I’ll Teach You!

Ryota Mochizuki

Cameras flash ahead of me, half blinding my eyes, though I was used to it. A mass of media crew awaiting the glass doors labeled with ‘Star Apartments’ to the building rented out by my music producer. My team of bodyguards shoo them off and I head up the private elevator that extends to my apartment room on the top floor.

I open the door swiftly after turning the silver key to unlock it, and sigh deeply. My eyesight blurs in-and-out a few more times, just as they had at the photoshoot. I knew I was almost at my breaking point, I’d even mistook some random girl as the makeup artist hired by my manager. Thankfully this was the end of this week’s busy schedule.

Pain winces in my body, it wasn’t a matter of sleep anymore, but a matter of blood. I pick up my phone and hit the speed dial button. “I’m running out of time, prepare more blood and send it to my room.” I pause as the person on the other side of the phone agrees, “Thank you.”

After changing out of my clothes, I slouch onto the couch until I get a text saying the blood has been sent up with food and a chef should arrive. I send him a reply with the words ‘thank you’ and hop off the couch to retrieve it.

As the door opens and my feet step out of my apartment, Chisaka stands wide-eyed with a red-blushed face. My head starts to pound again, my vision going blurry and I keep one hand on the door to keep myself steady.

“What are you doing here?”

“This is my apartment, now.”

Of course my manager had to let her stay in the apartment next to mine. The smell of blood fills the air as the chef comes from the elevator doors pulling a cart with two covered silver trays. “Whatever.” I quickly grab the trays from the cart, shutting my door behind me.

One tray had a bowl of ramen, the other a sealed package. I open the pack and a bag of blood rests inside. Thankfully, my family’s friends’ son lived near here, another vampire who could help in desperate situations. As long as it wasn’t from my parents directly, I’d take any offering.

After replenishing myself from blood thirst, I head to the shower and remove my clothing from my body. The warmth melts my stress as I submerge myself under the rays of steaming water. I hated this part of myself the most: the blood-hungered beast who craves to rip through human skin. I hated it, and I hated me…

My parents sacrificed so many people’s lives, it disgusts me to think about. They wanted me to become the same kind of monster as them. I set out on my own to prove to them that I could fit in, and now that I’m a rising star, I do. I fit in. I lead the top music industry in Tokyo.

But I still want something… something more…

I step out and tie a towel around my waist and open the door, the refreshing cool air of my apartment hitting my freshly out-of-the-shower body. My sensitive ears heard strange movements in my apartment, and now a racing heart comes from behind the door to my room.

I open the door, a timid and short girl with an oversized black sweatshirt and frizzy short blue-dyed hair stands before me, her eyes not daring to look up at mine. Appearance wise, she was average. But I found something about her very appealing, she has a determination that even I was envious of. “Don’t you know it’s dangerous to walk into a guy's room after nightfall?”

“I- was…” her hand clamped together tight, her knees looking unstable. I smile and walk past her, to my bed, and dim the lap on my side table.

“I’ll teach you,” I say, and walk back near to her, I lean in and caress the nape of her neck which looks way too tempting. “If you do something for me in return…”

I could hear the beats of her heart clear as the night sky of the Tokyo city view from my full glass balcony. I lean down and lick the same place on her neck I’d caressed, getting a slight taste. Her cheeks instantly flash red and she breathes heavily, but she doesn’t wince from her spot. She clutches her hands tighter and I walk around to the front of her, standing bare chested next to her.

I pull her head up swiftly with one hand under her chin and she shuts her eyes. I take the other hand and pull from my pocket my secret weapon, taking the cap off with my teeth. I swipe her lips gently with the tip of the product, a beautiful coat of red-pink lip-tint appearing on her lips. My foot steps onto the secret switch, flickering on the lights of my vanity, perfect for makeup lighting.

“What is this?” Her eyes open and her hands drop.

I chuckle, pulling on a white shirt from my wardrobe. “Disappointed?” She glares at me, her arms cutely folded into her sweatshirt. “I said I will teach you, if you promise me something.”

“Promise you what?”

“Promise to not tell anyone that I’m a vampire.”