Admin Mawile: Well, here’s the first chapter of Laito’s route! I wrote it faster than expected, so I hope everything turned out alright…
To anyone who doesn’t already know, this fic takes place in my Sub Au, more information for which can be found on this blog. There’s going to be a route for each boy, and each route will be divided up into an estimated ten chapters. I’m probably taking on too much, honestly (*~▽~)
The warnings for this chapter include one scene that implies sexual assault, some minor blood and violence, and Laito being himself. If any of this bothers you, read carefully.
Questions and comments will always be appreciated, and thank you so much for reading! ❤ (∩´∀`)∩
Time passes. You sleep for a bit, half expecting that you’ll wake up to one of the boys in your room. You remain undisturbed, though, all by yourself in a room so overly feminine it’s almost unpleasant.
The sky outside lightens and darkens. You’ve slept through most of a day already. There’s not much of a reason why you shouldn’t.
Instead of fussing over why no one has come for you yet, you go through your things, calmly unpacking and making the absurdly pink room your own. Everything in it is nice, all high quality materials, and you find it harder and harder to complain about the decor alone.
The room itself smells like flowers and something dark and unpleasant. There are few sounds in the house, not even the settling you’d expect.
It’s unnatural. It’s what you’d expect from a home full of vampires.
Despite the horror of the situation, you don’t feel anything but calm resignation. You’re here for good, you have a feeling, and it doesn’t seem to make sense to be afraid after everything that’s happened.
You know they might kill you. You know they’re going to hurt you.
Thinking of who could be in your place, you find you don’t really care.
The idea of being the vampire’s prey doesn’t scare you anymore. Your first meeting was far from intimidating. If anything, you feel like you won something by standing your ground when they tried to be intimidating.
You’re kneeling by the bed, sliding your suitcase underneath it for storage when one of the boys from before appears behind you.
You feel him before you turn around and see him, the distinct feeling of being watched. By choice, you stay exactly where you are, carefully pushing your suitcase the rest of the way under the bed.
“Ah, she’s ignoring me~” Laito says, humor in his tone. “Bitch-chan is so cruel. And here I just wanted to talk.”
When you do turn around, it’s slowly, as if you couldn’t care less that a vampire is looming mere inches behind you. Laito is much too close, practically invading your space with his body where he stands.
It’s a gesture of dominance, you can tell, and when you stand up, you make sure not to back down for a second. You stand up, staying just as close as he put himself to you, and look him dead in the eye. Laito isn’t particularly tall, and his intimidation is purely in the way he carries himself.
Laito’s pretty green eyes sparkle with something cunning and cold. You have the feeling he’s going to try something to make you afraid.
“So, what are you here for?” you ask.
“I wanted to talk to our pretty guest~” he sing-songs, sounding delighted. “You were such a brave little Bitch-chan earlier…”
He’s patronizing you with every word, treating you like a silly little girl. You can imagine that he’s used to girls much younger and softer than yourself. The thought of that makes you feel almost sick.
“Alright. What did you want to talk about?” you reply, sitting down on the bed in a casual gesture that should show him you’re not afraid.
There’s no sense in being rude to the vampires, but you’re also not going to cower from them for a second. You’ll be polite, yes, but you won’t leave room for them to walk all over you or see a second of your fear.
Well, not that you have much of that in the first place.
Laito sits down next to you, smiling fake-friendly. His posture is schooled, open, arms back and head tilted slightly back. He’s trying to look harmless, you can tell, and if anything, that puts you more on edge. You have a feeling that this one is a manipulator, and the last thing you want is to get wrapped up in the lies of a monster like him.
“So, why’s Bitch-chan so fearless, hmm~?” he asks with a little laugh at the end. “Don’t you realize that you’re in a bad place?”
You take a moment to consider how honest you should be. You run the risk of making him angry if you’re too blunt, but hiding things could very well get you in more trouble. This one could probably tell.
“I’m not afraid of you,” you say in the end. “I don’t know why, but I’m not. As soon as I figured out what you are, I quit being scared.” There’s a flash of something like surprise in Laito’s eyes, for just an instant.
You can’t help but feel like he’s faking.
Laito replies with cheery words, and you imagine that he’s trying to be comforting. He’s looking at you with something like predatory intent, though, and the sharpness in his eyes defeats the soft words.
Instead of pointing this out, you play along.
The conversation goes back and forth a couple more times, Laito seemingly playing the part of the concerned bystander. You don’t like how good an actor he is, cheerful voice slipping over the pretty words with ease. He doesn’t slip up for a second, even though you can tell that he’s messing with you. He must be well used to tricking people, you think.
The longer you talk to Laito, the more uncomfortable you feel. He’s downright slimy in a way that creepy men always seem to be, pretty face and relaxed demeanor only making it all worse.
You have a bad feeling about this one, somehow, and when he starts needling you about why you’re here in the first place you’ve had enough.
“Excuse me, but why are you asking me all this?” you ask. “Is there some point in knowing every detail of my personal life?”
Abruptly, something changes in Laito’s bearing. You freeze.
“Ah, Bitch-chan’s catching on,” he croons, and you resist the urge to back up a bit. He’s been using that demeaning nickname the whole time you’ve been talking, and you’ve only barely resisted telling him off for it.
All of the sudden, Laito is much too close. He moves faster than any human should be able to, and is mere inches away from your face before you can jerk away, smiling like he knows some exciting little secret about you. You’re about to shove him off of you, or least try to–
And then he kisses you.
Cold lips are pressed to yours, and Laito presses even closer, deepening the kiss so quickly and forcefully that you don’t have a second to pull away. His hand goes to your waist, tugging you close.
Beyond annoyed, you wedge your hands in between the two of you and shove, hard. Laito moves with you, but you can tell it’s willing.
“Feisty, hmm~?” Laito laughs, licking his lips. “I know that older women have more fight in them, but you look like you want to choke me~ Were you going to bite me next, Bitch-chan? Make me bleed?”
You feel downright nauseated. Before you can say anything, Laito scoots forward, pinning you with surprising strength. He forces you down and back onto the bed, kissing you again, and this time when you try to shove him off of you, he doesn’t budge.
Honestly, you want to bite him. If you thought it would get him to move, you would. He seemed far too excited by the prospect, though.
When he moves a hand to your breast, you consider it all over again.
Instead, you go limp, not fighting back. You’re not kissing back, either, and you imagine that he’ll get bored when his victim doesn’t react. His hands are all over you, forcing, and you can feel your eye twitching. It’s more infuriating than anything. You wish you could just shove him away.
Laito finally pulls back from the kiss. You don’t have much time for relief, though, because there’s a pain at your neck a second later, liquid agony flowing through you as what feels like fangs sink into your skin.
He moans against your neck, lapping at the skin, and you clench your fists and bite your lip. It hurts, of course it does, but you still just want to hit him. If this is all the worse being bitten by one of the monsters is, you can take it. You can definitely take it. Laito’s open invasion of anything resembling personal space bothers you more.
“You taste so sweet… Even though you try to be tough, your blood is telling me how much you enjoy this,” Laito mumbles against your skin.
It takes genuine effort not to try to strangle him.
His hands are cold against you, and his mouth is cooler, even the soft puffs of breath as empty as if he was dead. You can’t feel any sort of pulse from him, and you’re increasingly aware of how inhuman he really is.
“You can fight back if you want, Bitch-chan,” he moans, sounding pleased. “Girls who hate me are just as delicious as the ones that love it.”
There’s blood dripping down your neck, sticky and hot.
You’re starting to feel light-headed.
If he thinks you’re going to encourage him, he’s dead wrong. Instead, you lay there and let him do what he wants, acting like you couldn’t care less that some pretty boy vampire is drooling over you.
That goes on for a good few minutes, Laito biting and licking and running his hands all over you. He doesn’t seem to get bored, and your irritation climbs. Just when you’re starting to wonder if it would be worth it to hit him, he tears your shirt open with inhuman strength.
This is the second time you’ve met the boy, you think bitterly. You’re starting to feel sick, wondering exactly how far he’s going to go while you lay there and pretend like it doesn’t matter that you’re being assaulted.
If you thought there was anything you could do to get him off of you, you’d do it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like there’s any way out.
Laito has moved on to biting at your chest, fangs prickling instead of piercing. You’re starting to get the impression that this is some kind of twisted show of dominance, and the only reason he’s bothering to torment you to such a degree is because you didn’t show fear earlier.
You’re definitely getting dizzy from blood loss, you think, and wonder if he really intends to kill you so soon in the game.
He sinks his fangs into your stomach and you grit your teeth. It hurts, horribly so. Even so, the pain is bearable. What’s really getting under your skin is the way he treats you like he has some right to your body. Maybe it’s a vampire thing, thinking that they’re so above humans that they can do things like this. You doubt that you’re special in any way.
That thought makes you picture something even worse.
A girl, younger and smaller and more fragile than you, holding back sobs as this monster drains her try. Fear in her eyes as he tears at her clothes. You have the sickening feeling that it’s happened already.
Something inside you snaps, shattering like glass.
Laito has tugged up your skirt, is inches away from sinking his fangs into the meat of your thigh. He looks downright smug.
You knee him in the head with as much force as you can muster.
You can feel Laito’s jaw snap together with a harsh click, and when he looks up at you, his fangs have gone through his own lip a bit, blood dripping down his chin. The wound already appears to be healing.
Disgustingly, he doesn’t look like it hurt him very much. Instead, he’s smiling, eyes sparkling with something close to satisfaction.
And then he moans.
“Ah, Bitch-chan, you really hate me, huh?” He’s nuzzling against your thigh, smirking like the cat that caught the canary. “You’re the first girl to fight back so viciously, you know? It’s so charming, that hatred in your eyes~” His gaze is fixed on you, glittering brilliant green.
Instead of showing how sickened you feel, you sit up, wipe your mouth, scrubbing the taste of him off of you, and bring a hand to a wound.
“Were you going to kill me?” you ask, feeling wetness on your skin.
“Of course not!” Laito laughs. “You’re so pretty and sweet, I just wanted to show you how nice it would be if you loved me. Your blood tastes so good, I can tell how much you liked being at my mercy, nfu~”
You give him a look that could freeze an open flame.
“Lovely. Are you done now?” you say, looking him in the eye like you don’t care that he was probably minutes away from raping you or worse.
Instead of replying, Laitio laughs again. “Don’t worry your silly little head about that, Bitch-chan. You’ll find out just what kind of pleasures I can bring you. You’ll come around sooner or later.” As soon as the line is done, he vanishes, gone every bit as suddenly as he’d appeared.
As soon as you’re sure he’s gone, you flop back onto the bed, exhausted. He took a lot of blood, you can feel it, and the wounds are only just starting to close over. Vampire saliva, perhaps.
Your skin still feels chilled where he touched you.
A couple deep breaths later, and the furious, scrambled feeling is gone. You’re still angry with him, but it’s down to something simmering and molten, instead of the kind of anger that made you knee him in the head.
That may not have been your wisest choice. Ah well, it got Laito off of you and didn’t end in your death. You can live with one bad choice.
There’s not a dash of fear in you. You’re angry. You’re disgusted. You’re honestly wondering if you could get away with strangling him, but you’re not afraid. You’ve seen what the monster can do, and all it did was piss you off. The thought of Laito’s smug grin makes your blood boil.
Rationally, you decided that another bit of sleep will do you good.
…
You wake up again, feeling just as tired as before you slept. The wounds on your neck, chest, and stomach are throbbing, and you inspect the punctures with annoyance. The marks are neat and small barely even noticeable, but hurt more than you’d expect from such tiny wounds.
Legs shaking when you stand, you force down how weak you feel. Blood loss is going to be beyond unpleasant to deal with.
After just a few minutes of sitting unsteadily on the edge of your bed, there’s a knock at your door. You tense for a second, then remember that Laito has already established that he doesn’t like to knock.
The person at the door is one of the servants, a tall, older man who tells you in low tones that a meal has been prepared for you downstairs.
A few minutes later finds you sitting at an absolutely massive table in what appears to be the dining room, all alone. The room is dark and vaguely unpleasant, smelling of the same odd scent as the rest of the mansion.
You aren’t exactly surprised when someone appears behind you.
This time, it’s Reiji, making a face like he’s mildly disgusted with you. You don’t comment. You know mind games when you see them.
Reiji informs you that he and his siblings attend school at night. “But, considering your age, you will be remaining in the mansion,” he says, sounding as if he dislikes the idea. He spends a few minutes lecturing you on what constitutes appropriate behavior while they’re gone, and, with one last parting comment about you using the wrong fork for your meal, is gone.
You very nearly collapse into a fit of giggles as soon as he’s vanished. The very idea of a vampire scolding you for using a salad fork improperly is ridiculous, and you can’t help but snicker at how serious he seemed.
After finishing your surprisingly palatable meal in peace, you leave the dining room behind, glad to be away from the monstrosity of a table.
The thing looked fit for something close to ten, not one lonely person, and can’t help but wonder if the boys ever eat there as a group. You can already picture them bickering like children over something stupid.
From what you know of them, you think it could actually happen.
You spend the next while wandering around the mansion, attempting to learn some of the twists and turns of the place. The house is absolutely huge, all winding hallways, and it takes some careful plotting to make sure that you don’t get hopelessly lost from your room.
(The thought of the boys at high school is still making you snicker. You wonder if it’s a school special for vampires, or if they have to play human.)
Something changes in the air after a while. There’s a sudden sense of foreboding, some energy crackling in the empty space, and you recognize it as a similar feeling from when you first entered the mansion.
Taking it to mean that at least some of the vampires have returned, you decide to stick a bit closer to your room.
You can just picture one of them trying to harass you for wandering around. With the infuriating memories of the incident with Laito fresh in your mind, you’re not sure you wouldn’t do something that you’d regret.
The feeling only intensifies when you see one of them waiting for you.
It’s Ayato, messy haired and looking like he thinks he’s on top of the world. There’s something childish in his expression, you note, some look in his eye that makes him seem younger than he already looks.
“Hey, old lady!” he crows when you get close enough, eyes fixing on you in an instant. “Where have you been? Out getting lost?” He laughs obnoxiously, grinning ear to ear, and you now have a very good idea of what this one is like. Even his tone of voice is arrogant and self-sure.
“Just exploring,” you reply, smiling politely. Ayato’s grin drops.
“Damn, you’re boring,” he says, making a face, “and yuck, I can smell Laito on you. Are you such a slut that you’ve been letting that nasty pervert at you already?” His eyes fall to the bite wound on your neck.
“You’re vampires. I would have imagined that this is normal for you,” you say, not falling for his taunt for a second.
A moment passes, you and Ayato looking at each other eye to eye. He’s challenging you, you can tell, trying to make you cower or feel ashamed. You hold his gaze and refuse to so much as flinch.
“Tch, boring,” he says eventually, looking away and taking a step back. “I’m not gonna bother with you while you stink like that pervert,”
It’s a childish admission. It’s a win nonetheless.
Ayato leaves, vanishing in the same way they all do, and you go back into your room, feeling almost proud. You stared down the monster and won, and that alone almost makes up for what happened earlier. Well, sort of. You still wish that you could have done more to Laito than kick him.
The impression you’re getting so far is that all of these boys need a serious attitude adjustment. Almost all of them have come off as childish and immature, and, for as young as they look, you can’t help but wonder where their parents are, why they’re left to raise themselves. Reiji has been the only recently responsible-seeming one you’ve met yet.
There’s no point in fussing over these awful creature, you remind yourself, laying back on your bed. None of them are of your concern.
…
A couple days go by, crawling slowly. You have little to do in the mansion but wander around, and you’re becoming horribly bored.
You find a library on day two, but most of the books are in languages that you don’t understand. Reading only gets you so far, anyway, not when you have absolutely nothing else to do in the huge house.
The brothers spend all night at school. You’re told early on that you’re expected to keep a nocturnal schedule too, and you don’t complain. Worse things could happen. You don’t mind being up at night too terribly, anyway. It doesn’t bother you too much that they’re imposing this too.
The mansion itself gets creepier the longer you’re in it. That dark, unpleasant smell never goes away, and every room you find has the same awful aura. Even the rose gardens out back seem half dead, refusing to thrive in such an unhappy place. No matter how pretty and fine everything is, you get the impression that the unhappiness is permeating it all.
You eat your meals alone in the dining room. You spend your days wandering a nightmare of a mansion. You sleep always half expecting to wake up to a real life monster hovering in your room.
It’s not hard to imagine how their previous prey would be terrified.
Instead, though, all you feel is resignation. There are some positives to all of it (the fanciest place you’ve ever been in, time to yourself to think, and so on), and you refuse to play the vampires’ game and start to break.
There’s no reason for you to be afraid. You’ve already experienced what they can do to you, and it doesn’t frighten you to be hurt.
Even better are the moments you actually face them. Even though you’ve been bitten a few times, the looks in their eyes when you remain cooly impassive through all of it are almost funny.
A couple of them, like the small one, get angry when you don’t play along. You’ve already had a fork embedded in your leg by him.
Most of them ignore what they see as unpleasant prey.
Laito seeks you out again on day four.
This time, you’re sitting in a chair in one of the many sitting rooms you’ve found, flipping through a book filled with fairy tales that you’ve never heard before. All of them are exceptionally violent and end horribly.
You’re just starting to wonder if this kind of thing is normal for vampires, when “Bi-tch-chan~” is whispered in your ear.
Knowing that he’s probably expecting you to startle, you close your book calmly and turn around. “Can I help you?” you ask, already feeling mildly annoyed by the same smug look on Laito’s pretty face.
“Aw, how cold,” he smiles, looking at you like a cornered mouse, “I’ve been so busy with school lately, and this is how my cute Bitch-chan talks to me? I’m hurt.” He makes a fake-upset face, pouting. You note that he’s wearing what looks like a uniform, probably from his school.
“Mhmm, I’m sure you are,” you say, voice even and unamused.
Laito does something too quickly for you to see, and next thing you know, you’re on your feet, pinned against a wall.
“Is Bitch-chan going to play nice,” Laito croons, “or am I going to have to be rough with her again?” He looks like the very idea pleases him.
Instead of responding, you sigh, not fighting his grip. You can already tell that you’re going to get bitten again. The idea doesn’t particularly bother you, aside from the fact that it’s the annoying one doing it.
Laito laughs again, and tears at your shirt, getting it off your shoulders roughly enough to pop a couple seams. You know already that your neck is dotted with a couple fang marks from his brothers, from the few times that they’ve gotten pushy enough with you to try to feed.
“Oh? You’ve been being passed around a lot while I was gone, huh, Bitch-chan? Did you like it? Did their fangs feel as good as mine?” Laito’s face is flushed, and he’s getting in close to your skin, inspecting.
He runs a couple fingers over one wound, pressing down with enough force to send a rush of pain through every part of you.
You grit your teeth and resist the urge to punch him. Hard.
Seconds later, there are fangs in your neck, biting painfully close to one of the existing wounds. Laito has your arms twisted up above your head at an odd angle, putting too much strain on them, and it’s starting to hurt.
He bites you a couple times, not lingering for long at each spot. You have the feeling he’s trying to mark you instead of feed.
“What do my brothers think of my scent all over you?” he asks, voice sounding thick and half-moaning. “I bet they all know what a little slut my Bitch-chan is, begging for my fangs like this~” He bites you again, deeper than before, and you try not to roll your eyes at his words.
All of them have assumed that you’re going to whimper and struggle, afraid, and their actions show that they don’t quite know what to do when you don’t. Laito especially seems to be stuck in the same role.
He mumbles something derogatory against your skin, infantilizing words, as if you’re some child who will fall before him.
He release your hands, moving to grope you instead.
You’re well aware that this a monster at your neck.
You don’t care.
One of your hands goes to Laito’s hair, embedding itself in the soft, auburn locks. Laito moans like he thinks you’re playing along. With as much force as you can muster, you yank his head away from you.
Hair rips under the strength of your grip, tearing away from his scalp. Laito yelps, moving with you, and you drag him off of your neck.
“Do you honestly think that I’m afraid of you?” you ask, voice so cold it sounds foreign even to your own ears. You can feel your pulse pounding somewhere around your throat, anger consuming you from the inside.
Laito’s eyes fix on yours. He’s frozen, for just a moment, and in that instant, you see something like genuine shock in his eyes.
Then, his face breaks into the same smug smile. He squirms in your grip, face going flushed with what looks like excitement, expression turning aggressive once again. You tighten your grip in his hair, and he moans, whatever surprise you saw in his eyes replaced by sickening arousal.
“Ah, Bitch-chan~ You’re finally going to be cruel? I’ve been just waiting for you to fight back, you know. You hate me, don’t you? Go ahead, show me how much you do,” he croons, leering at you.
You let go of his hair, annoyed at how well he catches himself.
“I don’t want to play your little game. I’m not afraid of you, and I’m not some scared little girl that you can push around. I’m not going to cower, and you’re not going to get anywhere with stupid intimidation tactics. You’re annoying.” The words fall out of you, fury bubbling out over your lips like tar. Vaguely, you realize that this isn’t wise, but you’re too angry to stop.
You want to hurt him. You want to pin this disgusting boy to the wall and choke him until he stops talking. You have the feeling you would, if you didn’t already know that he’d like it.
Laito shifts his posture to something open and vaguely aggressive, looking you in the eye again, the smile almost gone from his face. It feels like he’s trying to gain back some control of the situation. He licks his lips, eyeing you with something predatory and almost angry.
He looks like he wants to say something, like he wants to beat you into submission and make you play along with his will.
You stand straight, look him in the eye, and refuse to back down. Showing fear now would damn you. You started this, and you’re willing to finish it. Even if he kills you, you’re not going to let him win.
Looking into Laito’s eyes, you see the exact moment he changes.
All at once, the tension drops out of Laito’s frame. He relaxes, going back to the same fake-open bearing you’re used to. He smiles again, the familiar, easygoing look falling back into place.
“You’re really serious, huh Bitch-chan?” he grins, laughter in his voice. “Not many humans would stand up to me like you did, you know? It’s reeeally impressive, nfu.” His tone is amused, like you’re a child trying to stand on equal ground with an adult. You feel absolutely sick.
Laito steps forwards, slings an arm around your shoulder, and kisses you on the cheek, disgustingly affectionate.
“I like you, Bitch-chan. You’re going to be very fun to play with. Girls who hate me are always so pretty when they’re mad~ Yell at me again, won’t you? Tell me how terrible I am?” A blush paints his pale cheeks.
You feel more like hitting Laito than ever. You should have known that fighting back would just encourage him.
After promising you that he’ll be back, smiling as he tells you that he’ll have plenty of fun things to do to you next time, Laito is gone. You’re left alone in the room, shaking with anger, a headache pounding through you.
You’re disgusted. You’re furious. You hate that boy more with everything he says to you.
And yet, when you were staring him down, for just an instant, you thought you saw something almost vulnerable in his eyes. It was only an instant, but that look of shock won’t leave your head. You have the feeling that no one had ever tried to stand up to him before.
Fuck, you know that no one has. You’ve managed to endear yourself to him by refusing to be afraid, and now he’s even more interested in you than before.
You walk back to your room, taking the fairy tale book with you.
You’re bleeding where he bit you, red dripping down and staining your shirt. His fangs tore you up pretty badly when you yanked him away. You remember him moaning over how sweet you taste, and you don’t care.
Laito promised that he’d be back, and that’s the singular worst news you’ve had since getting to the mansion.
Even back in your room, you can’t stop thinking about how strangely Laito acted once you fought back. Perhaps the vampires really are just shocked that a human would dare lash out at them.
Perhaps you’ve opened a whole different can of worms.
You go to bed feeling vaguely unsettled, still angry over how Laito treated you. He’s still acting like it’s a joke, you know, and while that’s probably the only thing keeping you from getting killed, it still makes hot fury run molten under your skin.
The anger doesn’t quite erase the uneasy feeling in the pit of your stomach, though, the vague sense that you’ve gotten yourself into something terrible.
Telling yourself that it’s just the blood loss and adrenaline making you feel funny, you push it aside and force yourself to sleep.