『Schadenfreude』▷ jaesahi。

m i s t a k e

"Where were you?" Asahi asked. "You were missing for nearly a week."

Had it not been for his replies to their messages and calls, he would already have been reported as missing.

"Didn't Doyoung tell you?"

"No."

Giving a smile so adorable it could melt a thousand hearts, Mashiho replied, "Family affairs."

"In Korea?" the other paused. "You're whole family's in Japan."

"My brother visited," was Mashiho's elucidation, answering one question to inspire a million more with the strange eddies in his eyes. "He even brought some friends along."

The near-vampire turned once his queries were solved, dismissing the topic without even a mere grunt of acknowledgement nor agreement. His friend also did not speak more than so, having known him for long enough to take his silence and give tens of meanings to it.

Not more than twenty minutes did Doyoung come bouncing to their seat after pushing open the café door so ardently nearly all their fellow customers flinched. He skipped towards them like a child meeting his new friends; far too overzealous for his adult age.

"Mashiho," he greeted with a grin wide as the skies. "You're alive! I thought you were already dead."

"Says the one with eye bags that could reach his feet," Mashiho jested back. "What have you been doing? You look dead."

Observing the dark marks that circled the unders of Doyoung's bright eyes, Asahi nodded in pure assent. "Well, I think we're all looking pretty messed up," the former surmised of the bare bones he perceived of himself and his companions' appearances. "Stressed with school?"

Asahi would have laughed at the younger's blague if he weren't the grinch that he was. Instead he watched the faces of his two friends, noting the atypical expression of tiredness on Mashiho's face and the stressed countance of Doyoung's. He himself was troubled by the growing thirst for blood and fatigue that he had, and though he was most likely in a better state than the stressed two across him, he must look no different with his sickly pale skin and bereft of warmth.

Soon he would change as much as a larva that had gone through its metamorphosis— from a weak, pitiful human being to an existence much more beautiful, more powerful— but today he was still at the stage of a mere pupa, developing yet incapable.

"Anyway," Doyoung piped up as he nobbled Asahi's cake without warning. "I've lots of rumors and news. There are new guys going around, both Japanese and handsome! They're really popular nowadays. They're also in the same major as me."

Asahi forgave him not for his crime and a fork found itself hovering above Doyoung's hand. The Japanese solemnly stared at the thieving freshman, baleful as he spat,

"Do you even study or do you just go to school to dig out gossip?"

"I do!" the younger quickly riposted. "Can't you see the beautiful proof under my eyes? I study!"

Mashiho's already awkward smile— clearly formed through his reluctance towards the supposed beauty of their youngest's excessive eye bags— worsened as he watched the cake go back and forth between the two. Sometimes they were truly immature, and he found it fascinating that despite his appearance he was in truth the oldest and most sensible.

"As I said, those two—" Doyoung pressed on his previous topic. "— are really popular. The most popular topic, though," his vision panned over to his foe of tug-of-war. "Is Yoon Jaehyuk and his rumored 'girlfriend'."

Asahi barely batted a lash at the gaze that was laid on his form.

"And how does Asahi relate to this?" Mashiho eventually joined the conversation, curious and suspicious of the look on Doyoung's eyes.

"You see, at first Jaehyuk-sunbae had to take off his jacket during lunch last week and people saw marks on his body," the other said. "Then he started going home early without hanging out with his friends. He's also always glued to his phone, which apparently isn't like him at all."

He gave Asahi an implicit glance. "And guess what I saw the night I came to visit Asahi in the hospital last week?"

Dark irises gazed back at him through narrowed eyes. Asahi peered at him, almost minatory, but kept his silence as Mashiho spoke.

"What?"

"Asahi and—"

"Excuse me."

"Yes?"

Mashiho's polite reply was instantaneous as a stranger's voice rang right behind Asahi's seat. There stood an unfamiliar male, irises darker than Asahi's uncanny ones yet apathetic in all equivalence, and he needed not stand to descry the towering height of the other person's.

"Hello," ocean-like voice spilled out of the male's lips. "May I ask for your help?"

Strange way of speaking, Mashiho noted. Perhaps he were not Korean.

"What is it?" he smiled. "As long as it's nothing too much, we can help."

"Thank you," the other replied. "My name is Haruto and—"

Words were seemingly stuck on his throat and Mashiho wondered if something was wrong, but what he next saw only incited more confusion to sprout in his mind. Breathless was the now identified Haruto— a Japanese, he confirmed— as he stared at the man who sat right in front him, and Asahi gazed back with equally astonished eyes.

Ignoring Doyoung's words of recognition towards the young man's name, Mashiho was still as the two looked at each other wordlessly, like compeers meeting after a war that led them to believe that each other were dead— and did he not know how veracious his thoughts had been.

"Wha?" Haruto spluttered.

It was then that Asahi was up and standing firm, mien reduced back into its indifferent form.

"I gotta go home now," he spoke as though he had not shown the expression he had just seconds ago. He turned towards Haruto and nodded distantly. "Nice to meet you, Haruto-ssi," he greeted. "I'll be going now."

Much to the three's shock he walked out of the place just like normal, almost leisurely, then went and left like he had never been there.

"Sorry," Haruto turned back to them with an apologetic smile. "I mistook him for someone else. Can we get back to what I was saying?"

Befuddled, Mashiho nodded nonetheless.

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Hi :))

I promised a double update but again, it will not happen. I like breaking promises lmao.

I'm feeling a little under the weather so yeah. See you tomorrow!