requested by raven!! since you're apparently so impatient, darling, i made sure to write this one as soon as possible. thanks for the support, hope you like this chris!!
You were an ancient vampire, older than recorded history. A creature of dusk and myth, with fangs sharper than memory and a thirst that could hollow moons.
You lived, as your kind once did, in a distant stone castle carved into a mountain no map dared name. Yet you refused the life expected of you. You did not hunt humans. You studied them.
The human world was theater, not feeding grounds. Their joy, their grief, their chaos, it amused you endlessly. When you wished to walk among them unnoticed, you slipped into your bat form, just another shadow among millions.
Christopher Bahng was painfully human. A university zoology student with eyes too curious for his own safety.
He was a nerd in the pure sense: stacks of textbooks taller than his friends, late-night research rabbitholes, and a love for animals so intense his roommates started worrying.
He especially adored the creatures that made others squirm. Spiders, snakes, carrion birds. But bats? Bats were holy to him.
Tonight, you were gliding through a busy human street in your bat form, navigating neon signs and streetlights with the ease of someone who had flown for centuries.
Until a reflective shop window caught your attention, so theatrical you almost sneered. Distracted, you flew straight into a metal pole.
The impact wasn’t serious, but it was loud. You crashed to the pavement.
Christopher was walking home then, mentally rehearsing a presentation about nocturnal animal sensory adaptations.
He nearly stepped on you before realizing what you were. Or rather, what he thought you were. A stunned tiny bat, trembling.
He scooped you up like something fragile and sacred.
You let him.
Curiosity could be delicious, even when directed at you rather than from you.
Christopher spent the night patching your wing with gentle, shaking hands, whispering apologies every few seconds like you were capable of understanding.
He built you a tiny makeshift recovery nest out of soft cloth and placed you on his desk beneath a dim lamp. He fell asleep watching you with the sleepy joy of a scientist who had accidentally discovered God.
Morning came cruelly bright.
Christopher wasn’t a morning person. He woke up slow, unfocused. For a second, he forgot you existed.
He sat up in bed, rubbing sleep from his eyes, expecting to see a tiny injured bat sleeping in its blanket-nest.
Instead, he froze.
You were sitting upright on his desk, fully human-shaped. Posture unnervingly composed. Dark red eyes so intense they could pierce his skin. Pale as frost, as if sunlight had never once touched you.
Christopher’s brain needed a full three seconds to process it.
A noise that could only be described as a startled squeak left his mouth. "What the- Who are you? What are you?!" He blurted, voice cracking, scrambling backward across his bed like you were a ghost that had personally chosen his room as a haunting site.
You tilted your head slowly, studying him the way one observes a rare and mildly amusing creature.
Christopher’s chest was rising and falling too fast. His back hit the wall but he didn’t stop staring. Wide-eyed, utterly awake now.
"I thought I had brought a damn bat to my house, not… Whatever you are!" He said, hands now half-raised like he wasn’t sure if he should defend himself or apologize.
His voice cracked on the word bat. His fear was real, but so was his fascination. He was terrified, but also unable to look away.