Bokutachi wa Akuma: Chapter Nineteen

After the attack from Ruka, Maruki had hardly left the house. He stayed at home, cleaning it everyday. The only times he left the house was to give Satsuki her daily walk while Aiya was out. Maruki had not felt like himself, but he sure tried to act like it, it was all just too confusing for him, still not knowing what happened that day. Ruka had not spoken to him since that day, even after he discovered that it was not a dream. The only thing he could remember was feeling cold, and weak, nothing more was a clear memory; Maruki remembered walking home with Ruka, and seeing the tan coloured blazer on the chair in his bedroom.

In the bright apartment, all the curtains remained closed while Aiya was out of the house. Today was one of those days, Aiya was off at work and Maruki was at home, watching Satsuki and Toki.

The house was clean as usual; the television was off, leaving the interior quiet. Startling the poor boy, the doorbell rang, bringing Satsuki to her feet and down the hall to the door. As always, Satsuki was first to the door, sitting there patiently waiting for someone to answer it for her. Maruki slid off the barstool from the island in the kitchen, slowly making his way to the door. All around him, the low light of the track lights above the table darkened the white walls.

“Who’s there?” Maruki spoke softly, hoping the person on the other side would not hear.

The person on the other side knocked on the door again in hearing Maruki's response.

“Maruki is that you?” the voice called out, and the knocking on the door continued. “Please, let me in.” the door handle shook as the person tried opening the door.

He was caught; he had to open the door now. Maruki unlocked the bolt lock and turned the handle, slowly opening the door, his sensitive eyes were blinded by the sunlight causing him to squint his eyes into narrow slits. The figure of a man slowly came into focus.

“Miki what are you doing here?” Stepping behind the door, Maruki opened it further, allowing Mikiya to step in. “Everything okei?” He closed the door behind Mikiya, smiling softly.

Mikiya turned the entrance light on, getting a better look at Maruki's sweet, baby face. They both blinked quickly when the light flicked on. Maruki sensitive eyes did not falter from this light, nor did it hurt like he thought it would have. Mikiya smiled to Maruki, patting him on the head gently.

“I have been worried about you, you haven’t been answering any of my messages or any of my IM’s.” He invited himself in, having been comfortable enough with his friend to do so. “How have you been? Ai said you haven’t been acting like yourself lately. He's worried about you, you know.” This is what everyone loved about Mikiya; he acted very motherly to all his friends as if they were his children.

Maruki smiled and followed him into the house. He nodded shyly, feeling a little embarrassed. His attempts to act normal have not passed Aiya's observant eyes.

“Yeah I'm sorry, I've been busy lately. Maruki rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “You don't have to worry about me Mikiya. I'm fine.” He sat back down in the barstool he sat at before, looking over at Mikiya. They sat next to each other, a drink and a pitcher in front of Maruki. “Would you like a drink?” simple orange juice was Maruki's favorite drink, and he drank it everyday.

Mikiya smiled, nodding at his younger friend. Orange juice was one of his favorites as well.

The two talked about why Maruki had not been contacting anyone for the past week or so; it was because he had no idea as to why he wasn't, the thoughts that went through Maruki's mind all seemed like dreams to him. He still had no idea what happened that day, but he knew it changed him somehow; something was different and he was desperate to find out what it was. He explained as much as he could to Mikiya, who listened in depth, enough to try and understand what could have happened to him. Mikiya threw a couple of ideas but none seemed to make any logical sense. Maruki was open to all ideas, even ones as crazy as they were coming up with, like vampires or werewolves.

Overall, Maruki felt normal. He slept, ate, drank, laughed and even got mad, but something in the back of his head told him he was not normal anymore. Hours have past, the entire pitcher of orange juice was gone, now the two were drinking Sweetened tea from bottles.

“I remember something Miki.” An epiphany had struck him. It was a memory that was barely there. “Ruka kun had kept apologizing and saying it was his fault.” He raised a hand and gently grazed a thumb across his bottom lip. His brows furrowed slightly as he tired to think deeper into it.

“Those killers, they were there that day. I remember that.” It was slightly coming back the more he spoke about it. “They were telling Ruka kun what to do.” There was not much of that memory left after that. Little to no memories was supposed to last around the time of a vampire’s mortal death and the beginning of their immortal rebirth.

The new information hardly helped Mikiya in his understanding of this whole situation. He thought deeper and deeper about it; to Maruki, his face looked funny from how hard he was thinking. Mikiya’s nose was all scrunched up and his eyes were very slowly going crossed. Maruki let out a little giggle, breaking Mikiya's face out of its scrunched state. He didn't speak of Maruki's confusing situation again; it was very easy for him to change the subject off of it as well. Another one of Mikiya's amazing mother-like talents, it was either that or he was good at distracting people.

Not long before Aiya came home, Mikiya took his leave; he still had things to do as well. Thought there were only three dishes, Maruki cleaned the kitchen, getting ready to cook dinner when Aiya came home. It would be a classic western breakfast with an eastern adaption, Ham and egg. There would be a side dish as well of Aiya's favorite food, plain white rice.

Back at home; Mikiya could not stop thinking about the conversation he had with Maruki. They had talked about it for so long he could not get it off of his mind. Maika was at home, but he was off in his own world playing his bass in his room. Mikiya, himself was not hungry at the moment, so bothering Maika and asking him if he wanted supper would have been useless. Mikiya slugged himself to his computer that was in his bedroom lazily. As well as having a desktop in the living room, both Mikiya and Maika had a personal laptop for personal Internet access and their own hobbies. Taking it from his small folding desk, Mikiya threw it down on his bed and followed it lazily, flopping down on his stomach behind it.

The new computer did not take long to turn on to his home screen. Instantly, he was logged on to an IM chat and his Internet screen popped up on his screen. Google was his friend this evening. Google had the answer to everything and everyone knew that. Mikiya began what he assumed would be a night of goose chasing and stupid search results. To his surprise, the majority of his search results were all the same. There were many different websites that Mikiya had attempted, and all turned up the same genre of results. All the symptoms and all the actions Maruki had explained to him all lead to new forms of Vampires, yet nothing fully explained Maruki fully. Mikiya could not believe it, he didn't want to believe it; and Google had him convinced that one of his best friends was a vampire.  Going into a famous online medical site, Mikiya decided he would try a more advanced, thorough search through them, hoping to find a more logical explanation.

Mikiya typed in all of Maruki's symptoms again, hoping for a more realistic result. After a few seconds of waiting, the symptoms came up with no results, leaving only the one answer.

The subtle silence from around the room had masked the fact that Maika had stopped his, self bass practice and snuck to the outside of Mikiya's door. With the car in the parking lot and his shoes in the entrance, Maika knew that Mikiya was home. He was just hoping that he was sleeping so that he could scare him awake. Maika creaked the door open, peeking inside just enough to see Mikiya lying on his large bed. Mikiya was always working or doing something to distract himself. Maika did not like it sometimes; he always told himself that he worked himself too hard.

Maika snuck into Mikiya's room on his tiptoes quiet like a cat, which was ironic, for Maika hated cats. Genuinely, Maika was afraid of cats, he didn't know why, he just held a strong fear of them. Mikiya was into his research too much to see the growing dark shadow next to him. Maika bent his knees low and cocked his arms at his sides, a wide grin spread on his lips and trickery twinkled in his eye. Maika jumped up high, landing on the bed, one foot on either side of Mikiya.

“Mikiya!” He dropped himself, lying stomach first on Mikiya's back. “You didn't tell me you were home.” Mikiya had jumped out of his skin and rolled underneath Maika onto his back. With him in a more vulnerable position, Maika pinned down Mikiya's shoulders playfully.

Kicking his feet, Mikiya tried escaping his friend’s grasp; he held a very tiny build, yet he still had some strength to him. Maika was thrown to his side and pinned down by Mikiya.

“Don't do that!” Though he was laughing, Mikiya hated being scared like that. “I was looking for something you Baka!” Maika knew when Mikiya was being serious and when he was being playfully cruel, he only laughed at Mikiya more.

Mikiya was not holding him down hard, making it easy for him to sit up on the bed. Curiously looking at the computer screen, Maika slowed his laughs down, ending with a small chuckle. The search engine that Mikiya had been searching even stumped Maika, who had known him for years.

“What exactly were you looking for?” Maika's big eyes looked up to Mikiya quickly.

Mikiya chuckled softly, almost nervously. His dark narrow eyes shifted to his computer screen, he pressed the back button to show Maika what his original search was.

“When I went over to Maruki's and Ai chan’s to see how Maruki was doing, he said that he was doing fine, but he was feeling weird.” Clicking a few buttons on the mouse pad, Mikiya brought the screen to a darker site made by fanatics for vampire worshipping. “After I typed in his symptoms of feeling sick a few days ago, this is the only site that kept popping up.” Mikiya's solid, mature voice was clear as daylight, there was no hint of sarcasm or joking in his voice.

Though Mikiya was being as serious as a heart attack when talking about Maruki, after a short pause, Maika broke out into hysterical laughter. He fell back to his side, almost falling off the bed. His white, double-rowed teeth bearing brightly as he laughed loudly. Tears were forming quickly in the corners of his squeezed eyes, he was laughing himself to the point of crying.

“Are you telling me, that you think our Maruki; our tiny friend Maruki, is a dark and mythical, shadow creature of the night?!” Maika could not believe what he was hearing, his most sane friend in the entire world, had believed one of the most insane solutions in the entire universe.

Mikiya slapped Maika's chest hard, knocking some wind out of him. Mikiya's narrow, perfectly shaped brows furrowed in frustration at Maika.

“Yes, baka! There is no other explanation. I mean go ask him yourself! He’ll tell you he feels strange!” Mikiya hit his again, making him flinch this time. “I know it sounds stupid, but I think it could be possible.” Now he even doubted himself, but he was sticking to his theory, as hard as it was to believe.

“He feels strange! That doesn't mean that he's a vampire!” His most sane friend that he had known since grade had finally lost his mind. “He could have just had a fever or a cold for all you know.” The corner of his lip stuck up in a dumb-founded manner, one brow cocked up as he stared at Mikiya eerily. Mikiya gave him a serious look, his brows furrowed together strongly.

“You, have, got, to, be, kidding me.” He was normally the insane one, but he knew he was being insane. “Mikiya, listen to me. There has to be another explanation for Maruki feeling sick. And his strange, misunderstood memory, he's even told me that he can’t remember very much from that day. But turning into a vampire, I mean that is just stupid.” Maika sat up again, closing the laptop so Mikiya would stop with the whole vampire deal. Mikiya did not even catch onto what Maika had just said about Maruki talking to him over Mikiya; everyone knew that if there was a serious matter to deal with, always talk to Maika before addressing Mikiya with it, just in case he would go overboard with his thoughts.

Mikiya took his thin, silver laptop and slid it down the side of the bed, in order for it would land on the floor softly. Having read enough of that fanatic site, he read enough to know that there was a new breed of vampire found in early 2000, which adapted from those that were bred in the mid 1900’s Those vampires showed little to no symptoms of even having turned into a vampire at all. Mikiya thought a moment, trying to think of a way to convince Maika about his theory.

“He is sensitive to the sunlight, he never used to be. He used to love it, remember?” Before that day last week, Maruki would always go to the beach, or biking with Mikiya and their other friends. “Why would that stop so suddenly like that? And only recently?” He had hoped that in anyway, he would get closer to convincing Maika, at least enough to ask Maruki about it.

He let out a sigh, running a hand through his puffed hair, barely disrupting its volume at all. He let out a groan, thinking about how to word something that wouldn't flip on him.
“Well, maybe…” He paused a moment. “You did say he was feeling sick. Maybe he was sick after all with something like a fever.” His brows rose, hoping his defense was good enough.

“Maika!” he shouted at him loudly.

He flinched at the loud, raised voice, it was obvious that Mikiya was set on this vampire idea and he was not changing his mind.

“Fine! Well go see him tomorrow and as him if he's a vampire.” There was no way that Maika had believed it, but if it got Mikiya to stop prying at the situation, he would cave and let him ask. Maika slid backwards off the bed, looking down at Mikiya softly. “But what if he doesn't believe you either, or Aiya?” Maika and Mikiya were much like Maruki and Aiya; only they were more mature and conservative about themselves. He placed a hand on his thin yet visible hips. To the group of friends, Mikiya and Maika were the Mama and Papa, always bickering and looking out for the others.

“What will you do then?” Maika's voice was not comedic at all, he spoke sternly towards Mikiya, only so he wouldn't himself into a ruckus over nothing; this scene itself appeared like a bickering fight between mother and father about their children’s safety. “Would you suggest him to see a doctor?” he took a step back, ready to leave Mikiya to this new bundle of thoughts.

Mikiya paused a moment, not even thinking about it if Maruki not believing him in his theory. He was silent a moment longer and shot his gaze up to Maika, a confident smile on his thin lips.

“I'm sure he’ll believe me.” Maika shrugged and waved him off.

Mikiya was not one hundred percent confident in himself that his friend would believe him, but there was always room for hope. After Maika had left, he collapsed on his bed again, his head resting on his soft pillow. He was not sleepy at all, but his head was hurting from all the new information today. Mikiya let out a loud sigh, resting his arms under his head, and looking up to the textured ceiling silently.