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The world blurred past me as Laito lugged me over his shoulder. "Don't peek, Yui!" Laito giggled. My eyes had already been open for a while and as I watched the now red stained alley get smaller and smaller, I wondered where Laito had put the men's corpses. After a few blocks, we approached an out of place sleek black car that sat parked on the side of the road in the town square. A few shacks still occupied the square, but otherwise, it had been gutted. Wind noisily smacked against their tapestry roofs. My eyes scanned past them to find a murky pond and I quickly turned my head away after spotting it.

"Down you go, convict!" Laito grunted as he leaned against the car and tossed me onto the ground, my back now supported by the car's side door. He stood in front of me as he took a cloth handkerchief out of his pocket and began wiping blood away from his hands and mouth. I heard the sound of a kitchen sink turning off and the gentle scraping of a slowly spinning record. I whipped my head away, not wanting to explore any more similarities between him and myself.

"What a bad little kitten I have. Leaving me all alone to starve," Laito cooed as he buried the handkerchief back into his pocket. My head remained turned in the direction we had come from. Laito pretended to pout, "I even had to hunt again. Her blood was so sour. Blegh," he faked a gagging noise before crossing his arms. "And she wasn't even as cute as you."

It was all for nothing, I thought.

Laito gestured his hand to where I stared. "And those two idiots tasted really terrible, too." He wiped away an invisible tear from his cheek. "Honestly, I wasn't even that interested in them."

Tears welled at my eyes. It was all for nothing and now he was dead.

"But of course," Laito continued as he moved my legs and kneeled down between them. "I would do just about anything for my kitten."

He was dead. He was killed.

I could feel Laito's hands on my skin although I was miles away. I could feel him lift my leg. The tears now streamed down my cheeks. "And seeing her all sad and pitiful like this," Laito's tongue slid across my leg, "has me craving something sweet." I turned my head to Laito and watched as he delved his fangs into my thigh, the wave of pain only resulting in more tears.

I killed him. The fact whirled, like a tornado, through my mind.

Laito leaned back up, and after a deep, satisfied sigh, placed his hand over the bite and squeezed the skin tightly. "Hahhh, ugh," I cried as my muscles twitched in agony. My arms laid heavy at my sides, my palms pressing against the cobblestone. I killed him. I killed him.

"Yui," Laito smirked as he pinched again, eliciting another grunt from me. "This dress is disgusting," he lifted his hand from my leg and leaned over to wipe my blood from his hand onto my skirt. After a single swipe, he paused. "Hmm, kitten. Whose blood is this?" he asked.

"Bl- blood," I sobbed, confused by the question. "I don't, I- I-" My hands raised to my face and my fingers covered my eyes. "I uh, I..." I tried again, but could only choke on my words.

"Hmmm. Interesting," Laito leaned back and gave a lick to the blood that now trickled down my leg. His eyes drifted away from me, suddenly lost in thought. "That would be... very interesting," Laito mumbled. I, taking advantage of whatever distracted him, dragged my knees in and up to my chest and then hugged my legs firmly. "That would explain the scent," Laito gasped softly as he moved to my side to inspect my sleeve. He gave a quick sniff. "Ugh, now that I've noticed it, it's all I can smell on you," he grimaced, lifting the fabric with his fingers. "This won't do, kitten." Laito swiftly stood up, looped his fingers into the neckline of my dress and lifted both me and the dress upwards. I thumped back down onto the cobblestone while my dress continued its way up to Laito, who promptly crumpled it in his hands and tossed it up and across to the other end of the car. It landed onto the ground with a thwap.

I sat with my legs flat, spread wide, one bleeding into the stone below. My hands sat still in my lap. My eyes, once again, stared at the empty void of a sky. But, this time, no eyes returned my gaze. Even the moon and the stars hid from me that night. "That's much better," Laito sighed contentedly, then smiled down at me. "I fixed it, Yui," he grinned and crouched down to meet my eyes. "It's just that it smelled so strongly of a bar," he snickered as if sharing an inside joke. Laito returned to my legs, still chuckling to himself, and dug his fangs into my other thigh. "I'm so, so thirsty now," he said with delight.

My head bumping against the inside of the car door is what awoke me. I laid in the backseat. I winced as Laito's bite marks that decorated my legs pressed against the seat's fabric. Even through the fog in my vision, I could place the red long hair on the man's head, who sat at the wheel. And the lights flashing in through the windows from the street lamps we drove by confirmed it. I wondered whether my bed at the castle would still feel the same or not as my eyelids, again, fell closed.

My eyes shot open and I peered into pitch black. I was tightly tucked into a thick comforter. Looking around, I could only make out a few unknown shapes across the room. I pushed the blanket off of myself and began to sit up, but hesitated as I saw the color blue. My chest ached in pain. I sat up fully, and I recognized the blue dress I wore as Yamada's gift from the market. My breathing became quick as my eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness. And then I noticed a scarf laid neatly on a bedside table next to me. "Wh- what," I breathed. I stood from the bed and after feeling as though my head would explode, immediately sat back down. "It couldn't have been," I gripped the bed below me. "It wasn't a dream," I unconvincingly murmured to myself. As I began to lift my skirt, checking for marks from Laito's fangs, I heard a knock on the door.

"Rika?" a man's voice asked from outside of the bedroom. My eyes widened. "Er," the man cleared his throat. I turned my gaze to the shadow of the man's feet that appeared through the bottom crack of the door. I could hear the knob turn. "I mean, Yui," the man corrected as he opened the door. The light, now leaking into the room, revealed multiple bite wounds, just hardly dried, across my thighs.

I looked back to the door. "Yama..." I began, but my voice faltered in disbelief.

"Hey, Miss Yui," Yamada grinned, now standing, unbelievably, wonderfully, amazingly alive in the threshold of the bedroom door.