Chapter 12

The walk home was silent and Akaza didn’t let go of Kyo’s hand until they were both inside the house. Silence persisted a few minutes after they were sitting down face to face. Kyo was the first one to talk, apologising for hurting Akaza and for the other night.

“Don't apologise for that night,” said Akaza “If I didn’t like it, I would have knocked you out.”

“But you never came back.”

Another moment passed in silence. Akaza was biting his nails while Kyo clenched his knees.

“You said you hadn't had a drop of human blood since you turned me but what about the blood you offered me? And all those times you tried to convince me to eat humans?” asked Kyo.

“Animal blood. Does the trick, but tastes worse and the effects don’t last as long.” explained Akaza “And you misunderstood me before, when I said I wanted you to come to the village with me. I knew there would be a festival. I wanted to go there with you to ‘take a walk’ like you say”.

“But why did you stop eating humans after I asked?”

“I had seen you before that night on the train. You saved a woman who was being beaten and molested by her husband and his friends. That same woman sold you out and ganged up on you the next day to steal from you. At the end of it all you gave her a couple of coins and said ‘The strong ones exist to protect the weak’ for some reason that stuck to me. I knew you would be on that train and I approached you. I put my hopes on you and wagered that if you were really that strong you would protect the weak even as a demon and I would only eat humans again if you too decided to eat them.”

“If you had hope on me, why did you keep trying to convince me to eat humans?” asked Kyo, still confused.

“Self sabotage. The same way I wanted you to keep protecting humans, I also wanted you to let go of that feeling and just kill them so I could give up on people and the world. Maybe that way what you said about the strong protecting the weak would leave my mind, but you kept refusing. Spending time with you and your stupid jokes and your stupid food and your stupid smile, made that little hope grow. Eventually I stopped trying to make you eat humans and along the way I kept thinking that maybe I could protect people too.”

“You can, you protected me.”said Kyo, locking eyes with Akaza, his body trembling when he remembered that had it not been for Akaza he would have eaten a human. “Thank you for stopping me.”

“The fact that you’re so conscious of humans and scared of hurting them made their presence fill your senses.” Akaza paused for a moment before continuing “I was confident that if we were together we would be having fun and you wouldn’t think that much about humans.”

“The feeling of having to protect the weak is ingrained in my brain since I opened my eyes and it weighs down on me. You're not weak but I still want to protect you, but not out of responsibility. There's no weight in the feeling of wanting to protect you, that’s why I really like being with you. I can take it easy. I don’t have to be strong.”

Akaza giggled “Me who wanted to see you protect humans but kept trying to make you eat them. And you who protect the weak but don't like to be strong.”

Kyo said nothing, just smiled looking straight at the yellow eyes that were looking back at him. Akaza got up and brought back the last couple dango’s in the kitchen. He sat down crossing his legs and reducing the space between him and Kyo. He picked up a dango and extended his arm to Kyo’s mouth. Kyo was surprised, he didn’t expect Akaza to do something like this, but he still opened his mouth and ate the dango.

“Sorry,” said Akaza, eating a dango too, “I was feeling too conscious about all this, I still am. At first I just wanted to cool my head but it took a long time for me to calm down and then when I realised a day had passed already it got harder to come back. While I was figuring out how to come back I saw you looking for me and I ran away, again.”