“ALL right, class, I’ve got a transfer student to introduce to you. Miss Saito.”
“Hello. I’m Azusa Saito. I hope we can get along.”
The homeroom teacher, who looked more suited to being a PE teacher, brought Azusa to a normal classroom found anywhere in Japan. They weren’t kidding when they said the school was built to imitate human schools—not a single section of the school felt off from the ones she had attended.
The structure included an elementary school, middle school, and high school, with no separate class for each school year. Freshman through seniors all shared the same classroom, keeping things on a smaller scale. Being an elevator school with a university meant the campus grounds were larger than most. Each class had around thirty students, and Azusa currently stood next to the teacher’s podium at the center of all thirty students’ attention.
“Miss Saito is a genuine purebred human. A rarity in our ranks, but don’t tease her too much. Anyone have any questions?”
Having herself emphasized as a genuine purebred human really solidified the feeling she was surrounded by vampire children. Youta waved from his seat next to the window. They had only just met in the morning, but it was reassuring to have a familiar face in the room.
“I do! Are the rumors about Azusa being contracted with the Akaoni true?” a dumb-looking boy asked with his hand raised. The teacher turned blue and tried to stop him, but the mischievous boy didn’t get the message.
The teacher is more scared than he is, was the impression Azusa got.
“Y-You don’t have to answer him, Miss Saito!”
“Ah, it doesn’t bother me. It’s true,” Azusa readily answered.
The classroom exploded with chatter. The boys were brimming with curiosity about the being their parents threatened them into good behavior with. Some of the girls quivered with fear, while others weren’t interested in childish urban legends.
“I have a question! What is the Akaoni’s weakness?!” another boy asked.
“Hey!” the teacher frantically attempted to stop him.
“Weakness… His weakness, huh?” Azusa tilted her head in contemplation. One of the girls smacked the boy in the back of the head.
“Why did you ask something stupid like that! Some of us are scared here!”
“Because, I obviously want to try my hand at taking him out someday! Then I’ll be a legend!”
“Don’t be stupid!”
No matter the race or the era, men will be romanticists and women realists.
“It doesn’t really fall under a weakness, but while he might not look it, Kouya is a sweets fiend, and he will scowl at you real scary if you poke fun at him! …Whoops, maybe I shouldn’t have said that…”
“Ooooh!”
The classroom filled with chatter, screams, cheers, and all sorts of noise.
“I don’t believe it. The Akaoni is dreaded as a fearsome monster, right?”
“But it seems like no mistake this girl is his contractor.”
“How scary. I just remembered when my mom used to tell me if I don’t go to bed, the Akaoni will come to get me!”
“My mother told me that too! She would say, ‘if you’re not a good girl, he will come peel the flesh off you’!”
What’s with that? Is he the boogeyman to these people? Azusa thought in dismay.
“He likes sweets? Does that mean he’s not actually very strong then?”
“What does that got to do with anything? I heard the Akaoni can blow away mountains! Don’t they also say he can split oceans in half?”
“Seriously, dude?! Sweet! I wonder if I’ll be like that when I awaken.”
“As if you could. Mo-ron! Wake up and smell the bloody bacon. Does he even actually exist? It’s rumored no one has seen him for decades, y’know?”
“Yeah… I’m kinda freaking out, but also got chills of excitement too! I want to meet him at least once!”
“You idiot. Don’t even try. They say he loves the blood of his kin the most, y’know? He’ll drain you dry!”
“You think so?”
The boys were half in awe and half afraid. At the end of all the exaggerating and embellishing of the rumors, Kouya got turned into one outrageous monster right out of a B-level horror movie, which Azusa found terribly sad. The greengrocer owner had informed her Kouya hadn’t shown himself in town in over twenty years. As such, none of her classmates had ever actually seen him in person. They merely feared the impression they got from their parents and grandparents. In other words, to them the Akaoni was closer to a fictional character than a person—an urban legend in every sense of the word.
“Um, aren’t you afraid to be with the Akaoni?” timidly asked a meek girl sitting in the front row.
“I’m not afraid. Well, I do feel a considerable amount of fear when he gets angry though.”
“I knew it!”
“No, it’s not what you think. Aren’t you scared when your mom or dad gets mad? It’s like that.”
“Is…it?” The girl’s face paled and she looked down like she wasn’t convinced. Some people were genuinely afraid.
Azusa watched the class buzz with chatter over the Akaoni with a sense of detachment. She felt like she was introducing Kouya rather than herself.
“Here! I have a question!”
“Oh, come on! You’re the last then!” the teacher snapped and pointed to the boy. The teacher looked more fear stricken than the students.
“I heard from my parents, ‘the Akaoni has a yen for someone’, but what does that mean?”
“A yen for someone?”
What does that mean? Azusa tilted her head. The students who understood started muttering among themselves, but unfortunately, Azusa wasn’t the most intelligent of students.
“Sorry for being late,” someone said just as the door behind Azusa slid open. The voice sounded familiar.
“What’re you pulling on your first day? Miss Saito came here first thing in the morning!”
“I’m sorry. The paperwork took more time than I expected,” a boy said, stepping next to Azusa. She turned blue and froze.
“We’ve got another transfer student. His name is Tsukiharu Hiragi.”
“I’m Tsukiharu Hiragi. I look forward to getting to know all of you.”