Midnight Hours [PRG Hydra & Bittersweet]

Patrolling or whatever you felt like calling it, really sucked. It was a constant pain in Tobi’s ass to know that every night he would be forced to run around campus like a crazed chicken and search for rule-breakers. More than once he’d thought ‘fuck this’ and crawled into his bed, only to be found later by his father. Somehow that man always knew whether he was on patrol or not, always seeing it coming.

He wasn’t forced to go on patrol, but he always received one hell of a lecture. From both his whiny father and Setsuna, who’d been forced to do all the work all by herself.

So this time, to make it up to Setsuna for ditching her last time he’d agreed on taking on seventy percent of the work. That one he’d regret in the morning, when he was too tired to even roll out of bed. With a sigh, he forced the gates to the main building open.

Usually he was always excited when entering this area at night, but tonight he wasn’t so very happy. If he somehow ended up running into Fuyuki, that might put his annoyed mind at ease. But it didn’t look like any of the god damn bastard was outside and kicking.

Gloomily, he walked around the building and looked up at each window. It would be easier just going inside, but looking outside seemed wise. When he was about to pass the library, he noticed that the window was open. It was someone in there and it sure as hell made his mood take off.

“Oh dear Romeo, is that you?” he shouted, noticing that a few papers had made their way toward the window sill and now drifted through the air. Tobi jumped, catching the papers before they hit the ground. “Romeo, Romeo. You dropped a few papers!”

Out of all strange things, Fuyuki dreamt about colorful, dancing flowers and happy images of himself spitting on Hayato Reizei's face.

A shout pierced through the night, or more correctly, through his eardrums, jostling him out of his slumber. Upon awakening, he realized there must be something really odd about his consciousness if it made up scenarios like the dream he had just been having.

It took him a couple of seconds to recognize his surroundings, but he recognized the voice of the shouting person right away. It was hard not to, after all the times he had called out to him during his stay at Fairewright Academy.

Blinking a few times, his vision instantly became clearer and he stood up abruptly, knocking over the stack of paper in the process.

"Great, just great", he remarked sarcastically before bending down to pick them up. However, upon noticing the papers that were currently floating through the air and out of the opened window, he once again let them fall onto the floor.

Running a hand through his messy dark curls, Fuyuki made his way to the window.

"Tobikuma", Fuyuki called out, his expression unimpressed as he watched the human boy making a fool of himself. "What on earth are you doing?"

He realized his mistake a moment too late; it had already slipped off his tongue.

"Oh... do forgive my manners, Hijirikawa-kun", he said, his voice calm despite his inner panic.

Why had he said that? He had no plans on going on friendly terms with this boy, not even in the far future!

Tobi’s face lit up like the sun when his precious Fuyuki called out his first name. It made him feel all funny and fluttery inside. When he shortly after apologized for it, Tobi just shook his head.

“It’s quite alright, Fuyu-chan. To see you all sleepy and adorable is a true miracle from above. I’m coming up, you dropped these”, he gripped the paper in his hand, careful not to crumble them. He made a gesture to Fuyuki to stay where he were and started running toward the entrance of the school building.

Making his way up the stairs was probably the most annoying part of the library being on the third floor. When he finally reached the door, he stormed in. Seeing Fuyuki stand by the window made him relieved. With light steps he walked over to the desk, placing down the unharmed papers.

“There you go”, he said with a smile, scratching the back of his neck. For some reason he felt awkward standing there, so close to Fuyuki. They’d been closer, so why was he getting this feeling. ‘This is stupid. You’re stupid, Tobikuma’ he thought bitterly. He then noticed the papers scattered over the marbled floor. He kneeled down and started to gather up the papers.

“Such a mess you’ve made, Fuyu-chan” he murmured, glancing up at the black-haired male. That was the moment when it hit him, like one of Setsuna’s infamous bitch slaps, that Fuyuki Iseki was extremely beautiful.

As Tobikuma stormed in through the door with little grace, Fuyuki turned around to face him. "Why, thank you", he said as the other boy placed the papers he had managed to retrieve on the desk.

He was relieved he had not made a huge deal about Fuyuki calling him by his first name. He would make sure to be more careful in the future to prevent himself from repeating the same mistake twice.

"I'm well aware of the mess I've made", Fuyuki sighed, his expression clouded. "If only weren't for your idiotic screaming, I would still be asleep now. Ah, no need to go that far, Hijirikawa-kun", he said, referring to the papers he was currently gathering.

"I can pick those up myself, I'm sure you have duties you need to return to. Patrolling, am I right?" Truth be told, he was more than thankful for Tobikuma's help. If he had to pick up all the papers that were scattered around the floor all by himself he would most likely get mad and set them all on fire.

But for some reason, seeing the human boy on his knees in front of him made him feel strangely light headed, and he was having none of that.

'Does he had a death wish?' he wondered while looking down on him with curious eyes. 'Looking at someone like me with eyes full of something not totally unlike adoration? He should know vampires are not always good at restraining themselves.'

When the papers were stacked up in a neat pile, Tobi lifted them off the floor and placed them on the desk. “There’s nothing wrong with helping a friend out, is it? Fuyu-chan looked like he needed a hand.” When he realized how utterly stupid and wrong that phrasing had sounded, he panicked. He cursed his dirty mind. “With picking up these papers. They sure are a lot of papers. Reizei-san sure is bothering you with this much paperwork.” he prattled, organizing the pile with too much thoughts swirling in his head.

“Ah, that’s right. Patrolling”, he whined, straightening out his black vest. “I probably should get back to work, Suna-chan will probably punish me if I don’t get much done before midnight.”

With a small bow he turned his back on Fuyuki and started walking away. Tobi froze in the doorway, slowly looking over his shoulder. “Does Fuyu-chan want me to help him with anything else, before I return to work?”

Fuyuki's legs moved on their own and he walked up to Tobikuma, coming to a halt in front of him. "Yes, there is something you could help me with, actually...", he said, his tone dangerously low as he reached out to grab him by the tie.

He leaned in for a moment, breathing in his scent. 'How come their blood smell so irresistibly?' he wondered. 'It's nothing like the blood tablets.'

Being that close to a human made it hard for him to think rationality, although he wasn't touching him nor his skin directly.

Since he was slightly shorter than Tobikuma, he had to look up to meet his gaze. "How about you leave me alone from now on? If you refuse I might not be able to control myself." He bared his pointed teeth as if to prove a point.

Tobi tried to hold in a gasp when Fuyuki’s lean fingers gripped his tie. Almost instantly he placed a hand over Fuyuki’s, brushing it away. “Now, now”, he said calmly, undoing the tie knot. He wasn’t entirely sure if his actions were wise, and his idiot of a father would probably find out if Fuyuki took this any further. But when he looked down at Fuyuki, something inside him snapped.

He basically torn the jacket of, throwing it away. It landed on a desk not so far away, which he was grateful for. He then undid the first three buttons of his shirt, exposing more of his neck.

“Don’t be so restrained now, Fuyu-chan”, he whispered, only a few inches from Fuyuki’s ear. “Who knows when an opportunity like this will come again?”

Tobi knew deep down that he was playing with fire, but he didn’t care. Being close to Fuyuki was the only thing that mattered.

This wasn't how he had wanted things to turn out. His goal had been scaring Tobikuma away, so Fuyuki didn't do something he would end up regretting later. He should have known it would come to this, but one of the most frustrating things about the headmaster's son was that he was rarely able to predict his moves.

"Hijirikawa-kun, stop it, I wasn't-" he started saying, but interrupted himself once he caught sight of Tobikuma's exposed neck. His eyes widened in surprise, and he let out a short, quick breath.

The other boy was right about one thing; this was a rare opportunity, and he probably wouldn't get a chance like this again. Tobikuma, being the huge fool he was, was offering himself to him, and Fuyuki only had his own stupid actions to blame.

He could easily envision it - him sinking his teeth into the unscarred skin of Tobikuma's neck, tasting the delicious, salty blood running through his veins.

"No." Fuyuki was struck by a sudden sense of dread. He couldn't possibly let himself devour the human boy so cold heartedly. He averted his gaze, closing his eyes for a brief moment before stepping away from him.

He walked over to the desk where he previously had been sitting and lifted up the paper stack. He knew that if he didn't make an effort to finish them soon, Hayato wasn't going to be very pleased with him.

He picked up the uniform jacket that lay sprawled across another desk nearby and threw it at Tobikuma. "Get dressed. I'm leaving", he told him as he passed him by, leaving through the door.

Tobi sighed, catching the jacket and only hearing Fuyuki leave. The pitter-patter of his shoes against the marble floor made his legs go out from under him. Tobi once again fell to his knees on the floor. He ran fingers through his hair, biting down hard on his lip. What had he done? It had been utterly foolish, tactless and he had caused Fuyuki to make such a horrible face. ‘Tobi, get your shit together’, he thought as he yanked the jacket on and walked out of the library, in a different direction than Fuyuki had chosen. Better get back to patrolling.
--
The sun shone brightly in his eyes, irritating them to no end. Yushin couldn’t have cared less about that fact, though. His roommate was more annoying than the sun, apparently. He’d somehow managed to lock him out of their shared room, which had made Yushin want to kick down the door. He wasn’t familiar with the feeling of anger, but when he turned the doorknob and the door refused to open, he’d felt it. It burned like a fire who refused to be extinguished, making his vision go red.

It hadn’t been that much of a thing to get mad about, but somehow it had made him so angry that he’d stormed out of the Moon Dormitory, right into the daylight. It had bothered his eyes greatly, but Yushin chose kindly to ignore it. In a daze he’d climbed the stairs in the main building, catching the Day students off guard. They never saw one of the Elites roaming the school grounds before twilight.

Well, now they had. He looked down at the white school uniform as he passed them. Changing had been one option, but even then he would’ve drawn attention to himself. Since it didn’t bother him, neither the uniform nor the staring, he just continued up the stairs.

When he reached the top floor, he searched for the entrance to the roof and pulled the door open when he finally found it. The flight of stairs before him were narrow, but he managed to reach the floor without a stumble. The cool morning breeze hit him in the face and he took a relieved breath, leaning against the wall and slowly sliding down until he was curled up on the ground.

Yushin pulled his long legs closer to himself, snaking his arms around them. He leaned his forehead against his knees, breathing heavily. Being angry was exhausting. He couldn’t possibly understand how people could go around being angry all the time. But somehow he understood. They must be angry because they’re so tired after being angry. ‘It kind of makes sense’, he thought. ‘I guess the human boy I met two days ago must’ve been tired.'

'This must be some kind of personal record', Riku thought to himself as he made his way down the stairs of the School Building. This was the third time he had been to the principal's office in just two days, and he couldn't help but think hey, what an achievement!

Yesterday morning the teacher had grown tired of his half-assed attitude towards his schoolwork and threatened to kick him out of class after just thirty minutes. However, since threats didn't work on guys like Riku Miyamoto, the teacher didn't have a choice but to drag him out of the classroom and send him off to the principal's office.

Later that day, around noon, some douchebag had been stupid enough to pick a fight with him. A fight which, unsurprisingly, Riku ended up winning. A punch in the stomach and a kick in the balls was all it took to bring a guy to his knees these days, apparently. It was impossible to believe that Riku hadn't actually started the fight, though, which was why he had ended up at the principal's office once again.

One may think that headmaster Hijirikawa had grown tired of Riku's face after two meetings in one day, but no, because the very next day the old fart called him to his office for yet another meeting.

It was early in the morning and Riku had been hungry, and therefore even more easily irritated than usual. So he had been sitting there, his stomach making loud, growling noises while he was just generally pissed off at the universe when suddenly the headmaster had been starting to ask him weird questions like: "Do you take your studies seriously, Miyamoto-kun?"

At loss for words, Riku had just scratched his neck awkwardly. "Uhh", he had finally managed to say. "Well, yeah?"

'He can't seriously be thinking about expelling me, right?' Riku wondered, having reached the bottom of the stairs. 'Nah', he decided. 'I'm not the only troublemaker around here, and besides, I do my homework sometimes. Sometimes.'

It was now around lunchtime, and he was heading towards the school cafeteria to grab something to eat. He bought himself a sandwich before storming off to find some place quiet to finish it.

The rooftop of the School Building popped up in his mind, reminding him of all the times he had skipped class and went there when he needed some time alone to calm down.

"I guess that settles it, then", he said, sighing tiredly as he thought about the stairs he had to run up. Really, why didn't Fairewright Academy have elevators?

-----------

"You again? Seriously?" Riku couldn't believe he ran into this guy again, especially not on a rooftop in broad daylight.

"Y'know, I'm pretty sure you elite fuckwads aren't supposed to be here", he said as he gave him a dirty look, clutching the sandwich tightly in his hand. Of course, he didn't fail to notice there was something strange about the other boy today.

He was currently leaning against the wall, looking a bit as if he was dying from exhaustion. Riku didn't know why he gave a damn, but he tentatively took a step closer so he could get a better look at him.

"You okay, dude?"