All Things Beautiful and Bloody [6/?]
Title: All Things Beautiful and Bloody
Characters: Everybody, this time especially Sho-chan, You-chan, Tooru, Yuuki, Shoutarou, Negi, and Shion.
Genre: Vampire School!AU
Chapter Rating: PG-13? A LOT OF VAMPIRES GET SMOOCHED.
Word Count: 7921
Summary: After a short time to heal, the Bloodfast begins.
Notes: This chapter is too long. D: I started writing a third POV for this one too but then it would really be too long even if it ended up short. D; It is always Puddingpire's fault every time this happens. Also I wrote the sections out of order kind of maybe! WOW INTERESTING
--
Chapter 6
Sho rummaged through the hangers, and when that failed, turned to the shelves and started pulling down robe after robe in search of the one Youichirou had asked him for. She had recovered some of her strength, though she hadn’t done much more than sit up and demand that he bring her some clothes. At last he found the faded, persimmon-colored yukata she was after and brought it out into the main room along with a selection of obis and other accessories. “I thought you said you weren’t going to wear this anymore.”
Youichirou looked up from the paper in front of her. He could see the weight of the centuries on her, on her face and in her eyes. Yet she smiled, and there was no trace of pain or exhaustion in it. “I know, I know. But when I am wanting comfort, it is the next best option available to me.”
Sho threw the yukata over her shoulders and kissed the top of her head. “I’m sorry, love. You know I’d make it all better if I could.” He tossed the obis away and sat down on the bed with her, embracing her from behind. “Whatcha doing?”
“Little Shoutarou worries. He asked of me a map.”
“In exchange for what?”
“He didn’t specify. I’m sure I’ll think of something.”
Normally that would be the cue for her to show him what she had in mind by sinking her teeth into him, but the Bloodfast had already started for the two of them. It was lonely somehow, losing that connection, even though their bond wasn’t so trifling a thing. He sighed and tightened his hold on her, careful not to put too much pressure on her injuries.
She shifted, bringing her good hand up to touch his. “Sho?”
“I’m sorry. You know how I get.”
“It never stops being silly though.” She poked at him. “You drank from me half an hour hence and already you want more.”
“Because I love you,” he whined.
“Yes, of course. I’m almost finished with this and then I can pay proper attention to you, my poor love.” Sho buried his face in her curls and ran his fingers up and down the lengths of her body as she wrote. She folded it when she was done and sent it flying under the door. “Dearest. What is it you want?”
“Wanna kiss you all over,” Sho mumbled into her neck. “Can’t though. Stupid rules.”
“I don’t suppose me kissing you is an acceptable substitute. After all, you’d still have to do most of the work anyway.”
“…Please?”
She just smiled in response. Sho helped her lie flat and positioned himself over her. They worked together to unbutton his shirt and she ran her tongue over his collarbone. He moved forward and she began tracing lines against his chest with her lips. She bit down, not hard enough to draw blood, and he moaned unabashedly.
“Is this a bad time?” Kamitsuru said brightly from the door. Sho gave him his most disgusted look while Youichirou made an attempt to cover herself. Kamitsuru, predictably, took no notice. “I just wondered if we could speed the process along, that’s all. The sooner we get started, the sooner I can get out of here and leave you to your…” He waved his hand at them. “Married stuff.”
Sho was more embarrassed about the state of their room than about Kamitsuru walking in on them again. At least normally the bed was in one piece. It was no worse than Kamitsuru’s little den was on a daily basis though, and he shook it off. “The stuff’s over there, so if you’re here wanting us to get on with that, you can leave. Otherwise, you can wait until we have ourselves put back together.” He repositioned himself in front of Youichirou.
Kamitsuru sighed and ran a hand through his wild hair. “Look, I’m sorry, but I don’t have a lot of time right now. The little one I sensed is very different from any of the others, and he’s incredibly scared. I don’t know what I’m going to have to do to get through to him, and I don’t know how long I’ve got.” He put an icy hand on Sho’s shoulder. “Please?”
“No,” Sho said, pushing him off. Kamitsuru caught his hand and held it.
“Please, Jin? And Youichirou, I really am sorry, I didn’t mean to spring it on you like this. I can heal you.”
Sho hesitated for a fraction of a second. “If you heal her, then I’ll do what you want me to.”
“Done.”
Suddenly Sho was standing halfway across the room with a shirt half-on, and Youichirou was fully clothed, the golden obi that she liked so much secured around her waist and a pin in her hair. Kamitsuru was bending over her and wiping a tear from her face. “Did you erase our memories again?” Sho demanded, stomping over. His mouth felt strange somehow, which was never a good sign. Youichirou looked confused and reached for him, and he took her hand.
“I can’t let you remember what I did,” Kamitsuru said. “I’d tell you that you both agreed to let me erase it, but you probably wouldn’t believe me.”
“You wouldn’t love us if we did,” Youichirou said, and Kamitsuru grinned at her. “I’m sure I appreciate you healing me, although I am slightly dubious as to how you went about it.”
“You were only mad it was that simple.” He turned to the table and picked up the container of clear liquid. “Can we get started, then?”
Sho eyed it. “You’re sure we didn’t do it already?”
“It wouldn’t work that way. Sorry. I’m afraid you won’t be able to forget this.”
Sho concluded that the level of liquid didn’t seem to have decreased, and he picked up his small vial. He filled it up and raised an eyebrow at Kamitsuru. “You ready?”
“Is the Madame ready?” Kamitsuru responded, eyes dancing.
Youichirou straightened up and leaned forward. “Oh, I’m always ready.”
Sho rolled his eyes at her and didn’t bother to say anything. They’d heard it all before. “Go ahead, then.”
Kamitsuru took the vial from him and held it up to Sho’s lips. Sho took about half of the liquid into his mouth and Kamitsuru handed it off to Youichirou before putting his hands on Sho’s shoulders and bringing their lips together. Sho pushed the liquid into Kamitsuru’s mouth, their tongues brushing together as Kamitsuru drank it in. He swallowed and fell heavily against Sho as its effects hit him. Sho helped him down onto the bed and Youichirou supported him. “You okay?”
“Sure. Just give me a second.”
He started to struggle to his feet, but Sho stopped him and sat down beside him. He took the vial from Youichirou. “You’re getting old, Tsuru. One of these days this stuff will kill you.”
“It’s good for me,” Kamitsuru protested, even as Youichirou had to prop his head up to look at Sho. “It’s good for all of us.”
“Uh-huh.” Sho helped him raise the glass again. It took longer to transfer it this time, since Kamitsuru wasn’t really helping - whether out of weakness or laziness he wasn’t sure. When their lips finally separated, Kamitsuru swallowed and went completely still. Sho looked at Youichirou, who shrugged.
After a while, Kamitsuru opened an eye. “Nothing? Not worried about me?”
“Not after you played it the exact same way last time,” Sho said.
“We probably would have started worrying if it had gone on a little longer, but…” Youichirou shrugged. “You said you were in a hurry, after all, so we figured you wouldn’t keep it up for long.”
“And if something really was wrong?” Kamitsuru’s voice took on a whining edge.
“Then, dear, we would have wailed endlessly over your corpse, of course,” she said. She gave him the chance to laugh in response before covering his mouth with her own. Sho immediately felt left out and dove on top of them, and when that wasn’t enough, he began fighting Youichirou for control of Kamitsuru’s lips. He was successful, and Kamitsuru’s tongue swept into his mouth and began attacking his mouth, as if he were trying to make sure he hadn’t missed any of the liquid. Youichirou lost interest in fighting with Sho and instead began nibbling on his ear as she watched them. Eventually she tired of that as well and remarked “I thought you were in a hurry?”
Kamitsuru took his time disentangling himself from Sho, who wasn’t making it particularly easy for him either. “When else am I going to have the opportunity to say a proper goodbye to my dearest seconds-in-command?” he said, kissing Sho between words. When he finished speaking, Sho lunged at him again, and they fell back together, taking Youichirou with them. This left her in a more advantageous position and she was able to reclaim Kamitsuru from him. Sho let her have him but remained on top. He combed through his hair, admiring how the sooty black transitioned to gleaming silver. He continued until Kamitsuru finally waved them off with a smile and a gentle shove. “It’s good to know you’ll miss me.”
“We won’t,” they said together, and kissed a cheek each before Sho pulled Kamitsuru to his feet and he in turned pulled up Youichirou. Sho picked up the vials containing his blood while Kamitsuru took the container of clear liquid, and Youichirou winked at them and headed to retrieve a bottle of blood from the cellar. Left alone with Kamitsuru, the boiling pressure in his blood began to decrease and the lust he had felt for the other vampire faded considerably, though it never fully disappeared.
“You can’t be around us both at the same time anymore,” he said with finality, and Kamitsuru laughed.
“Why not?” He puckered his lips at Sho, who had his hands full and had to resort to kicking him to get him to stop. “I have to say, I do much prefer your company that way.”
“That’s because you’re a manipulative old lech.” Sho walked out, and Kamitsuru followed, his aura radiating pleasure at Sho’s words. It figured that he was immortal and working for the worst boss ever. He was pretty sure the only way he was ever going to be able to permanently leave the job was if Kamitsuru killed him.
The only positive that immediately occurred to him was that Kamitsuru didn’t jump him on the way to the dining hall, and even that was ruined when he pushed him against the wall and began kissing him hungrily as soon as they arrived. The first thing Sho did after he let go of him was to put down the vials so his hands would be free to push him away if it happened again, and the second thing was to turn back to him with the most displeased face he could manage. “Really?”
“I’ll be gone for a long time. I have to get my fill of you while I can.” Kamitsuru looked the slightest bit apologetic, which irritated Sho more than it would have if he’d just been his usual grinning idiot self.
“A few months is hardly a long time, Mr. Older-than-Dirt.” Kamitsuru continued looking at him with that sheepish expression and Sho swore. “How long do you think these kids can go? I’m hardly ready for a long Fast, to say nothing of Yamada. I don’t think he even knew who he was when I left him!”
“Sorry. But I can already tell I’m going to need to spend a while with the new one, figure out how he works, what makes him different, how he’ll react to others. And that’s after I get to him. But I need to get to him quickly, and I need there to be a Fast, and if this is the only way… well, I’m sorry, but that’s how it has to be.” Kamitsuru looked miserable, and for a moment Sho wanted to comfort him before he took control of his blood and remembered why he had absolutely no reason to do so.
“What’s so good about Bloodfasts anyway,” he grumbled, and decided to walk to the adjacent goblet room rather than pulling them out with magic. Kamitsuru trailed after him and helped carry them without complaint. Youichirou turned up eventually with a decent vintage and began pouring it, while Sho contrived to move to an even further room to prevent Kamitsuru from taking advantage of the blood connection again. He returned with cloths and a few random ornamental pieces he had come across, and to the sounds of messy kissing. He lurked in the doorway and waited until they were finished before entering. He did his best to get everything prepared quickly, since it was the last chance he had to speed up the process. Kamitsuru always liked to do a certain amount of grandstanding at a Bloodfast regardless of his apparent haste, and who knew how the kids would react to the ceremony.
“Anything else?” he asked when they had finished setting up.
“One last kiss for the road?”
“Only if you promise to think of us on the lonely nights,” Sho said, and gave him what he wanted. Youichirou did the same and, apparently satisfied, Kamitsuru went off to ring the supper bell.
Sho exchanged glances with Youichirou. “At least he’ll be gone for a year or so?”
-
Between the burns, the head trauma, and the not-so-subtle warning from Professor Jinnai, Yuuki really had no reason to get out of bed. After the room around him stopped whirling and settled into a rhythmic pulsating, he was able to focus his thoughts as well as his vision.
Unfortunately, what his mind decided to focus on was Madame Youichirou. He made a series of increasingly unhappy noises as he remembered the way she had kissed him last night, and how he woke earlier to find her bending over him, her breath mingling with his. He made a slight detour to Professor Jinnai’s brief and utterly chaste kiss, which he tried to reroute into something resembling education or the familial bonds of vampire kinship, but then he recalled the words he had shouted in his hazy state and then he couldn’t think of anything else. His hands still felt like they were on fire, but that was nothing compared to his burning face, and he groaned. “What was I even trying to do?” he asked himself, and since the answer was “Make her come back and kiss you some more, and maybe let her devour you whole,” he decided that the best thing to do was to stop thinking. After a minute’s effort, he was able to sit up, and the resulting head rush and surge of pain did the trick nicely. He swayed and fell over again.
When the thoughts started creeping back and he happened to remember the mental image that had come to him, for whatever reason, of Madame Youichirou painted in his blood and peeling the skin from his body, he shuddered and sat up again, but this time he didn’t fall back. After a dizzying moment, he apparently felt well enough to add Professor Jinnai into the image and screamed very quietly. Maybe quite loudly. It was hard to tell with the ringing in his ears.
He tried to get up quickly, kicking the covers away as best he could. When he had both feet planted firmly on the ground, he stood up. Immediately his vision was replaced by a wall of grey static interrupted by the occasional rainbow splotch. He staggered in the direction of the wall and collapsed onto it until his sight cleared and he stopped feeling like a flattened mosquito. In fifty years, he’d learned that vampires wouldn’t die so easily, but at this point he was almost hoping he would anyway. It wouldn’t be so bad to just fall to the ground and die, alone, and if it meant never knowing his true potential or what it would be like to lie with another vampire or how to conjure butterflies out of the air, it wasn’t such a heavy price to pay. Madame Youichirou could cut him up all she liked after he was dead.
He quickly gave up on feeling sorry for himself as the thoughts persisted and he looked for another distraction. His nightclothes were wherever he had tossed them in his rush to get dressed, and he decided to clean them up. He pulled his night shirt off a pane of glass set to the side of the room and was bending down to retrieve his underwear when he realized it wasn’t just glass. It was a mirror.
A mirror that reflected him.
He scrambled to his feet, all thoughts of cleaning up or being ravished by Madame Youichirou instantly driven from his mind, pressing his hands to the glass, then to his face. He sent his fingers sweeping over the mirror, watching the reflection match his every movement. He hadn’t realized how much he had missed being able to see what he looked like, and how much he had taken it for granted in his previous life. It was like meeting an old friend, noticing all the subtle changes time had wrought while recognizing those features nothing could change. There was a thin, silvery scar he hadn’t known about beside his left ear, and he looked battered, worn down, and tired, and yet for all that… for all that, his eyes hadn’t changed. He had always liked their slanted, slightly fierce appearance. Women had been drawn to them… or had it been one woman in particular? He couldn’t remember. He had lost so much of himself, but the light that shone in his eyes was still familiar to him, and that was enough to make him shake some of the pain off and smile, wide and unselfconscious. That gave him pause, and he touched each of his fangs in turn. They looked so much longer than they felt. With them sticking out, he looked fearsome, inhuman, not at all like the Yamada Yuuki that had been. He smiled ruefully at the red tears trickling down his cheeks. Apparently vampires cried blood too. He never would have guessed. He wiped them away and took another long look into the mirror before bending down to retrieve his clothes again.
After he folded and replaced them, he went back for another look. This time he took in his mangled outfit and went to find something less charred to wear. He wondered if the cravat had fallen off or if it had just burned to ash. Either way, good riddance. With his hands heavily bandaged, it took him an agonizingly long time to unbutton each button and he stood shirtless in front of the mirror for a long time before he found the energy to find another one to put on. He looked at the row of collared shirts in his closet before deciding that dinner was an informal affair for concussed vampires and pulling on one of his soft and happily buttonless sweaters.
He thought about lying down again and waiting until dinner, but he was already feeling better just by moving around. After shuffling around the room and looking at the rest of the furniture, which didn’t captivate him the way the mirror had, he turned to the door. He had promised Professor Jinnai not to leave the room, he had told him that he could trust him… but maybe Jinnai hadn’t thought he’d recover so quickly. Maybe he was just trying to make sure that if he was too weak to move, he wouldn’t end up lying unconscious in some hallway and he’d have to waste time looking for him. He was… maybe not in the best shape, maybe a little light-headed, but since he hadn’t fallen over again in a while, he didn’t think it would be a problem. He still hesitated before twisting the knob and opening the door. He was half-expecting to see Madame Youichirou, or maybe another dragon, waiting on the other side. Before he could decide which was worse, a chime rang out and he started guiltily. He laughed nervously, a little relieved he hadn’t quite ended up breaking his promise after all, and set off for dinner.
On the way, he met Shoutarou, who was walking in the wrong direction and staring at a piece of paper. The little vampire seemed on edge, and he thought it best not to sneak up on him. He backed up a little. “Shoutarou! Hey!”
Shoutarou turned around carefully. “Oh. Hey. Ready to… eat?”
“Definitely, I’m starving.” Shoutarou’s expression darkened and Yuuki winced, wondering what he had gone through to be this obviously distressed by the thought of a vampire doing what it was supposed to do. What it had no choice but to do. “I’m glad they just prepare it for us, though,” he said carefully, “I’m in no shape to hunt anything down for sure. In fact, you might have to get a funnel and pour it into me.” Shoutarou seemed to relax a bit after that, and Yuuki made a mental note to avoid the subject when possible. “What have you got there?”
“Ah, I asked Madame Youichirou and she made this map for me, so I wouldn’t run into any of the traps.”
“Traps?”
“Yeah, they apparently have a bunch of them. Haven’t you run into any of them yet, with a teacher or something?”
Yuuki shrugged. “Maybe they put me in the safe hallway because they figured I’d hurt myself.”
Shoutarou tapped the paper. “Well, you can see one if you go this way, maybe. Stick to the right-hand side of the hallway, or else.” Yuuki did so. The second he started walking slightly to the left, the ground gave out under his foot and he had to scramble back to safety before he fell… down. Very far down, by the look of things.
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah, apparently this place is full of things like that.” They backed up to the intersection they had started at and took the other path to the dining hall.
“Heeeyyy!” They turned to see Negishi running toward them. His pace slowed to a limping walk as he caught up. “So, you’re alive!”
“Was I really that bad off?”
“Yes,” Negishi and Shoutarou said together. Yuuki winced. “Let’s just say that if you were where I came from, you’d have been drained and dumped,” Negishi went on.
“Where did you come from?”
“The pits. These really strong vampires, nobles, I guess, would capture people and change them, then have them fight. If you did decently, they usually wouldn’t kill you even if you lost, because it was too much trouble to find someone else, I guess. But if you lost badly, and a couple in a row, they’d let everyone drink from them and then kill them, unless the owner wanted to torture them himself instead.”
Shoutarou looked a little faint. Yuuki didn’t really know what to say. “That sucks,” he said eventually.
Negishi shrugged. “Well, I’m out of it now. The headmaster saved me and killed a bunch of them, which was pretty cool. It’s been kind of a long time now, and I try to forget about it, to tell you the truth.”
“Yeah, haha… So how about that dragon, huh? Let me tell you, you guys missed out not riding that thing…” There was nothing subtle about his change of subject, but Shoutarou took it up eagerly and they stayed on it until they arrived at dinner. The table was as it had been the previous night, but instead of bottles, there were only glasses, and half-full glasses at that. The headmaster, Professor Jinnai, Madame Youichirou, and Professor Shiramata were standing at the back of the room, looking about as unhappy as Yuuki felt about the amount of blood provided, though he suspected it was for different reasons.
Madame Youichirou was dressed in an old kimono that made her look rather shabby in comparison to her earlier splendor. As they walked in, she got up and led the three of them to seats at the table. “I don’t suppose any of you have taken part in a Bloodfast before.”
Unless the headmaster locking him up counted, which he didn’t think it did, Yuuki hadn’t, and he said as much. The others echoed him. “As much was assumed. Well, that will no longer be true after the rest arrive.”
Maeyama came in next, supporting Jun, who wasn’t looking so great. Maeyama didn’t have any visible injuries save for a bandage around his wrist, and he was smiling as he spoke to Jun. Madame Youichirou directed them to sit on opposite sides of the table, and Maeyama’s smile faded. He left Jun sitting across from Yuuki and took his seat a few chairs down. Yuuki hadn’t realized before how big Jun’s eyes were. It was almost frightening, but at the same time, it suited him. He realized that he thought Jun was very, very cute, and he smelled very, very good.
Rather than attack him (and probably incur Maeyama’s wrath, and probably give Shoutarou a heart attack), he decided to introduce himself. “You’re Jun, right? I’m Yuuki. Are you feeling better?”
Jun blinked slowly and peered up at him. “A little.” The rest of the world seemed to drift away as the soft tones of his voice echoed in his ears, and Yuuki let out a contented sigh.
“I like you, you’re a good vampire,” he said, and Jun looked at him questioningly, the hint of a smile on his lips. “I mean, you’re really… I’m sure you… I like your face,” he said, hating his inability to express himself, but only a little. He didn’t have the attention to spare it, focused as he was on Jun.
“Thank you, Yuuki. I like your face too.” Yuuki felt as if he were going to float out of his chair and keep going until he crashed into the ceiling. He’d already survived one fall of about that height today, and he didn’t see why he couldn’t do it again, especially if Jun would kindly watch over him while he recovered. He didn’t see why he wouldn’t. He said he liked his face too, after all.
Negishi elbowed him. “What’s wrong with you?”
That my last seventy years of life were lacking in this beautiful boy, he wanted to say, but he kept it together and said instead, “I think that fall scrambled my brains. I can’t think straight unless I’m moving.” He looked back at Jun, eager to resume the conversation, but Jun was back to chatting with Maeyama.
“Dear Akutsu, you won’t have taken part in a Bloodfast either, will you?”
The irritable vampire hadn’t bothered to change clothes after the dragon incident. He smelled strongly of smoke and burned hair. “After the dragon blew up, he disappeared before any of the teachers noticed,” Shoutarou whispered. “Wonder what he did…”
“Hopefully he didn’t fall into that hole from before,” Yuuki whispered back, and Shoutarou had to stifle laughter as Akutsu sat next to him, regarding them all with a cold gaze. “Hey,” Yuuki said, deciding it was better to try and make friends with him. “It was pretty cool how you fought that dragon.” Akutsu looked at him coldly, and Yuuki fought to keep the smile on his face until he finally looked away. Clearly he wouldn’t have so easy a time making this friendship. Maybe he was just shy, and would open up more as time went on. Yuuki concluded that it was too soon to give up and decided to continue being nice to him, even if he was a little scary.
Speaking of scary… Tsuchinoya walked in, dressed all in black, with a long, sweeping cape spread behind him. Dark amethysts glinted in his ears and at his throat. The cold accompanying him as he swept by froze any words of greeting Yuuki had for him in the back of his throat. He remembered how he had woken up to find him staring at him, and shuddered. He could feel Tsuchinoya’s eyes on him now as well and deliberately didn’t make eye contact. Something within his blood warned him that it was dangerous to get too close to Tsuchinoya, that he would be risking his life to do so. Some other part of him was fascinated by the noble vampire, but it wasn’t the same sort of attraction he’d felt to Jun or Madame Youichirou. Instead of the desire to share blood and sensations and affections, it was more like the desire to serve.
Yuuki laid his head down on the table, stifling a groan. This was all too much. Was he supposed to be feeling so much weird attraction toward other vampires? He could accept Madame Youichirou, because she had made her intentions toward him quite clear, and she was absolutely gorgeous, even in a faded kimono. Maybe if he had time to sort through his feelings, he could understand why some of them were directed at Professor Jinnai as well, especially since he and Madame Youichirou seemed to be so close. But he couldn’t make sense of his immediate infatuation with Jun, or whatever Tsuchinoya’s deal was, and he couldn’t be sure that he wouldn’t find similar urges directed at Akutsu or any of the others if he kept at it. He hoped it was just that the forty-some years without meaningful interpersonal contact had gotten to him, and he would have to deal with the inappropriate lust only until he remembered how to deal with people again.
They waited, but Yukito and Mitsuya didn’t turn up, nor did Professor Yamaguchi. It seemed to Yuuki as if someone else was missing, but he couldn’t think of who it could possibly be. At last, the headmaster clapped his hands. “Everyone, you may drink. We need not wait for those who do not arrive promptly.”
Yuuki picked up his glass, swirled the liquid around, and raised it to his lips. He drank about half of it before the taste and texture of the blood started to feel a little familiar. He gasped as it raced down his throat and left flames of heat in its wake. It pooled in his stomach and raced out, flooding every inch of his body with fire. Hurts he hadn’t even noticed flared up and were extinguished, and after he finished the glass, he felt stronger than he ever had. He began to unwrap the now-unnecessary bandages on his hands, glancing at the others as he did so. Jun was looking much the way Yuuki felt, and Shoutarou was sipping it slowly, looking happier and more relaxed than Yuuki had seen him. Akutsu and Negishi both seemed to be radiating a dark light that looked like hunger and were licking their lips disconcertingly. Yuuki looked away from them and at the other side of the room. Tsuchinoya and Maeyama didn’t appear to have had the same reaction to it, or they were hiding it better. Of the teachers, only Shiramata had a cup, and he seemed normal as well. Professor Jinnai caught Yuuki’s eye and smiled at him, pointing to his throat. Yuuki cocked his head to the side until the significance of the teacher’s gesture occurred to him and he pointed at his glass with a questioning expression. Jinnai nodded and winked, and Yuuki turned back to the table, a different kind of heat rushing to his face. “You guys. Professor Jinnai gave us his blood.”
“Really?” Shoutarou said, eyeing his last mouthful. He looked at Jinnai, who gave him a thumbs-up. “Whoa, it is.” He swallowed the last of it carefully, almost respectfully in a way.
“It’s his mixed with ordinary human blood,” Jun said, sitting back in his chair. “Mae-chan just got normal, I guess because we got hurt a lot worse than he did.” He shifted and blushed. “Mae-chan-senpai, I mean.” He made eyes at Maeyama, and Maeyama winked back at him. Before it could get any more awkward, Yuuki suddenly felt compelled to look at the headmaster, who produced a glass jar from his voluminous sleeves and twirled it flamboyantly.
“I hope you’ve all enjoyed your meals. I’m pleased to announce that we will be starting a Bloodfast tonight, which means you will not be having any more for some time.”
Yuuki reacted almost before the words registered with him, standing up so quickly he knocked his chair over. “Why!” The other students began whispering behind him.
The headmaster laughed and swept over to him. “Yamada Yuuki, what a contentious child you are. You’ve had something of a private Bloodfast before, haven’t you?” He righted his chair. “The purpose is the same, though the methodology is different. It will purify you, and make you stronger by drawing out your innate talents, rather than augmenting you with those of others. I wonder, is it you who spoke out just now, or is it Jin-chan’s blood still boiling in you?” He put his hand on Yuuki’s head and rubbed it slowly, fingers snarling in his hair. Yuuki wanted to snarl back, but there was some other part of him that wanted him to keep caressing him, to bring his face closer and kiss him so, so softly. Was that Professor Jinnai’s blood in him, or was it his own desire? His breath quickened and the headmaster looked at him and the light disappeared from his eyes. It was as if he knew exactly what was going on in Yuuki’s mind, and was looking forward to either option. Yuuki forced himself to calm down. The headmaster shook his head at him, as if disappointed, and went on. “When performed properly at proper intervals, the Bloodfast also extends the life of a member of the nobility, and young master Tsuchinoya will benefit greatly from it. You wouldn’t want to cut short the number of years left to your classmate, would you?”
His eyes flickered over to Tsuchinoya. “Of course not.” He sunk back down into his seat and the headmaster pushed the chair in. Were nobles really not immortal? Come to think of it, he was basing his own immortal status on myth and rumor, and the fact that he didn’t age… but if Madame Youichirou was really over a thousand years old, maybe it wasn’t such a bad assumption to make.
“I’d love to tell you all the details, but time has not yet lost its meaning, so shall we begin?” He went over to Tsuchinoya and took his hand. “Would you care to start your Fast with me?”
Tsuchinoya nodded after a second’s pause, and they walked to the front of the room together. Their movements were graceful, almost as if they were preparing for a dance. Yuuki hoped they weren’t.
The headmaster opened the glass of clear liquid. “This is junkishu, a wine made from powerful emotions. It will curb your hunger and detoxify your body. Drinking it is what starts and ends the ritual. Once you drink it, you are forbidden from consuming blood until we hold the second ceremony.” He dropped Tsuchinoya’s hand and produced a glass tube. “This is how the drinking must be done.” Tsuchinoya took the tube and filled it with junkishu. “We’ll be doing it in two exchanges, but you should discuss how you will do it with your partners. It doesn’t matter how many times you do it, so long as you transfer all of it in the following way.”
Tsuchinoya let the headmaster drink from the tube and Professor Jinnai stepped forward to take it. Tsuchinoya ran a hand over the headmaster’s face and the headmaster smiled at him. It was such a tender expression that Yuuki wondered if he was imagining it. Wonder turned into shock as Tsuchinoya tilted the headmaster’s chin down, leaned forward, and kissed him. Yuuki only realized he was staring when they finally broke apart.
“You may think it strange, but this is the most efficient way,” the headmaster said, noting their discomfort. “Think of it as a chance to get familiar with your new classmates. There’s much to learn just from getting closer to another vampire.” He drank it in for the second time, and this time Yuuki closed his eyes so he didn’t have to watch. He only opened them again when the headmaster began speaking again. “That’s all there is to it. You may feel weak when drinking, or you may not feel anything at all. It depends on the person. Now then, Tsuchinoya, who would you like to go next?”
Yuuki turned back to his friends in horror as Tsuchinoya looked over them. “He gets to choose?” he mouthed at them and Shoutarou shook his head at him, directing his attention back to the front of the room. Tsuchinoya was pointing at him. Slow on the uptake, Yuuki met his eyes and pointed back at himself questioningly.
Then he got it. “Ehhh?!” He turned back to Shoutarou, who nodded at him, an unreadable expression on his face. He wanted to die again, but instead he found his legs carrying him forward and towards Tsuchinoya. Tsuchinoya’s face was similarly blank. Yuuki supposed that he wasn’t particularly surprised that Tsuchinoya had chosen him, now that he’d gotten over the initial shock, but he still didn’t understand what attraction he could hold for the supposedly-royal vampire. Tsuchinoya offered him the glass tube and Yuuki wiped it off on his shirt. Kissing Tsuchinoya might be inevitable, but he could live without kissing the headmaster, even indirectly. “So, um, we’ll do it in two parts too, I guess?”
Tsuchinoya nodded. Yuuki wondered why he never spoke. It wasn’t that he couldn’t, if the dragon proved anything. He dipped the tube in junkishu, lifted it to Tsuchinoya’s lips, and poured it slowly into his mouth. Professor Jinnai came forward to take it from him and Yuuki shot a pleading look at him. He just smirked and backed away, leaving him to face Tsuchinoya. Yuuki closed his eyes, took a deep breath, opened them, and kissed him.
It was like kissing ice cream. Tsuchinoya’s lips were every bit as cold as the rest of him, but so soft and pliant it was as if he were literally melting at his touch. It was such a strange sensation that Yuuki nearly panicked when he felt liquid against his lips, only to realize that it was the junkishu. This raised another problem - Tsuchinoya was a good bit shorter than Yuuki, and he was fighting against gravity trying to get the junkishu into his mouth. Yuuki tried to change his position to make it easier for him, but it was harder than expected and it took quite a few tries before the situation improved even a little. Yuuki ended up with his head almost perfectly horizontal and still had to use his tongue to coax it from Tsuchinoya. Tsuchinoya wasn’t helping much, but to Yuuki it seemed more like he didn’t really know what to do. It was almost sweet in a way.
Finally he managed to get all that he could and stepped back from Tsuchinoya before swallowing it. If he had thought that Tsuchinoya was cold, if he had thought Professor Jinnai’s blood was strong, the junkishu was so much more than that that those words barely applied. He felt like he was being frozen and shattered and mangled and ripped inside out and when he finally felt put back together, he was on his knees, clutching at Tsuchinoya’s legs. As soon as he realized this, he was humiliated, but couldn’t get up for another agonizingly long minute. At last he staggered back to his feet, leaning on Tsuchinoya and Professor Jinnai for support. Madame Youichirou brought up a chair and Yuuki fell into it. At a nod from the headmaster, Tsuchinoya forced the tube into Yuuki’s hand and drank from it, then fell on him, forcing his mouth open and the junkishu in. It wasn’t as bad this time, if only because the liquid was still pulsing through his veins at an alarming rate, and he had been stretched so far to his limits that the addition couldn’t make it any worse. When Tsuchinoya let go of him, he fell back into the chair and stayed there. He didn’t know how long. It was very, very silent. A cold hand took his and Yuuki looked up dully, thinking it would be Tsuchinoya.
It was the headmaster. “I know it’s tough, Yuuki. I know. But you did well. I’m proud of you.” He lifted him to his feet and steadied him, then embraced him. Yuuki sucked in a quick breath, seemingly the first since he had drunk the junkishu, and felt his body heating up. Mobility began to return to his body and soon enough he was able to let go of the headmaster’s hand with a grudging word of thanks. “If you’re better, would you choose the next person to go?”
“Uh…” He looked out at them. For a second, he wanted to choose Jun, but then he met Shoutarou’s eye and knew he had to choose him. “Shoutarou, you want to get it over with, right?”
“Not really,” Shoutarou called back, but he looked relieved and ran over. Professor Jinnai offered him the tube and he filled it up. It fizzed as it entered Yuuki’s mouth, but it didn’t sting anymore. This time the height difference was in his favor and they didn’t have to perform any awkward tongue acrobatics the way he had with Tsuchinoya. He could almost pretend it wasn’t really kissing at all.
Shoutarou had absolutely no reaction to the junkishu, other than to frown slightly at the taste. Yuuki was a little irritated. It wasn’t fair if he was the only one who collapsed over some stupid drink. Just because he was a real vampire who only drank blood… It was a mean thought, and he didn’t let it get any further than that. He gave Shoutarou the rest of it and backed away.
Unsurprisingly, Shoutarou chose Negishi. He stared up at the tall vampire for a long moment. Eventually they both laughed and Negishi took a seat in the chair Yuuki had used. They still had a bit of an awkward time working out the logistics, but after a while it seemed like it went all right. Negishi choked after his first mouthful and started coughing, but it was nowhere near as dramatic as Yuuki’s experience had been.
Madame Youichirou drifted over to him and laid a hand on his cheek. “Are you troubled by the way your body reacted?” Yuuki reached up to hold her hand in place and looked down. “You shouldn’t be. My reaction was much worse than yours. I just didn’t have to show it to everyone. Do you think less of me for that?” Yuuki shook his head. “And I do not think less of you. If your classmates do… they will come to find that those who are able to show weakness are often those who are the strongest in time.” She kissed his brow. Shoutarou wandered over to them and she let go of Yuuki in order to steal an arm around his waist. “How goes it, little Shoutarou? The Bloodfast is a strange occasion, is it not?”
Yuuki stared past them to where Negishi and Professor Shiramata were locked in an embrace and couldn’t help but agree with her. “So we really aren’t allowed to drink blood?” Shoutarou asked. “Like, once you drink that junkishu stuff, you aren’t allowed to drink any human blood or vampire blood or anything until it’s over?”
“Correct. It diminishes your bloodhunger so that you do not suffer from that pain and forget yourself. There are incredibly severe consequences to breaking the fast. Not one vampire here would willingly break it knowing what those consequences were, and I do not exclude you nor myself from that.”
“So… you’re doing it too, right? Everyone’s doing it?”
“Everyone in the entire school is required to participate, yes. I myself hold something of a unique position but I am no less restricted by the rules than you are. Otherwise I’d be drinking from my love right now.” She giggled and spun around, her kimono sleeves flapping. “You may notice that while your desire for blood is almost nil, your desire for physical affection may be significantly increased.” She kissed Shoutarou on the forehead, Yuuki on the lips, and ran off. Negishi was apparently finished with Shiramata and she lifted him up and spun him around before kissing him as well and sending him flying in their direction.
Negishi stumbled only slightly on the landing and walked up to them. “I like her,” he said in an offhand way.
“Me too,” Yuuki said, and Shoutarou nodded. “Um. Why’d Professor Shiramata decided he wanted Akutsu?”
“Don’t you think they… look kind of alike?” Shoutarou said under his breath. Yuuki looked again and burst into uncontrollable laughter.
“They’re the same, the hair and the face and…” He couldn’t get out any more words before the laughter overtook him again.
“To be fair, if I had the chance, I would have chosen to kiss my doppelganger rather than either of you two,” Shoutarou said just as Yuuki was catching his breath, and that set him off again.
“You don’t talk anymore,” Yuuki ordered, and Shoutarou laughed at him.
Negishi was still watching Akutsu and Shiramata. “Vampires are weird,” he said. Shiramata was grinning and patting him on the head - he’d had something of a bad reaction, apparently - and Akutsu was looking too miserable even to glare at him. “That professor especially. He made me give him his all in one go, and then he sneezed afterwards. Have you ever heard of a vampire sneezing before? There’s no way. It just doesn’t happen.”
“Maybe he’s actually a fairy,” Shoutarou suggested. “With allergies.”
Yuuki doubled up in laughter. “I told you not to talk anymore!” Shoutarou shook his head at him.
“Maybe some vampires are just like that,” Negishi said slowly. “It’s kind of hard to imagine, though.”
When Yuuki looked over, Akutsu was kissing Jun with the same kind of intensity he had had when facing the dragon. “I guess there’s all different kinds. Everyone comes from all different times and backgrounds. I wonder what everyone’s stories are…” He looked down at the ground. He hardly knew what his own story was, but it didn’t much matter to him. In comparison, everyone else was so fascinating. Cold Tsuchinoya, who didn’t know how to kiss; Akutsu, who did everything with intensity; Professor Jinnai and Madame Youichirou, who even now were staring deep into each other’s eyes as if nothing else in the world had ever mattered to them… he wanted to know more about all of them, even if they scared him a little. He might be just an insignificant, powerless young vampire, but he had the opportunity to get to know them now, and he wouldn’t trade that for anything.
He smiled, grinning as wide as he could, even knowing it left his awful fangs on display. He might not be used to how they made him look, but they were what had given him this opportunity.
He wasn’t about to waste it.
--
Even now that the TRUMP has been released, please continue to support this silly little story about kissy-kiss vampires ;u;/
Characters: Everybody, this time especially Sho-chan, You-chan, Tooru, Yuuki, Shoutarou, Negi, and Shion.
Genre: Vampire School!AU
Chapter Rating: PG-13? A LOT OF VAMPIRES GET SMOOCHED.
Word Count: 7921
Summary: After a short time to heal, the Bloodfast begins.
Notes: This chapter is too long. D: I started writing a third POV for this one too but then it would really be too long even if it ended up short. D; It is always Puddingpire's fault every time this happens. Also I wrote the sections out of order kind of maybe! WOW INTERESTING
--
Chapter 6
Sho rummaged through the hangers, and when that failed, turned to the shelves and started pulling down robe after robe in search of the one Youichirou had asked him for. She had recovered some of her strength, though she hadn’t done much more than sit up and demand that he bring her some clothes. At last he found the faded, persimmon-colored yukata she was after and brought it out into the main room along with a selection of obis and other accessories. “I thought you said you weren’t going to wear this anymore.”
Youichirou looked up from the paper in front of her. He could see the weight of the centuries on her, on her face and in her eyes. Yet she smiled, and there was no trace of pain or exhaustion in it. “I know, I know. But when I am wanting comfort, it is the next best option available to me.”
Sho threw the yukata over her shoulders and kissed the top of her head. “I’m sorry, love. You know I’d make it all better if I could.” He tossed the obis away and sat down on the bed with her, embracing her from behind. “Whatcha doing?”
“Little Shoutarou worries. He asked of me a map.”
“In exchange for what?”
“He didn’t specify. I’m sure I’ll think of something.”
Normally that would be the cue for her to show him what she had in mind by sinking her teeth into him, but the Bloodfast had already started for the two of them. It was lonely somehow, losing that connection, even though their bond wasn’t so trifling a thing. He sighed and tightened his hold on her, careful not to put too much pressure on her injuries.
She shifted, bringing her good hand up to touch his. “Sho?”
“I’m sorry. You know how I get.”
“It never stops being silly though.” She poked at him. “You drank from me half an hour hence and already you want more.”
“Because I love you,” he whined.
“Yes, of course. I’m almost finished with this and then I can pay proper attention to you, my poor love.” Sho buried his face in her curls and ran his fingers up and down the lengths of her body as she wrote. She folded it when she was done and sent it flying under the door. “Dearest. What is it you want?”
“Wanna kiss you all over,” Sho mumbled into her neck. “Can’t though. Stupid rules.”
“I don’t suppose me kissing you is an acceptable substitute. After all, you’d still have to do most of the work anyway.”
“…Please?”
She just smiled in response. Sho helped her lie flat and positioned himself over her. They worked together to unbutton his shirt and she ran her tongue over his collarbone. He moved forward and she began tracing lines against his chest with her lips. She bit down, not hard enough to draw blood, and he moaned unabashedly.
“Is this a bad time?” Kamitsuru said brightly from the door. Sho gave him his most disgusted look while Youichirou made an attempt to cover herself. Kamitsuru, predictably, took no notice. “I just wondered if we could speed the process along, that’s all. The sooner we get started, the sooner I can get out of here and leave you to your…” He waved his hand at them. “Married stuff.”
Sho was more embarrassed about the state of their room than about Kamitsuru walking in on them again. At least normally the bed was in one piece. It was no worse than Kamitsuru’s little den was on a daily basis though, and he shook it off. “The stuff’s over there, so if you’re here wanting us to get on with that, you can leave. Otherwise, you can wait until we have ourselves put back together.” He repositioned himself in front of Youichirou.
Kamitsuru sighed and ran a hand through his wild hair. “Look, I’m sorry, but I don’t have a lot of time right now. The little one I sensed is very different from any of the others, and he’s incredibly scared. I don’t know what I’m going to have to do to get through to him, and I don’t know how long I’ve got.” He put an icy hand on Sho’s shoulder. “Please?”
“No,” Sho said, pushing him off. Kamitsuru caught his hand and held it.
“Please, Jin? And Youichirou, I really am sorry, I didn’t mean to spring it on you like this. I can heal you.”
Sho hesitated for a fraction of a second. “If you heal her, then I’ll do what you want me to.”
“Done.”
Suddenly Sho was standing halfway across the room with a shirt half-on, and Youichirou was fully clothed, the golden obi that she liked so much secured around her waist and a pin in her hair. Kamitsuru was bending over her and wiping a tear from her face. “Did you erase our memories again?” Sho demanded, stomping over. His mouth felt strange somehow, which was never a good sign. Youichirou looked confused and reached for him, and he took her hand.
“I can’t let you remember what I did,” Kamitsuru said. “I’d tell you that you both agreed to let me erase it, but you probably wouldn’t believe me.”
“You wouldn’t love us if we did,” Youichirou said, and Kamitsuru grinned at her. “I’m sure I appreciate you healing me, although I am slightly dubious as to how you went about it.”
“You were only mad it was that simple.” He turned to the table and picked up the container of clear liquid. “Can we get started, then?”
Sho eyed it. “You’re sure we didn’t do it already?”
“It wouldn’t work that way. Sorry. I’m afraid you won’t be able to forget this.”
Sho concluded that the level of liquid didn’t seem to have decreased, and he picked up his small vial. He filled it up and raised an eyebrow at Kamitsuru. “You ready?”
“Is the Madame ready?” Kamitsuru responded, eyes dancing.
Youichirou straightened up and leaned forward. “Oh, I’m always ready.”
Sho rolled his eyes at her and didn’t bother to say anything. They’d heard it all before. “Go ahead, then.”
Kamitsuru took the vial from him and held it up to Sho’s lips. Sho took about half of the liquid into his mouth and Kamitsuru handed it off to Youichirou before putting his hands on Sho’s shoulders and bringing their lips together. Sho pushed the liquid into Kamitsuru’s mouth, their tongues brushing together as Kamitsuru drank it in. He swallowed and fell heavily against Sho as its effects hit him. Sho helped him down onto the bed and Youichirou supported him. “You okay?”
“Sure. Just give me a second.”
He started to struggle to his feet, but Sho stopped him and sat down beside him. He took the vial from Youichirou. “You’re getting old, Tsuru. One of these days this stuff will kill you.”
“It’s good for me,” Kamitsuru protested, even as Youichirou had to prop his head up to look at Sho. “It’s good for all of us.”
“Uh-huh.” Sho helped him raise the glass again. It took longer to transfer it this time, since Kamitsuru wasn’t really helping - whether out of weakness or laziness he wasn’t sure. When their lips finally separated, Kamitsuru swallowed and went completely still. Sho looked at Youichirou, who shrugged.
After a while, Kamitsuru opened an eye. “Nothing? Not worried about me?”
“Not after you played it the exact same way last time,” Sho said.
“We probably would have started worrying if it had gone on a little longer, but…” Youichirou shrugged. “You said you were in a hurry, after all, so we figured you wouldn’t keep it up for long.”
“And if something really was wrong?” Kamitsuru’s voice took on a whining edge.
“Then, dear, we would have wailed endlessly over your corpse, of course,” she said. She gave him the chance to laugh in response before covering his mouth with her own. Sho immediately felt left out and dove on top of them, and when that wasn’t enough, he began fighting Youichirou for control of Kamitsuru’s lips. He was successful, and Kamitsuru’s tongue swept into his mouth and began attacking his mouth, as if he were trying to make sure he hadn’t missed any of the liquid. Youichirou lost interest in fighting with Sho and instead began nibbling on his ear as she watched them. Eventually she tired of that as well and remarked “I thought you were in a hurry?”
Kamitsuru took his time disentangling himself from Sho, who wasn’t making it particularly easy for him either. “When else am I going to have the opportunity to say a proper goodbye to my dearest seconds-in-command?” he said, kissing Sho between words. When he finished speaking, Sho lunged at him again, and they fell back together, taking Youichirou with them. This left her in a more advantageous position and she was able to reclaim Kamitsuru from him. Sho let her have him but remained on top. He combed through his hair, admiring how the sooty black transitioned to gleaming silver. He continued until Kamitsuru finally waved them off with a smile and a gentle shove. “It’s good to know you’ll miss me.”
“We won’t,” they said together, and kissed a cheek each before Sho pulled Kamitsuru to his feet and he in turned pulled up Youichirou. Sho picked up the vials containing his blood while Kamitsuru took the container of clear liquid, and Youichirou winked at them and headed to retrieve a bottle of blood from the cellar. Left alone with Kamitsuru, the boiling pressure in his blood began to decrease and the lust he had felt for the other vampire faded considerably, though it never fully disappeared.
“You can’t be around us both at the same time anymore,” he said with finality, and Kamitsuru laughed.
“Why not?” He puckered his lips at Sho, who had his hands full and had to resort to kicking him to get him to stop. “I have to say, I do much prefer your company that way.”
“That’s because you’re a manipulative old lech.” Sho walked out, and Kamitsuru followed, his aura radiating pleasure at Sho’s words. It figured that he was immortal and working for the worst boss ever. He was pretty sure the only way he was ever going to be able to permanently leave the job was if Kamitsuru killed him.
The only positive that immediately occurred to him was that Kamitsuru didn’t jump him on the way to the dining hall, and even that was ruined when he pushed him against the wall and began kissing him hungrily as soon as they arrived. The first thing Sho did after he let go of him was to put down the vials so his hands would be free to push him away if it happened again, and the second thing was to turn back to him with the most displeased face he could manage. “Really?”
“I’ll be gone for a long time. I have to get my fill of you while I can.” Kamitsuru looked the slightest bit apologetic, which irritated Sho more than it would have if he’d just been his usual grinning idiot self.
“A few months is hardly a long time, Mr. Older-than-Dirt.” Kamitsuru continued looking at him with that sheepish expression and Sho swore. “How long do you think these kids can go? I’m hardly ready for a long Fast, to say nothing of Yamada. I don’t think he even knew who he was when I left him!”
“Sorry. But I can already tell I’m going to need to spend a while with the new one, figure out how he works, what makes him different, how he’ll react to others. And that’s after I get to him. But I need to get to him quickly, and I need there to be a Fast, and if this is the only way… well, I’m sorry, but that’s how it has to be.” Kamitsuru looked miserable, and for a moment Sho wanted to comfort him before he took control of his blood and remembered why he had absolutely no reason to do so.
“What’s so good about Bloodfasts anyway,” he grumbled, and decided to walk to the adjacent goblet room rather than pulling them out with magic. Kamitsuru trailed after him and helped carry them without complaint. Youichirou turned up eventually with a decent vintage and began pouring it, while Sho contrived to move to an even further room to prevent Kamitsuru from taking advantage of the blood connection again. He returned with cloths and a few random ornamental pieces he had come across, and to the sounds of messy kissing. He lurked in the doorway and waited until they were finished before entering. He did his best to get everything prepared quickly, since it was the last chance he had to speed up the process. Kamitsuru always liked to do a certain amount of grandstanding at a Bloodfast regardless of his apparent haste, and who knew how the kids would react to the ceremony.
“Anything else?” he asked when they had finished setting up.
“One last kiss for the road?”
“Only if you promise to think of us on the lonely nights,” Sho said, and gave him what he wanted. Youichirou did the same and, apparently satisfied, Kamitsuru went off to ring the supper bell.
Sho exchanged glances with Youichirou. “At least he’ll be gone for a year or so?”
-
Between the burns, the head trauma, and the not-so-subtle warning from Professor Jinnai, Yuuki really had no reason to get out of bed. After the room around him stopped whirling and settled into a rhythmic pulsating, he was able to focus his thoughts as well as his vision.
Unfortunately, what his mind decided to focus on was Madame Youichirou. He made a series of increasingly unhappy noises as he remembered the way she had kissed him last night, and how he woke earlier to find her bending over him, her breath mingling with his. He made a slight detour to Professor Jinnai’s brief and utterly chaste kiss, which he tried to reroute into something resembling education or the familial bonds of vampire kinship, but then he recalled the words he had shouted in his hazy state and then he couldn’t think of anything else. His hands still felt like they were on fire, but that was nothing compared to his burning face, and he groaned. “What was I even trying to do?” he asked himself, and since the answer was “Make her come back and kiss you some more, and maybe let her devour you whole,” he decided that the best thing to do was to stop thinking. After a minute’s effort, he was able to sit up, and the resulting head rush and surge of pain did the trick nicely. He swayed and fell over again.
When the thoughts started creeping back and he happened to remember the mental image that had come to him, for whatever reason, of Madame Youichirou painted in his blood and peeling the skin from his body, he shuddered and sat up again, but this time he didn’t fall back. After a dizzying moment, he apparently felt well enough to add Professor Jinnai into the image and screamed very quietly. Maybe quite loudly. It was hard to tell with the ringing in his ears.
He tried to get up quickly, kicking the covers away as best he could. When he had both feet planted firmly on the ground, he stood up. Immediately his vision was replaced by a wall of grey static interrupted by the occasional rainbow splotch. He staggered in the direction of the wall and collapsed onto it until his sight cleared and he stopped feeling like a flattened mosquito. In fifty years, he’d learned that vampires wouldn’t die so easily, but at this point he was almost hoping he would anyway. It wouldn’t be so bad to just fall to the ground and die, alone, and if it meant never knowing his true potential or what it would be like to lie with another vampire or how to conjure butterflies out of the air, it wasn’t such a heavy price to pay. Madame Youichirou could cut him up all she liked after he was dead.
He quickly gave up on feeling sorry for himself as the thoughts persisted and he looked for another distraction. His nightclothes were wherever he had tossed them in his rush to get dressed, and he decided to clean them up. He pulled his night shirt off a pane of glass set to the side of the room and was bending down to retrieve his underwear when he realized it wasn’t just glass. It was a mirror.
A mirror that reflected him.
He scrambled to his feet, all thoughts of cleaning up or being ravished by Madame Youichirou instantly driven from his mind, pressing his hands to the glass, then to his face. He sent his fingers sweeping over the mirror, watching the reflection match his every movement. He hadn’t realized how much he had missed being able to see what he looked like, and how much he had taken it for granted in his previous life. It was like meeting an old friend, noticing all the subtle changes time had wrought while recognizing those features nothing could change. There was a thin, silvery scar he hadn’t known about beside his left ear, and he looked battered, worn down, and tired, and yet for all that… for all that, his eyes hadn’t changed. He had always liked their slanted, slightly fierce appearance. Women had been drawn to them… or had it been one woman in particular? He couldn’t remember. He had lost so much of himself, but the light that shone in his eyes was still familiar to him, and that was enough to make him shake some of the pain off and smile, wide and unselfconscious. That gave him pause, and he touched each of his fangs in turn. They looked so much longer than they felt. With them sticking out, he looked fearsome, inhuman, not at all like the Yamada Yuuki that had been. He smiled ruefully at the red tears trickling down his cheeks. Apparently vampires cried blood too. He never would have guessed. He wiped them away and took another long look into the mirror before bending down to retrieve his clothes again.
After he folded and replaced them, he went back for another look. This time he took in his mangled outfit and went to find something less charred to wear. He wondered if the cravat had fallen off or if it had just burned to ash. Either way, good riddance. With his hands heavily bandaged, it took him an agonizingly long time to unbutton each button and he stood shirtless in front of the mirror for a long time before he found the energy to find another one to put on. He looked at the row of collared shirts in his closet before deciding that dinner was an informal affair for concussed vampires and pulling on one of his soft and happily buttonless sweaters.
He thought about lying down again and waiting until dinner, but he was already feeling better just by moving around. After shuffling around the room and looking at the rest of the furniture, which didn’t captivate him the way the mirror had, he turned to the door. He had promised Professor Jinnai not to leave the room, he had told him that he could trust him… but maybe Jinnai hadn’t thought he’d recover so quickly. Maybe he was just trying to make sure that if he was too weak to move, he wouldn’t end up lying unconscious in some hallway and he’d have to waste time looking for him. He was… maybe not in the best shape, maybe a little light-headed, but since he hadn’t fallen over again in a while, he didn’t think it would be a problem. He still hesitated before twisting the knob and opening the door. He was half-expecting to see Madame Youichirou, or maybe another dragon, waiting on the other side. Before he could decide which was worse, a chime rang out and he started guiltily. He laughed nervously, a little relieved he hadn’t quite ended up breaking his promise after all, and set off for dinner.
On the way, he met Shoutarou, who was walking in the wrong direction and staring at a piece of paper. The little vampire seemed on edge, and he thought it best not to sneak up on him. He backed up a little. “Shoutarou! Hey!”
Shoutarou turned around carefully. “Oh. Hey. Ready to… eat?”
“Definitely, I’m starving.” Shoutarou’s expression darkened and Yuuki winced, wondering what he had gone through to be this obviously distressed by the thought of a vampire doing what it was supposed to do. What it had no choice but to do. “I’m glad they just prepare it for us, though,” he said carefully, “I’m in no shape to hunt anything down for sure. In fact, you might have to get a funnel and pour it into me.” Shoutarou seemed to relax a bit after that, and Yuuki made a mental note to avoid the subject when possible. “What have you got there?”
“Ah, I asked Madame Youichirou and she made this map for me, so I wouldn’t run into any of the traps.”
“Traps?”
“Yeah, they apparently have a bunch of them. Haven’t you run into any of them yet, with a teacher or something?”
Yuuki shrugged. “Maybe they put me in the safe hallway because they figured I’d hurt myself.”
Shoutarou tapped the paper. “Well, you can see one if you go this way, maybe. Stick to the right-hand side of the hallway, or else.” Yuuki did so. The second he started walking slightly to the left, the ground gave out under his foot and he had to scramble back to safety before he fell… down. Very far down, by the look of things.
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah, apparently this place is full of things like that.” They backed up to the intersection they had started at and took the other path to the dining hall.
“Heeeyyy!” They turned to see Negishi running toward them. His pace slowed to a limping walk as he caught up. “So, you’re alive!”
“Was I really that bad off?”
“Yes,” Negishi and Shoutarou said together. Yuuki winced. “Let’s just say that if you were where I came from, you’d have been drained and dumped,” Negishi went on.
“Where did you come from?”
“The pits. These really strong vampires, nobles, I guess, would capture people and change them, then have them fight. If you did decently, they usually wouldn’t kill you even if you lost, because it was too much trouble to find someone else, I guess. But if you lost badly, and a couple in a row, they’d let everyone drink from them and then kill them, unless the owner wanted to torture them himself instead.”
Shoutarou looked a little faint. Yuuki didn’t really know what to say. “That sucks,” he said eventually.
Negishi shrugged. “Well, I’m out of it now. The headmaster saved me and killed a bunch of them, which was pretty cool. It’s been kind of a long time now, and I try to forget about it, to tell you the truth.”
“Yeah, haha… So how about that dragon, huh? Let me tell you, you guys missed out not riding that thing…” There was nothing subtle about his change of subject, but Shoutarou took it up eagerly and they stayed on it until they arrived at dinner. The table was as it had been the previous night, but instead of bottles, there were only glasses, and half-full glasses at that. The headmaster, Professor Jinnai, Madame Youichirou, and Professor Shiramata were standing at the back of the room, looking about as unhappy as Yuuki felt about the amount of blood provided, though he suspected it was for different reasons.
Madame Youichirou was dressed in an old kimono that made her look rather shabby in comparison to her earlier splendor. As they walked in, she got up and led the three of them to seats at the table. “I don’t suppose any of you have taken part in a Bloodfast before.”
Unless the headmaster locking him up counted, which he didn’t think it did, Yuuki hadn’t, and he said as much. The others echoed him. “As much was assumed. Well, that will no longer be true after the rest arrive.”
Maeyama came in next, supporting Jun, who wasn’t looking so great. Maeyama didn’t have any visible injuries save for a bandage around his wrist, and he was smiling as he spoke to Jun. Madame Youichirou directed them to sit on opposite sides of the table, and Maeyama’s smile faded. He left Jun sitting across from Yuuki and took his seat a few chairs down. Yuuki hadn’t realized before how big Jun’s eyes were. It was almost frightening, but at the same time, it suited him. He realized that he thought Jun was very, very cute, and he smelled very, very good.
Rather than attack him (and probably incur Maeyama’s wrath, and probably give Shoutarou a heart attack), he decided to introduce himself. “You’re Jun, right? I’m Yuuki. Are you feeling better?”
Jun blinked slowly and peered up at him. “A little.” The rest of the world seemed to drift away as the soft tones of his voice echoed in his ears, and Yuuki let out a contented sigh.
“I like you, you’re a good vampire,” he said, and Jun looked at him questioningly, the hint of a smile on his lips. “I mean, you’re really… I’m sure you… I like your face,” he said, hating his inability to express himself, but only a little. He didn’t have the attention to spare it, focused as he was on Jun.
“Thank you, Yuuki. I like your face too.” Yuuki felt as if he were going to float out of his chair and keep going until he crashed into the ceiling. He’d already survived one fall of about that height today, and he didn’t see why he couldn’t do it again, especially if Jun would kindly watch over him while he recovered. He didn’t see why he wouldn’t. He said he liked his face too, after all.
Negishi elbowed him. “What’s wrong with you?”
That my last seventy years of life were lacking in this beautiful boy, he wanted to say, but he kept it together and said instead, “I think that fall scrambled my brains. I can’t think straight unless I’m moving.” He looked back at Jun, eager to resume the conversation, but Jun was back to chatting with Maeyama.
“Dear Akutsu, you won’t have taken part in a Bloodfast either, will you?”
The irritable vampire hadn’t bothered to change clothes after the dragon incident. He smelled strongly of smoke and burned hair. “After the dragon blew up, he disappeared before any of the teachers noticed,” Shoutarou whispered. “Wonder what he did…”
“Hopefully he didn’t fall into that hole from before,” Yuuki whispered back, and Shoutarou had to stifle laughter as Akutsu sat next to him, regarding them all with a cold gaze. “Hey,” Yuuki said, deciding it was better to try and make friends with him. “It was pretty cool how you fought that dragon.” Akutsu looked at him coldly, and Yuuki fought to keep the smile on his face until he finally looked away. Clearly he wouldn’t have so easy a time making this friendship. Maybe he was just shy, and would open up more as time went on. Yuuki concluded that it was too soon to give up and decided to continue being nice to him, even if he was a little scary.
Speaking of scary… Tsuchinoya walked in, dressed all in black, with a long, sweeping cape spread behind him. Dark amethysts glinted in his ears and at his throat. The cold accompanying him as he swept by froze any words of greeting Yuuki had for him in the back of his throat. He remembered how he had woken up to find him staring at him, and shuddered. He could feel Tsuchinoya’s eyes on him now as well and deliberately didn’t make eye contact. Something within his blood warned him that it was dangerous to get too close to Tsuchinoya, that he would be risking his life to do so. Some other part of him was fascinated by the noble vampire, but it wasn’t the same sort of attraction he’d felt to Jun or Madame Youichirou. Instead of the desire to share blood and sensations and affections, it was more like the desire to serve.
Yuuki laid his head down on the table, stifling a groan. This was all too much. Was he supposed to be feeling so much weird attraction toward other vampires? He could accept Madame Youichirou, because she had made her intentions toward him quite clear, and she was absolutely gorgeous, even in a faded kimono. Maybe if he had time to sort through his feelings, he could understand why some of them were directed at Professor Jinnai as well, especially since he and Madame Youichirou seemed to be so close. But he couldn’t make sense of his immediate infatuation with Jun, or whatever Tsuchinoya’s deal was, and he couldn’t be sure that he wouldn’t find similar urges directed at Akutsu or any of the others if he kept at it. He hoped it was just that the forty-some years without meaningful interpersonal contact had gotten to him, and he would have to deal with the inappropriate lust only until he remembered how to deal with people again.
They waited, but Yukito and Mitsuya didn’t turn up, nor did Professor Yamaguchi. It seemed to Yuuki as if someone else was missing, but he couldn’t think of who it could possibly be. At last, the headmaster clapped his hands. “Everyone, you may drink. We need not wait for those who do not arrive promptly.”
Yuuki picked up his glass, swirled the liquid around, and raised it to his lips. He drank about half of it before the taste and texture of the blood started to feel a little familiar. He gasped as it raced down his throat and left flames of heat in its wake. It pooled in his stomach and raced out, flooding every inch of his body with fire. Hurts he hadn’t even noticed flared up and were extinguished, and after he finished the glass, he felt stronger than he ever had. He began to unwrap the now-unnecessary bandages on his hands, glancing at the others as he did so. Jun was looking much the way Yuuki felt, and Shoutarou was sipping it slowly, looking happier and more relaxed than Yuuki had seen him. Akutsu and Negishi both seemed to be radiating a dark light that looked like hunger and were licking their lips disconcertingly. Yuuki looked away from them and at the other side of the room. Tsuchinoya and Maeyama didn’t appear to have had the same reaction to it, or they were hiding it better. Of the teachers, only Shiramata had a cup, and he seemed normal as well. Professor Jinnai caught Yuuki’s eye and smiled at him, pointing to his throat. Yuuki cocked his head to the side until the significance of the teacher’s gesture occurred to him and he pointed at his glass with a questioning expression. Jinnai nodded and winked, and Yuuki turned back to the table, a different kind of heat rushing to his face. “You guys. Professor Jinnai gave us his blood.”
“Really?” Shoutarou said, eyeing his last mouthful. He looked at Jinnai, who gave him a thumbs-up. “Whoa, it is.” He swallowed the last of it carefully, almost respectfully in a way.
“It’s his mixed with ordinary human blood,” Jun said, sitting back in his chair. “Mae-chan just got normal, I guess because we got hurt a lot worse than he did.” He shifted and blushed. “Mae-chan-senpai, I mean.” He made eyes at Maeyama, and Maeyama winked back at him. Before it could get any more awkward, Yuuki suddenly felt compelled to look at the headmaster, who produced a glass jar from his voluminous sleeves and twirled it flamboyantly.
“I hope you’ve all enjoyed your meals. I’m pleased to announce that we will be starting a Bloodfast tonight, which means you will not be having any more for some time.”
Yuuki reacted almost before the words registered with him, standing up so quickly he knocked his chair over. “Why!” The other students began whispering behind him.
The headmaster laughed and swept over to him. “Yamada Yuuki, what a contentious child you are. You’ve had something of a private Bloodfast before, haven’t you?” He righted his chair. “The purpose is the same, though the methodology is different. It will purify you, and make you stronger by drawing out your innate talents, rather than augmenting you with those of others. I wonder, is it you who spoke out just now, or is it Jin-chan’s blood still boiling in you?” He put his hand on Yuuki’s head and rubbed it slowly, fingers snarling in his hair. Yuuki wanted to snarl back, but there was some other part of him that wanted him to keep caressing him, to bring his face closer and kiss him so, so softly. Was that Professor Jinnai’s blood in him, or was it his own desire? His breath quickened and the headmaster looked at him and the light disappeared from his eyes. It was as if he knew exactly what was going on in Yuuki’s mind, and was looking forward to either option. Yuuki forced himself to calm down. The headmaster shook his head at him, as if disappointed, and went on. “When performed properly at proper intervals, the Bloodfast also extends the life of a member of the nobility, and young master Tsuchinoya will benefit greatly from it. You wouldn’t want to cut short the number of years left to your classmate, would you?”
His eyes flickered over to Tsuchinoya. “Of course not.” He sunk back down into his seat and the headmaster pushed the chair in. Were nobles really not immortal? Come to think of it, he was basing his own immortal status on myth and rumor, and the fact that he didn’t age… but if Madame Youichirou was really over a thousand years old, maybe it wasn’t such a bad assumption to make.
“I’d love to tell you all the details, but time has not yet lost its meaning, so shall we begin?” He went over to Tsuchinoya and took his hand. “Would you care to start your Fast with me?”
Tsuchinoya nodded after a second’s pause, and they walked to the front of the room together. Their movements were graceful, almost as if they were preparing for a dance. Yuuki hoped they weren’t.
The headmaster opened the glass of clear liquid. “This is junkishu, a wine made from powerful emotions. It will curb your hunger and detoxify your body. Drinking it is what starts and ends the ritual. Once you drink it, you are forbidden from consuming blood until we hold the second ceremony.” He dropped Tsuchinoya’s hand and produced a glass tube. “This is how the drinking must be done.” Tsuchinoya took the tube and filled it with junkishu. “We’ll be doing it in two exchanges, but you should discuss how you will do it with your partners. It doesn’t matter how many times you do it, so long as you transfer all of it in the following way.”
Tsuchinoya let the headmaster drink from the tube and Professor Jinnai stepped forward to take it. Tsuchinoya ran a hand over the headmaster’s face and the headmaster smiled at him. It was such a tender expression that Yuuki wondered if he was imagining it. Wonder turned into shock as Tsuchinoya tilted the headmaster’s chin down, leaned forward, and kissed him. Yuuki only realized he was staring when they finally broke apart.
“You may think it strange, but this is the most efficient way,” the headmaster said, noting their discomfort. “Think of it as a chance to get familiar with your new classmates. There’s much to learn just from getting closer to another vampire.” He drank it in for the second time, and this time Yuuki closed his eyes so he didn’t have to watch. He only opened them again when the headmaster began speaking again. “That’s all there is to it. You may feel weak when drinking, or you may not feel anything at all. It depends on the person. Now then, Tsuchinoya, who would you like to go next?”
Yuuki turned back to his friends in horror as Tsuchinoya looked over them. “He gets to choose?” he mouthed at them and Shoutarou shook his head at him, directing his attention back to the front of the room. Tsuchinoya was pointing at him. Slow on the uptake, Yuuki met his eyes and pointed back at himself questioningly.
Then he got it. “Ehhh?!” He turned back to Shoutarou, who nodded at him, an unreadable expression on his face. He wanted to die again, but instead he found his legs carrying him forward and towards Tsuchinoya. Tsuchinoya’s face was similarly blank. Yuuki supposed that he wasn’t particularly surprised that Tsuchinoya had chosen him, now that he’d gotten over the initial shock, but he still didn’t understand what attraction he could hold for the supposedly-royal vampire. Tsuchinoya offered him the glass tube and Yuuki wiped it off on his shirt. Kissing Tsuchinoya might be inevitable, but he could live without kissing the headmaster, even indirectly. “So, um, we’ll do it in two parts too, I guess?”
Tsuchinoya nodded. Yuuki wondered why he never spoke. It wasn’t that he couldn’t, if the dragon proved anything. He dipped the tube in junkishu, lifted it to Tsuchinoya’s lips, and poured it slowly into his mouth. Professor Jinnai came forward to take it from him and Yuuki shot a pleading look at him. He just smirked and backed away, leaving him to face Tsuchinoya. Yuuki closed his eyes, took a deep breath, opened them, and kissed him.
It was like kissing ice cream. Tsuchinoya’s lips were every bit as cold as the rest of him, but so soft and pliant it was as if he were literally melting at his touch. It was such a strange sensation that Yuuki nearly panicked when he felt liquid against his lips, only to realize that it was the junkishu. This raised another problem - Tsuchinoya was a good bit shorter than Yuuki, and he was fighting against gravity trying to get the junkishu into his mouth. Yuuki tried to change his position to make it easier for him, but it was harder than expected and it took quite a few tries before the situation improved even a little. Yuuki ended up with his head almost perfectly horizontal and still had to use his tongue to coax it from Tsuchinoya. Tsuchinoya wasn’t helping much, but to Yuuki it seemed more like he didn’t really know what to do. It was almost sweet in a way.
Finally he managed to get all that he could and stepped back from Tsuchinoya before swallowing it. If he had thought that Tsuchinoya was cold, if he had thought Professor Jinnai’s blood was strong, the junkishu was so much more than that that those words barely applied. He felt like he was being frozen and shattered and mangled and ripped inside out and when he finally felt put back together, he was on his knees, clutching at Tsuchinoya’s legs. As soon as he realized this, he was humiliated, but couldn’t get up for another agonizingly long minute. At last he staggered back to his feet, leaning on Tsuchinoya and Professor Jinnai for support. Madame Youichirou brought up a chair and Yuuki fell into it. At a nod from the headmaster, Tsuchinoya forced the tube into Yuuki’s hand and drank from it, then fell on him, forcing his mouth open and the junkishu in. It wasn’t as bad this time, if only because the liquid was still pulsing through his veins at an alarming rate, and he had been stretched so far to his limits that the addition couldn’t make it any worse. When Tsuchinoya let go of him, he fell back into the chair and stayed there. He didn’t know how long. It was very, very silent. A cold hand took his and Yuuki looked up dully, thinking it would be Tsuchinoya.
It was the headmaster. “I know it’s tough, Yuuki. I know. But you did well. I’m proud of you.” He lifted him to his feet and steadied him, then embraced him. Yuuki sucked in a quick breath, seemingly the first since he had drunk the junkishu, and felt his body heating up. Mobility began to return to his body and soon enough he was able to let go of the headmaster’s hand with a grudging word of thanks. “If you’re better, would you choose the next person to go?”
“Uh…” He looked out at them. For a second, he wanted to choose Jun, but then he met Shoutarou’s eye and knew he had to choose him. “Shoutarou, you want to get it over with, right?”
“Not really,” Shoutarou called back, but he looked relieved and ran over. Professor Jinnai offered him the tube and he filled it up. It fizzed as it entered Yuuki’s mouth, but it didn’t sting anymore. This time the height difference was in his favor and they didn’t have to perform any awkward tongue acrobatics the way he had with Tsuchinoya. He could almost pretend it wasn’t really kissing at all.
Shoutarou had absolutely no reaction to the junkishu, other than to frown slightly at the taste. Yuuki was a little irritated. It wasn’t fair if he was the only one who collapsed over some stupid drink. Just because he was a real vampire who only drank blood… It was a mean thought, and he didn’t let it get any further than that. He gave Shoutarou the rest of it and backed away.
Unsurprisingly, Shoutarou chose Negishi. He stared up at the tall vampire for a long moment. Eventually they both laughed and Negishi took a seat in the chair Yuuki had used. They still had a bit of an awkward time working out the logistics, but after a while it seemed like it went all right. Negishi choked after his first mouthful and started coughing, but it was nowhere near as dramatic as Yuuki’s experience had been.
Madame Youichirou drifted over to him and laid a hand on his cheek. “Are you troubled by the way your body reacted?” Yuuki reached up to hold her hand in place and looked down. “You shouldn’t be. My reaction was much worse than yours. I just didn’t have to show it to everyone. Do you think less of me for that?” Yuuki shook his head. “And I do not think less of you. If your classmates do… they will come to find that those who are able to show weakness are often those who are the strongest in time.” She kissed his brow. Shoutarou wandered over to them and she let go of Yuuki in order to steal an arm around his waist. “How goes it, little Shoutarou? The Bloodfast is a strange occasion, is it not?”
Yuuki stared past them to where Negishi and Professor Shiramata were locked in an embrace and couldn’t help but agree with her. “So we really aren’t allowed to drink blood?” Shoutarou asked. “Like, once you drink that junkishu stuff, you aren’t allowed to drink any human blood or vampire blood or anything until it’s over?”
“Correct. It diminishes your bloodhunger so that you do not suffer from that pain and forget yourself. There are incredibly severe consequences to breaking the fast. Not one vampire here would willingly break it knowing what those consequences were, and I do not exclude you nor myself from that.”
“So… you’re doing it too, right? Everyone’s doing it?”
“Everyone in the entire school is required to participate, yes. I myself hold something of a unique position but I am no less restricted by the rules than you are. Otherwise I’d be drinking from my love right now.” She giggled and spun around, her kimono sleeves flapping. “You may notice that while your desire for blood is almost nil, your desire for physical affection may be significantly increased.” She kissed Shoutarou on the forehead, Yuuki on the lips, and ran off. Negishi was apparently finished with Shiramata and she lifted him up and spun him around before kissing him as well and sending him flying in their direction.
Negishi stumbled only slightly on the landing and walked up to them. “I like her,” he said in an offhand way.
“Me too,” Yuuki said, and Shoutarou nodded. “Um. Why’d Professor Shiramata decided he wanted Akutsu?”
“Don’t you think they… look kind of alike?” Shoutarou said under his breath. Yuuki looked again and burst into uncontrollable laughter.
“They’re the same, the hair and the face and…” He couldn’t get out any more words before the laughter overtook him again.
“To be fair, if I had the chance, I would have chosen to kiss my doppelganger rather than either of you two,” Shoutarou said just as Yuuki was catching his breath, and that set him off again.
“You don’t talk anymore,” Yuuki ordered, and Shoutarou laughed at him.
Negishi was still watching Akutsu and Shiramata. “Vampires are weird,” he said. Shiramata was grinning and patting him on the head - he’d had something of a bad reaction, apparently - and Akutsu was looking too miserable even to glare at him. “That professor especially. He made me give him his all in one go, and then he sneezed afterwards. Have you ever heard of a vampire sneezing before? There’s no way. It just doesn’t happen.”
“Maybe he’s actually a fairy,” Shoutarou suggested. “With allergies.”
Yuuki doubled up in laughter. “I told you not to talk anymore!” Shoutarou shook his head at him.
“Maybe some vampires are just like that,” Negishi said slowly. “It’s kind of hard to imagine, though.”
When Yuuki looked over, Akutsu was kissing Jun with the same kind of intensity he had had when facing the dragon. “I guess there’s all different kinds. Everyone comes from all different times and backgrounds. I wonder what everyone’s stories are…” He looked down at the ground. He hardly knew what his own story was, but it didn’t much matter to him. In comparison, everyone else was so fascinating. Cold Tsuchinoya, who didn’t know how to kiss; Akutsu, who did everything with intensity; Professor Jinnai and Madame Youichirou, who even now were staring deep into each other’s eyes as if nothing else in the world had ever mattered to them… he wanted to know more about all of them, even if they scared him a little. He might be just an insignificant, powerless young vampire, but he had the opportunity to get to know them now, and he wouldn’t trade that for anything.
He smiled, grinning as wide as he could, even knowing it left his awful fangs on display. He might not be used to how they made him look, but they were what had given him this opportunity.
He wasn’t about to waste it.
--
Even now that the TRUMP has been released, please continue to support this silly little story about kissy-kiss vampires ;u;/