Blood and Devotion | Woosan (English version)

2 - Be better

There were several turning points for Wooyoung in his relationship with San. The first had been the moment when he had agreed to be his friend. Indeed his best friend, to put it San's way. His only friend, to put it realistically.

The second turning point, was the day Wooyoung decided that he would have never killed any human again. He had never thought such a thing in more than two hundred years.

The fact was that San believed in him and had often told him how good and kind he was, not knowing that he was just the opposite. He was a heartless murderer. He had no problem destroying lives and families when San cried over the frogs for the science experiment. If he had decided to indulge San's company, he began to think that perhaps he should have deserved it. He could not take advantage of his naiveté like that.

He also began to think that if there was someone like San in the world, perhaps there were other people like him. Maybe he had already killed someone like him in his life, some rare candid soul, without knowing it. Since he and San had become inseparable, Wooyoung had also gotten to know his parents. Knowing that there were such innocent people in the world... How could he keep on snatching from parents their children, if there was the possibility they were a bit like San?

At first it had been very difficult. Hongjoong had explained to him that he could try, that he respected him for it, but that he would have had to erase the memory of his victims if they survived. It was called mind manipulation. Hongjoong had used it a few times and was willing to teach him.

The thing was, frankly, very complex. It was a job of precision and control, a very difficult technique to master. Extracting and manipulating a single memory was the most difficult thing. The risk of eliminating many memories or even driving the subject crazy was very high. But he wanted to try.

The first time he drove a person crazy, he was very shaken. At last, he decided to end them. It was less cruel to kill them than let them live like this.

As he helped San with his math homework, all he could think about was that first disastrous attempt.

"Wooyoung, are you okay?"

"Yes."

"You know... you don't have to pretend to be fine if you're not."

Wooyoung wondered if being as transparent as San was contagious, because usually no one understood what was going through his mind.

He lowered his forehead to San's shoulder, allowing himself to breathe in his honey-sweet scent, the scent of a blood he would have never drank.

San said nothing, just put a hand on his back.

"Aren't you going to ask me what's wrong with me? You always harass me with questions."

"No, I don't want to know it if you don't want to tell me."

"...What would you do if you wanted to do a good thing, but in the attempt a worse disaster happened than if you hadn't tried?" asked Wooyoung out of the blue.

San was silent for a moment. Wooyoung knew he had asked an inexperienced young boy for an answer to his problems, but for some reason he felt he was the only one who could give him the answer.

"Um, I'd try again until I succeed, if it's worth it."

Wooyoung smiled. It was definitely worth a few more tries for him.

That year passed like a breath. Wooyoung had never had so much to do in his life. Between the hours spent at school, the hours spent with San, training with Hongjoong and Yeosang, and feeding himself, he didn't have a single moment for himself. Not that it was a problem; that had been the whole point of finding himself a distraction.