Only A Bite Away

It was a night like no other. The stars shone bright through the midnight sky, beans of the sun. The enchanted glow of the crimson moon brought my blood to boil. Hunter’s moon. As I walk through the Okinawan countryside, watching the younglings trying to catch fire bugs, I hear the devote praying of monks floating out of the village temple. Passing by the temple wakes something in me, a crawling feeling, insects skittering around in my insides, an urge that begins to devour my very being.

The urge turns to hunger, and unbearable fire in my gut. There is a change as soon as these feelings manifest, as soon as the flame bursts to life. I begin to hear every word that flowed from the monks lips, the sutras twining around each other like snakes or lovers – namu amida butsu, ten mei kai go. Every motion of the people around me seems slow, tantalizing. I begin to run as fast as I can as if searching for something, tripping over the occasional basket.

My body halts without my permission as I look around the busy town. As people pass me, I see their blood rushing through their veins, I can taste it in the air, hear the deep thud of it pulsing at their necks. The hunger begins to consume me like a mighty ocean during a raging storm. I stagger into a nearby alley that looks nearly deserted. As I struggle for balance, fingers scrabbing at the wall, a man comes over to me, helps me up. As soon as he touches me, my body lurches, throbs and I tackle the man, sinking now long fangs into his smooth, sweet neck, allowing the crimson flow to gush out into my hungry mouth. The taste calms the hunger that has built up and leaves me with only a kind of peace and tranquility.


Risha opened his eyes slowly. It’d been a while since he’d had that dream. He traced his lips with a finger, felt almost disappointed when it didn’t come away wet with blood. The dream always left him unsure, caught somewhere between fear and jubilation. The first night. His first memory.

Pulling the sheets away from his body, he sat up, looked over his shoulder to the clock on the bedside table. Almost sunset.

With a sigh, Risha rose, didn’t even bother to change out of his loose pajama bottoms, merely pulled his hair back. It’d gotten long over the past couple of months, hung to his shoulders. It was a constant source of annoyance due to its odd color; platinum, or to be more correct, silver hair was a rare sight in Japan, and whenever he went out to check up on his properties, people were always whispering about how much he must spend to keep it dyed. If only they knew the whole truth about him, the fact that his hair color was natural would be the least of the shock.

Brushing back some stray strands of hair behind his ear, Risha padded into the kitchen. He had a few hours before he was required to go check up on one of his clubs, and as usual, he decided to cook something before going out. Not that he could eat it – human food was almost poison to his system – but the process was meditative for Risha, the manual quality of it. It helped that all the recipes he cooked were the most popular dishes in his restaurants, so knowing that the quality of the food was good even if he couldn’t eat it gave Risha some sense of accomplishment. Of course, he could have the chefs cook him whatever he wanted anytime, but that wasn’t why he had honed his kitchen skills. It was something to do, something that made him feel a little less like the oddity he knew he was.

And of course, he had all the time necessary to become a skilled cook, not only because of his condition, but also the fact that being president of a large company left more leisure than one would think. Running the largest group of restaurants and clubs in Japan would seem to leave one with very little free time, but somehow Risha managed to have hours upon hours of time to himself, away from his job as president of Hamarasachi.

It had taken years to build up his company, but Risha had the time. In fact, he had very little other than time. It had started as a game, a way to keep himself occupied as Japan rose in the international realm. After half a century of meandering about aimlessly, leaving only corpses behind him, Risha had watched with a grin as the West came with their black ships, ripped Japan open to the greedy hands of America and Europe. All the time, Risha had yearned for war, international bloodshed to quench his personal thirst. And, oh, the foreigners tasted to sweet, their blood different, tinged with cream and lace but still warm and red in his mouth…

But Japan hadn’t fought, instead jumping to catch up with the West, pouring coal onto the fire and filling the sky with smoke. Risha had, on a whim, taken up the offer of some official, put what little money he’d stripped from the pockets of dead men into some government backed industry. In a few decades, after the initial flailing of the newly modern economy, he’d accumulated quite a little trust, and with Japan starting to set its sights on Korea, he was free to do what he wished with his newly acquired fortune. While others threw their lots in with the cold world of steel and gunboats, Risha instead crafted his little paradise of light and laughter, built up restaurants and tea houses in the pleasure districts under the assumed name Hamarasachi. While his establishments couldn’t be called brothels per say, the staff was pleasing enough aesthetically to ensure a customer’s return.

Soon, he was the head of the pleasure district’s most popular eateries. Old landowners, sons of samurai, soldiers returning from the continent and the noveau riche all came to Risha’s properties. Of course it helped that he was savvy enough to understand the simple properties of supply and demand, to understand that there were many other men whose tastes ran in the same way Risha’s did and who were just waiting for someone to cater to them.

‘Capricorn’ had been based on the gentleman’s clubs Risha had heard about in Europe – smoking rooms and bars that catered only to male clients and were more often than not spots favored by clientele disinclined to women of any sort. Soon ‘Capricorn’ was Tokyo’s most gossiped about club, and the starting point for many of Japan’s whispered about affairs between men. Of course, it was ‘Capricorn’ that Risha visited the most, where he spent his time watching the men circle around each other, thinking how much this subculture had grown in the century since Risha had opened his eyes to the night a century before. They’d even adopted the Western name for it not too long into the 20th century – homo, or gei.

But it was not only in those inclinations that Risha drew in clientele. He was not in alone in his taste for men – in every sense of the word. There were those who shared his incessant hunger, the search for crimson, and soon he opened up secret restaurants and clubs that were solely for those like him, where those creatures that stalked the night could bare their fangs in a smile and not fear. And thus it was into these two main specialties that Risha built his empire: men who loved men, and creatures that wiped blood from their lips with fine linens.

And now, a century later, Risha rose to greet another sunset, president and publicly the great grandson of Hamarasachi. It was almost too simple to fool the few people who knew him into thinking that he’d died, wait ten or fifteen years, cut his hair in a different fashion and return to the company as a prodigal son. Over the years he’d surrounded himself with competent people who could oversee the business during his absences, some who even knew of his condition due to the fact that they were in similar situations.

Speaking of, Risha pressed a button on the phone next to the kitchen door. An emotionless voice came through the speaker.

“Yes, President?”

“Yuuen, what is on the schedule for tonight?”

“I believe you’re scheduled to visit Capricorn, President.”

Risha grinned. Perhaps that’s why he’d been thinking of the club while he was cooking.

“Very good. 8 o’clock, then Yuuen?”

“Yes, President.”

Turning away from the intercom, Risha scrubbed at his face with his hands, massaged his neck. He looked back to the kitchen, at the pans still steaming with his freshly cooked food. With a sigh, he opened the lid on his trashcan and dumped everything into it, tried to ignore his stomach as it rebelled at the smell of human food. Quickly, he walked back into his bedroom, stepped into his closet. He picked out a simple outfit, gray slacks and a fitted jacket with a burgundy dress shirt, no jewelry. He needed no flashy chains or watches to stand out among the crowd at Capricorn.

Risha glanced at the clock as he walked into the bathroom. Seven thirty already. With a shrug, he decided to keep his hair pulled back simply, splashed some water on his face. The bell rang at 7:57, and Risha answered it, opening the door to a heart-breakingly beautiful black haired boy.

“I chose the Lamborghini tonight, sir.”

“That’s fine, Yuuen. Will there be anyone else joining us tonight?” Risha walked out towards the elevators, Yuuen falling into step behind him.

“Alban is still attending to the branches in Europe. She has a message for you when you have time. Sasha is keeping an eye on security at KuroNeko after that last incident.”

“Then it’s just you and me, Yuuen?”

“Yes, President.” Risha shook his head, hit the button for the garage. No matter how many times he told the boy to call him by his name…

“Well, then, let’s have some fun tonight, shall we?”

Yuuen nodded and opened the door to the Lamborghini with downcast eyes.
Kyosuke folded up the smudged bit paper and tucked it into his back pocket. Looking around, he sighed and stepped into the line of people trying to get into the club. It he thought he’d felt out of place in gay bars before, this took the cake.

Ever since he’d decided boys were more fun than girls, Kyosuke had heard of Capricorn but never had any reason to pay the outrageous cover fee. But now that it was a direct order from the President…His company, Juhara Entertainment, had long been trying to get the upper on their main rival, Hamarasachi. As Vice President, Kyosuke was willing to do anything to manage to get above Hamarasachi in profits, but this was almost ridiculous… The President of Juhara, Yamagato Seichiro, had come to Kyosuke a few days ago with a new plan for taking down Hamarasachi – infiltrate the company by getting to the head of it, the mysterious silver-haired president.

And so now, Kyosuke was waiting in line in order to get into the famed Capricorn, where supposedly the president of Hamarasachi was going to be tonight, doing his regular check up on the club. How Kyosuke was supposed to get in with the elusive head of Hamarasachi, he had no idea. Though he supposed that if this guy ran so many gay clubs, then perhaps he was inclined in the same way, and Kyosuke could use his looks to make an impression.

Shuffling forward as the line moved, Kyosuke caught his reflection in one of the blacked-out windows of the club. He dragged a hand though his hair, wincing as it caught on a clump hair still stuck together by gel. He’d tried to wash it all out before coming, remembering something a lover had said years before. ‘Ne, Kyo-kun, why do you slick your hair back like that. It’s so much sexier when you let it fall normally. Makes you look mysterious.’ God knows Kyosuke couldn’t remember the name or face of whoever said that, but that statement stuck. And it was true – he slicked his hair back so he’d look more professional at work, but when he was on his own time, he let it fall normally. He was two people, essentially – the suited salaryman and the wild breaker of many men’s hearts– and it helped to have his costumes for each.

The bouncer cocked his head when Kyosuke walked up, gave him the once over and cocked an eyebrow. Holding back a scowl, Kyosuke handed over his id and money. It wasn’t his fault that he wasn’t dressed as flamboyantly as some of the other patrons here. His apologies, but he wasn’t one for mesh and buckles, nor lace and petticoats. He’d thought fitted leather pants and a sleeveless top were the average fare for any clubber on a hot Tokyo night.

“Going for the warm-blooded victim type, eh?” The bouncr handed back his card, pocketed the money. Kyosuke took it with a slight frown. The warm-blooded what?

“What did you just say?”

“Already into the act, eh?” The bouncer grinned, and Kyosuke thought he saw the man’s tongue slip between his lips for the slightest second, only it was forked, and an odd shade of blue. Eyes widening, Kyosuke stared and wondered how far people were going to go to be noticed. How much plastic surgery like that would cost…Jerking his head, the bouncer gestured for Kyosuke to enter, turning to the next person in line. Kyosuke put his id away, shook his head and walked into Capricorn.

The interior wasn’t that impressive, but it was roomy, which was a nice surprise for any Tokyo club. The bar was removed from the dance floor, and there were no speakers, so it seemed easier to converse. In the area between the bar and dance floor, there were booths and tables set up, full of patrons resting from dancing. Looking around, Kyosuke decided the best place to start would be the bar – ask a few questions, get some information.

Taking long strides, Kyosuke kept his eyes busy, stayed aware of those around him without lingering too long on any one figure. He wanted to find the president of Hamarasachi but didn’t want to receive any unwanted advances or attention. The bar was full, so Kyosuke leaned into between two seated men and ordered a simple drink. Glancing down, Kyosuke caught the eyes of the man to his left. The man raised an eyebrow and leaned a bit closer to that his shoulder brushed Kyosuke’s exposed flank from where he was leaning on the bar. Getting his drink and flashing the man an apologetic smile, Kyosuke moved away. That guy knew nothing.

Looking down the bar, Kyosuke looked for people who seemed to have some status. He needed regular clients or big shots who might know what the president of this place looked like. Sipping at his drink, he leaned against a column and pretended to take interest in the dance floor. Gods, but the men here were over the top. Kyosuke watched with raised eyebrows as a queen dressed in goth loli rubbed against a huge black man with sunglasses and no shirt on over his camo pants. Suddenly, a skinny thing flicked between the black man’s legs, twined around his thigh. The man’s lips quirked upwards and he pulled the drag queen closer. Narrowing his eyes, Kyosuke try to figure out what just happened – was that a whip? It seemed to move of it’s own accord though, and was pointed at the end, like the end of the tails that all the cartoon demons had…

A yell went up, and suddenly the couple was broken apart as two men came crashing between them. The skinny thing twined around the black man’s leg unfurled and flicked back under the drag queen’s skirts, and with a huff, both of them moved away. Kyosuke stared open-mouthed. A…tail? Surely…Really, how much were people willing to pay for such odd plastic surgery nowadays?

But Kyosuke wasn't able to linger long on thoughts of the drag queen as the two fighting men came dangerously close to him at his vantage point. Snarling, one of them pinned the other, bared his teeth as he straddled the other man. Underneath him, the other growled an pushed, bucked his hips madly, but the victor wouldn’t budge, only smiled and lowered his head close to the other man’s, grasped at his hair and took his mouth in a hard kiss. Soon, the man’s bucking became less violent and more lurid, his hands moving up to drag along the other man’s sides as he was thoroughly kissed.

Kyosuke swallowed. That was…extremely hot. It was almost like they were fighting for dominance…

“Varcolac. Less civilized than the were, by far. But pleasing to watch. Those two are betrothed, so they’re usually like this.”

Kyosuke jumped and turned. The man from the bar earlier stood there, slight smile on his face.

“But you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you? You’re just plain human. Aren’t you?”

“What?”

“Now, why would a human come here without knowing?”

“What – what do you mean…knowing what?” Kyosuke frowned. “I came here to find Risha Hamarasachi.”

“Ho?” The other man leaned closer, breathed in. “Oh, but you do smell so…Risha, eh? Aren’t we all looking for him? But I don’t think that you’re going to find him, no, no.”

Kyosuke glanced around him, swallowed. Something was off… “Why won’t I be able to find him?”

The other man smiled, eyes closing. “Because I’m going to feast on your bones, little man.” Suddenly, the man’s eyes opened, burning red irises caught him and he couldn’t move, couldn't cry out…

A hand on his arm pulled him back to reality, bruising grip painful but welcome.

“My apologies, Sorja, but you’ll have to release this customer. He has another reckoning to deal with.” Kyosuke felt himself jerked backwards, away from the red-eyed man, who cocked his head and smiled, all sharp teeth.

“My oh my. I feel sorry for the poor boy. I think his fate with me would be far less painful – “

“That will be all. Yuuen, if you would see Sorja out.”

Kyosuke shook his head, tried to gather his thoughts. The hand around his arm tightened and he flinched, turned to the man whose hand it was.

“Oi, that hurts, could you – “

“Be silent. I will hear nothing from you.” Kyosuke finally looked at the man who saved him, couldn’t help but gasp quietly as he met the other’s eyes. Red eyes, no, not red, more like orange, the color of rust or old blood. Shaking himself out of his gaze, Kyosuke opened his mouth.

“What? Why are you – I haven’t done anything – “

“You’re from Juhara, correct? I will hear nothing from you unless you wish to explain your presence here. Until then, I’m taking you somewhere where we can discuss - ”

“What do you mean, my presence?” Kyosuke took a deep breath, fought against the burn in his gut that told him to just stare at the other man. Gods, but he was beautiful. Those eyes, set in a slender face, cheekbones leading down to a strong, pale mouth. And his hair, gods, his hair was silver, long enough to be pulled back into a ponytail but so where some strands escaped to brush at his face. Silver hair…

Kyosuke gasped. “You’re Risha!” The other man looked at him hard, scowl set deep in his face and suddenly started walking, pulling Kyosuke along, arm throbbing in pain.

“Oi, you’re hurting me – “ They came to a door, Risha throwing it open and pulling Kyosuke inside the small room. Risha pushed Kyosuke into the direction of the couch.

“Sit. You will explain what you’re doing here, and why you seem to be looking for me.”

Kyosuke glared balefully at the other man. In the room, the light was better than the club, and he could now see that his first impressions of the man were correct. Silver hair pulled back to show off his fine bone structure and cinnamon colored eyes, burgundy shirt and gray suit hanging on a lithe frame. He wasn’t skinny, but certainly didn’t seem to pack the muscle that he’d need to bruise Kyosuke’s arm as badly as he had.

Kyosuke wanted him. Badly. His heart had never beat this fast around another man.

He wasn’t his type – Kyosuke usually went for the cute, fun type that may or may not be able to be mistaken for a girl – but Risha was just so alluring. It was almost instinct…

“If you won’t explain, I have no other choice than to expel you from the club and send a nasty letter to Yamagato.”

“Yamagato is the one who made me do this.” Kyosuke, cradling his arm, gave in and sat down. “He wanted me to meet you.”

“For what purpose?” Risha pierced Kyosuke with those eyes of his. Kyosuke felt himself start to get hard.

“What purpose do you think? He wanted me to infiltrate Hamarasachi from the inside.”

Risha stared hard at Kyosuke for a few moments, Kyosuke trying to seem aloof despite his arousal.

“Well, at least you’re honest.”

“Look, I….All Yamagato wanted me to do was meet you. I’ve obviously done that, so I’ll just tell him that you weren’t interested in me and the plan failed.”

Risha raised an eyebrow. “And the original plan was to seduce me, I take it?”

Blushing, Kyosuke looked down, wanted to hit himself when his eyes lingered on Risha’s body. “Well, I suppose – what with Capricorn being what it is – and my…”

“Your?” By now Risha, had raised an eyebrow. Gods, but the man was cruel.

“He sent me because I have somewhat of reputation of being active in the gay circles. So I can only suppose that he wanted me to get your attention using my body.”

Suddenly, Risha was very very close to him. Reaching out one finger, he tipped Kyosuke’s head up.

“And what makes you think your…body….would be any good reason for me to associate with you?”

Eyes widening, Kyosuke pushed Risha away roughly. Cheeks burning, he stormed out of the room, pressed through the mass of bodies and out of the club. He felt tears at the corner his eyes – he’d never been so humiliated. Or so aroused. Gods, he was still hard!

Back in the club, Risha walked calmly out of the small back room, looked over to the dark-haired boy who waiting beside the door.

“Yuuen. Contact Yamagato over at Juhara Entertainment. Tell him that I’m deeply offended by his latest ploy and require a personal apology from Vice-President for his rude behavior.”

“Yes, sir.” Yuuen bowed shortly and moved away. Risha could only smile darkly. He could still smell the boy’s anger and arousal heavy around him. Oh, but this was going to be fun.

*story up to date (there are way more chapters than on here) for those who cant wait visit http://www.aarinfantasy.com/forum/showthread.php?t=37495*