Hey! I haven't been able to post lately because I had a strange stomachache that scared me. The pain started on the lower right side, then went away from there and moved to the pit of my stomach. The next day, it disappeared and moved to the upper left side, then the day after that it moved down to the lower left side, and the day after that it moved back up to the upper left side. It wasn't a constant pain, but rather something that would come and go for a few seconds.
I didn't go to the doctor either, since I was a little afraid of the doctors here, so I don't know what it was. Fortunately, I'm fine now.
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Arata and Rei are sitting on the bench side by side, talking about everyday things, whether it's the exam next week, a show Saya recommended, that kind of triviality. Rei laughs at something he says, but while she's laughing she feels that something is off.
Because she remembers.
Those men with glowing, terrifying kagunes on their backs. Men Arata killed. Was he called Jason? That masked man who turned into cubes of flesh on the grass.
Could that have been a dream?
Rei glances at him out of the corner of her eye. He's calm with his hands in his pockets, watching the streetlight flicker.
He looks like the normal boy she always sees.
Then...
"I'm a vampire."
Arata says those words without changing his voice, so it takes Rei a second to be frightened. Before she can answer, he grabs her by the shoulders, leans toward her and, opening his mouth wide, bites her neck.
"Ah!"
Opening her eyes, Rei sees a familiar white ceiling. A nightstand beside her with three other identical beds spread around the room. There's a frame hanging on the wall, and inside the frame is a photo of herself with Saya, Rize, Touka, Meiko and Arata.
She sits up in bed, propping her hand on the soft mattress before letting out a sigh.
'A dream...? I wish it had been.'
She lets out another long, heavy sigh while touching her forehead. Even though Arata didn't bite her the way a vampire would to drink Rei's blood, the conversation on the bench is something that really happened, along with all those bloody deaths.
After that she doesn't remember much. It seems she got pretty weak from everything that happened today, so she probably passed out. And Arata must have carried her to Touka's house. To this room where she sleeps when she stays over with the girls.
"You're awake."
A soft voice beside her startles her. Rei turns her head toward the sound and sees a beautiful girl with long, very straight silver hair. She has an enormous boobs that her sleeping pajamas barely contain, a slim waist and hips out of a dream.
"Meiko..."
Rei says her name. Then she remembers everything that happened, the revelation that two of her friends are ghouls, the revelation that the boy she loves is also a monster, so she narrows her eyes dangerously at Meiko.
This serious girl who once unstuck a jammed vending machine with one shove... is she a monster too, and never told her either?
Meiko seems to read her mind, because she shakes her head.
"I'm not."
"...I didn't say anything."
"You were thinking it. I'm not a ghoul or any other kind of monster. I'm here because Arata-san asked me to, to look after you. He said you needed rest, and that it would probably be better to leave you with someone who wasn't a monster."
Rei's lips purse as she huffs.
"That idiot. Who cares if he's a monster? I want to see him."
Meiko's eyes open slightly. She almost never looks surprised, so seeing that expression on her is rare. Then a small smile appears on her serious face.
"He's downstairs. With Touka and Rize."
"And Saya?"
Before Meiko can answer, the door opens and Saya comes in with a plate of food in her hands. It looks like stew.
The twin-pigtailed girl looks at her with that mocking expression that always makes Rei's blood boil.
"Well, so you're finally awake, huh? Bakamoto."
"Stop calling me that, you pink brat!"
Rei really wants to give that smug little brat a good hit on the head.
Suspicious, she looks her up and down.
"Hey. Are you-"
Saya cuts her off by setting the plate of stew on the nightstand.
"If what you're about to ask is whether I'm a monster, the answer is no. I'm not."
Rei thinks about it for a moment. So the monsters are Arata, Touka and Rize. She's a little surprised that Saya, who is so intelligent, and Meiko, who has strength that isn't normal for a human, actually aren't monsters.
Either way, she looks into Saya's orange eyes.
"From that smug expression, it looks like you knew all along. Right? How long?"
Saya crosses her arms under her chest. She lets out a scornful little laugh.
"For a few years now. Onii-chan told me himself, you know. Though, since I'm rather intelligent, I already suspected it. There's no way I wouldn't have noticed. Not like a certain idiot I'm looking at right now."
"Grrr..."
Rei growls like an angry cat. Seriously, this pink girl always finds a way to make fun of her. Although this time, she feels like she deserves it a little.
Everything was right in front of her for years, and she didn't notice a thing.
...Is she really that much of an idiot?
Still, there's something she can't let go of.
"Then tell me one thing. If you knew for that long, why did you hide it from me? All of you."
"Huh?"
Saya makes a sound of disbelief. She looks at her the way you'd look at someone who just asked why water is wet. Then she shakes her head.
"Because you get too dramatic sometimes, don't you? Especially when we were younger. Back then you were an exceptional airhead."
"Argh! That's enough!"
Paying no attention whatsoever to the shout, Saya sits on the edge of the other bed and continues.
"Eight-year-old Rei finds out onii-chan is a monster. What does she do?"
While Meiko watches the childhood friends with curiosity, Rei puts a spoonful of stew in her mouth before speaking.
"...I would have run."
"There you go. If you'd known onii-chan was a monster back then, you probably would have ended your friendship with us. And neither onii-chan nor I wanted to lose Rei. So even though onii-chan never said it to me directly, I know what he was thinking. He decided it was better to hide it until your mentality matured and you could handle the truth. See? Today you ran, but afterward you talked with onii-chan without making an unnecessary scene. In the past it wouldn't have gone that way."
Rei has a whole lot of things to criticize about that speech. The problem is that, deep down, she feels Saya is right. So the only thing she can do is make an annoyed sound and put another spoonful of stew in her mouth.
'...It's good.'
She hates that it's good, especially after that bloody scene. She's just sitting here eating peacefully...
Saya watches her eat and doesn't push, maybe thinking that this revelation must be a huge shock for someone like Rei. That's why she treated her the way she normally does, so Rei would come out of that bubble of thoughts.
After a moment, she speaks again.
"So what do you think of onii-chan now?"
"He's an idiot."
"We already knew that."
"Him being a monster doesn't change anything. He's still the one who ate my entire bento last year and last month, and told me it was a cat."
"That was a cat."
Saya feels she has to act like a little sister protecting her onii-chan from unfair slander.
"It wasn't a cat!"
"It was him."
Seeing the two girls start arguing, Meiko decides to step in from the chair.
"See?!"
Saya looks at Meiko with dangerous eyes, but the silver-haired girl looks off to the side, as if she finds the white wall extremely interesting.
Meanwhile, Arata, Touka and Rize are interrogating a very, very frightened ghoul.
×××
You can read advanced chapters on my Pa treon
pa treon.com/OlwinMoriarty