Don't You Remember? It's Always the Same

Cool ice rattled against my teeth, and the thick texture of milk and coffee swelled my cheeks as my eyes wandered dazed over the multitudes of people before me, bustling into stores, exiting with an even bigger grin on their makeup-layered faces, husbands teetering over like a man twice their age with the weight of their bags, and huddles of high-school girls skipping school to buy hoards of makeup. There were even some Gyarus strutting about, which would have surprised me a lot more if I hadn't heard from a coworker, perpetually stuck to the trends like a fly on a windshield, that that kind of fashion was having its time in the spotlight once more.
At night, this city was still a sprawl of white glitter, like the milky way had cascaded through the mountains and downwards like a stream over the earth, a shimmer that isn't much different from twenty years ago still coated this place. 
High-rises that pierce through dark clouds into the heavens, oceans of sparkling headlights, a monochrome of white and black, an unbelievably perfect-featured woman, monsters that roam these night streets, secrets kept hidden overflowing with tragedy and blood, it felt like I was whirled up into the world of a Clamp story.
A cool iced coffee under blistering heat wasn't enough to distract me, though.
Air conditioned, pale white, sleek concrete interiors aren't enough to pacify me, though.
There's no way I'm dozing off to sleep, imagining becoming some secret-society vampire monster-hunting hero, though!
...I wondered how Sorrow and Claris were doing.
It pained me to have to walk out on them like that without a word, but they probably understood what was going on.
For a while, I've had to dash out under the pretense of a phone call thanks to a certain vampire lady still strolling around my apartment building.
At this point, I couldn't tell which was more trouble, this porcelain doll with a mob of employees and customers each trying to swish a bit of makeup on to her perfect skin, crowded into that tiny store and almost toppling the shelves as they tried to prick a finger into her cheek, or that somehow equally haughty, just more maturely reserved, woman that had left a gaping wound in my neck last time I had asked her to stop doing exercises in the living room where everybody could see.
...a vampire doing calisthenics and yoga, huh?
Any kind of fantastical intrigue or sense of scale to the situation was easily twisted around into almost embarrassingly banal when something that mundane is added into the mix.
Kind of like seeing a person you idolise go through the same boring, human motions that you do.
Her, an immensely beautiful in her own, idiosyncratic, nothing like the porcelain girl, way, doing something as humanly normal as yoga, brushing her teeth, slouching around in loungewear, made everything seem less special.
Sometimes, it almost felt like I was overreacting, hiding her out from the world.
When she's so similar to everybody else, to the point that its hurting whatever powerful impression she first had one me, what's the point of acting like it's some big, nasty secret that will get us killed?
Unfortunately, though, being a normal human doesn't necessarily mean you're forgiven for being born a monster.
The same way foreigners in this city, sometimes dazed and unsure of themselves, struggling to acclimate to such a strange environment as ours, often get treated in the same way little kids do, with excessive pity, hand-holding, and that adult, high-chinned glare.
Speaking of monsters, without even a handful of minutes to relax, it looked like she had taken some employee by the hand, dragging her away from the group that had already dispersed a little, and was looping them round to the back of the store, through parked cars and into the small employees room, disappearing under the shadows cast by a single, failing and cracked lightbulb that sputtered at the entrance.
What could she possibly be doing?
Had she used her unworldly charms to convince this poor woman to give her free lipstick or something?
Either way, I didn't want to let her out of my sights that easily, so clasping the icy plastic cup in my hands, I weaved through the streams of shoppers, and tentatively approached the tiny appendage to the main building, the store's shoddy music player ringing out to my side like voices at the edge of a deep cave, while I gingerly pushed against the faded, peeling grey door.
"Hello? Are you two okay in here?"
What they would have to be un-okay about, I don't know, but it slipped out of me, a cliche at the right time.
It looked a lot bigger, and damper, than it had from the outside.
Turning a corner, around rusted metal shelves topped with cardboard boxes, each with differently sized stickers in a range of garishly bright colours, some opened with their contents spilling out onto the open folds, I found the two of them, directly beneath another sputtering bulb, the employee with her long, dark hair looking away from the porcelain girl, while-
Immediately, I chucked the drink in my hand against the floor, dashing against the rough concrete, now wet with ice and milk, leaped against the thin figure looming over the woman that was crouched, pulling a handful of different coloured foundations and concealers from a worn out half-empty box, and shut my arms around her like a crab's pincer.
Clattering to the floor, a whole bunch of boxes, lipstick, eyeliner packets, wigs, almost an assortment of everything the store could possibly stock, pulled me into a heavy darkness, and I could feel the girl in my arms, flailing against that waterfall of stock and my own tight grip, scratching against skin and tearing into muscle, while the woman screamed in terror, before hurriedly trying to dig at the boxes and free us from under the makeup-rubble.
Soon, both of our strained faces appeared from beneath the shadows, my arm and body strewn with spurts of thick, deep scarlet, and the girl in my arms, a lengthy wound against her forehead, with teeth bared, blood dripping from her long, sharp daggers of nails, while the woman's face turned from concern to even greater shock.
That's right, no matter how human they seem, they're always monsters.
However, more so than at the now pacified girl in my arms, the woman had her mouth agape in fear, eyes locked with my own, now washed over with crimson like blood beneath the water's surface, and the two, perfectly straight fangs that were piercing the air, my lips wet with spit, and a furious, strained gasping, my expression probably as violent and intense as the bits of chewed out muscle that the girl had torn away.
No matter how human we might seem, we'll always be seen as monsters.
Scrambling against the sea of boxes and packets and bottles, hair dishevelled and the long bangs blurring my vision, with sweat and blood streaming down my forehead, the girl in my arms either knocked out or realising that resistance was against her best interests, I clambered against the worn-out metal railings of the shelf, falling against the wall with my shoulder, and staggered out into the darkness behind the store.
As I ran, tears in my eyes, pain contorting my expression, not bothering to wipe the long strands of hair bouncing against my eyelids, cradling the girl like a child, crimson trailing behind me, stuck to my clothes, my hands, my chest, I remembered something vital, a lost bit of the puzzle that I had left to the side, accidentally knocked off the table, then come to realise was missing, and ducking underneath, found it lying between empty bowls and cast-aside clothes.