Chapter 15:

Can I Touch Them?!

Heart Strings of the Vampire King!


Chisaka Kutsuki

Ryota glows on stage, his slim and muscular body glistens under the gold and purple lights, and his voice dances to the notes of his songs in a seamless rhythm. I’d seen him many times on tv, in interviews and magazines, v-tube, and even in concert with Gina and Takumi. But this wasn’t like any of those times. He’s a natural-born performer, he truly enjoys being up on stage.

I envied him for having a passion. I’ve always enjoyed simple things like reading manga, watching anime, and having good grades in class, but nothing ever stuck with me.

Senior year is many things, like finding your other half of the red string, but it’s also the avoided question: what do you want to do for the rest of your life? I could never answer it… because I didn’t know. Ryota has such a straightforward answer, I could tell from his confidence how much he loves music—anyone could. I guess that’s how he was able to debut only a year ago and climb to the top of Tokyo’s Idols in such a short time.

Maybe I’d gotten so used to just being given things, like expectations, what I should do, and what I should be like, that I never sought my own aspirations. I never ventured to find them, but watching Ryota practice again and again on stage made me want to start. Maybe I hadn’t mentioned liking makeup to Gina just because I wanted an excuse to see Ryota… maybe I wanted to learn makeup for myself.

I put my manga down and grab my phone, typing into the search engine ‘learn makeup for beginners,’ a bunch of sites come up linked to tutorials. One of them showed a picture of Gina. My eyes wide, I click on it and a v-tube video of Gina doing a makeup tutorial begins. I pop in my earbuds and focus, writing tips and notes she gives on the side of a page to my manga.

Looking back and forth between my notes and the makeup tutorial, I hadn’t noticed Ryota kneeling in front of me until his hands waved in front of my eyes. I quickly look up and hide my phone against my chest, taking my earbuds out. The music and stage crew are gone and the stage has been cleared.

“You look focused…” he blushes and smiles, the sun setting in the distance behind him. Rays of orange and beautiful light pink off in the horizon. Our height difference always made my heart flutter.

“I was just doing research for a project.”

“What project?” He takes his masculine hands much larger than mine and places them over my phone and raises it into his view. “I can talk to my producer about getting you professionally trained. I know you said you didn’t want me to help, but the least I can do is offer my connections in the makeup industry. I know a good amount of beauty gurus.”

“Fine. But only if you come with me, I wouldn’t feel comfortable around a lot of people like them…”

“What’s that supposed to mean, ‘like them’?” He imitates me and I roll my eyes.

“—Like the high-class people, I’m not used to it.”

“You’re used to me!”

“You’re different.” Ryota sits in a butterfly shape on the ground and leans close to me.

“If you’re used to a real vampire, then you’re actually quite fearless. But I guess I can be by your side; no one will mess with a real vampire, right?”

“It’s more like, no one will mess with the infamous Vampire King.”

“Unless they want their blood sucked…”

“They don’t know that!” I giggle back.

“Not yet, but if they mess with my makeup artist they might,” he chuckles. Ryota is much kinder than when I first met him. Maybe it’s because I didn’t understand him as well. “But seriously, Chisaka, be careful. You never know who else could be a vampire and vampires aren’t exactly friendly.”

“You’re an exception?”

He hesitates before answering, “I can’t make promises, but I’d like to hope so.”

“You are. You’re a good vampire!” I gaze into his eyes, my cheeks matching the vibrant hues in the sky. Thankfully, the golden sunlight hid the rosy shades. He opens his mouth and reveals a pair of his real fangs, they look fairly ordinary to human ones but much larger in size and sharper. They weren’t as long as prosthetic ones, rather wider, but you could tell they could kill from the jagged edges and razor point.

I lift my hand and hesitate, “Can I touch them?” his eyes grow for a moment before he replies.

“Sure.”

I lean close to him, then take my finger and touch the top part of the fang, much smoother to the touch than normal teeth. I run my finger along the jagged part, Ryota tenses up, his jaw clenching and his veins become more visible in his arms and legs.

My finger finds its way to the tip of the fang, immediately, like a cat's claw, my finger is pricked from the sharpness. Ryota quickly reaches for my wrist and pulls my hand away from him. Just the smallest amount of blood pokes out from under the skin of my finger.

I meet eyes with Ryota before he raises my hand against his lips, the prick of my finger meets his rough tongue as he licks the small amount of blood off. Something about the way he embraces my hand and licks the blood burns a warm sensation inside me.

“Don’t they teach you when you’re young that if you put your hand on a stove it will burn?”

“But if you never put your hand on the stove, then how do you know they’re telling the truth?”

He scoffs and sighs, “Don’t tempt me with blood, I’m already on a thin supply.”

“You liked it, though.”

“Of course, all vampires like blood, Chisaka.”

“Did mine have a certain ‘spice’ to it?”

He bursts out laughing, but I truly wanted to know. I mean, all blood can’t taste the same, right? “Not enough to tell.” Ryota winks. I blush and raise from my spot on the ground after collecting my manga and school case.

The rest of the way back to the apartments is quiet as Ryota and I ride in the backseat of his manager’s car. Every now and then I’d make contact with his red-auburn eyes and wonder what shade of brown they were before he was turned into a vampire. I was suddenly interested in the smallest details about him, I wanted to know all of him; and I also wanted him to know all of myself.

I wished I was studying with Ryota tomorrow instead of Takumi—but it was too late for that.