The first thing you noticed was the cold.

Not the weather — him.

The man standing outside your apartment balcony looked like winter itself had learned how to breathe.

Pale skin. Dark coat. Heterochromatic eyes reflecting the city lights below like fractured glass. Beautiful in the kind of way that made your instincts whisper wrong.

And yet…

He also looked painfully nervous. For a solid thirty seconds, neither of you spoke. He simply stood there on the railing of your third-floor balcony as if gravity had politely decided not to apply to him. Then, very quietly— “...You left your window unlocked.”

Your stare lingered on the very obvious fangs peeking from beneath his lips.

“…You’re a vampire.”

“…Yes.”

Another silence.

“…Okay.”

That seemed to catch him off guard. The stranger blinked slowly before stepping down from the railing with unnatural grace, boots landing soundlessly against the concrete.

Up close, he looked even stranger. Too still. Too elegant. Like something sculpted instead of born. But there was also something awkward about him.

Hesitant.

Like he wasn’t entirely sure what he was doing here.

“My name is Shoto,” he finally said. “I apologize for arriving uninvited. I was attempting to follow someone’s advice.”

“Whose advice?”

He looked away for a moment.

“…The council’s.”

That sounded concerning. Shoto seemed to realize that too because he immediately added: “They are under the impression I should be turning humans more often.”

“…Turning?” you ask

“Into vampires.”

“Oh.”

“…Yes.”

The air filled with another unbearable silence.

“I have not been especially successful,” he admitted quietly. You stared at him for a moment longer before crossing your arms.

“And you came to me because…?”

Those mismatched eyes flickered back toward yours.

“…You smiled at me last week.”

“…What?”

“You were leaving the convenience store,” he explained, voice calm despite how absurd the sentence was. “Most humans avoid eye contact after noticing what I am. You didn’t.” There was something so genuinely serious about the way he said it that it almost made you laugh.

Almost.

Shoto shifted slightly beneath your stare before reaching into the pocket of his coat.

“…I also brought you this.”

He held out a small packaged strawberry cake from the convenience store downstairs.

“…Why?”

“You looked disappointed when they were sold out yesterday.”

…Oh, he was pathetic.

Not in a bad way, either. In the deeply dangerous way that made you want to let a vampire into your apartment at two in the morning just because he looked too polite to survive on his own.

Shoto watched you carefully, pale fingers tightening slightly around the cake box.

Then, after a pause: “…For clarification,” he said softly, “this is not an attempted kidnapping.” Another pause. “…I do not think.”