almost a galapagos penguin

In the darkest corner of The Grotto, Fudou was nursing his third vodka bloodberry of the night when he spotted the hunter entering the tavern. As luck would have it, the one time he chose to leave the comfort of his coffin would be when he ran into a vampire hunter. But Fudou didn’t believe in luck;  not when one was a vampire as aged and experienced as he was. Maybe, in his early 300s – when he could still remember more details about his human life, before his turning at the ripe age of 22 –  he would still believe in such superstitious things as chance, but not anymore, not these days.

Fudou was already regretting having left his cozy coven of books, banana bread and true crime podcasts. The summer solstice was nearing and with days becoming longer and nights shorter, seasonal depression was hitting him hard. So in order to shake himself out of this funk, Fudou decided to go to a late night bar to have a few drinks, peruse the latest human news outlets and do some people watching. And people watching, he did. 

The hunter was a young man in his early twenties. He was dressed in a simple tight-fitting black outfit reminiscent of skiers’ undergarments; a single giant tooth on a thin silver string was his only accessory. The man made his way to the bar and placed his order, moving with delicate stealth and grace. 

If one would ask Fudou, the hunter’s first mistake was not looking around. Everyone would look around in a bar, even if only just for a quick glance, out of curiosity. The way the stranger did not even turn his head towards Fudou’s corner at all told Fudou everything he needed to know. He was avoiding looking in his direction because he could clearly sense that he was there. After all, no one would want their prey to be alerted about being hunted.

The second mistake was that he tried to act nonchalant but failed miserably. After standing at the bar awkwardly for a couple of seconds, the stranger reached for his pocket and took out a hair tie as he tried to tame the mane of thick light brown hair cascading past his shoulderblades. Following a few failed attempts, the man appeared to growl in frustration and put the hair tie between his lips as he tried to twist the unruly bunch into submission once again. This was so obviously done to remove any possible obstructions out of the way, preparing for battle that was about to come. Fudou stared transfixed at the man as he tried to get his thoughts in order but they seemed to skitter just outside of his grasp – whether it was from the vodka or the man’s face, he could not tell. With his hair now in a pony tail, the stranger looked equal parts deadly and gorgeous – his face and eyes spoke of a sort of youthful naivité that came with those who have never driven a stake through a vampire’s heart before; but at the same time, his stance and toned body suggested that he was not unwilling to try it.

He was one handsome motherfucker for sure, but he was also an inexperienced hunter. Maybe in another century, Fudou would have struck up a conversation with him in a heartbeat, testing the limits of how far he could push the other before he was forced to reveal his identity; a sort of pregame before the real cat and mouse chase began. The recent decades, however, have mellowed Fudou out into someone who was hesitant to take risks; not because he feared for his life but because risk lost its flavour of adrenaline a long time ago. 

Risk appeared to have found him anyway, as the hunter started making his way directly towards Fudou’s table the moment he had received his drink. Third mistake, Fudou thought to himself. If it weren’t obvious before, even the most recently turned vampire fledgling would have gotten suspicious now. Singling out someone within such a small, crowded and enclosed space is the clearest of threats one can pose while still maintaining their disguise.

“Excuse me, is this seat taken?” The man looked at him with innocent bright eyes. To an outsider, the scene might have appeared as an ordinary one: an awkward young man seeking the company of another in a crowded bar. This was what these places were for after all, mingling and socialising. Hell, Fudou himself has come here with the explicit intent to socialize and make a few acquaintances or two. The fact that his first new acquaintance was about to be someone who was actually out to kill him was not that big of a shocker as it should have been, and only made Fudou slightly amused.

“Oh not at all, please, take a seat,” he flashed a full grin at him, of which he knew that it appeared more maniac and predatory than anything else. The man’s eyes widened a fraction and he froze in mid-motion while sitting down as his brain slowly registered that Fudou was blatantly baring his fangs at him. Good, it’s better to set the ground rules as soon as possible anyway.

The young man quickly recovered because by the time he finished lowering himself onto the chair, he was smiling sheepishly again.

“I hope I am not intruding,” he rubbed the back of his head awkwardly, immediately drawing attention to his semi-exposed neck. Fudou followed the movement with his eyes, mesmerised. The man’s shirt covered almost all of his neck except for a silver of skin above his Adam’s apple and the haphazardly created ponytail framed it quite appetizingly.

“Not in the slightest,” Fudou grinned again, drawing his fangs back this time; he wouldn’t want anyone else to spot him being a vampire after all. He only had fangs for this man, and this man only tonight. 

“My name is Genda,” the man extended his hand. Now, that threw Fudou for a loop. This guy surely can’t be that inexperienced to give out his real name, can he? Was this a weird strategy of some sort? A handshake would allow this man to assess whether Fudou is a vampire or not, as his ice-cold touch would be a dead giveaway, if Fudou could afford such a pun. But there was no need for that as Fudou’s vampire nature had just been established merely a few moments ago. What was this Genda fellow hoping to gain? His trust, maybe? Was he playing the long con, trying to befriend him and stab him in the heart with a stake at a later date? Or was he just extremely nervous due to his lack of experience, and fell back onto the comfortable normalcy of human interaction on instinct?

“Fudou,” Fudou shook his hand after a moment of hesitation. He, on the other hand, had nothing to lose by giving out his name; the hunter probably already knew it, given that he was hunting him specifically and was just keeping up appearances. The risk lay in the hunter giving out his own name, something by which he could be identified. Should he fail in killing his target… Well, vampires were vengeful creatures and they had the lifespan of an eternity to serve their revenge cold. 

He took a sip of his drink. He was usually not the one to toy with his food but if the hunter insisted on playing nice, who was he to deny a little small talk before the staking?

“What’s your poison of choice?” Fudou glanced at Genda’s glass

“It’s called a Titanic.” Ah, a non-alcoholic drink to keep the hunter’s senses sharp and his reflexes quick. The bloodberries suddenly soured in Fudou’s mouth as he realized that he had been on his third vodka this night which put him at a disadvantage already. Genda may be a beginner vampire hunter, but sometimes, beginners were the most dangerous of them all: they were inexperienced, fell into despair quickly and thus acted unpredictably. Fudou would do well not to underestimate this man.

“I know that one, I have been on it.” The silence that followed stretched on for a beat too long for Fudo’s taste. He thought the man wanted conversation? Here he was offering up a topic of conversation, an excellent one at that, and the other was now too stunned to speak. Fudou was not lying: he had been on the Titanic, which also contributed to his latest hermit-like lifestyle. After all, the last time he left his lair, he almost drowned. During that time, the Titanic was all the public could talk about; surely, it could not have been so long ago? What year was it again, twenty twenty something?

“Ah,” Genda offered helpfully. Now, he was clearly the one who was thrown off script which Fudou counted as a win in his favour. 

While Fudou enjoyed a good back-and-forth before cutting to the (literal) chase, he was also very impatient and grew tired of people quickly. If this man did not want a conversation, why was he even here? Maybe leaving an awkward impression on the man would get him off of his back (even though he enjoyed Genda’s attention so far). Clearly, this was Fudou’s cue to leave. He quickly excused himself to the bathroom as he brushed past the man in a haste. 

He entered the men’s bathroom with a relieved sigh. Finally, away from the unusually alluring man’s gaze, Fudou could breathe again. Maybe the charmingly clumsy attitude was also part of his hunting strategy. Fudou was no stranger to seduction as a weapon – it was one of the oldest tricks in the book, after all – but something about this man just didn’t feel right. Vampire hunters usually had a general distaste for vampires, if not outright hatred; yet, Genda did not appear to harbor ill will towards Fudou, even after Fudou made his nature abundantly clear. 

Then, a dreadful thought crossed Fudou’s mind that made his blood run cold. What if Genda was a sort of vampire fetishist? There has been a recent rise in interest towards vampires as the public opinion of them began to change. Fudou hasn’t been keeping up with contemporary literature – “contemporary” has lost its meaning to him ages ago – but even he had heard of the book that made every teenage girl go crazy for vampires. When was it released again? And what year was it today? Genda seemed to be fairly young, but not a teenager, Fudou could determine as much. Could he have grown up with such depictions of vampires? Maybe his obsession with vampires stemmed from reading such books at a young age, and now he was one of those crazy hunters who torture their victims before staking them, or worse, try to woo them? (A secret compartment of Fudou’s mind that was filled with cobwebs questioned whether being wooed by Genda was such a bad idea, but he did not have time to entertain such thoughts.)

In any case, Fudou had to act quickly if he wanted to save his hide. He opened the ventilating window of the bathroom stall and transformed into a bat to fit through the small hole. Barely had his shoes touched grass again, he hit the ground running towards where he knew the woods to be. If he kept his pace, he could make a good headstart before the hunter realized Fudou was responding to a different kind of “nature’s call”. But as soon as the thought crossed his mind, he heard footfalls behind him. Shit, Genda was indeed more perceptive than he looked. 

Fudou started to pick up speed but was not too worried: his inhuman speed would be no match to the hunter’s own mortal slog. One would think that turning into a bat and flying away – one of the handiest tricks of vampires – would yield better results than running but one would be wrong. While humans were not the fastest creatures on Earth, they sure as hell were resilient, resourceful and cunning, and they often carried spear guns and traps with them. By taking on a bat form, one would easily subject oneself to being captured or slain by one of their latest contraptions. 

And run, Fudou did. He leapt from shadow to shadow on the empty cobble stone streets until he finally reached the dark green forest surrounding the town, separating the regular townsfolk from Fudou’s residence among the mountains. Now this was where he could really pick up the pace. He was miles away from the inn, yet he could still hear the rustling of leaves behind him. Fudou had no idea how the hunter had managed to keep up with him, but it was becoming clearer by each passing second that he would not get out of this situation unscathed. 

A change in plans was needed, Fudou decided as he leapt up into the tree. He looked down below, and saw a dark figure keeping pace with him with ease. Genda, as he suspected. On rare occasions, human hunters would resort to outsourcing power such as magic or consumables to enhance their performance as a hunter. Fudou felt pleased and terrified simultaneously that a stranger he met just half an hour ago would go to such lengths to capture him. Paying the price for magic or substance abuse only to kill a measly vampire who exits his own den once in a blue moon and bothers no one? I don’t even know you, he thought to himself jumping from branch to branch. 

Had a hunter found him on a regular night out on one of his occasional nighttime strolls, Fudou would have simply ran away – he had learned to pick his battles a long time ago. He knew that if he kept on running, Genda would eventually tire out, and he could escape. But tonight, Fudou was feeling rather out of sorts; he resented this hunter for ruining his only night out in decades and confusing him with his gentle smile yet clearly deadly intentions. Or, maybe it was precisely because he hasn’t seen the moonlight for so long that he felt so restless. His instincts that have been dulled by the many years of sitting at crackling fireplaces, eating conveniently canned meals and listening to nothing but cheap entertainment were coming back to life with a vengeance, to hunt and to feed. 

And now, he had all this pent up energy that needed to be let out so he decided to confront this charming yet threatening stranger right then and there. Fudou promptly stopped in his tracks and the large hunk of shadow slammed into him with a force that managed to actually knock him off his feet. Fudou smelled the green of the grass and felt the wetness of midnight dew on his cape as his back hit the forest floor.The hunter ended up half-straddling him, his hair hanging loose from his ponytail, hairband long forgotten. When Fudou looked up into his face he found that his eyes were glowing garnets. Oh. Genda, his handsome hunter, was far from human. He was a werewolf. 

Fudou laughed. Man, he was so out of touch with this world, he hadn’t even suspected it. “Yeah, that necklace makes so much more sense now.” It wasn’t a trophy from a previous hunt, like Fudou had thought, but rather an artifact that probably belonged to his pack, most likely helping him keep his wolf at bay. He reached for the necklace in hopes of getting the upper hand before the young hunter realises his advantage and strikes, but Genda growled and swatted away his hand.

“Shut your fanged mouth,” the man snarled. Ah, there it was, the fury that accompanied all hunters: the hatred for blood suckers. 

Even among supernatural species, it was not uncommon to become a vampire hunter. Many reasons could motivate someone to become a hunter. A werewolf might choose to follow a path to vengeance if a vampire kills one of his pack members. Faes might try to trick vampires into giving them human blood for their rituals, and sometimes those tricks only consist of… well, violence. Gnomes might want to use a vampire’s supernaturally strong bones and fangs for their warmachines. Vampires were often portrayed as those who exploit the resources of the human body but in doing so, they themselves become useful resources for others.

Fudou wondered what Genda’s reason could be for hunting him. He had not interacted with lycanthropes since the 1880s, so revenge was out of the question. He barely drank human blood and werewolves did not need that anyway. Not to mention that he was slowly showing signs of osteoporosis, making his bones only good for toothpicks for Genda’s kind. 

“So, what brings you around to this part of the forest?” Bluffing was always Fudou’s go-to technique when he found himself between a rock and a hard place. Or in this case, between a werewolf and a hard place. The eyes of the other flashed yellow once again in warning against the pitch-black backdrop of the sky, and Fudou felt a chill run down his spine. Had Genda been human, everything would have been much easier. He could easily deal with a human, even in such unfortunate circumstances but a werewolf changed his situation significantly. Werewolves were quite the equal match to vampires in terms of physique and even surpassed them when it came to speed and ferocity. For the first time since having left his cove, adrenaline started to pump in Fudou’s veins besides blood. 

“Just who do you think you are?” Genda growled in frustration.

Objectively, Fudou should be careful in such a situation but there was something in this man that made him want to be reckless. Reckless and foolish like he used to be, back in the first decades of his turning. He used to pick fights with rival vampires, mingle with all sorts of creatures of the night, and feed on anyone willing to offer. Up until now, Fudou thought that he had left that lifestyle behind. Who knew he still remembered it all? The way he fortified his muscles to shake off his attacker, the reflexes to dodge, all of it — it was like riding a bicycle. It appeared that the days spent with delinquency could never be forgotten. But no matter how much he struggled, the weight of the hunter did not budge. Well, if he could not escape, back to square one: trying to charm and/or annoy the opponent into making a mistake was a skill at which Fudou was awfully talented.

“Well, who do you think I am?” Fudou smirked, partly just to annoy Genda, and partly because he really had no idea why this hunter was after him. 

“I’m not here to play games with you, bloodsucker.”

“That’s rich, coming from a fellow blood enjoyer. Then what are you here for? Do share with the class,” Fudou knew he was on thin ice, yet he couldn’t help testing it. That seemed to make Genda stop for a second.

“As if you don’t know it yourself,” the hunter crossed his arms in front of his chest, the motion pinning Fudou further into the ground. Oh, so that’s how he’s going to play, Fudou was amused. While a complete newbie, Genda appeared to take to this little dance of theirs quite quickly. 

Fudou raised an eyebrow, his voice dropping an octave. “I want to hear you say it.” Learning about staking vampires and actually staking vampires were two entirely separate things. Maybe having him saying it out loud would actually make Genda realize what he was about to do, and hesitate. It was a small gamble, but Fudou had to pull out all the tricks from his sleeve.

“Fine.” The hunter huffed irritatedly. “Whatever you stole from me back at the inn, give it back, you two-fanged bastard.”

That was not the answer Fudou was expecting.

“What?”

“Oh come on, don’t try to play innocent now. You’ve practically admitted it just a second ago.”

Fudou was too stunned to speak. 

“Trust me, I would not be acting surprised, if I wasn’t actually, you know, surprised!” Fudou’s voice was dripping with sarcasm. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Fudou hadn’t stolen anything ever since his turning, as pickpocketing was the exact reason he had gotten turned in the first place. He had learned not to put his hands where they did not belong a long time ago.

“Oh come now, that excuse of going to the toilet is the flimsiest one I’ve heard in decades!”

“I repeat: what?” Fudou tried again, but the man was already too engrossed in his own tirade to get the question through his thick skull.

“The moment you showed your fangs, I knew something was off. And here I was, giving you a chance anyway, y’know, telling myself that all that “vampires are all sly tergiversators and blood suckers” was just a load of conservative crap based on stereotypes. I should have known better, really.  It took me an entire minute to realize that you were not actually in the bathroom the fucking idiot I was.” Fudou was utterly lost at this point. He tried his best to piece the information together but it seemed like the guy was talking about a failed date, rather than a hunt. 

“And of course, being stood up is not a big deal. Like I get it, I wasn’t your type or whatever, that is fine – I was the one who approached you, after all – but to use my interest in you to pickpocket me? That’s a level I didn’t know the likes of you would steep to. Aren’t you guys supposed to be of noble families or something? Now give me back what’s mine.”

The words of what. the. actual. fuck were still circling in Fudou’s brain while he was trying to gather his bearings.    

“So… you are not a vampire hunter?” Fudou ventured.

“What?” It was Genda’s turn now to look flabbergasted. “Me? A vampire hunter? What made you think that?”

“Well, how else am I supposed to interpret this?” Fudou raised a brow skeptically and gestured between them, emphasizing the fact that Genda was still sitting on Fudou’s torso, basically nailing him to the ground. A red blush crept up on Genda’s face as he jumped off of Fudou as if he had been burned.

“I’m sorry, but you were the one who was running away from me. I had to stop you. I thought you were a thief. There’s clearly a misunderstanding here, I see it now.”

“You can say that again,” Fudou muttered to himself.

“But if you didn’t steal anything from me then why were you running as if you were being chased?” Genda asked.

“Not to be hung up on the details, but I was indeed being chased,” Fudou pointed out. “And I thought you were a vampire hunter?”

Genda’s mouth fell wide open. “But why?”

“You were acting all suspicious, and then you approached me!”

“Because I was interested in you and wanted to get to know you better!”

Oh. The silence after that statement was deafening as the two stared at each other in disbelief. Genda’s face was practically burning red and Fudou was sure that his own face would have had a similar colour, had he not been, well, a vampire.

“Well, you could have just said so,” was probably not the most appropriate thing to say in such a situation, but to Fudou’s credit, he did not have a lot of experience with social decorum concerning the last few decades, especially when it came to the etiquette of dating. 

“Well, what was I supposed to say? I thought my intentions were clear enough! How else are you supposed to interpret someone you don’t know approaching you in a bar?”

“You don’t want to hear all the possible outcomes, trust me, I have lived through many,” Fudou raised a brow. Genda inhaled and Fudou braced himself for another retort when the shrubbery just a few feet away made a rustling sound. The realization that they were out alone in the woods, with practically nothing at their defence dawned on them. Even the most naive of supernatural beings would have gotten the cue to leave. The forest was the territory of hunters and beasts of all kinds at night, after all. Just because Genda wasn’t a vampire hunter, that did not mean that the forest was completely devoid of them.

Fudou got up from the ground and shoved his hands into his well-pressed pants that were now wet with grass stains. Here he was, out of his cove, with a handsome man who appeared to be fancying him for god knows whatever reason. Fudou did not believe in luck, but he did believe in opportunities. And while he was unsure whether Genda was worth pursuing on the long run, he did prove himself to be quite an exciting individual, reminding Fudou of what it felt to be alive – or in his case, what was it worth to be undead for.

“How about we start anew? It appears that we got off on the wrong foot. There’s still some time until the sun rises and the inn closes. Care to join me for a drink?”