"The greatness of humanity is not in being human, but in being humane." – Mahatma Gandhi

Chapter 1

The pre-class chatter was a bit different today. Rather than talk about some random song that just came out or gossip about other classes from the chatty girls, it was talks of a transfer.

"I heard there's a new transfer student!"

"In our year? You sure about it?"

"Yeah! I overheard the principal talking to them in his office when I stopped by to grab sensei's papers! All I heard was that they were gonna be in this class though."

If anything, it was interesting. The school was strict on who they accepted, at least from his experience. Everyone who attended was either a genius or from a rich family and of above-average intelligence. It would be interesting to see which of the two the transfer student would be.

The chatter was quieted by the appearance of Hasegawa-sensei. He was a stern man who didn't really look his age. Apparently, he was nearing his 50s, but no one believed that since he barely looked 30. Nobody really disliked him per se, but everyone knew that you probably shouldn't get on his bad side.

"As I'm sure some of you heard, we have a new student joining us today." At his words, a boy entered the classroom. There went any hopes of another hot girl joining their class.

He was pretty normal looking general features-wise. No brightly colored hair or alterations to his uniform. His hair was pitch black, same with his eyes, and it contrasted with his pale skin, but he didn't look exotic by any means. He looked like a typical middle schooler with above-average looks.

Quiet whispers broke out about him, from both boys and girls, particularly about the weirdest thing about him. The bandages that covered his left hand.

The school's uniforms were in the gakuran style, so his wrist didn't even peek out from underneath the long-sleeved jacket, but it was likely the bandages went up to at least his forearm. Hopefully, they didn't have to deal with a chunni. It was their final year in middle school, so everyone should've outgrown that childish stuff, but there were always outliers.

"Introduce yourself." A nod from the transfer student and Hasegawa-sensei went to sit down at his desk while he introduced himself.

"My name is Togashi Sasuke, I'll be in your care." He bowed to the class and turned to sensei for instructions, not paying attention to the new wave of whispers coming from the class. Half of it was from some girls sizing him up as boyfriend material, and the other half was from guys debating on whether he'd be a chunni.

"You can sit next to Suzuki-kun for the time being. If there's any problem, we can always move people around."

Great, possible chunni would be sitting next to him. Now he could only hope, for the sake of his sanity, that Togashi-san wasn't a chunni. A nod from Togashi and he was already making his way toward the open seat on his right. He sat in the middle row window seat, to it was kinda strange how no one had been sitting in the spot next to him all this time, but it wasn't anything he needed to think about.

"Nice to meet you." It was common courtesy to greet a new student, so obviously Suzuki did just that. Only for the transfer student to simply nod at him and sit down.

From there, class was entirely uneventful. No mumbling from the transfer student, no drawing or drafting a novel in the middle of class, nothing. He was sure he caught a particular girl cast a few glances his way over the course of class, but she wasn't interested in boys at all. Or was it more accurate to say she was too clueless and innocent to be into boys in that way.

Lunch came faster than expected, and it was like the transfer student never existed. One second, he was in his seat, putting away his notebook, then after a literal second of looking away to close his notebook, Suzuki lost sight of him. His chair was pushed in, and his bag was gone, but not a single noise had been made.

While packing up the rest of his things, Hasegawa-sensei stopped by at his desk.

"Suzuki-kun, I'm going to ask that you keep an eye on Togashi-kun for me. Please step in if he gets into any trouble. His mother informed us he can be quite… volatile at times."

"I guess it shouldn't be a problem."

With that, he left the classroom, trusting his intuition to lead him to where Togashi was. In all honesty, the boy had disappeared quite well, as none of his classmates had even seen the boy after he left the room, but in this case it was more annoying than it was fascinating.

His feet ended up leading him to the school's roof. Luckily, it was available to third years, so Togashi wouldn't get in any trouble for being up there during lunch. That is if he was there.

Opening the doors, the bright sunlight caused Suzuki to squint, but soon enough, his eyes adjusted. Making his way onto the roof, he took a look around, seeing no one but himself. Seeing no point in staying on the roof alone, Suzuki moved to leave, his hand on the door, when he heard a voice above him.

"You come to find me?"

The voice was unmistakably Togashi's. He looked on top of the door platform and saw the transfer student sitting there calmly, eating what looked like a BLT, forgoing the usual bento students who brought their own lunch had.

He put the sandwich in a ziplock bag and stuffed it into a paper bag before jumping off the platform, making no noise when he landed.

Weird.

"You could say that. Even thought it makes me sound like a stalker."Internally, he debated on whether or not to tell Togashi he was supposed to be keeping an eye on him or something. Ultimately, he didn't even get to decide.

"Did Hasegawa-sensei sic you on me?" Soon enough, the paper lunch bag was in Togashi's school bag, which was slung over the boy's shoulder.

"Say it like that and you'll make me feel like a stalker, but you're pretty much right. I can stop if you don't like it."

A tired sigh came from Togashi. "No, that could bring more trouble than it's worth. Just don't stick your nose in my personal business, that's mine and mine alone."

From what Suzuki could tell, there was no reason why he should have to watch Togashi. He didn't seem like the kind to get in to any trouble if he could avoid it, but he was asked to do something, and if Hasegawa-sensei found out he had been avoiding his supposed responsibilities, it wouldn't end well for him.

So, even though it was weird, he followed Togashi off the roof.

Looking at the two in the hallway, it looked like two antisocial pricks had decided to walk together. Despite being traditionally handsome, Togashi just gave off the vibe of someone you wouldn't want to talk to unless he talked first.

It was a passive aura he seemed to radiate, and that worked just fine for Suzuki. He himself looked kind of oriental, with his dark brown hair and eyes, but he instinctively avoided eye contact with pretty much everyone. It was apparently a problem that needed to be fixed, but it was useful since no one at school thought to approach him because of it.

Eventually, Togashi stopped walking, and the destination ended up being their class. He walked in and sat down, not even alerting Hasegawa-sensei who was eating lunch at his desk.

How that was possible, Suzuki didn't know, but it was another one of the transfer student's quirks.

As the day ended, nothing of note happened. Once the final bell rang, Togashi disappeared, leaving the classroom without there even being a trace of his presence there.

The next day came, and Suzuki and Togashi fell into a routine.

They'd arrive at school early, Suzuki took a nap, and Togashi did whatever Togashi did while Suzuki slept. All that he ever saw before falling asleep was a notebook.

Not a word would be exchanged between the two of them until lunch, where they'd greet each other before eating on the roof and returning to class.

More sleep from Suzuki, a couple of classes, and then it was the end of the day. Togashi left before anyone noticed, and his watcher left not long after.

This went on for a few weeks, with not a single change in their daily lives, until one day, Togashi left school an hour early.

There were no call ins from the office or anything, so he had simply left of his own accord. As he was leaving at the end of the day, Suzuki saw a small sheet of paper folded on Togashi's seat that caught his attention. Picking it up and unfolding it, it read:

I know what you are.

After unfolding it to read it, he saw the signs of tape that had come off the paper. There was probably a separate piece of paper attached for some reason.

Even though he didn't know his classmate all that well, he hoped nothing bad happened to him. And the message alone was ominous. What was Togashi? Was he a criminal or something? A dark past?

If he had any of those things, why would to school let him in? Was the note denoting something else?

Sasuke arrived at an abandoned warehouse near the sea. Even now, the rational part of his mind was screaming at him to leave, to go back to his apartment.

He shut it out.

Sasuke knew he wasn't normal in the least. His strength and speed were inhuman, and along with that, he was sure he saw red eyes staring back at him in the mirror sometimes.

He made his way inside, trying to minimize the noise he made. He was already hardly visible unless he stood in the direct moonlight due to his black hoodie and sweatpants ensemble, but better safe than sorry.

Walking around the warehouse, he didn't see or hear anyone, until a voice came from behind him.

"So glad you could make it!" The voice sounded genuinely happy, but it set every hair on Sasuke's body on edge.

This guy was dangerous. He could feel it.

Upon turning, he took in what he could of the man's appearance.

White collared shirt under a suit vest. A black tie and fingerless gloves that for some reason made every muscle in Sasuke's body tense up.

Ripped black jeans with chains hanging from the belt loops and combat boots that shouldn't have allowed him to walk quietly at all, yet Sasuke hadn't heard him for even a single second before he spoke.

He was dressed just like some of the kids at his school wished they could dress if it weren't for the uniform.

The strangest thing was his head. He had a head full of silver hair that didn't look dyed. It was shining way too brightly in the natural moonlight to be dyed, and his eyes were a shade of yellow and held an almost animalistic quality to them.

"Who are you?" Wasting no time, Sasuke got to the point. For some reason, his rational mind had been completely mute from the moment they encountered this man, his body was yelling at him to run, and his instincts told him that the man was dangerous yet didn't want him to run.

"Straight to the business huh? Well, I'm not in the business of telling my targets who I am just in case they can do something with my name. All you need to know is that you've got a lot of people gunning for you."

The man's relaxed posture completely contradicted what he was apparently there to do. If Sasuke was his target, why was he just standing around, why wouldn't he have ambushed him? Why were people coming after him? More importantly, what did this man mean in his note?

"That doesn't matter to me right now, what did you mean in the note you put in my desk? How did you even get it there in the first place?"

"What did I mean? That should be pretty obvious, no? And humans have always been slower than us, so it wasn't too hard to slip it into your desk before they saw anything."

Sasuke's eyes widened as the man spoke more. Humans?

"Are you saying you're not human? You said us, so you're saying I'm not human either?" The dots started to connect in the young Togashi's mind, but things were going too fast.

"Oh… So, you didn't know? It makes sense why your hiding was so shit; you weren't even trying to hide anything. But no, I'm not human, and neither are you."

The evaluation of this hit Sasuke harder than he thought it should've. He wasn't human, but his mom seemed to be. She never showed signs of anything abnormal like him and was surprised by most of the things that weren't normal for people to do.

Sasuke spoke, but he sounded weaker than he would've liked to. There was something kind of crushing about finding out that he wasn't human, for some reason, it hurt, a lot. He had lived as a human all his life, so finding out he wasn't shouldn't have been that bad right? He was still able to live as a human being although he wasn't actually one.

"If I'm not human, then what am I?" A million different ideas raced through his mind, from government experiment to alien. He couldn't settle on a single thing, he didn't share enough traits with anything he could think of to place his finger on what kind of inhuman he was.

The man laughed heartily as Sasuke's internal crisis raged on.

"You're a Yokai. A vampire to be specific."

"Vampire? The guys that drink blood?"

"Yep, also known as creatures of the night and bloodsuckers, though blood is a preference, not a need, as clearly seen with you. If a vampire wants to be at full strength, however… Anyway, it makes no difference to me whether you know of what you are or not."

Sasuke barely had any time to process the next attack that came at him. He didn't even see the man move a single step this time, he was just gone, and suddenly aiming a punch at Sasuke's stomach. It was by pure instinct that he was able to bring his arms up in time to block the attack.

Even though he stopped it from hitting his abdomen, he felt as if his arms would break at the slightest movement. The normally calm and collected Sasuke yelled out as he was launched closer to one of the warehouse walls, not quite hitting it just yet.

The onslaught didn't stop there though. Just as he made his way to his feet, the man attacked again with inhuman strength and speed, but this time Sasuke was able to react. Sasuke's world was tinged red, and he saw the punch hit his guard before he felt it. This punch didn't send him flying though, it broke open his guard, and that would turn out to be more dangerous than anything else.

His red world allowed him to see what was about to happen to him before he even felt anything, but he was too slow to do anything other than minimize the damage. With his guard open, the man was free to elbow his chin hard enough to take his feet off the ground, and another vicious elbow came immediately after, hitting his solar plexus and making the air leave his lungs.

He fell to his knees, unable to support himself on his feet due to the pain and lack of air. He heaved and heaved, his newly improved vision getting spottier the longer he heaved for. The man who had done this to him on the other hand seemed to be completely fine, he hadn't even broken a sweat.

While he was down like this, he had some time to process the new information that he had just been given. He and the man in front of him weren't humans, they were monsters, or Yokai as the man in front of him put it. It didn't matter what kind of inhuman he was, all it meant was that he wasn't human.

He wasn't human.

Did this mean he didn't have humanity? What would it mean? He had been living as a human for most of his life without any problems, but would all that crumble wherever this man was gonna take him? Would he live long enough to figure that out?

"You're pretty special you know? Not many vampires as young as you would be able to block my attacks, even if it was futile. Not to mention your weird eye mutation. I can see why the execs want you in their control or dead." The man crouched down in front of him, a smile that was too kind for the situation was plastered on his face. He extended one of his hands toward Sasuke's head, but he was far too exhausted to do anything about it. He felt a finger touch his temple and a foreign energy entered his body, but it was expelled quickly.

There was a brief look of surprise on the man's face before an almost regretful smile appeared on his face. "If you weren't in this situation, you might've been interesting to watch."

That was the last thing he heard before he felt more energy enter him as he lost the last shreds of his consciousness.