Chapter 4: Entranced

After closing, Natsuno set Aoi, Tohru, and Seishin to work cleaning up the Hibachi Grill and dining hall while he put away the dishes used for the customers and began working on the meal he promised Tohru. He made enough to go around; plenty for Tohru, Seishin, Aoi, Toya, Toshio, Sunako, and himself. Along with the promised dishes of teriyaki beef, egg rolls, shrimp fried rice, and Miso soup, he also prepared a dish of wantons and mochi cakes. He plated, boxed, and bagged Seishin and Toshio's shares of the food, then plated his own as well as Toya's, setting both in the refrigerator for later, Toya could have hers for lunch the next day. He then gave Aoi her share.

What was left was the portions for Tohru and Sunako. He set them aside on individual trays, grabbed two to-go soup cups and told Tohru and Seishin to follow him. This was the first time Seishin had been allowed into the building's living quarters. He followed the two eternally teenaged Okiagari to Tohru's room. He gave a quiet look of dismay when he saw Tohru's lighting display. He found it all rather childish.

"Tohru-Chan, we'll fix yours last, alright?" Natsuno stated as he set up the blender.

Tohru quietly nodded. The Shiki sat in the corner of the room, next to the trays of food, it was rare that Natsuno allowed him to watch this part of the preparations. He closed his eyes and took in the scent. "Natsuno, it smells amazing, as always," Tohru complimented.

"What exactly are we doing?" Seishin asked, adjusting his glasses.

The younger Jinrou seemed to ignore the elder as he added Sunako's food into the blender. He dropped in the deserts first-the wantons and mochi, followed by the rice and beef, topped with the egg rolls, then poured in the soup. He picked up the butcher's knife and gave it a quick twirl just to show off. "Your arm please, Muroi-Sama?" he requested, holding out his free hand.

Seishin raised an eyebrow, but held out his right arm. The former monk closed his eyes as the knife sliced into his wrist and down the vein of the arm, allowing his blood to pour into the blender. Aside from that and hiding his left arm behind his back, he gave no reactions or signs of discomfort. Natsuno held the knife in place to keep the cut open until the soup had turned red and the liquid inside the blender just barely passed over top of the egg rolls. Tohru remained quiet in the back, the smell of blood was in the air, but the Shiki seemed to give no reaction to it. Natsuno capped the blender and set it to frappe for five minutes, blending it until everything was liquefied. He poured it into one of the to-go soup cups and scribbled Sunako's name on it. "I'll put this in the bag with the food I'm sending for you and Ozaki-Sensei. Maybe some warm soup will help her get well quicker."

Seishin quietly watched his arm heal, then looked at Natsuno. "You really expect me to believe that she can eat that?" he asked.

Natsuno picked up the to-go cup and the knife and blender. "Trust me," he said as he walked out of the room. He returned a few moments later with the knife and blender both sterilized and scrubbed clean. "Alright, Tohru-Chan, I'm ready for yours." Tohru nodded. "Muroi-Sama, I may need your strength to hold him. There's a reason I rarely let him watch this part." Natsuno put Tohru's portions into the blender, the same way he had done for Sunako's, and took the knife to his left arm. He'd found it odd that Tohru hadn't reacted to the scent of blood as of yet. Holding his arm over the blender, he pushed the knife into the vein at the center of his wrist and cut downward a good six inches. Unlike Seishin, Natsuno gave a slight flinch as he closed his eyes. After all these years, Tohru's bite no longer caused him discomfort, but this still stung like hell. Natsuno blinked his eyes open and shifted them uncomfortably in the direction of the blonde Shiki. Just as he'd feared, Tohru had frozen in place, his eyes having turned their vampiric black and red rather than their beautifully human brown. The smell of Natsuno's blood had nearly put the Shiki into a trance like state, but this wasn't a calm, harmless trance. He was entranced by the smell, dangerously close to a hunger frenzy. "THIS is why I don't let him watch when I do this," he informed the former monk. "Just hang in there, Tohru!" Natsuno ordered, hoping his voice would be enough to reach the Shiki's inner conscience and hold him in place. Seishin quietly blinked in amazement as this actually seemed to work. Tohru had smelt the blood spill of not one, but two Jinrou and yet, even in this state, was resisting the insatiable hunger that even Sunako herself still had no control over after all her years as an Okiagari. Natsuno filled the blender as full as he needed it and quickly capped it and turned it on. Keeping the wound open, he moved past Seishin and quietly approached Tohru. "Tohru-Chan?" Natsuno called softly. Seishin stood on his guard, but watched quietly as the scene played out. Natsuno used every bit of caution approaching the Shiki that one would use in greeting a wounded stray animal. In this state, one wrong move by either of the Jinrou could be misinterpreted by the Shiki as a threat. Seishin had lost count of how many times Sunako had hissed and lunged at him over the years because she couldn't contain the hunger. Natsuno dropped the knife and gently wrapped his right arm around Tohru. He then moved his left arm just under Tohru's nose. "Here, Tohru-Chan. Quick, before it heals."

Seishin watched in amazement as Tohru caught hold of Natsuno's arm with both hands and licked the wound clean. The blonde Shiki closed his eyes and slowly trailed his tongue up the younger Jinrou's arm as the cut began to heal, until he reached the mouth of the wound, where he closed his lips around it as if he were kissing it. Tohru was calm and quiet as he drank from the bleeding vein. Tohru had taken in not only the smell of blood, but the scent of his Jinrou as well, no matter what chaos his own mind was in, no matter how ravenous the hunger that tried to over take him at that exact moment, the Shiki knew he was safe with Natsuno so close.

Seishin almost felt jealous as he watched them. He found it unfathomably amazing how these two had managed to overcome everything they had been through and still trust one another to such extent. Natsuno really was the one in full control of everything. Their bond was more than friends and lovers, more than master and vassal, it was something deeper, yet unexplainable. He couldn't help but wonder if he and Sunako would ever reach that stage, or if, in fact, he and Toshio would ever be that close again. When Tohru pulled away from Natsuno's arm and opened his eyes, they had returned to their normal brown luster.

Tohru looked up at Natsuno and blushed. Natsuno gently rubbed the top of his head. "Natsuno, I…" Tohru started. Natsuno shook his head and gave the Shiki a reassuring smile, letting him know everything was alright. Tohru sighed and smiled, glad to know he hadn't done anything he might have regretted.

Natsuno hugged him tight. "It's alright, Tohru-Chan," he whispered. "I know that wasn't enough to satisfy you, though. Don't worry, it's almost…" They heard a click from the blender as it came to a stop, "Ready."

Seishin stepped aside, allowing Natsuno an unobstructed path to the blender. Before he took this stuff home to his mistress, he wanted proof that Shiki could drink it without any adverse effects. Natsuno poured the contents of the blender into the to-go cup and handed it to Tohru. There was more food than usual within this mixture, so the cup Natsuno had originally bought with the blender wasn't big enough to hold it all. Natsuno handed the cup to Tohru, who flopped down on the bed before putting the cup to his lips. "Hey!" Natsuno growled, "Be careful not to get any of that on the sheets! It won't be easy to clean up."

Seishin's jaw dropped as Tohru drank the concoction down without so much as a single sign of trouble. "He really is able to handle it?" the former monk murmured in surprise.

Natsuno sat on the bed next to Tohru and wrapped an arm around him. "It's a proven method that we've been using for eleven years now. It holds what he needs from the blood, while giving him the nutrients, flavors, and texture that he'd become accustomed to as a human."

"It's more filling and taste much better than the stuff they expect us to pay for on the market, too," Tohru added as he pulled the now empty cup away from his mouth.

"Jeez, Tohru! The hell? After all the work I put into fixing that? What'd you do, drink it all in one gulp?" Natsuno exclaimed.

Tohru flopped over, letting his head rest on Natsuno's lap. "I'm sorry," he mumbled, smiling up at the Jinrou, "It was just that delicious." Tohru smiled and stifled a giggle as he watched Natsuno blush.

"How come you never shared this information before?" Seishin asked.

"Didn't care to," Natsuno answered bluntly. "Until that stuff hit the market and I found the two of you at my front door looking for a job, I had no interest in helping your mistress. I had welcomed you in, but was worried about what she was capable of or what she might try. I wasn't going to take any risks. But, I never expected her to look so… young. However, I have to admit she's grown on me since then."

"I see," Seishin replied flatly. He figured he could understand Natsuno's reasoning. "Well in that case, thank you for trusting me enough to share it with me now." He bowed to them. "I appreciate the food. Good night."

"Good night, thanks for all your help tonight," Natsuno and Tohru unanimously bade him.

Seishin gave a quiet smile and adjusted his glasses, trying not to laugh or shake his head. Their unison was uncanny, pure and unjaded, and down right annoying. Try as he might, he couldn't shake the feeling of jealousy toward the bond between the two younger Okiagari. Though, he hoped for their sake nothing ever found its way between them. He returned to the kitchen to grab the bag of food he was to take with him and said his farewells to Aoi on his way out the door.

"Natsuno, can I ask you something?" Tohru asked, once they were alone, his head still resting in the Jinrou's lap.

Natsuno smiled and stroked a hand through Tohru's hair. "Why are you asking permission? Just ask," he replied.

"What happened at Aoi's house? There's got to be a reason you told her to stay a while longer," Tohru observed.

Natsuno sighed and turned his head away. "I didn't want to worry her while we had a full house out front. For Toya-Chan's sake, it would also be best not to let her panic, but when I got there, the place reeked of wolves, and looked as though it had been ransacked. I grabbed what I knew she wanted and what I knew they would both need. Apparently, your sister is on a first name basis with the local law enforcement, a cop saw me when I was leaving and asked me what business I had there."

"How much did you tell him?" Tohru asked warily, sitting up right.

"I'm not spreading your sister's dirty laundry around, Tohru," Natsuno answered, "If she wanted the cops involved, she would have told Toya to run to them, or gone herself by now. I told him I was her brother-in-law, that she was staying away from home for a few days and she had asked me to pick up some things she had forgotten. I didn't feel comfortable telling him anything more than that."

"You think they may have connections to the police?" Tohru asked.

"Think back to Sotoba, it's not entirely impossible," Natsuno answered.

"I guess you've got a point," Tohru nodded, "So I guess that means we're on babysitting duty until this all blows over."

Natsuno smirked. "No different than any other day around here," he teased.

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean!?" Tohru objected. The Shiki blushed as the Jinrou turned his eyes toward him. "I'm three years older than you, remember?" Tohru's blush grew even brighter as Natsuno's lips met his. He closed his eyes and gave a soft moan.

"That doesn't change the fact that you're still adorably childish," Natsuno said as he pulled away from the kiss.

Tohru blushed even brighter, did Natsuno really just call him adorable? That was a first. Never in the twelve and a half years that they'd known each other, would he have ever imagined that word existed within Natsuno's vocabulary. They smiled at each other and began to lean in for another kiss. This attempt was abruptly cut short, however as they heard a scream come from down the hallway.

"TOYA-CHAN!" they both exclaimed, jumping off the bed. Aoi nearly bumped into them as she darted into the hallway. All three of them reached the door at the same time. Natsuno signaled for Aoi to stay back, and for Tohru to stay close to his sister. If there was anything or anyone dangerous on the other side of that door, he wanted to keep everyone as safe as possible in the process of getting the girl out of there.