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For nine hundred and eighty two years, the demon named Orikasa Yukito had lived alone in a castle at the heart of a cursed forest with only the frozen and cursed corpse of his best friend for company. He had frozen Ban’s corpse in order to keep it from rotting so that he could sleep with it in his bed; he had cursed it so that Ban’s soul would never be able to escape to the next life, no matter how hard it tried.
Eighteen years ago, he had let Ban’s soul go in a deal that he couldn’t refuse, and now all he had was Ban’s frozen body, which would remain as long as the new curse on Ban’s soul stayed intact, and then he would be completely alone forever until Ban hunted him down and killed him for all of the curses and also for being weird with his corpse, even though at this point Yuki had had it for far longer than Ban had lived in it.
But Yuki, despite having persisted for a thousand years with no lifestyle changes other than transporting the corpse around his castle, had a problem. He had survived for so long, but he might not be surviving much longer. Cursing Ban’s soul a second time in accordance with the deal he’d been offered had taken far more out of him than he’d expected, and he had not been permitted to replenish that strength with human blood. He could have hunted, of course—humans had persisted in this forest for longer than Yuki had been alive, and though there were very few of them left, it would still be enough to nourish him. But Ban had made him swear years and years ago not to hurt anyone who didn’t hurt him first, and moreover to protect the people of their forest, so that was a no-go. Yuki missed Ban yelling at him, like he missed everything about Ban, but he was fairly certain that, unlike kissing Ban’s corpse and cursing his soul multiple times, if he broke his promise not to hunt humans Ban would never ever forgive him.
Ban had had rules for how they could hunt humans, of course. They’d both needed human blood to survive. But Yuki had decided a thousand years prior that he wouldn’t be having any more blood until Ban could have some too, and had promptly forgotten those rules. By the time he realized that had been a mistake, it was far too late—he couldn’t leave the forest, and no outsider humans ever came in, and all of the animals in the forest ran far too fast for him to catch them and drink their blood, so instead of even trying he was currently lying on the floor of the entrance to his castle and slowly starving to death. He had been doing this for three years now and things were going great. It was true that his control over the animals in the forest was lessening, so that they were getting closer and closer to endangering the people of the village he was sworn to protect. It was also true that he missed Ban’s corpse, tucked carefully into bed upstairs, desperately. But three years was not very long at all in the grand scheme of things, and he thought that it would probably be another few years before he got up and starved to death somewhere else.
And then something completely unexpected happened: the great doors of the castle were pushed open and a human figure stepped inside. Even from all the way across the room, Yuki could smell the blood in their veins, warm and thick and lucious, and his entire body ached with hunger.
Go away, go away, he thought, Ban will be so mad at me if I eat you, so please go away…
The human did not go away. Instead, he moved further through the entrance hall, the scent of his blood growing stronger with every step, and by the time he was halfway across the hall it was taking everything in Yuki to remain motionless on the floor. The human gasped; Yuki’s last coherent thought was of the sound mortals made when their blood spilled out as the human called “Are you okay?” and hurried over. Yuki was in no condition to parse the sounds coming out of the human’s mouth; all he was aware of was his hunger, and all that he knew was that he could not, under any circumstances, sate it. Then the human was right there, warm and full of blood and lifting Yuki’s torso off of the ground, and even that knowledge disappeared. Food— here— and Yuki lunged forward and sunk his teeth into the human’s neck until his hunger abated enough that his rational mind returned and he remembered first his vow to Ban not to hurt humans and second the real reason he had chosen to wait for Ban to get back before drinking any more blood: blood tasted bad, and human flesh had an awful texture, and whatever Ban’s special way of hunting had been had definitely involved something to make it taste better and to eliminate the need for Yuki to bite anything living.
The living thing that he was currently biting was not doing anything to make this situation any better for Yuki, either. It was wriggling, so that the texture just got worse and worse, and screaming, which gave Yuki a headache.
Then he realized that he was doing exactly what Ban had made him swear never to do—hurting a human of the village—and so he took his mouth off the human’s neck and let go, and the human scrambled away towards an axe leaning against the wall and Yuki scrambled to remember the manners Ban had drilled into him over a thousand years ago. How to apologize properly? —Slit your belly? —No, that was for humans whom Ban was hunting ethically, they slit their bellies and Ban and Yuki harvested the blood, harvested and mixed it with—something, something, Yuki still couldn’t remember, but it was truly shocking how much clearer his head was now that he’d had something to eat for the first time in a millennium.
“I’m sorry for drinking your blood without permission,” Yuki said, bowing on bended knee and hoping that words were an acceptable manner of apology. “It’s not my blood, and I shouldn’t have taken what does not belong to me. The only explanation I can give is that I was starving, and my body moved thoughtlessly. You have my word that I will not do it again.”
“How can I know that?!” said the human, his hands wrapping around the handle of the axe. “If you have no control—”
“Had,” Yuki corrected him. “I am no longer dying. I have control of myself again, and of the animals of the forest, and of the spells of this castle, so neither myself nor the animals nor the spells will harm you again.”
The human’s eyes sharpened. “So you do control the animals,” he said. “Why have they been attacking our hunters? It’s been causing a lot of trouble for B—for my friend who has to handle their complaints. He already has a lot of work even without the hunters getting injured!”
“I control them again now, ” said Yuki, “but I was just starving to death, and I wasn’t able to use my powers. Now I have control over them again…or most of them, I’m not sure, but regardless they won’t attack the people of the village again. As far as I can tell, my power over the animals waned around the same time I became too weak to use the stairs. It will likely be another thousand years before I reach that point again, and once another thousand years have passed I do not believe that there will be a village to protect anymore.”
“Why…why not?” said the human, his hands tightening on the handle of the axe. “And what do you mean, protect ?”
“A thousand years ago it was a city,” said Yuki. “A great city, and a proud one. But as time made its way onward, the great city grew smaller and smaller, and now it’s a village. The village has only grown smaller as well, and I do not expect that it will last another thousand years, no matter what I do.”
“Is the village your food source?” the human asked.
Yuki shook his head. “I do not drink blood without permission,” he said, and then added, “Usually. It was an accident with you. A thousand years ago, I made a vow to protect the city that has become the village, and I intend to keep that vow. That’s all.”
“Is blood…your main food source?” asked the human.
“Yes,” said Yuki. “Or, it’s the only food that I can draw nourishment from, and if I haven’t had enough blood I can’t physically eat other food. We used to mix blood with fruit or vegetable juice for me, and that was good, but…it was a long time ago, and it may never happen again.”
The human’s expression softened; he looked at Yuki and said, “Why not?”
“Because it doesn’t taste half as good when it isn’t made by my partner,” Yuki said, “and he’s…gone.”
The human swallowed. “I’m…sorry for your loss,” he said. “Did he, um. Did he make the same vow that you did?”
“No,” said Yuki. “He trusted the humans, even after we became demons. After they killed him he made me swear to protect them too, no matter what.”
“After you— became—” The human’s face went white. “You—you sucked my blood—am I going to turn into a demon too?!”
“No,” said Yuki. “I could turn you, but not like that. It would be the other way around: I would be feeding you my blood and imbuing you with my power. Which I don’t have enough of right now to turn you even if you wanted to be.”
“Which I really, really don’t,” said the human, still a little pale and shaky. “And—you don’t want to turn me either. Right?”
Yuki thought about it. He didn’t like being alone, but he liked the thought of upsetting Ban by making another demon even less, and the thought of being around a demon who wasn’t Ban least of all.
“Right,” he said. “I don’t.”
The human nodded. “Okay,” he said. “And…and if you had a regular source of blood, you would regain more of your power.”
“Yes. Eating regularly is healthy for all beings, demons included.”
“And if you wielded more power, you would better be able to protect the village,” said the human. “To keep the beasts away, and keep them from harming our hunters…would you be able to affect the harvests in our fields, too?”
Yuki thought about it. “I could get you more sunlight,” he said. “That would inspire the plants to reach higher and grow quicker. I don’t know if that would be enough, though…”
“No no no, more sunlight would be wonderful!” said the human, dropping the axe with a clatter and scrambling back over to Yuki on all fours, so that they were eye-to-eye. “As much sunlight as you could get. Please. Though—” he paused, considering. “Only during the day, please. At night it would disturb his sleep.”
“His?”
The human’s hand went up to a silver chain around his neck and wrapped itself around a locket at the end of the chain. “My friend,” he said. “The mayor’s son. He’s…been under a lot of stress lately, and yet he keeps cutting into his time to rest to spend time with me, and give me attention. He’s a very kind person…and he works himself too hard. So if there was sunlight at night, it would disturb his rest, and I couldn’t accept that.”
“Sunlight is easier to get during the day, anyway,” said Yuki. “So I don’t see a problem with that.”
“Great!” said the human. “So—how about I come and visit you a couple nights a week, and you can drink my blood and grow in power. And in exchange, you’ll continue protecting our village and keeping the beasts away, and will start getting us more sunlight for our harvests. Does that sound like a good deal?”
Yuki frowned. “And there isn’t anything else you want?” he said. “You just want to come here and talk to me and feed me for nothing?”
“For the sunlight and the beasts and—”
“That’s all things I would be trying to do anyway,” said Yuki. “The last human who made a deal with me wanted a chance to cut off my head without me fighting back, and he wanted a whole person whose will would be under his control alone. He offered me a deal that I couldn’t refuse, and then took enough from me that I would die before I got my desire. What are you trying to take from me ?”
The human squeaked. “I’m not! I’m not trying to take anything. That’s all I want to ask you for, I promise. Just sunlight for our fields, and safety for our hunters, and rest for my friend. I promise!”
“You don’t have to lie,” Yuki said, confused. “I’m not upset. You giving me your blood means that I’ll live long enough to see every promise I made through. I’d just like to know what you really want before I say yes.”
The human looked down. “What I really want…” he echoed, and then he shook his head. “That’s not something I can ask of anybody, and not something that you could ever give me. Sorry. I’m not gonna be changing my request or asking anything else of you.”
This was a stark difference from the other humans Yuki had met, most of which believed that he could do literally anything if they gave him their souls. He frowned, looking a little closer at the human, and said, “Tell me what it is.”
“Huh?”
“What you really want. If you say I can’t do it, I believe you, because I can do a lot less than most humans believe I can. But I want to know anyway.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re interesting,” Yuki said. “So I want to know more about you. That’s all.”
“Oh…” said the human. His face was very red, despite the amount of blood he’d lost. “It’s, um. It’s really embarrassing.”
Yuki perked up.
“So I don’t want to say it!”
“Please?” Yuki said, making his best puppy-dog eyes at him, and he was rewarded by the human’s face going even redder. “Pretty pretty please? With a cherry on top?”
“You’re so handsome…” mumbled the human, and Yuki smirked and then started batting his eyelashes at him.
“You can tell me,” Yuki said. “It’s not like I have anyone to tell.”
“That’s…but I…it’s embarrassing!”
“It doesn’t have to be,” said Yuki. “Just tell me. I can agree to the deal once you tell me what you really want.”
The human squeezed his eyes shut and hunched his head down under his shoulders and said, “IwantsomeonetolovemeasmuchasIlovethem.”
“What?” said Yuki.
“I want someone to love me as much as I love them! But—I don’t deserve it, I really don’t, and I’m lucky that I have people who tolerate me, and I don’t need anything else, really I don’t. It’s just—something I wish sometimes, that’s all.”
Yuki tilted his head. “Why don’t you deserve love?” he asked.
The human hunched down even smaller. “Because I’m alive, I make trouble for my big sister,” he said. “She’d have a much better life if I wasn’t a part of it. And my friend…he’s so kind, and he always makes time for me, and he says the nicest things, but…he isn’t supposed to spend time around me, and I think…I think that people are treating him differently, now, since they know we spend time together. I’m only dragging him down, him and Nee-chan both, and I don’t deserve any of their attention or any of their love, but I want all of it anyway.”
“That sounds like they love you,” said Yuki.
“They do!” the human said. “They do, but…it isn’t enough. And it’s pathetic and disgusting of me to want any more.”
“Did they say that to you?”
The human shook his head. “No, they would never, but…it’s true anyways. And I don’t let them see how greedy I am, either. Because—because I’m too greedy to let them see how much better they deserve. Don’t you see? Nobody can grant me deepest desire because nobody can love me that much. It just isn’t possible. So I wouldn’t ask that of you or anyone else in the world.”
“Could I try?” Yuki asked.
“Wh-what?”
“Could I try loving you as much as you want to be loved?”
The human stared at him, shocked. “What—that’s—why would you say something like that?”
“What’s your name?” said Yuki.
“Sunohara Momose,” the human said. “Seriously, why—”
“Hi, Momo,” said Yuki. “My name is Yuki.”
Momo stared at him, shocked, and then he stood and turned and fled from the castle, leaving the axe and Yuki behind him. Yuki listened to him leave, and then he went upstairs to where Ban’s frozen corpse lay waiting. He looked down at the bloody hollows that had once been his eyes, the jagged crevasse that had once been his nose, the long blue hair fanned out in the ice—the only feature untouched by time.
“I made a friend today, Ban,” he said, because Momo hadn’t run away screaming, which was always a good sign. “I think you would like him a lot.” He paused, thinking of the human who had come to him eighteen years prior, and of the deal they had made then. “Have you already met him? If you have, I’m sure you like him too. …If you can still like things, the way you are now.” He paused again. “I hope you’re the friend Momo mentioned. I hope you two have fun together.”
There was no response from the corpse, as was usual; Ban had, after all, been dead for a thousand years now, and never would answer him as such again, but Yuki stood there listening anyway, as Momo fled through the forest as though racing the dawn and Ogami Banri, the mayor’s son, stood at the village gate and waited for him and worried for him and, above all else, loved him.