by Zhu Hsia
“IT’S OUAGADOUGOU, freak!” Mun Oh shouted. “IF YOU DON’T OPEN THIS UP IN THE NEXT FIVE SECONDS, I’M GONNA—” He stopped himself, realizing what he was about to say.
He was just about to tell her that if she didn’t open up, he would suck her dry. Good thing he was able to control himself.
“You’re gonna WHAT? Call your little Ouagoogoodou friends and lecture me about geography?” Hyeon Jin mocked. “Good night!”
He heard her walk away from the door and settle on the bed. Admitting defeat, he strode back past the kitchen and into the small room where two wooden chairs and one long, old-looking couch were set up in front of the flat-screen TV. He eyed the long couch anxiously.
“Unbelievable,” he muttered, shaking his head. He could not believe that that mere human girl had had the last laugh.
But as he lay down on the couch, curling up because it was too small for him, he thought that this was just the beginning. He was not just an ordinary bloodsucker—he was LEE MUN OH. A future legend. And legends did not go down in history as someone who lost in a “last laugh war” with a mere human.
Especially a GIRL, he thought furiously. I’m gonna make your life so miserable, you’d beg me to just bite you.
« CHAPTER 3 »
Hyeon Jin woke with a start, as though something unseen had shaken her. She turned her half-opened eyes toward the pig-shaped alarm clock on her bedside table.
Seven o'clock...
"Seven o'clock!!!" Hyeon Jin yelled, jolting out of her bed. "I'm so LATE!" She cursed under her breath, then took a two-minute shower and got dressed as quickly as she could.
She grabbed her school bag, some books, and her shoes, and then dashed out of her messy room and into the kitchen.
There were three people sitting at the dining table as she passed it, sprinting toward the refrigerator to grab a carton of milk. She was gulping down the milk when she realized something. Confused, she took a couple of steps backward, peeked at the dining table and started counting.
Her father was there, already dressed for work, perusing his daily dose of news. Ji Sun was eating a piece of toast while typing a message on her cell phone... And the third person was just sitting there, his arms crossed smugly, dressed in formal clothes and enjoying a cup of tea.
Hyeon Jin cursed, her hand quickly slapping her forehead. How could she forget? It was that wretched Mun Oh. The Brother from Hell.
She finished the milk, tossed it in the nearby trashcan and stomped toward the table. Nobody seemed to take notice of her, not even Mun Oh. So she reached out for a piece of toast, but before she could even touch one, her father's hand flew from across the table and swatted her hand away. She stared at him, surprised.
"No breakfast for you today, young lady," he simply said, getting back to his newspaper.
"WHAT? Why?" Hyeon Jin demanded.
"Kim Junjin… Don't be too harsh. It's not a big deal if she left Mun Oh to sleep outside. He's really used to sleeping on couches," Ji Sun explained.
"No, I'm not! I got bitten by those tiny insects and it was so cold and my neck and back hurts and… and… I didn't have a pillow!" Mun Oh whined.
Hyeon Jin crossed her arms. "So that's how it is? You let your daughter starve to death just because I left this— PEST here to sleep on the couch...?”
“That’s not what it is,” Kim Junjin replied without looking at her. “You should learn to be more hospitable.”
“Maybe she doesn’t know what the word means,” Mun Oh suggested.
“Shut up, you pest!” Hyeon Jin snapped at him. “I’m late. Just give me my allowance.” She held out her hand to Kim Junjin.
"I already gave you this month's allowance."
Hyeon Jin's outstretched hand went up to scratch her head tensely.
"Well... I... I bought a couple of things for school... so…" she stuttered.
Kim Junjin eyed her curiously. "Hmmm. For school, eh? Well, I guess you could show it to me, then, along with the receipt."
"Oh, come on, Dad! I'm LATE!"
"You should've woken up early," Mun Oh said nonchalantly.
"One more word and I swear I'm gonna—"
"Hyeon Jin!" Kim Junjin said in a dangerous tone. "If you don't have anything to show me, then just leave. Stop being rude to our visitor."
Hyeon Jin pouted, stomped out of the kitchen, and headed toward the front door.
She then started the twenty-minute walk to her school. Normally, she would have ridden her bike or on the back of Park Juno’s bike, but since she had neither anymore, she now had to endure the five-block walk every school day.
She was a block away from her school when she decided to stop walking and scream her lungs out in fury. A few passersby stared at her anxiously.
"What are you looking at?!" she yelled at a couple of elementary students, who immediately broke into a sprint, clearly terrified.
She continued walking, now cursing and muttering under her breath.
"Sucking up to my dad... What was he thinking? That he could win him over just like that? And why is he here anyways? Such a pain in the—"
"Since when did you start talking to yourself?" A voice behind her said.
She quickly spun around and found herself face to face with a spiky-haired guy wearing a familiar, innocent smile.
Park Juno...
Park Juno was her ex-boyfriend. They had been together for almost 70 days. Sadly, Hyeon Jin never really showed interest in their relationship. They never even reached their 100th day as a couple.
As usual, Park Juno's eyes were glinting with mischief. He parked his bike as Hyeon Jin looked around. She didn't realize that she was already inside the school gates while she was so busy mumbling to herself.
As she felt Park Juno's presence behind her again, she closed her eyes tightly, her face flushing. If there was one thing more embarrassing than talking to yourself, it was being caught by your ex-boyfriend while doing it.
She waited for him to say something. Thirty seconds went by. One minute. Another 30 seconds. She could only hear the chattering of the students as they passed her by. When two minutes had passed, she slowly looked over her shoulder.
Park Juno was not there. He had already gone inside the building.
"Really," Hyeon Jin muttered. She started stomping toward the school building, continuing her mutterings under her breath. "Why did I even wait for him to say something? What was I thinking? Damn. I'm such an—" She stopped in mid-mutter, spotting someone. "HEY! Shin Erin!"
A slender girl with wavy golden hair and dark blue eyes waved for Hyeon Jin to come over. She was standing opposite the line of lockers in the hallway, fumbling with her things.
Hyeon Jin halted in front of her, putting her hands on her waist to appear annoyed.
"Have you seen my iPod?" she asked Hyeon Jin without looking at her.
"You lent it to me the other day, twit," Hyeon Jin replied crossly.
"Oh, really? I forgot." She closed her bag and flashed Hyeon Jin a grin.
You would never, not even once, think that they had been best friends since childhood. With just one glance, you'd assume that they belonged in two completely different cliques.
Their common denominator? Bullying.
Shin Erin was quite a remarkable flirt, as Hyeon Jin always pointed out. The evidence? She dated five different guys from the same class, every year, without them knowing.
Hyeon Jin couldn't really tell if they were plain dumb or just playing dumb. After all, it was quite a privilege for them to date the hottest girl in town, even for just a week.
Shin Erin got her gorgeous features from her mother, a former beauty queen. Being half-Italian, Shin Erin had a rather perfect combination of genes, and she had never failed to make someone's head turn—whether it was a boy or a girl. She had been offered a bunch of acting roles since the early age of six.
Hyeon Jin didn’t really mind all the attention that her best friend was getting. There were only two things that s
he cared about: liberating herself from this pathetic high school as soon as possible and bullying all the weaklings in the world until they developed a backbone. Well, Hyeon Jin wasn't really ugly. It was just that next to Shin Erin, who wore makeup every day and took care to look pretty, Hyeon Jin was nothing more than a plain-looking girl who didn't even use a comb every day.
"I need it back," Shin Erin said in her overly sweet voice.
"'I need it back,' my ass!" Hyeon Jin said. "Why did you tell my dad about Park Juno?!"
Shin Erin curled her brows. "What about him?"
Hyeon Jin scoffed. She didn't really want to say it out loud because she believed that doing so made it official.
"Oh..." Shin Erin said. "Well, he asked me where you were last night. I couldn't really tell him you were off bullying a bunch of geeks, so I just told him a lie." She thought for a while. "Well, half a lie, actually."
"Whatever. I'd still appreciate it if you didn't tell him..." Hyeon Jin mumbled darkly, starting to walk toward the end of the hall where their classroom was.
Shin Erin followed her, finger-combing her hair gracefully, making a group of seniors drool stupidly as they passed by.
"So what happened last night?"
"Don't ask," Hyeon Jin replied shortly.
"Okay," Shin Erin said, nodding but looking unconvinced. "So... what happened?" she asked.
Jin pushed open the door to their classroom just as the bell rang throughout the building. Students immediately went to their respective seats and classrooms. Hyeon Jin studied her best friend, staring into her comically anxious face, which somewhat resembled that of a tabloid reporter waiting for some juicy gossip. She sighed, thinking it would be best if she let out some of the anger and frustration she'd been harboring since last night.
“Get inside, twit. I’ll tell you about it.”
“Ah-ha!” Shin Erin cheered loudly as she entered the room and settled into her seat at the back, with Hyeon Jin in her wake.
•••
Mun Oh yawned widely as he clicked the remote control, surfing the TV channels for a decent program. He was alone in the house. Kim Junjin had already left for work. Mun Oh found out that he was working at a public relations agency. By the looks of it, he could tell that Kim Junjin was not yet the "top" employee in their company. But being the eccentric man that he was, Kim Junjin appeared to be indifferent about it. For him, it was enough that he could bring food to their table three times a day.
Mun Oh was hoping to finish the conversation with his sister as soon as possible. He didn’t want to spend another night in this wretched house. His plans had been thwarted by the fact that Ji Sun also had had to leave for work. She worked as an assistant manager at one of the fast food chicken restaurants in the area. Although Mun Oh argued that he couldn’t see the point of having an “assistant” manager when there was already a manager, Ji Sun heard none of it and told him that their conversation would have to wait until she got back.
Since he didn’t really like the idea of being held up inside the house, much more a human house, he stood up from the couch, turned off the TV, and dragged himself outside, not bothering to change into casual clothes.
Right after jumping over the green picket fence, however, he remembered his sister's admonition just before she had left.
"Whatever happens, don't—and I mean DON'T—leave the house. Especially if you're off to look for a catch," Ji Sun had hurriedly whispered to him that morning while Kim Junjin had gone to get his tie from the bedroom.
Mun Oh made a face but Ji Sun had chosen to ignore it. "Listen here... if you get 'thirsty,' there are two cartons of blood in the refrigerator, disguised as tomato juice," she said, pointing in the direction of the kitchen. "That should be enough for you for the whole day, at least until I come back."
He wanted badly to argue that he did not drink just anyone's blood, he preferred the blood of a particular type of human. He liked to get to know his catch first before sucking its blood; that way, he could be assured of the quality of the blood and the satisfaction that he would get from it.
Unfortunately for him, by the time he had opened his mouth to speak, Kim Junjin was already sprinting toward them, ending their conversation right then and there.
A light blue sedan passed by and turned around the corner just as Mun Oh cast one thoughtful glance at the bungalow beyond the green picket fence.
It's not like I'm gonna go look for a catch... at least, not this early... he thought. I'll just have a little tour around this neighborhood.
With a shrug, Mun Oh started strolling down the lane, taking in every bit of his surroundings like a five-year-old on his first visit to the amusement park. As much as he hated to admit it, he was feeling a bit liberated. It wasn't like his parents or the norms of their ‘society’ had ever succeeded in holding him back from doing something he wanted to do, it was just that, for the first time in his life, he was actually doing something as worthless as strolling through an all-human neighborhood without having someone tell him off for doing so. More to the point, it was a bit relaxing, particularly after the rough night he had had.
Using his keen senses, he familiarized himself with the various kinds of humans living in each house—listening to their voices... sniffing out their fears... feeling their joys. He was quite surprised to find out that the neighborhood was actually small. He went around it twice in less than thirty minutes. Or maybe he was just too fast. Another advantage of being a bloodsucker was his speed and agility. Bloodsuckers could walk and run ten times faster than the average human.
Aside from that, he also discovered that the neighborhood was decent and more peaceful than what he had expected. People seemed to prefer staying inside their houses instead of wandering around or gossiping with their next-door neighbors.
He rounded another corner and saw the wide-open gates leading to the main street outside. Without thinking twice, he followed that path. Within five minutes, he was standing in the middle of a road that separated an empty park from a spacious school.
Could this be... that pesky girl’s school? he thought, a nasty smile spreading across his face.
With a smug look on his face, Mun Oh entered the school gates, passing by the snoozing, pot-bellied guard, and then made his way to the flesh-colored building on the right. He lingered by the enormous oak doors with square glass windows and closed his eyes to "feel out" the place. He could hear the various voices of teachers ranting on and on about random, mundane lessons. Mun Oh concentrated hard and picked out one particular voice, eliminating all the other voices at once. It was the voice of a man, probably in his late thirties, saying something about the early history of Korea involving Japan. His voice exuded dominance, suggesting that he was a well-built man with good posture.
Mun Oh shifted his attention to another voice. This time, it was a 40-year-old-sounding woman talking in a crisp tone about global warming. The third voice, another woman in her early 30’s, was talking lengthily about subject-verb agreement.
He was about to listen to another when he heard a distinctly familiar voice whispering in that English class. He listened intently and soon he was able to make out what the voice was saying. Loud and clear.
"... not even handsome. So don't even bother asking what he looks like. He is what I said he is: a PEST."
Mun Oh gritted his teeth angrily after confirming that it was Hyeon Jin's voice. And she was talking trash about him.
The nerve of that damn human girl!
Another voice whispered back—a sweeter voice.
"I was just curious. I mean, if he is Ji Sun’s younger brother, he can't be that bad looking. His sister's very pretty."
She was quite right. Ji Sun may not be a former beauty queen, but she was beautiful in her own right. With her luscious curves, thick hair, heart-shaped face and mesmerizing eyes, she could easily be mistaken for a celebrity.
"Duh. You've never heard of siblings who don’t look anything alike?" Hyeon Jin countered. "If Ji S
un is Beauty, then that pest is the BEAST."
Mun Oh's eyes popped open in a mixture of surprise and infuriation.
BEAST? Me? A BEAST?!
The other voice giggled. "You're so mean."
"It's true. He has scruffy and smelly hair, disgustingly pockmarked skin, yellow crooked teeth, and his eyes are red. Really. Scary, huh?" Hyeon Jin continued, no longer whispering.
Unable to take it anymore, he kicked the door open and stomped inside, his arms arrogantly folded across his chest. Just then, the four o'clock bell blared throughout the building, followed by the trample of students' feet pounding out of the rooms and pouring into the halls. Mun Oh decided to stop right in the middle of the locker-lined lobby, ignoring the confused and smitten stares thrown his way by passing students. The guys gave him the usual "what-the-hell-is-he-wearing" look of incredulity, while the girls either drooled as they stopped to stare or did a stunned double take.
He hated all the fuss and attention, thinking how pathetic humans actually were. The lobby where he stood was now crammed with students. Some of them were busy with their lockers, but most of them were girls encircling him as they cooed over him and whispered excitedly to each other.
The air was redolent of jealousy, fervent admiration, and confusion as more and more students passed Mun Oh. Some guys clutched their girlfriends tighter and closer upon seeing the magnificent chick magnet that was Mun Oh.
“Oh, my gosh. Who is that gorgeous guy?” a chubby girl in braces exclaimed weakly.
“Look at his eyes, so dark and mysterious!” one petite sophomore yelled excitedly.
“Oh, and check out those thin, kissable lips!” said another.
“Underneath that tux, I bet he’s got a hot body that would put Channing Tatum’s to shame!” a senior said in her sexy voice, winking at a now perplexed Mun Oh.
The young bloodsucker had no idea what these girls were gushing about. Although it sounded like heartwarming compliments, he still did not like the idea of being fawned upon, especially by humans.
Hyeon Jin and Shin Erin were just getting out of their classroom, after bullying one of their classmates to “lend” Hyeon Jin half of his allowance, when they spotted the commotion at the far end of the lobby.