chapter XVI.

san swears this is the fastest he had ever seen seonghwa move. he tried to get the older to calm down on multiple occasions, but for very clear reasons seonghwa did not budge.

to seonghwa it felt like he had literally turned over every rock and stone in the town to find yeosang, but he still found not one sign of his boyfriend's presence. the town felt awfully quiet too, as if everyone was afraid to utter a word.

he knew that normally, this situation was something his parents would want to hide from the public eye. however, with the significance of the event he was sure at least half of the villagers were bound to know something about it.

"calm down hwa, there is still other locations they could have hidden him at." san tried to comfort the other. but really, that didn't do anything but fire the older up more.

"what if we are too late?"

"we will not be too late, seonghwa." he reassured yet again.

he wasn't just making false promises either, in his heart, he honestly felt that yeosang was going to be okay. even though he was quite against the human when he first came across him, he hadn't heard anything but good leave seonghwa's mouth about the boy. he had grown a sort of soft spot for the person who made his best friend so happy.

"you haven't searched the royal home yet."

seonghwa's jaw clenched at the mention of the place, "i vowed to never go back there."

san just sighed. seonghwa was being pretty irrational in his eyes. "you cannot possibly think this is a good time to keep a promise of that nature."

the older felt disgraceful, he knew san was right. without even giving the other a response he turned to head to the one place he absolutely never wanted to step foot in again.

☾

the two had thrown together a quick plan before they arrived at the royal home. they agreed that san would distract the king and queen while seonghwa searched the building from top to bottom for yeosang. they really didn't have time to tweak out the fine details in the plan, but they were sure that it would prove them some type of good.

san gave a small thumbs up to his friend, still trying to be as positive as possible for him. seonghwa just quickly nodded back and began crawling through the small window they had broken the lock on. he felt very grateful for san in that moment. he knew that the younger had a hard time expressing his feelings, but he was still putting up a optimistic front to give him encouragement. it truly warmed his heart.

as seonghwa slid through the window, he felt a huge wave of emotions rush into him. memories of rage, sadness, joy, and anxiety all ran through his head. although he hated the palace with a fiery passion, he couldn't help feeling fond for the place he once called home. half of his life was spent there. and even though he hated to admit it, some of his happiest childhood memories came from being with his family in the now evil home.

for some reason, the palace felt way less guarded that night than it usually was— leaving the vampire with an uneasy feeling. he tried to push all of the overwhelming emotions to the back of his mind so he could put his full attention into finding his boyfriend.

as he walked down the hallway, he heard the faint noise of san's fake enthusiastic voice greeting his parents at the front of the building. he silently chuckled to himself.

the palace was so enormous that yeosang could've been hid anywhere in it. but— seonghwa was at an advantage. he had an inside eye into the family's methods. he knew about the existence of a room that most of the town probably didn't know about. he vividly remembered the family's torture room from the earlier years of his life.

it sounds brutal, and it certainly was for anyone who was banished to it. the vampire had remembered his parents telling him not to be afraid of the room, and that only the most horrible criminals of the land were sent there. as he grew older, he learned the truth about his family's corrupt, inhumane system.

the smallest mistake, or a pointless poor decision could get a creature sent to the room. anyone who posed the slightest threat to the family would immediately get taken to the room, no question asked, shown no mercy at all.

but for some reason, it seemed like every sign lead him to that room. he felt sick just thinking about yeosang stepping foot in there for even less
than a minute.

seonghwa made his way down the steps of the home, heading towards the basement. there was no guards observing the doors around the basement so he got in there fairly quickly. he made his way to the room located at the farthest corner of the floor.

after a nearly flawless trip, seonghwa had finally made it. the trip seemed to be moving too smoothly, but that wasn't something he wanted to focus on in that moment. he put the combination into each of the 5 locks that sealed the torture room.

040398 for all of them. this was the code set for all of his parents' passwords the moment he was born. apparently they never saw fit to change any of them.

"yeosang!" he called as he bursted through the door.

the human had been stripped of all his warm clothes and was left with only thin pieces of fabric. it seemed as if he had been brutally assaulted— on multiple occasions. bruises littered his face and stains of blood could be seen on his light skin and raggedy clothing. seonghwa assumed that the family thought that would have killed him, because they left him sitting the the middle of the room, unchained.

the vampire gasped, completely shocked and horrified at the sight.

yeosang was trembling against the hard, concrete floor. he tilted his head a bit to let his eyes fall on seonghwa. his face was far too bruised and swollen for him to move or speak, so he just tried to give his boyfriend a weak smile.

seonghwa let a couple of tears slip down his face, "i finally found you."

i cannot write action i hope this was alright:(