After dinner, Hailey decided to go home, instead of staying at Patricia's. Probably because of the argument she had with Yukiko, the two just could not live under the same roof. They might just end up gouging out each other's eyeballs.
Emily accompanied Hailey home, even though Hailey protested. Was this a good idea? Definitely not, especially since how people are after her. However, she could not bear to leave her best friend alone at this hour, it was pretty late.
The two walked on the quiet street as cars zoomed past them. They could only rely on the street lamps to guild their way. Hailey stopped her tracks and turned to Emily, "You can accompany me till here, it's pretty late, you should get going."
"It's fine, I can accompany you to your house." Emily persisted. It's been a long time since she had seen her house. Hailey rarely mentioned about her house or her family and whenever Emily had the opportunity to ask about those things, she would choose to avoid the question. This was a little peculiar to Emily, but since Hailey wanted to keep that subject a secret, so why not? Emily never had the intention to force it out of her in the first place.
"No, no. Head back now, young lady." Hailey frowned as she shook her head in disapproval before she finally pleaded, "Please."
She could not reject her if she had already said 'please', so she decided to comply. "Alright, but call me once you reach home. If you meet some drunkards, you know where to kick them." She reminded Hailey with a wink.
"Yeah, yeah." She laughed before waving her goodbye.
Just as she walked for a little while away from for Hailey, she heard a man's voice. "Heyyyy, miss! Are you alone? Hic, you can come with me if you want."
A man emerged from the dark alley.
Emily ignored him and continued walking, "Wow, I just asked Hailey to be careful of these people and I ended up jinxing myself. Isn't. this. great?"
Emily picked up her speed, in attempt to get away from that man. However, the faster she walked, the faster the footsteps behind followed her, "I think that drunkard is following me. Well, let's just hope he will give up soon."
Finally, she was a road away from Patricia's house. She noticed that the footsteps behind her stopped, "Thank goodness! He's gone." Just as she thought about that, the man grabbed her shoulder. She spoke WAY too soon.
"We had been walking forever, where do you actually want to go? Hic, I know another place that is not here. Come on, let's go." The man said as he slung his arm around her neck, forcing her to walk with him. Emily planted her feet on the ground, refusing to move.
The man noticed and asked, "What's wrong?" This time she attempted to glare at the man, to scare him away. But, it failed. Instead, he became mad.
"WHAT IS WITH THAT LOOK?! You are coming with me whether you want it or not!"
He forcefully grabbed her arm and tucked it in the direction he was going. She struggled to get away from his strong grip, but she could not. She started to panic a little as she looked around for a passerby, but there was no one.
It was just an empty street.
She decided to kick him in the leg, to see if he would loosen his grip. He did not. That just made things worse, "You little bitch!"
He grabbed a bundle of her hair and pulled it tightly, "I was treating you nicely and you repay me with this crap?!"
"Let go of me!" She yelled. She felt like if he pulled a little more, he might actually pull out her hair.
"Let go of her, didn't you hear?" A familiar voice spoke. Before she knew it, the man was on he ground with a badly bruised eye. "Hey Emily, you're still alive, right?" The figure asked.
It was Lavi.
"...Yeah." She replied as she darted her eyes between the him and the man who just passed out. "How did you...?"
"How? Well, I was following you from the start, but I found a convenient store that sold a couple of interesting snacks, so I went in and got some stuff. Once I came out for the store, you are no where to be found. I walked a couple of distance and I found you here." He explained, before grabbing a bag of soda flavoured chips, "Let's go now, it's pretty late."
Emily eyed at the bag of chips, "Coke flavour? He has a weird sense of taste."
Just as they were about to go, the drunkard grabbed an empty beer bottle and smashed it right at Lavi's head. Everything just happened so fast, She did not have time to move. The glass shattered and those pieces fell to ground, shattering them further.
He did not bleed and neither did he flinch. It was as if nothing had happened, he turned to the man, who was shaking in fear when he realised that he was unharmed. Lavi raised a brow and asked, "Do you want my blood spill or something?"
He then grabbed the broken glass bottle away from the man's grip and grinned, "Because I can show you if you want."
He squeezed the broken glass, letting the sharp edges rested against his palm, until the thick crimson liquid started dripping down his hand, forming a tiny pool of blood on the ground. The man looked at him in shocked, "You're crazy!"
It was strange. Lavi's blood slowly hardened as if to it was about to form something. The man noticed that and yelled, "Monster!" Before wobbling away.
Wow, that was mean. I've never been called that for such a long time." Lavi deadpanned as dropped the broken glass bottle. His blood returns to liquid state and rubbed his bloodied hand at the side of his pants.
Emily looked at him with concern, "Are you okay? Does it hurt?"
"Other than my emotions, I'm healthy as ever." He relied while returning to savour the pack of weird flavoured chips.
"Why did you do that? You could have really hurt yourself." Emily questioned with hint of anger in her voice, because she thought that what he did was silly.
He should not have injured himself like that.
"Well, I enjoy the pain. I'm a masochist. I gain pleasure through inflicting pain on myself." He grinned charmingly as he made dead eye contact with her as the two of them was walking back to Patricia's.
She blinked a few times to process what she just heard. Well, that's shocking. She was not expecting that, that completely caught her by surprise.
Just then, he bursted into laughter, "I'm kidding! I'm used to this, it's just how I fight. Okay, not really like what I did earlier, but it's somewhere along that line. The element I possessed is blood. Soooo, I'm a sort of a special case."
Emily was intrigued by that, because it was an element she had never heard of. So, you're like a vampire? Like you know, Edward from twilight."
Her eyes were literally twinkling while she wanted for an answer.
He almost choked when he heard that, "W-what? Who's that? Wait, now that I think about it, to a certain extent I guess I'm similar to a vampire, but not like the one you mentioned."
"So, you drink blood?" She asked another question almost immediately.
For a moment, his gaze was a little melancholic, but he forced out a smile to cover his dark expression. "Drinking blood is like a boost for me, it can be good for my body at times, but I haven't drink it for around five years now and I don't think I want to drink it again."
Emily noticed that hint of sadness in his voice, so she did not pursue further. She did not want to stir up any unnecessary memories for him.
Both made their back to Patricia's house and she went to her room to sleep. She was just too exhausted, "Things are just gets crazier and crazier, huh."