Ryou wanted to pace in Atsushi's bedroom. He didn't have the energy, so he settled for glaring at his twin. "Why did you bring them in to this?" He avoided looking at the window across from the bed he sat on, trying to hide his hope that Saeki would find him.

"Why are you so antagonistic?" Atsushi asked calmly. He sat on the futon he'd laid out next to Ryou's bed. Ryou wondered if he'd done it that way to guard him, but probably not. There simply was no other place in the room to put it. "I called Mizuki because I thought he could get to the bottom of this. And if they have to stay here to do it, they can."

Ryou plucked at the hem of his sleep shirt. "What if that means I don't have the dream?" he asked.

Atsushi looked at him sharply. "Do you want to?"

"I miss him, Atsushi. A lot. And this dream has been so... it's helped me not go crazy." His voice cracked.

"How close were you?' Atsushi asked.

"He was my best friend. We had planned to go to the coast last weekend, you know, just to get away. And then this happened... And they can't even say how he died," Ryou added in a low voice, calming down simply because he didn't have the energy to keep up that intensity.

"I didn't know," Atsushi said, his voice low. "But Ryou, if this dream is killing you, I want it stopped. Losing Saeki was bad enough. But if you..." He shook his head, and his eyes met Ryou's with a familiar determination. "Hate me if you like, but I don't want to lose you. I want that dream stopped. I don't want you gone."

Ryou sighed, and nodded. "All right," he said and lay down, pulling the blanket over him. Within moments he was asleep.

"Ryou." The familiar soft voice drew him into the dream, and he opened his eyes. "You moved."

"Atsushi was afraid for my health," Ryou said. He sat up and smiled. "He thinks its these dreams."

Saeki smiled, and for the first time, Ryou noticed that his teeth looked... wrong. But then, as he'd mentioned earlier that evening, things were often different in dreams. "You should go home."

"I don't think he'll let me," Ryou murmured. "Can't I have these dreams here?" The plaintive note can come back into his voice.

"It will be... a bit harder," Saeki said. "I can make it work, if you want to stay."

"I don't. Atsushi's stubborn, you know that."

"I do know that. I think I taught it to him." Saeki jerked oddly, then steadied. "I think I have to go, though," he said, and bought Ryou's hand to his lips again. Ryou felt a sharp pain - and immediately forgot about it.

"Can't you stay?" Ryou asked. It had been an odd conversation; short and so different from the previous nights. It wasn't fair, and he wanted to scream out his disappointment. If he had the energy, he would.

"Not tonight, Ryou-chan. I'll see you soon." Saeki pressed him back onto his pillow.

He sank back out of the dream before Saeki left the side of his bed.

"Ryou."

Someone shook his shoulder urgently, and Ryou opened his eyes languidly. "Hey," he said, and even that took more energy than he had. Atsushi looked worried, and... there was something wrong with him. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. But you're fading on me. It's time to get you to the hospital." Atsushi's voice cracked, sounding rough.

"I don't need to go to the hospital," Ryou protested, irritated beyond all reasoning. "I want to go home."

"I don't think that would be wise," Fuji said. His eyes had opened just a bit, a sliver of blue showing through. He looked furious. "He can find you there and that would be the end of you."

Ryou closed his eyes, then forced them open. "He... but he's dead."

"Undead," An said through clenched teeth. "He's a vampire." She nearly spat the words.

Ryou blinked at her. "A... vampire."

"A western one, but yes, a vampire." An's words still dripped abhorrence and hate.

Ryou tried to remember what he knew about them, but couldn't come up with anything. "What does that mean?"

"It means you're losing blood at an alarming rate," Mizuki said as he came into the room and nodded at Fuji. Fuji nodded back, and then Atsushi and An pulled Ryou to his feet. An let Fuji slip under Ryou's shoulder, leaving her free.

"But it's just a dream," Ryou protested as they left the bed room, An ahead of them, Mizuki behind.

"He makes it look like a dream," Mizuki said, sounding... distracted. Almost as if he listened to someone and repeated what they said. Oh, right. He talked to ghosts. "It's one of the ways they can keep control of their prey. If they don't want to kill, then the prey thinks of it as a dream. I don't know how it works, exactly," he added, his voice sharper. "But it makes sense."

Outside, they climbed into the car - it was still dark, Ryou realized when they stepped outside - and Fuji pulled out onto the nearly-empty main street. It didn't make sense. Hadn't he dreamed it? "I don't think I get it," Ryou said. "How did you know I was having a dream?"

Atsushi stared at him. "It wasn't a dream, Ryou," he said, rubbing his throat. His voice sounded raw, if better than before. "He was there."

Ryou leaned on the glass and watched the lights go by. In the window reflection, he saw Atsushi rubbing his throat, and that sparked the memory of something not quite right. He turned to look at his brother, and started. Atsushi looked like someone had tried to strangle him. "What happened?" Ryou asked, touching the red at his twin's throat.

Atsushi sighed. "I tried to get him to leave you alone and he grabbed me. You didn't notice?"

Ryou shook his head, for the first time starting to get scared. "I didn't. Did you say anything?"

"No," Atsushi said. "He didn't give me the chance."

"I didn't even see you," Ryou murmured. "But he did that to you."

"Yes."

Ryou took a deep breath. "Okay," he said, his voice shaking. "Maybe you are right."