[Fic] Play For Me - Part 4
Seoul, Joseon Dynasty, 1700s
“They are closing in, master,” Changmin informs, his voice not without worry, “They’ve arrived in Gwangju and have already tracked and killed 8 of our kind. We have to leave here soon.”
There is very little that can be done to kill a vampire. Not stakes to the heart, nor silver crosses, nor holy water. Sunlight can. For a couple of minutes, the older the vampire, the longer he can stand it, direct sunlight will burn flesh and weaken the vampire. For longer than that, the vampire will spontaneously combust, going up in flames. Another way to kill a vampire is decapitation, and there has been a recent surge of hunters doing just that.
Another vampire weakness is dead men’s blood. If a vampire ingests that blood, he is rendered paralysed, easy prey for hunters. These recent hunters ammo of choice seems to be arrows dipped in the poisonous blood. Even though vampires have supernatural human hearing, capable of hearing the quiet twang of a bow a good distance away, and are able to move fast enough to avoid getting shot, vampires who are feeding are vulnerable. Vampires in the process of feeding can only hear the pumping of their victim’s heart, and nothing else, leaving them vulnerable for just that moment. Enough for good hunter.
From Jinwoon’s experience, hunters surface and ebb about once every century. In early years, Jinwoon found it audacious that humans could win over vampires. But, Nicole had taught him that the few sacrifices of vampires a century to these hunters are much better than a full on uprising. These hunters are only a handful of human beings who know what they are, and if they are to roam among humans for eternity, the fewer that know about them and how to kill them, the better. The tactic to deal with hunters is to go into hiding, years of hibernation, until vampires are forgotten and hunters become dormant.
Jinwoon throws Changmin a reluctant glance, and Changmin immediately knows why. Jo Kwon had been refusing Jinwoon’s visits for months.
“He’s not seeing anyone, my lord,” the owner of the brothel tells Jinwoon the same thing every time, and tonight is no exception.
“I have to see him. It’s important,” Jinwoon barks, resisting the urge to break the old man’s neck in his irritation.
“I’m sorry, my lord,” the old man bows low, and Jinwoon clenches his fists. Jinwoon is fully capable of ripping the establishment apart in his frustration, but he respects Jo Kwon, he loves Jo Kwon too much to do it.
He draws back into the shadows, seething.
“Master, we have to go. They are in town,” Changmin presses, a sense of urgency in his voice.
“I will fight them if I have to! I just have to see him!” Jinwoon snaps as he leaps silently over a tall wall to arrive in front of Jo Kwon’s room. Changmin follows, but stays in the shadows.
Jinwoon taps on the door gently at first, but when there is no reply, he pushes until the door breaks in half.
“Jo Kwon!” he shouts as he scans the dark room. There is a scent that makes him uncomfortable. The scent of impending death.
“Jo Kwon,” he says again, full of foreboding, as he moves towards a dark lump. He wraps his arm around it and picks up the frail body. The blanket falls to reveal Jo Kwon’s beautiful face marred with sores and lesions. Jinwoon’s eyes widen in horror. The disease of the sex trade.
“My lord….” Jo Kwon barely manages through white, chapped lips.
“My love,” Jinwoon mutters gently, listening to the very faint heartbeat. The boy in his arms is dying, and very soon.
“I didn’t want you to see me like this,” Jo Kwon coughs, dirty blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
Jinwoon uses his thumb to wipe the blood away as he descended his lips onto Jo Kwon’s. Jo Kwon still tastes sweet, and Jinwoon’s eyes burned with tears.
“Let me help you,” Jinwoon whispers into Jo Kwon’s ear, holding the boy close.
“No.”
Still so stubborn, and yet, Jinwoon loves him for it.
“Don’t cry, my lord,” Jo Kwon says weakly as he raises a shaky, boney hand to touch Jinwoon’s cheek, “this is my fate, and I will accept it.”
“No,” Jinwoon says through his tears, “no….”
“Shh….I’m happy. I get to see you for one last time,” Jo Kwon strokes Jinwoon’s hair lightly as Jinwoon buries his face in Jo Kwon’s sore-ridden neck.
Jinwoon rocks them, and Jo Kwon hums a soft melody, all the while, fingers in Jinwoon’s hair.
The fingers slacken, and Jinwoon stifles his sobs, pulling Jo Kwon tighter.
“I love….” Jo Kwon doesn’t finish. His hand slides off Jinwoon and his body goes limp. Jo Kwon is still breathing, but not for much longer.
“NO!!!!” Jinwoon screams, and in desperation, he sinks his fangs into Jo Kwon with a single thought that he has to save him.
Jinwoon becomes oblivious of everything else. He is drinking every drop of Jo Kwon’s blood. Jo Kwon will be his forever. Almost there, almost there.
Suddenly, he is grabbed by the shoulders. Jo Kwon drops from his arms like a rag doll, and the last thing Jinwoon sees before he is whisked rapidly away is Jo Kwon’s crumpled body. Dead.
“LET ME GO!!!!” Jinwoon roars, and Changmin releases his grip, setting them down in a woodland area in a province two towns over.
Changmin grips Jinwoon again when Jinwoon makes a move to run back.
“Master!”
Jinwoon shoves at Changmin, sending him flying.
“WHY DID YOU PULL ME AWAY???!!!”
“An arrow was coming at you, I had to save you,” Changmin hangs his head.
“AT WHAT COST???!! I’VE LOST HIM FOREVER!!!” Jinwoon breaks down and falls to his knees. He cries, loud and heartbroken.
“I’ve lost him, I’ve lost him, I’ve lost him,” Jinwoon repeats over and over, distraught beyond anything imaginable.
“Master,” Changmin holds him tightly, and Jinwoon sobs in Changmin’s arms for what seems like centuries.
*
Seoul, present day
“It was you, wasn’t it?” Jinwoon says the minute he felt Nicole’s presence.
He is standing on his verandah, looking out into the night, the cool night breeze fluttering through his hair and loose linen clothes. Nicole steps out of the shadows and stands next to him. She doesn’t say anything but her silence is acknowledgement enough.
“Why?” Jinwoon asks, eyes still locked on something far away.
Nicole smiles as she tries to find whatever that Jinwoon is looking at.
“I’ve tried for so long for you to look at me the way you look at him.”
Jinwoon turns his head and looks at her. Nicole turns and meets his eyes.
“I love you, and you love him.”
When Jinwoon doesn’t say anything, Nicole continues, “I was watching you with him that night. You were so distraught that you did not feel my presence. I saw you take him, I saw how much you wanted to keep him with you. So, when Changmin pulled you away, and when the hunters gave chase, I slipped into the room and gave him my blood. If I had been just a few seconds later, he wouldn’t have made it, but yes, I turned him and made him follow me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Jinwoon’s eyes brimmed with tears, thinking of the lost years of pining, when Jo Kwon had been out there, not six feet under.
“Jo Kwon wouldn’t let me, and I owed him for what I did. And, I couldn’t leave him alone to go to you, the condition he was in. You love one stubborn, pain in the ass brat, you do know that?” Nicole tries to make light of the situation.
Jinwoon drops his eyes and Nicole sighs.
“In the beginning, he refused to feed, refused this new life that you and I both gave him. Any mention of you and he would go into silent rage, shutting off. Eventually, all he did was sit in his room, staring at this one painting, waves and a little boat.”
Jinwoon turns his head into Nicole’s palm as she caresses his cheek.
“It went on for decades, him just sitting, and I would force feed him, bringing a human, wounds open and dripping, right under his nose. He was a young vampire, and however much he resisted, the thirst for blood overpowers all will. He would be remorseful after that though, hating himself, hating what had been done to him.”
Tears finally fall, and Nicole brushes them away with her thumbs.
“One day, I got back from hunting to find him gone. He just vanished. He looked so set on self-destruction that I didn’t think he was still alive until recently.”
Nicole hugs her friend as he leans forward, body hurt and weary. She stretches her neck to him and lets him break skin, giving him a little comfort. Jinwoon withdraws after a short while and kisses the punctures as they heal.
“He hates me, doesn’t he?”
Nicole looks straight into Jinwoon’s eyes, “Maybe he did in the beginning, and maybe he still does now. But, something must have changed for him to reveal himself to you after all this time.”
“Thank you,” Jinwoon says and Nicole smiles sadly when she finds her arms empty. Jinwoon is not, and will never be, hers.
*
“How is he?”
Jo Kwon looks up from the love seat. He has Seulong’s head in his lap and he is running his fingers through thick locks of hair. Listening to Seulong’s breathing, Jinwoon can tell, with some relief, that the man is asleep. Still human.
“He’s fine. Weak, but fine,” Jo Kwon says without emotion.
“You love him now?” Jinwoon asks, without malice, without jealousy, without anything.
Almost like a statue, Jo Kwon stills, fingers in Seulong’s hair.
Jinwoon kneels in front of Jo Kwon and looks up at his stone cold face. He takes in the pale iridescent skin, the dark determined eyes outlined by lashes impossibly long, the plump red lips. “Always so beautiful,” Jinwoon whispers and doesn’t miss Jo Kwon’s invisible flinch. Jo Kwon is pliant as Jinwoon rises up and kisses him chastely, soft lips against soft lips.
“I’m sorry,” Jinwoon says against the pair of lips that have never left his mind for hundreds of years.
“Tell that to him,” Jo Kwon turns and breaks the kiss, gaze falling on Seulong’s face.
“No,” Jinwoon wants his meaning to be clear, “Jo Kwon, my love.” He waits for Jo Kwon to meet his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Jinwoon pours his years of loneliness and longing into his eyes.
His apology is not lost to Jo Kwon, Jinwoon can tell. Even as Jo Kwon’s posture doesn’t change, something in his eyes does. The frozen darkness melts, becoming pools and there are soft flecks of gold in the irises.
“Every night, the pain of losing you paralyzes me. Every night, I regret not being fast enough to turn you. How I wished you were by my side, how I wished you could still feel how much I loved you, how much I still love you…..Even though I know you don’t want this, given the chance, I wouldn’t change anything. You’re here, in front of me, and looking at you now, even though the hatred you have for me is so clear, I would have still done it, I would have still not let you die.”
Jinwoon chuckles bitterly, hating himself as much as Jo Kwon hates him for the selfish, vile creature that he is. Jo Kwon has closed his eyes, and Jinwoon cannot read them anymore. He leans in and meets Jo Kwon’s forehead with his. He inhales and is stirred by the familiar scent.
“I feel it, I’ve always had,” comes Jo Kwon’s gentle voice.
Jinwoon is puzzled when Jo Kwon shifts Seulong away and stands up. Jinwoon follows and allows Jo Kwon to take his hand.
“Come.” And before Jinwoon can ask where, Jo Kwon whisks them to a neglected part of modern Seoul.
The streets are dark, but Jinwoon can see what is in front of him. He gapes. It is the brothel, the place that holds so many memories. Jinwoon had never gone back to this place, a place where he had believed for so long that he left his one and only love to die. He did not know that this place still existed; Seoul has changed so much since then.
“It’s mine,” is all Jo Kwon offers as an explanation as he pushes through the heavy oak doors and enters the courtyard. The garden is overrun with weeds; no one has tended to it in centuries. Jinwoon lets Jo Kwon lead him to the very last room of the property. Jo Kwon’s room.
Jo Kwon steps aside to allow Jinwoon to enter the threshold. He remains silent as he watches Jinwoon survey the walls. The walls are covered with every poster Jinwoon had ever posed for - from crude ink brush paintings on parchment paper of the 19th century to the glossy slick production of the 21st. Also framed up were old ticket stubs from his shows, and every recording Jinwoon had ever made lined the shelves of the old cupboard; vinyl records, cassette tapes, VHS, CDs, DVDs.
“I feel it,” Jo Kwon says again, even as it feels like years ago that he said it the first time.
Jinwoon just stands in the middle of it all, overwhelmed, speechless.
“I’ve hated you for a long time, but even through the hate, I felt it. How can I not? When this is how you hold me close? The me that you thought you lost forever, you keep me alive through your music, through realizing your dream. “
Jo Kwon moves forward and leans himself onto Jinwoon. Instinctively, Jinwoon hugs Jo Kwon close.
“I hear you, decade after decade, I’ve heard you, your pain, your loss, your love for me. I couldn’t bear it, but I had to stay away,” Jo Kwon says against Jinwoon’s broad chest.
“Why?” Jinwoon chokes, burying his face in Jo Kwon’s shoulder.
“It never should have been like this,” Jo Kwon explains, “I was already sick when I first met you. I was content to die back then, knowing I was loved so powerfully, even in my last days. I thought of you as such s gift. It was more than a boy like me could have asked for. I didn’t want eternity, I didn’t want to see your love for me fade and die…how would I live with the emptiness then?”
“Never,” Jinwoon reassures, embracing Jo Kwon so tightly that if he were human, his bones would be crushed.
“I had to be sure my lord,” Jo Kwon says before laughing, a semblance of the Jo Kwon of yesteryear, something that Jinwoon had very dearly missed. “Besides, what is 300 years of punishment when faced with eternity?”
“Brat,” Jinwoon replies with no bite, falling comfortably back to past feelings, the weight slowly disappearing. And yet, he pushes Jo Kwon off him by his shoulders. He holds him firmly and locks eyes.
“Are you sure then? It has to be your choice,” Jinwoon asks, and is rewarded, finally, with Jo Kwon’s dazzling smile.
“With that question, I am more sure than I have ever been,” is Jo Kwon’s answer, and Jinwoon sweeps the boy up in a hungry kiss.
“Play for me, my lord?” Jo Kwon whispers after the kiss ends, nodding to the ancient Gayageum in the corner of the room.
And Jinwoon plays, just like how he always did, and how he always will.