Note: So I combined two things I love (NDRV3 + vampires) and made this incoherent but still somewhat thoughtful AU. Enjoy!
When did he first know he was going to die?
When did he discover that it had all been a lie?
Kokichi Ouma asked himself these things on a daily basis, but he knew the answer better than anyone else. As he should know the answer before anyone else, because he never told anyone about that particular experience he had, all those years ago. And if anyone were to ask him about it now, he would clam up and take his story to the grave. Well, maybe not anyone, but most people would get the warranted silence or a carefully crafted diversion from Kokichi if they actually pressed him on the matter. It was all the same, in his mind.
And in his mind, he could see the scenes play out clearly and vividly, like one of those old-fashioned movie reels that rolled up the film until the tiny slides were all bunched up together. And when the film was unrolled, bits and pieces of that story would be visible again, and it would be like nothing bad ever happened in the first place.
Kokichi's story, however, did not start at the first panel like most stories did. But then again, who said that the stories had to start at the beginning? No, in actuality, most people's lives only got interesting later on, and the crux of their existences were placed precariously in the middle of their timeline. Ouma was still young, however, so he could consider the beginning of his life—and the end of it, too—being placed somewhere in his childhood. And he was a slightly bigger boy since that time, so when his violet eyes fluttered closed in thoughtful repose, he could remember everything from that point onward.
One of his earliest memories, and subsequently the most vivid, started when he was no older than six years old. And it was marked with trepid footsteps, fearful stares, with the glint of metallic gold and moon-white pearls in the dark.
.
.
Kokichi was six years old. He barely knew anything about himself, let alone the world around him. While he was startlingly clever for a child his age, there were still some basic things that he failed to understand. But could he help it? After all, his parents could only do so much—if they chose to do anything at all—and from early on, Kokichi realized he had to take care of himself because no one else in his life was willing to take care of him.
His mother and father came home late from work one night, ignoring their son as they passed by him on the staircase to the second floor of their home. Judging from their sluggish movements and dazed eyes, it had been a hectic day on their end, and they were in no state to talk to each other, let alone their clever son. So the young boy watched as the two adults disappeared behind wooden doors, the sound of their slippers shuffling against the hardwood floors of their home. When he heard a soft thunk noise that could only be their tired bodies crashing against the bed, Kokichi headed back down the stairs to the first floor.
There was no reason for this late-night expedition, but he felt antsy sitting in his own room and trying to force himself to sleep. With his first-grade homework having long since been completed in his backpack, there was nothing of immediate importance for the then-young Kokichi to do. None of his toys were stimulating enough, and the notebooks which he obsessively garnered and scribbled in were also lacking interest. Seeing less and less options for his nightly entertainment, he settled on having a midnight snack.
The fridge opened easily before the boy, and he scoured the shelves for something he liked. The grape soda which he loved so much was finished already, and orange flavored ramune stood as the only meek comparison and substitution possible. Kokichi's nose scrunched up at the sight of it, but he settled for a half-empty bottle of that orange ramune, together with one of those sweet buns that his father always bought whenever he was out. He closed the fridge, and set upon his nightly snack.
Somewhere in between finishing the sweet bun and kicking his legs back and forth, Kokichi heard a loud noise upstairs. It sounded like glass shattering, maybe, but he couldn't quite tell. It sent chills up his spine, and a bright fear took hold of his mind as he stumbled out from the chair he was sitting in. The noise resurfaced again, and this time the child was running out of the kitchen, clamoring up the stairs like his life depended on it.
Or like his parents' lives depended on it. He knew that while they were adults and generally bigger and stronger than him, in their tired states they were just as weak and unsuspicious of anything strange happening as Kokichi was. If there was someone or something in his house, they would be unaware of it and unable to fight back if conflict broke out. And if they were unable to stop the threat, then it would lead to Kokichi's downfall, too.
Of course, Kokichi was six, so his thoughts on the matter went along the lines of some monster musta broke in! I gotta check on Mommy and Daddy! But the same sentiment still applied. It wasn't the first time that the choking feeling of anxiety came to eat his heart, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. The way his chest felt like breaking apart to let loose the thunderous heart within would be something that Ouma could never forget.
Even if he wanted to.
.
.
The memory continued on as it always did. Kokichi knew this part, and every part before and afterward. He knew the feeling of the stairs disappearing beneath his feet, and the unsteady grasp his hands had on the railings as he climbed upward. He knew the sound of thunder in his ears, and the desperate breaths escaping his lips in frightened pants. He also knew what he must have looked like at the time—a smaller, weaker version of himself. Not wearing his usual clothes or smile, but just a tiny boy in a simple t-shirt and shorts, wearing a look of complete fear.
He knew what happened next.
Kokichi saw his parents' bedroom door in front of him. Here is where he hesitated, because every time he walked in here, he was scolded and immediately ushered out by one of his parents. Whether it was because he had a bad dream, heard a loud noise, or some mix of the two, he would run in and try to wake his parents. And eventually, Ouma trained himself to not bother them in the middle of the night anymore, even when he had the worst nightmare possible.
But tonight was different. That noise was ear-shattering loud, and if he could hear it all the way from downstairs then it must have been something big. Maybe that monster ripped through the windows and stole his mother away. Or maybe his dad broke their antique vase or something else that could have splintered apart into a million pieces. Either way, Kokichi decided that he would investigate, and that being punished for waking them up was far less scarier than waiting outside this door, unknowing of what may lurk behind it.
So he opened the door, slowly and carefully, making sure that it didn't squeak out against him in protest. The room was really dark, and a light breeze met Kokichi's face when he entered. In the dimness of his surroundings, he could see that the window was open, because the streetlights in the distance were visible from his viewpoint. And in that dull light, Kokichi could make out the shapes of his mother and father lying on the bed.
But something was wrong, he realized. Something was terribly, obstinately wrong. His father wasn't snoring his usual storm, and his mother had left the window open—two things that the boy knew for a fact that his parents would never do. If anything, Mr. Ouma was known for lamenting over his loud snoring, and how he invested in earplugs for his wife and in some medicine that was supposed to cure the nightly habit. And Mrs. Ouma, respectively, got cold so easily that she insisted all windows be shut at all times. Even if it meant making the house a stuffy, sweaty mess, she wanted none of the wind from the outside world.
So how could the two of them break their usual habits, especially in a time like this? Kokichi was scared, alright. Scared that his parents were replaced by machines, or that they fell into such a deep sleep that they wouldn't ever wake up again. Realizing he had to make this room brighter in order to get any answers, he felt around for the light switch, and turned it on without hesitation.
He'll never forget what he saw there. It took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the new brightness of the room, but when they did the image that lay before him became permanently ingrained in his mind. His violet eyes widened in fear, disgust, and confusion mixed up in one incomprehensible mess. He felt his shirt was too bare and that his body was naked, revealed to the cold night's wind and the scene before him. His arms trembled and his hands reached up to muffle a scream from his mouth.
They were dead. They had to be, because they were staring right at Kokichi without any semblance of emotion. His father was in bed, but lying askew and out from the sheets. He crumpled near the footboard, dark eyes staring at the oblivion ahead of him, unseeing of the boy that he was eye level with. A thin stream of blood seeped from his mouth, and the side of his head appeared lopsided, like it had caved in beneath the pressure of all his thoughts within.
(That wouldn't be a farfetched reality, either. His father always complained that he worried too much, and that his head constantly hurt from all the thinking he did.)
Then there was his mother. She wasn't lying down on the bed with him as much as she was propped against the headboard—sitting up but so motionless that there couldn't have been life in those dull eyes of hers. She had the same deal as her husband, with streams of blood coming out from her mouth, and a lopsided shape to her head that wasn't there before. The only exception to this was that there was a gaping hole in her chest, a darkness where blood and bone should have been.
(And while his mother could be so, so cruel at times, this wasn't what Kokichi imagined when people called her "heartless". No, this was more than just her heart.)
A shadow moved across the room, and jumped out of the window when it noticed Kokichi. For a split second beforehand, the boy could see it—moon-white pearl edge, something so bright and milky that it seemed perfect—coming out from the shadow's body. What were they exactly, he wouldn't think to know. But it reminded him a lot of those wolves and bears he saw at the zoo once.
It was off-putting how familiar their fanged expressions behind cages reminded him of that shadow. And he would have thought about it more in detail, but he got sidetracked by another revelation he caught in the moment. The window was the source of the shattering sound from earlier, he decided, because glass fragments splayed across the bedroom floor, jutting the edges of the room like a dangerous trap. And despite the danger, he stepped forward cautiously.
The shadow left, but Kokichi was still not alone. He realized this when he came closer, and saw another pair of eyes staring at him. They weren't lifeless eyes like the ones his parents had, or dark shadows like the guy that just jumped out of the window had. No, these were bright, vivacious eyes looking right in Kokichi's direction. They were a sweet, golden color, shining like metal now that the light had properly cast against them. And there were wondrously long lashes accompanying these eyes, too, fluttering in tandem with the eyes' movements.
All Kokichi could clearly remember were those eyes. He didn't have time to see the rest of the face, or the body, for that matter. But he had a feeling that there was another child in the room with him, because the stranger had stared into his eyes on an equal level. Yet as soon as they made contact—as soon as bright gold met dark purple—they shifted away, closing shut and hiding themselves from the onlooker. Then the stranger turned into a blur, heading towards the window like the first shadow did.
"W-Wait!" Kokichi finally croaked out a response, and he nearly tripped over himself as he gave chase. "Wait!"
They didn't listen to him. Those golden eyes appeared before him once more, and Ouma realized it was because the stranger was staring him down from the window frame. They perched on the broken windowsill like a bird, waiting for Ouma's reaction.
Maybe they saw something in Kokichi's eyes. Something like hope, despair, and hatred all in one, which wouldn't have been surprising given the situation. Maybe they saw the remnants of love and life leaving the boy's eyes as it did his parents'. Maybe they saw a cruel anger, or a disparate wish that wanted nothing than redemption for his parents' lost lives. Either way, the stranger saw something, and their expression changed vapidly.
They looked kind. They looked sympathetic. Those golden eyes softened in appearance, and the long lashes fluttered slowly, as if to emphasize the emotion that laid there. But no matter what those eyes did, they only infuriated Kokichi because they lacked the one true emotion that he needed to see there.
And that emotion was remorse. Those eyes weren't apologetic in the least, and instead they seemed unfazed by the two, dead adults that lay only feet away from where they were. Kokichi had the nerve to scream, shout, or grab the perpetrator by the head. But he could do none of those things, as the golden-eyed stranger disappeared out the window, escaping without saying so much as a word.
Kokichi ran towards the broken window, ignoring the biting pain of his feet as he trampled over glass shards. Even if he tracked blood behind him in clumsy steps, he didn't care. The fact that those two chose to fall out of a window than face condemnation was a telling sign. So Kokichi couldn't wait to see what had become of them—if they had turned into cracked puddles of flesh and blood on the concrete outside of his house, crumpling like paper dolls instead of the people that they were.
His heart dropped when he saw that there were no bodies on the pavement outside. In fact, there was nothing outside except wayward leaves from nearby trees, and Kokichi's bicycle with training wheels parked against the house. No blood, bone, or anything to signify two people jumping out of a second story window. No trace of any monsters having rampaged his home, despite the cadavers left behind as obvious evidence.
Nothing. There was absolutely nothing. And Kokichi felt like the hole in his mother's chest, or the window with broken glass. He felt like there was nothing left of him, and it was strange because he was sure—no, positive of it— that he was still something. Because his eyes started watering and his feet screamed at him to stop standing on the glass, already! But none of these signs registered hard enough in the boy's mind.
No, the only thing he could even fathom was the moon-white pearls in the shadow's form, and the glinting gold in the stranger's eyes.
.
.
But that was a long time ago. Kokichi had been six years old when that happened, and a great deal of time passed since then. He was much older now, albeit not as taller as he imagined he would turn out to be. But his slight frame and childish appearance only benefited him in most situations, and since he was a self-proclaimed pacifist, he avoided fighting whenever he could. So it'd be fine if he had to use his lithe body to outrun or squeeze by enemies, anyway.
It only mattered in the end, when he could find that gold-eyed demon that took his parents away. While he had greater plans and ideas than short-sighted revenge, the instinct within him didn't allow him to ignore the great loss he felt when he had lost them both. And those metallic eyes he stared so deeply into had haunted him every day since the first time he witnessed them.
Kokichi normally had a sunny disposition. He was hard to read, completely unpredictable, and super annoying, to boot. He hid everything that hurt him behind a smile, and when he couldn't he would pretend to be sad and brush it off as another facade of his. Everyone that knew him knew these bare basics—they knew he was a liar and that he couldn't be trusted. Worse was that he was wildly smart and creative, off-the-rails in the best (and worst) way possible, so he could bend these lies and truths to his whim.
The only time when he appeared different was when he was thinking about that night. The sunlight in his face would dim and become darkness, and angry shadows would take a hold of his heart, disregarding all the walls put up in self-defense there. When that happened, he knew he was breaking character—he knew he was being weak and vulnerable and everything he hates about himself. But he couldn't quite help it. This was one of his many neuroses, and his inability to mask it like he did to all other things was something that couldn't be avoided.
He blamed it all on that demon. Yes, Kokichi Ouma generally didn't believe in murder, violence, or anything that couldn't overtly be solved by quick-thinking and careful planning all at once. There were exceptions to this, of course, and times where cruelty needed to be the forefront of negotiations. But this was the primary case of that ideology, and when it came to that monster that ravaged his home all those years ago, anything goes.
And Ouma was clever from the beginning. He was even more clever to rally forces of similar people, of those who have suffered loss and bore the regret of being unable to protect those they love. As it turns out, Kokichi wasn't alone in his endeavors, and his experience was just one of many. In fact, while most people were unaware of it, a select few in the world knew of the existence of those that looked human, but most certainly weren't.
The term vampire was made just for them. And Kokichi never realized he would become the head of the first formal vampire hunting society. Of course, he called it "hunting", but he usually spared any creature that fell into that category. His goal, after all, wasn't to cleanse this world of evil, but rather to find a very particular evil and bring them to their knees.
While his subordinates often killed those beasts anyway, they always had to bring the captives to Ouma first, so he could see if they were the golden-eyed beast that broke into his home all those years ago. And most of the time, they weren't the one he was looking for. No, their eyes ranged in colors, everything from bloodiest red to clearest sky blue. But never gold, never that tantalizing, metallic shade that still appeared in Kokichi's mind if he thought hard enough (and even when he didn't think at all, they still appeared).
Never that glinting gold, set against the darkness of the night like a sun against a setting sky. It irked Kokichi each time his organization failed him, and that frustration blinded him from seeing the act of his underlings kill the vampiric captives, showing they weren't nearly as "pacifistic" as their leader. But these were oversights that could be ignored, because to Kokichi, nothing was more important than that gold.
"Go for Gold!" He would tell his members at meetings. "Remember, bring everyone to me first. I mean, you could always disobey me, but I doubt you'd get as much fun out of that as you think you would. So, don't just stand there with stupid looks on your face! Get to it!"
And then they would disperse like mice in the sewers, scampering over each other in hushed whispers and gallivanting laughs. Ouma didn't mind, though. These were his people, and they didn't actually have the guts to go against him.
(They wouldn't get out of it unscathed if they did.)
Although, it was a bit disappointing at how obedient they were, to the point where they didn't bother talking to Kokichi after receiving orders. They just left the meeting and convened elsewhere, or went straight ahead to work. Perhaps they had a fire that Kokichi lacked, but he seriously doubted it given the state of their work ethic. To them, this organization was a means to an end, and that end would be to bring all vampires to extinction.
For Kokichi, he had the same ideal but for a different end. All the vampires in the world could burn if they wanted, but he needed one of them to burn at his hands. So as long as everyone had their goals in mind, then the relationship between him and the members of his "super secret evil organization" could stand anything. And he could stand being nothing but a lie and a broken piece of what he could have been, had that accident never happened at all.
But really, it was all very confusing to think of it this way. And all the confusion stemmed from those eyes that still hurt him, haunted him, and hollered at him to this day. He just hoped that he could find that vampire soon, because by now he was really sick and tired of the color yellow.