Third Vampire Shadows (An Urban Paranormal Romance Novel) (14 page)

“We have to go now.
My
Jin
Hwan
and I
,” she added, emphasizing the last words. With one last bow to her, the guy named
Jin
Hwan
let himself be dragged away by Shin Erin. They disappeared at That Place and
Hyeon
Jin
continued walking, or rather, swerving towards the school.

Poor thing… I bet Shin
Erin
’s gonna be done with you in, like, a week. No, he’s quite good-looking and he could actually be gorgeous if only he knew how to look in the mirror. So maybe two weeks…
Hyeon
Jin
thought, bobbing her head from left to right as it started to feel heavy.

“WAIT!” It all came back to her now.
Gangly boy, who could be good-looking if he knew how to look in the mirror! That’s him! The loser guy who dropped the books and… and…

Her mind was swirling again, everything was getting blurry, but she managed to smile as she realized that the “loser” guy,
Jin
Hwan
, had changed because of her advice, and now he was dating the hottest girl in school. Although she kinda felt bad for him since Shin Erin would probably just crush his heart later on.
But still…
She felt her body falling… falling into an abyss as everything turned to black…
I’m so happy for him. Oh, I hate that root beer…

Someone caught her by the waist and quickly placed her on his back. She opened her eyes and saw dark, wavy hair in front of her. Being in the near-drunk state, she stubbornly grabbed onto the dark, wavy hair and started yanking it back. The guy gave a yelp and tightened his grip on her legs.

“What do you think you’re doing, big feet?! Stop pulling my hair!” Mun Oh snapped at her.

She stopped, realizing who it was. “Oh. It’s you.”

“I’ve been looking for you—”

“Yeah… right… that’s why I just caught… you sucking some girl’s neck instead… of waiting for me to tell you the… great news about my exam… you… peeesssttt…” she managed to drawl out in between taking huge gulps of air. She now found it difficult to breathe, talk and think at the same time.

Mun Oh halted abruptly and closed his eyes as if asking for more patience.
She caught me again? Dammit. How come I didn’t smell— oh yeah, right…
he thought. He let out a sigh.

“What you saw… it was—”

THUD.

Hyeon
Jin
had banged her head against his, quite hard.

“Oww! What was that for, you—?!” He took a whiff of her breath and realized his assumptions were correct. “The hell did you get drunk for? It’s too early for that, you dimwit!”

THUD.

Another painful collision.

“OWWW! Stop it or I’ll—”

“
I’m NOT drunk
!” she slurred out, her eyes stinging from the collision. “It was roof meen… errr… ROOT… BEER!” she insisted, tightening her grip around his neck.

“Have you tasted root beer before?” Mun Oh asked, curiously.

She thought for a second. “Nah… hey, you’re good! It was my first time to drink that! Haha.”

THUD.

This time, it was Mun Oh who jerked his head backwards to bump with hers.

“Holy sh—”

“Shut up! You talk too much nonsense when you’re drunk. Why’d you drink some root beer-disguised-alcohol?! I didn’t know you were THAT dumb.” He scowled at her.

She leaned over him and repeatedly, but gently, banged the side of her head against his, hoping it’d ease the wooziness. “Some seniors gave me… said I needed a drink…”

THUD.

Mun Oh suddenly turned his head to face her, making their heads collide once again, with an agonizing thud.

“Oww!” they both yelled.

“Could you get any dumber? You should know better than taking anything from strangers.”

She didn’t say anything; she simply let it go, thinking it was indeed stupid of her to believe it was root beer. The moment they stopped whacking their heads together, however, the thoughts and emotions that filled her up a while ago came rushing back.

“So you were looking for me? You still owe me lunch, by the way…” His voice brought her back to reality.

THUD.

“Dammit! I said enough with the head bumping or I’ll drop your big butt on the ground!” Mun Oh stopped in his tracks again as his head throbbed painfully.

“That’s for ruining my euphoria a while ago,” she said simply. “I was just about to tell you… nah… never mind.” She thought better of it and decided not to bother him with something as frivolous as her exam scores.
It’s not like he’d care
, she thought.

Mun Oh continued to walk. “What is it? You know I can read your mind so I could just easily—”

“Yeah…
whatever
. Go ahead and read my mind,
LEE MUN OH
,” she said. “All you’d ever read in there are questions… stupid questions.” She yawned.

Somehow, he could tell that she was not in the right state of mind to talk but he knew this was as honest as she could get. So he pressed on.

“Questions like what?”

She did not answer right away, and he was under the impression that either she had passed out or she just didn’t wanna talk about it. He walked in silence for a while, carrying an equally silent
Hyeon
Jin
on his back. When they passed by the now-empty school, she started to speak again.

“Why did you leave and then come back all of a sudden like nothing happened?” There was a hint of frustration in her tone.

Mun Oh was taken aback. He had no idea that his being missing for two or three days had had that much of an effect on her.
She must really like me…
he thought conceitedly, but with a pang of guilt.

“Why couldn’t you tell me everything? Why do you hold some things back? Am I not that worthy of your trust?” she continued. Although her voice was stable and calm, it was overflowing with the same sadness that Mun Oh saw in Park Juno’s eyes hours ago.

His reply was simple. “There are some things that you’re better off not knowing.”

“Why don’t you tell me how you feel? Is it because you don’t feel anything?” Her voice started to crack as her eyes brimmed with hot tears. “Because I can’t hold back my feelings anymore. And I need to know… I need to hear it from you. I want to hear you say that you don’t like me as much as I like you. Just do this one favor for me and I swear I’ll stay away from you. I’ll even let you bite me and… and I'll forget about you.” She sniffed. “Stop messing around with me.”

That last sentence somehow sounded like it was directed at somebody else other than Mun Oh. But his mind was too preoccupied to even care. Whether it was the effect of the alcohol or not, everything she said painfully tugged at his heart, crushing the air out of his lungs, making him feel more like a human. It was all coming back to him now: the “feelings” he had temporarily forgotten. The inexplicably blissful feeling that stubbornly settled at the pit of his stomach.

The truth was that he cared for her. He cared for her so much that he was at a loss of what to do. He didn’t know how to get her out of this tangled, complicated mess that he had gotten her into. As much as he wanted to stay with her and tell her how he really felt, he couldn’t. Even if he could, he probably wouldn’t. It was better that way.

Before he met her, he didn’t have time to waste on such petty matters as being happy, enjoying life, or simply being in love. He was, after all, a bloodsucker. He couldn’t believe it himself—a mere human had actually made him crawl out of his shell. It was not an issue of being “human-like;” it was more like being able to feel alive for the first time in his life.

They now reached the gates to their neighborhood.
Hyeon
Jin
leaned her face against his back and cried freely. She didn’t give a damn if she had humiliated herself until the next century by openly admitting her feelings for him and crying like a five-year-old every two seconds. Maybe she needed to thank those jerks who had given her that drink. It felt so much better to let out all her emotions when she was drunk. As they neared the house, she tightened her grip around his neck once more and told him to let her sober up first by circling the area before going home. He did so, all the while thinking of the right time to say what he wanted to say. They enjoyed another couple of minutes of silence before Mun Oh spoke up.

“I’m leaving tonight.”

Silence
.

He took a deep breath. “I’m going back home. I just figured… I’m bored here, anyway. It’s definitely not a good spot for a vacation, you know. And you’re not very hospitable, either. So…”

He waited for her to say something. A minute passed. Two minutes. Three minutes… They circled the neighborhood once and Mun Oh decided to do so again.

“Hey, are you listening? I said—”

“I heard you. I’m not deaf.” Her voice was cold and sharp.

“Then why’d you have to be so awfully quiet? It’s freaking me out, you know. Besides, it’s not like you. Stop pretending like you can keep your mouth shut for a minute,” he said in a light manner.

“Look who’s talking. You’re the one pretending here, pest.”

“Don’t steal my lines. And be nice to me now. I said I’m leaving. You’re never gonna see this gorgeous face of mine, ever.” He scoffed and then chuckled at his conceited little joke.

Another long silence. And then…

“Why?” asked
Hyeon
Jin
.

Just one simple question
. But it made him stop walking so abruptly that they almost bumped heads again. That was the thing: he wished he could tell her why. He wished he could stop avoiding her questions. He wished she’d understand without him explaining in full detail.

“Walk…”
Hyeon
Jin
ordered him. He did as he was told, but each step resonated with the frustration building up inside him.

“I told you. I’m bored here. My vacation’s over. Besides, you don’t want me in here in the first place,” he lied. They were in front of the house again.

“Put me down,” she said. When he did, she glided over to the sidewalk and sat down. He stood beside her, not knowing what else to say or do.

“It’s your birthday today. I’m sure Dad and Ji Sun prepared something,”
Hyeon
Jin
said as casually as she could.

“I can’t. They won’t allow me to leave. And I don’t wanna go through that
'saying goodbye'
process that you humans invented… or whatever.” He jammed his hands into his pockets and kicked an invisible pebble, hoping that would end their awkward conversation. When she didn’t say anything for a while, he took it as his cue to disappear from her sight and this place…
forever
.

“Well, I should get…”

A hand grabbed his elbow. He turned around and what he saw crushed his heart into tiny little pieces. She wasn’t crying, but she wasn’t smiling, either. There was nothing but pain and desperation in her face.

“Just… just give me another piggyback ride,” she said.

He raised an eyebrow, but decided it best not to argue with her anymore. He mumbled, “You’re quite heavy” under his breath before letting her get on his back again. When she was safely and comfortably lodged on his back, he started walking around the subdivision again. There was nothing special about that last piggyback ride except for the inevitable misery hanging in the air between them and the sound of the rhythmic beating of their hearts, as if their two hearts were hurting and crying in harmony.

“Park Juno told me he’s seeing someone new,”
Hyeon
Jin
said in a surprisingly normal tone, as though they were having a normal conversation. “He said he’s never getting back together with me again. That jerk.”

“I know,” Mun Oh replied.

“You should’ve bitten him, and then maybe he would’ve forgotten that he’s seeing someone new and he’d probably ask me out again,” she said in the same ‘normal’ tone.

“You can joke about it, huh?” Mun Oh didn’t seem to be amused. His mind was still reeling.

Hyeon
Jin
giggled quite forcibly. “I think he just dumped me again. Well, he already dumped me before, so now he
double-dumped
me, huh?”

There was nothing he could say to ease her pain. It was one thing to get your heart broken. It was another to get your heart broken twice in a row by the same person.

“This is our last stop,” he announced, releasing his hold on her. But she didn’t let go. Her arms were still wrapped around his neck, although her feet were already on the ground.

“You can leave if you want. I’m not gonna stop you,” she whispered. He could feel her breath on the back of his neck. “But the least you could do is tell me
why
…" Teardrops cascaded down the nape of his neck. "Because you know what’s even worse? You know what’s even more painful than being abandoned?” The tears wouldn’t stop falling. She tightened her grip around his neck. “What’s even more heartbreaking
is knowing that
I’m not even worth an explanation
.” And with that, she let go of him.