Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

J made his way to the Flower Shop at 3 o’clock in the afternoon; his class in college ended about half an hour ago. It was an afternoon shift for his work but J knew too well that it meant he’d be alone with a person who was special to him during the whole time before they closed the shop, and the thought of being with that special someone was again making him nervous, very nervous no matter how hard he tried to clam down to think and behave like his usual self; but sadly up to this date it never worked out.

‘The Flower Shop’ he referred to in fact wasn’t really that much of a regular flower shop at all, but a small company that included a large greenhouse as the major part of the company and an office behind it, in which a handful of part-time workers were employed to tend to the daily routines and duties. The shop owner was a man in his late-twenty period who was called Shinya, who maintained his small but stable business of selling ornamental tropical plants, pot plants and flowers, with the help of his handful of employees to handle the tasks like tending to the plants, doing paperwork in the office and the delivery work. Besides the company wasn’t called ‘The Flower Shop’ by anyone else and it had its own formal name as well; but still, J liked to call it the Flower Shop anyway.

Talking about flower shops, most people would immediately think of nice young girl shopkeepers in pink aprons, helping the customers to pick up their flowers; however, there also were flower shops ran by male owners and had male shopkeepers, and J happened to find a part-time job in one of these companies. The tall blonde came to work in this plants-selling company not because he was a great lover of tropical plants and such, like in Shinya’s case; but simply because the salary was good, the length of working shift was reasonable and the boss was easy-going, even funny to be with; all of these qualities made it an ideal part-time choice for J. So far all of the co-workers whom the blonde youth had encountered were friendly to work with, and the work wasn’t difficult either; J really did count himself lucky for finding such a part-time job…

However, J had never expected his carefree time in the Flower Shop would be changed by the appearance of one of the co-workers…

A few months after J started working in the Flower Shop; Shinya hired one more shopkeeper for assistance, as a replacement of another shopkeeper who’d just quit. It turned out that the new part-time shopkeeper was a young college student who preferred to be called by the nick Inoran, or 'Ino' for short.

Finally, J made it to the front gate of the Flower Shop just on time, behind the gate it was a small open space that led to the greenhouse itself; he hurried through the glass door just to find Inoran already standing behind the cash machine not far away. Noticing the blonde head’s arrival, Ino looked up and greeted the older man with a simple hello. J nodded casually in response despite the rush in his chest before he walked to the staff room for changing.

After changing into his uniform, J moved back to the greenhouse again and began to move the new arrival large bags of fertilizer to the goods shelves nearby. During the whole working process, his eyes kept on drifting to the slim figure who had now moved, due to the lack of customer to serve, from the cash machine to the other side of the greenhouse to check the plants on the shelves quietly, and again J felt the same wave of uncertainty rising in his chest.
J liked it when he saw Ino being among the greenish plants, concentrated on the work in hand, looking so peaceful with everything around him and at the same time looking he was in the secret world of his own like nothing and no one could step in to disturb his peace. It was just one of the things that J slowly found intriguing about the younger man since he started hanging around with the latter, first inside then eventually (through much less frequent) outside their workplace.

The younger man looked pale under the white artificial light of the greenhouse, but not in an unhealthy way. He had a fine bone face that gave him a soft expression, half-hidden by his long deep brown bangs, and his low gentle voice and slightly shy manner made it quite clear that he wasn’t a person whose own private territory you can step into too easily.

There was nothing aggressive or frightening about Ino, nor he was an arrogant brat but nonetheless being with Ino made J so nervous, his palms sweaty and his heartbeat like a drum whenever Ino came close or spoke to him for a chat—which wasn’t so often for Ino wasn’t a chatty person but it did happen from time to time and the two of them did chat with each other in a friendly way, though usually, they’d only chat about insignificant topics, like the weather today, the TV shows they had watched last night, that kind of common, ordinary conversations. To sum up, they were friendly enough but not close(J noticed Ino maintained his relationship with the other people just exactly the same way), but still only god knew how much these precious little moments with Ino meant to J, what a shame.

Furthermore, J was anxious to know what the younger man might think about him before he could bring up his courage to make any move at all.

Call him a chicken if you wanted, but if you were the one to fall for such an enigmatic, distant person who seemed to be living in another mysterious world more than the regular, humble one, you would probably become as unsure and nervous as J did about how he should act toward the other.

Still, J soon found him went back to the same problem again at this point: for most of the time, he was in the dark about what Ino had in mind. Damn, he couldn’t believe how difficult it was to figure the younger one out.

People used to believe if two people were talking with each other, they were communicating. But in the case of Ino, J began to see how wrong this belief was, despite the brown head was friendly and polite with the others always, still among all the things which Ino was willing to talk over with the people around him, he never really mention much about himself.

J straightened himself up after he put the last bag of fertilizer to the shelf and looked up to his secret of desire again, now Ino was watering the plants with care silently, seemingly deep into his own world as usual. J sighed slightly to himself, feeling more like a fool for falling head over heel for a person who probably would never notice him…

***

At seven o’clock at night, it was time to close down the Flower Shop, J said goodbye to Shinya(who’d returned around 6 pm) who was in charge with locking down the place after his employees left; before hurried to the entrance as fast as he could, hoping to catch up with Ino so then he might suggest to the younger man to go for a dinner together in a nearby restaurant, it was innocent and unsuspicious enough of an excuse for J to spend a little more time in Ino’s company, he had figured.

But his hope soon died down soon as he made it to the street outside and found the brown hair youth at the other side of the street, standing beside a red color fancy spot car and he was talking with the person who sat inside the car.

J had quickly recognized this red spot car which he had seen stopping outside of the Flower Shop, waiting to pick Ino up now and then, and he could recognize the persons in the car too, for he had seen the two of them driving around here, waiting for Ino after work. One of them was an attractive purple hair man who always wearing a pair of sunglasses, the man had a certain arrogant aura surrounded him; the other one was a more friendly-looking, charming dark haired young man, they seemed to be Ino’s friends far as the rest of the employees in the Flower Shop could tell. The other co-workers in the Flower Shop had once asked teasingly about these eye-catching friends of Ino before, but Ino only shot his head.

J cursed himself mentally for forgetting about Ino’s friends before he set up the plan to ask the younger man out. But now the blonde youth could do nothing but stare as Ino exchanged a brief conversation with the car driver before he nodded and got into the backseat of the spot car, within seconds they drove off.

It had just happened once again, J missed his chance.

Chapter Text

Ino or Inoran, born Kiyonobu Inoue; had been on his own since his mother’s death. Despite being without a family at his young age, life was still okay-ish for him, with his mother’s life insurance to cover his expenditure, a college to attempt, a part-time job to make some extra money alongside, and a few friends to hang around with. he lived his life more or less just the same as many other young people his age.

But it was only one side of his life, and the other side…he got Ryuichi and Sugizo with him, to share this secret life together, in the dark.

Despite the many differences in personalities, choice of lifestyle and hobbies among them, the three of them remained close friends for years. To tell the truth, Sugi and Ryu meant more than friends to him, for they were the only two people to understand him for what he really was and knew him well in this big lonely world.

No conversation was made during the ride; there was nothing more for them to speak to one another. All of them knew what they were here for, they weren’t having a night out just as you might imagine, they gathered together not for fun’s sake, they were here for more serious business; it was for their ritual.

They stopped before a building, the three of them getting out of the car and soundlessly walked through the front door, making the way upstairs, they were going to visit someone...

They found their destination easily enough, the door was opened for them soon after they rang the bell, a woman in her mid-twenty, dressed in a punkish sleeveless dress of chains and leather, wearing blackish make-up, appeared behind the door to greet them.

“Good evening, gentlemen.” The young woman greeted them; Inoran could sense the mixture of pigment and turpentine oil upon her skin. Midori was a painter and she always claimed that their ‘visit’ to her house always brought her energy and inspiration for her creativity, spiced up her senses and enabled her to feel 'more'.

“Good evening, Midori-chan.” Sugizo greeted her back with a smile, the girl smiled back and allowed her hand being taken as she led Sugi further inside the house, Ryuichi and Ino following behind them. Midori was one of their girls, their donators who offered them their blood; giving it willingly just in order to hang out with Sugi and Ryu, strange as it might seem but the partnership between blood drinkers and donators continued in secret, it was like some kind of exchange, the blood drinkers took blood for the donators and they gave something back to the latter in return, and the exchange was arranged so the different needs of both parties could be well satisfied.

Inoran had never known such ‘blood donation circle’ existed before Sugi and Ryu introduced him into their circle, and now he had met enough ‘donators’ from both sexes to be used to them.

Time had changed. Nowadays their kind met their donators through the internet, private chatroom or locked newsgroup, where people were a little more open-minded and were seeking for excitement and adventure, or just looking for new friends so they could have some good time together. However, meeting them and asking them out might be an easier task, still working out a stable, long term relationship with donators was an entirely different story(just the same as any other kind of friendly or romantic relationship between people, so to speak). The three of them were lucky enough to have someone like Midori, whose company they enjoyed. Some of the donators they had encountered were not as nice as Midori though, they would ask you questions, personal questions that you might not want to answer.

The most common of those questions was “Well, are you a real thing? I mean, a real vampire?”

It was one of the questions that they found the most unnecessary.

***

The bloodletting process with Midori was a slow, relaxing and enjoyable one. While the three of them settling themselves down on the softly carpeted floor of Midori’s living room, the girl had made her way back to the kitchen to bring out the ‘Tonight’s Special’. When she came back she was holding a tray, on top of it there were a couple of fresh syringes, a large clean spoon, a lighter and some package of powder cocaine, last but not less, a thin sharp blade.

They waited for the girl to sit down with them, Ryuichi took up the package of powder and put a spoonful of them, then he found the lighter and began to cook the fix. Inoran merely sat there and watched as the older man fixing the drug, while Sugizo playing with the syringe between his fingers and Midori tightened the thin rope around her upper arm, getting ready.

Then Ryuichi shook the girl up and she readily accepted. It didn’t take long for the punkish girl’s eyes to lose focus and the muscles of her body relaxed, laying back to the conch behind her. it was when Inoran leaned forward the tray to reach for the finely shaped blade before he moved closer to Midori, hovering about her and took her hand, gracefully making the first cut of tonight upon her scarred arm.

They took turn feeding from the cut, making it slow and gently for the girl to handle. When blood no longer came out from the old cut, they opened a new one, causing the girl gasped, but she welcomed the pain like she welcomed the gently sucking on her arm. Somehow the cocaine in her system numbed some of the pain and highlighted the almost erotic sense of being fed upon, as she felt herself flowing out of her body for just a brief exquisite moment along with her blood…

***

An hour later, Midori was lying on the couch fast asleep, her body weakened by the blood loss. Her guests were still remained with her though, all of them sitting in relaxing positions around the carpeted floor, drinking some glasses of wine as aftermath. Inoran had his eyes half-closed; he was leaning against the wall, head throwing black as he tried to race down the sensation of Midori’s blood flowing around his system like a hot wave washing through him. But his thought was disturbed slightly by the sound of a giggle, he opened his eyes and looked back to his friends who were sitting across the room, and caught the two of them laughed at the same time, their eyes fixed on him.

“What is so funny?” he straightened his spine and asked his friends.

“Nothing.” Ryu answered, but the mischievous look on his face had already betrayed him.

“It’s no big deal, but we had just discovered that someone has a crush on you, is all.” Despite Ryu’s protest, Sugi breathed out the whole sentence at one go.

“Who?” Inoran asked confusedly, then added. “And how did you find it out?”

“Well, the person whom I’m talking about is the tall guy who works with you in your greenhouse part-time,” Sugi answered matter of factly.

“You mean J-san.” the realization hit Ino finally. “Don’t be silly; J-san and I are just friends.”

“Just friends my ass!” the purple head exclaimed with a laugh. “Don’t tell me you never notice the way this guy’s watching you…”

“Stop it, Sugi-chan.” Not liking where the topic was being directed at, Ino frowned slightly.

“He doesn’t believe me! Oh Ryu!” Sugizo yelled dramatically. “Or maybe Ino-chan is just too dumb not to notice such a thing!”

This time the purple head was rewarded by a cushion flying across the room to hit him, but he shifted just in time so the cushion ended up landing on the floor.

Still, Sugizo’s comments forced Inoran to think more carefully of his daily interaction with a certain blonde co-worker. It was true that he enjoyed the other man’s company and J was always nice to him. But to think there can be more than friendship between him……then he wasn’t ready for it. not that it was because both of them were male or he didn’t like J, he just wasn’t ready for such thing yet; even though the idea of going out with J was attractive to him.

“I’m pretty sure you like him too, Ino…” Ryuichi pointed out. “You smiled far more than usual whenever you’re around that boy.”
“What does it matter if I do like him?” Ino insisted. “It doesn’t mean I need to have something going with him…”
he was an easy-going person and didn’t mind to hang out with the people around him, but Ino wasn’t comfortable to let anyone to step into the private part of his life yet, it wasn’t the right time for such affair yet. He doubted the right time for it would ever come.

“You don’t need to, but it’s a little healthier for you to try things out with someone,” Ryuichi commented. “Give this poor guy a chance, will you?”

No way., the brown head wanted to reply like this but somehow he wasn’t able to utter the words. After what he’d been through, being related to another person in that way *again* actually scared him.

Chapter Text

Ino opened his eyes to find himself in someone’s embrace, strangely enough, he was not alarmed or frightened, the hold on his waist was a gentle one, it kept him warm and besides, he knew who was with him even before he looked up to see the other man’s face.
When he did look up he wasn’t surprised to find J smiling down at him with affection in his eyes, he smiled back to the other man and set himself up to face his lover. They were sitting under the shade of an oak tree with all the lovely greenish plants surround them.
“J-chan…”He began softly. ”I’m hungry…”
“It’s okay, love.” The older man only smiled kindly and offered him his hand, which Ino took into his own and gracefully brought the hand up toward his lips before kissing each finger slowly and lovingly.
“I love you sweetie.” He heard J murmured.
“I know.” I knew because Sugi-chan told me, Inoran thought to himself before he took J’s index finger into his mouth then biting it off before swallowing, blood springing out freely from the wound that appeared in where the missing finger should be. Ino looked up to see the older man continued to smile encouragingly at him as if he didn’t feel any pain. Taking the hint, Ino bent down again to drink the blood from the other man, the thick salty taste of crimson filled his mouth--

Ino woke up with an uneasy gasp in the middle of the night, he scanned the dark surrounding of his bedroom only to make sure that he was alone and what happened in the dream really took place, J wasn’t there, he wasn’t sitting under the oak tree with the other man, he didn’t taste the older one’s blood…the last thought brought an emptiness feeling to him.

Such a dream was absurd, J calling him or anyone else “sweetie’ was absurd and offered to satisfy his bloodlust in such a frightening way. He was dreaming about such things only because Sugizo and Ryuichi stupidly suggested the idea of J had some secret adoration toward him.
Probably Sugi thought it would be fun and refreshing to add a man like J into their blood playing game, the game which the three of them had been sharing with pretty girls like Midori. There was hardly any wonder that Sugi might want to include such a new player in the game, even to Ino there was no denying that J was good looking and healthy, there were many things charming and refreshing in his character. However, the thought of sharing J with Sugizo and Ryuichi seemed absurd in his opinion. No, if he were to have the other man, he would have him all for himself.

And if he were to feed on J’s blood…J’s feeling and thoughts would also be transmitted to him together with his blood. it was what made blood-letting so amazing for both the vampires and their donators, the mortal donators could receive different kind of strong sensations as their blood being fed on, meanwhile, the vampires were able to feel not only the physical pleasure, but also receive some of the feelings and thoughts of their donators; the same also worked for vampires who fed on their own kind, like Sugi and Ryuichi who shared each other’s blood in a regular basis, and the couples claimed that it helped to deepen their bond. However, Inoran wasn’t sure he was ready to open himself to the thoughts and emotions of the other people, something was always holding him back from fully enjoyed the intimacy of which blood-letting could bring.

Still, despite all his reasoning with himself, Ino couldn’t stop observing the older man when they were together.

He couldn’t deny that J was a nice person, as a ‘big brother’ figure to him, reliable and warm-hearting. What it would be like to have this man’s heart, his attention, and his gentleness for himself…to share more than friendship with him, there was a big chance that the two of them could be happy in each other’s company, that J was able to make him happy… again and again, Ino tried to shake the thoughts from his mind but all of these “what if” kept coming back to him. It was a temptation, a temptation that kept plaguing him at odd moments, but so far Ino was still able to resist it.

He wondered was it because he had been alone for too long that now he couldn’t stop clinging some warmth from someone else, whoever it was would be okay, but his rational mind told him it wasn’t faith for J if he started anything with the other man when J had only seen the one side of him without the other side, the Ino who hanging out with Sugi and Ryu at night, the undeniable part of his true nature, his true color. Ino had tired of having to lie about himself to the other people *all* the time. So if he were to be in a serious relationship with someone else, he’d swore to himself that this time he’d started it with someone who knew about him, or at least someone whom he could feel comfortable enough to share the darker part of his life.
And he wasn’t sure J would be the right person for this. Yes, he was a nice guy, but he was also too…normal for Ino’s opinion. By ‘normal’ Ino meant the other man seemed not to have any ‘dark side’ in his character, he always seemed so bright as if he never had to hide a dark secret or two in his life. So how could Ino believe J was a person who could understand that there were two sides of one coin, that he could understand what it was like to have a secret to hide, what it was like to live in a secret world besides the ordinary one?
That was one of the things that kept Ino back, discouraging him.

But something- a rather small incident happened on a rainy afternoon that would change their peaceful relationship forever.

***

it was another afternoon with the two of them alone in the office of the Shinya’s plants company. J was cutting some thin plastic broads with a large cutter while Ino handling some accounting work with the computer nearby. But his consecration was broken as J hissed loudly. Ino looked away from the computer screen to his coworker and saw J let go of the cutter and held his left hand with the right, Ino knew the other man had cut himself even before he saw the bright crimson of blood seeping along the wound flowed across J’s waist because the smell of the other man’s blood had already filled the air around them.
It was this rich smell of blood that made Inoran into doing something that he soon would regret later…

To be continued…

Chapter Text

It was raining hard outside so they spent half the afternoon moving the plants back into the greenhouse, and the latter part of the afternoon brooding in the office to deal with the paperwork.

Either of them spoke up much on this day, hardly any small talk or joking around. J had noticed that Ino seemed to be a little quieter recently, and more…dazed for the matter. J didn’t know what had changed the younger man, something seemed to bother him but J wasn’t sure whether Ino wanted to talk about it or not. For a couple of times when Ino looked even more lost to himself than usual the blonde man had tried to ask the younger one what was the matter as casual as he could. But Ino only shook his head and said it didn’t matter.

Besides, J noticed that nowadays when Ino didn’t seem dazed or deep in thoughts the younger man would sometime gaze at him with a slightly odd expression on his face as if J were not merely J himself but some interesting subject for observation. Noticing the sudden attention that the other man was bestowing him, J wasn’t sure whether he should be flattered or not, but probably it was still better than having none of Ino’s attention at all.

He was spending time cutting plastic board while Ino handled some computer work, then suddenly he pulled the cutter to the wrong side and before he knew it, the blade had slit through his hand, leaving a long cut upon his palm and the base of his index finger.

J hissed at the pain as he dropped the cutter, using the free hand to cover his wounded one, the only thing he knew at the moment was that he fucked up, stupid him to cut himself like this. With these thoughts in his mind the blonde stood up, ready to look for bandage which he knew was placed inside the medicine chest somewhere in the office.

Before he could move J felt someone gripped him unexpectedly by his hands, the shocked man looked down to see it was Ino who had caught him, his hold around his wrists tight. Somehow the other man had moved to his side so quickly and soundlessly that J totally failed to notice his presence. J stared at the shorter man in utter confusion but Ino wasn’t looking at him at all, his attention focused solemnly on the bleeding wound on J’s palm.

Then the older man made a slight attempt to slip his hands out of Ino’s grips but the younger man only tightened his hold to keep his prey in place; then he did something that J could never imagine him to do: he bent down to press his face to J’s palm, the warm mouth opened to drink from the bleeding wound.

J was caught totally by surprise, for the longest moment he stood there and stared at his coworker blankly, unable to understand what was happening. He watched helplessly as Ino sucked on his blood greedily, unable to look away. Everything around them seemed to be vanished saved for the fantastic sensation of Ino’s lips working on him, his movement almost loving. He had never seen Ino like this before, his mouth pressing against his own blood-stained palm, his usually pale soft lips now as crimson as the blood he was drinking itself; his throat working gracefully due to the feeding, his dark eyes half-closed beneath the bangs of his brown hair…

Then in a heartbeat, Ino’s eyes drifted open and the orbs moved upward to fix right into J’s eyes, J gasped under the gaze as those eyes looking up to him with a certain amount of lust that he never saw the other man displayed before. For a moment J didn’t know who was that person before him anymore, part of him knew it was Inoran but the other part of him felt as if he were seeing something strange and frightening peering out at him through Ino’s eyes.

Just as the thought surfaced in his mind, Inoran drew himself back abruptly, his hold on J’s wrists loosened.

Ino closed his eyes as his hand reached up to cover his mouth, then those eyes snapped open again to look at the blonde, J saw shock in these pools of blackness.

They remained silence for a long moment before Ino hesitatingly offered his apology, his fingers twisting nervously with one another. “I’m sorry…J-san…”

“…”

The brown head struggled to find words. ”Err…I really, really didn’t mean to do it…please don’t mind it, it’s just…my mother used to lack the blood away for me when I cut myself when I was small…”

It was a rather numb excuse but J didn’t have it in him to argue or challenge Ino’s words now. So he only nodded.

“Well…let me find some bandage for you, ne?” Ino had moved away to find the medicine chest before J could response.

Still holding his wound hand, the blonde collapsed back to a chair behind him and sighed deeply, what had just happened? And why did Ino have to do it? why did the younger man look so nervous afterward? Nothing was making any sense at all!

He had just seen a side of Ino that he had never had the chance to see before. It was a total surprise and it caught J off guard; but…it was also so intoxicating, to experience the thrill that Ino had just given him when the other one was frightening, and unpredictable.

Chapter Text

The next time he opened his eyes, a massive hangover was there to welcome him back to the land of the living.

Yellowish light coming from the small lamp next to the bed blinded him for the first couple of seconds causing him to blink and shake his head, but his actions only worsen the pain that was hammering beneath his skull.

The man shut his eyes again tiredly; head falling back to the pillow underneath him, the sensation made him realize he was lying in a bed. As the realization hit him, J quickly snapped his eyes open and scanned his surrounding in anxiety. Much to his uneasiness, he found that he wasn’t in his own room, the bedroom he had just woken up in was an entirely unfamiliar place to him.

His body stiffed and as hard as he had tried, he could not recall how and why he would end up in a place he had never seen before. He drew the blanket back slightly and peered downward only to discover he was still wearing the clothes he had been wearing during the previous night. And he also noticed the sheet around him both smelled and felt different than the fabric he had usually used to feel back in his own bedroom.

The curtain was drawn down so there was no way he could see the scenery outside in hope to learn where he might be; still judging from the dim daylight seeping into the room through the edge of the curtain, the night must be already over.

So…J asked himself again, what had happened last night? Where had he been? The hangover was enough of a sign for him to know that he had been punch drunk the last night…but for what reason and with who?

J frowned deeply, trying his best to concentrate despite the still-presence headache, and pieces of memories slowly flowed back……

The clearest thing he could properly remember was that he was invited to attempt a wedding party of his cousin. He joined the celebration with a large group of guests; together they nearly turned the party upside-down in a good way. Everyone was cheering aloud, toasting, and laughter could be heard everywhere; limelight flashing in all directions so the cameramen and guests alike could get their shots at the newlywed couple.

Just like every good wedding party, wine bottles and glasses were passed around in a seemingly endless cycle among the guests. Then a flash of memory passed through his mind, let him remember that he was invited into a silly drinking-game later on; with various glasses filled with wine set before him, the competition started and everything from that point sped up abruptly and then his memory and better judgment were as good as being flushed together into the downward spiral that was known as alcohol.

J groaned as another headache attacked his senses with its full force, turning on his side he briefly thought that maybe one of his friends had acted as a Good Samaritan by taking him away from the party for good after he was out cool, even being nice to bring him back to his (he was almost sure it was a he since it wasn’t likely for a lady to take in a drunken man so easily) own house for a rest. J smiled at the thought, even though he couldn’t recall exactly who might be the Good Samaritan who had brought him into this temporary sanctuary.

The blonde-haired man closed his eyes again, hoping to gain some sleep before the discomfort of his hangover lessened. Just when he was about to fall back to the dreamland, a slight click echoed within the four walls, and J was jolted back to reality by the sound of door opening and footsteps.

Startled, J would have set himself up instantly just to see who had come in and distrusted his sleep, if his limbs hadn’t been weighed down by the hangover, his body unwilling to move. So he laid still with his eyes remained shut, his ears wild opened to capture every sound that the unknown person had made as he slowly approached.

The footstep came closer and closer until it reached to the bedside before coming to a halt, then there came the sound of something being placed upon the desk next to him, then a faint sound of movement as the person straightened himself up, then all of the tiny noise came to a halt as the person stood still next to the bed, unmoved; leaving only the sound of the other’s soft breathing.

Even with his eyes remained shut, J could almost swear he could feel the other person’s eyes upon him, quietly and steady. In any other situation, J would have found the whole thing creepy and he probably would have been scared, but right now…….he found nothing alarming or creepy about this presence of the other person, instead, the sensation that was lingering in his heart was almost one of relief and peace.

Why would he feel that way when he was in an unfamiliar room with an unknown person watching him with motivation unknown? As if there were nothing wrong or abnormal about the situation he had found himself in after waking up from the sea of drunkenness?

But this peaceful feeling……was still there lingering in the area around the two persons in the room, time almost seemed to stand still in utter harmony until J felt cool fingertips coming down to brush his locks gently away from his forehead.

And this time the person’s warm steady breath had come much, much closer to him.

Unable to hold back his curiosity, J finally opened his eyes to see who his ‘host’ really was.

This time his vision came into focus immediately, and the face that came into his view was no other than Inoran’s, staring down at him with widened eyes, surprise, and something else J couldn’t pinpoint written all over his pale, delicate face.

Chapter Text

Inoran gazed at J in puzzlement; he never expected the other man to be wildly awakened and staring right back at him; when he came to his bedroom where he had placed the taller man in to check on him, Inoran had thought that the other man was safely asleep.

In shock, Inoran simply forgot what he had come here for, his body nearly frozen while his mind running at its fastest speed in a desperate attempt to figure out what to say to J without raising suspicion from the latter.

He couldn’t let J find out it was not a coincidence that Ino had brought him home; he didn’t run into J on the street by chance, coincidence like this didn’t take place in reality.

In fact, he had been secretly following his coworker during the past couple of days; the ‘habit’ had started three days after the ‘incident’ at their workplace when Ino went out of control at the sight of J’s bleeding hand and the scent of his rich blood. At first, he thought it was only an impulse and he simply got carried away by his nature.(Ino unconsciously avoided the fact that he had just recently been fed from his donator, Midori.) He even swore to himself that he wouldn’t make the same mistake again. Feeding on a willing donator was one thing, messing with someone close to you and your daily life, for example, your unsuspected coworker, was an unwise way to cause troubles.

The only problem was, Ino found himself memorizing--fantasizing how J’s blood had tasted when it ran down his throat that day, whether the latter was around or not. Even to this day, he couldn’t pinpoint why he would react that way, why he couldn’t seem to put the memory of his ‘attack’ on J away from his mind.

Nonetheless, the intenseness of this new-found addiction frightened him, for now with the sensation sealed into his memory; the brown-haired youth found himself wanting more

Despite his best attempt to maintain control, Ino still found himself dazed off from time to time, the utter to stay close to J and tasted him again swollen in his heart through every passing day, eventually seeing the latter during work-hours didn’t seem to be enough, that he ended up following the older man during his free time; never getting close but never able to tear himself away from his strange trail.

He was actually afraid to get any closer than he had already been in fear that his restrain would crumble and leave him leaping toward his prey out of the feverish want burning slowly but steadily within him.

Inoran only knew too well that his behavior would be labeled as stalking but no matter how hard he had tried to talk himself out of it, he just couldn’t stop. Day in and day out he watched from a distance at J going about with his daily life affair, meeting other people, chatting, having dinner with friends, joking around, walking through streets, shopping etc, etc. None of these activities were interesting according to the normal standard, still Ino failed to stop looking.

And then he just had to follow J again during the night he attempted the wedding, he watched as J disappeared into the building where the said wedding was hosted, instead of calling for a stop; Ino eventually ended up finding a small cafe from across the street of the building, betting his time.

During the following hours, Ino sat by a table near the large window facing the main street, eyes never left the scenery before him, especially not the particular building across the street. For the entire time, he felt furious with himself, there should be something more descent to do than stalking another man in a fine night like this, but why he simply couldn’t walk away?

Hours later, he paid his bill and left the café after he saw J, now obviously drunken and walking with unsteady steps, left the building.

He swore he wasn’t thinking when he moved across the street and trailed after his coworker……

That’s actually how J had ended up here in Ino’s apartment, but Ino knew too well that he couldn’t let J find out the truth; otherwise his friendship with the taller man would be utterly ruined.

“Ino…?”

J’s low, murmur voice reached his ears, jolting him out of his thought.

“…Where am I?” The taller man asked with uncertainty.

“My home,” Ino replied automatically, then added another sentence in an attempt for an explanation. “You passed out on the street.”

“Figured…”

The response came as a barely audible murmur, then J dragged an arm up and passed it across his own face as if to block out the dim lamplight.

Up close, he could sense J’s faint scent he let off even more clearly than before. For a moment his mind seemed to be clouded, rolling under a wave of comfortable warmth like a small flame had been lit among the darkness of his inner world.

Ino’s eyes unconsciously closed for a moment, this strange sensation was making him dizzy, yearning to stay there and near the other man, to be warmed by his body heat and scent; still, another part of him rejected the idea, screaming against it, insisting that it wasn’t healthy to want someone like this.

The brown head shivered, his eyes snapped shut as he summoned his will-power just in order to suppress the need. No, he didn’t want to feel the impulse again when J was near. J didn’t belong to that part of his life and he wanted to keep things that way…or so he tried to convince himself into believing.

Even though his own actions of bringing J of all people into his very home, placing him on his very bed, was actually something contradicting his intention to keep people out of his private life.

When he managed to claim down, his gaze once again falling the figure lying on his bed, only to find J’s eyes had been closed, his breath came out slow and even indicting that he had fallen asleep once more.

The brown-haired youth let out a sigh of relief, he gave the slumbering man a last look before he exited the room.
Fortunately for him it seemed that so far J had been suspecting nothing, Ino gave thanks that he had luck by his side, maybe J’s trusting nature and his drunken state of mind had also helped too.

It was still early, he might find himself some rest on the couch before the outside world caught up with him again.

Chapter Text

J slowly came to; when his eyes slowly adjusted to the dimness within the room he could tell that he was alone; which was barely a surprise.

The lamplight in the room had long been turned off and there was no hint of light coming off through the half-closed door, not even a sound or movement from the outside neither.

Somehow he had the impression that the aura of quietness had always been lingering in Ino’s place, the longer he kept listening the more it was obvious to him that he was able to hear any sound from the outside world, not even the slightest of sounds. The finding was quite…strange. After all, he remembered that like most people, Ino lived in the city and in an urban area it wasn’t supposed to be so quiet, normally within a household even with its door and windows shut noises would always find their way in one way or the other; such eerie silence…was something J had never experienced before. It was almost like he was no longer within part of the city, like his coworker’s home was somehow separated from the ordinary world, a tiny private world of its own.

Even though he had found the situation a bit eerie, but it didn’t make him uncomfortable. How could he feel disturbed when it was so nice to stay in this presence of peacefulness?

He turned slowly again to lie on his side, eyes closed for a moment ready to go back sleep. It was so warm and nice in here, with the mattress beneath soft and comforting, and it also smelled nice too. With his nose brushing softly across the fabric, he took in the faded sweet scent that lingered among the sheet, for an instant J thought that he had smelled the faint scent of soft moist earth and tropical flowers from it. He shrugged at the thought, suddenly remembering where he had smelled the same scent before……

It smelled a lot like Ino when he was in the Flower Shop.

Once the realization dawned upon him, snapping him back to wakefulness; the realization that he was currently in Ino’s home and had been sleeping on his own bed for quite some time by now.

This particular thought that flashed across his mind successfully wiped away the last bit of sleepiness in his head at the same time made him blush like mad. Despite the fact that his limbs still felt heavy and rusty, he struggled to move out of the bed nonetheless.

Standing up, J took a deep breath and waited for his racing heart to slow down, taking no last look at his surrounding, then he spotted the glass of water and a few aspirins being placed on top of the nightstand next to the bed. J realized it was what Ino had been here for during the previous night, knowing that J would be in need of painkiller once he woke up.

J felt warmth spreading through him with the discovery, he took the aspirin and after drinking some water from the glass, he exited from the bedroom.

Truth be told, in any other situations J would have loved to have the chance to spend quality time in Ino’s room, but not this time……he couldn’t bear the thought of being surrounded by Ino’s personal belongings and his scent while he knew he didn’t have any right to peer into his coworker’s privacy when the latter didn’t return his feeling, it was too much for him to handle.

The point that Ino was oblivious of the way he felt about him made J’s heart ached slightly, he did his best to ignore it and walked toward the short hallway in the house.

Ino didn’t know his feeling toward him, and the younger man was only being kind when he took him in; so if he allowed himself to exploit Ino’s ignorance and kindness for his own benefit, J knew that he probably wouldn’t be able to face himself and the other man again.

Luckily he was feeling a little better by now, the headache which was caused by his hangover had subsided a bit, allowing him more room to think more clearly again. With unsteady steps J slowly made his way to the living room, the front door was just ten or so away from him; he intended only to leave at that point, he figured that he would rather do that than to let Ino witness the messy hangover he might have suffered later.

Unfortunately, his plan backed fire miserably right when he stepped inside the small living room, spotting the Ino lying on a worn-out couch, soundly asleep.

Seeing the sleeping figure, J somehow forgot his original plan of leaving, he stood there a few steps away from the sleeping blown head, unable to turn his sight away from the slumbering form.

The curtains in the living room had been drawn down like those within the bedroom did, hint of daylight seeping through the thick fabric of the light blue curtains, illumining the room with a gentle haze of periwinkle. With a side of his face press on a cushion, Inoran slept on his side, his thin limbs curved quite awkwardly on the narrow couch. He slept with his pale lips parted slightly, his chest rose and fell regularly with every soft breath he took, he almost looked completely at peace if it weren’t the light frown knotted between his eyelashes, and his orbs moving so vaguely yet quickly behind those closed lids, signifying that Ino was probably dreaming.

He of all people was the reason why Ino had to spend the night upon that couch instead of his own bed, if he didn’t fuck up last night he wouldn’t be such a bother to the one he had secretly adored. Guilt welled up from J’s heart upon seeing the look of discomfort on the face he adored so much, thinking that the frown was the result of sleeping in an uncomfortable position on a couch as small as this.

Without thinking, J moved toward the couch until he was right in front of it. Kneeling down carefully next to the sleeping figure, J held his breath to make sure that not a sound—not even the noise of his own breathing would disturb the brown head’s peaceful sleep. He honestly didn’t know why he was doing this, watching the object of his secret crush while the latter was fast asleep, but he didn’t stop to think for a reason, all he wanted to do was to take in Ino’s beauty, for he was well aware of the fact that he wouldn’t get a chance to see his coworker like this, unguarded and……pure, in the future. All he would ask for was a memory; this was all he dared to wish for, a simple memory of being in Ino’s presence; with him being the only one to be with the object of his affection in a private moment.

Part of himself was trying to remind him of his plan of leaving, telling him that by then he should have just left, there was no reason for him to stay any longer, but the other part of him refused to listen. What harm could it possibly bring if he just stayed a little longer?

These were the vague thought floating in his mind as he watched Ino turning on his back still deep in sleep, the frown somehow deepened, bangs of brown hair falling across those shut eyes.

Again without thinking, J reached out a hand, the one that had been previously cut and bandaged, brushed those locks of hair away from Ino’s forehead, hoping to make the other man feel better.

The touch of Ino’s silky hair, and the sensation of his soft skin under his fingertips felt ever better than his imagination, for an instant J let his own feeling get ahead of him as he ran his fingers through the younger one’s bangs, then going south to caress his cheek gently----

He was so lost in the sensation that when Ino’s eyes drifted open all of a sudden; his head shocked upward out of instinct, shortening the distance between their faces. A pair of clear cool orbs fixing upon J’s shocked ones, J could not react and he was left frozen at his spot, like a deer being captured by headlight.

What held him so utterly captive were Ino’s eyes, and the strange, intense look on the younger man’s face.

It was the same expression, the same look that appeared on Ino’s usually calm face the day when the younger man bent down to drink blood from his wounded hand.
Those eyes, they were not the same pair of familiar quiet orbs which he had used to look into anymore. He had the same feeling that there was some strange animal gazing back at him through Inoran’s eyes again.

At that very moment, J couldn’t move, his breath halted in his throat as he found himself almost eagerly waiting for whatever Ino was about to bestow him; eagerly waiting for Ino to show him what he was truly capable of.

Even to his own shock, J realized that it was the moment he had been unconsciously waiting forever since the day when Inoran snapped and did the unthinkable with him, the day when Ino drank blood from his bleeding wound……

He felt himself itching with the longing for the same experience again, for now, he realized, despite not knowing the reason why, the time when Ino drank from him was the only time that he could actually feel Ino needing him, yearning for him.

To be continued.

Chapter Text

The moment when Ino sensed J’s warmth and the fainted scent of the other man’s rushing blood so unbearably near him, within his search for the taking, instinct had taken over.

Staring down at Ino’s face with widened eyes, J was so shocked that he failed to react when the younger one’s hand snaked out to grip his wrist with smooth movement, keeping him in place.

What was even more alarming was the look in Ino’s eyes, those pools of blackness were fixing intensively upon his own but at the same time, they were so eerily empty, devoid of any sort of expression and feeling; so unlike the youth’s usual self.

A chill shocked down J’s spine instantly, he tried to back away from the brown-haired man out of instinct, but his action was halted as Ino’s hold around his wrist tightened, followed by another hand coming up to rest firmly on shoulder, a silent warning for him not to move away.

“…Why?”

The question was barely audible that for a moment J had thought that it was only a delusion from his own confused mind, but when he saw Ino’s lips trembled lightly to form words he then knew the otherwise.

“…Why do you have to do this to me?”

It was questioned with a soft sigh while speaking Ino bent himself forward, his face now inches away from his confused colleague.

J was once again utterly at loss, not knowing how to react. Why did Ino have to look at him with such expression? What exactly did he mean to say? For a moment J almost felt angry, annoyed by the fact that Ino’s actions, his ambiguous attitude toward him could affect him so greatly; did Ino mean to lead him on for some twisted reason? Was it some sort of game for the younger man? J felt frustrated with himself for feeling so lost and agitated all for the sake of one person.

But then before he could ever think any further Ino did something unexpected.

He slipped forward to place a small kiss at the corner of J’s lips.

The angst J had previously felt faded away within an instant, the feeling was immediately replaced by shock and excitement, his heart nearly stopped at the moment, before it abruptly sped up racing at impossible speed. Without thinking he shifted to meet Ino’s lips, kissing the latter back experimentally at first, when his action was met with Ino’s tongue slipping out to play with his, eagerly searching for an entrance; there was nothing left for J to do but giving in. He opened his mouth obediently, letting Ino’s wet tongue to tangle with his own.

Right now Ino had laid himself back on the couch again, his arms wrapped automatically around J’s neck, drawing him to hover above himself. J groaned at the back of his throat, pressing against the lithe form beneath him. The long kiss they shared had grown deeper and more feverish; neither of them had ever remembered the need of breathing in that moment of raw passion. After all, both of them had, in their own ways, withheld their needs for one another for too long so when the chance of fulfilling the need came around they could hardly hold back any longer----

Among the haze of bliss, J suddenly became aware of the sharp pain that piercing through his lower lips, he groaned in pain and tried writhing away out of instinct but the arms around his neck had effectively kept him still with a force that the older man didn’t expect from Ino.

J’s eyes snapped open in shock but all he could see before him was the close up of Ino’s eyes inches away from him, those pair of eyes were widely open though J had a feeling that the latter couldn’t really see him, those orbs were empty, reflecting nothing but a void of blackness.

Soon enough J could feel his skin broken and something wet with a taste of cooper escaping from the small wound Ino’s bite had created. He knew he was bleeding and to his surprise he felt Ino’s tongue slipping out to gently lick at the wound, tasting the warm blood the same as he did in the rainy day when the ‘incident’ took place.

Ino’s eyes shut in satisfaction, his body trembled underneath him; meanwhile, his thin limbs slowly but securely wrapped around J’s form, preventing the latter from going away.

J stiffed at the sensation of the younger man’s body pressing against his; he kissed back with an anew passion, the pain at his broken lips forgotten at the moment, his hands snaking under Ino’s body to rest on the small of his back, pushing the other man even closer.

The kiss lingered for a moment longer until the necessity of breathing caught up with them, J was the first one to break apart gasping and Ino let him go, though his arms were still locking around the older man’s nape.

J stared down at the other man underneath him, barely able to believe that it was truly happening, that he had Ino kissed him eagerly, his warm breath brushing across his face, his body writhing so sinfully beneath him, those finely shaped eyes fixing upon his as though Ino was thirsting for his attention and touch. The realization made his blood boiled.

They held their eyes for the longest moment, both too at loss to say or do anything else other than to look deeply into one another’s eyes. Eventually, J’s eyes wandered down to the corner of Ino’s mouth, where the stains of his own blood were still there, right now Ino’s lips looked a shade redder, more gorgeous than usual, making J longed to kiss him again, driving by his peculiar curiosity to taste his own blood upon those pale lips.

Soon as the thought took shape in his mind, J found himself leaning down to capture the younger man’s lips again, he heard Ino moaning softly but before he could deeper the kiss Ino’s hands moved abruptly from their previous position into pressing against J’s chests, pushing him away firmly so that their upper body and their lips were no longer connected.

Confused by the sudden rejection, J paused for a second, staring back at Ino in half disbelief and half disappointment. Did he do something wrong to upset the brown-haired man? Was it after going so far with him, Ino just happened to realize that he didn’t want to cross the line? Judging from the deep frown between the younger one’s eyebrows and the pair of pale lips that pressed tightly into an unhappy thin line, J thought that his guessing was as good as being truth.

Just when J was busy trying to figure a possible way out of the utterly awkward situation and also to save their friendship, he saw Ino’s lips quivered as if he was struggling to speak, but even as J held his breath and waited nervously for Ino’s rejection, still not a word had been shaped.

If Ino wasn’t so overwhelmed with his need to a point that he didn’t have the strength and will power to make his throat work properly; if he were able to speak only for a moment, then J would have heard him voicing a weak “No”, his final attempt to reject his bloodlust.

He knew it was wrong to do the same thing again; he couldn’t do it, not to someone who didn’t know the truth first, not to someone who trusted you without a doubt. But his defense tragically could not last long.

When Ino found himself moving again his movement was controlled primarily by pure instinct, his arms tightened around his prey’s neck automatically, drawing J down toward his embrace, his lips landed on the soft unprotected skin at the crook of the taller man’s neck.

At first, it seemed to be nothing but another innocent kiss, with soft cool lips moving nearly lovingly across the column of flesh J had unconsciously presented for him, but soon enough his fangs were bared upon where he could find the other man’s pulsing vein, sinking right into it for the kill.

***

J could only let out a cry of shock and agony as the searing pain pierced through the side of his neck, spreading across his body like wildfire. He vaguely realized that Ino had bitted him hard on the neck and instantly he wanted to push the other man away only to find Ino’s arms were deathlike locking around his nape, keeping him from moving away. Then he felt something hot and moist seeping from the wound Ino had created with the sharpness of his teeth, he knew it was his own blood escaping from his wound only to be accepted readily by Ino’s mouth; the younger man’s lips locked unbreakably with his injured neck, sucking hungrily like a……like a vampire?

J’s eyes snapped open at the sudden thought, vampire…? Ino had consumed his blood twice already……Vampire……was it what Inoran really was? It was an insane thought but the situation he had found himself in seemed to be just equally insane.

In his attempt to wrestle away from Ino he ended up falling on the carpeted floor with Inoran on top of him, the latter seemed completely undisturbed by the change of their positions as he never parted with his prey, his throat still working gracefully in the endless progress of feeding.

The pain that caused by the fall made J dizzy for a moment, he stopped his struggle, lying on the floor and let Ino do whatever he wanted, the fight seemed to leave him for a while, he felt himself weakening with every passing minute as blood continued to flood out of him through his wound. It was getting harder to focus and his movement became increasingly feeble, every single attempt to move made his body ached. He no longer knew what to do save for staying still in Ino’s embrace, letting him take whatever he desired with him that seemed to be the easiest choice he could have at the moment.

The last thing he had felt through the haze of dizziness was the pressure against his neck loosening for a little, Ino’s lips still pressing close to his open wound but he wasn’t biting any longer, those wet cool lips kissed tenderly along the raw flesh he had just tossed apart with his fangs savagely at the moment of passion, whispering seductively against the column of broken flesh:

“J-san, I need you……”

J felt the tension in his body loosed upon hearing the secret confession, his eyes drifted slowly shut, his arms now came to warp around Ino’s back instead of pushing him away. His entire body relaxed, giving in to Ino’s embrace, he no longer wanted to fight.

It felt blissful to know that the one you loved needed you so utterly, with endless passion.

That was enough for J. He would give Inoran what he wanted.

Sensing his surrender, Inoran held onto his prey even tighter, lips finding another vein and bitted into it once more until fresh blood began to flood again.

Chapter Text

When he slowly came down from the high Inoran thought he had just woke up from some kind of a dream, a dream that had left him with a sweet after taste, a nearly sickening kind of rotten sweetness.

Right at the moment, his mind seemed to be clouded heavily under by a reddish great fog, he couldn’t recall what he had seen in his dream even though he had a vague feeling that he shouldn’t forget about the dream, but right now it was difficult to think when everything around him felt so warm at the moment like he had somehow sunk into the depth of a tropical sea. It felt so incredibly sleepy and comfortable all at once; he barely ever wanted to open his eyes again.
At first, he couldn’t quite understand why he was feeling this way. Such feeling of comfort was not familiar with him, it was rare for him to feel like this; usually, the feelings of coldness and loneliness was the only thing to welcome him back to wakefulness whenever he woke from his unsteady night of sleep.

But this time something was different, he was sleeping on his side; head comfortably leaned against something tender and warm, made him feel secure; a small smile graced his lips slowly in his light sleep, how he wanted this kind of happiness could last even though he would have doubted the possibility of it if he were in his right mind. Ino wanted this feeling of security and satisfaction to last.

Even though something seemed to be amiss even in his dreams.

Why would there be a disturbing familiar, wet copper taste lingering in his mouth, under the tip of his tongue?

The realization shocked Ino into complete wakefulness immediately, he shook up from where he had been lying at, with his palms pressing against the carpeted floor as his support, a gasp tossed from his throat and his eyes snapped open as widely as they could.

Only to find J lying motionless on the floor beneath him, he had long lost his consciousness; his skin was pale, half-dried bloodstains tainted the other man’s skin and his half-ruined clothes. Ino couldn’t tear his eyes away from the messy wound at the side of J’s neck.

He didn’t need to look down at himself to know that his face, his clothes were just as equally tainted with blood. He could already feel the thin layer of dried blood caking at the corner of his lips, down his chin, between his fingers, the hideous evidence of what he had done out of madness and bloodlust.

Ino’s breath caught immediately in his throat after a pause he mange to swallow with great uneasiness, still not ready to face the circumstance of his action.

He tried to call out to the other man in a weak voice, a hand reached out to touch upon the cheek of the unconscious one with trembling, bloodstained fingers. “…J-san…?”

The other man remained motionless, oblivious to the brown head’s plea.

Shivering, Ino’s hand moved to the side of J’s neck—the uninjured side, tips of his fingers pressed there firmly, desperately trying to feel the other’s pulse.

Please…….fearing the worst he silently pleaded for J to react, to show ever the tiniest sign that he was still alive.

Carefully he felt the older man’s skin for any trace of pulse, but he found……nothing.

No…Please no……no...!

Suddenly the image of J before his eyes turned watery and fading, then he realized tear was welling up, blurring his view. Soon he was crying freely, something he had not done for an immeasurable length of time, but the sorrow and guilt he had felt right now was overwhelming. If anything happened to J how would he be able to face himself ever again?

Then his fingers brushed upon a spot where he managed to feel the slightest pulsing underneath the thin layer of flesh. For a second Inoran could barely believe this but then came another pulse, it was slow and alarmingly weak but it was definitely there.

A strangled sob escaped from Ino’s throat, he fell down across the taller man’s chest as if his strength had abandoned him suddenly, teardrops wetted the fabric of clothes beneath him as he laid there tangling with his victim at the moment, his chest heaving with every sob of relief and sadness.

But Ino knew he couldn’t lay there crying like a baby for long, soon enough he would have to gather his strength again and get help. Right now J was far from being safe yet. He would have to do whatever he might to save him.

To be continued.

Chapter Text

Ryuichi went back to his and Sugizo’s home late at night; when he stepped into the living room he caught sight of his lover sprawling not so very gracefully on the couch. He couldn’t help but smiled a bit at the sight.

Sensing his boyfriend’s approaching, Sugizo straightened himself up into a sitting position.

“You’re late.” The purple-haired man commented, wiping his eyes to get rid of the sleepiness.
“Work had taken more time than I expected, ” Finding a place on the couch for himself, Ryuichi sat down beside his boyfriend, sighing slightly before continuing. “ And I had gone to check on Ino-chan after work.”

When Ryuichi’s soft voice faded it was followed by a long pause before Sugizo turned his head toward him and asked thoughtfully. “So…is Ino-chan still okay?”

The other man only gave a slight nod before replying in a careful tone. “He’s fine, but I don’ t think he will be his usual self anytime too soon.”

Even since the incident took place, he had asked if Ino wanted to stay with them for a while, but the latter had firmly refused the invitation; though it came hardly as a surprise for Ryuichi. Despite his lay-back attitude deep down Inoran had always been stubborn in his own way ever since the pair had met him.

The next second, both of them letting out a sigh nearly at the same time, then Sugizo shrugged, murmuring. “Sometimes I don’t understand Ino-chan.”

Ryuichi raised an eyebrow. “You don’t? I think it’s quite understandable that Inoran needs some time and space for himself. No one wants that kind of thing to happen, right? You are simply thinking too much.”

“I know…”The other man bitted his lower lip, giving his lover a worried look. “Still, is there anything more we can do?”

“Not much I afraid.” The answer came almost matter of factly. But Ryuichi’s eyes softened as he saw that his words did nothing to calm the purple head’s nerve. “Sugi, you had been through this yourself. You should know how it’s like……”

Upon hearing the sentence, a sad smile appeared on the usually playful, care-free face; the purple-haired man’s voice turned into a barely audible whisper, his tone lacing with sadness that was not characteristic for him. “I know. That’s why I’m worried.”

***

J struggled to find his way among the dim surrounding that he had found himself in, it seemed he was walking in a gloomy, decayed abandoned mansion of some sort; the only source of light in this darkened building was the moonlight seeping into the corridor through broken window or chinks on the rooftop.

There were many closed doors alongside the corridor which seemed to be endless when J tried the handles of a few of those said doors, he only found they were locked, leaving him nowhere to escape. Wherever he went he was always alone, there was no trace of other people around, only his lonely footsteps echoing off along this strange corridor within a seemingly empty mansion.
The floor of the corridor wasn’t entirely even, from time and again J found himself walking down or climbing up from staircase through the dimness, sometimes he encountered a corner and had to turn his direction; but so far none of these stairs and turns had led him somewhere. Before him this strange corridor which made no sense only seemed to spread infinitely.

Any trace of time seemingly ceased to exist as he wandered aimlessly in this strange place, though he did know that he had been walking along the corridor for a considerable long time.
Whenever he passed a portrait hanging on the peeled-off walls he would stop to look at them, hoping to find any clue of where he was J would only see the paintings were blackened or half-ruined, to a point that the figures within those portraits gave out a vague ominous expression that disturbed him greatly. When he tried to look outside of those dusty broken windows, all he could see was the equally gloomy landscape, everything upon this landscape was every still, even the pale moon seemed frozen at her place above the deep black night sky.

He didn’t know why he was here though, despite he had a vague feeling that he was searching for something, but for what? For something? For an escape route or even…for someone? J had no idea at all; he only knew that if he didn’t find whatever he had been looking for, he would still be trapped in here for……J didn’t want to think about it.

So he carried on despite the longer he was trapped, the more he could sense that his search was purposeless, he wouldn’t find what he was looking for there. But he couldn’t change the fact that he was still walking and alertly scanning his surrounding. It was kind of like watching the same movie for too many times that you had already known what would happen next but you were powerless to change a single thing in it.

For a few times he came across some antique mirror among the ruined paintings, he tried to glance into them, only to find there was no reflection of himself across the tainted glass surface.

J felt something cold and numbing seeping through his veins as the realization dawned upon him. He couldn’t see his own reflection! In any other given situation he would have freaked out already but somehow there was only this numb feeling hovered over him. The discovery, shocking that it might be, still ceased to feel real for him.

For most of the time, all he could see was in black and white, but sometimes colors also appeared in his dream; unsetting, strangely vivid colors of frightening sorts. It was like……

It was kind of like being in a dream.

Dream, the thought slowly sank in, J paused as he continued to stare at one of those antique mirrors before him. That seemed to make sense to think that he was in a dream, otherwise, he wouldn’t have felt so distant, and his entire experience wouldn’t have ceased to bear any sense of reality.

Within the next second, J thought that he had captured some movements from the corner of his eyes; he turned immediately only in time to see a door being opened to reveal a slim figure, the person with brown hair walked across the darkened corridor quickly before he opened another door opposite of the one he left behind and disappeared behind the doorframe.

J was frozen at his spot, nearly unable to think; he could barely believe what he had just seen. Someone other than himself had appeared in this strange household. Plus he could almost swear it was someone familiar to him, he knew whom that fleeting person was!

The tiny noise of a wooden door slowly slipped close jolted J’s thought back once more, noticing that the door was about to slip shut he didn’t pause to think before leaping for it, catching the iron handle just in time. He pushed the door open and walked past it, finding himself entering yet another dark corridor; but this time he managed to catch sight of the mysterious figure again. the latter appeared at the far end of the corridor, walking further and further away without a single backward glance, the pure white shirt he wore seemed to shine among the gloominess of the surrounding.

Out of desperate J opened his mouth in an attempt to call out to the fleeting person before he disappeared into the blackness, but no voice escaped his throat the moment he realized he couldn’t. for the life in him, remembered the person’s name even though he could swear the latter was someone familiar to him.

Soon the corridor was once again empty, even the fading footsteps became barely audible. It was when J eventually found control over his body again, this time he didn’t hesitate to run toward where he had seen the mysterious figure had vanished into, into the blackened heart of this ominous dreamland.

Chapter Text

Within this enigmatic decaying mansion stood in the middle of the strange landscape that was Dreamland, the hide-and-seek between J and the mysterious person he had been trying so hard to chase, went on.

Even though the longer J had been chasing after the person, the more it became difficult for him to understand what he was actually doing. It was just absurd! He didn’t even seem to know that brown haired person’s name. Couldn’t seem to remember what his name was!

Along with the thought there also came the sudden dread and anxiety that seized his heart rapidly, as thought he had just forgotten something important to him and if he couldn’t recall the other man’s name soon, he surely would regret it.

But there was still no sign for the chasing to be coming to an end, pulse much to his fear, his own memory for a moment seemed to be turn perfectly blank, useless.

Sometime J saw movement among the shades that lingering in the corridor, sometime he thought he could sense eyes on him, as if someone was hiding in the corner and secretly glancing at him. however, once he reached to the said corner where he suspected someone was hiding, he always found no one was there.

Eventually his chaotic search led him to yet another staircase, when he went down to the end of the stairs, the space before his view suddenly expanded as he stepping into a place which looked mostly to be a main hall of the abandoned mansion. J found himself pausing as he took in the otherworldly sight before him.

The hall was just as gloomy, lifeless as the rest of the mansion seemed to be, with broken pierces of furniture sprawled among the tainted floor, ruined paintings hanging upon the blackened walls.
What had surprised him the most was the fact that there was a giant oak tree standing in the center of the hall, its ancient, massive trunk was thick as ten or twelve people linking arms together, the mass of tangling boughs taking over most of the room, its leaves and branches spreading out to all directions, seemed to be entwined with the entire building itself.

It didn’t take long for J to notice there was a lone figure standing at under the oak, the side of his body pressing lightly against the thick trunk. But once the latter sensed J’s gaze lingering to him, a look of insecurity flashed through those deep brown eyes, in the next second, the brown haired once turned quickly and hid himself behind the tree.

When J caught sight of the dreadful expression on the other man’s face, he couldn’t help but feeling his heart twisting. Was he the one to put the youth into fleeing like a scared child? Was the latter afraid of him? After all J might only be a strange, frightening man chasing after him for no good reason.

So he struggled to think of something to say to ease the brown haired youth’s fear.

“Don’t be afraid, please. “He carefully took a few steps toward the oak, not wanting to look hurry or harsh with his approaching. ”I’m not going to hurt you.”

However, J saw that the brown haired one was shivering; the frown between those eyebrows also only seemed to deepen. “Why are you here?”

It sounded like the one with warm brown hair meant to hiss at him, but J could still hear the rippling dread beneath the annoyed tone.

“Looking for you.” The reply slipping pass J’s lips even before the thought crossed his own mind, those simple words echoed off into the void around them endlessly. But what he had just uttered fail to surprise him, at this point the realization had dawned upon him, that he was actually here to look for this person, whose name he still couldn’t recall.

This time a shiver shook through the youth’s entire body visibly, as if his answer pained him physically. Much to J’s anxiety, the brown hair figure shifted again, disappearing entirely behind the thick trunk; once again hiding from J’s sight.

Instinctually J wanted to run after him, fearful that the other man would simply flee away jut like he had previously done; but the latter spoke up from behind the ancient oak before J could ever move.

“No!” The rejection was announced firmly, his voice loud this time, even the fragile leaves and branches seemed to be quivering with each syllable he uttered, disturbing the stilled air within the bleak mansion. “I did not ask for you!”

J paused, for the first time since this strange encounter he almost doubted himself, was he doing the right thing? He didn’t want to hurt him……but was he doing exactly this by coming here? By invading into this dark, unsettling dreamy place where no one else had entered?

J closed his eyes to focus, struggling to think of anything helpful, trying his damnedest to just, remember. When he was about to give up something seemed to hit home eventually.

When he reopened his eyes, he fixed his stare at the oak, staring through it as if he could see the hidden figure behind clearly. Then with an unfamiliar sense of newly found confidence, he shouted right back. “No, you did! If you didn’t want to I would not be here at all!”

Nothing but silence answered his outburst. But J was by now pass caring, with quick steps he hurried toward the other man, the latter was still leaning against the thick trunk, hugging himself with his both arms; with his back turning away.

Strangely enough the more he spoke, the more certain he had became. “This is your world, right? I’m here because you’d called for me!”

Now J was only a few steps away from the other one, he was so certain that if he could reach to him this time, everything would be okay, they would no longer be trapped in this gloomy wasteland, there would be a chance for them both to escape---

His hand gripped the brown haired youth by one of the shoulder, with careful force J turned the latter back toward him, so that the other’s face was revealed to him. Still he never expected to see the other’s face to be cover in blood.

J gasped, his grasp unconsciously loosed, when he saw the person before him thunder seemed to stroke him, somehow it was like the spell had finally been broken, he recognized the person who was standing before him all of a sudden.

But it was too late.

Once he realized it, blood was springing from the ground, thick crimson liquid rose up to his waist so abruptly that it seemed to happen in no time. Unnatural, chilling wind now whirled around them, lashing across the branches above their heads, sending dying leaves to fly all around; even the decaying walls was falling slowly apart, with broken pieces of brick sinking into the raging crimson sea. In the middle of chaos J stood there like frozen, he could do nothing but to gaze into those brown orbs, despite his bloodstained face and limbs, when those familiar brown eyes looked back at him, they still looked eerily innocent, frightened and filled with sorrow.

“Go away!”

It was the last thing he had heard before the wind became too harsh and he had to loose his grip, then the person before him, the falling leaves, the quivering ancient tree, the mansion, the stilled landscape……everything just went blank.

***

J’s mind slowly surfaced back to the state of wakefulness, to him it was a mental journey that shared similarity with floating from a freezing depth of an ocean back to the surface of the sea. So when he came to, the first thing he had ever experienced was the deathlike chill which was dominating his body. Why was it so cold, so dark? Where was he? Why did he feel so unwell all over?

With much difficulty, J managed to open his eyes, the sight that greeted him first was the flat whiteness above him, which he slowly recognized as a ceiling, then he realized he was in some kind of a square room of pure white, the space was bathing under a cold, pale light that typical for a hospital. His guessing was confirmed once a raven haired young man, dressing in the typical white coat for medics, appeared at the corner of his eyes.

J turned his head slightly to get a better look at the newcomer, this time he could see that the other man was indeed a doctor, but what really bothered him was the vague yet strange belief that somehow he had seen this man before.

Oblivious of the whirling thoughts within his patient’s head, the young doctor smiled kindly and said. “Are you feeling better now, Onose san?”

That person looked somewhat familiar, but J couldn’t remember when and where.

“Who are you?” With his eyes still fixed upon the doctor as if trying to figure him out, the patient finally asked, his voice much weaker and fading, than he had expected it to be.

The doctor gave another of his kind smile and replied. “I’m Dr. Kawamura, Ryuichi Kawamura. I would be in charge of you before you recover.”

That smile…….looked familiar too…then it hit him, he recognized the man whom now stood next to his hospital bed, was in fact the same man whom had used to picked up his coworker from of their workplace.

And wait a second! How come he had ended in a hospital?

“What…what’d happened to me?” despite his thirty throat and dry lips, J opened his mouth and asked.

This time Dr. Kawamura’s smile fainted, a frown knotted between his fine eyebrows for a moment before he spoke again. “You don’t remember?”

Speechless, J shook his head.

The young doctor sighed ever so slightly, then said. “Alright, let’s start with how you had came into our care first, okay?”

Chapter Text

Part11

Taking a last glance at his rented apartment, Ino picked up his bag and moved to the front door, then he exited from his apartment and locked the door behind him; knowing too well that it would be a while before he would return here.

He had informed Sugi and Ryuichi he was leaving and no one else. But to think of it there was not many others he would have spoken to. Ino thought thing would better be that way, by leaving everything behind he might stop himself from disturbing the peace of mind of the people around him.

***

Later J was informed by Dr. Kawamura that he had been hospitalized due to exhaustion and over-drinking, he had remained unconscious for nearly two days.

The explanation sounded believable but what had caused J’s suspicion springing again was Dr. Kawamura’s reaction when he asked the question of whom had brought him to the hospital.

This time the good doctor had gone silent, and he never answered the question directly saved for a few vague excuses.

J's injuries was by no mean grave, still under the instruction of specialists, J stayed in the hospital for two more days, simply for observation and running some tests to make sure he was okay.

At the very beginning J didn’t give up so easily, whenever Dr. Kawamura came to check on him, he would always try to find opportunity and brought up the same question. Though Dr. Kawmura would usually just smiled and shifted the subject into some unrelated issues. Little by little, J lost the interest in playing this strange mind game with the doctor and eventually he simply stopped asking, seeing no point to continue.

But it didn’t mean he did not think about Ino or their last encounter, in fact he found his mind lingered back to those memories often, the memories of what had happened in Ino’s apartment now seemed too faint, too unrealistic to a point that J always wondered whether he had imagined the whole thing up. This explanation would have been an easy way out for his troubled mind if there wasn’t the fading twin wounds at the side of his neck, he would have believed everything was just a crazy dream.

Turning on the hospital bed, J sighed to himself while continued his useless attempt to fall asleep. There was no point pretending what had happened with Ino wasn’t real. He finally decided, as absurd as it might sound, he had been attacked, by Ino…who was a---

J shivered, who---what was Inoran actually?

Placing his palm against his temper, J tried in vain to block his own thought. Deep down he knew the answer to that question, but it was still too much for him to face it.

Even when sleeping meant he would dream of the brown haired man all over again.

***

Day in, day out; time flied by as people went on with their daily routines, nothing seemed to be changed. But when J was finally able to leave the hospital and went back to work, he found Ino had quitted his part time work at Shinya’s.

During the few days he had been in the hospital, relatives and friends alike came visiting him in a handful, even Shinya managed to make a visit, but Inoran was never there.

Shocked, he asked Shinya whether the older man had any idea of Ino’s whereabout, but Shinya could only shrugged, he did ask his employee whether he had taken another job but Ino never answered him directly. The younger man only mentioned that he would be ‘away’ for a while and nothing more.

It was after the conversation with Shinya, then did J actually realized he had no further connection with the brown haired man outside of work. He never knew his address, the name of the university he was supposed to be attempting, or even his phone number. When the realization hit him, J could not help cursing himself for such carelessness, despite having a massive crush on Ino like a teenager who experienced the magical force of affection for the first time; still the urge to ask for the younger man’s contact never once crossed his mind. it didn’t make much sense but that was the true, in normal standard he knew next to nothing about Ino still at the same time J felt as thought he did know the other man thoroughly, since he had already seen Ino’s true self, or so he would believe……

Still, Ino had chosen to go away. Now with the final link to the enigmatic youth broken off, J forced himself as best he could to focus on his ordinary day-to-day life.

At first life went on smoothly just the way it used to as J fell back to his usual routines of work, study, hang out with friends and have fun tasks with said friends. But why would he feel as though something important was missing from time to time after he went back home?

Even though the rational side of him told J that what was done was done, thinking about the past too much did him no good. Sometime J would think to himself, it had always been a vain hope to think Ino would return his feeling. Still no matter what he had tried to lecture himself into believing, still there was a small voice at the back of his head whispering to him that he should not let Ino go yet. Despite the thought of what Ino truly was and what the brown hair youth was possibly capable of frightened him, still in J’s mind he knew the other man was special to him and if he just let the brown head slip away that easily, he would regret it for the rest of his time.

With the thoughts kept coming back to him, and images of Ino haunted his every waking moment, eventually J made his decision.

***

Ryuichi stopped at his path as he caught sight of the man sitting on the bench next to the sidewalk toward the hospital building, he recognized the man as J in no time.

He didn’t expect to see J but deep down he knew sooner or latter the blond haired man would come to him again. Far as he knew Ino had already cut off the old connections with his mortal friends, therefore if the guy wanted to learn of Ino’s where about. He would be more or less the only one J would turn to.

Knowing that it would be better for him to face J’s question once and for all, Ryuichi continued to walk just as causally as before, slowly approaching the blond head, the latter looked up as he sensed his presence, Ryuichi smiled at him in a friendly way.

“Good morning, Onose san.” Ryuichi greeted his former patient. “What had brought you here today, I wonder?”

“Hello, Doc.” J stood up from the bench, with hesitation he moved closer to the doctor, continued. “I…would like to talk with you, in private.”

“It’s about Inoran, right?” Ryuichi replied quietly, the name of their mutual friend seemed to echo around them, rippling away in slow motion.

J was dumbfounded at first, surprised to hear the doctor mentioning his brown haired coworker like this. He had expected that it would have taken a lot of effort from his side to gather information from Dr. Kawamura, for during his stay in the hospital; the doctor hadn’t even been willing to bring up Inoran’s name even though J had long recognized him as one of Ino’s friends.

But he had no time to question Dr. Kawamura’s change of heart, before he realized it J spoke the first thing that came up in his mind, in an urgent tone. “Yes.”

Ryuichi nodded knowingly. “Come with me then, we’ll talk while walking.”

With that he started to walk again, J had no other choice but to follow him, hoping the doctor would be willing to talk with him just as he had promised.

To be continued.

Chapter Text

Part 12

J eyed the young doctor thoughtfully as the two walked through the garden outside of the hospital. Truth to be told, he was not sure what kind of person he would be dealing with when it came to Dr. Kawamura; the doctor had been friendly enough toward him all along but it didn’t seem to stop him from hiding the truth--- his ‘explanation’ of J’s supposed illness was a good example for him to remember.

More importantly, J knew that he didn’t have the slightest idea of what Dr. Kawamura really was. All he knew about the doctor was that he was Inoran’s friend and judging from the way he previously spoke of the brown head, Kawamura seemed to know Ino well. But did it mean……?

While he was deep in thoughts, the doctor had increased his speed a little and now he was walking ahead of the taller man, humming softly as he walked. J continued to stare at the other’s back, questions welling up from the bottom of his heart again: was Dr. Kawamura the same like Ino?

Ryuichi stopped when they reached the backyard, where no one else was around to overhear their conversations, then did he turn back to face J again.

Ryuichi was the first one to speak. “We can talk in here, so no one else will hear us. Since you know that everything that will be said here should be just between you and me right, Onose san?”

“Call me ‘J’, everyone call me that.” J requested quietly.

“Then you can call me ‘Ryuichi’.” The doctor smiled a little before continuing. “And do we have a deal here?”

J paused for a second or two, then he nodded. Ryuichi’s grin only seemed to spread. To him it seemed that the taller man was still a bit at loss, so he figured he would better picking up the talking task first.

“So, where should we start now…?” The doctor asked first, though he didn’t really expect J to answer him any time soon.

“Inoran…who is he actually?” Much to Ryuichi’s surprise, J quickly replied, as though he feared that Ryuichi might change his mind as time passed.

Ryuichi’s breath went short at his throat; he didn’t expect J to go straight to the heart of their topic. But he quickly calm down with a reply of his own.

With a light chuckle he spoke again. “But why must you ask? I know you had already guessed it…”

“It’s not enough. I would want to hear it from someone---someone who knows him…”

“I think you have known him already…” Ryuichi answered thoughtfully, leaving J puzzled. Was the doctor avoiding question now?

“It must hurt wasn’t it?” His smile turned into a tricky one. “…When he bite you.”

J made no reply, from the expression on his face and the way he instantly pressed his palm against the side of his neck; Ryuichi could easily tell what was in his mind: the taller man was doubtlessly memorizing his previous encounter with their brown haired friend.

But that was exactly the reaction Ryuichi was hoping for.

“That’s what you want to know right?” The young doctor laughed in a good nature way. ” Want to hear from me that we’re vampires, blood suckers...or whatever that people use to call us.”

“But…why can you…” J’s voice trailed off as he failed to find the correct words to finish his sentence.

Ryuichi looked around himself for a few times before he finally realized what J was trying to ask. He could not help smirking with amusement. “Are you wondering why we can appear in daytime, under the sun?”

J nodded hesitantly, awkwardly in response. Ryuichi’s causal attitude somehow made the blond head feel embarrassed, still in the end curiosity won over.

“Yes, unlike what you might have read from books, sunlight wouldn’t turn us into dust.” Ryuichi went on as though he was only explaining common knowledge. “Nor do crucify, holy water and the other mumble jumble.”

J’s eyes widened. He really, really did not expect the doctor to talk about it so freely. He had expected indifference and denial, but why would the doctor choose this moment to tell tales?

In the next second Ryuichi’s expression shifted from playfulness into a more serious one. “Are you ready to know more about us…?”

This time J managed to find his voice instead of acting dumbfounded and foolish. “Why are you telling me all this?”

Ryuichi paused as if thinking the question over before he finally replied. “Only because I have confidence in my judgment over people, and it seems like I can trust you with our secret---Inoran’s secret in particular.”

***

According to what Ryuichi had informed him, vampires did exist, but they were hardly like the species that people had always imagined them to be. True that they drank human blood just like the legend had it, but from that point onward, it turned out that most of the horror authors/filmmakers had had it all wrong.

For starters, Ryuichi & co. would not burst into flame when they were exposed to sunlight, nor did they need to sleep inside a coffin during daytime. Even though strong sunlight could greatly weaken their strength and left them with low spirit so most of them avoided going out under the sun without protection (i.e. cap, sunglass, umbrella etc etc.).

Took Ryuichi himself as an example, he had no problem showing up during the day, went to work in the morning according to the requisition of his work, just like any other ordinary person did. While Sugizo, Ryuichi’s own boyfriend, the pink haired guy whom J had seen earlier driving the red spot car, preferred to stay up late at night and slept through most of the day. The difference laid more directly on their choices of career and lifestyle, not their ‘nature’.

By the way, hardly any of them could last a few hundreds or even thousand of years like the legend had suggested, their kinds surely enjoyed a longer lifespan than mortals in general; their process of metabolism was also much, much slower than their human counterpart, but it was quite far from real immortality like some authors might imagine.

Plus not many of their kinds could maintain the luxury of living in a castle during the modern era. Most of their kinds lived in apartments and slept in their own beds at night, had the daily routines which were more or less similar with other general civilians’.

Plus nowadays hardly any of their kinds would go attacking innocent people on the street for blood, instead most of them would find reasonable methods to secure their nutrition, which included finding human donators for their needs. Among blood drinkers, there were decent, law-respecting citizens and also deviants, just like the members of human population. Ryuichi didn’t try to avoid the fact that dangerous, crazy blood drinkers did exist. True that not all them were nice and harmless, but not all of them were psychopaths, neither.

During Ryuichi’s brief introduction of blood drinkers and their natures that had lasted for about 10 to 15 minutes, J felt that his eyes were getting wider and wider due to the shock and surprise within every passing second.

He was told that not only vampires did exist, he was also being forced into acknowledge the fact that his coworker was one of such creatures, plus he had just had an up and personal encounter with the said vampire.

At the end of his brief lecture, Ryuichi stopped and waited for J to come around. He knew it would take a while for J to digest all of the new information.

Still……something didn’t seem to add up. J struggled to figure out what was missing in the picture before realization finally hit him out of the blue.

“Wait…!” He gasped, turning his wandering gaze back focusing on Ryuici’s face. His expression was half shocked and half disbelief. “You…you said your kinds wouldn’t go attacking people, but Ino…he attacked me!”

Ryuichi sighed, somehow he was amused by the fact that it had took so long for J to come up with the major issue.

“Yes, I have to admit he did.” The young doctor calmly stated.

“I know it--” J’s heated voice died down all of a sudden, his face went blank for a second before his mouth dropped open in pure shock as the meaning of Ryuichi’s previous words finally sank in.

“Ohmigod so it was for real…!” the taller man subconsciously put his hand up to cover his mouth. Finally he had his suspicion confirmed that he didn’t have a crazy wet dream bad dream about being attacked by a vampiric creature who happened to be his object of affection coworker.

Ryuichi did his best to suppress his laughers, his facial muscle tensed as he schooled himself into keeping the straight face when speaking. “Yes, what you had experienced in Ino’s was real.”

But soon his tone changed into a much serious, pleading one. “Please understand that I did it to protect Ino, he is a dear friend of mine after all. I’m sorry that I had to lie to you previously. None of us are proud of our actions, especially Ino. Far as I know it was totally out of character for him.”

Despite everything, J found himself agreeing with Ryuichi’s last words, Ino’s sudden outburst during their fateful encounter did feel impulsive and out of character even to him. ‘Cause Ino never seemed like a violent person to him, or an unstable one.

The only explanation J could think of for Ino, was that the brown haired man had been possessed when the incident took place. Deep down he had a feeling that the Inoran he had seen before his very eyes, wasn’t the calm, collected person who was usually in control of his own self. At that fatal night Ino seemed to lose his restrains and became……something else. That was the only excuse he could give Inoran when it came to his bloodcurdling actions.

The thought automatically led to another important question: why would Ino pick him as his victim? What had he ever done to the brown haired man, resulting in him narrowly escaped the fate of becoming the other man’s meal?
So, why him?

J didn’t notice he had uttered his last thought out loud until he heard a reply from Ryuichi.

“Why you?” Ryuichi echoed as if it were a after thought, causing the taller one to look back at him. “My guessing is that, as awkward as it might sound, Ino probably has feelings for you.”

That was how Ryuichi dropped the bomb, and J’s peaceful world of reason and norms was shattered within a heartbeat.

Chapter Text

Part 13

Shortly after his recovery, J was back in the Flower Shop and continued working there. Shinya, being the nice and easy going guy he was, allowed him to come back despite his long absence. For that, J was more than grateful to the older man.

However, the longer he stayed in the Shop, the stronger he felt how this particular place was affecting him. There were too many memories of Inoran left behind in here. In the small shop, the greenhouse, even the stairs where they used to carry goods up and down. Therefore, the blonde found himself lost in memories of their time together with an alarming growing frequency. It was almost like some kind of a side effect. Whether he liked it or not, he had kept the thoughts of Ino and his images alive in his mind by simply staying here.
From time to time, he found himself talking to no one in an empty shop simply because he still sensed his brown haired coworker as though he was there beside him.

Whenever J caught himself doing this, he would scold himself mentally and swear never to make the same mistake again, but Ino’s presence still seemed to linger around him regardless of J’s own feeling, haunting the blonde’s thoughts with this fading, yet familiar presence.
As time passed by, things didn’t get any better for the blonde man. His case of hallucination, if it could be labeled as such, had increased to a point where there were times when he could swear he had caught sight of Ino’s figure among the thick layers of plants inside the greenhouse.
Sometime J asked himself when this torturous experience would end, or whether he really did want it to end or not. Honestly he had no idea; he could only guess that maybe it had to do with the ‘connection’ Ryuichi had mentioned before, a bond that was forged through the activity of bloodletting between him and Ino.

It was maddening because those delusions had always been so close, so real, when Ino was in fact never truly there. Up until now neither he nor Ryuichi and co. could make any contact with the missing brown head.

What Ryuichi had said earlier came back to his mind.

“What does it mean?”
J’s jaw nearly fell off as he stared at the raven haired doctor in utter shock. His voice was trembling when he finally managed to speak again.
“You said…he has feelings for me?”
Ryuichi raised an eyebrow. Hadn’t he broken the news to J in the most obvious way already? What could he say to make it clearer so the information would get through his thick skull?
“Frankly speaking, I figured that he possibly likes you. It’s not devotion for eternity, I suppose. But stronger feelings than Ino’s would have harbored for most people.”

Immediately, J felt blood rushing to his face as indescribable feelings mixed together in his furiously drumming heart. What Ryuichi had just said put new light upon his experience with the enigmatic brown head. Now everything seemed to make a lot more sense than before. It helped to explain some of Ino’s actions. Plus, this could also definitely explain the unexpected, passionate long kiss Ino had given him before he fed on him.

But how could that be possible? Ino liking him… even though it was what J had always been secretly hoping for, he still failed to understand what he was currently feeling towards the brown haired man when a third party had broken the news as if it was nothing, confirming that Ino probably had feelings for him, that he liked him.

To Ryuichi it probably was nothing significant, but to J it was something big and important to know Ino’s thoughts, especially the brown haired man’s thoughts towards him……

He waited for Ryuichi to continue.

“Did Ino mention anything about his past during the time you two were together?”

Ignoring the misguiding remark, J simply shook his head.

In response to this, the young doctor only nodded with a knowing look.
“To be honest, I am not surprised to hear that Ino never mentioned anything. After all, we long ago noticed that Ino-chan is extremely shy and secretive when it comes to many things. Especially his past and his own feelings. So I’m going to tell you something about him, something that might help you to understand the situation at hand. “

J held his breath and waited for whatever Ryuichi was about to bestow him.

"Ino rarely mentioned anything from his past. Even Sugi and I, who have been friends with him for so long, could tell that Ino-chan, either consciously or unconsciously, was holding something back from us. We tried to help him loosen up, but it just never worked out. All we can tell is that something from the past has made him that way. Whatever his trouble was, it has always been bothering him.”

Knowing Ryuichi was coming up to some important pieces of information, the taller man listened even more closely.

“But from what slipped out of his mouth now and then, once in a blue moon you know, we managed to gather that when Ino was younger, before he met the two of us, he was been in love with someone else. Don’t ask me the details because no one really knows, but anyway, the result of this love affair turned out quite chaotic and traumatic. It seemed what happened back then hurt him badly, and therefore, from that point onwards he just…kept a distance from other people in fear that something similar would happen again if he let anyone come too close."
“That’s the problem?”

J did expect to hear some sort of explanation, but what he had just heard was too far from that.

“You mean that I was…too close?”

“That’s what we figured out. Maybe Ino was feeling insecure about the fact that there finally was someone else who mattered to him. He wasn’t used to such thing… ”

For a moment J didn’t say anything. He found that what Ryuichi had told him seemed to match with what he knew about Inoran. He remembered the ‘dream’ about Ino. He had dreamed of the brown haired man before he woke up from the coma. In that dream, Ino was wandering, hiding in a dark empty mansion which structure was tangled with a decaying ancient tree, all alone. Ino’s thin form was surrounded by a murky veil of sadness and loneliness, but when he tried to reach the other man in this black and white dream, Ino had rejected him rather violently, refused to let him come closer. His reaction was nearly a fearful one…

Ryuichi sighed. He was starting to feel rather ridiculous for playing Dr. Love. He wished that things could be different. His friend could have been more open and brave about his own relationship problems so that he and Sugi would not have been dragged into such a mess. If only Inoran could be honest about his feelings and followed his own heart, his fellow friends would have been saved a lot of trouble. But as usual, the world didn’t revolve around him, so the good doctor had to be patient and dealt with the circumstances for Ino’s sake. That was what friends were for, right?

J was thankful that the raven haired doctor had been honest, but there were still other things in his mind, even more questions to be answered.
“But I have been seeing things after he fed on me…why?”

“What kind of things did you see?”

“Often I sensed…that he was near, and I’ve been having those weird dreams with Ino in them…”
For some reason J felt his own face flushing when mentioning it to the doctor. Not once had he mentioned the lingering presence of closeness or the dreams he had been having to anyone else. He felt as though it was something private, so deep and fragile, like a fine glass which he should guard with the outmost care. Something that he was shy to talk openly about, just like people would not talk about their sexual fantasies or their darkest secrets loosely.

Ryuichi paused for a second before he replied in an understanding tone.
“That’s the effect of a thing we call a ‘bond’, some kind of strong but temporarily emotional connection which is usually formed between two persons through bloodletting.”

“Which means…?” The taller man asked, urging the raven head to continue.

“Our kind can make a temporary connection with someone else, either with a member of the same race or with a human through the exchange of blood. Ino had consumed your blood, and I sensed that he had also let you drink an amount of his own blood when he tried to save you…for that reason you two are bounded, which means you can sense Ino’s presence. He can share some of your emotions and thoughts too, at least for as long as the power of the bond lasts.”

J swallowed unnerved. All of the information was quite difficult to understand, he could not help but asking.
“And then what will happen to me?”

“The Seeing will leave you, and you will no longer have any weird dream after the bond fades away,” Ryuichi replied with an even tone, as if J had asked him of the most uninteresting, obvious thing in the world. “So your life would more or less go back to normal.”

“Wh—What?” J nearly shouted. He could not believe what he was hearing. He could not believe that after Ryuichi confessed so many things, entrusting so many secrets to him, that the next thing he was told was that his life would be ‘back to normal’. “But you said…we had exchanged blood---”

“His blood did nothing to you other than helping you to heal a bit faster,” Ryuichi interrupted quickly. He knew what J was worry about. After all, vampire stories were filled with plots about innocent humans being ‘turned’ into vampires by consuming a vampire’s blood. But as usual, those horror authors had had the details all wrong.

“Don’t worry. Drinking our blood won’t make you one of us. Our kind cannot ‘turn’ a human into our own race.”

Finally, the last of their secret was unveiled. The fact that the method of reproduction of their race was as monotonous as for any normal person and the rest of mammals: breeding through the union of a male and a female.

Comparing to humans, their kind was so very few in numbers it was difficult enough to meet a person of their own kind, even rarer for them to find a life partner among them. As a result, it was natural for them to share a strong, close bond with their partner whom was from the same race. For that reason, Ryuichi had always thought himself fortune for meeting Sugizo, who could share the blood bond with him, allowing the two of them to share a mutual understanding which was not quite possible between a blood drinker and a mortal.

For the same reason, Ryuichi from time to time felt a sense of pity towards Ino, who chose to insulate himself, shutting off the opportunity of forming close relationship with someone else even when a chance presented itself. All out of guilt from his mysterious past.

J didn’t know whether to feel relieved or sad when hearing the news. On one hand he knew he should feel relieved that he was still his own self, but on the other hand he felt some kind of loss in his heart knowing that Ino was from another species and there was no way he could ever be the same as the brown haired man. Probably, he could hardly understand the latter. Back then he had foolishly believed that one day he might understand the other man, but now such belief seemed to be completely pointless.

“You’re wrong.”
The taller man found himself speaking his mind aloud before he could restrain himself.

“What?”

Ryuichi raised an eyebrow challengingly, his tone almost teasing. He had been waiting for J’s response, to know whether he had made a right choice in telling the blond everything. Previously he had meant to throw J off by telling him everything would go back to normal. Now the time of testing the blonde man’s true heart had finally came.

If J accepted his suggestion that there was nothing to be done about the situation at hand, then his path would forever be separated from Ino’s. But if J refused to accept it, then there might be chance for them to bring Ino back, and the latter was the hope that Ryuichi had been hanging onto all along.

J answered with a flash of heated emotion flushing through his eyes.
“I’m not buying it… you saying that everything would be back to normal. I won’t accept it. How can I be the same after all I have already experienced? ”

A real smile graced Ryuichi’s face when he heard this, but he remained silent.

Right now J fixed his eyes on Ryuichi, pointing a finger at him as he spoke on rapidly, furiously. “Ino…you said that he isn’t proud of what he did to me. He’s not a psychopath, so then he must be feeling so terrible about what happened! But you never ever said anything about how to help him! ”

“So what are you going to do about it?”

Seemingly unaffected by J’s accusation, Ryuichi asked in an even, uninterested tone, even though deep down he was satisfied, happy to see J’s concern over his friend.

“I’m going to help him, whatever it might take.” The answer was firm and determined. “I know you’re going to help me with it.”

This time Ryuichi could not hold back a chuckle. “Confident, aren’t you?”

“You know, I have done my own thinking along the line,” J explained, solving out his thoughts as quickly as he could. The more he talked about it, the more he was confident with his own guessing. “And I am positive that you must have thought that I can help him out. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have bothered to talk so many things over with me, am I right?”

Much to J’s relief, the young doctor nodded in response.

Chapter Text

Part 14

Cold rain poured heavily down from the night sky, the usually crowded streets in the city were now devoid of passerby. A lone figure walked quickly across the empty street, ignoring the pouring rain he slipped into a dark ally between two buildings. With careful steps he headed toward his destination before he finally reached a locked front gate at the end of the ally.

The brown haired man whose face was half-hidden by the hood of his dark color raincoat, rang the doorbell, he was soon answered by a doorman opening the small window on the gate. The middle age doorman eyed the soared young man impatiently before the latter’s head slowly raised up, exposing his emotionless face to the older man’s view. Recognition dawned upon the doorman almost immediately, then the small window was slipped shut before the heavy gate opened, allowing the entrance of the visitor.

Stepping through the front gate of the unnamed nightclub, Ino was not surprised by the fact that he gained access so soon, in fact he had been partly expecting it. The owner of the club had once promised one thing: if Ino wished to see him, he would be accepted at once without delay.

Despite the heavy rain and the desolate atmosphere from the outside, inside this secret club things were just getting exciting. People chatted and laughed freely with the loud music playing in the background, various dancing figures crowded the dance floor, swinging with the rhythm under the haze of neon. Once entering, a young man, judging by his appearance was an employee, moved toward Ino, helping him out of his soared raincoat and then began guiding him deeper into the club.

Following behind, Ino allowed his thoughts to wander back to the many he knew he was about to meet after so many years. The last time Ino saw the other man was at his own mother’s funeral. He had once sworn never, never to lay eyes upon the other man ever again after all the pain he caused both him and his mother. It had been so long ago and for years afterward, Ino almost believed that he had successfully buried whatever memories he had about older man deep in his mind, to him the man should be a troubled past memory, unable to affect his life any longer.

But now when he was so lost, confused and had nowhere else to go, no one else to turn to, Ino found himself walking straight back toward the other man’s lair, seeking, seeking almost desperately for a shelter to escape from himself.

At the back of his mind, Ino just knew all too well that the man he was seeking now, could never prove him with the sense of security he needed. Wasn’t past experience enough to teach him the lesson? The brown haired youth smiled bitterly at himself as he followed his guide’s lead across the crowded dance floor, down to the corridor and eventually opening the door of a room, where common guests were not allowed to let in.

He moved into the room unhurriedly after his guide opened the door and stepped aside for him. Ino barely noticed the same door slipping shut and locked behind him, once entering the room, his attention focused solely upon the sitting figure in the middle of the darkened, luxurious room.

Beyond the heavy door made of fine wood, there was a spacey room in the shape of a round full circle, right in the middle of the room, beneath a huge ornamental crystal chandelier, placed a huge luxurious sofa made of fine crimson silk, and there sat a gorgeous looking man with mass of deep blond hair drifting all the way down his shoulders, the man seemed to be in the age of early thirty, he was wearing a simple but expensive looking black suit.

He was not alone though, various young men and women were gathering around him like subjects crowding in front of the king’s throne; or worshippers surrendering before the altar of their holy deity. All of those people, either sitting around near the man’s feet or standing behind the huge sofa where he sat. At first glance the group seemed to be engaging in a causal conversation, with the handsome man with mass of curl deep blond hair being the center of focus. Everyone in the room had been listened keenly to what the man had to say, all of them eager to catch the slightest bit of the blond man’s attention. All of them had an identical happy, mindless dreamy look on their faces, like they were trapped in some sort of trance. Light laughter could be heard echoing around them then and now. Ino took a second to scan these people, much to his relief he could sense that all of them were mortals, which meant he had only one member of his race to be worrying about at the moment.

Still he had to be careful when the one he was dealing with was from the same race of his, one who was so much older than him and far more cunning and powerful……

Ino stopped after taking a few steps further into the circled room, not yet ready to walk right into the older man’s reach. The other man was no stranger to him but deep down, the brown head knew that he was not entirely ready. At least right now, he felt far less certain than he had been previously before he stepped into the older man’s territory.

It took a few more seconds for his presence to be acknowledged, the older man raised his head with slow grace as his face turned toward Ino’s direction. Immediately light brown eyes sparkling with a hint of predatory light fixed upon his newly arrived guest across the room, a smile spread across the pair of pale lips.

“Inoue,” the blond one greeted him with a delighted tone, straightening himself rather rapidly up from his seat, ignoring the surprised gasps from a few of his ‘worshippers’. “It had been so long!”

With a guarded expression, Ino gave a small nod in response, not exactly trusting himself to speak so soon.

“Come here, would you?” Now standing up fully, the long haired man waved a hand causally inviting the younger one in. Despite his effort, Ino found himself complying. Walking toward the slightly-taller man obediently like a child, like he used to from long time ago.

As he approaching, he saw the older man turned aside and whispered softly to his followers, requesting them to leave. Disappointment flashed through their young faces but all of them nodded and one by one they were leaving. A few had turned back to throw suspicious, unpleasant looks toward Ino’s direction. The brown haired youth did not pay them the slightest attention, he was solely focusing on the gorgeous tall man in front of him.

“Inoue,” The man called to him once more as the latter walked to the center, approaching him. With a fluid movement, he took Ino’s hand into his own, drawing him closer, in a speed that suspired the younger man.

Now the blond one spoke in a nearly loving tone, almost like a kind older brother, just the same way he used to treat Ino when he was younger. “Let’s look at you! All grown up now, so adorable and charming. I almost couldn’t recognize you.”

“You hasn’t changed a bit though, Yoshiki.” It was the most Ino could bring front as a friendly response. Yes, he missed the affection and care from the other vampire badly. But it did not lessen the pain the older man had caused him by letting him fall for him.

And the pain he had caused him by draining his mother’s soul, letting her wither away. Even though the fragile woman had asked for this to be done to her to escape the horrible sorrow of losing her husband—Ino’s late father, who happened to be a mortal man.

If Ino had learned anything from his parents’ tragedy; it was the fact that mortals were doomed to be a weaker race, and they fell prey to sickness and aging far more easily than their kind.

“So what had brought you here, my dear?” Suddenly Yoshiki’s rich voice jolted him back to reality.

Ino shook his head, his eyes downcast as he struggled to think of a way to speak his mind. Finally he looked up, staring right into the older vampire’s pair of smooth brown eyes as he replied.

“I want……what you had bestowed my Mother……” The answer came barely more than a whisper, but the voice was clear and determined, ringing gently around the only two person in the spacey room.

For an instant Yoshiki’s eyes deepened, surprise and puzzlement nearly welled up from those eyes, but he quickly shifted his expression back to his usual mask.

“Why would you want it?” The blond man asked slowly. “Out of all people, I’d thought you would be the last person to want it---”

“It had been so long ago, Yoshiki.” Ino found himself speaking before he could think of what he was saying, in a rapid but strangely flat tone. ”Now I’ve changed my mind.”

Yoshiki did not reply, with his hand still resting atop Ino’s. He looked deeply into the younger man’s eyes as if trying to look right into his soul. Ino did not know whether the older man had found what he was looking for. After a long pause of silence, the blond haired man finally released him.

“Do you know you’re offering me a treat, Inoue?” Now he was turning away to pick up a glass of wine atop a nearby desk. Sipping the wine down by a mouthful, Yoshiki continued, with amusement clear in his voice. “Such a temptation……to consume you.”

It was both a thrill and a discomfort to have the beautiful man eyeing him in such a dangerous, hungry way. Ino knew he had to think carefully before he gave his final answer to the older man. He swallowed before speaking, believing there was no reason to withdraw now.

“Yes,” He moved closer to Yoshiki, holding his gaze steadily. “I want it.”

He wanted to escape from his troubled thought and the haunting memories of the hideous thing he had down to J. He wanted his mind to be at peace, a compete kind of blissful emptiness that only Yoshiki could give. That was the reason why he came to the older man.

“It seems you had made up your mind…” Yoshiki’s lips curled upward for a smile; this time there was nothing brotherly or warm left as he placed both his hand atop Ino’s slim shoulders, squeezing them with a hidden force beyond his touch.

“ So now, we can begin.”

Chapter Text

Part 15

From time to time J found himself plagued by frighteningly vivid flashes of image, haunting him even in his waking hours. In those brief moments when he was caught by illusion with strangely realistic images filling before his vision, cutting him off with the rest of real world. In those brief moments J was unable to move as scenes of non-existent vision sucked him in, in those visions he was once again seeing the figure of the missing brown head as though the latter was really right there before him, close enough to reach.

Always in those visions he always seemed to be surrounded by the deepest shades of the night, in one of the nameless streets in the city. He always saw the slim figure of Inoran, whom always had his back toward him; walking slowly away from him toward some unknown direction without a backward glance.

For many times J did reach out his hands in vain, trying to grip the person before him---he knew so sure that the brown haired figure before him was Inoran even though he could not see his face, did anything he could to keep the man from leaving, but he could not. Every time he did reach out, or try to cry out to catch the other man’s attention, his vision would just go entirely black for a second before it disappeared immediately. And when he was able to focus again, everything would just go back to normal again, and J found himself once again fall back into real world, surrounded by ordinary scenes of everyday life, and Inoran was in fact nowhere in sight.

Things had become so confusing that sometime J had to wonder whether the existence of Inoran was nothing but a delusion he had created out of daydreams. But luckily his conversation with Ryuichi from the previous time told him the otherwise, so did the half-healed twin wounds at the side of his neck which were still aching slightly.

Deeply troubled by those strange images he had kept seeing, J had asked Ryuichi for advice since the former had no idea what those dreams meant. After hearing J’s description of the images he had seen, the raven head explained again most likely the delusions were brought in by Inoran, due to the fact that they were still mentally bond together after their exchange of blood. And Ryuichi could only guessed that since Inoran was the one whom brought him such visions, then the only one who could send them away would be him as well.

Even up to this point, Ino was still remained missing, despite Sugi and Ryuichi had used all of their connections to search for their lost friend, still no one, neither mortal nor blood drinker, had seen the brown head even since the night of J’s fatal encounter with him. Sugi had long finished checking every spots in the city, where he used to haunt with his own lover and Ino together at night, but could not find a soul who had seen Ino at all. The only comfort for the pink haired man was that after talking with so many people, he had never heard of any news about Ino being in danger or being found dead, which meant at least the missing brown head hadn’t done anything stupid to himself, and he was still out of harm’s way.

Half out of desperation, Sugizo started to drag J with him to his fruitless search, then the two would spent hours driving around the city rather randomly in hope for some tiniest clue. Sugi had insisted upon this because by now they really was out of resolve and clue and location to detect. The pink haired man actually hoped that since J was still emotionally connected with Ino, then the blond might, by some miracle, managed to sense something that he had failed to detect. Even though J didn’t believe he could pick up any hint of Ino’s where about out of sheer luck when even a blood drinker like Sugi had already failed to do so, still night after night he went out with Sugizo without complain, and sometime Ryuichi would join them during his free nights.

J recalled hearing someone said that you never knew how big the world actually was before you lost a loved one and was forced to search for him in this wide world. Now he could understand a little better what this old saying meant, the blond never realized how big the city he had been living in for years actually was until he started to search in vain for the one person he cared about.

Tonight they were out again driving along the night road, but this time it was different. This time they at least had a slightly clearer idea of what they were heading toward to.

Sitting at the backseat of Sugi’s bright red spot car, J rested his head heavily at the backrest of his seat; he felt strangely exhausted even since he had the weirdest of vision at dusk:

This time he saw the blurry figure of Ino walking through the rain alone, toward a shabby building down at the end of a darkened ally, there was a closed front gate at the front of the building, for a long moment Ino just stood there before the gate, staring at it as if he wanted to stare right through the locked gate and saw into what was hidden beyond it. J sensed the uncertainty from the other man, like Ino longed to go inside but on the other hand he dreaded it. But eventually J vaguely saw the other man knocking on the door. Soon he was admitted and the slim brown head slipping smoothly into the blackness that lurked beyond the gate and disappeared. Fading sound of pop music could be heard in the background before the heavy gate was shut once more.

Next the scene shifted into a long corridor within what looked like a crowded nightclub, people walked in and out of his line of vision as he followed Ino deeper into the shades, till the latter stopped before another closed wooden door.

The guard that had led the brown haired man all the way there slowly opened the door for him, and Ino was stepping inside into the room beyond the door. J wanted to call out to him to make him stop but he never got to do this.

The images before his eyes shifted rapidly once again, this time he found himself within a circular room, the classy looking room was filled with various pieces of antique furniture and classy ornaments with an Oriental tone and it was lit hazily by a chandelier made of countless pieces of dazzling crystals.

In the haze of the fading vision J could see a gorgeous man with long deep blond hair around thirty sat lazily on a red velvet sofa in the middle of the circular room, surrounded by a group of pretty young men and women. There was something predatory yet gracefully catlike when that mysterious man looked up and stared right at Ino, his finely-shaped lips parted in invitation. J could do nothing but continued to watch on helplessly as Inoran walked to the man willingly.

And the long haired man who dressed in the black suit took hold of Ino’s pale hand and drew him nearer. All was done with such certainty and intimacy that J felt a stab of jealousy went right though his chest. But the jealousy was quickly replaced by dread and shock once the darkly dressed older man smiled widely down at Ino, the tips of his sharp ivory fangs showing just a little as his lips pulled back, revealing what this stranger really was.

Once again J wanted to scream in alarm, or reach his hands out to grip Ino to keep him from this Soon after everything before him started to grow darker and darker with every passing second, until he found himself gazed at nothing but the grayish neon within his darkening living room when he snapped his eyes open, waking with a start. It seemed he had managed to fell asleep on his couch without realizing it.

The next thing he did after that was to grip his cell phone and called for Sugizo, after informing the latter what he had just seen in his last vision, he, Sugi and Ryuichi were driving off into the city in less than half an hour time.

***

In the innermost quarter of Yoshiki’s lair, Ino laid motionless upon the older man’s four-poster bed, the surface of the bed covered with soft dark silk mattress, but Ino could barely felt the touch of silk underneath him, nor did he feel the coldness hovering around the spacey room, chilling his exposed skin. Sensitivity was reduced when you had just lost so much blood.

Right at that moment he could barely feel pass anything aside from the pain.

Half dried blood caked around the twin wounds at the side of his neck in where Yoshiki had left the marks of his bloody kiss. Darkened blood drifted across the wax-pale skin even so slowly, dumb pain lacing at the edge of his fading consciousness as he writhed weakly among the mattress, unable to manage bigger movement such as raising his own hand from the bed any longer; his chest rose and fell heavily with every painful breath he struggled to take. Ino know he did not have long to hold onto his consciousness, numbness had been seeping through his limbs like a flow of icy liquefied poison, leaving a dull ache at its wake. His eyes still managed to stay open but there was no light reflecting upon them, unable to focus as Ino glanced blankly at the black-colored ceiling above him.

Dimly he felt the side of the bed sank as someone sat himself next to him on the bed. The brown haired youth did not need to turn his gaze to know it was Yoshiki returning to him.

Yoshiki had already removed the jacket of his fine suit, now he sat beside Ino wearing his loose silk white shirt, he supported himself with a palm pressed again the mattress. His mass of long deep blond hair falling around his shoulder and chest as he bent down slightly to take a better look upon the younger one, drop of dried blood still clung at the corner of his reddened lips, tainting the front of his loose shirt.

Sensing the older man’s presence, Ino let a moan escape from his lips, struggled to turn his head to face the older vampire.

A barely audible whisper could be heard among the silence that surrounded them both.

“It hurts…”

Yoshiki raised an eyebrow out of amazement. “Yes?”

“It hurts, Yoshiki……” Ino’s half-lidded eyes opened a little wider, for a moment they actually seemed to be focus as he spoke to the man next to him. “You never told me it’d hurt like this…”

He did not expect to find losing himself to be one long, maddeningly slow and painful process.

In his mother’s case, Ino had suspected nothing while she withered away little by little, consumed by Yoshiki’s forbidden touch in secret; until her strength slipped away completely, and she eventually submitted herself into an endless, painless dead dream.

The Dream of Death, it was Yoshiki’s specialty. An unnatural kind of slumber that left the lesser vampires deep in a deathlike infinite sleep; it was rumored that the receiver of such ‘blessing’ would fall into unthinkable peacefulness in their infinite unconsciousness. And all Yoshiki asked in exchange from his victims were only their blood and their own life force.

But none of the rumors or what Ino had witnessed with his own eyes ever hinted that the giving of the deadly dream would be…painful.

A smile graced upon Yoshiki’s lips, then he played with Ino’s hair briefly like a parents would pat his beloved child as he replied. “Everything in life hurts in general, my dear.”

“…….”

The older man went on in a sing-song manner. “To live, to breath, to be with someone else, pain is always there. Even when we cry, laugh, play, love…”

“…Love…?” For reason unknown to him, Ino felt a thin film of tear seeped across his sockets when he heard the word.

“Yes. Love that hurts the most above all things.” The older man spoke in an understanding tone, with a stroke of the tips of his cold smooth fingers, Yoshiki wiped the trace of tear away gently.

“Are you hurting now because of love? Inoue? Is that why---”

Ino only closed his eyes, trying to shake his head in denial but he lacked strength even for this. The dull ache that lurked across his limbs had now been reduced to nearly nothing, maybe it was because he had already became too numb to be aware of pain any longer…..

“You know what, Inoue?” Cradling Ino’s head gently between his palms, Yoshiki continued.” There’s something I had learned through all these years, if you wanted someone, you should go ahead and charm him until he’s wrapped around your pretty finger…”

Ino cut him off with a light whimper. “You…your point being?”

The answer came as a sigh. “Escaping is not the way, if you know what I mean.”

Ino could not hold back his weak chuckles after hearing this, he laughed, bitterly so. “Since when had you become such a teacher, Yoshiki?”

The Yoshiki he once knew when he was younger wasn’t like this. The old Yoshiki was seductive and deadly despite his gentle manner, caring attitude and kind smoothing words he so often used when wooing his preys. It would be easy to believe he really cared about you, it would be even easy for people to actually mistake themselves his beloveds.

But Ino had learned the ugly truth already: Yoshiki loved no one but himself. That was his basic understanding when it came to this man, his elder and a far more powerful fellow vampire.

Soft beads of laugher echoing off through the room. “You might say that I changed a bit over the years, Inoue.”

“But how would you of all people know about pain---” Ino tried to chuckle again in return, but his own voice sounded weird and anguish instead of mocking like he had intended.

Yoshiki didn’t bother to defend himself, he smiled down at the younger man kindly, though a hint of veiled sadness laced this smile. “If we were to carry on living as what we are, then sooner or latter we all need to learn not to be afraid of the pain, Inoue.”

That was the only truth Yoshiki could offer to a youngling like Ino, but he feared it might already be too late for him……

A single tear seeped silently down the younger man’s cheeks, then the last of his strength faded away and Ino finally drowned himself in sorrow and unconsciousness.

To be continued……

Chapter Text

Part 16

In Inoue’s memory, his mother was never a happy woman, the mournful air that surrounded her constantly might be explained by the loss of her beloved husband, Inoue’s late father whom he had hardly any clear memory of.

During his childhood, little Inoue sensed that his mother was different from anyone else, and for unexplained reason beyond his understanding, she was distant from the other people around her, including Inoue, her only child. He sensed that for some reason his mother had long closed herself off from others, from the outside world, sealing herself off in her tiny private world of past memories and sorrow; a world that excluded everyone; a forbidding realm in her heart that even Inoue could not enter.

Although she was by no mean a bad mother, she was always kind to her son, she had always tried her best to care for little Inoue, making sure he was fed and clothed, raising her son as best she could as a widow. For her effort, many years later on, Inoue was grateful.

And back then Inoue was a mere child who did not know much outside of his own family, he did not know clearly how other parents would interact with their children. Therefore he simply accepted his mother just as who she was and adored her with all his innocent affection. To him she was always beautiful, gentle and kind yet somehow distant, lost in her own world of mournful memories of her lost love.

Even since a very young age, Inoue had already known that he and his mother was different from other people, in more than one way.

For example, his mother’s youthful appearance had remained unchanged for years upon years; even when her own son grew slowly from a child to a teenager through time just like every child else. And it was difficult to avoid gossip and suspicion if they stayed in one place for far too long; therefore as a result they had to move from one place to another frequently. So no one would notice that the Kiyonobu Family of two was different than the others.

Plus there were more secrets to keep, when Inoue grew a little older, his mother started taking him out at night, holding his hand as the two of them walked into among dark allies in town, wandering in their seemingly aimless quest. A quest for nutrition.

She chose preys who were trusting and unsuspecting, luring them to quiet places, away from the public view. Then she showed her son how to lure the preys into surrounding themselves with smoothing words and other little tricks, also her charm as a helpless young woman of who she would sometime pretend to be. Every time when she did it and success, it always looked like magic to young Inoue. But his mother promised that when he grew up, he would learn to do exactly the same, if not better.

"It is instinct." She said to her son one time, after luring a stranger to fall into a trance, lying next to her feet. ”We need to feed from them, therefore one way or the other we’d learn what to do, eventually.”

Then his mother showed him how to feed, from her chosen preys. But unlike the amazing process of toying with the preys, feeding was actually the part that Inoue found himself not able to like.

For many times he watched his mother bent over her preys--who usually would be unconscious by then, exposing their necks before sinking her fangs into the flesh until blood flooded.

But she never truly hurt them, not once. In the end of the evening, the mother and son always watched their victims regaining consciousness, they would stand up, still confused and dizzy, unable to remember what had just happened, then eventually wandered off, forgetting their encounters with the strange woman and the young boy she brought alone with her.

At the end of their adventure, Inoue would go back home, hand in hand with his dear mother, and she would explain to him that he would have to do just the same when he grew up, therefore getting used to the process, sharping his skill early would be good.

Her words would be later proofed true, learning how to fend for himself early did Inoue good, but this reminder always came back to him with regret.

When they weren’t going out at night, mother and son led an ordinary life in the small corner of town. Every morning Inoue’s mother would take him to school, then she would go to work. The little boy would stand behind after school till dusk when his mother was freed to take him back home.

It would have been enough for little Inoue, if he didn’t slowly, as years passed, came to notice the sadness within his mother’s eyes only seemed to deepen. He had done anything he could try to cheer her up: studying hard to earn good grades, drawing pictures, helping her to do housework the best he could, drinking the nutrition dutifully despite of his discomfort; even though sometime she smiled and praised him for being a good boy, still the shadows kept lingering around her, and she became more drained.

Inoue was worried, but as a child, he had already ran out of things to try. As time passed, it seemed like part of her sorrow had passed on to him, Inoue found it increasingly difficult to remain cheerful, to keep taking conversation, or even to smile. Who should he be smiling for, if his mother was buried so deep in her sad memory to notice?

It didn’t take long for the boy to grow, becoming a quiet teenager, while his mother withdrawing further into her own silent inner world.

For mother and son, their quiet life stretched on, until one day, everything changed.

When Inoue was about 12 or 13 years old, one day he went back home from school, but before he ever opened the door to his home, he could hear laughter coming from the inside.

It was his mother’s voice, and Inoue could not recall since when did he last hear her laughing like this, her voice ringing off so clearly, so pure and filled with true happiness.

For a second Inoue was dumbfounded, unable to believe he had just heard his mother’s laughter. Still, very slowly as if in a dream, Inoue managed to unlocked the door and pushed it open.

Once stepping in, the teen immediately found his mother siting in their tiny living room, and she wasn’t alone, there was a handsome man with shoulder-length blond curled hair, who appeared to be in his thirty. The man was sitting opposite of Inoue’s mother. The first thing that crossed Inoue’s mind when he took in the stranger’s feature was that this man looked rather out-of-place in their humble household, he was so certain of himself, so gorgeous, so...grand without being overconfident; his designer suit too smart looking to match his surrounding. He was someone Inoue knew he could never hope to become. How would a man like this set foot into their house and visited them?

They both looked at Inoue’s direction when the teen walked in. Then his mother stood up, her movement light and causal as if she had grown wings, walking toward her son and gripped him by his elbow, urging him to come in and meet her guest.

His mother’s guest--though Inoue had never seen her inviting any friend home, was a man surrounded by an unusual regal aura, who introduced himself with a smile as Yoshiki Hayashi.

The moment their eyes met, the younger one of the two could sense a jolt of electronic shot through him like thunders. The teen froze, staring blankly at the guest. Then out of sheer instinct, Inoue recognized what the man actually was at once.

It was the first time, aside from his own mother, Inoue came face to face with another member of their race.

to be continued.