Kyuuketsuki 05

The kiss was definitely an accident. The noise she prefaced it with made me realize that she had lost her balance. Miscalculating her step when trying to bite my neck made light that this was a slip up, but not only that-

"What the hell was that for? You did that on purpose, didn't you? I bet you pushed my heel with your foot or something!"

The phrase she suffixed the kiss with confirmed my deductions, with no need for explanation.

"I didn't touch any part of you. I'm the one being assaulted here. Now if you could-"

Hm. The read I'm getting on this situation is much different from before.

It's like seeing her screw up something as basic as sucking blood allowed me to drop all the tension I had accumulated during this interaction. It seemed that this suspenseful, dreary, life or death situation downgraded to a casual conversation between acquaintances that passed by each other on the street. Guess that's what happens when the "legendary vampire of dominion" can't even feed on one human. A lesson to be taken to heart is to not immediately set people's expectations of you to an incredibly high standard if you can't immediately meet that standard. Her plan was to kill me in an instant, so she probably didn't think too much about what happens if she fails. Maybe it was a fluke. Maybe it was the first time she had flubbed it. Maybe it was a one in one million chance of happening event that just so happened to happen. Flip it how you like, each way she's at fault for not having a plan B. If she's a terrible vampire, and she messes up feeding all the time, then that's even more reason that she should have a plan B by now. But she didn't, and she failed, and now I'm not nervous. Being a vampire isn't enough to shake me, you have to be a fucking terrifying one to do that. And she had thrown away all chances of me perceiving her as scary.

"-Let go."

She was still gripping onto my shoulders and back with a fierce grip.

She may not have been a scary vampire, but-

As if a vampire would listen to a human telling them to let go.

"No. Your blood is as good as mine."

I don't think this is important, but what happened to her old-timey dialect? "Thou", "Thee", and all that? I guess that was just for intimidation, or rather, to help set my image of her to be what she wanted. Though I really don't see the point of worrying over what someone who's about to die thinks of you. There isn't any point of making a lasting impression on someone who's a minute away from death, and she wasn't good at it, but she tried. Maybe that was her plan B.

"This time I won't miss."

While the situation had been rid of its tension, a sense of dread had suddenly come about when I realized she intended to try again(not that I expected her to give up after her first fail.)

With a questionable amount of force, and an even more questionable amount of effort, she bared her fangs and swung her head toward my neck. She was ready to attack, heading straight for a vital spot, when she fell just short of my flesh. She hadn't stopped because she was feeling merciful, or she decided to go find someone else, but because no matter how hard she tried to make skin contact with her fangs, she couldn't. I knew she couldn't, because she stopped without having any reasons or obligations to, but also because she wore an expression of pain that wasn't there before.

She pulled back from me entirely. The distance between us reopened.

"You! Who are you?" She asked while still suffering in pain. It was residual, as the pain seemed to mostly go away after she stopped trying to bite me.

"I'm just a normal human boy."

"Lies. You can't be normal. You wouldn't be normal even if heaven and hell swapped places! Even I am more normal than you."

No, I doubted that.

"I honestly didn't do anything. I'm just a boy who plans to spend his spring break inside by himself because be doesn't like people all that much."

"Then what explanation do you have for this? I can't touch you." She jabbed her fingers fiercely toward my shoulder, but they wouldn't connect. Calmly, and collected, I said "Did your failure to take me out the first time screw something up?"

Calmly may be an exaggeration of how my tone was, but I did deliver the line with an acute smugness. Her reaction was one unbefitting of a rebuttal. A smug quip gets a smug retort, but not here. She became somewhat downtrodden, and said "No, that shouldn't have done anything. If you really are just a normal human, then there is something that went wrong. With you, and with me. And it concerns the foundation of your very being."

Though everything she said was confusing to me, I asked "Something?"

"Yes. Something. You kissed me-"

For posterity, she kissed me. Not the other way around.

"That's what went wrong. I was really hoping that the worst case scenario wouldn't occur as a result, I was counting on it. But looking at you, it seems to be the case. This really is a great deal of trouble for me."

"Could you explain all this to me?"

"It'll be easier if you experience it yourself. Put your hand on your cheek."

I did as she said. It was cold, my flesh was at a morgue level chill.

"Now check your pulse." Again, I did what she told me to.

Nothing. My body gave no response.

"Check your neck."

Running my hand along the left side of my neck, I felt two bumps, one slightly spaced out, but still parallel to the other. As I'm sure you're getting the picture, I was beginning to as well.

"....!"

"The worst case scenario has been realized." I stood in silence, my comprehension of this dilemma founding itself.

"Don't you feel it, the DNA in your body twisting and corrupting?"

I deduced that I should have been in a lot of pain, yet I felt nothing. I continued my silence.

"It's irreversible now. Your body has ceased functioning on your circadian rhythm, and the rest of your internal processes and organs have stopped working as well."

Yet, I stood there, feeling as healthy as ever.

"You aren't human anymore."