ENTRY #4 Linger Part 2
Title: Linger
Word Count 11,415
Rating: PG-13
Genre: AU/Supernatural
Summary: A workaholic twenty-five-year-old man one day stumbles on a youthful boy of fifteen, who is really more than what meets the eye. “You’re all grown up now, Sho-kun,” the boy says, “I hate it.”
I woke up from a dreamless sleep the following morning and found myself staring into unfamiliar eyes.
I bolted up and realized soon enough that I had slept overnight in Ninomiya’s house, and that Kazunari Ninomiya himself was now staring right at me.
“Good morning,” he said, his smile more teasing than congenial as he stood up from crouching beside the couch.
“Good morning,” I greeted back, feeling a little disoriented and flinching at the smell of my own breath.
“J said I should come check on you. But I think you’re doing a good job packing this place up by yourself. Not to mention that you’re still alive and, well, here.”
“Yeah, I got it covered,” I said, then frowned when I caught up with what he said last.”What do you mean?”
“Somebody went missing last night,” Ninomiya replied casually, like he was telling me about the weather. “Quite close to this place, actually.”
I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment to pull my wits together. Then asked to be excused so I could fix myself up before I start working for him today.
“I’ve already seen you asleep, Sakurai-san,” Ninomiya said jeeringly. “Do you think I’d still care if you looked like you’ve just woken up? Which, by the way, you just did.
“I’m sorry,” I said, trying not to sound annoyed. “About sleeping in your house, I deeply apologize. But I really do need to be excused.”
Ninomiya chuckled. “Hey! I only meant I didn’t care about appearances, but do go ahead if it’ll make you feel better. You know where my bathroom is, right? Or did you mean you wanted to go home for a while?”
“I’ll only be a moment,” I said, then bowed before grabbing my sling bag and heading for his bathroom.
I’ve always had the foresight to stuff my bag with the necessary stuffs, in case I got stranded somewhere. I had never unintentionally fallen asleep in a client’s house, though. This was an embarrassing first. And where the fuck was Satoshi, anyway?
Ninomiya’s words suddenly rang in my ears, and cleaning myself didn’t matter all that much anymore. I opted for a mouthwash instead of brushing my teeth, and merely splashed water on my face before changing my shirt.
I was rushing out of the bathroom in two minutes flat, and prodding my client for details on the missing guy.
“Taken from his house. 27. Male. Gone just like that.” He snapped his fingers for effect, but I was hardly amused.
I sighed and settled on the couch, catching my breath and calming my nerves. Then it suddenly hit me that I didn’t even know where Satoshi lived.
“Who’s Satoshi?”
“Huh?!” For a second, I was almost sure Ninomiya could actually read my mind.
“He left you a note.” He held out a piece of paper to me.
I took it and mumbled my gratitude, no longer able to stop the flush from touching my cheeks. Especially when I read Satoshi’s incriminatingly sweet message: I had to go home, but I’ll be back tonight. Please stay safe until then.
“A friend?” Ninomiya asked, his lips twitching against the sneer that was already showing in his eyes.
“Yes,” I said simply.
His hum told me more things than he could ever say with words.
I suddenly felt the need to defend my credibility with a half-lie, “He was helping me pack your things.”
“It’s cool. I don’t mind you bringing friends over.” He was openly sneering now. “I mean, J and I had probably done more naughty stuffs on that couch than you two could ever come up with in a single night.”
The dread shot through me so fast, I almost screamed in my client’s face. I reeled back, just enough to settle for a snarl, “He’s not even legal!” I felt like I was saying those words more in defense of Satoshi than myself.
”I already said it’s cool,” he cackled. “We all have our kinks, right?”
I decided, right at that very moment, that I would hate Kazunari Ninomiya for as long as I lived.
~☼~☼~☼~☼~
Nino, as he asked to be called, stayed all day, helping me out with a lot of things regarding the sale of his house. He was a rather nice guy, if he tried hard enough.
“J talks about you a lot,” Nino said, while we were resting on opposite ends of the couch post-lunch. We had just found and rented a storage space for his things and were just waiting for the moving truck to come pick them up.
“I’m not surprised,” I said. “He talks about you when he’s with me.”
“Charming, ain’t he?” he remarked, before shifting in his seat to face me. “But listen. He’s been seriously worried about you lately.”
I chuckled. “He always worries. About everybody.”
“True enough,” Nino agreed, then cleared his throat before adding. “He doesn’t really like the idea of you living on your own. Especially with what’s been happening lately. And now you meet a new friend he doesn’t even know about, and take that friend to my house, and... You do realize the position you’ve put me in here, right?”
“I don’t, I’m sorry,” I said, honestly clueless. “What’s this got to do with you?”
“It means I’ll have to tell him,” he replied, “You know, about your fifteen-year-old friend?”
“He’s just a friend, Nino,” I insisted. “And he’s just a boy.”
“But he won’t be a boy forever.”
Those words stunned me. A very simple truth, easily overshadowed by common prejudice.
And when I began thinking about things from Nino’s suggested perspective, everything just began to click into place, and it suddenly didn’t feel so bad that Satoshi was fifteen and I was twenty-five.
Maybe, I could actually learn to like Nino a little. If I tried hard enough.
~☼~☼~☼~☼~
Nino and I worked on the ad for his house, which I would post online along with the pictures I’d take after the boxes were moved out.
“Wow, maybe we should try working together on something. This is actually quite good,” he said, praising his own handiwork, and maybe a little bit of mine.
I really just felt thankful that he was warming up to me quite well, despite our rather awkward start.
The truck arrived at three, moving Nino’s things took about an hour and he offered to oversee the move from here on out.
“You just stay here and do whatever you have to do until your friend arrives, all right,” he said, sneering all the way to his car.
About half an hour later, I received a call from Jun, who was hell-bent on scolding me about my new dating preference.
“He’s just fifteen, Sho-kun! Are you insane?!”
“Well, he won’t be 15 forever, and we all have our kinks!” I reasoned, completely living out Nino’s teachings. “And why am I talking about this with you?”
“Because I’m your friend.”
I sighed and mellowed down. “Don’t worry, all right. I won’t do anything that will get me arrested. I’m smarter than that.”
It took a couple of beats before Jun could speak again. “You really like him, huh?”
“I have no doubt that’s where it’s headed,” I felt pretty sure of this now.
“Why?” Jun still sounded skeptical.
“He doesn’t mind being bottom.”
“Bullshit!”
“And,“ I paused, then smiled to the deepest corner of my heart. “He makes me feel thankful for being alive.”
~☼~☼~☼~☼~
Ohno came at seven, quite later than the previous night, and just when I was about to lock up.
“You’re leaving?” he asked, sounding and looking deflated.
“You went to Shibata-san again, huh,” I remarked flatly, noticing the familiar bag in his hand, as I locked the door to Nino’s place. I was actually really delighted that he came, just when I was about to lose hope that he would. But I wasn’t to let him know that yet.
“But you’re leaving.”
“No,” I said, grabbing the bag from him and stalking off. “We are leaving.”
“Where are we going?” he asked, smiling now as he fell into step beside me.
“I’m inviting you over,” I said, throwing him a brief glance before increasing my strides deliberately.
“To your house?”
I hummed in reply.
“You’re letting me in this time?”
I nodded, but not before making a show of uncertainty. I didn’t invite him in the couple of times he walked me home, mostly because I was ashamed of how messy my room was. I didn’t really think it mattered anymore.
“Great!” he exclaimed, capering on his feet and making me laugh at his antics, like he always did.
We did make it to my house that night. But in a totally different way than I originally planned.
Four days after our fateful meeting, just when I was just about to embraced the feelings I was beginning to have for him, I finally found out everything I needed to know about him.
And it almost broke me apart.
~☼~☼~☼~☼~
Satoshi fell noticeably silent and surprisingly tensed halfway to my place. I misunderstood it as mere discomfort from advancing up a on a new level with me, or with our friendship, or with whatever it was we had together.
I didn’t notice the guy furtively following us, until we got to about a few steps away from apartment building. Everything from that point happened so fast that I couldn’t even be sure if I still remembered everything accurately.
When an arm wrapped around my neck and I was suddenly dragged into the dimly lit alley between my building and an empty house, my survival instincts didn’t prove efficient enough to do me much good. My attacker was stronger than I was, decidedly burlier and more muscular judging by the arm pressed hard against my neck.
He had punched Satoshi’s face prior to attacking me, and I remember worrying about the boy’s safety more than my own.
The man was asking me if my name was “Sakurai”, over and over like he expected me to give him an answer while he was crushing my throat.
And I kept struggling, against both my attacker, and impending death.
Then, I remember hearing something strange, like a growl. Almost like an animal. Angry and vicious.
I remember hearing the man scream in pain, before his stranglehold loosened and I fell coughing on the ground, desperately catching my breath as the man gurgled and gasped somewhere behind me.
Then I remember thinking about Satoshi, and how all I wanted to do was to make sure he was okay.
But the growling sounds behind me lured my curiosity. And when I looked over my shoulder, I caught a flash of the red shirt I remember seeing on the boy.
I stood up slowly, my eyes fixed on what I was seeing, trying desperately to make sense out of it.
There was Satoshi, and there was the man.
The man was apparently dead now, his lifeless eyes staring sightless into space, blood dribbling from the corner of his voiceless scream.
Satoshi was kneeling beside the man, his face buried into the man’s neck, the growling sounds obviously coming from him.
Then it all stopped, and the alley was suddenly plunged into an eerie, deafening sort of quiet. I could not even hear the sound of my heartbeat anymore.
Satoshi slowly turned to look over his shoulder at me, the lower half of his face completely covered in blood, his eyes apologetic yet unfamiliar, his brows contorted in an inhuman frown.
It was all I needed to see.
I ran away from that place, without looking back.
I knew Satoshi was following me, but I was too freaked out to care.
I reached my apartment in record time and locked the door behind me.
But so did Satoshi, jumping up to the window sill straight from the ground, and pushing the sliding window pane out of the way.
His face was back to normal now, save for the blood that he did not even bother wiping off.
“Sho-kun wait!”
He was inside my room before I could even open the door.
“Wait!” he pleaded.
I gasped when I felt him grip my wrist.
I was too afraid of him being so close to me that it took me a few seconds to realize that he was bleeding. In every possible source. His eyes. His ears, His nose. His lips. His scalp. His everywhere.
“Satoshi, wha-wha-” It was the most horrifying thing I had ever seen, more horrifying than the one in the alley. It also broke my heart to pieces with fearful anxiety. “What’s going on?!”
“You have to let me in, Sho-kun,” he all but breathed out. “You have to let me in.”
“What?” I asked dumbly, falling over backwards, sick and dizzy from seeing too much blood, and from struggling through too many overwhelming emotions all at once.
“Say I can come in,” Satoshi himself dropped to his knees. “Say it.” He was shaking now and was barely supporting his weight on his hands and knees. “Say I can come in, Sho-kun.”
It took a beat before I was able to say the words, “You can come in...”
Even then I knew, those four words were going to change my life forever.
~☼~☼~☼~☼~
The conversations I had with Satoshi, from the moment he stopped bleeding on my floor and had wiped out most of the blood from his body, to very early the next morning, were all rather revealing. My head all but spun from everything I found out. About him. About his life. And about us.
My brain practically bled from trying to make sense out of everything I was hearing.
My heart shattered to pieces more times than I could even care to count.
We talked, for many hours, with Satoshi pressed in a tight ball in one corner of the room, and me sitting in front of him, far enough from his reach, but close enough to speak in hushed voices.
“Did you kill those people? The missing ones?”
“Yes.”
“Where did you take them? Where did you take Aiba-san?”
“I don’t know who Aiba is-”
“Because we all look the same to you, right?”
“No. Because I never ask for names.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” I felt like pulling my hair out in frustration.
“But I remember their faces. I care enough to bury them. I’m not proud of what I have to do to live, Sho-kun!”
“It doesn’t make a difference!”
“I know.”
“Are you going to kill me, too? Am I going to be your next meal?”
“No. I can never do that to you. I can never hurt you.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s you.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s you, Sho-kun.”
“Why?”
“Because...” Satoshi looked right into my eyes and said, “...it’s you,” like he expected me to just take his word for it.
The weirdest part of it was that, despite everything that happened tonight, I still felt like I could.
***
“I can’t enter a house, or a room without being invited in.”
That sure explained a lot. “Does the sun really hate you?”
“Yes.”
“How so?”
“It’ll burn me alive.”
That sure explained a whole lot.
***
“How old are you really?”
“Fifteen.”
“Bullshit!”
“I haven’t aged in the past three centuries.”
***
“What happened to you? Wh-Why’d you become like this?”
“You don’t need to know. At least, not now.”
***
“I can hear people talking for miles, if I really focused on it.”
“You did hear Jun’s voice from my phone.”
“I did. He sounded like a nice person. I hear your heartbeat, too. All the time.”
***
“Why do you kill people?”
“I want to survive.”
“Can’t you survive without killing them?”
“My bite passes my curse. And I don’t want them to turn and live a cursed life like mine. I don’t want them to suffer like that.”
“But you kill them. That’s worse than suffering.”
“There are worse things than death, Sho-kun.”
“Why don’t you just kill yourself then?”
“You made me promise not to.”
***
“Did I know you from before?
“Yes.”
“Why can’t I remember you?”
“I made you forget.”
“Why?”
“Because you asked me to.”
***
“Why did you come seeking me out, Satoshi-kun?”
“I needed to remember why I wanted to stay alive. Okada-san forgot his reasons and killed himself. I don’t wanna die Sho-kun!”
“Why?”
“I don’t know what’s waiting for me out there. And it scares me.”
I found it rather ironic how, In all his three hundred years of life as an undead, he was afraid of this.
***
“How did you know where to find me?”
“Rie-san.”
“Is she like you?”
“Yes.”
For some reason, that did not surprise me at all. “Then, she must’ve heard us talking about her hair back then, huh?”
“She already knows I think that way about her.”
It was the first real smile I shared with Satoshi’s true self.
But it was not enough to completely wipe away the fear he had already stirred in me.
***
“You’re the only reason I have left to be here.”
I looked away from his pleading gaze, my own eyes overflowing with tears now.
“You are my special person, Sho-kun.”
This was the worst prank Fate had ever pulled on me. “I’m... sorry.”
I stood up and walked out of that room.
I stayed in my parents’ house for a couple of weeks, trying to convince myself that I had just woken out of a terrible, terrible nightmare.
But the nightmare refused to let me go.
~☼~☼~☼~☼~
One good thing I got from that experience was the courage to finally talk to my dad.
It was funny, really, how smoothly it all went, after I waited outside his office for a couple of minutes, literally shaking at the knees.
I told him I wanted to keep my job and see how far I could make it on my own skills, my own decisions, without my dad trying to dictate my every move.
He told me I had always misunderstood his advice for tyranny, and said he wanted nothing more than to see me succeed in my own chosen path.
I also kind of made him promise to come home more often. My mom could never be happier.
It was amazing, really, how a little courage and honesty could alter the course of relationships.
I still refused to move back in with them, though.
~☼~☼~☼~☼~
Jun knew something was up the very next day after that incident, but the good thing about Jun was that, no matter how much I knew he wanted to pry, to draw every little bit of detail from me by all the underhanded means he had undoubtedly been learning from Nino, he also cared enough to give me space.
I did have to assure him I didn’t just molest a fifteen-year-old boy, though.
~☼~☼~☼~☼~
There was only one person with whom I could talk to about this, and it took me all of two weeks to finally come to her for help, for a little comfort, and a whole lot of understanding.
Shibata-san took me up to her room on the second floor of her soba shop.
“When Okada-kun died,” she began, “Satoshi dedicated his life to seeking you out. I met him through a friend of a friend of a friend... you know how it goes. Would you like something to eat?
“No.”
“Well, okay.” She settled back into her seat, crosed her arms on the table and smiled. At least, one of us seemed to be taking delight from this whole deal. “Fate really did want the two of you to meet again. Satoshi-kun was just about to move on to the next ward when he saw you walk out of my shop.”
I seriously believed that was Fate setting up the biggest joke she was going to throw at my face. But I kept my sarcasm to myself.
“The moment he saw you, he knew. He recognized you right away. Even after ten years.”
That reminded me of something, a question that Satoshi left hanging in air. “Why did I ask him to make me forget?”
“Okada-kun threatened him,” Shibata-san replied. “Now, don’t get me wrong. Okada-kun was a really wonderful guardian to Satoshi-kun. The boy loved him very much. But Okada-kun was also very worried of your growing closeness, you see. And so he convinced Satoshi-kun that he’s going to end up hurting you, even killing you, someday. The boy trusted him so much that he agreed to move away, even though it broke his poor little heart to leave you behind.”
I felt the warm trails of tears falling unbidden down my face. I could not remember any of this, but something gripped at my heart as this unfamiliar memory unfolded right before my eyes. Like there was a small part of me that did not really forget.
“You asked him to alter your memories, so you wouldn’t have to grieve over him for the rest of your life.”
What I was doing right now didn’t really feel too far removed from grieving, wasn’t it?
“He gave you new memories. Ones that did not include him. But before that, you made him promise to stay safe until the two of you can meet again someday, somehow. He was supposed to kill himself with Okada-kun, did he tell you that?”
“No.” How many times did my heart need to break in a single lifetime?
“But he told that man, he wasn’t going to do it. He wasn’t going to forget why he wanted to live. You must’ve been a really special person, Sho-kun.”
Somehow, I still doubted that.
“How did it go, between you and your special person?” If there was anyone who knew the best answers to that, I bet it was Shibata-san. “How did you make it work?”
“It hadn’t always been easy!” Shibata-san exclaimed. “It’s give and take, much like any other relationships. You’re going to have to adjust to a lot of things, too. And you’re going to have to do it together. You’re going to have to help him. And you’re going to have to be strong for the two of you. And you’re going to have to learn to forgive him for everything that he did not mean to do.”
And I actually used to think that Satoshi being fifteen was the worst thing that could ever happen to me!
“Satoshi-kun is a relatively young vamp,” Shibata said fondly. “He can still be pretty careless and unnecessarily stubborn. He still prefers human blood over everything else. He still has too much soul in him. Too much spirit. Too much heart. And that’s going to confuse him and make him do totally stupid things-”
“Like seeking me out.”
“Well, that’s forgivable,” she laughed at her own joke and actually managed to make me smile despite my tears. “What I’m trying to say is, Satoshi-kun needs a strong-willed partner to help him through this. One who can be just as stubborn as he is. With almost the same amount of soul, and heart, and spirit.”
“Someone that’s not me.”
“Someone that’s exactly you,” Shibata-san argued. “I know you, Sho-kun. We didn’t have all those late-night talks for nothing.”
“I’m going to fail at it.”
Shibata-san shook her head vigorously. “No. No. No. You’ll do just fine. I’ll be here to keep you on your feet.”
I wanted to believe her. And for some reason, I seriously felt like I could.
“Satoshi-kun needs you. He even sought you out. He stayed alive for you,” Shibata-san reached out to grip my hand reassuringly. “Don’t leave him out in the cold, Sho-kun.”
~☼~☼~☼~☼~
The next time I saw Satoshi was in my room. The one I was just about to vacate for a better, slightly bigger place, because I had just successfully sold Nino’s house and got a fairly large commission from it.
Satoshi jumped on the window sill again. This time I deliberately left it open for him.
“You’re leaving?”
I felt like I heard this one before. “You’ve been to Shibata-san again, huh?,” I said, keeping my back turned on him as I packed my books into a box.
“She told me to come here.”
I smiled. “You can come in, Satoshi-kun.”
The floor creaked from his weight. “But you’re leaving.”
“No,” I said softly. “We are leaving.”
“Me, too?” His boyish squeak had always been a delightful thing.
“If you want...”
“Sho-kun...”
I stood up and faced him. “Do you want to live with me, Satoshi-kun?”
He sighed loudly, and actually looked crestfallen. “It’s not going to be easy.”
“I know.” I said, taking one step closer.
“You’re going to have to care for me.”
“I know.” Another step, my gaze on him unwavering.
“We can never have dates in broad daylight.”
“I know.” One last step, and we were standing close enough to hear each other’s breaths, feel each other’s hear beats.
He looked up and met my eyes, smiled and mouthed the words, “I love you, Sho-kun,” under his breath.
I reached out and touched his cheek, rubbed a thumb over his lips, before kissing them lightly. “I know.”
He finally smiled and laid his head to my chest. I wrapped my arms around him, one hand quickly finding its way to his nape to grip at it and press him closer. He was mine, and I was laying my claim on him.
On this boy. This man. This flawed, but beautiful perfection.
It didn’t even matter anymore that he looked fifteen.
Or that he would forever be fifteen.
What would Nino say when I tell him about this, I wonder?
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
“It's a phrase that encompasses both joy and pain-
I love you...”
-Arashi, Ai wo Utaou*
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
*Credits to yarukizero for the translated lyrics.
Word Count 11,415
Rating: PG-13
Genre: AU/Supernatural
Summary: A workaholic twenty-five-year-old man one day stumbles on a youthful boy of fifteen, who is really more than what meets the eye. “You’re all grown up now, Sho-kun,” the boy says, “I hate it.”
I woke up from a dreamless sleep the following morning and found myself staring into unfamiliar eyes.
I bolted up and realized soon enough that I had slept overnight in Ninomiya’s house, and that Kazunari Ninomiya himself was now staring right at me.
“Good morning,” he said, his smile more teasing than congenial as he stood up from crouching beside the couch.
“Good morning,” I greeted back, feeling a little disoriented and flinching at the smell of my own breath.
“J said I should come check on you. But I think you’re doing a good job packing this place up by yourself. Not to mention that you’re still alive and, well, here.”
“Yeah, I got it covered,” I said, then frowned when I caught up with what he said last.”What do you mean?”
“Somebody went missing last night,” Ninomiya replied casually, like he was telling me about the weather. “Quite close to this place, actually.”
I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment to pull my wits together. Then asked to be excused so I could fix myself up before I start working for him today.
“I’ve already seen you asleep, Sakurai-san,” Ninomiya said jeeringly. “Do you think I’d still care if you looked like you’ve just woken up? Which, by the way, you just did.
“I’m sorry,” I said, trying not to sound annoyed. “About sleeping in your house, I deeply apologize. But I really do need to be excused.”
Ninomiya chuckled. “Hey! I only meant I didn’t care about appearances, but do go ahead if it’ll make you feel better. You know where my bathroom is, right? Or did you mean you wanted to go home for a while?”
“I’ll only be a moment,” I said, then bowed before grabbing my sling bag and heading for his bathroom.
I’ve always had the foresight to stuff my bag with the necessary stuffs, in case I got stranded somewhere. I had never unintentionally fallen asleep in a client’s house, though. This was an embarrassing first. And where the fuck was Satoshi, anyway?
Ninomiya’s words suddenly rang in my ears, and cleaning myself didn’t matter all that much anymore. I opted for a mouthwash instead of brushing my teeth, and merely splashed water on my face before changing my shirt.
I was rushing out of the bathroom in two minutes flat, and prodding my client for details on the missing guy.
“Taken from his house. 27. Male. Gone just like that.” He snapped his fingers for effect, but I was hardly amused.
I sighed and settled on the couch, catching my breath and calming my nerves. Then it suddenly hit me that I didn’t even know where Satoshi lived.
“Who’s Satoshi?”
“Huh?!” For a second, I was almost sure Ninomiya could actually read my mind.
“He left you a note.” He held out a piece of paper to me.
I took it and mumbled my gratitude, no longer able to stop the flush from touching my cheeks. Especially when I read Satoshi’s incriminatingly sweet message: I had to go home, but I’ll be back tonight. Please stay safe until then.
“A friend?” Ninomiya asked, his lips twitching against the sneer that was already showing in his eyes.
“Yes,” I said simply.
His hum told me more things than he could ever say with words.
I suddenly felt the need to defend my credibility with a half-lie, “He was helping me pack your things.”
“It’s cool. I don’t mind you bringing friends over.” He was openly sneering now. “I mean, J and I had probably done more naughty stuffs on that couch than you two could ever come up with in a single night.”
The dread shot through me so fast, I almost screamed in my client’s face. I reeled back, just enough to settle for a snarl, “He’s not even legal!” I felt like I was saying those words more in defense of Satoshi than myself.
”I already said it’s cool,” he cackled. “We all have our kinks, right?”
I decided, right at that very moment, that I would hate Kazunari Ninomiya for as long as I lived.
~☼~☼~☼~☼~
Nino, as he asked to be called, stayed all day, helping me out with a lot of things regarding the sale of his house. He was a rather nice guy, if he tried hard enough.
“J talks about you a lot,” Nino said, while we were resting on opposite ends of the couch post-lunch. We had just found and rented a storage space for his things and were just waiting for the moving truck to come pick them up.
“I’m not surprised,” I said. “He talks about you when he’s with me.”
“Charming, ain’t he?” he remarked, before shifting in his seat to face me. “But listen. He’s been seriously worried about you lately.”
I chuckled. “He always worries. About everybody.”
“True enough,” Nino agreed, then cleared his throat before adding. “He doesn’t really like the idea of you living on your own. Especially with what’s been happening lately. And now you meet a new friend he doesn’t even know about, and take that friend to my house, and... You do realize the position you’ve put me in here, right?”
“I don’t, I’m sorry,” I said, honestly clueless. “What’s this got to do with you?”
“It means I’ll have to tell him,” he replied, “You know, about your fifteen-year-old friend?”
“He’s just a friend, Nino,” I insisted. “And he’s just a boy.”
“But he won’t be a boy forever.”
Those words stunned me. A very simple truth, easily overshadowed by common prejudice.
And when I began thinking about things from Nino’s suggested perspective, everything just began to click into place, and it suddenly didn’t feel so bad that Satoshi was fifteen and I was twenty-five.
Maybe, I could actually learn to like Nino a little. If I tried hard enough.
~☼~☼~☼~☼~
Nino and I worked on the ad for his house, which I would post online along with the pictures I’d take after the boxes were moved out.
“Wow, maybe we should try working together on something. This is actually quite good,” he said, praising his own handiwork, and maybe a little bit of mine.
I really just felt thankful that he was warming up to me quite well, despite our rather awkward start.
The truck arrived at three, moving Nino’s things took about an hour and he offered to oversee the move from here on out.
“You just stay here and do whatever you have to do until your friend arrives, all right,” he said, sneering all the way to his car.
About half an hour later, I received a call from Jun, who was hell-bent on scolding me about my new dating preference.
“He’s just fifteen, Sho-kun! Are you insane?!”
“Well, he won’t be 15 forever, and we all have our kinks!” I reasoned, completely living out Nino’s teachings. “And why am I talking about this with you?”
“Because I’m your friend.”
I sighed and mellowed down. “Don’t worry, all right. I won’t do anything that will get me arrested. I’m smarter than that.”
It took a couple of beats before Jun could speak again. “You really like him, huh?”
“I have no doubt that’s where it’s headed,” I felt pretty sure of this now.
“Why?” Jun still sounded skeptical.
“He doesn’t mind being bottom.”
“Bullshit!”
“And,“ I paused, then smiled to the deepest corner of my heart. “He makes me feel thankful for being alive.”
~☼~☼~☼~☼~
Ohno came at seven, quite later than the previous night, and just when I was about to lock up.
“You’re leaving?” he asked, sounding and looking deflated.
“You went to Shibata-san again, huh,” I remarked flatly, noticing the familiar bag in his hand, as I locked the door to Nino’s place. I was actually really delighted that he came, just when I was about to lose hope that he would. But I wasn’t to let him know that yet.
“But you’re leaving.”
“No,” I said, grabbing the bag from him and stalking off. “We are leaving.”
“Where are we going?” he asked, smiling now as he fell into step beside me.
“I’m inviting you over,” I said, throwing him a brief glance before increasing my strides deliberately.
“To your house?”
I hummed in reply.
“You’re letting me in this time?”
I nodded, but not before making a show of uncertainty. I didn’t invite him in the couple of times he walked me home, mostly because I was ashamed of how messy my room was. I didn’t really think it mattered anymore.
“Great!” he exclaimed, capering on his feet and making me laugh at his antics, like he always did.
We did make it to my house that night. But in a totally different way than I originally planned.
Four days after our fateful meeting, just when I was just about to embraced the feelings I was beginning to have for him, I finally found out everything I needed to know about him.
And it almost broke me apart.
~☼~☼~☼~☼~
Satoshi fell noticeably silent and surprisingly tensed halfway to my place. I misunderstood it as mere discomfort from advancing up a on a new level with me, or with our friendship, or with whatever it was we had together.
I didn’t notice the guy furtively following us, until we got to about a few steps away from apartment building. Everything from that point happened so fast that I couldn’t even be sure if I still remembered everything accurately.
When an arm wrapped around my neck and I was suddenly dragged into the dimly lit alley between my building and an empty house, my survival instincts didn’t prove efficient enough to do me much good. My attacker was stronger than I was, decidedly burlier and more muscular judging by the arm pressed hard against my neck.
He had punched Satoshi’s face prior to attacking me, and I remember worrying about the boy’s safety more than my own.
The man was asking me if my name was “Sakurai”, over and over like he expected me to give him an answer while he was crushing my throat.
And I kept struggling, against both my attacker, and impending death.
Then, I remember hearing something strange, like a growl. Almost like an animal. Angry and vicious.
I remember hearing the man scream in pain, before his stranglehold loosened and I fell coughing on the ground, desperately catching my breath as the man gurgled and gasped somewhere behind me.
Then I remember thinking about Satoshi, and how all I wanted to do was to make sure he was okay.
But the growling sounds behind me lured my curiosity. And when I looked over my shoulder, I caught a flash of the red shirt I remember seeing on the boy.
I stood up slowly, my eyes fixed on what I was seeing, trying desperately to make sense out of it.
There was Satoshi, and there was the man.
The man was apparently dead now, his lifeless eyes staring sightless into space, blood dribbling from the corner of his voiceless scream.
Satoshi was kneeling beside the man, his face buried into the man’s neck, the growling sounds obviously coming from him.
Then it all stopped, and the alley was suddenly plunged into an eerie, deafening sort of quiet. I could not even hear the sound of my heartbeat anymore.
Satoshi slowly turned to look over his shoulder at me, the lower half of his face completely covered in blood, his eyes apologetic yet unfamiliar, his brows contorted in an inhuman frown.
It was all I needed to see.
I ran away from that place, without looking back.
I knew Satoshi was following me, but I was too freaked out to care.
I reached my apartment in record time and locked the door behind me.
But so did Satoshi, jumping up to the window sill straight from the ground, and pushing the sliding window pane out of the way.
His face was back to normal now, save for the blood that he did not even bother wiping off.
“Sho-kun wait!”
He was inside my room before I could even open the door.
“Wait!” he pleaded.
I gasped when I felt him grip my wrist.
I was too afraid of him being so close to me that it took me a few seconds to realize that he was bleeding. In every possible source. His eyes. His ears, His nose. His lips. His scalp. His everywhere.
“Satoshi, wha-wha-” It was the most horrifying thing I had ever seen, more horrifying than the one in the alley. It also broke my heart to pieces with fearful anxiety. “What’s going on?!”
“You have to let me in, Sho-kun,” he all but breathed out. “You have to let me in.”
“What?” I asked dumbly, falling over backwards, sick and dizzy from seeing too much blood, and from struggling through too many overwhelming emotions all at once.
“Say I can come in,” Satoshi himself dropped to his knees. “Say it.” He was shaking now and was barely supporting his weight on his hands and knees. “Say I can come in, Sho-kun.”
It took a beat before I was able to say the words, “You can come in...”
Even then I knew, those four words were going to change my life forever.
~☼~☼~☼~☼~
The conversations I had with Satoshi, from the moment he stopped bleeding on my floor and had wiped out most of the blood from his body, to very early the next morning, were all rather revealing. My head all but spun from everything I found out. About him. About his life. And about us.
My brain practically bled from trying to make sense out of everything I was hearing.
My heart shattered to pieces more times than I could even care to count.
We talked, for many hours, with Satoshi pressed in a tight ball in one corner of the room, and me sitting in front of him, far enough from his reach, but close enough to speak in hushed voices.
“Did you kill those people? The missing ones?”
“Yes.”
“Where did you take them? Where did you take Aiba-san?”
“I don’t know who Aiba is-”
“Because we all look the same to you, right?”
“No. Because I never ask for names.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” I felt like pulling my hair out in frustration.
“But I remember their faces. I care enough to bury them. I’m not proud of what I have to do to live, Sho-kun!”
“It doesn’t make a difference!”
“I know.”
“Are you going to kill me, too? Am I going to be your next meal?”
“No. I can never do that to you. I can never hurt you.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s you.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s you, Sho-kun.”
“Why?”
“Because...” Satoshi looked right into my eyes and said, “...it’s you,” like he expected me to just take his word for it.
The weirdest part of it was that, despite everything that happened tonight, I still felt like I could.
***
“I can’t enter a house, or a room without being invited in.”
That sure explained a lot. “Does the sun really hate you?”
“Yes.”
“How so?”
“It’ll burn me alive.”
That sure explained a whole lot.
***
“How old are you really?”
“Fifteen.”
“Bullshit!”
“I haven’t aged in the past three centuries.”
***
“What happened to you? Wh-Why’d you become like this?”
“You don’t need to know. At least, not now.”
***
“I can hear people talking for miles, if I really focused on it.”
“You did hear Jun’s voice from my phone.”
“I did. He sounded like a nice person. I hear your heartbeat, too. All the time.”
***
“Why do you kill people?”
“I want to survive.”
“Can’t you survive without killing them?”
“My bite passes my curse. And I don’t want them to turn and live a cursed life like mine. I don’t want them to suffer like that.”
“But you kill them. That’s worse than suffering.”
“There are worse things than death, Sho-kun.”
“Why don’t you just kill yourself then?”
“You made me promise not to.”
***
“Did I know you from before?
“Yes.”
“Why can’t I remember you?”
“I made you forget.”
“Why?”
“Because you asked me to.”
***
“Why did you come seeking me out, Satoshi-kun?”
“I needed to remember why I wanted to stay alive. Okada-san forgot his reasons and killed himself. I don’t wanna die Sho-kun!”
“Why?”
“I don’t know what’s waiting for me out there. And it scares me.”
I found it rather ironic how, In all his three hundred years of life as an undead, he was afraid of this.
***
“How did you know where to find me?”
“Rie-san.”
“Is she like you?”
“Yes.”
For some reason, that did not surprise me at all. “Then, she must’ve heard us talking about her hair back then, huh?”
“She already knows I think that way about her.”
It was the first real smile I shared with Satoshi’s true self.
But it was not enough to completely wipe away the fear he had already stirred in me.
***
“You’re the only reason I have left to be here.”
I looked away from his pleading gaze, my own eyes overflowing with tears now.
“You are my special person, Sho-kun.”
This was the worst prank Fate had ever pulled on me. “I’m... sorry.”
I stood up and walked out of that room.
I stayed in my parents’ house for a couple of weeks, trying to convince myself that I had just woken out of a terrible, terrible nightmare.
But the nightmare refused to let me go.
~☼~☼~☼~☼~
One good thing I got from that experience was the courage to finally talk to my dad.
It was funny, really, how smoothly it all went, after I waited outside his office for a couple of minutes, literally shaking at the knees.
I told him I wanted to keep my job and see how far I could make it on my own skills, my own decisions, without my dad trying to dictate my every move.
He told me I had always misunderstood his advice for tyranny, and said he wanted nothing more than to see me succeed in my own chosen path.
I also kind of made him promise to come home more often. My mom could never be happier.
It was amazing, really, how a little courage and honesty could alter the course of relationships.
I still refused to move back in with them, though.
~☼~☼~☼~☼~
Jun knew something was up the very next day after that incident, but the good thing about Jun was that, no matter how much I knew he wanted to pry, to draw every little bit of detail from me by all the underhanded means he had undoubtedly been learning from Nino, he also cared enough to give me space.
I did have to assure him I didn’t just molest a fifteen-year-old boy, though.
~☼~☼~☼~☼~
There was only one person with whom I could talk to about this, and it took me all of two weeks to finally come to her for help, for a little comfort, and a whole lot of understanding.
Shibata-san took me up to her room on the second floor of her soba shop.
“When Okada-kun died,” she began, “Satoshi dedicated his life to seeking you out. I met him through a friend of a friend of a friend... you know how it goes. Would you like something to eat?
“No.”
“Well, okay.” She settled back into her seat, crosed her arms on the table and smiled. At least, one of us seemed to be taking delight from this whole deal. “Fate really did want the two of you to meet again. Satoshi-kun was just about to move on to the next ward when he saw you walk out of my shop.”
I seriously believed that was Fate setting up the biggest joke she was going to throw at my face. But I kept my sarcasm to myself.
“The moment he saw you, he knew. He recognized you right away. Even after ten years.”
That reminded me of something, a question that Satoshi left hanging in air. “Why did I ask him to make me forget?”
“Okada-kun threatened him,” Shibata-san replied. “Now, don’t get me wrong. Okada-kun was a really wonderful guardian to Satoshi-kun. The boy loved him very much. But Okada-kun was also very worried of your growing closeness, you see. And so he convinced Satoshi-kun that he’s going to end up hurting you, even killing you, someday. The boy trusted him so much that he agreed to move away, even though it broke his poor little heart to leave you behind.”
I felt the warm trails of tears falling unbidden down my face. I could not remember any of this, but something gripped at my heart as this unfamiliar memory unfolded right before my eyes. Like there was a small part of me that did not really forget.
“You asked him to alter your memories, so you wouldn’t have to grieve over him for the rest of your life.”
What I was doing right now didn’t really feel too far removed from grieving, wasn’t it?
“He gave you new memories. Ones that did not include him. But before that, you made him promise to stay safe until the two of you can meet again someday, somehow. He was supposed to kill himself with Okada-kun, did he tell you that?”
“No.” How many times did my heart need to break in a single lifetime?
“But he told that man, he wasn’t going to do it. He wasn’t going to forget why he wanted to live. You must’ve been a really special person, Sho-kun.”
Somehow, I still doubted that.
“How did it go, between you and your special person?” If there was anyone who knew the best answers to that, I bet it was Shibata-san. “How did you make it work?”
“It hadn’t always been easy!” Shibata-san exclaimed. “It’s give and take, much like any other relationships. You’re going to have to adjust to a lot of things, too. And you’re going to have to do it together. You’re going to have to help him. And you’re going to have to be strong for the two of you. And you’re going to have to learn to forgive him for everything that he did not mean to do.”
And I actually used to think that Satoshi being fifteen was the worst thing that could ever happen to me!
“Satoshi-kun is a relatively young vamp,” Shibata said fondly. “He can still be pretty careless and unnecessarily stubborn. He still prefers human blood over everything else. He still has too much soul in him. Too much spirit. Too much heart. And that’s going to confuse him and make him do totally stupid things-”
“Like seeking me out.”
“Well, that’s forgivable,” she laughed at her own joke and actually managed to make me smile despite my tears. “What I’m trying to say is, Satoshi-kun needs a strong-willed partner to help him through this. One who can be just as stubborn as he is. With almost the same amount of soul, and heart, and spirit.”
“Someone that’s not me.”
“Someone that’s exactly you,” Shibata-san argued. “I know you, Sho-kun. We didn’t have all those late-night talks for nothing.”
“I’m going to fail at it.”
Shibata-san shook her head vigorously. “No. No. No. You’ll do just fine. I’ll be here to keep you on your feet.”
I wanted to believe her. And for some reason, I seriously felt like I could.
“Satoshi-kun needs you. He even sought you out. He stayed alive for you,” Shibata-san reached out to grip my hand reassuringly. “Don’t leave him out in the cold, Sho-kun.”
~☼~☼~☼~☼~
The next time I saw Satoshi was in my room. The one I was just about to vacate for a better, slightly bigger place, because I had just successfully sold Nino’s house and got a fairly large commission from it.
Satoshi jumped on the window sill again. This time I deliberately left it open for him.
“You’re leaving?”
I felt like I heard this one before. “You’ve been to Shibata-san again, huh?,” I said, keeping my back turned on him as I packed my books into a box.
“She told me to come here.”
I smiled. “You can come in, Satoshi-kun.”
The floor creaked from his weight. “But you’re leaving.”
“No,” I said softly. “We are leaving.”
“Me, too?” His boyish squeak had always been a delightful thing.
“If you want...”
“Sho-kun...”
I stood up and faced him. “Do you want to live with me, Satoshi-kun?”
He sighed loudly, and actually looked crestfallen. “It’s not going to be easy.”
“I know.” I said, taking one step closer.
“You’re going to have to care for me.”
“I know.” Another step, my gaze on him unwavering.
“We can never have dates in broad daylight.”
“I know.” One last step, and we were standing close enough to hear each other’s breaths, feel each other’s hear beats.
He looked up and met my eyes, smiled and mouthed the words, “I love you, Sho-kun,” under his breath.
I reached out and touched his cheek, rubbed a thumb over his lips, before kissing them lightly. “I know.”
He finally smiled and laid his head to my chest. I wrapped my arms around him, one hand quickly finding its way to his nape to grip at it and press him closer. He was mine, and I was laying my claim on him.
On this boy. This man. This flawed, but beautiful perfection.
It didn’t even matter anymore that he looked fifteen.
Or that he would forever be fifteen.
What would Nino say when I tell him about this, I wonder?
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
“It's a phrase that encompasses both joy and pain-
I love you...”
-Arashi, Ai wo Utaou*
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
*Credits to yarukizero for the translated lyrics.