"Jean..."
The apartment door remained open, and Tesia was still standing right in the doorway, unable to enter.
Jean looked at her in confusion.
"What's wrong?"
The vampire's face started turning redder and redder.
"Jean... you have to invite me inside."
"Huh?"
"Vampires can't enter a house unless we're invited!"
Jean blinked.
"Seriously?"
"Yes!"
"So that part of the mythology is actually true..."
"JEAN!"
"Okay, okay! I'm going!" Jean cleared his throat and raised one hand with as much solemnity as he could manage. "I hereby invite this clumsy vampire— I mean... I invite Tesia to come inside my apartment."
The moment he finished saying it, Tesia disappeared from the doorway.
She moved so fast that Jean's eyes couldn't even follow her. All he saw was a blur.
She flew inside.
Literally.
She rushed past Jean at such an absurd speed that the wind from her movement blew his hair backward.
"Thank you!"
Jean remained frozen for a few seconds.
He couldn't believe it.
After everything they had done together that day, the vampire still smelled incredibly good.
She smells like flowers and vanilla... She's probably going to love my perfumes! he thought excitedly.
For a moment, he didn't even question how it was possible for that woman to move that fast.
Tesia immediately returned to the living room, looking much more relaxed.
Less than five minutes had passed.
"Did everything go okay?" Jean asked.
Tesia looked at him with a completely serious expression.
"You really don't have a single ounce of tact with women, do you?"
Jean frowned.
"What did I say this time?"
"Nothing. Silly."
Jean sighed.
"But then... everything's okay?"
"Yes!!! Everything is absolutely fineee!!!! Thaaaaank you soooooo much, suicidal human friend, silly, tactless and all!"
Jean raised both hands.
"I'm getting more and more insulting adjectives every time!"
Tesia giggled.
After that, Jean figured he should probably offer her something to drink.
"Would you like a glass of water? Some juice? Is there anything vampires particularly like to drink?"
Tesia, who had been a little nervous about being inside his apartment, suddenly came up with an idea to tease Jean.
She opened her mouth.
"I-I waaaant your huuuman bloooood..."
"Yes? Sorry! I couldn't hear you!"
Jean was already heading into the kitchen.
Tesia stood completely still in the middle of the living room, her threatening expression slowly disappearing as her face turned bright red.
"Water is fine... thank you," she said in a soft, almost childish voice.
"Perfect!"
Jean returned with a glass of beautiful and normal water.
Little by little, Tesia's nervousness began to fade. Jean spoke to her so naturally that she eventually forgot about that irrational tension she'd been feeling.
And then she started looking around.
"What's this?" she asked, pointing at a picture.
"That? That's my mom and dad."
Tesia stared at the photograph for a few seconds.
My future in-laws...
"Come again?"
Tesia's eyes widened.
"Nothing, nothing!"
She quickly waved her hands from side to side.
"And this?"
"That's a tablet."
"And this?"
"That's a TV, Tesia..."
"And this?"
"A book!!! I think that's pretty obvious..."
"And this?"
"Tesia..."
"Yes?"
"You've been asking me about things for like ten minutes that I'm pretty sure you've seen before."
The vampire smiled.
"I just want to get to know your home... silly human."
Jean smiled too.
"Well, then come on. I'll give you the almost full tour, exclusively for you! Right this way, miss!"
And so it began.
"This is the kitchen."
"What's that?"
"The microwave."
"And this?"
"My trophy."
"For what?"
"A bicycle race I won when I was a kid."
"Whoa! Really?"
"Yep."
"And this?"
"Did I seriously leave this here? It's my favorite perfume. The one I wore today. I guess I forgot to put it in my room again..."
"You have a lot of perfumes?"
"Too many."
"And this?"
"That's a frying pan..."
"And that one?"
"That too."
"And that one over there?"
"Tesia... well, that one's my favorite frying pan."
Tesia clapped her hands.
After several minutes of questions, answers, and far too many little details about Jean's life inside those four walls, the two of them eventually ended up sitting on the couch.
"I'm tired, woman..." Jean said.
"Me too."
"I thought vampires had unlimited energy."
"That's another myth."
Jean let out a small smile.
For a few seconds, they remained quiet, enjoying a comfortable silence, accompanied only by the voices coming from the television that Jean usually left on whenever he came home.
That was until Tesia raised a finger and gently placed it against the human's arm.
"Jean..."
"Yeah?"
"Don't you think you're forgetting to show me something?"
Jean looked at her.
"How perceptive..."
The vampire smiled.
"Let's go to your bedro—"
"No!"
Tesia's mouth fell open.
"Awww, why?!"
"It's too soon."
"Too soon? Oh..."
Tesia's face began turning red.
Jean immediately realized how that had sounded.
"No, no! I mean..."
He quickly pointed toward the table.
"Look! You need to smell this perfume."
"..."
The vampire froze, completely lost in her thoughts.
Jean leaned over to reach one of the bottles he had left on the other side of the table. He had taken out several of his favorites so Tesia could tell him which one she liked best.
But... something had clearly gone outside his calculations.
And when he finally reached for the bottle...
Silence.
Heat.
The palpable sound of breathing.
Suddenly he found himself face-to-face with her.
Close.
Very close.
Far too close.
Tesia stopped moving without even thinking about it.
Jean unconsciously did the same.
The television continued playing in the background, but neither of them was paying any attention to it.
For a moment, they simply stared at each other, hypnotized, taking in every little detail of each other's faces.
It was only a moment, yes, but...
Tesia's red eyes were right in front of Jean's, at a distance neither of them had experienced before.
They were so close that Jean could notice tiny details of her face that he normally couldn't see from a regular distance.
He wondered if she was an angel.
In that moment that seemed to last forever, outside the reality governed by time itself, neither of them looked away.
Neither of them said a word.
That moment belonged to them.
That brief instant felt as though it had been written specifically to stop time for the two of them.
Slowly, like two magnets...