Chapter 7
Chapter 7
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 7
Chapter Title: Cutie
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Do-young opened his eyes. The familiar scenery of the log cabin came into view.
‘It wasn’t a dream.’
He swallowed a sigh, but for some reason, he felt something warm against his back.
Do-young turned around curiously and flinched. Gamal was fast asleep, plastered right against his back.
Do-young quickly propped himself up.
“What?”
Gamal woke at the sound and rubbed her sleepy eyes. She made a face like she had no idea what was going on for a moment, then seemed to realize as she shot up and backed away several steps.
“Sorry.”
Do-young scowled like he’d spotted something suspicious and asked.
“Why were you stuck to my back?”
Gamal fidgeted like a kid who’d done something terribly wrong.
“Well… the sound of you breathing made me sleepy. I was listening to it and…”
In other words, she’d unconsciously snuggled up while listening to his breathing.
Truth be told, Do-young had been startled awake by an unbelievably stunning beauty he’d never seen before clinging to his back, but Gamal apparently thought he was scared because she, a vampire, had been so close.
Not that he had any urge to correct her misunderstanding.
“You’ve got some nerve.”
So Do-young scolded her needlessly and waved her off.
“It’s hot. Get me some water.”
Gamal jumped up and poured him a bowl of water, handing it over. He could manage a water bowl even with his hands bound, so he drank it himself, but Gamal was staring right at him.
Her eyes brimming with the fierce determination to bore a hole straight through him. Do-young stopped mid-sip and shot her a glare.
“What?”
“It’s amazing. You drinking water.”
The way Gamal said it, she really looked like a child encountering a phenomenon she’d never seen in her life. But Do-young replied even more cynically.
“I’m not drinking it through my nose or anything, so what’s the big deal?”
Gamal looked shocked.
“You can drink through your nose?”
“Could you?”
Only then did she catch the sarcasm, and she pouted before asking.
“You’re not scared of me, Major?”
Do-young looked her up and down.
“I’d really like to know what part of this total airhead I’m supposed to find scary.”
“I’m not an airhead.”
Her puffed-up cheeks looked so plump and pinchable. Do-young was too annoyed to bother replying and just waved her off.
“I live every day around vampires. Why would I be scared?”
He worked with them, traded jokes, arm-wrestled, played cards. People fear lions or tigers because they can’t communicate, but if you could talk a wild beast into sitting quietly beside you, there’d be no reason to fear it.
Gamal asked, full of wonder.
“You live every day seeing them? How?”
He couldn’t exactly say it was because he belonged to a military unit where humans and vampires worked side by side, so Do-young turned the question back on her.
“You do know that out in the world, vampires and humans live together, right?”
“I know that, but…”
‘She knows that. Meaning there’s some kind of contact with the outside world.’
Do-young thought. At that moment, Gamal spoke up.
“Still, people are scared of vampires.”
“Why? You ever get chased out of a village with rocks thrown at you?”
Gamal nodded. Do-young knew a ton of vampires, so he’d heard all sorts of stories from them, and he was well aware of what they’d gone through before their existence was officially acknowledged.
In fact, there hadn’t been many real vampires among those hunted as witches—power disparity being what it was—but he’d heard there were plenty who’d been run out of villages just for acting suspicious.
Do-young brought his arms forward and draped them over his thighs as he asked.
“Was it something like that? Humans hurt you so bad that you kept seeking out more remote places until you ended up on this uninhabited island?”
If so, it would at least explain why she lived here alone.
“Kind of…”
But Gamal hemmed and hawed, making Do-young furrow his brow.
“是 that, or is it not?”
Gamal whipped her head to the side.
“Dunno.”
‘Where’s she getting off throwing a tantrum?’
Do-young was exasperated.
Gamal was kneeling, though, which left her thighs exposed. Do-young really wanted to smack the inner caveman urging him on. No matter how much he repeated to himself, ‘She’s a vampire,’ he couldn’t stop thinking about stroking that dazzling thigh skin.
‘It’s not like I’ve had it easy.’
Even if he had been captured by terrorists, beaten up, barely escaped, swum for his life to this island, fought the vampire living here, and ended up with a fractured leg.
Do-young sighed and looked at Gamal.
“No breakfast? You gonna let me starve? Don’t you know the Third Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War?”
***
“Major!”
Gamal came running from afar, holding a massive fish that looked like it belonged in a fossil exhibit. She must have dived in naked to catch it, since she was drenched and bounding over excitedly in a way that was downright doglike—if saying it wasn’t cute would be a lie. No, it was very cute.
Come to think of it, she kind of reminded him of Yeon-ha.
Yeon-ha had been Do-young’s old teammate and friend, a sergeant on ERU—Emergency Response Unit—Team 3, which he’d led back at the MCTC Seoul Branch.
On a brief side note, two years ago, Do-young had been reassigned to the Central Guard Division’s TF-Pacific Team 1. His record at the Seoul Branch had made it possible.
Transferring from a permanent branch to a TF team was a major promotion, and given his aptitudes, TF work suited him better than the SWAT-like duties of a standing branch.
He’d botched an infiltration on a TF op and ended up in this mess, though.
In any case, Yeon-ha was a female vampire like Gamal, her looks frozen at nineteen, which left her with some immature edges to her mentality and a certain puppyish innocence. She’d grown up a bit after getting married, but the vibes were similar enough that yesterday, he’d unwittingly barked at Gamal the way he used to with Yeon-ha.
“Look! It’s huge!”
Gamal ran up to Do-young, who was sitting under the tree shade, and thrust the fish at him with a big grin.
The main difference from Yeon-ha was the more mature body paired with an even stronger airhead charm. Her imperfect speech somehow amplified it.
Do-young just stared without responding, so Gamal tilted her head and asked.
“Major, you hurting?”
Do-young let out a sigh and unfolded the arms resting on his bent knees. The wrists that were bound.
“You think you’d be in high spirits in a situation like this?”
“You don’t want untied?”
“If I said I did, you’d better suspect me. I might say I want to tie you up next time.”
Gamal tilted her head.
“What’s that mean? Your words too hard, Major.”
What was the point? Do-young didn’t reply.
Gamal fell deep in thought. If Do-young had meant to try something, he wouldn’t have passed up a chance like last night. She’d fallen into a deep sleep herself, lulled by the thought that he was right there beside her.
Out of nowhere, Gamal dropped to her knees in front of him, and Do-young looked at her. She stuck out her pinky finger toward him.
“Then promise. No running.”
The scorching sunlight beat down behind Gamal, making the dazzling white sand sparkle. And there in the shade, her red eyes looked earnest about the pinky promise—even if it was just a childish oath—somehow desaturated and serious.
“I couldn’t run even if I wanted to, with my leg like this.”
Even as he said it, Do-young hooked his finger with hers.
Gamal felt a swell of emotion she couldn’t explain and kept her finger hooked. Do-young made that signature expression of his—the one where he lifted his eyes in a piercing glare that sent a little shiver down the spine.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Gamal pulled her hand back and untied the rope. His hands finally free, Do-young shook out the slight numbness.
Step one accomplished: arms unbound. He still couldn’t bolt with his leg in this state, but he’d cleared the first hurdle.
“Major, eat this? I’ll grill it for you.”
Gamal got to work preparing the fish with surprising skill. Exactly like Tarzan looking after a shipwrecked Jane.
Do-young couldn’t bring himself to trust the thought that had popped into his head unbidden.
‘So does that make me Jane? Huh? Am I the damn Jane here?’
If anything, she looked less like Tarzan and more like the Little Mermaid, decked out in every human trinket she’d collected.
Do-young watched her grill the fish and asked.
“When were you born?”
He figured she wouldn’t answer this time either, but he didn’t have anything better to do.
“Christos, before the 14th century.”
But Gamal answered this time. He had no clue what her criteria were for answering or not. Putting that aside, Do-young narrowed his eyes.
“Christos? You mean Christ?”
He couldn’t tell the language, but he could guess the gist. He’d later learn it was ancient Greek.
Gamal nodded.
“Yeah, the guy who got nailed up and died.”
Do-young stared at her.
“BC 14th century? So you’re saying you’ve lived over three thousand years?”
“Yeah.”
Do-young waved her off.
“Forget it. My mistake for asking.”
Gamal looked baffled.
“Why?”
Do-young rested his elbow on his bent good knee, propped his chin in his hand, and sighed.
“Three thousand years makes sense? For a dummy like you.”
Vampires were theoretically immortal, but in a world where even ones living a thousand years were rare. Even as a joke, there was that saying about how heaven itself had to watch over one trying to reach their eleventh sixties.
But Gamal put on a sullen face.
“Not a dummy.”
“I’d have believed you if you’d shaved off half and played it crazy.”
“Nuh-uh. Three thousand three hundred fifty years. But I slept a long time. Over there.”
Gamal pointed at the mountain in the middle of the island, insisting on her innocence.
“One day a storm hit. Big storm. Really big.”
Then, like she was telling a fairy tale, she spread her hands wide to mime the massive gale—probably a typhoon.
“It opened my sleeping spot. My body…”
She struggled to find the words, clearly pondering how to explain, then gestured as if her body had been flung forward. She twirled her fingers in circles.
“Rolled out tumbly-tumbly. Woke up in a dirt mound. So I got up.”
Do-young just frowned in silence. The way she put it didn’t sound like an outright lie.
It was a world where vampires were real. What was impossible? Still, he didn’t want to believe the number three thousand—or that the ditzy creature sitting in front of him right now was as ancient as your average mummy.
Do-young looked her up and down, blatantly this time, but Gamal didn’t seem offended. More like she had no idea why he was doing it. At a sight like that, it was just… impossible.
“When did you wake up?”
Do-young pressed, still skeptical, and Gamal tilted her head once to one side, then the other, like she was counting in her head.
“About four hundred years?”
Vampires, like hibernating bears, would enter long slumbers when food got scarce. But that was ancient history.
In the modern world overflowing with sustenance, there was no need for hibernation, so vampires who did it were practically nonexistent.
Back then, a hundred years or two hundred didn’t make much difference. Farmers always plowed their fields, kings waged their wars.
But these days, with everything changing so fast, the biggest reason nobody hibernated was you couldn’t even guess what world you’d wake up to.
Do-young mulled it over, then asked again.
“When did you come to this island?”