Dark so dark it takes away my breath. Freezing the breath in my very chest leaving me gasping, panting for yet another. Just to have it pierce me once more too late to do anything about it. Cast aside broken even; just when another wave of darkness rushes over me assaulting all my senses leaving me as a pile of kindling in a flood. Brushing aside all resistance I can muster the instant it rises up in me squashing it ruthlessly even as a childhood dream fleeting and hard to make sense of as it rushes away. Looking back I never expected this to happen least of all to me, but I was wrong what wasn’t I wrong about anymore? Wrong about myself, my limits, and above all else about him.

“Look at him!” my “best friend” Sachiko murmured slyly as she walked by. Her normal look, when she didn’t want to obvious whenever there was a really “hot” boy. We have such different tastes though, and so when I looked I always end up shaking my head and walking away.
Turning on my heel I looked and “Oomph” my grunted reply as I ran into an absolutely gorgeous boy. Not the kind you would generally look twice at with straight black hair and eyes as dark as chips of onyx. His eyes were set off by his silver glasses now slightly askew from our encounter. Immediately embarrassed, I turned and fled clutching my books closer and holding my usual “invisibleness” as a sort of security blanket as I willed myself to be absorbed by the mass of the crowd. Emerging on the other end I of the crowd, I suddenly fell over due to a sharp and acute but suddenly absent pressure on the back of my jacket hood. Slightly dazed I looked around to identify the source and ended up gazing into his eyes once more. Why did he just pull me down? What is his issue? All these thoughts and others like them raced through my head as I stared blankly into his eyes. Finally after what seemed like an eternity he reached out his hand and smiled a beautiful heart stopping smile that made it seem like I had been blind all through the rest of my life until that moment and he was my own personal sun.
“I’m Takashi. I noticed you dropped this earlier and came over to give it back to you, but you ran away,” he said. Wait a minute was that a smirk? No it couldn’t be. No one ever even acknowledged me but here he was holding out my favorite teddy bear topped pencil I’d had since as long as I could remember.
Now I was spiraling through the images trying to remember before the next wave of darkness washed over me. Why did I not trust him? Quickly flipping through my memories of prom and all our countless dates, when he told me he loved me. Still, now I could remember when he “confessed” he was a dragon, not that he had any choice now did he? Him crooning my name “Hamada, Hamada-chan please listen to me it’s not what you think. Not what I think then what could I think seeing him prowling around in the woods flashing in the moonlight his gleaming scales. Until the unthinkable his graceful form looping through the skies contorted as I fell down and as I moved a different flash appeared. More dangerous though and then a charge.
I scream and scream but finally manage to whisper his name, “Takashi…” and then blackness and more blackness, the blackness of my despair. Later I wake up sore aching but in my bed. Huh my bed how did I get here? And then it became clear he’d changed back and brought me here. Then why was he so nervous wringing his hands in the corner as if he had no place he belonged. It broke my heart to see his beautiful face marred by such anguish. Unforgivable really why though, why was it so? Ah, now he saw me and his visage changed going from nervousness to anguish to guilt and settling on pain all in a series of quick flashes. “Takashi … what really happened how did I get here?”
He grimaced in the span of a second and then his face smoothed and became as calm and unreadable as a koi pond. “How much do you remember?” he asked seriously pleading silently with his eyes as if he wished I remembered nothing.
“I remember seeing you through the trees as you…changed… and running off in the woods to find a way to be by myself. I wanted to be alone I felt so alone and betrayed. I just started to feel empty and I saw a flicker in the shadows so I looked around to see what caused it. I looked up and saw you, or at least the dragon you, and suddenly you tensed as if you saw me as I was falling backwards. Looking up once more I saw you tense once more and you…you…” here my voice broke and I started to tremble, “you charged me and tried to kill me. Then all I remember is blackness and waking up here.” Here I finished almost hollowly looking up at him.
“You’re right about parts of this but are missing the most important bits let me fill you in…” here he stopped and took a deep breath as if to steady himself and continued, “Yes I did change as you so eloquently put it but you did not fall and this was not what caused me charge. Such a vulgar term your heart break and tears drew forth a nearby vampire who feeds on loneliness and in turn sucks all of your blood leaving you an empty shell of flesh and dead above all else. I charged but was not quick enough he sucked you almost dry… and … and…” here a shiver passed down his spine as he shuddered visibly and had to take another breath, “and I had to save you in such a way that is irreversible and irresponsible. I was told by many to simply let you go but I couldn’t the only way to save you was to change you. There were still trace amounts of vampire in you enough that all I could do to save you was to in effect kill you. I gave you a transfusion of my blood, dragon blood. You are now a dragon the same as me.” He stopped and allowed his words to take their full effect and sat down upon the floor. “Forgive me Hamada forgive me for allowing this monstrosity but… I just could not lose you… I knew that no matter the price I’d pay it if only you were there to stand by me.”
“Takashi… You should have let me go… it was my time. Now I am something else not on whole thing nothing left to one solidarity but many in one… for that I’ll never forgive you but for our love I forgive all else but until my dying day this shall haunt you. That is my curse unto you but my blessing is my continued love. For I am not blind and can thus see the motive behind your actions. So my love shall we go and see what might be done about this…” with that he pulled me up into his warm embrace and led me to the door.