Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

After Ren learns most of the ropes in terms of brewing an acceptable cup of coffee—Sojiro’s standard, so it is high —he asks what else he can help more.

“Accounting? Sales? Marketing in social media?” Ren suggests, looking at the cozy but empty coffee shop on the weekend afternoon, “I want to help more.”

“No cat cafe.” Sojiro abolishes Ren’s life dream, but with a softer gaze in his eyes, “Morgana is enough cat for my lifetime. Actually, since you already know about Futaba and she is also very comfortable around you, I do have a favor to ask.”

“Anything, Boss.”

This is why Ren is loading a refrigerated box onto a scooter, securing his phone on the holder after helping to close Leblanc at 7 pm. Leblanc the sleepy neighborhood coffee shop is closed, but Leblanc the blood delivery service just opens for business. Bottles of blood, check. Addresses for tonight, check. Scooter and phone batteries full, check. Helmet secured and a bottle of water in his messenger bag, check. Ren tabs on the app that Futaba made, and starts his deliveries for the night.

When Ren first moves into Leblanc’s attic and starts helping out around the coffee shop, he doesn’t know about the night business at all. It is only until he accidentally sees a starving Futaba who faints at Leblanc’s front door, and her white as a sheet face and little fangs poking out informing him she is a vampire, that there’s more to this little cafe.

Ren, bless his atypical little human brain (according to Futaba and perhaps Sojiro agrees too), grabs a knife from the kitchen, slices open his palm and feeds Futaba his own blood. It turns out Futaba is so into working on a pet project that she forgets to eat for days, and whatever is in the fridge has gone bad when Yogen-Chaya had a black out that week. Sojiro misses it because Futaba is usually very vocal and particular about her food. She spends all her remaining energy clawing her way to Leblanc when Sojiro has to go out to do the deliveries earlier that day, leaving Ren to close the shop.

The plus from the fiasco is that Ren obtains absolute trust from the Sakuras. He gets a hour long lecture from both of them though, since apparently it is the stupidest thing a human can do.

Ren’s sorry backwater town doesn’t have any vampires, how would he know?

Futaba is the best sister to have though, even though she ends up being slightly territorial and protective of Ren now. Other than Ren feeding her his blood before, apparently she thinks Ren is too naive and does not have enough awareness to protect himself. Futaba claims she trains Ren’s cat, Morgana, on some “self-defense” and “detections”, whatever that means.

Anyways, Futaba builds the app that will help Sojiro and her track Ren’s whereabouts, with several built-in safety features for both customers and Ren. It becomes a winning edge against other similar services in Tokyo, because it is so reliable and feature rich. A customer can build their taste profiles, give feedback, ask questions, change their subscriptions and amount, etc, etc. Due to the limited resources and Sojiro’s strict requirements on quality, they still remain a small local business. However, Ren can totally see how it could be bigger in the future.

Ren enjoys the delivery and rides the scooter through the streets of Tokyo. He rarely sees nor interacts directly with the customers, since most of them are not fully awake yet. Ms. Suzuki is probably the only early riser, who usually says hi to Ren while she is walking her extremely fluffy black cat with purple eyes in the small yard of her apartment complex. Ren gets to pet the cat and it is the highlight of his work week.

Most of the time, he will get to an address, take out well packaged and insulated bottles of blood and stuff them into the mini fridge/cooler in front of the customer's door. Some of them have more secure and less obvious locations for privacy reasons, like a cooler incognito as a chicken coop. Personally Ren thinks it is weirder to have a chicken coop in Tokyo than a cooler, but maybe vampires think otherwise. All of these are documented well in the app and customer profiles. Most of their customers are regulars, so his weekly deliveries are usually the same.

Recently they gained a new customer who is…different. And tricky.

Other than handling deliveries, other lessons Ren are learning are blood sources and blood flavor profiles. Similar to coffee, different blood tastes differently. Leblanc as a trusty establishment and run by a human and has a steady customer base willing to pay the premium, usually also have a reputable blood source. Ren is surprised to know that some of their top sources come from housewives who want to make additional bucks for the family or for themselves, and very health conscious men who just give blood periodically for health reasons. The source management Futaba builds ensure the privacy and safety of this data, so the providers and the clients can have appropriate distance.

Obviously healthier individuals produce better quality blood. Genders also make a difference, but lifestyles result in greater discrepancies. Learning the taste profile without tasting it is definitely challenging. But apparently Ren has very good sense and his achievement in coffee actually carries over to blood tasting too. Sojiro says he is naturally talented.

Leblanc established a way to satisfy their customers for years without fail, until now. It also happens to be one of Ren’s first assignments to be completely on his own.

Ren parks the scooter in front of a low-key high end apartment in Kichijoji. Takes out the bottle carrier, and uses the code given to him to unlock the front gate. 4th floor, room 4. There’s a cooler. Just when Ren is going to open the cooler to put the new supply in, the door of the apartment opens.

“Oh, hi!” Ren straightens, also just seeing a few more bottles already in the cooler, “uh, these are no good either?”

“No, they are too…acidic.” Goro Akechi peeks out from the door, his red eyes shining in the dark. “It is better than last week, but….”

“Alright, since we did get your feedback through the app, I hope this week will finally be good.” Ren holds out the bottle carrier, drops it into Akechi’s hesitating hand, and fishes reject blood out from the cooler. “I picked some that are on a more floral side, but not too much! Since I think we have not tried those kinds, worth a shot?”

Akechi’s nose scrunches a tiny bit, and he looks skeptical: “I am not sure…. I am sorry, I don’t mean to become a difficult customer—”

“No, no no! We aim to provide and find the best for you!” Looking at the watch, it is now almost 10 pm, and this is Ren’s last delivery. “I am sorry that our usual method of taste profile doesn’t seem to work for you though, I will ask our IT expert to debug that. Please give us your honest opinion!”

“Okay….” Still sounding very skeptical. For some reason, Akechi sounds uncertain every time Ren mentions finding something to match his tastes. Ren is determined to prove his ability to the detective.

Akechi is definitely the most difficult one—even Sojiro thinks so. Their taste building survey has been working across gender, age, ethnicity and more. Usually takes them at most 2 tries, which is also why they have so many loyal customers in the first place, because usually people find their favorites here at Leblanc. When Akechi signs up from a referral (a prosecutor whom Sojiro worked with before back in the day to help resolve Futaba’s legal issue), nothing seems out of the ordinary. 

Definitely a picky eater. A cute one though.

“Are you heading out now?” When he turns around, Ren sees Akechi outside and locking up his door.

“Yes, I need to go to the station today for some paperwork.”

“Isn’t it usually kind of late for night shifts?” Usually vampires go to work around 9 pm. Ren runs into most of them during that short window anyways, because most of them are running out the door to get to work. Akechi seems very chill and not in a hurry even now.

“I am more of a contractor, the hours are more flexible.”

Akechi is a regional celebrity—at least he is fairly popular within Tokyo. Ren asks his parents back home if they know about him, the answer is not really but they would recognize him as “that vampire detective from the TV” when they see him. It is understandable that Akechi is interested in the Leblanc delivery service—no risk, convenient and discreet. He also looks particular enough that the convenient store blood won’t be good enough.

It’s already a month…Ren’s confidence in satisfying Akechi is diminishing. Obviously he doesn’t want to lose customers, especially since this is one of his first customers.

Akechi being incredibly cute doesn’t hurt. He also always smells very good too, lightly woodsy, a bit of citrus—

Ren needs to stop creepily smelling his customer.

As they part at the front gate of Akechi’s apartment, Ren belatedly realizes Akechi is also the first customer he sees almost every single delivery. Maybe their schedules just work out.

“There are a few rules that you absolutely cannot break if you want to run the delivery service, other than the obvious.” Sojiro sits Ren down when he introduces Leblanc’s night business. “You do not add your own blood into the mix.”

“So I cannot set myself up as a source for Leblanc?” Ren is kind of disappointed, he wonders what kind of flavor profile his blood has, and who would like his blood. 

“Other than safety reasons for you—you don’t want to be associated as edible—it is also for our customers’ comfort.” Sojiro points at the half finished chicken curry in front of Ren, “What do you feel when the chicken gives you fried chicken or curry made of its own meat?

“Uh, ew?”

“Exactly.”

“I mean, it might be a turn on for some people—okay, okay, I swear I’ll follow the rules!” Ren jokes, and is promptly being bitten by Morgana. “Buddy!? Is this the protection that Futaba taught you!?”

Morgana mews loudly, and gives Ren an unimpressed look. He cannot believe he is being bossed around by his cat.

“You know, some vampires have the skill to share minds with other familiars.” Sojiro pets the cat until he purrs and continues, “Another rule is more common for businesses interacting with vampires and deliveries: do not enter their homes. Usually they don’t want humans in anyways, but just in case. Even when they ask you to. Without a cooler or fridge, you would rather just leave the blood outside. Which is why we have the special bottle carriers made, they should be able to keep the blood fresh for around 24 hours.”

“Got it.”

“And obviously do not pull the shit like trying to rescue a vampire using your own blood, like you did with Futaba.”

“But she is dying—” Ren’s protest is shut down immediately by both a scratch from Morgana and a hardened look from Sojiro, “Alright, alright! I now know it is hard to actually kill a vampire, okay! It freaked me out the first time I saw a dying vampire…”

“Well, I am sure you learned your lesson and also had enough of me and Futaba’s scolding.”

“This week’s blood has a weird aftertaste: it was very thick and overpowering, so I couldn’t drink for more than a bottle.”

“Ok, let me write that down…anything else?”

“…I do enjoy the slightly bitter taste of it. And a little nutmeg flavor.”

“Ok, that’s very helpful! I’ll find something next week.”

Taking over the Leblanc night business has been going well. But Ren is hitting on a slump—

“No good again?” Ren tries to hide his disappointment, unfortunately Akechi seems to sense it and is going to apologize, so he cuts him off, “But I brought you something good today!” 

The detective has a brow raised, “You did?”

“Yes! I analyzed all the records so far, and I think we have not been combining all the information that well until now, so it would be new to try!” Pulling out the bottle carrier, Ren smiles encouragingly, “Try it and let me know!”

“I look forward to it.” Quickly drops off the bottles within the threshold, Akechi turns around to lock the door and follows Ren out, “Done with the delivery for the night?”

“Yeah, for the efficiency of the route, yours is usually the last one for the night.”

“Then…are you interested in hanging out?” The vampire asks, and then quickly adds, “I recently discover a jazz bar…and it’s kind of awkward to go alone, and we always have nice conversations so I—”

“Yes,” Ren says immediately, gestures to his scooter, “if you don’t mind we can ride together? Or let me know where it is and we can meet up there too if you feel uncomfortable.”

“It is in Kichijoji, but it will take 15 minutes walking. I…don’t mind, and maybe it is easier for you to just bring the scooter there.”

Okay, maybe not a complete slump. Ren thinks as Akechi slides behind him, and puts his arms around his waist as the scooter moves. He may not be able to satisfy the cute detective’s palate in blood, but he can maybe date one?

Ren wonders why Sojiro doesn’t have a rule about dating customers, but he decides he will take advantage of the loophole. Until the rule is officially added, of course.

Chapter Text

Goro Akechi is not a picky eater.

Having lived in poverty and habitually starved when he was growing up, he really doesn’t have expensive nor complicated tastes. He drinks a lot of different types of blood, probably way more than typical vampires too due to his upbringing. When Goro broke out into the celebrity world, he also associated and formed casual drinking relationships with a lot of people—that was his gluttony era, for sure. Trying to compensate for what he lacks growing up.

He finds he doesn’t have a preference, in the end.

Nowadays his only bare minimum would be human blood—yes, he tried other mammals’ due to lack of choice and for survival, that is how low he got.

Not many tried squirrels or rats, for example. The famed vampire detective at least has stable income and builds a good life so that he doesn’t need to fight with local feral cats for blood. Convenient store blood is cheap and handy, and supermarkets’ have more variety in terms of flavors.

After getting fan clubs and a few stalkers, his mentor at work, Sae Nijima, strongly suggests (or force, more like) Goro to use blood delivery services for getting his supplies. He wants to decline at first, citing that these types of services are usually more expensive.

Until one day when both of them go to a store while on a break doing some leg work investigation, one of Goro’s fans runs into the store and tries to forcefully hand him a bag of, apparently, her own blood. During the scuffle, the bag breaks and the dark liquid spills everywhere. It makes a morbid mess and causes a scene, and he has to rely on Sae to calm and remove the hysterical girl. The only thing didn’t go wrong was that he already established himself in the police department then, so he did not have to deal with unnecessary rumors, snickers or doubts in his abilities from colleagues.

Goro immediately signs up the Leblanc blood delivery service.

And then Ren Amamiya shows up at his door.

“So this level of bitterness and thickness are ok...how about we add a bit of smokiness?”

“That actually sounds pretty good.”

“Great! Hmmm how about sweet level?”

“No, not sweet.”

“Mmmkay, alright, I’ll be back!” Ren pockets his phone after all those notes, and so naturally asks, “Penguin Sniper?”

“Yes.”

Goro had been going out with Ren for a few weeks now. They have been mostly staying in Kichijoji, only going to Ogikubo once to help Ren searching for a long discontinued text on blood flavor origin histories.

They sometimes even meet outside of the delivery date now, though rarely.

Are they dating? Maybe? Yes?

They still have not settled on an acceptable flavor of blood for Goro, but the interaction and the dating make that less important to Goro. Ren, being very responsible and hardworking, still tries very hard every week.

Goro feels bad, sometimes, but also thinks: one, he does pay for the premium service, and two, maybe, just maybe, he might really find his favorite one day.

Even though he knows what flavor he is looking for all along.

It is a hectic week from work, where Goro has to work with a vampire skeptic of a regional detective on a break-in case. As a vampire, Goro’s sense of smell is 10 times better than humans, so he has been tapped to provide investigation support. He is able to deduce the suspect is a woman in her 30s with his ability plus some actual detective work—for example, he finds a tissue in the trash can with lip stains.

“Wow look at the puppy! Great job! What a good boy.” The detective says condescendingly. It is not the first time Goro has been called a dog—he got that when he first started this job, and he is definitely better at it than even average vampires.

He is used to this treatment, and by now his closest colleagues will all come to his defense. But it is still very exhausting.

Goro decides to give himself a late day at work, and is surprised into full alert when he hears noises outside of his door.

Someone is trying to open something—his eyes sharpens, his gun is secured at his back under the suit. Goro opens the door wanting to surprise—

And he is hit with the most delicious smell he ever experienced in his life.

Ren Amamiya is outside trying to make the first blood delivery. While the man makes routine introductions, all Goro can think about is how hungry he is. His stomach literally groans and he actually has to start small talks just to cover up the noise.

When everything is said and done, he dreamily follows Ren out to the gate. Ren being the angel (or just really lacking basic awareness) doesn’t question him, even amicably say good day and goodbye as he drives that small scooter away.

Goro never feels so thankful in his life for his outstanding sense of smell. He also will never, ever admit that he sniffs the air and everything Ren touches for the next 30 minutes like a god damn puppy.

Next month is both painful and sweet. Goro heard about this phenomenon before—sometimes vampires would find someone so compatible that the smell and the taste of them just overwhelms and ruins everything else. It sounds almost like soulmates in fiction. It sounds wonderful and like a fairytale. It is horrible for Goro Akechi.

How can he like anything Ren delivers, when exactly what he wants is standing right in front of him? Everything is an extreme letdown, even if he tries to drink the blood while sniffing Ren’s leftover smell lingering in the air. He had worse eating habits than this, but this is probably the saddest.

Goro also masters the skill of breathing very, very deeply but looking almost as if he is not breathing at all. He doesn’t want to look like a creep inhaling Ren’s scent while they are hanging out.

Definitely the saddest eating habit.

When Goro accompanies Ren to Ogikubo in search of a book, he learns that blood flavor profile is a pretty obscure science (?) and there’s just not a lot of information even online.

“I think normal people just don’t have access to a lot of blood or do this for a living, or most vampires are not foodies?” Ren says while they hang out in a cafe after the search. “Sojiro developed his own data and method mostly through trials and errors.”

“It is a very creepy thing for a vampire to do, from humans’ point of view.” The book is written by a human, and Sojiro Sakura is also a human. It is just socially more acceptable that way. Vampires definitely care about tastes and flavors, which is why Leblanc thrives, but having them talk openly about how a human tastes is probably a bad idea.

“Ah, I guess…but I wouldn’t mind knowing what mine tastes like, you know?”

I know. Goro thinks crazily. It smells amazing and probably tastes amazing too.

Too bad Ren doesn’t follow up with something like “how about you test it for me” , which in Goro’s good dreams he does several times. He notices Ren is extremely normal interacting with vampires, sometimes even doing thoughtless things like discussing blood with a vampire , as if he forgets that they are different . Ren does share the story about his faux pas with the Sakuras and Goro vehemently agrees with them that it was peak stupidity. Because of this story plus Ren’s general attitude, Goro does wonder if he can snag any opportunity to—so far, Ren at least is careful in the most important way.

He probably won’t feed his own blood to Goro if Goro starved, now.

Goro tries to either figuring out his flavor profile with Ren using Leblanc’s method and hopefully find something similar or close enough, or maybe if Leblanc has Ren’s blood as a source and they get close enough that it will be picked—

However, he does not understand blood flavor profiles and there’s almost no information anywhere he looked. He can only try his best describing Ren’s blood to Ren. It is very awkward but Goro gets over it. After two months, they get down the bitterness and the strange “sweetness”—not sugar sweet, but just a hint or just smell sweet without tasting sweet— there’s still a unique warmth that they are struggling to find.

Goro has his suspicions, especially as he hangs out with Ren more. It makes him feel helpless. It’s the same warmth Goro feels when Ren touches him while handing him the darts set, or when Goro hugs Ren from the back of the scooter. He doubts that they would find a blood with flavor like that.

“You look happy but distracted recently.” Sae comments, while picking up a salmon nigiri from the conveyor belt, “Something happened?”

Goro sips the tuna infused blood. At the chained conveyor belt sushi restaurant they like to frequent, there’s something for everyone. Vampires can consume human food too, just that it never makes them full nor have enough nutrients to generate enough energy. The infused blood became a trend around 10 years ago, and now most established restaurants have some form of it. So obviously, seafood themed infusions for sushi restaurants.

Sae genuinely cares about him (including always picking restaurants that have blood offerings), so Goro decides to disclose the recent development to his only friend-slash-colleagues, “I…am dating someone.”

“Oh? That’s good. I trust they are not a fan nor someone from work?”

“Of course not.”

“As long as you stay sharp at work, I am glad you found someone.” Picking up another plate of fish, Sae as usual quickly moves the conversation back to work, “The current case is especially dangerous, if you deduced that the suspect is a vampire.”

“Of course, I’ll make sure to maintain my top form in case I need to protect you from another vampire.” Goro winks.

“Don’t be cocky.” Sae stuffs a piece of nigiri into her mouth, “I slammed you so hard that you fainted when we first met, didn’t I?”

“Hmmm so the cardamon didn’t work.”

“Cardamon…?”

“It’s a type of spice! I thought it would give the ‘warmth’ you mentioned.” Ren taps on the app some more, “But I think ginger might be too strong…”

“Ren…” Feeling the gray eyes on him, Goro coughs, “This week’s already pretty good, I like it actually.”

“I know, but I think there’s still room to improve. I cannot let Sojiro think I am getting lazy with customer’s requests.”

“It is really close, I thought maybe I can have half the shipment to stay the same. We can still experiment with the other half?”

“A/B testing sounds like a good idea, ok!”

“The holiday lights are out this week.” Goro says, eagerly moving away from the blood conversation, “Want to see together?”

That night, with couples left and right, they hold hands and kiss for the first time.

Ren’s hand is warm and nice. Ren’s mouth–Goro needs to stop thinking about it.

Everything is going so well, including Goro getting closer and closer to the suspect of a serial murder case. For safety, Goro starts to accompany Sae home at night just to make sure, even though his colleague and mentor complains about this protection. With a case this big, both of them show their faces in the media and on the news. In return, she will sometimes introduce him into her home for a snack (human food) or just to chat. Goro meets Sae’s sister, Makoto, who is also in training to become a police officer. Their interaction has been cordial but superficial so far.

To accommodate human’s lifestyle, Goro will usually work until midnight and come home for a break. Then he might go back to the office or stay at home to do paperwork until the sun rises. Sometimes he might go out on his own, or with night shift officers to do other investigation work. He also sometimes needs to go home to nap when he has to wake up during the day to attend crucial meetings or TV filming. Vampires don’t need to sleep as much as humans do, so they also tend to work longer hours.

It happens when Goro goes home to grab a snack (the latest from Leblanc, about 75% similar to the real thing). When he senses it he already unlocked and pushed open his front door, but still has the time to duck away from an incoming vicious swipe.

“It’s you—!” The smell confirms Goro’s suspicion. “You might think attacking a police officer is not that much while you already have several murder charges, but the years still add up.”

“Shut up—” The suspect kicks him into his home, and goes after him. Goro lands on all four softly, red eyes narrows, takes out a gun from behind and fires. A grunt and the sound of bullet hitting into flesh confirm the hit, but Goro still needs to run into the living room to avoid flurries of attack.

In terms of physical size and abilities, Goro is average within the vampire world, but with outstanding eyesights, sense of smell and police training, he can still fight with an edge with the suspect, who is a larger and stronger vampire. He manages to sink another 2 bullets into the target.

Then he picks up another presence outside. A human.

Shit, if it is one of his neighbors—he needs to finish this fast. Goro purposefully braves several swipes of claws on his body which tears his suits into shreds, and uses a special technique to drive his fingers into a critical point. The suspect soundlessly shrieks from the pain and falls onto his knee. Goro takes the opportunity to target more weak points, making sure the suspect becomes unconscious and remains that way.

With the vampire lying prone on the ground, Goro stands up to address the incoming human, only to be hit by several bullets. Coughing out blood, Goro’s vision blurs for a second but still capable of flipping behind his sofa for cover.

“Hey! Don’t just lay there you blood sucker! Hurry up and kill the detective!” The human shouts at the suspect.

“…multiple suspects, a human collaborator.” Goro mutters, he is losing blood fast, and the human suspect is blocking his way to his blood supply. However, facing a human is still easier than a vampire, he might need to take on more bullets, and chug his week-long blood supply to recover after all of this is over.

–Goro gets to meet Ren if he is ordering additional supplies. Fuck , this is not the time to think about Ren, and being reminded of his smell —

“Goro!?” Ren’s voice coming from the front door doesn’t help.

Wait, it sounds too real—

Goro peaks out from the sofa and watches in horror that Ren not only shows up, but he somehow launches himself at the human suspect. That fucking idiot definitely lack self-preservation awareness. When Goro stands with some difficulties—come on legs, move —Ren manages to kick the human to fall on his feet and takes hold of the gun.

“Fuck—” As a civilian, Ren naturally doesn’t learn to point the newly acquired gun at the suspect as self-defense. While he holds the gun in his hands (muzzle faces the ceiling), the suspect on the floor pulls out a small knife and stabs Ren’s leg.

Goro sees blood. He hears Ren cry out, he sees Ren fall down, and the suspect pulls the knife out and stabs him again on the shoulder.

Goro sees red .

“Goro, Goro!” Ren shouts while pushing him, “Stop! He’s already fainted!”

Goro shakes awake, sort of, because everything is still kind of red, like having a red photo filter. He knows he might have entered the hunting mode, because he sees his own eyes shine abnormally bright in the reflection from a nearby window. The human suspect is indeed fainted but still breathing. There’s obviously non-life-threatening but very serious injuries that were caused by Goro on his body. He might have flung the guy across the room, away from Ren. Ren kneels next to Goro, bleeding not just from the knife stabs, but also oozing a small amount of blood from several scratches on his arms.

It smells so good.

It smells so good.

It smells so good .

And Goro is hungry. He is so hungry. He needs blood.

Ren is inside his home.

Ren is inside his home.

Ren is inside his home .

Ren is his —

“Goro? Are you okay?” Ren pauses, hesitant, “Uhm, your eyes and, your teeth—”

Ren doesn’t manage to back away fast enough.

Chapter Text

Something–someone is carding through his hair. The light scratches on Goro’s scalp are really nice. Goro almost purr.

There’s also a nice and delicious smell. Very safe and homey. Goro isn’t hungry but he craves it. He tries to paw at the source and the hand.

“Hey, I think you already drank too much, that’s almost 2 days worth.” The voice comes overhead, “Will vampires get fat?”

Stupid, of course yes, but just this amount is not enough to overcome their faster metabolism. Goro continues to paw at the person while trying very hard to open his eyes.

“Alright, we took all the photos and collected all the evidence. The cleaning crew will do a sweep–”

Wait! He has not go through the evidence and the scene yet, this is his case–

“It is okay, I think I might bring him back to Leblanc with me.”

“Are you sure? He is a vampire, you know.”

“And I am his boyfriend.”

B, boy—boyfriend!

Goro suddenly wakes up, almost jumps out from Ren’s lap, “Wha—Ren! Are you, ah—”

He went berserk seeing the human suspect hurting Ren, and then he—

He remembers, and then realizes there’s a small bump on his head. Because It hurts a bit.

“Don’t touch it! Sorry about that.” Ren says sheepishly, “I had to inject you with the shutdown serum, otherwise you would suck me dry.”

Goro silently opens his mouth, but couldn't find his voice immediately.

“Shutdown serum?”

“Yeah, I usually have one with me for protection—Takemi, our family doctor, is actually a vampire expert. She developed the serum that when injected the vampire will just, shutdown.” Notice Goro’s stare, Ren waves his hands, “No side effects other than a small bump at the injection site. Futaba can vouch for it! Sojiro had to inject her when the Feathermen figure she’s been eyeing was snatched away by another customer.”

“I would really love to get my hands on this serum, but we can chat at a later and more appropriate time.” Sae cuts in, “It’s a long day, you two should rest. Akechi, Amamiya said he wants to bring you back to his place, since yours is trashed.”

“I…” Not just trashed, but also with so many smells, since there are obviously a lot of people going in and out. Goro isn’t sure if he can actually tolerate staying.

“Come home with me.” Ren says immediately, looking very serious that makes Goro blush.

“Okay…only until the cleaning crew cleans up my place.”

“Sure, if you still want to come back here then.” Ren throws down the ominous words and also, how could he —helps Goro back onto his feet, “Let’s get my scooter.”

Ren has a day off tomorrow, so he decides to see if he can surprise Goro at the ungodly hour of midnight. Only to see the door is opened with gunshot sounds coming out of Goro’s apartment.

This isn’t the surprise he is looking for, but he is glad to help (?)—he wants to protect his boyfriend too! Even though at the end Goro is still the one doing most of the work. He pulls the man from beneath Ren and just throws the grown man across the room—and wow, that was really hot. Goro is bleeding quite a lot, and his eyes are incredibly red and pretty. Ren belatedly realizes Goro’s fangs are out. Very, very sharp. And out.

When Goro latches onto his shoulder, Ren’s brain just goes blank.

—So this is how it feels to be bitten by a vampire, ouch. He thinks, feeling himself getting relaxed uncontrollably and sleepy due to the poison that the vampire releases into the target's muscle while drinking. Ren sinks down to the floor alongside Goro, just lying in the middle of the mess.

It actually feels pretty nice. Very floaty. Like he is high. Especially since Goro clings at him, Ren feels very well protected.

After a while, he can feel the fangs dislodge from his neck. Wondering what’s going on, Ren tilts his head down, only to be treated with a view of Goro with a bloody mouth, lips stained red, licking the wound like a kitten with very dreamy eyes.

Oh my god . Ren thinks as Goro’s eyes connect with his and somehow breaks into a 1000% cutest little smile, the self-satisfied kind. He is so cute and so pretty even now, how .

Goro purrs a bit, when Ren couldn’t resist and pets his hair, and goes back to sucking at Ren’s neck.

They stay like that for a while, until Ren starts to feel a bit dizzy. He tries to push at Goro, but the latter just latches on him harder. He even whines when Ren pushes again.

“Oh god, that noise is too cute, I will do anything for it.” Forgive him for talking trash even in this situation, no one can hear him so sue him. “But hey, we have to stop now, sorry Goro.”

Ren fishes out the serum from his pocket, and stabs onto the head on his neck. Goro predictably goes lax enough that Ren can finally put him back down on the ground. Being the only living creature awake (albeit sleepy) in the room, Ren stands up and calls the police.

While waiting for people to arrive and attempting basic first aid on himself, Ren curiously licks his own blood.

“…wait.” He pauses, sniffs at his own fingers, and then licks some more. On the bitter side like coffee, not sweet but with a faint smell of sweetness, slight warmth, kind of in between cardamom and turmeric or cinnamon—

It smells…very familiar.

Oh.

Ah .

Just like Ren bragged before, Goro doesn’t want to leave Ren’s attic in Leblanc.

He loves the smell in the attic—it’s Ren everywhere. So many trinkets with so many stories. He recognizes some from their dates and it makes him feel so happy. Obviously the big factor is that Ren is here, but so are Futaba and Morgana.

Which is why he has to leave for now, unfortunately.

Futaba technically is all around a weaker vampire than Goro, but she makes alliances with Morgana, which becomes a pretty powerful force not to be reckoned with. Morgana is silent and always picks a good time to strike–not just attack, but intervention like squeeze in between them when they are about to do inappropriate things. Apparently these are “self-defense” and “protection” that Futaba taught. He also uses kitten sounds and eyes so you will forgive him for doing anything. 

Goro understands Futaba is territorial and protective of Ren, since she is family. 

He gets on Morgana’s good side easily—Ren buys sushi one night and puts a plate of raw fish onto Goro’s hand, wiggles his eyebrows.

Morgana is definitely more reasonable than Futaba.

Sojiro warms up to Goro faster than he expected. Unlike Futaba, Sojiro apparently hears about him enough from both Ren and Sae. He just wants Goro not to hurt Ren, which is an easy ask. What surprises Goro the most is that Sojiro tells Ren the same thing, too.

“Next time you just need to buy a Feathermen figure, she will love you forever.” Ren jokes while opening the front door of Leblanc for Goro, “She is just mad that she won’t be the only one who can speak for vampires in the family now.”

Family . Goro’s face burns, and he coughs, “We are just boyfriends.”

“We are just boyfriends, says he.” Ren snuggles next to him, laughing and running away to where the scooter is parked when Goro tries to stuff his cold fingers down Ren’s scarf and neck. “You are not leaving me easily.”

“What.”

“Ever heard of a saying, ‘The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach’?” Ren winks, “And it’s almost guaranteed that you cannot find the same flavor you like anywhere else.”

Ren is obviously right. Because every person has a unique blood flavor profile.

“But are you…ready to feed me?” Goro asks. Not just for feeding, for food. He is asking something else, and they both know it.

“Of course.”