I LIVE! Sorry about the long hiatus...working at FedEx absolutely drained all my energy and wrecked my muse. Fortunately I have since found a different job that isn't so exhausting (and will almost certainly have a much better paycheck). Hopefully now that I have a new job the muse will flow again and produce updates.

Thank you to everyone who sent me a PM in concern about the long hiatus!

If there was one constant Tsuna had in his short fifteen years of life, it was his mother's love. She was a bit odd at times, but he never doubted she cared for him.

There were times he wished she would be a tad more normal though.

"Great news Tsu-kun! I called in a favor with grandpa's old friend, and I managed to get you into a good high school!" said Nana cheerfully.

"High school?" said Tsuna with dread.

He had managed to graduate middle school...barely...but Namimori High had made it clear they didn't want him when he applied. To be fair, he was pretty sure the only reason he graduated middle school was because his teachers didn't want anymore to do with him.

So he wasn't exactly enthusiastic about going to yet another school.

He wasn't about to say that much to his mother though.

Tsuna had to twitch when he saw the old fashioned bus. Apparently his new school was one that had dorms and he was expected to at least stay there for a full year before his mother would let him quit. He found it rather ominous that the name of the place was literally "Youkai Academy".

A feeling that only got worse when he finally saw the place for the first time.

It was gloomy, depressing and looked like something straight out of a horror movie. He was skittish enough from the creepy snickering the bus driver kept doing around him.

Though he never expected his natural clumsiness to save him from being hit by a bicycle of all things.

"I'm so sorry! I didn't hit you did I?" said a rather pretty girl with pink hair of all things. She had a fancy ornate rosary on a choker around her neck and was wearing the school uniform.

"I'm fine!" said Tsuna quickly. "I just tripped!"

There was a slight cut against the back of his hand. Tsuna didn't notice until the odd girl was way too close...but the pinkette had some unusually sharp canines.

"I'm so sorry about this, but your blood smells way too good!"

Chu~!

"HIE?!"

To be fair, he never thought he'd end up in the position of a pretty girl literally sucking the blood from his neck.

"Did...Did you just drink my blood?!" said Tsuna in cold shock.

"Sorry...but your blood smells way too good and I couldn't help myself," she said embarrassed. It was practically S-class in her opinion. And she thought that bottle of really high quality blood her father shared with her once was good.

Tsuna noticed that outside of a minor twinge and slight dizziness, he was more or less fine.

"It's o-okay," said Tsuna a little nervous. Mostly because this was the longest conversation he had with any girl other than his mom in...well, ever. "But why did you drink my blood?"

"Oh, it's because I'm a vampire!" she said cheerfully. "My name's Akashiya Moka!"

Tsuna stared at her...and the only reason he wasn't saying anything about the 'vampire' bit was because she had just literally drank his blood thirty seconds ago.

"Kasai Tsuna," he replied.

His mother had made it very clear after his seventh birthday that if she EVER found out where his father was hiding, she would file for divorce. Considering he was never around, and the only real memories he had of him were not very pleasant ones, he preferred to go by his mother's maiden name instead.

His mother was all too happy to have him legally change his surname to Kasai instead of Sawada, regardless of what it said on the nameplate on the house. His mother was just too lazy to change it.

"Sorry about almost running you over...I had no idea the area was so bumpy," said Moka apologetically. "It's the first time I've really ridden my bike outside city limits."

"It's okay! I can't ride a bike anyway, and at least it didn't end up like the one from Pokémon," said Tsuna.

Moka tilted her head a bit.

"Didn't Red accidentally destroy her bike thanks to his partner?"

Tsuna nodded.

"I love that series!" said Moka happily.

Tsuna helped Moka right her bike, and they chatted a bit about their favorite manga and anime.

It wasn't until after Tsuna put his things up in the dorm and headed to class that he realized he just had an actual conversation with a girl...a really pretty one at that.

Maybe this school wouldn't be so terrible after all.

Okay, plus side... he had finally made a friend who didn't mind if he was clumsy and had trouble with schoolwork.

Downside, everyone seemed to hone in on him like sharks because of his submissive behavior.

Case in point, Saizou who hadn't taken him seriously in the least...that is, until he somehow managed to accidentally free Moka's true vampire form.

Strangely the Other Moka seemed to treat him like something of a pet puppy or maybe a kitten. She tolerated his existence, but made it clear that when it came to fighting she was the alpha predator.

All he knew was that he would be eating a lot of iron and protein rich meals to hopefully mitigate the fact Moka treated him like something of a walking lunch box.

There was one thing he could have done without, and that was Kurumu's strange plan to make a harem of boys.

And since the guys apparently liked Moka better, she decided to start with Moka's only known male friend...Tsuna.

Poor Tsuna's face was red as a tomato and he was frozen stiff at the fact Kurumu basically had his right arm trapped in her rather large breasts. As someone raised without any friends and a single mother, he learned early on to respect women...and one of the things that was a big "no-no" happened to be touching them inappropriately. Especially if you had only just met them.

He did not want to be called a pervert because of what Kurumu was doing.

The second her fun was over...mostly because she left to use the restroom...Tsuna bolted and didn't look back.

"Tsu-kun, are you okay?" said Moka. "Your face was really red."

"Um...I wasn't expecting Kurumu to do something like that," said Tsuna embarrassed.

"That was a bit over the top. And she should have stopped when she saw how uncomfortable you were," said Moka frowning. "I mean normally it's the girls who complain about inappropriate contact, but it was pretty clear you didn't like what she was doing at all."

Unseen by the two, Kurumu had easily tracked them down and was listening to the entire thing.

"I've never had any friends, and you're the first girl outside of mom that I really ever talked to. The idea of a girl being so forward to me out of all the guys in school...it's really nerve-wracking," said Tsuna.

"You've never had friends before?" said Moka, surprised.

Tsuna shook his head.

"I was known as Dame-Tsuna in my old school. I think the only reason I made it out of middle school was because the teachers didn't want to get stuck with me. I just know that I'm going to flunk every class," said Tsuna miserably.

Moka made a vow then and there to see exactly how far behind Tsuna was.

"So how are we going to deal with Kurumu-san? I really don't like the way she's just using me to get at you and the way she keeps fake flirting with me is really unpleasant," said Tsuna, changing the subject.

"We'll think of something. If nothing else I'll beat her into submission. You were able to remove my rosary earlier, right?" said Moka darkly.

Tsuna had this aura that made him seem like a cute puppy. The thought of someone using him like that pissed her off enough that her normally friendly exterior dropped and she was all too happy to let her other self out. And oddly enough, the Other Moka was in absolute agreement.

Kurumu had heard enough. She came out of the shadows and glared at them both.

"What does she have that I don't? Why does everyone like her over me?!" she demanded.

"Why do you need to try so hard to be liked?" asked Tsuna unexpectedly.

Kurumu was stunned into silence...she wasn't the only one either.

"What?"

"Why is it so important that everyone love you?" asked Tsuna. He didn't know where this was coming from, but something told him to roll with it.

"Succubi are a dying race! It's our job to find our mate of fate!" said Kurumu, though she was clearly rattled by Tsuna's words.

Tsuna looked at her oddly.

"Even if you find this 'mate of fate', you can still have only one kid a year, right? How is sleeping around with a lot of guys going to help your race? I mean what's stopping them from getting pregnant from IVF and having kids that way or using surrogates?" asked Tsuna.

"I..." started Kurumu, but she couldn't come up with a decent response.

He had a point...if they really were a dying race, then why hadn't they used the innovations made in medical science in the past century to give them a slightly better edge outside of sleeping with random strangers? After all, there were several succubi that preferred the company of other females who would be willing to help out their race by acting as a surrogate, and IVF treatments weren't that expensive.

"That doesn't matter! Why does everyone like Moka over me!"

"She's not as forward as you," said Tsuna without thinking. "Don't get me wrong, you are rather pretty...but she's comfortable in her skin whereas the way you act says you're trying to hard to be liked by others, especially guys. She isn't trying to be popular, she just acts as herself."

Kurumu wanted to deny his claim...but the sad thing was she knew he was right. She was trying hard to find a proper boyfriend and put herself through all sorts of headaches to look just a bit prettier than the other girls.

"Why? What do I have to do to make you like me?" she said, crying.

"Why do you have to do anything for me to like you? If you wanted to be friends, you could have just said so!" said Tsuna, before he blushed.

Kurumu blushed as well.

"Can...can we be friends?" she asked timidly.

Tsuna's smile made her feel strangely warm inside...and it wasn't lust. As a succubus she was intimately aware of what that felt like. It was warm like melted chocolate and a hot blanket.

Though she didn't tune down her flirting around him. She could tell Tsuna was highly inexperienced when it came to girls and she found his reactions positively adorable. So long as she backed off when he started to look too uncomfortable, Moka kept her silence.

Tsuna took one look at the array of clubs around, and immediately turned around and went to find Ms. Nekonome to ask what sort of clubs she would recommend for someone who never really had a chance to interact in a positive way with others after school.

"Oh, why don't you join the Newspaper club!" she said brightly.

"Newspaper club?" said Tsuna.

"I'm the club supervisor. You basically write stories for the other students to read and track down certain rumors," she explained. "There's no physical activity and it's would be a good way to help your literary and English grades. Frankly from what I've seen this might be perfect for you."

Moka and Tsuna both perked up at the idea. This sounded rather interesting and might even be fun. Odds were once Kurumu found out they were joining she'd become part of it too.

After seeing what other clubs the school had to offer, Tsuna opted to go with the Newspaper Club.

Moka and Kurumu joined him out of solidarity. Considering the mess the swimming team caused with their recruitment (the majority of them were mermaids or other water-based monsters) he was glad that he had asked first.

He wasn't that good at swimming and Moka couldn't get near water without special herbs.

There was, however, one problem with the club.

To be more specific, there was a problem with the club's lone surviving senior member.

Gin seemed like a nice guy, right up until Tsuna went to bust him for looking at up the girl's skirts and was promptly accused of being the pervert.

Tsuna sat up on the roof rather miserably. He didn't know why, but being high up always made him feel better.

Even if the roof was considered the domain of one Hibari Kyouya back when he was in school, being able to come up here and not have to worry about being bitten to death helped his mood a lot.

So you could imagine his confusion when he heard Kurumu yelp and Moka shouting nearby.

Gin was a werewolf...and he had them pinned. Moka was much weaker with the rosary on, and Kurumu hadn't...fed...since she came to the school because she had attached herself to Tsuna.

After the initial shock of realizing he was in a school for vampires, he had actually gone to the library to look up the ones he'd be spending a lot of time around.

So he knew Succubi needed to feed off of sexual energy to sustain themselves, especially after puberty. Since Kurumu had been spending so much time around him and Moka, she didn't really have a chance to siphon off energy from the boys at the school.

The idea of helping give her energy still made him blush like crazy, but right now they needed his help.

He looked through his pockets until he found an item he forgot he had in the first place.

It was a common dog whistle, along with a can of mace that his mother had given him after he came home with a broken arm that took a week to heal properly. She had not been happy learning about the severe bullying he suffered.

The dog whistle was for this rather mean dog that one of the neighbors had. He didn't know what the creature's deal was, but the dog had bitten him once and he had tried to avoid it ever since. The woman who owned the mean thing had yelled at him for fifteen minutes straight when he remembered to use the dog whistle to distract the blasted mutt from trying to attack him because she had left the gate open.

It wasn't like a dog whistle hurt the animals...it just drove them a little batty for a while.

Tsuna, working on a hunch and an odd nudge in his mind, blew as hard as he could through the whistle.

The reaction Gin had to it was immediate. He started howling with pain, holding his ears.

Moka and Kurumu took the chance to run, and when Gin turned to face where the awful noise was coming from, Tsuna hit him with the mace. The yelp Gin made from the pepper spray entering his sensitive nose was more than enough distraction for Tsuna to kick him as hard as he could between the legs, before Kurumu handed him a pipe to deliver a small bit of mercy by knocking the poor werewolf out.

Gin certainly wasn't going to forget this anytime soon.

"Tsuna! Thank the gods," said Kurumu, hugging him tightly.

"Are you two alright? Why was he attacking you anyway?"

Kurumu scowled, especially when she saw the pictures that had fallen to the ground.

"That stupid mutt is a major pervert. He kept trying to convince us you were one too and said he had evidence but we had to come to the roof. Why were you up here anyway?"

Tsuna winced.

"Being up high makes me feel better, and since you and Moka made it clear you wanted nothing to do with me..."

Moka flinched at that.

"I'm sorry...I shouldn't have trusted his word about you peaking under our skirts without hearing your side first," she said. "I guess I was so shocked that you would do something so perverted I didn't think first."

"It's okay, I'm used to people thinking the worst of me," said Tsuna miserably.

Moka felt ten inches tall hearing that. Clearly Tsuna had been just as lonely as she had been in her old school...no, from the way he said that, she had the feeling he never had friends growing up at all.

At least she had her sisters.