#falloween

"Ken. Can you let us enjoy our 28 percent on Rotten Tomatoes film in peace?"

"I am. You're just being dramatic." He whispers, scarred thumb teasing your bottom lip as he kisses away the vanilla cream. "I'm hardly a distraction."

"That's exactly...mmph...what a distraction would say."

"Really? I thought you had the movie memorized since you love to tell me how you 'watch them in your head' to pass the time."

"I was half joking." You crane your neck, trying to ignore the waft of patchouli from his jawline as he nuzzles his face against your pulse.

It was no coincidence that tonight was your birthday and his choice of cologne just so happened to be one of your absolute favorites on him.

"I was actually trying to have an honest watch of the cinematic masterpiece that is Twilight: New Moon. Yanno, since it's my birthday and all." Your eyebrows scrunch together in irritation.

"Hm, that's a shame. You didn't seem to mind earlier."

He grabs you gently by the chin, leading you into a deep kiss that breaks off with a sigh as you melt into sweet surrender, letting him roll on top of you as the kiss warmed in intensity.

Kento hums in satisfaction at your body underneath his, nudging his hips slow in an enticing rhythm against your sex just enough to make his point which draws out a breathy moan from you that he swallows into his mouth.

Thunder rumbles loudly from outside, breaking up your kiss.

"Saved by the storm, it seems." Kento laments with a sigh as he kisses your forehead in reluctant farewell before he gets up.

"Nose goes." You tease, touching your nose even though Kento was already on it, putting his coat and boots on to make sure your animals are tucked away safely for the impending rain shower.

"You're hilarious." He gives you an affectionate eye roll.

"Want me to pause it? Edward's about to take his shirt off."

Kento's scoff almost rivals the volume of the thunder in the clouds outside. "No. That's quite alright."

He gives you a side eye with his good eye that's uncovered by his black eyepatch. "Don't enjoy yourself too much."

But your smile's shimmer from where he's standing on the other side of the room makes his sternness depart immediately as his heart flutters like it's seeing you for the first time, and he goes outside.

---

"That's three chickens. 1 rooster. Count 'em: one, two, three goats." Kento mutters, tuts his teeth and hums satisfactorily. "And-urgh! Fig! For hell's sake."

Kento glares at your stubborn pig who thought it would be funny to headbutt him when his back was turned.

"Insufferable thing."

But, he pats her head all the same and closes the stable door.

A couple yards away, however, in the second barn where your two highland cows sleep, there is a commotion and what sounds like panic coming from their direction. Concerned, Kento walks rapidly towards it.

"What's going on?" He murmurs to Garlic and Clove who are safe and sound in their stalls, yet keep lowing out of distress by some invisible foe behind him.

Kento can't help the hair on the back of his neck raising slightly as he turns around, a looming feeling he had known all too well that had not infested this property since the time he first set foot here.

A sinister, wolf-like curse stands on two legs like a man, staring evilly at him several feet away just beyond the pasture, licking its canines like daggers.

Kento's glare darkens as the energy around him builds with his determination, his hand beginning to reach towards his back pocket where the handle of his dull knife rests underneath his coat.

Without warning, the curse lunges at him. Kento narrowly misses its attack, briefly thrown off by the advanced agility of his opponent. Without warning, it strikes again, teeth lunging for his throat.

Kento brandishes his knife and manages to deliver one counterblow to its flank, starting to apply his ratio technique to locate the other weak point on his target as he quickly wraps his famous necktie around his right fist. This greatly angers the curse and it strikes again, catching Kento around the waist with its large paws.

"Shit!"

Kento grunts as he and the beast roll in the dirt, dodging violent snaps of its jaw as the rain pelts the ground and the thunder and lightning roars overhead. Before it can latch onto his major artery, Kento delivers a fatal blow to its heart, but not before it digs a claw into Kento's right bicep with an ungodly howl. Kento shouts in pain and swings his blade again, causing the werewolf curse to explode into a million fleshy shards.

Kento pants, hanging his head in relief as the adrenaline reduces to a low summer, hissing at the aching sting coming from his arm where the monster scratched him, stifling the blood flow with his free hand as he limps towards the farmhouse.

----

"Sweetheart?" You turn in the shower, alarmed to see Kento as he tears off his wet clothes, tossing them in the laundry basket near the door.

"Scared the shit out of me! I tried to wait but you took forever and I didn't want to watch without you so I figured I'd shower. Ken?"

Your eyes widen as he steps in, discovering his hand is completely covered in blood which is coming from a small gash in his arm.

"What the fuck happened?" Concern fills your tone as Kento gently moves you to the side so you're not completely out of the shower's warmth, leaving just enough room for him to rinse off the wound.

"A curse found its way into the stables. I took care of it. The animals are safe." He responds with that level of calmness only Kento could for someone who was bleeding incessantly from their arm.

"A curse??"

"Yes." Kento sighs as he rinses off the worst of the blood. "There's no need to be upset."

"Ken, you're literally bleeding! That looks bad."

"I'll stitch it up after I shower."

"Let me see."

"No." He takes your wrists that were reaching for his arm, gently looping them around his neck instead until your bare bodies press together.

You scoff in exasperation. "Will my husband ever not not let me take care of him, even when he's bleeding profusely?"

Kento's lips raise into a smile with an undercurrent of mischief because while unintentional, he knew that part about allowing you to help him was unlikely to change, but his look is full of tenderness knowing that for you, he would always try.

"He will."

He rests his forehead against yours,

"But more important matters first." He murmurs before he smoothly closes the gap between your lips while the shower continues to gently rain around you.

-----

The days seemed to pass completely normally after the incident. The curse's presence left you and the animals a bit spooked, but as time went on without any more disturbances, you took Kento's word for it and chalked it up to a random occurrence.

Halloweens with Kento in the countryside were cozy and quiet. You made up for the lack of trick or treaters with some spooky fun of your own which consisted of baked treats and a warm hearty dinner while Kento put the finishing touches on the ample decorations adorning the stables.

Halloween evening, a couple of weeks after the incident, Kento puts on his coat and boots to tend to the animals in the evening like usual, just as your homemade margherita pizza comes out of the oven.

"I won't be long." He assures you.

"That's what you said last time." You tease, placing the pizza with bubbling cheese on the counter next to the homemade breadsticks, "If you're not back in five, the breadsticks are gonna get it."

"Don't you dare." Kento orders, poising himself to spring at you on the other side of the counter. "Wait for me, Mrs. Nanami."

"Okay, okay I won't! I'm serious though." You point at him with stern eyebrows.

"You have my word." Kento crosses his heart, making you giggle before he steps outside, leaving the ghost of windchill behind him.

----

One minute turned into five minutes, five minutes became ten, ten became fifteen, and so on.

You kept your promise to wait for him, however as dinner grew cold, your worries only heightened. You knew Kento could be meticulous when it came to work on the farm, checking the animals once, twice, three times before he was satisfied but never had it taken this long, not since that night when he went outside and came back mysteriously bleeding. You feel the pit in your stomach bloom into a stew of anxious dread.

With that, you take a lantern with you and pull on the warmest coat you can find hanging in the downstairs closet along with your sturdy boots, venturing out into the October night.

-----

The full moon glimmers, mysterious and eerie overhead, illuminating the empty pasture as you walk quickly towards the stables, wet grass brushing either side of your long skirt as the nighttime air makes it billow behind you.

As you walk, you feel a gradual heaviness, like invisible eyes are boring into you and you whip around. Nobody is there but the murky blankets of fog and darkness with no sign of Kento.

You try to steady your breaths that hang in the air like plumes of pale smoke, praying that you're not the sacrificial character in a horror film as you slowly approach the stable, when suddenly you hear a few muffled groans that sound very similar to your husband just ahead.

"Kento?"

You gather your bravery as you pick up the pace, alarm bells going off that Kento might be in danger, only to find a large creature on two legs, just beyond the stables, doubled over and dressed in Kento's clothing.

Kento slowly turns and straightens up, and you see him more clearly in the golden light of your lantern that begins to quiver with fear. He's a head taller than normal, beefy and large. But the thing that sticks out the most is the hair. Thick, dark blonde, almost honey brown hair adorns his arms, chest, and legs. His pants are torn from his powerful thighs, and the buttoned flannel he had on earlier hangs off of his chest in flimsy tatters, a window to the firm muscles underneath.

"K-Kento?"

"Get back."

He growls in response with sharpened teeth, as though his true self is fighting the lycanthropic instincts that are raging inside of him. He's aching for a release he can't quite name. He feels hot and jittery all over. Blood is pulsing through his body at the speed of light to his hefty cock, and his balls clench tightly as the delicate, earthy scent of your ovulation hits him like a train.

You recognize his voice, though deeper now thanks to the transformation; it's very much the same one that belongs to your beloved Kento.

"I said: get back." He snarls, claws curling into fists. "I c-can't promise that I won't hurt you."

"Let me look at you."

Your eyes rake over him some more and your conclusion is supported with further evidence of his scars on his left side that peek out from under his fur, his musk wafting from him mixed with vetiver from being out in the rain, consistent with the Kento you know as your husband. The limpid pool of chestnut in his good eye shines intensely despite the curse that's taken hold of him. This sets your mind at ease, and, despite your better judgement, you approach him even more despite his warnings for you to stay back.

"You're not going to hurt me, Ken..." You murmur calmly, keeping your breathing as even as you can, trying to figure out why you're experiencing a strange cocktail of emotions: fear, curiosity and...lust?

The biting air of the evening, the allure of moonlight, his effortless beauty that seemed to stay preserved in whatever form he took on, highlighting it even, with his formidable physique and body hair leaves you feeling quite aroused.

He senses the change in your pheromones. If your ovulation wasn't dangerous enough, the fact that you're getting wet from seeing him like this makes his self control snap like a twig. He grabs you and rips the bosom of your dress open with one of his canines, sending your buttons flying into the air and your coat discarded at your feet.

"Sorry." He grumbles before he goes right back to tearing it off, your breasts spilling free as he lays you down on the ground next to your fruit trees.

You chuckle at a little bit of his normal self coming through despite the changes. Kento's always had a dominant side to him in intimacy, but not quite so charged like this.

"Kento..." You moan for him as you lay there in the grass, completely bare. You want this just as much as he does. The dreary aftermath of the rain makes the night rather chilly, your nipples perk softly as your back arches and your legs fall open for him, silver moonlight wistfully beaming over the glittering slick painting your plush thighs already.

Kento doesn't waste any time, his breath is heavy and hot at your entrance as he devours you. The warm gooey muscle in his mouth smearing all over your folds is nothing short of filthy. His grunts increase in greed and sloppyiness as he delves between them, lapping wetly at your pussy until a shiny mess of velvety slick drips down his jaw. His claws and canines leave tiny knicks on your thighs, drawing blood.

Without a second thought, he licks up the blood droplets, his hot tongue glazes over the puncture marks to soothe you, hoping that they'll heal into little scars as a sign of possession afterwards that he can marvel at every time he goes down on you.

The pain heats into desire at the sight of him swallowing your blood, which then ignites to something more raw and gutteral, feeling the intrinsic tie inside your soul that's intertwined with his irrevocably tighten.

It's never just about fucking Kento; it runs so deeply that words fail it every single time.

His face is bathed in your love with a soft gush, dribbling down while the melody of his name is tucked in the echoes from the wind that rustles the trees. He gathers your thighs before he yanks your pussy back against his tongue with no warning.

You can usually cum twice in his mouth and still have enough energy to take his cock, but you're completely spent by this point.

"Kento, please.... can't...." You raise your trembling hands, trying to cradle his jaw and tug his face away by combing your fingers through his ruffled tresses of golden hair but if anything, it leaves him more ravenous than before.

"No. Need to make sure you can take me..."

"B-but...ohhhh" Your head falls back against the earth as his heady tongue starts swirling and prodding your clit, dragging through web after web of milky slick.

He lifts your calves so they're straddling his shoulders, making an escape impossble. Orgasm after orgasm is pulled out of you like the most salacious thread. Your throbbing cunt leaks your nectar between spasms and angelic breaths in countless succession that you lost track of eventually.

Kento looks down at you, baptized in a flushed expression that's left you sweaty and utterly wrecked with your hair windswept by passion, scratch marks on your thighs from where he marked you, his necklace balanced perfectly like a blooming flower between your breasts as he lines up his cock with your slit that's raining like morning dew.

His tip is wet and silky with precum and you immediately realize why he needed to make you cum so much. The transformation made his staggering size even bigger. It stands impossibly thick and leathery from the enormous bush of dark hair. The buildup of cum soaking his girth helps him slide in the tip.

Unabashed moans leave both you at that first sensation of him gliding inside you, the sticky drag of his cock against your pulsing walls you both were craving. But, past his tip, you begin to feel the aching stretch of his shaft as he splits you open.

"Aah...baby, so big."

Kento sucks on your breasts without another word, nipping his tongue and teeth around your nipples as he feeds your pussy more of his cock.

Once you're completely full, warm, soft and stretched and dripping around him, he thrusts, hard and deep without warning. The flow of your juices makes him slide in and out perfectly, the veins and curve work flawlessly together as they nuzzle and stroke your g spot and clit with every movement.

"Kento...fuck, just like that, right there..."

You cling to him and moan out his name like broken prayers to a God that's not listening, letting him rut and use your pussy as a reservoir to drain all his cum.

When he finally does, it's absolutely overwhelming, rivulets weeping down your thighs in sinful white trails. His cock doesn't soften, instead, he thrusts shallowly, catching any of the cum he can't stuff back inside you on his fingers.

"Suck them." He whispers, tapping on your bottom lip.

He only waits a millisecond before you do. He's salty and warm, the potent scent nearly makes your eyes roll back as you taste him.

The sight of tears of pleasure in your eyelashes like a garden of stars drives Kento insane, he rolls back his hips with one squelching, sopping motion, before he slams into you and begins to fuck you hard and deep again. A heavy pressure vibrates deep inside you, pressing against the pliant, sensitive spot in your walls. Pleasure and panic intensify, warm and slow until it thumps faster and faster.

"Kento!"

"Stay with me. Doing so well...my wife, my wife..." He mumbles over and over as the knot swells to completion, locking him inside you.

He holds you in his arms, completely sweaty and spent, filled and dripping beyond satisfaction to the point where you're wrecked from overstimulation.

You shiver and he holds you close, his knotted cock still snuggled securely inside your silky pussy. His body is so hot to the touch that it banishes any thoughts of the lingering October chill. He lays with you in the grass while you're still connected, allowing you to use his warmth like a blanket. He cradles your head and you kiss the fading scratch on his bicep.

"I love you..." He murmurs into your hair as the intensity of the curse begins to wane, the moon less prominent in the sky.

"I love you more."

A trip to Tokyo will be in order to allow Shoko to use her reverse cursed technique to remove the werewolf afflicting Kento. But, for now, sleep calls for you both among the clearing haze of desire like a lullaby. Thin cracks of marigold and dandelion threaten the boldness of indigo as the earliest hours of morning begin to break.

"Do you mind, darling?"

You shake your head no with a sleepy smile, murmuring reciprocations of Kento's love as the kiss you give him pushes you out to the sea of dreams, tasting remnants of your tang on his tongue that caresses that warming feeling in your belly.

You let him use his knot to tenderly fuck and fill you with his cum as many times as he needs to until the spell of sleep finally pulls him under to blissful slumber by your side, watched over by the willows and the raindrops that stayed locked in the grey clouds overhead.

—---

The first time you met James Buchanan Barnes, on what you thought would be a random Monday afternoon, he appraised you in a way that shook you to the core, those ocean blue eyes looking into your soul. You felt as if he were evaluating a piece of art as he gazed at you across his desk. 

You couldn’t know that he felt the exact same way. 

His eyes never strayed from your face as he shook your hand, but he’d noticed every bit of you as you entered his gallery, Rebirth. You were more stunning than any piece of art that he’d ever curated in the space.

While nothing like his normal type, you made Bucky feel as if he’d been so wrong about so much in his life the moment you entered his orbit. He had to get to know you to find what he’d been missing.

This afternoon you were a sight to behold and serving body. Although you were covered from neck to shin in an elegant sheath dress, the high, wrapped waist was giving all of your bounteous curves up to whoever glanced at you. And you had heads turning.

Steve, Sam, and even Natasha craned their necks to watch you as you entered Bucky’s office. And he could have sworn that Nat’s neck was at a 90 degree angle as she watched you leave her desk just outside his door.

You were fine as hell.

Bucky was entranced by dreams of handling your curves and making you smile at him forever.

As Bucky dreamed, you admired the man in front of you. Tall, dark, and handsome, Barnes wasn’t a young man, but the gray in his beard and the crinkles around his eyes made him that much more attractive. 

Even more attractive than in the paparazzi pics of him with various young models and actresses of the moment, waifs and ingénues with whom he was never photographed twice.

You just knew you were safe from any advances from him.

You thought.

“Enchanté, Ms. Y/LN. It is a pleasure to meet you."

Bucky lowered his head as he greeted you, a slight bow and extended his hand to his desk. You noticed the tattoo that started on his hand and seemed to go up his sleeve and went in the direction he pointed.

"You know, you are quite tenacious. I don’t take many meetings with potential buyers. But all of my people told me that I should.”

The silk of his voice, the unexpected tenor of it, and the way he took your hand made you shiver at the aura of experience that he gave off.

The word Daddy floated around in your mind for a moment until he invited you to sit.

You had to concentrate on the business at hand, that of negotiating for a piece of art for the Art and Culture Center in Brownsville, of which you were the director. The purchase was made possible by benefactors to commemorate a deceased Brownsville artist who became famous, then forgotten, during the Harlem Renaissance.

“You’ve made it past Ms. Romanoff, my gallerist, Mr. Wilson, my business manager, and Mr. Rogers, my gallery director, Ms. Y/LN. What makes you think that I’m going to give you a different answer? Letting that piece go for the price you’ve proposed is not a good business move.”

“You can’t afford to miss out on this opportunity, Mr. Barnes. Yes, you will be taking a loss on the artwork, but you will be on the ground floor of a major rediscovery. You will be known as one of the few who helped to resurrect the brilliance of the artist Howard Benson. You can be the Alice Walker to his Zora Neale Hurston.”

And that is when Bucky leaned back in his chair, astounded at your shrewd calculation.

“I love the way your mind works, Ms. Y/LN.”

You smiled and settled back into your chair, causing Bucky to shift in his chair. He wanted to be buried in you. He appraised and decided that he liked the pout that changed your lips almost as much as the smile that initially greeted him when he replied, “But that price is still unacceptable.”

You raised an adorable eyebrow at him and rose to the challenge that he lay at your feet ready to tangle with the inimitable James Barnes. The conversation stretched from early afternoon to dinner time, making you suspect that Barnes was drawing it out for some reason. You matched him, point for point, until it was dark. But he yielded no ground.

The conversation was intellectual foreplay: art history, sociology, american politics. And it was the most stimulated you’d been in a while. 

You could do this all night.

Your phone buzzed and you looked down. There were several text messages and emails lighting up your screen. You’d been in deep with Barnes for hours. It was after 6 pm. It seemed like only minutes. You noticed that it was only you and Bucky left in the gallery and rose to excuse yourself, albeit reluctantly.

“Oh! I’m sorry to keep you so long. I’m sure that you must have plans.”

You’d done your research and you knew that there was probably someone little more than half Barnes’ age waiting for him. When you searched social media, there was a sighting or spotted every month or so of Bucky and a young, beautiful woman.

You reached for your coat, but Bucky was behind you in seconds, taking it from you and helping you put it on. You shivered at his breath at your throat and his hands on your collarbone as he draped the lapels over your neck. His deep chuckle made your stomach flip. He saw right through you.

“No one is waiting for me but my cat, Alpine. How about you, Ms. YLN? Anyone waiting for you in Brownsville?”

“Not tonight. No.”

Why in the world were you doing the sultry whisper thing? This man didn’t want you. 

Did he?

You cleared your throat and you felt dizzy when you looked up and saw how close he was standing to you. Those eyes and the smile that graced his handsome face had you warm, but the way he licked his lips had you spiraling.

Bucky pushed down a mild sense of panic that someone might be expecting you some other night, but that was irrational. Competition never ever entered his mind when he talked to other women. 

What was happening here?

“Well I would consider myself extremely fortunate and would be honored if we could continue this conversation over dinner.”

—-

The way James Barnes turned your meeting into a dinner date had your head spinning, but the wonderful conversation and easy, light hearted banter eased your mind. As soon as the first course was served at your table at dinner at Bohemian, he agreed to your initial price.

From there, once the terms were settled, the conversation turned to more personal questions, each of you sharing the stories of your life in your town, his childhood in Romania, your childhood in Brooklyn, and lots of funny stories.

At one point early in the night, Bucky stopped you from calling him Mr. Barnes.

“Please. Call me James. Or you could call me Bucky. My Friends call me Bucky. For my middle name, Buchanan. Bucky is short for Buchanan.”

Bucky found himself rambling. He had not been this nervous in a while.

You looked at him quizzically. At that moment, he would give you anything you were about to ask of him.

“Do you have a lot of friends? I mean, do a lot of people call you Bucky?“

Godamn, the husk in your voice, those lips, those eyes. Everything about you was about to set him on fire.

“I have a few who are in my close circle. Natasha, Steve, Sam. They and a very few others call me Bucky. Most people I speak with call me Mr. Barnes...”

You nodded slowly, licking your lips, making Bucky feel it in his cock.

“Then I will call you James.”

He got your subtle meaning. You wanted to be different. 

And you were. So very different.

After almost five hours of the best conversation and laughter, he proposed another time for you two to meet before the week was up, on Friday. He had made it clear at dinner that now that business was concluded that he wanted to spend time with you.

Friday night would be a date, the second one at his insistence.

You debated that fact as his driver took you home, even up until he walked you to the door of your brownstone.

He leaned against your doorframe and checked you out as you retrieved your keys from your purse. When you turned and caught him looking, you gasped, causing him to straighten up and move toward you, eyes dilated.

“It will be our second date,” you conceded.

Bucky’s mouth curled into a smirk as he grabbed your hand and lifted it to his mouth. Your soul burned as he pressed his lips to your palm. It was like the hint of a drug in your veins and you wanted so much more.

“What made you change your mind?”

That voice. Did you have a voice kink? Good lord.

You flushed, both at the images that were racing through your mind, and at the arbitrary three date rule you’d made up a while ago. Why was that again?

You cleared your throat.

“Because of the way you are looking at me, James. And the fact that you just kissed me.”

“Is this a kiss?”

“Ummhmmmm.”

You hummed as Bucky raised his eyebrow and your hand again. This time, he brushed his lips against your wrist and inhaled the perfume lingering there. You were about to melt.

Bucky didn’t even know what he was doing. The next step in his mind was to open his mouth and consume you, but he opened his eyes and spied you looking at him in that way, and he knew he had to stop. He didn’t want this to be like all of his other conquests.

He straightened up, but didn’t let go of your hand, entangling your fingers together. 

“You are correct, Y/N. In my mind, this is a date. I am interested in you, for more than just your taste in art. I hope that this is the first date of many.”

You were bowled over at his straightforwardness. It was not what you were used to. This was a man, not a boy in mens clothing.

“I appreciate your honesty, James.”

You went on tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek, your lips lingering on the black and grey stubble so close to his lips. You turned around, giving him a view of your backside as you opened your door.

“And your ambition.”

You gave him that smile again with a wink, and your “Goodnight, James,” floated up to him on cloud nine.

——-

Let me know if you liked it!

“Hey… Y/N…

“I just wanna start this off by saying that I’m sorry. I know that this is a conversation that’s best done face to face… but I’m clearly too much of a coward to do that.

“I wanna break off the engagement. I don’t know where things started to go bad, but I feel that it’s best to end things now rather than go through the whole ceremony, when you and I both know that the marriage isn't going to last. It isn’t fair to me, and it certainly isn’t fair to you. 

“I’ll be spending the next couple of days at my folks place. I’ll come back over tomorrow to start moving my stuff out. And don’t worry about telling our friends and family. I’ll explain everything to them. It’s my mess, and I’ll do my best to clean it up. 

“I pray that you find someone that can commit to you and cherish you the way that you deserve to be cherished. I just—can’t be that person for you.

“Again… I’m really sorry—for letting this go on for so long, for essentially leading you on… I’m just… really sorry.”

A fucking voicemail? That’s all that he left you? 

Didn’t you deserve a little bit more respect than that? 

The engagement ring that nestled and imprinted itself onto the skin of your left ring finger began to feel more and more prominent, almost becoming painful to you, as the reality of the situation truly began to sink in.

You had been dumped. Plain and simple. 

Your relationship was now as dead as the leaves that had littered the ground, now it being deep into the season of autumn. 

The man that you thought that you were going to potentially spend the rest of your life with decided that you were no longer enough for him—and you may know why or you may not know why—but ultimately, it was a decision that was made by your fiance, now former, that had its consequences upon you and your already fragile state of being. 

You slowly lifted your head from the piece of jewelry on the counter, and meandered your way to where your shared bedroom was. With each step that you took, you felt like your body was moving through water with how slow your body moved. Your bedroom looked untouched for the most part, however, upon more careful examination, it appeared that your ex had cleared off most of his belongings on his half of the bed and the nightstand. Your eyes lacklusterly shifted from the bed to the double closet doors—with heavy hands, you slowly turned the knobs only to reveal that the majority of their half of the closet had also been cleaned out as well, with only a handful of shirts still attached to hangers and a couple of folded pants still remaining on the shelves—your half remained as it was when you had last saw it this morning. 

Your hands slowly slid down the frames of the doors beside you, a shuddering breath escaping you as you continued to look into the near barren space; a whisper of a defeated sigh escaped from your lips as your head dipped down ever so slightly. 

Your heart sank into your stomach and your chest caved inward. A lump had arisen in the back of your throat and a strangled gasp escaped from you as you nearly staggered forward into the enclosed space. 

You knew this was coming. You shouldn’t be upset. 

Tears burned in your eyes, threatening to spill over—your trunk curled forward, forcing you out of an upright position and rendering you to your hands and knees as a guttural sob ripped itself from the deepest crevices of your soul. You swiped away at the tears that managed to successfully stream down your face with the back of your hand; the shame burned itself deep within your chest, making you feel as if you were extremely small.

You knew this was coming. You shouldn’t be upset.

Why are you crying?

The subtle and gentle touch of a hand with its fingers splayed out as it tenderly pressed itself to your backside brought you back to the present.

A soft, velvet voice rumbled behind you. “What has you so upset, little one?”

You slowly craned your head over your shoulder to see a perfectly tailored beige suit, perfectly side parted and styled blonde hair, and carmine eyes that nearly glowed in the darkened atmosphere of your room. 

Kento. 

You sniffled and a staggered attempt at an inhale to try and calm yourself down sounded from you. “A lot… a lot of things,” you meekly whimpered. Your eyes drifted past to see that the window had been broken into from the outside, the curtains that hung from the sides of the frame gently blowing into the room from the evening, autumn breeze. “I thought I told you to use the front door, I can’t have the neighbors thinking that I’m getting my house broken into,” you scolded as you used the sleeve of your shirt to wipe away at your face. “What are you even doing here, anyways?”

He looked sheepish for a moment, before regaining his composure. “I was in the neighborhood, and I heard you crying. I thought that you were hurt.” 

You hung your head. “I don’t think that you can mend this one, Kento.”

He shuffled around you to where he squatted down to your level. With a tender grip, he grasped his hands around your arms to pull your attention back to his face. The red irises bore into yours. “What happened?” Kento asked—almost a coo, if you wished it to be. 

Your face crumpled and your voice cracked, once again overwhelmed with emotion. “He broke off the engagement,” you wailed as you covered your face with your hands. “Left the ring on the counter in the kitchen, and all. He didn’t even have the guts to tell it to my face, all he left me was a goddamn voice mail!” You nearly spat out the last part, rage now flooding through you as the sadness subsided for just a moment. 

Through your emotionally charged state, Kento merely gathered you into his arms and pulled you into him, allowing you to rest your head against his chest and listen to the steady rate of his controlled breathing. Though, truthfully speaking, he shouldn’t be anywhere near you, at the current moment. Kento, while he was in the area, didn’t just stop by to be with you—he was off to find his next meal. It had been at least a month since he had last fed and his throat was burning with thirst. The thrumming of your heart, the rushing of your blood in your veins and arteries that he could easily visualize with his heightened senses—all were a sirens song to his ears. 

And your scent? By god, your scent. 

An aroma so mouthwatering and enticing, that he could feel the venom start to pool within his salivary glands. It was as if he were being presented with a meal so luxurious and plentiful, but he hadn’t been given any permission to eat it.  

It’s a shame that the meal in question was a fragile, little human that had somehow managed to worm their way into his favor and endearment.

What a cruel irony, really. 

A subtle bloodlust began to make itself known in Kento’s subconscious, but he quickly beat it back to the best of his ability. He would not harm you. He’s come to care for you far too much to do any sort of nefarious dealings to you.

Your ex, however… well, that might end up being a different thing, entirely. 

The bell rang above the front entrance door to the cafe, signifying to you and your coworkers that a customer had just entered the shop. 

At first, you were confused. It was nearing eight o’clock at night and the cafe was nearing to close its operations for the day. You hardly got any customers at this time of night. 

While attempting to dredge the counter with flour so that you could roll out and shape the next batch of dough, you looked up to see quite literally the most handsome man that you ever had the pleasure of laying your eyes on. He easily could have been a top tier male model on the cover of a Vogue magazine, for all you knew. 

“Welcome in, sir. How may I assist you today?” you greeted, wiping your hands off with the excess flour that coated them, keeping your voice light and cheery, all while trying to fight off the exhaustion that plagued you. You were seven hours in a ten hour shift and you had yet to receive your break—both your feet and your back ached something fierce. 

“Hello.” Goddamn, even his voice was alluring. “May I please order just a small black coffee?” 

You punched the order into the register. “Anything else that you would like, sir?”

“No, thank you. That will be all,” he said, reaching one hand into his suit jacket to pull out his wallet.

“Alright. The total will come out to $1.49.”

With the exact change handed to you, you could feel his stare on you as you inputted the money into the register. Normally, you wouldn’t have given it a second thought, but the customers that came into the cafe often weren’t devastatingly beautiful, either. You could feel your face start to heat up just a touch, and your hands beginning to shake—wait, were you becoming shy? 

Nonetheless, you carried on. “Would you like your receipt?” 

A small, courteous smile was offered to you. “No, thank you.”

“I should have it out to you in a few minutes. You’re more than welcome to take a seat.” You gestured to the near empty seating area with an open palm. 

“Aren’t you going to take my name?” the handsome stranger prodded, slightly arching an eyebrow at you.

You paused, slightly caught off guard by the question. He was the only customer in the shop right now, why on earth would you need to take down his name? “Uh… sure,” you balked, “... can I take your name for your order?” 

That small, courteous smile then formed into a chuckle, like he was being told a funny joke. “Kento Nanami.” 

“Alright… Kento, I’ll call your name when your coffee is ready.” 

“Thank you.”

Wasting no time, you immediately turned to the automatic coffee drip and started to brew up a fresh pot for him. Throwing in a coffee filter, you leaned down to grab the opened bag of coffee grounds before the man named Kento began to strike up a conversation with you. 

“The ring that you’re wearing is very beautiful,” he commented, nodding his head to the engagement ring that sat on your left ring finger. 

“Hm?” You glanced over your shoulder to give him a halfhearted smile. “Oh, thank you.”

“Are you engaged, by chance?”

Your hands remained busy as you filled the brewer with water and coffee grounds. “I am, in fact. I’ve been engaged since the start of February of this year. My fiancé actually proposed to me on Valentine’s Day, if you can believe that,” you chuckled, trying to recall fondly upon the memory—but, matter of fact, it wasn’t a pleasant one, at all. 

On that day, when you had come home from working a double shift, hoping to find either a hot, homecooked meal prepared, a box of chocolates, or at the very least a bouquet of flowers… only to find your fiance dead asleep on the couch, with several empty bottles of alcohol surrounding him. You only happened to find the ring, by chance, on the dining room table when you went into the kitchen to make yourself something to eat. 

You fought back the bitterness that rose in your chest at the notion of having your marriage proposal feel somewhat “cheated”—and this apparently didn’t go unnoticed on your face, either. 

“Is something the matter?” Kento asked, his smile faltering slightly. “I hope that I haven’t prodded too much.”  

“No.” Your eyes don’t leave the carafe as it slowly filled with each drop of a freshly brewed pot. “You didn’t. I promise.” 

“You seem upset.”

“I’m not. I swear.” Your voice is curt, clearly indicating otherwise, and you hoped that Kento doesn’t push any further. 

Thankfully, he didn’t. 

You poured the hot liquid into a 12 ounce cup, quickly capping it with a plastic lid. You turned and presented him with his drink. “Kento? Kento Nanami?” you called out, like he wasn’t standing directly in front of you. 

“Funny,” Kento playfully replied, reaching forward to grab the cup from your outstretched hand. His fingers brushed against yours as he took the cup from you, and you could have sworn that he purposefully held his hand there for just a second longer than he normally should have—like he wanted to maintain physical contact with you. He brings the cup back to the center of his chest, before asking you another question. “Do you have a date set for your wedding?” 

You gave him a tight lipped smile—you really wished that he would stop asking you about it. “No. Not yet, at least,” you answered, trying to twist the truth around to where it didn’t seem like your fiance was disengaged in your relationship as he truly was, “seems that every time that we try to sit down and actually discuss it… life seems to get in the way of things.” 

“Mmm…” Kento mused, glancing down at the cup for just a moment, then glancing back up to your gaze. “Well, when it does end up happening, I’m sure that the ceremony will be beautiful.” 

Before you could utter another word, he swiftly turned around and exited the cafe to go into late summer night, leaving you with a confused expression. Within that same minute, you watched as Kento, mere feet away from the entrance of the cafe, uncapped the cup that you just made him and completely dumped the rest of it onto the ground and tossed the rest of the contents into a nearby public waste bin.

You stood in disbelief at the sight of freshly, hot coffee staining the ground before briskly turning back around to the preparation counter to continue working with the pastry dough letting out an annoyed huff as you did so. 

If he didn’t want the fucking coffee, then why bother you to make a new pot for him to begin with?!

What a dick move, you thought to yourself before angrily kneading the dough with both hands.

Unbeknownst to you, Kento let out a soft chuckle as he could hear how irritated you were with him. Truth be told, he hadn’t intended to go into the little café that sat on the far corner of the street that he was traversing on. He was simply passing through when his eyes landed on you as you quietly worked. The way that the sweat coated your skin, how stray strands of baby hairs wisped near or around your face. 

Kento wasn’t sure why, but it was a simple beauty about you that he found himself allured to. 

And when he actually stepped into the cafe, and caught a whiff of your scent?

Yeah, he was hooked.

He wanted to see you again. He would see you again. He was absolutely sure of it.

For whatever strange reason, in the reaches of his soulless existence… he wanted to get closer to you. He could tell that you were unhappy about your relationship when you seemed to talk about it. Maybe your fairytale prince isn’t all cracked up to be, he cynically thought. 

No matter. He would eventually find out the truth. 

Kento, trying to be cognizant of your shaking form, slid his arms under your body before lifting you off the ground to place you in an upright position at the very end of the bed. With the inhuman quickness that wasn’t visible to your naked eye, he darted to the connected bathroom where a box of tissues awaited him. Grabbing the box, he ripped out several sheets before he suddenly apparated in front of you—the sudden appearance nearly making you jump out of fright. 

He lowly shushed you as you kneeled down in front of you, using one of the tissues to wipe away at the wetness that coated your cheeks. His heart—if it could beat—hurt for you, truly it did.

You had eventually calmed yourself down enough to where your sobs had momentarily stilled, but you still avoided his gaze, eyelashes soaked with the tears that escaped your eyes as the sadness returned once again to the forefront of your mind—now all that remained was the grief. Grief for how much of your time was wasted, how much effort you put into the relationship to try and make it work… only for it to end up blowing up in your face.

Kento could tell that you were starting spiral as meekly sat before him. “Look at me,” he gently commanded, willing you to raise your head to meet him half way, somewhat. 

You slowly raised your eyes to meet Kento’s concerned ones. 

“It was extraordinarily disrespectful and cowardly of your… of him… to not tell you that he wanted to end things with you directly to your face. You didn’t deserve that, and I’m sorry that things ended up that way,” Kento started off with, using the tissue to now dab away at your eyes, “but you weren’t happy with him. Anyone with eyes could see that… hell, even I figured that out within the first few moments of meeting you.” He used his other free hand to cup the other side of your face, his thumb gently stroking along your cheekbone in soothing motions. “If you had gone through with marrying him, you would have even ended up even more unhappy than you already were to begin with.” 

Your bottom lip trembled, as another sob threatened to bubble over from within your chest as Kento spoke to you—but these were words that you needed to hear, regardless. 

It was true, to say the least. You were unhappy with him, but you had hoped against hope that if you chose to stay with him through thick and thin and look through all of his imperfections that things would eventually change; turns out you were dead wrong.

It was like clockwork at this point. 

Kento would, quite literally, come into the cafe eight o’clock on the dot every single night and would order a single small black coffee every single time. 

And every single time, you would be the person to ring him up and serve him his order.

At first, you kept it cordial, even though you found it to be incredibly irksome that he would constantly dump out the contents of your hard labor; he would often ask you questions about your life, what you liked, what you disliked, etc. You thought that it was odd, why he was so inquisitive and incessant to keep poking into your life, and just… well, damn near everything about you. 

Some would find it obsessive. You didn’t. 

You felt ashamed to admit this to yourself, but you actually liked the attention that he gave you; even when you had pledged your heart and loyalties to another that seemed to not care about you.

Some days, especially the bad ones where the insecurities would whisper into your consciousness, you don’t think that he even liked you, anymore.  

“Okay, do I really need to brew up a new pot every single time that you come in if you’re just going to dump it out on the street the second that you step foot out of the shop?” you huffed as you held onto the handle of the empty carafe, now completely doing away with formalities. “It’s extremely wasteful and I don’t know why you keep spending your money here if you keep doing that.”

He stared at you, amusement coloring his features. His hands were tucked away into the pockets of his suit jacket, standing in front of you in a relaxed manner. “It’s not my fault that the coffee pot is empty by the time I get in here,” he chuckled, the skin around his eyes crinkling as he smiled at you. “Do you find it annoying that I do that?” 

“Kind of, yeah!” you almost snapped. You whipped around and shoved the carafe back into the pot holder. “I feel like it’s a complete waste of my time and your money.”

He let out a low hum as he pursed his lips together into a fine line, cocking his head to the side; seemingly debating whether or not to tell you the truth of the matter on why he continued to visit the cafe. A light shrug from his shoulders settled before it appeared that he made his decision. 

Alright, then. A half truth, he decided. 

“Needed an excuse to keep coming back, I suppose.” 

You glanced at him over your shoulder, a skeptical eyebrow raised at his response, before turning back to the coffee machine to brew up another pot where you knew some of it would inevitably end up on the ground outside. “And what is that, exactly?”

“To keep seeing you.” 

Your motions stopped and you stood up straight. You sharply executed a one eighty degree turn, your expression serious and your jaw set. Your voice is stern as you continued, “There better not be any ulterior motives to that statement—and if there is, then that’s highly inappropriate. I’m engaged, and I know that you know that.” 

It was always a sore spot in your conversations whenever your engagement would come up—Kento could tell with the way that your face tightened and your answers became shorter and more terse. You knew that it was wrong to be so enraptured with another man when you were already in a years-long relationship with your fiance. 

“Engaged to a man that can’t even do the bare minimum for his partner?” 

You reeled back at Kento’s response, gawking at him in astonishment. “Excuse me? Who in the hell are you to comment on whether or not my fiancé makes me happy?”

“A man that, according to you, may have ulterior motives.” A smirk formed on his face, finding enjoyment out of how much he was riling you up at the moment. “Listen, I may not hold any significance in your life, but I find it incredibly hard to believe that I, an individual that you’ve known for little less than a month, knows more about you than a man that you claim that you have been in a relationship with for the past three years.” He looked down at his shoes, before scoffing. “It’s kind of sad, really.”

Now, you were angry. “My… my fiance knows me!” you cried out, borderlining on a whine. 

“I doubt it.” His eyes glanced back up to you, and this is where you truly got to see the blood red that colored his irises, startling you. “He stopped trying a long time ago, and he doesn’t change because he knows that you’ll still keep crawling back to him with every incompetent mistake that he makes.” 

You raised your eyebrows at him, completely speechless. 

“He’s fine with the status quo because you have never indicated otherwise.” He pulled out one of his hands from his pockets to pull out his wallet to dig out a paper bill. “I think the saddest thing, however, in this whole… debacle, if you will…” you watched as he put a $50 bill into the tip jar to the side of the register, “is that you know it—and you continue to tolerate it.” 

You stared at him in disbelief as he essentially called you out on your bullshit—read you to absolute filth; you were stunned, actually. There was a moment of silence that passed as you continued to stare at him, left speechless. You didn’t even react when the automatic drip machine beeped behind you, signifying that the pot had finished brewing—you couldn’t, really. 

He lifted his free hand to point past you. “The coffee’s done.” 

Another pregnant pause, and then you felt your jaw jut out just slightly as you robotically turned back around to grab the hot carafe off the warming plate before pouring it into another 12 ounce cup. You damn near had to stop yourself from throwing it directly in his face as you capped it with the lid and placed it on the counter in front of him. 

Kento’s eyes flitted down to the cup, then back up to you. “Listen, I don’t say these things to be either rude or hurtful.” To some extent, he was being truthful. He really wasn’t trying to be ill mannered, but someone had to say it, and you clearly weren’t paying attention to the situation as it unfolded before you. “I say these things because you need to hear them. Either, someone tells you now—or you end up in a dead end marriage… or worse yet, you go through divorce court and wind up drowning in legal fees. Lawyers aren’t cheap, as I’m sure you’re aware.” 

Your eyes fell from his to the register—subtle embarrassment burning in the pit of your stomach as Kento defended himself, while also offering you morsels of comfort where he could. He wasn’t the first to tell you this, but you were too stubborn to admit otherwise. 

Now it just stung. It stung how much a complete stranger could blatantly pick up on how disconnected both you and your fiance were from each other; it was humiliating, really. 

Kento was somewhat able to pick up on the internal debate that you were having with yourself, and urged his voice to be a touch softer. He leaned his head down to try and catch your gaze, “Aren’t you deserving of someone who treats you well and actually puts in the effort, not just into the relationship, but into you, as well?” 

A beat of silence passed, as you continued to stare down the register; shame had long replaced the flash of anger that you held towards Kento. You couldn’t bring yourself to look him in the eye or even utter another word to him, especially after he denounced your entire engagement and the quality of relationship that you had with your partner. 

He sighed, and picked the cup of coffee off the counter, and stalked off to the exit. He paused momentarily, before he craned his head to look at you from over his shoulder. “I meant what I said, by the way. Every single word.”

You still don’t respond. 

He sucked in another breath. “Do with that what you will.” He pushed the door open and the bell rang above, but stopped himself, once again. “I’ll be sure to give this to someone on the street if they desire to have it.” 

Kento disappeared into the night, an unfamiliar feeling of longing filling his chest with each step that he took—that took him further and further away from you. The small intrigue that he had upon you, now manifesting itself into full blown attraction. He found himself enamored with you, with every interaction that he had with you.

With each thought of you, it further brought upon the limerence that seduced him even to a length that he knew was unhealthy. His throat burned with thirst, the monstrous side that he did his absolute best to keep dormant reared its ugly head—desperate to make itself known.

Kento would not scare you off; it was apparent that he had become attached to you… but there was going to come a point where he knew that it was going to reveal itself to you. 

He hoped, for both his sake and yours, that it wouldn’t develop into anything further.

Oh, how wrong he was. 

You sucked in a deep breath in hopes of it stabilizing you to prevent you from reducing yourself back to sobbing again. You unintentionally leaned your face into the palm of his hand, seeking out some form of physical affection that you had long been starved of—the kind where it offered warmth and comfort and not just out of pure lust and wanton need. 

You couldn’t even recall a time where even your ex had provided you with nonsexual affection; now that you pondered upon it, it seemed that the only time that he ever wanted anything to do with you was when he wanted to fuck you. Just a body to get his fill and then move on to the next thing—like you were just an object instead of his lover. 

Genuinely, when was the last time that someone had actually put forth your pleasure and your satisfaction above theirs? 

Kento’s throat, now completely on fire, ached with a fury as he settled his eyes upon the pulsating throb of your carotid artery within the juncture of your neck and your shoulder; his pupils dilated, now almost overtaking his irises. If he were a rabid dog, he would have been foaming at the mouth by now, he was absolutely sure of it. Kento inhaled a shuttered breath, now attempting to regain some semblance of self control within himself. 

You were not his meal. You were not his meal, goddammit. 

“Kento?”

Your voice ripped him out of his inattention, now drawing his focus back onto you. You still looked like a wreck, your face swollen and your eyes bloodshot, but at least you weren’t crying anymore. “Yes?” Jesus Christ, even his voice sounds parched. 

You looked at him rather meekly, as your eyes darted off to a spot within a far corner of the room, suddenly finding yourself too bashful to even look him in the eyes anymore. Your shoulders rose as you curled into yourself, appearing to him like you were both mentally and physically preparing yourself for something. 

There was a beat of silence before a mousy question pierced the air with the weight of a thousand tons, striking the oxygen out of Kento’s lungs as his ears registered it.

“Can you touch me?” 

A million thoughts fluttered through his mind at the thought of it, both the id and the superego of his consciousness now coming to play. For the past several months, all he’s wanted was you. He knew that he could treat you a thousand times better than what your piece of shit ex ever could, that much was blatantly obvious to anyone that bore witness to it—if it were up to him, you would have never had to beg for tenderness and devotion to begin with. 

However, as it stood right now, with you in his arms and with everything that had unfolded… it wouldn’t have been acceptable for Kento to take advantage of you while you were still in such an emotionally fragile and heightened state. He may consider himself to be an abomination that shouldn’t exist, but he still was a gentleman, after all. 

“No, little one. We shouldn’t.” His voice is jagged, and he doesn’t believe it himself when he  says it. “It wouldn’t be fair to do that-”

“Why?!” you bawled, frustration evident in your tone, and the tears threatening to burn in your eyes once more. With rationality somewhat still cognizant, you had a feeling that it was because of how sensitive and fraught you were—but rationality was the last thing on your mind right now. All that consumed you was the skewed thought of how unlovable you thought you were, even though it was entirely untrue in Kento’s eyes. ”Why can’t it? I’m the one that’s asking here! I’m the one that’s consenting, goddamit!”

“Y/N, no, it’s not gonna happen.”

He would kill you if it progressed any further, he was sure of it.

“Please,” you all but begged, desperate for a validation that you felt only could have been remedied in a sexual nature; voicing a tone so pathetic and pitiful—that you’ve never, not once used it in your life before. Not with your family, and certainly not with him. You leaned your head against his, your eyes closed and prayed that you would somehow be able to change his mind. Your bottom lip trembled as you continued, “all I want is to feel something else other than this heartache that I’m drowning in and I know that you care for me more than you let on. It’s not fair of me to ask this of you, and I know that, but I just don’t care right now.”

The mere sight of you, eyes completely bloodshot, your bottom lip trembling, and your cheeks wet with tears once again, almost folded Kento’s abstainment. The way that you wailed and pleaded with him—God help him—sent lightning bolts of pleasure directly to his abdomen, his hardening member started to strain against the confinements of his slacks. He never thought of himself as the type of man to truly get off on the idea of someone crying and begging him, but apparently he was learning all sorts of new things about himself tonight. 

Kento could hear your heart rate spike in rhythm, increasing the systematic pumping of your arteries, which in turn, only served to worsen his bloodlust. He felt the canines of his upper jaw start to sharpen to a point in his mouth, both pools of saliva and venom filling his mouth, nearly salivating at the near sight, sound, and smell of you.

He can’t…

He shouldn’t…

He mustn't…

You looked at him once more, cupping his face with both of your hands, attempting now to bring his focus back onto you as he bore a thousand yard stare upon you.

“Please,” you whispered, throwing all caution to the wind as the sight of a very thirsty vampire displayed before you. “I know what I’m asking here… please.”

Your words registered, and the beast within stirred awake; if it wasn’t the way that your blood sang to Kento as his thirst threatened to consume him, then it certainly was how pathetic you were becoming for him. The part that existed inside of him when he had opened his eyes and breathed his first breath into his life as a freshly turned vampire. It was the part of him that he often tried to keep buried away deep within the confines of his subconsciousness. 

Give into it, it whispered, give it a taste. 

Kento sat back on the haunches of his feet, no longer allowing himself to touch you as his rationality and his morality toed a very fine line. 

You genuinely had no idea what you were asking of him right now. 

He screwed his eyes shut, eyebrows furrowed, his jaw set, and his breathing labored—making one last ditch attempt to try and appeal to his better angels for the very last time.

Your hand reached forward to place a hand to his cheek. “...Kento?” 

His eyes flashed open, an animalistic presence in place of the rationalized man that you knew so well. The fire burned his throat, and he was all but a slave to the monster inside of him at this point in time. 

Oh, damn it all to hell! it screamed at him, fed up with the indecisiveness of the host it claimed. 

Kento launched himself onto you, forcibly pushing you backwards back onto the bed. The frame slid backwards, nearly breaking against the wall due to sheer impact. The sudden change in positions made you gasp out loud, but you quickly found your mouth covered with Kento’s—both yours and his teeth clacking together and his tongue massaging against yours.

His hands gripped your pants and your underwear into his fists and with little to no effort on his part:

Rrrrriiiiiippppp

The clothes that covered your legs and your core were now long gone, leaving you utterly bare underneath him.

Your breath caught in your throat, gazing upon the man that towered above you, watching in complete awe of him. The ruby red eyes that you’ve come to find comfort and solace in blazed into the darkness of the night, darted from your face, all the way down to find your cunt completely soaked in your essence. His hands slid down the sides of your abdomen, his nails now lengthened to talons as it finally broke free from its enclosure, transforming him into the monster that he always feared would reveal itself one day; a shaky exhale sounded from his lips as the intoxicating sound of your erratic heart rhythm registered in his ears.

Badump.

Badump. 

Badump.

The quickened thumping is all that you heard as you sped walked on the city pavement—long into the late autumn night and the majority of people had gone home from work and were tucked away into their homes for the remainder of the night. 

The only person that was currently out right now was you… and a shadow that you had no claim to.

He’s been following you for a while now; ever since you closed up shop, his shadow is all that you’ve seen over your shoulder since you’ve tried to make the trek back home. He visited the cafe earlier in the day, but he lingered in the dining room and refused to leave until your manager essentially forced him out of the premises when it officially had reached closing time. He had hung around within proximity of the cafe, and that alone was enough to sound off the alarm bells inside your mind. 

Throughout the time that he had spent in the cafe, he watched you with lascivious eyes; it was enough to make you uncomfortable within the first five minutes of him looking at you through a lewd lens. You could feel his stare on you as you tried to go about your daily work duties, trying your absolute best to try and busy yourself with tasks to keep your mind occupied otherwise. Your mind couldn’t even wander because you were too acutely aware as he continued to look at you, and only you.

It was nothing like when Kento did it, you snidely thought to yourself. 

You had tried phoning your fiance to see if he could either pick you up or walk home with you—only to be sorely disappointed and slightly panic stricken when all of your calls ended up unreceived. It then dawned on you that he was hanging out with a group of friends that—to be frank—you weren’t exactly on friendly terms with. He never bothered to check his phone when he was out with them, no matter how many times you ended up getting on his case for it; not to be controlling, but just to be in contact with him if something happened to either you or him. 

For you, unfortunately, that something was happening right now.

You were the last to leave your place of work, as you normally were designated the closing shift on most nights that you were scheduled. Your phone was now dead after having tried numerous times to try and reach your fiancé, all to no avail.

The anxiety in your chest began to overwhelm you, your pace increasing from a fast paced walk to a light jog now. Even when you tried to increase your distance, it seemed that your shadow simultaneously did the same thing, as well. You sensed that he was nearly close enough to you to almost put a hand on your shoulder; you tensed yourself up, preparing your body to either break out into a sprint or be ready to fight the stranger, if necessary—only to feel and hear the sound of wind whipping behind you, the air biting at the back of your neck where your skin was exposed.

You swiveled around in a complete one eighty degree turn, expecting to come face to face with your assailant—only to find an empty street.

Your eyebrows furrowed, your respiration rate—that almost mimicked your heart rhythm in terms of erraticism—began to slow down,  your eyes darted from place to place, looking for your shadow as  slight confusion overtook the anxiety where it once held prominence in the forefront of your mind. The danger was gone… but where had it gone, you wondered.

People just don’t randomly disappear out of thin air; he was just here a second ago, and now he was gone just like that? 

“—no! Please, STOP!”

The hairs on the back of your neck became ramrod straight as the sound of someone begging came from one of the back alleyways, your hands shaking, and your mouth went as dry as the Sahara desert with the perturbation returning in full force. You still weren’t safe.

“I have a wife! I have children, PLEASE!”

You should have run. You should have immediately turned back around and booked it in the opposite direction, back to a home that you would find completely empty—and yet, against your better judgment, without a single thought or consideration for your own safety and regard, your body felt like lead as it slowly inched forward to the alleyway where you could hear the pleas coming from.

“I suppose that you should have thought of that before you decided to harass someone near and dear to me.” 

Your spine straightened when you heard another speak, your heart now in your throat. A voice that you knew all too well and had become familiar with, with each visit to the cafe that he had and each conversation that he struck up with you.

What in the world was Kento doing?

More importantly, what was he planning on doing?

Hidden behind the cover of the wall, you slowly peaked your head around the corner to watch the scene unveil itself before you. 

Within ten feet from you, you could see that your shadow was being held up against the wall with Kento’s hand at his throat, his feet dangling with mere inches off the ground. 

You could make out the figure of Kento as he bared a viscous front as he held the man hostage. It startled you to see him like this; the once kind, funny, sociable man that you had grown accustomed to was nowhere to be found in the man that was in the alleyway. Your bottom lip trembled, fraught at the sight of it. The way that he held the man at his throat with just one hand, strong enough to lift him off the ground and the way that you could see the devilish red glow from his eyes in the dark of the night—it frightened you, to say the least. 

Kento Nanami was not human. That much you had gathered. 

The man continued to struggle in his hold, gripping at his wrist with both of his hands and his feet swung back and forth—you could see that he was trying to scratch at Kento’s skin and well as try to aim his kicks at his chest, in hopes of landing a blow debilitating enough to try and wind him in order to secure him freedom and guarantee some form of escape. It was all for naught, however.

Kento just barely cocked his head to the side, like he was pondering something. “Hm… I suppose that it’s bad manners to play with my food.” 

At a breakneck speed that your eyes simply couldn’t even sense or comprehend, Kento, rather effortlessly, as it appeared to you, crushed the man’s trachea, cervical spine, and spinal cord with just one squeeze of his hand; the crunch that came from the sound of the vertebrae being disintegrated made you cower where you stood. The body fell limp within his grip, all signs of struggle… and life were now gone. 

The hum of a demonic growl pierced the air, and the next thing that you knew, his lips were at the dead man’s throat. His teeth sunk into the hollow, tearing away at a chunk of flesh before the blood began to ooze out. A strangled gasp sounded from Kento once more and immediately his mouth was back on the wound, again. 

You don’t know how long you stood there as Kento drank and drained your assailant's body of his blood. You were frozen on the spot—a complete deer in the headlights, with your eyes locked onto the horrific scene as it continued to unveil itself in front of you. 

This wasn’t happening.

This was not happening!

The reality and danger of the situation finally set in after Kento smoothly tossed the body off to the side on the opposite end of the alleyway, like he was trash that needed to be thrown away. The squelching of the body hitting the ground, and crumpling into a pile of lifeless flesh and bones had you stealthily high tailing it out of there, immediately sprinting back to your home without Kento noticing. Your legs were burning, a pain in your side so sharp and fierce that it felt like you were being stabbed, and you were so out of breath by the time that you reached your house that you could feel your heartbeat throughout your entire trunk.

Unbeknownst to you, Kento’s eyes had flicked over to where you previously stood, cowering in fear as he had fed upon the stalker for his late night meal. Regret started to swirl inside his abdomen, wishing that you hadn’t seen what had just unfolded. He hadn’t meant to scare you, truly he hadn’t—but in his mind, monsters must be dealt with accordingly, even if he was one to begin with. 

There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that you would look at him differently now; that was a fate worse than dying of thirst after having spent so much time trying to earn your favor and companionship, as little as it may be. 

You were too anxious to sleep, and you knew that you couldn’t go to the authorities about what had just happened. There was no way in hell that they would believe you—but most of all, you simply couldn’t believe what you had just seen either. 

Someone that you considered to be, at the very least, a friend to you had murdered someone. What was worse yet, was that particular friend was a being that most people would have considered to be fictional. 

Were vampires actually real? Or was it just your imagination playing tricks on you after having worked back to back doubles for the past six days? You prayed for the latter as you tried to tuck yourself into bed for the night, your mind still too keyed up and fear still rampant in your veins. 

Eventually, the exhaustion came for you, and you fell asleep into the early hours of the morning. You don’t wake when your fiance stumbles in, completely sloshed from a night of drinking. When the sun arose the following day, you awoke to find a piece of paper tucked away into the crevice of the window frame. Plucking it free, you opened it up, only to reveal a simple message.

I hadn’t meant for you to see that. I promise you that I’m not the monster that you think I’m to be. I’ll see you soon.

-KN

A tender expression colored Kento’s face as he gazed down upon you, a slight moment of humanity breeching past the frenzied bloodlust that hazed his consciousness. He leaned his forehead against yours, letting out a constipated exhale, trying to find some method to try and ground himself as every instinct inside him screamed at him to devour the meal that laid beneath him. 

He would not harm you. 

His lips captured yours once more, the fervorness taking a much more gentler approach than previous; one hand went to cup the side of your face and the other went to start undoing and freeing himself of the clothes that proved to be restraints against the skin to skin contact that he desperately craved from you. To allow himself to feel you in the most primitive way.

In a mere matter of seconds, he presented himself to you, naked as the day he was born. Your breath caught in your throat as you gazed at him, taking in his form and the absolute heartbreaking beauty that his body could offer to you—it was almost unfair, really. He leaned down over you, both arms beside your head as he essentially caged you underneath him. Perching down to one elbow, Kento reached down with one hand to grip his hardened cock, guiding it to your weeping entrance. He glanced down, then back up to your face, intent on looking to see if you had any discomfort or objection to what was about to transpire between the two of you.

As if you could read his mind, you nodded your head yes and gripped his shoulders—both mentally and physically preparing yourself.

And with that in mind, Kento fully sheathed himself inside of you; your warm, wet walls creating the most euphoric sensation to his centuries old body, that almost made him reminisce on the very first moment that he tasted human blood in his new life. 

His hips thrust forward on their own accord, seeking out the pleasure and snugness of your cunt as it hugged around his cock the more that he moved in and out of you at a consistent rate. For a brief moment, as the sexual gratification started to overtake him the more that he moved against you—for a split second—he felt his thirst sit on the backburner, as he continued to be consumed by the thought and feeling of you. Even if it was just temporary… he felt like he could have been human while he was with you—while he was inside of you. What simple joy you provided him.

It was fleeting, however; the thirst burned at his throat once again, reminding him of the nature of his being.

The beast inside would never be quelled, until it had its fill of blood, of course. 

You were locking the doors behind you to the cafe as you were just about to head home for the night after finishing another closing shift. A soft wind whispered behind you, the hairs on the back of your neck standing up on end, your body seismically sensing that something or someone had materialized behind you.

“Are you headed home for the night?” 

At the sound of his voice, your hands froze. Apprehensively, you slowly craned your head over your shoulder to see Kento stood behind you, his hands clasped behind his back as he tried his best to appear as nonthreatening as he possibly could. He offered you a courteous smile as strands of blonde hair fell out of the neat part that he always donned, and slowly covered one of his eyes. 

A shaky breath escaped you, the feeling of dread flooding through you. “And if I am?” 

“I would like to walk you home… if that’s alright.” 

Your mouth went dry, uncomfortable at the thought of it. “What would happen if I declined?” 

Kento tilted his head to the side, sucking in the inside of his bottom lip in between his teeth as  he pondered what would be an appropriate response—something that would put you at ease. “I would respect your choice… but I would very much like to attend to you so that I can see that you get home safely… it would also allow me to…give an explanation. You deserve that much.”

Goddamn right he did. 

“I know what you saw in the alleyway,” Kento began, as the two of you journeyed back to your home. “And I would like to apologize for it. It was extremely unbecoming of me for you to witness, and for that, I am incredibly sorry.”

A beat of silence passed, save for the sound of your shared footsteps against the pavement. 

“Are you even human?” you asked, fighting back the overwhelming feeling of embarrassment at how ridiculous the question sounded. 

He pursed his lips, and set his jaw. “I was… a long time ago.” 

“Then what are you?”

He shot you a disapproving look. “I think you’re smart enough to figure that one out.”

The finality of his answer marinated with you, trying to not make any eye contact with him as you kept your gaze straight on to the pathway in front of you.

This did not go unnoticed by Kento.

“You don’t need to be afraid of me, little one,” he tried to reassure you, urging his voice to be as reposeful as possible, gently grabbing hold of your shoulder in an effort to stop you from walking and turn to face him. “What happened back in the alleyway was a rare occurrence, and I never usually feed in such a primitive, unrefined way.”

You jerked your head back to look at him, now utterly confused and puzzled. “Then how do you feed?”

“I raid blood banks, mostly. I don’t enjoy hunting for my food.” 

“Kento, you murdered someone in cold blood. You seemed to enjoy doing that, and that’s not something that I can easily forgive or forget.” 

His face hardened as you reprimanded him for his actions. “Were you so quick to forget that he was content on harassing and possibly assaulting you that night? Is that so easily forgivable?”

“Well, no—but-”

“Listen, Y/N,” he interrupted, now just trying to plead his case to you, in hopes of somewhat alleviating the apprehension that you held towards him. He grabbed hold of both of your hands into his clasp, forcing you to face him. “I can’t control what I am, all I can do is control who I am. He had intentions on hurting you, and I don’t regret for a single second what I did to keep you safe.” 

Your eyebrows knitted together, creasing your forehead as Kento’s confession weighed in your mind. You knew that in your heart of hearts, that you should have pulled your hands away from his grip, and immediately turned back to head back to your home where your partner was waiting for you. Your priorities should have started and ended there. Whatever kind of relationship that you had with Kento would no longer exist from there on; and then… in some sick and twisted part of your mind, the part that was deeply buried within your subconsciousness… it told you to pay it no mind. 

Kento had cared for you and was willing to protect you in times of need, that much was clear. How much you had gained his compulsive adoration and overwhelming devotion, well—that was yet to be discovered now, wasn’t it?

Your cunt spasmed around him, sending shockwaves of white hot euphoria through Kento’s body as your hand reached down to vigorously rub at the oversensitive nub that was your clitorus. A strangled groan released from deep inside his core, his hips now starting to piston in and out of you; the sound of his pelvis meeting yours, of skin on skin filled the room as he continued his motions against you. 

He hooked his arms under the bend of your knees, forcing you to curl your abdomen upwards as he moved you into a modified press, the feeling of his release beginning to swell inside of him. The pace increased to a faster rate as he began to chase that orgasmic high that he longed for.

His eyes rolled into the back of his head, the intensity of the pleasure starting to overwhelm him, and his lack of restraint becoming apparent the more that your slick covered his length. He glanced down to see pools of your essence leak past your opening and start to drip onto the bedsheets, strings of your essence still connecting him to you as his hips moved away from yours. His mouth would have salivated at the sight of it, had he not already been to your scent, the thumping of your heart, and the rushing of the blood exchange between your organs, veins, and arteries. 

Kento absentmindedly let his head fall into the crook of your neck, his nose brushing up against the hollow of your throat—a dangerous move. He could feel the pulsation underneath the thinly veiled cover that was your skin. If he were human, he could have sworn that he was intoxicated by the mere sensation of it. 

The rational part of his mind, as tiny as it may have been in that moment, screamed at him.

He would not harm you. 

“K-Kento!” you cried out, finding yourself entrapped to the total euphoria that Kento’s body was offering you, your body literally being jerked up and down with the way that his hips continued to slap against yours; his thrusts so powerful that it was beginning to transcend to the bedframe and have the headboard start to rap against the wall. Your hands latched onto the muscles of his back, your fingernails digging into the flesh and leaving erratic scratches in their wake. Your limbs felt like complete jelly, and it’s not like you could do anything about it either; all that was in your power to do, was to lie there and take it. 

And take it, you happily would do. 

It became routine that Kento would see to it that you would safely make it home after working a closing shift at the cafe by accompanying you on your long walk home. 

His lips brushed against the portion of your throat that was your carotid, the fangs barely starting to peak out past them. 

Most nights you would find a single rose by the window frame.

Kento’s breath became labored, if not more so, as the venom started to flood his mouth. His tongue slowly rolled out to lick a strip of saliva against neck. 

He would sit with you during your lunch break, talking about anything and everything and would quite literally hang onto every single word that you would say in conversation. 

He would not harm you.

Kento’s cognition was no longer prominent anymore, as the monster inside once again overtook his rationality—he couldn’t hold himself back anymore, even though it continued to scream at him to not continue any further, no matter how dwindled it was in the current moment. 

His fangs pierced through your skin, and the nectar that was your blood slowly dribbled onto his tongue—igniting every nerve ending on fire in his body, and the vampiric nature revealed itself at long last. The last bit of his cognition finally dissolved and the frenzy finally consumed him. 

The sensation of his teeth breaching past your skin made you gasp—the foreign feeling borderline painful, but extremely indulgent in some way that you had never experienced before. The eroticism of it all sent shockwaves of white hot pleasure directly to your core, Kento’s cock now jackhammering in and out of you at an inhuman pace. 

He locked his body onto yours and latched his mouth onto you, and he drank. 

He drank and he drank and he drank, until the burn in his throat dulled. Until his climax was reached as he continued to thrust into you, the pleasure exploded throughout his abdomen and he groaned directly into the flesh of your neck. 

“K… Kento.” Your voice was weak. You felt faint. 

He… he can’t stop.

“Ken…” 

Black spots started to fill your vision, and your body felt like it weighed far heavier than it should. 

“K… Ken… please… stop…”

Your world goes dark—and Kento could feel his heart stop in his chest the moment that he hears yours do the same, as well, sobering him immediately within the moment. 

~

“Y…N…”

A voice called out to you in the darkness. 

“C…me… ba… t… me…” it said, each word fading in, as the other would start to fade out. 

“Little one…wake up…”

Good god, your head was absolutely pounding right now. 

You could feel your body slowly fall and rise, your back up against someone's chest. You blearily opened your eyes, temporarily blinding yourself to the extremely bright overhead light just to find yourself in Kento’s arms, the both of you in the bathtub with water filled to the very top of it; both of your feet were propped up to the edges of the tub, creating elevation between your legs and the rest of your body. 

You slowly lulled your head to the side, to meet the overly concerned gaze of Kento—the carmine eyes filling your vision.

“Oh, Y/N. Thank god,” he breathed, quickly leaning down to press a kiss to your exposed forehead. “I thought I lost you.” 

“...wha… happen’?” Your tongue feels like lead in your mouth, unable to properly form words that you wished to speak. 

Kento’s face becomes grave, regret filling his voice and his body turning cold as he confesses to you, “I fed on you… and I almost killed you for it.”

Your head fell back into its original position up against Kento’s chest, still too weak to even maintain it upright. A low hum rumbled from your throat as you digested what was just said to you. Some part of you knew that this could have happened, even when you completely ignored the warning signs when Kento had clearly told you otherwise. 

You reap what you sow, you guess. 

“I nearly drained you completely of your blood, and for that, I am incredibly sorry.” Kento was extraordinarily dismayed by his actions—he thought of himself as someone that could afford great restraint, but even he isn’t infallible. 

Your eyes drifted down to the warm bathwater, disregarding what Kento was saying to you. “...what happened after?” Your voice is a little bit more sturdy as you slowly become more alert and oriented. It became more and more apparent of a sharp ache that dulled in the center of your chest.

“Your heart stopped… so I had to perform CPR on you and I gave you some of my blood to help replenish what you lost.” Ah, so that’s what the pain in your chest was from. You must have had a confused look because he quickly followed up with, “I cut myself and allowed for my blood to drip into your mouth… it was the only way that I could think of to get it into your system.” Your eyes looked downwards to see large incision made cuts to his forearms that stretched from his wrists all the way to his elbows.

“You shouldn’t have done that. You’ve hurt yourself.” You slowly raised a hand out of the water to gently press your fingertips to the freshly made wounds on his forearms. 

A sarcastic laugh erupted from Kento, startling you as he did so, the hilarity of your concern for him rendering him incredulous. “I nearly killed you because of my own selfish desires and wanton lust, and you’re concerned about me because of cuts that I made to myself?” 

“I pushed you… that’s not your fault.” You lulled your head to the side to glance up at him once more, just to see the shameful expression formed on his face. “You told me not to… and I still didn’t listen to you. Part of the blame lies with me, as well.” 

“Don’t.” His voice was stern. “I should have known better, and you paid the price for it. Don’t try to assuage my guilt. This whole thing is my entire fault.” 

“But if I don’t, you’ll continue to degrade and blame yourself for it.”

Kento cynically chuckled. “I should.” 

You shook your head. “No, you shouldn’t.” 

He exhaled a sharp sigh, realizing that he wasn’t going to dissuade you; he then ended up changing the subject entirely. “How are you feeling?” 

You weakly smiled at him, hoping to dissuade some of the shame and grief that he was directing towards himself. “Honestly? I’ve had better days.” You shakily raised a hand, gesturing to the bathwater. “Why the bath?”

Kento raised a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose with his thumb and his forefinger. “I needed to find a way to keep you warm somehow. A hot bath seemed like a good idea at the time.” 

The two of you sat in silence for some time after that, just basking in each other’s presence with the water having gone cold after at least thirty to forty minutes of stillness. You didn’t pay it any attention, however.

“I hope you know that I’m not mad at you,” you said, breaking the silence. 

A pregnant pause passed as Kento tried to conjure up a way to respond, without trying to argue with you in any way, shape, or form. “You should be upset with me,” he began, “but I’m thankful that you’re not.” He leaned his face into your shoulder, longing for a sense of affection. “I’ll spend my whole existence trying to make this up to you.” 

A tiny smile formed. “That’s a bit much, don’t you think?”

Another breathy chuckle; he leaned forward to press a gentle kiss once more to the top of your forehead. “Not for you, it’s not.” 

Kento eventually got the both of you out of the bathtub, lifting and carrying your body out of the bathroom and back into the bedroom. He laid you upon the bed, and tenderly dabbed away at your body with a towel in an effort to try and dry you off. He then dressed you warmly in clothes that were sure to keep your body heated throughout the night. 

With a fondness that mimicked that of a husband to his wife, he gently laid you into bed as he grabbed hold of a glass of juice, hoping that the sugar would eventually replenish some of the energy that you were terribly depleted of. “Open,” he instructed, bringing the rim of the glass to your lips. 

You downed the entire glass in a mere matter of seconds, the liquid offering you reprieve as both your tongue and throat were incredibly dry. 

“Easy, easy now,” he gently chided, using his thumb to swipe away at any droplets that escaped past your lips or the cup. “It’s not going anywhere, little one, I can promise you that much.” 

“Didn’t realize how thirsty I was,” you coughed, using the sleeve of your shirt to wipe away at your mouth. You could feel the sugar from the juice start to alleviate some of the horridness that you felt throughout your body—it wasn’t much, but it was certainly a start.

Kento took the cup away, setting it off to the side on the bedside table. “Come now, you should get some sleep… your body certainly needs it.” 

A look of uncertainty passed on your face. “Will you still be here when I wake up?” 

He threaded his fingers with yours, pulling the covers up to your chin. “I promise.” 

Kento maneuvered himself behind you, curling his arms around you to pull your back against his chest. Unsatisfied, you managed to turn your body around so that you were facing him, your head resting against where his heart was. The calming, rhythmic motion of his breathing, along with the steady beat of his heart is what allowed you to fully succumb to unconsciousness, undaunted and  peacefully into the night.