He doesn’t answer me. After a moment, I knock, steadily taking deep breaths to settle my nature. “Jae? What are you doing?” I can feel his aura muffled through the door. Now, instead of being inside the shop, it’s as if I’m looking in through a window. I can’t feel it completely, but I know it’s very good inside there. “Jae—”

“I-I’ll meet you downstairs!”

His voice comes frantic and stifled through the door. When there’s nothing else, I turn, walk toward the bed and drop down hard, lying back with my palms pressed against my face and waiting for my eyes to burn out.

Shit. I feel high. But not like a thick, cottony drug-induced high. More like I took some happy pills and the lingering effect is soft tingles across my skin and my heart being light. My body is amped up and now I really want to touch him. I knew his nature and essence would be good to me when I finally felt its true form. It was fantastic even when it was stifled and he was human. But this unfiltered, raw vampire energy of his… It’s something else. Powerful and euphoric. Glorious.

Jae stays in the bathroom for a very long time. I don’t know how long exactly, but by the time the door opens, I’m sitting upright with my arms folded, and my body is acclimated to living out in the freezing rain again. He starts when he sees me, even taking a small step back. He avoids my eyes and runs his fingers against the back of his hair

“I… I said I would meet you downstairs.”

I watch him with my arms folded. When I don’t say anything, he finally steps out of the bathroom, eyeing me cautiously. Totally guarded. “Sorry… about—”

“Why did you walk away from me?” I ask. Jae pauses. He looks at me, blinking. But slowly, he draws back, his face shifting and his brow creasing. I’ve seen this expression on him before. I haven’t seen it in a very long time, but I do remember it. Distinctly.

“Why did I walk away from you?” he asks, the question laced with incredulity. “Have we forgotten that you walked away from me? That you told me to shove off five months ago because you wanted nothing to do with this?” Jae opens his arms, indicating his entire body with wide eyes. “You told me that you would never be bothered with ranked vampires—especially purebreds! And you told me plainly that you hated Ren’s aura, and the fact that purebreds even have this ridiculous ability. But you show up here, unannounced and rubbing your face into me, and I’m supposed to what, exactly? Be overjoyed? Compliant? What the hell did you expect?”

He turns and paces a step, running his hands into his hair before he stops, looking away but still talking to me. “This won’t work. I… I can’t do this with you.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t even know how to behave around you anymore.” He turns his head to glance at me, and his eyes are glassy. But when he sees me staring back, he looks to the wall again, wiping his palm down his face and inhaling deep. “Anything I do, I’m worried it’s coming across as bossing you or exerting my rank over you or whatever. And I know… I know how you really feel about me now. In this form. You don’t like this, and I don’t like it either. So why should two people try to exist together in a circumstance like that? It’s toxic and it’s painful.”

He wipes his eyes, his shoulders rising and falling. Eventually, he looks over at me, frowning. “Are you listening?”

“I am. Is there anything else?”

He tilts his head. “Isn’t that enough?”

I scoot over on the bed and pat the mattress with my palm. “Will you please sit with me?” At first, he doesn’t budge. After a moment, though, he steps toward the bed.

If Jae had said all of this to me before I felt his physical aura, I might have believed him. He’s been tense, guarded and uncomfortable ever since I arrived. Coupled with this declaration, I might have given in, thinking that this is what he truly wants.

But I’ve now had the immense pleasure of feeling the true inner core of his being. The soul of him and what he earnestly desires. Whether he realizes this or not, I don’t know. But he’s lying right now. Both to me and to himself. He wants this just as badly as I do.

When he’s sitting beside me on the bed, I look over at him. “Everything you said is valid. But not all of it was true.”

“What wasn’t true?” he asks, staring forward and out the window—through the glass and at yet another gray, overcast sky.

“First, that I told you to ‘shove off.’”

“You did.”

“Did not. I said I needed space. If anything, I needed to shove off for a minute. I never wanted you to leave Japan. You could have stayed in my house and worked as long as you wanted. I just… I needed time to process and adjust, and I needed to fix the Ren bullshit. I would have been perfectly fine with you staying with me—”

“Sure. Right. I was supposed to just crack on. Walking around and pretending like I don’t love—like I don’t care.” He takes another deep breath and runs his hands up and into his hair.

I smirk. “Like you don’t love me, Jae?”

He drops his hands, gripping them against the edge of the bed with his shoulders hunched. His skin is flushed and he doesn’t say anything—guarded. I can’t help but smile and shake my head. Does he not even realize what his aura is? Its function and what it reveals about his innate desires and needs? Nino was right. He doesn’t know how to vampire. At all.

Which makes this all the more endearing, really.

“Second,” I go on, since he’s clearly done talking, “you said that I don’t like you like this. That isn’t true. It doesn’t matter what you are. This outer shell is irrelevant. I love you, Jae Davies, and all the beautiful, intangible and marvelous things that swarm together to create the essence of who you are.”

His skin is still rosy and splotched, but his grip against the bed eases. He’s staring out the window, his face lit by the gray glow of the sky.

“Why?” he asks after a long moment of silence. “What’s changed in the past five months?”

“Me.” I smile, staring into his profile. “To quote someone that I deeply respect, ‘I’m looking at you without all of my ridiculous personal baggage in the way.’ Is that alright?”

Jae rubs his palm down his face. A weak attempt to hide his smile. “You can’t use my own line on me.”

“Why can’t I? It impressed me when you said it. It told me that you were self-aware and working to change. Now, I am, too.”

There’s a moment of pause where the sunlight breaks through the clouds. I see the bright yellow ray like a spotlight, but it’s only for a passing moment. Jae sits straighter, resting his hands within his lap. His voice is low. “I don’t know who… or what I am anymore. And I don’t know how to control this body.”

I shake my head. “That’s okay—”

“Is it?” He finally looks at me, his perplexing eyes distressed. “What if the thing you’re afraid of is true? What if I am like Ren and every other purebred you hate, and it’s only a matter of time before I change? Or something else happens to me besides my eyes shifting colors or this insane blue orb coming out of me? I don’t know, Jun!”

“I know. I can feel you and you’re the same, sunshine. You’re just… getting in your own way?” I take a chance, because I really want to touch him. The way he smells and the pull of his nature are still there, tucked away but enticing me. Intoxicating me. I know a kiss is far off at the moment, but if I could just…

The second my fingers graze his against the bed, he snatches his hand away. I frown. “Jae—”

“Don’t touch me! You’ll just set me off and I’ll be a blue fireball again. Jesus Christ, so humiliating. It took forever to calm it down. I need to talk to Haruka as soon as we get to Milan. There has to be a way to stop this.”

“You could also not stop it and just let it breathe. It’s your aura, and it’s the physical manifestation of your vampiric energy. It’s naturally responding to me. To us.” I smile, but he’s frowning and shaking his head.

“It’s a freak show.”

“It is not.”

“You told me that you hated that feeling! And that it was forceful and controlling—”

“Not yours. It’s not always like that, and I was wrong to only tell you that side of it. But there’s another side, too. Your aura is also the essence of who you are, Jae—your true, unfiltered self all around me and communicating with me. Calling to me. It’s pure and beautiful and I love it. It feels good to me.” I finally have eye contact, so I take advantage and say, “Can we please try? I think we can absolutely do this, as long as we go slowly, and you truly forgive me for hurting you. Can you?”

Now that he’s been honest with me and aired his grievances, I know we can do this. He’s already less tense, and even though there are still hurdles to overcome, I can finally see the finish line in the distance. Somehow, I already know what the promised land looks like, and it is flowing with milk and honey. It is truly good.

When he nods, I exhale a breath that I didn’t even realize I was holding.

“Yes,” he says. “I forgive you… but don’t touch me until I figure out how to control this thing inside me.”

I bite my lip and look away from him because I do not want to make that promise. And I could help him learn and manage it, if he let me. Is he serious?

“Jun?”

I whip my head to look at his angelic face all frowned up. He’s dead serious. Fuck. “Alright. I won’t. Except…”