Ryan stepped off his bike. His heart was beating strongly, maybe even more so than when he was facing death in the dungeon. He was about to face something that he had much less experience with than fighting and the threat of death, and with that, something that scared him much more in some ways.

  It was one thing to end up with broken bones and bruises and cuts and maybe even die, but right now... Ryan was about to go on a date.

  It wasn't his first date, of course. While he had never really been super interested in it, there were a few times he had been asked out, and he figured there was no reason to decline. It felt like the normal thing to do. It never really went anywhere, mostly because it was very clear that Ryan neither had any interest in dating nor had any idea what the hell he was doing.

  But this time was different. A lot of things about Ryan had changed. He had become more in tune with his emotions to a degree that he really didn't know he could be. The connections that he had built with people in the close to a year he had been here changed his perspective on a lot of things. He had made friends that showed him what 'friendship' really meant, and he saw what real love and good relationships could look like through the people around him.

  It was nice. It made him want that sort of thing for himself. Which didn't make this any more nerve-racking. Was he going for this because he really liked Jade, or was it because he wanted to date someone?

  Ryan didn't want to hurt anyone with his whims. Actually, maybe it was just better for him to turn back and head home, and say that he wasn't feeling good.

  'Yeah, let's do that... she'll understand, it's-'

  Before Ryan could finish the thought, he could feel motes of blue flame flowed out from his body, coming together into the form of the small harlequin spirit, Jester.

  "Don't you dare!" Ryan whispered, watching as the spirit stood in front of the door. Without further ado, he jumped up and rang the bell, and Ryan could feel his stomach drop. "Oh, you little fucking-"

  Before he could say anything, he heard the door's buzzer as he was let through. Nervously, Ryan pushed the door open and grumbled while pulling Jester back into his domain. He glanced at the sign next to the doorbells, seeing which floor Jade's flat was in, and quickly climbed up the stairs of the old building. And as he turned around the corner of the stairwell, he saw Jade standing there. For a moment, Ryan forgot that he actually had to say anything. Or at least, that it was the normal thing to do when you see someone.

  "Hey!" Luckily, Jade herself came to the rescue, smiling brightly as she saw Ryan approach her door. He awkwardly stepped closer.

  "Hey... how are you?" he asked, smiling as he leaned in to give Jade a hug. She returned it happily, and then let him inside.

  "I'm well! Just, you know, busy with work. How about you? It's exam season for you right now, right?"

  Ryan stopped himself for a moment as he was pushing off his shoes next to the door. "Fuck."

  Confused, Jade raised her brows. "That sounds like you haven't studied yet?"

  "Well, not really, I guess? But I'm getting tons of practical experience with spirits and magic and stuff," Ryan explained.

  "Hm, what were you studying again?"

  "Oh, right. I was studying business until I awakened, and then I switched to a spiritology track. Though, I'm taking a couple courses that don't belong into the regular track," he explained. Jade smiled lightly, though she seemed a little surprised as well.

  "I didn't know awakening gave you those sorts of privileges," she laughed slightly, guiding Ryan to the living room.

  "Yeah, it's pretty neat. What about you, you were doing a... carpentry apprenticeship?"

  "Mm-hmm!"

  "How's that going?"

  "Oh, it's exhausting!"

  Ryan laughed a little as he sat down on the couch. He put his backpack down onto the ground next to the small table in front of him, while Jade went to the adjacent, open kitchen to grab two glasses and something to drink.

  "I figured, yeah. Carpentry is pretty physically demanding, right? Is that working out well for you?"

  Jade raised a brow as she placed the glasses down on the table. "What's that supposed to mean? Is it because I'm a girl?"

  Startled, Ryan stared back at her and immediately shook his head. "No, no! Of course not! I just, uh... isn't it harder for vampires to build muscle?"

  Jade looked at Ryan with a serious expression for a few moments, and then just let out a chuckle. "Sorry, I couldn't help myself. Yeah, you're totally right, it's really tough, but it's not the end of the world. My boss is pretty understanding about that sort of thing. He's a giant, so from his point of view almost everyone that works for him is weak anyway."

  "That's good. Have you told anyone at work that you're a vampire?"

  Jade got silent as she sat down next to Ryan. She shook her head.

  "No, I haven't. I don't know, it's sort of scary. And it's not like you can take it back, right? I don't know, it's not like it bothers me that much if people don't know I'm not actually just a really pale human that refuses to have lunch in front of her coworkers..."

  Ryan smiled a little, though he wasn't sure where that smile came from, exactly. It was awkward and nervous, and maybe he was trying to be a little encouraging, to tell Jade that things would be alright. It probably just looked absolutely stupid, though.

  "Well, what could possibly happen if you tell them that you're actually a vampire?"

  Jade stared at Ryan for a few moments. "They're going to ignore me, they'll be scared of me, customers and clients will refuse to interact with me, I will lose my job and my apprenticeship, I lose this flat because I'm broke, and then I'm going to end up on the street, burning to a crisp next summer because I can't afford sunblock anymore."

  "Hm... I don't think that would happen." Ryan shook his head. Jade didn't seem to know what to say, though what Ryan followed up with helped. "You'd probably starve first."

  She laughed loudly, nodding. "I guess you're right. But... I don't know, I'm just scared, I guess. About how people around me will react. I mean, vampires in particular used to prey on people, and they know that. We used to hunt them down, and they us, and-"

  Ryan grimaced slightly, and Jade looked back at him confused. "Hm?"

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  "Well... I mean, not really. That's how things are passed down at least, but I've looked up some first-hand records from vampiric incidents, written from multiple perspectives, and then some research from some people employed by my family, and... yeah, no, vampires never 'hunted' anyone. That's mostly a myth."

  "Huh? But then how did we eat?"

  "Vampires lured people in. That being the main way vampires fed is already known, right? You're physically weak, so vampires weren't able to actually hunt and physically overwhelm others. So, you evolved to be utterly stunning individuals so that you could lure in and seduce people, so that you could feed on their blood. And because of that, vampires wouldn't kill anyone either. It would be much harder to seduce someone and convince them to let you drink their blood if you were known as a psychopathic murderer," Ryan explained. "Most of the 'hunting' myths are either mistranslations, exaggerations, or just straight-up fear-mongering. Usually by jealous husbands and wives whose spouse came back with some bite marks."

  Jade breathed in for a moment. "But I thought there were some big cases about vampire clans that specifically kept other people as... uhm... livestock?"

  "Well, yeah, sure, but that's one, because there's some psychos in every group of people, and two, because they heard how vampires were perceived... and they figured they might as well double down if that's how people saw them anyway," Ryan smiled at Jade. "People aren't born dangerous. They're not born to hurt others, just to survive. And that's what vampires did. You survived until now, so that you could, ironically, live out in the sun."

  A smile formed on Jade's face. She carefully nodded. "Yeah... I guess so. But that doesn't change the first image people see in their mind when they hear the word 'vampire'."

  "... That's actually part of why I'm here today," Ryan said, as he opened up his backpack. First, he got out his food that he grabbed on the way here, as well as one of the bottles of 'blood' that he grabbed for Jade from his place before coming here. And then, he grabbed a small notebook, which he flipped open to a mostly empty page. There were just a few notes at the top, showing different questions that Ryan wanted an answer to. "Essentially, I wanted to interview you a little. You know, to hear the perspective of an actual vampire that lived out in the actual world so far."

  Jade tilted her head to the side lightly. "What about Liam?"

  "Oh, he's lived the first few years of his life in a secluded vampire clan, and then the rest with a guy that loves to larp like he's in the middle-ages," Ryan sighed, remembering the stories of that elder he had been told so far. "Liam's not the type of person that would know what it's like to have to hide that part of yourself, because everyone he's ever been around actually knew that he's a vampire."

  "Ah... Hm, I guess we can do that? But what do you need this for?" Jade asked, seeming a little disappointed the more she heard Ryan's explanation.

  "So... this might sound weird, but I'm hoping to change the way my family does things. Like..." he nervously scratched his neck. "Some people that struggle fitting in outside basically have to force themselves to be locked away in 'hidden villages'. And even the ones that manage to be amongst others have to hide things about themselves. They have to use so many tools to hide a huge part of who they are and their identity, and that just doesn't seem right to me. But I'm also a human, so I'm not exactly an expert on the lived experience of a ghoul, succubus, or well, a vampire. I know that we can improve things, we just need to figure out what would actually help people."

  Jade slowly nodded, sitting up straight. Ryan noticed something with the way she moved and the expression she made. He wasn't the only one, either. He was going to put up the 'blinds' around the domains so that the spirits couldn't see or hear what Ryan was doing, but he hadn't yet done that, so they saw and heard what was going on.

  And they also seemed to agree with what Ryan was thinking.

  He cleared his throat awkwardly and looked away, slightly hiding his cheeks behind his hand because he could already feel them warm up.

  "A-and it seemed like a... like a good excuse to get to spend time with you and turn this into a date..." he nervously stuttered out. Seriously, why was he able to stare into the barrel of a loaded gun, but stuttered like an idiot in this kind of situation.

  Ryan noticed Violette and Jester in particular seem very excited about what he was saying, so he figured it was about time to lock them out from his senses.

  Before he could dare to look back over at Jade, though, something that he hadn't even noticed approaching him jumped up onto his lap.

  It was a small, fluffy gryphon, that jumped onto his lap, chirping slightly while snuggling up to him.

  "Oh! Sorry, that's Belle, my roommates pet that I mentioned earlier. Sorry, I should have asked before, are you fine with gryphons?"

  Ryan looked down at the small fluffball and nodded immediately, "Oh yeah, it's all good! My neighbour had a gryphon. She was pretty old, so I would help her out with him sometimes. And he was a big breed. Almost knocked me off my feet once because he got too excited to see me," he laughed, scratching the underside of Belle's beak as her feline tail started to sway back and forth. She started purring, the sound of the low-pitched vibrations singing in tune with the happy chirping.

  "... You're really good with animals, huh?"

  Ryan thought about it for a moment. "Yeah, I guess so. I've always liked animals a lot. I'm taking care of a couple at the moment, actually. They live in the hidden village under my uncle's house."

  "Oh? What are you taking care of?" Jade asked, clearly curious. By now, Ryan had looked back over at her, and saw that her face was just as flushed pink as his was. She seemed to be recovering from what Ryan said as well.

  "There's the Forge Elemental, she doesn't have a name yet, but we're figuring a few things out. Apparently names are a big thing for elementals. Then there's Kindly the mimic, he used to be infected with this really nasty curse-type thing, corruption, if you know about it. We managed to cure him, and his treatment is almost done, so we were actually thinking about me taking him over to my place, since he's gotten damn attached to me. Same with the Forge Elemental, but Runar said they wanted to watch her a bit longer first. Elementals aren't that common, so it's apparently hard to justify letting her come with me," Ryan explained with a smile, all the whilst continuing to ruffle up the fur and feathers of the gryphon on his lap. "Then I'm also helping out with the cockatrices and the-"

  As he was talking, Ryan noticed Jade's expression go blank and confused.

  "Is everything okay?" he asked nervously, wondering if he said something wrong.

  "Corruption can be... cured?" She blinked slowly.

  Ryan was hesitant as he answered. "Uh, yes, as of recent. I found some special flowers in a dungeon and they're the main ingredient for the cure. It's very potent, but they're still developing and strengthening it more, and most importantly testing it before they get it to all the affected people, apparently."

  Jade's face went from pink to white.

  "... Do you... do you think you can get me that cure?"

  Ryan sat up straight. "Jade, do you know anyone that's corrupted?"

  She immediately nodded her head. "My grandmother... she was infected some time ago... She's quarantined at my parents' home right now under instruction of the Aglecard family, but... I didn't hear anything about there being a cure..."

  Ryan grimaced slightly. "And that's exactly why I want to change the way things work in the family... things are messed up because of thousand-year-old traditions and 'the way things were always done'."

  He pushed his hand into his backpack, pulling out a smaller bag. He unzipped it and looked through the items in there. This was basically an emergency medkit he had put together. Blood rose pills, some salves, bandages, and a small vial of the corruption-cure, just in case.

  "Here it is. I'm not exactly sure what the best way to apply this would be, but a reliable method is to pour this into a larger container of water, and then cleaning the infected areas with this," Ryan explained. "It might be good to let her take a bath in that if it's wide-spread and then to wait until it's all gone, but definitely don't let it out through the drain afterward. It would need to be collected separately. The corruption is still dangerous and toxic."

  Jade stared at the small vial with a golden liquid inside of it.

  "You're just giving it to me?"

  Of course, without a moment's hesitation, Ryan nodded. "Of course. Uhm... maybe it's not the best time because of Belle here, but we can go right now. I'll drop you off at your parents' place and then you can figure the rest out with them and your grandmother."

  Tears welled up in Jade's eyes, "I... I just don't know what to say..."

  Ryan slowly placed his hand onto hers. "You don't need to say anything at all. If possible, we would eradicate all corruption right now, but that's not possible yet. If you don't want to leave Belle alone, I would be happy to come back and watch her while you're gone, by the way. She's a real cutie. Aren't you?" Ryan looked down at the chirping gryphon, but Jade shook her head, grasping his hand tightly.

  "Could you... come with me? Like inside, and then help me? I don't want to do anything wrong..."

  Ryan smiled, trying to reassure her. "There's really nothing you can do wrong, don't-" He saw Jade's expression. "... Alright. I'll come with you. It won't take long, don't worry."

  Without hesitation, Jade threw herself onto Ryan, slinging her arms around his neck. "Thank you! Thank you so much!"

  Ryan laughed a little. "Again, don't worry. Just come on, we can figure out the questions some other time."