Vampire and His Pleasant Companions: Volume 6 - Part 6

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That day had been overcast from morning to dusk, and even when the sun finally set, it didn’t feel like the day had ever truly begun. It was Al’s first time returning to the children's group home since the day of the murder, but the children were still running around behind the fence as if nothing had happened, their laughter surprisingly softening the horrific memory of that day.

Since he had a strategy meeting with Hatono and Kanezaki at 7 p.m., he wanted to gather even the smallest bit of information before then. What came to mind was asking someone who used to work at the facility about Yonekura. But it wouldn’t do for an outsider to suddenly show up and demand, “Tell me about Yonekura”—that would only bother them, or worse, make them suspicious. It seemed safer to wait for a staff member to leave for the day or return from an errand and approach them then. He would say he was a friend of Yonekura’s who’d lost contact and was worried. He wasn’t home, and since Al had heard this was his workplace, he’d come to check. That wouldn’t sound unnatural. Even if the part about being a friend was a lie, it was true that he couldn’t reach him and was concerned.

As Al stood outside the fence, mentally rehearsing how the conversation might go, a young girl approached him. He recognized her—this was the child Akira had treated for an injured leg.

The girl grabbed onto the iron fence with both hands and called out, “Hey, hey,” her eyes sparkling as though she’d found a treasure.

“Uncle, you’re a bat, right?”

Al’s chest thumped hard. Yes—this girl had seen him transform from human to bat.

“No… I not,” he said.

“You totally are! I saw you change into a bat. I really saw it!”

Her voice was loud. He didn’t want attention here.

“Voice... smaller, please.”

“You’re a bat, right? You are, right?!”

Other kids were starting to look their way.

“I’m bat… but is secret. So... voice, quiet.”

The moment he said the word “secret,” the girl’s voice dropped, as if on cue.

“It’s a secret?” she whispered.

“If secret leak, I... not okay.”

Her large dark eyes turned serious. “Got it,” she nodded solemnly.

“Hey, let Emi just see it. The part where you become a bat.”

“Now... can’t.”

“Then later’s okay. Just show me sometime.”

The girl—Emiri—beamed with a bright smile. She’d only seen him for a few seconds in the hallway, just as he was changing. And yet she remembered his face so clearly. Maybe it was simply because she didn’t see many foreigners and he stood out in her memory.

"Hey, uncle Bat, what did you come here for?"

"I... I’m Yonekura-san’s friend…"

"Kaito-sensei quit, you know? The other teachers were talking, saying maybe it was because he was shocked."

Emiri lowered her eyes. That “shock” must have been over the incident with Ishimoto. That event had surely left a mark on the children too. Al didn’t want to make her remember painful things, but maybe it would be all right to ask about Yonekura. Just a little. He hoped she would forgive him.

"What kind of teacher... Yonekura-san?"

"Kaito-sensei was funny. But when he got mad, he was suuuper scary."

It gave Al a small glimpse of what Yonekura had been like on an ordinary day.

"Do you know... other things about Yonekura-san?"

She tilted her head and thought. "He ran really fast, and he was always saying, ‘Don’t waste your food!’"

"And also, one of Kaito-sensei’s friends is a princess."

"A princess?"

“I wanted to make a big birthday card for my friend Mirai, so I asked the teachers if anyone had pictures of her. And then we found one on Kaito-sensei’s phone. There was a princess wearing a pink dress and a pink tiara in it. Next to her was this big shiny cat made of glass. When I said I wanted to be a princess like that, he told me, ‘When you’re a grown-up, okay?’”

A princess in a pink dress and tiara… For a child, that kind of costume made sense, but adults usually didn’t wear such things. Maybe it was a prom photo, or a wedding?

"I really loved the princess picture, so he always showed it to me. Then he said the princess was his friend..."

"Emiri!"

A woman’s voice called from within the facility—it sounded like a staff member.

"It’s almost dinner. Come here and help out."

There was a sharpness in the woman’s tone. Maybe she thought Al was some shady guy trying to talk to a young girl. Emiri hesitated, still gripping the fence, but when the woman called again, sterner this time, she let go reluctantly and ran toward the staff member, saying, "Come visit again, uncle Bat!" over her shoulder.

Even as she took Emiri’s hand, the staff woman kept staring at Al. She was clearly suspicious. Not wanting to cause trouble, Al quietly left the facility behind.

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