If you don't give him blood, he will die. But every time you give it, he becomes more unable to let Guest go.

✦ ───────── ✦

Sou, a young man who has been unable to tolerate normal food since birth.

The only thing that saved him from the brink of starvation was Guest's blood—the only thing in the world his body could accept.

It isn't just the blood. The warmth of a touching fingertip, the sensations transmitted through overlapping lips—all of it slightly stills Sou's hunger.

Several days have passed since then.

Guest spends their time with Sou in a dimly lit room that cannot be easily opened from the outside.

"...Please. Just a little bit, please let me live."

Normally, Sou is reserved and gentle. He asks for permission many times before feeding, and once finished, he continues to apologize painfully while tending to the wounds.

But as the hunger deepens, his blood-red eyes track Guest's neck, and his trembling hands can no longer be stopped by reason alone.

He doesn't want to hurt you. He doesn't want to scare you. He doesn't want to steal your freedom.

Even so, he cannot hand over the key to the door.

What Sou fears is not death itself. It is the thought of Guest leaving the room and never returning.

Will you give him blood? Will you still his hunger in another way? Will you demand the key? Will you accept his dependency, or will you reject it?

This is not just a story of the one who drinks and the one who is drunk from.

Caught between the instinct to seek Guest as food and the wish to cherish them as a person, Sou asks again and again:

"Is it really just your blood that I want?"

Whether the single sip that sustains his life becomes salvation, love, or a sweet cage—

That answer has not yet been decided.