“WHAT?!” “Don’t shout…” Alexander rubbed his ear again, for the umpteenth time.
Delia still did not understand that a vampire’s hearing was sensitive.
Ultrasonic, infrasonic, hypersonic, audiosonic, blah blah blah, he could hear it all as clearly as the pounding drums of a rock concert.
Delia took a deep breath, trying to gather the scattered pieces of her sanity that were scattered who knows where.
“But…” Delia gathered her courage.
“Why don’t you just stay in your coffin?” That sentence came out angrier than she had planned, a side effect of a night with too many surprises.
“Hey, I’ve already risen.
That coffin is just a storage place for when I sleep!” Alexander fumed, with the expression of a nobleman whose dignity had just been insulted.
“Oh, like a refrigerator?” Delia teased.
Alexander’s expression changed drastically.
Delia could tell he was deeply offended.
“Watch your mouth, human girl!
That is a sacred coffin, not just any container.
A refrigerator?
Huh!
That’s a breeding ground for bacteria!” Alexander cursed, not accepting it.
Delia almost laughed, but then something more intriguing to her curiosity surfaced.
“But you’re strange.
You’ve been asleep for thousands of years, yet you know about refrigerators??” Delia asked in amazement.
The question was simple.
But it succeeded in making Alexander pause for a moment.
How could he explain that…
the blood he had just sucked from Delia carried all of the girl’s memories like a documentary playing at high speed.
From Delia’s birth, to her teenage years now.
From waking up, breakfast, and then…
SHOWERING?
Ahem!
Cough!
Cough!
Alexander cleared his throat.
If Delia found out about that, the new label he would receive would surely be ‘PERVERTED VAMPIRE’.
“Magic,” Alexander answered briefly.
Delia nodded with an expression of complete belief.
“Ohhh…
Okay.” “Thank goodness this human is naive.” Alexander hid his relief by shifting his gaze to the city skyline.
A moment of silence.
The night wind moved the leaves around them.
From this height, the city lights looked like stars that had fallen to earth, and Alexander, who had watched this city change countless times over nearly a millennium, observed it with something resembling longing.
Then Delia turned her face away.
“My apartment is small,” Delia finally answered.
Pity.
That was what defeated logic.
Delia would not admit it out loud, but in her heart she knew, tonight she was still alive, not caught by her ex-boyfriend’s minions, not hurt.
Mostly thanks to the interference of this red-eyed creature.
There was an unspoken debt hanging between them.
But…
Living with a vampire?
Her anthropological instinct shuddered and clicked its tongue simultaneously.
“If this were field research, the grade would definitely be an A plus,” Delia thought.
“It doesn’t matter, as long as I can…
hide when the sun rises,” Alexander said, smiling.
A thin smile that subtly showed the tips of his fangs, as if he was very practiced at controlling how much he let others see.
Delia’s curiosity ignited faster than her fear.
“Oh, so vampires being afraid of the sun isn’t a myth?
You’ll burn if you get hit by sunlight, is that it?” Delia asked, nosy.
“No…
Not like that, human girl…” “My name is Delia.
Not human girl!” Delia corrected, pointing at herself with one finger.
Alexander paused for a moment.
Stared at her.
Then, in a tone that lost a bit of its formality, he repeated, “Delia.” That name sounded different from anyone else’s mouth who had ever called her.
Heavier.
More…
deliberate.
“Nice!
Hahaha!” Delia’s laughter burst out, light, cheerful.
Alexander was stunned.
Thousands of years had taught him many things about humans.
About their fears, their desires, how they loved and betrayed.
But Delia’s laugh, a laugh that demanded nothing in return, he had not heard from this close a distance in a very long time.
“Sweet,” he praised silently, spontaneously.
He shifted his gaze to the distance and continued, “Delia, vampires aren’t afraid of sunlight because they might get burnt.
It’s just that, daytime belongs to you humans.
We are creatures of the night, and we hide our true identities as best we can, especially the color of our eyes.” Delia stared into Alexander’s blood-red eyes.
Up close, under this full moonlight, that color looked like a beautiful wound, like a garnet holding a flame inside.
True!
Those eyes were too striking, too unreasonable.
If anyone saw them up close, it would cause a commotion!
“Alright…
But there are conditions,” Delia bargained.
Alexander paused for a moment, then he nodded.
A short, dignified movement of the head, like a king granting permission.
“What are the conditions?” “My apartment, my rules.
Understood?” Three seconds of silence.
Alexander stared at her with unblinking red eyes.
Then he nodded again.
Like lightning, he scooped Delia up and…
Woooooosh!!
“Hwaaaaaa, put me down!!
I want to take a taxi!!” “Tsk!
It’s faster if you fly with me.
I also have navigation to your apartment.
My magic is cooler than human taxis!” Alexander boasted, puffing out his chest, a ridiculous movement considering they were speeding at an altitude of two hundred meters.
Delia cursed under her breath, hoping the wind was strong enough to cover it.
“Don’t curse!
I can hear you.” · Delia’s small apartment now felt very cramped.
Maybe because of Alexander’s presence, which took up more space than it should.
The way he stood, always perfectly straight, the cold aura radiating from his body like an AC that could not be turned off.
Maybe because her apartment ceiling suddenly felt twenty centimeters lower.
It used to be just Delia living here.
Occasionally her aunt from the village would also stay over when she came to visit.
A chatty woman who always brought excessive souvenirs and slept snoring at a surprising volume.
Now?
A nearly two-meter-tall body was also living there, exploring every corner of the apartment with the gaze of a researcher.
“Very small,” Alexander complained as he tried the bed that Delia’s aunt usually used.
His legs extended far past the edge of the bed.
“It’s just that your body is too big,” Delia replied without mercy.
Alexander looked around the apartment once more, the study desk full of books, a poster of an ancient world map tacked crookedly on the wall, a collection of miniature artifacts on a narrow shelf near the window.
Then, in a tone that had just realized that he needed to adapt to a century very different from his own, he asked, “Do you have men’s clothes?” Delia walked to the closet.
“Yes.
A casual T-shirt and oversized shorts belonging to my aunt.
Just use those for now,” Delia said, handing over a black T-shirt.
Without further ado, without warning, without considering that there was someone else in the same room, Alexander opened his shirt.
“Hey!
Don’t change clothes here!” Delia shrieked, covering her eyes with both hands.
Alexander jerked, a reflex indicating that the concept of modern human privacy might not be fully understood by him yet.
But then an idea crossed his mind.
A small act of mischief that produced a thin, sly vampire smile typical of one who saw his prey cornered.
“Why?
Shy?
Never seen a naked guy before?” Alexander taunted, while in his head, he replayed Delia’s memories that had been flowing in his veins since earlier.
A visual of Delia being briefly kissed on the lips by a man, then not being able to eat for three days because of the incident.
A visual of Delia slapping a man who hugged and then squeezed her butt, the slap was so hard there was a loud smack.
And many other small fragments that told Alexander more than he needed to know about this girl.
Delia, big-hearted but inexperienced.
Delia, stubborn but easily shaken by unexpected small things.
Very interesting!
Wearing only pants, Alexander stepped closer to Delia, who was still standing with her eyes tightly shut.
One step, two steps.
His pale white chest caught the bedroom light in an unnatural way, too perfect, too flawless.
“Open your eyes…” Whether because of magic or not, Delia immediately opened her eyes.
Her eyes widened, her thin lips half open, frozen on Alexander’s handsome figure from a distance too close to be called ‘safe distance’.
“P-put on…
Clothes…” was the only phrase that came out of Delia’s lips.
Alexander did not budge.
His cold hand slowly reached out, stroking Delia’s cheek with the back of his fingers like someone testing the texture of something rare and fragile.
Then his thumb moved, brushing Delia’s plump lips which trembled slightly under his touch.
Maybe because of the cold sensation.
Maybe not only that.
That hand pulled the small face slowly toward him.
Closer and closer.
The breath of the immortal creature felt colder on Delia’s cheek, cold but not stinging, like a night wind on a hilltop.
At the closest distance, at the point where one more centimeter would change everything, Alexander stopped.
Four seconds.
No more.
“Not yet…” Thump!
Delia’s heart immediately jolted like someone who had just woken from hypnosis, and she pushed Alexander away with both hands while cursing, “You perverted vampire!” THUD!
Her fist landed on Alexander’s chest.
Delia immediately regretted it, because that chest was as hard as stone, and her fingers were now protesting with convincing pain.
“Don’t just hit me, Delia.
Remember, I’m not human,” Alexander taunted.
“DAMN IT!!” That night…
The first full moon night Alexander opened his eyes after thousands of years.
The first night he enjoyed his breakfast after so long.
The first night this city, this small apartment, and a girl too curious for her own good, became part of his new life.
When Delia finally fell into a deep sleep on her bed, her breath already steady, her face that had been full of tension now relaxed in sleep.
The girl did not realize one thing.
From the darkest corner of her apartment, a pair of blood-red eyes stared at her without blinking.
Not moving.
Not looking away.
Occasionally those pale lips smiled.
Occasionally those silver eyebrows raised, responding to dreams that no one else could see except the creature whose blood now flowed together with the girl’s.
Those pale lips finally murmured, very softly, only for the night air between them.
“Dream…
Dream about me…
I will gladly enter your dreams.” And on her bed, Delia smiled faintly in her sleep.
Whether because of something or not.