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“Jump out of the car, Mikaela. Make momma happy.”
His mother loomed over his smaller body once more in the Shindo family van. A grin as sweet as her voice and as repulsive as the murkiness in her eyes brought cohesion to her face. Winds blew through the open door and whipped his neck, muting softer words with its howls. He clung to her arms with blanched knuckles.
Back then, her citrus perfume provided a modicum of comfort, enough to rise his hopes before they fell. Now it melded with the stench of rum fermenting on his father’s body.
“You’re such a great child. Your name embodies how special you are! It always will…”
The vehicle swerved amidst a cavalcade of horns, blaring as though they warned of impending death. Like many encounters with his father, the slurred speech spilled through his rotten teeth barely registered.
Perhaps his desperate pleas of ‘I love you’ sounded similar.
Mikaela returned to his mother’s tender gaze, whose own declaration of love bore an idolatry sicker than hatred.
Soon, the scathing pavement would tear into his clothes and flesh. The world would spin in a relentless torrent of asphalt and sky. His neck would bend, snap. Limbs had broken. Organs had smashed against bone and swelled his belly.
And there he’d lay, forsaken and distorted.
His hands slipped from her blouse.
“Okay, momma. I’ll jump. For you and daddy.”
His mother’s collapsed smile found its way on his lips.
“Good evening, Yuu-chan,” He sang, “You’re getting awfully repetitive with these nightmares.”
Her scowl twisted into a repugnant smirk, one, Mikaela thought, became his mother well.
“So sorry. Let’s find a harsher memory.”
The Shindo van disintegrated, and in its wake appeared an impossible garden. What flowers, he had wondered in childhood, could blossom beneath the dead underground of Sanguinem? Yet there he had been, ankle-deep in a red sea of petals.
A figure emerged from the distance like a beast rising from slumber: the vampire to whom he had traded blood. His stained mouth donned the same color as the ribbon flowing along his chest.
Frozen in time, Mikaela stood helpless as a manicured fingernail traced his jugular vein.
“I’m going to drink your blood now,” His demon cooed in the vocal stylings of Ferid Bathory.
His teeth stopped mere centimeters from his collar; however, and he rose to Mikaela’s ear.
“To be devoured as livestock was humiliating, wasn’t it?”
A shiver climbed the ladder of his spine, but his expression remained neutral.
“Remember the first time I drank it directly? You thought I was draining the life out of you, but secretly, you felt disgraceful pleasure.”
Eyes closed, Mikaela filled his head with images of his family: Akane offering spoonfuls of curry, Chihiro fumbling her glasses while reading, Taichi riding his back after his ankle bruised, and Ako trading messy crayon portraits with Fumie.
“I did,” Mikaela exhaled, “And I don’t regret any of it.”
“Ha! Are you saying you were proud to be my favorite?”
Ferid yanked him off his feet by the throat. The resemblance, down to the sinister gleam in his eye, almost impressed him.
“You’re disgusting. Was it fun selling your body?”
Mikaela reigned in his composure.
“I’d never advocate that. But in this world, no one can wait for heroes to come and save them. You had to be clever to live.”
At this, he met the garden’s soil with a thud. His skull rattled, but this pain didn’t steal his somber smile.
“Without something to give the kids hope, I doubt their hearts would’ve survived. And because I offered my blood-” He pulled himself up and dusted off a tattered livestock uniform- “I found a map, and we finally escaped! That might’ve been your plan all along, and maybe you’re still pulling my strings somewhere. But I’m grateful to have met you.”
His demon’s scowl was eerier, more forbidding when it corrupted Ferid’s expression. Sanguinem burst into particles of light and revealed his actual location: a world of white, with no sky or horizon.
But his company remained.
Standing atop a sword black as night was his demon — a lovely boy of equal age, with skin faintly sun-kissed and proud eyes of scarlet. Two horns crowned his skull and blended with his dark locks.
“There you are,” Mikaela affirmed, “I much prefer seeing the real you than those mean illusions.”
Yuu threw him a dirty look, and when he leaped off the sword, inky darkness spread beneath his feet.
“You’re getting boring.”
“Am I?”
A sudden arm impaled Mikaela’s rib cage, and his lungs expand against the chill of Yuu’s palm. In place of physical pain was the awareness he lost something precious—that a piece of innocence decayed in the depths of his soul.
“Your heart is stable. Too stable. Just what the hell are you?”
“I’m a human,” Mikaela said with a strained laugh.
Flashing a smirk equally bold, Yuu converted his entire body into a black mist that swallowed him whole. Lifting his hand before his eyes, even his hand lost visibility. An arm snaked around his waist, and fingers stole the tip of his chin.
“That’s right. You’re a lustful, greedy, miserable human. And I want your heart nastier.”
Yuu’s body appeared to manifest anyplace he willed. In the corner of his vision, he spotted a red glint; in another, the sharp gleam of fangs.
“Part of you keeps me at a distance. Pull me in. Let me inside you more.”
Mikaela attempted a step backward, and as punishment, the ‘ground’ swept from beneath his feet.
He dangled from an invisible chain.
“Protecting your family can’t be your only wish. What about the vampires who kept you prisoner for years? What if you took revenge? What if you slaughtered every bloodsucker in existence? What if you had someone to project upon your shameless desires? Submit to your rage. Want. Take.”
Fear and arousal swelled Mikaela’s heart. Though he held a firm grasp on his sanity, a sliver had chipped away. He humored Yuu often, but the demonic aura slithering into his mind carried a different weight.
“Call out to me, and I’ll give you overwhelming pleasure.”
Aggression plundered through his heart and left debris cold and venomous.
“Who is it that you want, Mikaela Hyakuya—”
“You.”
“Ha! I knew it. All humans want is power—”
“No, not your power. Just you.”
He answered with such conviction that Yuu released him from the void in utter silence. The mist congealed into the firmer body of a demon, and there he sat, dazed and hunched against the blade.
“… Huh?”
“You need me to ‘desire’ someone, is that it?” Mikaela gave a subtle tilt of his head. “Then let’s be together.”
“Wha—”
“I’ll answer your confession. I like you, too.”
“Woah, woah, woah, back up a sec!” Yuu formed a barrier with his hands. “What are you doing!? What scheme is this!?”
“‘Hold me, Mikaela. Submit to me, Mikaela. Want me. Love me.’”
He embraced himself, and his body swayed with each command.
“Was that all talk? Aren’t you glad I’m taking your offer?”
“I never said ‘love’ me or ‘hold’ me! I said nothing of the sort!”
Mikaela approached his blade with a shrug and knelt to meet Yuu’s eyes. The rosiness upon the latter’s cheeks, albeit faint, stretched his grin from ear to ear.
“Ahaha! Could it be that you’re embarrassed, Yuu-chan?”
“Are you stupid!? Get that smug look off your-” He paused. “And stop calling me that!”
He shoved Mikaela backward, growled at the resulting laughter, and fled to the haven of his sword’s pommel. He turned away at once, but his voice’s quiver melted his icy front.
“Did I make you mad? It’s okay; I’m inexperienced, too—”
“Are you forgetting who I am!?”
“Of course not. How could I forget a new Hyakuya?”
“I am not a ‘Hyakuya!’ I’m Yuu! What!? Did you expect me to jump around like some puppy excited to get a new name!?”
“My mistake.”
The apology must’ve been a trap. To meet this gazes was a foolish endeavor.
“Do you already have a family name? I’ll call you that instead.”
Yuu opened his mouth for a snide remark, but upon giving it a second thought, the question dragged him to the depths of contemplation.
“I…” He began, speaking more to himself. “Family name, huh? I think…”
“You used to be a vampire, right?”
“… Pretty sure.”
“So, what was it?”
“I don’t… remember—gah! Forget it!”
The humiliation of giving Mikaela what he wanted (undivided attention) lost to the childish whim to jab an authoritarian finger at him.
“We’re not going over this! All I want is to destroy your will and take your body as my own! I’ll consume every bit of your disgusting desires and defile everything that you are! Becoming my vessel is your only value! Nothing else matters!”
“… Wow.”
Yuu crossed his arms and sneered, “Get it now? Family means squat to me. Just like your pathetic attempts at courting—”
“I really love your smile!”
“You’re ‘really’ getting annoying!”
Yuu materialized right before Mikaela and held his face.
“I’m. Through. Playing. This. Stupid. Game!” He stressed.
“You follow me! You are my servant! Got it!?”
The stillness between them lasted, a sure calculation on Mikaela’s part, long enough for his hands to fall. Yuu stood abandoned the second he released his captive, who wandered with no apparent aim.
“… Where are you going— what the hell!?”
Breaking through the void was a heavenly light choking Yuu with rage. Its brilliance condensed into a single stream, and before Mikaela laid a trumpet of glittering gold.
“Well, if you won’t become my family… I guess I’ll move forward with whatever this is.”
“You idiot!”
Yuu sprang into action the second he crouched forward. He kicked it from reach, seized Mikaela’s upper arms, and spun him until their faces met.
So close were they that their noses almost touched, and Yuu ended each sentence with a small shake of Mikaela’s frame.
“Don’t you dare choose those nasty angels over me! Those humans—that ‘Saito’ you liked so much—you can’t trust any of them! They’re worse than any demon! You’re staying with me! You’re not allowed to touch anyone else! Only I…”
Mikaela’s lips curved with a tormenting playfulness.
“Should…”
Self-satisfaction sparkled in his eyes.
“Hey… what’s with—”
At last, Yuu understood that insufferable, adoring laughter, and when Mikaela inflicted a vigorous shake on his stolen hand…
“Then it’s settled! Let’s protect our family together! Okay…?”
Those lidded eyes and the painful spelling of his ‘new name’ solidified his trap.
“Hya-ku-ya-Yuu-chan?”
‘Yuu-chan’ studied his headache of a partner and escaped his warm grip. As he squeezed his fist, riddling himself of a tingling palm, he uttered his closest words to an agreement.
“How stupid… what am I supposed to do with a ‘family?’”
⊛
“Mika-saaaan! Can we pleeeeeease head over to Akane’s later?” Shinoa whined, hurrying her escape from the surrounding ruins. To enter Shibuya’s towering walls was to return to sleep-filled nights, the welcomed illusion of peace, and hot dinners at the Hyakuya household.
Mitsuba rubbed her knuckles into Shinoa’s scalp. “Stop inviting yourself to his house!”
“I can’t help it! She makes the best cookies I’ve ever tasted!”
Mikaela laughed, the genuine fondness in his voice dissolved their impending scuffle.
“I’ll be sure to tell her that!”
There to enliven conflict anew, however, pillaged a monstrous, amalgamated arthropod. With the legs of a disfigured spider and the wings of a bird cast in marble, the gaping maw nestled into its chest let out an ear-piercing screech.
Eight beady eyes flared in every direction before they rested on human prey.
“Stand back!” Shiho called from behind the group.
“Lend me more power, Gekkouin!”
The might of Kiseki-O raced through his blades, and Yoichi aligned his bow, but Mikaela eased them with his right hand.
“You guys rest. I’ll take care of it.”
“By yourself!?”
“I’m never alone,” He replied, patting his scabbard.
Within his heart spiked a bashful irritation, and seconds later, his sword throbbed with power. The rise of his heartbeat, his sharpened senses, and the cursed-blood coursing through his veins felt safe, like a bond never-breaking.
“Yuu-chan? Kill it for me, will you?”
He removed the blade from his sheath, and a single strike across the air brandished the chimera with corroding flames. Absorbed into its body, they set to work infecting, rotting, and feeding off its target from the inside until a hollowed carcass wilted on the street.
He’d reward him in his dreams tonight.