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His footsteps echoed down the hall, squeaking like mice across the polished floors. It was just him and his backpack, passing by the empty classrooms. Most students were gone for the day, or at the sport fields, or downstairs in the special activities rooms. Most clubs were about done for the day too, the sun finally setting behind the mountains surrounding the village.
Hikaru would be done with Soccer Club soon, and Yoshiki was done with his homework at least. He sighed as he passed the long forgotten Photography Club room, and continued towards the front of the school. His street shoes and sunhat awaited him in his locker. The fear of finding death inside it still clung to him like claws to skin.
But there was nothing rotting and bleeding in there. No letter calling him a tick, or a leech, or a monster. Sweat and relief seeped from underneath his shirt, and he blew a cold, long breath out, getting ready to finally step into the light of the setting sun.
Long shadows helped Yoshiki make his way to the soccer field. His face might have been covered, but his arms were still exposed, and it was still too hot to bring a jacket to school.
The students were cleaning up, cooling down with water and easy stretches. Spotting Hikaru was second-nature to Yoshiki, it had been for years at this point. The vampire smiled when his friend saw him in return, his face immediately lighting up, hands flailing over his head into a frantic wave.
His tail was also wagging out of control.
Hikaru could not keep his emotions in check.
And it was the most adorable thing.
Yoshiki took a seat on a shady ledge. In the distance he could see Hikaru running from the end of the fields, all the way towards him.
"Yoshikiii!"
Sweat dripped from his white hair, raining down on his shirt and the grass beneath him.
His goofy smile was bright as day.
"Don't you dare shake."
"Ahhh, I wasn't gonna but now...!"
"N-no..!!" With a wolfish smile, Hikaru threatened to shake the sweat of himself, but Yoshiki rose quickly to get a hold of his hair and push him down.
"Ah, gross..." Yoshiki groaned. His hand was soaked.
Hikaru giggled, his mischievous goal achieved.
"I'm gonna hit the showers real' quick." Hikaru said, his smirk turning soft and jolly. Yoshiki still played with his hair, pressing down his fluffy, wolf ears.
"Do you wanna grab a bite afterwards?"
Hikaru hadn't let Yoshiki pet his wolf ears in years. He would even take the week off from school, so no one would see him turning.
"Sure." Yoshiki cleaned his sweat-soaked hand on his pants, trying to ignore the fact that 'Hikaru's musk would cling to him until next week. "We can finish homework together, then."
"Sounds good!" Hikaru gave him a little wave and ran back to the fields.
From underneath his hat, Yoshiki discreetly admire the glistening white fur of Hikaru's tail.
No vampire would be out there at such hours of the day. Even with the mountains casting great shadows, the mere reflection of sunlight was enough to burn any vampire. But not Yoshiki and his sister.
He was grateful for it. For being half human, and be able to live like a normal person amongst his peers. He remembered his father, many years ago, telling him of his high school experience, taking night classes with other photophobic occults. His father was lucky to have a day-walking friend, Hikaru's dad, who integrated him into his culture.
Yoshiki was grateful for his mother, of not only giving him genes strong enough to endure the sun, but for fighting for his and Kaoru's right to participate in day-time school. It was no secret that society treated night-walkers as lesser people, receiving less opportunities in every sense of the way. She confronted the school district, but ultimately the officials said it would be too painful for Yoshiki. It was for his own good.
Satoko made Yoshiki prove them wrong.
He didn't burst into flames, but did walk home with angry, red sunburns. His mother held his hand, squeezing it white until they were back indoors, away from the aching light.
"You did really well, baby." She sniffed, holding him so close, Yoshiki could feel the blood pumping inside her. "I'm so sorry. I hope you can forgive me." She held his little face to hers, tears threatening to break loose from her eyes.
"But I will not let them take Life away from you."
Yoshiki was six.
Three years later, Kaoru had to go through the same trial. They almost didn't let her prove her constitution because she was a girl.
"She's too frail."
"How barbaric! What kind of mother would let her child go through such a thing!"
But Kaoru walked into the light regardless, Yoshiki's caution of the pain fresh in her mind. She didn't cry, didn't complain, and returned home walking hand in hand with her mother and brother, sunlight glaring down their necks.
Yoshiki's first day of Junior High wasn't as successful. He couldn't comprehend the violence that laid in his individual chair and table. The feathers and viscera, the awkward angle of the bird's head. It didn't help that it was a crow.
"Who did this!?" Hikaru yelled.
Yoshiki was frozen. Stunned. He could hear his classmates laughing at him for crying, for being a blood-sucking vampire. He could hear Hikaru raging behind him, throwing punches, drawing more blood.
Yoshiki and Hikaru were sent home that day, before first class period ever started.
"Hikaru-kun," the vice-principal explained, "violence is never the answer."
"Tell that to the dead bird!" Hikaru yelled back at him, flipping him off.
Hikaru's mom and Yoshiki's mother went to pick them up. Satoko was very upset. Her glare stabbed at the vice-principal as he accompanied them to the entrance of the school, making up excuses for the other student's actions.
When Yoshiki went to put on his street shoes, inside his personal locker, laid a gutted cat.
Yoshiki threw up.
Satoko screamed.
The vice-principal screamed.
Yuki Indou covered her son's eyes.
The very next day a school assembly was made. Letters and emails were sent to parents. School official's gave public apologies. The vice-president himself decided to step down. Yoshiki's name was never mentioned, he was just the victim of another bullying incident. But everybody knew, students, staff and parents alike, that there was a son of a vampire in the day-time school. And that his mother, despite being human, was worse than any monster.
Since that day on Yoshiki noticed a shift in his relationship with Hikaru too. His best friend that defended him, knocked teeth off people's faces for him, stopped showing up to school when the moon phased closer to fullness. He stopped wanting to play-fight Yoshiki, because they were getting too old for that, he said. Stopped asking Yoshiki to show him his fangs and compare who's was bigger.
Yoshiki understood. Being an occult like him, like them, was dangerous. Yoshiki, half vampire. Hikaru, full-blooded wolf. They were both predators, famous for their killer instincts. Both shunned from society for hundredths of years, until modern times. But while Hikaru's lineage was somewhat respected, Yoshiki was just another vampire from the backwoods. Hikaru had to burden both a curse and a blessing, carrying out his family's mission. Hikaru had to be careful with whom he was seen, specially when his wolf form was beginning to show. The future protector of Kubitachi went into hiding, because he didn't want to be ridiculed for his nature like Yoshiki had been.
Yoshiki understood.
He still missed hugging Hikaru's fluffy wolf body every full moon. He missed how they used to play. He missed how simple it was back then, when it was just the two of them. Young and wild. And free to be who they were.
Hikaru's white, fluffy tail was popular gossip amongst the town's folk. Girls and women specially, were obsessed over his perky ears. In the occasional instant in which one would flopped half way, Yoshiki would always hear gasps all around his friend. How could they not? Hikaru was already a handsome, perfect, beautiful boy. Who could resist his wolf charm on top of that?
The waitresses and clients of the dinner alike turned to openly stare at Hikaru's beautiful fur as they walked in. While their order was being taken, the girl writing down their drinks got lost ogling at his perfectly triangular ears.
"Do you think she'll remember to bring us lemon wedges?" Hikaru partly lamented. Yoshiki knew he found people's obsession with his wolf form hilarious.
"We'll see." Yoshiki answered. No matter how much he tried to contain himself, Yoshiki's vision wouldn't stop veering upwards, beyond Hikaru's smiling eyes, above his thin eyebrows and short hair.
Hikaru laughed, catching him in the act.
"Wanna pet my head? Make everyone jealous?" He leered, presenting the whirlpool on his hair.
Blushing from getting caught, Yoshiki pulled out a notebook from his bag and gently bonked Hikaru with it.
"No distractions." He ordered.
Without further teasing, Hikaru and Yoshiki got down to work. Or rather, Hikaru did his homework with a lot of Yoshiki's guidance.
The waitress did forget their lemon wedges. She apologized profusely, and returned with not only lemon, but orange wedges too.
The two boys enjoyed their extra fruit as they ordered their dishes. Two hamburger stakes with fries, medium rare on the meat.
Yoshiki felt Hikaru's eyes on him as they continued working. When their plates arrived, Hikaru pushes his schoolwork to the side and obliterated his meal. He dipped his fries in the pink juices of the stake, and Yoshiki thought he was a genius.
"Are ya' hungry?" Hikaru asked, inhaling the bloodied fry.
A drop of juice slid from his mouth, a trail of ambrosia leading down to his chin.
Hikaru blinked at him, and Yoshiki knew what he meant.
Yes, he would never say out loud, in a public space, or behind close doors. He would never say yes when his mother would ask him, or his sister, or his doctor, or his father.
"I'll be fine after this." He lied, all casual. He glanced up to Hikaru.
"Alright." His friend nodded, holding his eyes.
They ate their meals, chatted about mundane things, finished homework, paid for the service provided. As they were walking out the diner, Hikaru said something funny and Yoshiki responded with an aggressive head pat, squeezing his fluffy ears and making Hikaru laugh harder. They didn't need to turn around to know the whole store was looking at them leave, wishing, yearning they could be in Yoshiki's place.
"Is this how celebrities feel?" Hikaru asked, climbing atop his bike. "I don't know if I necessarily like it, ya know?"
"Hmmm." Yoshiki hummed wisely, following suit. "They do say it's lonely at the top."
The last rays of sun poked from the tops of the pines, the heat and light on their last legs. Yoshiki noticed his eyes flicker into night vision as they rolled down the streets of Kibogayama.
"Listen...! I know its lonely on top of a mountain...!" Hikaru answered, ears pulled back against the wind. "But on top of, I donno, celebreailty hierarchy??"
"That's not a word, Hikaru." Yoshiki laughed.
"Social hierarchy? I guess, idolizing others for what people think they are but are not could be, like.... Sad. They don't see the real you."
They passed the flood plain, and rice fields, the sound of wind and water rushing past them. Hikaru slowed down to ride along side Yoshiki and he was unusually quiet for a little. Yoshiki pulled back his sunhat to get a better look at his friend.
"Nee, Yoshiki..." Said the great, white wolf.
"Hm?" Yoshiki turned only to be met by the roundest, wettest puppy-eyes ever.
"Am I being objectified?? Fetish-ied??? "
"Gods, Hikaru...!" Yoshiki cried beside his friend, surprise turning his voice into laughter. "No, if anything, you're being infantalized."
"I don't think if that's a real word either, but I'm afraid I know what it's supposed to mean." Hikaru whined, looking worried. "And I don't like the sound of it, either."
"No..." Yoshiki stilled his disquiet mirth "No, it's not right..."
The view began to change. The long grass turned into stone, which then turned into shrubbery and tall evergreens. In the shadows of twilight, underneath the fluorescent beams of the lamp posts, Yoshiki called out.
"Hikaru... if someone makes you uncomfortable, looks at you funny or makes an off-handed comment about your appearance, you gotta tell me... Alright?"
"Yeah..." Hikaru looked back at him, a soft, pained smile on his boyish face. "I will. Promise."
Hikaru let go of his pedal, landing his foot on the black pavement of the road. This stretch of land was dense with trees. The sky was dark enough that Yoshiki could see the red inside Hikaru's pupil.
Yoshiki landed behind him, dismounting his bike as well.
"Do you wanna stop?" The shorter boy asked. His voice was conversational and relaxed, nothing like the intense, lingering look on Hikaru's eyes.
Yoshiki licked his lips.
This would be the third time, Yoshiki thought, his slow-beating heart pulsing faster with anticipation. Third time doing something we shouldn't...
"... Do you?"
How could Yoshiki ask this of Hikaru? To give his autonomy momentarily to Yoshiki's whims? To let him touch him and hold him like nobody should? A boy. His best friend. The Indou heir. The protector of Kubitachi, Wolf and Hunter of Sprits. A mountain God wearing a corpse. A subject of idolatry for millennia.
Who was Yoshiki to take from a being so special? Of someone revered and feared? Someone, some thing, that Yoshiki held above all else. Above love, and lust, and need. Someone that suffered so much because others prized him too.
Prized him.
But not loved him,
Not know him like Yoshiki knew Hikaru.
And nobody knew Yoshiki like Hikaru did.
"I trust you, Yoshiki."
Bike forgotten on the side of the road, Hikaru approached Yoshiki, taking his hands off the handlebars. Yoshiki let his bike fall on the gravel at their feet, feeling Hikaru's fake warmth lace their hands together.
"There's nobody else that I trust more with my body than you. You've shown me time and time again that you care about me. You respect Hikaru, and me. The real me. What more could I ask of you?" He finished with a smile.
Yoshiki still wouldn't look him in the eyes. He kept playing with their laced hands, face becoming ever warmer.
Hikaru took a step forward, closing the distance between them, placing his cheek against Yoshiki's shoulder.
"I love you." Said Hikaru. "Thank you for caring about me. But let me take care of you too."
A cooling wave washed over Yoshiki. Not Hikaru's insides, although it felt like it. It was relief, acceptance. Hikaru had that effect on him, and he trusted his body's response.
Yoshiki placed a kiss on Hikaru's forehead, and the shorter boy smiled up at him, soft and comforting like moonlight.
"We should try an' hide our bikes at least, no?"
Hikaru replied by nuzzling underneath Yoshiki's chin.
Moving was impossible, resistance was futile.
Hikaru was just too cute to deny.
After a few attempts of escape, Yoshiki decided that overwhelming his attacker was his best bet. Operation Pepper-Hikaru-with-butterfly-kisses-all-over-his-pretty-face was a success. The shorter boy fled, laughing and blushing.
They hid their bikes behind a thicket, and Yoshiki hoped his phone wouldn't buzz until another hour... And a half.