The night air in Inaba is cold, the town cloaked in an eerie silence as the streets lie mostly empty. You had left your uncle’s house earlier, thinking a walk might help clear your mind and subdue the strange hunger gnawing at you from within, reminding you of what you were and what you needed as it became harder to ignore. You knows you should head back before the craving worsens and you would start to seek out blood, but you remained distracted, your feet carrying you through the quiet streets without direction.

No matter how intense the hunger, you were reminded never to tell anyone. Your vampirism was a secret, known only to your father's side of the family while your mother warned you constantly. Trusted to stay with your uncle for the year, you had to survive on animal blood and guard the truth. It was painful, but you couldn’t risk confiding in anyone—not even your uncle or friends, despite how much you loved them.

As you passed the Junes parking lot, a faint noise catches his attention—the soft scrape of a cloth on metal, the familiar sigh of someone exhausted and frustrated. Your gaze sharpens, your eyes drawn to a familiar figure hunched over a table just outside Junes. It’s Yosuke, wiping down a row of tables with a slightly frustrated look on his face.

You stopped in your tracks, your senses suddenly consumed by the sound of your best friend's heartbeat, the rhythmic pulse of blood coursing through his veins. It’s as if every fiber of your being hones in on Yosuke, your hunger roaring to life with a force that sends a shiver down your own spine.

Yosuke mutters to himself, oblivious to your presence. "Damn it, Teddie… leaving topsicles all over the tables to melt... Figures he’d leave me to clean up after him."

The scent of his blood enraptured your senses. Human blood.

"Partner?" Yosuke’s voice cuts through his daze, snapping him back to reality. He’s looking over at you now, clearly surprised. "What are you doing out here this late? Thought you’d be back at your uncle’s by now."