A month has passed. Nino sits staring out the clear bay window. He loves days like this—when the sky is blue and bright, painted with fluffy, textured clouds. They’re massive. Floating across the sky like celestial islands drifting in the wintery breeze.
Inside, Nino is surrounded by warmth and literature, perfectly comfortable in Haruka’s expansive library. He sits with his legs folded on the cushion and his back straight, resting against the wall enclosing the cozy sill. He turns his head to look down at Haruka sitting on the ornate rug in the middle of the floor. A disarray of books and notes spirals outward from his position—he is the eye of an academic hurricane. Haruka holds a black mug of steaming coffee in one hand while with the other he casually flips through a reference book on qualitative data analysis.
Nino keeps his voice low, not wanting to disturb the peaceful atmosphere but wanting to engage with his friend. “Did you talk to Emory last week?”
“Yes,” Haruka says, still focusing on his book.
Nino breathes a clipped laugh through his nose. “Did he spend the first ten minutes of your conversation apologizing profusely and insisting that he didn’t intentionally forget the blood bags last month?”
This time, Haruka rolls his eyes, bringing his cup to his mouth. “Yes.”
“When will he have a list for us?” Nino asks. Haruka lifts his head. The afternoon sunlight does that tricky thing where it catches the rich burgundy glint of his eyes. He looks handsome and Historian-like sitting on the floor with his coffee, but sometimes the outer shell cracks, revealing something tender beneath Haruka’s façade of purebred vampire refinement and prestige.
When their eyes meet, Nino’s stomach clenches. He casually glances down at the book in his lap to avoid Haruka’s lovely gaze. Stop, Nino. Don’t turn into a crazy pervert like everyone else.
“He says he should have the list of contacts for us next week.” Haruka sighs. “We still don’t have a concise way to collect this information. Obtaining quantitative data should be simple enough, but the qualitative piece is challenging. There is so much gray area with intent, Nino. How can we measure something so subjective?”
“With basic questions,” Nino says, refusing to look over at him until the butterflies in his stomach take a rest. “Was your bond initiated as a business transaction—yes or no? Did you love your intended mate at the initiation of your bond—yes or no?”
“How are we defining love?” Haruka asks. “It means different things for different people—are we talking about agape love? Eros? Pragma?”
“I feel like you’re overthinking this,” Nino says, finally meeting his focused gaze.
“I feel that perhaps you are oversimplifying,” Haruka counters. “Some individuals think that they love or are in love, but their actions cause pain. Their harsh expectations and corrupt behaviors are justified in their minds, sometimes under the guise and misrepresentation of love. It does not always mean the same thing to all beings.”
There’s something significant in Haruka’s eyes as he reasons. Nino can’t pinpoint what it is. Like maybe his words aren’t solely conjecture. Maybe they come from a place of experience?
“Okay, I hear you,” Nino says. “What if we keep it simple? Free will versus an arranged bonding. Even if we take love out of the equation, we can still gain a strong understanding of the intent behind the bond if they willingly chose each other versus not.”
“That should produce less ambiguous results,” Haruka agrees. “Has your brother sent another list of contacts?”
“Yes. We have fifty altogether… only nine thousand, nine hundred and fifty more contacts to go before we have a scientifically sound sample,” Nino says brightly, a weak attempt to make the task in front of them seem less insurmountable.
Haruka groans and drops his shoulders. “Will it even be scientifically sound? We cannot be sure of the total population of bonded vampires. This is merely a guess.”
“I think if we hit ten thousand, it’ll be plenty.” Nino pauses, then smiles as he glances up once more. “The only downside is that you’ll be stuck with me for a while.”
Haruka sets his coffee cup down and stands from the floor, stretching his long arms up as he moves toward him. “On the contrary,” he says. “That is the primary benefit of this research.” He folds one leg against the cushion as he sits in front of Nino in the sunlit window. Thankfully, the intense heat Nino feels in his chest isn’t outwardly visible.
Nino smirks, teasing. “Because you’ll have a guaranteed purebred source for a while?”
“Because I take much pleasure in your company,” Haruka says matter-of-factly. “Nino, why should we rely on your brother to obtain contacts for us in Italy? I can understand relying on him for other areas of Europe, since his business dealings are wide-ranging. But do you not have correspondence with the vampire aristocracy of Milan?”
Nino rests his back against the wall. Confession time. Again. He should start referring to Haruka as Father Hirano. “When I lived at home, I didn’t engage with the members of our aristocracy. After everything with my uncle, and then my mother dying… I just kept to myself in our estate.”
Haruka’s eyes are patient as he listens. He shows none of the awkward stiffness that had been there the first time Nino talked about his childhood.
“Have you not cultivated a specific role within the aristocracy?” Haruka asks.
“I haven’t. But I’m learning that I’m pretty good at running the bar. I earned a twenty-five percent gain of profit from capital within the first year and a half of opening.”
Haruka grins. “While I am not an expert in business economics, that does sound impressive.”
“I have proper skills. I just haven’t established them in any official capacity in the aristocracy.”
“I think you could easily adopt the role of Business Consultant. You are thoughtful and easy to talk with as well, so perhaps even Social Liaison?”
Nino hesitates, meeting Haruka’s gaze. “I’m not always like this, Haru… just with you, or if I’m around other vampires I trust.”
Haruka’s hand is resting near Nino’s in between them against the cushion. He subtly shifts his hand forward, brushing his fingers against Nino’s. Understanding the gesture, Nino reciprocates his touch, gently entwining their digits together. Haruka wants to feed. Nino has learned over the past month that this is his quiet way of communicating his needs.
“Why do you trust me?” Haruka asks, his eyes searching. “This is not the first time you have expressed as much.”
“Well… when I first moved here two years ago, all everyone talked about was the mysterious purebred who never left his house.” Nino remembers both humans and low-level vampires alike coming into his bar and speculating.
Was he old and creepy? Was he like Dracula? Some kind of horrific, self-loathing monster that they should all leave alone? People had these wild theories, but having been someone who’d hidden himself away practically all of his life, Nino wondered if Haruka might simply be like him: fearful or deeply wounded in some way.
“When I met you, you were so polite and nice,” Nino says, decidedly leaving out the part where the energy of his aura had reached out and pulled him toward Haruka like a magnet. “You’d always stayed isolated, but then you offered to help me. I just had a good feeling about you.”
Haruka nods in understanding, softly caressing his thumb against Nino’s with their fingers still entwined. His gaze flickers down to their hands, then back to Nino’s eyes.
“May I feed?”
Nino swallows hard, conflicted yet again. Caught between speaking his mind or keeping his mouth shut. “Yes…”
Haruka shifts Nino’s hand upward, but Nino instinctively grips his fingers tighter, keeping them linked against the cushion. Confused by the subtle resistance, Haruka looks up, his voice quiet in the intimate space. “Is something wrong?”
Nino rakes his free hand through his hair and takes a breath, steeling himself. “Why do you keep feeding from my hand?” The first time he’d done it, Nino had understood. Haruka had been attacked, he was wounded, shaken. It was a tense moment and a spontaneous offer. His reluctance to feed more intimately was natural. Expected.
