Believe What You Want To Believe!

Ryota Mochizuki

“Almost time for the rehearsal,” my manager hums behind the door of my dressing room. I pull on the shiny, dark leather pants and attach a silver chain with my logo and a few other dainty charms onto the waist of the pants. I slide off the basic white t-shirt and walk over to exchange it for a black holographic jacket.

“I’m sorry I’m late!” Chisaka pushes the door open, her face sweating. “—I’m sorry.” she repeats again after seeing me not fully dressed and quickly turns to leave. I speedily shut the door before she has a chance to escape.

“There’s very little time before stage check, so I’ll continue to get ready and you can start on my makeup.” she stares up at me with her puppy eyes and quickly glances back down until she comes into view with my chest, flickering her eyes to the side. “We are ‘fake’ dating, you know. It’s not a crime.”

“Wh-what’s not a crime?” her face goes red from her cheeks to her ears. I bend down to match her height and tuck a strand of dark dyed blue behind her ear.

“Checking me out…” her eyes wide, she pushes me with her arms, her strength what I’d imagine a teddy bear to be. I catch her hands in mine, feeling the beating of my heart echoing against her skin. I’d been with many other girls who fawned over me as a Japanese Idol, but blood-lust overtook my mind. With her, it was different.

“It’s beating so fast,” Chisaka takes the words out of my mind. “I can see the strings, you know. They’re right next to each other.” She takes one of her hands off my chest and points to a place on her finger and then on mine.

“Why don’t you believe it doesn’t work…the strings?”

She fiddles with her finger for a moment and sighs, longly, “My parents were soulmates. You know how I said I could understand you in a way?” I nod and stare into her dark brown eyes that sparkle under the glow of the lights. “My dad cheated on my mom, and when she found out, he left us. He left my mom to take care of me even though she wasn’t even out of school. He left for ten years, and now visits every few months. My mom just blindly accepts her fate, and says it’s still love because they’re soulmates. That’s what the string of fate brought to my family.”

“Have you ever heard of a karmic tie?” She shakes her head, “I’ve never seen these strings myself, but I know soulmates are usually hard to find. Fate isn’t always about a happy love, maybe the fate of your parents was meant to be short-lived and then karmic?”

Chisaka thinks over my words. I smile and wrap her into an embrace in my arms, hugging her tightly, and feeling the warmth of our two bodies. “Parents are stupid, Chisaka. You can’t let their experience determine your own.”

“Then, should I believe the string?” Chisaka stutters out.

“Believe what you want to believe. Vampires are meant to be heartless, blood-starving monsters, but that doesn’t mean all of us have to live up to those ‘normal expectations’…”

“FIVE MINUTES!” My manager shouts out. I sigh and pull away from her, then take out a box of makeup and hand it to her. She folds her arms over her chest.

“I don’t know how.”

“Do the best you can. You got this!” I cheer her on and pull on the black holographic jacket. After I'd put on the finishing touches of my costume—a few silver necklaces, earrings, fake fangs (I couldn't show my real ones in public), and realistic-looking fake bat wings—Chisaka had halfway finished the base of the makeup. However, I could see lines of improper technique, “Blend the products in better, you really need to learn how to do makeup properly.”

“You don’t think I’m already aware of this?” Chisaka purposefully takes a dark shade of black lipstick and creates an unsymmetrical line across my lips and I scowl back at her. She chuckles at the stripe of black lipstick slightly smudged on one of my fake fangs, “I’m telling all of my friends about your ’vampire secret.’”

“Then maybe I should tell them how you can’t do makeup. In fact, you’re horrible at it!” I tease, taking it off and replacing the fang with a new one. She takes another brush in her hands and dips it into a dark pink eyeshadow shade and wipes it on my eyelids, messily. I show no mercy in my expression, but internally I felt like having the makeup all wiped off and redone by a professional. For some reason, my feelings for her go deeper than her terrible attempt at makeup.

Although Chisaka’s makeup left me looking more like a clown than ever, respectfully, the rehearsal goes fine. Lucky for her, I knew enough to pull through and fix her bad makeup skills myself. But just as the set is being tidied up after a long day, Chisaka casually reading her manga on the ground instead of helping, a buzz comes from my phone in my back pocket:

Lay a hand on Chisaka and you can forget about the help with your blood supply.

I drop my phone onto the cement of the area below the stage. Another vampire, specifically my family’s friend’s son, knew of Chisaka. Other vampires weren’t as friendly towards humans, they seek out any opportunity to feed.

She could be in danger.