Pain spiraled through my head and masked the fever in my body. Trapped in a dark alley surrounded by the people who only wished to see me suffer. I lay helpless as a group of boys held me down after they had beaten me senseless.
With his foot pressed down on my head, I barely heard Kaito's cynical laughter while he snapped pictures of my bloodied body.
"Look at you, you're so pathetic, Rui!" Kaito continued to snap painful candid photos of my limp existence.
Warm blood dripped from my fractured skull and the gaping wound across my forehead where my face hit the hard pavement. "Why are you doing this to me?" I said between strained hiccups.
"Because you deserve it, that's why. And honestly, because I felt like it," Kaito said with a dismissive shrug. He took his foot off my head and kicked me straight to the chest, knocking the breath out of me.
Blood spilled from my mouth as that last kick shattered a rib, the splinted bone puncturing my lungs. They might not have been aware, but I was slowly dying. Suffocating on my own blood.
Why? Why me? What did I ever do to deserve this?
"Hey, man he's not looking too good," said one of Kaito's underlings.
I knew it wasn't out of concern for my wellbeing, but more so that he was afraid that they would get caught.
Kaito scoffed as he lit a cigarette. "So? We said we were getting tired of him anyways. We agreed together to get rid of him."
"Yeah, but I just thought you meant dumping his ass! Not murder!" His breath caught in his throat after witnessing the piercing glare of his rugged group's leader.
"If he dies then he dies. And if he does, then what the hell are you going to do about it?" He approached with his menacing aura.
The underling backed down. He didn't want to end up like me, the poor fool who lay on the ground and cried and simmered in a pool of his own blood.
"Just leave him. It's not like anyone will find out we did it," Kaito stomped out his cigarette. He picked up his school bag and carelessly threw it over his shoulder.
As I watched them walk away, I couldn't stop the tears that flowed freely from my eyes. My desperate hand reached up as their silhouettes grew fainter in the distance.
Though they were my tormentors, I still hoped—prayed— that maybe one of them would show an ounce of humanity and turn around to save me.
The pain was unbearable, and I just couldn't wrap my mind around why this was happening. My whole life, I was pushed around, and now, I think it might finally be the end of me. Their taunting and teasing had finally led to me seeing death's door.
You'd think that I'd have begged for mercy more, but even if I did, it wouldn't have mattered. I was as good as dead anyways; I'm just surprised it didn't happen sooner.
For as long as I could remember, people took advantage of me. At first, the bullying was tolerable. I was the errand boy. I went to stores and bought cigarettes for them or just carried around their books or gave them money. That was something I could tolerate.
But I never knew how depraved Kaito truly was. Apparently, making my life a living hell wasn't enough for him anymore. Now, it was clear that he wanted to watch me die.
"Please…" I wheezed through my blood-filled lungs. I'm afraid. I'm not ready to die! Slowly, my consciousness began to drift away from me. If I fell asleep, it would all be over, but I was just so tired.
However, the delicate chime of a bell brought me back to my senses. With my fogged and blurred vision, a pair of wooden geta stepped in front of me. My shaking eyes traced up the person's legs and noticed they wore a black and white vertically striped kimono with a dark blue sash tied around their waist.
His arms were crossed against his chest and tucked into his sleeves, with one shoulder bare as his kimono hugged loosely around his body. His skin was pale, but despite appearing like a ghost, his face was very handsome.
He had his messy, silver hair tied back with a hair tie with a bell attached to it. His eyes were also kind of scary and inhuman. They were the color of a polished ruby, and his ears were pointed at the tips like some kind of fabled creature.
His face was slim—both feminine and masculine. A true work of art in a world surrounded with colors of grey and ugliness.
"Are you," I wheezed again, "my guardian angel?"
The figure before me raised a hand to his mouth and chuckled; his charming voice brought a sense of ease to my discomfort.
"I've been called many things, but an angel has never been one of them." He knelt and cupped my chin between his cold, long fingers. "But if you want, I don't mind being your savior."
He tilted my face up and gently licked the blood that ran down my cheek.
I cringed but only slightly since my strength had all but left me.
He shuddered as he tasted my blood, and his pale cheeks tinged with red like autumn leaves. "I knew you were special. The taste of your blood, it's so potent. It's like nothing I've ever known." He scooped me up delicately in his arms and cradled my face in his hand. "I'm glad I didn't ignore this scent. You're special."
I had no idea what he was babbling about—all that mattered was that he was willing to help me. This strange and mysterious man who I knew nothing about had become the one person I could trust. Or wanted to trust, anyways, since I had no one else.
I tried to speak but the words just couldn't come out. Between the rushes of pain and my mind fading in and out, I could do nothing but plead with my eyes.
Our gazes locked onto each other, and for a moment, I think he understood what I wanted to tell him.
"I can save you, but you might come to realize that you'll be losing a lot more than what you think you're going to gain," he warned me. His smooth voice hinted at a sense of urgency.
I nodded weakly to him, clinging to whatever life I still had left in me. Save me.
My final tear streaked down my face as my body became limp like dead meat in his arms.
With a last kind gesture, he smiled and gently cupped the back of my head. He leaned down and I felt his warm breath tickle my throat.
"Then I don't want to hear you complain when you finally realize what's happened. Starting from now on until the day one of us dies, I will be your master. Your blood, your body, and your soul. They all belong to me," he said, his eyes flashed with an eerie power, "Never forget that."
I gasped when a sharp pain punctured my throat. My eyes shot open, and I could barely see as he sunk his teeth into my skin. I was growing so cold, but I still trusted him.
My arms instinctively wrapped around his shoulders. It felt like my life was being sucked away, but deep inside of me, a new spark was beginning to rise. As my old self was dying, the new me scratched to break free and come to the surface.
***
My body felt as if it drifted in a river of warmth and comfort. I unconsciously smiled, almost becoming one with the new current of emotions that engulfed me. The fear that I once felt had disappeared, but something new gnawed me in the back of my mind. I couldn't give it a word even if I tried, but the best way I could define it was animalistic.
Cold arms wrapped around my waist and my eyes fluttered open, especially when I felt the pressure of a head leant against my shoulder. "Who are you?" I asked, dreamily.
The figure chuckled, and I could detect the eeriness in his voice.
"I've been waiting so long to meet you. It was fate that we could finally come together," he said in his depraved, chilling tone.
A chill shot up my spine. His grasp around my waist tightened and my eyes flew wide open.
I glanced over my shoulder. Looking back at me was someone who had my face—but he wasn't exactly the version of me that I was accustomed to.
His eyes were the same grim shade of red as the man I had just encountered, and my brown hair was now a stark ash color. The smile etched into the darker version of myself bore two sharp and lethal looking fangs that poked out from his upper lip.
"What the hell are you?" I demanded while I struggled to break free. Although his tight embrace kept me from escaping.
"I'm you, obviously. Or at least, the you that you were always meant to become." The dark me nuzzled his face into my throat and a pained groan escaped my lips.
"But there can only be one of us, and I refuse to go back to the darkness…" he said with a menacing chuckle. "If you don't keep your guard up, I will consume you. All of you," he started, "But I at least hope you try to put up a fight. Because if I overcome you so easily, then there would be no more fun in the hunt!"
He sunk his fangs deep into my neck and I let out a shriek. Unlike the man who was so gentle with me before, this darkness within me was rough and unforgiving.
There's no way this could be me! I refuse to believe that something so evil could exist within me!
***
I lurched forward and gasped for breath while I clutched my hands around my throat. One of my hands slinked to my chest to feel the strong, pounding beat of my heart. It reminded me that I was alive. A relief, but it led me to second guess if what I experienced was only a dream or reality.
While my wounds were gone, I could still feel the ache of what used to be there. "How on Earth am I still alive?" My eyes scanned my surroundings, and I realized that I was back in the comforts of my bedroom at my family's inn.
"How did I get here?" I groaned while I rubbed the top of my head. I grimaced however, when the overpowering light of my bedside lamp overwhelmed me. I shielded my eyes and turned the light off, and it was only then my vision was relieved.
But it wasn't only my vision that seemed heightened, it was also my hearing and my sense of smell.
The rushing water of the hot springs and the natural minerals from the Earth flooded my nose. The dinner service that was freshly cooked and served to the guests, still hot. The grating sounds of forks and spoons against a glass plate splintered my ears.
"What the hell is happening to me?" I covered my hands over my ears. My heart that pounded felt to only beat harder. This wasn't normal! Something was definitely wrong with me.
While consumed in my new sensations, my ears ached when there was a knock at my door. It was my grandmother.
"Rui, are you finally awake?" she asked in her soft and loving voice. "I was so worried about you when your friend came and brought you home."
Friend? What is she talking about?
"He assured me that you were okay, but your clothes were covered in blood! Are you sure you're alright?" she asked. Her heart beated anxiously when she showed her concern.
It was so loud someone might as well had been banging a drum right inside my skull.
"Yes, I'm fine grandma! Don't worry about me," I told her, not even convinced by my own words. "But what friend were you talking about, exactly? The one you said brought me home?"
"I'm talking about the handsome gentleman wearing the kimono! He was definitely a looker, that's for sure! Had I known you had a friend like that, I would have asked him to work for the inn!" she teased. "His looks would definitely help draw in the younger crowd this family business of ours desperately needs."
"A man in a kimono…" There was no doubt, she must have been talking about him. Which only confirmed my suspicions that what happened wasn't a dream after all.
"Is that man still here now?" I asked.
"Why yes! I don't know where, but he's somewhere around the inn. He paid for a month's stay in advance! Such a kind young man," she said and placed a tray of food in front of my door. "You go ahead and eat your fill. A growing child like yourself needs to eat if he wants to grow big and strong!"
Her quick footsteps shuffled away from the door. I was alone again, but now I had even more questions than I had answers.
"Just what did he do to me?" I asked, perplexed. My senses were still dialed up to a ten, yet I failed to notice him—and nearly jumped out of my skin when the closet in my bedroom suddenly swung open.
The man in question lazily lay on his side and scratched his chest before he released a drawn-out yawn.
I can pretty much tune in on everything else! How did I not detect his presence at all?
I jumped back and silently screamed. "What the hell are you doing in there? And better yet, who the hell are you?"
The stranger scoffed as he sat up and fixed his messy hair. He re-tied it with the hair tie with the bell that once again resonated a calming chime.
"I'm your master, or did you forget, newborn?" he said nonchalantly.
He was different from when I first encountered him. Back then, he seemed like an angel sent from heaven. But now that I had a better look at him, he resembled more of a bum, or a shut-in. His kimono was a mess, and his once-flawless pale skin was marred by deep dark circles underneath his piercing eyes.
This weirdo was the one who saved me? That's hard to believe.
The stranger scowled. "Is that anyway to address your master?" His voice carried an unshakable authority.
I had no reason to fear him, but that one phrase resonated deep inside of me.
"I can hear your thoughts. Since we're connected through a blood bond, I know everything that goes through that simple mind of yours."
"You can hear my thoughts? You're crazy! No human can do something like that!" I joked, laughing it off. But he didn't laugh with me.
His coy smile shifted into a confident grin, and that's when it finally hit me. His inhuman aura. The fact that he saved my life even though I was on the brink of death. The sharp pain in my throat when he bit me. And the unsettling truth that I no longer felt like myself.
"You… you are human, aren't you?" I asked, reluctantly.
"No, I'm not," he said, his tone devoid of humor. "My name is Kana. No last name—I've long forgotten it over my five hundred years of life."
He rose out from my closet, and instinctively I sank to my knees. His overwhelming aura and the sheer disparity in power between us crashed over me like a typhoon.
Without thinking, I bowed. Somehow, my body just knew. He was my master, and I, his lowly dog.
"I'm a vampire who has lived over half a millennium. It was you who begged for my help," he said before he knelt to meet my gaze, but I was hesitant to look back at him.
"You asked me to save you, so I did. You should be grateful—because had I not intervened, you would have died in that alley like the trash that you are."
I couldn't believe that I once saw him as my guardian angel. Because now, all I saw before me was a demon. His words were cruel, a brutal reminder that I had just sold my soul to the devil himself.
"Welcome to the world of the undead, Rui Kemmotsu. Now that you've been reborn, your life is no longer yours to control. It's mine," he whispered huskily into my ear. "Didn't I tell you that you would lose more than you thought you would?"
In that moment, a bitter thought crossed my mind: maybe I should have just died after all. Because now, I was about to face a far greater hell than the one I'd already been living in.
And it was all thanks to this one man who found me in that dark, and lonely alleyway. I'd reached out to him, believing he was my savior. But little did I know then, he wasn't there to save me. He was there to end the only life I'd known once and for all.