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Even though she wouldn’t dream of admitting it aloud to anyone, Coco was, to Agott, an irreplaceable friend.
It wasn’t necessarily because Coco was her only friend, no.
It was because as far back as her memory stretched, Coco had always been there—a gentle, comforting presence. Always trying her absolute best to approach Agott, even when Agott tried to slam every door to her life shut.
Coco would persistently knock on those doors for days, weeks, or months, waiting with infinite patience until Agott was ready to let her in.
And she did, every single time.
That was how Coco became an absolute constant in her life—a loud, bright, and beautiful anchor preventing Agott from being swept away by the harsh waves of her own crushing expectations.
Because of that very reason, Agott couldn’t really fathom why Coco had decided to act so distant now, of all times.
They had been inseparable for almost four years, starting from middle school, which carried directly into high school where they were practically attached at the hip. Not once—not even a single time—had Coco actively avoided her in all those years.
Agott didn’t really want to remind herself of the cause.
But it had all started two days ago.
Agott had been forced to stay behind after school hours to catch up on a mountain of student council president’s duties that had piled up since midterms had just wrapped up last week.
When she tried to explain why they couldn’t walk home together that day, Coco had been strangely adamant about keeping up their usual routine. She had even tried to get her to go home by offering to help fill out the paperwork.
Naturally, Agott’s suspicion had flared immediately. She turned down the offer, shooing Coco away and telling her to head back alone.
The girl’s shoulders had slumped immediately in disappointment, but she quickly forced a smile—one that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
Seemingly undeterred, Coco offered a compromise, asking to just sit quietly and wait until Agott was completely finished.
The younger had instantly refused the offer again.
“Just go home, Coco,” Agott demanded, her fingers moving to pinch the bridge of her nose. She didn’t understand why she was wasting her limited, precious time arguing with her best friend when she could be signing off on the documents instead.
“But—”
Agott shot her a sharp, unyielding look. “No buts,” she snapped. Realizing how harsh her tone sounded, she quickly cleared her throat, softening her voice with a flustered and defensive ahem.
“I know you’ve had a long day yourself. You deserve the extra rest.”
Finally, Coco seemed to relent. She dragged her feet as though carrying a physical weight, lingering deliberately on her way out the door.
It frustrated Agott to no end—why did she have to look so incredibly heartbroken over a simple walk home?
“Is there anything else?” Agott asked from her desk, her eyes remaining fixed on the documents as her pen flew across the pages.
Coco seemed to pause at the door, clearly debating whether to speak her mind. But after a tense, long moment, she simply mumbled a dejected, “N-no. Goodbye.”
The moment Coco rounded the corner and her footsteps faded down the hall, Agott’s hand continued its work, but her mind was already drifting towards the possible causes of her friend’s weird behaviour.
The next day, Coco started acting differently.
It began in the early morning when Agott stopped by Coco's house, expecting her usual routine. But instead of the sleepy girl who never failed to greet her with a dopey, sleepy smile, Agott was met by Coco’s mother, who informed her that Coco had already left for school.
That was abnormality number one.
Agott tried to steady her breathing on her walk, firmly telling her uneasy mind that she was simply a few minutes late and Coco probably just had an early duty at school—maybe she was in charge of classroom cleaning today.
Yes, that made sense. It had to.
But the cracks in their routine only widened as the day went on.
When the lunch bell rang, Coco wasn’t waiting outside Agott's classroom with her usual bright, expectant grin.
It was another routine they had strictly maintained ever since they were placed in different classes last year, and it was unlike Coco to prioritize anything over spending their time in each other’s company.
Abnormality number two.
Agott stood in the bustling hallway, lunchbox clutched tight against her chest, feeling suddenly invisible as the crowd moved around her.
Was it because I snapped at her yesterday?
The thought tasted like ash in her mouth. It still didn’t make sense; Coco was a stubborn girl, always bouncing back with an almost frustrating optimism whenever Agott gave her the short end of the stick in their interaction. She wasn't supposed to hold grudges.
She wasn't supposed to leave Agott alone.
Agott gritted her teeth, a defensive spark of anger masking her growing panic. If Coco was so intent on playing defense, then Agott would simply have to go on the offensive.
During the second break, Agott marched directly to Coco's classroom to confront her. There, Richeh—Coco’s close classmate—informed her with a sympathetic shrug that Coco had dashed off to the restroom with an upset stomach just minutes ago.
But when Agott searched every single restroom across the entire school, the stalls were empty. Just in case, she also checked the rooftop, the crowded canteen, and even the windy football field. Her search was entirely in vain; Coco was nowhere to be found.
And by the time the final bell rang, echoing loudly down the corridors to signal the end of the school hours, Agott realized she hadn’t succeeded even once in having a proper conversation with Coco.
It wasn’t like Coco had skipped school altogether. She was just actively avoiding Agott.
A familiar, sharp ache struck the center of Agott's chest, twisting tight. The silence of the now-empty hallway felt deafening. It was as though she was being laughed at by the universe for something she did.
Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.
Perhaps Agott had finally ruined the only good thing she had in her life.
And now, two days had passed since Coco had sort of distanced herself from Agott’s life, and Agott had arrived at a point where she had given up trying to look for her.
After all, the rejection had been crystal clear.
Yesterday, when Agott had finally swallowed a dose of her pride and tried to visit after school, Coco’s mother had gently turned her away at the door with a guilty look, claiming Coco was feeling a bit sick.
She didn’t answer any of Agott’s messages either.
If Coco wanted Agott out of her life, then fine. So be it.
It wasn't as though Agott could just barge her way into Coco’s space the way Coco had done to her a thousand times before.
Agott’s pride was an immense, towering thing, far too rigid to let her bow down and apologize for whatever it was that she did two days ago.
Still, it was nobody’s business but her own that she had started to... observe Coco in other ways instead. If Coco had insisted on avoiding her in plain sight, then Agott would resort to lurking in the blind spots of the hallways, trying to figure out what had caused such a drastic change to her friend.
It was only fair, right?
During class period, Agott had excused herself to the restroom fifteen minutes after the lesson began—a calculated lie, because her actual destination was the window of Coco's classroom.
Peeking in, she saw Coco sitting in her usual seat with her back straight. When Agott tried to scrutinize her closely, she couldn't quite put her finger on it, but something about Coco's silhouette felt different. Dimmer, almost.
And when it was lunch break, Agott abandoned her lunchbox altogether and bolted, slipping into the sea of students filing out into the corridor. She used her slim figure to blend seamlessly into the crowd, speed-walking toward Coco’s classroom.
Luck, for once, was on her side. She caught sight of Coco just as the greenish-blonde girl stepped out of the classroom door.
Strangely enough, Coco didn't head toward her usual hangout spot with Tetia, nor did she make a move toward Agott’s classroom—which was to be expected, but it still stung.
Then, where has she been going all this time?
An intrusive, suffocating thought crept into Agott's mind. Did she find a boyfriend?
The mere idea painfully squeezed something in her chest—for a reason Agott understood all too well, but never dared to acknowledge even in the privacy of her own thoughts.
Shaking her head to dispel the thought, she focused all her energy on trailing Coco's footsteps as stealthily as possible.
Coco led her far away from the main building, eventually turning down a secluded corridor and slipping into the semi-abandoned biology lab.
Agott frowned in confusion while staring at the wooden sign above the sliding door.
Why on earth would she spend her lunch breaks here?
Agott crept up to the wooden door in silence, hovering in front of it for several minutes. Just as she finally mustered up the courage to slide it open, a bright, familiar voice echoed from the far end of the hallway.
"Agott!"
Agott’s heart leaped instantly into her throat. She snapped her head toward the sound and sprinted away from the lab door, terrified that Coco would hear her name and realize she was being followed.
It was Tetia. The poor girl looked utterly flabbergasted as Agott suddenly zoomed across the distance between them, slamming a palm over her mouth to cut off her voice.
"Mphhhhg?!" Tetia protested, her eyes widening as she was shoved back against the corridor wall.
"Be quiet, Tetia," Agott hissed urgently, glaring at her. She only released her grip once Tetia nodded frantically in compliance.
After gasping for some breath of fresh air, she stared at Agott with a furrowed brow before a lightbulb seemingly went off in her head.
"Oh, I wanted to ask you something!" she exclaimed excitedly, her eyes darting around Agott’s surroundings as though expecting someone else to materialize. "Do you know where Coco is?"
"She's—"
Agott caught the words right at the edge of her teeth, swallowing them back before she could blurt out her location in the lab. It was bad enough that she had become a terrible friend whom Coco didn’t want to get close to; she wasn't about to become a snitch, too.
There had to be a reason Coco chose to isolate herself in that dusty, creepy room filled with nothing but replicas of human bodies. There just had to be.
Gulping down her ever-growing anxiety, Agott settled for a cool, defensive shrug—hoping that Tetia would buy her act. "How should I know?"
"Ehh?" Tetia whined, grabbing Agott by the shoulders and swaying her from side to side like a rag doll. "But you’re always with Coco!"
Agott scoffed, her irritation immediately flaring at the reminder as she forcibly extricated herself from Tetia’s grip. She let out a breath to calm herself and glared at the girl in front of her. "Well, she isn’t with me today."
Tetia squinted, her playful demeanour shifting into something much more probing. It seemed like she wasn't buying the excuse for a second.
Damn it, why does this girl have to be so perceptive?
"Did something happ—"
"No," Agott snapped, cutting her off far too quickly.
Realizing her defensive tone was a dead giveaway, Agott immediately sidestepped past Tetia, fixing her gaze straight ahead. She forced her muscles to relax, trying to appear completely nonchalant as she began walking back toward the main building.
"Sorry, I have things to do," she said just loud enough for the other girl to hear, leaving Tetia standing alone in the quiet corridor with more questions on her shoulders than she had a minute ago.
The scratching sound of a pen against paper echoed through the heavy silence of the Arklaum heir’s vast room. The chamber was swallowed by darkness, save for a single, dim source of light on the study desk.
There, Agott sat with her shoulders hunched, entirely consumed by writing the results of her recent... investigation.
Observation, day 1-4 (20-23 May 20XX):
- Spends every lunch break in the abandoned biology lab. Only leaves when the bell rings for class.
- She never brings a lunchbox → She’s not having lunch there
- No conversations nor any whispering heard from outside → She’s definitely alone. Why?
- She walks increasingly slower each day.
Agott stared at the messy ink notes she had just written. After stalki—no, following—Coco for nearly a week, these were the only conclusions she could draw. But every new bullet point only served to deepen her confusion about the whole situation.
(She knew that she could’ve just steeled herself and entered the lab to get the answer. But Agott just couldn’t bring herself to do that.)
Agott gripped her pen tighter in contemplation.
The bitter truth was, it would be so much easier to swallow this sudden distance if Coco had actually looked happy without her.
If Coco were out there being her usual, bright self, surrounded by the sunlight as she had always deserved to, Agott could force herself to back off.
On the contrary, over the last four days of watching her every gesture, Agott had barely seen her smile at all. Let alone smile, Coco was definitely avoiding her classmates too, though more subtly rather than blatantly ignoring them as she did with Agott.
It felt like Coco had changed completely. Like... she wasn't even Coco anymore.
The thought sent an involuntary chill down her spine.
Agott pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling the dull throb of a looming headache. They had been coming on frequently these past few days, ever since Coco began treating her like a ghost.
To make matters worse, Coco’s mother had messaged her again tonight, gently pressing to know if something had happened between the two of them.
It wasn't the first time the older woman had reached out this week, and each notification made Agott grit her teeth in seemingly shared anxiety.
According to her mother, Coco’s behaviour at home had also drastically shifted a week ago—specifically, the day she had walked home alone after Agott snapped at her.
She didn't smile, she barely spoke, and worst of all, her appetite had dwindled to nothing.
She had even refused her favourite meals that her mother went out of her way to cook, the very dishes she used to gush over every single day.
That was probably Agott’s fault, too.
She closed her eyes as a wave of sickening guilt washed over her. And then she forced it open again before typing out a quick, reassuring lie to Coco's mother.
"Don't worry about it. I'll talk to her tomorrow."
Sinking forward, Agott slumped her torso onto the smooth desk, her cheek resting against the polished wood. Purple gaze drifted to the mirror across the dark room.
Reflected in the glass was her usual silhouette, but the sharp, confident edge she usually carried was entirely gone. Instead, an exhausted, desperate girl stared back at her. The familiar spark in her eyes had completely vanished.
Just like Coco's had after that day.
…
Wait—the walk home.
Agott froze, her eyes snapping wide against the hard surface of the desk.
That day... the day Coco walked home by herself. She must have encountered something.
Agott mentally berated herself, angry at her own blindness.
How had she missed something so glaringly obvious?
The catalyst for Coco’s shift in behaviour had to have happened on that specific day.
And Agott was going to find out what it was, even if it meant using the privilege that she hated so much, but was born with.
Alas, nothing in Agott’s life ever proved that simple to solve.
Hours later, long after midnight, the harsh blue glow of her laptop screen illuminated her face, casting sharp shadows across the familiar darkness of her own bedroom.
Displayed on the monitor were the recordings of the security cameras lining their usual route—the result of Agott leveraging her family's influence.
At first, the footage showed exactly what she expected.
Coco was walking along her familiar path, her pace slower than usual.
Every few blocks, the greenish blonde girl would glance down at her phone, then cast a lingering look back toward the direction of the school.
Agott tried to ignore the uncomfortable sensation at the thought that Coco might’ve been secretly hoping that the younger would drop everything and run to catch up to her at the last possible second.
It couldn’t be.
Agott shook her head fiercely, trying to dispel the knot in her chest. She needed to stop being so full of herself.
She focused back on the monitor. Roughly five minutes into the recording, at a minor crossroads, Coco had taken an unusual turn down a side street—a path that absolutely did not lead toward her house.
Agott leaned in, tracing the girl’s movements from camera to camera, digging as deeply into the network as her skills allowed.
Yet, for all her effort, the detour seemed to prove nothing remarkable. Coco had simply wandered into one of the new shops that had just opened—the exact one she had excitedly pointed out to Agott just days before their falling out.
The footage showed her walking out after buying something—most likely a small snack alongside a couple of braided bracelets.
Agott exhaled a frustrated sigh. She rolled her fingers on the mouse and moved the cursor to repeat the whole video again.
After rewatching the recording for the seventh time, when the footage almost reached its end, Agott finally noticed an anomaly.
She noted that Coco had staggered slightly after leaving the shop.
Her posture, light and bouncy just moments before, suddenly looked heavy, her shoulders slumping as if an invisible weight had just been dropped onto them.
Agott zoomed in, clicking the mouse quickly, but the nearest street camera was positioned too far away. The image dissolved into a blur of grainy pixels.
She couldn't see Coco's expression, nor could she see if someone had approached her just outside the frame.
Something had definitely happened in the shop.
Agott sat back, rhythmically clicking her pen against the desk in the dark. It seemed that she had hit a wall, and she jotted down a mental note to pay a visit to the shop after school.
Out of all the scenarios that had circled in Agott’s head while planning her visit to the store, meeting Coco inside was not one of them.
The girl looked utterly distraught—and so, so thin—as she weakly called out Agott’s name just several steps in front of her. An intense wave of guilt seemed to roll off her, and Agott couldn’t even begin to comprehend why.
But before she could analyze the expression further, Coco suddenly zoomed across the distance between them, grabbing Agott's hand with a desperate, crushing force.
Agott stood completely stupefied, shocked by the sheer strength in Coco’s grip despite how physically frail she appeared.
“W-we need to go!” Coco said urgently, her voice trembling as she tried to pull Agott back toward the exit.
Nearby customers turned their heads toward them, murmuring with sudden interest at Coco’s frantic outburst.
As much as Agott’s immense pride hated being ordered around, Coco was looking at her with such pleading eyes that she couldn't bear the thought of rejecting her.
Lowering her guard, Agott gave a slow, reassuring nod to the girl, whose face remained a torturous mix of guilt and urgency.
After several moments of walking in silence, the girl in front of her finally noticed that they were still holding hands, and Coco immediately let go of Agott’s hand as though she had been burned.
But Agott wasn’t about to let her slip away again.
Reaching out, Agott firmly caught Coco’s wrist—mentally noting with a pang of worry that it felt noticeably thinner than it had a week ago—and stopped her in her tracks.
A heavy, suffocating silence fell between them, suspending them in a sort of trance. Coco kept her back turned against her, leaving Agott completely unable to read her face.
And then, silence.
The atmosphere grew painfully awkward.
Agott swallowed hard and tried to stop herself from scratching the back of her neck, a sudden, uncharacteristic nervousness tightening her throat.
How are you even supposed to start a conversation after all this?
But then, Coco broke the ice. She turned her head just slightly, revealing a glimpse of her dimmed golden eyes, and mumbled, “I am sorry for dragging you out here without notice. I can’t explain why. But I think—”
She staggered slightly on her feet, as if the words themselves carried a physical weight, before forcing out the rest.
“I think we should stop being friends, Agott.”
Agott froze, the blood draining from her face as her grip weakened around the other girl’s wrist.
She had known a rejection was coming eventually, but hearing the words spoken aloud right to her face was an entirely different thing from just expecting them.
After all, Coco was the absolute constant Agott needed to anchor herself to reality.
She was the one friend who made her feel truly alive, a breath of fresh air when the suffocating stress of her own expectations caged her in. She was the singular, brilliant star Agott always turned to talk to amidst the black, inky sky.
And now, that star had burned out in her watch.
Just like the tragic silverwood tree from one of her favourite childhood stories—the one that had fallen hopelessly with a star—Agott could do nothing but beg her roots to move at the sight of Coco walking away.
She commanded her suddenly paralyzed legs to break their stillness, desperate to chase after Coco before the star blinked out of existence entirely.
Just what can I do to stop her from leaving?
And then, as though the universe had answered her silent plea, Coco suddenly collapsed. Her knees buckled, and she slumped heavily onto the asphalt, her breathing ragged and shallow.
Agott finally felt the strength return to her legs, and she lunged forward to catch the falling girl. Up close, Coco’s face was horribly red, yet underneath the feverish colour, her skin was deathly pale.
“Coco?!”
As Agott leaned in closer to assess her condition, Coco suddenly reacted violently to the touch. With a sudden, terrifying surge of strength, she shoved Agott away.
“Please, don’t touch me!”
Agott blinked in shock as she was sent sprawling backwards, landing hard on the pavement.
Alright, now this was crossing into ridiculous territory.
A realization was beginning to take shape through Agott's confusion. She was now certain that the reason Coco was avoiding her had absolutely nothing to do with the hurtful words she had spat two days ago.
It was because of something else entirely, and it was a burden Coco was completely unwilling to share with her.
Having finally reached her absolute limit with these vague rejections, Agott snapped.
Shoving her pride aside, she crawled back toward the slumped girl and firmly gripped both of Coco's shoulders, forcing their gazes to lock.
Coco immediately tried to avert her eyes, staring desperately at the ground.
Agott clicked her tongue, her voice cracking with a mix of authority and desperation. “Look at me and explain everything, Coco.” Her fingers tightened around Coco's shoulders, but she instantly loosened her grip when she felt the other girl flinch in pain.
Coco kept her mouth stubbornly shut, her chest heaving as she struggled just to draw oxygen, and Agott finally let out a defeated breath. She relented, her tone softening with exasperation. “You’re still as stubborn as ever, aren't you?”
Coco only wheezed in response, her uncharacteristic silence hanging heavily between them. It was as though she were physically locking her own jaw, terrified that if she opened her mouth to answer even one of Agott’s questions, the entire truth would spill out.
The two girls remained still in the quiet street for several long seconds before Agott made a decision.
Shifting her weight, she knelt directly in front of Coco with her back turned, offering a piggy-back ride. “I won’t ask for an explanation anymore. Get on, I’m taking you to a hospital.”
At the mention of the word, Coco’s eyes widened with a frantic terror. She shook her head in a pained, desperate effort. “N-no! Not the hospital, please.”
Agott glanced back over her shoulder, her brow furrowing deeply.
Coco was sweating profusely, trembling with a fear that made absolutely no sense. Coco wasn’t the type of person to be afraid of medical professionals nor a simple check-up.
But not wanting to push the clearly distressed girl into a full-blown panic attack, Agott forced herself to tread carefully.
She remained in her kneeling position, keeping her back offered, and swiftly changed the destination. “Fine. I’ll carry you back home.”
Hearing that, Coco seemed to calm down a fraction; her frantic breathing started to even out. Yet, true to her stubborn nature, she still shook her head weakly as though refusing Agott’s offer to help, before planting her trembling palms against the pavement and trying to force her uncooperative legs to stand.
Watching her only chance at a reconciliation begin to slip away, Agott steeled her heart and spoke in the most authoritative tone she could muster. “Stop forcing yourself and come here.”
The other girl froze at the command, her stubborn resolve finally cracking.
With a shy, defeated nod, she reluctantly slung her arms around Agott’s neck and allowed herself to be hoisted up.
The physical effort seemed to drain the last remaining drops of Coco's energy; the moment she was secure in Agott’s back, her head fell completely limp, resting heavily against the younger’s shoulder.
Agott tried to ignore it. She really, desperately tried to focus on just putting one foot in front of the other.
But as she walked slowly toward the direction of Coco’s house, carrying the weight of her best friend, it was becoming impossible to deny.
Something was terrifyingly wrong with Coco.
Agott swallowed hard, trying to suppress the rising panic in her chest.
Because even though Coco’s face was flushed a deep crimson and her breathing remained ragged, her body exuded absolutely no heat.
Against Agott's back, Coco felt ice-cold—almost like a corpse.
When Agott reached the familiar front porch and knocked, she had fully expected the house to be empty. But to her surprise, the door swung open almost immediately.
Coco’s mother stood in the foyer, her face instantly twisting with panic the moment she realized the limp girl on Agott’s back was her daughter, and she quickly ushered them inside.
When Agott politely questioned why she was back so early, the older woman explained that her commission had gone exceptionally well today.
Because of that, she had decided to leave early and hurried straight home with the intention of cooking some homemade soup to cheer her daughter back up.
Coco’s mother pressed a palm against her daughter’s forehead before gasping in distress at the unnatural, freezing temperature of her skin.
Strangely enough, she didn't seem entirely weirded out by the symptom—just like Agott did—though it was perhaps due to the sheer shock of seeing her child looking so weak.
After firmly insisting that she was perfectly fine and capable of finishing the task, Agott was permitted to carry Coco up the stairs to her second-floor bedroom while her mother continued cooking.
It wasn’t as though Agott had never stepped foot in this space before; quite the contrary, she had spent countless hours here, whether for studying or just lazily wasting the afternoon away.
Yet, because of the thick wall of distance Coco had built between them over the past week, the bedroom suddenly felt like an entirely unfamiliar territory.
Shaking her head to dispel the unnecessary thought, Agott stepped inside the room and carefully laid Coco down onto the mattress.
The girl groaned softly, roused by the movement, and her eyelids fluttered open.
Agott froze, the breath catching in her throat.
It lasted for only a fraction of a second—a fleeting blink—but she could have sworn Coco’s eyes had been a piercing, vivid crimson just moments ago.
By the time Agott could even process the sight, those familiar, dim golden eyes were staring back at her in dazed confusion.
“Agott…?” Coco whispered weakly, her voice thin as trembling ice-cold hand reached up to gently caress Agott’s cheek. “Are you here?”
The vulnerable question pierced Agott’s chest, painfully squeezing her heart.
Moving on instinct, she placed her own warm hand over Coco’s freezing fingers, pressing them tighter against her cheek before nodding her head softly.
At least Coco was currently in a daze.
Agott could only pray that the girl’s clouded vision would blind her to the look full of worry and adoration that she knew was written all over her face right now.
Reassured by the touch, Coco smiled.
It was a real smile—genuine, weak, but radiating the warmth that her physical body lacked—the kind of smile Agott hadn’t seen in days.
Perhaps finding comfort in Agott’s presence, the tension finally left Coco's frame; her breathing eased into a normal, steady rhythm. She closed her eyes immediately, the peaceful rise and fall of her chest assuring Agott that she had finally fallen asleep.
Agott ruthlessly squashed down the sudden burst of butterflies in her stomach at the implication, forcing the adrenaline in her veins to power her brain instead of her heart.
She needed to analyze Coco’s situation right now. Their interaction so far had thrown overwhelming informations at her head, and she hadn’t had a spare second to truly process them.
Well, she needed to start with the fact that Coco’s body was perpetually cold.
When they were on the road, Agott had desperately tried to share some of her own body heat by squeezing Coco's hands, but the effort had been entirely futile.
The moment Agott stopped rubbing them, the skin would plummet back to a freezing temperature.
It was as if the blood in Coco's veins hadn’t been able to carry any heat at all.
And as far as Agott’s knowledge goes, a human body with that low of a temperature shouldn't even be functioning—let alone walking and speaking.
As much as she hated the chilling implication of that thought, it was impossible.
Coco was definitely… in some sort of special condition.
This assumption would also explain why Coco had been so afraid of the prospect of going to the hospital, since Coco was usually the type of girl who proudly stood at the front of the line during the school’s immunization programs.
It would make much more sense if Coco weren’t afraid of being treated by doctors, but was instead afraid that a check-up would show there was something strange about her.
That, combined with the fleeting moment where Coco’s eyes had flashed a vivid red before vanishing with a blink...
Agott swallowed hard, a wave of nervousness tightening her throat.
No. Surely it couldn't be what she was thinking, right?
Those kinds of things only existed in fiction—
Suddenly, Coco coughed violently, a harsh sound that shattered the quiet room.
She began to writhe in pain beneath the blanket Agott had draped over her, her nails frantically scratching at her own throat as if trying to douse the unbearable itch there.
Her eyes remained tightly shut, and hot tears began to stream down her flushed cheeks as she whimpered weakly, “Water... I’m so thirsty…”
Her limp, thin wrist reached out haphazardly toward the bedside table. Panic surged through Agott when Coco almost swung her hand against an empty glass; she lunged forward and grabbed it. “Coco, stop!”
Hearing her own name being called in such an urgent tone, Coco’s eyelids flew open. And Agott saw something distinctly predatory in those tear-filled eyes.
Before Agott could even draw a breath, Coco pounced and slammed into her with impressive speed, sending them both tumbling towards the floor. Agott’s back struck the flooring with a sickening thud, and the wind was knocked completely out of her.
Coco straddled her waist, her knees pinning Agott’s frame to the floor, her breathing coming in ragged gasps.
Wincing in pain, Agott squeezed her eyes shut for a second to combat the dizziness from her head hitting the floor.
When she finally forced her eyes open, she froze entirely, the blood turning to ice in her veins as she locked eyes with the girl currently pinning her down.
“Coco—”
And then, as though finally getting back control over her own consciousness, the vivid red in her eyes began to waver, eclipsed by slivers of familiar golden hue.
“Agott—” Coco choked on her own voice.
Bursting into breathless sobs, she scrambled backwards in a blind panic, dragging herself away until her spine collided heavily with the wooden bed frame.
She curled into a tight ball, pulling her knees flush against her chest as she wept. “I am sorry— hic— I am so, so sorry—”
Agott didn’t let her finish. Ignoring the throbbing ache at the back of her head, she hurriedly crawled across the floor toward the trembling girl.
She reached out and gripped both of Coco's shoulders, forcing her to meet her gaze for the second time that afternoon.
Coco's golden eyes were wide, flooded with tears that left clear, glistening tracks down her flushed cheeks.
The sheer vulnerability of the sight squeezed Agott’s heart with a painful pressure.
“Coco,” Agott began, her voice dropping to a soft whisper, as though she were trying not to spook a cornered kitten. “Explain your situation to me. Please.”
Desperation bled into her tone, raw and in plain sight. At this point, Agott didn’t care if her defensive walls crumbled entirely; she didn’t even care if Coco managed to pinpoint the depth of her romantic feelings right then and there.
None of it mattered because Coco’s situation was more dire than she could have ever anticipated.
Coco flinched and immediately averted her gaze, her jaw locking as she grew reluctant to voice the one piece of confirmation Agott so desperately needed.
The silence was frankly painful.
It wasn’t that Agott was stupid. She had managed to guess exactly what had happened to Coco, through the scattered clues and the symptoms displayed right in front of her, and she had already connected two and two.
More than that, Agott had accepted the reality of it—even if she knew she would overthink the implications later in the privacy of her own bedroom.
All she needed now was the confirmation.
She needed Coco to trust her enough to share her burdens, to voluntarily let her in, and to realize that no matter what happened to her, Agott had no intention of ever letting go.
Still, even though she really wanted to shake Coco until the information would tumble out of her mouth, Agott couldn’t really bring herself to get mad at the distressed, trembling girl right in front of her.
She let out a sigh and swallowed down her entire pride to break down Coco’s wall—with the exact same way the other girl had done to her a thousand times before.
Shifting her weight, the younger knelt slowly.
She gently cradled Coco’s face in her hands—noting with a familiar ache that the skin was still so cold—and leaned forward until their foreheads softly brushed together.
“Do you want to know a secret of mine?” Agott whispered.
Rich, intense purple eyes locked onto wide, bewildered golden ones.
No answer came, but it didn’t deter her.
It was already a blessing that Coco didn’t pull away. If she had, Agott wasn't sure she could have gathered the courage to proceed, because, frankly, she was about to do one of the most embarrassing things she would ever do in her life.
She slowly drew a deep breath to ease the nervousness threatening to dim her determination.
“I…” she started, her breath hitching when Coco suddenly nuzzled her head closer, a subconscious, instinctive motion that mirrored a cat seeking comfort.
“I like you, Coco.”
Coco pulled her head back abruptly, her eyes widening as if the confession had delivered a physical shock to her brain.
“...”
Both of them stared at each other in silence, and Agott tried to stop herself from biting her tongue in an effort to kill herself right then and there.
Sure, the immediate physical rejection stung Agott’s pride—and her heart, definitely—but shock was one of the first expressions Coco had displayed the entire day that wasn’t sadness or guilt.
Agott chalked it up as a small win in her book.
The greenish-blonde girl's mouth was slightly agape, a sudden, feverish flush spreading across her otherwise pale cheeks.
“W-what are you saying so suddenly?” Coco stammered, her voice cracking.
Having already crossed the line, Agott decided to completely throw caution to the wind. She was an unstoppable ball now that she had finally allowed herself to start rolling.
“I said I like you. As in romantically.”
Closing the distance between them once more, Agott gently held one of Coco's hands, pulling it forward until it rested flat against the center of her own chest, right over her rapidly hammering heart.
Forcing herself to ignore her own flustered cheeks, Agott began to pour her thoughts out—mimicking the way Coco used to talk to her all those years ago, pulling Agott away from the dark, maze-like prison of her own mind.
“I was afraid of how you’d react,” Agott confessed, her gaze steadily holding Coco’s, as though she could physically cradle and protect the girl with her eyes alone. “And I didn’t want to ruin what we already had.”
Coco let out a fresh sob, the tears spilling over once more.
Agott silently prayed that this time, those tears were caused by the sheer weight of Agott's words, and not by some external reasons.
She would happily make Coco cry a thousand times over if she had to, but she promised herself that from now on, they would be happy tears.
Yet, when Coco failed to make any sound other than those muffled sobs, Agott’s internal panic flared. “Are you even listening to me?” Agott probed, her mind racing with the worry that her confession had somehow worsened Coco's condition.
Damn it, now what?
She should’ve thought about this way more.
But Coco simply shook her head faintly, and instead of offering a verbal reply, she lunged forward, enveloping Agott in a desperate, full-body embrace.
The force of the impact sent them tumbling backwards onto the hardwood floor once again, leaving Agott pinned beneath her weight.
They stared at each other for a breathless moment.
Then, Coco slowly lowered herself, allowing her entire frame to rest completely on top of Agott. She nestled her head gently right over Agott’s pounding heart.
The younger girl let out a highly flustered, sharp cough to try and dispel the sudden, overwhelming wave of embarrassment heating her cheeks.
“I—” Coco started after a long stretch of slightly uncomfortable silence. “I am glad that you feel that way about me.”
It wasn’t the answer that Agott had wanted to hear, but it was still an answer nonetheless.
And looking at the way Coco clung to her right now, Agott felt a wave of confidence wash over her; she was certain that if she tried hard enough, she could make Coco fall hopelessly in love with her in return.
“But,” Coco’s breath hitched again, as if a sudden, painful memory had pierced through her. “I can’t be with you, Agott…” she continued, her voice a hoarse whisper as her fingers desperately bunched a handful of Agott’s blazer.
Willing herself to stay patient, Agott slowly raised her hand, tentatively brushing her fingers through Coco’s soft, greenish-blonde hair in a soothing rhythm. “Can you tell me why?”
Coco fell completely silent again.
For a brief, bitter moment, Agott began to quietly accept the painful thought that she might never truly be the safe haven Coco could turn to. That was also probably Agott’s fault for having such a terrible personality in the first place, anyway.
But then, Coco burrowed her head even deeper into Agott’s chest, hiding her face entirely as though terrified that if she looked up to read Agott's expression, she would find disgust staring back at her.
“I haven’t even told my mom about this,” Coco mumbled faintly.
Her voice was nearly entirely muffled against the fabric of Agott’s blazer, but the words still cut through the quiet room with absolute clarity.
“But I…” Coco coughed once more, a shuddering tremor wracking her frame. “I think I’ve turned into a vampire now, Agott.”
There it was.
Hearing the truth spoken aloud, Agott unconsciously exhaled a breath of relief.
Coco had finally trusted Agott enough to tell her the truth.
Of course, the confirmation itself was a bit of a shock, but the sheer contentment had overwhelmed all the initial shock and bewilderment that the girl she had a crush on was… a vampire. A literal one.
When Agott offered nothing but that silent exhale, Coco's composure began to falter under the weight of her anxiety.
She began to squirm uncomfortably against her, asking in a thoroughly dejected voice, “W-why are you not responding?”
Then, seemingly arriving at a conclusion of her own making, Coco immediately scrambled backwards, hoisting her weight off Agott and creating a distance between them once more.
“I- I am so sorry! You’re probably terrified of me now, right?" she rambled in a hurry, her voice cracking and thick with unshed tears that threatened to spill over at any second.
Agott slowly pushed herself up onto her elbows, anchoring her weight as she stared straight into Coco’s gaze, which was riddled by anxiety.
Looking at the trembling girl, she saw a reflection of her own childhood self—a lost soul who desperately needed someone to simply reach out and accept them unconditionally.
If Coco had spent the last four years being the anchor that kept Agott from drowning, then Agott just needed to become the exact same sanctuary for her.
It was only fair, right?
Before Coco could sink deeper into another spiral of self-loathing, Agott stretched both of her hands toward her.
“Coco,” she called softly. “Come here.”
Because while it was true that Agott could offer safety, she could not force Coco to take it. Coco had to move of her own accord for that, and Agott couldn’t just simply drag her into an embrace she did not wish to accept.
But Coco shook her head immediately.
She hugged her knees tighter against her chest and curled further into herself, trembling from head to toe. “A-Agott, I can’t…” she whispered, her voice cracking apart as though every word scraped painfully against her throat. “I’m so thirsty…”
The confession sounded miserable, full of desperation.
Then, almost frantically, Coco staggered to her feet once again. Her movements were unsteady, weak, and she nearly stumbled before catching herself against the nearest wall.
“I-I’ll take care of this myself,” she said quickly, avoiding Agott’s concerned gaze entirely—as though she would immediately break if she decided to indulge just a fraction of the affection Agott had been willing to share. “So please go home.”
Another shaky step toward the door.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
But Agott made no move to stand or leave.
When Coco realized she had not moved at all, a sob of frustration escaped her lips.
“Why are you still here?!” she cried, turning around sharply with tears brimming in her eyes. Her voice cracked painfully at the last word, thick with disbelief. “Don’t you understand?! I’ll hurt—”
“Coco,” Agott called for her again, cutting the words before they could fully leave the older’s mouth. “Do I look afraid of you?”
The question seemed to halt Coco completely.
And everything Agott said was nothing but the truth.
While it was true that she had been shocked by everything unfolding in front of her—anyone would be when served by information that their friend had developed something supernatural—but fear was not what Agott felt when she looked at Coco.
Because this was still Coco.
The same girl who apologized to insects after accidentally stepping on them.
The same girl who looked at Agott as though she hung the stars in the sky.
“I’m not afraid of you,” Agott repeated carefully, making sure every word settled properly inside Coco’s trembling mind.
After all, she couldn’t have the girl running again after they had come this far.
“So stop standing all the way over there.”
Then, with far more composure than she actually felt—she was planning to do something highly embarrassing, after all—Agott loosened the ribbon around the collar of her shirt with a tug of a finger.
“If you’re thirsty,” she said evenly, “then drink from me.”
The words left her mouth before she could second-guess them any longer than she already had.
A second later, Agott let the ribbon fall and tugged her collar lower, exposing the pale line of her neck to the dim bedroom light.
When Coco made no move but stayed frozen in front of her, Agott clicked her tongue in annoyance.
“Don’t make me say it twice,” she said coolly as she unclasped a button on her shirt, letting the fabric tilt slightly to uncover more of her skin.
Seeing Coco’s golden eyes slowly turn back into their crimson hue once she spotted her neck brought a shiver up Agott’s spine, and despite herself, she could feel sweat gathering faintly at the back of her neck.
After all, this had been the first time that she had seen Coco—the usually sweet and bright girl— behaving akin to a predator.
Slowly, almost as though fighting a losing battle against invisible restraints, the other girl staggered her way over to Agott’s direction.
Then, Coco dropped to her knees directly in front of Agott and leaned forward, invading the younger’s personal space.
Agott let out a satisfied hum once she felt Coco’s hair brush against her cheek despite the tension winding tightly through her body, and she braced herself for the eventual pain she would have to endure from being bitten.
Would it be so painful, just like how it was depicted in those fantasy books she had read before? Or would it contain painkillers just like how it was written in the Dracula romance story?
Agott truly didn’t know what to expect.
But what she certainly had not expected was the feeling of tears soaking into the skin of her neck instead of her own blood.
Coco had tried to hold herself back again.
The girl trembled against Agott’s frame, curling inward as though trying to search for comfort. Soft sobs wracked her shoulders while she shook her head over and over, her grip tightening helplessly against Agott’s shoulders. “I don’t want to hurt you, Agott.”
Something inside Agott snapped a little at the sight.
Stars above.
Even now—starved, clearly suffering—Coco was still more worried about hurting someone else than about her own well-being.
Agott exhaled slowly through her nose and forced herself to remain calm.
She tried to put herself into Coco’s shoes; if she were the one turning into a vampire, she would surely behave the same way—if not worse, if she were being honest.
Carefully, she lifted a hand and rested it against the back of Coco’s head. Her fingers threaded through the girl’s hair in slow, soothing motions.
“And you’re hurting yourself by resisting your own body,” Agott murmured in response.
Coco’s breath hitched.
Agott sighed quietly before adding, “Besides…” She tilted her head slightly, giving Coco a knowing look. “You haven’t had a single drop of blood these past few days, have you?”
Coco jerked back immediately, staring at her in shock. “H-how did you know?”
Agott absolutely could not tell her that she had been observing her like a detective with unresolved emotional issues during the last few days.
That would ruin her dignity permanently.
Instead, she settled with a nonchalant, “I have my ways.”
Coco narrowed her eyes weakly, clearly unconvinced, but the argument seemed to lose against the thirst clawing at her senses. Her golden eyes were starting to flicker again, and her breathing had already grown uneven.
Agott nudged the older’s head forward with the hand still threading through Coco’s hair and tugged lightly at her own collar once again before tilting her head to the side, exposing the pale stretch of her neck right to the older’s face.
“Well?” she prompted. “Are you going to drink or not?”
There was an audible gulp echoing through the room before Coco grumbled a very faint, “Agott is very unfair.”
Agott allowed herself a small smile before her face contorted in the sudden onslaught of pain as Coco’s fangs—Agott didn’t even realize that she had one—had sunk into the junction between her neck and shoulder.
It had all been a lie.
Nothing about the feelings had resembled those romanticized vampire stories. There was no pleasant numbness. No dreamy haze. Just raw, unwavering pain that pulsed steadily through her body.
The pain was searing, a mix of something hot and sharp that Agott jolted violently, an involuntary whine escaping her throat before she could stop it.
Coco immediately froze at the sound Agott made, seemingly horrified, but Agott quickly tightened the hand resting on the back of her head before the girl could retreat.
“Don’t stop,” she muttered through gritted teeth.
Coco trembled again before finally continuing, slightly gentler this time.
Agott couldn’t remember when she had shut her eyes, only that her heartbeat had grown loud enough to drown out everything else in the room. The ache in her neck persisted stubbornly against her consciousness, throbbing in time with her pulse.
Then suddenly—a warm sensation brushed against the wound.
Agott blinked her eyes open in confusion.
Coco was carefully licking over the bite marks in small, tentative motions, almost like a guilty cat trying to apologize after scratching someone. Agott didn’t really understand why she would do that, but it did help relieve the aching the bite had caused.
The stinging pain dulled slightly beneath the warmth of her tongue, and she found herself going strangely still at the sensation.
Her head was beginning to pound now, exhaustion settling heavily into her bones.
In hindsight, offering her blood after surviving on barely any sleep just the night before had perhaps not been the brightest decision Agott had ever made.
But still, the overwhelming relief blooming inside her chest drowned out most of the discomfort. Coco had drunk from her, and she hadn’t recoiled in disgust.
Agott let herself feel the burst of butterflies that swarmed her stomach at the thought.
After cleaning the wound, Coco’s lips stayed pressed against her skin as though unwilling to move away. And despite the dizziness steadily creeping into her head, Agott found that she didn’t want to move away either.
Instead, she rested her head against Coco’s and nuzzled closer, feeling the gradual return of warmth to the other girl’s body.
Agott spared a glance at the sharp fangs peeking through Coco’s parted lips. An indescribable urge washed over her—almost like a magnetic pull, as though she were hypnotized by the sight.
Slowly, she lifted a hand, gently pressing the pad of her thumb against those plush lips before sliding it toward the pointy tooth.
What she didn't expect was for Coco's eyes to flutter open. Molten crimson met rich purple for the countless times. Instead of pulling away, Coco parted her mouth further, silently inviting Agott to explore.
And explore she did.
Agott traced the curve of the canine slowly, relishing the intimate moment. Her mind swirled with the realization that this exact fang had pierced her skin just moments ago, drinking from her.
But when Agott finally tried to pull back, Coco clamped her mouth shut, trapping the finger gently between her lips.
“I—” Agott started, the fog in her brain instantly clearing to reveal just how scandalous this looked. A furious blush burned across her cheeks.
Just what kind of friend traces their finger inside the other’s mouth?
But Coco didn't seem to mind. She simply smiled a lazy smile around Agott’s finger, her cheek still resting heavily against the younger’s shoulder.
Stars above, they were so close. Coco’s warm breath washed over her skin, sending an entirely different kind of shiver down Agott's spine.
Forcing herself out of her racing thoughts, Agott gently but firmly yanked her finger free and planted her hand on the floor to support her swaying weight.
The silence that settled over them afterwards felt thick, heavy, and oddly charged.
…
Though frankly speaking, intimate moments aside, the wooden floor was slowly becoming a serious issue for Agott. The hard planks were digging into her knees and hips, completely ruining the mood.
Agott mentally berated herself for not letting the biting happen on the bed—or at least on the soft carpet, which was located just a few steps away from them.
They had already stayed there for around fifteen minutes—if the biting hadn’t completely skewed Agott’s perception of time.
When Coco made no move after sitting comfortably on Agott’s lap for another three minutes, the younger girl finally took initiative.
“Coco,” she tried, gently nudging the other girl’s shoulder.
Coco only made a soft, muffled noise. She burrowed her face deeper into the crook of Agott's neck, inhaling deeply as though trying to etch Agott’s scent into her very memory.
The intrusive thought had appeared out of nowhere, and she tried to tamp it down by quickly distracting herself with other pressing matters. “Could we move to the bed?”
Coco snapped awake. Reality rushed back, and she finally realized she had been leaning her entire weight on someone whose blood had quite literally been drained for the better part of half an hour.
“I am so sorry, Agott!”
Panicking, she hurriedly helped Agott to her feet and guided her toward the mattress.
Agott tried to hide the fact that her head was pounding fiercely, but she couldn’t stop a slight wince from breaking through the moment her head hit Coco's pillow.
Now, it was Coco’s turn to fret. She hovered over the bed, moving erratically as if utterly lost on how to begin caring for her.
Agott let out a weak scoff. She weakly patted the mattress beside her, signalling the panicked girl to sit down. “Come here.”
Coco looked like she was on the verge of tears again, but she managed to blink them back. A genuine, fragile smile broke across her face, making her—once again—golden eyes sparkle in the dim light.
The two girls shuffled around under the sheets until they were snugly cocooned beneath the heavy blanket—Coco’s courtesy, she was terrified that Agott would catch a chill after losing so much blood.
Agott sighed, her heavy head resting comfortably against Coco’s pillow.
Sleep was slowly pulling at the edges of her consciousness, but Agott refused to let the day end without answers. She needed to know what had driven her friend to this point.
“Say, Coco,” Agott mumbled into the quiet room, carefully choosing her words. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to... but what actually happened to you?”
She felt Coco’s frame instantly stiffen beside her, and a sharp pang of regret hit Agott's chest. Still, the question was out in the open now, and it would be foolish to take it back.
“I—” Coco started hesitantly. Her voice was a faint, trembling whisper, but wrapped up together as they were, Agott heard it with perfect clarity. “I think I was attacked by one of the customers at the shop.”
“I went there to buy a pair of matching bracelets,” Coco paused, taking a shaky breath to steady herself. “The customer offered me a picture book, and I thought it would be a cute gift for your birthday. Since, you know... yours is only a month away.”
Something squeezed tightly in Agott’s chest. It was currently the 24th of May. And her confession just now, it was such a classic, heartbreakingly Coco thing to do.
With her own birthday just a week away from that day, she had been neglecting her own special day to think of Agott’s, which was nearly two months apart from her own.
“And then,” Coco continued, her tone dropping into a hollow, exhausted lilt—the sound of someone who had relived the nightmare a thousand times already. “I felt a sharp prick on my neck, and I lost consciousness soon after. The rest is... well, as you can see.”
Coco offered a bitter, fragile smile as Agott tilted her chin up to meet her gaze. “I was planning to search for that customer again today, but I met you instead. The thought of the same thing happening to you made me—”
“I see,” Agott cut her off, not wanting Coco to continue the explanation because her expression had contorted into one of extreme fear.
They continued to stare at each other in silence.
And Agott was the one to break the contact first, slowly but surely feeling her cheeks heat up under the unmistakable, intense adoration hidden beneath Coco’s golden gaze.
Damn it.
Now that she actually had a moment to think about it, Agott had confessed her romantic feelings to her crush just half an hour ago. And now, here she was, cuddling with said crush right after what felt like a blatant rejection.
Suddenly, Agott felt her head pounding for an entirely different reason than her anemia.
Still, she tried to think of words to say. Anything to comfort the girl beside her, who was surely still under the intense pain of getting her world changed without her consent.
“Hey, Agott,” Coco called out suddenly after Agott had closed her eyes to dig around for her comforting vocabulary. When she only replied with a low hum, Coco pressed on. “Do you mean what you said earlier?”
Agott let out an inquisitive sound, her eyes blinking open to meet Coco’s again. She didn’t quite catch the meaning of the question. “Which part?”
“The part where you said that you liked me,” Coco said bluntly. Her expression didn't change; she was still the usual Coco—kind and endlessly accepting.
Agott immediately swallowed the instinctual denial that threatened to burst out.
Instead, she settled for a stiff nod, not quite trusting her own voice to answer verbally. She closed her eyes again, attempting to roll over and turn her back to Coco in sheer embarrassment.
But the older girl stopped her in her tracks with her hand around Agott’s waist—almost in petty revenge for Agott's earlier actions—and gently anchored her in place, forcing her to stay face-to-face.
“Don’t run away from me,” Coco whispered softly. Her free hand reached up, tenderly tucking a few stray, curly strands of hair behind Agott’s ear. “I wanted to tell you a secret of mine, too.”
Agott froze, her breath catching in her throat. What did she mean by that?
Coco inhaled slowly and burrowed deeper into the heavy blanket, positioning herself so that her face was directly level with Agott’s.
She pulled the younger closer with her other hand gently by the waist, before leaning her face back into the crook of Agott’s neck—right over the sensitive spot she had bitten not long ago.
Then, in slow, deliberate succession, Coco began pressing soft kisses against the skin, as though tracing a delicate constellation across her collarbone.
An electric rush of blood flooded Agott's face. She tried to flinch away from the sudden onslaught of affection, but Coco’s grip around her waist was surprisingly unyielding.
“C-Coco!” she gasped, utterly flustered by the intimacy.
Her mind spun, entirely confused by what this could possibly mean.
No—if she was being entirely honest with herself, Agott had suspected how Coco felt about her for the longest time. After all, Agott was the only one who had ever been allowed to observe Coco this closely.
The lingering touches, the intense, borderline-creepy stares, and Coco’s uncanny habit of associating Agott with almost everything she did.
Perhaps they had both been fools, dancing around one another, terrified to take the leap even though they were acutely aware of the gravity pulling them together.
Still, Agott couldn’t handle this much unbridled affection without some mental preparation.
She raised her free hand, pressing her palm against Coco's cheek to gently nudge her away from her neck.
But instead of pulling back as Agott intended, Coco leaned into the touch and began kissing the palm of Agott's hand softly, before slowly trailing those dizzying kisses down the warm skin of her wrist.
Agott’s breath hitched completely.
Coco paused, stopping to assess Agott’s reaction, before letting out a breathless, melodic laugh at the sheer vividness of the younger girl's blush.
“Agott,” Coco exhaled in a dreamy sigh. She cradled Agott’s face in her hands, pulling her in just enough to press a lingering, warm kiss to her forehead.
She pulled back slightly to look at Agott’s direction fondly. “Is this okay?”
Agott couldn’t bring herself to open her mouth. Instead, she averted her gaze once again, her face burning, and gave a tight nod.
Coco giggled and continued her sweet assault. She kissed Agott’s temple before sliding down to her cheek, and finally stopped after planting a soft peck on the very corner of her mouth.
When Coco made a move to bury her head back into the crook of Agott’s neck just like before, the younger girl was already at her absolute limit.
She pressed a hand against Coco's cheek, pushing her away. “T-that’s enough!” she exclaimed in sheer embarrassment.
Coco finally relented, letting out a small pout before resting her head back on the pillow.
They stared at each other again. And Agott had taken a liking to how this whole conversation had somehow returned Coco back to her old self.
It wasn’t perfect. But it was essentially them.
“Agott,” she called out again. This time, Agott only responded with a blink, unable to take her eyes off the girl looking directly into her soul.
When Agott raised a brow, Coco beamed, offering the brightest smile Agott had ever seen. Paired with the soft flush on her cheeks, the older girl looked utterly breathtaking.
Just like a star.
And when said star opened her mouth to finally continue her answer to the earlier confession, her words unleashed a frantic swarm of butterflies in Agott’s stomach.
“I like you too, Agott!”
That night, the two of them spent nearly an hour on the phone.
It had been Coco’s request as the birthday girl—she wanted to ensure Agott was the absolute first person to wish her a happy birthday the exact second the clock struck midnight. And really, who was Agott to deny a request from her fri—girlfriend?
The mental correction made her lips curve into a fond smile, and she made no effort to hide it. After all, she was currently safely hidden away in the privacy of her own bedroom.
“Agott,” Coco’s voice whined from the other end of the line. “Are you even listening to me?”
“Yes, I am,” Agott replied, the sound of her pen scratching against paper as she highlighted a section on photosynthesis in the textbook. “You were saying that we should set the blood-drinking routine to once a month, right?”
“Yes!” Coco piped up happily through the speaker, relieved they were finally on the same page. But her triumph was incredibly short-lived.
“Denied,” Agott interjected casually.
An impatient, drawn-out “Whyyyyyyy?” immediately echoed from the phone. Agott smoothly ignored the complaint and offered her counter-proposal: “Once a week.”
Coco seemed to think Agott was losing her mind. But Agott knew better; she had witnessed firsthand the devastating toll it took on Coco’s body when she went without feeding for just a single week.
While it was true that the act of feeding itself was quite unpleasant, Agott was more concerned about the possibility of something really bad happening if they tried to stretch that routine to a month.
“It’s final, Coco,” Agott exhaled, a note of slight, affectionate annoyance clipping her words.
Sure, she loved her girlfriend and every single quirk that came with her, but this stubbornness was starting to grate on her already thin patience.
“By the way,” Agott said, intentionally steering the conversation to a new topic. “What were you even doing in that abandoned lab anyway?”
Now that she actually had time to think about it, it was incredibly strange for Coco to spend every single lunch break holed up in a deserted laboratory.
“What do you mean by why?” Coco questioned her back, as though the answer should have been entirely obvious. “I was training my endurance. I wanted to see if I could resist the urge to drink blood by watching the lab mice.”
Agott choked on her own saliva at the casual explanation. The pen in her hand came to a sudden, dead halt against the paper. “W-why would you put yourself through that?”
Coco let out a contemplative hum. “Well... because looking at actual people just made me want to drink their blood, I guess.”
An abrupt, heavy silence settled over the line.
“J-just kidding!” Coco hurriedly blurted out. She was likely sweating buckets in her own room now, hit with a wave of guilt for dumping such a heavy burden on Agott.
“I see,” Agott replied a moment later, pointedly ignoring the weak attempt at a retraction. “Thank you for telling me, Coco.”
It was Coco’s turn to fall quiet. But then, she let out a slightly wet laugh, sounding immensely relieved. She hummed softly, murmuring a gentle, “You’re welcome.”
Agott smiled, hoping that under her own roof, Coco was smiling right along with her.
They kept the conversation going late into the night, until Agott finally crawled under her own covers after finishing her nightly routine.
She shot a glance at the digital clock perched on her nightstand. 23:52, she noted mentally. They were only eight minutes away from Coco’s birthday.
After that, she could finally rest after sacrificing her entire sleep schedule the night before to analyze that security footage.
Agott’s head slammed into the pillow with a loud fwump!
Coco let out a soft laugh at the loud groan of pure satisfaction that followed.
“Are you laughing at me?” Agott asked with mock irritation, deliberately trying to bait Coco into a ramble so she wouldn't lose her battle against the pull of sleep.
Sure enough, Coco began to indignantly defend herself. But contrary to Agott's plan, the cute, breathless rambling only acted as a perfect lullaby for her tired body.
Slowly, her eyelids grew too heavy to hold up.
“Agott?”
Agott blinked her eyes open with a start. She glanced back at the nightstand clock, her stomach dropping when she saw the glowing numbers. It showed that it was currently 00:02.
Damn it. She had actually fallen asleep.
Fighting through a wave of heavy grogginess, she reached for the phone resting beside her on the mattress and lit up the screen.
Thankfully, Coco was still on the line, and the calendar widget had officially flipped to the 25th of May.
With a soft, sleepy smile, Agott mumbled close to the phone. “Happy birthday, Coco.”
Instantly, the other girl responded with a gleeful laugh, thanking Agott profusely for staying awake for her. “You can go to sleep for real now,” she added, her voice softening into something a bit more tender.
Agott nodded, entirely forgetting in her daze that Coco couldn’t actually see her.
Then, just as Agott was about to let her eyes close for the final time, Coco murmured a faint goodnight, followed by an even fainter, breathless whisper.
“I love you.”
The words were delivered, nonetheless.
Fueled purely by instinct, Agott murmured an equally faint, “I love you too,” before promptly succumbing to sleep once more.
Unbeknownst to her, on the other side of the line, a red-faced Coco was busy kicking her legs up and down against her mattress in sheer delight.
“Ah! Coco, there you are!” Tetia’s familiar, bright voice drifted through the crowded hallway.
Coco and Agott were in the middle of walking back from their respective homeroom classes when Tetia approached them with a signature bounce in her step. Almost immediately, she narrowed her eyes, peering at them in deep suspicion.
“There’s something different about you two,” Tetia mumbled seriously, as if doubting her own vision.
“Just spit out what your business is, Tetia,” Agott replied impatiently, not interested in getting teased by the other girl this early in the morning.
“Ah! Right,” Tetia said, snapping her fingers in sudden remembrance. She reached into her pink bag, digging around until she pulled out a sizeable book. It was roughly the size of an encyclopedia, bound in rich leather, and looked remarkably expensive.
Beside Agott, Coco stiffened instantly.
“I was checking out that new store down the block last week,” Tetia chimed happily, tilting her head to the side. “An older man there suddenly asked me to give this to Coco. He said you accidentally left it behind.”
Agott was about to raise an eyebrow at the highly suspicious claim, but then the dots connected in her brain.
The new store down the block. A mysterious stranger. A picture book.
It was most likely the very same man who had turned Coco into a vampire.