SEVERAL hours earlier.
Kouya escorted Azusa to school as usual, sent his cat familiar out to keep an eye on her, and returned to his room at the mansion where, without taking off his contacts, he collapsed on the bed and exhaled painfully.
“...I’m thirsty,” he mumbled. He rolled onto his back and ran his hands through his hair, messing it up.
His body felt languid, his head heavy, and his limbs numb. The symptoms resembling anemia taking over his body shifted into the far worse symptoms connected to the impulse for blood. Kouya groaned.
I want blood…
The source of his need for blood stemmed from him overestimating his abilities. In the first place, he was called a vampire for a reason—drinking blood should be the norm—not needing to drink blood was the abnormality. Kouya’s first mistake was failing to recognize it. He thought he didn’t need to drink blood period. That he could make do without any.
The undeniable truth was that Kouya went years, decades even, without drinking a drop of blood. But he was only making do with the power he had—he couldn’t go on forever without blood. His second mistake was writing off the thirst he felt during his battle with the legion of beasts summoned by Shiro as simply a momentary lapse in his endurance.
Kouya Doumeki was undeniably powerful. His ability to naturally produce blood without taking in new blood got him through most things. However, that only applied to living a normal life and severing the heads of his former kin, now known as F ranks. The quality of a vampire’s blood was the quality of their essence. The amount of their blood was the amount of their essence. No matter how great the quality or how large the quantity, any resource will eventually be depleted if it’s used too much without being replenished.
✦ ✦ ✦
That was Kouya’s current predicament. To put it simply: he had used too much power.
His supplies weren’t large enough for his needs. Despite receiving blood from Azusa a month ago, he needed more. A sign of how much he had been pushing his body beyond its limits. Another way to look at it was like a debt. The debt gradually built up every day, month, and year as he withdrew more. Now the loan sharks were banging at the proverbial door for him to cough up all he had borrowed at once.
Kouya rolled over in bed wondering how much his ‘blood interest’ had accumulated. The hammering pain of his headache and the bile building up in his throat kept him from thinking much. He was ashamed of his body for not working the way he wanted it to.
To take his mind off his sickness, he aligned his consciousness with the cat familiar he released to keep tabs on Azusa. There was a small click in his ears before the image behind his closed eyes changed from darkness to scenery. He switched only his right eye and ear over to pick up the same vision and hearing as the cat. The tumultuous noise unique to school came blaring into his head—he quickly cut the connection to his ear.
This is tiresome with a pounding headache.
His right eye caught sight of Azusa attending class normally.
I doubt anything will happen during class, so I’m sure she’s fine on her own for now.
“Tch!” Kouya clicked his tongue the moment his assumption was proven wrong by the person who entered his line of vision.
Tsukiharu. Kouya had cut his connection to the cat’s ears, keeping him in the dark about what he was saying, but he could easily guess it was the usual, “I forgot my textbook for the next class. Won’t you show me yours?”
Azusa flashed her usual disgusted look as she pushed her desk next to his and opened the textbook between them.
She’s doing it…again. Rage simmered inside Kouya. Tsukiharu was responsible for a part of it, but the brunt of his anger was directed toward Azusa. How many times must I warn her before she stops?! I told her to be careful around him. She should just leave him be…
Tsukiharu made eye contact with the cat. His lips curled up in a triumphant smirk, clearly directed at Kouya.
I want to beat him to a pulp!
✦ ✦ ✦
FLASH-FORWARD to the current time.
“Is there anything else you have to say for yourself?”
“Nope. None.”
“You understand what I’m trying to say, don’t you?”
“I do. I’m sorry.”
Azusa sat upright on her knees in her room. Kouya stood hovering over her in a daunting pose, with a chilling expression capable of freezing anyone on the spot. For a little over an hour, she was stuck kneeling while getting an earful of his lecture. The lecture was on the same thing as always, but his anger-levels were ineluctably off the scale this time.
“So? What are you going to do tomorrow now that you’ve committed yourself?”
Tomorrow being the day Azusa promised to have lunch with Tsukiharu. Azusa thoughtfully considered it.
“I will cautiously eat my lunch!”
“TCH!” Kouya clicked his tongue.
Apparently, she answered wrong.
Further frustrated by her disagreeable answer, Kouya’s voice dropped several tones into more of a growl than a voice, “You’re going to eat lunch with him then?”
“A promise is a promise after all…”
“Is it now?” He wasn’t asking a question but bluntly threatening her. She could hear the unsaid follow up line of, “You plan on angering me even more?”
Scary! I’ll say it just this once—he’s scarier than Tsukiharu! Has Kouya always been like this? Azusa thought as her face contorted with the desire to cry.
Her first impression of Kouya was a calm, cool, and collected young man. He didn’t talk much and it was hard to tell what he was thinking or feeling. But she was getting a different impression from him lately. He talked more often and his thoughts and feelings were clearly getting easier to pick up on. Subaru, who had known Kouya for a long time, didn’t have any reason to think he was acting differently, so it wasn’t Kouya’s personality that changed as much as his relationship with Azusa.
Put simply, their relationship was at a point where the walls had gone down a little. Azusa was incredibly happy and, in this moment, regretting the fact they had grown closer.
“Are you listening to me?”
“Ah, yes, I am.”
“You’ve got guts to space out on me.”
“Kouya, I am not the enemy here! Don’t glare at me like I’m your bitter rival! You are scaring me!”
“To think you still have enough mental composure to talk back to me. Looks like you require additional chastisement.”
“Scary! You’re scary! Scary, scary, scary! I don’t want any more of this! Let’s take a deep breath and calm down first, okay?!”
“In the first place, you lack caution...”
The lecture went on for another hour.
“Don’t let down your guard tomorrow just because I’m watching and Youta is there. All right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I am only agreeing this time because there’s no guarantee he won’t use your committing to have lunch together as a shield to further threaten you. I won’t allow a second time.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’re good as long as you understand. Be on guard for things like that from now on.”
“Yes, sir.”
Lecture time came to an end with Azusa literally on the verge of tears. She felt like she had faced terrible experiences ever since she started attending school. Where did all her enthusiasm and excitement on the day she decided to attend go? Being bored to death was unbearable, but being scared to death was even more so. Both were relatively close to a living hell for her.
Azusa could barely feel her legs anymore after kneeling for hours. Kouya forcefully pulled her to her numb feet and tried to get her out the door.
“Please keep an eye out for me tomorrow,” Azusa tried to say just as her legs gave out.
“…!”
Kouya supported her before she fell.
“I’m sorry, Kouya! Eh? Whoa!”
“…!”
Unable to hold her up, he collapsed with her. Her first thought after finding herself on top of Kouya was, Oh no, did I gain weight?