Prompt: UmiMaki in which Maki is a vampire.
Request by Kuroi Onee-san. I hope you enjoy this fan fiction.
Disclaimer: I do not own Love Live.
The Nishikino family is one of the oldest family of vampires in the nation of Japan. As such, they are fairly wealthy, in both the vampire world and the human world. Their family is one of doctors, of pure blooded vampires. Pure blood vampires are the only ones capable of turning humans into beings like themselves, though the Nishikino family stays away from that sort of feeding. Instead, almost all of their blood comes from either the hospital or their human servants. If a pure blood feeds its blood to a human, the human can then be fed on without turning into a mindless vampire. In addition, the human will remain alive for as long as the vampire exists. And now, Nishikino Maki, the pride of their family, must choose her first human to become her servant.
Sonoda Umi was a perfectly normal teenager, living a normal life. She looked down on myths and other such things that science had disproved, simply because they were not possible in her world. So when she awoke in an alleyway with no memory of how she got there, she was naturally confused. The last thing she remembered was turning onto the street that led home when something, or someone, had covered her mouth with a rag. It must have been soaked in some sort of anesthetic because she remembered the feeling of falling. Her arm ached and when she looked, there was a bandage covering the part that throbbed. Her head still groggy, she barely managed to get to her feet. She used the wall as a support as she headed out of the alleyway to get her orientation and find her way home. She didn't notice the other body that lay in the alley since she headed in the other direction.
Maki soaked her burned body in the cold water that her servants had drawn for her. While she hadn't found a suitable servant for her blood source, she had made the mistake of leaving the shade of her umbrella during the day. She didn't understand why, but she had followed Umi after school, without the older girl knowing. When she found out that Umi was going down an empty street, she had followed and then found a chance to taste Umi's blood. A vial of the precious blood was waiting for her in the refridgerator of her room, if only the burns would heal a little bit faster.
Umi had no explanation for what had happened to her. She unwrapped the bandage on her arm and found a cut underneath. The blood had already dried up, though the area still ached. She had no memory of the cut happening, nor any reason to believe it was the work of anyone other than a weird person who craved sex, even with a drugged teenage girl. Though she couldn't explain the cut. For some reason, she remembered the myths Honoka had told her about vampires. But she still had no reason to believe they were true. Vampires didn't exist. That was what the rational part of her brain told her, and it always ruled over the irrational part of her brain.
Maki rose from her bath, the burns cooled down to the point where they were a bother, but no longer hurt. She dried her body first and dressed. She hastily tried to dry her hair as she walked down the hall to her room, wrapping her towel around her neck to keep her still wet hair from soaking into her dry clothing. Maki took the vial from her fridge and uncorked it. She raised it to her lips and drank from it, sighing contentedly as the red liquid contained within it ran into her throat.
"No doubt about it. Umi-senpai's blood is the perfect match up to my taste."
Umi sneezed as she exited her bath.
"Maybe I should dry my hair properly before I catch a cold…" Her towel, meant for drying her hair, sat neatly on top of her head, though she hadn't used it yet.
The next few days, Maki followed Umi relentlessly right after school as neither of them had club activities. Even though Umi was quite sure that her junior was doing her best to remain inconspicuous, it was rather hard to ignore someone following you, especially since Maki was always carrying an umbrella, except for when it rained. As such, the red-haired first-year was quite noticeable from the crowds of people. It bothered Umi to have someone follow her so much that eventually she confronted Maki. What Maki told her both confused and scared her a bit.
"Vampires don't exist!" Umi shouted at Maki. They were in the same alleyway as the one Umi had woken up in a few days ago, just to be out of the sight of any other people.
"I exist." Maki said matter-of-factly.
"T-That's different! You can't be a vampire!"
"I assure you. I am one." Maki wanted to prove it to Umi, though she had been told to keep her existence a secret her whole life. "Look." She raised her hand high enough to be caught in the sunlight that shone above the building shadows. Immediately, her hand started to burn. The pain was excruiciating, but she held it up for Umi to see.
Umi watched in horror. Right in front of her was undeniable proof of a living vampire, and it was a younger student at her high school. While she had so many questions, Umi's first priorty jumped to stopping Maki from continuing to hurt herself.
"I get it, you're a vampire!" Umi said, grabbing Maki's arm and pulling her hand back down, out of the sun. "There should have been other ways to prove it without burning yourself…" Umi continued to scold Maki for hurting herself as she rummaged through her bag in search of a first aid kit. Or at least, she did until Maki rested her uninjured hand on Umi's arm.
"You don't need to worry about me. I heal very quickly." The younger girl said. But Umi didn't listen, and wouldn't listen until she had finished bandaging up Maki's hand.
"So were you the one who attacked me a few days ago to draw blood from me?" Umi blurted out, somehow finding the courage to ask a question like that. Normally, she wouldn't have asked something in such a blunt way; that was Honoka's forte, not hers. But she needed to know, if Maki could be trusted anymore.
"I took your blood, yes." Maki's response left Umi's heart feeling cold. If she had knocked her out just for her blood, then Maki would not be after anything other than her blood. "But I was not the one who knocked you out."
"I was the one who saved you."
Slowly, with a lot of prompting from Umi, Maki told her exactly what happened. According to the vampire, it was indeed a sex fiend who had knocked her out. But since Maki had been there to witness it, she had flown to action. She risked the burns of running under sunlight to get to the criminal as quickly as she could and she silenced him. She made sure that Umi was in no way hurt, then took some blood from the unconscious girl so that she may heal faster.
"Why couldn't you just take my blood from my neck instead of cutting me and bandaging me?"
"I don't want to kill you."
"Taking blood like that…kills the humans that the blood is taken from?"
"No."
"Then?" Umi was starting to realize that Maki, who was normally talkative enough to speak without being prompted, wanted Umi to still trust her, though it frustrated Umi to no end when the answers given were not clear.
"If a pure blood vampire like myself takes a human's blood, they are turned into mindless vampires that prey on other humans. Then it is our duty to end what we created." Umi understood Maki's simple explanation easily.
"Then how do you get enough blood to survive?"
"Through humans." Umi felt like face-palming. Once again, Maki's answers confused her, and she couldn't even read what the girl was feeling on the inside.
"How?"
"We feed them our blood. Then we can take their blood without turning them into vampires. And they live as long as the vampire who gave the blood persists." Maki paused. "I'm at the age where I need to find my own human."
"And that person…let me guess. It's me, isn't it?"
"How did you know?"
"Well, you've taken my blood, and then stalked me for several days…" Umi trailed off as she noticed the blush on Maki's face. "Vampires can blush?"
"N-No…" Maki muttered, looking uncomfortable. Umi sighed. Living for as long as Maki did didn't have a bad ring to it, even if she lived beyond the lives of her friends.
"I'll do it." Umi decided.
"Are you sure? You most likely will lose your current friends. Do you really want that?" Maki asked, her face regaining the emotionless state she had maintained for most of their talk.
"We'll still be friends for now. And you're my friend too, Maki. I wouldn't mind spending eternity with you." Umi wished she was anywhere else than where she was right now after spouting such a cheesy line like that.
"Then…" Maki pulled out a Swiss army knife and drew it across the palm of her hand, letting her own blood flow. The red liquid pooled in the palm of her hand. "Drink." Umi took Maki's hand and held it to her lips, sipping the warm liquid. Pain seared over Umi's heart, pain that burned, then faded to a cool sensation.
"What was that?" Umi asked.
"The symbol of our contract. Though it normally doesn't appear on the chest…" Maki looked down through the neck hole of her shirt at the marking that had appeared. "Weird…"
Maki ended up not taking another human servant. Umi remains her only blood source, as well as her most trusted companion.
Does it count as romance if the characters never say I love you to each other? I think it does.