Nostalgia Ch. 12

Author's Note: Friendly reminder. I don't speak Japanese ... or Romanian.

***

Ana's blood chilled in her veins.

Within a second, many different thoughts jumbled in her mind.

A small but cozy apartment. A stove with only two burners. Shoes left in a genkan. A teenage girl's legs with a pair of long, baggy socks. Cheezy pop music blasting from a CD player. A secret stash of yuri manga. A pair of glasses being wiped by a cloth.

Since she was distracted, Vlad put Ana on her feet in a hallway.

Footsteps, tiny footsteps.

"Ana-chan!"

No. It was just some random Japanese woman.

But why did she know her name? And why was she referring to Ana so casually?

That woman approached, the one with the long hair and the pretty fingernails. Vlad held out a hand to stop her in her tracks. She looked down and put her arms at her sides.

Her face ...

Was so amazingly beautiful that Ana found herself staring.

High cheekbones. Pale skin. Brown eyes that had an upward angle and single eyelids. A straight nose and a soft little mouth. A figure that wasn't too slim, actually quite graceful. And wonderful black hair that fell at her hips. Straight as a board, as she'd once heard a random mother say about straight hair.

She was so familiar.

"Ana," Vlad said as he touched her shoulder, "I should have explained the situation to you long ago, but I knew that once I did nothing between us would be the same." He was speaking in Romanian, and he paused to look back at the Japanese woman with something that was almost a grimace on his face. His next words were Japanese. "You were misled, and so was I. Go back. I need to speak with Ana."

As the Japanese woman walked off, Ana asked Vlad with a fluttering tone, "Who ... who is she?"

"Miss Nakahara," Vlad quickly said. He pointed a hand off towards the foyer. "Now come. We need to talk."

That was when Ana remembered she was supposed to be running away. Before she could make a step, Vlad picked her back up. "Don't worry," he said with a strained voice, "you won't be harmed."

"Someone's getting fucking tortured back there!" Ana tried to whack his shins with her feet, but she missed perhaps ninety percent of the time, which meant that Vlad probably didn't even care. Feeling like an ancient village woman at the mercy of an invading soldier about to do some ... well ... it often came with the word pillaging, Ana continued to pitch a fit. By the time she was sat down on a bed in a guest room, she happened to notice there were quite a few fresh bloody scratches on Vlad's hands and arms. She tried to pop back up, but Vlad pushed her down by her shoulders.

"Calm down. He's a murderer anyway."

That wasn't important to Ana. She reared back and tried to aim her foot right at Vlad's groin. She wouldn't normally do that, but she worried that she too might end up strapped down and have her fingernails torn away. Unfortunately for her, Vlad was quick. He released her shoulders so he could turn his body and block her kick.

"Ana, we don't want to hurt you." He gripped her shoulders again. "You need to let me explain."

"What could you possibly say that could magically put this in a positive light?!"

His hands moved down to her upper arms. His eyes and nostrils both flared. "We're trying to find out who killed your parents."

Instead of trying to escape she just sat there, staring at the man's cruel face and trying to sew all his words into something she could understand. Really, what he'd said made no sense. Her parents were just ill, as surprising as that had been. Murder? No. That's just silly. Even if that were so, a detective would be all over the matter. Ana would've been questioned by one too. The first suspects in a murder were always the spouses and family members.

"We're not certain if he's the one who killed them," Vlad said as each word grew softer, "but he knows something, and he's killed other people."

Call the police! That's what Ana thought, but she thought if she even hinted that she wanted to call the police, she'd get hurt. She was convinced that Vlad and Mihai worked in a mafia, or a group similar to one. As more blood fled her cheeks, as her asshole puckered in fear, Ana tried not to make Vlad think he needed to have her killed. She just sat before him and listened.

"We aren't ... we aren't normal people." Vlad looked so sad then. His face drooped ... dried ... and even ...

Wait. What?

His hair ... was changing ... fading into a different color?

Her jaw fell.

"What I've shown you, what you've known of me, it's an illusion." Vlad's breath puffed after certain words, as if he was hurting but he knew he had to keep going or else the pain would get worse. His hair wasn't black anymore. It grayed out, and then some of the hair fell away, landing on her lap, leaving behind a much higher hairline. It vaguely reminded her of the high hairline many young women of the Medieval and Renaissance periods wanted. Apparently, they'd pluck and shave to get it. Beauty standards have always depended on the surrounding culture.

As if his lips were dry ... and they certainly looked that way, Vlad nervously licked at them. "I'm older than I seem, much older, and so is Mihai." His hair wasn't gray anymore. It was white, and his skin was slowly following as if it too wanted to be white. And the lines deepened. The flesh sagged a little. A pale raisin.

With ancient, wretched gray/green eyes.

Ana looked down to see that the scratched and bloody hands holding her were wrinkled, spotty, and had a little bit of extra white hair. The fingernails even looked longer.

She was trembling. "Uhm ... uh ... So ... what?"

"I know this is preposterous ... and inconceivable, but I've experienced this for years and years."

Her hands flailing a bit, Ana snapped out, "How the hell did you do that?! What did you do?!"

Vlad's pants creaked as he knelt down on both knees. His hands slid down to hold both of hers. The old, withered face gazed up at her. "The first fact you must be told is that vampires exist."

That ruined the mood. Ana laughed so hard that she fell back on the bed and rolled around. Vlad got back to his feet and said with an almost insulted, but still gravelly tone, "I'm not joking."

"This is ... hahaha!! This is the stupidest, most childish thing I've heard!!" Ana started gasping a little as she kept flopping around, clutching her own belly. "I ... hah ... ah ... I can't believe you'd tell a grown ass woman that!! Ahhhh hahahaha!! This is top tier cringe!! You're too old for this!!"

"Ana ... I'm not trying to impress you."

"Haha!! Good, because I'm not impressed!"

She heard his shoe stomp onto the floor. "Ana, sit up and watch me!!"

Wiping amused tears from her eyes, Ana sat up.

Why ... were Vlad's eyes red like Halloween eye contacts?

The old man opened his mouth. His canine teeth elongated and sharpened.

Surreal ...

Ana's head tilted as she watched.

Vlad held his bare wrist to his mouth.

And he loudly, grossly, chomped down with the speed and lack of giving a shit of someone who'd done it many times before. Some blood fell down to the carpet. He showed her the very unpleasant and bloody bite wound, holding her wrist out for her to see. Then, he ran his tongue across the wound a few times, licking the blood away. Ana watched the wound close itself, fade away, like something from a movie.

Ana looked at the carpet. The blood was still there, making a stain.

She looked back up. Vlad's eyes weren't red anymore, but they were still old. His teeth were normal, but there were some lingering bits of blood darkening everything they coated.

Quietly, with a bit of nausea, Ana tried to slide off the bed and get away. The bits of fallen gray hair slipped off her lap and practically wafted to the carpet.

Vlad gripped her arms again. His scratched hands slowly regained the youthful complexion. "Listen. We believe your parents were murdered by vampires. Vampires don't need to kill to survive. They don't." His fingers squeezed her a bit harder as if he wanted to pound that point in her head. "But someone drained your parents, and Brun won't accept that."

"Br ... Brun?" Ana looked up at the face that was turning young again, the missing hair growing back and darkening. "What about Brun?"

"Brun's the source," Vlad told her as his face tightened back up. "She's the ruler, the king and the queen. I'm her second-in-command. She has rules that we must follow, or risk death."

None of this was logical. It was like a bad anime. Ana shook her head. Her voice sounded and felt like it was being pushed through a mesh strainer. "This is so fucking stupid. Even if this was all true, then it's clearly a secret. Why would you tell me?"

One of Vlad's lower eyelids twitched.

"Because," he gravely said, "Brun wants you."

"Uhm ...?" Ana's brow knotted up. "She's a lesbian?"

His nostrils flared again. "She wants to turn you into one of us."

With a stiff nod, Ana said, "Yeah. Now I know this is all bullshit." She wanted to laugh. She had to force herself to do it, though, as if the laughter was being held back.

"She almost forced you once, but she said she noticed something odd about you." One of Vlad's shoulders jerked up and he ran his fingers through his hair. "She said you're, 'Under Surveillance.' We're going to watch you closely until Brun can figure out what's wrong with you."

"Wrong with me?" Ana coughed and patted her chest. "Let me guess. I'm the chosen one, the one destined to wield the magical weapon that can defeat the evil dark lord vampire or some wacky shit like that?"

Eyes narrowing, folding his arms and looking oddly cross, Vlad said, "Brun said there was a defect in you. She doesn't know what it is, but she doesn't want to take risks with it. However, she wanted you to know what we are."

He tapped his own arm with an irritated finger. "When she decided you'd become a vampire, she personally had a friend from your past transferred here, a friend that had become a vampire some years ago. But Brun changed her mind and now you're only being watched. Now that your friend's here, we can't hide the fact that something peculiar's going on, now can we?"

A school uniform ...

A teenage girl singing along to the lyrics of a J-pop song. Then badly pronouncing English lyrics of an American song.

"I'm sorry?" Ana said. "Who the hell are you talking about?" Ana didn't think Vlad would know about the girl she'd been thinking of.

He sighed as his arms unfolded. He rubbed his jaw and chin with his hand. His eyes pointed away from her face. "I was supposed to tell you soon, and ... and force you ... but I dreaded it." That hand of his fell down and his shoe's toe tapped on the carpet. Then he made a small kick. "I love you as you are, a normal person, simple and comforting. I didn't want this to happen."

Vlad's phone buzzed and beeped. He slid it into his grasp and checked whatever message there was. "They're going to move the prisoner to a different location." Another buzz. He groaned and mumbled as he read the message. "Brun ... has just told me purposely rushed the prisoner to this house when she found out I'd take you here. She wanted to force me to explain the situation. I suppose I could have lied, but it's not wise to risk Brun's anger."

Ana was suddenly thinking of prime edgelord fanficiton she used to write in junior high and high school. Properties with vampires were once her favorites.

Then she thought of something else. "Was Scare Tactics revived?" That was a hidden camera show that involved pranking people with horror scenarios, sometimes faking the supernatural. "Where are the cameras?" She looked all around, hoping to find one. "Or did you drug me or something? Am I tripping balls?"

This time, her phone was the one to buzz.

Ana got it from her pocket.

She didn't recognize the number.

But the text was in Japanese.

"Dalca-san put your phone number in my cell phone. Super Happy!! (heart emoji) Brun will take that scary man away, and I'm going to take a shower and change clothes. I'll come talk to you soon. Please wait for me!"

Ana assumed she was talking about Mihai. "That ... that crazy bitch has my phone number. Mihai gave her my phone number!"

"It's best if you wait for her. Stay right here." Vlad put his phone away and walked to the bedroom door. "I'll get your laptop and some popcorn."

"Where's the butler? And the maid?" Ana asked, wondering if they knew about all of this.

"Not here," Vlad said with a bitter smile.

When the door loudly closed behind him, when Ana was alone in the room, she sprang up to look at the lone window in the room. She couldn't see much, but she was pretty sure there was no safe way to climb down to the ground. If she tried to sneak out of the house, even though the place was huge, she was pretty sure someone would find her, and bad things might happen.

Vlad returned soon. Her laptop was in a case with a strap hanging on his shoulder. In his fingers he held a bag of popcorn and some napkins, and cradled his arm there was a six-pack of pop. He was able to distract her (or rather, Ana pretended to be distracted) with a few videos while they munched and sat on the floor. Ana lazily wondered why a vampire needed to eat food at all. And then she thought she shouldn't have that sort of question because he wasn't a vampire and this was all a complex and dangerous prank.

So much for distraction.

But she couldn't help it. She asked him with a prickly tone, "Why does a vampire need to eat food?"

"Because blood's not nutritious," he replied with just as much attitude. "The blood is a trigger for a spell to keep a vampire from dying of old age."

With a roll of her eyes, Ana said, "Oh, so vampires are magical now."

"I can't think of a more suitable word. We do function contrary to physics."

Ana dug a popcorn shell out from between two of her teeth as she thought about that. Then she asked, "How old are you?"

Uncaring, Vlad answered, "I don't know. Five hundred? Six hundred?"

"Very funny." Ana sipped her drink. "How old's Mihai?"

"More or less the same. I think. I'm not certain."

"How old's Brun?"

He shrugged. "She doesn't know."

"How old's this Japanese girl you say is my friend?"

He dug into the bag of popcorn. "She should be close to your age. Compared to the older vampires, she's still very young. She has less illusions than I do."

Watching him put some buttery popcorn in his mouth, Ana sighed. "I don't know what you meant by calling her my friend. I once had a friend named Fujioka Takara, but she's in Japan right now. I think she's a business owner or something. I actually kind of forgot."

After swallowing, Vlad asked, "Didn't you have any other friends there?"

"As if you'd know!" Ana's fingernail tapped on the side of her soda can.

"Brun knows." He shrugged and turned to give her a ... pitying look. "Before taking someone, she researches that person. This new woman, Brun learned who all her friends, family, and even enemies were."

Practically slamming her can on the floor, jolting some of the pop out on the carpet, Ana stubbornly said, "She's fucking dead!"

The pity transformed into something saucy and playful. Vlad smirked down at her. "Who's dead?"

"Someone you shouldn't know about, that's who!"

There was a tapping on the door.

The feminine Japanese voice.

"May I come in?"

Vlad answered in Japanese, which should've surprised Ana, but it didn't. "Come in."

That same Japanese woman from before entered and closed the door. Then she gave a bow towards Vlad. "Mr. Dalca," she said the English word mister with a thick accent, but the rest of the words were plain Japanese, "I now understand you were lied to, and I might have embarrassed you. I'm sorry."

She was wearing a long, slightly flared skirt of a tan color. Plus, a tucked in white blouse with short sleeves. Her socked feet were in a pair of house slippers, which would have made sense in a Japanese or Romanian home. Her hair was in a French braid.

The woman looked at Ana's face and smiled. It was a tiny, gentle smile. She walked over to the couple and got mostly close to Ana. She knelt down, smoothed her skirt over her knees, and said to Ana, "I'm glad to see you, Ana-chan. If you don't remember me, that's fine. It's been so many years." Her beautiful hands were crisply arranged on her lap, like a new porcelain doll's pair of hands.

Ana's heart seemed to freeze as she stared at the woman. Then she said in a delicate voice, "You're Nakahara-san?"

The Japanese woman nodded. "Now, my name is Nakahara Chouko. There was a time when I briefly was called Ichigo, but now it's only Nakahara Chouko."

Chouko ...

Chou. Butterfly.

Ko. Child.

Although ... there were plenty of versions of that name with different kanji, with different meanings.

Shaking a bit like a wet dog, Ana tried to remove her idiotic thoughts from her brain. "You've ... you've had your name changed a lot. Right?"

A happy little wince formed in Miss Nakahara's eyes. "You still don't understand. We were classmates in high school. I was Takagi Chouko, but then Brun chose me and my death was faked." Her eyes then seemed to glitter as her voice became more excited. "Ana-chan, aren't you happy? It's so wonderful. We can be friends again."

"Uhuhn!!" Ana shuffled back, pressing into Vlad's body. In English, she spat out, "The fuck are you talking about?!" In Japanese, she said, "Takagi-san wa shinda" Takagi-san is dead! "Shinda!" She repeated the "dead" part as she slapped her palm on the floor. "Shinda!" Her voice rose. "Shinda!!" Again, louder. Her hand hurt. "SHINDA!!"

Ana was panting.

Miss Nakahara's groomed eyebrows rose as she put a palm over her lips. "Arama!!" This was a feminine way of saying, "Oh my!"

Vlad wrapped his arms around her from behind. "Calm down. Nobody's trying to fool you. This is simply how it happened. It. Has. Happened."

But Ana was broken. The weird nonsense that went down before, the violence, the weird transformation, the biting, the blood that was still on the carpet, none of that was enough to break her. But here, now, concerning this long lost person, this person she'd wondered over for years. Now that someone was here, claiming to be her, that was it. That was when Ana screamed out that this wasn't fucking funny. This was cruel. This was evil. How dare they play such an elaborate joke on her?! How dare they play with her emotions?! Absolute fuckshit!

Vlad told Miss Nakahara to leave the room so he could try to soothe Ana. Miss Nakahara nodded and complied, but she looked a bit sad about it.

***

The angry, wild words Chouko heard as she walked away were very foreign. She didn't understand Romanian at all, but she knew Ana was close to insanity. That's how furious she sounded.

When Chouko was back in the living room, where only Mihai Dalca waited, she nodded to him and said, "Ana-chan isn't feeling well. Mr. Dalca is watching over her." She sat down in the armchair that Brun had sat in before. She was certain that Brun was driving that murderous man away. The hospital bed was already gone.

Mihai was Dalca-san. Vlad was Mr. Dalca. This mild difference was a way for them to know exactly which one of them she was addressing. She couldn't call them by their given names without flinching from discomfort.

Dalca-san pulled the band from his long hair and combed through it with tense fingers. His eyes were very tight and upset. He looked down at his knees. Chouko thought he was a very kind man, even when one considered his position. "It can't be helped," he said. "She probably thinks we're joking around and treating her like an idiot."