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It’s crowded at the shrine, which is to be expected. Midnight approaches and soon the bell will ring one hundred and eight times for Joya no Kane. Shin-Yokohama citizens of all shapes, sizes, and species happily throng in the cold night air, greeting one another with good cheer. Scattered among the crowd, blue and white uniforms of the Vampire Countermeasures Division can be spotted, but even their members seem relaxed and merry.
John sits in Ronaldo’s arms, a little forlornly. Ronaldo knows the armadillo would have been happier to stay with Draluc. Sadly, the pathetically weak vampire has been a pile of sand as often as not, every stray elbow and swinging foot reducing him to a pile of gray ash nearly indistinguishable from the stone tiles below. In fact, Ronaldo wonders whether every time Draluc rejuvenates he doesn’t pick up fragments of gravel and stone dust along with the original bits of himself. He certainly seems grayer and more haggard every time he pulls himself back together.
“You sure you still want to do this?” Ronaldo asks, not for the first time. Because it was Draluc who wanted to come in the first place. In past years, Ronaldo has usually celebrated the new year by going to bed early, providing he wasn’t needed out on patrol. So long as he visits a shrine before the third of January, he’s not too fussed about rushing out.
Draluc coughs. “Yes, I’m certain!” His voice, while slightly hoarse, is firm in its adamancy.
“Alright,” Ronaldo shrugs. “Your funeral.”
John sounds a gasping “Nu!” and looks up at Ronaldo with trembling eyes. “It’s just a joke, John!” Ronald hastily reassures him. The armadillo quiets.
Well, mostly, he adds silently as the sudden joyful shriek of a child passing behind Draluc causes the vampire to lose most of an arm.
🔔🔔🔔
Draluc winces as the disconnected grains of himself sift back up through the air toward him. He’s thankful that none of his kin are here to witness his struggles.
The members of the Dragon Clan are likely preoccupied trying to survive whatever gruesome entertainments Draluc’s grandfather has prepared for this year’s annual party. If Draluc’s father were here, Draluc is certain he would be fretting over Draluc terribly. No one has ever been more protective of Draluc than his father, though all his family worry about him, their weakest member. But Draluc isn’t in that castle anymore. It’s gone, destroyed, and left Draluc untethered.
Though he will never admit this to Ronaldo, Draluc is eternally grateful for it.
“Excuse us!” Two young women shove past Ronaldo, and their warning is too late for him to brace himself against the impact. Again he disintegrates.
“This is ridiculous,” Ronaldo grouses as Draluc struggles to reassemble himself, sputtering a little at the foul taste of dirty footwear that has crept into his mouth. He suspects he may have been trodden on.
Ronaldo lifts John up onto his shoulders.
“Come here, stupid weak vampire,” Ronaldo orders. But for all the authority in his words, Ronaldo keeps his eyes sheepishly averted as he opens his red-cloaked arms.
“Ronaldo?” Draluc gapes at his oft-unwilling partner. “Have you succumbed to a fever? What on earth are you suggesting?”
“Shut up and get over here!” Ronaldo snaps, face red.
For once thankful for his own bloodless body -- elsewise surely his face would be just as flushed -- Draluc steps into the shield of what can only be described as Ronaldo’s embrace.
🔔🔔🔔
Ronaldo regretted the words the moment he spoke them, but it’s too late now. His arms encircle Draluc, who rotates awkwardly, trying to decipher the least embarrassing orientation. Face to face is obviously out of the question, but when Draluc turns with his back against Ronaldo’s chest, the position is excruciatingly intimate in a suggestive way Ronaldo does not dare dwell on. Finally, Draluc settles with his shoulder pressed to Ronaldo’s sternum, and, well. Good enough, Ronaldo supposes.
“Thank you,” Draluc whispers. He need not speak loudly. They are so close that Ronaldo can feel the words in his bones.
“Whatever,” Ronaldo harrumphs grounchily.
They wait to hear the bells.
It’s strange. Before, the noise of the people around them was ever-present, almost deafening. But now Ronaldo can hear nothing but the sound of Draluc’s quick, short breaths. Though the air is cold, Draluc’s breath does not condense into small white puffs of cloud. His body is too cold, too dry, to evoke any such chemical reaction.
He’s thin, too. Frail and small despite being nearly as tall as Ronaldo is. Almost unconsciously, Ronaldo knits his hands to complete the circle of his embrace and broadens his stance, a steadfast fortress against every unexpected bump and jostle.
It used to be sort of amusing, despite his frustrations, to watch Draluc fall to sand again and again. Lately, however, the sight has lost all pleasure for Ronaldo. The only reassurance is that Draluc never fails to get back up again.
But sometimes Ronaldo dreams.
Draluc falls to sand, and there is a wind. Or, a river. They sweep Draluc up and carry him away from Ronaldo, faster than Ronaldo can ever hope to catch.
And then Draluc is gone.
Better to not give the wind and water a chance, Ronaldo thinks, even if it’s a foolish thing to fear.
🔔🔔🔔
They wait to hear the bells.
Draluc can feel Ronaldo’s heart pounding. The power of it thrums through Draluc’s body, and he fights the urge to press himself closer.
Ronaldo is so… alive.
Draluc wants to be alive like that, too.
The years in his castle were so very long. If it wasn’t for John, he might as well have been a ghost. Drifting up and down the halls, over and over again. Sometimes he saw John looking at picture books and magazines, looking at photos of places from all over the world. Draluc liked looking through those as well. Temples and pyramids, mountains and lush jungles, all glorious in their own way. Draluc had visited many of them at one point or another with his family.
To Draluc, such fantastical sights paled in comparison to the mundane experiences he truly longed for.
He wanted to go to a grocery store.
To share drinks in a tavern.
To work, to earn his own money, to laugh with comrades.
And, someday, to hear…
“It’s starting!” Ronaldo quietly announces. His warm breath blows over Draluc’s long, pointed ear, and it’s almost scalding.
Donggg…
The heavy bell rings loud and deep, it’s sound spreading through the crowd like water rippling in a pond. Draluc closes his eyes.
This is tradition, religion. This is standing in a crowd of many and just for a moment, being encompassed, no longer a stranger or individuals. Until the bell stops, Draluc is part of something sacred and whole.
🔔🔔🔔
Ronaldo stares at Draluc with undisguised fascination. His face is slack and relaxed, eyes closed as he listens to the bell ringing. What does this moment mean to him?
Ronaldo does not dare ask, does not dare interrupt. Instead, he tries to find the same peace and focus, to reflect on the past year and on his wishes for the future.
His efforts are stymied, again and again.
For someone standing stock-still and doing absolutely nothing at all, Draluc is horribly distracting. Ronaldo continually becomes lost in tracing the lines of Draluc’s form, from the cut of his jaw to the slope of his cheekbone to the delicate, empty veins barely visible in the fine tip of Draluc’s ear.
Draluc smells sweet, but not overbearingly so. He smells sweet the way sawdust in a well-used woodshop smells sweet, the way candle wax does when it is warm.
Suddenly, people around them begin to move. Somehow, an hour has passed already! The last bell has run. The new year has begun, and the people around them move forward for hatsumōde . Ronaldo feels a scrabbling of claws down his back as John scurries off of him and heads toward the forming queue.
Draluc and Ronaldo stay where they are. He notices that Draluc has still not opened his eyes.
“Akemashite omedetō,” Ronaldo says gruffly.
Draluc hums his acknowledgement.
“So, what do you want to do now? Hatsumōde ?” Ronaldo asks. He keeps his arms around Draluc, though the press of bodies around them is thinning.
Can’t be too careful, after all.
“That would be nice, yes. And then, perhaps, we could stay up for Hatsuhinode.”
Ronaldo’s arms reflexively tighten.
“That better be a joke,” Ronaldo says grimly. “You’ll die immediately, idiot.”
“So?” Draluc shrugs casually, finally opening his eyes to meet Ronaldo’s. “That’s hardly unusual.”
“Still. You shouldn’t do it on purpose!”
“For me, it is the price of living. Funny, isn’t it?”
Not really, Ronaldo thinks.
Draluc turns away and looks up at the temple, and Ronaldo is struck by the sight of his long, pale neck. Inexplicably, his mouth begins to water.
Is this how vampires feel? Has Draluc infected me without my knowledge? The bastard…
Delicious looking bastard…
And maybe that will be Ronaldo’s excuse, for he draws Draluc tighter yet.
“Ronaldo? What-”
Ronaldo lowers his head. He does not bite, but he does press his lips to Draluc’s neck, just below Draluc’s ear. Draluc hisses sharply in response, but does not protest.
He smells even sweeter, here.
Ronaldo does not land a second kiss to that surprisingly soft skin, but he doesn’t pull away, either. He simply rests against Draluc’s neck, breathing him in.
“Are you under some sort of spell?” Draluc asks shakily.
“I hope so,” Ronaldo murmurs, his lips brushing against Draluc with each syllable. He can feel the way Draluc shivers at the sensation.
Finally, reluctantly, Ronaldo steps back.
“Let’s find John,” he suggests.
“Yes,” Draluc replies. “Let’s.”
As they walk, their hands find one another's and hold fast, as though their bodies are reluctant to part entirely.
Neither draws attention to this.
And the new year lies before them, full of promise.