Asuki adjusted her gsses at the end of her nose.

  Her entire form seemed to flicker and fade as she did. Then she looked up at me and Shion with a cheerful grin.

  “Wow, you two!” she said. “I’m gd I followed along! Ryu-sama, THAT was magnifit! I see why you are a true dragon! You didn’t o sully yourself fighting outside. There’s no honor in that!”

  I heard Shion inhale sharply.

  A sed ter she scoffed.

  “I o get back to Crest Moon Academy…” Azuki tihen she looked up at the darkening sky. “Oh, I hope the moon es out tonight! I’d LOVE to go dang. Maybe some other tanuki already have a pce where we dance! Hey, I’ll see you two tomorrow. Goodbye, Ryu-sama. Shion, I’ll see you back at the dorms!”

  She bounded back towards the school, and I was alone in the woods again with Shion.

  I had spent most of the day with her, but I still felt unfortable.

  She seemed to be waiting for something, and that was worse.

  I frowned. “You’re ag weird.”

  Her head lowered, slightly. She looked up at me, her pale face framed by her midnight bck locks.

  “I o ask you something, but I don’t want you to be awkward, or weird, or anything about it, okay?”

  “How I make a promise like that? I have no idea what you’re about to ask.”

  She looked at me with her ft, unblinking eyes.

  “Okay… I’ll do my best,” I said.

  “I o feed from you again.”

  As soon as she said that, I felt my heart hammer against my chest.

  A deep, primal panic cwed at the bay throat, and I had to fight to keep it down.

  My whole body screamed at me to run, to flee, to survive—but I forced myself to stay still.

  The first time, it had been pure instinct – fast, violent, ugly.

  But now?

  This was her asking.

  I’d have to, what? Just stand there a a vampire drink blood from my neck like I was a juice box?

  That was even scarier.

  I crossed my arms, looking away. “’t you, um, just drink some animal blood or something?”

  I saw her nostrils fir and eyes sharpen.

  “Animal blood, Ryu? Animal blood?” she took a step closer.

  She was angry, but I saw she was als to expin.

  “I already told you that I’m NOT an animal! And… don’t you think I’ve already tried?” she spat.

  “You know, something, Ryu? I don’t remember what food tastes like anymore. But I know that chi crap is, like, 80% still . It’s edible, Ryu! You want to eat that?”

  She stared at me, pletely serious, and I uood.

  “Yeah… It’s teically food, but it’s disgusting. You ’t drink Azuki’s blood, because she’s a youkai. It’s a part of the rules you were telling me about earlier,” I said.

  Some of the tensio her body. Her shoulders rexed, and she nodded.

  “You get it,” she said.

  “Yeah, but… damn, Shion. That, earlier was…”

  Suddenly, she put her hand on mind.

  I looked up and realized how close she was standing, and how cold her ha on my bare skin.

  It was different than Yuki’s whispered, icy caress.

  Yuki’s touch was like a suggestion of a touch.

  A memory.

  Shion’s touch was real.

  The certainty of the grave.

  “Earlier, that was a hungry vampire getting her first meal in days. I’d just left the post office, remember?”

  “Oh my god,” I realized.

  She nodded. “And now my body expects you.”

  I stepped back, stammering. “Wait, what?”

  “Because I already drank from you. It’s… do you think I want to do that with someone else, Ryu? Think I want to have to expihing all ain in front of the entire academy? Please… don’t do that to me,” she said.

  She looked up at me for a sed before turning away.

  “And one of those boys there… they might be stupid enough to invite me into their room wherever they’re staying. But you,” she turowards me again.

  “You’re different, aren’t you? You know better, right?”

  Yeah. I knew better.

  I remembered being in her arms, her grip like a vice.

  The flesh of her cold, dead head c my scream as she drained blood from my neck.

  “Not from my neck again,” I said.

  Now she perked up. “Oh? But it’s so intimate that way,” she teased.

  I crossed my arms.

  “…fine. Wrist then?”

  I hesitated. Then, I slowly held out my arm.

  I noticed Shion take a breath as I held out my arm.

  I didn’t know if it was instinctual or not.

  But, this time, whe, it was different.

  No rush, No frenzied dash for blood.

  She slowly reached out and her fingers brushed my wrist.

  Cold.

  Then –

  Sharp!

  I felt her fangs, quick, like needles.

  I forced myself not to pull away from her.

  It didn’t feel painful.

  It felt weird.

  Wrong.

  She was taking something from me.

  I could feel the world shifting below my feet.

  Like standing on a saturated sponge.

  The world dimmed, growing blurry and dark around the edges of my vision.

  And then I felt her stiffen.

  She pulled herself away.

  I could see strings of my blood hanging from her teeth and lips.

  She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and took a breath.

  “See?” she asked heavily. “That wasn’t so bad.”

  I felt siy stomach.

  “Ryu?”

  The voice was soft, musical.

  I blinked.

  Shion’s mouth wasn’t moving.

  “Ryu, you hear me better now?”

  My breath hitched. I khat voibsp;

  “Yuki?” I asked. “It’s Yuki, Shion. I hear her, like, perfectly now,” I said.

  “It’s her bite, Ryu. She’s not just draining your blood. It’s…. bringing you closer to death, to the spirit world. It’s ging you,” said Yuki.

  I could hear her as if she were standing right beside of me.

  Her voio longer a distant, breathy whisper, but a full voice.

  Musical, I thought. Melodic, soft, friendly, but sad.

  I heard Shion take a breath.

  “Are you okay?” she asked me.

  I looked down at my wrist, where her fangs had been only a minute before.

  No mark. No scrato blood remained.

  “You’re ging, Ryu,” Yuki said.

  “Yeah… I’m fine,” I told Shion.

  “Ryu… please, be careful,” I heard Yuki say. “I’m worried about you.”

  I felt normal. I must have looked normal, or Yuki would’ve said something.

  But I could tell something was a little off.

  My ears rang with Yuki’s warning, clear as day.

  “You wanna walk a pretty girl home?” Shion teased.

  It was my turn to scoff, giving her a half grin.

  “Yeah, if I see one, I’ll do that.”

  Shion pyfully shoved my arm, and like that the tension broke.

  We started walking back towards the dorms, but I could feel it.

  Something had shifted.

  I cast a quice towards Shion and wondered where Yuki was betweewo of us.

  I felt myself being friends with them. People? Creatures? Characters?

  …who even was I?

  Calling myself Andy was already beginning to feel strange.

  I couldn’t image Shion turning to me and saying “How’re ya doin’, Andy?” No.

  To her I was Ryu Kazeyama.

  The dragon of the windy mountain.

  To me?

  I wasn’t even sure I knew anymore.

  Our room felt cozy.

  Quiet, save for the occasional creek of the old wooden floor.

  I sat at the desk beside the window, staring down at the nterns as they cast an eerie glow through the onsen’s steam below.

  Pale ghosts twisting in the night air in a surreal, dreamlike haze.

  Maybe it was exhaustion, maybe it was blood loss, but my head felt heavy. I felt cold, then, a draft of winter’s air.

  “Ryu?” Yuki’s voice drifted though the room, soft as falling snow.

  I didn’t jump, didn’t tense.

  I kly who eaking now.

  I could hear her – Yuki’s tohe quiet melody of her voice, the way each word carried musical trait.

  She sounded happy.

  “You hear me, huh? You like my voice, don’t you?” she asked.

  I grinned.

  Tired, but a grin.

  “Yeah. It’s nice.”

  Uatement?

  Ha. Nice wasn’t even close.

  Her voice was enting, mesmerizing.

  It had a soft, beathy, slow, teasing quality to it that somehow made me nostalgic for a time and a pce that existed only in a dream.

  And Yuki was thrilled.

  “I k!” she said.

  She ughed like windchimes.

  “It’s so hat someone hear me properly!”

  I could picture her – arms outstretched, spinning around the room like a child.

  Or maybe she was sitting across from my desk, ooucked under her, hands folded in her p.

  Maybe she was leaning against the wall… no.. that was Shion – too cool for the room.

  Yuki was… well, somehow more alive and even less…

  I sighed.

  Then I felt the cold presence beside me again.

  The fai suggestion of a touch raised the hairs on my arm.

  “Ryu… I’m worried about you, though,” Yuki said.

  I tensed.

  “Worried? About what?”

  “Shion…”

  My throat tightened.

  I looked away, outside.

  Ripples of steam curled and twisted in the night air outside my window.

  “I don’t know what her feeding is doing to you.” Yuki’s voice had lost its usual, airy lilt. “And I don’t know if it’s safe.”

  She hesitated.

  “I want you to be okay, Ryu.” Her voice dropped to a breathy whisper. “Even if it means I’ll be alone again.”

  Oh damn… I felt something cold in my chest.

  Yuki wasn’t just afraid something was happening to me.

  She was afraid of losing me.

  The closest thing she had to a real e in this world.

  Before I could say anything –

  Knock. Knock.

  A loud, pounding on the door jolted me from my thoughts and out of my seat.

  “Baka! Open the door, already! Some of us have to get up early! I don’t have all night to wait on you, you know!”

  I crossed the room and quickly opehe door.

  And standing there, arms crossed, tapping her foot like she was ready to set me on fire, was the most impatient girl I’d ever met.