Beautiful Killer

[Tak Gunji]

The wind tonight was unbearably strong. Gunji could hear it whipping through the eaves of the old house he'd moved into with Chul Soo and whatever ghouls currently stayed overnight for a feeding. It was one of those stilt houses, the sort that had a crawlspace under the house. Gunji had never been comfortable with it. Sometimes he sent a ghoul to check for anything strange. So far, nothing but it unsettled him. Even as he listened to the groans of the house and the whistle of the winds outside, he listened for anything slithering about beneath the house.

Nothing.

Ever since Chul Soo rescued him from the woods, Gunji had been feeling out of sorts. Nothing truly happened. He had been taken away from the situation before anything really terrible could happen. Part of him was relieved. Another, deeper, darker part of him--probably the dark vampiric part of him--wished... Gunji pulled his knees up closer to his chest.

The wind was really tearing it up out there. His eyes half closed as he pulled the blanket around his shoulders closer. It covered his head, his shoulders, and wrapped around his chest. Between his knees, he had propped a cup of warmed blood that he'd been sipping while he watched one of the three public access channels that came when one didn't pay for cable. Mostly, it was there to drown out the wind but it wasn't helping much. Gunji reached for the remote, fingers clumsily trying for the volume button. He watched the volume bar slide up, up, up...

Fwoom! A terrific blue spark outside. Then...

Darkness.

Hello darkness, my old friend. Yet it was not a friend tonight. Tonight, it suffocated. Gunji's gaze didn't move from the television, which was now black and blank in the dark room. Outside, he could hear the loose screen door smacking against the doorjamb. He still didn't move his gaze. A flash again. Lightning. Now he did glance toward the front window, the big glass one that rattled as thunder cracked overhead. Nothing.

But somewhere in the distance, he heard it. A howl. One lone howl. Usually when one wolf howled, others answered it. Gunji listened and waited. There were no others. Finally, he threw back the blanket and padded over to the front door, slipping his feet into the outdoor slippers he wore whenever he had to go outside but not away from the homestead. He opened the front door and pushed the creaky screen door open. It thwacked hard against the door jamb when he was halfway down the steps, shoved into it by another sudden hard gust of wind.

Squinting against the sting of wind, Gunji turned his head and stepped down off the last step. The breaker box was around back. He trudged past the house and toward the back, holding his sweater against his body as he did--a holdover from his days as a human. Vampires didn't get cold. Not the way a human did.

He was nearly there when he saw it--the form of a large, shaggy wolf, in the woods near the house. For a long moment, he stared at the wolf. Then he decided to ignore it and kept going, rounding the corner to the breaker box.

[Ryang Jaesung]

At last, he found him.

The one that got away, Jae tracked him down.

It took a while, though. It took a long time, many days of carefully following the trails--the scent trails. There was another scent mixed in with Tak Gunji's, and sometimes the two mixed together so that he couldn't immediately distinguish which way his prey's scent came or went. Other times, the scent grew cold and then Jae had to use his human tracking skills--asking around, skulking in the shadows and watching for likely places that vampires could be found.

It wasn't easy, but he found him.

As the storm settled in and swept inland over Hazleton, Jae rushed through the woods. There was a heady kind of rush in joining the wild savagery of Mother Nature's angry outburst. Winds whipped trees violently, causing them to shed not only leaves and twigs, but whole branches. Lightning forked in the sky; thunder rumbled in low growls, like a great angry wolf up in the sky.

Jae threw back his head and howled, long and slow and unbroken. It was a warning to others: stay away. He wouldn't be interrupted tonight and God or the Devil help anyone who tried to interfere. No answering howl greeted him. Good. The others knew not to come out on nights that he had marked as his nights to hunt. Their hierarchy still held.

He stood on a small hill looking down on the house, a ramshackle building that used to be part of a larger settlement. Most people who lived in Hazleton stayed within the town's confines; out here, there were only monsters and things that went bump in the night.

As a fork of lightning illuminated the skies, Jae caught movement. He stood stock still, watching, waiting. Tak Gunji. Jae caught his scent, a mere whiff of it before the wind whipped it away. His lips pulled back and away from his teeth in a savage and feral smile--if a wolf could smile. Then he was gone, zipping effortlessly down the little hill, changing as he went until the quiet shuffle of paws became the dry scuffle of bare feet.

"Tak Gunji." Jae's voice was still a low, raspy grate as he came upon Tak Gunji, who was prodding at something in a metal box.

[Tak Gunji]

As he suspected, something had shorted in the breaker. Turning it off and then back on only produced another wild set of sparks. A part would have to be replaced but this late at night, it wasn't going to happen. He would just have to be left alone in the darkness of the old house in the middle of nowhere. A small sound passed his lips, almost of exasperation. A vampire who didn't want to be left alone in the dark. It was the punchline to a terrible joke.

If it weren't for the brief lull in the storm, Gunji might not have heard it. The voice was so low and raspy that it almost blended into the fierce wind of the storm. But no, he chose the moment in which everything went still to speak. His name.

Realizing the breaker was now useless to him, he let the metal lid slide down with a neat click. He didn't turn around. His hand didn't leave the outside of the smooth metal box, even as a fork of lightning lit up the sky for a couple of seconds. Metal wasn't a smart thing to be touching during a thunderstorm.

He considered his choices. They were both fast. How fast was the wolf? Surely faster than a vampire. Running was useless. Slowly, he turned his head without moving to fully face him. He would be an idiot to forget who this was. The wolf he'd stumbled across whilst gathering ingredients for witches--a job that was beneath him, and yet he had been stuck with it anyway. The errand boys were lost, likely taken by the wolf, likely made into a meal. When Gunji had been captured, however, he was not quickly made into a meal. The wolf, it seemed, was looking for something else.

Why him? Why track him all the way here after he had been taken back by his own people? And how did he know Gunji was alone tonight? Why was Gunji alone tonight? He was a fool.

The wind blew again, harder. Somewhere at the front of the house, he heard something rattle along the porch and then into the tall grass that surrounded it. The place was ugly, unkempt, meant to shield them from curious and prying eyes. Another dull, abandoned building from old Hazleton? Not worth the time. Gunji dropped his hand and finally turned toward the wolf. He was in human form. Of course he was. He couldn't speak to him as a wolf.

"Wolf."

[Ryang Jaesung]

Wolf, he was called, and wolf he was. He didn't count on his prey being alone, however. It didn't actually matter if he was. Jae could take on any number of them, if it meant reclaiming what he considered rightfully his. He had killed vampires before. Tearing off their heads was the same as a stake through the heart. Maybe it was better. He couldn't feast on their still-warm corpses if he staked them.

Jae smiled, though it was more of a baring of the teeth than anything else, as he took a bold step forward. Vampires were dangerous creatures but so were werewolves. That age-old debate of who was stronger, faster, the more efficient killer still held, although Jae could rest somewhat easier given that it was close to the full moon. His strength was rising. It would peak on the night of the full moon, but even now he was more than a match for Tak Gunji.

"Jae."

There, now they were on even footing. They each knew the other's name, although that was inconsequential to Jae's intentions. He already knew that he had the vampire trapped. He had come back for his prey. Maybe he hadn't tried to eat Tak Gunji in the woods but it didn't mean that just anyone could waltz in and steal him. Yes--steal him. Because now, by right of conquest, Tak Gunji belonged to him.

Swiftly, almost as fast as the lightning that forked in the sky, Jae moved. He bulled forward into Tak Gunji, grasping at his wrists to try and force them up over his head.

[Tak Gunji]

Jae?

It was a name. The wolf was introducing himself. Why was he introducing himself? It would have been almost amusing, had the name not been shortly followed by the speedy approach of the wolf himself. First he delivered his name and then himself, crashing into a half disbelieving Gunji as he did. The rough stucco siding of the house scraped into his back as he was pushed back. While his lips parted as if in question, no words actually left his mouth. Instead, dark eyes were on the wolf as he tried to take his wrists. One was successful and pulled up, the other was dodged and Gunji tried to use it as leverage.

Why are you fighting it?

The words echoed in his head, a question that pulsed like a migraine. The voice didn't even sound like his own; it was the voice of somebody else, from a past centuries ago. His free hand pressed against Jae's chest and he pushed with all of his might, even with the other wrist up somewhere, pinned against the house. This was no coincidence, he felt. The wolf wasn't happy with his escape... or more accurately, the rescue that had been performed to get him away from that weird shack deep in the woods. This was vengeance.

Gunji didn't feel like playing games.

[Ryang Jaesung]

This wasn't a game.

Jae was in dead earnest, in his attempt to subdue the vampire. His quick hands caught one wrist and jerked it up, banging it hard against the rough exterior wall. The other came at his chest, with surprising force, but that just meant that it stopped moving long enough for Jae's other hand to whip up and grab on. He was particularly careless in the way he pulled it away, letting it join the other arm up in the air--again with a punishing smack against the side of the house.

"Stop. Resisting." His words were a low growl, a bare rumble of sound welling up from the back of his throat. His eyes bore into the vampire's with a ferocious glare. Both of them had excellent night vision, so he knew that Tak Gunji knew he was serious. Nothing in his expression indicated that he was out here for a lark.

"You are mine." Jae's hands tightened around Gunji's wrists with bruising force, almost enough to snap the bones if he really wanted. "I caught you."

The words may have been simple, even childish, but they followed the rules of the wild. Jae was the predator. Gunji was his prey. Having caught him, he felt entitled to keeping him, and to catching him when he escaped. It wasn't the first time a mouse ran from a cat, only to be snatched up again--or a bat from a wolf, as it were.

[Tak Gunji]

If it weren't for his sensitive hearing, he might not have heard Jae's low voice against the backdrop of thunder cracking overhead. The air felt strange between them, around them, like an electric charge was forming, bound to hit them both should they stay outside. The wind was a furious banshee, howling and whipping through the trees and the tall grass around them and the scent of the rain came just before the first fat drops began to fall from the dark, dark grey sky.

So much moved around them. So much screamed around them. Yet the two of them were still now, save for their hair. They seemed locked in a silent battle now, with the words hanging between them like the electricity in the air. Gunji still had a difficult time processing them properly. Mine? His, he said, as if Gunji was not Gunji, just a nameless toy, wrested between the teeth of a possessive dog. Or wolf, as the case might be. After a long beat, Gunji gritted his teeth and pulled his hands downward with as much might as he could muster.

"And I got away."

He wasn't some wolf's plaything. He had plans and work to do, albeit, plans and work that was falling apart at the seams even as he watched. There was a time that Gunji thought his game was worth playing but lately, he couldn't shake the awful feeling that he was not toying with others... rather, he was being toyed with. To be toyed with by yet another was unbearable. He didn't need this. With his hands held with such force, he had few other weapons at his disposal--yet he still had them and as such, he used them--by lurching forward and attempting to sink sharp teeth into the wolf's shoulder.

[Ryang Jaesung]

"And I caught you again."

There was no getting around Jae's logic by the simple fact that he refused to budge. He was immovable; he was the brick wall that Tak Gunji had run up against and brick walls yielded to no one. Despite his best efforts to pull his hands down, Jae held on tight. It made no difference to him if Tak Gunji broke something in the struggle, or if he dislocated a shoulder or two. Jae didn't need him whole--just alive. Alive long enough for him to figure out why he needed to sink his teeth and claws deep into him.

Except Tak Gunji sank his teeth in first, tearing into the unprotected flesh of Jae's shoulder with razor-sharp canines. It hurt, too. Jae wouldn't deny that it hurt but it only made him laugh in the face of the pain. "What is that supposed to achieve?" He asked, almost sounding amused. In return, he shoved Tak Gunji up harder against the wall, ignoring the way that the violent movement tore his shoulder apart even further. Pain only fed into his voracious wild side, the wolf in him rising to the challenge of subduing his prey--by any means.

Jae insinuated his body against Tak Gunji's, to ward off more attacks. At this proximity he could only snap, maybe try to headbutt. Jae's grin was purely wolfish, sadistic, pleased.

"You. Are mine." His sinister whisper hissed against Tak Gunji's ear. Jae's tongue flicked out against the shell of it; a low, possessive rumble sounded in the back of his throat as his body pressed in closer. They might have looked intimate from afar, to the passing eye. But intimacy in the traditional sense of the word wasn't exactly in Jae's plans. The virus saw to that; it wiped out everything in him that was capable of feeling anything except rage and possession.

[Tak Gunji]

"..."

Well, there was hardly an argument for that, unless he freed himself and ran off again. Last time, he had the good fortune of being broken free by an old friend and partner. Not so much this time. Everybody was off on their own, working their own angles, doing their own jobs. Meanwhile, here he was, alone... It wasn't all that intelligent of him to stay alone in a dark storm such as this, knowing about the mad wolf in the woods. But he'd known about the mad wolf for a while now; he just hadn't counted on meeting him... or being caught by him... or being stalked by him.

Last time they met, Jae here said he saw something he wanted--him--and took it. The only "why" he gave was that he wanted him. Some animalistic part of him wanted to be wanted but this wasn't exactly what the less animalistic side of him had in mind.

The bite did nothing to achieve what he wanted. It didn't last long enough to drain any blood from the wolf and it only served to make the wolf laugh and then pin him harder against the scratchy wall of the old house. But he could taste the blood on his lips. It took him a good deal of will power not to lick it. Licking it with the body arched up against his didn't seem... appropriate. They were too close to even attempt any kind of kick and the wolf's grip was powerful, digging into his wrists like a bear trap's teeth.

His eyes closed slowly. Head lowered. Turned away. "No." His voice was calm, almost stern, like he was talking to a bad dog with all the patience of a saint.

[Ryang Jaesung]

"You don't get a choice."

Jae freed one hand--while the other pinned Gunji's two wrists in place. He used it to grasp sharply at Gunji's jaw, turning it forcefully towards him. His eyes--almost golden in the glow of a nearby lightning streak--bore into the vampire's. "You are mine."

He didn't seem to understand that simple, basic fact. Jae was taking him. In the animal kingdom there was no such thing as 'negotiation.' It was kill or be killed, hunt or be hunted. To the victor, as they say, go the spoils and Jae considered himself the victor here. Who was stronger than him? Faster? More vicious and ferocious? No one. Otherwise they would have already taken his place.

His nails dug hard into Gunji's jaw on either side, so hard that he broke the skin. Could have broken his jaw, too, to stop him from denying the truth. Jae thought about it seriously for a few moments. Maybe he could dislocate it. His eyes narrowed. Or he could shut him up another way. It annoyed him a little, how calm Gunji was being. How... superior that made him appear, as though Jae was beneath his contempt and needed to be talked down to like a disobedient child. It stirred the animal inside of him.

"Mine," he growled again, and then leaned in for a kiss that was more of an act of war than any really affectionate gesture. There was more teeth than tongue; he tasted blood, whether his own or Gunji's was debatable. The hand that was at Gunji's jaw dropped low, shamelessly groping with intent to humiliate more so than to offer pleasure.

[Tak Gunji]

For a few seconds, he looked at the wolf--because his head had been twisted to face him. But then he was off looking into the distance again, despite the way the wolves sharp nails bit into his jaw. Despite the condition of the wolf, he was strong. Gunji heard about the feral ones, although this was possibly the first truly feral one he'd ever come across in his time. Most of them were wild, yes. But they weren't... this. Whatever this was.

He wanted to turn his head again but his head was forced into place by the vice grip the wolf had on his jaw. He had to settle with turning his gaze away, to the tall grass waving harshly in the fierce winds. It tickled at his legs, high enough in some places to graze his knees. All he wanted to do was withdraw into himself, to go back inside, to sit in the darkness that he never should have left. The television softly speaking to him in the background was a comfort but it was not a necessity. He should have left things as they were.

Most of his life felt like a string of lonely should haves and could haves. Every choice he made seemed to have spectacular consequences, cornering him in one way or another. If the wolf was going to kill him, he ought to do it. Just do it. But he made it pretty clear in that raspy, disused voice of his that he had other plans. Death was too good for him. It was all the choices he made up until that moment, that acted as some kind of sick justice, he supposed. He just didn't know what he'd done to deserve the sudden, bitter kiss.

The sharp tang of blood filled his tongue. It could have been anybody's blood because Gunji answered the bare excuse of a kiss with a bite of his own. Instinct erred toward violence. Logic said that violence had the opposite of the intended effect on this one. He bit harder as the hand left his jaw, then whipped his head away, his lower body jerking hard against the wall in a useless attempt to evade the hand groping him.

[Ryang Jaesung]

If Jae had to assign a human emotion to what he felt, the closest approximation would have to be desire. He desired Tak Gunji--he was attracted to him. There was no reason for it. Emotions rarely had a rational or logical basis.

Maybe his 'courtship' style left something to be desired, but Jae wasn't bound by human conventions. He had been living in the wild for so long as a wolf that all of this was rather strange and foreign to him. The only reason he was in this form was because he couldn't communicate with Gunji otherwise. Not that the ability to speak was doing him any good...

Then again, he wasn't seeking permission. Jae operated by the rules of the wild and the way he saw it, if he wanted something, he could take it. It just so happened that he wanted--desired--Gunji.

A pleased growl rumbled in the back of his throat as he was bitten. This, he understood. Violence and blood and the struggle, those were common things, familiar things. Even when the kiss broke off he was smiling--a little. His hand followed the twist of Gunji's body, rubbing him inexpertly, a little forcefully. Jae leaned in again and this time the kiss was more like a kiss and less like an assertion of dominance. Some of the human way of doing things was returning. Once he even had a normal life, a lover, a family. Now, he had... this. The forest, the wild storm and the struggle of predator versus prey, a timeless battle.

Violently, he tore at Gunji's clothes--to rip apart his shirt, exposing him to lashing wind and rain. He tore at Gunji's pants, frustrated by the belt--useless, unnecessary human accessory--and buttons.

[Tak Gunji]

Why...

Why was he smiling? Gunji only had time to think it before he found that his movement that took him as far as possible from Jae only served to trap him further against the wall. There was nowhere else to go and the wolf was bound and determined to get what he wanted. Why? What could he possibly gain from touching him like that? What did he get out of it? Gunji's lips parted. Blood. Blood on his lips. His tongue stroked his lower lip to get a better taste before the rain above ended up washing it away.

Gunji could get something out of this... if he bit the wolf. But it was hard to bite anywhere but his face now that he was shoved up against him so closely. Before he could bite again, Jae kissed him again. Gunji's head moved slightly and he parted his lips, prepared to snap and bite at him but this kiss was different. What? This didn't fit into what he'd experienced with the wolf thus far.

That kiss was just the eye of the storm, though. A moment later, his clothes were being ripped off his skin, with no care as to what happened to him beneath the clothes. The top shirt was a flimsy, half buttoned thing to begin with and it yielded easily with an almost satisfying tearing sound. The pants, though. Gunji made a small noise in the back of his throat, twisting his body away from being torn apart in a sensitive area.

His hands struggled but in that moment, with Jae somewhat distracted by his new task, Gunji was able to wriggle one wrist free. He used that hand to press against Jae's chest, pushing him back, away, as bodily as he could.

"Stop."

[Ryang Jaesung]

Words never meant a hell of a lot to Jae--not when he communicated mostly in growls and body language. Stop, no, don't, anything that Gunji said fell mostly on deaf ears. Jae didn't think he could have been more clear about his intentions. It was Gunji who wasn't getting it through his head that this was happening.

This was happening.

Whether he wanted it or not.

Jae fell back a pace at the shove but then he came right back, grabbing the arm that had wriggled free and using it to spin Gunji around. He pushed hard to get him back up against the wall and then sandwiched him against it, between wall and body. "No," Jae growled by his ear, pressing closer, fumbling to catch his hands again and still them--and by then it should have been fairly obvious where this encounter was going. The evidence of his arousal couldn't exactly be missed.

The struggle was amusing--like some type of perverse, rough foreplay--but it was time to get down to business.

Thing was, he didn't know when Gunji's vampire friends might return. Jae was confident in his strength and abilities but he didn't want to be interrupted. It was the prospect of having to stop half-way (that would be a crying shame) which made him hurry, both hands grasping at Gunji's hips to bring him back into position. "Just let it happen. It'll be easier on us both." His voice was coaxing... as much as a feral wolf hell bent on fucking somebody (against their will) could have a coaxing tone of voice.

[Tak Gunji]

Before he was a vampire, he trained to be a warrior in a time of mostly peace. Fighting didn't break out until after his time, when he should have already been dead. Gunji's heart still lived for peace, for a quieter time. This small town, it could have been a fresh start if he allowed things to just stay quiet. Instead, he listened to Chul Soo and he formed this thing, the blood ring. Ever since that night, they had been working on it. Bringing in vampires from around the country. Making ghouls of unsuspecting people.

They didn't always ask permission, either. Gunji's hands were not clean, as much as he kept trying to retreat back into the recesses of his mind. It was a strange ride, being a vampire. Nights when the blood lust made it so easy to be one. Nights when he could grasp a young human by the throat and push them against a wall just like Jae was doing to him. Avail himself of his new strength, his ability to overpower the human, to stare them in the eyes and make them his.

When Gunji was a human, he rarely looked anybody straight in the eye. He was quiet and kept mostly to himself, writing poetry inspired by both his lover and his wife. His heart, torn in two places... It made for a beautiful tragedy, really. He thought that was the worst thing that could possibly happen to him but he was wrong.

Even this... this violation wasn't the worst thing that had ever happened to him. And as Jae kept pushing forward, onward, determined to get what he wanted from him, Gunji found himself letting him. Was it better to just let him? Or should he fight tooth and nail to preserve what he no longer had? Maybe if he let him have his way, he would let Gunji have more than a brief taste of him. Maybe if he let him, he would just go away and leave him alone again. It seemed like the fight only made him... happier, if his current condition was any indication.

So he exhaled the air he didn't even need, letting hands bribe his body back into a lustful state, letting the growl of Jae's voice soften his mostly silent argument.