Chapter Twelve Are You a Vampire? #2
The agreement came too easily. He reached for his coat. Renji felt the room empty before Haruki had moved. It was immediate — a return to order. Two bowls to wash. A record to put away. The second glass removed. By morning, no sign another person had been present. That was what Renji wanted.
Haruki pulled one sleeve of the coat over his arm.
"Why did you become Boss?"
The question stopped him. Haruki looked over his shoulder.
"I didn't."
"You lead the Ishida Family."
"Yes."
"So you became its head."
"Not because I wanted to."
Renji said nothing. Haruki let the coat slide from his shoulder again. He stared down at the fabric in his hands. The admission had changed his expression. Not shame. Something older.
"I said if you answered honestly, I would too," he said.
"You did not."
"I intended to."
"That is not the same."
"No."
Haruki returned the coat to the chair. Then he walked to the window and stood beside Renji. Not close enough to touch. Close enough that their reflections shared the same pane of glass.
"My father was supposed to lead the Family for another twenty years," Haruki said. "Perhaps longer."
"He died when you were twenty-four."
"Yes."
"An aneurysm."
Haruki glanced at him.
"You remember."
"Yes."
The answer seemed to matter. Haruki turned back to the window.
"My uncle was next in line after him. He had experience. Support. He wanted the position."
"But he did not receive it."
"No."
"Why?"
"Because my father named me before he died."
Renji waited. The rain had eased. Water still travelled down the glass in narrow, intersecting paths.
"He had no warning," Haruki said. "He was at dinner. Then he had a headache. By the time they reached the hospital, he could no longer speak."
"You said he named you."
"He wrote it."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
The answer came with more force than Haruki intended. His hand closed around the edge of the windowsill.
"Everyone else claims they do. They say he saw strength in me. Loyalty. Judgement. That he knew I would protect the Family rather than use it."
"Do you believe them?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because I was twenty-four."
"That does not answer the question."
Haruki gave a humourless laugh.
"You sound like me."
"You do that often."
Haruki's reflection looked older than the man beside him.
"I wasn't ready," he said. "I had never managed anything larger than one of our clubs. I made decisions because I knew someone else could reverse them if I was wrong."
"And then no one could."
"No."
The word was almost inaudible. Haruki looked down at his hands.
"I had plans."
"What plans?"
"Nothing important."
"They were important to you."
"I wanted to leave Takamori for a while. Travel. Study somewhere no one knew my name. Perhaps open a restaurant and fail at it."
"You expected failure?"
"I had never cooked anything more complicated than rice."
"That would have been a significant disadvantage."
Haruki smiled briefly.
"I might have learned."
"You still could."
"No."
The certainty mirrored Renji's own too closely.
"Why not?"
"Because people depend on me."
"That is not the same as being unable to leave."
"It is to me."
Renji understood obligation. He understood it when it was carved into the body so deeply that freedom felt like betrayal.
"You resent them," he said.
Haruki's face changed.
"No."
"You resent the position."
"I—"
"That does not mean you resent the people."
Haruki fell silent. Renji turned slightly towards him.
"You did not want to become Boss."
"No."
It was the first time Haruki said it without qualification. The words seemed to cost him. His shoulders lowered after them. Not in relief. In surrender.
"I never wanted it," he said. "Not for one day."
Renji watched him. Haruki's voice remained controlled, but control had become effort.
"I love them. My mother. Reina. Ken. The people who work for us. The families who have depended on ours for generations. I would do anything for them."
"I know."
"That's the problem."
Renji waited. Haruki's reflection met his.
"If I hated them, I could leave."
There was nothing Renji could say that would make the confession smaller. He did not try.
Haruki looked away.
"I have never told anyone that."
"Why tell me?"
The question was not rejection. Renji hoped it did not sound like one. Haruki considered the answer.
"Because you said yes."
Renji remained still.
"You could have lied," Haruki continued. "You could have made me feel foolish. Instead, you handed me something that could destroy your life."
"You would not use it."
"How could you know?"
"I could not."
Haruki looked at him. That answer affected him more than all the others.
"You trusted me."
"Yes."
The second truth was harder than the first. Renji felt it after speaking. Not because it exposed his nature. Because it exposed his choice. Haruki had done nothing to earn certainty. Trust was not certainty. That was what made it trust.
"I thought I should give you something equal," Haruki said.
Renji glanced towards him.
"You believe disliking your position is equal to being a vampire?"
"No."
"Then—"
"But it could destroy my life."
Renji stopped. Haruki's expression had closed slightly.
"Not because the Family would remove me," he said. "They wouldn't. That would be worse."
"They would try to reassure you."
"Yes."
"Tell you sacrifice proves your fitness to lead."
"Yes."
"And then depend on you more carefully."
Haruki looked at him.
"You understand."
"I understand being valued for what you can continue enduring."
Silence settled between them. Not empty. Shared. Haruki's hand rested on the windowsill between them. Renji's lay several inches away. Neither closed the distance.
"You did not choose what you are," Haruki said.
"No."
"Do you regret it?"
Renji looked out across the city. There was no answer simple enough for the question.
He remembered waking hungry and terrified.
Remembered the first human life ending beneath his hands.
Remembered learning restraint through failure rather than virtue.
He remembered medicine before antisepsis, pain before anaesthesia, epidemics consuming streets while he remained untouched.
He remembered lives saved only because he had lived long enough to understand what others had not.
"Yes," he said.
Haruki waited.
"And no."
"That sounds honest."
"It is."
"Does it get easier?"
"What?"
"Living with a life you didn't choose."
Renji looked at him. Haruki's face held no performance now. No authority. No charm. Only a question one burdened man had asked another.
"No," Renji said. "But you become more skilled at carrying it."
Haruki lowered his gaze.
"I was afraid you would say that."
"I can lie, if you prefer."
"No."
The beginning of a smile broke through.
"I think we've established I came for honesty."
"You came with ramen."
"That too."
Renji's hand moved before he decided to move it.
He placed it over Haruki's. Haruki looked down.
The contact was simple. No urgency. No medical justification.
Renji's skin was cooler; Haruki's warmth pressed against his palm, a living pulse beating beneath the bones of his hand.
Haruki did not turn his hand over. Did not lace their fingers together.
He let Renji choose the shape of the touch.
That restraint again. More intimate than insistence.
"You are not trapped," Renji said.
Haruki looked at him.
"Neither are you."
Renji almost withdrew. Haruki's fingers shifted slightly beneath his — not holding him in place, only answering.
They stood beside the window while the rain thinned to silence. The city lights blurred in the wet glass. Their reflections remained side by side, one man carrying centuries, the other a Family he had never asked to lead.
Renji had believed truth would alter the room — that once spoken, it would divide the evening into before and after, human and vampire, safety and danger. Instead, Haruki was still Haruki. His hand remained warm. His presence remained strangely easy.
"What happens now?" Haruki asked.
"You go home."
"That seems anticlimactic."
"It is after midnight."
"You don't sleep."
"I do."
"How much?"
"Enough."
Haruki gave him a look. Renji sighed.
"Three or four hours."
"That is not enough."
"For me, it is."
"Vampire physiology?"
"Yes."
Haruki's interest brightened immediately. Renji regretted the answer.
"How fast do you heal?"
"Haruki."
"Can you go into sunlight?"
"No."
"Ever?"
"In two years."
"Do you need blood?"
"Yes."
"How often?"
"This is becoming an interrogation."
"You started giving useful answers."
"I answered one."
"You've answered at least six."
Renji felt his own composure slip for a moment. Haruki saw it.
"There."
"Do not."
"You smiled."
"I did not."
"You're a terrible liar."
"That is demonstrably false."
Haruki laughed. The sound filled the apartment differently now. Nothing had changed. Everything had.
Renji removed his hand. Not because he wanted to. Because leaving it there was becoming a decision. Haruki did not appear offended. He looked towards the chair holding his coat. Neither man moved towards it.
The clock sounded softly from the shelf. One chime. Half past midnight.
"You should go," Renji said again.
"Yes."
Haruki remained beside the window. Renji remained beside him. After a moment, Haruki asked, "Do you want me to?"
Renji could have answered safely. It would take one word. Yes. Distance restored. Trust limited to what had already been exchanged. The evening preserved as an anomaly rather than a beginning.
Renji looked at the bowls on the table. At the record waiting to be turned over. At Haruki's coat still resting over the chair.
"No," he said.
Haruki's breathing changed. Only slightly. Renji heard it.
"All right," Haruki replied.
Neither man moved to leave.