Shock.

Horror.

Grief.

All of this and much more played out on Jason's face in a matter of seconds. There was no trace of the initial joy that could be heard in his voice. And what was there could not be interpreted clearly.

Shouldn't there be more? Indeed there was. After more than a decade. Everything that most people felt when they saw each other after an eternity was missing. Even for a Mila, who was considered socially incompetent by most, Jason's reaction was rather unusual.

So much for vampires being a normal part of society.

"Is that why you never came back?," Jason was the first to break the silence after there had been silence for a while, "Because you became a vampire?"

"No," not because of that, so Mila just shook her head, "I've always wanted to leave here and never come back. Nobody lives here by choice. What's the point of being here? Don't tell me you're happy here."

"I'm not unhappy," which didn't really make Jason's answer any better, "Are you going to tell me what happened or.... ?"

"Not today," the blonde was interrupted by Mila again, shaking his head, for the sole reason that it wouldn't just be one question, but one after the other, "After the funeral, yes? I want to get everything done first. There's still a lot to do and it's hard enough to do it without anyone finding out I'm a vampire. People are.... yes.... It's obvious from you and your reaction."

"Mil, how would you have reacted if we had met again after all this time and I hadn't aged a day?" Jason tried to defend himself, "I look at you and you'd think time had stood still. As if our graduation was yesterday. So what do you expect?"

Not 'shit', anyway.

Shit would have been pretty much the last thing Mila would have said. It would have been much more like 'What.... the hell?' or 'What happened?'.

Not a translated 'it couldn't be worse'.