Vincent walked down the hallway, rubbing his throbbing jaw where he’d been hit and lost a tooth. He hoped it would heal somehow. He was a supernatural being part of a supernatural world after all. While the throbbing pain was much more intense after getting repeatedly pounded by Alacard, it had already subsided some. These werewolf abilities were something else.

He noticed Alexander flirting with a girl with long silvery-white hair and stunning green eyes that for some reason looked familiar.

Why was that? He wondered.

As he got closer, he also noticed a distinguishing feature on her face. They were like tiny lightning marks, or twisted branches of red trees. Scars, like soft, pale-red veins, moved up her neck and across her cheek all the way to her right eye. He wondered how she had gotten them but didn’t want to ask as perhaps she was self-conscious, even though she didn’t seem to be the self-conscious type.

“You’re on,” Alexander said, pointing at the girl in only a way he could pull off. “I’ll see you then.” He saw Vincent approaching and nodded.  

“Hello, Vincent,” the girl said, which gave Vincent a start.

Her voice was soft but piercing in its own way, her observant eyes watching him as if penetrating his soul.

Vincent blinked, perplexed at the way she looked and spoke to him as if he knew her.

He smiled and shifted nervously. “H-hello.” The marks, though, were a stark contrast against her pale skin that reminded him of the moonlight, and he had a hard time not staring at them.

She didn’t seem to mind and beamed at him, as if this revealed something he had no clue about.

“Gentlemen,” she said in that same soft voice that made Vincent think of the texture of a rose, looking from one of the boys to the other in a deliberate motion. “I shall take my leave.” She gave a little wave and glided away.

She smelled like daffodils, sweet and soothing, setting off a tinge that made him want to reminisce.

Vincent blinked again, wondering who she was. Why did it feel like he had seen her somewhere before? “Who was that?”

Alexander wrapped a friendly arm around Vincent, chuckling. “That was my dream girl, Yuki Dormanhein. I plan on seeing her later.”

“Oh really?” Vincent said with a scrutinizing look. “What about the girl you were flirting with the other day? Or that teacher you were chatting up? Or the junior during lunch the other day?”

“Life is full of bountiful opportunities, Vince,” Alexander said, without skipping a beat, waving his arm in a big arching motion in front of them. “You’ve got to grasp it when the time is ripe.”

“Grasp what?” Vincent said.

“Love,” Alexander said, clenching his hand into a fist as if grabbing something out of the air and pulling it to his chest. “Because if don’t you embrace the love in your life, brother, it’ll fade quicker than a vampire downing a blood bottle.”

“Right,” Vincent said, raising an eyebrow and frowning.  

“One of these days we got to go hit up Main Street and check out the sights and sounds,” Alexander said as they moved down the hallway toward class.

Vincent had an idea of what Alexander meant by sights and sounds. “Perhaps.” While hanging with Alexander did sound fun, his focus was on how he was going to master the Transformation at Will.

As they arrived at classroom 412, they were chuckling and smiling, which made Alacard frown at the sight.

Vincent took a seat next to Isabella and beamed at her.

“W-what?” she said, touching a hand to flushed cheek. “Do I have something on my face?”

“No, I was just…,” Vincent said, trailing off as he felt as if he was smiling awkwardly. He tried to salvage the situation. “I was just saying hello.”

“Well, then say it,” she said, not sure how to react to him.

“Hello, Isabella. How are you today?” He felt weird saying it that way, wondering why it felt weird.

Hmm, he wasn’t sure.

“Why are you being so weird?”

And there it was. He was being weird. But before he could say anything more, Mr. B entered.

“Alacard, feet down,” Mr. B said, brushing Alacard’s feet off his desk. He took the front of the class, leaning against the desk and folding his arms.

He began his lecture with werewolves, specifically the Transformation at Will, and Vincent felt the words of his teacher trail off and take him away. After a while, Vincent peered outside, feeling as if his body was floating away, through the pane of glass, and out into the green grass. A foreboding storm gathered as his body floated – or was he standing? He wasn’t sure – over the grass. He looked up into the clouds and felt himself tense as a large face took shape into the form of the werewolf in his dream. It narrowed its beady eyes on him and leaned forward, ready to strike. It snarled and snapped its jaws as it moved to eat him.

Then, he awoke.

“Vin-cent,” came the voice of Mr. B that started out muffled then became clearer.

Mr. B glared down at Vincent, tapping his finger against the top of Vincent’s head as he enunciated his name.

Vincent had fallen asleep, drool slipping from one side of his mouth in a pool against his desk. He didn’t realize how tired he had been from being beaten so badly. Startled, he picked himself up and mumbled something incoherent, wiping the drool from his face.

“Sleeping in my class is not acceptable.” Mr. B held his eyes on Vincent, thinking. “I’ll let it slide this time, but please, clean up your drool.”

Oh boy, Vincent thought, embarrassed. Why’d he have to go and point it out to the others? Then again, Mr. B had let it slide, so Vincent thought better of it. He grabbed some tissues and wiped up the pool of drool that had gathered on his desk.

.           .           .

By the end of the day, Vincent and Alacard were back on the field, adaptive outfits on beneath their hoodies and sweatpants. Vincent felt elated as he had been nervous most of the day, all the way up to falling asleep in Mr. B’s class because he had worn himself out. But now, he was ready to spar, ready to go to that room again, and master the Transformation at Will.

“Ready for another round, boys?” Mr. B asked, turning from one to the other.

“Yeah, yeah,” Alacard said, waving a nonchalant hand in the air. “Let’s get this over with.”

He leaned forward and placed his hand on the grass. Then burst into a run, dashing at Vincent with fury in his eyes.

.           .           .

Vincent fell back against the grass with arms outstretched. His body was covered in sweat, his breaths labored, his face worn.

Alacard stood victorious, also worn out and sweaty.

“I win again,” he said triumphantly.

Vincent smiled wryly. “Stating the obvious, nice.” He moved to his feet with a grunt.

“That’s it for today, boys,” Mr. B said with a raise of his hand. “Rest up, and tomorrow we’ll get back to the real fun.”

“Sir?” Vincent asked, shifting his weight to his back foot, curiosity crossing his face. “H-how do we know when it’s too late?” He rubbed his arm, feeling a bit embarrassed, but he had to know.

Mr. B raised an eyebrow. “For what?”

“You said if the beast, uh, I mean,” he said, rubbing the side of his neck. “The werewolf catches us in our dream, it’s not good, right?”

Mr. B nodded.

Alacard scoffed, revealing a smile at this little display of Vincent’s.

“How do we know it’s caught us in our dream? Like, does it attack? Does some sort of change happen? Or will we feel somehow… different? What happens exactly?”

“Oh, you’ll know, son.” Mr. B said with a knowing smile.

That didn’t help at all.

“How?” Vincent asked, tilting his head, curious and concerned.

“When it attacks you, a change will happen,” Mr. B said with finality. “And something will be different, and you’ll… just know.” He leveled his gaze on Vincent, and Vincent seemed to accept that answer as he didn’t say anything more.

Mr. B left, and while Vincent watched him leave, part of him wanted to ask more, to know more, but he left it at that.

“He’s a freak, just like you,” Alacard said, moving his arm around and adjusting his shoulder as if in pain. Vinent smirked because he had punched Alacard there. While he hadn’t won any of the rounds, he’d gotten in some nice hits himself.

Vincent wanted to come back with a remark, to say something funny in return, to play his little game.

Instead, he just kept it simple. “Nice work today, buddy.”

Alacard scoffed. “It was nice knocking you down and out over and over and over again.” He leaned back, looking like he wanted to relax a little. “Just remember your place, chump. You’re beneath me. I wasn’t even putting in much effort to best you. You can’t win. You can’t beat me.”

“As long as you put in any effort,” Vincent joked, “That’s a win for me.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Alacard said, waving him off, obviously tired of arguing. “Run on home, little doggy.”

.           .           .