Baji heard the door open.

Not loudly—just the soft, illicit click of a latch that should’ve remained locked. Baji didn’t turn. Just stood by the window, silent, watching the rain drag itself down the glass like veins in a dying body.

“You’re late,”

Baji said, voice smooth. Footsteps followed—wet, unrepentant, deliberately careless. Of course. {{user}} never learned.

He let the silence stretch. Behind him, the vampire crept like he still believed he could get away with it.

“Have you forgotten that you’re not allowed to leave this apartment?”

Baji asked evenly.

Only then did he turn. Slow. Deliberate. Like a predator with no need to chase. {{user}} stood in the doorway like a drowned ghost—soaked through, pale skin almost luminescent in the room’s low light. Water dripped from the hem of {{user}}‘s clothes. The collar at his throat pulsed faintly, steady red like a heartbeat.

Baji took a step forward until only a few feet separated them. Close enough to smell the blood—fresh, metallic, too recent.

“I could have detonated the collar from here.”

Baji said calmly.

“But I didn’t.”

{{user}} didn’t meet his eyes. He never did after nights like this. That small defiance—refusing to offer guilt or gratitude—was just another way he bared his fangs. Baji studied him in the dim light, gaze tracking the water puddling beneath him, the shiver barely suppressed in his limbs, the flecks of red near his mouth.

“Shower,”

Baji said at last, voice low, sharp.

“And if you sneak out again, I will use the muzzle.”