“IT has been a while since we last met, Miss Azusa Saito. I believe the last time I saw you was at the party.” Azusa stared with disbelief at the hand belonging to the person speaking as she returned his handshake. A man donning an expensive and well-cherished suit directed a hearty smile at her and Kouya.
They arrived at the school more than an hour before class started to greet the headmaster. The front office secretary showed them into a sitting room where they were greeted by the well-built man who tormented Azusa as a terrible drunk during the party.
She froze for a good thirty seconds upon seeing a completely different man. And he even greeted her, changing what had been a possibility into reality in her mind.
“Shouldn’t you apologize to her first, Uncle?” Kouya said threateningly. The man cackled.
“Good point. I apologize for my rude behavior the other day. I wanted to see what kind of person could compel my nephew to suddenly establish a contract, seeing as he has always rejected the mere idea of one. Some bad rumors were circling about my elder brother too. Did I anger you with my improper behavior?”
Azusa assessed the man’s gentle expression and carefully chose her words, “Excuse me, are you the headmaster?”
“I am.”
“You are also the hammered drunkard who picked on me at the party?”
“Guilty as charged. I am the drunkard.”
“…I look forward to the years to come under your tutelage.”
“Yes, it will be a pleasure to have you as a student.”
Azusa’s face twitched, finally realizing what Kouya meant when he said his uncle and father were sly old foxes. He was the type you would never, ever, want to make an enemy of. The headmaster watched her reaction with amusement before placing a paper bag full of paperwork and her school ID on top of the table, bringing the conversation to an early close.
“Miss Saito, please head to the faculty room and have your homeroom teacher introduce you to your class. Kouya, stay here and chat with me.”
“Okay,” Azusa replied and picked up her student ID and the paper bag. Something tugged the paper bag downward as she tried to stand with it.
“Take only what you need today. I’ll bring the rest back to your room for you,” Kouya said.
“Why? This is pretty heavy, you know?”
“That’s why.”
“Th-Thank you very much!” Azusa broke out into a smile when she caught onto what Kouya was trying to do for her. After confirming her timetable for the day, she pulled the necessary textbooks out of the paper bag and shoved them into her messenger bag. She bowed and left the headmaster’s office.
✦ ✦ ✦
As soon as Azusa left, the two men sitting across from each other fell silent. Kouya seemed ill at ease.
“From the look of things between you and Azusa, should I assume I was needlessly worried?” his uncle questioned, breaking the silence.
“You were worried?”
“I was. Yesterday the Shiranui’s daughter came to see me, you know? She stared me down and said, ‘Kouya seems to be avoiding Azusa now. Can you do something about it?’ I see her hatred of men hasn’t been cured yet.”
“…It hasn’t.”
“So? What has made you start avoiding the cute lass?”
“Because you…” Kouya started then held his tongue. Nothing good would come from saying it. The uncle sitting in front of him may have been the catalyst of the problem, but Kouya knew he was the cause. Blaming others was the same as barking up the wrong tree. He lightly shook his head.
“Are you possibly bothered by that rumor?” his uncle smiled, seeing right through Kouya’s thoughts, further ticking him off.
“Something would be wrong with me if I wasn’t bothered by it.”
“I presume it’s the rumor, ‘the infamous Akaoni has a yen for a human girl’? Rumors last but seventy-five days, my boy.”
Kouya clicked his tongue internally and glowered at the man sitting in front of him.
Kouya caused his own ruin by jumping out of the shadows to save Azusa from his uncle at the party. The infamous Akaoni, who rarely participated in events of any kind, saved a troubled girl from a drunk and vanished gallantly with her into the sunset. The women who personally witnessed the scene added color to their story as they gossiped about it the next few weeks. A young woman’s love for a good romance story was the same for humans and vampires alike. The rumor was promptly embellished and exaggerated as it made its way around the entire town.
Kouya predicted that would happen before he leapt out of the shadows, but he couldn’t abandon the distressed girl before him.
“Haah…”
“If you were going to let her fend for herself anyway, you should have neglected her until the very end. If I didn’t know better, I would say you came to the party and hid in the shadows, watching over her out of worry.”
“……” Kouya had no excuse—his uncle was right.
He was hesitant to thoughtlessly reveal himself in front of people who dreaded his red eyes, and had long since decided to never attend any event they would gather in droves. He could have attended with his eyes hidden behind colored contacts, but what the people feared were not red eyes as much as Kouya Doumeki who possesses red eyes. Hence, he rarely ever attended any event where he was the focus. No one had been troubled by his absence until now. But this time was different. By not attending the party to celebrate their contract, Kouya thrust everything on Azusa.
“Isn’t it a good thing? As the rumor spreads, your horrible reputation will be slightly mitigated with the thought there is some humanity left in the Akaoni.”
“All as you planned, I’m sure. Didn’t you pull that move because you knew I was watching and couldn’t leave her to your torment?”
“You picked up on that fast. What a blessing it is to be young. Your mind works fast.”
“…I am happy you worry about my reputation, but will you please leave Azusa out of your schemes?”
“You call her Azusa, eh? Nice.”
“……”
I seriously want to punch him in the face. I can probably win when it comes down to sheer strength. It’d be an overwhelming victory. I’m confident I can take him out in a few seconds. But Kouya kept his uncle’s well-deserved beat down to his thoughts. I lose my temper surprisingly easy when it comes to Azusa.
“And so you are completely avoiding her until the rumors die down?”
“Yes, I am.”
“What’s the big problem? What’s wrong with rumors of your loving her floating around?”
“I can’t do that to her. There’s no need—”
“‘There’s no need to drag her down with my reputation,’ is what you want to say, no?”
Kouya glared at his uncle for stealing his words, but his uncle couldn’t care less.
“What’s wrong with that? At most, they would just see the Akaoni as her backer and treat her like one would an infected, oozing wound. Maybe they would fear her and bully her for it too. That’s all though.”
“How is that all?”
Girls her age had enough to deal with, without bullying and neglect added on top of it all. Thinking it would be his fault she’d be treated poorly made Kouya regret contracting with her. At least when everyone recognized her as Poor Girl A, forced to contract with him against her will, she could have been pitied and sympathized with. Kouya glared daggers at the man who erased any chance of her being the object of sympathy, replacing it with fear.
“That is a conceited pretense.”
“……”
“Those are problems anyone who is unlucky will have to face if they live in a community. Whether rumors of your love for her existed or not, she would face some form of peer pressure. It’s the students who decide how to overcome those obstacles and deal with life on their terms.”
“That’s—”
“Someone like you can’t do anything about her life. You’d best not think a man such as yourself can influence someone else’s life. Stop letting the way others perceive you control you and think about how to live your own life. You should live how you want to.”
“……”
“Those are the words I wanted to tell you all those years ago when you were once my student,” he flashed the smile of a clergyman.
This is why I can’t stand Uncle, Kouya internally grumbled. He sighed with annoyance over how those simplistic words somehow lessened the load weighing on his heart.