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Elliot drained half his glass before putting it down on the coffee table. I took another anxious sip before setting mine beside his, then rubbed my clammy palms down my thighs.

“Ricky…” Elliot exhaled sharply and twisted to face me on the couch, crossing his long legs. He kept his head lowered as he picked at the hem of his pants. “Um, I have to tell you something. About me. But… it’s really private. It’s kind of, like, a huge secret.”

“Okay.” I tried to make my tone comforting as I gave him a tiny smile when he finally looked at me, forehead creased with worry. “I promise I won’t tell anyone. I mean… you already know my biggest secret.”

He smiled and reached out to take my hand, hesitated halfway, then finally curled his fingers under mine and lifted my hand to kiss my knuckles. “I’m honored to know it. Seriously. I’m… I really, really like you, Ricky. So much.” His voice grew hoarse. Thick.

I licked my lips and squeezed his hand. “Me too.”

“Okay.” He took a deep breath, one that shook wildly as he let it back out of his lungs. He let go of my hand to grip his knees, which had begun bouncing anxiously. His voice was unsteady with nerves. “Okay, so… you know my… medical condition?”

I nodded, wondering what he could be about to tell me. Did it mean we couldn’t be together? Oh god, had my cum given him some kind of delayed allergic reaction? How freaking embarrassing and awful.

“Well, it’s not… it’s not actually a m-medical condition. Exactly. It’s… something else. It’s…” He scrubbed both shaking hands over his face, exhaled sharply, then looked me dead in the eyes.

I was shocked to see his own eyes turn slightly pink at the edges and grow a little watery. It took a long time for him to get any more words out, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly, his throat bobbing. His lower lip starting to tremble.

Then he finished what he was trying to tell me.

“I’m not human.”

I went still. It had been the absolute last thing I’d expected him to say, because of course it had. It hadn’t even been on the list of top fifty possibilities. It wasn’t a thing anyone ever expected to hear in this kind of situation. In any kind of situation.

“Huh?” I eventually said into the thick, heavy silence that had filled the apartment.

“I’m not actually human,” he rushed out, as if he thought it might be easier for us both if he said it quicker this time. “Try not to freak out. Please. It’s nothing bad.” He cringed. “Well, kinda.”

“I’m not freaking out,” I said faintly, and it was true, mainly because I was too confused.

“I’m a, um, ghoul.” He cringed again, shoulders hunching, and quickly scrubbed a hand over his eyes. His voice was thicker when he carried on talking, and it shook harder than it had before. “We’re not actually that different to humans, we just need—uh… we just have… s-slightly different dietary requirements.”

“A… ghoul?” I echoed blankly. “Like… like a… ghost?”

“Not a ghost. I’m alive. I’m just…” He shrugged self-consciously, keeping his head bent, and mumbled, “I’m what you’d consider a monster, I guess.”

“You’re not a monster,” I said automatically with a frown.

He huffed and looked up at me with a sad smile. “Technically, I am. To humans, anyway. Especially because… because of what I have to eat. To stay alive.”

“Um…” I shifted on the couch, fingers curling into the fabric of my pants. “What… what do you have to eat?”

Elliot cringed and looked away sharply. “Do you know anything about ghouls? Like, the folktales and stuff?”

“Um…” I didn’t think my brain was working fully. Was this a prank? I didn’t think so. Elliot seemed so uncomfortable and nervous. On the verge of tears. I knew him well enough now to know that he wasn’t cruel enough to play this kind of prank. To make me genuinely worry about him. To feign being this upset when he really wasn’t.

Which meant… he was telling the truth. He… wasn’t human.

He wasn’t human?

“I… don’t think so,” I told him faintly.

He sighed and scrubbed his face, reaching over to grab his glass and gulp down the rest of his soda. Then he mumbled, “We have to eat people to survive.”

I stared at him in silence. He set his glass back down and licked his lips, then hunched in on himself on the couch, wrapping his arms around his knees.

“Like a zombie?” I eventually asked blankly. A grimace twisted his mouth.

“No,” he said with mild offense. “I’m not dead. Or undead. I’m a living person. I’m not, like… mindless or whatever. I’m just not human.”