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The neon signs are the only thing keeping Rinne awake–they buzz and drone on, they shine into his eyes. It’s impossible to rest. Rinne’s foray into the city didn’t go as planned, so he’ll die here. In an alleyway, behind a butcher, far away from his hometown.
His brother’s a good kid–a little naive, but with naivete comes a big heart. His reign will not be long like that, but he will be a good king. As Rinne’s vision blurs, he almost thinks he sees his brother standing in front of him.
It’s not, though. Whoever’s standing in front of him is a bit taller than Hiiro would be right now. The neon lights outline a gaunt face, sharp teeth, cerulean eyes that seem to glow slightly.
“Are you okay?” asks the boy.
“Nope,” Rinne replies, throat scratchy and mouth dry to the point where he doesn’t recognize his own voice. “Scram while ya can, kid. You don’t wanna see some poor bastard die in front of you.”
The kid sighs. “It’s actually too late for me there, mister. And you don’t smell anywhere near death! Here.” He reaches an arm out, and Rinne foolishly takes it, not thinking straight, and is surprised when the kid wrenches him up with little effort and puts Rinne around his shoulders like a hog. “Let’s get you back.”
Time passes, it is a blur. He smells something, bringing his eyes back into focus. He’s in a small, dingy apartment, and there’s a glass of water in front of him. Rinne knows he’s dehydrated, so it takes almost as much strength not to chug the whole thing right there and shock his system as it does to move his sore and tired arms to grab the glass and sip.
Where the glass was, two bowls appear. One is rice, the other miso soup. Probably the only thing the kid knows how to cook on his own.
The boy sits down next to him and goes. “You only smelled about one third of the way dead, which is less than half dead. I think. I don’t really go to school. Anyway, that’s probably enough that I can still fix it.”
Only a third dead. The optimism really does remind him of Hiiro.
The boy sits there, staring at him. “Eat, mister! Come on.”
“Have you eaten today?” Rinne asks.
“Sure!” The boy lies.
Rinne sighs, his breath crackling against his dry throat on its way out. “Listen, kid, if you’re as starved and dehydrated as I am, you can’t eat or drink so much at once, it’ll be too much. Gotta pace myself, okay?” He takes a token bite of the rice, it tastes better than any food he’s ever eaten in his life. He moves the bowl to the other side of the table. “We can split it.”
The boy pushes the bowl back. “I’m allergic.”
“To rice?”
“Yup.”
“Have some of the soup, then.”
“Allergic to that, too.”
“You’re allergic to rice and miso soup? Let me guess, you can’t have sushi or ramen either?”
“No? Why? What does it matter to you if I’m allergic to stuff! If you can’t eat it all then I’ll just stick it in the fridge.”
Rinne’s in a bind. The boy obviously hasn’t eaten today, but on the off chance he really is allergic to all this stuff, Rinne can’t in good conscience make him eat it. He decides to let it be, maybe he’ll get more answers out of the kid, maybe tomorrow he’ll have his strength back enough to go out and find something the kid can eat.
He’ll obey for now, taking a few more sips of water, a few bites of the food, trying to gauge what exactly is going on here in the meantime.
Over the next hour, he learns a few things: the boy’s name is Shiina Niki, he’s fourteen years old, his parents left Japan to go live in Romania eight months ago, and they send him money but he otherwise has to fend for himself. Rinne finds that so heartless–this tiny, frail kid (Is he frail, though? He did pick Rinne up and bring him all the way here.) all alone in the big city? With some kind of medical condition that makes him unable to eat a staple food like rice.
The boy–Niki–tells him he should stay the night, and he’s too weak to actually refuse, even though imposing on this child is the last thing he wants to be doing right now.
Rinne falls asleep on the couch.
He wakes up being tied to it.
He doesn’t know what time it is–there’s black-out curtains on all the windows. He doesn’t know how long he slept for, though he feels way better.
“Sorry, mister,” says Niki as he finishes looping the rope around the couch, pulling it taut. “You smell alive enough, and I don’t think I can wait any longer, so…” He trails off, knotting the rope.
He kneels in front of Rinne on the couch, twisting his forearm around, pushing some of the rope out of the way. “I know I’m a monster and don’t deserve to be alive, but I’m just gonna take a little sip to tide me over.” And he plunges his teeth into Rinne’s arm.
It all adds up the moment his flesh is pierced–Rinne feels stupid for not figuring it out earlier. He failed, anyway, was dying, so it wouldn’t have mattered how much blood the kid took. Niki could’ve had a full meal, sucked him dry, and left Rinne rotting in the alley where he belonged.
This innocent kid doesn’t deserve to think he’s a monster. Niki was completely selfless, took him in, fed him. He deserves to be taking more than a “little sip.”
It’s over very quickly. The kid has Rinne’s blood all over his face, and he wipes at it, smearing it around. He trots over to the kitchenette, more vigorous already, and retrieves the leftovers.
“You’re gonna have to eat more today than you did yesterday, okay?” Niki says, scooping up some of the rice with a spoon and starting to move it towards Rinne’s mouth. “I won’t let you go until you’re all better, and me having to feed off you is gonna make your recovery slower. I’ll try not to impose too much, though. Now that I have some of my energy back, I can probably make better food for you! I like smelling it, it smells way better than you humans do, so just tell me what your favorites are, okay?”
—
Pizza, his favorite. As soon as he walks in, he smells the tomato-mozzarella-basil combination, and it gets his blood pumping. A Pavlovian response, at this point.
Niki usually makes pizza when he’s about to take a lot of blood from Rinne. Makes sense–they’ve been hella busy lately, trying to skip town, being caught by those hero nerds, trying to frantically explain to Morisawa that they have to get back to the city before dawn, all the hullabaloo at MDM itself–exhausting. He could see Niki’s energy flagging by the end, even if he’s usually so upbeat as to now show it.
They’ve been ordered to live in the dorms, now, but there’s no privacy in a setting like that, so lest anyone who’s not also in the same boat (Morisawa was surprisingly chill about the whole thing, and Rinne finds that “fishy.”) find out, they’ll probably be back at this apartment every few days.
Niki sets out an entire jug of water on the table, then dips back and sets a bowl of mandarins down next to it.
“Oranges? What is this, Niki, New Years?”
“Ugh, I wish! Imagine if I could go out at five! I joined one of those circles at Seisoukan, an outdoors-y type one, and they wanted their inaugural activity with all the members to be going out on a hike that started in the afternoon!”
Rinne knuckles into an orange, peeling a large swath of rind off to reveal the juicy citrus within. “Ya sure you wanna do activities like that?”
“It’s not like I can’t handle going on hikes and stuff!” Niki gripes. “The circle is called ‘Overnight Outdoors Party,’ Rinne. O! Ver! Night! Why would they wanna go do stuff at like, two p.m.?”
“If they pull that shit again, invite me along.” Rinne gives two mandarin-pulp-covered finger-guns. “I’ll stand around with a parasol and protect ya, Niki-kyun!”
Niki grimaces, unimpressed. “No thanks.”
“C’mon Niki, baby, I just–”
He’s cut off by the oven beeping. Niki darts up, ending the conversation, and goes to grab the pizza. A pleasant, spicy aroma fills the air as he sets it directly in front of Rinne on the table. His eyes water as the steam floats up, the molten mozzarella floating in perfect, blood-red tomato sauce, a canal system in which basil-leaf gondolas float.
Rinne thinks he should be one of those idols who reviews food. He’d slay.
Niki takes a huge whiff of the pizza, nostrils flaring. “Ohhhhh, it smells so good! You better finish it off properly, Rinne-kun; this is my best work yet.” His head lies low next to the pizza, where Rinne can occasionally hear him deeply inhale, opening nose and mouth for a full-palate experience, like an animal. There’s drool dripping off one of his fangs, glistening in the dim single-light bulb kitchen. Delicious.
Rinne can barely focus on the pizza. He makes a satisfied sound as he bites into it, Niki was right about it being his best work. It feels nostalgic, like a return to tradition, coming home after a long day, literal and metaphorical. He keeps his eyes on Niki, though, slightly obscured by the steam off the still piping-hot pizza (not burning the roof of your mouth is for pussies), wondering when the hell that innocent kid grew up, and how the hell he got so sexy.
Rinne feels like a huge creep, because he can’t pinpoint the exact time that Niki got sexy. It was gradual, it could’ve happened at any moment, even when Niki was like, super young. He’s not anymore, that’s for sure, just weeks out from eighteen, ready to join Rinne in adulthood as they start this new chapter of their lives, where Rinne finally feels, for the first time in his life, like a real idol.
So far from the one third dead teenager a selfless vampire took in all those years ago, but still here, in the same low-rent apartment, at the same scuffed old table, repaying this creature of the night with every spare drop of blood he has left to give.
He shoves the last bit of crust into his mouth as he screws open the jug, taking a few huge gulps of water.
Rinne stands up. “Let’s get this show on the road, shall we?”
Niki stands up and walks over to him, grabbing his forearm, taking his hair tie out and shoving it up Rinne’s arm, letting it snap snugly just above his elbow. “You shouldn’t be standing up. If you fall over and hit your head and get brain damage, I wouldn’t even feel bad.”
Rinne hooks the hair tie with one finger, moving it back down, “We’ve been doin’ the arm thing forever, Niki, and I was thinkin’, if maybe ya wanted to graduate to drinking from my neck…”
Rinne shucks his shirt off, throwing it across the room to be draped over the back of the couch.
“I guess…” Niki purses his lips. “It would be a lot easier.”
“Put a little love-bite on my neck, wontcha? So I can show everybody how kinky my–”
“Gross!” He pushes Rinne into the wall. Niki’s vampiric strength was always impressive, but now that they’re closer in size, Niki is fully able to push Rinne around like a ragdoll if he wishes. Though, much to Rinne’s chagrin, he rarely indulges.
Niki winces, as such a show of force was clearly unintentional.
“God, it’s so hot when you do that,” Rinne grins lazily, cocking his head to the side, blatantly exposing the arch of his neck.
Niki sighs, begins stomping towards him. “Did you know I made that mozzarella by hand? I thought, ‘hey, Rinne-kun’s been through a lot this week, I’ll make it all special for him,’ and this is how you repay me? By being a total perv?” He reaches where Rinne ended up, grabbing his shoulders and squaring them back into the wall. He leans down into the crook of Rinne’s neck and mutters, “Yanno, you’re lucky I’m so forgiving.”
Niki begins by nosing about over his neck, clavicle, and shoulder. With Rinne’s arm, it was a quick sniff to confirm, but this is untrod territory. His sense of smell is exemplary, probing beneath the surface like a sanguine dowsing rod.
“You smell like my pizza,” he comments. Rinne hears the smile on his face.
He settles on a spot above the clavicle, delicately pushing a lock of hair behind his ear as he chomps down. The piercing sensation recedes as quickly as it set on, and is replaced with the sucking and slurping that hallmarks these large meals.
It was another gradual thing—first he tolerated it so Niki could live, then he grew comfortable with being fed on, and then—as seems to be the terminus for all his interactions with Niki—it became really, really, hot.
He hopes he can still feed him well tonight when all his blood seems determined to flow elsewhere. Would Niki metabolize all the adrenaline in his blood? The endorphins? Will he feel as good? He knows Niki has a big appetite, so drinking from him must be pleasant in some sense, but Rinne is not sure how deep it goes.
It might not go as deep as Rinne. It probably doesn’t–this is something he does in the same way he breathes and sleeps, a part of life.
So Rinne will hope that it does work like that, that Niki feels all the hormones in his blood–he would know Rinne truly enjoys it, wants him to enjoy it, wants him not to feel like a monster who doesn’t deserve to live–he said that the first time he drank from Rinne, and he’s said it one-hundred forty-nine times since. It’s so devastating to hear, this wonderful, innocent man, this beacon of hope that Rinne gets to come home to, call himself that–such blows end up being tallied. Dozens upon dozens of notches on a metaphorical wall, etched in stone more deeply than any wins or losses in gambling.
Rinne is always lightheaded after pizza night. He’s fainted several times. One of the alarmingly few things Rinne knows about Niki’s condition (which is, unfortunately, a completely different type of vampirism than the one the Sakumas have, so that was a dead end) is that his saliva has a coagulant in it, a natural stopping point. Evolutionarily advantageous, to stop one from burning through all the food in an area by drinking everyone in town dry. Maybe even removing those with severe anemia or other blood disorders from the human population in a symbiotic fashion.
Niki finishes up, licking all the blood left off of Rinne’s chest, thoroughly, every last drop until he’s clean, where there are only two fresh red holes above his clavicle. Rinne mentally scans his wardrobe, wondering if he owns any scoop-neck shirts that’ll show them off. Niki sticks his arms under Rinne’s shoulders–his vision clouds a bit as he’s moved–setting him down gently on the couch, where Niki picks up Rinne’s discarded shirt and throws it at him, before grabbing the jug and the oranges and placing them next to Rinne, a natural divider as he sits down next to him.
Rinne drapes the shirt over himself as best as he can, knowing it’ll be a few minutes before he can muster the energy to actually put it back on.
“How was it?” he asks nonchalantly, “Drinking from the neck.”
Niki squirms in his seat, crossing his legs. “Actually, Rinne-kun, I think for once you actually had an idea that wasn’t stupid or insane!”
Rinne scoffs, playfully offended.
“It was easy and quick to get all I needed because of all the major blood arteries up there.” Niki’s antsy, despite his level-headed analysis of the new blood-sucking setup. He grabs an orange and begins peeling.
Rinne zones out, aware that Niki’s agitated state is probably his fault (in a good way, he’s happy about it for the most part), but not really in any state of his own to instigate anything. (Probably better to wait until the back half of October, just to be safe.)
He’s pleasantly surprised when Niki pops out in front of him, holding an orange segment. He obediently opens his mouth, allowing Niki to pop the slice in. His face is full of its usual post-drink concern for Rinne, eyes glowing at their fullest, intent and serious, framed by cute furrowed brows, rare pink cheeks, and a little pout on his blood-stained lips.
“You’re okay, right? It went a lot faster than it normally does; you didn’t lose too much at once, did you?”
Rinne flashes his signature lackadaisical, lopsided grin. “I’m conscious, ain’t I? Nothing that a good night’s sleep in bed cuddling with my wife won’t fix.”
Niki balks. “What wife! The only way someone like you’d ever get a wife is if you won one in a poker game!”
Rinne tips himself over into Niki, half-assedly hugging him. “Niki-kyun’s my wife! We live together, you feed me, an’ you’re a total smokeshow on par with my roguish handsomeness.”
“Quit talking nonsense! We live in separate rooms in the dorms, I cook for everyone, and I’m not an idol for my looks! Also! Big also, I’m a boy, I can’t be your wife!”
“Whatever,” Rinne says, speech slurring a little as he gets comfortable leaning over Niki, who is naturally cold-blooded, his chill skin a perfect antidote to the droning August heat. “Husband. Still sexy, though.”
Niki could push him off, or slip out from underneath him–he’s twice as strong as Rinne, probably even more that he’s just had a meal–but he doesn’t. He lets Rinne lean over onto him, push him down and down into the couch, lay slack atop him. Niki’s arms come out from beneath him, though, settling on Rinne’s back, not for the purpose of holding him, but because that’s just the most comfortable place for them to rest in this position.
“G’night, Niki,” Rinne whispers, nuzzling into the crook of his neck.
“You’re not falling asleep on the couch,” Niki doesn’t whisper.
“Carry me to bed, then.”
“No way!”