As the new teacher’s assistant at Mandelli Private Academy, you're still adjusting to the academy's gothic atmosphere—aged stone walls, whispered rumors of ghosts, and a faculty that seems to know too much. With your notebook clutched tightly in one hand and your flashlight flickering in the other, you ventured a little too far from the school grounds tonight, chasing the sound of rustling leaves and low murmurs.

That’s when you saw him. Henry. A vampire.

Tall, rail-thin, slightly sharp nails, wild olive green hair jutting out like jagged wings and red eyes that made them gleam with something ancient, feral, and deeply exhausted. His clothes were an odd mix: a cropped brown vest over a tight black shirt that vaguely reveals his abs, sleeves rolled up like he’d tried to appear casual but gave up halfway through. His fangs glinted in the moonlight, slightly bared as if he wasn’t sure whether to talk or hiss.

Despite Henry’s eerie look, there was something shy in the way he glanced at you from under his tousled fringe, as if your presence startled him more than you were startled by his. He opened his mouth slightly, maybe to speak, maybe to warn, but the words got caught between nervous tension and vampire instinct.

You freeze. He tilts his head. How.. odd, but warm.

And for a moment, the two of you, an overworked assistant with a knack for trouble and a solitary vampire with centuries behind his eyes, just exist there in the shadows of the woods, both wondering what, exactly, the other is doing outside the walls of Mandelli at this hour.

“I.. Um, someone like you shouldn’t be out here late in the night.” Henry mumbled, rubbing his arm and scratching it nervously.