Charles

The voice around them died down. Charles was astounded by the person he just saw as much as that person was shocked to see him and was staying still in his spot.

“Uhm-” The unknown person suddenly flinched.

Charles too flinched along with the unknown person’s motion, before steeling himself to speak the next sentence. “Who are you?” The old man paused for a bit to dart his eyes around. “How did you get in here?”

The unknown man seemed to gradually calm down, or he’s probably in too much fatigue, but the unknown man gazed at Charles with a pleading gaze as he said, “Please help me. I’m hungry.”

Charles pondered for a bit. “Oh…” He then plodded towards the kitchen counter and opened a medium sized rectangular basket, where he stored all the bread he bought from the bakery.

“Here you go, young man.” Charles inched near and handed the man a piece of cream bun. The man lowered his head for a sniff at the bread, paused for a bit, before taking it from Charles’s hands.

“Thank you…”

Charles heaved a low sigh of relief. “I’m sorry that this is all I got in this house. I don’t have that much food in the first place.”

The man answered with a single shake of his head, yet no words were out from his still wet and red lips as if it’s soaked in blood. The unknown male chomped down on the bread greedily while still standing on the corner of the kitchen. Meanwhile, Charles pivoted his path towards the kitchen stool and pulled one to sit on it. The old man is indeed tired of all the work he had done the entire day, yet his curiosity is piqued by this young man in front of him.

The male is by no means taller than him by a several foot. If he were to say it correctly, the male has a height about similar to Arthur. He also possessed an attractive facial feature—short dark red bushy hair, a pair of rich blue eyes the colour of sapphire, and pale skin—somehow looking just like Arthur in a sense. Or could he possibly be…

“Are you a vampire?”

His eating stopped. The unknown man shot Charles a look, before he shook his head.

“Oh, I see.” Charles paused a bit. “Pardon this old man for suddenly blurting that.” Charles let out an awkward laughter. “I was just curious about you, that’s all. You look like quite a beauty.”

The unknown man completely halted eating his less than a quarter left bun and stared at Charles long, deeply in a thought of himself.

“You see…” The silence between them had begun to get thicker when Charles decided to break it. “I was originally a noble, but not anymore.”

The male looked at him in wonder. In a sense, that new expression unwittingly caused Charles to break into a smile, partially glad that he doesn’t seem as guarded as he was before.

In this world, only nobles were supposed to know about the true identity of the vampires. Almost every commoner only know that vampires are exist, yet weren’t disclosed what they would look like. Additionally, because of the adjustments the royalty made for the Sun Sector—the sector for humans—and the Moon Sector—the sector for vampires, the population is largely separated between the race so that vampires can protect their identity whilst humans can protect their safety. Only a handful of vampires are allowed to mingle with the humans and that was mostly merchants and nobles.

That was why Charles wondered; was this sapphire eyed male in front of him belong into among the merchants or nobles? His gestures represents that he’s not. But if so, then what caused his white tunic to be stained majorly with blood, a fresh-looking blood at that?

The old man suddenly shuddered when he recalled getting involved in a vampire murder case a few years back. Vampires are tied to the fact that they need blood to sustain themselves, but they would usually undergo blood donation in the Sun Sector in exchange for some money. As a result, there wasn’t supposed to be any murder cases involving vampires murdering a human.

However, unusual cases like that does happen sometimes and Charles saw it with both of his own eyes how the victim looked after blood were sucked dry out of them. The places that the vampires always draw blood from was from the neck, and at that time, the victim’s neck were completely ripped open vigorously.

Charles secretly peeked at the unknown male who was now licking his fingers to clean them from the cream. The male in front of him looked full enough to not kill this old man living alone inside this house, and to boot, he is just an unappetizing old man whose blood won’t even taste good.

“Alright.” He stood up, jolting the male.

“I will be sleeping now. You are free to roam inside the house or something. There’s nothing to steal here anyway.”

The old man plodded towards the entrance of the kitchen. “Oh,” he paused and turned around to the male. “If you are hungry,” Then he pointed to the bread basket. “There are some breads inside the basket over there so feel free to eat them.”

Charles was about to left kitchen when the male suddenly spoke.

“Wait!”

His desperate tone managed to halt Charles from his steps. The oil lantern dangling on his hand clanked as he did.

“You… Won’t ask me who I am?”

The male said in a confused tone. He made it hard to believe that all the blood on his clothes were from his doing given how innocent he sounded, but the old Charles Wicker knew pretty well that vampires are pretty good at coaxing and wiles.

He waved one hand at the unknown male and replied, “If you don’t want to tell me, then who am I to force you? Besides…” Charles turned back to the entrance. “Even if I die tonight by, well, probably getting my blood sucked dry, I don’t have anything to lose anyway.”

The old man plodded away.

The unknown man continued to stare at Charles’ stature until he faded away from sigh. Suddenly, his fearful expression relaxed, replaced with a calm look which screams anything but wary. He brushed his bushy hair backwards, further revealing his glistening sapphire eyes.

“Phew…” An almost monotonous sigh then escaped his rosy lips.