Wrong.
At 11 o'clock Haru is already starting to feel the effects of the drugs wearing off, his energy draining, his self-control starting to fluctuate. The remains of two broken pencils litter his desk, the lead in streaks across the tabletop and the faded yellow wood shredded like hamster bedding. He's started to tremble, just a little, in his hands; his breath, forced as it already is, comes out ragged and heavy, like a dying man struggling through his last words. Glancing at the clock, watching, waiting, staring down the ever so slowly moving hands...
Three hours. Haru has to last another three hours before taking another pill. This time, unlike the last two years up to this moment, that's never been important—like before, like last week, Haru just took one whenever he felt like he could use the ecstasy, could just the boost. Now, even just to consider the amount of minutes between him and relief, it's almost too much.
His one solace, in his struggle, is Makoto. Being taller and better built he's basically the perfect shield, keeping eyes away from Haru's slow decline into madness, hiding him away in a small bubble of safety that cloaked as much as comforted, protected as much saved. He's a godsend.
Class ends, suddenly and all at once. Haru finds he can hardly move, stuck in his chair as he watches the rest of his classmates bustle towards the door. They move like glaciers, the colours of the clothing blurring together, their faces bleeding in and out of focus. He can hear his name, somewhere, but the sound becomes a faint ringing, echoing again and again inside his head like a church bell, calling him, calling him home.
"Haru?"
It's only when Makoto touches his shoulder that Haru can find peace. He drops his shoulders, slinking deep into his seat, exhausted from only the small effort it took to raise his head from the desk top.
"Haru?" Makoto asks again. "Are...are you okay?"
His eyes move to Haru's non-existent notes, to the thick black smudges that line his desk. Realizing he has no explanation for his friend, Haru rises and walks past him, cradling his head and complaining of his need for the bathroom.
In one of the stalls, the last one on the right, Haru throws up. The bile burns his tongue, the mucus grey and speckled with what might have been his breakfast. Regardless, holding his chest, Haru feels like he's coughing up his lungs, regurgitating everything left inside him that doesn't work anymore.
After nearly fifteen minutes of pain, Haru breaks. His head is light, his eyes are swimming in a horrid fog, and his entire body throbs. Forcing his hands into his pocket, it takes nearly four tries to grab a pill between his fingers, pressing the capsule to his tongue with about as strength as it would take a weightlifter to lift a thirty-foot tree.
The relief is instantaneous. All of his symptoms clear, leaving Haru on the bathroom floor feeling both foolish and pathetic. Wasn't he stronger than this? Wasn't there some way he could fight?
Finding his friends, on the roof as always, Haru lies about having a stomach bug.
"Bad mackerel?" Nagisa asks, his blond head bobbing up and down like a buoy.
"Something like that," Haru says.
He might be crazy, but for the very first time Haru thinks that maybe, just maybe, Makoto doesn't believe him.
Walking home, Makoto stays completely silent. Haru doesn't mind the quiet, because he wants nothing more than just to listen to the beat of the ocean against the beach, the sound of Makoto's heart against his ribcage. There's a level of peace here, and Haru knows, when he gets home and takes another pill, there will be nothing but panic in his future. There's no way he'll make it back to Saturday at this rate. No way in hell.
By Wednesday Haru is a wreck. Every extra hour he manages to go without a pill is an hour sooner he needs to take another. Now they don't last as long, and they're not as good, and his bliss is so short-lived he actually considered just taking whatever was left and hoping for the best. But what then? What was waiting for him on the other side of complete withdrawal?
On his walk home with Makoto, the brunette finally cracks too. "I can't stay quiet forever," he says, trying to be apologetic despite his obvious concern. "Please Haru, maybe you should just stop coming to school until you get better. It kills me to see you this way."
Haru looks into his friend's eyes, hating the dark shadows that line them. He knows Makoto isn't sleeping. He knows something's wrong.
"I'll be fine," Haru replies, trying to smile, to bury his pain. "It'll pass."
Makoto drops his gaze, looking abashed for having pushed the matter, but suddenly he reaches out and takes Haru's head in his hands.
For a split second Haru thought Makoto was going to kiss him. Their faces were so close, less than an arm-span apart, and something about the moment felt charged, almost like desperation.
Maybe Haru was just going crazy. There was no tension, there was no kiss. He's falling apart.
"You're so cold," Makoto says, reaching for Haru's hands now as if oblivious to their closeness. "Aren't you cold Haru?"
Haru can't hear him anymore. There's just darkness, curling and twisting, forming along the sides of his eyes. He begins to shake, his entire body shivering with the energy it took not to simply collapse onto the ground.
"I have to go," Haru forces out between his teeth. "I have to get home. I have to...take medication."
But Makoto won't let him go. "Let me go with you," he says. "I gave you this cold, let me help you get better. Please."
So sweet. His voice, his breath, his smell. Oh god, has Makoto always smelled so fucking fantastic?
Alarm pushes through Haru's consciousness like a charging bull. "No!" he shouts, pulling back abruptly. "I have to go. I have to—" but he's already started running, running with everything he's got.
Haru doesn't go to school the next day. He just stays curled up on the floor next to the foot of his bed, his body wracked with spasms he can only control by keeping his knees locked to his chest with his hands. He has one pill left, one little capsule, and that's it. Then it's over.
Another convulsion overcomes him and Haru's body jerks from its chains, rocking against his arms like a vicious animal. Haru interlocks his fingers, trying to calm down, but this rush is different than anything he knows how to deal with. This is hot, fevered, like a fire scorching through his blood, begging him to get up, get up, run, run, run.
Haru cries out. What else can he do? His body is outside of his control now, famished for some need he can't identify. Not that he could, but still, Haru feels like he's dying.
He takes it, the last pill. He shoves it against his tongue and swallows it back, gagging on the bitter taste like it's the first time. The last time.
Haru knows he has about an hour. That's it. After that, he'll be powerless to this urge, powerless to fight this monster manically trying to escape from his grasp. He has to do something, quickly, before he loses control completely.
His only thought is his bathroom, with the lock. He finds the key meant for the outside and shoves it into the slot, breaking off the metal and leaving the teeth lodged in the doorknob. Shoving inside the tight space he slams the door, the force so unnecessary it cracks the hinges. Locking the door from the inside should leave him trapped, should keep him here until this...until this passes.
He'll be fine. Just as long as nothing, nothing, opens that door.
There's no concept of time in his bathroom, no clock to mimic a heartbeat, no window to watch the passing of the seasons. All Haru knows is the madness that has seized him, the ropes that have strangled his soul and chained it in the furthest, weakest part of himself. In it's place is a lunatic, hysterical with need, craving something like Haru has never craved anything before in his entire life.
When he hears the doorknob jingle, when he hears the doorknob shaking in it's place, Haru think it's his imagination. Worse, after it comes again, he think he's somehow gotten up and is trying the door without actually being aware of it. Then it comes again, and again. Then there's a voice.
"Haru, please open the door. You have to let me in. I can help you."
Fuck.
It's Makoto.
Haru has no voice of his own, no words to shove out of his tongue. He's a slave to this bestial power inside him, and all he can manage is a shift of his body, his bones contorting to get his legs front-first on the floor and his chest arching towards the ceiling. He can't even see anymore-his vision is just dark, revealing only silhouettes of the things around him, of the shadows creeping around inside his head.
"Haru, please. You can't die on me."
Then it comes. Was that horrible sound really Haru laughing?
It's too much for Makoto, because against everything in his nature, against everything Haru could have pleaded with him, he kicks in the door.
And then the vampire is free.
Haru launches at Makoto, slamming them both against the wall. He shouts something, maybe words, maybe only noise, but he can see the fear in his friend's eyes, can see the horror. The smell of Makoto is the most intoxicating thing Haru could have imagined, but it's not cologne, or shampoo, or deodorant that Haru smells. It's something else, something stronger, something better,
When Makoto had forced in the door, his hand had caught on the bathroom counter. There's a gash there now, a bright redness welling against his skin.
Blood. It's blood. Haru wants Makoto's blood.
In his rush of understanding, Haru finds himself back in control of himself for exactly half a heartbeat. It's over so quickly he hardly had time to realize it, but it doesn't matter. Haru reacted. Haru threw himself off of Makoto. He made it into the hallway.
There's another smell now, the smell of the streets, of the wind, of the trees and cars and birds and dirt. Of freedom. Haru runs.
Blind, in his madness, in his chaos, Haru hunts like a wild animal. There's thunder overhead, and then rain, but the darkness is only a comfort to his crazed mind, only a luxary to the burning that's eating away at his skin. The weather becomes like a typhoon, rain smashing against his body like bullets, making him slump, making him stagger.
But it doesn't matter. Haru sees a shadow, off in the distance. A person. A man. That's good enough.
The figure has no time to scream before Haru corners him, overwhelming him with his blood-lust that was too far gone to ever reign in without relief. Still, when the man struggles in his attempt to get away, his coat collar shifts away from his neck.
He has a tattoo. It's a crescent moon.
The shock gives Haru the ability the speak. "This is your fault," he says, his voice deep and gravely. "Why did you do this to me?"
"I haven't done anything!" The man squeaks, shrinking with horror when he recognizes one of his clients. "Please, I'm not in the business anymore! I don't want anything more to do with you!"
Haru's laugh is laced with lightning, the earth shaking in time with his words. "You don't escape this life," he says, meaning the words to be forward, no threatening. "This is still your fault."
"It isn't!" The man begs, shoving his fists against Haru's chest to no effect. "I don't make the drugs, okay? I just sell them! Find someone else and you'll be fine!"
But there isn't anyone else. This man was the closest supplier to Haru that wasn't on mainland Asia. He knows that; the vampire who turned him told him so.
Haru has no time left for lies. Haru has no time left for civility. This man smells awful, like trash and mud and death, but it doesn't matter. Haru needs him now.
Fixated on his tattoo, Haru lunges there first. When his teeth his skin, when his teeth hit bone, it's the most incredible rush, like lights filling his entire body, shattering apart like fireworks across his entire consciousness. He can't hear the man screaming, can't hear the thunder or the rain or the storm, all he can hear is the sound of blood rushing down his throat, the sound of his greedy swallows like a starving cannibal.
Haru drinks in everything. The smell, the taste, the feeling, everything. It's a paradise that doesn't exist, a dream that doesn't end. It's a happiness he can't afford. It's a happiness he doesn't deserve.
Haru leaves the man there when he's finished, leaves him crippled and broken like a rag doll. He wipes off his lips on the back of his arm, empowered with a different kind of fever now, a fever that heightens instead of dilutes, leads instead of pulls. It's a miracle.
When he gets back to his house, Haru finds Makoto sleeping in his doorway, his head resting gently against the wall. Haru's phone is tucked between his hands, as if Makoto had tried to call him only to realize it'd be left here, tossed aside like trash. Before he can think it through, before he can stop himself, Haru reaches for his friend.
Their lips fall together like clumsy children, lost and misguided. Makoto wakes at the touch but Haru doesn't stop, pushing forward, pushing back. Makoto loses his balance and falls, Haru dropping on top of him, his weight pinning him to the floor.
And then there's nothing.
