“VAMPIRE?!!”

  The word exploded out of Akari Minamoto like a firework that had been waiting sixteen years to go off.

  Across the living room, her mother, Aina Minamoto, nodded calmly while folding undry.

  Akari blinked. “Like, the blood sucking, cape wearing, coffin sleeping vampire?”

  Aina pinched the bridge of her nose. “They’re not…”

  “The allergic to garlic, afraid of crosses, turns into bats vampire?”

  Aina pced a neatly folded towel on the stack. “Akari, please lower your voice. The neighbors will misunderstand.”

  Akari threw her hands into the air. “There is no correct way to understand that sentence, Mom! You just said a VAMPIRE is moving into our house!”

  Aina finally looked at her daughter. “Akari, she’s the daughter of a good friend of mine.”

  “How did you befriend a vampire?!”

  “We’ve coexisted peacefully,” Aina said, patient as ever, her voice steady despite Akari’s dramatics. “They’re not like what the media portrays. They don’t attack people and suck their blood. They live like humans—work ordinary jobs, even pay taxes.”

  Akari stared at her mother with wide eyes.

  “Mom,” she whispered dramatically, “have you been reading conspiracy forums again? Also, why have I never heard anything about vampires living among us before?”

  Aina sighed softly. “They’ve always lived quietly and peacefully among us. Only a few people they truly trust know about them.”

  She gently patted her daughter’s shoulder before continuing, her voice turning more serious. “Akari, listen,” Aina said gently, her voice soft yet firm. “Her mother passed away recently, and they were the st descendants of the vampire bloodline, so she has no one left. I couldn’t just leave her alone—I promised her mother, my best friend, that I would take care of her daughter.”

  Akari paused.

  “So you decided to adopt Dracu’s niece?”

  Before Aina could reply—

  Ding dong.

  The doorbell rang.

  Both of them froze.

  Aina’s face brightened instantly. “Oh! That must be her!”

  Akari’s face, on the other hand, drained of color. “She’s already here?!” she squeaked.

  Aina walked calmly toward the door.

  Akari followed behind her like a dramatic side character in a low-budget horror movie. Halfway to the entrance, she suddenly doubled back, rummaged frantically through a drawer, and pulled out a small wooden cross.

  Just in case.

  “You are not bringing that to greet our guest,” Aina warned ftly without even turning around.

  Akari quickly hid them behind her back anyway.

  The door opened.

  “Welcome!”

  Standing at the doorway was not a cloaked creature of the night wrapped in shadows and mystery.

  Instead, there stood a tall, composed girl with silver hair that caught the afternoon light. Her green eyes were calm, observant. She wore a simple bck jacket and carried herself with a quiet maturity that made her seem older than she appeared.

  She looked foreign—elegant and quiet—like someone who belonged on the glossy pages of a fashion magazine.

  Akari blinked, momentarily stunned. “Beautiful…”

  The girl offered a small bow. “Nice to meet you. My name is Irisa Dragov. Thank you for taking me in, Minamoto san.” Her voice was smooth and controlled, with the faintest accent.

  Akari squinted at her suspiciously.

  The sun was shining directly on the front porch. Bright and blinding. Summer level bright.

  Akari’s eyes widened in horror. She stepped forward and pointed dramatically. “WAIT!!”

  Irisa paused.

  Akari gasped loudly. “The sun is super bright right now. Why are you not shining? Or glowing? Or MELTING?!”

  Aina covered her face with one hand.

  Irisa blinked once. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You’re standing in direct sunlight!” Akari insisted, looking up at the sky as if expecting divine intervention. “Shouldn’t you be sparkling? Or turning into dust? Or at least sizzling a little?!”

  Irisa looked down at her own hands. “I do not sizzle.”

  Akari circled her slowly. “No smoke. No glitter. No dramatic burning. What kind of vampire are you?!”

  Aina cleared her throat. “Akari, please behave.”

  But Akari was already leaning in. “Okay. Fine. If you’re immune to sunlight… then show me your fangs.” She stared intensely at Irisa’s face.

  “No...”

  “Suspicious!” Akari lunged forward before anyone could stop her and grabbed Irisa’s cheeks with both hands.

  “Akari!” Aina shouted.

  Irisa froze completely. Her entire body went rigid, like a statue caught mid-breath.

  Akari squinted and gently pulled down Irisa’s lower lip.

  “No fangs!”

  She switched sides. “Still no fangs.”

  She leaned closer. “Are they retractable? Is this like a cat situation?”

  Irisa’s brain had stopped functioning somewhere between 'sun sizzling' and 'cat situation.'

  “I do not reveal them casually,” Irisa replied stiffly.

  “Ohhh,” Akari gasped. “So they DO exist.”

  “Yes."

  “Can you show me?”

  “No.”

  Akari released her and stepped back dramatically. “Unfair.”

  Aina immediately pulled Akari aside. “I am so sorry, Irisa. My daughter cks volume control and boundaries.”

  “It is… fine,” Irisa said carefully, adjusting her colr. She had never been inspected like a rare zoo animal before. It was… overwhelming.

  ---

  Inside the house, Aina led Irisa upstairs and showed her the guest room prepared at the end of the hallway—right beside Akari’s.

  Akari followed several steps behind them at what she considered a 'strategic surveilnce distance,' peeking around corners like a cartoon spy on an extremely low budget mission.

  “She walks so normally,” Akari whispered to herself, narrowing her eyes. “Too normally.”

  Irisa paused in front of the hallway mirror to adjust the strap of her bag, only to catch, in the reflection, Akari crouching suspiciously behind a potted pnt with half her face sticking out.

  “Is she... okay?” Irisa asked quietly.

  “She’s just curious,” Aina replied with practiced calm.

  “Curious? I am investigating!” Akari protested from behind the pnt, raising a finger like a detective presenting evidence.

  Aina slid open the door to the guest room. “This will be your room, Irisa.”

  Irisa stepped inside and gave a small nod. “It is more than sufficient. Thank you, Minamoto san.”

  Akari’s brain finally processed something important.

  “Wait,” she said slowly.

  She looked at the door, then at her own room, then back at the door.

  “Wait! She’s sleeping beside my room?!” Akari gasped, spinning dramatically toward her mother.

  Aina sighed. “Yes. That is generally how guest room work.”

  “But— but— what if—” Akari pointed wildly at Irisa.

  Aina raised an eyebrow. “What now? Would you prefer she sleep with you in your room instead?”

  Irisa blinked.

  Akari shrieked. “NO! Of course not! Why would you say that?!” Her face turned bright red in an instant. “W-what if she gets hungry at night?! I just— I was thinking about my neck! I enjoy having blood inside it!”

  Irisa stiffened politely.

  “I do not attack people,” she said carefully.

  “That’s exactly what someone pnning to attack would say!” Akari cried, clutching her colr dramatically.

  Aina pinched the bridge of her nose. “Akari, stop watching te night horror movies.”

  “I’m not overreacting!” Akari insisted, pointing dramatically at Irisa. “She said herself she has fangs!”

  Aina finally turned fully toward her daughter, her voice firm yet calm. “Enough, Akari. Irisa will soon become part of this family, and you will treat her with the respect she deserves.”

  Akari puffed out her cheeks in protest. “Fine,” she muttered. “But I’m sleeping with a scarf.”

  Irisa tried—truly tried—to smile politely.

  This was her first day in a human household and already she had been inspected for fangs, tested for sunlight combustion, and accused of potential midnight neck theft.

  She gnced once more at the hallway mirror, where Akari was now dramatically measuring the distance between their doors with exaggerated steps.

  Humans, she concluded silently, were far louder than expected and this one in particur… might require patience.