I ran out of the classroom but Emma already disappeared. The school building was enormous and the possible directions to go in numerous. The chase had quickly become a game of hide and seek instead. I decided to follow my instincts and take a left, deeper into the building, gradually speeding up my pace. I wasn’t even paying attention to just how fast I was running, until luckily for me I quite literally ran into the student council president before I reached inhumane speeds.

I skidded to a halt right in front of her.

“No running in the hallways, Aurora.” She looked completely unfazed by our near-collision and was just calmly sipping from her morning tea.

“Ah, President Rosehip, have you seen Emma run by?”

She sighed, brushing a strand of her shoulder length ginger red hair behind her ear. “First of all, couldn’t you have picked a different nickname? Secondly, yes. She appeared to be in some kind of emotional distress so I didn’t stop her.”

“Well, emotions aren’t really your thing after all.”

The president sipped from her tea again. “Assuming she was running away because of something you’ve done, they don't appear to be your thing either.”

That stung. Although she was often very hard to read, it was clear president Rosehip was fond of her witty retorts. “Touché.”

Before I started my search again in the maze-like corridors of the school the president stopped me. “There are some unused rooms in the third hallway to your right. If I were to look for someone whose heart is aching, it would be there.”

“Thanks Pres, enjoy your tea.” I flashed her a quick peace sign and started jogging past her.

“No problem, no running and try to get to class before the lesson starts, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah!”

I followed Pres’ directions and quickly found the hallway she was talking about. I’ve never been in this part of the school building before and it was clear not a lot of other people had been here either. I’m pretty sure even the janitors passed this hallway by, judging from the dust in the first couple of empty rooms I entered. Even the floorboards further down the hallway hadn't seen a dusting in quite some time. The janitors must’ve thought no one would care anyway. And I guess they were right. However, it did make my search a lot easier. A couple of footprints betrayed someone passed here very recently, and that someone was probably my best friend.

“Hey Emma, are you in here?” I softly asked after having gently knocked on the door at the end of the trail of footsteps. I could hear her muted crying on the other side of the door. “I’m really sorry, Em. I shouldn’t have left you hanging for so long... and what you said was true, I definitely was thinking about joining last time we spoke but…”

“But what?” Emma’s soft voice spoke out, cracking with emotion.

“I-it’s hard to explain.” I rested my head against the door. -This situation is so fucked up…-

“Then explain it!” Her outburst was filled with frustration.

“Can I come inside?”

She was silent for a moment before giving me an answer. “Do whatever you want…”

I gently pushed open the door, and saw her sitting next to the wall, hugging her legs close, burying her face in them. There were some dust smudges on parts of her uniform and I could tell she had some dust on her face as well from where I was standing.

I walked in and closed the door behind me, walking over so I could sit next to her. “Do you mind if I sit right here?” I whispered.

She shook her head in silence.

“Thanks.” I sat down, trying to think of a way to tackle this dilemma. -I mean, I can’t really tell her I can’t run with her because I’m a vampire, right? Or can I?-

We sat there for a while in complete silence, before Emma turned to me, her eyes still red from all the crying she’d done. “Weren’t you going to explain?” she sniffed.

I sighed. “You wouldn’t believe me if I did...”

I could tell by the look on her face that this answer angered her quite a bit.

“Em…”

“Try me.”

“What?”

“I’m your best friend, Auro. You owe me that much.”

“But Em, you really…”

She shot me down. “Try me! For fuck’s sake”

“Fine, I’m a fucking vampire! There you have it!” I yelled back at her out of frustration, seconds later I realized what I just said. -Fuck, Shit, Damn, this is not good-

She stared at me and stared at me and kept staring at me for two minutes. Not moving a muscle.

“Em?” I asked, her gaze made me pretty uncomfortable. It felt like looking at a statue.

“Really?” She finally asked. And this was not one of those ‘Oh really now’ kind of reallys. It was one of those honest to god reallys. Which did give me the opportunity to deny what I just said, if I wanted to.

I looked straight ahead of me for a moment, biting my lip before I answered. “Yeah, really.” This might have been a terrible mistake but I don’t like lying to my best friend, even if that means telling her a dark secret I hadn’t even been harbouring for a day.

I looked back over and saw that Emma was staring at the window to our left. “But you don’t get burned by the sun.”

“Yeah, apparently it doesn’t work like that…”

“What about drinking blood?”

“That one is true, but you can also drink milk to not get thirsty. Although to be honest, it really doesn’t work that well.”

“Hmm.”

“Don’t believe me?”

“I’m not sure… how about, you bite me? If the milk doesn’t work well anyway. And you’ll prove you are telling the truth at the same time.”

“That’s a good one.” I started laughing before I saw how serious Emma was looking at me. “Wait, you are serious? That could turn you into a vampire as well you know.”

“Guaranteed?”

“The chance is really low… but still!” I protested.

“Hmm.” She scoffed and looked back at the window.

“But it’s your life, Em… What if I turn you...”

“Yes, exactly, it is my life, if you turn me, then so be it. I’m asking you now, to prove you are a vampire, to prove you haven’t been lying to my face, by biting me.”

“I…”

“Either you bite me now, or you admit you’ve been lying and consider this friendship done for.” Her ultimatum was pretty clear but it didn’t leave me without doubts. Biting her and risking her turning or don’t and losing my best friend. The question is, how much does the universe want to fuck me over by creating two vampires on the same day.

“Alright… I’ll do it.” I reluctantly agreed.

She instantly turned her head back around.

I scoot up to sit in front of Emma, looking her slowly up and down. “I-I’m just not sure how to do this. I have never done this before.”

Emma blushed. “Maybe just do it like in the movies...biting me in the neck...” she unbuttoned her school uniform and slid it off her shoulder, revealing a pink bra-strap.

“Ah, pink today?” I joked to release a bit of the tension.

“Jerk.” Emma did look incredibly cute when she was embarrassed.

Without immediately noticing it, I had come a lot closer to Emma, like I was being physically pulled towards her. My face was right next to hers and I whispered in her ear. “H-here I go, I guess. I’m sorry if it hurts.”

Emma took a big breath. “Ok, do it.”

I pulled her closer against me and brought my lips to her neck.

Even if I wanted to stop, it just wouldn’t be possible anymore. Whatever was pulling me towards her, wasn’t going to stop until I bit her.

I opened my mouth and felt my teeth change, I must’ve missed that because of the adrenaline last time, because it felt really odd.

Before I knew it, I sank my teeth into her neck. Emma grabbed the back off my uniform with both of her hands. That’s when it hit me, a tsunami of ecstasy running through my body when I started drinking. Pure bliss started coursing through my limbs.

I felt Emma shiver and she started to moan softly. “Au-Au-Auro…”

I had never felt something like this before, everything just felt so heavenly, so amazingly good.

“...ro, Auro... “ Emma panted and tapped my back. That’s what pulled me back down to earth. I quickly withdrew myself from her and quickly dragged myself away from her. Emma’s face was completely red and I noticed that my breathing was being erratic as well.

“Holy shit, I’m so sorry Emma.” I was now sitting two meters away from her, in the middle of the classroom, a trail in the dust between me and her where my skirt slid over the floor. I covered my face in shame.

“D-did you know it would feel like this?” I could hear her clothes rustle, she was probably covering herself up again.

I shook my head violently. “N-no, not at all. That was my first time..”

“I believe you…” She paused. “Auro, can you look at me?”

I slowly lowered my hands, seeing that she had crawled closer to me.

“T-that red eye colour is quite something.”

“It should go away in a bit…”

She crawled even closer and took me in for a big hug. “Thank you for telling me the truth.

“You a-aren’t feeling like a vampire right?” I returned her hug.

“Not that I can tell. What does it feel like?”

“I only remember I got a big headache because I passed out when I got bit.”

“I feel just fine, well…” Her body shivered again. “B-better then fine actually.”

“G-good, I think you’re in the clear then.”

She released me from her hug and tried to get up. “Can you help me? My legs are still a bit weak.”

“Sorry about that.” I stood up and as opposed to Emma I felt even stronger than before, and the thirst was completely gone. Emma grabbed the hand I offered to her and I pulled her up to her feet.

“By the way, how long have you been a vampire?” She asked, while patting off a bit of the dust.

“Only since yesterday evening…”

“So I assume Ria doesn’t know?”

I shook my head.

“I see… I don’t think you should wait too long to tell her, especially if you need a drink again…”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, what we just did…” Her face flushed red again. “I think you should only do that with people you are really close with…if you catch my drift.”

“But you are my best friend.”

Her blush quickly made place for a frown. “Yeah, you clearly didn’t catch my drift.”

“I mean, Ria-chan is my best friend too, but…”

She sighed: “If they ever find a metal denser than osmium, they should probably call it Auroriarium.”

I was looking at her trying to figure out what she meant when Emma walked towards the door.

“We should probably clean ourselves up in the bathroom before we head back to class.”

“Great idea, next time pick a classroom that’s less dusty, will you?”

She turned around and stared daggers at me. “Next time try to not be such an ass, will you?”

“Point taken.” I saluted her and quickly shut my mouth. -Emma’s angry face is scary as hell.-

She put her hand on the doorknob but hesitated before opening it. “What I don’t get is why being a vampire doesn’t stop you from running with me? Sunlight doesn’t burn you, right?”

“Ah! Apparently I have greatly enhanced physical abilities, and running is a part of that?”

“Like superhuman speed?”

I nodded. “Yes!”

“Couldn’t you have just shown me that then?”

“OH.” The penny dropped.

“What, oh? You are going to tell me we went through all this while you could just have pulled a sprint or lift a desk with one hand?”

“You were really pressuring me to bite you and because of the stress I completely forgot about everything else! You know relationship stress makes me useless!”

“More useless then you already are, yes.” She facepalmed. “Well, it doesn’t matter anymore. However, I do want to see what exactly you can do. Could you meet me at the gym building after school? There shouldn’t be anyone there today.”

“No track meeting today?”

“We only had morning practice today. So we don’t overwork ourselves for the regional meeting on saturday.”

“Alright, I’ll come.” I’m actually a bit curious myself just how far I can push my body now.

“Ok.” She smiled. “Follow me, there’s a bathroom just around the corner.”