Until this day, Aiba Masaki believes that any romantic idealizations he has ever possessed regarding a certain breed of mystical, blood-sucking, daylight-fearing, make-believe creatures were destroyed the day he met Sakurai Sho.
* * *
In broad daylight, the stranger threw himself onto the then homebound Aiba. Clean-cut nails, which Aiba would later examine in curiosity and closer proximity, were a slight annoying pain biting through an appropriately thin T-shirt (summer-coloured and seasonal) as one hand gripped Aiba by the shoulder and hurried him through the crowd. Confusion overtook Aiba then, which was swiftly followed by irritation at the harassment and stubborn grip despite repeated shrugging of his shoulder in an attempt to free himself from the unwelcome contact.
“I’m really sorry. Just help me out for a moment. I think someone’s following me…”
The genuinely apologetic tone surprised Aiba. He tilted his head in mild curiosity then, and in closer examination, surprised himself with an unexpected distraction by the length of the stranger’s eyelashes.
They were not that long.
Aiba would have continued to remain distracted, if not for the shadow of presence sudden against his back and whispered words harsh against his neck.
“Let go of him, Sho-kun.”
“Stop following me, or I’ll kill him.”
Until this day, Aiba could still remember the brilliance of the midday sun and how Sakurai’s fangs, half-hidden behind slightly parted lips, seemed to glow as the vampire uttered his threat.
* * *
Aiba continues to hold these memories dear, and occasionally, appreciates that he could choose to do so, on the single basis that he is still living and breathing to this present day. It is not to Ohno Satoshi’s credit though. He did not leave when Sakurai told him to then.
* * *
“…why are you making my job so difficult?”
“You’re trying to kill me!”
It was as if a sudden cold wind passed right through Aiba, despite its implausibility, considering the current season. It was, he reasoned, about as impossible as being held hostage by a vampire, who was, in turn, being threatened permanent death by someone else.
“Uh, can’t you guys settle this elsewhere? On your own?”
“…are you an idiot?” Sakurai turned and stared at Aiba in something akin to horror. “Why would I want to be alone with someone who wants to kill me?”
“You’re a vampire, aren’t you? Like,” Aiba made a few vague gestures, in slight embarrassment, “with the teeth and all. Can’t you, I don’t know…beat him up?”
There was a moment of stunned silence, an island of stillness amidst the sea of mad crowd, before it was shattered by sudden contact – sudden palm on Aiba’s back. It was followed by an unidentifiable sound that was drowned out by the surrounding noise. Aiba tried to turn around, but stopped at Sakurai’s tightened grip and deep scowl.
“Stop laughing!”
* * *
In an extraordinary turn of events, at least to Aiba, after Ohno revealed his identity as a slayer – sole occupation to rid the world of all supernatural beings – Sakurai remains unharmed to this day, despite Ohno’s persistent stalking. It would be funny, to the point of hysteria, if the vampire does get killed one day.
For example, today.
* * *
Aiba tries to still trembling hands stained with blood not his own, and not human, and in breathing so hard seems to himself even as if he is trying so hard not to laugh. Sakurai laughs aloud first, something like a cough, something like choking, and perhaps something like throwing up blood while the wound at the side of his abdomen continues to bleed.
“Be quiet…he might find us…”
Aiba tries to stop breathing and fails. They are hiding in some alley somewhere hopefully far enough from Aiba’s apartment, far enough the slayer who was not Ohno does not find them. Vividly Aiba remembers the foreign pungency that greeted him when he entered the apartment, wrecked furniture and blood-decorated walls like a joke most unfunny. Then, a surge of wind and shadow hitting him in the chest and pushing them off the second story. They landed on heaps of pregnant garbage bags. Before Aiba could pick himself up, a hand gripped his wrist and pulled.
It was wet.
Then, Aiba thought he was almost flying, feet hardly touching ground until he slammed into Sakurai’s back, which slammed – he heard distinctly – into dead wall. When Sakurai collapsed onto the ground, Aiba saw the trail of blood staining the wall. Bile rose then, in his sudden realization, of the horror, and Ohno’s face flashed across his mind, and fear overtook him, and there was sudden violence tugging at the hems of his T-shirt yanking him downwards and suddenly, Sakurai’s face was in his face.
“It’s,” he coughed, lightly, blood-speckled lips paler than death, “not Ohno.”
Then, Aiba tried not to look at the bloodied fist clutching at stained T-shirt getting darker on one side too quickly. But, now.
“We, we have to get Ohno-kun.”
Aiba tries to pull his hand away from Sakurai for the umpteenth time and fails. Sakurai is losing blood fast enough to die but not fast enough to let go. Aiba thinks he might laugh.
“You should, you should take my blood! Then you can get better! And we can get away better!” Aiba doesn’t know whether it is his vision blurring or Sakurai fading away from this world. The grip holding on to him does not loosen though, and there is a light laugh.
“Are you crazy? I do that…even Ohno-kun can’t save me…”
“Can’t you make up your mind? About whether you want to live and fight and then die or just die?”
The shadow cast over Aiba and Sakurai is sudden and shocks even Sakurai. Thoughts fail Aiba, as he stares up into the slight figure, dark eyes unfathomable.
There is only pain, as the grip around his wrist tightens ever so slightly.
The slayer looks young. Aiba realizes. And bored.
And perhaps, polite, when he smiles and speaks.
“You mind me finishing this so I can go home and complete my game?”
can you imagine no love, pride, deep-fried chicken
your best friend always sticking up for you
can you imagine no first dance, freeze dried romance five-hour phone conversation
the best soy latte that you ever had... and me
