Chapter 129: A Not-So-Lovely Stroll
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Vladstin is not usually one to be surprised after his undeath, but now, he had felt the sensation of 'his heart coming to a stop and his blood running cold'.
He immediately hid materials behind his back and turned to Sangfroid.
"Well am I dreaming or did the great Sangfroid really did come to see me tonight?" He grinned. "I must be, it is impossible for him to seek me out of his own volition. You must be a phantom, a mere apparition, a figment of the mind---"
"Vladstin, I know what you are up to. I have overheard. I wasn't asleep."
Vladstin felt dread, and yet found himself relishing it. Hmm.... For how long since he has last felt something so severe.
"The wind blows our voices though we do not give it permission to do so." He merely sighed in the end, acting like a wise old man.
"Can I..... Can I see it? The flower." Sangfroid's tone was a bit desperate in the end, like the poor beggar children who have nothing to eat and asking for even the smallest crumbs of bread and bent coins.
Vladstin answered with no hesitation. "No."
His tone and face was neutral.
Sangfroid seemed to be surprised of this rejection, and his tone now change into a frustrated and angry customer that did not receive the barter he wanted. He gnashed his teeth but tried not to resolve it with his fists. "You.... You're not really going to give it to Leron, do you!?"
"I will." Vladstin answered plainly again.
This confused Sangfroid as his tensed face had softened. "Oh."
"So.... Why would you not let me see it?" He asked, a bit sheepish.
Vladstin looked at the beautiful moon tonight. It feels so large, since he realized that besides it being blue, it is also now the lunar eclipse. The longer he look at it, the more it felt like vibrating, like the ripples in a lake getting larger and larger. It felt like...
Like it was going to swallow them all.
But everytime his attention was removed from it, it goes back to it's original size as before. Still big, but nothing too worrisome.
Vladstin doesn't know what it means anymore. He is to exhausted to think. Before, he might have made hunches and piece together all the scraps of knowledge from his life and unlife to understand whether it was a vision, and omen, a literal phenomena, or a trick of his rotten mind.
Whatever it was, he could not care anymore. Let him close his eyes, let him sleep.
"I will give it to Leron myself. That's why I do not want to give it to you."
Sangfroid couldn't fathom the answer, or make a logical sense of it, but he can feel that the vampire is telling the truth.
He too, somehow, could not make any assumptions anymore. It seems to be a night where mysteries would just have to be put aside for later and rack their brains on, and instead spend it saying what's on their mind, what their intuition just wants them to say.
"I want you dead." He admitted out of nowhere. "I wished you havenever existed."
Vladstin did not interpret it as him being too petty about not seeing the flower. He can tell that this is a confession, that Sangfroid means what he says.
"I know." He smiled. "I wish that to as well."
"But I also pity you."
"Mn."
"You make me confused, like I do not know anything anymore."
"Mn."
"Yet you.... Have you ever had hatred for someone who does not deserve it? Do you know how that feels?"
".....I don't." Vladstin lied.
"It feels like it's eating and tearing you from the inside. Like you are being pulled in different directions at once. Everything is wrong. What you feel, what you think, what the world is, what you are.... what that person is and what he did. There is nothing right. Everything is wrong."
Vladstin agreed with those words and nodded. They are true. And yet, he merely said, "You speak like a drunk who had received the wisdom of the world through drinking."
"I am drunk." Sangfroid admitted.
"Since when? And there is no wine or any alcohol here----"
"I feel drunken since you've bitten me."
The vampire narrowed his eyes, not knowing what he means. "I haven't bitten you yet. It was a snake that bit you, did you forget?"
"Yes.... That snake bite." Sangfroid was wearing an odd expression on his face. It was both blank yet full of emotion at the same time. "Did you know that afterward, I kissed Leron after we bathed together?"
"Ah, I see. So that's what took you two so long." The vampire merely nodded.
He really could not glean where Sangfroid is getting at.
The hunter seems frustrated. Vladstin seems to know him more than his own self before, and yet, why couldn't he act like a smartass and speak the words themselves? Why could he not explain what his own feelings were for him? Since his blood was taken by this monster, and they are emphatically linked, he could just be.....
A mirror for him to gauge his own confusing thoughts.
Yet even this mirror is failing him, and is now foggy. He cannot be seen for some reason.
He rubbed his temples, feeling another headache, and said. "I need a walk. I need to walk this out."
The vampire lord just nodded, his golden eyes dead. "Alright."
As he paced, the vampire did not follow.
And so, he turned back and said with a grunt. "....llow me."
"Hm?" The vampire just perked up his ear.
"I said...." Sangfroid tried to spit it out like it was a hard rock stuck on his throat. "Follow me."
"But the flower? I'll turn Leron first into a human so you two can have the nice stroll----"
"No." Sangfroid merely repeated. "Follow me. Just us two. Not even his corpse."
And turned around with a haughty stride, fully believing this headstrong vampire will obey him.
He did.
------------------------------------------------
It truly was a lovely night, perfect for two. And, unfortunately, those two were them.
Taking a stroll by the side of the one you hate the most. Taking a stroll by the side of the one who hates you the most.
The wind had gotten colder, as if attempting to make the human shiver from it and want some extra cover, or warmth from another. Sadly, the human is not affected at all, just continuously walking against the chilling breeze without paying it any mind. His purple eye is much colder than it anyway, and so, it stopped gushing.
They did not talk for a long while.
Vladstin did not mind, holding the flower on his back. He is not thinking of anything at the moment. He merely tried to retrace Sangfroid's footsteps at the damp soil.
It turns out that the other's foot is only larger than his by a relatively small amount compared to what he expected.
Meanwhile, Sangfroid is thinking about everything, that he might as well not be thinking of anything at all.
"This would not work at all...."
Vladstin perked his ears again.
"Nothing."
Sangfroid knows Vladstin can hear him, with that enhanced senses of his, and yet chose to pretend not to. Like the trickster he is, yet it does not feel as..... tricky, as before. It was a subtle one, with no hint of malice really, just... doing so for the sake of doing. No goal, not trying to make him flustered or react a certain way.
It went for a good 5 minutes yet felt like a whole hundred years. Because it felt like they were meant to stay like this forever, in a vague threshold of intolerable to tolerable, of wanting to tease and not wanting to tease.
It was a broken yet... ineffable kind of relationship. Like watching a storm by your window with a calm heart. Or waiting for your ship to hit an iceberg.
So calming, that stagnation, that immovability with no change, no change at all, repeating and repeating such a state...
Yet you also slightly want some change, and feel like if it was not received, you will be fine with it as well. No need to cross any lines, let them cross themselves.
Sangfroid stopped, the first to give up the calming feeling. Vladstin also stopped.
"Can I.... Can I kill you again?"
"Hm?"
"That time I beat you up in a rage. It... It awakened something inside me. Something that I won't be able to understand unless I experience it again." He feels stupid, yet continued on. "I... I have an itch to make you suffer again, to hit you to the point of no recognition."
"Heh, are you learning that you are actually a sadist, my dear Sangfroid?"
"No. That's not it. I didn't enjoy it at all." Sangfroid said honestly. "And yet, I want to do it just to try out something. To see clearly for myself why I want to do it so much.... I would have to do it."
Vladstin then raised an eyebrow. "An experiment on yourself then, not on me. Well, why are you even asking for permission? Back then, you did not ask for such a thing, and just continuously punched and wrecked y face as you so pleased."
Sangfroid grunted. "This time is different because I do not hate you as much now. You want to deliver the flower's essence to Leron."
"What happens if I decline?"
"We go back."
"That's it?"
"Yes."
Another awkward silence.
There is absolutely nothing coherent or cohesive in what is happening at the moment.
"I want to do something else." Vladstin admitted with a bowed head.
"What is it?" Sangfroid asked.
Vladstin shook his head. And yet, he said it anyway.
"I want to kiss you under this blue moonlight."
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Vladstin is not usually one to be surprised after his undeath, but now, he had felt the sensation of 'his heart coming to a stop and his blood running cold'.
He immediately hid materials behind his back and turned to Sangfroid.
"Well am I dreaming or did the great Sangfroid really did come to see me tonight?" He grinned. "I must be, it is impossible for him to seek me out of his own volition. You must be a phantom, a mere apparition, a figment of the mind---"
"Vladstin, I know what you are up to. I have overheard. I wasn't asleep."
Vladstin felt dread, and yet found himself relishing it. Hmm.... For how long since he has last felt something so severe.
"The wind blows our voices though we do not give it permission to do so." He merely sighed in the end, acting like a wise old man.
"Can I..... Can I see it? The flower." Sangfroid's tone was a bit desperate in the end, like the poor beggar children who have nothing to eat and asking for even the smallest crumbs of bread and bent coins.
Vladstin answered with no hesitation. "No."
His tone and face was neutral.
Sangfroid seemed to be surprised of this rejection, and his tone now change into a frustrated and angry customer that did not receive the barter he wanted. He gnashed his teeth but tried not to resolve it with his fists. "You.... You're not really going to give it to Leron, do you!?"
"I will." Vladstin answered plainly again.
This confused Sangfroid as his tensed face had softened. "Oh."
"So.... Why would you not let me see it?" He asked, a bit sheepish.
Vladstin looked at the beautiful moon tonight. It feels so large, since he realized that besides it being blue, it is also now the lunar eclipse. The longer he look at it, the more it felt like vibrating, like the ripples in a lake getting larger and larger. It felt like...
Like it was going to swallow them all.
But everytime his attention was removed from it, it goes back to it's original size as before. Still big, but nothing too worrisome.
Vladstin doesn't know what it means anymore. He is to exhausted to think. Before, he might have made hunches and piece together all the scraps of knowledge from his life and unlife to understand whether it was a vision, and omen, a literal phenomena, or a trick of his rotten mind.
Whatever it was, he could not care anymore. Let him close his eyes, let him sleep.
"I will give it to Leron myself. That's why I do not want to give it to you."
Sangfroid couldn't fathom the answer, or make a logical sense of it, but he can feel that the vampire is telling the truth.
He too, somehow, could not make any assumptions anymore. It seems to be a night where mysteries would just have to be put aside for later and rack their brains on, and instead spend it saying what's on their mind, what their intuition just wants them to say.
"I want you dead." He admitted out of nowhere. "I wished you havenever existed."
Vladstin did not interpret it as him being too petty about not seeing the flower. He can tell that this is a confession, that Sangfroid means what he says.
"I know." He smiled. "I wish that to as well."
"But I also pity you."
"Mn."
"You make me confused, like I do not know anything anymore."
"Mn."
"Yet you.... Have you ever had hatred for someone who does not deserve it? Do you know how that feels?"
".....I don't." Vladstin lied.
"It feels like it's eating and tearing you from the inside. Like you are being pulled in different directions at once. Everything is wrong. What you feel, what you think, what the world is, what you are.... what that person is and what he did. There is nothing right. Everything is wrong."
Vladstin agreed with those words and nodded. They are true. And yet, he merely said, "You speak like a drunk who had received the wisdom of the world through drinking."
"I am drunk." Sangfroid admitted.
"Since when? And there is no wine or any alcohol here----"
"I feel drunken since you've bitten me."
The vampire narrowed his eyes, not knowing what he means. "I haven't bitten you yet. It was a snake that bit you, did you forget?"
"Yes.... That snake bite." Sangfroid was wearing an odd expression on his face. It was both blank yet full of emotion at the same time. "Did you know that afterward, I kissed Leron after we bathed together?"
"Ah, I see. So that's what took you two so long." The vampire merely nodded.
He really could not glean where Sangfroid is getting at.
The hunter seems frustrated. Vladstin seems to know him more than his own self before, and yet, why couldn't he act like a smartass and speak the words themselves? Why could he not explain what his own feelings were for him? Since his blood was taken by this monster, and they are emphatically linked, he could just be.....
A mirror for him to gauge his own confusing thoughts.
Yet even this mirror is failing him, and is now foggy. He cannot be seen for some reason.
He rubbed his temples, feeling another headache, and said. "I need a walk. I need to walk this out."
The vampire lord just nodded, his golden eyes dead. "Alright."
As he paced, the vampire did not follow.
And so, he turned back and said with a grunt. "....llow me."
"Hm?" The vampire just perked up his ear.
"I said...." Sangfroid tried to spit it out like it was a hard rock stuck on his throat. "Follow me."
"But the flower? I'll turn Leron first into a human so you two can have the nice stroll----"
"No." Sangfroid merely repeated. "Follow me. Just us two. Not even his corpse."
And turned around with a haughty stride, fully believing this headstrong vampire will obey him.
He did.
------------------------------------------------
It truly was a lovely night, perfect for two. And, unfortunately, those two were them.
Taking a stroll by the side of the one you hate the most. Taking a stroll by the side of the one who hates you the most.
The wind had gotten colder, as if attempting to make the human shiver from it and want some extra cover, or warmth from another. Sadly, the human is not affected at all, just continuously walking against the chilling breeze without paying it any mind. His purple eye is much colder than it anyway, and so, it stopped gushing.
They did not talk for a long while.
Vladstin did not mind, holding the flower on his back. He is not thinking of anything at the moment. He merely tried to retrace Sangfroid's footsteps at the damp soil.
It turns out that the other's foot is only larger than his by a relatively small amount compared to what he expected.
Meanwhile, Sangfroid is thinking about everything, that he might as well not be thinking of anything at all.
"This would not work at all...."
Vladstin perked his ears again.
"Nothing."
Sangfroid knows Vladstin can hear him, with that enhanced senses of his, and yet chose to pretend not to. Like the trickster he is, yet it does not feel as..... tricky, as before. It was a subtle one, with no hint of malice really, just... doing so for the sake of doing. No goal, not trying to make him flustered or react a certain way.
It went for a good 5 minutes yet felt like a whole hundred years. Because it felt like they were meant to stay like this forever, in a vague threshold of intolerable to tolerable, of wanting to tease and not wanting to tease.
It was a broken yet... ineffable kind of relationship. Like watching a storm by your window with a calm heart. Or waiting for your ship to hit an iceberg.
So calming, that stagnation, that immovability with no change, no change at all, repeating and repeating such a state...
Yet you also slightly want some change, and feel like if it was not received, you will be fine with it as well. No need to cross any lines, let them cross themselves.
Sangfroid stopped, the first to give up the calming feeling. Vladstin also stopped.
"Can I.... Can I kill you again?"
"Hm?"
"That time I beat you up in a rage. It... It awakened something inside me. Something that I won't be able to understand unless I experience it again." He feels stupid, yet continued on. "I... I have an itch to make you suffer again, to hit you to the point of no recognition."
"Heh, are you learning that you are actually a sadist, my dear Sangfroid?"
"No. That's not it. I didn't enjoy it at all." Sangfroid said honestly. "And yet, I want to do it just to try out something. To see clearly for myself why I want to do it so much.... I would have to do it."
Vladstin then raised an eyebrow. "An experiment on yourself then, not on me. Well, why are you even asking for permission? Back then, you did not ask for such a thing, and just continuously punched and wrecked y face as you so pleased."
Sangfroid grunted. "This time is different because I do not hate you as much now. You want to deliver the flower's essence to Leron."
"What happens if I decline?"
"We go back."
"That's it?"
"Yes."
Another awkward silence.
There is absolutely nothing coherent or cohesive in what is happening at the moment.
"I want to do something else." Vladstin admitted with a bowed head.
"What is it?" Sangfroid asked.
Vladstin shook his head. And yet, he said it anyway.
"I want to kiss you under this blue moonlight."
Vladstin is not usually one to be surprised after his undeath, but now, he had felt the sensation of 'his heart coming to a stop and his blood running cold'.He immediately hid materials behind his back and turned to Sangfroid."Well am I dreaming or did the great Sangfroid really did come to see me tonight?" He grinned. "I must be, it is impossible for him to seek me out of his own volition. You must be a phantom, a mere apparition, a figment of the mind---""Vladstin, I know what you are up to. I have overheard. I wasn't asleep." Vladstin felt dread, and yet found himself relishing it. Hmm.... For how long since he has last felt something so severe. "The wind blows our voices though we do not give it permission to do so." He merely sighed in the end, acting like a wise old man."Can I..... Can I see it? The flower." Sangfroid's tone was a bit desperate in the end, like the poor beggar children who have nothing to eat and asking for even the smallest crumbs of bread and bent coins.Vladstin answered with no hesitation. "No."His tone and face was neutral.Sangfroid seemed to be surprised of this rejection, and his tone now change into a frustrated and angry customer that did not receive the barter he wanted. He gnashed his teeth but tried not to resolve it with his fists. "You.... You're not really going to give it to Leron, do you!?""I will." Vladstin answered plainly again.This confused Sangfroid as his tensed face had softened. "Oh.""So.... Why would you not let me see it?" He asked, a bit sheepish.Vladstin looked at the beautiful moon tonight. It feels so large, since he realized that besides it being blue, it is also now the lunar eclipse. The longer he look at it, the more it felt like vibrating, like the ripples in a lake getting larger and larger. It felt like...Like it was going to swallow them all.But everytime his attention was removed from it, it goes back to it's original size as before. Still big, but nothing too worrisome.Vladstin doesn't know what it means anymore. He is to exhausted to think. Before, he might have made hunches and piece together all the scraps of knowledge from his life and unlife to understand whether it was a vision, and omen, a literal phenomena, or a trick of his rotten mind.Whatever it was, he could not care anymore. Let him close his eyes, let him sleep."I will give it to Leron myself. That's why I do not want to give it to you."Sangfroid couldn't fathom the answer, or make a logical sense of it, but he can feel that the vampire is telling the truth.He too, somehow, could not make any assumptions anymore. It seems to be a night where mysteries would just have to be put aside for later and rack their brains on, and instead spend it saying what's on their mind, what their intuition just wants them to say."I want you dead." He admitted out of nowhere. "I wished you havenever existed."Vladstin did not interpret it as him being too petty about not seeing the flower. He can tell that this is a confession, that Sangfroid means what he says."I know." He smiled. "I wish that to as well.""But I also pity you.""Mn.""You make me confused, like I do not know anything anymore.""Mn.""Yet you.... Have you ever had hatred for someone who does not deserve it? Do you know how that feels?"".....I don't." Vladstin lied."It feels like it's eating and tearing you from the inside. Like you are being pulled in different directions at once. Everything is wrong. What you feel, what you think, what the world is, what you are.... what that person is and what he did. There is nothing right. Everything is wrong."Vladstin agreed with those words and nodded. They are true. And yet, he merely said, "You speak like a drunk who had received the wisdom of the world through drinking.""I am drunk." Sangfroid admitted."Since when? And there is no wine or any alcohol here----""I feel drunken since you've bitten me."The vampire narrowed his eyes, not knowing what he means. "I haven't bitten you yet. It was a snake that bit you, did you forget?""Yes.... That snake bite." Sangfroid was wearing an odd expression on his face. It was both blank yet full of emotion at the same time. "Did you know that afterward, I kissed Leron after we bathed together?""Ah, I see. So that's what took you two so long." The vampire merely nodded.He really could not glean where Sangfroid is getting at.The hunter seems frustrated. Vladstin seems to know him more than his own self before, and yet, why couldn't he act like a smartass and speak the words themselves? Why could he not explain what his own feelings were for him? Since his blood was taken by this monster, and they are emphatically linked, he could just be.....A mirror for him to gauge his own confusing thoughts.Yet even this mirror is failing him, and is now foggy. He cannot be seen for some reason.He rubbed his temples, feeling another headache, and said. "I need a walk. I need to walk this out."The vampire lord just nodded, his golden eyes dead. "Alright."As he paced, the vampire did not follow.And so, he turned back and said with a grunt. "....llow me.""Hm?" The vampire just perked up his ear."I said...." Sangfroid tried to spit it out like it was a hard rock stuck on his throat. "Follow me.""But the flower? I'll turn Leron first into a human so you two can have the nice stroll----""No." Sangfroid merely repeated. "Follow me. Just us two. Not even his corpse."And turned around with a haughty stride, fully believing this headstrong vampire will obey him. He did.------------------------------------------------It truly was a lovely night, perfect for two. And, unfortunately, those two were them.Taking a stroll by the side of the one you hate the most. Taking a stroll by the side of the one who hates you the most.The wind had gotten colder, as if attempting to make the human shiver from it and want some extra cover, or warmth from another. Sadly, the human is not affected at all, just continuously walking against the chilling breeze without paying it any mind. His purple eye is much colder than it anyway, and so, it stopped gushing.They did not talk for a long while.Vladstin did not mind, holding the flower on his back. He is not thinking of anything at the moment. He merely tried to retrace Sangfroid's footsteps at the damp soil.It turns out that the other's foot is only larger than his by a relatively small amount compared to what he expected. Meanwhile, Sangfroid is thinking about everything, that he might as well not be thinking of anything at all."This would not work at all...."Vladstin perked his ears again."Nothing."Sangfroid knows Vladstin can hear him, with that enhanced senses of his, and yet chose to pretend not to. Like the trickster he is, yet it does not feel as..... tricky, as before. It was a subtle one, with no hint of malice really, just... doing so for the sake of doing. No goal, not trying to make him flustered or react a certain way.It went for a good 5 minutes yet felt like a whole hundred years. Because it felt like they were meant to stay like this forever, in a vague threshold of intolerable to tolerable, of wanting to tease and not wanting to tease.It was a broken yet... ineffable kind of relationship. Like watching a storm by your window with a calm heart. Or waiting for your ship to hit an iceberg.So calming, that stagnation, that immovability with no change, no change at all, repeating and repeating such a state...Yet you also slightly want some change, and feel like if it was not received, you will be fine with it as well. No need to cross any lines, let them cross themselves.Sangfroid stopped, the first to give up the calming feeling. Vladstin also stopped."Can I.... Can I kill you again?""Hm?""That time I beat you up in a rage. It... It awakened something inside me. Something that I won't be able to understand unless I experience it again." He feels stupid, yet continued on. "I... I have an itch to make you suffer again, to hit you to the point of no recognition.""Heh, are you learning that you are actually a sadist, my dear Sangfroid?""No. That's not it. I didn't enjoy it at all." Sangfroid said honestly. "And yet, I want to do it just to try out something. To see clearly for myself why I want to do it so much.... I would have to do it."Vladstin then raised an eyebrow. "An experiment on yourself then, not on me. Well, why are you even asking for permission? Back then, you did not ask for such a thing, and just continuously punched and wrecked y face as you so pleased."Sangfroid grunted. "This time is different because I do not hate you as much now. You want to deliver the flower's essence to Leron.""What happens if I decline?""We go back.""That's it?""Yes."Another awkward silence.There is absolutely nothing coherent or cohesive in what is happening at the moment."I want to do something else." Vladstin admitted with a bowed head."What is it?" Sangfroid asked.Vladstin shook his head. And yet, he said it anyway."I want to kiss you under this blue moonlight."
