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His vision is starting to cloud. He needs blood, and soon. He knows he should try not to because if he does he’d lose all the humanity that’s left in him, but Mika’s nearing his limit to how much longer he can take the seemingly neverending thirst.
He hears small footsteps not too far away. They’re running after what sounds like a ball. Mika lets his body do the work and pushes himself to his feet. I’m just gonna look, he tells himself.
There are three little children, not a lot younger than himself. They’re kicking the ball back and forth. Mika leans against the wall. He lets himself get absorbed into how the game is going, it’s some kind of soccer but not quite like it. It all went fine, Mika even started to enjoy watching them a bit. They reminded him of how he and the other kids of the orphanage used to be.
It all went fine until, one of the kids fell onto the pavement, hard, and scraped her knee. Blood started trickling out of the wound. Mika didn’t realize what was wrong until the immensely strong smell of it made its way into his nose.
It happened so fast not even Mika himself knew what happened, but now he was with the kids, feeding on one of them.
It took him approximately 4 seconds before he realized what was happening and pulled back in shock. The kids that were just smiling now had looks of absolute terror on their faces.
Tears flood his vision as realization dawns upon him. The children scramble to their feet and get away as fast as they can. He tries to look up to apologize but the kids are gone.
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Later that night Mika sat in his room, thinking about the events of the past day. It wasn’t like he could do anything else since vampires don’t need sleep. The happenings of the past few hours finally started to really sink in. He had to fill in a document for the queen as he now turned full vampire.
Name:
Mikaela Hyakyua
Species:
Vampire
Age (turned):
15
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After what happened that day, guilt made its way into his daily life more and more and more. It took a while to figure out what to do with it until one day.
He was watching some kids play with a paper airplane. One boy made continuous 8 symbols with it in the air, while some others tried to take it from him. A little girl sat down on some kind of cloth, it could’ve been anything but it was nearing the end of the period it could serve as anything. She was clapping in her little, chubby hands. She looked like part of the new human generation that only formed after the catastrophe.
One of the children fell, just like the last time he was watching them. This time Mika was in full control of his body. Yet, he still made his way over to the small group of children. Their expressions turned from concerned to scared as they saw Mika come closer.
His expression was surprisingly gentle for a vampire. That was what made one of the kids open their eyes again to curiously look at him.
Mika crouched down in front of the kid with the scraped elbow. None of the children was really sure what to do. He was a vampire, so of course, they were scared, but he looked so gentle and sweet, like someone you could trust.
The blond took something out of his pocket, then opened his hand to the kid. “What band-aid do you want? I have dinosaurs, princesses, dolphins, cats, and more,” he asked softly.
The little girl’s eyes widened, then she eagerly turned to the band-aids. The corners of her lips turned up more and more. After a bit of looking she pointed at the one with a dragon, “this one,” she said shyly.
Mika smiled softly at her as he stuck the band-aid to the scape. Then looked at her face and patted her head. “Play more carefully next time, okay?” he asked. The little girl and some of her friends nodded enthusiastically, then turned around and started playing again.
This was the first time Mika felt a feeling other than guilt in a very long time.
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Things escalated from there and soon Mikaela wasn’t known as ‘some scary vampire’ anymore, but as ‘the sweet vampire’. Most of the kids in the district of the sheltered shelter he had to look over knew him by now. Some even invited him over for diner, even though they all knew he couldn’t eat.
One evening Mika was tucking in some kids when a little girl, Sally was her name, asked him to tell them a story. Of course, Mika did, he told them a story about a dragon who couldn’t fly anymore. The story used to be very popular back in the orphanage before the catastrophe.
When the story ended, most kids had already fallen asleep. Only Sally and the boy next to her were still awake.
“You know, Mikaela-san?” Sally asked. “Call me Mika” Mika interrupted her. A silence followed until she asked again “you know Mika? You kinda are like my mom used to be.” Mika felt his ears turn red, was that how kids felt about him? Like the parent that they didn’t have anymore?
Mika chuckled flusteredly. “I-is that so?” he stuttered. “Yes,” the boy spoke up “my mom also played games with me, and tucked me in, and took care of me! Sally’s right Mika-chan!”
Mika nodded and tried to be understanding, even though the topic wasn’t something he was too eager to talk about. “What else did your mom do?” he settled on asking. More kids were waking up to partake in the conversation. Answers were yelled through the room, such as “make food” or “cut the crusts of my bread” or even “help me pick out cute clothes”.
He smiled, sometimes he wished his parents would’ve been like that. But that wasn’t something to think about. The failure of his parents just meant that he learned what not to do and do it better himself. Now was the time for that, he guessed. “ok “ he said, “then I guess I’ll play mom for a while.”
He smiled a genuine smile.
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He hung out with the kids more and more, Mika was sure he’d be asked to come to the queen soon so she could lecture him for ‘playing with their food’, literally. For now, that still didn’t happen though.
He was braiding Aki’s hair, today she was going to ‘get married’ to her best friend while playing house so she wanted to be all pretty and dressed up. She had put on a tablecloth and a scarf as a dress. Right now she was cutting out flowers for the bouquet from colored paper Mika took with him. He knew it wasn’t allowed to do that but he still did.
The door swung open, a gray-haired man with an ugly smirk revealed himself. It was like you put a cat in a room full of chickens. Children started screaming and running around, the makeshift wedding forgotten within seconds.
Mikaela jumped up from the table and faced Ferid. “What is it, Ferid?” he spat his name out like it was poison. That only made his smirk widen. “Oh nothing much, Mika-chan,” he said, his voice like honey, sweet but deadly. “Just that I have a mission for you.” It stayed quiet on the other end of the conversation. “Mission?” Mika dared ask. Ferid nodded and led him out of the house.
Mika smiled apologetically and mouthed ‘finish the wedding yourself, I’ll be gone for a while.’
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On the mission, everything went well. Mika could even get his hands on some nice souvenirs for the kids.
On the mission it went well, he thought, until he saw ‘him’ again. His mind went completely quiet. Then it was filled with one name, repeating it like a mantra. It grew louder and louder, a symphony with ‘Yuu’ as the only lyrics. He had to get to him, get to him, get to him. His mind started fogging up, vision blurring. Then, he was in front of him, impaled by his sword.
He saw Yuu’s eyes widen as he pulled out the sword. His vision was now so blurry he couldn’t make out any shapes, or what was up and down. What he did feel was his feel being lifted off the floor. His mind went blank.
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They were in some kind of alley when Mika woke up again. He groaned, this was the first time he’d been unconscious in over a year. His head was throbbing. Yuu was hunched over, examining Mika’s face while being mere inches away from it.
He opened his eyes and felt a gush of wind with the speed Yuu pulled his head back. Mika smiled upon seeing the very well-known confused face. Yuu looked like he wanted to ask a billion questions, but said nothing.
Mika pushed himself up into a sitting position against the wall and mentioned Yuu to come closer. “It’s me, Yuu-chan,” was all he needed to say before he felt the familiar weight of a hug on him.
They stayed like that for god knows how long, Yuu practically in Mika’s lap, but neither of them cared. Yuu’s shoulders trembled as Mika patted the soft locks of hair. A wet patch soon started to form on his shoulder.
Only much later, when the sun started to set and the humans were undoubtedly looking for Yuu all over the place did they pull back. He now had time to inspect Yuu’s face. His jawline had become more prominent and his hair was still just as unruly as before. But the thing that didn’t even change one bit was the determined look in his perfect, grass-green eyes.
He then noticed something he was less happy to see. There was a small scratch on his left cheek.
Without much thinking, Mika took out his band-aids. “I have dragons, princesses, and a dog, which one do you want” he questioned. Yuu looked at him like he just started to float. Mika laughed. After a few minutes and ‘are you serious?’ ‘yes’s later he finally picked the dog.
Maybe the world wasn’t so cruel as he thought.
Mika stuck the dog onto the cut after licking it clean, much to Yuu’s disliking. He turned to look at the raven’s eyes, which were surprisingly close. Before much could be said or thought, he felt the other push his lips against his own.
It wasn’t the first kiss you’d see described in books or movies, but to him, it was the best one he could wish for. Mika smiled into the kiss as he let his eyes fall closed.
It was well into the night when they finally got up in the alley. It was time they met up with their comrades again.
Mika pressed one last kiss to Yuu’s lips as they bid their goodbyes.
This time he smiled fondly as he saw Yuu wave and smile while disappearing into the distance, eyes matching with the color of the band-aid.
Yea… maybe the world wasn’t that cruel after all.