Jisung was my GPS on the way to the baseball game. He told me to turn onto streets I hadn't ever been down, unmarked paths I had thought abandoned. We ended up on a road framed by a hazy forest — I had no idea where it was leading us.

"How long is this gonna last? The game?" I asked.

Jisung shrugged. "Hour, hour and a half. We would play longer, but I figure you'll want to sleep at some point."

"That'd be nice."

"Speaking of — I grabbed a folding chair from my house. It's in the trunk."

"Um. Why?"

"So you can sit on it."

I blinked. "Will anyone else be sitting? In the box, or whatever?"

"I don't know what you mean by 'box,' but I'm pretty sure everyone will be up and around."

"I don't want to be the only one sitting."

He pouted and tugged on my sleeve. "What if you get tired?"

"Then I'll wake myself up."

"What if your feet get sore?"

"Then I'll get new ones."

He sighed.

"All right, park here," he said a moment later.

I stopped the truck on the side of the road. It was just sprinkling rain, but the sky was threatening. The trees reached up like they were going to slap the hell out of the clouds.

"The clearing is through the woods," he said, turning to me. "We'll run — if that's okay with you?"

"That's fine." I remembered the high of running — like riding an agile, flying rollercoaster — and was not averse to trying again.

He whooshed to my side and got down on one knee; I hopped out of the truck and hugged my arms around his neck. He stood up, holding my knees in place, and took off like an arrow. It barely felt like he was moving — we could have been standing motionless in front of a large fan and I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference. The butterflies in my stomach were the only give-away.

"It's over," he told me a moment later, letting go of my knees. I kept my legs clamped around him.

"I like hugging you like this." I kissed the back of his neck, and then burrowed my face into his shoulder. "I don't wanna stop."

He kept quiet. When I pulled back, I found I was turned around, facing him, and his hands were back under my legs, holding me closer. A gratuitous use of vampire magic, to seduce one's boyfriend, but it worked nonetheless.

"Don't stop," he murmured. He kissed my lower lip, kept it between his lips and tugged ever so gently.

I wove my fingers into his hair and kissed him deeper. We were moving for half a second, and then my back was against something hard. I couldn't make myself care what it was. I was lost in his touch, in his lips and hands and the pressure of his body.

I just wanted him closer. I wanted him as close as humanly possible — closer than that, so close that our edges blurred together — closer and closer until I forgot how to speak, how to move, how to breathe.

So I let my lips fall open, and it was hardly a second before he disappeared.

I dropped onto my tailbone with a thud and a squawk. (I didn't fall very far — I think he had already been on his knees.) I blinked for a moment, dazed and unsatisfied. Apparently he'd had me against a tree. I crossed my legs on the dewy grass.

I could see him — dozens of yards away, hunkered over, holding his face in his hands. He slowly unfurled and made his way toward me.

He sat down in front of me, reluctantly meeting my eyes.

"Are you all right?"

"My butt hurts."

He smiled, just the tiniest bit. "Is your butt okay?"

"I guess so."

He heaved a breath, his shoulders pinching up. "I won't say I'm sorry — I know you don't want to hear it. But I need you to know how much I hate myself for having to do that to you."

"Don't say that, either. Look, it's whatever — I understand."

"What can I do to make it better?"

"I... don't know. I just — I just want you. So stay with me, and try to stay with me, and I'll try to keep my mouth closed. Okay?"

He looked down, nodded. "Are... we... okay?"

"Of course we are."

"You know I want to be close like that, right?"

"Oh, I know."

He cringed and hid his face behind his hands. I laughed.

He helped me to my feet, laced our hands together, and led me into the forest. After a short walk, we found ourselves on the edge of a field. It was much larger than any baseball stadium I'd ever seen. The air was muggy — each breath felt heavy in my lungs.

As I scanned the clearing, I could see the others. Haseong and Changbin were closest to us, maybe thirty yards away, standing like proud lions on an outthrust wedge of rock. Hyunjin and Seungmin were running around the field — just a blur of white and purple, marking the bases. Chan and Felix were both aggressively cuddling Jeongin, who seemed unbothered, like this happened a lot.

The two on the rock saw us, and headed in our direction.

"You made it!" Haseong called. "How was the drive over?"

"Good," Jisung answered.

"Complicated," I added.

"We made a few wrong turns."

"We literally had to drive through a waterfall and into a swamp."

"What the hell shortcut did you take him on, Jisung?" Changbin gaped.

"I'm exaggerating," I said. "I just suck at driving."

"You suck at listening to my instructions," Jisung said.

"No, that was a conscious decision."

"And how was the run?" Haseong asked, back on topic.

"Minho is very good at running," Jisung said.

"I'm good at getting piggyback rides," I replied. "I'm not as good at letting go."

He squeezed my hand.

Suddenly, Felix was barrelling in our direction. He halted at Changbin's side and pecked him on the cheek.

"Right" — a peal of thunder tore through the forest beyond us, westward toward town — "now. Game's all set up."

He darted back into the field, taking his place.

"See you soon." Jisung's eyes were giddy.

"Make a run or something," I said.

"My love." He kissed me quickly before he spun around and sprinted across the clearing. The grass parted beneath his nearly-invisible feet, and the black of his hair, brown of his shirt and blue of his jeans left a three-toned rainbow trailing behind him. He came to an abrupt stop far out in the field.

"Do you want to go closer?" Haseong asked in a voice like cotton candy.

"Sure."

As we walked forward, Haseong kept a few feet between us, and Changbin hid himself behind Haseong's shoulder. They didn't seem impatient with my human pace — though I was sure they could have dashed to a better view just as fast as the rest.

"Is this baseball very different than baseball on TV?" I asked.

"It's the same, basically," Haseong answered, "except we've only ever had six players."

"Scrub," Changbin chimed in.

"You two don't play with them?" I asked.

"We keep them in check," Haseong said. "You know, make sure they don't kill each other."

"So you're vampire umpires?"

They shared a look.

"How have we never thought of that before?" Haseong mumbled.

Changbin just shrugged.

The two stopped then, and I skittered back to stand next to them. I saw Jisung, Chan and Felix were in the outfield, and Jeongin held the ball, shifting his weight excitedly on what must have been the pitcher's mound. Hyunjin was whirling a titanium bat between his fingers, and Seungmin crouched behind him.

"All right," Changbin said, his voice no louder than it had been with us. "Batter up."

Jeongin was still as a statue, and then spun around with his arm stretched out, and the ball was instantly smacking into Seungmin's hand.

"Did they lose?" I asked.

"No. If they don't hit it, it's a strike," Haseong explained. "Three strikes, and he's out."

Seungmin threw the ball back to Jeongin. He wound up and flicked his wrist in the smallest, quickest movement. The ball collided with Hyunjin's bat. The result was a deafening crack — it echoed off the mountains and rustled the tops of the trees. It sounded just like thunder, that's why they played during storms.

The ball flew over the forest and disappeared into the low-hanging clouds of fog.

"Did they win?" I asked.

"Wait," Haseong said, unmoving, hands cupping his ears. Hyunjin was a blur around the field. I realized Jisung was missing.

"Out!" Haseong hollered.

Jisung whipped out from the dense periphery of trees, ball in hand. His face was a gigantic, gummy smile — he must have won. He tossed the ball in the air, arrogant, and immediately dropped it. Changbin, Haseong and I laughed at him in unison.

The game continued. All I could do was rock back on my heels every time they flitted from base to base without seeming to travel the distance. When I looked at the sky, the clouds were sloped downward over Forks, but it didn't rain in the clearing at all.

Jisung sprinted to my side, slowed to a normal speed before he hugged me and twirled me around like I weighed nothing. He let me down, and my dizzy eyes refocussed on his face.

"What do you think?" he asked.

"I don't know what's happening, but I love it."

"I won," he told me. I heard a loud groan from the other side of the field in response. He smiled at me and ran off again.

I could hear them argue, an occasional voice an octave higher. At one point, Jeongin got so worked up that he chased Felix around the span of the clearing, snarling like a maniac. I felt like I was living inside a cartoon.

Chan was up to bat — cracking his joints in a minutes-long exercise — and Jisung was pitching. He waved at me. I waved back and gave him a thumbs-up.

I didn't understand what was going on at first. Suddenly all eyes were on Felix — just a blip in the distance to me, but I could see he was stock-still, staring into the trees.

Then Jisung was at my side. I opened my mouth to ask what happened, but Haseong spoke first.

"Felix, what's wrong?"

Felix rushed to Changbin, held him for support. The rest gathered around us.

"I don't... I couldn't..." Felix shook his head like he was dizzy.

"What happened?" Chan asked, placing a hand on Felix's shoulder.

"The nomads," he whispered. He sounded guilty, as if he was the cause of whatever he had seen.

"What changed?" Changbin asked, his voice deadly quiet, body language protective.

"They heard us playing," Felix said. "It changed their path."

Eight pairs of tawny eyes flitted to my face and away again in a split second.

"Are they close?" Chan asked, turning to Jisung.

His pupils ticked like he was concentrating. "A minute — less. They want to play."

"Can you make it?"

"No, not with—" He glanced at me, only showing his panic for a second. "But the last thing we need is for them to start hunting anyway."

They all turned to Chan. He deliberated — standing motionless, eyebrows knit together.

"We keep playing," he finally said. His eyebrows floated apart, and his face became calm. "They're only interested in playing with us, yeah?"

The rest weren't comforted, but they didn't seem to doubt Chan's decision.

"Changbin, sub in," Jisung said. "I'll call it now." He held my hand, standing up straight, defensive. I'd spent enough time with him to know that it was a show. I lifted his hand and held it over my heart.

"The vampires you were talking about," I said. "They're here."

"They are." His grip on my hand tightened.

I couldn't tell how much time went by. Nobody really paid attention as they played, wary of the perimeter of trees locking us in. Felix and Haseong seemed to linger around us, like an outer layer of armour.

I think I was afraid. My heart was beating a little too fast. I could tell this was some kind of turning point, that things would either be the same or very, very different when it was over. My brain was blank. I couldn't quite wrap my head around the cause of fear. It seemed too out there, not possible.

I should have known better, considering the company I'd been keeping.

"My love," Jisung said then, "I can't tell you how—"

"Don't apologize," I interrupted. "Don't."

He turned to me, took the hood of my jacket and pulled it over my head. He hugged me.

"Try to be quiet, breathe evenly, stand as still as you can. We'll protect you."

"Will you stay with me?"

"Of course I will."

I brushed his hair down with one hand. "I love you so much."

"I love you, too." His arms squeezed around my waist. "More than anything."

His breath hitched, and he turned still as stone in my arms. He pulled back, and his eyes scanned and caught on a single point somewhere beyond the trees. His hand found mine and linked our fingers together.

Three wild unknowns emerged from the forest edge.

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sorry for the cliffhanger hehe

also: boob who knows nothing about baseball writing about baseball. oof

see you next week <3