Chapter 17 - Secrets

The first thing that I saw as soon as left the office, was Abe waiting impatiently for me to come out of that room. As soon as she saw me, not only did she rush to check me if I was somehow injured, thanks to the noise that I've made when I grabbed her father, but also to see if what she had just heard is true and if I was still her friend.

"Kojou-kun, are you ok? There was a loud noise and I was just about to rush inside, thankfully you seem to be alright. I thought that my father may have hurt you in some way."

"Don't worry about that, it was just a harmless talk between two guys that clearly don't respect the people that are making furniture. I tried to talk him out of his way of treating you, but it didn't really work as I would have liked. While you will still have to listen to your father and learn as much as you can about your family's specialty and become the best in this field, you would get more free time to relax. I'll be your guarantee for that."

"Does that mean that we will remain friends?"

"Of course, why would you even believe that I'll stop being friends with you, silly? We are still classmates and it would be really awkward if I would have chosen the money, the only thing that's changed is how much free time you'll get. The worst thing that you will have to do is to persevere through your family situation."

Hearing my words, Abe smiled, and to be honest, I felt kind of bad for half lying to her about what I talked about with her father, but at the same time, I promise him that I won't tell her the truth. Especially when her parents want to keep her for as long and as far as it was possible from all of the political stuff that Abe's going to have to deal with at some point in the future. Well, it's not like she's the only one, who will have to deal with it, if what I've heard from my aunt was true, then, I was also going to deal with this kind of stuff sooner or later.

As soon as I finished my words, Abe unexpectedly hugged me.

"Thank you so much Kojou-kun, for everything. But don't you feel curious about me and my family? Especially now that you may have learned a thing or two about it."

"Abe-chan, I can't force you or even demand from you to tell me your family secretes, they are your secretes, not mine, but if you want to tell me, then I'll gladly listen to you."

"No, Kojou-kun, even if you don't want to ask, I believe you deserve to know more about me after what you did to help me. My family is related to the supernatural world, which means that we usually deal with the devils and Youkais as they are the most predominant in Japan. Our family specialty is beast taming, which means that we are able to tame creatures that aren't known to the normal population, for example, mythological creatures like dragons, unicorns, griffins, etc. Thanks to how good our family is at taming creatures that are known to be somewhat hard to control or even approach, we quickly become one of the few beasts taming families that have somewhat of a good reputation and relationship with both the devils and the Youkais, and even some other parties that aren't necessarily related to a big or biblical faction. As for me, as you can already guess, I'm the only child of my parents, thanks to that, I'm going to inherit the whole family business once my father step's down from his position. For the very same reason I need to learn as much as I can if I want to keep the family and its business united and under my control, otherwise, some power-hungry people would do anything to destroy us and our reputation that was built over the years just so that get could their hands on a small piece of our fortune. Now that you have learned the truth about me and my family, what do you think?"

"This… is… what can I say? It's clearly interesting, after all, who wouldn't like to see all sorts of creatures? Now, that you have told me your secret, it's only fair for me to tell you mine, no? I may not look like most supernatural beings that have wings and things like that, but I'm also quite different from what you may have thought of me. Not only did I already know my fair share about this world, but I'm also part of it, in some manner."

Abe blinked at me for a few seconds, obviously not expecting me to say something like that.

"A few years ago, I was just a normal teenager guy that loved going out and had a lovely family, unfortunately for everyone, one night when I went out, I got transformed into a bloodsucking monster known as a vampire. At first, not only did I not know what to do, but it was also hard to control myself and my new senses. I was scared, after all not knowing what was wrong with me and what I need to do to cure myself was clearly my and my family's main worry. After I had my first incident where I completely lost myself to the feral side, which made me hate myself for what I've become, I tried to research my symptoms everywhere I could, and slowly but surely I managed to put some information together and learn more about my condition and what it could be. Thanks to the help of my late family and my aunt that had taken me in her care after my family died in a horrible fire, I've managed to get hold of some blood, and every now and then I drink a little bit to satiate my hunger and obviously to remain control myself from going on a rampage again."

"Kojou-kun, I couldn't even imagine what you go through all those years, especially when you couldn't trust anyone with this kind of secret. I'm glad that you've decided to open yourself and share your burden with me.

"That's what good friends are for, right?"

"Indeed, that's what good friends are for. Let's go eat something, mom makes the best food, I've ever tasted."

"I can't wait to taste her cooking."

The following month passed quite quickly with nothing too interesting or not worthy happening other than me and Abe spending more time together, slowly becoming best friends that would share everything with each other. Even though it got to the point where I would visit her home almost daily due to her and her mother's insistence, we didn't become a couple, yet, even though I'm pretty sure that she would accept if I ask her out. Another thing that happened after I and Abe become closer was how annoyingly and how often the stares of those four popular classmates of ours have become since I've visited Abe's house for the first time. Don't get me wrong, I like the fact that four beauties are interested in me, even if it's not because they like me, but even the most patient and understanding man would get annoyed by something like this. Thankfully, one day when I visited Abe, she explained to me why those girls seemed to be interested in me. Who would have thought that there are devils enrolled in our school or better said their school? Yukina didn't mention anything about how those devils were, but she did indeed mention their existence once. Abe also made sure to tell me to be careful and to not end up dead thanks to those devils' plots, yet she also said that her friends, those devils, apparently, were way different from the rest of the devil's race and that the most plausible recruitment method would be a direct meeting, at least in Sona's case.

At the same time, the other girl that had become somewhat a friend with me and Yukina, Koneko still comes once in a while to meet us and eat some of the cookies that my aunt made me learn how to bake as it would be beneficial to me in the future, as it would be a good way to the heart of a girl and that it may just save my life in case I meet a rather interesting person in the future. Even though I, a guy that hadn't been in any kind of romantic relationship knew that the way of a cook is the way to a good life so without wasting any time, I went into full-on learning mode. While it wasn't easy, after practicing for a while, I have managed to learn how to make some simple dishes and some sweets that aren't too over-complicated like cookies and pies. Thanks to that, I got praised by Koneko, Abe, and surprisingly my new neighbor Yukina.

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