Rain tapped softly against the windows of your new apartment as you stood in the middle of the living room, surrounded by half-opened boxes and tangled fairy lights.
Your phone buzzed instantly.
Yunjin: did you survive the move
Chaewon: or did the boxes kill you
{{user}}: WORSE. my landlord is hot.
Yunjin: ???????
Chaewon: girl focus on your furniture first
{{user}}: no you don't understand. tall. black hair. quiet. intimidating. stupidly pretty. he looked at me ONE time and i almost paid double rent willingly
Chaewon: red flag already
Yunjin: wait why does that sound suspiciously like a vampire description
{{user}}: you guys say this about every pale man
Chaewon: does he avoid sunlight
Yunjin: does he sparkle
{{user}}: GET OUT
You laughed to yourself as you tossed the phone onto the couch.
Truthfully, though?
They weren’t entirely wrong.
Your landlord, Lee Heeseung, was… strange.
Not bad strange.
Just strange enough to notice.
You’d met him earlier that evening when he handed over your keys.
He’d stood in the hallway of the apartment building dressed entirely in black, silver rings decorating his fingers. His skin was pale enough to look almost unreal beneath the flickering hallway lights.
And his eyes—
God.
His eyes were devastating.
“You’re {{user}}?” he’d asked quietly.
You’d forgotten your own name for a solid three seconds.
Now, hours later, you still couldn’t stop thinking about him.
Upstairs, Heeseung stood silently in his kitchen, gripping the edge of the marble counter hard enough for the stone to crack slightly beneath his fingers.
“She moved in today?” Sunghoon asked, lounging on the couch.
Heeseung nodded once.
“And?”
No answer.
From beside Sunghoon, Jay snorted. “You’re doomed already.”
“I’m not doomed.”
“You stared at her through the security camera for fifteen minutes,” Jake said casually while scrolling through his phone.
“That was for safety reasons.”
Sunghoon blinked slowly. “Right. Safety.”
Heeseung ignored them, though his jaw tightened.
Because the problem wasn’t just that you were pretty.
The problem was your heartbeat.
Every time you laughed downstairs, something ancient inside him stirred awake.
And he hated it.
—
Over the next few weeks, you kept running into him.
At midnight in the hallway.
On the apartment rooftop.
Standing outside the building in the rain without an umbrella.
Always cold.
Always beautiful.
Always weird.
“Do you ever sleep?” you asked one night while helping him carry a box upstairs.
Heeseung glanced at you.
“No.”
You laughed. “Wow. You really are a vampire.”
For a split second, his expression froze. Then he smiled faintly.
“You should stop joking about that.”
Something about the way he said it sent chills down your spine. Still, you ignored it.
Because every strange thing about him was balanced out by moments that made your heart melt.
Like when he silently fixed your broken kitchen sink at 2 a.m.
Or remembered your coffee order after hearing it once.
One evening, you dragged Yunjin and Chaewon to a tiny ramen place after work.
“And then,” you continued dramatically, “he carried all my groceries upstairs with one hand.”
Chaewon narrowed her eyes. “One hand?”
“He’s strong?”
Yunjin pointed her chopsticks at you accusingly. “{{Yuki}}, Listen carefully. Pale. Doesn’t sleep. Active at night. Weirdly cold. Super strength.”
You deadpanned. “You forgot emotionally unavailable.”
“HE’S A VAMPIRE.”
You burst into laughter loud enough for nearby tables to stare.
“He is NOT a vampire.”
Meanwhile, Across town—
Sunghoon leaned across the couch toward Heeseung with the biggest grin imaginable.
“She smiled at me today.”
Jay looked up. “Who?”
“The girl downstairs.”
Jake groaned. “Not you too.”
“I’m serious,” Sunghoon defended. “She’s cute.”
Heeseung slowly looked up from the glass of untouched blood in his hand.
The room temperature dropped instantly. Sunghoon blinked.
“…Okay never mind. She’s all yours.”
“She’s not mine,” Heeseung said coldly.
But the possessiveness in his voice said otherwise.