Page 49 of The Awakening
He’s livelier by the time we’re done scrubbing, so I leave him to rinse and dry himself off. Nino is still wandering around and cleaning up (I’m realizing he must be a neat freak, because he’s gone beyond the bedroom and is now tidying up Jae’s makeshift office in a different room, which he definitely does not need to do), but I head to the main living room area near the kitchen and pull out my phone.
I’m losing my shit and I need a sanity check. I dial Asao since he’s more reliable to answer, then ask to speak to Haruka. It only takes a second for his deep voice to register through the line.
“Hello, Jun. How is he?”
“He’s getting dressed.” I’m pacing the floor and rubbing the back of my neck. “He seems better after the bath and drinking my blood—Shit.There was so much dead skin, but he’s fine now.”
“His improving after your feeding him and the decaying flesh are the final proof,” Haruka says. “He is one of us and he is changing.”
This is fucking unbelievable. “So what do I do? And he’s still not vampiric—not totally. He doesn’t have fangs and he can’t feed for himself. Should I keep feeding him? Or maybe we should find him a different source? What’s best? And why is this happening now?” I’m not trying to pawn him off on someone else. I’m not. But I also have no clue what I’m getting myself into and it genuinely scares me.
“Which question would you like me to answer first?” Haruka asks.
“Why is this happening now?”
“I believe your natures are drawn to each other. It is why you were uniquely capable of discerning his scent and noticing him before Nino or I did. After you pointed it out, though, it was obvious.”
I’m standing still, thinking. “I fed from him last week for the first time. He tasted amazing. Too good.”
“Perhaps your feeding from him is what has triggered this? The unique intimacy of feeding in combination with your compatible natures.”
“So it’s my fault he’s like this?”
“Not completely, but in a sense, yes. Junichi, you need to make a decision.”
“About?”
“Will you see him through this? We do not know much about this circumstance, but what is true of all vampiric vitality is that consistency is key. His feeding source should be the same as he slowly awakens—and high quality since he is obviously ranked. His source should also make his transition as comfortable as possible, without stress, since we don’t know what to expect. Should we attempt to find someone else? Or are you willing to commit to this process of his awakening?”
Hearing something, I turn to see Jae quietly stepping out of the hallway and into the kitchen. He’s barefoot, and his already slender frame is now gaunt from weight loss. He’s dressed in clean sweats and his golden hair is darker than normal because its wet. No glasses. We lock eyes in a cautious moment before he goes to sit in the kitchen.
I nod, pacing again. “I am. Of course.”
“I think this is the best choice. I will come tomorrow to speak with Jae directly about his circumstance. It is my responsibility as his realm leader.”
I shake my head. “You’ve been digging at this for weeks—inviting him to dinner at your house, flying to Hong Kong and studying in that old library. You’re tickled pink right now, aren’t you?”
There’s a slight pause on the line before he answers me.
“A little.”
Twenty-Three
Jae
I had thought… that when I eventually took a bath with Junichi, it’d be this very sexy, steamy affair. Like something out of a lush erotica novella. Teak wood and steam and slippery hands and panting. Slow thrusts and deep kisses.
Never once did I fantasize about him scrubbing dead skin off my withered body because I was too weak to do it myself. Nor did I imagine Nino occasionally popping in to make sure we’re both alright.
Nope. Not how I pictured that at all.
I’m sitting at my kitchen table, mindlessly eating the miso soup and rice that Nino has kindly purchased for me. Whatever happened to me… Whatever is happening to me, it went from zero to sixty. On Monday I felt tired at work. As the day progressed, it was getting more and more difficult to pay attention to what my patients were saying to me.
On Tuesday morning, I woke up simultaneously exhausted and feeling like a dried-up sponge left on the side of a kitchen sink. I’ve never felt like that—like all the moisture inside me had been wrung out or siphoned somewhere, leaving me brittle. I likened it to dehydration, but no matter how much water I drank, I wasn’t sated. All it did was cause me to run to the bathroom every twenty minutes… until I was crawling to the bathroom. Then I couldn’t move or do anything, andeverythingached like mad.
That feeling… it’s still there. Almost threatening to overtake me again. Nino is busy cleaning my whole flat, I think (God bless him—utterly humiliating), and Junichi is pacing back and forth in my living room, talking to Haruka on his smartphone. I know it’s Haruka because Junichi changes when he speaks to him. They’re friends, but he’s a little less haughty.
I’m staring at him, and I want him. Ialwayswant him, but it feels different somehow. Before I felt wildly satisfied with his mere closeness and conversation. A kiss? Wonderful. Sex? Brill. I still want those things, but something inside me wants even more than that now. As I sit here, I can’t really understand what it is.
