Twenty-Three
Jae
I had thought… that when I eventually took a bath with Junichi, it’d be this very sexy, steamy affair. Like something out of a lush erotica novella. Teak wood and steam and slippery hands and panting. Slow thrusts and deep kisses.
Never once did I fantasize about him scrubbing dead skin off my withered body because I was too weak to do it myself. Nor did I imagine Nino occasionally popping in to make sure we’re both alright.
Nope. Not how I pictured that at all.
I’m sitting at my kitchen table, mindlessly eating the miso soup and rice that Nino has kindly purchased for me. Whatever happened to me… Whatever is happening to me, it went from zero to sixty. On Monday I felt tired at work. As the day progressed, it was getting more and more difficult to pay attention to what my patients were saying to me.
On Tuesday morning, I woke up simultaneously exhausted and feeling like a dried-up sponge left on the side of a kitchen sink. I’ve never felt like that—like all the moisture inside me had been wrung out or siphoned somewhere, leaving me brittle. I likened it to dehydration, but no matter how much water I drank, I wasn’t sated. All it did was cause me to run to the bathroom every twenty minutes… until I was crawling to the bathroom. Then I couldn’t move or do anything, and everything ached like mad.
That feeling… it’s still there. Almost threatening to overtake me again. Nino is busy cleaning my whole flat, I think (God bless him—utterly humiliating), and Junichi is pacing back and forth in my living room, talking to Haruka on his smartphone. I know it’s Haruka because Junichi changes when he speaks to him. They’re friends, but he’s a little less haughty.
I’m staring at him, and I want him. I always want him, but it feels different somehow. Before I felt wildly satisfied with his mere closeness and conversation. A kiss? Wonderful. Sex? Brill. I still want those things, but something inside me wants even more than that now. As I sit here, I can’t really understand what it is.
Junichi hangs up the phone and is walking toward me. He’s been oddly quiet since giving me a bath. When he re-dressed, he ditched his suit jacket. Now he’s wearing a crisp white shirt (sleeves rolled up to his elbows) and his trousers. The entire suit was black, but subtly patterned in a satiny off-black matte paisley design. Gorgeous. Yet another thing that would make me look like a clown but makes Junichi look like the most dapper creature in all Japan.
When he sits down, I can’t help but stare at him. His irises seem almost muted in color, but still vividly expressive. Right now, there’s kindness there. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m alright.” My voice is finally back to normal. It was weird and scratchy when I first woke up. “Thank you… for doing all this. I’m very sorry to have interrupted your event. I appreciate the help.”
“Why didn’t you call me?” he asks.
“Everything went pear-shaped fairly quickly. I thought I was coming down with something and I’d be fine after a day or two. By the time I realized I was wrong, I literally couldn’t move.”
Junichi nods at this, folding his arms as he leans back. “Two things. One—the board approved your surrogate project. So when you’re ready, you can start your first trial.”
Despite feeling like shit warmed up, I’m genuinely elated to hear this. “Excellent. I’m looking forward to it. Have you told Haruka and Nino the good news?”
“That leads me to number two. Haruka is coming to talk to you tomorrow.”
My jaw drops at this, eyes wide. “What? Haruka—here?” Christ. It’s already humiliating enough having Nino here, but Haruka existing in my shabby flat, too? Why didn’t I decorate? I’ve been here five months, for God’s sake. Do I have any food in my fridge? Wine? Tea?
“Yes,” Junichi says, interrupting my worries of being a bad host and decorator. “You can tell him personally tomorrow. He also needs to talk to you. Jae, do you truly have no idea what’s happening to you?”
“What’s happening to me?” Dread is bubbling up from my stomach. “Will you please tell me?” I don’t want to admit it, but the way I looked—the gray, ashen state of my skin—it reminded me of how my mother looked just before she died.
Junichi takes a deep breath. “We think you’re turning.”
I blink and draw back. “Where?”
“Where?” Junichi frowns. “What does that mean?”
“What do you mean? Am I a car? Left or right?”
“Jae. Turning into a vampire. Well, technically you’ve always been one, apparently. So shifting? Awakening?”
I don’t know what my face looks like, but I can’t speak. Can’t move. His statement is so preposterous and goes against everything I have ever studied about vampires.
“Jae?” He leans in. I stand up.
“Are you mad?”
“What? No—”
“How—how many times do I need to tell you lot that I am fucking human. Turning a human into a vampire is not possible. It’s not bloody possible—”
“Jae, please calm down.”
I don’t calm down. No one has ever calmed down from someone telling them to do so. If anything, it has the opposite effect. But I do stop talking. I’m standing here thinking he’s bonkers. They all are. Something is wrong with me, but it isn’t this. This is not possible.
“Do you remember what I did to make you feel better?”
“What you did?” I parrot.
“Yes.”
Shifting my gaze away, I try to think back to a little more than an hour ago. For starters, I was half dead, wasn’t I? I remember hearing Junichi’s voice. His smell. His flawless, marvelous scent. He spoke to me, telling me to do something. Then he gave me something… something wonderful that tasted just like he smells. Perfectly clean, cypress and minty. Junichi undiluted. Amplified.
I glance back over to him, nervous. “You gave me something. What did you give me?”
He stares at me for what feels like an eternity, as if he’s trying to give me anxiety.
“My blood, Jae. You drank my blood and now you’re better. Do you understand?”
Silence. I’m waiting for him to tell me he’s kidding. Like he’s having a laugh with me, but I don’t think it’s funny. He doesn’t say anything. I’m starting to feel legless, so I drop back down into the chair. We’re both quiet for a long moment. Eventually, I look at him, serious.
