When did he first know he was going to die?

When did he first 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 saw scenes playing out clearly before him, like one of those old-fashioned movie reels with sepia squares smushed together. When the film was unrolled, bits and pieces of the 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 considered the beginning of his life—and the end of it, too—being placed somewhere in his childhood. Years had passed since then, and even so, not as many as he liked to think.

One of his earliest memories, and subsequently the most important, started when he was no older than six years old. It was marked with trepid footsteps, fearful stares, and the glint of metallic gold—moon-white pearls in the dark.

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Kokichi was six years old, and he had all the self-awareness any child at that age would have. The only difference was his parents. His mother and father were unremarkable in many ways, to the point where Kokichi half-raised himself, too curious for their stagnant ways. He moved and wandered at his own pace. He was a hurricane, and yet he was barely over a meter tall.

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 closed 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 went downstairs to the kitchen.

He should be sleeping at this hour, but he was too antsy to simply lie in bed and wait for darkness to claim him. His homework was finished hours ago, and he already read every single book, magazine, and journal in the house. He had a small army of notebooks which he used for his own personal reasons (drawings, scribblings, stories, schematics—anything that caught his fancy, really), but none of them appealed to him. So in this rare moment of boredom, Kokichi did what any young person would do at such a late hour.

He went for a midnight snack.

The fridge opened easily, and he scoured the shelves for something he liked. His favorite grape soda was finished days ago, so the only sweet drink in the fridge was orange-flavored ramune—a poor substitution for his usual choice. Still, it was something, and together with those sweet buns his dad got from the convenience store, it was actually tantalizing. Kokichi gathered his snacks, and sat at the table.

Five minutes and two sweet buns later, Kokichi heard a noise from upstairs. It sounded like glass shattering, maybe. A memory of him breaking his mother's beloved vase resurfaces in his mind, and he remembered the anxiety he felt standing before her, a helpless child who didn't know any better. He remembered the heat rushing to his face, the redness of his fingertips and ears, and how his parents tsk-ed him before ultimately forgiving him.

This time, the anxiety froze him to the core. Chills ran up his spine, vaguely arachnid motions that made him shiver, and reach for something that wasn't there. The noise resurfaced again, and this time, Kokichi ran out of the kitchen, clamoring up the stairs like his life depended on it.

Or like his parents' lives depended on it. While they were adults and generally bigger and stronger than him, in their tired states they were just as weak and unaware as Kokichi was. In their tired, worn-out states, they wouldn't be able to tell if someone—or something—had stolen away into their house. They wouldn't be able to fight back in case a 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! Regardless, it wasn't the first time his throat and chest closed up, making it impossible to breathe. And unfortunately, it wouldn't be the last time, either. The way his chest throbbed and his heart burst to beating was a sensation that Ouma would never be able to forget.

Even if he wanted to.

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The memory continued on as it always did. Kokichi knew this part, as he'd known 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, scrambling to some escape mere meters above him. Not wearing his usual clothes or smile, but just a tiny boy in a simple t-shirt and shorts, donning 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 there, 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-shatteringly loud, and if he could hear it all the way from downstairs then it must be something big. Maybe that monster ripped through the windows and stole his mother away. Or maybe his dad broke another antique vase or something else that could have splintered apart into millions of pieces. Whatever the case, Kokichi decided waiting outside the door and not knowing was way more scary than going inside and facing the truth.

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.

Something's wrong, he realized. Something was terribly, obstinately, horrifically 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, as well as some medicine that was supposed to cure the nightly habit. And Mrs. Ouma, respectively, got cold so easily that she insisted the windows be shut at all times. Even if it meant making the house a stuffy, sweaty mess, she wanted every single window locked and closed.

So then 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 the wall 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 once they focused, the image that lay before him became permanently ingrained in his mind. His violet eyes widened in fear, disgust, and confusion, all mixed up into 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 straight 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 his own son standing right in front of him. 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 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 was the same 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 thing different 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 much 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 much 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, wide, vivacious eyes staring at him now. They were also a sweet, golden color, shining like metal as the moonlight had properly cast against them. They were framed by equally stunning eyelashes, tepid and beautiful like a butterfly's wings.

Kokichi fixated on 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. Something like regret. 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 more than redemption for his parents' lost lives. Either way, the stranger saw something, and their expression changed instantly.

They looked kind, sympathetic. Those golden eyes softened in appearance, and the long lashes fluttered more slowly, as if lulling to a heartbeat. 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 bare 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, rather than face condemnation, was a telling sign. 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 sensations took hold of the young boy's mind.

No, the only thing he fathomed was the moon-white pearls in the shadow's form, and the glinting gold in the stranger's eyes.

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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'd turn out to be. Yet, his slight frame and childish appearance only benefited him in most situations, by belying his true strength and throwing his enemies off guard. So it was fine that he was smaller than most—that just meant he was faster.

All that mattered was that he'd find the gold-eyed demon that took his parents away from him. 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, and continued to feel. He renewed his feverish anger every time he thought back to those golden eyes, which haunted him every moment, awake or asleep.

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 do that he'd pretend to be sad and brush it off as another lie 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 disappear, become darkness, and angry shadows would take hold of his heart, disregarding every barrier he placed there to protect himself. When that happened, he knew he was breaking character—he knew he was being weak and vulnerable and everything he hated about himself. He knew it, and yet, he was helpless to stop 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 creature. 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. However, if it concerned the monster that destroyed his life all those years ago, then anything goes. All's fair in love and war.

But mostly war.

And Ouma was clever from the beginning. He was even more clever to rally forces of similar people: those who suffered loss, bore regret, and chose vengeance as their balm. As fate would have it, 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 disregarded most creatures 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 indiscriminately, 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, distinctive, metallic shade.

Never that glinting gold, set against the darkness of the night, a sun against a setting sky. It irked Kokichi each time his organization failed him, and that frustration blinded him from his underlings' actions, which included mass bloodshed on a vampiric scale. But Kokichi knew that taking this path meant he'd be face-to-face with death more often than not. Kokichi understood that by choosing revenge, he would sacrifice innocent lives in order to achieve his goals. Kokichi comprehended these things fully.

"What's our saying, kids?"

"Go for gold," hundreds of voices recited.

Kokichi smiled. "That's right. Remember, fill out reports, and keep in touch with me, with my communications team. Nothing gets by me, and nothing happens that I don't know about. If anyone has any problems, I can do a quick Hunting 101 with your sorry asses as the targets."

His brusque comments would earn some laughs, scowls, and other shocked faces, but for the most part, his society listened to him. Then they'd disperse like mice in sewers, scampering over each other in groups, in pairs. Most of the time, there was a hearty laugh ("We're gonna kill those bastards!" "Fuck yeah, we are!"), but other times he caught wind of hushed whispers ("Do you think he knows?" "He knows."). Ouma didn't mind, though. These were his people, and they didn't actually have the guts to go against him.

They wouldn't escape with their lives 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 just 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'd stand being nothing but a lie and a broken piece of what he could have been, if things were only different.

It was a lot to think about, even after so many years later. Kokichi hoped to find his target sooner, rather than later, all things considered.

He was getting really tired of the color yellow.