I'm just lonely (somebody reach out and hold me)

No Matter How Much I Smile, I Feel So Lonely

"Hyung, you're never going to guess what happened today!"

"A new vamp kid showed up at school?"

"Yeah, he's—ahh? How'd you know!?"

Minho shot Jisung a flat look, silently admonishing him for his loudness, and then rolled his eyes a bit, sinking some more into the couch.

"Jisung, you know how small our community is. There was no way a newborn was going to go unnoticed – he was probably the talk of the council today," guessed Seungmin.

At that very moment, Changbin walked on, typing quickly on his phone.

"Every Coven Leader got an official notice from JYP – the circumstances behind his turning are vague and worrying, so they asked for volunteers to investigate it," he simply explained.

At that, three out of the four boys visibly cringed. Hyunjin shot his friends a slightly puzzled look, and it was Jeongin who spoke up.

"He... He said he didn't have a choice in his turning."

The air in the room instantly grew colder. Forcibly turning a Human wasn't unheard of, of course, but unwillingly turned Vampires always turned bad. It was basically siring a psychopath and giving them the means to make the messiest bloodbath in existence.

Back during the Great Warring Times, forcibly turning Humans was actually a weaponized technique – the more unstable newborns, the better. They weren't much of a danger for their fellow Vampires since they could let loose and kill as many Humans as they wanted but, after peace finally settled between the two species, it took away the newborns' freedom of feeding, which led them to turn on their fellow Vampires and, in consequence, started an inner war amongst their kind.

In modern times, forcibly turning a Human was a crime punishable by death in all countries – both for the danger such a newborn represented, and also because it was a twisted form of assault that took away someone's entire being.

Of course, it still happened from time to time. Thankfully, though, Vampires and Humans had long since established a proper support system for newborns like those and, with the proper guidance and patience, said newborns eventually managed to settle down and move on with their lives – without their initial psychopathic tendencies.

"That doesn't make any sense," then stated Hyunjin, frowning. "He told us he was turned last week. If he had been forcibly turned..."

He didn't need to elaborate. It was already rare enough for a newborn to be able to control their bloodthirst in such a short amount of time, but someone as mentally damaged as a forcibly turned Human? It was nothing short of impossible.

"He wasn't lying, though," remarked Jisung, frowning too. "Seungmin would have known."

"He was telling us the truth," confirmed Seungmin. "Or at least, what he believes to be the truth. Maybe a Gift is messing with his memories...?"

Gifts that could influence a person's memories were quite common amongst Vampires, but only Originals were powerful enough to use them to their fullest potential.

"What about his Sire?" then asked Minho, curious. "Did he say anything about them?"

"Frankly, I don't think he even knows what a Sire is, at that point," huffed Hyunjin, flopping on the couch. "Poor kid was clueless about everything. And, like, I get that newborns can't know everything right away, but there were some things that are really basic knowledge and that are usually taught by Sires."

"But then again, if he was forcibly turned, then maybe his Sire didn't bother sticking around," suggested Jeongin.

All of the Vampires winced at the thought. It was one thing to forcibly feed from a Human, another to forcibly turned them - but the lowest of the low was to sire a Vampire and then abandon them.