[LWD] Monsters - part 2: a friend in need is a friend indeed
Title: Monsters - part 2: a friend in need is a friend indeed
Category: Kuroko no Basket
Pairing(s): Various, but primarily there will be some arrangement of Aomine/Kuroko/Kise
Rating: PG13
Word Count: 7,800
Summary: Vampire AU - Aomine Daiki. Age 19. High school dropout. Hunter of all things that go bump in the night.
» Part of the Long Way Down Series
That night, everything changed.
Summer was sneaking around the corner early and already the A/C was turned on too high, humming through the vents and plunging Momoi's room into arctic levels of cold. She ignored the discomfort, even though her bare arms and legs prickled in gooseflesh, and the damp mass of her just-washed hair was beginning to soak through the towel covering her shoulders.
Instead she was rigidly still, not even shivering, seated on the edge of her bed with her phone in hand. Another minute passed, and another digit changed on the clock. Her lips thinned imperceptibly. With sharp, decisive movements, she punched in the keys to pull up a menu.
Delete image?
»Yes
»Cancel
Momoi's thumb hovered over the pad for just a second before ending it with one swift stroke. Image deleted. Her wallpaper of Nakayama Hiroshi (age 15, class 1-B, best subject: history) disappeared into the ether.
She let out the breath she'd been holding, then set to work erasing his phone number and all of the texts they'd exchanged, one by one. The process, once begun, was clinically methodical, done without the fevered hurry of a grudge and without the reluctant pause of regret. An icy bead of water slid down her neck but not even a hint of tears shimmered in her half-closed eyes.
Delete message?
»Yes
»Cancel
Delete message?
»Yes
»Cancel
Delete message?
»Yes
»Cancel
On and on she went until it her inbox was purged. Momoi finally closed her phone and set it aside on the bed. She interlaced her fingers and stretched her arms out, then rolled the tension out of her shoulders. That hadn't been so bad. They hadn't been dating for very long, anyway, only since a little before the school year started. They weren't in the same class, but they attended the same cram school. That shouldn't make things too awkward. Boys came and went, it wasn't unusual. The tiresome part was how they often left after making the same preposterous demand: "him or me?"
Momoi frowned and toweled her hair vigorously. If only Aomine wasn't such a handful, maybe she'd have a more successful high school love life. "Boys," she sighed, folding the towel and draping it over the back of a chair. She'd sworn off the insecure ones who couldn't handle the fact her childhood friend happened to be male, and an irritating, immature, hopeless jerk at that. The 10-year association came with a hefty amount of baggage she'd been forced to lug around all throughout her school life, and certain explanations had become staples of her conversation. No, they weren't dating, they'd never dated, and they never would. No, she wasn't getting rid of him anytime soon, and even if she wanted to she wasn't going to choose her friends or the people she spent time with based on someone else's orders.
Nakayama had seemed different. Accepting, or so she'd assumed.
"'Different' was right," she said under her breath, dragging a brush through her hair.
Nakayama hadn't fussed or blustered over anything. He'd just gone out and found someone else to see on the side. He hadn't denied it, either. Hadn't even been the least bit embarrassed or ashamed when she confronted him right then and there, caught in the act.
Momoi yanked harder than necessary on a tangle caught in the brush bristles, working the knot out with several insistent tugs that sent twinges of pain through her scalp. "Good riddance!" she declared when the strands came free, flicking them wetly over her shoulder to start brushing the other side.
She had just plugged in the hairdryer when her ringtone burst into the chorus of Arashi's latest chart topper. Checking the ID made her face darken, but even though he was the next-to-last person she wanted to talk to it was rare for him to call.
"Hello," she answered at the last moment before it went to voicemail. "If you want dinner, you can come get it yourself. We're not a delivery service. You didn't even say you weren't coming!" Not that anyone was surprised. Aomine hadn't shown up to a Momoi family dinner in a long time, the ingrate. Her impossibly kind, all-forgiving mother still made plenty for leftovers.
The other end was strangely silent. Momoi pulled the phone back to make sure the call was still in progress. "Hello, Dai-chan?"
"…Satsuki. Are you home now?"
"Where else would I be at this time of night? Geez, I'm not a delinquent like you."
"Good."
In the long pause that followed Momoi's brows slowly lifted. 'Good'? That was all? No snarky comeback, no demands to be fed? "Dai-chan, are you feeling all right?"
"M'fine," came the curt answer. Very faint in the background she heard the familiar voice of the landlord. Aomine must have just gotten in.
Still holding the phone to her ear, she pulled on a sports jacket over her loungewear. "You're acting weird. I'm coming over."
"Don't. Seriously, just stay home. I don't need you bothering me with your stupid boyfriend crap again."
…Well, it wasn't as if she ever expected a kind word from him. She finished zipping the jacket up to her chin. "You're the one who bothered me first," she pointed out, leaving her room and making her way towards the kitchen where she rifled through the refrigerator for the neatly packaged leftovers.
"I won't answer the door," he told her, and hung up.
"Jerk," she muttered, tucking the containers under her arm. Momoi went to the door and slipped on a pair of shoes. "I'm going to Dai-chan's," she announced.
"Okay, don't be too late, sweetie," said her mother.
Momoi spared herself a moment of resignation; if she'd said she was going to see Nakayama or any other boy at this hour, there would have been a monumental protest. Stupid Dai-chan. It was his fault her love life was in constant shambles. Indirectly, maybe, but still. And here she was, bringing him dinner.
She took the elevator down to the ground floor and marched over to the apartment where Aomine lived, just him and his dad. They'd moved in when she was four. He never remembered having a mother, nor did he know of any other relatives. Momoi probably had Aomine to thank for the honing of her investigative skills, not that he'd be happy to know it. When she'd posed the idea of locating his mother, he'd given her his most furious glare and growled, "Don't do such stupid things, Satsuki."
She'd done it anyway for her own curiosity's sake, and maybe a little out of spite. Her efforts had uncovered an address in Nakasu, Fukuoka, telling her all she didn't need to know. Ever since Momoi had kept the knowledge guiltily close like a spot of tarnish on her heart that wouldn't be rubbed out.
Her first knock on the door went unanswered, as expected. Unperturbed, Momoi fished out the spare key that had been entrusted to her family. Aomine's father wasn't home often, sometimes for long stretches of time, but he was a kind man who cared about his son even if he didn't have the slightest clue how to handle him and thus never tried.
The key turned and she let herself in. The apartment was dark, and habit was the only thing that prevented her from tripping over the shoes messily piled in the genkan. She sidestepped them and flipped the switch for the lights.
"Satsuki…?" Aomine's voice was spiked with uncertainty coming from somewhere down the hall.
"I let myself in~" She picked her way to the small kitchenette, peeling the lids off her containers and sticking them in the mircrowave.
"What the hell? I'm telling you to get lost!"
"I brought food, you should be grateful!" She crossed her arms and glared at nothing in particular while the microwave hummed.
The place was always at least a little cluttered by virtue of housing two unchecked men, but while Aomine had no problem loitering alone at school, he seemed to dislike doing the same in an empty home, so the mess wasn't as bad as it could have been. There were clean dishes in the drying rack, though a plate of crumbs and a coffee mug had been left out on the table for God knows how long. Momoi relocated them to the sink. She also picked up the Touou blazer and tie that had been unceremoniously dropped on the floor. The dark fabric was rough with grit and dusty with dirt, much more so than what usually accumulated when Aomine slept outside. I don't want to know. Momoi grimaced and tried to pat some of the dirt out of the cloth, encountering grass stains and a rip in one cuff.
She pitched her voice in annoyance. "What did you do? Don't tell me you got… into a… fight…?" She rubbed her fingers together, pulling them away sticky and smeared with red. Her hand on the blazer shook, then fisted tightly in the abused fabric before throwing it over the nearest chair.
The bathroom door at the end of the hallway was slightly ajar, swinging open with a single push that almost hit Aomine inside where he leaned against the sink. His shirt was crumpled at his feet, white and scarlet-stained, with more blood gleaming against the brown tone of his shoulder.
"Geez, Satsuki, learn how to knock." His expression in the mirror was irritated. A number of cuts and scrapes had torn up his face, and a dark bruise swelled along his cheekbone. It wasn't pretty, but it wasn't the worst he'd suffered. The wound at the base of his neck-still bleeding sluggishly-that was the sight that made Momoi's stomach flip.
She fumbled for her phone.
Fingers clamped around her wrist, tight enough to hurt. "I said I'm fine!"
"The hell you are!" Shock and horror froze the path of her stare, unable to look away from the injury. Throughout his life Aomine had shrugged off his share of skinned knees, sprained ankles, black eyes, and on one occasion two broken fingers courtesy of Momoi and a slammed door. But this-had he been stabbed? There was a puncture-a set of them-a cluster of furrowed holes gouged into his flesh…
"Satsuki, don't you dare say a word to anyone. If you do I'm walking away right the fuck now."
Her mouth opened and closed. She finally ripped her gaze away from his shoulder, swung it down to where his hand was cutting off her circulation and rested on the abrasions that scuffed his knuckles. Her nerves rippled, a rising tide cresting with an outburst. "You-you idiot!"
He twisted her phone out of her trembling grasp, using one hand to pop the back and dig the battery out before putting it in his pocket. She fumed uselessly. Aomine cocked a brow, mouth twisting without humor. "Promise not to tell?"
"You son of a-fine!"
He let her go. She rubbed her wrist. There wasn't anything stopping her from telling her parents later… if she could stomach the sight of Aomine turning his back on her. Later, Momoi promised herself. Right now, prioritize. She took a deep, steadying breath. "Do you even have disinfectant in your mancave here?" There was a first-aid kit lying open on the toilet (lid closed for once) that contained rolls of bandages, gauze pads, tape…
Aomine flourished a square packet of antiseptic wipes between his fingers. Deadpan, he said, "I was gonna do it all badass like in the movies, but no one would sell hard liquor to a high school student."
Momoi snatched the packet from him with a sniff. "Of course they wouldn't." She swept the first-aid kit away and pointed to the seat. "Sit."
When his shoulder was comfortably below eye level she leaned in-only to pause and shove her hair out of the way, tying it in a loose knot at the base of her neck for lack of a hair tie. The look on Aomine's face was disinterested, even bored, but his body was still tense, a far cry from his typical lazy sprawl.
She dragged her eyes to the wound and bit her lip, but upon further inspection it wasn't too terribly bad. Probably. Four holes were punched into the skin, not cleanly, but enough to put a picture in her mind: the imprint of teeth marks left in a dog's chew toy.
"What?" Aomine asked when Momoi started to back away.
"You don't have rabies now, do you?"
"What?" But then the look on Aomine's face shuttered. He glanced away. "Just clean this up, will you?"
"You should get a doctor to do this," she huffed, but returned with a damp hand towel. There was a flinch when the cloth touched down on his skin, sopping up the blood and turning the towel redder by the second. He let her work in silence, gritting his teeth when a stinging antiseptic wipe passed over the open wound. After getting most of the mess out of the way, Momoi scrutinized the holes again. They were too close together for a dog, weren't they?
"Hey. Now's not the time to space out, stupid."
"Hmph." Momoi covered the clean area with a gauze pad and taped it down. That would have to do. She reached for the first-aid kit to straighten up, but made a detour to wash her hands at the sink first. The water turned pink as it gurgled down the drain. "Are you at least going to tell me what happened?"
Aomine peered down at the dressing and gave his shoulder an experimental shrug, wincing as he did so. At first Momoi thought his silence was his answer, but then he spoke up with a baffling non sequitur: "Did you notice anything weird about that Yama-whatever bastard you dated?"
"Eh? You mean Nakayama?"
"So it was Nakayama…"
Momoi slapped his good shoulder.
"Ow! I'm injured here!" His hands went up to ward off more blows as they rained down on him.
"Dai-chan! Did you actually pick a fight with him? I told you, people will get the wrong idea! Stupid, stupid, stupid…!"
"Satsuki-hey-quit it-!"
"It was bad enough in junior high, but I held it in and bore it until now! I'll never have a normal high school romance because of you, you life ruiner!"
"How am I…? Look, he was an asshole anyway! You're better off without him and all that other comforting shit."
Momoi halted her assault to hiccup and blink through a sudden blur of tears. Oh, dear. She dabbed at her eyes and sniffed through her running nose, feeling watery all over. "W-well, that's true, but…"
"Ah, geez." Aomine yanked a wad of toilet paper free and shoved it at her.
"Thank you…"
"Your crying face is hideous, that's all."
She threw her snot-laden tissues at him.
"But honestly," she said a moment later, packing up the first-aid kit, "what were you thinking? The Inter-High is coming up, you can't go getting into fights now!"
"Whatever. Not like he's going to tattle."
Momoi slammed the lid closed so she could hold her head in her hands. "Just how badly did you beat him up? Don't tell me he's in the hospital with his jaw wired shut..." And did Nakayama have a dog? She'd never been to his house before. He didn't seem like the type to keep pets, though.
"Nah, nothing like that." Aomine leaned back, his face tipped toward the ceiling with his eyes squinted at the light overhead. "Actually, I think I killed him."
"Uh-huh. Where did you hide the body?"
"Didn't have to. He sort of..." Aomine waved his hand in a vague motion. "…went poof."
Momoi tugged her hair free of its knot just so she could have something to yank on. "Dai-chan, I'm serious, you'll get in trouble for fighting."
"I'm being serious, too. I'm telling you, he was nothing but dust! I probably have bits of him on me." His head jerked down to give his body a suspicious once-over.
She did the same, wrinkling her nose at the dirt and grime still clinging to him, not to mention more traces of blood. "Are you trying to say Nakayama turned to dust like-like a vampire? After you, what, staked him in the heart?" She laughed a little, but it was a thin, fragile sound, and Aomine was no good at handling fragile things. Her amusement went to pieces when she saw the way he looked at her; intent and with an almost fevered brightness in his eyes, close to the excitement that had once shone on his face when he played basketball, but the smile was all wrong, lips stretched in parody rather than joy.
"Yeah, Satsuki. That's what I'm saying."
#
In the dead of night, the cheery tune of her ringtone pierced through the darkness of sleep and jarred Momoi awake. Her hand shot out in confusion, and she slapped her alarm in reflex before fumbling for the correct device, dragging her phone under the covers with her in a vain attempt to muffle its noise. Her housemates wouldn't appreciate being woken up any more than she did. Bleary eyes squinted at the bright glow of the display, slowly recognizing the characters on the screen with a wretched moan. Who else would call her at-Momoi checked the clock-three in the morning?
"Dai-chan," she grumbled, curled on her side with her phone to her ear in hopes that she would be able to drift back to sleep soon. "If you're not dead or dying, can't it wait until morning?"
"Yo, Satsuki. Are your housemates home right now?"
"If they are, they're sleeping. Like I was until you called." She complained but sank into relief all the same. He certainly didn't sound like he was on death's door.
"Then I'm coming over."
Momoi froze in mid-yawn. "Ah?! Wait a minute, why-"
"Dead or dying."
"What-"
"Not me, someone else."
"Dai-chan!" She sat bolt upright, throwing her covers off.
"Oh, and you'll need to spot me for the cab fare. See you."
"Wait a minute, explain-" But her shriek was met with a click followed by insufferable silence.
#
As luck would have it, all three of Momoi's housemates were away that night. One, she remembered, was visiting her parents in the country. Another had gone out with her boyfriend and hadn't returned. That left one more unaccounted for, but by this hour it was unlikely she would return before morning. She texted Aomine that the coast was clear, and also asked what he needed from her although it would be a minor miracle if he bothered to reply. Besides, if his problem was that easy to solve she'd still be sleeping.
So all Momoi could do in preparation was collect her spellbooks and check on her supplies. There were candles of all colors, sticks of chalk, a box of assorted gemstones, harpy feathers by the handful even after she'd sold or traded several bundles of them, and outside a small garden flourished with a wide variety of plants and herbs. The rarest and most specialized items she kept under lock and key: armored scales shed from a wyvern's back, fragrant wood shavings from a dryad's tree, and locks of sinewy mermaid hair. Some were trophies Aomine exchanged for a price, others were bought or bartered.
She also kept a well-stocked drawer of mundane first-aid supplies, though Aomine was like a cat with his injuries; you never noticed until they were so bad he couldn't fake it anymore, and then he growled and sulked when you did.
"Forget anthropology, I might as well get a degree in veterinarian medicine," Momoi sighed to herself. "Surely it would pay better than smalltime witchcraft."
Magic, it turned out, was very much a family affair. She had but a drop of it in her blood, and extensive research traced that drop generations back to an ancestor from a respectable line of sorcerers. Unfortunately, marrying into the nondescript, utterly unmagical Momoi family hadn't been considered very respectable by the clan, and they cut ties with that ancestor. Time hadn't made them any more forgiving, and even though she'd tracked them down they had refused to teach her.
But Momoi had her own resources, so she learned the basics by herself. And she found one other sorcerer who would at least give her the time of day, maybe even a hand if the stars aligned just right. Then there was Aomine, whose infamous exploits did wonders for her spell stock (even if he was totally mercenary about it).
She frowned, chin in her hands as she sat and waited at the table where she'd spread out her books. Aomine was bringing someone to her, someone who couldn't go to the hospital or the police. It wouldn't be the first time a bystander had been hurt, but usually it was enough to make sure they'd get help from a professional, preventing further involvement. There had been that one time with Kise-but, well, that had been an anomaly to begin with.
"Dai-chan, what have you gotten into this time?"
#
"You owe me money, don't forget."
"Yeah, yeah…"
Momoi held the door open while Aomine carried a body inside. A living body, she assumed, and at least there wasn't any blood. Her critical eye didn't pick up any grievous injuries on Aomine, either. There wasn't any disturbance in his demeanor, his expression as disgruntled as ever, and he put down his burden on the couch without being directed.
It was a boy-still breathing now that she could see the slight rise and fall of his chest. He showed no outward sign of having been hurt, but there was a definite pallor about his face. No fever, his forehead was dry and cool to the touch, but his pulse was weak.
Perplexed, Momoi sat back and narrowed her eyes at Aomine, who had helped himself to a glass of water from the kitchen. "What happened?"
"Beats me. He just showed up out of nowhere, there was a homunculus, I killed it, and Kuroko fainted."
Momoi began to massage her temples. "Okay. One thing at a time. This kid's name is Kuroko? Do you know him?" While she had no interest in monitoring Aomine's social life, he tended to be a loner, so springing a stranger on her like this was odd. He was acquainted with a few of the guild hunters, maybe that was the connection. Kuroko didn't look much like a hunter, but then again, neither did Sakurai.
"Not really. Like I said, he just showed up."
Innocent bystander, then. Momoi spared Kuroko a pitying look before leveling her attention on Aomine again. "So he was involved by mistake."
"Well…"
"Dai-chan, this isn't helping!"
"Geez, you're annoying!" He fell back into a chair and crossed his arms, glaring. "He appeared, then the monster appeared. He helped me get rid of it, so I don't think they were on the same side. And also…" His attention drifted sideways in thought. "…The homunculus was definitely after me, not him. So him being there was coincidence, I think."
Someone had sent something as powerful as homunculus after Aomine, but knowing how he was Momoi couldn't be surprised. As if he doesn't have enough enemies… "I can't believe you even know what a homunculus is."
Aomine looked like he wanted to take offense, but knew she was right. He grumbled, "Kuroko told me."
"I see. A very helpful guy, this Kuroko. Is he with the guild, do you think?" Or maybe he was a sorcerer. Momoi perked at the thought of having a fellow magic-user indebted to her.
Aomine let out a snort. "I doubt that."
"Eh, why? Stop withholding information when you know I need it!"
He didn't snap at her this time, but the look he was pointedly not aiming at her didn't make her feel the slightest bit better. With an exaggerated, stalling roll of his shoulders, he finally said, "Well, the guild would probably just stake him first."
Normally lightning-quick on the uptake, the sheer absurdity of that implication took several seconds for Momoi to process. The guild hunters… stake…
She shot to her feet, flung out an arm to point at the-the thing lying on her couch, and hissed, "Dai-chan, did you bring a vampire into my house?"
"Kinda, yeah."
Momoi snatched the nearest throw cushion to fling at Aomine's head. "Why would you rescue a vampire?!"
He caught the cushion and used it as a shield to block further projectiles. Coasters, manga, and a bag of gummies bounced onto the floor. "Hey! Chill out, Satsuki, I said he helped!"
"But… but…!" Vampires blended well among humans-she should know, she dated one for a while. There was no telling whether the salaryman on the train or the old woman at the market was having a little type O for dinner that night. "You could have warned me!"
"Sorry, sorry."
She didn't approach the couch again, but she did put down her ammunition. "Of all the thoughtless-you owe me an explanation."
"What, again? I already told you-"
"But why? Out of the goodness of your heart? What happened?"
Aomine scratched the back of his head. "Nothing special, I mean… I don't know. It was… interesting… I guess." He caught the glare Momoi was giving him and growled defensively, "I just felt like it, okay? I've been crazy bored!"
A bored Aomine was a dangerous Aomine. She knew that. He went looking for trouble in all the strangest places. Come to think of it-that was how they got into this entire mess in the first place with her cheating ex. Momoi heaved a sigh. She might as well batter herself against a brick wall for all the good yelling at Aomine did. "Fine. Picking up stray vampires is your new hobby."
"Hey, that's a little…"
"But what am I supposed to do about it?"
Aomine slumped back in the chair and pulled the pillow over his face. His muffled voice came from behind it: "Man, why did I even come to you?"
Exactly what I'm wondering! She looked from her childhood friend to the vampire passed out on her couch. A hunter helping a vampire was just… but Aomine said Kuroko had helped him first. Weirder and weirder. Momoi propped her fist under her chin and ran through her mental bank of information.
There were historical records of vampires working together with humans. Whether they were inherently evil or not was much debated, but they most definitely had a penchant for feeding on humans which put the two at odds more often than not. She supposed she could take Aomine's story at face value. Maybe.
"Dai-chan, can you promise he's safe?"
"Are you kidding? No way." He looked out from behind the pillow with a healthy amount of caution, prepared for another barrage. Momoi made a valiant effort to resist, in part because the only thing within reach was a lamp that she'd rather not have to replace and then explain to her housemates. "But come on, Satsuki, I could take him if it came to that."
Ah, she thought. That would be what people meant when they said Aomine was terrifying as an opponent, but reliable when he was on your side. "I guess you wouldn't let me be murdered in my own home…"
He waved a careless hand. "Yeah, that would be too troublesome."
She puffed her cheeks in annoyance but it was no use getting upset over every little thing that came out of Aomine's mouth. "…Anyway. You're saying he just passed out after the fight? He seemed fine before it, and nothing unusual happened?"
"Yeah, I guess. Relatively speaking."
"Then… wouldn't you come to the logical conclusion?"
He simply stared at her.
Oh, for… "Blood, Ahomine, he needs blood!"
"Oh, is that all?"
She hunkered down by the couch to peer at the vampire, not too close, but close enough to confirm there was no change in his condition, neither for the better nor the worse. "Well, I'm no expert, but it's their one and only basic need in life. They can survive without it longer than we can survive without food or water, but eventually they'll starve. …You did read the notes I gave you, didn't you? The ones I made especially for you?"
"Eh, I have them… somewhere…"
Momoi sighed.
"What? It's not like there was a test."
"No, just your life on the line." The saddest part was her complete lack of surprise. "Never mind, then. That's my amateur diagnosis. Take it or leave it."
"Blood, huh? Seems easy enough…" The look on his face wasn't thoughtful so much as already decided.
"Just so you know," she began, going to the table to collect her books and stacking them on top of one another with more force than was strictly necessary. The beginner spellbooks were on the thin side, but the encyclopedias and guides and history texts made heavy, satisfying thumps. "I don't approve. If you must, I'd rather you rob a blood bank, but that would be too much trouble, wouldn't it?" Her fingers clenched on top of Whitaker's Origins of Sorcery (Fourth Edition).
"Basically, yeah."
Her shoulders sagged in defeat. "I guess I can't stop you."
"…Ah, one more thing, Satsuki." He took her wrist and flipped her palm up. Then he placed something small, soft, and just a little bit bloody in her waiting hand. "Find out where this came from, would you?"
Not knowing what to expect save for that it couldn't be anything good, Momoi looked down at the dubious gift. An inch-long, red-rimmed gash opened up its belly, and she could see the pink of her skin clear through the wound. The bat was very stiff, very cold, and very much expired. For the second time that night, an enraged shriek pierced through the (fortuitously) empty house.
#
Click, swish.
Out popped the blade, wobbling slightly as it balanced in Aomine's loose hold. He sat half-curled in the chair with his arm propped up on his knee, regarding the knife's edge with a scrutinizing eye. It was sharp enough, to be sure, and it didn't look like there was any bit of gooey homunculus flesh clinging to it. Good enough, right?
He glanced at Momoi's closed door, almost expecting her to come out screeching at him to at least pretend to care about sanitization, because what was he going to do if he got infected with a zombie virus, or gangrene?
But the door remained shut, the line of light visible beneath it never wavering. She'd taken the bat (after dropping it on the floor, washing her hands, and putting on dishwashing gloves before picking it up again) into her room for whatever witchcraft needed to be worked on the thing. "There's no way I can concentrate with you around," she'd grumbled. He'd sniped back about her lack of talent to begin with. The door had slammed with enough force to shake the picture frames on the walls.
Aomine clicked his tongue, folded the knife closed, and shifted to plant both feet on the floor again. Would Momoi be more or less ticked off if he used one of her kitchen knives? Heat sterilized, didn't it? Or… was that cauterize? Never mind, not like he had a fire on hand anyway. No alcohol, either-some stupid house rule about some of its occupants being underage.
So he was back to square one.
Click, swish.
Aomine dragged himself out of the chair to stand beside the couch. Kuroko continued to lie there, unresponsive, which was kind of impressive considering all the commotion that had flown over his head (literally, even). "Boring," Aomine muttered, but even as he said it the muscles in his face twitched and lifted minutely to one side in a brief smirk. He'd had worse nights.
The house Momoi shared with her roommates was well-furnished, and the couch big enough for Aomine to claim an edge of a seat with Kuroko stretched out along its length. The vampire's body was cold-not quite corpse cold, and he lifted a limp arm to check on its mobility: still flexible. He was pretty sure the consensus was that vampires were not undead, reanimated corpses with the souls of demons or what-have-you. Momoi would know for certain. All Aomine cared about was how to dust 'em. Though there were, apparently, exceptions.
He stretched out his arm, first considering the veins in the crook where blood was normally drawn by doctors, then trailing down to the more accessible bluish line in his wrist. The edge of his knife was placed against the skin. Aomine spared a moment to search his memory and figure that no, at the very least, he shouldn't be at risk of zombie infection.
Steel sliced across the street, not down the road, stinging about as much as he expected. He didn't think the cut was that deep-he wasn't trying to remove any extremities here-but the line of red that welled up soon spilled over in a dribbling trickle along his arm. He straightened the limb, angled it down, and the streams ran backwards, pooling in his palm, dripping through his fingers before he could even think of stopping it.
"Oh, shit." He followed the falling drops with a cringe at the thought of Momoi's wrath, but by some stroke of luck they didn't stain the upholstery. Instead, a small, crimson spatter took shape on the pale curve of Kuroko's cheek. "…Oops."
Awkward maneuvering managed to get Aomine's hand positioned so the blood dripped over the vampire's mouth at least. No reaction at first, and the blood collected upon the seam of his lips, which then parted slightly to allow the puddle to seep through. The tip of his tongue sought out the residue escaping from the corner. His eyes remained closed, but the sound of his breathing got louder by a tiny margin, its note just a hint frenetic.
"Huh," Aomine said to himself as more blood dripped down and was sipped up, bit by bit. It was sort of like that time Momoi had tried to raise a familiar-a small bird hatched by her magic, which she'd fed with an eyedropper until it grew enough to shriek and peck at her incessantly, crap everywhere, and get into a dogfight with a local pigeon which had ended badly for everyone involved.
…Okay, maybe this wasn't like that at all.
He'd stopped paying attention, so his reflex was to jerk away when he felt something brush against his fingers. Kuroko's half-raised hand drifted down again to rest upon his chest, rising and falling in heavy, labored breaths. He was awake now, watching Aomine with his unreadable expression and red-stained mouth.
"Uh. How're you doing?" Aomine squelched the urge to hide his arm behind his back, not so much out of guilt, and neither did Kuroko look particularly grateful, but…
The vampire's eyes were trained on his bleeding wrist. Aomine thought maybe if he moved it back and forth, that gaze would follow the movement like a cat being teased. Then, abruptly, Kuroko's attention swung away with a turn of his head, lips pressed tightly together. "…Thank you," he spoke after a long, strained pause.
Aomine leaned over to get a better view of Kuroko's profile, but still the vampire wouldn't face him. The splash of blood upon his cheek was on vivid display as if being purposefully ignored, the same way he purposefully refrained from wiping his mouth. "Hey," Aomine said, armed braced on the back of the couch. The bleeding was slowing, but the gradual accumulation would drip again soon. "You still don't look too good."
"You've done enough, Aomine-kun."
"Are you mad or something?"
"No. Of course not."
"Then…" He stuck his wrist right under Kuroko's nose, making him stiffen, eyes widening. "Come on. You're feeling ravenous now, right? Because I woke the beast."
"…I'm not going to attack you. Or anyone else here."
"That's a given." He continued to hold his wrist out. The wound ached, slicked and shiny with bright red.
Aomine's offer stretched thin in the space between them, narrowing down to almost nothing by the time acceptance finally tugged on Aomine's fingers. Kuroko guided his wrist closer, lids of his eyes shuttering half-closed.
"Itadakimasu." Very carefully, he pressed the flat of his tongue to the wet skin surrounding the cut, light pressure gliding across it. The trademark teeth came out, pointed canines growing sharp and long with hunger, but they didn't pierce the flesh.
Aomine had been bitten before-fighty vampires also got bitey in his experience-and he'd seen the way they preferred to feed. The fangs were no joke; they were meant to rip and tear to make the blood flow freely, to get at the deeply hidden veins and arteries. Aomine didn't need book learning to know vampires were primal creatures, not wine-sipping connoisseurs. Modern times might have forced them to use more discretion, to take a little here and there just to avoid notice, but when they got carried away their victims were never neatly dead with a set of picturesque holes bleeding daintily from the neck.
Twin fangs indented Aomine's skin, stopping short of breaking it. Kuroko's mouth was sealed over Aomine's wrist, his feeding limited to licking and sucking with weirdly polite effort. Not that Aomine wanted to be gouged, either, and every time the deadly tips of those teeth grazed him a thread of electricity flickered to life throughout his system. It wasn't quite a shot of adrenaline, but close, body memory knowing the feel of those teeth and what they could do.
Yet Kuroko refused to do it, and refrained from prodding and aggravating the wound more than necessary. He drank what dribbled out, followed the trails that wound a little ways down Aomine's arm, then came back up to lap at the palm of his hand, even cleaning up the tiny rivulets between his fingers.
Aomine watched all of this with gross fascination. The soft, warm, wet mouth painted gruesome, the contrast of color around it. Kuroko's pallor had retreated a bit, still on the pale side but less outright sickly. His breathing wasn't as labored. His pupils were dilated, but after one last swipe of his tongue across the scarlet line on Aomine's wrist he pushed away.
"Gochisousama deshita."
And that was that. Aomine's arm dropped limp to his side at last, sticky but no longer streaked crimson. The blood had looked showy, but the amount hadn't been that much; he doubted it was enough to count as a meal for a vampire, but Kuroko seemed better off already. He sat up, scrubbing the remnants of his feeding from his face. Before Aomine could point him towards the bathroom to wash up, Kuroko was already getting to his feet.
"Thank you again," he said, ending with a polite bow.
"No big deal. In fact, doesn't this make us even?"
"Aomine-kun would have found the mark eventually."
Well, yeah, but… "Whatever. Call it even."
"Okay. Then, I'll be going now."
"At this time of night? And…" …where? he almost added, instead turning the pause into a clean break and throwing the loose end away.
"It will be dawn soon. And I don't think this is somewhere I should stay."
"Ah, yeah. Satsuki doesn't even let me crash here, most of the time." Though, that may have had something to do with his tendency to arrive with difficult-to-explain injuries. He made the effort to call ahead this time, Momoi should be grateful, and maybe this once he could at least catch a little bit sleep on the couch before her roommates returned and the place got noisy. He wasn't bleeding-well, much, anymore. Aomine glanced out the window where it was still dark out, but not for long, perhaps an hour or two. "Are you the type that can't handle sun?"
"I don't burst into flames or anything like that." There was a mild hint of reproach in the answer and Aomine had to grin; he had yet to see anything like that happen when a vampire was exposed to sunlight. There was usually some kind of effect, though, and Kuroko admitted, "But I do feel tired during the day, so I'd prefer to take my leave before then."
"It's not like I'm your jailer…" He searched, but came up with little else to say. Aomine jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "Door's that way."
Kuroko's gaze lingered on him for a moment before he inclined his head. "It was nice meeting you. Take care."
"You, too. Don't find yourself on the wrong end of a stake."
A blink of surprise, followed by a soft smile. "I'll try not to."
#
The spell was one of the few she was skilled at-investigation was her specialty, after all, whether her means were magical or not. Momoi's talent wasn't so great that she could claim the title of sorceress, but when it counted her witchcraft could be a useful aid.
She preferred using a mirror rather than a bowl of water-a plain square of glass normally propped up on her desk, nothing fancy. Water, she thought, tended to dilute the spell, which was just silly when clarity and accuracy was the whole point. The flat mirror served as a plate upon which she added a drop of clear, glistening liquid. Though solid, the glass surface appeared to ripple when the dew collected from a fairy's wing was added, and the reflections in the mirror sharpened. There were many bases for seeing spells, but this was her favorite since it was easy to find fairies in a witch's garden, and she grew plenty of foxglove and primrose for that purpose.
Next, she reached into her box of gemstones, thinking of vision and clarity, and picked up whichever stone fell into her grasp first. What came up was a chunk of rough opal, light in body tone, showing yellow, green, and pink fire. Not bad, opals were unpredictable in nature and so were visions. It was a fitting choice. Momoi placed the stone near the edge of the mirror, which took on the opal's pale, speckled light.
For good measure she sprinkled fresh violet and crocus petals across the mirror. Redundancy never hurt when it came to magic. Then she was ready for the focus of the spell, and her least favorite part.
Nose scrunched in distaste, she used tweezers to dig into the rigid bat carcass where it had been conveniently cut open already. Blood was what she needed, but its heart had stopped pumping hours ago. Her tweezers tugged at its innards, pulling out some red pulp and dumping it with a tiny splat on the mirror's pristine surface, reminding Momoi how magic was not all wonders and light.
"Yuck," she grimaced, shoving the bat into a plastic bag to dispose of later.
The components were in place, now for the incantation to shape the magic. She had the words memorized already-it was a short, simple spell, and one she'd used before-but she would read from the page of her book just in case. Most of her texts were translated into Japanese, and that was another point of debate among sorcerers. Momoi wasn't sure which was more important: using the spell's original language or the castor's native tongue, but her English wasn't good enough for anything but the second option.
"I humbly beg your guidance," she began. These were her own words, not the incantation proper, because it was always wise to show respect for the forces one was about to invoke. "I present myself to you in service if you would grant my wish."
Flux and flow; magic depended on castors to use it as the castors depended on magic to achieve results. The relationship was give and take, cycling endlessly much the same way the world kept turning. Stagnation was anathema to sorcerers, and Momoi found that she got cranky and restless if she went too long without casting even in practice. Maybe it was a bit like a drug, but it was carefully moderated and controlled. There were rules to be upheld, certain acts that were forbidden, and those whose job was to enforce and punish in the name of those laws.
Momoi breathed in and swept the wayward concerns from her mind. The flower petals gave off a faint scent, undercut by the sickly-sweet aroma of bat blood, grounding her focus in the spell at hand. Her eyes landed upon the page of her book.
"Power acknowledges power; you, who has found your way to me. Through power in blood, and bone, and will, you have arrived, and I would seek you in return. If you have come to me in truth, reveal to me your sign."
The light of the mirror brightened, shimmering with opal fire and creating an aurora across the glass surface while the flower petals scattered with a burst of fragrance. The lumpy bit taken from the bat familiar liquefied, blood darkening nearly black, trickling and rolling outward to form the shape of a sorcerer's mark.
As far as spells went, all this did was reveal another sorcerer's brand of family magic. It wasn't more discerning than that, but if she at least had a family mark she could get a general direction to start with. She had a whole book containing nothing but family crests throughout history, and how to interpret their symbols, which was how she found her ancestor's. Her own sign had changed, though, since her ancestor's family had refused to acknowledge her. No sorcerer, or even minor witch, apparently, could work magic without a crest. The one she possessed now was unique and hers alone.
The crest now painted upon the mirror, light fading to leave only a crust of dried blood, was one Momoi recognized. It was as unique as her own, maybe more so, all sharp, angular lines containing incredible detail-to the point of being a work of art. The foundation of the crest was formed by two interlocked symbols: red and gold.
Momoi's chair squeaked as she rolled back from her desk. Her mouth started to open, but she shut it firmly, not daring to voice the words. What does he want with Dai-chan this time?
She glanced around her room as if expecting to find another familiar hiding in a corner, behind her schoolbooks or in the nook of her closet. No, she shook her head, he wouldn't get caught unless he allowed it. Trembling, she snatched up the mirror, and with the heel of her hand she scrubbed furiously at the glass, flaking the blood away. Tiny bits of residue remained, and those she picked off with her nails until every last trace of the sign was gone.
to be continued
I've been promising this forever, sorry it took so long! And it… kind of became the Satsuki and Dai-chan Show, before I remembered I was supposed to be writing trashy vamp fic. I hope everyone likes that ending, though. :x
Category: Kuroko no Basket
Pairing(s): Various, but primarily there will be some arrangement of Aomine/Kuroko/Kise
Rating: PG13
Word Count: 7,800
Summary: Vampire AU - Aomine Daiki. Age 19. High school dropout. Hunter of all things that go bump in the night.
» Part of the Long Way Down Series
That night, everything changed.
Summer was sneaking around the corner early and already the A/C was turned on too high, humming through the vents and plunging Momoi's room into arctic levels of cold. She ignored the discomfort, even though her bare arms and legs prickled in gooseflesh, and the damp mass of her just-washed hair was beginning to soak through the towel covering her shoulders.
Instead she was rigidly still, not even shivering, seated on the edge of her bed with her phone in hand. Another minute passed, and another digit changed on the clock. Her lips thinned imperceptibly. With sharp, decisive movements, she punched in the keys to pull up a menu.
Delete image?
»Yes
»Cancel
Momoi's thumb hovered over the pad for just a second before ending it with one swift stroke. Image deleted. Her wallpaper of Nakayama Hiroshi (age 15, class 1-B, best subject: history) disappeared into the ether.
She let out the breath she'd been holding, then set to work erasing his phone number and all of the texts they'd exchanged, one by one. The process, once begun, was clinically methodical, done without the fevered hurry of a grudge and without the reluctant pause of regret. An icy bead of water slid down her neck but not even a hint of tears shimmered in her half-closed eyes.
Delete message?
»Yes
»Cancel
Delete message?
»Yes
»Cancel
Delete message?
»Yes
»Cancel
On and on she went until it her inbox was purged. Momoi finally closed her phone and set it aside on the bed. She interlaced her fingers and stretched her arms out, then rolled the tension out of her shoulders. That hadn't been so bad. They hadn't been dating for very long, anyway, only since a little before the school year started. They weren't in the same class, but they attended the same cram school. That shouldn't make things too awkward. Boys came and went, it wasn't unusual. The tiresome part was how they often left after making the same preposterous demand: "him or me?"
Momoi frowned and toweled her hair vigorously. If only Aomine wasn't such a handful, maybe she'd have a more successful high school love life. "Boys," she sighed, folding the towel and draping it over the back of a chair. She'd sworn off the insecure ones who couldn't handle the fact her childhood friend happened to be male, and an irritating, immature, hopeless jerk at that. The 10-year association came with a hefty amount of baggage she'd been forced to lug around all throughout her school life, and certain explanations had become staples of her conversation. No, they weren't dating, they'd never dated, and they never would. No, she wasn't getting rid of him anytime soon, and even if she wanted to she wasn't going to choose her friends or the people she spent time with based on someone else's orders.
Nakayama had seemed different. Accepting, or so she'd assumed.
"'Different' was right," she said under her breath, dragging a brush through her hair.
Nakayama hadn't fussed or blustered over anything. He'd just gone out and found someone else to see on the side. He hadn't denied it, either. Hadn't even been the least bit embarrassed or ashamed when she confronted him right then and there, caught in the act.
Momoi yanked harder than necessary on a tangle caught in the brush bristles, working the knot out with several insistent tugs that sent twinges of pain through her scalp. "Good riddance!" she declared when the strands came free, flicking them wetly over her shoulder to start brushing the other side.
She had just plugged in the hairdryer when her ringtone burst into the chorus of Arashi's latest chart topper. Checking the ID made her face darken, but even though he was the next-to-last person she wanted to talk to it was rare for him to call.
"Hello," she answered at the last moment before it went to voicemail. "If you want dinner, you can come get it yourself. We're not a delivery service. You didn't even say you weren't coming!" Not that anyone was surprised. Aomine hadn't shown up to a Momoi family dinner in a long time, the ingrate. Her impossibly kind, all-forgiving mother still made plenty for leftovers.
The other end was strangely silent. Momoi pulled the phone back to make sure the call was still in progress. "Hello, Dai-chan?"
"…Satsuki. Are you home now?"
"Where else would I be at this time of night? Geez, I'm not a delinquent like you."
"Good."
In the long pause that followed Momoi's brows slowly lifted. 'Good'? That was all? No snarky comeback, no demands to be fed? "Dai-chan, are you feeling all right?"
"M'fine," came the curt answer. Very faint in the background she heard the familiar voice of the landlord. Aomine must have just gotten in.
Still holding the phone to her ear, she pulled on a sports jacket over her loungewear. "You're acting weird. I'm coming over."
"Don't. Seriously, just stay home. I don't need you bothering me with your stupid boyfriend crap again."
…Well, it wasn't as if she ever expected a kind word from him. She finished zipping the jacket up to her chin. "You're the one who bothered me first," she pointed out, leaving her room and making her way towards the kitchen where she rifled through the refrigerator for the neatly packaged leftovers.
"I won't answer the door," he told her, and hung up.
"Jerk," she muttered, tucking the containers under her arm. Momoi went to the door and slipped on a pair of shoes. "I'm going to Dai-chan's," she announced.
"Okay, don't be too late, sweetie," said her mother.
Momoi spared herself a moment of resignation; if she'd said she was going to see Nakayama or any other boy at this hour, there would have been a monumental protest. Stupid Dai-chan. It was his fault her love life was in constant shambles. Indirectly, maybe, but still. And here she was, bringing him dinner.
She took the elevator down to the ground floor and marched over to the apartment where Aomine lived, just him and his dad. They'd moved in when she was four. He never remembered having a mother, nor did he know of any other relatives. Momoi probably had Aomine to thank for the honing of her investigative skills, not that he'd be happy to know it. When she'd posed the idea of locating his mother, he'd given her his most furious glare and growled, "Don't do such stupid things, Satsuki."
She'd done it anyway for her own curiosity's sake, and maybe a little out of spite. Her efforts had uncovered an address in Nakasu, Fukuoka, telling her all she didn't need to know. Ever since Momoi had kept the knowledge guiltily close like a spot of tarnish on her heart that wouldn't be rubbed out.
Her first knock on the door went unanswered, as expected. Unperturbed, Momoi fished out the spare key that had been entrusted to her family. Aomine's father wasn't home often, sometimes for long stretches of time, but he was a kind man who cared about his son even if he didn't have the slightest clue how to handle him and thus never tried.
The key turned and she let herself in. The apartment was dark, and habit was the only thing that prevented her from tripping over the shoes messily piled in the genkan. She sidestepped them and flipped the switch for the lights.
"Satsuki…?" Aomine's voice was spiked with uncertainty coming from somewhere down the hall.
"I let myself in~" She picked her way to the small kitchenette, peeling the lids off her containers and sticking them in the mircrowave.
"What the hell? I'm telling you to get lost!"
"I brought food, you should be grateful!" She crossed her arms and glared at nothing in particular while the microwave hummed.
The place was always at least a little cluttered by virtue of housing two unchecked men, but while Aomine had no problem loitering alone at school, he seemed to dislike doing the same in an empty home, so the mess wasn't as bad as it could have been. There were clean dishes in the drying rack, though a plate of crumbs and a coffee mug had been left out on the table for God knows how long. Momoi relocated them to the sink. She also picked up the Touou blazer and tie that had been unceremoniously dropped on the floor. The dark fabric was rough with grit and dusty with dirt, much more so than what usually accumulated when Aomine slept outside. I don't want to know. Momoi grimaced and tried to pat some of the dirt out of the cloth, encountering grass stains and a rip in one cuff.
She pitched her voice in annoyance. "What did you do? Don't tell me you got… into a… fight…?" She rubbed her fingers together, pulling them away sticky and smeared with red. Her hand on the blazer shook, then fisted tightly in the abused fabric before throwing it over the nearest chair.
The bathroom door at the end of the hallway was slightly ajar, swinging open with a single push that almost hit Aomine inside where he leaned against the sink. His shirt was crumpled at his feet, white and scarlet-stained, with more blood gleaming against the brown tone of his shoulder.
"Geez, Satsuki, learn how to knock." His expression in the mirror was irritated. A number of cuts and scrapes had torn up his face, and a dark bruise swelled along his cheekbone. It wasn't pretty, but it wasn't the worst he'd suffered. The wound at the base of his neck-still bleeding sluggishly-that was the sight that made Momoi's stomach flip.
She fumbled for her phone.
Fingers clamped around her wrist, tight enough to hurt. "I said I'm fine!"
"The hell you are!" Shock and horror froze the path of her stare, unable to look away from the injury. Throughout his life Aomine had shrugged off his share of skinned knees, sprained ankles, black eyes, and on one occasion two broken fingers courtesy of Momoi and a slammed door. But this-had he been stabbed? There was a puncture-a set of them-a cluster of furrowed holes gouged into his flesh…
"Satsuki, don't you dare say a word to anyone. If you do I'm walking away right the fuck now."
Her mouth opened and closed. She finally ripped her gaze away from his shoulder, swung it down to where his hand was cutting off her circulation and rested on the abrasions that scuffed his knuckles. Her nerves rippled, a rising tide cresting with an outburst. "You-you idiot!"
He twisted her phone out of her trembling grasp, using one hand to pop the back and dig the battery out before putting it in his pocket. She fumed uselessly. Aomine cocked a brow, mouth twisting without humor. "Promise not to tell?"
"You son of a-fine!"
He let her go. She rubbed her wrist. There wasn't anything stopping her from telling her parents later… if she could stomach the sight of Aomine turning his back on her. Later, Momoi promised herself. Right now, prioritize. She took a deep, steadying breath. "Do you even have disinfectant in your mancave here?" There was a first-aid kit lying open on the toilet (lid closed for once) that contained rolls of bandages, gauze pads, tape…
Aomine flourished a square packet of antiseptic wipes between his fingers. Deadpan, he said, "I was gonna do it all badass like in the movies, but no one would sell hard liquor to a high school student."
Momoi snatched the packet from him with a sniff. "Of course they wouldn't." She swept the first-aid kit away and pointed to the seat. "Sit."
When his shoulder was comfortably below eye level she leaned in-only to pause and shove her hair out of the way, tying it in a loose knot at the base of her neck for lack of a hair tie. The look on Aomine's face was disinterested, even bored, but his body was still tense, a far cry from his typical lazy sprawl.
She dragged her eyes to the wound and bit her lip, but upon further inspection it wasn't too terribly bad. Probably. Four holes were punched into the skin, not cleanly, but enough to put a picture in her mind: the imprint of teeth marks left in a dog's chew toy.
"What?" Aomine asked when Momoi started to back away.
"You don't have rabies now, do you?"
"What?" But then the look on Aomine's face shuttered. He glanced away. "Just clean this up, will you?"
"You should get a doctor to do this," she huffed, but returned with a damp hand towel. There was a flinch when the cloth touched down on his skin, sopping up the blood and turning the towel redder by the second. He let her work in silence, gritting his teeth when a stinging antiseptic wipe passed over the open wound. After getting most of the mess out of the way, Momoi scrutinized the holes again. They were too close together for a dog, weren't they?
"Hey. Now's not the time to space out, stupid."
"Hmph." Momoi covered the clean area with a gauze pad and taped it down. That would have to do. She reached for the first-aid kit to straighten up, but made a detour to wash her hands at the sink first. The water turned pink as it gurgled down the drain. "Are you at least going to tell me what happened?"
Aomine peered down at the dressing and gave his shoulder an experimental shrug, wincing as he did so. At first Momoi thought his silence was his answer, but then he spoke up with a baffling non sequitur: "Did you notice anything weird about that Yama-whatever bastard you dated?"
"Eh? You mean Nakayama?"
"So it was Nakayama…"
Momoi slapped his good shoulder.
"Ow! I'm injured here!" His hands went up to ward off more blows as they rained down on him.
"Dai-chan! Did you actually pick a fight with him? I told you, people will get the wrong idea! Stupid, stupid, stupid…!"
"Satsuki-hey-quit it-!"
"It was bad enough in junior high, but I held it in and bore it until now! I'll never have a normal high school romance because of you, you life ruiner!"
"How am I…? Look, he was an asshole anyway! You're better off without him and all that other comforting shit."
Momoi halted her assault to hiccup and blink through a sudden blur of tears. Oh, dear. She dabbed at her eyes and sniffed through her running nose, feeling watery all over. "W-well, that's true, but…"
"Ah, geez." Aomine yanked a wad of toilet paper free and shoved it at her.
"Thank you…"
"Your crying face is hideous, that's all."
She threw her snot-laden tissues at him.
"But honestly," she said a moment later, packing up the first-aid kit, "what were you thinking? The Inter-High is coming up, you can't go getting into fights now!"
"Whatever. Not like he's going to tattle."
Momoi slammed the lid closed so she could hold her head in her hands. "Just how badly did you beat him up? Don't tell me he's in the hospital with his jaw wired shut..." And did Nakayama have a dog? She'd never been to his house before. He didn't seem like the type to keep pets, though.
"Nah, nothing like that." Aomine leaned back, his face tipped toward the ceiling with his eyes squinted at the light overhead. "Actually, I think I killed him."
"Uh-huh. Where did you hide the body?"
"Didn't have to. He sort of..." Aomine waved his hand in a vague motion. "…went poof."
Momoi tugged her hair free of its knot just so she could have something to yank on. "Dai-chan, I'm serious, you'll get in trouble for fighting."
"I'm being serious, too. I'm telling you, he was nothing but dust! I probably have bits of him on me." His head jerked down to give his body a suspicious once-over.
She did the same, wrinkling her nose at the dirt and grime still clinging to him, not to mention more traces of blood. "Are you trying to say Nakayama turned to dust like-like a vampire? After you, what, staked him in the heart?" She laughed a little, but it was a thin, fragile sound, and Aomine was no good at handling fragile things. Her amusement went to pieces when she saw the way he looked at her; intent and with an almost fevered brightness in his eyes, close to the excitement that had once shone on his face when he played basketball, but the smile was all wrong, lips stretched in parody rather than joy.
"Yeah, Satsuki. That's what I'm saying."
#
In the dead of night, the cheery tune of her ringtone pierced through the darkness of sleep and jarred Momoi awake. Her hand shot out in confusion, and she slapped her alarm in reflex before fumbling for the correct device, dragging her phone under the covers with her in a vain attempt to muffle its noise. Her housemates wouldn't appreciate being woken up any more than she did. Bleary eyes squinted at the bright glow of the display, slowly recognizing the characters on the screen with a wretched moan. Who else would call her at-Momoi checked the clock-three in the morning?
"Dai-chan," she grumbled, curled on her side with her phone to her ear in hopes that she would be able to drift back to sleep soon. "If you're not dead or dying, can't it wait until morning?"
"Yo, Satsuki. Are your housemates home right now?"
"If they are, they're sleeping. Like I was until you called." She complained but sank into relief all the same. He certainly didn't sound like he was on death's door.
"Then I'm coming over."
Momoi froze in mid-yawn. "Ah?! Wait a minute, why-"
"Dead or dying."
"What-"
"Not me, someone else."
"Dai-chan!" She sat bolt upright, throwing her covers off.
"Oh, and you'll need to spot me for the cab fare. See you."
"Wait a minute, explain-" But her shriek was met with a click followed by insufferable silence.
#
As luck would have it, all three of Momoi's housemates were away that night. One, she remembered, was visiting her parents in the country. Another had gone out with her boyfriend and hadn't returned. That left one more unaccounted for, but by this hour it was unlikely she would return before morning. She texted Aomine that the coast was clear, and also asked what he needed from her although it would be a minor miracle if he bothered to reply. Besides, if his problem was that easy to solve she'd still be sleeping.
So all Momoi could do in preparation was collect her spellbooks and check on her supplies. There were candles of all colors, sticks of chalk, a box of assorted gemstones, harpy feathers by the handful even after she'd sold or traded several bundles of them, and outside a small garden flourished with a wide variety of plants and herbs. The rarest and most specialized items she kept under lock and key: armored scales shed from a wyvern's back, fragrant wood shavings from a dryad's tree, and locks of sinewy mermaid hair. Some were trophies Aomine exchanged for a price, others were bought or bartered.
She also kept a well-stocked drawer of mundane first-aid supplies, though Aomine was like a cat with his injuries; you never noticed until they were so bad he couldn't fake it anymore, and then he growled and sulked when you did.
"Forget anthropology, I might as well get a degree in veterinarian medicine," Momoi sighed to herself. "Surely it would pay better than smalltime witchcraft."
Magic, it turned out, was very much a family affair. She had but a drop of it in her blood, and extensive research traced that drop generations back to an ancestor from a respectable line of sorcerers. Unfortunately, marrying into the nondescript, utterly unmagical Momoi family hadn't been considered very respectable by the clan, and they cut ties with that ancestor. Time hadn't made them any more forgiving, and even though she'd tracked them down they had refused to teach her.
But Momoi had her own resources, so she learned the basics by herself. And she found one other sorcerer who would at least give her the time of day, maybe even a hand if the stars aligned just right. Then there was Aomine, whose infamous exploits did wonders for her spell stock (even if he was totally mercenary about it).
She frowned, chin in her hands as she sat and waited at the table where she'd spread out her books. Aomine was bringing someone to her, someone who couldn't go to the hospital or the police. It wouldn't be the first time a bystander had been hurt, but usually it was enough to make sure they'd get help from a professional, preventing further involvement. There had been that one time with Kise-but, well, that had been an anomaly to begin with.
"Dai-chan, what have you gotten into this time?"
#
"You owe me money, don't forget."
"Yeah, yeah…"
Momoi held the door open while Aomine carried a body inside. A living body, she assumed, and at least there wasn't any blood. Her critical eye didn't pick up any grievous injuries on Aomine, either. There wasn't any disturbance in his demeanor, his expression as disgruntled as ever, and he put down his burden on the couch without being directed.
It was a boy-still breathing now that she could see the slight rise and fall of his chest. He showed no outward sign of having been hurt, but there was a definite pallor about his face. No fever, his forehead was dry and cool to the touch, but his pulse was weak.
Perplexed, Momoi sat back and narrowed her eyes at Aomine, who had helped himself to a glass of water from the kitchen. "What happened?"
"Beats me. He just showed up out of nowhere, there was a homunculus, I killed it, and Kuroko fainted."
Momoi began to massage her temples. "Okay. One thing at a time. This kid's name is Kuroko? Do you know him?" While she had no interest in monitoring Aomine's social life, he tended to be a loner, so springing a stranger on her like this was odd. He was acquainted with a few of the guild hunters, maybe that was the connection. Kuroko didn't look much like a hunter, but then again, neither did Sakurai.
"Not really. Like I said, he just showed up."
Innocent bystander, then. Momoi spared Kuroko a pitying look before leveling her attention on Aomine again. "So he was involved by mistake."
"Well…"
"Dai-chan, this isn't helping!"
"Geez, you're annoying!" He fell back into a chair and crossed his arms, glaring. "He appeared, then the monster appeared. He helped me get rid of it, so I don't think they were on the same side. And also…" His attention drifted sideways in thought. "…The homunculus was definitely after me, not him. So him being there was coincidence, I think."
Someone had sent something as powerful as homunculus after Aomine, but knowing how he was Momoi couldn't be surprised. As if he doesn't have enough enemies… "I can't believe you even know what a homunculus is."
Aomine looked like he wanted to take offense, but knew she was right. He grumbled, "Kuroko told me."
"I see. A very helpful guy, this Kuroko. Is he with the guild, do you think?" Or maybe he was a sorcerer. Momoi perked at the thought of having a fellow magic-user indebted to her.
Aomine let out a snort. "I doubt that."
"Eh, why? Stop withholding information when you know I need it!"
He didn't snap at her this time, but the look he was pointedly not aiming at her didn't make her feel the slightest bit better. With an exaggerated, stalling roll of his shoulders, he finally said, "Well, the guild would probably just stake him first."
Normally lightning-quick on the uptake, the sheer absurdity of that implication took several seconds for Momoi to process. The guild hunters… stake…
She shot to her feet, flung out an arm to point at the-the thing lying on her couch, and hissed, "Dai-chan, did you bring a vampire into my house?"
"Kinda, yeah."
Momoi snatched the nearest throw cushion to fling at Aomine's head. "Why would you rescue a vampire?!"
He caught the cushion and used it as a shield to block further projectiles. Coasters, manga, and a bag of gummies bounced onto the floor. "Hey! Chill out, Satsuki, I said he helped!"
"But… but…!" Vampires blended well among humans-she should know, she dated one for a while. There was no telling whether the salaryman on the train or the old woman at the market was having a little type O for dinner that night. "You could have warned me!"
"Sorry, sorry."
She didn't approach the couch again, but she did put down her ammunition. "Of all the thoughtless-you owe me an explanation."
"What, again? I already told you-"
"But why? Out of the goodness of your heart? What happened?"
Aomine scratched the back of his head. "Nothing special, I mean… I don't know. It was… interesting… I guess." He caught the glare Momoi was giving him and growled defensively, "I just felt like it, okay? I've been crazy bored!"
A bored Aomine was a dangerous Aomine. She knew that. He went looking for trouble in all the strangest places. Come to think of it-that was how they got into this entire mess in the first place with her cheating ex. Momoi heaved a sigh. She might as well batter herself against a brick wall for all the good yelling at Aomine did. "Fine. Picking up stray vampires is your new hobby."
"Hey, that's a little…"
"But what am I supposed to do about it?"
Aomine slumped back in the chair and pulled the pillow over his face. His muffled voice came from behind it: "Man, why did I even come to you?"
Exactly what I'm wondering! She looked from her childhood friend to the vampire passed out on her couch. A hunter helping a vampire was just… but Aomine said Kuroko had helped him first. Weirder and weirder. Momoi propped her fist under her chin and ran through her mental bank of information.
There were historical records of vampires working together with humans. Whether they were inherently evil or not was much debated, but they most definitely had a penchant for feeding on humans which put the two at odds more often than not. She supposed she could take Aomine's story at face value. Maybe.
"Dai-chan, can you promise he's safe?"
"Are you kidding? No way." He looked out from behind the pillow with a healthy amount of caution, prepared for another barrage. Momoi made a valiant effort to resist, in part because the only thing within reach was a lamp that she'd rather not have to replace and then explain to her housemates. "But come on, Satsuki, I could take him if it came to that."
Ah, she thought. That would be what people meant when they said Aomine was terrifying as an opponent, but reliable when he was on your side. "I guess you wouldn't let me be murdered in my own home…"
He waved a careless hand. "Yeah, that would be too troublesome."
She puffed her cheeks in annoyance but it was no use getting upset over every little thing that came out of Aomine's mouth. "…Anyway. You're saying he just passed out after the fight? He seemed fine before it, and nothing unusual happened?"
"Yeah, I guess. Relatively speaking."
"Then… wouldn't you come to the logical conclusion?"
He simply stared at her.
Oh, for… "Blood, Ahomine, he needs blood!"
"Oh, is that all?"
She hunkered down by the couch to peer at the vampire, not too close, but close enough to confirm there was no change in his condition, neither for the better nor the worse. "Well, I'm no expert, but it's their one and only basic need in life. They can survive without it longer than we can survive without food or water, but eventually they'll starve. …You did read the notes I gave you, didn't you? The ones I made especially for you?"
"Eh, I have them… somewhere…"
Momoi sighed.
"What? It's not like there was a test."
"No, just your life on the line." The saddest part was her complete lack of surprise. "Never mind, then. That's my amateur diagnosis. Take it or leave it."
"Blood, huh? Seems easy enough…" The look on his face wasn't thoughtful so much as already decided.
"Just so you know," she began, going to the table to collect her books and stacking them on top of one another with more force than was strictly necessary. The beginner spellbooks were on the thin side, but the encyclopedias and guides and history texts made heavy, satisfying thumps. "I don't approve. If you must, I'd rather you rob a blood bank, but that would be too much trouble, wouldn't it?" Her fingers clenched on top of Whitaker's Origins of Sorcery (Fourth Edition).
"Basically, yeah."
Her shoulders sagged in defeat. "I guess I can't stop you."
"…Ah, one more thing, Satsuki." He took her wrist and flipped her palm up. Then he placed something small, soft, and just a little bit bloody in her waiting hand. "Find out where this came from, would you?"
Not knowing what to expect save for that it couldn't be anything good, Momoi looked down at the dubious gift. An inch-long, red-rimmed gash opened up its belly, and she could see the pink of her skin clear through the wound. The bat was very stiff, very cold, and very much expired. For the second time that night, an enraged shriek pierced through the (fortuitously) empty house.
#
Click, swish.
Out popped the blade, wobbling slightly as it balanced in Aomine's loose hold. He sat half-curled in the chair with his arm propped up on his knee, regarding the knife's edge with a scrutinizing eye. It was sharp enough, to be sure, and it didn't look like there was any bit of gooey homunculus flesh clinging to it. Good enough, right?
He glanced at Momoi's closed door, almost expecting her to come out screeching at him to at least pretend to care about sanitization, because what was he going to do if he got infected with a zombie virus, or gangrene?
But the door remained shut, the line of light visible beneath it never wavering. She'd taken the bat (after dropping it on the floor, washing her hands, and putting on dishwashing gloves before picking it up again) into her room for whatever witchcraft needed to be worked on the thing. "There's no way I can concentrate with you around," she'd grumbled. He'd sniped back about her lack of talent to begin with. The door had slammed with enough force to shake the picture frames on the walls.
Aomine clicked his tongue, folded the knife closed, and shifted to plant both feet on the floor again. Would Momoi be more or less ticked off if he used one of her kitchen knives? Heat sterilized, didn't it? Or… was that cauterize? Never mind, not like he had a fire on hand anyway. No alcohol, either-some stupid house rule about some of its occupants being underage.
So he was back to square one.
Click, swish.
Aomine dragged himself out of the chair to stand beside the couch. Kuroko continued to lie there, unresponsive, which was kind of impressive considering all the commotion that had flown over his head (literally, even). "Boring," Aomine muttered, but even as he said it the muscles in his face twitched and lifted minutely to one side in a brief smirk. He'd had worse nights.
The house Momoi shared with her roommates was well-furnished, and the couch big enough for Aomine to claim an edge of a seat with Kuroko stretched out along its length. The vampire's body was cold-not quite corpse cold, and he lifted a limp arm to check on its mobility: still flexible. He was pretty sure the consensus was that vampires were not undead, reanimated corpses with the souls of demons or what-have-you. Momoi would know for certain. All Aomine cared about was how to dust 'em. Though there were, apparently, exceptions.
He stretched out his arm, first considering the veins in the crook where blood was normally drawn by doctors, then trailing down to the more accessible bluish line in his wrist. The edge of his knife was placed against the skin. Aomine spared a moment to search his memory and figure that no, at the very least, he shouldn't be at risk of zombie infection.
Steel sliced across the street, not down the road, stinging about as much as he expected. He didn't think the cut was that deep-he wasn't trying to remove any extremities here-but the line of red that welled up soon spilled over in a dribbling trickle along his arm. He straightened the limb, angled it down, and the streams ran backwards, pooling in his palm, dripping through his fingers before he could even think of stopping it.
"Oh, shit." He followed the falling drops with a cringe at the thought of Momoi's wrath, but by some stroke of luck they didn't stain the upholstery. Instead, a small, crimson spatter took shape on the pale curve of Kuroko's cheek. "…Oops."
Awkward maneuvering managed to get Aomine's hand positioned so the blood dripped over the vampire's mouth at least. No reaction at first, and the blood collected upon the seam of his lips, which then parted slightly to allow the puddle to seep through. The tip of his tongue sought out the residue escaping from the corner. His eyes remained closed, but the sound of his breathing got louder by a tiny margin, its note just a hint frenetic.
"Huh," Aomine said to himself as more blood dripped down and was sipped up, bit by bit. It was sort of like that time Momoi had tried to raise a familiar-a small bird hatched by her magic, which she'd fed with an eyedropper until it grew enough to shriek and peck at her incessantly, crap everywhere, and get into a dogfight with a local pigeon which had ended badly for everyone involved.
…Okay, maybe this wasn't like that at all.
He'd stopped paying attention, so his reflex was to jerk away when he felt something brush against his fingers. Kuroko's half-raised hand drifted down again to rest upon his chest, rising and falling in heavy, labored breaths. He was awake now, watching Aomine with his unreadable expression and red-stained mouth.
"Uh. How're you doing?" Aomine squelched the urge to hide his arm behind his back, not so much out of guilt, and neither did Kuroko look particularly grateful, but…
The vampire's eyes were trained on his bleeding wrist. Aomine thought maybe if he moved it back and forth, that gaze would follow the movement like a cat being teased. Then, abruptly, Kuroko's attention swung away with a turn of his head, lips pressed tightly together. "…Thank you," he spoke after a long, strained pause.
Aomine leaned over to get a better view of Kuroko's profile, but still the vampire wouldn't face him. The splash of blood upon his cheek was on vivid display as if being purposefully ignored, the same way he purposefully refrained from wiping his mouth. "Hey," Aomine said, armed braced on the back of the couch. The bleeding was slowing, but the gradual accumulation would drip again soon. "You still don't look too good."
"You've done enough, Aomine-kun."
"Are you mad or something?"
"No. Of course not."
"Then…" He stuck his wrist right under Kuroko's nose, making him stiffen, eyes widening. "Come on. You're feeling ravenous now, right? Because I woke the beast."
"…I'm not going to attack you. Or anyone else here."
"That's a given." He continued to hold his wrist out. The wound ached, slicked and shiny with bright red.
Aomine's offer stretched thin in the space between them, narrowing down to almost nothing by the time acceptance finally tugged on Aomine's fingers. Kuroko guided his wrist closer, lids of his eyes shuttering half-closed.
"Itadakimasu." Very carefully, he pressed the flat of his tongue to the wet skin surrounding the cut, light pressure gliding across it. The trademark teeth came out, pointed canines growing sharp and long with hunger, but they didn't pierce the flesh.
Aomine had been bitten before-fighty vampires also got bitey in his experience-and he'd seen the way they preferred to feed. The fangs were no joke; they were meant to rip and tear to make the blood flow freely, to get at the deeply hidden veins and arteries. Aomine didn't need book learning to know vampires were primal creatures, not wine-sipping connoisseurs. Modern times might have forced them to use more discretion, to take a little here and there just to avoid notice, but when they got carried away their victims were never neatly dead with a set of picturesque holes bleeding daintily from the neck.
Twin fangs indented Aomine's skin, stopping short of breaking it. Kuroko's mouth was sealed over Aomine's wrist, his feeding limited to licking and sucking with weirdly polite effort. Not that Aomine wanted to be gouged, either, and every time the deadly tips of those teeth grazed him a thread of electricity flickered to life throughout his system. It wasn't quite a shot of adrenaline, but close, body memory knowing the feel of those teeth and what they could do.
Yet Kuroko refused to do it, and refrained from prodding and aggravating the wound more than necessary. He drank what dribbled out, followed the trails that wound a little ways down Aomine's arm, then came back up to lap at the palm of his hand, even cleaning up the tiny rivulets between his fingers.
Aomine watched all of this with gross fascination. The soft, warm, wet mouth painted gruesome, the contrast of color around it. Kuroko's pallor had retreated a bit, still on the pale side but less outright sickly. His breathing wasn't as labored. His pupils were dilated, but after one last swipe of his tongue across the scarlet line on Aomine's wrist he pushed away.
"Gochisousama deshita."
And that was that. Aomine's arm dropped limp to his side at last, sticky but no longer streaked crimson. The blood had looked showy, but the amount hadn't been that much; he doubted it was enough to count as a meal for a vampire, but Kuroko seemed better off already. He sat up, scrubbing the remnants of his feeding from his face. Before Aomine could point him towards the bathroom to wash up, Kuroko was already getting to his feet.
"Thank you again," he said, ending with a polite bow.
"No big deal. In fact, doesn't this make us even?"
"Aomine-kun would have found the mark eventually."
Well, yeah, but… "Whatever. Call it even."
"Okay. Then, I'll be going now."
"At this time of night? And…" …where? he almost added, instead turning the pause into a clean break and throwing the loose end away.
"It will be dawn soon. And I don't think this is somewhere I should stay."
"Ah, yeah. Satsuki doesn't even let me crash here, most of the time." Though, that may have had something to do with his tendency to arrive with difficult-to-explain injuries. He made the effort to call ahead this time, Momoi should be grateful, and maybe this once he could at least catch a little bit sleep on the couch before her roommates returned and the place got noisy. He wasn't bleeding-well, much, anymore. Aomine glanced out the window where it was still dark out, but not for long, perhaps an hour or two. "Are you the type that can't handle sun?"
"I don't burst into flames or anything like that." There was a mild hint of reproach in the answer and Aomine had to grin; he had yet to see anything like that happen when a vampire was exposed to sunlight. There was usually some kind of effect, though, and Kuroko admitted, "But I do feel tired during the day, so I'd prefer to take my leave before then."
"It's not like I'm your jailer…" He searched, but came up with little else to say. Aomine jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "Door's that way."
Kuroko's gaze lingered on him for a moment before he inclined his head. "It was nice meeting you. Take care."
"You, too. Don't find yourself on the wrong end of a stake."
A blink of surprise, followed by a soft smile. "I'll try not to."
#
The spell was one of the few she was skilled at-investigation was her specialty, after all, whether her means were magical or not. Momoi's talent wasn't so great that she could claim the title of sorceress, but when it counted her witchcraft could be a useful aid.
She preferred using a mirror rather than a bowl of water-a plain square of glass normally propped up on her desk, nothing fancy. Water, she thought, tended to dilute the spell, which was just silly when clarity and accuracy was the whole point. The flat mirror served as a plate upon which she added a drop of clear, glistening liquid. Though solid, the glass surface appeared to ripple when the dew collected from a fairy's wing was added, and the reflections in the mirror sharpened. There were many bases for seeing spells, but this was her favorite since it was easy to find fairies in a witch's garden, and she grew plenty of foxglove and primrose for that purpose.
Next, she reached into her box of gemstones, thinking of vision and clarity, and picked up whichever stone fell into her grasp first. What came up was a chunk of rough opal, light in body tone, showing yellow, green, and pink fire. Not bad, opals were unpredictable in nature and so were visions. It was a fitting choice. Momoi placed the stone near the edge of the mirror, which took on the opal's pale, speckled light.
For good measure she sprinkled fresh violet and crocus petals across the mirror. Redundancy never hurt when it came to magic. Then she was ready for the focus of the spell, and her least favorite part.
Nose scrunched in distaste, she used tweezers to dig into the rigid bat carcass where it had been conveniently cut open already. Blood was what she needed, but its heart had stopped pumping hours ago. Her tweezers tugged at its innards, pulling out some red pulp and dumping it with a tiny splat on the mirror's pristine surface, reminding Momoi how magic was not all wonders and light.
"Yuck," she grimaced, shoving the bat into a plastic bag to dispose of later.
The components were in place, now for the incantation to shape the magic. She had the words memorized already-it was a short, simple spell, and one she'd used before-but she would read from the page of her book just in case. Most of her texts were translated into Japanese, and that was another point of debate among sorcerers. Momoi wasn't sure which was more important: using the spell's original language or the castor's native tongue, but her English wasn't good enough for anything but the second option.
"I humbly beg your guidance," she began. These were her own words, not the incantation proper, because it was always wise to show respect for the forces one was about to invoke. "I present myself to you in service if you would grant my wish."
Flux and flow; magic depended on castors to use it as the castors depended on magic to achieve results. The relationship was give and take, cycling endlessly much the same way the world kept turning. Stagnation was anathema to sorcerers, and Momoi found that she got cranky and restless if she went too long without casting even in practice. Maybe it was a bit like a drug, but it was carefully moderated and controlled. There were rules to be upheld, certain acts that were forbidden, and those whose job was to enforce and punish in the name of those laws.
Momoi breathed in and swept the wayward concerns from her mind. The flower petals gave off a faint scent, undercut by the sickly-sweet aroma of bat blood, grounding her focus in the spell at hand. Her eyes landed upon the page of her book.
"Power acknowledges power; you, who has found your way to me. Through power in blood, and bone, and will, you have arrived, and I would seek you in return. If you have come to me in truth, reveal to me your sign."
The light of the mirror brightened, shimmering with opal fire and creating an aurora across the glass surface while the flower petals scattered with a burst of fragrance. The lumpy bit taken from the bat familiar liquefied, blood darkening nearly black, trickling and rolling outward to form the shape of a sorcerer's mark.
As far as spells went, all this did was reveal another sorcerer's brand of family magic. It wasn't more discerning than that, but if she at least had a family mark she could get a general direction to start with. She had a whole book containing nothing but family crests throughout history, and how to interpret their symbols, which was how she found her ancestor's. Her own sign had changed, though, since her ancestor's family had refused to acknowledge her. No sorcerer, or even minor witch, apparently, could work magic without a crest. The one she possessed now was unique and hers alone.
The crest now painted upon the mirror, light fading to leave only a crust of dried blood, was one Momoi recognized. It was as unique as her own, maybe more so, all sharp, angular lines containing incredible detail-to the point of being a work of art. The foundation of the crest was formed by two interlocked symbols: red and gold.
Momoi's chair squeaked as she rolled back from her desk. Her mouth started to open, but she shut it firmly, not daring to voice the words. What does he want with Dai-chan this time?
She glanced around her room as if expecting to find another familiar hiding in a corner, behind her schoolbooks or in the nook of her closet. No, she shook her head, he wouldn't get caught unless he allowed it. Trembling, she snatched up the mirror, and with the heel of her hand she scrubbed furiously at the glass, flaking the blood away. Tiny bits of residue remained, and those she picked off with her nails until every last trace of the sign was gone.
to be continued
I've been promising this forever, sorry it took so long! And it… kind of became the Satsuki and Dai-chan Show, before I remembered I was supposed to be writing trashy vamp fic. I hope everyone likes that ending, though. :x