Vampire Brand

"Put you two to sleep?" As expected, the deranged sister figure Narumi Narukami posed a quizzical stare.

Without a grasp of my proposition, it's within the unwritten manual that I explain the jazz for her. However, it didn't stay with her that long after I gave her a signature look of superiority. Everything can be learned from when things are over─although paraphrased, she implied from our very recent conference among the spiders.

For whatever method she used to tranquilize me to slumber, I'm afraid I didn't see it nor asked about it after the situation.

What I only know was the production of another dream in the story─has commenced.

Weirdly as it went, I was exiled.

I stood outside a random building entrance, none the movement from the same shaded area─scared I'd melt under the sun.

For the standard reason I didn't want to die.

I'd most likely die there, in the blaze of the sun and in front of the busy foot and vehicle traffic. If I did then and there─the news would spell doom to my kind. Although if they were lax to leave me out there, then they must know how to control the situation otherwise.

Maybe something like a different virus─a cover story removing vampires out of the spectrum.

At any rate, it was the bliss of not doing anything.

Thinking.

Just plain idleness, in front of a corporation which hides our secret vampire village─the infamous bunker metropolis, Nichiyoubi. One burrowed leagues under the ground, and the surface dwellers of Kyoto have totally no idea. Not that I have any problems with exposing their identities by dying if ever, but it takes it a lot of courage to pull.

Not knowing the results, I wouldn't, layered from the fact that afterlife is unverified. It would be easy to know if I jumped under the sun─but I know for myself I wasn't an idiot, never a fool, not once shown stupidity, certainly not of the bonkers population─and was actually of the intelligent type. Maybe it was narcissism on my part, but before you'd brand my persona off as someone cumbersome, please tone down and call it "confidence" instead.

The passing seconds, minutes, and hours proceeded with boredom employed.

As such, my sense of gratefulness was triggered when a little girl from afar looked at me, approached me even, light in her steps until she ran my eye. Her eyeglasses to reflect light on my forehead, I shielded with my leather gauntlets. It might have singed my skin from underneath, but my regeneration was fast enough to restore minimal damage.

Although a vampire strong enough to be exiled─it doesn't mean I'm strong under the scorching sun.

"Hey, hey, mister!" she called; the obnoxious little girl─her long black hair glistened to the illumination. "What are you doing out here, from early in the morning until noontime?"

I stared intently at her─ever surprised to see how she looked, my adept understanding of personality judged her the precocious type.

"Hmm. What are you plotting to do, little girl?" I'd ask so, but I intended to entertain her.

I'd been a suspicious person all along so making up for it was the best I could do to recompense.

She pressed her lips, then gave a wonderingly mocking grin. "Maybe you're not aware, but you're giving off magnetic waves, attracting the eyes of all the people in here! Think of it like your polarity is negative while everyone else is positive!"

It was a matter of fact.

"You think so? It feels more like pheromones to me," I proposed, heralding I didn't mind a company.

I didn't want to sound like I don't welcome anyone.

"Well sure, I've thought of the idea," she said and provided a correction, "but it's not an example of males with pheromones."

"The phenomenon of my presence led you to approach me, out of the thousand people who've passed by today, you were the only one. It's neither magnetic waves nor pheromones. They're obsolete. It's your curiosity which led you here."

"Oh! So you were aware of your mini celebration?" She pressed her hands against each other, lowkey for irritation… but well, what could possibly be wrong with saying the truth? On top of a question, she asked, "So, I'll cut to the point, Mister. What in the blazing sun were you waiting for?"

"Good guess, knowing I was waiting for something."

"For something? Not someone?"

I looked up ahead at the ball of energy─or life itself. "The blazing sun. I was waiting for night to come, the sun to hide."

"So you don't like being in the sun?" She raised an eyebrow. "Then why leave home in the first place? Are you a vampire or what?"

"What if I tell you I am?"

She clapped her hands, her mouth to form an oval hooked to my feed for her sole conjecture. "Whoa─!" She'd initially feigned but in a split second unbelieved my penance, "But you're lying, right?"

"It was a hypothetical question in the first place," I told her, "so there is no lie nor truth to it."

"I think I would believe you," she readily declared, thereafter sporting a thumbs up.

"I thought you would," I sighed─albeit cranky from the fact I'm not a hundred percent sure, "as a matter of my personality to discern humanitarian ignorance and idiocy. You look younger than your age. However, you're not any younger than an ignorant brat."

"Wa-oh! You know how not to judge your book by their covers, Mister."

"The way you speak and present your analogy about magnets, along with the pheromones, is not something to sneer child-like. And it might be straying off the point, but you also live nearby,"─I locked eyes onto her─"observing me since the morning sun."

"Fine, I get it! You're a detective, snooping around in the neighborhood."

Definitely not, but no confirmation was given…If I was truly a detective, I'm sure I would stay silent─therefore playing into the role. "My name's Otogibanashi," I introduced myself.

"Oh, so it's introduction time now. Then mine's Nayami Ayanami!"

It was the perfect fit of a name─so, an exalted "fallen god" to comfort a vampire? Well, fitting as it was for her stature, but not for our encounter.

She looked at me, scowled with an alien intent. "Though I'd rather get your first name. Since I said mine."

"Then, it's Shirayuki."

"Ooh─! Shirayuki, then. I thought of keeping my age a secret, but since this would be our first and last encounter, I'm fourteen!"

"We're the same age."

"Really?"

Of course not, I was four years older.

There was an influx of banters between us, topics to rush out like we were long time friends. Mundane to the silly─notwithstanding the certain Alice to advent in a wonderland.

After a long while, she'd got into the discoursed topic again.

"Maybe I have qualms about your vampirism so how about we confirm once and for all!"

There was a uncertainty painted in her eyebrows, cuteness in emphasis, as well as a dervish cue about an impending action plan. She tugged my sleeve, my left hand had inevitably peeked in the sunlight, then immediately lit ablaze in the most abrupt fashion.

"Waoh─!"

"If it's the first and last time we'd meet each other, I'd utilize my chances of seeing an actual vampire. Of course, the orthodox way. Still, you really burn with the sunlight, huh. Since you are one, why not tell me why do vampires burn underneath the sun?"

"Vampiric biology is out of my field of expertise."

"Then, what are you expert with?"

"Let's see here… anime, light novels, manga, J-pop, vocaloid, and the likes."

"This vampire is a full-time otaku!"

"No, no, no, no, no! I don't want the title, even if it's quite a good title for a self-published novel online."

"What? You despise the term?"

"No, I don't want to be called so, because I'm unfit to be with their godly clique. And no, I'm not being sarcastic."

"I see. Maybe where you came from, you were an overachiever."

"I read fiction about vampires and yet they don't tell their science of burning under the sun. I want to know how, like maybe your kind burns at the temperature of 451 degrees Fahrenheit?"

"We're not papers!" I retorted─thought of slapstick to emerge, my hands simulated to hit her by the back.

But I didn't know her, so as to not resort to my customs. How troublesome indeed, but it was better than not without company.

In addition anyway, vampires burn even easier than paper.

Even the morning sun, at superbly below, provided a number─in Fahrenheit, maybe twenty, ten, the negative? Well, as long as it's under the sun, at any given circumstance as long as its daylight─proves lethal enough, what awaits is a pile of ashes for any vampires. In a sense, murder in the vampire world is much easier than how it is to humans. But that's a thought for another time.

"Then, do you have any idea how and why you burn? I won't accept a 'curse' for an answer, though."

"Somehow, you're a lot peskier than I expected. But it may have something to do with a curse, being this badass contrarian to your pet peeve."

"Vampires don't have any reason to learn why we die off in the sun's godly presence."

"Hmm… If you say so, then I'll give it up, but then, how about the reason you were dawdling in here, as your solitary kind? What about the other vampires?"

"Right, I wouldn't mind telling you about the affairs, since as you said, it would be our first and last meeting with each other."

"Would you understand a thing or two about the standpoint of a criminal when it comes to murder?"

"Trailing off with a serious conversation is not my forte."

"Humans and vampires alike don't like serious conversations," I stipulated, cuckooing her claim. "As much as possible, they want to stay dancing happily. So you know, there are more listeners of pop than classical music."

As of the moment, that was the best of my metaphors.

"The thing is, I don't mind shifting to rondo once in a while, but I'm in my groove for pop right now so you might be right! Come to think of it, I should be going home now! It's nice meeting you, Shirayuki!"

Without any reservation of thought to what I could do─as a vampire─the little bear dozed off in that shade.

The face of complacency, I took it rather serene. The person was a humanist, even cherished vampires altogether, as if they weren't the cause of abjection, both with classics and contemporary literature. Maybe not just a humanist, but also a vampirist… or so I thought, but if she was in favor of races other than hers, then she was a harmonist.

Before I knew it, she trailed away from my company.

Whether the child willed herself to reach for me, or not, I haven't the idea. I couldn't speak for the future. It's not about feeling lonely only because at one moment, I'm left behind again.

She must have only returned home because it was evening already.

I completely took the time progression in ignorance, such as the falling of rain impedes into my first nightly stroll.

I stood unmoved from that roofed entrance, thoughts to hover between wishful progress and lonesome stagnation.