Work Text:
There is a TV in your cottage in the middle of rural nowhere. Which, was your parents’ first mistake. They had believed their vast collection of DVDs would keep you, and later Rin, entertained for the majority of your childhood. They did not know the extent of a child’s boredom. Most of their DVDs also weren’t suitable for children.
To your credit, you hadn’t been fussy about your lack of variety, content to watch your one Sesame Street DVD over and over again. After your 50th watch 6 months into the year, your father could recite the dialogue of every scene. Being the handyman that he is, he somehow managed to acquire and install a satellite dish. So you got to watch actual TV.
Your exposure to the world is through a box bigger than your head in the basement of your house. You flip through channels with no opinion, giving everything you see a chance. Movies, the news, documentaries, advertisements, sports channels. You watch a ball fly into a net. The stadium erupts in a frenzy of elation, yelling and hollering. The scorer is buried under his teammates. Tonight, a dream is born.
Your parents buy you a ball, happy that you’ll finally be doing something other than watch TV and stare at pictures in your books. “It’s good to go outside.” They say. They do not leave the house unless they have errands to run. Neither of you mention this.
You spend the nights trading passes with Rin, the trees by the nearby beach a natural obstacle course. Every scraped and bloody wound marked with sand. Punishment. A reminder to be careful, to be better. Your parents start having to buy more disinfectant.
When you aren’t practicing, you’re reading up on soccer. The internet signal is terrible, but you can be patient for things that pay off with time. Rules, drills, positions, dribbling, pass courses, formations. Rin isn’t as dedicated as you, opting to play with his two action hero figurines. That is fine. You can be dedicated enough for the both of you. As long as Rin keeps practicing with you, you can’t ask of more from him.
You tell your parents you want to be a professional soccer player on your 13th birthday. They smile at you and break your only dream. You are a vampire. The sun rejects you, and vice versa. You will never go pro. You will never experience half of the human world.
Your dream shatters on the floor the way that mug did when you accidentally tipped it over the kitchen counter because you were reaching too high for your toddler self, along with your heart on the floor of your stomach. Something weighs heavy in your gut. You can’t tell if it’s grief or your dinner. Either way, you feel like throwing up.
Your family, unaware of your suffering, carries on with the preparations for your birthday celebration. Cake for dessert after dinner. Presents wrapped all nice and pretty. You sit by the dining table, earl grey cake and candles before you as your family sings off-key. An impossible wish is made and you blow out the candles. Wisps of smoke caress your face. You miss the warmth already.
You sneak out while Rin is busy playing by himself to the beach nearby your house. There is a full moon smiling down at you, illuminating every curve and dip of the waves. With your enhanced eyesight, you see every sliver of dimmed light in all its glory. You sit by the shore and watch.
In. Out. In. Out. In. Out.
Swish. Swish. Swish.
You breathe in with it. In. Out. Slowly, the world comes back to you. Slowly, your broken and frantic heart calms down.
Water laps at your feet, burying them under in place of sand. It’s cold. When you’re a vampire, everything feels cold. Sometimes you forget you have a heart and struggle to feel it beating within your chest, flickering like a flame. You could thrust your hand in the crackling fireplace of your home and hardly feel the heat.
You’ve only seen a sunlit beach in commercials. A cloudless sky, bright teal waters, what lies within the sea. Happy families, children swimming. A beach ball bouncing across the sand. Bounce, bounce, bounce...Bounce...Bounce....Roll...... Seagulls flying overhead. It is a sunny sight. The sun is associated with happiness because it is warm to be shone upon.
You have never faced the full brunt of the sun. And you never will unless you wish to be burnt to a crisp of ash. (You do not.) But still, you wish you could be shone upon by the sun. To feel the discomfort of sweat on your neck from a warm sun ray, to be inconvenienced by blinding light, to hold your hand up to the glowing sphere in the sky and stare up at it through the gaps of your fingers.
When you blew out your candles, you wished to conquer the sun.
Warm, warm, warm-
To think that such a simple thing crushed your dream before it even started. Not through physical weakness, or injury, or a lack of motivation. But an inability to go out in daylight. You feel like walking to the cliff by the far end of the beach to stand on it and scream for a long time. Only the moon shall bear witness, offering a fraction of the sun’s apology.
Instead, you add more salt water to the sea, staring at seafoam appear and disappear. A crow flies overhead, clockwise then counterclockwise, cawing irritatingly. It only stops once you start your first foot towards home, perched on a tree watching you.
You take another deep breath by the front steps of your house, closing your eyes. The sun rejects you. So be it. You’ll still keep playing soccer with Rin. As you get older, you can try and meet other vampires who are interested in soccer. The world isn’t ending yet. The future remains open. You just have to keep your heart open as well. The path ahead of you is bright.
Bright. Warm. Warm.
Warm.