(I have been taking a few color guard classes, they are just like Ballet, and all I can tell y'all is that our feet do get messed up if you do it wrong.)

Ryuko and Reiko sat at one of Ryuko's favorite restaurants. It was Korean food again. Shinya was between the two, and sat awkwardly, as Reiko tried to make conversation.

"So, you're a ballerina?"

"I am." Ryuko slouched back, mimicking a lot of how Reiko sat.

"Isn't that more of a hobby thing?"

"It is, but I made it a career instead." Ryuko said, feeling uncomfortable with the questions on her job. She loved her job, even if it hurt her feet.

"There are ghost stories about ballerinas who died from a foot infection." Reiko began, and Shinya immediately stepped in. Ryuko was always glad to talk about her job, but Reiko had a tendency to scare people.

"So what did you and Nejire talk about?" He asked.

"I- um..." Ryuko tried to avoid her conversation with Nejire and brought up Nejire's conversation with her. "Uh... well, Taishiro has a nephew living with him now." Shinya looked at Ryuko with a raised eyebrow and resting his chin on his palm. "Yeah, I plan on going out to see Taishiro soon anyways, would be nice."

Shinya's lip curled into a smirk, his eyes flickering to the silverware in front of him. He realized what was going on now. A cat lead him directly to a vampire. Probably a virgin vampire, but...

Virgin vampires are vampires who refuse to drink blood. The name comes from virgin drinks. Alcoholic drinks and virgin drinks? Who the hell came up with this? So corny.

"What're you thinking?" Both girls said in sync. Ryuko turned to Reiko and gently laughed as Reiko just stared at her in annoyance.

"Nothing much." Shinya shrugged. Ryuko opened a menu and began running through the options with Shinya and explaining what things were, knowing this was a newer place and they hadn't gone together before.

Reiko looked at her brother and obviously, future sister-in-law. It sucked knowing this lady would probably wind up having kids with her brother. Not because she was mean or anything, but because she just didn't seem like Shinya's type and she was probably faking everything for him. Like nothing they had was actually real.

"What're you gonna get Reiko?" Ryuko asked. "I'm just gonna get a salad."

"You don't want your usual?" Shinya asked. He was confused.

"Oh, ah, nope! I just think I need to lose some weight. I'm trying to get rid of some fat." Ryuko said with a smile. Reiko looked at her and looked at Shinya. Shinya was just as concerned as she was. "Anyways, what do you want Reiko!"

✨✨✨✨

"I genuinely do not care. Buy whatever color dress you want." Natsuo texted.

Nejire frowned and sent an angry text back. It didn't do much obviously, because he just laughed at her. "It's not funny!"

"Ok, sure. lol." Natsuo called her a minute later and was still laughing. She frowned at him and he kept laughing. "So, what do you have to do tomorrow?"

"Ballet. And on Wednesday I have work, so I can't hang out until Thursday. So let's go dress shopping soon? Prom is like, May 15th, or something, I'll recheck, but it's already April 27th! So yeah, let's do that soon!"

"I- you ramble a lot."

"Oh, sorry!"

"No, it's cute!"

"It usually isn't." Nejire nervously laughed. "I got bullied a bit actually. Talked really fast too. Do I still do that? I think I do." Nejire grumbled off, doing her homework on her lap. "Ok, so funny story. My new friend sat next to me for the entire year and I never noticed, even when he disappeared! Like, no one noticed he was gone!"

"Oh? Well that sucks. At least you saw him again?" Natsuo shrugged.

"I have to get his number! We wanna hang out soon and I realized we never had anything to organize that with."

"You forgot to get his number? Ha, you're silly." He mumbled. Now that Nejire realized it, he sounded kinda sad. Like he was sleepy. "Sorry if I sound tired. Been trying to be energetic." He laughed, sounding really sad.

"Aw, did I accidentally wake you up? Sorry! I'll hang up if you want!"

"Nah, just got a little mad. I don't have a lot of energy in me right now." He mumbled, his eyes a light red. "It's pretty weird, don't know if I can really explain it without scaring you off or anything," he mumbled. "So shit goes down all the time. Basically, we have a bunch of demons and shit in America. I literally don't care if my dad doesn't want me telling this shit."

"Oh, that's not good."

"Ok, but the thing is, most of them are dormant and don't do shit. Only a few actually hurt anyone, and the ones that don't hurt anybody get killed as well. It's so damn infuriating 'cuz they've done nothing wrong. My dad does part of the killing, and it's infuriating because he acts like these aren't children and harmless people living their lives. Most of them only see these people as monsters and it's annoying. Cuz like, what if I was turned into a vampire, would my dad kill me?"

"Huh."

"Yeah, it's weird as hell. I used to be fine with it, then I watched a little kid get murdered because she was a half vampire. Isn't that fucked up?"

"Y-yeah."

She thought they only killed the dangerous ones. Children too? Damn. Well, there were bad ones. Then there was Shinya. It couldn't that bad.

Right?

✨✨✨✨✨

Nejire was thinking about what Natsuo said all night. She had to ask Shinya about it tomorrow. She didn't know how comfortable she was with this job anymore, knowing children were killed. Probably by black coats too.

At ballet, she looked herself in the mirror and saw the same person she always was, except it looked like her face had sunken in and she had gotten paler. She was a bit tanned because, well, her mother was dark skinned, plus, partially Laotian. So seeing herself pale and her cheekbones the way they were... she looked ill.

She blinked and looked at herself again, and she looked normal. What the hell?

"Hey everybody! Can we look at me?" Ryuko asked. She had a young girl next to her. She had long forest green hair which was tied back with a ribbon. She was really short, with tan skin. "This is Tsuyu Asui."

"You guys can call me Tsu. I came in a bit late, sorry." She had a really crooked grin, but it was adorable. Her eyes were large. "I guess I introduce myself? Well... my dad is Polynesian and my mom is Japanese. I live with my uncle right now, and my family is back in Hawaii. I like frogs and the beach."

"Hi Tsu!" Nejire grinned, being the only person to say hi at first. She had to get her reflection and the conversation out of her head, and Tsu was here, so perfect distraction! Then the rest of the girls joined in.

"Tsu also has been doing ballet since she was little, like Nejire and Mo- where is Momo?"

"The hospital. She's skipping today, but she'll be back next week! I hope." Mina stepped in to say.

"Well, I hope she's alright." Ryuko smiled. "Now, let's get started."

✨✨✨✨

If you're wondering why everyone is mixed or I have barely any white characters or anything, it's mainly cuz Cali has a large Asian population, plus my headcanons, so there's that. Yo Shindou is Spanish tho. Like, Spaniard. Spain.

Anyways,

Nejire is hallucinating or something