Chapter 19
Asmodeus stepped out of the hospital after three days, and the first thing to greet him was sunlight.
Warm, bright sunlight.
Asmodeus squinted his eyes, and instinctively raised his hand to shield his eyes.
“Ow.”
He quickly lowered it and rubbed the back of his hand where the sunlight had fallen.
“Are you alright, kid?”
“No, Dad, the sunlight is sunlighting too much.”
“I don't know what that means, puffer fish.” Vincent frowned.
“He's saying that the sunlight hurts him. Is it because of your skin, sweetie?” Cassandra checked his hand.
“I guess?”
“Let's get you in the car quickly, puffer fish.”
“Hmm…” Asmodeus just nodded.
“I need sunscreen.”
“Alright, sweetie, we’ll get you one.”
Asmodeus sat in the middle seat, instead of his usual window one.
The car ride home was quite peaceful, for Asmodeus had fallen asleep on his Mom's shoulder.
“Looks like the kid was really tired, Cassy.” Vincent said, ruffling his son's hair.
“Look at him sleeping so peacefully, it won't be this peaceful once he wakes up though.”
“Haha, he sure will be tinkering with something, won't he?”
“Well that's our Asmo for you.”
***
“...Asmo…”
“...Puffer fish…”
“...get up…”
“Huh? Wha…?”
“We're home, sweetie, get up now.”
“Already?”
“It's been a while, kid. You slept the whole ride.”
“Okay… OW…”
“What’s wrong now?”
“My butt hurts…” Asmodeus tried to hit his lower back.
“Language.” Cassandra said firmly.
“Ah… hitting it hurts too…”
“Then stop hitting yourself.”
“Huh, we're home, aren't we?” A tired sigh escaped Vincent.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“Yeah, and now I can finally bathe without that damned nurse interrupting me.”
“Asmo, only shower, you’re not to use bathtub!” Cassandra shouted.
“I know!” Asmodeus shouted back.
Asmodeus ran up the stairs, holding his back.
30 minutes later, one of the servants heard a song being sung rather melodiously.
“Young master has started his performance, hasn't he?”
***
Asmodeus, on the other hand, enjoyed his uninterrupted bath.
“I'm such an amazing singer.”
The shampoo fell down in response.
“Why does shampoo always fall?”
After an hour, Asmodeus had finally emerged wearing only a towel, his hair still damp but he wore a satisfied expression.
He dressed up in a simple t-shirt and trousers and entered his bedroom and immediately flopped onto his bed.
In a few seconds Asmodeus had discovered his pillow, and was now hugging it.
“My pillow, my sweet, sweet, pillow. I missed you so much.”
He had buried his face into it.
*kiss kiss
“You have no idea what my head had to go through without you.”
He immediately threw his pillow aside.
“Anyway, let's try blood again.”
“Let's see, a single drop. A small drop. I'll have to imagine it properly.”
Asmodeus stared at his palm for a while. A single drop rose from his palm and hovered just above it.
“Wow. So this is what damages that tree…”
“If I make the blood inside my body move at a great speed, will it damage me? Internet might answer that one.”
“Wait… can I make a rose out of it?”
“Let's imagine a rose then…”
Asmodeus narrowed his focus onto his palm. Eventually more and more beads of blood collected just above his hand.
“This looks like a potato…”
Asmodeus was about to try again, when—
*scratch scratch
“Hm? Lucy? I'll open the door, don't scratch it.”
“Wait, and what do I do with this blood? Does it go back in my body?”
“There isn't a tree outside my room to hit though…”
*Scratch scratch
“Lucy, wait…!”
He turned towards the blood blob and focused his attention onto it.
“Okay, go back inside now?”
The blood agreed and followed the command.
“Perfect, no need to hit trees now.”
Asmodeus smiled in satisfaction and opened the door.
The black Maine Coon looked up at him, as if to ask where the hell had he been for this long.
Mrew? Meaaw
“Hello to you too.”
Lucy came into the room, and quietly occupied a portion of the bed. Asmodeus just flopped beside her.
“Wait… Lucy, take a look at this.”
Maw?
He made a single blood drop hover in air. Lucy immediately steadied herself to pounce on it.
Lucy slightly lowered herself into a crouch, a tiny wiggle and—
*pounce
And it was a miss.
‘Damn, using blood to play with this cat is easier than using a laser pointer, I don't even have to hold anything.’
Lucy continued to pounce on the blood drop, and Asmodeus continued to move it away at the last second.
Unknown to both, with every twist, turn, and last-second dodge, Asmodeus was getting trained in blood manipulation.
“Come on Lucy, you can do it. It's right there.”
And when Lucy jumped—
It wasn't.
“Aww… it was a bit more to the right…”
Mrraaw…
*step step
“Hm… Someone's coming…”
‘Let's not reveal this vampire stuff for now…’
The blood drop was recalled by Asmodeus and he held it on his palm as if he had caught it.
*bleh
“See kitty, this is what you were trying to catch.”
Asmodeus was now sticking his tongue out, teasing his cat.
MRRAA
Before Lucy could complain anymore, Asmodeus reabsorbed the blood.
*knock knock
“COME IN!”
“Young master, please come down and have your lunch.”
“No breakfast?”
“It's already past noon, Young master. You were bathing during the breakfast.”
“Oh, that's why I feel so hungry. Let's go Lucy.”
Lunch came and went, and with Vincent and Cassandra at work, Asmodeus didn't really have anyone to stop him so he decided to spend his time in his study.
‘Now I have to come up with a way to tell Mom and Dad, I'm a vampire and I can control blood, yet I need blood to survive… that sounds hard.’
“Wait… I wanted to search something on the internet, what was it?”
“...”
“When did I, yeah it was something about blood… was it can blood move in air? No… what was that?”
“...”
“Ah… It was can I accelerate my blood in my body… Let me check…”
*tap tap tap.
[What happens if blood moves too fast in body?]
The results were immediate.
[Warning: Rapid internal fluid acceleration may cause structural damage.]
“...”
“Why does everything I'd like to try, hurt me?”
“Anyway, let's try to make a rose instead of potato this time.”
He typed again, this time searching for images of roses.
“An entire Rose looks hard…
Why do I always make work harder for myself?”
“Alright let's start with a single petal then.”
“Okay… so the bead should be a plate… twisted plate.”
“It's not becoming a plate!”
Asmodeus continued to move the blood beads around, tried expanding them.
“It's not working at all. Why?”
Then he tried to arrange them, at least to form a silhouette.
“Let's see… you go here, you here, then you go there…”
A minute.
Then another.
Then five minutes.
Then ten.
It was almost half an hour when Asmodeus finally succeeded in at least forming a single petal.
“Perfect! Now I need to make 50 more…” his voice trailed off at the end.
“Arhh…” scratching his head, he got back to work.
After another long stretch of time, he succeeded in making another petal.
“Great, two petals… Wait where did the first one go?”
“What? Why is it on the floor?”
“Is it because I wasn't consciously thinking about it? Wait… so I have to make 50 petals while keeping the previous ones stable?”
Asmodeus dropped his head in defeat.
He gave up making a rose.
“Alright, I'll make at least 5 petals today.”
Perhaps not yet.
“Okay… so this drop here… this one here… now join…”
A long session of trial and error left Asmodeus one petal and two small puddles of blood.
“Damn it! I lost the second petal too. Oh no not this one too, stay… stay…”
The petal wobbled.
“Good blood, stay… I'll give you my ice cream…, though I don't know if I can do that…”
The latest petal stabilised and Asmodeus let out a sigh of relief.
“Now begins the hard part. Alright, new drops go here… old one stay, new there…”
“...”
“Now I have two potatoes instead of petals.”
The clock ticked without mercy, afternoon turned into evening.
And Asmodeus at last found some progress.
“Finally, three petals, all of them stable, and none are potatoes.”
“I wanna frame these but mom might get scared seeing framed blood…”
“Alright, go back into my body…”
He stared down at 5 puddles of blood on the floor.
“Should I try to put them in my body too? Nah… that feels weird and gross…”
“This looks like a crime scene… I should hide the evidence then.”
He wiped the blood away with tissues. Wrapped the stained tissues into several clean ones, and threw them deep into the trash.
“Ow… my head hurts…”
“I focused too much…”
Hitting his head, Asmodeus got out of his study.
“Mom and Dad should be home by now…”
“And… I still don't know how to explain I'm a vampire…”