• CHAPTER 65 - PRECIOUS

    It's amazing how one couple's miracle can bring another couple together.

    Delicate, soft, new, young, a small newborn in my arms. I cradled Toshihiro close to my chest, never wanting to unhand him. Half Werewolf, half human. This baby was a combination of both Miku and Takeuchi and has been named after Takeuchi's late father, Toshihiro. This child caused Miku worlds of pain, but it was all worth it in the end, wasn't it? Miku and Takeuchi were glowing even more than when Miku was pregnant. Toshihiro squirmed around in my arms until he was in a comfortable position, burying his face between my arm and my chest. I balanced him on one arm and stroked his head, his fuzzy head; he had Takeuchi's hair. Small strands of burgundy-brown hair washed over his head already.

    "You've got quite the comparisons, Arisa," Kai chuckled behind me.

    I ignored him and continued to stare at Toshihiro. Even though he wasn't a Vampire, he was still incredibly beautiful. Even as a newborn only hours old, he's most likely already stronger than I am. One question started ricocheting in my head; will Toshihiro be in as much pain as Kira is since he's only a half Werewolf?

    "He won't be in any pain," Kai told me, making me assume Takeuchi and Miku didn't know for sure. "Kira's in pain because he was infected; the remaining venom is what hurts him. Toshihiro was born half-and-half so there was no venom involved."

    I sighed in relief and stared at Toshihiro again in awe. I was one step away from sprinting out the room and taking the baby with me. Takeuchi boomed in laughter at that and Kai let out a little chuckle. I had seen babies in movies before and they never seemed of much interest, but now it seems like Toshihiro is the only thing I can focus on.

    I caressed my fingertip against Toshihiro's chubby cheek and he let out a long sigh. He moved his head around--with his eyes still closed--and picked up his tiny hands to feel around. He searched and searched until he found my finger that was caressing his cheek and he coiled his itty bitty hands around my finger. The smallest hands in the world; so delicate and--wow again--soft. He cracked open his eyes and they were the darkest shade of midnight blue, much like Kai's commonly were. He stared at my finger while holding it in front of his face and he pulled my finger down so he could suck on it. I giggled at the ticklish feeling and right after he heard my laughter and everybody else's, his eyes shifted to a light green. His eyes change just like Takeuchi's do. Toshihiro stopped sucking on my finger and paused for a moment before he suddenly gnawed on my finger with his infinitesimal newborn fangs.

    I paused and inhaled sharply after I finally felt the pain, "Ow!"

    "Woah, woah, woah!" Takeuchi laughed and removed Toshihiro from my arms, gently prying the newborn's fangs from my finger.

    I wrapped my finger in my shirt to wipe off the blood and baby saliva and turned red in embarrassment. Miku waved her hand lazily and spoke up, "Arisa,"

    I approached Miku's bedside and bent over, "Yeah, Miku?"

    Miku smiled the warmest and most exhausted smile, "Thank you...for helping Matsuda,"

    "It..." I paused and looked away, blushing for some reason. "It's nothing, really."

    "Arisa, if you wouldn't have pulled Toshihiro out, then I'd have died," Miku smiled again.

    Takeuchi looked down in dissatisfaction with himself; he was angry with himself for panicking and leaving Miku. He couldn't help it; it was his instincts that told him to leave. I stroked Takeuchi's arm in a friendly manner with my hand that hadn't been gnawed on. Out of ransom, Toshihiro giggled...the most enticing and adorable giggle a baby could giggle.

    Kai chuckled again and grabbed my hand, "We should depart so the three get their rest,"

    "Okay," I sighed, bummed to have to leave the family of three. But it'd be better for them to spend more time with each other than everybody else. "Bye everybody." I smiled and waved.

    Kai and I departed from Takeuchi's bedroom and headed upstairs and into the bathroom after shutting Takeuchi's bedroom door. Kai sat me down on the closed toilet and pulled out some gauze and peroxide from the linen closet. I sighed and unwrapped my finger from my shirt which was now spotted in my blood. Without even putting any pressure on my finger, it continued to bleed a lot. Kai put the medical supplies on the bathroom counter and kneeled in front of me while still chuckling.

    "Stupid klutz," he said before he grabbed my finger and shoved the top half in his mouth.

    "Woah, woah, hey, woah!" I panicked and turned red again. "What are you doing?!"

    Well, duh, I didn't even need to think about it. He was drinking my blood, of course. I was just weirded out that he suddenly shoves my finger into his mouth with no warning.It was embarrassing, I could feel his tongue cruising over my finger to absorb and drink the blood. I tensed up and fondled with my free fingers on my other hand and waited impatiently for Kai.

    "You're embarrassing," I whispered to him and beamed at him, "idiot."

    Kai finally finished his bidding after several more seconds and set my injured finger free. He wrapped my finger in gauze after dabbing peroxide on it and he put the supplies away. I pondered for a moment and a question popped into my head, although to Kai, it could be a stupid question.

    "How is it that Toshihiro is eleven to twelve hours old but he already has all of his teeth? And fangs, at that." I asked Kai.

    "You know nothing about half breeds, do you?" he smiled at me in a crooked way...more smirking than anything.

    "Don't call them that!" I blustered at him.

    "Halflings," he started, emphasizing the last syllable of the word, "grow in certain small areas almost twice as fast as humans. It's nothing big, though. They grow up as slow as a human does, but their teeth grow faster and their minds process faster too."

    "When do they first talk?" I was curious.

    Kai pondered for a moment before answering, "Between six months and a year old,"

    "What about walking?"

    "Around a year,"

    So they develop a little faster than humans, but grow the same way, "Do half babies and full-fledged babies lose their teeth like humans?"

    Kai shook his head, "No, their teeth just grow stronger and bigger,"

    "Are they venomous at birth?"

    "Some can be, but most aren't lethal until they're between five and ten years old. For Werewolves, they most times become venomous after their first morph."

    A sub-zero shiver shattered my spine at the thought of Toshihiro first transforming into a Werewolf. He was only a baby, he shouldn't deserve to go through pain like Takeuchi did in the future. It will probably be in another ten years...I'd probably be rid of by then.

    "Arisa," Kai frowned at me, "knock it off."

    I sighed and rolled my eyes, fake laughing to try and calm him down, "Relax, it's just a silly thought,"

    He shook his head, "No, it's not silly, it's stupid,"

    Well, that made me feel worlds better, smart-a**. Kai rolled his eyes and kneeled in front of me once more and looked down. We sat in silence for a long moment and I was getting impatient so I started bobbing my knee up and down very quickly. Kai held my leg down to keep it from bouncing so much and I stopped immediately.

    "Arisa..." he started again, "in ten years, I don't want to be abolished of you. I know you're human and you will mellow much older much faster than any of us. I want you for longer, for forever if I could. But just know how precious you are to me."

    I blushed and looked down and away, "Um, th-thank you,"

    "I don't..." he paused for a moment. "I don't want you to ever become a Vampire. I'd rather you live as a human. But if I want you for so much longer, then I don't know what to do."

    I put on my confident face and stared at him, "Why is it--exactly--you don't want me as a Vampire?"

    Kai sighed and looked down, "First, you protest against becoming one--"

    "Unless I'd be on my deathbed," I interrupted him.

    "Yeah," he whispered. "Second, the unbearable pain you'd have to endure for decades and the multifarious amount of people you'll infiltrate. Third, you would be much happier as a human. And fourth, I don't want to lose you."

    I stared at him in confusion, "What do you mean? I'd stay with you; you wouldn't lose me."

    "I'm not saying I'll definitely lose you, but there's a large chance. Kira and I lost most of who we really were, such as our spontaneous personalities. We had lost our will to think for ourselves, we became murderers...cold, lifeless murderers."

    I shook my head and looked down, tears ready to come out again, "No, don't say that,"

    "Ayame lost damn near everything she knew and was. And you..." he raised his hand and touched my cheek lightly with his fingertips. "There is a chance you won't recall any of us, a chance you would desire to kill us all, you would lose every one of your human characteristics that we all love."

    "What do you mean by my characteristics?" I asked him, ignoring what he said about Ayame.

    "Your physical traits, basically," he cupped my cheek and stared at me in the eyes. "Nobody here would want to change a thing about you. Your eyes, your warmth, your laughter, your personality, nothing would want to be changed."

    I looked down again in remorse for Kai and the others and sighed deeply. Kai removed his hand from my cheek and wrapped both of his arms around my waist and pulled me close to him and he pressed his ear against my chest where my heart was. He didn't need to say anymore; I completely understood what he was saying. He loves me for exactly the way I am. My whole life, I had been trying to adapt to other people, tried to be somebody I'm not just so people would at least communicate with me. I figured that if I was with Kai, then I should become a Vampire so that we would have more in common and he would love me even more. He doesn't care if we have or don't have anything in common; in real life, we're complete opposites. He's the first one to love me for me. I had learned things about myself that I never knew since I arrived at this beautiful household.

    "If you actually desired to become a Vampire," Kai started quietly, keeping his ear against my heart, "then what would be your exact inference as to why?"

    I paused for a moment before running one hand through his hair and wrapping my other arm around his shoulders and pulled him even closer to my heart, "Um..." I started. "I would be with you...for so many more years. Hundreds of years. And also, I wouldn't be so frail and weak anymore. I wouldn't be sick. I wouldn't be so breakable with every touch and you wouldn't have to worry about hurting me."

    Kai was silent for a long moment. I continued to hold him close to me and wait. His breathing was relaxed, now that he was listening to my heartbeat.

    "That is what I would miss the most," he sighed, "is your heartbeat."

    I exhaled sharply and I'm sure Kai could hear my heart rip in two and yet flutter excessively at the same time. He removed his head from my chest and looked up at me with a complexion mixed in sorrow and wonder. He raised himself a few inches and pecked me on the lips. I turned red again and my stomach twisted into knots. He kissed me again...I had started to think that he wasn't strong enough to hold back against my scent or that he didn't want to kiss me anymore.

    He leaned in and kissed me again, stroking the bottom of my back. I pulled him a little closer with the arms I had wrapped around him and we held our kiss still for a long time. He pulled me closer and kissed me a little rougher. We both opened our mouths a little and ended up breathing each other's breath. He pulled me as close to him as he could and stood up, lifting me off of the toilet seat and I was incapable of reaching the ground. In the next instant, I grasped Kai as tight as I could after feeling teleportation going on. The next feeling--next to unstoppable lust--was the feeling of the soft and commodious bed against my back. I kept my eyes closed completely in case I would get dizzy after teleporting. He broke up our kiss for a second--which was probably the biggest mistake at the moment--and I ended up grabbing the collar of his shirt with both hands and pulling his lips to mine again. My mind was going crazy once more at the feeling of his delicate endearment. We continued to kiss passionately for so long, one minute after another. His hands were anxious, embracing almost every part of me, excluding the no-no areas.

    "I can't breathe," I whispered and kissed him again.

    "Then don't," he whispered back during the kiss.

    As we continued to kiss roughly for another long, long moment, I let my mind wander. Being around Toshihiro and seeing how happy Miku was during her pregnancy really got me thinking. I was debating on whether or not I would decide on kids when I was older, and I was leaning more towards "yes" now. But what about what Kai said about being human and impregnated by a Vampire? I had no current desire to delve that deep into our relationship quite yet. Honestly, I was afraid of sex, completely terrified. I had heard so many stories about men leaving their beaus after relations.

    Kai released his lips from mine and immediately started kissing and licking my neck. I ran one hand through his hair again and wrapped one arm around his shoulders once more and held him close as I tried to catch my breath and continued to reminisce. Were Kai I in such a deep relationship--or ever would be in such a deep relationship--that we would attempt to go that far? And like he said before, if I were somehow carrying his child, would it truly kill me?

    I flinched as I finally felt the pain of Kai's infiltration on my neck. By the looks of it, he had been drinking my blood for a while. I was just so caught up in my thoughts that the pain was absent for several seconds. I shouldn't even worry about our relationship reaching that point since we weren't even engaged anymore. I didn't even know what we were anymore; just a thing, I guess. I wanted to be engaged again. I wanted to keep this deep relationship and guarantee that it's only ours to have. At that, Kai pulled away on his own from my neck. He stared at me for a long moment with his blood-quenched eyes and blood remnants on his lips and chin. He reached down and dug into my front pocket. I tried to remove his hand from my pocket, embarrassed, until he found what he was looking for and pulled it out of my pocket. In front of my face, he held my previous engagement ring for both of us to see.

    "You have kept this stowed in your pocket for weeks," he whispered, "since I left it at Akatsuki's apartment."

    I nodded, "Yes,"

    His face fell with guilt, "So you didn't mean what you said when you told me you protested to remember?"

    "No," I shook my head, still a little short of breath, "I didn't."

    Kai wiped the blood from his mouth and chin and he grabbed my left hand, "I'm surprised that I'm able to still face you after suffering such severe guilt,"

    "It wasn't your fault," I reassured him. "You tried to do what was best for me."

    "Now..." Kai committed the inevitable and slid the ring easily back onto my ring finger, causing me to lose my breath, "I'll do what's best for you," he kissed the ring, "and keep us together, like so."

    I forgot how to breathe and my mind went blank as I continued to stare at Kai's astonishing complexion and enamoring eyes that now shone an enticing brown. My palms started sweating from nerves but Kai continued to grasp my left hand firmly. I managed to take a few deep breaths, but the last one burst into a sob, followed by several tears.

    "What's wrong?" Kai's eyes widened, thinking he did something wrong. He brushed my bangs aside and awaited my answer.

    "I-I-I--" I stuttered. "I'm so happy, I--Does that mean I'm staying?"

    He brushed his thumb against my cheekbone to remove any excess tears while still holding onto my left hand with his other hand, "Yes,"

    I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for this to end up being a dream, waiting to wake up and still be residing in Akatsuki's apartment. But this all felt too real, especially Kai's frozen touch. His touch and his complexion were not things I could dream of so easily, so I must have been in a severely deep sleep. When I would wake up, I'd be alone again, Kai and everybody else would be gone, Toshihiro would still be in Miku's belly...that's what's going to happen, right?

    "Arisa," Kai whispered to me, his sweet breath caressing my cheek.

    I opened my eyes reluctantly and sighed out of relief that this wasn't all a dream. I touched his face with my fingertips and started crying again, "I--"

    "Shh..." Kai hushed me, pressing a finger against my lips.

    Without another word, we continued to stare at each other. He lowered his head to my heart again after a few minutes and I allowed him to listen to my rapid heartbeat. After another few minutes, he lifted himself up again, barely keeping any of his weight on me, and kissed my forehead. He grabbed my face gently with both hands and leaned in for one more kiss, sealing our precious covenant once more.