Chapter Text
It had begun with a question.
An interview question, to be specific.
In the wake of the Sunrise attacks, the anti-vampire terrorist organization was stirring up more bigotry, hatred, and violence against his kind than Seonghwa had seen in decades. He knew he had to do something to combat it…and while many of them had seemed to slink back into the shadows after his not-so-veiled threat against them, it simply wasn’t enough.
It was San who had come up with the idea. He’d noticed Wooyoung’s little vlogs about their daily lives getting extremely popular. Seonghwa only ever made cameos in them, at most, but if even so much as the back of his head was visible in the frame, the comments would be flooded with people speculating about whatever it was he was doing, asking to see more of him, asking about him personally, and it occurred to San.
Seonghwa had never done any kind of interview where he simply spoke about himself.
He had done plenty of interviews, most of which were back during the time when vampires announced themselves to the world and became public knowledge. Much of their content centered around presenting a professional, calm, and deeply wise representative of vampires. Who vampires were—not monsters, but articulate, feeling people—people who simply wanted to exist in peace.
But in doing so, Seonghwa had become a monolith, rather than a man.
Despite how paradoxical it sounded, San’s suggestion was for Seonghwa to humanize vampires…by humanizing himself.
“They see you as a paragon, a figurehead, or the Antichrist…show them who you actually are. Who you are. Do an interview where you talk only about yourself. Not about vampire rights. Not about vampires as a whole. No placations, no pleas, no calls for peace or rallies to action. Just show them who you are. Let them finally see who Park Seonghwa is. Not the UN ambassador. Not the vampire representative for South Korea. Not one of the oldest living beings on earth. Just—Seonghwa.”
Hongjoong had been entirely convinced that he would reject the idea. Seonghwa disliked centering himself when he could avoid it. He never spoke about or posted publicly anything remotely personal. And yet—to his surprise—Seonghwa had readily agreed.
Media outlets were absolutely clamoring for the chance to be the ones to conduct the interview. It was a rare, golden opportunity for any journalist. Seonghwa had agreed to sit down with two—Choe Sang-Hun, for a print-only interview to be published in both Korean and English, and a broadcast interview in English with respected CNN journalist Anderson Cooper, for which Seonghwa provided translations in as many major languages as he could himself, not wishing for his answers to be misconstrued.
Only Eden went along with him, for security. Things with Hongjoong were still a little too tumultuous, and Jongho had gotten cagey about going on jobs after being turned, so he was the natural choice. The rest of the coven was glued to their television for the segment, which aired while Seonghwa was still on his flight back from America. In fairness, most of the world was watching along with them—it garnered the highest views of any television special in recent history.
Anderson Cooper’s first question for Seonghwa was, “Why me? Of all the journalists, of all the interviewers across the globe who were foaming at the mouth for this opportunity…I guess I’d just like to know why you chose me, out of all of them.”
Seonghwa had given him a somewhat somber smile and told him, “I watched your interview with Stephen Colbert, during which you both candidly discussed the grief surrounding the loss of your fathers. I found it incredibly moving and honest.”
The answer seemed to both take Anderson aback, and also sow a certain respect and rapport between the two of them instantly. The tone was immediately set in an exceptional way. Wooyoung had taken San by the shoulders, shaken him, and told him he was a goddamn genius.
Seonghwa spoke of things he’d never talked about publicly before. He still maintained a modest air of privacy surrounding anything to do with his coven, but he answered many questions about himself. Many of them were superfluous or trivial…and yet, that triviality was precisely where their power lay. He seemed so utterly human. One moment, he would seem entirely supernatural when Anderson noted that he was impressed Seonghwa would be providing his own translations for the interview, prompting Seonghwa to reveal that he spoke one-hundred and four languages—not accounting for dialects—and could read and write nearly two-hundred.
Yet, the very next moment, he would reveal something entirely mundane about himself that made him seem so… normal. He had difficulties picking a favorite anything, but when Anderson asked him what film seemed to get chosen the most on those coven movie nights Seonghwa had told him they partook in, just like any normal household, he admitted that they often watched How to Train Your Dragon, because his fledglings insisted he looked like the dragon character, Toothless. The internet took that information and ran with it expeditiously. The edits flooded social media sites within minutes, and did not ebb for days.
When Anderson asked yet another question about films, wondering if Seonghwa found any movies featuring vampiric characters—despite their rampant inaccuracies—to be interesting or at least tolerable, he claimed that he’d found 2012’s Byzantium to be both poignant and compelling, with a message that was delivered effectively through the lens of a fictionalized vampiric patriarchy.
It became the most streamed film of the week, globally.
Seonghwa didn’t discuss his time as a soldier, fighting in Korea’s wars. He had already spoken at length about the subject, as he often brought it up to legitimize his citizenship and dedication to his country during the creation of the Accords. Anderson instead kept the questions fresh, if not always light. When probed about hobbies, Seonghwa proudly mentioned the plants he kept out on his veranda, and his extensive library. He also regaled his love of music, which led to a discussion about the numerous instruments with which he was proficient—though he was quick to point out that his fledgling Yeosang was a far more skilled violinist than he.
That left the latter beaming with pride while Wooyoung moved on to shaking him with excitement.
Seonghwa spoke of his eternal ineptitude at video games, though he noted that many of his covenmates were quite skilled and extremely competitive. There was something to the fondness in his smile when he admitted that he enjoyed watching them play and lightheartedly bicker which was precisely what San had said was needed—it was humanizing.
He was asked if he had a favorite Avenger. Seonghwa had said, “not an Avenger—but I like Venom.”
The official Venom film series social media accounts posted the clip with the caption: “We like you, too, Ambassador Park.” Naturally, netizens on both sides of the vampire “debate” went absolutely feral over that, each in their own way.
But the question that stuck out the most to Hongjoong, however, was a seemingly innocuous one. While on the subject of favorites, and how hard it was to choose them, Anderson had asked if Seonghwa had a favorite color.
It was such a simple query. The kind of thing you would see on a dating app, or in one of those silly quizzes where you could find out which character you were most like from a popular IP or which element you’d be a wielder of or which Path you would stride in some video game. But Seonghwa’s answer had been strangely unexpected, though as dignified and elegant as Hongjoong had come to expect from him.
“The color of cherry blossom petals,” had been his response.
Pink. Seonghwa’s favorite color was pink. But…a very specific shade of pink—one tied to something in nature, something particularly fleeting—and Hongjoong became consumed with knowing why. That answer was another one netizens had decided to run with, but none of it was particularly deep. It was all cutesy or romantic edits and proclamations that such a thing was a “green flag”, or something.
Hongjoong felt a certain frustration at the fact that the interviewer hadn’t pressed him on it, and he resolved to ask Seonghwa about it once he’d gotten back. Upon his return, however, he was—of course—inundated by the others fawning over him and praising him, telling him what a great job he did, showing him all of the social media attention, the impact on brands and media, and even the shift in public opinions about not only himself, but vampires as a whole.
Seonghwa seemed a bit overwhelmed, so Hongjoong held off on asking. At least, for the time being.
***
Three days had passed before Hongjoong finally got the chance to speak with Seonghwa without one of the others bursting in with some new TikTok edit or news article or tweet from a celebrity referencing his interview. Their group chats were still blowing up with them, but his covenmates seemed to have noticed Seonghwa’s waning enthusiasm toward having their phones shoved into his face every few hours to show him some new unhinged creation from netizens featuring clips of him set to modern music with an array of filters added on, and finally backed off.
Hongjoong was completely over it by day one. He couldn’t imagine how annoyed Seonghwa must have felt, even though he would never show it. He didn’t want to add to that irritation he had an inkling Seonghwa was expertly hiding—as he always did—so he tried his best to broach the subject in a more vague way.
“S’been a crazy week, huh?” Hongjoong said as casually as he could manage, having found Seonghwa lounging in a corner of the veranda just before sunrise, admiring his plants.
“It’s only Wednesday,” Seonghwa noted.
“Exactly,” Hongjoong quipped back as he threw himself down on the deck chair directly next to him.
Seonghwa huffed a soft laugh, smiling gently with fond amusement. “Fair point, my love.”
A comfortable silence fell between the two of them, but to Hongjoong, who was chomping at the bit to ask him about the seemingly unimportant detail he’d made mention of in his interview, it was practically torture. Finally, he just blurted it out, tactless and blunt and devoid of context.
“So…why cherry blossoms?”
“I beg your pardon?” Seonghwa queried, looking over at him with his brow furrowed slightly in confusion.
“You said—in the interview, you said your favorite color was the shade of cherry blossom petals. It felt so specific, and I wanted to know why.”
“I…must say, I’m surprised that you have such a keen interest in something so decidedly mundane,” Seonghwa admitted.
“Thing is, I don’t think it’s mundane at all,” Hongjoong countered, “I think there’s a story behind it, and I’d…like to know it.”
Seonghwa smiled at him, amused and proud. “You have such a clever mind on you, Kim Hongjoong. Nothing gets past your keen observation, hm?”
“So there is a story,” Hongjoong grinned, crossing his arms triumphantly. “I noticed back when we first moved in that there was a pretty big sakura tree in the center of the garden, and I wondered if it had anything to do with that…”
“Not directly, no. I did plant it here when we first built the home, however. Some lofty idea of finally putting down roots. I’d hoped to be able to watch it grow over the years. Before we came to Seongnam, the others and I had been forced to move quite a lot to avoid detection, before vampires became public knowledge…and before we had the kind of money to be able to afford such a large, secluded abode, customized to our needs.”
“Oh…so is it an attachment to the memories surrounding this house? Your first permanent home?” Hongjoong guessed.
“Not exactly, though perhaps that factors into my fondness for the color, as well,” Seonghwa told him, “old memories and new, coalescing. Tell me—do you know the myths surrounding sakura trees?”
“I…can’t say that I do, no,” Hongjoong said.
“An urban legend claimed that the blossoms were once white, and only gained their pink hue by soaking up the blood of the dead buried beneath them. It became a popular trope in Japanese folklore novellas in particular in the 1920’s,” Seonghwa explained, regaling the information with a sort of nostalgic melancholy. “Perhaps some part of me wanted to see those pink blossoms bloom in a place where fatal bloodshed was forbidden. A place of tranquility, safety, and hope. In that sense, I suppose we proved the myths wrong.”
“That’s…honestly kind of beautiful on its own, really,” Hongjoong admitted, “but you like the color for another reason?”
“Mm. A memory,” Seonghwa replied, “rather…an echo of a shade of a distant memory I can barely recall. One from over a thousand years ago.”
Hongjoong didn’t respond save to drop his mouth open slightly in surprise—he was listening with rapt attention.
“I don’t remember my parents. The details of their faces have faded from my mind. But when I smell the cherry blossoms, I remember a woman’s voice. Just her voice—coming from behind me as I stare out at a field of pink blossoms, petals sweeping past in the gentle breeze—and she is telling me the flowers are for me. Every spring, she says they bloom just for me, to celebrate my birth. I think that she must have been my mother…and I suppose that means I was born around the time when the sakura trees bloom.”
Hongjoong blinked at him. “Wait. You…don’t know when your own birthday is?”
Seonghwa shook his head.
“Not an exact date. We used a different calendar back then,” he conceded, “I only know that I was born in mid-spring, when the cherry blossoms begin blooming. What we now consider to be April.”
Hongjoong was silent for a moment. It was another of those moments when the true weight of Seonghwa’s age left him slightly awed. Not in reverence, necessarily…but in appreciation for what it meant. All the ways he never thought about, the ways he supposed he took for granted.
He knew he wasn’t the only one—within their household or without—but it still left him with that strange sense of amazement and sympathy.
Something nagged at him, however. The tree was simply…there, in the garden. Seonghwa could see it at night, he supposed, if he ever walked the grounds. But he never got to enjoy it in the sunlight, like in that memory of his.
After a long moment of silence, Hongjoong finally spoke again.
“Have you considered just…building a huge greenhouse, or something? Made of the U/V-filtering glass?”
“I considered it, surely. But I eventually decided against it. Nature doesn’t deserve to be boxed up…stifled and limited. It deserves to grow freely,” Seonghwa said, “and perhaps some part of me believed that vampires were, by our nature, creatures of the night. That perhaps we weren’t meant to experience those pleasures, those gifts of nature, beneath the sunlight.”
“You say that nature doesn’t deserve to be boxed up and limited, but it kind of sounds like you’re boxing in and limiting yourself,” Hongjoong countered.
“I must be rubbing off on you if you’re the one philosophizing to me,” Seonghwa teased.
“I wouldn’t go so far as to call it philosophizing,” Hongjoong rebuffed, his mouth twisting up thoughtfully. “You know…I remember Yeosang mentioning once that you guys could even walk out in the sun a long time ago. You still had to protect yourselves with hats and scarves, but the sun didn’t cause you to burn fatally. Wooyoung went on a history deep-dive, and figured out that didn’t start happening until industry started punching holes into the ozone, raising the global UV index. So it’s the fault of humans that vampires can’t walk in the sun in the first place.”
Seonghwa gave him an appraising look, grinning appreciatively. “Wooyoung expressed an interest in pursuing a college degree, and potentially a doctorate, with that theory as the subject of his thesis.”
“Oh. That’s cool. I just kind of thought he was one of those people who fell down Wikipedia black-holes and came out the other side knowing a bunch of random, useless information,” Hongjoong said, huffing in amusement. “Good for him.”
“Yes, I’m very proud…and glad to see he’s found a goal worth working toward,” Seonghwa replied, his expression fond.
Hongjoong nodded, but he found himself lost in thought again as he stared past the veranda’s windows…to the old sakura tree standing as a silent sentinel at the center of the mansion’s courtyard just beyond.
***
A new question began to haunt Hongjoong after that day, once he had a vague idea of when Seonghwa’s birthday was.
What do you get for a man who has practically everything?
Truthfully, he probably didn’t need to get him anything. The older vampires didn’t seem to celebrate their birthdays anymore. San was only keeping track because he was getting closer and closer to being one-hundred years old, which was an exciting novelty he was looking forward to. The newly-turned vampires such as Wooyoung, Jongho, Yunho, and himself were the only ones that anyone seemed to bother fussing over celebrating their birthdays, though notably, Eden did not care about his own. Hongjoong’s jokes about him being an old man— physically older than all of them—had probably been a factor. That, and he just generally didn’t seem to like bringing attention to himself.
Hongjoong knew Eden, though…and he knew there was one thing he could count on him for with absolute certainty—helping him arrange a surprise for Seonghwa.
After a long period of consideration and planning, Hongjoong had finally figured out what he was going to do to surprise Seonghwa. He just needed Eden to get Seonghwa out of the house for a few days. After learning of his plans, his senior hunter was…perhaps oddly eager to help. Then again, he’d always had a soft spot for Seonghwa.
He contrived some false, low-stakes bureaucratic scenario that he and Seonghwa had to see to personally in Seoul, thanks to some connections Eden still had at the Bureau. Then he enlisted Yeosang to help him get into contact with Seonghwa’s “glass guy”, and the others eagerly jumped at the chance to help design the schematics. A project like this would usually take far longer to execute, but the coven had more money than was honestly reasonable…so putting a rush on it wasn’t an issue.
The construction was finished before everything was ready, however, and Hongjoong had to call Eden to stall for just a little longer.
“He’s getting suspicious, you know,” Eden muttered through the phone, sounding as though he wanted to be exasperated, but it was underpinned with something akin to embarrassment. “I swear he’s catching on that the trivial nonsense we’re dealing with is some kind of farce—he’s even starting to think that I arranged this trip so the two of us could spend the time alone together. Now he’s doting on me when we get back to the apartment like I’m a lovesick dope.”
“Aw, that’s kind of cute, though, right?” Hongjoong teased.
Eden let out a withering sigh. “It’s painfully sweet, and it’s making me feel guilty about lying to him. How much more time do you need?”
“I don’t know…I can’t control nature. The fucking cherry blossoms aren’t blooming yet,” Hongjoong grumbled, “I’ve even had the gardening staff give the tree a bit of extra fertilizer to help it along. The moment they pop, I’ll send you the signal, and you just get him back here, stat.”
“10-4. I’ll stall for as long as I can and await your word,” Eden told him. After a pause, he continued, “I saw the finished project, by the way. Sannie sent me some pictures. It looks great. I bet Seonghwa will really love it.”
Hongjoong smiled. He certainly hoped so.
***
Like manna from heaven, or perhaps some other equally biblical metaphor, Hongjoong’s prayers were answered: the next day, the tree’s buds had started opening into beautiful pink blooms.
He sent a single flower emoji to Eden, and got a car emoji back in response in under two minutes. They were heading home.
Hongjoong suddenly felt so nervous.
Although everyone had helped in their own ways, after greeting Seonghwa with immense enthusiasm upon his return—which earned his confused surprise and a slight amount of suspicion—everyone cleared out to let Hongjoong have his big moment.
That just made him even more nervous.
“My love?”
Seonghwa’s voice had cut through the foyer, which had grown eerily silent in the absence of all the chatter from the rest of the coven. Hongjoong was just standing there like a dazed idiot, he realized, shaking himself out of his stupor and motioning toward the veranda.
“Wanna…watch the sunrise with me?”
Seonghwa smiled fondly, his eyes crinkling in that way they did only for his coven. “I’d love to.”
The invitation was only partly a ruse. Once they entered the veranda, Seonghwa immediately noticed that something had changed. Before he could even make mention of it, Hongjoong took his hand and pulled him toward the windowed doors leading to the yard, his other reaching for the handle and pushing it open.
“Actually, I took some liberties with the garden while you were gone. Let me show you.”
A pathway of enclosed glass and dark metal pergolas were now butted up against the veranda’s French doors, draped with pale purple wisteria plants and set upon elegant pavers that matched the edifice of the mansion. They led all the way out into the courtyard, where they met with the garden’s new centerpiece—a massive, towering glass atrium which now surrounded the old sakura tree. It was large enough to allow for plenty more growth from the tree without impeding it in any way. There were stone benches and a wrought metal table set up beneath the canopy already, along with several hanging wicker basket chairs, well-cushioned and big enough to fit two or three people each.
Seonghwa stood in awe. They reached the atrium just as the sun crested over the distant tree line, casting them in the golden light of dawn.
“Oh, Hongjoong—”
“I know you said that nature shouldn’t be limited or stifled…but neither should you. I made sure they built it large enough so that it wouldn’t prohibit the tree’s growth, and it’s designed not to harm or interfere with the wide-reaching root system,” the hunter explained, clearly proud of himself and brimming with nervous excitement.
Seonghwa was briefly too captivated to respond.
“Happy birthday,” Hongjoong told him, grinning brightly.
Seonghwa’s breath almost seemed to hitch, his eyes growing misty. “I can’t…even recall the last time someone spoke those words to me.”
“Well…you can look forward to hearing them every April from now on,” Hongjoong replied.
Seonghwa gave a wet huff of a laugh, smiling gently at him. His words were soft, almost a whisper.
“Thank you, my love.”
“And hey, look,” Hongjoong said, nudging him and motioning up toward the boughs. “They’re blooming just for you.”
Seonghwa’s eyes rose to the tree’s canopy, and as he gazed upon the pale pink blossoms, taking in their sweet, gentle scent…all the world fell away, and he could hear that kind, motherly voice again.
“They’re blossoming just for you again, my darling boy—to celebrate you. May they always help you to bloom distinctly beyond your fears…and remind you that your birth was a gift to this world, my star.”
Seonghwa hadn’t noticed that a tear had slid down his face until Hongjoong reached up to wipe it away, pulling him out of the memory. His hand rose to lay over Hongjoong’s, pressing the other man’s palm against his cheek as his gaze fell to meet him. He had gone through quite a few hair colors ever since having been turned—from deep blue, to red, to orange, to platinum, to teal, to pure white, to blond with opalescent rainbow tips, and even an adventurous black-and-white split-dye—but now, his hair was back to the warm caramel it had been when he’d first met the man…though it was not as long, sporting an undercut instead of the Lost Boys-inspired mullet of the past.
Seonghwa though that when the light of the sun caught the honeyed fly-aways at the crown of his head, he glowed in an almost ethereal sort of way…like a halo.
“You look so beautiful in the daylight, Kim Hongjoong,” he murmured, a feeling seizing his unbeating heart that he’d only experienced a seldom few times in his life. “You truly are of the sun.”
Hongjoong looked up at him, admiring the way the golden light brought out the hints of natural bronze still there in the pallor of Seonghwa’s skin. He’d always thought Seonghwa’s was a cold sort of beauty—like gentle, silvery moonlight in a dark sky. The high rise of his cheeks, the elegant slope of his nose…in the black of night, he was a vision. But in the radiance of the sun, he was almost celestial. Utterly resplendent—like something holy, deserving of benediction and worship.
Then you are of the sun, the moon, and the stars, Hongjoong wanted to tell him, though he didn’t. Instead, he just leaned up to kiss him, letting his lips convey his feelings.
“Let’s watch the rest of the sunrise together,” he did say, once he pulled back, and Seonghwa smiled at him as though he was his entire world.
“I could want for nothing more, my love.”
Despite that there were stone benches and wrought iron tea tables set throughout the space, the two of them curled up in the curve of the root system at the base of the tree’s trunk and watched the sunrise from beneath the blooming boughs.
When a single petal drifted down and gently landed in Hongjoong’s hair, Seonghwa took a moment to admire its perfect color before pressing a kiss to the crown of the other man’s head.