Visual Kei

As I freaked out, I must not have been paying attention because I bumped into Kiiro, who was standing alone on one of the balconies smoking.

“Alice,” he said, with what sounded like relief. “Hey, are you okay?” He turned my face to look at him, a disapproving line between his eyebrows. “What is wrong?”

“Chino told me that he disapproved of… us,” I said, coughing to disguise the hoarseness in my voice. I looked into his eyes as I defiantly blinked away tears. A thought came to me then- maybe I should not tell him. But my heart lurched and threatened to make me physically ill, so I parted my lips and breathed ragged, uneven breaths as if each breath was heavy and difficult to draw. My next words clutched painfully at my throat even as they bubbled up to my lips. “And he said that your feelings for me began a long time ago, but you’ve been trying so hard not to get close to me…”

Kiiro’s fingertips brushed my cheeks tentatively. “It’s true that I tried not to let it get this far,” he admitted half-willingly. He tossed his cigarette off the balcony without a second thought. “But I really do enjoy being with you. Being with you makes me feel human, like I once was.” He smiled, but his metallic eyes did not bear the light of happiness.

“I don’t want to question this,” I managed in a whisper. “I just want to be a stupid infatuated teenage girl, for once.”

“We both know that things are never as simple as they are made out to be,” Kiiro assuaged unwillingly, his hand pulling me to his chest. I clung weakly to his shirt and closed my eyes, wishing the world would disappear and leave us to solitude. “One day, we will do what we please, but for now, we need to do what is right.”

“But love is right, isn’t it?” I asked despondently, “Isn’t our happiness right?”

“Maybe.” The timeless beauty of his face was made impossibly alien in the moonlight. I felt my heart tugging at its moorings, and I knew that in whatever sick world that was meant to be, I would never be holding onto him. I would never have met him. “But there is a greater design which requires our attention first. The Shinigami does not care that we love the people around us, Alice. He would use it against us, even.” He sighed softly, a beautiful testament to all things worldly, and his next words were muttered half-willingly. “It does not matter what is right anymore. We must do what needs to be done.”

Cold air stole the heat of my tears off my cheeks as they fell. I stared into Kiiro’s eyes. They were still the same intense silver, but with a new and sharper edge to them. His hands clasped mine confidently as he leaned down toward me and kissed me again, his lips soft and yielding. I surrendered myself to the embrace. To feel so weak… it is something I hated to feel after so many years of it. I clung to him, drinking in his strength, wishing all the while that I could reclaim the logic I once had. I was angry that I did not have control over at least something in my life, even something as trivial as the choice of falling in love.

After a long moment, I stood away from him.

“Alice,” he said, moving to be a bit nearer, all the while his silver eyes locked upon me. His expression was slightly stern. He could read my thoughts almost as well as Chino could, anymore. “We cannot tempt the fates in this matter.”

“But Chino said that it was only dangerous shortly after you fed. Couldn’t we work around it or something?”

“I cannot go for long without feeding since I am still fairly young in terms of vampires. Even Chino does not know how long it would take for me to become sterile… and I do not particularly want you to be around if I deprive myself of blood long-term.”

“Yeah, you’re right…"

“Billions are depending on us right now, and to do this is to forfeit their lives and ours.”

I sighed. “I know. I know that at any moment, we could be attacked and one of us could die. We aren’t allowed to enjoy ourselves in any way possible, namely emotions. Any earthy pleasure is a sin. My God, Kiiro, my life is becoming a Catholic sermon.” He laughed despite the gravity of my desires. “It sucks a lot. With all that’s going on, sex sounds pretty good. Just saying. I’ve waited all 17 years of my lonely, pathetic life just to make friends, and now I’m faced with the pseudo-option of having sex. Oh, I forgot, we have a world to save. No time for that.”

“Lonely? You think your life is lonely?” He laughed bitterly. “It is worse to be a vampire, of that I promise you. I have lived for nearly ninety years, Alice. Ninety. I should be an old man with wrinkled skin and white hair, but I am just as young as the day I was… changed.” I tried to imagine him with the deep creases of age and white, fraying hair, but it didn’t work. “I was lucky that Chino and Shinji found me before I drew too much unwanted attention to myself. I was alone for nearly three years. Completely alone. I gradually regained my composure, the logical processes and long-term storage of memory that differentiates animal from human. I do not remember much of my human life, but Chino and Shinji found me with a ring on, so I had had a wife in life. She was likely my first victim.”

When I said nothing, his eyes glinted darkly in the light of the stars and moon and he became as cold as the countless legends claimed vampires to be. “I am not upset about it.” A silence stretched between us, threatening to deteriorate any strength I still possessed. My knees began to go weak.

Kiiro shook his head slowly. I wondered if he found my fear, or rather, my inability to understand to be loathsome. “Even when I was with Chino, Shinji, and Tsurara, I felt somewhat alone. They were supportive when my urges were severe, but even they could not break me of my hunger. I am still too young to fast for long periods of time. Trust me when I say that I understand loneliness intimately. Things are not so bad. Once this is all over, I promise to share the experience with you. I would never deny you the beauty of such a union.”

“’Once this is all over’…” I repeated, looking up to him. He stood dead-center in the middle of the disk of the pale, distant moon. It turned him from a beautiful but statuesque man into a dark, nearly unsettling silhouette. I shivered. “Do you think it will ever be over? I feel like we have gone nowhere in these six months. There are many things that could go wrong, Kiiro… I’m worried that one of them will become reality.”

“Do not worry about things you cannot change. It is acceptable to think about the future, but all we can do is plan and hope for the best. If something is to arise, we must deal with it then. To worry needlessly is… unhealthy.”

“Yes, you are right… but there are many things that bother me. Such as not getting a choice in the mundane matters… like my virginity, for example. I don’t want to wait anymore, Kiiro.”

He laughed. “It still bothers you? I know you do not want to, but we must. Is one night worth an eternity we could spend together?”

For some reason, that statement carried a dark severity and it figuratively smacked my conscious perception in the face like a glove. I stared at him for a long moment, trying to ascertain his implications. He offered no further words, only a level gaze that made clear a deep, but reined-in desire behind his calm mask. I reflected briefly on Chino’s words of warning. This intensity I saw in him… maybe he really could turn me.

I realized how pathetic I was acting earlier, and I forced a laugh. His eyes rested on me, puzzled and a little worried. “To think… to think that I was crying because I can’t do you… What has the world come to?” He smiled and patted my head gently, like a child. “Do you remember when I used to be strong? I miss it.”

“We all have moments in which we need someone else. I think I will be more worried when you consider your emotions to be a weakness." He was at his most alien in that moment, bathed in the pale, bluish light of the moon. As I watched, he walked to the door, turning back to regard me with a level, but distant gaze. "Come, it is time to take another step toward your destiny."