Chapter Text
Tonight’s job is easy.
Hoseok couldn’t quite believe his eyes when his boss handed him the assignment papers yesterday. Printed on one of the sheets was a screen capture of a dating app profile, featuring the picture of the lower half of a face with very plump pink lips, slightly parted to show off a set of sharp, pearly white canines. They belonged to a man who claimed to be a vampire.
Batman, the name read, followed by a literal bat emoji. 999 years old, although the description very helpfully clarified ‘Older than that, but the app doesn’t allow four-digit numbers.’ Hoseok had raised his eyebrows at that. Normally, the vampires he deals with in his line of work are in their early hundreds, at most. There’s a fine line separating ‘appropriate’ vampiric conduct from misbehavior, and older vampires tend to be much, much better than this at walking it.
So, Hoseok’s current target is either lying about his age, or lying about his being a vampire. His job is to find out, and act accordingly. Easy. He idly fingers the hilt of his silver dagger as he walks, expertly hidden within his clothes. He’s not a vampire slayer for nothing.
It took centuries to establish the institutions and rules that keep humans safe. His job is to ensure nothing jeopardizes that. And Hoseok is good at his job. Fast, efficient. He’s the best man in the field right now. He can make it quick.
His destination appears in sight when Hoseok makes a turn, and he pauses in front of the entrance. Just briefly, enough to pass it off as simply being nervous, hesitant. He doesn’t see anything out of the ordinary outside. No traps, no surveillance devices except for the street CCTV cameras and the building’s own security system, the same he researched thoroughly before leaving the office.
Hoseok breathes deeply, in and out, and runs a hand through his perfectly styled hair, pretending to set it in place one last time before going in.
ཐི❤︎ཋྀ
Seokjin hates dates.
He hates having to go out to meet new people, hates having to interact with them and play nice until they’re done beating around the bush and he can tell whoever he’s with that no, he’s not interested in dating, he just needs to drink their blood, pretty please, and if they didn’t freak out it’d be great, thanks. He has to make sure to toe the line between being too explicit about his being a vampire and plausible deniability in case things go terribly, horribly wrong. And he loathes using dating apps above anything else, because technology may be great but social networking is not, but he has no choice. Not since Jungkook decided to broaden his horizons, and set off to study a whole year in New York of all places. And Seokjin doesn’t trust planes.
So he’s trapped in South Korea, and he has to actually forage for his meal like he’s one hundred years old again, because times may have changed and blood bags may be a thing now, but they don’t fully sate a vampire’s thirst. Seokjin is not happy with this development. But Jungkook looked so hopeful and excited and full of expectations for his ‘life-changing journey’ that Seokjin would have never dared to take it away from him.
Seokjin checks his phone for what feels like the thousandth time since he arrived ten minutes ago. It’s exactly 8:30 pm, his agreed rendezvous time with the man named ‘Hope’ he matched with on the dating app, and Seokjin darts a glance towards the door of the bar he’s waiting in. The one leading outdoors, not further into the hotel.
The restaurant-bar of a fancy hotel wouldn’t be Seokjin’s first choice for an actual date. But for the purpose of this meeting, it’s useful, and he knows the singer, and the general ambiance is nice—dim lights, low music when no one is performing, not too crowded, good drinks, better food. It’s the ideal environment for Seokjin to work his magic. Figuratively speaking, because Compelling humans for even the smallest sip is very much illegal, and Seokjin isn’t fond of having the government on his back. He likes his back free of any targets, actually.
There’s movement on the other side of the glass doors, and Seokjin doesn’t need much to be convinced that the person standing outside is his date. For one, he’s alone. For two, he seems to take a moment to psych himself up before pulling the door open, strolling inside with an ease that doesn’t immediately betray his brief hesitance. And for three, after scanning the room with a quick sweep of his eyes, he walks directly towards Seokjin.
Seokjin gets a proper view of his date as soon as he the man turns to walk his way, and. Wow. Seokjin maybe should consider making this an actual date—because the man approaching him is gorgeous. It’s not one particular feature that Seokjin can pinpoint, but more that his whole appearance is attractive. His gait, the way he carries himself, the way his brown hair is styled, bangs parted to the side and half-heartedly pushed off his forehead. His tan, smooth skin, his thin frame and the way his clothes fit—loosely, but very obviously deliberately chosen to be like that. His outfit is all warm, earthy tones that compliment his skin tone and hair color, and he’s such an overall pleasant sight that Seokjin doesn’t want to take his eyes off him.
And then their eyes meet once they’re close enough, and the stranger’s face morphs into the most faithful impersonation of sunshine that Seokjin has witnessed when he smiles. His smile, he also notices, is shaped like a heart. Seokjin truly hopes his ears don’t turn red right now. He’s not even sure he has enough blood coursing through his body to really blush right now, but, well. One never knows. It’s been at least a hundred years since the mere sight of someone has struck him like this.
The man stops beside the chair facing Seokjin, and he falters a little before clearing his throat. “Are you, uh—”
“Batman, yes,” Seokjin replies without blinking. He manages a smile, cursing himself for picking such a ridiculous name. But, well, Jungkook always said that the vampires in books and movies turned into bats, and Seokjin may have found the idea so interesting that he actually succeeded in shapeshifting into one. Sue him. “You can call me Jin, though,” he quickly amends. He stands up then, gesturing towards the empty chair in front of him. “Please, take a seat.”
“Hoseok,” Seokjin’s date introduces himself with a small bow, heart smile still blinding like direct sunlight, and allows Seokjin to scoot his chair for him. “Ooh, old-fashioned,” he comments, with the slightest raise of one of his perfectly manicured eyebrows.
Seokjin shrugs and smiles. “Got to live up to my age, don’t you think?” he jokes. This kind of gentlemanly manners didn’t reach the peninsula until he, himself, was well over a thousand years old. Hoseok giggles, his eyes creasing gently, and Seokjin almost melts on the spot. He allows dating apps one point in their favor. He doesn’t think he would’ve ever met him if it wasn’t for them. And, if Seokjin doesn’t scare him away, he may even be able to meet him again. Hopefully.
As soon as Seokjin sits down, Hoseok leans forward, face serious. “Are you truly over a thousand years old?” he asks in a conspiratorial whisper, looking at each side as if to check no one is listening in. When he looks back at Seokjin, there’s an amused glint in his eyes. Seokjin’s eyes drop a little further down, taking stock of the little beauty mark on Hoseok’s lip, his perfectly shaped cupid’s bow. Then the smooth expanse of tan chest he can see before his shirt obscures it, delicate collarbones, a thin neck. There’s a golden chain hanging loosely between his collarbones. Seokjin’s mouth dries.
He leans forward as well, their faces mere centimeters apart. He keeps his eyes on Hoseok’s, and doesn’t miss the way they, too, flicker down. It’s lightning-quick, barely noticeable, but Seokjin notices. He smiles as he replies, “Perhaps. Did you swipe right because of that?”
Hoseok looks at him from under his eyelashes, lips curling up in a smile again. It’s a little coy. “Maybe. Maybe I wanted to see if you were an actual vampire.”
“And what would you do if I was?” Plausible deniability, Seokjin’s brain screams. Vampires aren’t supposed to be a widely known phenomenon. He has safeguards, of course, options in case this date-not-date gets derailed, but they make Seokjin even thirstier. He doesn’t want to resort to them.
Hoseok tilts his head to the side, face pensative. Seokjin’s eyes snap down, to the long line of his throat. Hoseok lets out a low hmm, brows crinkling up as he pretends to think. Even his voice is attractive. “I’d ask you to show me your fangs. In person. Bet they’d be pretty.”
Seokjin laughs. “Oh! A gentleman doesn’t put out on the first date, young man!”
Hoseok blinks rapidly, clearly nonplussed. “So you are a vampire?” he asks.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Seokjin replies, mysteriously. He even wiggles his eyebrows. He flags down the waiter before Hoseok can reply, mind reeling. Everything is going faster than Seokjin anticipated. Perhaps a little too fast. “Why don’t we have a drink, and then I can answer all of your questions?”
The waiter materializes next to them. Seokjin orders a cocktail, something light and easy to down. Hoseok orders a Sprite. When Seokjin looks at him, question clear in his eyes, Hoseok shrugs with a smile. “I’m a lightweight,” he explains. “Better for me if I don’t drink at all.”
His smile is really devastating, Seokjin decides. He could keep watching it for hours, days, and he doubts he’d get tired of it. And smiling suits Hoseok’s face perfectly. Seokjin’s eyes follow the sharp line of his jaw, his high cheekbones. Hoseok looks much less sharp when he smiles—like Seokjin doesn’t have to worry about slicing his hand if he even touches his face whatsoever. There’s also the faintest glint of metal on his teeth—grills, perhaps? Seokjin never particularly liked them, but he may be reconsidering his previous stance on them. There isn’t a single thing about Hoseok that’s not appealing.
His eyes are warm, and gentle, and they catch the low lights of the bar in a way that’s almost mesmerizing, a way that has Seokjin wondering if he, somehow, learned how to Charm people on his own. But there’s a certain darkness lurking underneath the gentleness that draws him in even further.
Seokjin can’t wait to figure out what it is.
ཐི❤︎ཋྀ
The man in front of Hoseok is very obviously a vampire, but Hoseok can’t act just yet.
It’s the problem with meeting in public, despite the very few people actually in the room right now. He can’t just murder someone in plain sight. And, besides, he doesn’t have actual, indisputable evidence. The way Jin’s eyes reflect the light, the way it turns his irises into a kaleidoscope of dark brown, silver and gold, isn’t enough. Wouldn’t be enough for anyone but Hoseok, truthfully. And that’s just because he’s intimately aware of the ways vampire bodies function, to an uncomfortable degree.
Their drinks arrive as they make small talk. Jin doesn’t make it feel like small talk, though. He talks animatedly, voice light and captivating, and his smile alone would be enough to charm Hoseok were it a regular date. Both of them know it’s not, though. And Hoseok wants to speed things up.
He takes a sip of his Sprite through the paper straw. Jin’s eyes look conflicted for a second, unsure about whether they should be staring at his lips or his throat, and Hoseok almost laughs out loud. He raises an eyebrow at him instead, and the tips of Jin’s ears turn pink. Interesting.
“Can vampires blush?” he asks, making his eyes open wide. Jin takes a long sip of his own drink before replying, and Hoseok doesn’t try to disguise the way his gaze drops to his lips. Those are some lips. And Hoseok is only human. The only human in this exchange, in fact.
“Maybe?” Jin replies, evasively. For someone so blatantly advertising his vampireness online, he sure likes beating around the bush. Although Hoseok wouldn’t usually mind. A vampire not announcing to the four winds their status as an undead is precisely what the laws require. Not in as many, explicit words, but those who know can tell.
Hoseok taps his fingers against the table, to the uneven rhythm of the restless kind of energy thrumming inside him.
“You really believe vampires exist?” Jin asks, eyes cautious. Hoseok would find them beautiful in other circumstances. But he’s here to, quite literally, extinguish the light from those eyes. So.
Hoseok’s fingers stop, motionless in front of him. “Yes,” he replies, simply. “Do you not?”
Jin smiles at him. It’s a small, almost private smile. Hoseok’s heart skips a beat. “Do you want to know?”
Hoseok leans in again, and his necklace swings forward with the movement. Jin’s eyes go to the golden chain, then up, to Hoseok’s face. Hoseok tilts his head to the side, his earlier playfulness gone. His next words would make Jin’s reveal legal, but it was never quite about simply being a vampire. There’s a reason, and one reason only, why a vampire would set up a meeting like this.
“Yes, I do,” he whispers. “Are you a vampire, Jin-ssi?” Jin nods wordlessly. “Prove it,” Hoseok demands.
Jin’s previous energy makes a comeback then, and he claps his hands once. “Gladly!” he says, smiling genially. There’s not a hint of fangs in his perfectly aligned, pearly white teeth. “If you agree to give something to me in exchange.”
Hoseok oohs, leaning back. “My blood?”
Jin’s eyes twinkle under the lights of the bar, but Hoseok isn’t charmed by them. “If you agree. I’ve got a room upstairs.”
Hoseok stares at Jin for a while, silent. He takes idle sips of his Sprite, his eyes wandering. Jin doesn’t push for his reply, instead sitting pretty under Hoseok’s examination. His ears are definitely red now, which means he must have fed somewhat recently, to still have enough blood coursing through his body. Hoseok doesn’t dwell long on the implications of that—does it mean he feeds regularly so that his prey survives, or that he’s a glutton? How many ‘dates’ has he had? It doesn’t matter. It’s not really relevant. Hoseok’s job will remain the same regardless.
Jin finishes his drink, but he doesn’t call for the waiter again. Hoseok takes his last sip of Sprite, his free hand sneaking into his pocket to grab the hilt of his dagger. Just to get a feel of it. Jin’s eyes never leave his face, so Hoseok doubts he noticed, not given how subtle his movements are.
Hoseok licks his lips, and says, “Okay.”
Jin blinks, somewhat startled. “Okay?”
Hoseok smiles at him. “Okay, I’ll go to your room.” Jin’s eyebrows shoot up. Probably expected more of a reaction. More… more. Hoseok shrugs, sheepish. Under Jin’s frankly shocked stare, he gets up. Motions towards the door leading to the hotel with a flowery gesture. “Lead the way.”
ཐི❤︎ཋྀ
Seokjin foots the bill by simply telling the waiter his room number (he’s always Room 613), and then starts to make his way to the hotel lobby. Hoseok walks next to him, not close enough for their bodies to touch, but close enough for Seokjin to feel his body heat, his soft breathing.
Seokjin steals a glance at him as they make it through the lobby and to the elevators, his forehead creasing slightly as he draws his brows together. “Are you sure about this?”
Hoseok smiles at him, bright and a little shy and perhaps even a little bit hopeful. “Yeah. I want to know,” he says, his voice laced with excitement. Seokjin tilts his head, looking him over, but Hoseok’s posture is—not exactly fully relaxed, but like he’s holding himself back. Not nervous, or scared. His heartbeat and breathing seem normal.
Seokjin smiles at him, reassuring. “Okay.”
They get onto the elevator, and conversation dies down. Seokjin lets the silence fall to give Hoseok a last opportunity to think things through, before they reach his room.
Hoseok gasps, and Seokjin looks at him, startled. “You’ll be putting out on a first date, Jin-ssi,” he says, pretending to be scandalized.
Seokjin guffaws.
“I never said I was a gentleman,” he replies with a wink. A blush climbs up Hoseok’s cheeks at that. The elevator arrives at their floor then, and Seokjin steps out. “This way.” He motions with his hand, and starts walking down the hall. Room 613 is at the left end of the hallway, right where it makes a turn to the left and extends further down. Seokjin presses the little plastic card to the handle and the door opens with a click. He pushes in and looks back at Hoseok, who’s standing behind him, posture as faux-relaxed as it was earlier. “Come on in,” he says, walking in himself. He flashes him a grin, fangs out, and winks. “I promise I don’t bite without consent.”
Seokjin turns to look forward again, lights still off as he walks into the room. He’s got the printed agreement on his desk; once he’s had Hoseok sign it they can get down to actual business.
He doesn’t make it too far, though. The moment the door closes behind Hoseok with a click, there’s a heartbeat of complete silence—Seokjin starts to turn around again, but then there’s a hand pressing down his throat and shoving him firmly against the wall, a knife tip pressed against his chest.
And sharp, searing hot pain burning on his right arm.
ཐི❤︎ཋྀ
Hoseok is forced to let go of the vampire in his hold when his left arm starts burning.
He yelps, stepping back and out of Jin’s space—if that even is his actual name—and doesn’t immediately notice the fact that the vampire doesn’t try to retaliate, even though Hoseok very clearly just tried to put a silver dagger through his heart. His whole body is shaking, and Hoseok can only cradle his wrist in his knife hand with growing confusion.
What just happened.
And then—he notices it. His birthmark.
Hoseok has a strange birthmark on the inner part of his wrist. It’s shaped like a sun inside a crescent moon, like one of those medallions, but Hoseok has had it for as long as he can remember. It’s barely visible, just a discoloration of the skin, and so small that he usually simply forgets it’s there. It would be impossible to ignore now. Now, it doesn’t look anything like what it used to.
Hoseok stares with wide, stunned eyes at the once barely-visible sun-and-moon shape engraved into his wrist. It’s bright red now, as if it had just been seared onto his skin.
He hears the sound of a brusque exhalation and he looks up, and finds Jin staring at his own arm in the exact same manner, eyes open as wide as Hoseok’s feel. He doesn’t look as physically shaken as Hoseok, because vampire, and Hoseok has no idea what is going on right now.
As if noticing Hoseok’s stare, Jin looks up. He looks at him with renewed curiosity in his eyes, bordering in awe. Hoseok shifts uncomfortably on his feet, heart beating erratically inside his chest. He can feel his heartbeat against his throat, and he’s certain Jin can, too. Hoseok is also painfully aware of the fact that he’s still strangely unsteady, his grip on his dagger almost lax, and he has no possible way to defend himself against a vampire in his current state. Still, he snaps, “What.”
“We…” Jin licks his lips, his sharp upper fangs resting on his plump lower lip as if it was a very comfortable pillow. “We’re soulmates.”
Hoseok forces out his voice to reply, “Soulmates don’t exist.”
Jin bursts out laughing at his words. He has a very distinct laugh, one that would have made Hoseok smile in response, maybe even laugh along, were they not who they were, in the situation they currently were in.
“Of course they do,” Jin replies. “They’re just almost extinct now, but they’re real. Humans just like breaking things too much for comfort.”
“What does that mean,” Hoseok hisses. The pain in his arm is slowly receding, but he feels a budding headache making his skull throb instead.
Jin levels him with a stare that pins Hoseok in place. “I mean exactly what I said. Humans break. They broke the natural laws with their magic, broke death entirely by creating vampires, broke fate by refusing soulmates. Trust me, things were much, much different when I was born.”
Jin’s statement rings in the dark hotel room. Goosebumps break out on Hoseok’s skin.
“How old are you?” Hoseok asks, voice trembling, and it’s the only thing he can coherently push out. Half of the things Jin just said sound like—like lies. Make believes. Pure insanity. Magic? Soulmates? Hoseok’s head is spinning out of control, his body feels like it’s melting from the inside out, and he doesn’t trust himself to carry out his job. Not tonight. Tonight, Hoseok feels like he’s falling down a bottomless pit, the ground he thought solid suddenly vanishing from under his feet. He just wants it all to pass.
Maybe he’ll wake up and find it was all a bad dream.
“Old enough,” Jin replies, and his eyes turn a pale, piercing silver. A shiver runs down Hoseok’s spine, heart caught in his throat. Moon eyes. They return to their former dark brown with Jin’s next blink, but the image is burned into Hoseok’s mind. “Now go off, little vampire slayer. There’s nothing for you to do here. Everything I do is perfectly within legal bounds—and don’t worry about your ‘job.’ I’ll have a word with your superiors.”
Hoseok blinks and he’s suddenly standing outside, on one of the side roads near the hotel where his target is. Was. It’s completely, eerily deserted, the pale moon up in the night sky the only source of light.
What the fuck just happened.
Hoseok looks down at his wrist, dazed. The color of the mark—a soul mark, not a birthmark—is settling, turning slightly pink. It looks a bit… puffy, the skin slightly raised, like a healing scar. Hoseok doesn’t know what it’ll look like once the pain is fully gone, once it’s done healing. He doesn’t want to know.
He doesn’t know what ‘soulmates’ entail, either. But he vows not to find out, ever.