Third Vampire Shadows (An Urban Paranormal Romance Novel) (8 page)

Hyeon
Jin
held up a flowery shirt against a fuming Mun Oh. “Why not? It’s cute. It’ll make you look cute.”

A couple of high school girls stared at Mun Oh as they passed by, and they started giggling upon seeing the flowery shirt. Mun Oh rolled his eyes and pushed the shirt away. He was being stared at enough already without the ridiculous shirt, mainly because he was slightly overdressed, wearing his tux on a hot, sunny day.

“Don’t you like to wear normal clothes every once in a while? I mean, do you even wear normal clothes at all?”
Hyeon
Jin
asked, grabbing an orange-and-pink checkered polo shirt and holding it up against him.

Mun Oh pushed it away before anyone saw him again. “These are not normal clothes. They’re hideous human clothes. I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing that,” he said with a shiver.

“Uh, hello? There’s such a thing as ‘fashion.’ Besides, it’s better than those ridiculous tuxes you always wear.”

She was about to grab another flowery shirt when Mun Oh seized her by the hand, and before she could even blink, they were already out of the store.

“
You have got to stop doing that
, you pest!”
Hyeon
Jin
yelled, clutching her chest and breathing heavily.

Mun Oh looked like he was about to explode, too. “That is the twentieth store we have set foot in and all you ever did was pick out the most hideous and uproarious pieces of clothing and force them on me. I’m going home.”

“No, you’re not!”

“Yes, I am!”

Seeing that another argument would be a total waste of time,
Hyeon
Jin
decided to yield. “Okay, fine! Let’s get serious. I mean, I’ll be serious now.”

Mun Oh looked over at her incredulously.

Hyeon
Jin
exhaled to remain calm and composed. “I really wanna help you change your image.”

“I don’t need to change my image and I definitely don’t need your help, human.”

“Will you just shut up and listen to me?!”
Hyeon
Jin
snapped, unable to stay calm for even a minute in front of Mun Oh. “As much as I hate to admit it, you’re part of my family and it seems like you’re gonna be stuck with us for a while. So there is absolutely
NO WAY
in hell I’m gonna allow you to look as ridiculous as you are right now… at least, not while you’re with us.”

Mun Oh’s look of incredulity intensified. “And you think I’m just gonna allow a lowly human like you to dress me up like a doll?” was what he wanted to say, but something else came out of his mouth. Something so preposterous that he wondered if he was really the one who had uttered it.

“Fine. Do whatever you want.”

Hyeon
Jin
thought she must have been simply hearing things, so she said, “I’m telling you, you need to change—” She stopped, looked at him closely and continued tentatively. “—Did you… Did you just say ‘fine, do whatever you want’?”

Mun Oh closed his eyes. Damn! I did say that! What’s happening to me?

“So,”
Hyeon
Jin
exclaimed, a smile slowly forming on her lips. “Shall we continue with our shopping?” Not waiting for a reply, she linked her arms with his and cheerfully made her way down the road, dragging him along.

They spent the next hour going in and out of various clothing stores. This time around though, there wasn’t much bickering as
Hyeon
Jin
picked more decent and casual-looking clothes while Mun Oh reluctantly tried them on for her.

Although the clothes were generally normal-looking compared to those flowery shirts before, Hyeon
Jin
still couldn’t hold in her laughter every time Mun Oh walked out of the dressing room.

“Okay, if you don’t stop laughing, I swear I’m gonna—”

“What, bite me?”
Hyeon
Jin
interrupted, still chuckling quite loudly.

Mun Oh’s eyes widened. “Shut up, you big-footed girl.”

“Okay, okay. Try this one, then,” she said, still giggling like a hyena. She handed him a pair of jeans and a white shirt.

Snatching it out of her hands, he disappeared back into the dressing room once more.
Hyeon
Jin
busied herself by choosing some more clothes as she waited for him.

After five minutes or so, he stepped out of the dressing room and stood in front of
Hyeon
Jin
, who hardly recognized him. Her jaw dropped, her eyes almost popped out, and she looked at him like she’d never done before.

“What?” Mun Oh asked with a raised eyebrow.

Hyeon
Jin
shook her head vigorously and closed her mouth. She had no idea why all of a sudden her heart skipped and invisible butterflies started fluttering inside her stomach the moment she saw him. A minute ago, she had just been getting ready to laugh at him.

He was wearing a pair of faded blue jeans and the white shirt with black print that she had randomly picked up a while ago. It was so ordinary, yet… he looked extraordinary in it.

Maybe I’m just not used to him looking so casual, she convinced herself. But still, she couldn’t help but stare at him, or rather, ogle him as if he was a magnificent piece of art.

“What?!” Mun Oh repeated, irritated.

“Oh! Umm, well…” She stood up, trying to compose herself. “Yeah, whatever. I’m hungry,” she mumbled, hoping that he wouldn’t deduce the reason behind her awkward reaction.

Unfortunately for her, he was quick enough to get the picture.

“Oh. I look good in this, huh?” he said arrogantly, smiling from ear to ear.

Hyeon
Jin
gave a fake laugh, but her eyes told a different story as she stole a meaningful glance at him.

After paying for the clothes,
Hyeon
Jin
led the way to one of her favorite restaurants downtown. Once again, they spent a good three minutes disputing before going inside the restaurant.

“
Modern Toilet?
What the hell?” Mun Oh exclaimed, eyeing the restaurant with disgust.

“Come on, I’m hungry.”

“I am not going in there. What are you gonna eat in there, ice cream flavored sh—”

“—Shut up. What are you, from the mountains?”
Hyeon
Jin
snapped at him, rolling her eyes. “This is like one of the most famous restaurants in town, pest. They serve normal food, at least for humans like me.” Her eyes twinkled mischievously. “I dunno if they serve blood, though,” she added, chuckling.

It was Mun Oh’s turn to roll his eyes. “Will you stop with the vampire jokes? What if someone hears you?”

She shrugged and entered the restaurant. Mun Oh grudgingly followed her. As soon as he had taken a good look around, he almost cursed aloud in total disbelief.

Now he knew why it was called the Modern Toilet. The restaurant was designed like a bathroom—the tables were actually bathroom sinks with sheets of glass on top of them. Instead of normal chairs, there were toilet bowls with their covers down around the tables. The ceilings and floors were tiled like a bathroom and the waiters were wearing bathrobes.

Although it was the most hilarious thing he had ever seen in his entire life, Mun Oh couldn’t help feeling amazed and somewhat impressed at the creativity of the owner. He looked around and observed everything, chuckling to himself whenever he saw something peculiar.

He didn’t realize
Hyeon
Jin
was gazing at him and smiling at his every reaction.

“What? It’s hilarious,” he explained, trying to compose himself.

“Mmhmm…” She nodded, flashing a sarcastic smile at him before ordering.

After a while, their food came, which caused Mun Oh to chuckle some more. The stew she ordered was placed in a small replica of a toilet bowl. The rice was also in a toilet bowl replica, only a bit smaller than that of the stew. And the chocolate ice cream, perfectly shaped like dung, was flawlessly placed on the smallest toilet bowl replicas.

Hyeon
Jin
was already serving herself some stew, but Mun Oh was still laughing uncontrollably, causing a few of the occupants at nearby tables to turn and look.

“Will you stop laughing? It’s embarrassing. People think I’m with a retard,” she told him, but Mun Oh just couldn’t help it. He had never felt this amused and light-hearted before. And he didn’t really care whether he looked stupid right then. For the first time in his life, all he wanted to do was laugh to his heart’s content and feel good doing so.

After entering a couple of accessories stores, they both felt that the whole day of walking, arguing, shopping, more arguing and more walking had taken its toll. It was past six when they headed back home, Mun Oh reluctantly carrying three shopping bags full of clothes.

Maybe it was the fact that they were both worn out or maybe they had just ran out of things to say, but the trip back home was eerily silent and a bit awkward for some reason.
Hyeon
Jin
was walking ahead of Mun Oh, but she would stop in her tracks every few seconds to check on him, yelling ‘hurry up’ in an annoyed way, although her eyes still had that strange glint in them. Mun Oh, on the other hand, would stare at her back for quite a while and look away each time she looked back to say ‘hurry up.’ He was trying to smell her, but for some odd reason, he still couldn’t. As a bloodsucker, he could try to read what she was thinking, especially the reason behind that sparkle in her eyes. But he didn’t. Maybe he just didn’t want to know or he didn’t care at all; either way, he tried to control his strong bloodsucker senses.

The moment they set foot inside the house, dinner was already being prepared. Mun Oh hastily dropped the shopping bags on the couch and collapsed right next to them while
Hyeon
Jin
greeted her dad and a stunned Ji Sun.

Ji Sun's hair was in a messy bun, she wore a pink apron, and held a ladle in her hands. She stared at her younger brother with her mouth wide open. It wasn’t really because he was wearing normal human clothes or because he had actually spent a whole day doing something he hated—shopping. It was because he had actually spent the day with
Hyeon
Jin
and came home in one piece, as if it was something he’d do on a daily basis. It was so real, yet unreal.

Chuckling to himself,
Kim
Junjin
walked over to her and gently closed her mouth before dragging her over to the kitchen. He knew more than anyone else that, although Hyeon Jin tended to be a pain in the butt most of the time, she had a way of making people like her, or at least be able to stand her, whether they liked it or not.

Hyeon Jin stared incredulously at
the gangly boy scurrying along the locker-lined corridors. His hair was disheveled and his hands shakily clutched his books closer to his chest. He could've been good looking if he only knew how to look in the mirror once or twice.

A stout boy who was too busy devouring a piece of brownie to watch where he was going bumped into the scrawny kid, knocking the books out of his hands. The stout boy merely looked at him as he bent down to retrieve his things.

"Sorry... I'm.... really sorry... Sorry..." he repeated again and again, without looking up.

Hyeon
Jin
had seen enough. As he passed her by, she purposely closed her locker door so loud that the gangly boy almost jumped out of his shoes.

"YOU!"
Hyeon
Jin
yelled at him. He stopped to look at her, his eyes already brimming with tears.

"Me...?"

She stepped up to him, establishing eye contact. Although he was a good two feet taller than her, he was shaking uncontrollably, as though she was a scary giant towering over him.

Without a word,
Hyeon
Jin
knocked the books out of his hands, making them drop to the floor with a loud thud. Fear and surprise crossed the boy’s face as he bent over to pick his books up. But as soon as he had them in his hands again, she shoved them out of his hands again. He bit his lip and quietly retrieved his books, not daring to look up. Just when he was about to stand up, she kicked the books out of his trembling hands. This went on for about a minute or so, nobody saying a word at all. Eventually,
Hyeon
Jin
grew tired of it.

“God… Stand up, you loser!” she snapped at him.

He did as he was told, with his head still angled down.

“Who dropped the books?”
Hyeon
Jin
asked him. “ANSWER ME!” she added when he didn’t reply immediately.

“Me…?” he whispered.

“What?”

“Me.”

“Dammit! It was not YOU, it was ME!”
Hyeon
Jin
said exasperatedly.

The boy looked up at her in confusion but said nothing.

“Did I do it on purpose?” she asked.

He shook his head without even thinking.

She cursed aloud, staring fiercely at the boy. “I knocked the books out of your hands at least twenty times and you think I didn’t do it on purpose, you dimwit?!”

“I— I just thought…”

“Shut up!” she snapped. “If someone drops your things on purpose, who should pick them up?”

The boy opened his mouth to speak, but
Hyeon
Jin
cut him off.

“No, don’t answer that.” She sighed heavily and continued eyeing the trembling boy in an irritated way. “You know what happens to losers like you?”

The boy shook his head vigorously.

“
NOTHING!
You stay like that forever!” she bellowed, causing him to jump back a few steps. “I know it feels good to be invisible and play a passive role in life. But you’re gonna have to deal with other people, one way or another. And these people are not gonna be nice to you. They’re not gonna get out of
your
way—either you get out of
their
way or you tell them to get out of
your
way. That’s how it is.” She paused to take a deep breath. “That’s how it’ll always be.”

The boy stopped trembling and stared at her as though he was seeing her for the first time. She looked away as she tried to compose herself.

After a few seconds of silence, she looked back at him again, and from out of nowhere, she knocked the books to the floor again. As if waiting for his cue, he just stood there, blinking at her. Just when
Hyeon
Jin
was about to move, he bent down to get them.

She covered her face with one hand in exasperation. “Gosh. You’re hopeless.”
Hyeon
Jin
started to walk away from him.

“I… I picked them up coz I’m a…
gentleman
,
”
he said in a soft voice, just loud enough for her to hear.
Hyeon
Jin
stopped but didn’t look back. He cleared his throat. “But next time, I won’t pick them up for you, okay? Because you were the one who dropped the books… on… on purpose.”

Hyeon
Jin
smiled despite herself. “That’s better!” she called out over her shoulder, and then went on her way to her P.E. class at the field outside.

•••

The next few days after their shopping spree were like a series of mushy and cliché scenes straight out of a sappy romantic movie.

Every time Hyeon Jin tried to say some insult about Mun Oh, his new look kept popping up before her, forcing her heart to do a couple of involuntary backflips as she marveled at how different he looked.

Mun Oh still managed to say mean things and throw an occasional "big feet" joke her way, but his attacks were noticeably weaker than before. Although he kept telling himself that he was merely bored of teasing her and that he was way over their “last laugh war,” he still felt an unsettled feeling at the pit of his stomach. Before, every time she smiled, the only emotion he felt was annoyance. But lately he found that her smile, especially when directed at him, caused a tidal wave in his stomach for some unknown reason.

There were instances when they’d bump into each other inside the house, and instead of bickering like they normally did, they’d just avoid eye contact and go on their way without a word. Before, they didn’t want to be in the same room for more than a minute because they couldn’t stand each other. Lately, they didn’t want to be in the same room for more than a minute because they felt awkward for no reason at all.

“You’re late again,
Ms.
Hyeon
Jin
,” the buff P.E. instructor yelled.

“I know, sir,” she replied nonchalantly, changing into her tennis shoes.

She looked around; everyone was already doing laps around the field.

“One more tardy and I swear I’m gonna kick you out of my class!” he threatened, getting back to his clipboard.

Hyeon
Jin
joined her classmates and started running around the field. Shin
Erin
saw her and quickly caught up to her.

“Hey! What’s up?”

“Nothing much,”
Hyeon
Jin
replied with a yawn.

“So what happened to that pest? Still in your house?” Shin
Erin
asked, trying to keep up with her.

“Yeah. Sure. Don’t see anything wrong with it.”

For some reason, Shin Erin stopped dead in her tracks.
Hyeon
Jin
didn’t notice it immediately, but when she did, she was a good four feet away. Confused, she ran back to where her friend stood frozen.

Shin
Erin
was looking at her as if she were a ghost or something.
Hyeon
Jin
scratched her head.

“What?!” asked
Hyeon
Jin
.

“You… like him, don’t you?”

“WHAT!”

Hyeon
Jin
shook her head, unsure whether she had heard her correctly. She scanned their surroundings, making sure that nobody was watching them, and then dragged Shin Erin behind one of the large trees nearby.

“What did you just say?”

Shin
Erin
smiled mischievously. “You do like him, huh?”

“I do NOT like him—wait, who? Mun Oh? I mean, that pest? No way! Haha. What gives you that idea? Like, duh,” she blurted out incoherently.

Shin
Erin
merely shrugged. “I can see it in your eyes. It’s the same look you had when you first told me you liked Park Juno.” She started to sprint away, leaving
Hyeon
Jin
feeling more confused than ever.

•••

Since he had nothing to do at home, Mun Oh made it a daily habit to take long strolls outside. Sometimes he would visit nearby malls, shops and famous districts, and sometimes he would take a tour of nearby villages and other areas. Now he slightly understood why his sister was fascinated with these humans. They were quite interesting after all.

He closed his eyes as he stood in the middle of a busy district lined with miscellaneous shops and tried to smell out a possible catch. It had been quite a while since he had sucked blood, and he was getting excited about taking some into his dry mouth again. To his right, a pretty young lady in her early twenties caught his attention. She smelled like raspberries. A few meters away, another girl smelled like roses. Yet another one smelled like freshly brewed coffee.

The perfect catch was standing right in front of him. A girl who was a couple of years older than him, with a small face and her hair tied in a neat bun. She was smiling from ear to ear as she tried to sell a peculiar “five-in-one” gadget to passersby. Mun Oh opened his eyes slowly and gazed at her as the familiar tingling sensation in his body overwhelmed him. He took big steps towards her, his eyes glistening malevolently.

Finally. I've found my catch…
he thought with excitement.

•••

“What are you doing?” Ji Sun’s voice asked from out of nowhere, making
Kim
Junjin
drop the kitchen knife in his hand.

“Can you not do that, please?” he said angrily, bending over to pick up the knife.

Ji Sun strode over to check on him. “Are you making a
kim
bap?”
she asked.
Kim
bap
was the Korean version of sushi.

“Isn’t it obvious?”
Kim
Junjin
snapped, carefully cutting it into small pieces.

“You can’t cook to save yourself,” Ji Sun said flatly.

“Okay, now you've ruined my mood,” he said, dropping the knife on the counter. “I’m trying to make something special for you guys, and you just had to do that, didn’t you?”

Ji Sun smiled sweetly and slowly pulled him toward her, planting a kiss on his lips.

“You don’t have to make something special for us. Every day with you is special enough.” She hugged him tightly. “I’m sure Mun Oh and
Hyeon
Jin
feel the same way.”

“I think there’s something wrong with her.”

“Who?
Hyeon
Jin
?” Ji Sun asked, pulling away from him.

“Yeah. She’s acting weird these days. She got home today and stayed in her room. It’s not like her. And she hasn’t had an argument with Mun Oh for quite some time now, don’t you think?”

Ji Sun bit her lip as a horrible thought occurred to her.

Maybe Mun Oh did something to her. No way. He wouldn’t do that. Besides, they’re getting along quite fine lately,
she thought restlessly.
Wait!
Are they getting along more than fine?
She stared at
Kim
Junjin
with wide eyes
. No way. They couldn’t have… They wouldn’t… No…

“What’s up?”
Hyeon
Jin
’s voice cut through Ji Sun’s thoughts.

“Oh! You’re here. We were just talking about—”

“
Kim
bap!” Ji Sun said, cutting
Kim
Junjin
off. “Your dad just made the most amazing
kim
bap for you!” She smiled, offering the plate to a confused
Hyeon
Jin
.

“Uh… No thanks. Dad can’t cook. Or even make something edible,” she said, eyeing the plate of
kim
bap with disgust.

Kim
Junjin
pouted as Ji Sun giggled. “Come on, try one! I did that for two hours!”

Hyeon
Jin
shrugged and grabbed one, putting it in her mouth without further ado. After chewing for only a second, she dashed to the nearest waste bin and spat it out. Ji Sun tried to keep a straight face as
Hyeon
Jin
emerged from the waste bin. The expression on
Kim
Junjin
’s face was unfathomable.

“Dad, seriously. Don’t ever try to make something again.
EVER.
” She shook her head and wiped her mouth. “I’m gonna go take a walk. Be back for dinner. Real dinner.”

Once outside, she breathed in some fresh air and headed to the left side of the neighborhood, where a playground was located. She was almost at her destination when she sensed a presence behind her. She quickly turned and found herself face to face with a young man, a few years older than her, with formidable features and a Cheshire cat smile on his brooding face. He looked like one of those ‘bad guys’ in the movies.