astrangestorm | Daylight Specialist, 5/6

It was 4:37 when Yamaguchi Tatsuya came to a screeching stop in front of the Amagasa Vampire Enclave. The sky was already hinting at the pending sunrise, and Nino had nearly bitten his fingernails to the quick waiting for the moving man to arrive. He arrived in a large van, but not so large that it wasn’t going to make it into the garage at Haneda. Nino had never been so happy to live in Ota Ward, only kilometers between Amagasa and the airport.

If Jun and Sho had been planning to fly out of Narita…

“Get in, get in!” Yamaguchi hollered, unlocking the door and Nino got inside, his arms overloaded with all of his bath towels and the blankets off of his bed. He was lost under the mound of fabric for a few moments, and Yamaguchi had to lean over him to tug the van door closed.

But then they were off, ignoring the speed limit and the pair of them cursing their lungs out every time they got stopped by a red light. Nino was on the verge of a panic attack as each minute ticked away. “The international terminal, the parking garage of the international terminal!”

“We’ll get there,” Yamaguchi kept assuring him. “We’ll get there.”

4:42 AM. 4:50 AM. 4:54 AM…

“The sun’s coming up,” Nino screeched, and he was amazed Yamaguchi didn’t lean over and smack him in the face. “Yamaguchi-san!”

4:59 AM. 5:02 AM. 5:05 AM…

The tires squealed as they passed other cars on their way to the international terminal, and Nino thought they were going to crash if they went any faster. The sun was rising. The sun was rising, and they were almost out of time. Finally the massive oval-shaped parking structure loomed ahead of them and he dialed Jun’s number.

“We’re here!” he cried as soon as Jun answered. “We’re here, we’re in a red van, it says TOKIO Movers on the side. TOKIO Movers!”

“Back by the elevator! Nino, hurry!”

“The elevator, the elevator!” Nino said as they entered the garage. Yamaguchi honked angrily at a car trying to turn in front of them, the van rushing around it and into the garage. Nino nearly got out and broke into a run as they had to wait for the entry gate to rise and let them inside, Yamaguchi ignoring the ticket that got spat out from the machine. Nino saw a parking attendant raise his hands, trying to wave at them to take the ticket, but Yamaguchi kept driving.

The elevators were as far from the entrance and the rising sun as they could get, and he saw Jun waving frantically. Around him Nino could see a collection of suitcases, half of them open and picked through. Behind Jun, huddling desperately in a corner was a massive heap of clothes, human-sized lumps covered in Hawaiian shirts and dresses.

Yamaguchi stopped the van and put it in park as Nino jumped out. Jun nearly crushed him in gratitude, and Nino allowed himself to enjoy Jun’s embrace for about a second. “Hurry, come on, we have to get them in here.”

“The women first,” came a familiar voice from the jumble of clothing. It was Sho, though he sounded weak. Outside the sun was rising and even this far back in the garage, there was no way of ensuring that they’d be safe. “Please, Nino, the women first.”

Three women popped their heads out from the pile of clothes. Jun held out his hand. “Mizuhara-san, they’re here to help.” A pale woman in her early 20’s, shaking from head to toe and in tears, allowed Yamaguchi-san to walk her to the back of the van while Nino helped another woman, Becky-san, who was holding an umbrella in her quivering hands as a last resort. He had to slip the umbrella away from her freezing cold fingers, wrapping the comforter from his bed around her, pulling it over her head. A third, a woman in colorful clothes named Naka-san, refused to let the humans touch her, stepping up and into the van, trying to hide her fear by acting proud. Once the three ladies were inside, lying on top of a thick moving blanket Yamaguchi had brought, the men came out next.

An incredibly tall vampire named Nagase helped an older man, a bald vampire named Takahashi-san, into the TOKIO Movers van. The both of them clapped Nino on the shoulder, grateful. Then there was just Sho, who started gathering up the scattered clothes, putting them into the suitcases.

“Sho-kun, there’s no time for that.” Jun tried to get him to stop.

“They’re our customers,” Sho was protesting stubbornly, although Nino could see him quaking in fear as he put anything he could get his hands on into the first bag in front of him. “Jun, they’re our customers. We can’t leave their things behind…”

Jun yanked on Sho’s arm so hard, Nino thought Jun would tear it out of its socket. “Get in the van. I’ll worry about this.”

Nino helped Sho into the van, where he proceeded to huddle up on the blanket with his five unfortunate tour members. Together, Nino and Yamaguchi got more of the blankets that Yamaguchi had brought, helping the vampires to cover themselves with them as best they could, apologizing for the musty smell of the blankets that were usually saved for moving furniture. Even though the van was dark and windowless in the rear, light might still get in through the windshield to hurt them. Once the vampires were covered, he and Yamaguchi got a blanket rigged up between the front seats and the open rear section of the van. Jun hauled all of the luggage into the van, closing the doors behind him.

He met Nino’s eyes briefly, his lips whispering a quick “thank you” before he joined Sho and the others in the back, holding up the blanket that would hopefully keep the light out.

They made it out of the parking garage as Tokyo was rising for the day around them. Nino called ahead to Aiba, and he was unlocking the unoccupied apartment inside Amagasa for the tour participants to use. He had already enlisted the help of the building’s other BCs, gathering up extra blankets and pillows and futons for them to use to rest until sunset that evening.

It was just after 6 AM when they made it back to Amagasa, heading underground to the safety of the garage, and though Nino had heard a few groans and moans of discomfort from the back of the van, it seemed that all six vampires made it intact, the heavy moving blankets keeping any of them from burning up. Yamaguchi-san pulled up right in front of the elevator, and Aiba and Erika helped get all of Sho and Jun’s guests inside, escorting them upstairs. Aiba returned, working with Jun to get all of the luggage secure, hauling it upstairs to lock in the mail room.

Sho, who looked so exhausted he could keel over, wanted to shake Yamaguchi’s hand, offering to pay him for his help. “Your money’s no good,” Yamaguchi insisted, refusing the handshake and instead wrapping Sho up in a bear hug. “I hope you’ll make it to Hawaii soon. You look like you need a vacation.”

With that, the moving man offered a wave, driving off without so much as a complaint. As soon as he was gone, Sho collapsed against Nino, heavy and clumsy.

“Hold on, Sho-chan, it’s okay.” Nino pushed the button for the elevator. “Just hold on, just a few minutes more.”

Sho was moaning, his body so hot even through his clothes that Nino thought Sho would burn him. He needed to get inside to rest and fast. The elevator arrived and he brought Sho up to 6B, having to awkwardly fumble in the pocket of Sho’s khaki pants to get the key.

He found a strength he didn’t know he had, dragging Sho’s dead weight up from the genkan and through the cool apartment. It was a strange reversal of the other night as Nino got Sho onto the bed, pulling his sneakers off. He was burning up because knowing Sho, he’d probably gone the whole ride in the van making sure the tour participants were fully covered with the blankets at risk to his own safety.

Nino sighed, tugging open Sho’s silly vest and unbuttoning his long-sleeved shirt. “Always in a dozen layers, you prude. Afraid we’ll see your elbows or something?” he muttered. He had to cool Sho’s body down, would have to go in the bathroom and wet a towel or get an ice pack to bring his temperature back down to whatever seemed vampire normal.

Sho let out another little pathetic groan as Nino tried tugging off his shirt. He tossed Sho’s things onto the floor and was pulling at the white tank top Sho had worn under his shirt when he finally noticed. From just above his wrists and all the way up his arms, across his chest and down his abdomen. Almost the entirety of his torso and both arms, covered in scattered patches of angry, pink scar tissue. It might have been worse, years ago, the scarring, but the skin was still puckered in some places, slightly rough to the touch.

“Sho-chan, what happened to you?” he mumbled, unable to keep his curious fingers from stroking his long-ago wounded bicep.

He heard the apartment door open and close, and he stepped back, hearing Jun come running. Their eyes met, and he wanted to say something about the scarring. But he couldn’t, not yet.

“He’s really hot.” Nino shut his eyes, annoyed with his choice of words. “His skin. He’s too hot, I think.”

Together he and Jun spent the next hour with damp cloths, wiping down Sho’s arms and legs, his chest, pressing a towel of ice to his forehead. They were quiet, sitting on the king-sized bed on either side of him, attending to him. Their eyes met again and again, the two of them watching over a vampire like he was a sick child. Sho’s moans of discomfort eventually eased, and soon enough he was snoring. As soon as that happened, the snoring, Nino could see Jun finally relax, the tension slipping from his shoulders. If Sho was snoring, apparently things were all fine again.

“We should let him rest,” Jun whispered, not minding if Nino saw him stroke his fingers across Sho’s forehead, brushing aside some of his unruly hair.

Jun got off the bed, and Nino followed, shutting the bedroom door.

He headed for the genkan, Jun at his heels. “I should probably get downstairs. Yuriko will want to know about this, all the shit at the airport. So you can file a complaint. Especially if your flight was pre-booked and people were aware and…”

“Do that tomorrow, alright? I’ll email you the contact details for our guests. You’ll be better off spending your time getting in touch with their enclaves so they can all get home safely tonight,” Jun said.

“Okay,” Nino replied, knowing that was probably a better use of his day. He reached out a hand, gave Jun’s arm a squeeze. “You should rest too, you know. You’ve had a long night.”

Jun nodded, taking a step closer. “Kazu…”

“Whoa,” Nino protested, holding up his hands teasingly. He really liked the sound of his first name, if shortened, coming from Jun’s mouth. This close, he got to observe first hand the tiny little mole just above Jun’s upper lip, a companion underneath on the lip itself. A larger, darker beacon of a mole hiding in the shadow under his lower lip. He was suddenly enamored with them all. “I didn’t do anything so great to warrant that…”

“You saved his life. You saved all of them. I couldn’t do anything and…”

“Jun-kun, be realistic now…” He tried to be his usual flippant self. “It was Yamaguchi-san’s van that did all the work.”

But now Jun had him pinned between himself and the wall of the genkan. There was something in Jun’s eyes that he liked, way more than he ought to. Jun looked on the edge of tears, but the edge of something else too. And yet it still surprised him when Jun’s hand slipped behind him, grasping hold of his neck.

He could only whisper a “wait, don’t” before Jun was leaning down, bringing their lips together.

The intensity of feeling behind Jun’s kiss nearly brought him to his knees, letting out a soft whimper of need before tilting his head slightly to find a better angle. Jun’s other hand came around him, insistent, possessive, demanding. He tried to pull away, embarrassed, and Jun only pulled him closer, licking at the corners of his mouth until Nino allowed him to deepen their kiss, to slip his tongue inside to taste him.

Jun was kissing him, and he was kissing Jun and everything else seemed far less important. He found that he was much happier once he gave up on protesting, sliding his hands up, clinging to Jun’s shirt, fingers bunching in the cotton fabric, grasping and holding on. Breathing in, breathing out, gasping when Jun took his mouth away only to press quick, desperate kisses against his face, his chin, the side of his neck. Jun was crying, overwhelmed with everything he’d endured, and Nino could feel each teardrop as it hit him, running down his face and neck.

“Kazu,” Jun was whispering reverently against his skin, making Nino hard with a mere two syllables. “Kazu.”

If he was a morally reprehensible person, he’d see it all through to its logical conclusion, letting Jun fuck him right there. But that was something he really couldn’t allow, even as he reveled in the desperate friction of Jun’s long, lean body pressed close, his hips slowly grinding against him.

He moved, slipping away and already missing Jun’s sinfully perfect mouth tasting and worshipping his. “Jun-kun,” he said, catching his breath. “I…we can’t.”

“I know,” Jun mumbled, running a hand through his hair. “I know that. I know that.”

“We have a lot to do.”

“Right,” Jun said, wiping his eyes, looking aside.

“Take care of him,” he said, opening the door and heading out.

—

The sun hadn’t set when Jun found him again, coming down to the lobby shortly after 5:00 in the evening. He spent a few minutes out in the lobby talking to Aiba, explaining everything that had happened before coming to the reception desk and dinging the little bell with a half-hearted grin.

Nino approached cautiously, having thankfully spent most of the day on the phone with the other enclaves, talking with Yuriko as well. He’d had little time to think about what had transpired upstairs, how badly he’d wanted Jun and at the same time feeling like he’d somehow betrayed Sho.

“Can I come in?” Jun asked, drumming his fingers on the countertop.

Nino looked past Jun’s shoulder, saw that Aiba was intensely focused on the monitors, on keeping the building safe. “Alright,” he agreed quietly, moving to open the door to the mail room.

Jun busied himself for a few moments, looking over the luggage. The guests would have to come down, open things up and make sure they had all their clothes back. Nino sat in his chair by the computer, nervously spinning side to side. When Jun finally stopped poking at the suitcases, he came over to sit on the countertop opposite Nino, his back against the heavy glass window that ran along the inside of the mail room.

“Thank you. First and foremost, thank you. For everything you did to help,” Jun said.

Nino shook his head. “It’s my…”

“It wasn’t, actually. It wasn’t your job, but you were the only person I could think to call. I just knew I could trust you to help.”

Nino felt a flush creeping into his face, hiding his embarrassment by spinning a little more in his chair, keeping his face out of Jun’s sight. “Well, you’re welcome then.”

“You saw Sho-kun.”

“Yes.”

“His scars.”

“I did.”

“He was turned against his will, Sho-kun was.”

Nino didn’t turn his chair back, but he stopped moving, listening to Jun speak. Though he wasn’t sure this was Jun’s tale to tell.

“It was a rogue vampire, who had fled his enclave. I guess he was consumed with hunger, since he’d been on the run and was being chased down by the government. Sho-kun, he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. He’d been in the neighborhood around here, Amagasa, visiting friends. The vampire attacked him, nearly killed him, left him at Amagasa’s doorstop as a lesson.”

Nino had a hard time connecting the person Jun was talking about, the random vampire victim, with the friendly, hardworking Sakurai Sho.

“Misako-san found him when she was coming for her shift, and even though the sun was rising, Joshima-san came out to help him inside.” Jun held up his thumb, gesturing behind him. “Joshima turned him right there, on the floor of the lobby, even though he didn’t want it. He was almost dead, but he was still saying no. But Joshima-san, he couldn’t bear to let him die, murdered in cold blood by a vampire who refused to play nice.”

Nino shut his eyes, unable to bear the thought of the lobby he entered every day, the linoleum he walked on, covered with Sho’s blood.

Jun had crossed his arms, was upset but kept speaking. “Sho was a tour guide, even back then. Travel was his life, and there were so many things he’d never get to experience properly, ever again. The sun rising over Mt. Fuji, coffee and croissants for breakfast in a Paris cafe. Places that would be cut off to him forever. You know how impulsive younger vampires can be. They can hardly control themselves. I guess he tried a few times, to gather up the courage, to walk outside in daylight and do it…”

He’d tried to die. Sho had been so lost, so unhappy about his new “life” that he’d tried to take matters into his own hands.

“He’s told me how much it hurt, going out there, ripping his shirt off in hopes it would go faster. They can heal, vampires, better than humans, so it could have been so much worse. I guess the security guard at the time had thrown his jacket on Sho, onto his face first, otherwise he wouldn’t still be as handsome as he is now.” Jun allowed himself a tiny smile at that. “He could have had surgery, could have gotten work done to lessen the scarring, but he kept it to remind himself how close he’d come. He told me that he was recovering in the hospital, embarrassed and ashamed, when he came up with Starlight Kiss. He decided that his dream wasn’t entirely dead, that he could still do what he loved. Coming so close to death brought him back. It’s why he’s so stubborn. It’s why he makes ridiculous schedules. He wants to bring happiness, he wants to prove that the world isn’t entirely closed off to their kind. It’s amazing. He’s amazing.”

“I didn’t know.” He looked up, saw Jun watching him closely. Matsumoto Jun, Sho’s biggest fan. “It’s why you stay with him, isn’t it?”

Jun nodded. “He needs me.”

“He loves you,” Nino pointed out.

Jun looked down, frustrated. “And still he wants me to leave him. I know it. And I know that you know about it, too.”

Nino couldn’t help scooting his chair across the floor, resting his hand on Jun’s knee. “It’s because he cares…”

“What if something happens? What if the person who throws a brick through the window or sends him nasty messages does something worse? What if he’s leading another tour and something like what happened today happens again? He’s better with me than without me.” Jun’s voice was so quiet, Nino could barely hear him. “I don’t want him to be alone.”

“And you think becoming a vampire is the way?” Jun didn’t even flinch at Nino’s knowledge of what had happened between him and Sho. “Isn’t that a little extreme? Why not just sign another blood contract?”

“He’s going to be thirty-three forever. And that’s not the case for me.”

“He told me that he wants you to grow old. That he wants that for you more than anything.”

“But he doesn’t want me to die, whether it’s growing old beside him or from letting him turn me,” Jun protested. “It’s why he’s pushing me away. He doesn’t want to see it happen to me. Each year I grow older under contract to him, it reminds him that I’ll die. Tomorrow or fifty years from now. It’s out of sight, out of mind with him. And he won’t turn me because he remembers how painful it was for him, and he doesn’t want me to go through it.”

“You can’t be mad at him for that, though,” Nino said.

“I know,” Jun admitted. “I know that. And if I’d been a vampire today, I’d probably have burned up in the terminal at Haneda. The fact that I’m human, right now, meant that I was able to help save him. And he’s such a pain in the ass that he’s going to spend the last weeks of my contract reminding me of it, too.”

Nino kind of doubted that the reason Sho was pushing him away was simply because he couldn’t bear to see Jun die. It was more complex than that. Sho believed that it was in Jun’s best interests to remain human, that he’d have a better life that way. With all the restrictions on the enclaves, Nino could at least understand Sho’s reasoning. What Sakurai Sho didn’t seem to comprehend, or was unwilling to comprehend, was how much Jun actually loved him in return. That Jun wasn’t looking for a “better” life. The life Jun wanted was one where they stayed together, no matter the complications. Sho wanted to avoid complications altogether and was willing to sacrifice his own happiness, a future with Jun, in order to achieve that. It was all very romantic, he supposed. A grand, fucked up mess, but still romantic.

And as for Nino, drawn so easily into the sticky web that was Sho and Jun’s relationship, he didn’t even know what his place was. Between Jun kissing him like a drowning man craves oxygen and the way Sho had gotten close to him at the karaoke place the other night…and then of course at Starlight Kiss, when he’d watched them together and got the sense that they’d liked him watching…

Whatever he was, Nino at least knew he wasn’t just a bit player on the outskirts of their story any longer.

“Jun-kun, if you’re looking for answers to come from me, I can tell you right now that I don’t have any.”

Jun’s hand caught him by the chin, giving him a little squeeze. “Don’t get cute.”

He held up his small hands for Jun’s inspection. “Remember? It’s my default setting.”

Jun released him, shaking his head. “He’s going to be so jealous that I got to kiss you first.”

“We shouldn’t have…” Nino paused, hands gripping the arms of his rolling chair. “Wait, what do you mean first?”

Jun’s foot shot out, hitting the cushion of Nino’s chair and pushing him away. He hopped down off the counter, offering him only a devastatingly sly wink in response.

“Hey, get back here! I was listening to you seriously! I was listening to all your dramatic relationship talk. You can’t just drop a bomb like that, Matsumoto!”

Jun blew him a kiss before opening the mail room door and letting himself out. The bell at the counter dinged a few seconds later, and Nino looked up to see Aiba Masaki with a smile so bright he could have served as a Christmas illumination display all by himself. He couldn’t even speak, he was so excited.

Nino pointed at him, shaking his head in disgust.

“Don’t you even fucking start.”

—

Jun refused to let Sho leave the enclave for the next several nights to allow him to recover. “It’s best you don’t see him,” Jun had messaged him. “He’s really annoying when I tell him what to do.”

Agent Yoshitaka had met with Sho and Jun in their apartment, getting official statements from them about the fiasco at Haneda. And though Sho had wanted to keep a low profile before, not wanting to make complaints about his mail being defaced or the office being damaged, this time the people on his tour had been affected, and he was adamant about wanting them to be compensated.

It was a mess all around, Yoshitaka told him, and Nino was fairly certain he’d never seen anyone look as tired as she was. The Bureau was running her ragged, and they were understaffed and underprepared for all the measures they were taking on. And still Yoshitaka said she was going to fight to get the tour group taken care of. It turned out that Sho had booked the group for the Hawaii trip more than six months ago, and all the human passengers had received notice when making their own bookings. Regardless of the current anti-vampire climate in Japan, the airline had had no right to deny Sho’s group their flight.

Sho and Jun had worked at home the last few nights, sorting out cancellation fees with the hotel and tour operators in Hawaii and issuing refunds to their customers. Thankfully, none of the guests seemed to blame Starlight Kiss Tours for what had happened. Yoshitaka was hopeful that the airline or maybe even the Vampire Rights Commission would reimburse Sho for the whole mess. She wasn’t hopeful that the staff at the airport would apologize for how they’d bungled everything else, getting the vampires off the plane so close to sunrise and having no measures in place to keep them safe.

“We’ll take what we can get,” Jun had said, hanging around Nino’s reception window a few afternoons later. “He’s already planning to reschedule, because stuff like this just makes him more determined to succeed.”

Nino was going through the mail Kazama had delivered that day, sighing at the number of anti-vampire flyers that were coming through. “Get them out of OUR country” or “Vampires must die!” most of them said, simple paper flyers that were mailed en masse, not even bothering to check if the addresses they were going to belonged to humans or not.

He held one up, showing it to Jun. “Lovely, isn’t it?”

Jun rolled his eyes. “Has Yoshitaka-san been able to track anything?”

Nino dumped them into the paper recycling bin, sighing. “With all the shit going on, they don’t even have time to go after little stuff like this. Nasty flyers can’t compare to people calling in bomb threats to enclaves.”

“But aren’t the people sending out mail like that traceable? If they’d send those things in the mail, surely they’d do a lot worse.”

Nino shrugged. “She told me that it’ll blow over soon.”

The news broadcasts were far less hysterical now, especially since the guilty Kobe enclave had quietly relocated elsewhere instead of facing execution. Instead of outrage, it seemed that the general public was experiencing vampire fatigue. Most seemed to prefer when vampires were something rarely spoken about, second class citizens who mostly kept to themselves. Arrests of humans threatening violence against the enclaves was helping to cut down on some of the more dangerous elements, but pockets of unrest remained. With the mail coming through that week, Nino knew it wasn’t entirely over.

In the newspaper that morning, there’d been a headline story about “sun videos” being uploaded to Japanese message forums, gruesome videos shot in countries who treated vampires far more harshly. The videos, shot illicitly, showed vampires being executed - dragged out into the streets, witnesses cheering as they burned. Nino had already emailed a warning around to Amagasa, advising them to keep a close watch on their inboxes in case something got past their spam filters.

“Sho-kun wants you to come by for dinner,” Jun said when Nino finished with the mail. “Since he’s doing better.”

Nino’s pulse started racing, and he busied himself with the mail cart, loading packages on it for his afternoon delivery route through the building. “Good. It’s good he’s better.”

It had been easier on Nino’s heart the last few days, with Sho mostly out of commission and Jun staying with him. Nino had been unable to think about Sho without thinking of him lying in bed, seeing the damage he’d done to himself so long ago. Before Nino had even been born.

“We had a long talk last night, Sho-kun and me,” Jun said quietly.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. With everything going on right now, and after what happened at the airport, he’s agreed to keep me as his blood contract,” Jun explained. When Nino looked up in surprise, Jun smirked. “But it’s just for one year this time. It’s a bit unusual, and the ward office is going to give us shit for it, but it means that in a year, he and I will have some decisions to make. And you know what those decisions involve.”

Sho had finally compromised, agreeing to keep Jun around but shortening the contract. But Jun still held the upper hand, would be spending the next year trying to change Sho’s mind. Jun still wanted Sho to turn him. “It’ll be good for the business, I’m sure,” Nino said. “Since he can keep you on to help him at Starlight Kiss.”

It was nearly impossible to work in a vampire-owned business if you weren’t a vampire yourself or a blood contract. Working for an enclave like Nino and Aiba did was just about the only exception out there, on account of the hours they had to work.

“We talked about you, too,” Jun said, though Nino couldn’t read the expression on his face just then.

He couldn’t help asking. “Me? Why me?”

Jun leaned away from the window, enigmatic and attractive as ever. “Guess you’ll have to come by tonight and find out.”

—

At first, Sho was all business when Nino pressed the buzzer for 6B shortly after sunset that night. He was still a bit slow in his movements, like someone who’d just about recovered from a nasty bout of the flu. Nino supposed sun exposure, even the slightest, indirect amount, was the closest a vampire could come to a real illness these days.

“Glad to see you on your feet, Sho-chan,” Nino said, deciding not to remark on Sho’s clothes. He felt honored that Sho now felt comfortable enough around him to have made such a change. He was in sweats and a v-neck tee, not hiding the patches of pink covering the skin of his forearms or peeking out from the top of his shirt.

He ushered Nino into the living room, where their table was covered with paperwork. “Matsumoto-kun has already told you, yes? He’s agreed to stay on as my BC until August of next year.”

Nino didn’t know what he was supposed to say to that. He was on the verge of offering “congratulations,” but that didn’t seem quite right. So he said nothing. Sho sat Nino down on the couch with him and explained what all the forms meant, since Nino would be responsible for getting them submitted to the Bureau and the ward office. Everything was already filled out and ready to go. Nino’s eyes were drawn to the dates. Matsumoto Jun, born 30 August 1983…and Sakurai Sho, born 25 January 1949.

Sho seemed to notice this, frowning, clearing his throat and starting to gather up the papers, shoving them into a folder he’d prepared for Nino. “So we understand that with all the chaos right now, it may take a while to get things sorted out. It’s a great help, having you around to work with us on this.”

“The ward office loves me,” Nino declared, tapping the folder with his finger. “I’m very good at sweet talking them. Getting this filed will be easier than you think.”

“Well, thank you,” Sho said. When their eyes met, Nino could tell Sho wanted to say something more, but the timing wasn’t quite right yet.

Jun called out from the kitchen. “Omurice!”

Sho got up slowly, gesturing for Nino to sit at the dining table. “He tends to write obscene things with the ketchup.” He raised his voice so Jun could hear him. “You’d think Matsumoto Jun was still twelve years old!”

Jun was all smiles as he came in from the kitchen with plates for himself and Nino. “Sho-kun, be reasonable, is a twelve year old skilled enough to draw this with a ketchup bottle?”

Nino covered his mouth, laughing as he glanced down at Jun’s condiment stylings. Nino’s egg was topped with a rather detailed ketchup penis, while Jun had drawn a pair of breasts on his.

“Please enjoy,” Jun said. “Sho-kun’s just angry he can’t have any.”

“I could eat it if I really wanted,” Sho protested, sitting glumly at the table. “Matsumoto, I could be eating off your plate before you even knew it.”

“I’d like to see you try it, old man.”

Sho crossed his arms, annoyed and grumbling under his breath, and Nino couldn’t help laughing. It was good to see them teasing each other, acting affectionate with one another. He’d been used to their awkward silences, the longing looks that meant more than Nino could really understand. Perhaps their long talk, the one Jun had spoken of, had gone a long way in repairing what was broken between them. If anything, it had put off a truly momentous decision for another twelve months.

Ketchup dick aside, Jun’s omurice was delicious. If there was something he was good at, it was whipping together comfort food dishes. Unlike the last dinner they’d shared, Jun and Sho actually made eye contact. They kept the conversation light, on topics like TV shows they watched and speculating if Mao-chan and Toma were trying to get pregnant, but still waiting to tell them.

“It would be the most spoiled baby in the universe,” Sho teased. “You should have seen him when Shun-kun’s baby was born, he sent them a truckload of diapers.”

“It wasn’t a truckload! And how I spend my money is none of your business.”

Sho pointed at him. “I pay your salary! I technically bought those diapers! You could have put my name on the card, too!”

Nino ate his dinner, keeping mostly to himself. It was wonderful to see them like this, relaxed, arguing over stupid things instead of heavier topics like Jun’s mortality. Over government regulations and defaced mail. Jun cleared the plates sometime after 9:30 and once the dishwasher was rumbling in the kitchen, Sho started to look a little nervous. Nino knew why. There was something to talk about now, something that concerned him.

If Sho was angry that he and Jun had kissed, he certainly didn’t look it. And if he really had been upset, Nino doubted he’d have been treated to dinner. The three of them moved to the living room, putting on the TV, but keeping the volume low. Maybe Sho just wanted the background noise. Jun and Sho sat on their couch while Nino sat in a chair just to the side.

It was Jun who spoke first. “Nino. Sho-kun wants to bite you.”

“Oi!” Sho squealed, smacking his hand against the sofa cushion. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Jun smiled. “You would have taken twenty minutes to get to the point. I thought I’d save Nino the agony of listening to you ramble about scents and pheromones and all that crap…”

“Pheromones?” Nino asked, knowing that he was probably turning red. He was kind of on Sho’s side here, appalled by Jun’s straightforward admission.

“You asshole!” Sho was equally embarrassed, his voice muffled behind a pillow. “I can’t ask him now!”

Jun, sitting at Sho’s side, laughed hysterically at his discomfort. “Humans like certain scents. Flowers, clean laundry, that sort of thing. Well, vampires do too. It’s chemical, in the end. He likes how I smell…and he likes how you smell.”

Self-consciously, Nino turned his head, quickly sniffing his shirt sleeve, and a mortified Sho flung his pillow at Jun. “I’m going to rip up that contract, Matsumoto, I swear.”

Jun was delighted, hugging the pillow Sho had thrown. “He told me, Nino, from the day he first saw you. He said you were looking at him. There was a connection there.”

“Oh god,” Nino mumbled, remembering how he’d been looking down at Sho through the blinds, how their eyes had met.

“It’s not you that I smelled so much as your blood,” Sho admitted quietly. “We like some blood more than others. Just like sometimes we’re attracted to people who draw genitals on omurice, despite our best efforts.”

“Since my blood type is super rare, I’m not a scent that comes around every day,” Jun said, sounding a bit conceited. “And since Sho-kun has been drinking mine for years now…”

“…I could recognize him from miles away.” Sho couldn’t bear to meet Nino’s gaze. “Not that he’s ever miles away from me, but if you take someone’s blood, you’ll always remember them. Especially if you do it all the time. It’s an addiction, really, and he likes to lord it over me. I could be sitting right here, and he could be in Ueno Park and if he so much as got a paper cut, I’d know.”

“But Sho-kun, you’ve never…you’ve never tried me,” Nino mumbled, not sure what the correct phrasing was. “I’m just an A blood type, there’s millions of people like me out there.”

“If I could explain it, Nino, I would,” Sho said, shrugging. “But since Mr. Rare Blood Type has already let the cat out of the bag, I guess I have to confess that it’s true. From the moment I saw you, I was attracted to you. Well, to your blood first, but if we’re all putting our cards on the table, it’s more than that now. And I think we all know it.”

Sho was confessing to him. Sho liked him. And even as he looked up, seeing the honesty in Sho’s eyes, he was surprised to see not jealousy on Jun’s face, but something closer to pleasure. Jun and his ridiculously kissable lips had made it pretty clear already that he liked Nino too, and it had nothing to do with how he smelled.

“So what exactly are you asking?” Nino inquired, shrinking back a bit into the chair, feeling a bit like he was the omurice, Jun was the hand holding the fork, and Sho was the mouth ready to devour him. Did they just want to fuck him? Did Jun want to watch Sho drink from him and that was it?

“Well, as Jun said, I would like to see where this goes. That is, if you want to,” Sho said. “I know that he and I have our complications…”

“Complications! That’s one way of putting it!” Jun scoffed, laughing until Sho silenced him with a sharp look.

“It’s a lot to ask you, since we do consider you our friend, and we don’t want to mess that up,” Sho continued. “And it’s not just Jun and it’s not just me, but it’s both of us, and that’s…that’s a lot. I’m not asking you to be a blood contract, god knows I can’t afford two of you, especially with the amount of money he spends on clothes…”

“You’re getting off track, Sho-kun,” Jun teased, hitting him with the pillow.

“Alright, alright!” Sho said, rubbing his face, psyching himself up with a few little slaps that made Nino suck in a breath of anticipation. “Nino, will you date us?”

“Oh my god,” Jun said, getting off the couch, laughing so hard it made him start to cough. “That’s the line? That’s the line you’ve been rehearsing? Oh my god!”

Nino couldn’t help but smile, seeing Sho’s face turn to panic. He probably thought he’d sounded smooth and sincere, and bless him, he mostly had. But it was still the weirdest thing Nino had ever been asked, and that included Maru asking for his phone number (and maybe a vial of his blood, if he was “down for it”) in a series of post-it notes stuck to the mail room window one morning. Jun’s mean-spirited laughter was clearly just to hide how much he wanted this too, and there was no way to misinterpret what Sho wanted.

It was more than sex and it was more than his blood. They wanted him to be theirs, despite their “complications.” And Nino knew that even though it had only been about two months, only a summer of knowing them, that he wanted to give it a try. That with only one of them he’d always be torn, but with both of them, it made a strange sort of sense. He loved Sho’s passion and drive, Jun’s honesty and devotion. What did he bring to the arrangement? He wasn’t quite sure, besides whatever weirdness with Sho’s vampire brain chemistry attracted him initially. But it wasn’t on him to question their motives. They wanted him, cute hands and all. And Nino really liked that.

“I’d like to give it a try,” he said, once Jun had settled down again. He got up from the chair, feeling his body shaking a little. “It’s not conventional, but I work at a vampire enclave, so it should be apparent to anyone that I’m not a conventional sort of person.”

Sho got to his feet, holding out his hand nervously. It was a princely sort of gesture that had Jun giggling a bit quietly beside them, but Nino couldn’t look anywhere else. He’d just agreed to enter some sort of dating scenario with a vampire and his blood contract, and he was sweating, feeling a strange throb in his neck, almost an itchy sensation. Because what he’d agreed to probably included Sho biting him at some point, as Jun had said from the start.

Nino took Sho’s hand, could feel the strength in Sho’s grip. He was strong, stronger than Nino could really understand, but there was a gentleness in his face that Nino knew he could trust. Jun would have never stayed with Sho this long if he couldn’t trust him.

“I won’t do anything you’re not ready for,” Sho promised him, and Nino felt like he might faint as Sho came closer, his hand sliding up Nino’s arm, fingertips tickling along the inside of his arm. “And no offense, but I don’t bite on a first date.”

“So lame,” Jun teased.

Sho’s cool hand came to his face, pushing aside a loose strand of hair that had fallen across Nino’s brow. As lame as some of Sho’s comments had been that evening, Nino wanted him so badly he thought he’d explode. Having Sho so close, knowing that Sho could kiss him or kill him at any moment…the danger inherent in that had Nino sucking in a breath, licking his lips.

He could sense the change in Sho, the split second shift. Sho had inhaled, exhaled, whatever self-imposed chains he’d gathered around himself loosening, unraveling. One moment there was Sakurai Sho before him, who wrote dorky blog posts and let Jun’s teasing get to him. And then there was Sakurai Sho, vampire and seducer, who had suddenly arrived and was eager to make himself known.

“I won’t bite you, not tonight. And I won’t bite you ever, if that’s what you want.” He leaned forward, and Nino’s eyelids fluttered closed when he felt Sho’s breath against his neck, against his earlobe. The words he spoke next were only for Nino to hear. “But I am a little hungry, after watching you both eat that fucking omurice. So I do intend to take what I want from Jun.”

Nino’s stomach knotted and twisted, feeling like the only thing holding him upright was the deep, husky sound of Sho’s voice so close. “Sho-chan…”

He bit back a moan when he felt Sho’s cool, plump lips press along his neck, finding his pulse. He kissed Nino’s neck so gently he thought he was going to come in his pants. “You want to watch? I think he’d like it.”

“O-okay…okay.”

When he opened his eyes again, Sho had left his side, and with surprising self-control, with surprising force of will, he looked at Jun and simply snapped his fingers. With obedience that Nino thought would be impossible, Jun started to take off his shirt, unzipping his jeans right in the middle of the living room. Sho looked over, and Nino gulped when he saw that Sho’s eyes were almost black. Sho was in control, and there was nothing sweet or kind about him now.

“Sit. Watch.”

Nino had never sat down so fast in his life, his ass landing awkwardly on the living room table because it was the closest thing to park on. He watched Sho, keeping all of his clothes on, have an almost leisurely seat in the middle of the couch. Jun had stripped down to only his underwear, and Nino had a difficult time looking away from his erection, straining against the fabric, seeing how quickly the teasing Matsumoto Jun had given in to desire. Sho was addicted to Jun’s blood, that much was obvious. But Jun was addicted to Sho (and what Sho could do to him) just as badly.

Being bitten, Nino knew it hurt. Unskilled vampires existed, who bit with only their own satisfaction in mind. But with the lustful laziness of Jun’s expression, the possessive want in Sho’s, Nino had a feeling that they did this because they both enjoyed it. It wasn’t like he was going to watch Sho take a bite from Jun like he was eating an apple. Nino felt like he’d been ordered to watch them fuck. And he found that nothing would make him happier.

Sho sat up a little, scooting to the middle of the cushion. He spread his legs and gave the cushion before him a quick pat. Jun sat without protest, his back to Sho, sitting between Sho’s thighs at the edge of the couch cushion. Jun’s eyes shut tight as soon as Sho’s arm came around him, hugging him around the middle. Nino was breathing heavily by now, serving as a silent witness, seeing how Sho’s hand rested on Jun’s abdomen, mere inches from the waistband of his boxer briefs. He watched Sho pat Jun’s pale, flat stomach, teasing him.

Without having to ask, Jun tilted his head to the side, exhaling a shuddering breath. Jun moaned when Sho’s lips kissed along the curve of his shoulder. “Nino’s watching,” Sho said, his voice a far cry from the gentle, calm tones Nino was used to hearing. It had the hair on the back of his neck standing on end. “Jun, do you like that Nino’s watching?”

Jun barely nodded, gasping quietly as Sho kissed his way along Jun’s shoulder, slow, wet kisses that had Nino desperate to unzip, to take his own erection in hand. But Sho hadn’t told him to do that. Sho had told him only to sit. To watch.

But as if Sho could read his mind, he whispered some sort of command into Jun’s ear, and Nino saw Jun sigh, his front teeth biting down achingly hard on his own bottom lip, exposing the dark little mole he had underneath. While Sho continued to kiss lovingly along Jun’s shoulder, behind him to his shoulder blade, along the sharp curve of his jawline, Jun had apparently been ordered to touch himself.

Nino’s hands found the edge of the coffee table, and he held on tight, feeling it dig into his palms almost painfully as Jun undid the two small buttons on his boxer briefs, letting his erection free. He was clearly struggling, between the soft torture of Sho’s mouth against his neck and the as yet unaddressed need between his legs. Sho whispered in Jun’s ear again, and Jun brought a shaking hand up, across his chest. He let Sho lick and suck his fingers for a few moments before bringing his hand to his hard cock. Jun started to stroke himself, a slick and needy sound that made Nino’s mouth go dry.

Jun was falling apart, Sho continuing to whisper in his ear, soft but demanding. Nino could barely concentrate, his gaze moving from Sho’s mouth at Jun’s ear to the tension in Jun’s arm muscles as he touched himself and then down to his cock. He’d never seen Jun so out of control before, and it was killing him to only be able to watch.

“Please,” Jun was soon whispering. “Sho-kun…please…”

Sho looked up from where he’d been licking along Jun’s neck, seemingly preparing him for the inevitable. His dark eyes locked with Nino’s.

“This might be scary, since you’ve never seen them,” Sho said. He gave Jun’s stomach an almost condescending little pat. “But don’t worry. He’s asking for it so nicely today. He’ll be just fine.”

Sho’s big, bright white teeth looked normal for only a second longer, having issued his warning. Nino gripped the table hard when he saw two fangs protrude from Sho’s gums, sliding down over two of his front teeth. He nearly lost it when Sho’s grip on Jun tightened, when he pulled Jun back against him hard and Nino watched the two sharp fangs break through Jun’s skin. The noise Jun made in that moment, the sharp, shuddering moan of pleasure as Sho’s fangs pierced a vein on his neck with one swift motion, was a sound Nino was certain he’d never forget.

The fangs vanished, retracting Nino guessed, because Sho looked up quickly to smile again and they were already gone. But before the dark crimson blood could stain its way any further down Jun’s neck, Sho started to drink. With little fanfare, Nino saw Jun’s hand still, his fingers and stomach sticky with his release. He’d probably come the second Sho’s fangs had broken his skin. As he listened to the almost vulgar, crude sound of Sho sucking Jun’s blood, he saw Jun open his eyes. He smiled in the dopey, endearing way of any orgasm’s afterglow, winking at Nino for only a second before Sho’s grip on him tightened, and he moaned again, shutting his eyes tight.

Nino didn’t know how long it was supposed to last, watching Jun nearly deflate in Sho’s grasp, his strong body going limp as Sho took what he wanted, what he craved. But before Nino could say something, ask if he was hurting Jun, Sho stopped. Jun’s neck was a mess, the pale skin stained, but it seemed like he wasn’t bleeding now. Maybe there was something in Sho’s saliva that closed up the wound. It was all so dangerous, but Jun was clearly still alive, would recover.

Nino could see Sho slowly coming back to himself, his eyes changing. The way he was holding Jun changed too. He was embracing him now, pressing his forehead to Jun’s back, his eyes shut tight as he regained control of his urges. It was tender and sweet, and even though he’d watched everything else without shame, with his eyes wide open, it was only now that Nino felt like he was intruding on something personal.

For the first time, Nino had seen what a vampire could do. The control he’d exerted over Jun, and over Nino himself. Never in all that time had Nino felt compelled to disobey what Sho had asked of him, and surprisingly, neither had Jun, who Nino thought of as someone who lived to do the opposite of what Sho wished.

Sho finally looked up, and he looked a little nervous. “Did I scare you?”

“Maybe,” Nino admitted, feeling a little odd that Jun was still sitting there, covered in his own come, breathing unsteadily. “Maybe a little.”

“I’m sorry,” Sho said. Nino couldn’t help but look away as Sho pressed a kiss to Jun’s temple, ruffling his hair. “Come on, let’s get him cleaned up.”

Nino was uncomfortable for a few minutes more, his erection gradually calming as he ran some bathwater and then helped Sho get Jun up and into the bathroom. Nino sat by, perched on the toilet as he watched Sho get Jun into the bathtub, hearing Jun hum appreciatively as his body sank into the hot water. Sho cared for him so gently it made Nino blush, watching him pat a washcloth against Jun’s wounded neck.

Nino thought that Jun was almost asleep, but midway through Sho’s ministrations, he started to laugh a little. “Sho-kun, you went off script today.”

Sho chuckled, rubbing the washcloth across Jun’s back. “What? What script?”

Jun finally opened his eyes, looking at Nino. “He usually doesn’t make me jerk off before he bites me.”

“Is that so?” Nino asked, raising an eyebrow at Jun’s blunt statement.

“We had an audience,” Sho pointed out. “I thought you’d like it.” Nino wasn’t sure if Sho was talking to Jun or to him when he said that. “And it’s not like I’m going to fuck you in front of…”

Sho’s face went hilariously blank in panic at what he’d just admitted so casually.

Nino’s jaw dropped.

But Jun’s smile was wide and beautiful. “That’s the usual script. And now you know. Sho-kun is kinkier than you might have expected.”

“Nino, I’m sorry for this horrible introduction to our personal life.” Sho splashed Jun with some water, groaning. “You’re disgusting.”

“What? Me?” Jun splashed back, laughing. “He should know what he signed on for.”

“We’ve been together for years! I’m not going to ask him to do that when we’ve known him for two months!”

Jun looked over in Nino’s direction, pointing rather rudely. “Please, look at that sweet little face. He wants the full Sakurai service.”

The bathtub splashing intensified. “You’re going to scare him away!”

Nino crossed his arms, hugging himself a bit as he tried and failed to hide his smile. He definitely wasn’t scared away. In fact, Nino got the sense that his own personal life was going to become a lot more interesting.

part six