Chuuya had never been good at pretending things didn’t matter. Not when it came to danger, not when it came to duty, and definitely not when it came to the vampire standing in his kitchen every morning, humming some stupid tune while making tea he didn’t even need to drink. From the outside, anyone would’ve thought Dazai was just another young man in their quiet town—lazy, clever-eyed, annoyingly beautiful. But Chuuya knew better. He’d known since the day they met, back when they were too young to understand the weight of the secret they were choosing to keep.

No one else knew, of course. No one in the town, no other hunters—only the vampires themselves recognized one of their own. Dazai blended in perfectly, the way high-ranked vampires could, strolling through sunlight with that smug, half-lidded smile that made Chuuya grind his teeth. Anyone else would’ve mistaken him for harmless. Anyone who wasn’t a hunter of Chuuya’s rank wouldn’t have stood a chance at realizing what he was.

And ironically, Chuuya was one of the few people alive who could kill him.

That fact used to weigh on him. Used to keep him awake at night. Now it was just another strange thread in the life they’d built together—another contradiction, another quiet truth woven between them like a promise.

He never forgot what Dazai was. Dazai never hid what he needed to stay alive. But there was trust there—deep, tangled, and impossible to cut loose—something that had grown from childhood into something fierce, something steady, something so real it made Chuuya’s chest ache when he thought about it too long.

The hunters would never understand. They’d been raised on rules: vampires were a threat, vampires fed on humans, vampires were to be eliminated. And Chuuya had followed those rules—followed them so well he’d become one of the strongest hunters in the region, a name whispered with respect and a hint of fear. He’d taken down creatures older than their country, outmaneuvered monsters that had lived a hundred lifetimes. He’d earned every scar, every medal, every wary look.

But none of that mattered when he walked through the door of their home.

Here, he wasn’t the prodigy hunter. He wasn’t the one man capable of killing a high-rank vampire with his bare hands. Here, he was just Chuuya—someone who grumbled about dirty dishes because Dazai conveniently “forgot,” someone who swatted at Dazai’s cold fingers when the vampire slipped behind him to nuzzle at his neck, someone who secretly kept track of how long it had been since Dazai last drank blood and made sure they stocked enough meat so he wouldn’t go hungry.

Dazai didn’t rely on blood every day—none of the powerful ones did—but Chuuya knew the signs of hunger in him now: the too-long pauses, the sharpness beneath his smile, the way his eyes followed a pulse. It wasn’t fear that made Chuuya notice. It was instinct born of love, the same way Dazai always noticed when Chuuya came home exhausted from a hunt, always steadied him without a word.

To live like this—together, hidden, tangled in a life that shouldn’t have been possible—meant balancing on a blade’s edge.Hunters came and went through the town. Rumors spread. The peace could fracture at any moment.

And yet, every time Chuuya looked at Dazai—really looked—he knew he’d make the same decision again.

He remembered the boy he met years ago, the one who should’ve been a target but instead became something far more dangerous to him. He remembered the quiet conversations shared under moonlight, the gentle confessions, the promise shaped in silence between a hunter trained to kill and a vampire who’d stopped being afraid of death long before they met.

Now, when Dazai leaned lazily against the doorframe, watching him lace his boots before a hunt, eyes warm and soft in a way only Chuuya ever saw, it was impossible to imagine a world where he chose otherwise.

Because this—this forbidden, fragile, fiercely-kept thing between them—was worth every lie, every risk, every heartbeat.

And Chuuya would protect it with the same strength he used to hunt monsters.