Blood and Devotion | Woosan (English version)

19 - Sacrifice

"Who would you be interested in? That little friend of yours who always comes to pick you up?"

"And does he know you spend your day flirting with customers?What else do you do, huh?"

"Where do you think you're going? First you seduce me by teasing me as if I were an idiot and then you think you can end the conversation so easily? It doesn't work that way."

San felt a hand on his shoulder and jolted awake. He turned around. Wooyoung. He turned again, turning his back to him.

"You were having a nightmare, weren't you? What were you dreaming of?"

"...My death."

"Tell me who did it."

San felt he was on the verge of getting angry again. "Not now, Wooyoung. Someday I will tell you about it. Not today."

There was a moment of silence.

"I'm sorry about before," said Wooyoung. "For what you had to see. I didn't want to bring that man in here, but there was nothing else I could do. Yeosang was in no condition to get out."

"He was just a human being anyway, right?"

Wooyoung sighed. "It was an one-time thing. It won't happen again."

"I don't believe you."

Another moment of silence.

"You must be hungry. Do you want to feed?"

«Hunting is the last thing I feel like doing right now."

"You don't need to. I'm here."

At that moment, he felt even less like drinking Wooyoung's blood than go hunting. That gesture was so intimate that he could not consider it just and exclusively "feeding." Now that the situation between them was tense, he just couldn't do it.

"...I'm not hungry."

"...All right. If you change your mind, I'm here."

Wooyoung lay down behind him, hugging him tightly. How could he act like nothing happened?

"...Aren't we going to talk about what happened?" asked San.

"There is nothing to talk about. I made a mistake. I'm an idiot. You were right. I wanted to believe it was them so badly that I put everyone in danger. I'm sorry," after a moment's hesitation, he resumed speaking. "But I can make mistakes too, San. In fact, I make mistakes all the time. I try, I try my best, but apparently I can't do anything right. You don't know how bad I feel about what happened to Yeosang, about having to leave this house, about putting my family, you, in danger. But I don't know what to do to solve it. I need you to stand by me. I need you to help me."

San took his hands, which were pressed against his stomach, squeezing them. Perhaps the real problem was that he had not yet accepted that Wooyoung was so...human. Since he had discovered that, actually, he was not a human being, he had begun to see all of his flaws as well. Absurdly, when San had thought he was just an ordinary guy in his twenties, he had always thought he was borderline perfect. Like a superhero or something. Now he had discovered how insecure, impulsive, short-tempered, secretive he really was.

He couldn't blame him for everything that had happened. After all, Wooyoung was just Wooyoung. He was not a superhero or a deity. He had been wrong. But they had been wrong, too. Wooyoung had made a mistake because he had wanted to do something for him so badly.

San suddenly understood what he had to do.

"Wooyoung...I'm sorry. I didn't want to take it on you. I promise I'll help you. Now try to sleep."