I did not see much of Natsuki's and Syo's guests for the two sunny days that they were in Utashinai. I only went home at all so that Ringo wouldn't worry. Otherwise, my existence seemed more like that of a specter than a vampire. I hovered, invisible in the shadows, where I could follow the object of my love and obsession - where I could see him and hear him in the minds of the lucky humans who could walk through the sunlight beside him, sometimes accidentally brushing the back of his hand with their own. He never reacted to such contact; their hands were just as warm as his.
The enforced absence from school had never been a trial like this before. But the sun seemed to make him happy, so I could not resent it too much. Anything that pleased him was in my good graces.
Monday morning, I eavesdropped on a conversation that had the potential to destroy my confidence and make the time spent away from him a torture. As it ended up, though, it rather made my day.
I had to feel some little respect for Otoya Ittoki; he had not simply given up and slunk away to nurse his wounds. He had more bravery than I'd given him credit for. He was going to try again.
Masato got to school quite early and, seeming intent on enjoying the sun while it lasted, sat at one of the seldom used picnic benches while he waited for the first bell to ring. His hair caught the sun in unexpected ways, giving off a light blue almost lavender shine that I had not anticipated.
Otoya found him there, writing sheet music again, and was thrilled at his good luck.
It was agonizing to only be able to watch, powerless, bound to the forest's shadows by the bright light.
He greeted Otoya with enough enthusiasm to make him ecstatic, and me the opposite.
See, he likes me. He wouldn't smile like that if he didn't. I bet he wanted to go to the dance together. Wonder what's so important in Sapporo...
He perceived the change in his hair. "I never noticed before - your hair has purple in it."
I accidentally uprooted the young spruce tree my hand was resting on when he pinched a strand of his hair between his fingers and then laughed.
"Only in the sun," he said. To my deep satisfaction, he cringed away from him slightly when he tucked the strand behind his ear.
It took Otoya a minute to build up his courage, wasting some time on small talk.
Masato reminded him of the essay we all had due on Wednesday. From the faintly unimpressed expression on Masato's face, his was already done. Otoya had forgotten altogether, and that severely diminished his free time.
Dang - stupid essay.
Finally he got to the point - my teeth were clenched so hard they could have pulverized granite - and even then, he couldn't make himself ask the question outright.
"I was going to ask if you wanted to go out. A-As friends, of course!"
"Oh," he said.
There was a brief silence.
Oh? What does that mean? Did I say something wrong? Should I have said as more than friends? Wouldn't that have been too much? Wait - I guess I didn't really ask.
He swallowed hard.
"Well, we could go to dinner or something... and I could work on it later."
Stupid - that wasn't a question either.
"Otoya..."
The agony and fury of my jealousy was every whit as powerful as it had been last week. I broke another tree trying to hold myself here. I wanted so badly to race across the campus, too fast for human eyes, and snatch him up - to steal him away from the boy that I hated so much in this moment I could have killed him and enjoyed it.
Would he say yes to Otoya?
"I don't think that would be the best idea."
I breathed again. My rigid body relaxed.
Sapporo was just an excuse after all. Shouldn't have asked. What was I thinking? Bet it's because of Tokiya...
"Why?" he asked sullenly.
"I think..." he hesitated. "And if you ever repeat what I'm saying right now I will cheerfully beat you to death-"
I laughed out loud at the sound of a death threat coming through her lips. A jay shrieked, startled, and launched itself away from me.
"But I think that would hurt Saki's feelings."
"Saki?" What? But... Oh. Okay. I guess... So... Huh.
His thoughts were no longer coherent.
"Really, Otoya, are you blind?"
I echoed his sentiment. He shouldn't expect everyone to be as perceptive as he was, but really this instance was beyond obvious. With as much trouble as Otoya had working himself up to ask Masato out, did he imagine it wasn't just as difficult for Saki? It must be selfishness that made him blind to others. Although it could've been how oblivious he was to most things. And Masato was so unselfish, he saw everything.
Saki. Huh. Wow. Huh. "Oh," he managed to say.
Masato used his confusion to make his exit.
"It's time for class, and I can't be late again."
Otoya became an unreliable viewpoint from then on. He found, as he turned the idea of Saki around and around in his head, that he rather liked the thought of her finding him attractive. It was second place, not as good as if Masato had felt that way.
She's cute, though. Wow... I didn't know she would like me...
He was off then, on to new fantasies that were just as oblivious as the ones about Masato, but now they only irritated rather than infuriated. How little he deserved either one of them; they were almost interchangeable to him, not that much of it was his fault. I stayed clear of his head after that.
When he was out of sight, I curled up against the cool trunk of an enormous madrone tree and I danced from mind to mind, keeping him in sight, always glad when Yuki Song was available to look through. I wished there was someway to thank the Song girl for simply being a nice person. It made me feel better to think that Masato had one friend worth having.
I watched Masato's face from whichever angle I was given, and I could see that he was sad again. This surprised me - I thought the sun would be enough to keep him smiling. At lunch, I saw him glance time and time again toward my family's empty table, and that thrilled me. It gave me hope. Perhaps he missed me, too.
He had plans to go out with a few of the girls - I automatically planned my own surveillance - but these plans were postponed when Otoya invited Saki out on the date he'd planned for Masato.
So I went straight to his home instead, doing a quick sweep of the woods to make sure no one dangerous had wandered too close. I knew Natsuki had warned his one-time brother to avoid the town - citing my insanity as both explanation and warning - but I wasn't taking any chances. Daiki and Kaoru had no intention of causing animosity with my family, but intentions were changeable things...
All right, I was overdoing it. I knew that.
As if he knew I was watching, as if he took pity on the agony I felt when I couldn't see him, Masato came out to the backyard after a long hour indoors. He had a book in his hand and a blanket under his arm.
Silently, I climbed into the higher branches of the closest tree overlooking the yard.
He spread the blanket on the damp grass and then lay on his stomach and started flipping through the worn book, as if trying to find his place. I read over his shoulder.
Interesting. I wouldn't have thought he would read folklore written from Naoyuki Ichinose
He read quickly, shifting from side to side. I was watching the sunlight and wind play in his hair when his body suddenly stiffened, and his hand froze on the page. All I saw was that he'd reached a significant part of the story when he roughly grabbed a thick section of pages and shoved them over.
I couldn't catch a glimpse of the title page, not that it entirely mattered. He was starting a new story - a novel this time but by the same author. I wondered why he's switched stories so abruptly.
Just a few moments later, he slammed the book angrily shut. With a fierce scowl on his face, he pushed the book aside and flipped over onto his back. He took a deep breath, as if to calm himself, pushed his sleeves up and closed his eyes. It hit me what the novel was, but I couldn't think of anything offensive in it to upset him. Another mystery. I sighed.
He lay very still, moving just once to yank his hair away from his face. It fanned out over his head, a river of deep blue. And then he was motionless again.
His breathing slowed. After several long minutes, his lips began to tremble. Mumbling in his sleep/
Impossible to resist. I listened as far out as I could, catching voices in the houses nearby.
two tablespoons of flour... one cup of milk...
C'mon! Get it through the hoop! Aw, c'mon!
Red, or blue... or maybe I should wear something more casual...
There was no one close by. I jumped to the ground, landing silently on my toes.
This was very wrong, very risky. How condescendingly I'd once judged Syo for his thoughtless ways and Natsuki for his lack of discipline - and now I was consciously flouting all the rules with a wild abandon that made their lapses look like nothing at all. I used to be the responsible one.
I sighed, but crept out into the sunshine, regardless.
I avoided looking at myself in the sun's glare. It was bad enough that my skin was stone and inhuman in shadow; I didn't want to look at Masato and myself side by side in the sunlight. The difference between us was already insurmountable, painful enough without this image also in my head.
But I couldn't ignore the feeling of weakness as I lingered in the sun. I glanced down at my hands and turned to look at Masato's, hating myself for almost enjoying the way I looked more human next to him. My jaw locked at the sight. Could I be any more disgusting of a creature? I could imagine the shock on his face if he opened his eyes now... Witnessing the differences between me from before and now...
I started to retreat, but he mumbled again, holding me there.
"Mmm... Mmm."
Nothing intelligible. Well, I would wait for a bit.
I carefully stole his book, stretching my arm out and holding my breath while I was close, just in case. I started breathing again when I was a few yards away, tasting the way the sunshine and open air affected his scent. The heat seemed to sweeten the smell. My throat flamed with desire, the fire fresh and fierce again because I had been away from him for too long.
I spent a moment controlling that, and then - forcing myself to breathe through my nose - I let his book fall open in my hands. He'd started with the first half... I flipped through the pages quickly to the section he stopped at, searching for something potentially offensive in Ichinose's work.
When I closed the book and grazed the author's name that came so close to my own, Masato spoke again.
"Mmm. Tokiya." He sighed.
This time I did not fear that he had awoken. His voice was just a low, wistful murmur. Not the scream of fear it would have been if he'd seen me now.
Joy warred with self-loathing. He was still dreaming of me, at least.
"Toru. No..."
Toru?
Ha! She wasn't dreaming of me at all, I realized blackly. The self-loathing returning in force. He was dreaming of fictional characters. I could understand why he'd said my name instead. I aggravated him so often that his mind went to my name instead of the character Toru, who'd he had just read about. So much for my conceit.
I replaced his book and stole back into the cover of the shadows - where I belonged.
The afternoon passed and I watched, feeling helpless again as the sun slowly sank in the sky and shadows crawled across the lawn toward him. I wanted to push them back, but the darkness was inevitable; the shadows took him. When the light was gone, his skin looked too pale - ghostly. His hair was dark again, almost black against his face.
It was a frightening thing to watch - like witnessing Haruka's visions come to fruition. Masato's steady, strong heartbeat was the only reassurance, the sound that kept this moment from feeling like a nightmare.
I was relieved when his mother arrived home.
I could hear little from her as she drove down the street toward the house. Some vague annoyance... in the past, something from her day at work. Expectation mixed with hunger - I guessed that she was looking forward to dinner. But her thoughts were so quiet and contained that I could not be sure I was right; I only got the gist of them.
I wondered what his father sounded like - what the genetic combination had been that had formed him so uniquely.
Masato started awake, jerking up to a sitting position when the tires of his mother's car hit the concrete driveway. He stared around himself, seeming confused by the unexpected darkness. For one brief moment, his eyes touched the shadows where I hid, but they flickered quickly away.
"Misaki?" he asked in a low voice, still peering into the trees surrounding the small yard.
The door of her car slammed shut, and he looked to the sound. He got to his feet quickly and gathered his things, casting one more look back towards the woods.
I moved into a tree closer to the back window near the kitchen and listened to their evening. It was interesting to compare Misaki's words to her muffled thoughts. Her love and concern for her only son were nearly overwhelming, and yet her words were always terse and casual. Most of the time, they sat in companionable silence.
I heard him discuss his plans for the following evening in Chitose, and I refined my own plans as I listened. Natsuki had not warned Daiki and Kaoru to stay clear of Chitose. Though I knew that they had fed recently and had no intention of hunting anywhere in the vicinity of our home, I would watch him, just in case. After all, there were always others of my kind out there. And then, all those human dangers that I had never much considered before now.
I heard him worry aloud about leaving his mother to prepare dinner alone, and smiled at this proof to my theory - yes, he was a caretaker.
And then I left, knowing I would return when he was asleep.
I would not trespass on his privacy the way the peeping tom would have. I was here for his protection, not to leer at him in the way Otoya Ittoki would accidentally find himself doing, were he agile enough to move through the treetops the way I could. I would not treat Masato so crassly.
My house was empty when I returned, which was fine by me. I didn't miss the confused or disparaging thoughts, questioning my sanity. Syo had left a note stuck to the newel post.
Football at the Shokanbetsu field - c'mon! Please?
I found a pen and scrawled the word sorry beneath his plea. The teams were even without me, in any case.
I went for the shortest of hunting trips, contenting myself with the smaller, gentler creatures that did not taste as good as the hunters, and then changed into fresh clothes before I ran back to Utashinai.
Masato did not sleep as well tonight. He thrashed in his blankets, his face sometimes worried, sometimes sad. I wondered what nightmare haunted him... and then realized that perhaps I really didn't want to know.
When he spoke, he mostly muttered derogatory things about Utashinai in a glum voice. Only once, when he sighed out the words "Come back" and his hand twitched open - a wordless plea - did I have a chance to hope he might be dreaming of me.
The next day of school, the last day the sun would hold me prisoner, was much the same as the day before. Masato seemed even gloomier than yesterday, and I wondered if he would bow out of his plans - he didn't seem in the mood.
But, being Masato, he would probably put his friends' enjoyment above that of his own.
He wore a maroon sweater, and the color set off his skin perfectly, more so than I would've imagined.
School ended, and Saki agreed to pick the others up - Yuki was going, too, for which I was grateful. I didn't like the idea of Masato going on a trip with them to help them decide on something as frivolous as dresses for the spring dance, but they insisted he go. They wanted a males opinion. Or so they claimed was the only intention.
I went home to get my car. When I found that Daiki and Kaoru were there, I decided I could afford to give them an hour or so for a head start. I would never be able to bear following behind them, driving at the speed limit - a hideous thought.
I came in through the kitchen, nodding vaguely at Syo's and Ringo's greetings as I passed by everyone in the front room and went straight to the piano.
Ugh, he's back already. Ai, of course.
Ah, Tokiya. I hate to see him suffering so. Ringo's joy was becoming marred by concern. He should be concerned. This love story he envisioned for me was careening toward a tragedy more perceptible every moment.
Have fun in Chitose tonight, Haruka thought cheerfully. Let me know when I'm allowed to talk to Masato.
You're pathetic. I can't believe you missed the game last night just to watch somebody sleep, Syo grumbled.
Natsuki paid me no mind, even when the song I played came out a little more stormily than I'd intended. It was an old song, with a familiar theme: impatience. Natsuki and Syo were saying goodbye to their friends, who eyed me curiously.
What a strange creature, the exact copy of Syo was thinking. And he was so normal and pleasant the last time we met.
Daiki's thoughts were in sync with his, as was usually the case.
It must be the animals. The lack of human blood drives them mad eventually, he was concluding His hair was brown, chestnut to be precise, just as long as Kaoru's. They were very similar personality wise - their physical traits made them easy to differentiate, as Daiki was the complete opposite of Kaoru especially height was. Daiki was a foot taller than Kaoru. A well matched pair, I'd always thought. Syo wasn't always too happy with it, though.
Everyone but Ringo stopped thinking about me after a moment, and I played in more subdued tones so that I would not attract notice.
I did not pay attention to them for a long while, just letting the music distract me from my unease. It was hard to have the boy out of sight and mind. I only returned my attention to their conversation when the goodbyes grew more final.
"If you see Miyuki again," Natsuki was saying, a little warily, "tell her I wish her well."
Miyuki was the vampire who had created both Natsuki and Daiki - Natsuki in the latter half of the nineteenth century, Daiki more recently, in the nineteen forties. She'd looked Natsuki up once when we were in Samara. It had been an eventful visit - we'd had to move immediately. Natsuki had politely asked her to keep her distance in the future.
"I don't imagine that will happen soon," Daiki said with a laugh - Kaoru was undeniably dangerous and there was not much love lost between her and Daiki. Daiki had, after all, been instrumental in Natsuki's defection. Natsuki had always been Miyuki's favorite; she considered it a minor detail that she had once planned to kill him. "But should it happen, I certainly will."
They were shaking hands then, preparing to depart. I let the song I was playing trail off to an unsatisfying end, and got hastily to my feet.
"Kaoru, Daiki," I said, nodding.
"It was nice to see you again, Tokiya," Kaoru said doubtfully. Daiki just nodded in return.
Madman, Syo threw after me.
Imbecile, Ai thought at the same time.
Poor boy. Ringo.
And Haruka, in a chiding tone. They're going straight east, to Sapporo. Nowhere near Chitose. She showed me the proof in her visions.
I pretended I hadn't heard that. My excuses were already flimsy enough.
Once in my car, I felt more relaxed; the robust purr of the engine Ai had boosted for me - last year, when he was in a better mood - was soothing. It was a relief to be in motion, to know that I was getting closer to Masato with every mile that flew under my tires.
.
. .
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Forgivemeforgivemforgiveme! I'm really trying to get as much done as I can, but now that I have a vision of where one of my stories is going, I'm trying to finish that one. My goal is to go through the rest of the stories I'm writing and work on whichever one I feel is closer to an end and focus my attention on that. I'm not going to get anything done if I keep rotating between stories like I am right now. This chapter is short, but it needs to be. The next chapter has a lot in it, so this is going to be the relief before the storm. Please accept this for now! The next chapter should be out by next Saturday, but don't quote me on that. College classes start up again tomorrow, so most of my free time will be gone. I'm preparing myself for a study abroad program as well, so the next two months are going to be rough with updates. I would love if you could please be patient with me. I have a lot on my plate and getting to write a new chapter is difficult. Thank you so much for reading and commenting. I really do appreciate the love and support you give me.
