nopain3                                         
by seat 4.15.1999

    Another sleepless night. Ino sat in front of his bedside table, and
stared blankly at himself in the mirror. Touching his face lightly, he
thought of the antique photo of the boy who held remarkable resemblance to
himself, but was so much a stranger to him. The priest's words about
reincarnation lingered in his head, he knew too well that to be involved
with a killer so personally was to invite death, and the fact that the
vampire killed his own lover centuries ago proved it beyond doubt.
    Touching the teeth mark on his neck, Ino ached for the boisterous but
bright-spirited priest's companion to lift the weight in his heart, but J
had gone back to his church tonight for some religious activities. Only the
student Ryu stayed downstairs, and he must have slept by now. 
    He buried his head inside his arms on the table, and wondered how he
was going to get through the night.
    "Why are you brooding, my love?" A voice resonated in the room.
    Ino jerked up his head as his heart missed a beat. He looked at the
mirror in front and saw the pair of gold-brown eyes that had been haunting
his mind incessantly since he came upon them. He froze in fear.
    The vampire closed up the distance and stood behind Ino, he smiled at
Ino in the mirror. "Were you thinking about me?"
    Ino's heart raced as Sugi clasped his shoulders from behind and bent
down to kiss his head. He refrained his lips from trembling and forced out
his dry voice. "Please leave me alone...I...I am not your lover."
    Sugi's eyes flickered in mild surprise. "You must have heard stories
about me from 'him'...well, he is a little obsessed with me as you can see,
he has been digging out my past history since he was a little boy."
    Sugi took Ino's hand, pulled him up gently, and led him to walk over to
the bed.
    Both settled on the fine bed linen, Sugi drew close and kissed Ino on
the lips. Ino stiffened and Sugi drew back with a curled smile. "If you are
to hear my story, I shall be the one to tell." He caressed Ino's face with
the back of his hand, and looked into the deep seas of green and seached
for his own image.
    "You were my lover then." he opened. "I laid my eyes on you the first
time in the ball held in your family state house, and my eyes could see
nothing other than your face ever since. I could think nothing save to seek
a way to be near you, to learn the soul behind your graceful and tranquil
posture. But I was only a son of a middle-class family, the gap between our
social status was too big a drawback for me to even make your acquaintance.
But my obsession with you was severe, not a day passed that my mind was not
haunted or my heart not tormented by the thinking of you. I knew I could
never live the insouciant life like I used to, I decided to give up my
title and made my way to enter your family, and I eventually became one of
your mentors."
    Sugi paused to bring Ino's hand to his lips. "You had given notice to
the love in my eyes. When I flustered in your presence, you had laughed in
delight. When I suffered in the long hours that I could not see you, you
had come to me in unscheduled visits." Sugi neared Ino, lips touching lips.
"And when I told you I loved you, you had smiled and said you loved me too." 
    Sugi held Ino in his arms and kissed him in burning passion, together
in an embrace they slowly lowered down to lie on the bed. Ino was drowned
by the deep affection shown to him and all his previous fears were
forgotten. He responsed to the kisses with a slight tug at Sugi's hair
towards himself, he felt the lips brush across his cheek and land on his
neck. Sharp pain bursted out and Ino gasped as he snapped open his eyes,
but Sugi had drawn back, blood covered his mouth.
    Sugi looked away in silence, when he turned back his face was shadowed.
"I had loved you with all my hearts. And I had believed that you held the
same love for me. When I heard your family's decision to let you marry a
daughter from another aristocratic family, I thought my life had ended, I
wanted to live no more. But you came and said to me that we would go, we
would leave your family and you would abandon everything to be with me. You
told me we would meet after dark in the forest that night and we would run
for our freedom, holding each other's hand. I was overjoyed, when I arrived
the spot we used to spend our time alone together. I realized I had not had
the mind to bring any belongings, for you were everything I needed. I paced
restlessly, and waited those hours which felt like years."
    Sugi's eyes darkened, he smiled with lips that seemed too hardened to
speak. "But you had not come, my love. Instead your men came with guns, and
they shot me in the heart."
    Ino gasped as his eyes widened in shock. Sugi laughed lightly and went
on, "But I did not die. Just before I felt my heart was stopping
completely, I heard someone whisper to my ears - 'do you want to live?' If
I gave any response, I really cannot recall. The only thing I remember was
the pain on my neck where I felt my life trickling away, and later another
whisper of a word which I could barely hear - 'drink'. Time passed in
strange dreams, and I woke and found myself in complete darkness. Perhaps
it was the thirst rising in me, or it was my being able to see clearly the
cave I was in even it was pitch dark, or it was the supernatural strength
that I sensed in my veins, somehow I knew I was made a vampire. And I knew
I hungered for blood, I knew I could never see sunlight, and I knew I was
never going to die. How I didn't know, I just knew."
    Sugi laid his fingers on the bite mark he inflicted on Ino's neck,
feeling the roughness of the healing scar, he sighed softly.
    "I went back to your house the next night, wishfully hoping to find you
detained by your parents who had happened to find out about our escape plan
and sent the men to kill me. But what all I saw and heard from you outside
the window of your suite told me that you were excitedly preparing for your
wedding, and there was not a sign of trouble on your face. And I knew you
had meant to be rid of me, in order to marry for family names. You wanted
to seal your 'dark past' and you allowed no more sight of me to threaten to
reveal your secrets. You thought the only way to be freed from my obsessive
love was to take my life. You had lied to me when you said I meant
everything to you and you couldn't live a day without me by your side. You,
you had never loved me."
    Sugi bent down and closed his lips on Ino, his hand grasped Ino's hair
with knuckles turned bone-white.
    "But I still loved you." Sugi gave a bitter smile. "My devotion was
hopeless and I could not bear the thought of losing you. I came on the
night of your grand wedding. While you were immersing in the joy and
excitement of the marriage that promised bright prospect, I took your bride
from the crowd and brought her to your wedding bed, there I cracked open
her jaw so that she couldn't scream for help, then I broke her arms and
legs one by one when she was still conscious, and when she was a lump of
splintered bones and flesh caught amidst her pretty blood-soaked wedding
dress, I tore open her throat and fed on her. I lost myself completely in
hunger and hatred. And then you came, you were horrified, but I saw
something else in your eyes besides plain terror when you looked at me, it
was digust. You were disgusted by the sight of me. You cannot imagine how
much it hurt, my love. I turned savage and took you in my arms where I sank
my teeth on you. But I never meant to harm you. Never. I loved you and I
could not turn love to hate despite of what you had done to me. I drained
you to the point of death, and I tore open my wrist and let you drink from
me. I knew it was the way to make you a vampire. I wanted you to be an
immortal and we could be together forever. But my blood streamed down
wasted from your lips that were shut tight. You stared at me with your
piercing cold eyes and you refused to drink, while you must have been
suffering from an immense thirst. I begged and begged for you to take my
blood, but you refused it with your eyes ice cold and full of spite, and
you refused the life that I gave you along with mine. The last breath of
you ran out and you died in my arms."
    Sugi looked at Ino's disquieted face, he stroked softly on his eyelid.
"Yes the same pair of clear green eyes that I remember so vividly, they are
the only places where I can find the true reflection of my lost soul. You
are the descendant of the same centuries-old family, this I was certain
when I found you two years ago. The Wheel of Life has brought my lover back
after generations. I have killed your bride the second time, but I will not
let history repeat itself, and you are not going to leave me again..."
    Ino closed his eyes as Sugi kissed him, he was deeply moved by the
story just told, and he felt he was losing himself to the love that he had
never experienced before. He had no memory of how this love started long
time ago, he had no knowledge of its true nature then and now, and he did
not know the consequence should he accept or refuse it, but somehow all
these seemed so unimportant, the only thing that mattered was that he felt
at home when he was in Sugi's arms.
    Sugi deepened his kiss that lasted for a long, breath-taking moment,
then pulled himself up and smiled fondly at Ino. In a scant second he was
gone, leaving behind a slight ruffle of the bed curtains and a heart tossed
in emotions.

*********************************************************** 

    Squatting very still and quiet on the dark corridor right outside Ino's
bedroom, Ryu peeped through the keyhole on the door and heard the
conversation between Sugi and Ino. He had come to Ino to check on his
condition regularly as a task given by J during his absence. 
    A surge of excitement made his head reel when he discovered that the
vampire had chosen this night to visit. He could hear his own heart
pounding like thunders, but he could not bring himself to escape and call
the priest at once as he was instructed to do, instead he succumbed to his
curiosity and hid to spy on the vampire and his victim. He eyes glued on
Sugi's every facial expression, every gesture and every movement, with
fascination and wonder too powerful and overwhelming for him to contain. 
    When Sugi left, disappointment grew and dwelled in the pit of his
stomach. But a sudden sharp pain pierced through his right ear lobe,
excitement clenched his heart once more and this time more fierce and
vicious. His mind went wild with the heat and wetness that came from his
own blood, the tongue that licked, and the lips that sucked. Sugi's voice
seeped into his mind. "You little naughty boy, hasn't your priest mentor
taught you what an ungentlemanly manner eavesdropping is?" 
    The eyes in radiant gold and brown lit up in darkness and they fixed on
Ryu's face in amusement. "Ah, I feel so beaten, you don't seem to be moved
by my heartbreaking tragic epic in the least...how dare you..." Malice
beamed through the slit eyes and sent cold chills crawling on Ryu's back,
but then the dark brown lashes fluttered a wicked smile at him, and they
vanished in a blink into the dark.

*************************************************************

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