Daylight Specialist, 3/6

[astrangestorm]

The day was passing in agonizing slowness. It had been three days since Matsumoto had come down to complain about the defaced magazine, and unexpectedly, Nino had gotten a follow-up response. Although it hadn’t been the response he had expected.

When he’d come in to the mail room that morning, a note had been slipped under his door, written out neatly on paper that bore a Starlight Kiss Tours logo. It was information that could have easily been conveyed in an email, but perhaps Sakurai Sho preferred a proper letter.

Ninomiya-san, thank you for your continued diligence in serving the Amagasa community. In regards to what you and Matsumoto-kun spoke about the other night, would you be able to meet with us for dinner this evening? If not, please let us know if you have any time in the coming week. I’ll come down to speak with you at sundown.

Yours sincerely,
Sakurai Sho

Sakurai didn’t want to file a complaint? Or if he did, he was going to wait until they met in person. And dinner? Sakurai wanted Nino to have dinner with them? He was just the guy in the mail room, why did they want to hang out with him?

He spun around lazily in his office chair, sneakers skidding along the linoleum and eyes fixed on the ceiling. Dinner. Dinner with Sakurai Sho, vampire and Matsumoto Jun, person bitten on a regular basis by said vampire. They wanted to spend time with him. He had almost shown Aiba the letter, but instead he’d folded it up, slipped it into the back pocket of his jeans. If he started talking to Aiba the gossiping housewife about it, then the whole building would catch on. Because Nino knew for a fact that he wasn’t just intrigued by the occupants of 6B. He liked the occupants of 6B. Mostly in the physical sense, since he barely knew them. But he wanted to know them. He wanted to know everything about them. Not just Matsumoto. Not just Sakurai. Both of them.

The hours and minutes passed with agonizing slowness that afternoon, the sun hanging in the Tokyo sky for far longer than Nino wished it would, here in the dead middle of summer. He’d already run his necessary errands for the day, putting gas in the Amagasa car, hitting up the bank, and visiting the ward office to file some paperwork on behalf of a resident of the fourth floor who was moving north to Aomori at the end of the month. Now he was stuck in the office, wishing his imagination was far less vivid than it truly was.

While he’d been sorting the mail earlier after Kazama’s visit, he’d played out a scenario in his mind where Matsumoto held him down and the actual “dinner date” involved Sakurai sucking his blood. It had scared him, such a scenario, but it had also thrilled him. Then there’d been another imagined evening where they went to some fancy restaurant, the three of them, and the smell of all the rich food had made the vampire ill-Nino had then taken Sakurai to the hospital, an arm around his waist and whispering encouraging little “there, there, it’ll be alright” messages in his ear.

It should have alarmed Nino that his Sakurai and Matsumoto problem was growing so quickly. That he’d only been at Amagasa for a few weeks and he had already bypassed the “these people don’t annoy me that much” stage into the full-blown “I wonder how ugly his face is when he gets off” stage. Nino had happily lived his entire life as a commitment phobe, so why on earth was he allowing himself to be attracted to two people (TWO people!) who were already locked into an extremely committed arrangement?

The heart wants what it wants. At least that was what Aiba had said gleefully to Kazama the other day when the mailman had gifted Aiba with a pornographic magazine featuring lady mail carriers wearing only their mailbags.

Nino groaned to himself, ceasing his chair spinning to get up and do some cleaning. Maybe dusting the corners of the mail room and using a spray can of compressed air on the computer’s ancient keyboard would get his mind out of the gutter. After the cleaning, he decided to repress his sexual thoughts by falling into a Wikipedia black hole on the office computer, reading about several unsexy topics like the helmets and armor of Japanese armies through the ages, allergies and pollen (since Aiba apparently suffered from hay fever every spring), and bioluminescent sea creatures like firefly squid.

Before too long, Aiba was dinging the bell to let him know that he was leaving for the night, and moments later Sakurai Sho was leaning on the counter calling out a hello.

“Nino, good evening!”

Nino turned away from the computer, hoping Sakurai wasn’t going to peek too closely and wonder why he was reading about squid. “Hey,” he replied, leaning back in the chair and trying not to panic. Tonight Sakurai was in more casual clothes, a long-sleeved green plaid button down over a gray t-shirt. He looked good in whatever he wore, that much was clear to Nino.

“Did you get my note? Sorry to invite you so suddenly.” Sakurai grinned. “Are you able to make it?”

“Yeah!” Nino coughed quietly, clearing his throat and trying to sound a little more nonchalant. He failed, most likely. “I mean, yeah, I’ve got some time now. But is it really okay? Dinner, I mean. Since you’re…you know…”

“Since I don’t eat?” Sakurai asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Since you don’t eat.”

Sakurai laughed, the force of it shaking his whole damn vampire body. Nino hated how much he liked Sakurai’s cheerful, boisterous laugh. It nudged Nino’s existing attraction from mere sexual curiosity into far more dangerous “we can totally just be friends first, if you want” territory.

“I still like the smell of food, lots of different things,” Sakurai admitted, scratching his chin. “I was always a big eater, before. Sometimes I still eat regular food, even if it makes me sick.”

“That doesn’t sound very fun to me.”

“Well, I’m very fortunate, having Matsumoto-kun around. He’s an excellent cook. I can smell what he cooks for himself and sometimes he’ll make some treats for me. Things I can digest without getting sick.”

“Ah, that’s…” Nino said, his voice trailing off, realizing exactly why that creepy-looking Cooking with Blood magazine had come in the mail for Matsumoto the other day. He literally cooked with blood.

“So that’s why I’m here,” Sakurai said. “We’re actually staying in tonight, and Matsumoto-kun is cooking. Do you like hamburger steak?”

His eyes widened. It was like Sakurai had just thrust his hand straight through Nino’s chest to give his heart a squeeze. “Actually, that’s my favorite.”

Sakurai raised his hand, gesturing for Nino to come closer. He got out of his chair nervously, making his way to the reception window. Sakurai leaned forward, chuckling. “Actually, I asked Aiba-kun the other day. I hope you’ll forgive me for spying around about you.”

Nino spent at least an hour a day reading the backlog of blog entries Sakurai posted on the Starlight Kiss Tours website (including today’s Top 5 Blood-Infused Dining Destinations - Shanghai), so really, who ought to apologize for spying?

“I would be happy to join you, Sakurai-san,” he said. “Just let me lock up.”

“You can just call me Sho,” the vampire insisted with another of his deadly smiles, and Nino was decidedly doomed.

-

This time Nino was a little less ashamed to be entering Sakurai and Matsumoto’s apartment. This time he had actually been invited and wasn’t being forced to accompany Agent Yoshitaka inside. He slipped out of his shoes, and Sho went racing out of the genkan with a panicky, but adorable “wait, wait, just hold on a minute!”

He returned quickly, using a pair of scissors to snip a tag off of a brand new pair of guest slippers. He set them down for Nino to use. “Sorry,” Sho apologized. “Not exactly used to having people over.”

Nino accepted the slippers graciously, stepping up and into the apartment. There were no surprises, really, aside from the lights being on. He could already smell the sizzling meat coming from the kitchen, and he followed Sho to find Matsumoto Jun, in another of his devastating t-shirts, poised over his frying pan.

“Hello,” Matsumoto acknowledged him, although he seemed far less enthusiastic about Nino being there than Sho was.

“Hello,” Nino replied, remembering how angry Matsumoto had been with him the other day.

“It’ll be ready in a few minutes.” Matsumoto gestured to another pan on the stovetop. “Veggie stir-fry to go with it, if that’s okay?”

Nothing made Nino happier than when someone cooked for him. Aiba had been kind enough to do so several times since he’d moved in, knocking on Nino’s door late at night with a pan full of leftovers. It wasn’t the sort of thing he was used to, being pampered with food. His parents were both in the culinary profession, but neither of them liked to cook at home. “Nobody’s paying me here,” his mother usually joked before calling in a delivery order when Nino stopped by for visits.

Sho opened the fridge, and Nino couldn’t help but peek inside. There seemed to be a clear demarcation splitting the refrigerator in half. One side was mostly empty, save for some bottled blood specialty drinks and some Tupperware containers filled with god only knew what. The other side was clearly Matsumoto’s side, with fresh produce, bottles of soy and Worcestershire sauce, eggs…

Sho grabbed a can of beer from Matsumoto’s stash. “Here, can I put this in a glass for you?”

“Sure, thanks.”

It was full service, Sho bringing him over to the small dining table they had. On days when Nino had been in here with Yoshitaka, the table was usually piled up with mail, with a laptop computer, with travel guidebooks. Today it was cleared and set for dinner, and Nino had a seat. Sho returned a few moments later, pouring the beer out into a glass for him. Nino accepted it gratefully, and Sho sat down in the seat across from him. Apparently Matsumoto would be sitting on the side, between the two of them.

It was a little awkward, waiting for Matsumoto to finish up in the kitchen. Sho asked him kind of boring questions about the weather, about a bank transaction Nino had carried out for him the other day, before Matsumoto came in with two plates - one for himself and one for Nino. It smelled perfect, and Matsumoto was all too generous with sauce. Nino’s attentions had mostly been on Sho until now, but the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, and Matsumoto had probably succeeded, just going on how damn good it smelled.

“He makes everything from scratch,” Sakurai bragged, having a sip from one of his vampire drinks. Thankfully, the drinks were kept in very dark glass bottles so you couldn’t really see the thick liquid it had inside.

“Not everything,” Matsumoto mumbled, although he seemed obviously pleased with the compliment. He met Sho’s gaze briefly. “Want anything?”

Sho replied with the slightest of head shakes, and Matsumoto untied the apron he’d had around his narrow waist, tossing it onto the kitchen counter before joining them for dinner. If Nino got in a time machine and told the Nino of only a few weeks earlier that he’d soon be having a meal with a vampire and his BC in their apartment, he wouldn’t have believed it. But here he was, enjoying their hospitality, such as it was.

It was a little strange, handling a fork and knife while Sakurai Sho sat opposite him, not eating anything. Matsumoto dug into his dinner without hesitation, far more used to eating solo, Nino supposed. Nino had a million questions, all the more since he’d been invited into their home. All the more since he was sitting at their table, eating the best hamburger steak he’d had in ages, cooked by someone he barely knew. But Sho’s letter had implied that this meet-up was about the other night, about the defaced magazine, so Nino held his questions, deciding that he’d only ask things if the mood was right.

Nino was so lost in his tasty meal that he almost missed an exchange happening at the table in front of him. It was all in their eyes. Sho looking at Matsumoto emphatically, Matsumoto doing everything in his power to avoid it before finally giving in, only to glare at Sho. There was a secret language going on here, and Nino was lost without the translation. There were eyebrow raises, a lip curled in disgust, an almost furious look from Sho, and finally Matsumoto set his fork down. It clunked against the plate loudly, and Nino chewed slowly, nervously. The meal was taking a sharp turn.

“Ninomiya-san…” Matsumoto began, looking uncomfortable. “I want to apologize.”

He set his own fork and knife down. “Apologize for what?”

Matsumoto’s jaw was clenched, as though getting these words out was the last thing he wanted. “I apologize for confronting you about the magazine. I apologize for being angry with you.”

Nino’s eyes widened. “No, that was my fault. I should have been more careful…”

Sho interrupted. “He made a big deal out of nothing. And I’ve asked him to apologize to you, for causing you any distress.”

“I’m sorry,” Matsumoto said again, though there wasn’t too much sincerity to it.

Nino was lost. “Okay…”

Sho fiddled with the label on his drink, poking at it with his thumbnail. “I prefer to live quietly and without incident. Without causing trouble for others,” Sho explained. “Complaining about that magazine to the government would put their eyes on us. I just want to run my business as best I can. Going out of my way to complain draws more scrutiny.”

While Sakurai spoke, Nino could see cold fire ignite in Matsumoto’s eyes. Matsumoto still wanted Sho to file a complaint. Matsumoto was worried sick about it, and Nino understood his feelings a little better.

“With all due respect, Sho-san, it was a threat against your life. Matsumoto-san only wishes for you to…”

“I don’t care what he wishes,” Sho said flatly, as if Matsumoto wasn’t sitting two feet from him. “I will not be filing any complaints with the Bureau. Let’s just forget this happened and move on.”

They were quiet for a few moments before Matsumoto took up his fork again, started stabbing at the veggies on his plate, eating them with a crunch and refusing to look Sho’s way. Nino felt like he was in the middle of an argument that had started before he’d arrived, like an argument his parents would have had, which was definitely doing a good job keeping him from having sexy thoughts about Sho and Jun at present. Sho took a few more sips from his drink before clearing his throat.

“So Ninomiya-san, sorry for that unpleasantness. I thought having you over would be better than a simple apology, but if I’ve made you uncomfortable…”

“No, it’s alright,” he muttered. Stubborn. That was going to be his new word for Sakurai Sho. Couldn’t he see how upset Matsumoto was? Wasn’t he the slightest bit concerned about people scrawling such things in his magazine?

“Well then,” Sho continued. “Maybe you could tell us a little more about yourself. Since you’ve been such a help to us, we’d like to get to know you better.” Every time Sho said things like ‘us’ and ‘we,’ the irritation in Matsumoto’s face increased. He didn’t like Sho to speak on his behalf, or maybe he wasn’t terribly interested in getting to know Nino better. Or maybe, Nino thought, ashamed of himself for thinking it, Jun was jealous of the attention Sho was giving him.

In between bites, Nino gave answers. “There’s not much to tell,” he said. He told them about growing up, being in line to inherit his grandfather’s small factory but encouraging him to sell it instead. Pursuing his kind of lame dream of being a professional gamer, wanting a change (but not actually admitting to Sho and Jun it was because he was not making much money any longer). He told them about his job, the bits of it they didn’t know. Soon he was out of talking points, and Matsumoto took that time to grab his plate and fetch seconds for him.

When Matsumoto came back, setting another full plate before him, he felt bad. He’d gone to all this trouble, cooking for someone he didn’t seem to care for. Apologizing to Nino, even when he didn’t want to. All of this he’d done because Sho had wished it. Even though he was defiant, even though he argued, he still did what Sho wanted. Why?

Nino had given his side, he had another plate full of food before him. Questions were dangling off the tip of his tongue, like where was Jun from? How long had Sho been a vampire? How long had they been living at Amagasa? What was it like running a vampire travel agency? All of those questions and dozens more and instead he did the unthinkable.

“Sho-san, how long have you and Jun-kun been together?”

Matsumoto coughed, an almost comical, perfectly timed reaction, setting down his fork. He coughed a few more times before reaching for his glass of beer, downing a healthy sip of it. Sho watched Jun’s reaction carefully, not speaking, letting Nino’s question hang awkwardly in the air, long enough for Nino to wish he could take it back.

“I mean, the blood contract thing,” Nino amended, wondering just what kind of sore spot he’d managed to poke in asking his question. “How does that work, if you’ll forgive me for asking such a thing?”

“Blood contracts last for five years. They can be renewed,” Sho explained, even though Nino knew this. He knew it quite well, having fallen into an earlier Wikipedia black hole about that within days of starting his job. “Matsumoto-kun’s is up in a few months.”

Jun licked his lips, fingers tapping the table. He looked up, met Nino’s inquisitive gaze. “So I guess you could say we’ve been together for over four years.”

“How did you meet?” Nino asked, hoping this wasn’t as loaded a question as his first one.

“I’ve got a rare blood type,” Jun admitted, showing the briefest hint of a smile, the first Nino had seen from him all evening. “I was very popular at the blood banks for a while.”

Now it was Sho’s turn to look uncomfortable, fidgeting slightly in his chair. Seeing this, Jun’s bad mood finally started to shift. Nino supposed that the beer they were drinking was also helping to loosen his tongue.

Jun took a quick glance at Sho, seeing that he wasn’t interested in explaining. He turned back to Nino. “Sho-san and I met at Murakami-kun’s blood bank. You know Hina, right?”

He nodded.

“Hina’s a pain in the ass, but he’s a good businessman. On account of the rarity of my blood, I could fetch a high price. He would negotiate on my behalf, taking his cut of course, but I was making enough to quit my job. So I did.” Jun spoke with a frankness that surprised Nino. Visiting blood banks was still pretty taboo, at least to admit outright. Perhaps Jun didn’t really care what Nino thought.

Nino looked Sho’s way. There was a faraway look in his eyes, the longer Jun spoke. He couldn’t help interrupting. “Sho-san, were you his…customer?”

Sho was startled, waving a hand in front of his face. “Are you kidding? I’m a tour guide, I couldn’t afford him.”

Jun laughed at that, a gentle teasing laugh that Nino liked. It was a good change from earlier in the evening. “Hina’s usually really good about vetting people, but he’d been out of town visiting friends one night. Somehow this guy got in with fake credentials. When you go to a blood bank, you get entered into the system. There’s a whole network, online I mean. Donors have to submit medical records, proving the blood is clean, disease-free. The buyers, if you will, have to have a clean record in the vampire community.”

“And what does that mean?” Nino asked.

“It means you agree to take only what you need,” Sho said quietly. “You only get to fuck up once, and you’re gone. None of the reputable blood banks will let you in the door if you’ve got a blemish on your record.”

Nino was fairly certain that ‘blemish’ was just a euphemism for ‘sucking someone dry and killing them.’ It sent a shudder down his spine.

“So this guy paid for me…” Jun’s smile was almost infectious. “Yeah, Ninomiya, I know what it sounds like. Anyhow, he was a rule breaker, and he took too much…”

“He almost killed you?!” Nino exclaimed.

“He would have, if Sho-san hadn’t heard me struggling. He’d been in the next room over, waiting for his own transaction.”

Sho looked down, embarrassed. “You’re making this more dramatic than it was…”

“He saved me,” Jun said boldly, daring Sho to contradict him. “Got me out of there, got me to a hospital. Bared his fangs at a doctor and demanded I get a transfusion. And it’s not easy to find my blood out there, either.”

“I did not bare my fangs,” Sho complained. “You get the sun for doing something like that.”

Jun thumped his palm on the table emphatically. “Sho-san saved my life.”

“So you became his BC?” Nino asked, crossing his arms. “But you were making enough money to quit your job, you said…”

Jun’s expression grew a bit more serious. “Clearly you’ve never been in a life-threatening situation before. It can change your mind about things.” The angry look Jun gave Sho in that moment made Nino, a third party and an outsider, wince. Sho merely looked the other way.

The conversation died out soon after that, Jun making excuses about washing the dishes. Nino realized that he’d gotten what he’d asked for, wanting to know more about Sho and Jun. Sho had saved Jun’s life and in exchange, Jun had agreed to be his blood contract. Or Jun had offered without Sho having to ask. That much remained unclear, and from the strange way they seemed to behave around each other, Nino still didn’t know what they really thought about each other.

If they were together, in every sense of the word, wouldn’t they act like it? Would Sho really call his partner by his last name in every instance? But if they had been together at one point, had broken up, Nino would sense more animosity between them. He thought of Erika, Hina’s BC. They slept in separate rooms, despite the contract, and she was counting down the days until she was free of him. Jun doted on Sho and argued with him in equal measure. And Sho was polite and guarded, almost distant, acting like Jun was his colleague or his roommate by happenstance. Perhaps things were different when they were alone.

He simply couldn’t figure them out.

Sho escorted Nino from their apartment, walking him to the elevator. “I’m afraid we haven’t had any guests over for a while. I’m sorry if we don’t have the best dinner conversation habits.”

“No, I’m happy you invited me,” he replied, gathering his courage. “It’s nice to get to know you. Both of you, I mean. Most people in the building are still just a mailbox to me. I haven’t exactly been around vampires much before, so it’s all very new to me.”

“We’re not that different, I suppose,” Sho answered. They stood in the elevator banks, but neither of them had pressed the down button yet. “Well, aside from the fact that I won’t ever get any older.”

“That’s a luxury, huh?”

Sho shrugged. “I’m not so sure about that…”

Their eyes met, and for the first time, Nino could see sorrow in the depths of Sho’s dark eyes. He didn’t look that much older than Nino was, but Nino knew that wasn’t true. Meeting eyes with a vampire, knowing Sho had the power to end his life in seconds, it ought to have scared him. But Nino couldn’t look away, and he knew that Sho wasn’t using any secret vampire powers to lure him in. Sho didn’t have to do much at all to gain his attention.

He lowered his voice, shoving his hands in his pockets to keep from reaching out, grabbing Sho’s arm. He had to keep himself from taking Sho’s hand and seeing what his skin felt like, how different and similar he really was. “How long? How long has it been?”

Sho knew exactly what he was asking. “I was 33 in 1982. And it’s been 33 years since then. 2015 is an interesting year for me.”

“You look good,” Nino mumbled shyly. “For an old man.”

Sho’s eyes were still so damn sad. A few quiet seconds passed before he spoke again.

“Please continue to keep Jun in your favor.”

“Huh?” Nino asked, stunned.

Sho finally pressed the button for the elevator, a rather phony smile back on his face. “We’ll do this again, the three of us. Good night, Nino.”

He turned and walked away when the elevator let out its cheery chime. Nino could only step inside, thinking of how different Sho’s voice had sounded. How with one mere syllable, with ‘Jun,’ Sho had revealed way more than he’d probably intended.

-

Starlight Kiss Tours was running a tour to Fukuoka, a two-night tour that had Sho and Jun leaving Amagasa just after sunset a few nights later. The tour groups were very small, only a handful of vampires, on account of all the trouble that went into securing accommodations. It was Jun who had relayed details to Nino via email, so that he had a record to pass along to Yoshitaka-san if she needed it.

Traveling vampires were often screwed over by the schedules of public transportation. Trains and buses were very daylight heavy, and even the overnight buses tended to arrive at their destinations after the sun had come up. Much of Sho’s efforts went into securing transport, whether it was chartering a private plane with one of the more vampire-friendly airlines or arranging for a special train to run. From the sound of things, it wasn’t cheap. Traveling overseas got into nightmare territory, with vampires having to travel in the cargo section in special travel units because most major carriers wouldn’t risk a panic if a vampire was sitting up in coach with the rest of the humans, even if the flight left in the evening.

Sho and Jun’s trip to Fukuoka involved a chartered plane out of Haneda and then staying in a capsule hotel operated by a vampire. Trusting a human hotel to cater to vampire needs was almost always out of the question. They simply couldn’t wrap their heads around how deadly the sun was for them, and nobody wanted to risk a maid coming in and opening the curtains.

But you’d never know how nervewracking a tour was because Sho came down in the elevator looking incredibly happy. And incredibly nerdy at the same time. He was in full-on tour guide gear, wearing a long-sleeved red shirt under a khaki vest emblazoned with ‘Starlight Kiss Tours’ on the breast pocket, a bucket hat, and a dorky backpack, a bright red guide flag sticking out of the top. Jun was behind him, dressed more normally in a red Starlight Kiss ‘Staff’ t-shirt and jeans, tugging along a rolling suitcase. They had called for a taxi, the pair of them lingering in the Amagasa lobby waiting for it. Nino locked up the mail room for the night, joining them. Sho was on the phone, calling up the guests for his tour and cheerfully making sure they were all en route to the airport. That left Nino to peer around Jun’s arm, taking a look at the paperwork in his hand.

“You’re nosy,” Jun huffed, elbowing him aside lightly and flipping the pages over. It was an itinerary, so detailed that Nino noticed things had been planned down to the minute. Arrive Fukuoka, meet with pre-arranged taxi service, arrive hotel, Fukuoka dining tour, pre-arranged driving tour.

“Seems like a lot to get done tonight.”

“You’re telling me,” Jun complained quietly. He pointed at Sho, who had his back turned as he babbled on his phone. “It’s all him. He says it’s so people get their money’s worth. Heaven forbid someone’s running a few minutes late or they want to take a few extra seconds to snap more photos.”

Nino grinned. “Tough boss?”

“The worst boss,” Jun replied, snickering. “I would never take a vacation with him willingly.”

Sho hung up the phone, turning around and eyeing them suspiciously. “What are you two laughing about?”

“Human jokes. You wouldn’t understand,” Jun said with a straight face, and Sho just rolled his eyes.

Jun’s phone went off with a text message. “Taxi’s here.”

They said their farewells, Sho almost bouncing in his excitement as he carried his duffel bag outside. Jun turned before heading out the door to wave goodbye, offering Nino a surprisingly friendly smile as he followed Sho out. Nino couldn’t help waving back, feeling his heart sink as soon as the door closed, taking them away.

The next day saw another inspection from Agent Yoshitaka, and this time when they entered 6B, Nino decided that a quick peek would be okay this time, if only because he knew Jun and Sho weren’t home. Even though the occupants were gone, the Bureau of Undead Management apparently needed visual confirmation that they were telling the truth. Yoshitaka headed in and Nino was at her heels, trying to act nonchalant. Since Jun and Sho were obviously not in the bedroom, Yoshitaka went the extra step of checking the closets and the bathroom, ensuring they hadn’t smuggled anyone inside.

While Yoshitaka was needlessly checking the bathtub and under the sink for rogue vampires, Nino took the opportunity to take a quick glance into the bedroom. He felt his heart start to race as he peeked his head in, discovering not a high-tech vampire sleep unit but a king-sized bed, made up neatly with a dark blue comforter. Unless one of them slept on the couch, it was pretty clear that they shared the bedroom.

“Find something in here?” came Yoshitaka’s warm breath along the back of his neck, and he jumped, nearly elbowing her in the face.

“Ahhh, you surprised me,” he muttered, hand to his heart. “No, I…I thought they’d left a sock on the floor.”

She looked at him strangely. “A sock?”

“No sock. Just…” He let his voice trail off, since Yoshitaka had already lost interest and was heading for the genkan again, marking Jun and Sho’s absence on her tablet.

As they continued the inspections, as Nino wrapped up the afternoon in the mail room, as he found himself invited out for drinks at some vampire bar with Ohno and Maruyama, Nino remained preoccupied with 6B, its tenants hundreds of miles away on their overly scheduled tour. For days now he’d been replaying that strange dinner they’d shared, how he’d looked into Sakurai Sho’s eyes and seen him in a moment of utter, heartbreaking honesty. Please continue to keep Jun in your favor.

Nino discovered that vampire bars were not all the same. They’d passed a few rowdy ones before settling in to one at the end of a small street in the neighborhood around Kamata Station. Ohno had deliberately sat between Maru and Nino, as if he all but expected Maru to embarrass himself. The younger vampire had not been able to sit still, hollering across the bar at some friend of his, asking Ohno every five minutes if he needed another drink, making weird jokes, looking like he was going to explode if he and Nino made eye contact.

Besides that strangeness, the bar was rather laid-back. It suited a quiet, calm person like Ohno well. Humans were allowed to enter, but few did. Only a handful of human beers were on tap; most of the other drinks were the blood-infused kind or even creepier, a strange cocktail of alcohol and blood that poured directly from an elaborate tap at the bar.

“It’s just animal blood, you know,” Ohno informed him, showing him the glass of tequila he was nursing that had been mixed with blood from the tap. “The bottled stuff, that’s usually cow or pig. On tap it’s chicken most of the time. Sweeter. It’s that movement the foodie people are into, what is it, not wasting anything…top to bottom?”

“Nose to tail,” Maru said, still fidgeting in his seat. “It’s nose to tail, Oh-chan.”

“Whatever,” Ohno said, nodding. “So you humans eat all that stuff, and the blood’s set aside for us. It’s not…well, it’s not human blood, but it’s not the end of the world. It makes the cravings go away. Keeps us from nibbling on the first person who walks by. It’s very civilized, huh?”

“So it’s like being on a diet? And drinking from a human is like splurging on cake?” Nino asked.

Maru glanced at him briefly before quickly looking away. Great, Nino thought. Now Maru was probably picturing Nino with a strawberry on top.

“I guess that’s pretty accurate,” Ohno decided. “Cheaper than going to a blood bank, too. Things really have changed.”

Ohno volunteered information about himself in little slivers and pieces. It was actually Maru who filled in most of the blanks about his sire, who was more interested in getting drunk than making conversation. Ohno had been a vampire for over a century now, had lived in a small fishing village and had moved to Tokyo sometime after the war. Most of the rural-dwelling vampires had been forcibly moved to enclaves in the cities by then, and Ohno had at least wanted a choice in his destination.

A little more than a year earlier, Maru had been on a nighttime boat tour that had gone out from the same pier as Ohno’s fishing boat. While leaning over the rail trying to take a picture (Ohno: “You were so stupid!”), Maru had fallen into the water. Seeing as how it had been winter at the time, he’d very quickly gotten hypothermia. On the brink of death and knowing that Ohno’s boat wouldn’t get him to a hospital in time, Ohno had offered Maruyama the gift of eternal life.

They headed back sometime after midnight, Ohno telling Maru to go upstairs without him. Ohno stayed outside with Nino, having a cigarette. Like Sho craved the smell of food and even ate it despite the troubles it gave him, Ohno had been unable to give up smoking. “I should never have done it,” Ohno admitted.

“Maru seems…happy though?”

“I’m the only family he has now. He was dying, it wasn’t like he was making a rational decision, letting me turn him.”

As far as Nino knew, there were fewer and fewer vampires being turned these days. With all the government restrictions in place, they had very little freedom. What was preferable? Dying normally or living forever with most of your hours spent inside the walls of an enclave? Maru would have died young, though. Way too young. Ohno had probably thought the same, at the time.

Nino patted Ohno on the shoulder reverently. “You’re a good dad, Ohno-san.”

Ohno laughed, shaking his head. “Piss off.”

“What, you gonna bite me for teasing you, old man?”

Ohno patted him on the head. “Cocky.”

“I bet I taste great,” he said, pestering him further, jostling his shoulder. He wasn’t as cold as Nino had expected, their arms brushing. “Or do you not want to make Maru jealous?”

“You shouldn’t joke like that,” Ohno told him, his voice insistent. He stomped out his cigarette with his shoe. “Seriously.”

“I’ve never wanted to, you know,” Nino admitted, leaning back against the enclave wall. “Get bitten, I mean. I’ve never been to a blood bank, never saw the appeal.”

Ohno said nothing, leaning against the wall beside him. Nino knew Ohno wouldn’t do a thing to him, not ever. A few moments passed, a few of the building’s residents entering and exiting for the night. They acknowledged Nino and Ohno with nods, with quiet ‘good evening’s.

“But that’s…maybe that’s changing,” he said quietly, his head muddled from the pints of beer he’d managed to guzzle down at the vamp bar. “I don’t know what I’m talking about, forget that. Nix that one. Erase that one.”

Ohno let him babble on anyway.

“It’s supposed to feel good, isn’t it? Well, I guess you wouldn’t know, would you? You’re on the taking end, not the giving end. I don’t know if it’s because I work here now or what, but I just…I don’t know. I’m curious, I guess? And I’m not…I’m not asking you to do it. I’m sure Maru wants to, but I don’t think…I wouldn’t…”

“You like Sho-kun,” Ohno said bluntly. “You want Sho-kun to bite you.”

“Huh?”

Ohno rolled his eyes. “You talk about him a lot, Sho-kun.”

Did he? It wasn’t like he and Ohno hung out together often, but he had been chatting about the Fukuoka trip at the bar, about Sho’s tour guide outfit, about having dinner with him and Jun. “I…I don’t think so. Besides, he’s already spoken for…right?”

He was fishing for information, drunk and mumbling as he was, and Ohno stared at him for a little while, not taking the bait.

“He has Jun-kun,” Nino plowed on, full-on embarrassing himself now. But at least Ohno, unlike his other confidant Aiba Masaki, was probably not going to tell anyone else. “He has Jun-kun so I can’t…I couldn’t expect that…”

“You could ask him. If you trust him, and you’re dead set on the experience.”

He sighed, shutting his eyes. “How the hell would I do that? I work for him. Hell, I work for all of you. I’m fairly certain Joshima-san wouldn’t like it, and I’m not in the mood to get fired.”

Ohno shrugged. “Try a blood bank then. Get it out of your system.”

“Maybe.”

Maybe it would get it out of his system. His current infatuation with a vampire (and said vampire’s special someone) was starting to take up more head space than he liked. He ate, slept, and worked and when he wasn’t doing those three things he was probably obsessing over the residents of 6B. So maybe if he just went out and got himself bitten, he’d hate it and the thought of anyone else doing that to him, Sho-kun included, would not crop up again. He needed a cure for his vampire problem. And a cure for his Jun problem. Fast.

-

His phone buzzed a week later with an incoming email. Aiba was at the door paying the delivery guy for the pizza he’d ordered for them, and Nino sighed. He was just about to eat dinner and it was probably one of the usual suspects, all set to pester him.

In the last few days he’d gotten 47 emails from Yokoyama regarding a package he’d ordered from somewhere in Germany. Most of those 47 emails had just consisted of the words “is it here yet?” And in addition to those, Kokubun Taichi was organizing some event for the enclave, a “dinner” party that would most likely be held on the rooftop if the weather worked out. So Taichi had Nino running ragged, contacting party caterers all around Tokyo that specialized in vampire events while simultaneously running everything by Yoshitaka, since a gathering of the entire enclave, even on their own roof, could pose a disturbance in the neighborhood if they were noisy or had music playing. Nino had gone to the neighborhood shrine every morning before work simply to pray for rain.

Luckily (or unluckily), it wasn’t Yoko or Taichi. It was Matsumoto Jun, and the email had been marked ‘URGENT.’

We’re at the office, and there’s been some vandalism. Windows broken. Need to hire a repairman ASAP. Jun.

Nino looked up, seeing that Aiba had just shut the door and was lifting the lid on the pizza box, making a blissful expression that Nino immediately envied. He looked back down at his phone, frowning. Since Jun and Sho had returned from Fukuoka, Nino thought he’d done a good job avoiding them. He’d quit reading the Starlight Kiss website cold turkey, even if he got a kick out of Sho’s extremely boring blog posts about twilight camel rides in Mongolia or the charms of Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia under a full moon.

Aiba went without a plate, walking in with a big cheesy slice and a smile. “Get it while it’s hot.”

He sighed, showing Aiba his phone. “Duty calls.”

“Nobody’s coming to fix a window this late,” Aiba pointed out, before hissing about tomato sauce burning the roof of his mouth. “Ahhh, hot!”

“I know,” Nino admitted. “I still have to help.”

Aiba seemed a little puzzled. Nino didn’t exactly jump enthusiastically into action for any other residents. “Well, at least take some pizza to go?”

Twenty minutes later he was carrying a grocery bag onto the train, holding a Tupperware full of pizza, several garbage bags, and duck tape. The Starlight Kiss Tours office was on the third floor of a brown brick office building, down a narrow, pedestrian-only street a few blocks south of Gotanda Station. It was worse than Nino had imagined, finding Jun in the street sweeping broken glass into a thick canvas bag. Nino looked up, seeing that multiple windows had been completely shattered.

“The hell happened?” he asked, and Jun looked up from his sweeping. Under the street light, his strong features were reading less handsome than usual on account of how pissed off he looked.

“We got here and the woman who owns the bakery had already started cleaning it.” Jun gestured to the ground floor of the building, where a nervous looking woman was looking out at them, frowning. “She said it happened fast, that someone must have thrown stuff from the building across the way. Happened around 6:00 PM. Thankfully nobody was hurt.”

Nino looked up to the building opposite. It was four stories, and since the street was so narrow, someone could easily have flung something through the glass across the way. It had definitely been a targeted attack. Only the third floor’s windows had been broken.

“I brought bags to tape up, to cover everything at least until the morning. I called Yasuda-san, he’s a contractor in Shinagawa. He’s done work for Amagasa before, he’ll be here first thing tomorrow with a crew. I forwarded information about your building to him already, so he’s probably going to send a tentative invoice through before he goes to bed tonight.”

Jun nodded, finishing up his sweeping as people walked around them, doing their Japanese best and ignoring what had happened only a few feet away. Jun returned the broom to the woman at the bakery, thanking her, and brought the bag of glass to a garbage dumpster. Nino then followed him inside, where they found Sho cleaning up the glass that had landed in the office. He also saw the culprits, a small stack of heavy red bricks that Sho had moved aside. Nino decided not to comment yet on the words ‘DIE VAMPIRE’ that had been scrawled onto the bricks. He figured that Jun was already angry enough about it.

The office was small, two desks pushed together with computers on each. One wall was lined with shelves, teeming with books about various travel destinations. There was a couch, presumably for people who visited to do a travel booking in person to sit, while the other walls had posters from all over. New Zealand. Los Angeles. Paris. Nairobi. Sho looked up from where he was sweeping glass with a small broom, smiling. “You didn’t have to come all the way over here.”

“It’s fine,” Nino said, holding up his grocery bag. “I’ve got garbage bags. You can tape them up.” He told Sho about Yasuda, about what it would probably cost to get everything fixed. He saw Sho’s expression darken a bit at the price, but otherwise he seemed grateful.

“You’ve been a big help,” Sho told him, patting Nino on the shoulder. “I didn’t think you’d be able to get someone here so fast.”

“It’s his job, you know,” Jun reminded Sho, stepping gingerly around a pile of shards Sho hadn’t gotten to yet. “We should hurry and get this covered up. We don’t need any bugs getting in.”

Once they cleared the glass from the floor, Nino ate his pizza while he watched the Matsumoto Jun and Sakurai Sho Silent Teamwork Olympics. Barely speaking, they somehow managed to get the bags taped up with little argument, Sho standing on a chair and taping the bags at the top while Jun secured them at the bottom. They worked in tandem, with precision, only until they reached the last window.

Sho got a little of the duck tape stuck on his hand, and when he gave it a yank, it ended up pulling Jun’s hand along with the garbage bag where he’d been attempting to tape it at the bottom. The trash bag tore against some of the broken glass at the bottom, and Jun let out a yelp of surprise. Though he’d been quick enough to keep his hand from touching a jagged piece of glass, it had nicked his thumb.

He turned away quickly, but Nino, midway through a bite of pizza, saw the instantaneous change in Sho. The way his nostrils flared and his eyes widened at the first scent of Jun’s blood. Nino watched in awe as Sho made a fist, clenching his jaw before climbing down off the chair. Doing everything in his power to keep himself under control. He put a hand to Jun’s shoulder.

“Are you alright? I’m so sorry. I should have just taken that broken piece off the window frame…”

Jun waved him off. “It’s not deep, it’s fine…”

“Let me see it.” Sho turned. “Nino? There’s a bathroom we share with the law office upstairs, can you go see if there’s a first aid kit or some bandages up there?”

He set his pizza down and got to his feet. Jun was still waving Sho off, telling him he was fine. Nino found the bathroom up a flight of stairs, unlocked. It was just a toilet and sink, with an air freshener aerosol spray and a stack of hand towels on the sink. He wet some of the towels and grabbed a few dry ones. Moving back down the stairs, he paused when he reached the door of Starlight Kiss.

Inside he saw something he was clearly not going to forget any time soon. Jun was perched on one of the desks, with Sho standing in front of him. Sho’s hand was locked around Jun’s wrist, and they seemed to be having a staring contest. Jun’s cut thumb was bleeding, and even from the doorway Nino thought there was more blood than there ought to have been. Without a word passing between them, he watched in surprise as Jun used the fingers of his uninjured hand to squeeze his wounded thumb, as though he was trying to make it bleed even more.

Sho’s eyes, now zeroed in entirely on Jun’s wounded thumb, were almost pitch black. Nino watched him, his entire body rigid, like a mouse trap about to spring. His grip on Jun’s wrist seemed tight, but Jun didn’t seem to be in any pain. If Nino had to venture an opinion, he’d argue that Jun was entirely in control of what was happening. Holding a vampire totally in his sway. His bloody fingers squeezed his thumb one more time, and Nino thought he heard Sho moan quietly.

Jun said only “okay, now come here” and then Sho was moving. His tongue darted from between his lips, licking from the base of Jun’s thumb to the end of it. Jun shut his eyes as soon as Sho closed his plump lips around his bloody thumb and started to suck on it. Water from the wet paper towel was dripping down Nino’s wrist, droplets hitting his shoe, but he couldn’t look away, watching Sho slowly suck on Jun’s thumb before reaching for his other hand, taking Jun’s fingers into his mouth and cleaning the blood from them.

Nino could scarcely breathe, wondering if they’d somehow managed to forget him entirely in the last two or three minutes. He didn’t know what he liked more - seeing how slowly, how tenderly Sho’s mouth moved against Jun’s digits or how Jun’s mouth dropped open, his eyes shut tight at the mere sensation of Sho tasting, licking up his blood.

He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be watching this. But his body wasn’t working. It was like he was stuck in molasses, wanting to turn away and pretend to be walking back with heavy, clomping steps. When Sho finally backed away, pink saliva at the corner of his mouth, he looked over, straight at Nino, and he knew he’d been caught.

If Sho was embarrassed, though, he didn’t look it. In fact, there was none of the silly, vest-wearing, blog-writing tour guide standing there. He saw lust in Sho’s face, barely under control. Nino was glad he was wearing a bulkier pair of shorts, if only because he’d been half hard from the moment Jun had squeezed his own injured thumb.

Nino watched Sho lick at the corner of his lips, blinking a few times to seemingly try to regain himself. “Anything upstairs?” Sho asked, his voice husky and deep.

“No,” Nino replied, and finally Jun seemed to realize they weren’t alone, his pretty eyes opening. He was breathing hard, but he merely hopped off the desk and walked over.

He met Nino’s eyes, and where he expected to be chastized for clearly having watched an intimate moment, he only offered Nino a tiny smile. “Thanks,” Jun said, taking the towels from Nino’s hand, dabbing one of the wet ones along his thumb.

“I better get back and print that invoice for you,” Nino somehow managed to say. “I’ll…I’ll put it in your mailbox, and then if you want to leave a check or pay in cash, I’ll…come back here and bring it to Yasuda-san and his crew in the morning.”

Jun said nothing, patting the wet towel against his thumb. Sho gestured limply to the other desk. “Your pizza?”

“I’ll get it tomorrow,” he replied, much as that made little sense. He turned around, half-stumbling down the stairs and out the door.

He was almost in a fog on the train ride back, nearly missing his stop. He somehow got his keys into his hand, opening up his apartment door. He barely had the door shut and locked behind him before he was tugging his pants down, taking himself in his hand right there in the genkan. He thought of Jun, his eyes closed, Sho’s mouth wrapped possessively around his thumb. It took less than a minute before he was groaning, fumbling for one of the paper towels Jun hadn’t taken.

When he opened his apartment door just before sunrise the following morning, he found the empty Tupperware that had contained his pizza. It had been washed, and there was a note on top.

I ate the rest of it. Order mushrooms next time. Jun.

part four