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If Akito could talk, he’d say there’s a tiny man drilling into the left side of his skull with a jackhammer.
He can’t talk though, because opening his mouth feels like it would just end with him vomiting the nothing he’s eaten all day, so instead he focuses on putting one foot in front of the other softly enough to not make his head hurt more, up until he stumbles into WEEKEND GARAGE.
He doesn’t need to look up to find Toya, he just walks towards his partner’s voice and collapses into his lap.
“Akito!?” Toya asks, “what’s wrong?”
Akito just groans and buries his face in Toya’s hoodie. “Too much, head hurts.” Opening his mouth at all is hard, his throat’s completely dry. Toya smells nice though.
“Akito? Akito, what happened?”
Toya sounds upset for some reason, but Akito shrugs.
“Akito, I need you to listen to me. Who bit you?”
Bit? Him?
Obviously, Toya bites him but…
Akito opens his eyes to see Toya staring at his arm, and there is a bite mark there.
“Jeez, can’t you go five minutes without getting into trouble?” That voice, that annoying smirk.
Akito turns his head, wincing, and points to Tono. “He bit me.”
“What?”
“He bit me,” Akito repeats, glaring.
“I did not bite him,” Tono says. “Why the hell would I even do that?”
“No, you… you bit me. Outside.” Akito says.
Tono’s annoying smirk pierces through the haze, pushing him up against a wall, sinking his teeth into Akito’s arm.
“I haven’t seen you since you disappeared yesterday.”
“What’re you talking about?” Akito asks. “We’re practicing. We’re doing practice, and I stepped out, and you bit me, like an asshole.”
“No, yesterday was practice. You left and didn’t come back.”
Akito frowns. That’s definitely not right. He was just here, then Tono bit him and his head hurt like hell and now he’s back.
Then he faints.
Akito faints into Toya’s arms, and this whole thing is more confusing than it was before Akito came back.
“I swear I didn’t bite him,” Tono-san says and Toya sighs.
“Obviously, unless you can grow vampire canines,” Toya says. “Can you teleport us someplace?”
“Yeah, sure, whatever,” Tono-san says, though he’s clearly concerned.
Toya gives the address, and suddenly they’re in front of the Tenmas’ door. Toya strides in, carrying Akito.
“Toya! I didn’t know you were–” Tsukasa-senpai stops when he sees Akito. “Mom! We need you!”
They go down to the Tenmas’ alchemy lab in the basement, where Yakumo is instructing Kamishiro-senpai on basic potions.
“So if you need an explosion you can–” Yakumo is saying when they burst in.
“Auntie!” Toya says. “Akito came in talking about how Tono-san bit him and he’s missing about 24 hours of memories.”
“Ok, lay him down,” Yakumo says. “Tsukasa, get my medicinal tools. Rui, get Great Aunt Bertha to show you where her diary is.”
Tsukasa nods and Kamishiro-senpai runs after a ghostly woman back upstairs. When she has her tools, Yakumo begins to examine Akito.
“Symptoms other than fainting and memory loss?” Yakumo asks.
“He mentioned his head hurt,” Tono-san says.
Toya hadn’t realized he was still there, frankly, and he seems nonplussed by all the iron machines around the lab.
“Oh, and you are?”
“Arata Tono,” Tono-san mutters.
“Tono, Tono…” Yakumo says.
“Yoka’s son?” Cousin Usagi says, appearing behind Tono-san. “A male Leanan Sidhe! Very rare, most thought you were a myth.”
“Oh! You’re fae! Is it uncomfortable for you down here?” Yakumo adds.
“Nah, it’s fine, I’m pretty resistant to iron,” Tono-san says. “So you are…”
“The Tenma Clan!” Tsukasa-senpai announces as he comes down the stairs. “A premier family of alchemists, passing our techniques down through the centuries!”
“Our thirst for knowledge is so great not even death can stop us!” Cousin Usagi adds.
Tono-san smiles. “I’ll let Mom know you’re still around.”
“So you said Akito-kun insisted that you bit him, Tono-kun?” Yakumo asks, examining Akito’s eyes and the sickly yellow bite mark on his arm.
“Yes, which is stupid. Fae bites don’t do this.” Tono-san stops. “I don’t think being bitten by a fae does anything, actually.”
“Not in our experience,” Great Aunt Bertha floats down after Kamishiro-senpai. “But you never know!”
Kamishiro-senpai places a thick hand-written book onto the table and Yoka flips through it.
“It’s clearly a vampire bite,” Kamishiro-senpai says.
“Yes, one with venom that confuses the victim and renders them unable to identify their attacker. Useful back in the days when everyone lived in a small town and knew each other.” Yakumo says. “They’d have to be as old as the Aoyagis to have developed something like that. The bite marks are on the radial artery, so someone must have taken Akito-kun and stopped the bleeding afterward.”
“If you found someone bleeding out after getting attacked by a vampire, why would you just let them leave?” Kamishiro-senpai asks.
“That’s an interesting question, but not the most immediate concern,” Yakumo says. “We should figure out who attacked him to get the antivenom, and also vampires have a tendency to…” she stops to ponder her phrasing, “get attached to a specific victim. Theories range as to whether this is an evolutionary desire to have a consistent source of food or to finish the job, but it’s very rare for someone whose been fed on by a vampire and survived to just be left alone after that.”
“Wait,” Tono-san says, “what about Aoyagi?”
Toya’s eye twitches. “I’m not happy someone else was drinking from Akito,” he says. In truth his first thought seeing that bite was that Akito was cheating on him, but he’d swallowed the impulse to lash out when he saw how out of it his partner was. “But usually if you don’t want someone jumping someone, you have to mark them and my parents would not be happy if I formally claimed Akito as mine. They don’t even know he knows I’m a vampire.“
“What do they think you eat?”
“Pre-packaged blood, substitute, uh sometimes I get some from Tsukasa-senpai and Saki,” Toya says, “but it’s not as good as Akito.”
Tono-san snorts.
“Shut up,” Toya says.
“So, to get us back on track, we’re worried that whoever attacked Aki-kun is going to come after him again,” Kamishiro-senpai says. “But Aki-kun knows who attacked him, correct?”
“He thinks Tono did it,” Tsukasa-senpai says.
“Because the venom is confusing him. If someone could draw out the true memories then we could work.”
“Draw out the memories?” Toya asks.
“Some people would use hypnotism to get this done,” Kamishiro-senpai says pointedly.
“Rui! You can’t just ask Toya to hypnotize Akito!” Tsukasa-senpai shouts.
“Senpai, it’s fine,” Toya says. “If it’ll help Akito then I’ll do it.”
“But Toya! You hate–”
Akito stirs at that moment. “Senpai… shut up . You’re so loud.”
“Akito!” Toya says. “How do you feel?”
“Head hurts. Tired.”
“Do you remember anything else?”
“Remember? What am I s’posed to remember?”
“Who attacked you?”
“Attacked?” Akito asks, confused. “When was I… oh…” Akito looks down at the bite mark on his arm. “I guess I was,” Akito mutters, then nods to himself. “Yeah, Tono bit me.”
“I did not!” Tono snaps, and Toya takes a deep breath.
“Akito um, is it ok if I hypnotize you?” Toya asks softly, holding his hand. “We need to see if we can get to your true memories.”
“True? Memories? I– Ack!” Akito clutches his head. “Y-yeah you can do anything you want, Toya.”
Toya winces. He knew that’d be Akito’s response but still, he’s not happy with how willing Akito is to let him do whatever he wants. He grasps Akito’s hand “Ok, I need you to look into my eyes and focus on my voice.”
Akito’s amber eyes bore into him and Toya focuses.
“Akito,” he says. “Listen to me. Focus on what I’m saying, only what I’m saying. You and I are one and the same. Your will is mine and my will is yours.”
Akito’s hand starts to go limp and his eyes cloud over.
“Akito, can you tell us what happened yesterday after you left practice?”
“I went to the convenience store for some snacks. I recognized the song playing as one of your mom’s performances and talked to the older woman running it. She said she was surprised I recognized a Narin Minezawa song. She got excited and gave me extra chocolate.
There was another customer who followed me out though, he had dark hair and eyes and a really annoying smirk like Tono’s–”
“Is that what made you think it was me?!”
“-- and he asked if I’d met Narin Minezawa. I tried to ignore him, but he stopped me, pinned me to the wall and got excited about trying one of Narin Minezawa’s students. I tried to get him to let go but I couldn’t and he bit my arm. Then a crossbow bolt shot out and he exploded into dust, and Hikari patched me up. I still passed out because of the blood loss, but she mentioned something about Watanabe venom. When I woke up in an apartment I left and then went to find you.”
Toya can barely keep his teeth hidden. “Akari Watanabe.”
“Wait, like my teacher Akari Watanabe?” Tono asks.
“She’s had a rivalry with Narin for centuries, and that competitiveness can leak into her sires,” Yoka says. “This is good for us though, because that means we keep the antivenom on us for just such occasions.”
“Damn, I knew they didn’t get a long but attacking someone just because he thinks you’re one of Miss Narin’s students?”
“Newer sires can be dumber,” Kamishiro-senpai explains, but Tsukasa-senpai’s silent.
“Did he say Hikari?” Tsukasa-senpai asks, and Toya flinches.
“Yeah, she’s… She’s alive.”
“Does Hatsuaki know?!” Yakumo gasps.
“No! And you can’t tell him!” Toya insists. “She gave me a letter when we were rescuing Akito from the Order Of The Heavenly Chord saying she never loved Hatsuaki-oniichan and was just using him to watch out family. I can’t tell him that, it’d destroy him! Years of trying to bring her back as a ghost, not knowing where she’s been.”
“She’s been following me.” Akito says.
Everyone turns to him.
“Since… the incident with the Order?” Toya asks.
“Before that. Before I met you, even. She’s always been around.”
“He must have remembered subconsciously,” Kamishiro-senpai says, “so because of the trance he can recall.”
“Wait, wait, the Order’s been keeping track of Akito since before he met Toya?” Tono-san asks. “Why? He’s just a random human. The thrall of the youngest Aoyagi, sure–”
Toya glares at him.
“--don’t give me that look, that’s what they’d think. Anyway, Akito-kun’s almost painfully normal,” Tono-san says, “same as his dad. No reason to get anyone’s attention.”
Yakumo sighs. “Ok, we’ll keep this between everyone here, but… be careful, Toya. I’ve heard things about the Heavenly Chord, and they are not to be trifled with, if they make a move against your family…”
“Thank you. I’ll tell my family I promise, I just need to be sure,” Toya says. “In her letter, Hika-nee talks about how much she hates us but… she let us go. I need to know if she’s in trouble.”
Tsukasa-senpai nods. “Of course! We’ll do everything we can! But first, let’s get Akito-kun that antivenom.”
Toya nods, then turns back to Akito. He focuses and releases Akito from the trance, catching Akito as he slumps over.
“So, that’s what a full trance feels like,” Akito mutters. “Feels weird.”
“Oh, after this do you guys want to stay for dinner?” Tsukasa-senpai shouts and Akito grimaces.
Toya feels tension leave his shoulders as he sees the way Akito reacts to Tsukasa-senpai. If his hypnotism was still affecting him, Akito would feel the same way about Tsukasa-senpai as Toya does.
That’s the danger of being a vampire, especially one with hypnosis. You can never know if someone wants you for you or because of the way you’re affecting them. Vampires are good at making getting fed on pleasant, so pleasant that people can get hooked on the experience.
He doesn’t want that for Akito. If Akito loves him of his own free will, then so be it, but he can’t force it. If Akito meets someone else and falls in love, then so be it.
Toya loves him too much to try and keep him, despite how every vampire instinct he has is screaming at him to keep Akito, to make sure everyone knows not to drink from his partner.
Toya shudders at the thought, then turns to Akito. “You should eat something.”
Akito just leans further into him. “Whatever, I wanna nap.”
“Ok, partner, after you’ve eaten I’ll take you home.”