Nobody dared to speak as we sat side by side on the park bench. I jumped down from the statue but he didn't seem to notice that what I did was beyond human. The statue's stand was pretty high up after all.

It started to drizzle but he still held his tongue. No matter how annoyed I was, berating him for killing me, when I'm obviously not dead dead, felt so embarrassing. Sometimes I hate myself for being so happy-go-lucky.

"Are you making fun of me?" I asked.

He didn't answer. He didn't even lift his head to acknowledge that he understood or even heard what I said. Maybe he wasn't so comfortable sitting right in front of the spot where I broke my skull. But he chose the spot and sat there first, I just followed.

He began sniffing in a snotty kind of way. Fuck! I can't even react according to the situation. After a while, he started bawling like a lost child and wiped his face with his shirt.

"What did I ever do to you?!" I asked in a loud voice, just in case someone was watching us thinking that I was bullying a child. "What is wrong with you?"

He shook his head rapidly while wiping his tears with the backs of his hands. Not knowing what to do, I patiently watched him and waited until he calmed down. Maybe it was the shock of accidentally killing another person, especially one that's definitely dead when you left and then finding him alive on the same spot the next day.

"How old are you, anyway?"

"Fourteen," he answered in a surprisingly deep voice.

"No shit?! I thought you're like, ten," I said, chuckling a little bit. He looked younger than fourteen. He raised his head slightly and stared at me too intently until I felt that it was getting awkward.

"I was looking for you."

I raised an eyebrow. He sounds so serious.

"You wanted to go to my funeral? Searched the obituaries?"

He closed his eyes and shook his head, gently this time.

"No. I wasn't looking for a dead person."

He smiled and that was when I noticed his fangs.

*

Based on our lifestyle, being a vampire isn't so hard. Maybe I was being dramatic due to the shock of waking up craving a glass of fresh, warm blood. Maybe it was the distress of realizing that I can't relate to my past self anymore and I had to put some value into my own humanity. What would become of me if I wasn't me? Maybe I was pretending to myself, telling the dead human inside me that I don't want to let him go.

But when you look at it carefully, there's really not much difference except the food choices. Once fully adjusted to this new way of existing, maybe I could go on with my life as a dead person without a hitch.

"Do vampires still have fate?" I asked him.

He frowned before grinning.

"You have a weird sense of humor."

Nurgis isn't so bad after all. Of course I'm still pissed at him for turning me into one of him. Just like any other, he told me that he only did me a favor because I begged for my life.

"You prayed to any god who was listening and I'm closest to a god who happened to be next to you."

"You little shit! You talk like you didn't end my life!"

He smiled apologetically and scratched his head.

"You were wasted. I tried to avoid you but it all happened so fast."

"Well, I thought it was just a bike."

The kid rolled his eyes as if talking to me was a bad idea.

"It's not just a bike when I'm driving," he answered in the cockiest way possible.

So he's a competitive biker and a sprinter on his junior high school team. No wonder the force felt like being hit by a truck.

"So, how old are you really?" I asked him to change the topic. I didn't even notice that the rain had stopped because my brain was doing cartwheels inside my head.

"25."

"What?"

"What were you expecting? 1025?"

I leaned back to my seat to process the new information.

Is it weird for me to feel the effect of his seniority over me after learning that he's only twenty five and not some century old vampire? Just like in some anime, the severity of living for hundreds of years wouldn't matter and what remains is the mentality that the modern person is wiser. Like, "Move over, ancient creature. I know the present more than you do so I'm in-charge."

But maybe it's just our inability to imagine what goes on inside the head of a person who lived for several hundred years. We have no way of knowing about their accumulated knowledge and we subconsciously believe that the things they knew hardened inside their head like stalactites.

Or maybe it's just me. I tend to forget that no matter how old they are, they grew with the world and sailed through the times. Sometimes I think about deep shit like this and end up irritated for some reason.

*

"Aside from me wanting to live, what made you decide to make me one of you? Are you the only vampire left in the world so you have to pass the curse to another person? To have a playmate?" I asked him when we saw each other again. He's wearing his school uniform and he had a backpack slung on his shoulder. He's pushing his bicycle while we walk together under the row of street lamps.

"Don't flatter yourself," he answered and when he blinked, his eyes reflected the light from overhead like a cat. I wonder why mine looks normal.

"Then why were you crying back then?"

"I was just so happy. And relieved that I successfully turned another person," he answered in his bored way of talking. The way he deals with my questions feels like he doesn't care as much as I expected. "Aren't you relieved you didn't die that night? What would people say if you end up in the newspaper and they find out the cause of your death. A bicycle. It's cheap and so humiliating!"

He laughed as if he's telling me a hilarious joke but I didn't find it funny at all.

"And I'd hate to be convicted with that kind of cheap crime."

Fucking child.

I was created on a whim. No wonder he thinks of himself as a god. 

It's disappointing when you discover that you were only an experiment. An accidental pregnancy of some sort and your creator was only excited for the fact that he made something but then after a while he gets bored and it won't matter if you exist or not.

"What am I supposed to do now?" I asked him in frustration. "I'm so fucking hungry I could eat my mother! I don't want to go home and see her because I might lose it! What am I supposed to do?!"

He stopped walking before looking up to me.

"I will feed you until you figure things out," he said without a trace of emotion on his face. "Think of it as an apology."

That superiority I was talking about? Scratch it. I would love to beat him senseless just once. Just as I was thinking about it, my body moved on its own and I reached out to grab him by the shoulder. But he quickly jumped back, held an imaginary top hat over his head and bowed.

"Let's get along for now, Genesis."

*

After that talk with Nurgis, he told me to go back to school. I finished senior high last year and decided to work directly, skipping college. I hated going to school and was celebrating like crazy when I survived my remaining year. But he told me that college was the best camouflage and the easier place to find prey.

He also said that I needed to secure my future because we have to move from place to place to renew our cover. It's easier when you have the means to travel and party.

He stressed the party part. It's where people are most vulnerable.

My mother was more than willing to send me off to college. She really wanted me to go but I didn't enroll last year. Now she's so energetic all of a sudden, imagining a future with a professional son. She reminded me to always wake up early and wash my undies thoroughly because it would reflect on her if someone finds my dirty underwear and blames her parenting for it.

I told her that she should chill while I'm gone. I lied about having a scholarship so she wouldn't worry about my money.

Will I ever see her again? No idea. After all, I died. I need to put some distance between us as early as possible. I wouldn't want her getting caught up in my problem.

Nurgis supplied me with bags of blood when I finally settled into a college dorm.

"Are you sure these are clean blood?" I asked him when he handed me my first meal ever.

"Of course. Those were donated blood after all," he shrugged while watching me read the label of the bag. "We own a big hospital, you know."

"For a twenty five year old uncle, you really nail that bragging like a child act," I told him.

He just grinned while watching porn on the television. No wonder he had the funds to meet me in motel rooms. It's a more secure place to eat compared to my dorm room.

"Go on, eat."

I did. I bit the blood bag and even with the slight contact of blood on my lips, my eyes rolled back to my head in delight. It was the most satisfying feeling as far as I can remember.

The blood did something to my body. I could swear my heart skipped a beat while I was sucking in mouthfuls of it into my system. The warmth permeated throughout my body that for a moment I believed I was alive again.

And I could see better. I could hear better and I could feel sharper and my hands were no longer trembling. There's a certain buzz in me that pokes my instinct to go all out and prove that I'm capable of doing some damage if I wanted to.

Nurgis didn't seem to enjoy the porn on the television but he's still focused on it, like a child mindlessly watching a cartoon show just because it moves.

A scary thought hit me.

"Wait, does becoming a vampire make you impotent?" 

"What?" he asked, finally taking his eyes off the lewd scene.

"I can still fuck, right?"

"Oh," was his only reply and was lost in thought once again.

I groaned and pounced on him to shake him by the shoulders.

"Fucking asshole! Answer me or I'll end you!"

He shifted his eyes to mine and we locked gazes until his facade broke and he was rolling on the bed laughing.

"Of course you can! Are you actually dumb?"

"But. . . But you've been watching that and not reacting at all!" I shouted at him defensively.

"I'm not sleazy enough to get turned on by a walking bag of silicone."

"Oh. All right," I answered. He's got a point. Settling next to him, I bounced on the bed and stretched my arms over my head. He returned his focus to the TV.

"And it's not. . ." he began to say and stopped.

"Hmm?"

"Nothing," he said.

"Come here," I said and pulled the hem of his shirt. "Lie down so we can use the bed."

"Vampires don't sleep," he said.

"I know. But you paid for this right?"

He looked at me as if I was stupid but lied down next me me anyway.

"You'll take my side right?" he asked all of a sudden. His eyes were fixed on the ceiling but I could tell that he needed me to answer.

"Of course. You're my father, after all."

Nurgis chuckled.

"Father. Haha. Fathers are terrible, please stop calling me that."

"Hmm."

I stared at the ceiling too, conjuring the image of my family back when my father was still alive and my brother didn't leave home. The image of us enjoying my mother's barbecue that I used to love so much. My father was fat and loud but he wasn't terrible at all. Maybe he's talking about his own father.