Super Junior, Twilight; Bandfic; Metaphorically Speaking
Title: Metaphorically Speaking
Fandom: Super Junior, Twilight
Pairing: Various pairings implied
Word count: 2,575
Rating: PG-13
Summary: “He sparkles!” said Donghae brightly, and spooned some more rice onto the boy’s plate.
There was a brief pause, and then Sungmin said, a little cautiously, “I think that’s a metaphor.”
A/N: For my BFF, broken_home_, because she seriously loves Twilight, and I seriously love her, so it all works out in the end! ♥
It doesn’t come much crackier than this, let me tell you now. Written quickly today when I should have been written other things, like fics that I actually owe people, so forgive me for glaring mistakes. And I swear! I will write something serious sometime soon.
“So, what?” said Eeteuk, looking a little confused. “Is this supposed to be a second Full House or something?”
“How the fuck are we supposed to know?” asked Heechul, arms folded, looking disgruntled over the fact that something had happened without him knowing why. “I just came home and found Donghae feeding him.”
“He sparkles!” said Donghae brightly, and spooned some more rice onto the boy’s plate.
There was a brief pause, and then Sungmin said, a little cautiously, “I think that’s a metaphor.”
“Oh,” said Eeteuk. “Well, that makes more sense.”
“YO TOUCH MAN,” said Heechul loudly, and held his hand up to the boy sitting at their kitchen table. The boy raised an eyebrow at him, gave him a slow high five, and then said something in what was an unmistakable American accent.
“Korean?” asked Eeteuk.
The boy blinked.
“Korean,” said Eunhyuk in English.
The boy shook his head.
“SIWON!” shrieked Heechul, as if raising his voice would work in lieu of actually ringing him on his telephone. “SIWON, WE NEED YOU.”
“Shut up,” said Kangin. “He’s probably at home.”
“Well, Kibum,” said Heechul, and was about to leave the room to ring him up when Donghae shook his head cheerfully.
“He’s filming,” he said. “He said that we weren’t allowed to disturb him when he was filming.”
“Oh,” said Heechul. “Henry?”
The boy spoke then, in a low voice, quickly and urgently, and while no one could understand what he was saying as a whole, a few of them managed to pick up a few words.
“Bella?” guessed Sungmin.
“Victoria,” said Donghae. “I heard Victoria.”
“In trouble?” Heechul screwed his nose up. “What the fuck?”
“Forks?” asked Eunhyuk. “What have dining utensils got to do with anything?”
“What does it mean?” asked Eeteuk, looking on the verge of tears.
“Hidden camera!” shouted Shindong. “Everyone, look for the hidden camera!”
***
As it turned out, there was no hidden camera, and management didn’t know what to do with the tall, blond American teenager that turned up inside their dorm one rainy Wednesday afternoon when Donghae was the only one around. Management, however, never knew what to do with anything that happen in the Super Junior dorm, and so after a few awkward meetings and two nervous breakdowns, it was decided that the boy should live with them for just a little longer, until they managed to get in touch with his family in America.
“His name is Edward,” translated Henry.
“Eddy!” Eunhyuk grinned winningly.
“No,” said Henry severely. “Edward.”
“Oh, okay,” said Eunhyuk, a little cowed.
“What the hell?” asked Junsu, who had just come up behind them. “I was only in Japan, when did you get a new member?”
“We didn’t, moron,” said Eunhyuk, punching him in the shoulder. “He just appeared in our dorm one day.”
“Does anything normal happen in there?” asked Junsu incredulously.
“It used to be fairly normal,” said Eunhyuk sadly. “And then Heechul moved into the same one as me.”
***
“I don’t know, hyung,” said Siwon. “I mean, why do I have to do it?”
“Because you know English,” said Heechul, hanging from his arm.
“But not that well,” protested Siwon. “Why can’t you get Henry to do it?”
“Because he doesn’t know enough Korean,” said Heechul, and glared at him. “Are you talking back to me?”
“That’s not it, hyung,” said Siwon. “What if he doesn’t understand me?”
“That that’s your own fault.” Heechul tugged him a little closer to the main room where Edward was sitting, as Yehsung and Ryeowook watched television. “Come on, he’s hot. I want to talk to him.”
“But I’ll be talking to him.” Siwon sounded like he was on the verge of wailing.
“I’ll be talking through you,” said Heechul. “I’ll thank you for it later. Hannie can join too.”
“Stop calling me that,” said Hankyung, and went to rescue Siwon.
***
“Oh, sorry!” Eeteuk jumped back, having bumped into Edward as he came out of his bedroom late one night; Edward had been passing through, apparently on his way from the bathroom. A shock of ice coldness shot through him from where their hands had connected and Eeteuk frowned.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “You’re very cold.”
Edward looked blankly at him.
“Okay?” Eeteuk tried in English.
Edward nodded.
“Okay!” said Eeteuk, and slipped along to the bathroom himself. When he returned and slipped back into bed, Kangin’s arm coming around his waist reminded him.
“Oh!” he said loudly. “I should have gotten him an extra blanket! That would have warmed him up.”
“Snuh,” mumbled Kangin.
“I’m the worst band leader in the world,” said Eeteuk miserably into his neck.
“Yeah, yeah,” said Kangin. “Worst mubblegok.”
***
“I have an important question,” said Kyuhyun the next morning at breakfast. “An important question that I’m sure no one has actually thought about.”
“So superior,” said Heechul sadly, with a pointed look toward Hankyung. “That’s what China does to you.” He turned to Edward and pointed at him with his chopsticks. “Edward,” he said warningly. “Never go to China.”
Edward looked like he wanted nothing more than to be away from them all; he was glaring at them all, eyes black.
“I think he would like to go to China,” said Sungmin brightly.
“He’s welcome to come along next time we go,” said Donghae. “Right, hyung?”
Hankyung looked a little lost.
“An important question,” said Kyuhyun.
“I’m listening,” offered Zhou Mi.
“You make me sick, you know that?” said Heechul, and then added, mournfully, “I tried so hard and yet you still insist on being nice. Seasoning, if you really were my dongsaeng, you’d know that insulting Kyuhyun is the only way to keep him.”
“Go try with Taemin?” said Sungmin.
“I thought we had a rule about letting Heechul near impressionable minds?” asked Eunhyuk.
“An IMPORTANT QUESTION,” said Kyuhyun.
“Say it, quickly, Kyuhyunnie, before Heechul can jump in,” said Eeteuk.
“Where is Edward sleeping?”
The question drew blank stares from around the table, as everyone tried to come up with an answer and ultimately failed. “I thought it was with Shindong and Kyuhyun?” said Eeteuk.
“No,” said Kyuhyun. “That’s why I wondered. Wasn’t he supposed to be in our room?”
“Yeah,” said Kangin. “But he’s not sleeping there?”
“No,” said Kyuhyun.
“But I saw him last night,” said Eeteuk. “Coming from the bathroom.”
“Well, it’s not with me,” said Heechul.
“Nor me,” said Donghae.
Everyone turned to look at Edward, who was poking angrily at his food with the fork that Eunhyuk had bought, taking his mention of the utensil as a wish for one of his own.
***
“No, seriously,” Heechul whined to Hankyung. “He keeps smelling me. Like, whenever I walk past. He gets this weird look on his face and sniffs deeply and then leans away.”
“Maybe you smell,” said Hankyung, and immediately raised an arm, by instinct, to guard himself from the blow that Heechul was about to inflict on his head. “To him, I mean. He is from America, maybe people just smell differently there.”
“Maybe I smell too good,” said Heechul. “Maybe he has to stop himself from jumping me or something.”
“Ahahaha,” said Hankyung.
***
“So, where do we stand on not letting Edward out?” said Kyuhyun, when Eeteuk answered his mobile phone after leaving Sukira.
“Hmm?” Eeteuk glanced behind him to make sure Eunhyuk was still following, and tried to concentrate on the conversation at hand. “He’s not allowed. What if he gets lost? He doesn’t speak Korean.”
“Ah,” said Kyuhyun, and there was scuffling in the background.
“Why?” asked Eeteuk, fear rising up in his chest.
“Because he’s kind of gone missing,” said Kyuhyun.
“Not kind of,” shouted Yehsung’s voice in the background. “Really, really gone missing!”
“Why the fuck did you lose him?” Eeteuk shrieked down the phone.
“We didn’t do it on purpose,” said Kyuhyun calmly. “He’s just kind of - gone.”
“Well, he can’t have just gone,” said Eeteuk desperately. “Go out and find him! He must be somewhere in the city, it’s not like he’s going to have gotten far. No money and no Korean.”
“Right,” said Kyuhyun, and in the background Donghae shouted, “Yay! Search party go!”
“They’ve lost Edward,” Eeteuk said in a deceptively calm voice to Eunhyuk.
“Lost him?” asked Eunhyuk. “How can you lose a tall, blond, seventeen year old American in the middle of Seoul?”
“He’s just ‘gone’, apparently,” said Eeteuk. “Hyukkie, do you think if I asked really nicely, Kangin will do my job and then I can just sleep all the time?”
“But then you’d be doing Kangin-hyung’s job,” pointed out Eunhyuk. “And I think he likes it.”
Eeteuk’s phone rang - seeing that it was the dorm again, he immediately flipped it open and barked, “Have you found him?” into the receiver.
“Yes,” said Ryeowook’s voice. “He just came back in a minute ago. He seems okay, quite happy, actually.” There was a pause, in which it became clear from the pattern of his breathing that Ryeowook was trying to work out whether to say whatever he was about to say. “Hyung,” he said finally. “Didn’t he have black eyes?”
***
Edward was sitting on the sofa reading one of the English newspapers that Siwon had managed to find for him, when Ryeowook stormed into the room, holding a bloody shirt in one hand, and Henry’s arm in the other.
“Ryeowook says,” said Henry, “that if you have a nosebleed or cut yourself, could you please bring it to him straight away, because otherwise the blood gets stained in and he’ll never be able to get it out.”
“Sorry,” said Edward.
“So noble,” sighed Ryeowook, and bounded back out of the room, still dragging Henry with him, who was protesting slightly at the way he was being used as a live in translator.
***
There were a pile of papers placed strategically on the coffee table, which Eeteuk only picked up in order to throw away; the header caught his eye, and he sat down to read, and half an hour later he resurfaced, blinking rapidly. “It all makes sense now!” he said.
“What does?” asked Kangin, coming into the apartment with Heechul, both dumping their bags of rehearsal stuff in the centre of the floor, even though a) Kangin didn’t even live there, and b) Eeteuk had told Heechul at least five times not to do that.
Eeteuk waved the sheets of paper at him. “Edward’s a vampire!” he yelled.
The two stared at him. “Hyung,” said Kangin fearfully. “Have you been getting enough sleep?”
“I should think so,” said Heechul with a scornful air. “Remember, he’s the one who never gets up in time.”
“No, seriously,” insisted Eeteuk. “This is a load of lore on vampires, and Edward fits all the signs.”
“He can go in the sun,” said Heechul. “Not that we’ve ever let him into the sun, because of all the rain. But still. He’s been outside in the daytime before.”
“That’s a myth,” said Eeteuk feverishly. “Look! Pale skin, good looks, a cold touch. He never seems to sleep, and his eyes change colour, probably due to the degree of his hunger. And also, he has that strength.”
“What strength?” asked Kangin. “I’ve never seen him be strong before.” He surreptitiously flexed his muscles.
“Stop guarding your territory,” said Heechul. “And he does have strength, he accidently ripped one of the taps off the bathroom sink yesterday.”
“If he’s a vampire,” said Kangin, in a tone of voice which suggested that he was just humouring him, “then why isn’t he going for our blood?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Eeteuk.
“That explains it!” said Heechul. “Why he keeps smelling me and then leaning away!”
“He’s after your blood?” Kangin seemed doubtful. “Because you know hyung, a lot of people are after your blood, but that doesn’t make them vampires.”
“He doesn’t do it to anyone else,” said Heechul. “I know, I’ve looked. Clearly I must just be special.”
“Clearly,” said Kangin.
***
“Kibummie!” Donghae threw his arms around Kibum’s neck and hugged him tight. “Thank you so much! I didn’t have a clue as to how to begin to explain it to the others.”
“That’s okay, hyung,” said Kibum. It hadn’t been hard, after all, to leave that literature on vampires lying around where anyone could have picked them up, and he had placed him just messily enough that only Eeteuk (or Ryeowook, but it was unlikely that he would have) would have wanted to move them.
“I don’t have any money to pay you for helping me,” said Donghae with a pout.
“I can think of some other ways you can pay me with,” said Kibum with a grin.
***
“I know this sounds really weird,” said Henry, “but they want me to ask you. Are you a vampire?”
Edward looked up at him intently, and thought carefully before he answered. “If I said yes,” he said, “would you be frightened of me?”
“Not really,” said Henry. “Have you seen the company I keep?”
***
“He says that he is,” said Henry. “He also says that he understands if you’re angry, upset or frightened of him.”
“He sparkles,” said Donghae, flailing his arms a little.
“It wasn’t a metaphor!” said Sungmin, almost falling over from shock as he took in Edward, standing in the middle of the park as the sun broke through the clouds. “It’s true!”
“I thought he seemed too good looking for it to be natural,” said Yehsung.
“I’m better looking,” said Heechul with a flick of his hair. “Aren’t I, Siwon?” Siwon opened his mouth and then closed it with a snap.
“But don’t vampires drink blood?” asked Ryeowook fearfully. “Human blood?”
“He says he only drinks animal blood,” translated Henry, and Ryeowook visibly relaxed. Edward said something else, glancing at Heechul, and Henry hesitated a little before he spoke again.
“He says that it would possibly be a good idea for Heechul-hyung to not go near him, because he has an intriguing smell, and it’s hard for him to keep himself from biting him.”
“I told you I was special!” said Heechul, smirking, and Edward rolled his head around in a slow circle in an attempt at calming himself down.
“Only you would be happy about having a vampire having to control himself around you,” said Kyuhyun.
“Most people have trouble controlling themselves around me,” said Heechul. “Right, Hankyung?”
“Huh?” said Hankyung. “I’m sorry, I can’t understa - get me out of here, Zhou Mi.”
“That is so unfair,” said Zhou Mi, ignoring him. “I mean, all we get in China is tentacles when people spill water on us. That’s boring compared to vampires. Plus, he literally sparkles, and not just in cute way.”
“I’m moving back to China,” said Hankyung. “And none of you are coming with me.”
***
A shriek from Sungmin caused Eeteuk and Eunhyuk to run into the kitchen of the dorm, where Donghae was sitting watching another strange boy poke dubiously at some food. Sungmin stood a little to the side, pointing with a trembling hand at the boy, who had black hair this time, with green eyes, glasses, and a rather unique scar on his forehead. Eeteuk and Eunhyuk stared.
“It’s,” said Sungmin, in a wavering voice. “It’s - It’s Ha. IT’S.”
“Hey,” said Donghae cheerfully. “Hyung, meet Harry.”
“Okay, new rule,” said Eeteuk severely. “Donghae, stop feeding all the weird boys that you meet.”
Fandom: Super Junior, Twilight
Pairing: Various pairings implied
Word count: 2,575
Rating: PG-13
Summary: “He sparkles!” said Donghae brightly, and spooned some more rice onto the boy’s plate.
There was a brief pause, and then Sungmin said, a little cautiously, “I think that’s a metaphor.”
A/N: For my BFF, broken_home_, because she seriously loves Twilight, and I seriously love her, so it all works out in the end! ♥
It doesn’t come much crackier than this, let me tell you now. Written quickly today when I should have been written other things, like fics that I actually owe people, so forgive me for glaring mistakes. And I swear! I will write something serious sometime soon.
“So, what?” said Eeteuk, looking a little confused. “Is this supposed to be a second Full House or something?”
“How the fuck are we supposed to know?” asked Heechul, arms folded, looking disgruntled over the fact that something had happened without him knowing why. “I just came home and found Donghae feeding him.”
“He sparkles!” said Donghae brightly, and spooned some more rice onto the boy’s plate.
There was a brief pause, and then Sungmin said, a little cautiously, “I think that’s a metaphor.”
“Oh,” said Eeteuk. “Well, that makes more sense.”
“YO TOUCH MAN,” said Heechul loudly, and held his hand up to the boy sitting at their kitchen table. The boy raised an eyebrow at him, gave him a slow high five, and then said something in what was an unmistakable American accent.
“Korean?” asked Eeteuk.
The boy blinked.
“Korean,” said Eunhyuk in English.
The boy shook his head.
“SIWON!” shrieked Heechul, as if raising his voice would work in lieu of actually ringing him on his telephone. “SIWON, WE NEED YOU.”
“Shut up,” said Kangin. “He’s probably at home.”
“Well, Kibum,” said Heechul, and was about to leave the room to ring him up when Donghae shook his head cheerfully.
“He’s filming,” he said. “He said that we weren’t allowed to disturb him when he was filming.”
“Oh,” said Heechul. “Henry?”
The boy spoke then, in a low voice, quickly and urgently, and while no one could understand what he was saying as a whole, a few of them managed to pick up a few words.
“Bella?” guessed Sungmin.
“Victoria,” said Donghae. “I heard Victoria.”
“In trouble?” Heechul screwed his nose up. “What the fuck?”
“Forks?” asked Eunhyuk. “What have dining utensils got to do with anything?”
“What does it mean?” asked Eeteuk, looking on the verge of tears.
“Hidden camera!” shouted Shindong. “Everyone, look for the hidden camera!”
***
As it turned out, there was no hidden camera, and management didn’t know what to do with the tall, blond American teenager that turned up inside their dorm one rainy Wednesday afternoon when Donghae was the only one around. Management, however, never knew what to do with anything that happen in the Super Junior dorm, and so after a few awkward meetings and two nervous breakdowns, it was decided that the boy should live with them for just a little longer, until they managed to get in touch with his family in America.
“His name is Edward,” translated Henry.
“Eddy!” Eunhyuk grinned winningly.
“No,” said Henry severely. “Edward.”
“Oh, okay,” said Eunhyuk, a little cowed.
“What the hell?” asked Junsu, who had just come up behind them. “I was only in Japan, when did you get a new member?”
“We didn’t, moron,” said Eunhyuk, punching him in the shoulder. “He just appeared in our dorm one day.”
“Does anything normal happen in there?” asked Junsu incredulously.
“It used to be fairly normal,” said Eunhyuk sadly. “And then Heechul moved into the same one as me.”
***
“I don’t know, hyung,” said Siwon. “I mean, why do I have to do it?”
“Because you know English,” said Heechul, hanging from his arm.
“But not that well,” protested Siwon. “Why can’t you get Henry to do it?”
“Because he doesn’t know enough Korean,” said Heechul, and glared at him. “Are you talking back to me?”
“That’s not it, hyung,” said Siwon. “What if he doesn’t understand me?”
“That that’s your own fault.” Heechul tugged him a little closer to the main room where Edward was sitting, as Yehsung and Ryeowook watched television. “Come on, he’s hot. I want to talk to him.”
“But I’ll be talking to him.” Siwon sounded like he was on the verge of wailing.
“I’ll be talking through you,” said Heechul. “I’ll thank you for it later. Hannie can join too.”
“Stop calling me that,” said Hankyung, and went to rescue Siwon.
***
“Oh, sorry!” Eeteuk jumped back, having bumped into Edward as he came out of his bedroom late one night; Edward had been passing through, apparently on his way from the bathroom. A shock of ice coldness shot through him from where their hands had connected and Eeteuk frowned.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “You’re very cold.”
Edward looked blankly at him.
“Okay?” Eeteuk tried in English.
Edward nodded.
“Okay!” said Eeteuk, and slipped along to the bathroom himself. When he returned and slipped back into bed, Kangin’s arm coming around his waist reminded him.
“Oh!” he said loudly. “I should have gotten him an extra blanket! That would have warmed him up.”
“Snuh,” mumbled Kangin.
“I’m the worst band leader in the world,” said Eeteuk miserably into his neck.
“Yeah, yeah,” said Kangin. “Worst mubblegok.”
***
“I have an important question,” said Kyuhyun the next morning at breakfast. “An important question that I’m sure no one has actually thought about.”
“So superior,” said Heechul sadly, with a pointed look toward Hankyung. “That’s what China does to you.” He turned to Edward and pointed at him with his chopsticks. “Edward,” he said warningly. “Never go to China.”
Edward looked like he wanted nothing more than to be away from them all; he was glaring at them all, eyes black.
“I think he would like to go to China,” said Sungmin brightly.
“He’s welcome to come along next time we go,” said Donghae. “Right, hyung?”
Hankyung looked a little lost.
“An important question,” said Kyuhyun.
“I’m listening,” offered Zhou Mi.
“You make me sick, you know that?” said Heechul, and then added, mournfully, “I tried so hard and yet you still insist on being nice. Seasoning, if you really were my dongsaeng, you’d know that insulting Kyuhyun is the only way to keep him.”
“Go try with Taemin?” said Sungmin.
“I thought we had a rule about letting Heechul near impressionable minds?” asked Eunhyuk.
“An IMPORTANT QUESTION,” said Kyuhyun.
“Say it, quickly, Kyuhyunnie, before Heechul can jump in,” said Eeteuk.
“Where is Edward sleeping?”
The question drew blank stares from around the table, as everyone tried to come up with an answer and ultimately failed. “I thought it was with Shindong and Kyuhyun?” said Eeteuk.
“No,” said Kyuhyun. “That’s why I wondered. Wasn’t he supposed to be in our room?”
“Yeah,” said Kangin. “But he’s not sleeping there?”
“No,” said Kyuhyun.
“But I saw him last night,” said Eeteuk. “Coming from the bathroom.”
“Well, it’s not with me,” said Heechul.
“Nor me,” said Donghae.
Everyone turned to look at Edward, who was poking angrily at his food with the fork that Eunhyuk had bought, taking his mention of the utensil as a wish for one of his own.
***
“No, seriously,” Heechul whined to Hankyung. “He keeps smelling me. Like, whenever I walk past. He gets this weird look on his face and sniffs deeply and then leans away.”
“Maybe you smell,” said Hankyung, and immediately raised an arm, by instinct, to guard himself from the blow that Heechul was about to inflict on his head. “To him, I mean. He is from America, maybe people just smell differently there.”
“Maybe I smell too good,” said Heechul. “Maybe he has to stop himself from jumping me or something.”
“Ahahaha,” said Hankyung.
***
“So, where do we stand on not letting Edward out?” said Kyuhyun, when Eeteuk answered his mobile phone after leaving Sukira.
“Hmm?” Eeteuk glanced behind him to make sure Eunhyuk was still following, and tried to concentrate on the conversation at hand. “He’s not allowed. What if he gets lost? He doesn’t speak Korean.”
“Ah,” said Kyuhyun, and there was scuffling in the background.
“Why?” asked Eeteuk, fear rising up in his chest.
“Because he’s kind of gone missing,” said Kyuhyun.
“Not kind of,” shouted Yehsung’s voice in the background. “Really, really gone missing!”
“Why the fuck did you lose him?” Eeteuk shrieked down the phone.
“We didn’t do it on purpose,” said Kyuhyun calmly. “He’s just kind of - gone.”
“Well, he can’t have just gone,” said Eeteuk desperately. “Go out and find him! He must be somewhere in the city, it’s not like he’s going to have gotten far. No money and no Korean.”
“Right,” said Kyuhyun, and in the background Donghae shouted, “Yay! Search party go!”
“They’ve lost Edward,” Eeteuk said in a deceptively calm voice to Eunhyuk.
“Lost him?” asked Eunhyuk. “How can you lose a tall, blond, seventeen year old American in the middle of Seoul?”
“He’s just ‘gone’, apparently,” said Eeteuk. “Hyukkie, do you think if I asked really nicely, Kangin will do my job and then I can just sleep all the time?”
“But then you’d be doing Kangin-hyung’s job,” pointed out Eunhyuk. “And I think he likes it.”
Eeteuk’s phone rang - seeing that it was the dorm again, he immediately flipped it open and barked, “Have you found him?” into the receiver.
“Yes,” said Ryeowook’s voice. “He just came back in a minute ago. He seems okay, quite happy, actually.” There was a pause, in which it became clear from the pattern of his breathing that Ryeowook was trying to work out whether to say whatever he was about to say. “Hyung,” he said finally. “Didn’t he have black eyes?”
***
Edward was sitting on the sofa reading one of the English newspapers that Siwon had managed to find for him, when Ryeowook stormed into the room, holding a bloody shirt in one hand, and Henry’s arm in the other.
“Ryeowook says,” said Henry, “that if you have a nosebleed or cut yourself, could you please bring it to him straight away, because otherwise the blood gets stained in and he’ll never be able to get it out.”
“Sorry,” said Edward.
“So noble,” sighed Ryeowook, and bounded back out of the room, still dragging Henry with him, who was protesting slightly at the way he was being used as a live in translator.
***
There were a pile of papers placed strategically on the coffee table, which Eeteuk only picked up in order to throw away; the header caught his eye, and he sat down to read, and half an hour later he resurfaced, blinking rapidly. “It all makes sense now!” he said.
“What does?” asked Kangin, coming into the apartment with Heechul, both dumping their bags of rehearsal stuff in the centre of the floor, even though a) Kangin didn’t even live there, and b) Eeteuk had told Heechul at least five times not to do that.
Eeteuk waved the sheets of paper at him. “Edward’s a vampire!” he yelled.
The two stared at him. “Hyung,” said Kangin fearfully. “Have you been getting enough sleep?”
“I should think so,” said Heechul with a scornful air. “Remember, he’s the one who never gets up in time.”
“No, seriously,” insisted Eeteuk. “This is a load of lore on vampires, and Edward fits all the signs.”
“He can go in the sun,” said Heechul. “Not that we’ve ever let him into the sun, because of all the rain. But still. He’s been outside in the daytime before.”
“That’s a myth,” said Eeteuk feverishly. “Look! Pale skin, good looks, a cold touch. He never seems to sleep, and his eyes change colour, probably due to the degree of his hunger. And also, he has that strength.”
“What strength?” asked Kangin. “I’ve never seen him be strong before.” He surreptitiously flexed his muscles.
“Stop guarding your territory,” said Heechul. “And he does have strength, he accidently ripped one of the taps off the bathroom sink yesterday.”
“If he’s a vampire,” said Kangin, in a tone of voice which suggested that he was just humouring him, “then why isn’t he going for our blood?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Eeteuk.
“That explains it!” said Heechul. “Why he keeps smelling me and then leaning away!”
“He’s after your blood?” Kangin seemed doubtful. “Because you know hyung, a lot of people are after your blood, but that doesn’t make them vampires.”
“He doesn’t do it to anyone else,” said Heechul. “I know, I’ve looked. Clearly I must just be special.”
“Clearly,” said Kangin.
***
“Kibummie!” Donghae threw his arms around Kibum’s neck and hugged him tight. “Thank you so much! I didn’t have a clue as to how to begin to explain it to the others.”
“That’s okay, hyung,” said Kibum. It hadn’t been hard, after all, to leave that literature on vampires lying around where anyone could have picked them up, and he had placed him just messily enough that only Eeteuk (or Ryeowook, but it was unlikely that he would have) would have wanted to move them.
“I don’t have any money to pay you for helping me,” said Donghae with a pout.
“I can think of some other ways you can pay me with,” said Kibum with a grin.
***
“I know this sounds really weird,” said Henry, “but they want me to ask you. Are you a vampire?”
Edward looked up at him intently, and thought carefully before he answered. “If I said yes,” he said, “would you be frightened of me?”
“Not really,” said Henry. “Have you seen the company I keep?”
***
“He says that he is,” said Henry. “He also says that he understands if you’re angry, upset or frightened of him.”
“He sparkles,” said Donghae, flailing his arms a little.
“It wasn’t a metaphor!” said Sungmin, almost falling over from shock as he took in Edward, standing in the middle of the park as the sun broke through the clouds. “It’s true!”
“I thought he seemed too good looking for it to be natural,” said Yehsung.
“I’m better looking,” said Heechul with a flick of his hair. “Aren’t I, Siwon?” Siwon opened his mouth and then closed it with a snap.
“But don’t vampires drink blood?” asked Ryeowook fearfully. “Human blood?”
“He says he only drinks animal blood,” translated Henry, and Ryeowook visibly relaxed. Edward said something else, glancing at Heechul, and Henry hesitated a little before he spoke again.
“He says that it would possibly be a good idea for Heechul-hyung to not go near him, because he has an intriguing smell, and it’s hard for him to keep himself from biting him.”
“I told you I was special!” said Heechul, smirking, and Edward rolled his head around in a slow circle in an attempt at calming himself down.
“Only you would be happy about having a vampire having to control himself around you,” said Kyuhyun.
“Most people have trouble controlling themselves around me,” said Heechul. “Right, Hankyung?”
“Huh?” said Hankyung. “I’m sorry, I can’t understa - get me out of here, Zhou Mi.”
“That is so unfair,” said Zhou Mi, ignoring him. “I mean, all we get in China is tentacles when people spill water on us. That’s boring compared to vampires. Plus, he literally sparkles, and not just in cute way.”
“I’m moving back to China,” said Hankyung. “And none of you are coming with me.”
***
A shriek from Sungmin caused Eeteuk and Eunhyuk to run into the kitchen of the dorm, where Donghae was sitting watching another strange boy poke dubiously at some food. Sungmin stood a little to the side, pointing with a trembling hand at the boy, who had black hair this time, with green eyes, glasses, and a rather unique scar on his forehead. Eeteuk and Eunhyuk stared.
“It’s,” said Sungmin, in a wavering voice. “It’s - It’s Ha. IT’S.”
“Hey,” said Donghae cheerfully. “Hyung, meet Harry.”
“Okay, new rule,” said Eeteuk severely. “Donghae, stop feeding all the weird boys that you meet.”