Don't Fear The Reaper

Part 9

“What?” Tsukki repeats, thinking he misheard. The cure against the vampire virus? Kentaro must be crazy. There’s no such thing.

“I know what you think. You think it’s impossible. You think I’m just the fucker who enjoys killing vamps and takes some mythical nonexistent cure as an excuse. But it’s true.”

Tsukki didn’t think Kentaro was just a killer, but he doesn’t say anything, going on with sipping blood and waiting. He wonders whether Kyoushi would tell him anything else. But silence fills one minute after another, packet by packet of blood emptied.

“Whoa, you were quite hungry, huh?” Kentaro breaks it finally, after taking away from Tsukki tenth packet.

“Well, I’m not sure when I’ll have the next chance to eat, so…” Tsukki licks his lips, covering the escaping drop of blood with his tongue.

“What makes people willingly let you drink them?” Kentaro asks, looking at the thin red stripe left on the Tsukki’s chin.

“Wanna find out?” Tsukki feels dizzy and cheeky now when his stomach, arteries, and veins are filled with life. If he wasn’t chained to the bed by handcuffs, he could jump out and dance, celebrating it. That’s how he felt, at least.

“Thanks, but no, thanks,” Kentaro frowns a bit. It makes Tsukki scowl.

“If that disgusts you, why are you feeding me?” he asks.

“It’s not… I’m not… It’s complicated.” Kentaro sighs. “And I’m feeding you because I like you.”

Tsukki’s brows jump up.

“What, you don’t believe me? I wouldn’t do anything like this for anyone else, Tsukki.” The voice is sad, mourning even. “I would be glad to feel different, but… I don’t want to harm you. I want to…” Kentaro stops himself, making Tsukki curious about what he is about to say. When he doesn’t go on, Tsukki notices:

“You don’t seem very happy about it.”

Kentaro chuckles, but the sound isn’t full of joy.

“All my life I was raised as a hunter. Even if recently, due to the research we make, I don’t kill vampires straight away, I still bring them pain, bring their lives to an end,” Kentaro scowls when Tsukki fidgets uncomfortably, his body trying to get away unconsciously. “I cultivated the sixth sense in finding vampires, I can feel them on a subconscious level. But when I met you…”

Kentaro wipes the face with the palm. Tsukki’s breath slows down. It’s not the kind of confession you want to hear when you’re a vampire.

“All my instincts should scream ‘Kill!’, ‘Get him to the lab!’” Kentaro grabs Tsukki’s wrist. The last flinches and Kyoushi rushes on, “But they’re silent, Tsukki. They’re silent about you.”

In the way Kentaro says it, Tsukki hears the painful undertone. He can understand that. When you live your life in a certain way you know what’s good and what’s bad, and what you should do about bad. So when something that stands out of your routine happens, it’s hard to wrap your head around it. You get lost, you need to rewire your compass and realign the checkpoints.

Maybe it’s even worse for Kentaro, the situation they’re in now. Tsukki had to change the country, escaping the inevitable. Kentaro has to change his way of thinking, the rules that were etched into his personality with every training he was given in childhood. Every vampire who tried to kill him carved these rules inside his mind. He soaked them in with his mother’s milk.

And now he has to fight against them.

“Can you tell me more about that cure?” Tsukki asks hoping it’s gonna change the track of Kentaro’s thoughts. And he, himself, wants to know the information it anyway.