I open my eyes to a bright light above me. I close my eyes again, and turn my head away from it. It makes my head throb as I do, maybe I need to sleep a little longer and it will go away.
"She's awake!" I open my eyes more slowly at the sound of my mom's voice. I let my vision adjust, and I look around to find myself in a hospital room. I've never been in one myself, surprisingly, I'm a rather healthy person. In spite of my diet and sedentary lifestyle would make you believe.
"Wh-" I stop talking once my voice comes out all raspy. My mouth is so dry. I somehow manage to build up saliva. "What happened?" I question in a whisper. I raise my arm as I feel a bit of pressure on my inner arm. Looks like I got an IV, which I've never had placed on me, that I remember. How uncomfortable, it kinda hurts when I move my arm, like it's pinching me.
"You passed out, and some people called the hospital. The school was informed after they found you a few blocks away from it. They contacted us and told us you were very dehydrated. I had to call your mom out of her job." My dad explains to me as I look over at the doctor who seems to have also been waiting with my family.
"Oh." I rub my eyes before putting my hand down slowly to my side. I jump as I touch something.
I lift my head to find Kaname and Zero sleeping on either side of me. "We found them trying to wake you up. The EMS I mean." The doctor tells me. I look back down at them, and smile. I pet their heads gently. Careful not to disturb their sleep. Somehow he's not shocked at all by their presence either, maybe my family made up an excuse as to what they are. I wonder if they want to believe they're toddlers or something, they're kind of their size, but probably a little smaller than that.
"They came back." I feel tears coming out again, and I try to hold them back by blinking rapidly.
"Alright. Lets leave the young lady to rest, and we'll talk about a few things." The doctor says motioning my parents out of the room. I move my palms up to my eyes, and rub at my teary eyes.
"You came back." I say feeling very happy. I think this is what happiness feels like. I haven't had much experience with it, but I'm just going to assume this is it. This is right.
"I couldn't leave you." Zero says startling me. I uncover my eyes, and look to find him very close to me. I blush at the sudden affection. Then I smile to try, and make it more comfortable.
"Th-thanks." I say reaching out to him, but I remember that he doesn't like to be petted, so I pull back hesitantly, but he grabs my bandaged hand to press it to his cheek.
"Sorry about the scratches." He says to me, and really meaning it.
"D-don't worry about it. I know you don't like to be touched, but I keep being stubborn, and wanting to hold you." I tell him, but it's nice that he's letting me touch him now. "Zero, can I ask you something?" I question him, and at that moment Kaname wakes up. I look at his reddish brown eyes before he jumps on me, and hugs me.
"You're okay?!" He questions me. I laugh, trying to ignore the pinching on my arm from the IV needle moving a bit inside my vein.
"Yeah, I'm okay now. I'm glad the two of you came back!" I say petting their heads gently.
"I'm sorry. We had to calm down." Kaname says looking away.
"Right. I understand now." I tell them. They look at me surprised.
"What do you mean?" They question me. I scratch my forehead.
"Um well I figured out that you two are also vampires." They look away, and I smile at them. "Hey, I love vampires as much as I love nekos." I tell them, trying to ease them from the worried look on their faces. I look at them blush brightly. "I guess if you guys need blood I'll gladly offer it." I say to them.
"I can't." Kaname tells me, a weary tone in his voice.
"Why not?" I question him.
"I'm a pureblood." He tells me. I tilt my head to the side, I'm a bit surprised, but not really.
"So that means if you bite me I'd turn into a neko vampire?" I question him. He shakes his head. Seeming kind of surprised, also very confused at the conclusion I came to.
"A vampire." That seems pretty tempting if you ask me.
"Oh, so then what are you going to do if you need blood?" I question him worriedly.
"I have a way." He tells me, but I get the feeling that's all he's going to tell me. How would he? In a place that's supposed to be unfamiliar to him.
"Okay, as long as you're going to be okay. What about you, Zero?" I question him.
"I'm not a pureblood, but I'm not going to bite you again." He tells me not meeting my eyes.
"I guess it was gross, huh?" I say rubbing the back of my head awkwardly. Zero doesn't answer me, and simply sits there.
"Right. I'll be quite now. Sorry I said that. I'm going to sleep I guess. Night." I say to them, and put the covers over my head. I'm just happy they're back. I hope they never leave again. I'm sure this is the beginning of a wonderful friendship.
~0~
"Alright, well she looks better and is pretty hydrated. Be careful, try to drink more water, okay, Alondra?" I look to the side with a bashful look as the doctor prepares to discharge me after a couple of hours. He hands me a doctor's note for the school, so they believe that I was here in the first place when I go back tomorrow.
"I'll do my best, doc." I lie. I know water is healthy and all that for me, but since I don't do a lot of moving in the first place, I rarely drink water. I mean, like through an entire day, I can barely get through an entire 16 ounce bottle. No wonder I ended up here. That's why my mom always showed us that going out in the sun at its highest point and on a hot day is bad.
"I hope so. Well, you're free to go. Take care." I smile politely at the doctor and give my farewell. I step out of the room to meet with my family that had waited outside. I crouch down and pick up Kaname and Zero happily, hugging them against me.
"So, are you okay? Do you need anything?" My dad asks me, like he expected the doctor to prescribe me something. Not everything needs a prescription, you would think he would know that. Then again, we don't come to the doctors until there's something wrong with us and it doesn't go away after we ignore it for a couple days, weeks, or months! Woo, American healthcare system! Ugh...
"I'm okay, I just need to drink more water. That should be kind of obvious." My parents look at each other and sigh. Looks like they don't believe I can commit to that, but yeah they're right. There's no way I'll change up my water consuming habits, even after this little adventure of mine.
"Okay, well lets go home. We left your sister at home." Oh how sweet of my baby sister who decided to stay home instead of visiting her elder sister after school. I wonder what I did wrong in order for her to treat me like some sort of pest instead of a sister that cares about her. Maybe it's not a me thing at all. Oh well, my brain is too tired to think about that tonight, I'll just have to get used to feeling like an only child. It's fine, I did it for the first two years of my life... not that I actually remember that time of my life.
"Are you okay? Your heart skipped a beat earlier." I jump and look down at Kaname as we walk out of the hospital and towards my dad's truck. Oh yeah, I guess my car would still be at the high school. Unless he let my sister drive it back home after school. She's still a new driver, but I guess she can manage to drive on her own. Though, that's not exactly legal, but hey whatever. I'm just distracting myself at this point by rambling about nonsense.
"I'm okay, I didn't know my heart did that." I whisper to him, looks like he was able to pick up on that being so close to my chest. Oh man, now that's embarrassing. I'm now self-conscious about having these two pressed against my chest. Well, they don't seem to affected, so I guess that's fine? "The body does some weird stuff sometimes, so no need to worry about it." I try to reassure them and settle myself down.
"Okay, if you're sure." I smile down at him before looking ahead again, setting them in the backseat before I get in after them. My dad drives on in silence towards the house. I don't really feel like making conversation anyway. I wonder if my two little nekos explained what happened. I can only assume so, they're not asking questions after all.
That's right, so much has gone on today that I really haven't processed that these two are vampires. A pureblood and normal vampire. Looks like my speculation about purebloods wasn't wrong, thank you creative minds of manga creators. I wonder what else do vampires like them share with the lore created for many different kinds. The sun doesn't seem to make them burst into flames or... sparkle. They don't seem to be affected by the religious paraphernalia in our house either. Thank goodness for that.
Kaname said he has a way to handle his thirst, but I wonder what that really means. Does he get hungry from the times Zero bit me? I wonder when he even started to feed off of me. I only noticed because he bit me in such an obvious spot. I do look at my hands when I'm bored. Or when I'm tapping my fingers together. Maybe he wanted to get caught so I could stop him, I'm not going to though. If they need my blood to survive, then they can have some. They're tiny, so I doubt I would notice much of a difference anyway.
"We're home, lets head inside." I'm driven out of my thoughts as my dad parks in the driveway. I smile and get out, helping out Kaname and Zero to the ground. We head inside, my mom insisting I shower since I did break quite the sweat today. That's fair. I go to my room glancing over at my sister who plays videogames, not really sparing me a glance. I'm not sure what I expected anyway.
~0~
"If you're going to be outside, you should probably drink water." I look over at Zero who carries a water bottle over his head. I take it from him and open it up to drink up.
"It's fine, the sun isn't visible from here anymore and the day cooled off a little. I'm not running around desperately this time. You guys didn't have to run away, I'm not afraid of you guys." I set the water bottle on the opposite side of where Zero sits beside me on the steps of the back entrance of my house. I guess Kaname is doing his own thing indoors.
"You really are weird about what you react to and what you don't." I laugh a little, looks like Zero managed to see that about me too. "What's so funny?"
"I'm just laughing at how true that is. I react pretty unexpectedly at the weirdest things. Like this, you know? You guys drink blood. I've taken responsibility now, so I'm fine with you drinking my blood." I kind of don't want to look at Zero. It's kind of awkward having a conversation with him, he's so serious, but also angers easily.
"I don't want to. I hate drinking blood." He says annoyed, but it doesn't sound like it's at me. Looks to me like he hates to be a vampire as much as he hates being a neko. Though, he's going to have to put up with it, because we don't have a way to make them a different species. I won't insist on the blood drinking for today, he'll have to get hungry eventually.
"Oh, it's night time. Well, better head back inside now. Lets go." I open the screen door and the regular door for him. He enters after a moment of silent contemplation. I smile as he walks in locking the door behind me. I look out through the hazy glass, feeling like I can almost see a silhouette. Though, I'm sure that's just my brain playing tricks. Maybe I'm still feeling the effects of dehydration. More water.