanent shield to shy him away from that foul world waiting for him on the otherside. Believing that barricade to be enough to stop his body from freezing up at the appearance of that intimidating shadow, even if all he was doing was standing against the wall with his hands supporting his back. It would be enough to quell the turning in his gut, the firing of his nerves, sensitive to the slowest of movements from the other, the discomfort in his heart.

Minho wasn't anywhere nearby if he needed help. Not that he would have counted on him to come either way.

Felix was out, buying groceries and taking Pants for a walk.

He had his revolver in the holster inside his waist.

But at this point, he wasn't sure if he would be able to control his tremors enough to pull the trigger anymore.

"I... I know. I'm sorry," The vampire kept his eyes down, focused on a point on the ground in front of him. Hands still firmly set behind his back. As if to hide them. As if the rounding of his shoulders and the refusal to stand straight up was enough to disengage Seungmin squaring off. Preparing for him to try something. Anything. Anything in the loosening of that same strange melancholic drop of his eyelids. Fluttering gently. His voice back to the same murmur Seungmin had falsely learned to trust, "I wanted to talk with you for a few minutes. Just us two. Is that okay?"

Not this time.

He wouldn't trust it this time.

Seungmin took a step away, shifting into a stance to throw a punch if needed. He spat, "Speak fast."

"It's about the mimic case. There's something about it I wanted to tell you privately. Away from Jisung and Minho," The vampire muttered. He briefly shifted his gaze to Seungmin, lingering on his shoelaces for a moment before turning back to the ground, "Something only I would know."