“Sakura…”
The hoarse voice, full of corrosive desire, made Sakura stop.
The door swung open—
Before Sakura could so much as react, a hard impact struck her from behind.
A soft body had barreled into hers and pressed her up against the wall.
“Yumizuka-san?” Sakura asked, hesitant.
Something about the Satsuki in front of her felt off.
She looked into Satsuki’s vivid red eyes.
They glimmered faintly in the dim corridor, with a pull like a slow whirlpool—once they drew you in, you would not climb out again.
“Sakura…” Satsuki pressed slowly closer.
Through the thin shirt, Sakura felt every line of the body against hers—a soft, supple shape with curves she hadn’t expected.
Beneath the demure school-girl exterior, Satsuki’s figure was, quietly, very nice.
Only—those vivid red eyes made Sakura, in some indefinable way, vaguely uneasy.
Greedily breathing in Sakura’s scent, the sweet, alluring fragrance of fresh blood up close, Satsuki could barely keep the hungry beast inside her caged.
The tip of her nose was already brushing the slim curve of Sakura’s throat—the next breath, fangs would slide free between her lips.
But, hearing Sakura’s call, Satsuki gritted her teeth, clenched her right hand, and forced herself to stay still.
Only Sakura…
Only Sakura, I cannot—
Watching Satsuki tremble, Sakura hesitated, then slowly raised her hands and started to soothe her, palms moving in slow circles over her back.
Sakura could feel Satsuki’s small mouth breathing against her throat.
Cold.
Cooling, settling, weaving a quiet net.
Only—it really was cold, like holding a life-sized, finely made doll.
In hot weather, it would be lovely to hold Satsuki, Sakura’s thoughts ran wild on their own.
Satsuki’s gaze was fixed on the line of Sakura’s neck.
The skin of the throat sat closest to the major blood vessels—one of the easiest feeding spots, for a vampire.
Sakura’s face was burning red, but she didn’t dare make a sound.
She could feel something in herself going strange, but she had no idea, oddly, how to put it into words.
“Yu—Yumizuka-san…” Sakura’s voice—soft, a little broken—snapped Satsuki out of her struggle in a rush.
What was she doing?
Looking down at Sakura, panicked as a cornered rabbit, Satsuki could have slapped herself.
“I’m sorry.” Hands clenched at her sides, Satsuki stepped back, leaving Sakura a little space.
Sakura nearly slumped down, all the strength gone out of her legs; Satsuki caught her in a flustered scramble.
Sakura was, in the end, just an ordinary girl.
And Satsuki—Satsuki was now something very much not ordinary.
Cheeks flushed dark as blood, Sakura kept her gaze firmly on the tips of Satsuki’s small feet.
As for why she didn’t look at her own—she couldn’t see them.
That was a particular grief Tohsaka Rin would never, in this lifetime, understand. New chapters come out on g.com first.
“I’m sorry,” Satsuki rasped again, like a half-strangled sob.
Her right hand was a fist.
Her body was shaking.
The tearing edge in her voice made Sakura’s chest ache, as though some unseen hand had closed mercilessly around Satsuki’s throat.
Watching her like that, Sakura sighed at last and reached up to comb her fingers through Satsuki’s hair.
After two days hidden in the dark of the apartment, Satsuki’s chestnut hair was a tangled mess.
It still felt nice to the touch, though—soft, smooth.
“Did Yumizuka-san run into something?” Sakura asked, gentling her, careful with the question.
Satsuki fell silent.
The scene from that night surfaced in her mind again.
After saying goodbye to Sakura, she had walked down the main street and turned to cut through an alley on the way home.
And then, she had seen—
A girl in a pure-white off-the-shoulder dress, long black hair, standing in the alley with her back to her.
The girl had turned slowly.
She had looked perhaps fourteen or fifteen, with deep, blood-red eyes.
She was barefoot.
The pale skin of her shoulders and legs had been flawless under the moon, like fine porcelain.
She had smiled at Satsuki—a perfect, innocent smile.
After that, Satsuki had no memory of what came after.
The only fragments left were a sensation almost like rapture, and the feel of being on the very edge of dying.
Her fingertip brushed the skin at Sakura’s throat.
She kept her head down.
“I’ve met a vampire.”
“Eh!?” Sakura paused her hand, smile turning faintly amused.
“Yumizuka-san, please don’t tease.
There are no such things as vampires in the world.”
“There are, you know,” Satsuki said, slowly leaning closer to the slender curve of Sakura’s neck.
Sakura felt as though a pair of cold fangs had brushed lightly over her skin.
It tickled.
“Yumizuka-san, please don’t—that tickles.”
Satsuki pulled herself back, slowly.
There were no fairy-tale fangs growing improbably long.
Just a pair of little canines, almost playful in shape.
But Satsuki knew.
“It’s late.
Sakura, you should get home.” Pressing the trapped beast in her chest down, Satsuki dropped her gaze and spoke low.
“Mn.” Sakura looked at her and felt a small, tight pain.
She caught Satsuki’s left hand in hers.
“But—remember.
You have to be at school tomorrow.”
“And if anything happens, just call me.”
Sakura’s gut said it: Satsuki had run into something, and that something was why she had reacted like that on seeing her.
“No,” Satsuki said, tilting her head, looking off down the corridor.
“Eh!?
Why?” Sakura blinked, bewildered.
“Tomorrow’s the weekend.
There’s no school.” Satsuki’s mouth quirked at the corner.
Whoosh—
The flush that had only just begun to ease out of Sakura’s cheeks rolled straight back up.
Could she possibly look more ridiculous?
How could she be such an idiot.
“Then it’s settled.
I’m going home now, onee-san will worry.” She fled in a fluster.
More than being pinned to the wall by Satsuki, Sakura cared about how spectacularly she’d just embarrassed herself.
Satsuki stood by the railing, watching Sakura’s back as she ran toward the black sedan.
She slowly opened her hand.
Thick blood dripped down from her fingertips, drop by drop.
The pain kept needling at her senses.
But she let out a long, long breath.
It was alright.
She’d held back.
She looked at the maid in the car waiting for Sakura.
The keen vision that came with being a Dead Apostle picked up every detail.
She saw it: the demure maid lifted her head and looked back at her, indigo eyes faintly veiled in pale blue light.
It felt like meeting a natural predator.
Satsuki ducked her gaze and slipped back inside.
So.
The world was not, after all, so simple.
But the moment she stepped through her own door, a bone-deep cold wrapped around her, sweat slicking her back.
There was someone else in the apartment.
(Awoo!)