Chapter Twelve:
It didn't take Sona very long to understand once each of the brothers was on the tile floor of the shower room. Although, it still didn't seem like she knew I was a vampire. And I wasn't sure if I wanted to tell her that or not, for fear that I might truly be in danger, then.
"Tell me how you did that to them," she commanded. She was still gripping the knife in her clenched fist. "How can a human make vampires submit? You do realize the possibilities, don't you? How easy it would be for hunters to finally take control and destroy these monsters—"
"I told you to stop!" I screamed. "I will not let you hurt them. Ever. And I will not repeat myself again. Put down the knife and stop threatening them."
She lowered the knife a bit, but didn't put it down. "I told you, Yui. I'm just trying to help you. Vampires are no friends of humans. They're barely friends with each other. Always fighting. Always killing. They're all the same." She paused, but then glanced at them all, laying on the cold floor, all staring at us, wide-eyed. Sona took a careful step towards Subaru to the right and I moved to stand between the two of them.
"I only did this to them to prove that you can trust me. So please, trust what I'm telling you. They aren't a threat to anyone."
"The only explanation is that you've been blinded from the truth somehow. Maybe that one has a power through touch," she said, pointing to Ayato, "And he may have done something to you out there when he kissed you. But for you to try and defend him after he threatened Ereka like that… I can't figure out why just yet, but they've got some hold on you. And I swear, if they threatened you into doing this, I will help you. No matter what."
She took another step forward, this time closer to Ayato.
"Stop it! They haven't threatened anyone!" I yelled, but she took another step. I heard one of the brothers growl, and a couple others made a stressed noise, like they were trying to get up. "Sona, stop moving! Please!"
"You'll understand… I promise. You might not get it now, but you'll thank me later, Yui." She started walking forward, quickly, heading straight for Subaru. I stepped forward to meet her and grabbed her arm. She yanked herself away with a force I wasn't expecting… A force that seemed almost non-human. Was that some kind of hunter's power? I didn't have any time to think about that, because Sona was gripping the knife and standing above Subaru. His eyes glowed red as he snarled up at her. His eyes clearly said that he would have snapped her neck in a split second if he'd been able.
I grabbed her arm again and she spun, slapping me across the face. I yelped and fell, as my palms slammed against the floor to block my face. The brothers all growled in unison, and I understood. It was obvious that as a hunter, she must have some kind of strength. Maybe it was in her blood, or maybe it was something else, but I wasn't going to be able to beat her in a fight with only my simple human strength, Awakened vampire or not.
"Sona, please!" I cried, watching as she lifted the knife and swung it down. I screamed. "Subaru!" And I must have blinked, because his hand was up in the air before I saw him move, and the knife wasn't drenched in blood. His face was distorted from the strain, but he'd lifted his arm just in time. Somehow, he managed to deflect it, and I felt my body move without thought. I stood back up and tackled Sona. I'd been hoping to knock her to the ground, but instead she only staggered a bit away from the white-haired vampire. She whipped around and glared at me.
"They'll be able to move any second now! Do you not realize that?! Then they're going to kill us both!" she yelled at me.
"Not both," Shuu said slowly, standing. In a flash, he grabbed me and shoved me behind his back, facing Sona and hitting her knife out of her hands, leaving it to slide across the floor and hit the far wall with a clang. "Just one of you." He raised an arm and I quickly grabbed it from behind him.
"No!" I cried. "No one is killing anyone!"
"She was going to kill Subaru," he said flatly, ignoring me. "And I'm not bonded to you. I don't have to obey your commands." He pulled his arm back and grabbed Sona by the arm. She yelped in pain, and without thinking, I jumped onto Shuu's back and dug my right fang into the side of his neck. He grunted and grabbed me by the hair before I could get any of his blood, pulling me over his shoulder. I cried out in pain, grabbing at his hand. I felt the wind rush past me as he flipped my entire body in one motion, and caught me on the down-swing, my feet already on the ground. He pulled me against him and snarled. "You will not leave yourself unprotected like that again. Do you understand?"
I gulped. My scalp was throbbing. It was rare to see him express anything besides boredom or disinterest, much less anger. I noticed that he was holding me tightly against his side with one arm, and his free hand was still gripping Sona so tight that she was in visible pain. She tried to break free, but she stopped when she realized how futile her attempts were.
"He's right," Subaru snarled, pushing himself up and standing. He staggered one step to the left before standing up straight and glaring at me. The others were all getting up, and it seemed like the consensus was that I'd done something extremely wrong. They all looked like they were angrier with me than with Sona.
"You've had your fun, Pancake. Now let us handle it from here."
"Just hold them there," Reiji sighed. "We'll snap the girl's neck and then we can all get on with our day. This interruption was very unnecessary and unwarranted. I'll have to apologize to my teacher for leaving in the middle of class without so much as an "excuse me"."
"No!" I cried. Struggling against Shuu was impossible. "Ayato! Subaru! Please, listen to me! Don't let them hurt her!"
"Sorry, Yui," Ayato shrugged. "But she didn't just threaten us. She hurt you. She needs to die."
"But!" I stammered. Reiji was going to snap her neck… He was only a few paces away now. "But you're bonded to me! You have to listen to what I say! Stop him! Protect her!" He was beside her now. I looked into her eyes and for some reason she was looking at me. She was filled with terror. "If you do this, I'll never forgive you! Any of you!"
Reiji paused and looked over at me. His expression was bored. "Then what would you have us do? She'll obviously try and kill us again. And for all we know, she could be targeting you now, too. We would have to have someone watch her at all times, and frankly, Yui, it's not worth the trouble to save one human life."
"Let me talk to her. Please. Just give me a few minutes alone with her—"
"No," Subaru frowned, but he sighed in what seemed like defeat. "One of us will stay. Shuu, let go of them."
"Whatever. If she tries anything, I'm severing her head. No more talk."
Shuu let go of me first, and after a few moments, released Sona, who whimpered and cradled her arm against her chest. She took a darting glance at the knife in the corner, but Subaru flashed over to it and picked it up, sliding it into his back pocket, out of view. The brothers began to walk away, one at a time, until Ayato smirked and winked at me before rounding the corner. I was glad to see he was still being lighthearted. Shuu and Subaru remained, and nodded at each other. Shuu glanced over at me and snarled, baring his fangs, and I jumped… What?
"We'll talk later," he growled, and my eyes quickly darted to Subaru for some kind of support. Shuu was gone in an instant, and Subaru looked at the ground before meeting my worried gaze.
"You tried to take his blood…," he whispered, and he sounded disappointed. It struck my heart, but I didn't understand. Shuu was going to kill Sona. I had to do something, but they made it seem like I'd been stabbing him in the back instead. I'd taken the brothers' blood before. What was the big deal this time…? But I had another problem right in front of me, and I needed to focus. Subaru pulled out the knife and began twirling it between his fingers in the corner. Sona watched him with wary eyes.
"Sona," I said softly, and after a couple seconds, she looked back at me. Her face was difficult to read. "I want to explain everything to you, if you'll hear me out?" She didn't reply. "They'll only leave you alone if you're not a threat to any of us—"
"I kill vampires. It's what I do. You should have let them kill me."
"Will you listen to what I have to say first?"
She looked over at Subaru, frowned, then looked back at me and nodded once. This was it, then.
"First things first… Do you know what the Awakening is?"
Sona tilted her head. "Isn't that… some medieval procedure that vampires created to make more of their kind when they were almost extinct? They experimented on little human girls to breed more vampires. It ended up killing a lot of people, and there was a zero percent success rate. Just what you'd expect from ruthless monsters," she spat.
"Well… yea, it's something like that. But… there's one case where it worked."
"Impossible. I would've heard about it somewhere."
"It's not impossible. And I'll tell you about it right now… I'm not human. I used to be, but I went through a transition and now I'm…"
"A vampire," Subaru said, throwing the knife up in the air and catching it, his eyes following the movements of the blade.
"Subaru," I warned.
"What? If you're trying to save her, you have to tell her everything, and see how she reacts."
I frowned, but when I looked back at Sona, realization was dawned on her face. "A… vampire? That's why… you took their blood. They listened to you. That one was feeding on you… You've turned them into a coven? But I can't sense you at all… You feel like a normal human to me."
"That's because she was a human," Subaru trailed on, still watching the knife as he played around with it. "It's strange because we can sense her as a female vampire, and so can others of our kind. We're drawn to her because we can smell her female blood. We didn't realize that you couldn't sense that until you said so before. That's strange, but good. She doesn't have any of our abilities, so she's still as fragile and weak as a human would be. There's no way she could fend off a hunter like yourself if you had targeted her like you've done to us."
"So you… slept with them?" she asked in disgust. I frowned again.
"Not all of them…" I trailed off… Not yet, at least.
"You plan to, though? How am I supposed to believe that they aren't holding something over you? Or they haven't threatened you? Nothing about this makes any sense. You took their blood, so each of them is already bonded to you anyway."
"Actually, that only works because I'm bonded to them." Sona narrowed her eyes as if I was trying to deceive her. I frowned once more.
"We're still trying to figure out how this whole thing works," Subaru added. "There are many things that don't make sense to us because she's the first female to survive the Awakening."
"And how does that happen anyway? The Awakening was always a failure because vampires would destroy the girls before they even had a chance to try and live through it all."
"They protected me…" I said, looking down. "From myself… From other vampires… From each other…"
"What? Why?"
Subaru threw the knife so hard that it whizzed past me and stuck an inch into the tile floor, right beside Sona. We both yelped in surprise. Subaru flashed beside me, and Sona jumped back a step. He ran one of his hands through my hair and bared his fangs for a moment. He then paused and turned to Sona.
"It doesn't matter why. The point is… we're going to continue protecting her. So, if you want to keep your head, don't hurt her again. And try not to threaten my brothers, either. It's probably best to avoid us altogether, at this point. I would even advise getting out of town. Shuu doesn't seem too happy with you sticking around, and Laito might kill you for sport. And I just don't like you…"
"If you're going to kill me, then just get it over with, monster."
Subaru smirked, and I didn't like it. It wasn't friendly in the slightest. "The only reason you're allowed to live now is because my mate would get upset if I were to bring you harm. If you're going to stick around this place, then you should remember that at all times."
"So, you've bonded to her then?" She eyed Subaru up and down. Her eyes were hateful, but backing down, however slowly.
"I'm sure you know what that means if you try to hurt her again…"
"Sona, please just agree to be peaceful with them," I said.
"What does that even mean?" she spat. "Vampires killed my father. I can't trust any of their kind."
"Then just trust me for now, okay? Agree that you won't hurt them, and they won't hurt you, and we can all just—"
"But you're one of them. I can't trust you, either."
"That's too bad," Subaru shrugged, walking over to the knife and ripping it out of the floor. He stood in front of Sona, tossing it into the air again a few times, taunting her.
"I don't care if you want to trust me or not, okay?" I said. "All I'm saying is that we can make a truce right here, and no one has to die, or get hurt, or anything like that. You never have to talk to any of us again, but can we all just go our separate ways and not hold grudges or anything. Can we just forget this ever happened, please?"
It took a long few seconds, but Sona eventually frowned, still wary of the knife, and then nodded.
"Good," Subaru said, pocketing the blade again and instantly flashing away, leaving me alone with Sona, looking defeated, and more like the shy girl I'd known before this whole incident even happened. I opened my mouth to say something to her, but the school bell cut me off and she turned without a word and walked out of the locker room.
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I would have really enjoyed the day going by super-fast, so I could have gotten home and relaxed, but there was still way too much going on. First, I'd almost completely forgotten about what happened with Ayato in front of practically our entire grade, and Ereka's mock-declaration of war. And not to mention the fact that Shuu was angry with me, and I was going to have to talk to him later… I didn't even know what I was supposed to say to him, and I didn't fully understand why he'd seemed so infuriated. And Subaru's disappointed look had me worried. It was definitely another culture thing—something about vampires that I didn't know yet. I wonder what it was this time… And hopefully I hadn't done something like tell him to go die in an alleyway, or anything crazy like that. With vampires, I came to the realization that anything I did could mean something completely different.
I went through the next few periods without seeing a trace of the brothers or Sona. But what I did get was a bunch of angry glares from girls that must have been part of Ereka's group, or people that heard the gossip. No one talked to me, though. It was a slow and lonely day for the most part.
"Yui!"
My head snapped up to attention and I looked up at the projector screen. The teacher was staring at me, one hand on her hip and a mean scowl on her face.
"Please refrain from daydreaming in my class, young lady. This material will be on the midterm, so I suggest you open your notebook and start paying attention."
"She's too busy thinking about what she's going to do to Ayato-kun tonight," one girl whispered, and a few other giggled around me.
"Or what she's going to get," another one snickered, "Seems like she'd be a rag doll from what I heard."
"Ayato likes that kind of girl? The submissive types? Maybe I should change my game plan, huh?" another one laughed.
"Oh, please. She can have Ayato. There are plenty more of those brothers to go around. And Laito doesn't seem like the type of guy to pin himself down to just one girl, if you know what I mean—"
"You don't even know them!" I hissed, and the teacher whipped around again.
"Miss Komori! Is that you again?! Stop making trouble or I'll send you to the principal's office!"
The girls around me all pointed and giggled again and my face turned beat red. Why was this happening to me? Why was I getting into so much trouble all of a sudden? And was this going to end up being how I went about my school life from now on—like an unwanted class clown? I didn't want to be used for amusement, and the way they were talking about the Sakamakis… It was making me angry—
"Excuse me," a voice said, and I turned to see Subaru at the door. "I need to steal Yui away for a few minutes, if that's okay?" The teacher grumbled something, but nodded at him.
"Make it quick, Miss Komori."
"Yes, ma'am." I stood, and Subaru motioned for me to grab my backpack, too. I frowned, but grabbed it and headed out the door. He let it close behind me, but not before a few of the girls made some extra comments.
"I guess one brother just isn't good enough for her," was the last thing I heard as the door shut, and the silence of the empty hallway hit me.
"W… What is it?" I asked, looking down at the ground. I wondered if he knew what the girls had been saying. I wondered what he thought about it, too.
"You were stressed. I could feel you from across the building. I just thought maybe you'd need a minute to step out of class…" He lowered his eyes and I looked up at him. Was he… embarrassed? I blushed, but then forced myself to smile at him.
"Thank you, Subaru."
He frowned and looked away, and I could've swore a light blush hit his cheekbones. "Yea, well… You've got to give this human stuff a rest every now and again. It's hard to determine what I should and shouldn't be doing for you."
I had to stop myself from laughing so I wouldn't give him the wrong idea. Instead, I just took a quick step forward and buried my head into his chest. I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed as tightly as I could. It took him a moment, but he lifted an arm and placed it over my shoulders in what I assumed was his interpretation of reciprocating a hug in this case. I couldn't help my giggle at that, though.
"Thank you, Subaru," I whispered again, and this time he squeezed me a little tighter. He lowered his head and raked his fangs across my cheek and down, tracing my jawbone. I shivered as he neared my throat, and for a moment I was going to stop him, but then I remembered that this was how vampires showed affection. I breathed out slowly and leaned into him as he bit down and immediately withdrew his fangs, sucking slowly from the two marks he left there. I nervously looked over his shoulder but there was no one else in the hallway. I focused on the corner at the very end of the hall, imagining someone coming around the bend. But no one ever did, and Subaru licked at the two punctures for a couple minutes before pulling away.
"I healed them. You should be fine now, right?"
I nodded and smiled up at him. He looked confused for a second, and then leaned forward hesitantly. I blinked up at him and noticed that he glanced at my lips. I smiled again, trying not to laugh, and pushed myself up on my tip toes. He glanced away for only a second before breathing out and meeting his lips to mine. It was more tongue and teeth than anything else, as if he as trying to bite me again. But he never did, and when he pulled away, I could still feel his fangs against my lips and the taste of his saliva in my mouth—with a slight hint of my own blood.
"Thank you," I said softly. I couldn't help but say it over and over, but he just nodded at me. "I mean it," I pushed. "Out of everyone, you're the only person who's really trying to understand and recognize my human side, while the others are trying to make me move past it."
"Well… it's not like it can't be frustrating at times," he murmured.
"But still… thank you for not trying to change me."
"None of us are trying to change you. You must be misinterpreting the others' actions."
I smirked. He was still looking away from me, and his face was still a little pink. Maybe now wasn't the best time to have a conversation… but another thought hit me and I couldn't help but open my mouth again.
"Subaru… Before you bonded to me, did you… feed on other people?"
"What do you mean?" he shook his head.
"Like… Ayato told me that while the others aren't bonded to me, they will no longer force me to feed them because I'm not a human anymore, so… He said that Shuu and the others were going out at night and…"
"Drinking from others." He paused. "Of course. We all do. In my case, did. We have to or we'll starve."
"So, you… drank from another girl before we…?"
"That bothers you…" He frowned. "Would you rather I hadn't and starved to death?"
"No! No, of course not… It's just… Thinking about it…"
"You're getting upset. Is it jealousy?"
"Well…"
"It's not as if I slept with any of them. I simply took human blood because I was thirsty."
"I mean… you couldn't sleep with them anyway, though…" I trailed off when he raised an eyebrow at me, as if I was missing something obvious. "What?" I asked.
"Why not?"
"What? What do you mean, why not? Don't you… bond…?"
"To female vampires, yes." He stared at me for a moment, definitely feeling the rush of complex emotions I was feeling after hearing his words. "Yui… you didn't think we all… had never…?" He paused. "I see… You didn't realize it. I'm sorry, I would have told you in a different way, had I known."
Things were getting a little clearer for me now, but still confusing. "Reiji told me a while ago… that you're all… older than you look… But you're the youngest, right? Do you mind telling me… how old you are?" And with all their extra years… what did I really know about the brothers? What if they were thousands of years old, with thousands of years of… experience?
"It's not as big of a difference as you make it sound…" he trailed off. "I'm barely ten years older than you. My brothers don't go much past twenty years past me. It's not as if we're over a hundred. We still have the ways in which we age. For instance, our father can be taken, easily, for a thirty-five year old human male, but he's nearing his hundred and ninetieth year. For us, we'll all look this way for a few more decades. And that could possibly be the way you age, as well, now."
"And… how many people have you… been with?"
He frowned. "I… I never thought of counting."
"But why? Why would you sleep with a human if the only reason you sleep with anyone is to have children? That doesn't make sense if you don't have sex for pleasure…"
"If a human is experiencing something that heightens their emotional state, we can taste it in their blood… It just makes it taste better if we're… pleasuring our prey… Or scaring or harming them."
"Like… what you did to me when I was human…?"
He nodded without breaking eye contact. "We don't consider enhancing our prey as "sex," as you like to call it. We can still only mate with one female throughout our lives. I don't consider what I do to my prey as anything I would do with you."
"Like… I'm not good enough?" I knew it was a stupid question, and I regretted it as soon as I asked.
"Good enough? For what, exactly? For torture?"
"I doubt any human girl would think you sleeping with her was torture…"
"Are you flattering me? Or being dumb?" he spat.
"It's not like you all didn't do it to me in the past anyway!" I shouted back at him, but I didn't want it to go this way. We were having such a… human moment before, and it just turned into this mess. I didn't even want to argue with him, but everything that came out of my mouth was instigative and passive-aggressive. I knew it was because I was hurt, learning that I wasn't any of the brothers' first…
"What do you want from me?" he asked angrily. "We're all vampires. This is what we do. If you have a problem with what we are, then you need to take some time to get over it on your own. And if you end up going through a full transition, then maybe you'll understand." He hissed and backed away from me. "I may try to meet you halfway as a post-human, but the least you could do is give me the same in return."
And then he flashed away, leaving me alone in the hall with only the lingering aura of his anger.