Kirihara Akaya is not a normal university student.
He drinks a little, forgets a homework assignment now and again, gets average grades, manages to feel a girl's boob from time to time—normal stuff that normal people do.
Kirihara is lying in his bed counting the lines on his dorm ceilings and trying to remember how he put that crack there. He begs his brain to let him go to sleep, but his mind is too preoccupied by thinking about the monster sitting across the room watching him from inside the closet.
See? Not normal.
Its crimson eyes have not moved once since Kirihara first laid eyes on it an hour ago, shortly after he had turned off the lights and crawled into bed. He thought it was Zaizen or Hiyoshi playing a prank, but after looking closer, Kirihara realized it was a single, immobile entity and it was alive.
It is perfect in every way down to each blond hair and its eyes are as dark as blood. Its chest seems to heave up and down. It is clothed in a suit as dark as night that clung to its frame—it is slim, but an underlying muscle tone catches Kirihara's eye. It is a creature of perverse beauty. Kirihara could not tear his eyes away from the beast in the shadows.
In the beginning, he thought it was a dream, a hallucination from lack of sleep or that Taco Bell he ate. You see, sometimes, Kirihara dreams of things that are not normal. He dreams of monstrous creatures that belt out beastly gurgles and of witches and warlocks that control the dead. He dreams of demons and devils and angels and beasts, the things nightmares are made of.
But this time, this time is different. When he saw a ragged claw mark scrapped into the wall near his closet, he knew this thing was not a figment of his imagination, it was real and it was alive.
Demons are a thing of myth, something his Christian mother taught him and his Shintoist father did not speak of. They were creatures of his imagination, something in the back of his head that could never harm him. They were restrained to his dreams, his nightmares. Until that night.
Kirihara lifts the sheets up to his chin, toes curling and fingers clutching the sheet so tightly he could have sworn he heard it tear. His breath comes out quickly as his heart pounds relentlessly. He blinks and when his eyes reopen, the red eyes are closer.
The beast had moved.
It creaks and slithers like a snake fresh out of a new skin, moving smoothly like silk. Kirihara cannot tear his eyes away. It approaches the bed.
Kirihara sucks in a breath.
The bed dips and creaks.
Kirihara closes his eyes.
The breath that hits his neck is cold.
Kirihara's eyes shoot open.
It is sitting on top of him.
A frigid, pale hand slides over his mouth and became the only thing that keeps him from screaming. The beast resembles a man, a young man, but Kirihara knows that could not be true because men did not feel like ice, did not have canines like fangs, did not reduce his world to fear and anxiety.
Its red eyes are filled with rage. Hate. Murder.
It slides its hand away from Kirihara's mouth. Kirihara jerks back, his back hitting the wall and heart hitting his sternum. He waits for the beast to advance, but he only hears laughter.
It is perverse laughter, too, smooth and dark like spilled ink creeping along parchment. It is twisted and settles as a lead ball in Kirihara's stomach; Kirihara can't force himself to breath.
He wants to run. There's a feeling deep in his gut screaming for him to just get out, but he can't. His green eyes fall upon the monster's crimson eyes, and he is frozen.
It crawls forward, ensnares Kirihara against the wall, and opens its mouth. The light from the window catches and reflects on its fangs, sharp and long like a cat's. It cocks its head to the side at a degree that Kirihara is certain means death for a human. Then its lips twitch into a Cheshire smile, all fangs and murder.
Kirihara blinks.
And the creature is gone.
Chapter 1
Always Watching, Don't Look or It Takes You
Kirihara googled Dracula and watched clips from Nosferatu the next day because that seemed like a logical thing to do. It only severed to make him more paranoid as he now believed the creature would return, control his mind, then stand creepily in a coffin-like doorway only to return late in the night to suck his blood. He was fairly certain he was going to buy silver and garlic and any other cliché item thought to ward of vampires.
Because, as he realized, it was not a demon that visited him, but a vampire.
On second thought, that didn't sound any more believable.
"What has you so distracted?" Zaizen asks.
"A vampire in a designer suit," Kirihara replies dully.
Zaizen clicks his pen in response—click, click, click. Kirihara tries to ignore his friend's incessant need to annoy people (though Zaizen does so unconsciously) and focus on his professor's lecture. Apparently the body has about five liters of blood, give or take depending on gender and height. A person will die after losing approximately forty percent of that, or two liters.
Kirihara thinks about how long it would take to lose two liters. It depends on the site of injury, he figures. He imagines having a few seconds, maybe only ten, to have a full cognizant thought while his throat spews out his life force and he passes out. He imagines this in slow motion, having a full ten seconds that felt like an eternity, and then imagines those few seconds passing like the blink of an eye— "oh shit, it got me" would probably be his last thought. Because he is certain his death will involve the blond vampire.
He wonders what he would do, what he would think—he wonders if he would even have time to process what had happened. Would it be a moment of blind panic? Would he scream, could he scream if his windpipe was broken? Or would he just stare into red eyes as dark as the blood pooling around his head...
Click, click, click.
Kirihara stares at the blank note page on his laptop and wishes Zaizen would stop clicking.
"Stop, Zaizen," Hiyoshi says from Kirihara's other side.
Click, click, click.
Almost like a heart, Kirihara thinks.
"Stop," Hiyoshi repeats.
Silence.
When the lecture is finally over, Kirihara slides his laptop into his messenger bag and stands to leave the lecture hall. Hiyoshi and Zaizen flank him on either side as they enter the labyrinth of the Science Hall, and although it seems safe, Kirihara does not feel safe. He looks over his shoulder, Hiyoshi and Zaizen repeating the motion almost instantly. He isn't sure what he expects to see.
"Are you alright?" Hiyoshi asks as the three of them turns their heads to face forward.
"Vampire in a designer suit," Zaizen says.
"Ah. Better than a werewolf, at least."
Kirihara's dreams are somewhat of a joke, even if his multiple psychiatrists do not see it that way. Every medical or psychological professional he has seen has been convinced he is a nutjob (Kirihara agrees), but could find not proof. He is tipping on the edge of insanity, but there is no biological reason for him to be. They always toss schizophrenia medicine at him, but it never works. He is just a natural born freak.
"Do you want to get coffee?" Zaizen asks, looking at Kirihara. "We could work on our papers before playing a set or two."
Kirihara grumbles, "I have an appointment." With psychiatrist number six—no boobs, answers questions with questions, and believes mints pass as candy. "Kill me now."
"Are you going to tell her about the vampire in the designer suit?"
It was a dream, it was a dream, it was a dream.
"I have to. Bitch knows when I'm lying. She's freakin' telepath of something."
It wasn't a dream.
...
Kirihara matches his psychiatrist's blank stare. She taps her pencil against her little black notebook waiting for him to speak, but he will not cave. He is a professional psychiatric patient and knows all of their little tricks.
He remembers his first trip to a psychiatrist about six years ago, when he was sixteen. He had seen a wolf-man creature thing (he quickly learned "werewolf" was not the right term to use unless you wanted to go to an asylum), and the wolf-man-thing had talked to him.
"They're coming, they're coming," it breathed for nearly half an hour. It's breath reeked of blood and rotten meat. "They're coming for you."
He found his father's alcohol stash and drank himself silly just to make the thing shut up. He almost died. They called him suicidal. No one believed the story of the wolf-man-thing; Kirihara knew he wouldn't if someone told him that.
"Is there anything you want to tell me, Kirihara?" Dr. Fukuda asks with a warm smile. She is only thirty something, but she could pass for a twelve year old. She wears glasses and a ponytail and Kirihara is fairly certain she is color blind because she mixes up green and red a lot.
Once, Akaya mentioned dreaming about a floating head with red eyes and snakes for hair, and she asked if he thought it had anything to do with the fact that he had red eyes. That's when he decided she couldn't even tell that his eyes were green.
"Kirihara?" Dr. Fukuda prompts. "This is a safe place here. No judgement. You can tell me."
"I saw..." Kirihara crosses his arms. Even after six years, he still hates this. "I saw a vampire."
Dr. Fukuda nods once, judging him over the rims of her out-of-style glasses. "I see. A vampire. What did this vampire look like?"
"I don't know. It was wearing a suit, like one of those expensive ones rich idiots can afford. Like, better than that Armani shit. He was pale, with red eyes—red, not green—and was cold. At least, his breath was cold."
"Breath? This vampire could breathe?"
Kirihara scrunches his face in confusion. "Well, yeah, he did. So what?"
"Vampires don't breathe."
"Vampires aren't supposed to be real!"
"So you agree that you saw something that is not real. Is that correct, Kirihara?"
He hates when she tricks him like that.
He remains silent, staring at her until she says, "What did this vampire do? Did it tell you anything? Anything at all?"
"No. Not really." Kirihara thinks back to the previous night, then says, "It may have laughed. It did laugh. I just—I don't know why. It could have killed me, but instead it laughed. Then, it left."
"It only laughed?" she asks. Kirihara nods. She taps her little black notebook, which she never uses to take notes in. She hums and poses the question, "Where was this vampire? In a coffin? A forest?"
"My closet."
"The closet?"
"Yes, the closet. It just stood there."
When she asks if he was having homosexual urges, he leaves. She is the worst psychiatrist he has ever had. He is not gay. A vampire in a suit is out to get him. It really isn't that hard to comprehend.
...
Kirihara met Zaizen and Hiyoshi through a fluke. It was their first week of their freshmen year of university and Kirihara had gotten a little too wild. He went to this party in an upper class dorm. He ended up drinking something that made him throw up, taking some pill, getting a blowjob by a girl in her boyfriend's room, and waking up in the plaza fountain within twelve hours. It was awesome, even if he didn't remember all of it.
He woke up at seven in the morning and saw Hiyoshi and Zaizen standing there. Zaizen had a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and a phone in his hand. Kirihara could hear the snap, snap of pictures being taken. Hiyoshi had his phone out too.
"Perverts," Kirihara grumbled. He was vaguely aware that he was in his underwear. Later he learned that he had a penis drawn on his ass and to this day he still has no idea how that happened.
Hiyoshi put his phone down at that point. Zaizen took another picture and said, "Aren't you in my Sociology class?"
"Dude, don't talk so loud," Kirihara replied. Zaizen took a drag of his cigarette and let out a puff of smoke. "And those things will kill you."
Hiyoshi rolled his eyes. "Like alcohol is any better."
"Shut up. Urgh." Kirihara grabbed his head. It throbbed. He felt as if a demon had taken a sledge hammer to his skull to play the drums and used his brain to rock out to Smoke on the Water. He attempted to stand, but could not quite find his feet. He looked down, thinking that would help. He saw something else beside his reflection when he looked down into the water. Something was floating.
Kirihara leaned forward until his head was no more than a foot away from the water. A disembodied eye stared back at him, the nerve still attached to the back and was wiggling in greetings. It sat in the middle of his reflection, like it was his own eye.
The iris was apple green and so familiar. Kirihara reached up to his face and prodded at the region below his eyes. The left was fine. The right was hollow. He could dip his fingers into the socket—wet and hot and bloody. The eye in the water stared at him as the nerve weaved in the water; the eye was moving.
"Come back, you fucker," Kirihara said.
He dropped to his knees, reaching out to grab his eye. He had to get a hospital. Could they put an eye back in? He could not pull of an eyepatch.
"Missing something? Besides your clothes and dignity?" Zaizen asked. He dropped the butt of his cigarette into the water, causing a ripple. When the tiny waves stopped, Kirihara could see his reflection. Two eyes stared back. He checked his sockets—they were his eyes.
Kirihara let out a sigh of relief.
"We're going to get coffee. You should come," Hiyoshi said. "You're drunk as hell and need some coffee."
"Besides, these pictures won't be worth much if we don't know your name," Zaizen added.
"It's Kirihara."
"Hiyoshi."
"Zaizen."
Kirihara ended up outside a local coffee joint in his underwear, soaking wet, trying to piece together what happened last night while Hiyoshi and Zaizen drank their morning coffee.
There are some things that bring people together; finding a hungover boy who thought his eyes was missing and offering him coffee is one of those things.
To this day, Kirihara is not allowed in that coffee shop. That's why, when he goes to meet up with Hiyoshi and Zaizen, they go in and order his hot chocolate for him. When they come out, tennis bags slung over their shoulders, Zaizen hands him his little tan and green Styrofoam cup and says, "They still recognize us."
Kirihara looks at the side of his cup and smiles. "They wrote 'naked guy' again. I think that should be my new nickname."
"It is to everyone in that coffee shop," Hiyoshi says. "We already finished our papers, by the way."
"Can you at least show me your outlines? I don't even know what the hell this thing is supposed to be on."
"Fine, but you owe me a new set of balls."
"A new set? Since when have you had balls?"
Hiyoshi reaches over and gently punches Kirihara in the arm. "Tennis balls, moron," he says. Kirihara laughs and rubs at his arm even though it does not hurt. If Hiyoshi wanted to hurt him, or anybody for that matter, it would be very obvious.
"I do recall you owing me a birthday present," Kirihara says, "so we're even."
"Damn."
"While we're talking about dues," Zaizen says, and Kirihara and Hiyoshi prepare for the worst, "you both owe me for destroying my robot last month."
"That was Kirihara," Hiyoshi argues. "He thought it was a ball machine."
"How was I supposed to know the thing had a flamethrower option?"
"Doesn't matter. You owe me," Zaizen says.
Kirihara groans because, shit, that's going to be expensive. He isn't exactly made of money. The only reason he's at school is because his parents want him to be. Same goes for his psychiatrist.
It takes them twenty minutes to reach the university tennis courts on the other side of campus. Kirihara sits on the ground next to the bench where Zaizen and Hiyoshi sit, tying shoes and checking racquet strings. They're laughing about a joke Kirihara has long since forgotten.
By chance, Kirihara looks up. He sees someone staring back.
His day could not get any worse.
They're standing underneath the tree on the other side of the court. Kirihara expects them to walk away, but they don't even move. They're a statue. Kirihara can make out a few features—skinny, ear-length hair (holy shit is that blue hair?), and red.
Its eyes are red.
Aren't vampires supposed to, you know, burst into flames or something in the sun? How was one able to stand right there?
Kirihara's heart pounds so quickly it aches.
The vampire lifts its chin just so, as if it is cognizant of the fact that Kirihara has spotted it. It does not move, just stands there, staring at Kirihara with those crimson red eyes.
The vampire puts a finger to its lip the way a mother does when going shhh.
Kirihara stands. Hiyoshi and Zaizen go silent and look up at their friend.
"You okay?" Hiyoshi asks.
Kirihara looks down at them for the briefest of seconds to see if they had looked. They hadn't. Kirihara looks back at the tree, but does not see anything. The vampire is gone.
"Kirihara?" Hiyoshi says. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah. Just peachy. Only going insane, you know, the usual."
...
If you travel into the middle of the woods outside of town, you will come across an old victorian house with dark ivy creeping up the pale edges with the windows planked from the inside with wood, and would feel a shiver run down your spine. In the uppermost room, decked from floor to ceiling with extravagant fabrics and colors, silver and gold ornaments, and glowing black candles, lives a monster.
A tall, well toned vampire smoothes his hands over the lapels of his plume suit as he examines his reflection in a large antiqued mirror. He adjusts his tie, pinching a bit of fuzz off of his black button down. He adds a amethyst and diamond encrusted tie pin to his ensemble. With one last twitch of the shoulder, the creature deems his appearance as perfect.
Knock, knock.
"Enter," the vampire orders. He turns on the soles of his shiny designer shoes and walks towards his ornamented four poster bed surrounded by black curtains. Before reaching for the curtains, he turns to the door. "Why do you feel the need to bother me? I have business to attend to."
A bland vampire is standing in the doorway in a plain black suit. Its skin is pale and its eyes red, like all vampires'. It bows briefly to its master. "Sir. Four from the Rikkaidai Clan were spotted patrolling along the boarder between the werewolves and their clan. Other information leads us to believe they are searching for the hero amongst the werewolves."
The master peels the black curtains apart, gazing at the creature who is lying on the bed. He is a vampire, young, his skin so pale it glows in the dim candlelit room. The young vampire lazily slides a hand through his curly blond hair, his red eyes locked on the master.
"Are you an imbecile?" the master hisses. His words are like icicles, sharp and frigid. The vampire on the bed rises to his knees, the fine silk sheets pooling to his groin; he is completely exposed without shame. The master lifts the vampire's chin with two fingers. "Do you really think they that foolish? The prophecy says a human boy will be the savior, not a filthy werewolf.
"I have seen the boy, this hero." The master slides his fingers up to the blond vampire's mouth. The vampire picks at the skin of a finger with the tip of his fang before darting his tongue out to lap up the drop of blood. "He is the one we seek. Tell Oshitari and Mukahi they are to follow the boy I spoke of earlier. I want to know everything about our destined hero so that I may crush him."
The vampire on the bed laughs excitedly and says, "Can I torture him? I want to torture him. Can I? Can I?"
The master slides a hand into the vampire's curled blond hair. "If there is anything left to torture after I have finished with him."
The vampire's smile is filled with perverse joy. The master moves his red eyes, locking daggers on the servant. "Go, and do not bother me again or you shall suffer the true death."
The servant leaves in a hurry, closing the door and walking down the hall.
"Lie down, Jirou," the master orders. The bare blond vampire lies down on top of the sheets, his skin white against the black; Jirou tilts his head back into the many pillows, his neck stretching.
The master sits on the edge of the bed, leaning over Jirou, fangs barred. The master leans in and—
"Yes," Jirou hisses as fangs broke skin and vein, drawing blood. The fangs dig in deeper when Jirou writhes back and forth, pleasure warmer than the sun spreading through his icy body. Arousal sweeps south, taking over his body and numbing his mind. Fingers thread into the master's flawless hair and tug, hard.
The fangs pop out and the master flicks his red eyes to Jirou's face. "Do not touch my hair. I have important business to attend to once I am finished with you."
Jirou slides his hand out of his master's hair down to his neck, fingers curling gently, almost lovingly, against his master's flawless skin.
"Sorry, Master Atobe."
"You are forgiven."
The master bites into Jirou's neck again and continues to drink.
...
They say there's a creature in the corner of your eye, always there, waiting for you to look away, to forget the paranoia in your gut telling you to run. Once you forget that there's a shadow lurking in the dark, it strikes. They strike.
They're not human, not even close. They're monsters and you'd better watch out.
They bite.
A/N: Happy Halloween!
Disclaimer: I do not own Prince of Tennis nor do I own any real-world company mentioned in this fic. The title for this chapter, "Always Watching, Don't Look or It Takes You," is from the game Slender, which I do not own.