Hiro was one of the three vampires in the Dogs, the hallmark of which was his red eyes. Though his eyes were a dull red that typically passed for brown, sunlight tended to bring out flecks of unmistakable scarlet in them - provided you hadn't already seen his prominent, sharp canines.
I always thought that he would be the perfect vampire, if we were talking Bram Stoker's Dracula. Innocent, unassuming, could easily pass as human - it was far too easy for someone like him to infiltrate human society and gorge himself on blood without anyone ever knowing better.
I shut my eyes and turn my head away. "I am happy to see you. Now I have someone to make sure I don't die in my sleep."
He snorts. I hear him sling his school bag onto the floor, mostly just a heap of empty fabric since we barely had any proper lessons left. "Maybe I'm the murderer."
"Then who'd clean up your messes?" I figured enough time had passed from yesterday's game, but earned a bonk on the head for my trouble.
"Funny. As if I didn't take on the whole team on my own."
"With my help," I point out.
"Bitch," he retorts with a good-natured eyeroll.
The other two vampires in the team were Mori and Hachi. No surprise there when it came to Hachi - he kept inhumane waking hours, spent most of his day streaming and gaming, and none of us knew whether he even went to school. But his mystery was of the comfortable sort, where I had the impression that he simply had nothing interesting going on in his life to share.
In person, Mori was also, unmistakably, a vampire. Her soft-spoken attitude and tiny voice implied a small, fragile girl, but in reality Mori was awe-inspiringly tall, enough to rival Hachi, and played volleyball besides. She was gorgeous, and… had been scouted as a gravure model before, if you catch my drift.
She had the longest, prettiest lashes I had ever seen, framing gold-flecked red irises that looked almost hazel, and puffy, pouty lips to melt anyone's heart.
"Do you think you'll be taking the job?" I asked. I was the only one in the team who she could share the news with, seeing as the other three were boys.
"I don't know," she hummed. "They're offering a lot, but they also said they're willing to wait until I'm an adult."
"Two years is a long time. They must really want you." In game, my little pixelated character hauls a spray of dirt over his shoulder.
Mori plants a clutch of turnips in the freshly turned earth. "I guess…"
And that was the end of that conversation.
No one pays attention to the morning announcements, and the chatter of students overlaps with the table tennis club achievements. Behind us, I can hear a different discussion about vampires cropping up. Already, they're drawing the slightly irritated gaze of the vampires around them.
"As if this doesn't happen regularly as it is," Hiro mutters, and I know he must be listening too. It was true - every so often some idiot vampire would get himself killed by attacking a poor unsuspecting human, and it would make its rounds on the news until people forgot about it and it happened again.
He glances at me, as if to check if I'm listening. "I mean, right? Just because some vampires decided to band together and do it at once… it doesn't mean anything."
I hum and nod. Mostly I was just hoping that this wouldn't blow up into a bigger issue… considering how the Dogs had a good mix of both. I'd hate to see anything bad happen to Hachi or his channel.
We spend the few hours before lunch doing some Japanese Literature, the only lesson that can comfortably carry on because the literature department never really ever had a plan or a termly syllabus.
I listen in interest to the introduction to Osamu's No Longer Human, though I can see Hiro struggling to put in that same effort. Without needing to look back, I can tell that half the class must already be dozing off. But our literature teacher takes it in stride, as he seems to do with everything else, and plows on without hesitation. I could imagine he was the sort of person who could get into a car accident without batting an eyelid.
"Seriously, how do you do it," Hiro mutters, as the teacher calls for a five minute break, to a flurry of relieved sighs.
"Do what?" I ask.
"Actually pay attention in class."
I shrug. "Literature's easy. It's interesting to me."
He groans and throws an arm over his eyes, slumping down in his seat. "You massive nerd."
Even with the five minute break, when the bell rings, no one bothers to conceal their joy. Typically it'd be the lunch bell, but because examinations were over, we were only kept in school half a day. The class congeals into friend groups in a matter of moments, and those with plans scatter like seeds in the wind.
"Ms Okamura." Cradling his lesson materials like a priest holding the bible, Mr Tanaka comes up to me. With summer approaching, even his dark circles and frightening pallor seem to be receding. "Would you mind writing a book report on No Longer Human for the club over the holidays? I'd love to feature it in next year's first publication."
"Oh." I glance over at Hiro, who I can feel energetically rolling his eyes. "But we just started with the lessons."
"That's alright." He beams his appalling grin. "I'd like to see your personal thoughts on it. No need for an academically correct answer."
After he leaves, Hiro snorts like he'd been waiting for it his entire life. "Homework? Over the holidays?"
"We have homework from other subjects too…"
"Not for a damn club I don't!"
Hiro was part of what they called a ghost club - clubs who basically did nothing and slacked the entire year. Though if a club couldn't show tangible results, it'd close after two years of inactivity, so each year the programming club participated in a regional event and won. I remembered the couple of weeks where Hiro would be particularly wound up, always on his computer without gaming, typing out lines after lines of code. But he was good at it, and his seniors loved him.
I was in the literature club (surprise?), and we participated in the school's termly publication by doing creative writings, analyses, or reviews on various works of literature. I thought it was fun work, but Hiro always teased me relentlessly about being a nerd or trying too hard at school.
Hiro gets up first, slinging his bag over one shoulder, and I follow suit.
"Let's go for lunch," he suggests. Someone shoulders past him, shoving their way to the door, and Hiro stumbles aside. I catch him by the arm before he can fall. "Bitch. Anyway. A new pancake place just opened on the shopping street and I wanna try it."
Another thing about Hiro Soma - he had a sweet tooth, and a serious one. From what I knew of him, he'd have sugary foods every meal for the rest of his life if he could. He had a strange aversion to the animal blood that every vampire had to drink for sustenance, one that seemed to be a touchy subject for him, so I'd learnt not to question his choices for food.
"Sure." Mama and Dad were surely out of the house at this time. Going home just meant having to make my own lunch, which would certainly mean cup noodles, and I'd already had my limit for the week.
Someone whistles behind us. Hiro pauses and turns around.
"Going home with your girlfriend, Roro?"
An imposing senior swaggers down the hallway toward us. With his terrible dye job, vague patches of purple visible where he'd left toner on for too long, Honda was everything a five-year-old gangster wanted to be, and part of the programming club. (He'd once gifted Hiro a carton of cup noodles, which he'd accepted and promptly handed to me.)
"Very funny, senpai. She's not my girlfriend." This is the most self-restraint I have ever seen Hiro exercise. It's a little funny.
"Oh, come on, man! Didn't you know, at this age, boys and girls never hang out together without liking each other?" Honda slings an arm over his shoulder, and I can see something in Hiro tick.
"We really should be going," I butt in, before Hiro can blow and ruin his reputation with yet another. "We have someone to meet."
"Aw." Thankfully, he takes the hint, releasing Hiro. He huffs and adjusts his shirt. "Then I'll catch my favourite junior when school starts again, huh!"
Hiro mutters a quick goodbye, walking just a bit too fast and leaving him behind. "God, I hate it when people touch me."
"He looked sweaty."
"He was! Goddammit." He dusts off his sleeves furiously. "I should've just shoved him off. All this vampire shit and for nothing."
"But he's your senior. It's probably best if you don't piss him off," I remind him.
Hiro mutters a perfunctory agreement.
As we emerge into the sunlight, even my screwed-up eyes can make out the beginnings of a gathering by the school gate.
"Is there something going on there, or am I actually going blind?" I ask Hiro.
"You're going blind." He shields his eyes with a hand. "Shit."