Divine Comedy (26)

Jane

I stared down with wide eyes at the finger pointed straight at me, like I'd been accused of something horrific. Not long ago, I had just told Alec that he was the only family I had left. Now here was this girl claiming that she was my family, too. What in the world...?

I opened my mouth, but didn't know what to get out of it. I was saved from mustering a reply when a man and woman ran up to the girl and pulled her away from me.

"Kimi, leave her alone," said the man in English.

"It's rude to point," said the woman in Japanese.

I assumed that they must be her parents. They came with two other children in tow: a bespectacled boy younger than the girl, and a baby swaddled in the woman's arms. The boy peeked at me and Seth from behind the woman's legs, while the baby didn't stir. I couldn't tell if the baby was a boy or a girl.

The man peered down at me and pulled back his bangs in embarrassment. "I'm so sorry about that. My daughter needs to work on her manners."

The woman, the mother of the three children, bowed at the waist. "We are so sorry." Unlike the man's English accent, her own accent was faintly Japanese.

The man took the girl's hand to lead her farther away. "Come on, Kimi, stop staring. Let's go now."

"Wait." Finally I could reply, and the firmness in my voice made the family stop in their tracks.

The girl, Kimi, pulled her hand from her father and ran up to me again. Her dark eyes glittered with excitement. "You see it, too, don't you? The red thread?"

I shook my head, but with an inviting tone, I said, "I can't see what you see. You'll have to explain it to me."

The expression on her face flitted like shadows from a fire—from dismay to surprise to validation. Apparently she wasn't used to people lending her patience and an open ear.

Seth walked away from the Kaminarimon lantern to join my side, also interested in listening.

Kimi looked between me and him as she went on, "I can see how people are connected. Like seeing family trees, only they're in threads, not roots." She held up her pinkie finger. "The red thread's tied here, and people don't know it, but they have their little fingers all tied up with thread, too."

I nodded. "I understand now."

She gasped. "You do?"

I may not have Eleazar's ability to precisely determine one's gift, but I could tell that Kimi, even as a little human girl, was quite gifted indeed. How she can perceive connections and relationships reminded me of Marcus, though the bonds she can make out seem exclusively familial. There must be some truth to the mythical red thread of fate, after all, although if Kimi was right, this red thread didn't just bind lovers together.

I continued to gently encourage her. "Tell me what you see. Where does your thread go?"

Kimi looked from her finger to what looked to me like bare concrete, but she probably saw a spool of red thread winding in all sorts of directions. She traced the invisible paths with a finger. "I'm bound to my father, my mother, and my brothers Kenta and Koji." After pointing out each of her family members, she pointed to me again. "And I'm bound to you." Then she frowned. "The threads come in shades of red, some redder than others, depending on how close the connection is, I think. Everyone else in my family has very red threads, but yours is barely red. It's almost pink, faded away." She tilted her head at me, those dark eyes searching for something deeper than outside appearance. "You must be very far back. A lot older than you look."

Kimi's mother clucked her tongue. "Kimi, you don't tell people that they're old—"

"No, she's right," I breathed. The Volturi no longer existed to ruthlessly enforce the secrecy of our existence. I felt safe to tell this gifted girl the truth about me. I held her gaze, giving her the seriousness she deserved, and said, "You're right, Kimi. I have been alive for a very long time. I have been frozen in this body for many, many years."

I thought of Connor, seeing him again at the border between life and death. He told me he had children of his own, three of them. And those children, my grandchildren, must have gone on to have children of their own, and so on, and so on...My gaze wandered over to Kimi's father, whose hair was a shade much like my own. When my gaze settled back on the girl, her eyes had grown wide from my confession.

I smiled so that she could see my cheekbones perk above my mask. "You and I are related. We are indeed family."

"I knew it! I was telling the truth!" Kimi turned to her parents, radiating with joy.

Her mother and father stared at me in disbelief. "How is that possible?" her father asked.

"You'll have to tell us over dinner," Kimi said, and she turned to them this time with pleading eyes. "Please, let's take her home with us. I want to know everything!"

I could tell her mother frowned. "She and her friend probably have somewhere else to be..."

"We had no other plans tonight," I replied.

"Still, we shouldn't invite unrelated people into our house..." The woman glanced at Seth and quickly added, "No offense, it's just that..."

"If you're talking about the pandemic, don't worry about it," he said. "Jane can't catch the virus and I can't either. I, uh..." He rubbed the back of his head. "I don't know how to say this without sounding crazy, but I'm also not normal."

"How are you not normal?" This time the boy, Kenta, spoke up. "Are you frozen too?"

"No, but..." Seth sighed and went on with resignation, "Well, I can turn into a wolf."

The children's mother gasped. "You are a changeling."

He looked taken aback. "That doesn't sound so crazy to you?"

She shook her head. "I grew up in rural Hokkaido, hearing stories of people who can turn into kitsune and tanuki. Our folktales and myths are full of changelings. I didn't believe the stories, though. I never thought I'd meet one."

Seth spread his arms meekly. "Here I am in the flesh."

Kimi jumped up and down in place on the balls of her feet. "Mama, Papa, please, can we have the frozen girl and the wolf boy over for dinner?"

"If everyone's fine with it, I don't see why not," said her father.

Seth and I left Asakusa to accompany them on the train. The family lived in Shinjuku, the district westward and farther inland. Their "house" was in fact part of a sprawling apartment complex that took an elevator and a few turns around the building to reach.

Seth and I left our shoes just inside the front door, while Kimi and her brother had already kicked them off and dashed ahead in their excitement to welcome us into their home.

Proper introductions made their rounds: the man's name was Roland Parker, his wife's name was Erika. Kimi was ten, Kenta was six, and Koji was only three months old.

It felt strange to hear Roland's last name. In my time, as a lowly English peasant, I had never carried a surname. Apparently, somewhere down the line, my family had picked one up.

"I was going to make shrimp tempura and udon tonight," Erika said as she got busy in the kitchen. "Jane, Seth, is that all right with you?"

The two of us shared a glance. I wasn't thirsty yet, but I would have to feed soon before I got to that uncomfortable point. "I apologize for not telling the complete truth earlier, and I don't mean to frighten you, but I can only drink blood."

Kimi and Kenta's mouths dropped open. "You're a vampire!"

Seth quickly sprang to my defense. "Jane's not going to hurt anyone here, I promise you. She drinks only animal blood."

"I have just the thing for you, then." Erika pulled out a tray of what appeared to be frozen red cubes from the freezer. "Pig blood curds. You've ever had them, Jane?"

"No, never." I inched forward and peered over the kitchen counter to get a better look. "I've never even heard of such a thing."

"Pure pig blood, that's all it is. Just need to heat it up and it goes great with soup."

All those feedings on wild boars while training with Goro had amounted to this. I couldn't imagine a better meal for my kind to share comfortably with people, and I couldn't help smiling at Erika. "That would be absolutely perfect. Thank you very much."

When we settled at the dinner table, Kimi insisted on sitting next to me, so I sat between her and Seth. Across from me were Roland, Erika, and Kenta. Koji, already having been bottlefed, slept in his crib nearby. As those around me picked up their chopsticks, I was the last one to dig in. Mealtime among my kind was a lone and covert affair, often in the shadows. I couldn't remember the last time I sat at a table to share a meal with others, the way humans did.

Slowly and carefully, I picked up my bowl of pig blood curds and brought one to my mouth with chopsticks. The chewing motion felt strange at first, but the taste of blood was a familiar one, and a strange warmth spread down my body. That warmth was peace and content like I had never felt before. No one at the table recoiled away from me as I fed—no, ate. Roland and Erika thought nothing of it as they chewed on blood curds along with me. I felt like part of the family. I was part of the family. I felt like I belonged. In that moment, I had to be the happiest vampire in the world.

Over a delicious, steaming dinner that everyone got to enjoy, we shared more of our stories among each other.

"I was born and raised in England, as you've probably figured out from my accent," Roland said. "I studied abroad in Japan during college. Fell in love with the place, fell in love with a girl there." He briefly rested a hand on Erika's shoulder. "I've been here for the past twelve years working as an English teacher."

"Like I said earlier, I was born in Hokkaido," Erika said, "although I'm half Taiwanese on my mother's side. She was the one who got me into liking pig blood curd. I'm trying to get the kids into it, but no luck so far."

Kimi and Kenta stuck out their tongues when she said that. Seth and I bit back smiles.

Seth kept his background brief, since he couldn't share much of his tribe's secret history.

"You're a little brother, too?" Kenta asked him. "Is your big sister as bossy as mine?"

"Aren't they all?" Seth replied with a wink, and Kimi made a stabbing motion at Kenta's hand with the clean end of her chopsticks.

I could no longer contain my curiosity with Kimi. "How long have you known you could see threads?"

"For as long as I can remember." She stared into her half-finished bowl while her younger brother kept slurping away. "Until I was in preschool, learning to put together a family tree, I couldn't understand why everyone seemed to be covered in red string, and why no one else could see that."

Roland's voice was tinged with shame. "Her mother and I discouraged her from talking about it. For a while I couldn't believe her."

"I came around quicker to believing," Erika said, "but I didn't want Kimi to stand out and embarrass herself. Conformity is a big deal in our culture, you see. I thought that if we could get her to stop talking so much about the red threads, we could spare her from being ridiculed for thinking strangely."

I felt torn. Like Kimi, I knew what it was like to live in a world where no one could accept and understand me. At the same time, I understood the parents' desire to protect their child from a cruel world. Gifts could often feel more like a burden than what the word implied.

"I have a hard time making friends in school," Kimi said. "Other kids think I'm too weird. Even aunts and uncles on my mom's side talk behind my back. They think I can't hear them, but I know. Just yesterday, I thought about giving up telling anyone about what I can see." She looked up at me and beamed. "Then I met you."

"Now we've got to hear your story," Roland said to me. Intrigue flickered in his green eyes. "You said you've been alive for a very long time."

Like most people when I gave away my true age, the Parker family was floored.

"Wow, 1200 years old?" Kenta exclaimed. He began counting on his fingers. "That makes you my great-great-great-great-great—"

"There's a short word for that, dummy," Kimi said with a smile and a roll of her eyes. "It's ancestor. Jane is our ancestor."

That made Roland and his three children my descendants. Centuries of past generations separated us, yet here we were, sitting across from each other at a dinner table. The fact could leave anyone's head spinning. Seth certainly looked like he needed to go lie down as his wide gaze darted between me and the Parker family.

It was Kimi's turn to be curious of me. "How did you become a vampire?"

I didn't answer right away. I stared into my empty bowl. Seth reached under the table to hold my hand. "It's not a story for the faint of heart," I said softly. "It's full of pain and rage and things that wouldn't settle well in your stomach."

"I want to hear it," Kimi insisted. She clasped my other hand, and she didn't flinch from how cold I must have felt. "Your story is ours, too."

At the family's collective, inviting curiosity, I told them. Even the children listened without interrupting. The Parkers hung onto my words with enraptured horror and, by the end, everyone around the table except me had tears running down their cheeks.

Though Erika had no blood relations with me, she had been crying the hardest. "To have your baby and lose him at such a young age...there's no more doubt in my mind that Roland and our kids can trace their lineage back to you." More tears welled up and she scrubbed at her face. "I'm sorry...I just got over postpartum depression after having Koji. Well, I thought I did. When I think about losing him as you had lost Connor..." She choked up and couldn't go on anymore.

Kimi and Kenta slid out of their seats to join their father in patting comforting hands on her shoulder.

I tried to console Erika in my own way. "The story may not have had a happy beginning, but it took a turn for the better. I imagine that not many ancestors get to meet their descendants." To Kimi, I said, "I'm glad that you found me. I like knowing that I have more family in this world. I don't feel so alone."

Erika managed a smile. "Yes, Roland and I are so glad that our daughter can finally have someone to connect with. Literally."

Seth and I helped the family clean up after dinner, and afterwards, they offered to let us stay the night.

"Oh no, we couldn't," Seth said. "You've already done so much for us. We can get a hotel room, no problem."

"You want your own room, huh?" Roland gave us a wink. "I get it. Our place is too small to give you that."

I saw how Seth's cheeks flushed, and if it was possible, mine would be turning red as well.

"We'll be around the area for about another week before Seth and I have to head home," I said.

"Would you come visit us?" Kimi asked.

"If you'd like," I replied.

"I would like that very much." She closed the distance between us with a tight hug, which took me by surprise. "I never got to meet an ancestor before. I'm glad we met, Jane. I'm glad that we are family."

I returned the hug, from one gifted girl to another. "I'm glad, too."

Seth

Dinner with Jane's descendants was totally wild. I was still trying to wrap my head around how Kimi could see families being tied together. I didn't get to ask her if she could see anything between me and Jane. Were the two of us close enough to have a red thread between our fingers? If not now, then maybe later?

Shinjuku was packed with hotels, so it wasn't hard for me and Jane to find one close to the Parker family's apartment. Usually I wouldn't have a problem with finding a place to sleep in some quiet corner of a forest, but with all the stuff I had bought, it was best to leave them in a hotel.

Before we checked in at the lobby, I asked Jane, "You prefer separate beds or a bed to share?"

"One bed would cost less," she replied. "Besides, I won't be needing a place to sleep."

"I know you can't sleep." Then my cheeks went hot and I tried to keep a straight face as I held her gaze. "But you can...we can...y'know, cuddle, if you want."

"Oh. I see." She blinked a few times before going on. "We can try."

We got a room on the third floor with a nice view, facing a nearby park and a man-made lake. Jane hung out at the balcony while I ducked into the bathroom to shower, get changed, and brush my teeth. I liked to hit the sack without a shirt on, especially in the summer. I jumped into bed with only my pajama pants, and I threw back the blankets covering the empty half of it.

"C'mon, get cozy. It's warm and toasty in here."

At my invitation, Jane shut the balcony door behind her and slid into her side of the bed a lot more quietly and gracefully than I did. She pulled the blankets over herself and copied my position—even down to the way I had one arm tucked under the pillow—so that we faced each other, her eyes level with mine.

"So this is what a pillow feels like," she said with amusement.

"Doesn't it feel great?" I shook my head a little to dig my cheek deeper into the fluff.

"This could be a bare-bones futon and it would not make a difference to me." A small smile tugged at the corners of her lips. "I like being next to you, though. That feels nice."

"What about my wolf stink? My wet dog smell?"

That widened her smile. "I've grown used to it. Now you smell comforting, like home."

After Volterra, the castle that had actually been more of a prison, I was glad that I could be like a new home for Jane now. With her face so close to mine, with those golden pools for eyes I could sink into, my heart started racing and my ears grew warm.

"I never got to tell you how pretty you are," I murmured.

"I know you think I'm pretty."

Her confident, matter-of-fact reply made me burst out laughing. Most girls would blush and be coy, either mumble out "thanks" or "oh, I'm not really..." but Jane hadn't even tried to put up that kind of front.

She seemed pleased that she could make me laugh. "My kind are made that way," she went on. "Our appearances are meant to seduce and lure in our prey. Beauty is a dime a dozen with us. But you..." Her gaze flitted down to my bare chest for a split second before returning it shyly to my face. "You're not so bad looking yourself, for a wolf."

I had to smile and close my eyes. I didn't care much for making sure I looked like the hottest guy on the block, but to get a compliment from Jane was like sunlight in Seattle—rare and inviting and so good to bask in.

I opened my eyes and reached out to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear. I left my palm there to cradle the line of her jaw. "You're more than a pretty face," I said, "so much more." It took a lot of digging through gritty, dark layers of pain, suffering, and anger to find the gold glimmering underneath, her capacity for kindness and goodness that made her truly beautiful.

Her small, pale hand closed over my wrist. "I know that, too," she said softly. She had seen and been through so much. She was so smart. I knew she understood what I couldn't put into words.

Her thumb traced cool, soothing circles along my wrist. "You're more than a wolf. Like you said back at Sol Park, you're a boy who can turn into a wolf. And I don't think there's a boy in this world with a heart purer than yours."

With my palm still along her jaw, I asked, "May I kiss you?" She made a small nod. I leaned in, closed my eyes, and pressed a tender kiss on her lips. The moment our lips touched sent a tiny, tingling current down my stomach. Jane returned the kiss, her hand sliding from my wrist to rest it on my neck. Her fingers stroked over where she had bitten me. Another stronger current surged down my stomach. I had never read a step-by-step guide on how to kiss your girlfriend (if there was one), but my body moved on its own, like either I had read it before or I never needed to read it. One thing led to another, as one kiss led to another one. The coolness Jane gave off became ice the longer her lips moved against mine, but I wasn't repulsed by it. Natural animosity between wolves and vampires be damned—all I thought about in this moment was kissing the girl I loved.

Jane hadn't been repulsed by me either. That encouraged me to deepen the kiss. The tips of our tongues met, and a quiet moan slipped through her parted lips. I wrapped my arm around her to rest it along the length of her back. Her hand moved down to my chest, and the feel of her tongue against mine turned my heart into a thundering taiko drum.

My hand traveled down her spine to stop at her waist, at the hem of her shirt. My wandering fingers found the cool skin underneath, and with my way back up, my hand started to pull up her shirt.

Suddenly she broke off the kiss and her fingers turned into claws digging into my chest.

"Jane?" I blinked at her, startled and dazed, as if I'd been jerked from a spell. "You okay?"

"I'm sorry." Her voice trembled. "I can't keep going."

"S-sure."

She pulled away her hand to clench it under her chin and I let go of her waist. The blankets bunched in as she curled up her legs almost to her chest. As she seemed to curl in on herself, to distance herself from me, I realized that we'd been pressed hip-to-hip against each other. And, with a mix of horror and embarrassment, I realized that she must have felt the raging boner I had.

I broke into a cold sweat. "I-I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to—" I swallowed hard. "I just wanted to kiss and cuddle, that's all. I didn't want to go further than that." I hated my hand and my groin for betraying me. As soon as we had kissed, my mind took off flying somewhere else, leaving only my instincts. I should've known better than to let my body go on autopilot.

Jane sat up in bed and also swallowed hard. "It's not easy for me, either. You...you smell so good. Right now your blood's flowing stronger than ever, and I'd never been this close to you for this long before." She got out of the bed, and her fingers closed tightly over the latch of the balcony door. "I...I should let you rest."

She disappeared behind the balcony door as she went outside, leaving me alone in the hotel room. I curled up in bed and buried my face into the pillow. I wanted to cry. I made Jane feel vulnerable and uncomfortable. Most likely she got post-traumatic flashbacks. I felt like such a jerk.

I should've remembered The Talk that Mom had given me not too long after I first phased. Being the idiot, I had forgotten until the most inconvenient time.

"Listen, Seth...when you wake up the wolf inside you, your whole world changes," Mom had said. "Everything with you is amped up to the nth degree compared to normal boys. Emotions, senses, instincts, hormones...all of that will be stronger and harder to control. Keep that in mind and tread carefully, especially with people you care about."

The Talk, when it comes to wolves, was more than just the birds and the bees. Wolves had a lot more to grapple with. The wolf inside me didn't want to be just inside me. Instincts spoke in a simple language: protect the pack, think of the survival of the pack, make more of the pack. Turned out that instincts couldn't be switched off even with a vampire girlfriend.

It made no sense. Jane couldn't have any more kids. Yet my stupid body basically screamed at me to mate with her and make more wolves with her.

It took me half the night for my body to calm down and stop being so aroused. I cried myself to sleep. I woke up at the crack of dawn, with dread sitting in the pit of my stomach. I wondered if Jane had left the hotel entirely, like she wanted nothing more to do with me. I blinked bleary eyes and looked around. She sat in the corner, by the little study desk, still as a statue. I hadn't heard her come in from the balcony. I must have slept like a rock. Her face was smooth and unreadable. What must she think of me now?

My voice came out hoarse. "Jane, I—"

"You don't have to apologize, Seth," she cut in gently. "I could hear your regret all night, even from outside."

Sitting up in bed, I couldn't hold my gaze with her for long, and I dropped it to my lap.

"It has been over a thousand years, but I can still remember the day those village boys forced themselves on me like it was yesterday. You are nothing like those boys. You don't have it in your heart—your soul, if there is such a thing—to hurt and break me the way they did."

Tears sprang to my eyes and my voice cracked. "I-I would never...I could never do that to you..."

Jane rose from the chair and closed the distance between us in that fluid, whispery speed only a vampire could have. She knelt on the bedside and took my hands into hers. "Let's put last night behind us. I love you, and I want to make our relationship work."

I sniffed and tried to blink back tears. "I really want us to work out, too."

She gently squeezed my hand. "I'm okay with this." She leaned in to kiss me on the lips. "And this."

I nodded and managed a tiny smile. "Okay, I understand."

It was clear that Jane set boundaries, lines we couldn't cross, and because I loved her so much, I would hold those boundaries to the utmost respect. If she wanted to keep it at kissing and holding hands, then I'd keep it that way, too.

She gave me another kiss, this time on my forehead. "Cheer up, darling. The day is still very young. There's so much more of Japan to see. Let's go see what's around this part of Tokyo. Perhaps later today, we can have lunch with Kimi's family."

Feeling ready for a new day, I climbed out of bed. "Yeah, I'm totally down for that."

Yes, pig blood curds/blood tofu really are a thing. Not just in Taiwan as mentioned in the story, but in other parts of Asia like southern China, Hong Kong, and Vietnam. I'm Vietnamese, so eating pig blood curds with noodles or congee is not unusual for me. Asian vampires would have such an easy time going vegetarian—just eat blood curds for the rest of their lives.