Tucked against Fujino’s chest, Sakura looked a little out of her depth.
A flush like camellia petals bloomed across her cheeks; in her eyes, spring water glimmered with a bright, half-hidden bashfulness.
Her hand rested cautiously on Fujino’s chest.
The faint, drifting fragrance there set her senses swaying, made her dizzy in a way she didn’t quite understand.
“Go to sleep,” Fujino murmured, lowering her head, brushing soft lips against the girl’s forehead.
“You have school tomorrow.”
“Mm.” Sakura answered in a small voice.
But her eyes were still flickering open and shut, long lashes brushing the skin of Fujino’s neck like feathers.
Watching the girl half-leaning against her, Fujino smiled, helpless and fond, and reached up to cover Sakura’s eyes with her hand.
“Goodnight.”
“Mn… goodnight.” The girl made a soft, plush little sound, the way a cat does when scooped into someone’s arms.
Listening as Sakura’s breathing evened and slowed, Fujino tugged the quilt up a little higher and looked out at the night sky beyond the floor-to-ceiling window.
The moon was nearly full.
In the dim room, those dark crimson eyes were tender, still.
“Yumizuka Satsuki…”
Fujino stroked the curve of Sakura’s back.
The girl’s shoulder twitched once and burrowed deeper into the warm embrace.
She had a feeling.
The world hidden beneath the surface of this one could no longer be kept from Sakura much longer.
***
“So… thirsty…”
Both hands clamped tight to her own shoulders, her scarlet eyes opened in the dark.
Even the whites were nearly gone—blood-red eyes blown wide, pupils black as small black holes.
“Hah… hah…”
She panted, body trembling.
A sweet fragrance seemed to seep in from beyond the door, leaving her bewildered, half-mad.
Did she want water?
No.
No.
What her body wanted wasn’t water.
But—if it wasn’t water, why was she so thirsty?
Thirsty enough that part of her wanted to tear herself open to make it stop.
Yumizuka Satsuki crouched behind the door of her apartment, feeling like a monster.
The floor was cold, but her own body was colder—colder than the icy tile, cold to the marrow.
Could someone… please help me?
She put out a trembling hand.
Her fingertips brushed against her phone.
She wanted to call Sakura.
Her eyes drifted to the corner of the screen.
It was already past ten at night.
Satsuki hunched her shoulders and gripped the phone tight.
The hard plastic gave little crackling protests under the pressure.
Lucky it was a Nokia—any other brand and the casing would already be cracked.
Satsuki didn’t even register that.
“Hah… hah…”
Sakura would already be asleep at this hour.
And besides—she didn’t want to make Sakura worry.
Curled on the floor, she scrolled through Sakura’s calls again and again, reading line after line of concerned messages.
The image of Sakura, soft and worried, rose in her head.
Around her, a boundless darkness pressed close.
Every voice in it whispered the same thing—
Tear her apart.
Eat her.
That, at least, she could not allow.
Slowly, Satsuki pushed herself up off the floor.
Only Sakura.
Only Sakura—absolutely not.
The torn shreds of memory were piecing themselves back together in her mind.
She saw it.
Crimson eyes.
A figure stepping closer, closer.
Fangs sliding free toward a slim, exposed throat.
“This has to be a lie, right?” Satsuki covered her mouth.
“Vampires—how can something like vampires exist in the real world?”
Slender fingertips traced the line of her throat and stopped where her memory said death had unfurled.
There was no wound.
But her cold, heatless skin had said everything that needed saying, without a sound.
Satsuki opened the door slowly, deflated.
She understood now what it was she was so desperately thirsty for.
She lowered her head and fixed her gaze on the bottom of her own apartment door.
That sweet, beckoning fragrance was drifting in from there, kindling in her some dark urge to drop to the floor and lick the wood.
Last night, Sakura had collapsed against this door, beating on it again and again.
Even though the faint traces of blood that had remained were dry now, Satsuki could not have forgotten Sakura’s scent if she tried.
To her, it was the most consuming poison there was.
When she came to herself again, she was already kneeling in front of the door.
Her crimson eyes were locked on the spot where Sakura had knocked.
She covered her face.
Shame surged up through her like something close to madness.
The small ears beneath her hair twitched.
The whole apartment building seemed laid out before her senses.
Breath.
Heartbeats.
Every detail caught and catalogued.
Tap-tap-tap.
Someone was coming up the stairs.
By the sound, it was the otaku who lived across the hall.
She turned toward the stairwell.
A red silhouette outlined the shape of her quarry; the perfume of blood needled at her nerves.
The hunt… was about to begin?
***
The black sedan tore along the road and drifted neatly to a stop in front of the school gates.
A girl with shoulder-length black hair scrambled out of the car and bolted for the school building.
Onee-san, you idiot, idiot, idiot!
Sakura wailed inwardly.
Said something about how Sakura had been sleeping so peacefully she couldn’t bear to wake her.
But she was about to be late!
Brrrring—
The bell rang as she came skidding into the classroom doorway, gripping the frame and gasping for breath.
Mercifully, the young homeroom teacher didn’t seem in any mood to scold her.
But every pair of eyes in the class had turned to her, and a vivid blush was already spreading across Sakura’s cheeks.
She made a small, shy half-run for her seat and dropped into it face-down on the desk.
Sunlight outside was bright, warming the wood of her desk to a friendly heat.
Sakura lifted her head a careful inch and scanned the room.
When her gaze swept the front-right corner of the classroom, her cute little face went cold.
Yumizuka Satsuki’s seat was still empty.
She glanced up at the teacher, then carefully fished her phone out of her bag and started texting Satsuki.
Beep-beep-beep—
Satsuki replied almost at once.
But the chime had pulled every eye in the class onto Sakura, and she was already so embarrassed she might as well have evaporated.
She dropped her face onto her desk and made a tiny, mortified sound at the back of her throat, like a small animal.
I’m such an idiot… I forgot to turn off my phone.
But—
[I’m fine.
Just have something I need to take care of.
I’ll be in school tomorrow.]
Reading the message, Sakura finally let out a long breath.
***
Tucked behind the curtain, Satsuki slid the phone back into her pocket.
She looked down through the window and watched the otaku from across the hall walk off to work as if nothing had happened.
She really… couldn’t bring herself to do it after all.
She had a feeling—that if she’d bitten down then, there would have been no coming back.
But she was so thirsty.
Satsuki put a hand to her throat and made a hoarse, scraping sound.
Wait…!?
She seemed to notice something.
Slowly, she put her hand out into the sunlight, the pale skin bathed in light.
It tingled a little.
But there was none of the hissing, smoking image from the movies.
Was she… really a vampire after all?
(Baa!)