For the next few days, I paid attention to Haruto and took care of him. I changed his clothes and wiped him down with a warm rag whenever I felt he needed it. I watched his body change. I noticed the fangs and red eyes when he had tussled in bed once. His skin had grown so pale that it made his black hair look like coal tar. The thin film of memory was starting to thicken up again, growing in mass. It was darker and had started to move.
His brain was making new memories and patching up old ones. That was the clearest sign that Haruto was alive.
Most times I slept on the floor beside his bed, but sometimes when Haruto would say something or tussle too much I would join him in bed and hold on to him. He was colder than before, and his heart pounded a lot more slowly behind his ribs, but it was still Haruto, and I was glad for that.
Seven days passed, and soon it was ten. Haruto was alive, I could see that, but he wasn't waking up and I was starting to get worried. On the twelfth day, I grew desperate and called Vincent. Since our talk before the meeting Haruto had invited me to, we hadn't talked, but today I was in my pajamas sitting at the foot of the bed, crying my eyes out as I explained that Haruto hadn't woken up yet.
"Maybe you need to call him," Vincent had offered.
"Call him?" I mumbled into the receiver. I wasn't sure what Vincent meant by that.
"If he's lingering on the tightrope, you might need to call him back to earth if it looks like he can't do it alone. You can call his name, or you can do something to stimulate him."
My face grew warm, and I remained quiet.
"Get your head out of the gutter, Wern."
I got snapped out of my thoughts when Vincent scolded me. It felt like a bucket of water had been poured down my head as my body shivered one shame. "If you knew what I was thinking about, then we both have our heads in the gutter."
Vincent laughed, and it made me laugh a little too. "I don't know, kiss him, call his pet names, remind him there's someone back down that's waiting for him, I don't know," Vincent suggested, and I nodded my head.
"I can do that," I said. "Thank you."
"Good luck, Wern, and if he wakes up, we can finally meet," Vincent said and I smiled, thanking him again before I hung the call. I put my phone away before getting up from the floor and staring down at Haruto. He was still deep in sleep with a blank look on his face.
"Stimulate him..." I trailed under my breath, getting on the bed before hovering over him. I brushed the hair away from his face and I stared at his lips, touching them with the base of my thumb before kissing his forehead.
"Come home, I miss you," I missed, letting my guard down so that he could hear the vulnerability in my voice. "I love you," I said in an even lower voice since those were words that I felt more than I said, and they always had a surrealness to them when I spoke them out loud. They were tangible. Real yet overshadowed by their limitations. Words weren't enough to express how much I needed and wanted Haruto, but my words were all that I had.
Haruto stirred a bit, and so blinked, shocked that Vincent might be right.
"I love you," I repeated, and this time Haruto reached out a hand, flaring it about until it found my back and pulled me closer.
"Wern?"
My heart leaped at the sound of my name. This was the first time he had said anything directly to me since his blackout.
"Yes, Wern," I reinforced, leaning closer to him until our noses touched. "It's Wern," I repeated, kissing him—doing the thing I had avoided out of shyness and a strange sense of respect for him in his sleeping state.
Haruto—to my surprise—returned the kiss, opening his mouth and sighing as his hands ran down my back before finding themselves in my hair. His fingers brushed my scalp with a muscle memory that almost made me cry. He knew it was me. He was there, he just needed to wake up.
"It's Friday," I said, breaking the kiss. "We normally watch movies in the living room, and you eat your favorite tofu before taking a shower together and talking about whatever you want."
"Someone from your meeting group called. They were worried. I told them you had a fever," I continued, hoping that he was just lingering under the surface, and would hear me pleading.
"Please wake up," I said, taking one of his hands and giving it butterfly kisses on the knuckles.
"Wern," he said again, sighing as his eyes fluttered open. The whites of them were a deep red like I had expected. He narrowed his eyes at me, staring at me in confusion before they went wide. "Am I... back?" he asked.
"Yes," I said, rolling to the other side of the bed. I was forcing myself to stay calm for Haruto's sake. Deep down I was pulsing from emotions ranging from relieved, to happy, to bursting into tears from all the anxiety I had felt in the past week and a half.
"I'm back," he said out loud before frowning. "My throat is dry," he complained, licking inside his mouth.
My eyes went wide, remembering that I was supposed to feed him once he woke up. I reached out my hand to him. "Just bite down," I muttered.
Haruto seemed perplexed at first, but he opened his mouth, and by instinct alone, his fangs found their way out.
"Bite," I insisted, pushing my hand closer to his mouth. Haruto looked at me, and then my hand before doing as he was asked.
It hurt—the biting mixed with the slurping and suction motion made me wince a bit, but once Haruto pulled away my skin started prickling as my wounds began to mend themselves.
"How long was I in that coma?" Haruto asked as I pulled the end of my shirt to wipe the blood off his lips.
"Twelve days," I said, watching as he muttered the number under his breath.
"Do you feel better?" I asked, reaching out to touch Haruto's cheek. There was some color to his skin now, and the whites of his eyes that had been a bloodshot red had returned to their original color.
He looked normal. He looked like the Haruto that I had met in the food bank. I don't know what I was expecting, but I hadn't been expecting him to just be there. Just be Haruto like he hadn't been on the brink of death.
We laid down in silence for a while, letting our thighs and shoulders occasionally touch as we listened to each other's breathing. I pulled my hand away from his face before letting my gaze fall on his eyes that still had a far off look in them. "You look like you want to say something."
"A few things," Haruto said, sitting up on the bed, as I leaned off him and sat up. Haruto scooted closer to me, so our thighs and sides touched. He rested his head on my shoulder, humming a hymn as if it was just a regular Friday evening hanging out after work. I clenched the visible bed frame beneath me, as I started reminiscing on the fact that this was the bed he had laid on—practically dead—for more than a week.
"Everything that happened to me, back from when I was younger. I... don't remember," Haruto said, making me raise a brow at him.
"You don't remember?" I asked, a little confused. I knew that the bits of memories that shredded off him were quickly patched back into his mind—the brain was a fridge after all, but I wasn't too sure what happened when large chunks were ripped out. I've met some human turned vampires, but they didn't seem to have amnesia.
"It's a bit confusing to explain," Haruto started. "I know the things that have happened to me, like the objective facts that they are, but I don't remember them on a personal level—like, I can't really think about them and feel pain? I don't remember how painful any of it was," he explained, and my lips parted as I nodded in understanding.
I wondered if I had simply stripped the trauma out of the memories, and not the bare bones of the memories themselves. Of course, amidst the trauma, there had been other emotions and feelings in the mix. I just ate trauma. I didn't eat anger, desire, happiness, and all the other emotions under the sun.
"Oh," I let out again, smiling a little when I understood the gravity of what that meant. Haruto wouldn't suffer from cold sweats at night and random shock from recalling his past. He was free. The thought filled me with joy.
"Wern, have you eaten anything since I left?" he asked me, and I blinked.
"No," I muttered. "You're like a super-sized meal," I explained in a low tone, not enjoying talking about Haruto in food terms. I could probably go for a month or two without eating anything else for now, which would be great.
"Okay," he said, smiling a little. "I just thought about it, but what if you only turned people into vampires from now on?"
I narrowed my eyes at him. "What do you mean?"
"If it's the trauma you need, I'm sure there are people that don't want to remember anymore, and you can do that for them."
Haruto had a point, and for a minute I was excited. "I'll think about that later," I mumbled, deciding to iron out the ideas later. "Let's focus on you for now. Was there something else you wanted to say?" I asked, noting that Haruto might have lost his trail of thought midway.
"Yes!" He said, with excitement in his voice. "The other thing I wanted to say was—" He paused, beaming at me. "There's this saying that God is love," Haruto started saying as he took my face in his hands and brushed my cheek with the base of his fingers. "Love lives here—between us. You're my heaven, Wern. Heaven's the euphoria I feel when I'm with you."
I wasn't sure I quite understood what he was getting at, but the joy on his face was contagious and made the edge of my lips turn up in a smile. Haruto sounded a bit out of it—as if he was on drugs or maybe drunk. I don't know, maybe the death thing was still wearing off.
"While I was gone, on one side all I could see was my past, and on the other all I could see was you," Haruto said, narrowing his eyes a bit as if trying to remember in full detail. "I saw all the memories I've made with you. Your face. Your laugh. The way you look at me—the way you make me feel loved..." he trailed. "I think heaven's the best thing that has ever happened to you, and hell's the opposite. Well, at least for humans. Who knows what'll well meet when we die for real?" Haruto said, acknowledging the fact that he was a demon just like me now.
I thought about what he said, digesting the fact that he had called me the best thing that had ever happened to him.
My heart skipped a beat.
"Sorry for taking so long. I just kept looking up ahead at you—at all the memories. They made me so happy. I didn't want it to stop. I almost forgot that I wasn't supposed to be there," Haruto said, explaining why he had taken so long. "I'm sorry."
I shrugged. "If heaven's the best thing that has ever happened to people, then you're my own heaven," I mumbled as he pressed his forehead against mine. It was true. If there was anything I looked forward to in life, and whatever was after it, it was being with Haruto.
We stared into each other's eyes, smiling like schoolgirls as our breaths fanned each other's faces. I reached out a hand to cup Haruto's cheek. Still in awe and overjoyed at the fact that he was alive and here with me.
This wasn't the end. This was just the start of a long process of Haruto adjusting to his new reality, and of me being there for him as I rearranged my own life.
It didn't matter if there was pain ahead. The only thing that mattered was that I had Haruto with me.
I had heaven.
THE END.