Part two.

Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize originated with me.

You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger

Two

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I'm taking it slow,

Feeding my flame—

Shuffling the cards of your game.

And just in time,

In the right place,

Suddenly I will play my ace.

—"Eyes on Fire," Blue Foundation

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As it turned out, she didn't choose whether or not to take him up on his advice—he made the decision for her.

Tokio wondered if he had meant to look to him when he had said to look somewhere else, but didn't ask. She wasn't altogether sure that he would answer the question, as she had discovered he tended to ignore questions he didn't like or didn't want to answer, and she could never tell which questions would get that response. Tokio decided it was easier to just go along with it.

Her neighbor was strange. There was no other word for it. He began showing up at her apartment in the late afternoon, walking in without knocking. The first time he did it, she had been too surprised to be outraged.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Coming inside," he said, sounding puzzled.

"Why?"

"You invited me."

"Yesterday," she said, and was made curious by the sudden wary look that came over his face.

"Are you rescinding your invitation?"

"No," she said, baffled by both his use of the word "rescinding" and by the question itself. "Hajime-san, you can't just walk into people's houses like that."

"You invited me," he repeated stubbornly, and she sighed.

"Okay, okay," she said, giving up. "Yes, I invited you. Please come in."

From then on, though his sudden appearance in her apartment tended to startle her because he always moved so quietly, she never said another word about his coming into her space without asking if she minded his company. And Tokio honestly wasn't sure if she minded his company or not. On the one hand, it was nice not to be alone all the time, and she even sort of looked forward to his visiting. On the other hand, he was, on the whole, completely silent, content to sit at the kotatsu without uttering a word for hours, only staring at her in that disquieting way of his.

He never wanted anything: no tea, no water, no soda, no coffee, no juice, no food. All he seemed to want to do was sit and watch her. She didn't know if she ought to be flattered or creeped out. The only thing that kept her from the latter was the fact that the man was clearly socially inept. He didn't seem to be aware or otherwise know about the way people acted. It was obvious to her that he had, for the majority of his life, kept mostly to himself. Which made her wonder what it was about her that made him deviate from that norm.

Whatever it was, Hajime wasn't sharing.

She reported her laptop as being stolen, and tried to ignore the twinge she felt at naming her sister and Yoshida as the burglars. She also had to explain to her bosses why she wasn't going to be able to make her deadlines. They were sympathetic, but understandably upset by the theft and the delay. She had to invest in another computer to begin and then finish what she had been working on. The only lucky break was that she had written out most of her notes on pads of paper, and she remembered most of what she had been working on, so it went more quickly this time. When she brought home and set up the new computer, Hajime only said, "It sounded odd without the sound of the keys." She took that to mean he had gotten used to hearing her tapping away, and didn't mind it.

It amazed her that despite the amount of time she now spent around him, she still knew no more about him than she had before. He was still as much of a mystery as he had been the day he moved in. She contributed that to the fact that he almost never spoke. The few times he did for any significant length of time, she was able to glean aspects of him, but he was by and large unknown.

All she knew about him with any certainty was that he was watchful, silent, spoke only when he felt he had something worth contributing, liked to smoke, and seemed to enjoy her company. It didn't really add up to much.

"Are you sure you don't want anything, Hajime-san?" she asked from the refrigerator, a bottle of water in her hand.

"Yes," he said, lighting a cigarette. "You asked that already."

"I know," she said, frowning. "But you look tired. Are you not sleeping well?"

That odd little smirk showed up on his face again.

"It's nothing to worry over," he said, instead of answering her.

Tokio frowned, but let it go; she was getting used to the many ways he evaded her curiosity.

It had been nearly three weeks since Tami and Yoshida had been by. In that time, she had seen subtle changes in her mysterious neighbor's appearance. He was starting to look a little worn, his eyes losing some—though by no means all—of their eerie, disquieting luster. He seemed a little more sluggish these days, not in any perceptible way that she could see; it was more of a feeling, some weird gauge she was beginning to get the hang of when it came to judging his health.

Speaking of which…

"Hajime-san, you really oughtn't to smoke so much," Tokio murmured, nonetheless grabbing one of the smokeless ashtrays she had had bought specifically for Hajime's daily visits and setting it down in front of him.

He shrugged and tapped his cigarette over the tray.

She eyed him, wondering if she should bring up those water vapor cigarettes again. She had been trying to nudge him away from his smoking, and had said something about it two days ago. He hadn't really indicated an opinion one way or the other—as usual—but he hadn't seemed annoyed, so Tokio decided he might not mind it if she broached the subject again.

"I looked up those cigarettes I was telling you about the other day," she said, taking a seat at the kotatsu with him.

"That right?" he asked, amber gaze flickering over her.

Tokio ignored it; she was starting to get less unsettled, but doubted she would ever really be able to take no notice of it.

"They're exactly like regular cigarettes, except you aren't inhaling any toxins or subjecting others to them. And they satisfy the exact same craving, Hajime-san."

There was a long pause, and Tokio looked up at him to gauge his response, and was startled to find him staring at her in a much more intense, intent way than he had been recently. She swallowed, her grip on her water bottle tightening reflexively.

Why did it suddenly feel like she was sitting at her table with a dangerous predator?

"That," Hajime said finally, "is an interesting choice of words, Tokio."

It was the first time he had ever used her name, and she flinched.

"Wha…what is?"

"Craving," he said flatly. His gaze flayed like a whip. "What would you know about cravings, Tokio?"

She watched him with wide eyes, not sure if she should answer or not. But something compelled her to, something she wasn't entirely sure originated in her, and she whispered, "Sometimes I really want chocolate."

It was quiet for a moment, and his lips curved into that odd smirk of his, but this time there was something about it that made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.

"Do you know what addiction is?" he asked. "It's a compulsion. It's something that a person wants desperately, maybe even needs…craves, as you said." He lifted the hand holding his cigarette. "Do you know how long I've been doing this?"

She shook her head slowly when he didn't continue, obviously wanting an answer.

"I don't remember a time when I didn't. It seems like I've done it forever." His gaze went to the smoke drifting lazily up from the tip. "I don't enjoy it the way I know I once did. I can't. But there's…comfort in the routine. Familiarity. And always, the hope that someday, it'll feel exactly the way it did, once upon a time. So I keep doing it." His eyes collided with hers. "Does that qualify as an addiction, do you suppose?"

"I wouldn't know," she said weakly.

He watched her, then let his eyes drift over her. Then, he set the still smoking cigarette down on the ashtray and rose. Tokio blinked, then looked around, still surprised—no matter how many times it happened—that he was already at the genkan, stepping into his shoes.

"'Bye Hajime-san," she said.

Usually, he didn't respond. Today was different: today, he looked over his shoulder at her before he left, the door swishing shut behind him.

"Well that was odd," she murmured, then frowned as she thought over what she'd said. "…er."

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She was dreaming about electronic cigarettes that looked like they'd come out of the Stone Age when she was jerked out of sleep by someone roughly grabbing her and covering her mouth.

Tokio's eyes snapped open. She couldn't move her arms, but her feet were unimpeded, so she tried to wriggle around so she could kick whoever had her. A man laughed, and Tokio stiffened.

"Hey Tokio," Yoshida singsonged into her ear. "Miss me?"

Her struggles began anew, more frenzied than before, and he just laughed louder.

"I never thought you'd report Tami and me for stealing your laptop. Joke's on you though, 'cause guess who they picked up? That's right, big sister, your poor little sis is sitting in lockup right now. They probably got her on a possession charge too—stupid whore always has coke on her when she goes out looking for johns."

She demanded that he let go of her, but his hand on her mouth muffled the words, and all that came out were inarticulate but definitely angry sounds.

"I'm sure you're all torn up about it," Yoshida said. "That's why I figured it'd be best for me to break the news to you. Don't you worry, Tokio, I'll comfort you—shit!"

She managed to kick him in the knee, and managed to tear her mouth out from under his hand.

"Help!" she yelled. "Help, there's a man in my apartment, he's trying to kill me!"

"Shut up bitch!" he snarled, grabbing her by the throat and shaking her.

She struggled against him, scratching at his face and kicking before she landed a lucky fist to his left ear that made him howl and let go of her just enough for her to break free. Tokio rolled away quickly and ran from the bedroom into the living room and then out the door that Yoshida had left ajar. She didn't bother stopping to knock on anyone's door, just yelled for someone to please call the police before she managed to get to the stairwell. She shoved the door open and flew down the stairs, tripping only once when she felt something stab her right foot. Terror that Yoshida would catch her, however, kept her from stopping to check the damage. There would be time for that later, she reasoned: right now, finding safety was the priority.

She made it to the ground floor, and instead of coming out through the lobby went for the emergency exit. The alarm going off might alert Yoshida to her location, but it would also bring the authorities running, and right now Tokio didn't care who answered as long as it was someone in uniform.

She ran towards the slightly wooded area twenty yards away from the apartment building, and hadn't gotten more than a few feet when someone tackled her from behind.

"Gotcha!" Yoshida snarled. "Hit me, will you? You're stupid just like your sister if you think I'll allow that kind of shit!"

He drew back a fist to punch her, but was stopped by the sound of a branch snapping. Yoshida's head came up and he froze, and when Tokio moved her head to see what he was staring at, she found a dark figure looming ahead of them.

"What do you want?" Yoshida asked.

"You," came a low, gravelly voice that didn't sound human, that made the blood in Tokio's veins freeze in terror, "are not welcome here."

"What the—" Yoshida began, and then let out a yelp as he flew off of her.

There was a moment when she was disoriented, when Tokio had no idea what had happened, and then she sat up in the snow and looked around, realizing that she was no longer being pinned down. She saw Yoshida running towards the wooded area she had been heading for, and then she saw what looked like a huge black dog standing not too far from her, watching the man run. The dog looked over at her, and her heartbeat stuttered at the way the eyes—amber eyes—glowed eerily in the dim night. Then the dog shot off after Yoshida, moving so quickly that Tokio's eyes couldn't keep up with it, which didn't make any sense, because dogs didn't move that fast—

The distant sound of sirens suddenly cut into her disjointed thoughts, and Tokio was suddenly aware of the fact that she was sitting in the snow in a t-shirt and sleep pants, teeth chattering with cold, foot on fire with pain.

If it hadn't been for the fact that she could see her own shuddering breaths in the air in front of her, she might have written it all off as a bad dream.

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Her foot was attended to carefully by paramedics, and then the police sat with her and got a statement from her. They were combing the area for Yoshida, they assured, and they were confident that they would soon find him, that he couldn't have gotten very far, and there were few places for him to hide in this sparsely populated town in Aomori.

It was while she was going over the events of the evening for the third time with two officers that another, younger officer suddenly appeared, looking very pale and unsettled. One of the two officers with her left to speak to the new arrival, and there was a lot of suspicious and furious whispering before the officer who had left her side cleared his throat and hesitantly interrupted:

"Takagi-san, it seems we have found the suspect."

"Good," she said. "Then you've already taken him into custody?"

"No," he said, looking ill. "The officers were unable to."

"What? Why?" Tokio looked from him to the younger officer and back.

"He was dead when we found him, Takagi-san," the younger officer said. "The fact is…he looked like he'd been attacked by a wild animal. It was…very messy. If it weren't for the fact that there aren't any left in Japan, I'd say a wolf had done it."

Eerie amber eyes in a canine face suddenly flashed in her mind, making the little hairs on her arms stand on end.

"It was probably wild dogs," the officer who had left her side was saying. "Feral dogs in packs can be a menace. And in the dead of winter like this, when food's difficult to come by, they can get desperate. We've had a couple reports of wild dogs roaming the area lately. They probably got him."

"I've never seen dogs do what happened to this guy," the younger man said. "It was like a slaughter."

"That's enough," the officer who was still sitting beside Tokio suddenly said, voice sharp, and all of them were suddenly staring at her.

She swallowed dryly, trying desperately to keep the bile rising in her throat down just long enough to make it to the bath room.

"Excuse me," she whispered, rising to her feet and hobbling into her bath room. She shut the door and leaned back against it for a moment, waiting for the sick feeling to pass, then maneuvered to the sink and splashed cold water on her face.

She would have been the first to admit her abhorrence for Yoshida, but even she wouldn't have wished the death he'd gotten on him. She was getting a gruesome picture of the way he'd died, and she wondered if it was the dog she'd seen, the dog with those creepy, luminous eyes that glowed so brightly in the darkness without the benefit of the moonlight, as if its eyes were on fire—

Tokio froze as she recalled exactly what it was that had scared her about the dog's eyes: they had been familiar. As if she had seen them every day for months.

"You should not be on that foot," Hajime said quietly from the tub, and Tokio whimpered in fright and whirled toward him, then immediately wished she hadn't: he was soaked in blood. It was spattered on his face, had saturated his clothes. The iron-y smell of it hung heavily in the air and made nausea rise up in her so swiftly that she didn't get the chance to even think about trying to control it, and had to retch into the sink or be sick all over the floor.

Hajime was kind enough to refrain from commentary. He remained silent even when the officers tapped on the door and asked if she was all right, said nothing when they said that was enough for one night, they would leave their cards on the table, and to please call them when she felt up to it. She just heard the door click shut over the sound of the water running as she washed the mess she'd made in the sink away, as she bathed her face and rinsed her mouth. She hid her face in the towel rather than use it to dry off, and waited until she was sure she could speak:

"What did you do?"

"I disposed of him."

She slowly lifted her head to stare at him. "You disposed of him?" she repeated. "Hajime, what did you do? Did you kill him after the dog got him?"

He raised an eyebrow. "The dog?" he asked.

"The dog I saw, the one that chased him—" She stared at him, and in that horrible moment everything snapped together, and Tokio weakly slid to the floor, felt the blood drain from her face. "You? It was you? But you're a man, you're not a dog, people can't turn into dogs."

"No," he agreed with a nod. "People can't."

"What are you?" she asked in a small voice. "You don't act like a normal person, and at first I thought you were just antisocial but it's more than that. This isn't normal."

He cocked his head and watched her. "And if I were to tell you I was a vampire, Tokio, what would you do?"

They stared at each other for a long time in silence, and then she slowly shook her head.

"Vampires don't exist," she said in a tremulous voice.

"That is unfortunate," he decided. "Because the fact remains that I am one, so either they do exist or I'm lying. So. Which one do you suppose is true, Tokio?"

"I can't," she said after a pregnant pause, voice cracking. "I can't, I can't do this, I can't."

Something flickered in his eyes, and he rose.

"You should not be on that foot," he repeated, and then was gone, and Tokio was left sitting on her bath room floor, staring numbly at the crimson stains on the side of her bath tub.