Seven roses, red as blood

by Seasons-in-DL

In which we attempt to answer the question: "Doesn't Kanato know any other songs?" Mildly smutty, lots of head-games, some biting, Reiji being Reiji and Kanato being a cunning li'l monster. Oneshot.

"…and then she'll be… a true love of mi-ine…"

Kanato's eerily perfect voice drifted across the rose garden as Yui headed back to the mansion, arms full of roses for Reiji's beloved floral arrangements. She fought back a pang of anxiety as she realized she'd have to pass the smallest triplet to get to the door; Kanato could become irate if one simply walked past him while he was singing, but he could also lose his temper if he was interrupted with a greeting. Reiji had told her not to dawdle, so there was no way she could wait out of sight until Kanato moved on. It couldn't be helped. She approached him quietly, gave him a small smile and stood a little way off, meekly waiting for him to finish his song.

Once the last note had died away, she shifted the roses to the crook of her arm and clapped her hands in polite applause, the sound muted by the thick gardening gloves she wore. The Sakamaki's roses were lovely – celestial colours, perfectly formed blossoms, and a fragrance so sweet and heady she sometimes thought one might get drunk from it – but they bore vicious thorns. Even a minor scratch could become a major problem in a household full of vampires.

Kanato turned his unsettling lilac eyes on her. His face was hard to read, but he seemed calm tonight. "Good evening, Yui-san," he said, his tone gelidly polite. "Was there something?"

"Oh! Eh-etto…" Yui hesitated. She couldn't very well come out and tell him: "I was waiting for you to finish singing so I could get past without sending you into a fit of murderous rage." Inventing frantically, she said: "Well… I was just wondering… that is… I was hoping to ask what other songs you might know?"

"Don't you like my song?"

"I – I like it very much, I just –"

"It was my mother's favourite song. If you didn't like it, I think I might become quite angry. I might even stop wanting to be friends with you. If you didn't appreciate my singing…" he took a step closer, pale brows lowering into a scowl, "…I think I should have to punish you."

Yui's heart began to beat faster. "It's a lovely song!" she assured him. "Really! I only thought that… you sing so well, Kanato-kun, I thought you must know lots and lots of songs."

"Hmm…" mused the vampire, eyeing her thoughtfully. "Yes," he went on, apparently satisfied with her response, "yes, I do know many songs. Many, many songs." He hugged his plush teddy closer and sunk his chin down into its head, a sign that he was remembering something painful. Before Yui could ask what was troubling him, the violette cut her off. He didn't address his words to her, however, but to his toy. Kanato's voice was lower than usual, almost a soft growl. His words were partly muffled by the fluffy fabric, but she heard him clearly enough.

"I think I shall punish her anyway. Don't you agree, Teddie? Yui-san irritates me. She doesn't care about us, about how we feel. She's always making us feel bad things, isn't she? I think I shall have to imagine a very special punishment for Yui-san tonight." And then, as if this unpleasant soliloquy had never happened, he raised his head. The scowl was gone, and he looked calm again – almost friendly.

"At first I only learned one," he said.

One what? thought Yui confusedly. One punishment?

"I only learned Scarborough Fair," Kanato went on. "That was the song Mother liked, so I never troubled to learn others. After Mother died, I sang it and sang it. Reiji said I could borrow some old texts on folk songs that he has, so I could learn different things, but I didn't care to. It made me feel better, singing the song she liked."

He cast his eyes down and let his chin sink into Teddie's softness "But then one day I sang it twelve times in a row, one after the other, and Reiji told me that if I didn't learn three new songs by sunrise he'd boil me with the household linen and bury me in quicklime – without Teddie! Well, I cared for that even less –" Kanato's tone became wounded – "and there's no reasoning with Reiji when he gets in one of his moods. His temper runs away with him, and he's quite intractable. So I learned some new songs. Laito had to help at first, because I didn't know any of the tunes and I can't read your stupid silly mortal music-writing. Then, later on, Reiji calmed down enough to teach me some of the songs he knows. That was more interesting than I expected. He knows lots of good songs."

"English songs?" asked Yui hopefully. She struggled with English classes, and learning songs seemed to help.

"German, mostly. Some Scottish and English. Some Dutch. Anyway, I got back at him later. I collected every single version of Scarborough Fair I could find, even the ones in funny old languages that I didn't understand. There are ever so many, you know, all different. And I sang them all one after the other." The boyish vampire giggled.

Yui smiled nervously in response. Could she get away yet? Reiji would be waiting, and she didn't want to annoy him by being tardy…

The sound of the mansion door opening and closing told her she was already too late. Yui's heart sank as she heard Reiji's brisk footsteps crunch along the gravel paths towards them.

"Komori Yui? Komori-san! Bother the girl, where has she got to? Wandered off to daydream somewhere, I suppose…" Reiji stopped muttering as he rounded one of the rose beds and saw her with Kanato. "Ahh, Komori-san. There you are. Might one ask what matter has arisen that is of such vital import you decided to keep me waiting?"

Yui shrank back under his glare. She felt as if her throat was closing up of its own accord. "I – I –" was all she could manage. Reiji brushed back a lock of his dark hair. Oh, not the hair.

"I'm still waiting," he said, and pushed his glasses further up his nose. Oh no… not the glasses! That was a terrible sign – even worse than the hair. Yui's teeth began to chatter.

"It was my fault," said Kanato, unexpectedly. "I was just telling Yui-san about our mutual interest in folk songs." Reiji's magenta eyes flashed dangerously as he turned them on his half-brother, evidently suspecting some mockery, but Kanato's face was placid and ingenuous.

"Songs? Ah, yes, I see." Reiji's ire seemed to ramp down to a slightly less volcanic level. "Yes, you have quite an extensive repertoire these days, don't you?" He gave a small chuckle.

"Re.. peh… to..?" Yui attempted to reproduce the syllables of the unfamiliar word.

"Repertoire," Reiji corrected her. "It's a French word; a loan-word in English. It means a collection of songs or other material that a person has learned to perform." His mood was improving now that he had the opportunity to display his superior knowledge.

"Thank you, Reiji-san," Yui responded quickly. Holding forth on a pet topic seemed to nourish the vampire almost as much as blood, but only if one were properly appreciative. "Reh… peh… toh…ah…"

"Fufufu… perhaps I should find the time to instruct you on a few French words. I am a busy person, but it seems that your language skills are practically a household emergency. Your pronunciation is quite ridiculous, I'm afraid."

Yui lowered her eyes miserably. "Yes, Reiji-san. I'm sorry."

"And what on Earth are those ghastly articles you are wearing on your hands? Can it be that you still don't know what attire is appropriate for a young lady?"

"They – they're gardening gloves, Reiji-san. They're to keep the thorns from my skin. You always tell me to be careful… I thought you might be pleased…"

"Pleased? Fufu… My dear Miss Komori, who could possibly be pleased with such an eyesore as your good self? Well, at least you seem to have acquired an iota of self-preservation – that's something, at any rate. But you won't need those gloves now, will you? You're no longer gathering roses."

She glanced down at the flowers in her arms. Reiji flapped a hand at her, irritably. "Come on, girl. Take those off." Yui wanted to protest that she was still carrying roses, but Reiji might interpret that as rebellion. She'd wrapped the stems in a swatch of canvas fabric to make them easier to carry; if she held the bundle carefully, it might be enough to keep the thorns from pricking her.

"Yes, Reiji-san. Of course." Shifting the bundle from one arm to the other, she was able to tug off the gloves. Her hands felt cold and very bare, as if she'd lost a layer of her skin along with the fabric. Before she even had time to register what had happened, Reiji had snatched the gloves away from her. She gasped as he swung back his arm and flung them away into the rose garden.

"Grotesque things," he remarked, favouring her with a bright smile. "You may retrieve them in the morning, if you wish, but I don't want to see you wearing them again. Give them to a servant."

"Yes, Reiji-san," she replied faintly.

Kanato had been watching the exchange with a kind of cold avidity. Now that Reiji was done grandstanding, he spoke again. "Yui-san? Would you like to hear another song?"

Nervously, Yui looked up at the older vampire, trying to gauge his reaction. They were both dangerous, but Reiji's cold fury and moments of true madness frightened her more than Kanato's tantrums. "Perhaps, Reiji-san, you need me indoors?" she ventured. It was getting dark, and the air was cooling rapidly.

"On the contrary, I think a song from Kanato would be most pleasant," Reiji replied. He gave the younger male an appraising look. Kanato's face was half-hidden behind his teddy, but his narrowed eyes betrayed a gleeful smile. "No, Kanato. Not Scarborough Fair again, if it's quite all right with you. Something else from that family of ballads would be acceptable, however."

"Family?" Yui found herself picturing mother and father ballads raising broods of little verses. She gave a small giggle at the thought. Reiji frowned a little, then smiled.

"Indeed. Folk-songs live, in a way; and they have families, Yui-san, just like other living things." He gave a smirk. "Scarborough Fair, for instance, has quite a fascinating pedigree. Isn't that so, Kanato-kun?"

"Yes," smiled the boy. "It's most interesting."

"But perhaps a little grim. You see, we can trace Scarborough Fair back to an earlier group of Scottish ballads – songs about a knight and a young maiden."

"A maiden? And a knight? That sounds romantic."

"An elven knight, yes. In some he woos her; in others, she attempts to secure his hand."

"He sings," remarked Kanato dreamily. "The elven knight. He sings magical songs that get the maiden to open her window and ask him inside. Sometimes he can make her fall in love with him forever. Some songs say he has a flute, or a trumpet. But I don't like those. I only like the ones where the elf knight sings." He fell silent, and Reiji picked up the thread of his own explanation.

"In any case, the song represents their courtship. The suitor petitions the intended, who responds with ever-more absurd demands in order to frustrate that intent. Of course – fufu – the elf, a magician, is at a distinct advantage when it comes to procuring the impossible."

"Ah… like the shirt with no stitches in Kanato's song?"

"Exactly so. Heh… although the objects in Scarborough Fair may be quite possible after all, if one understands the language of allegory."

"The shirt," piped up Kanato, smiling again. "Tell Yui-san about the shirt."

"Heh. Yes; it's been surmised that the shirt without seams might refer to a winding sheet – a shroud, you understand."

"Oh, dear…"

"Come, come – we will all need such a shirt one day! Why grow crestfallen? And the well without water – that's the grave, you know. The single peppercorn is a dead mortal."

"How horrible! But the field… the place between sea and land where the seed was to be sown..?

"Ahh, well – the place where water meets land is known to be a mystical territory. It is liminal, a place at the edge of things; a point where one may cross from this world to another. The kingdom of the elves, perhaps. Or the land of the dead."

"The dead…" Yui sighed. She'd always found Kanato's song so quaint and pretty; now she would have to go on hearing it as a funeral dirge.

"But Scarborough Fair is quite mild and playful compared to some of its antecedents," Reiji went on. It was clear that both he and Kanato were warming to the theme; the latter's eyes were alight with an enthusiasm he usually reserved for things with ganache topping. "Before the elven knight and his maid, there were other suitors… less gentlemanly, I'm afraid."

"The maiden is… abandoned and ruined?" hazarded Yui, blushing hard. Reiji laughed.

"Abandoned, indeed. I'm sure she would much prefer abandonment over the fate intended for her. No; before the elven knight, the songs told of a king in a faraway land. Sometimes he is simply that, a foreign lord. In the best-attested and most complete versions, he is a king of inhuman stock. He either woos her away as a willing bride, or simply abstracts her."

"Sometimes her father gives her up," murmured Kanato. Yui's eyes widened. What a cruel little jibe! But Reiji seemed unperturbed.

"Yes, or her mother sells her. Be that as it may, once she is in the elf-king's realm her situation becomes very dire. For she is not his first bride, nor his seventh; his previous brides hang from gibbets or rot in graves, or simply float in the river. The ground is sodden underfoot with their blood."

"S-such a thing..! Is she murdered?"

"The fate of the bride depends on the song. In some, she is tumbled into a well; in others she's strangled or beheaded." Yui instinctively put a hand up to her own throat. "In others, she beguiles him with demands for impossible items, or bewitches him with tall tales until he goes to sleep with his head in her lap."

"And then she murders him," added Kanato, with a strange satisfaction. "She picks lice out of his hair and strokes his head, and then she kills him. I suppose that might not be too bad… asleep with all one's brides, forever…"

"Aha. But I see that Yui-san has grown quite pale, and is trembling now. Perhaps we should leave those songs for a more appropriate time."

"Hai."

"One of the later songs, then. Something less apt to drive the blood back from our own maiden's cheek."

"Perhaps Sieben? There are no elf-kings or murdered brides in that. Only a man who tries to win a lady with gifts."

"But she fears his gifts will bind her to him and make her too much his slave," noted Reiji, with a cryptic smirk.

"Reiji-kun likes Sieben, ne?"

"Indeed; it is a particular favourite of mine."

"And you know it well, so perhaps you will sing with me?"

Reiji looked astonished at first; then flattered and even a little touched. "Why, yes. I think I should enjoy that."

"I don't mind if I sing the lady's part – this once. It is in a good cause, after all."

"As you will. Yui-san need not feel obliged to join in; she won't know any of the words, and besides which she has absolutely no talent for singing whatsoever."

Yui was almost dying inside. To have to hear about those dreadful old tales, to be taunted over her father's apparent abandonment, and then to be insulted so casually by Reiji; it was all too much. She felt as if her heart would break. Her eyes were squeezed shut against her tears, and she was clasping the bundle of roses to her chest as if they were Kanato's stuffed bear. With an effort, she forced herself to relax her grip and hold the roses more carefully. "I'm… sorry," she whispered reflexively.

"Of course you are. Kanato, are you ready? I shall begin, then you take the second verse. Here: Sieben rosen roter wie blut, Sieben seidene hemden dazu, Sieben namen gebe ich dir; Doch deinen ring den will ich dafьr…"

The two males continued to sing, Kanato's high, sweet voice alternating with Reiji's deeper, richer one.

"Sieben rosen roter wie blut, Sieben seidene hemden dazu, Sieben namen die gibst du mir; Doch meinen ring den halt ich bei mir…"

Kanato sang well, but rather lifelessly; his mind appeared to be elsewhere, and though he didn't miss a single note, he was going through the motions. By contrast, Reiji was singing his heart out. She'd never heard him sing before; he hummed tunes while he worked, sometimes, but singing out loud seemed very un-Reiji. Yet here he was, voicing the strange words of the old love-song with real emotion; she might almost have thought he was truly attempting to win over some skeptical beloved. She understood none of the words, but his tone moved her. The ache in her chest began to diminish, soothed away by Reiji's voice.

Without meaning to, without knowing that she did, Yui began to hum quietly along with Kanato's responses to Reiji's part of the song. She only came back to herself when the song was over. Night had fallen completely; the red roses looked black under the starlight, and the white ones seemed to glow ice-blue. Yui suddenly realized she was freezing: shuddering in the cold, her hands and arms almost completely numb.

"Well, Reiji-kun, Yui-san, I think I will take Teddie indoors for some hot chocolate. And Yui-san?"

"Y-yes, Kanato-kun?"

"I've changed my mind." To Yui's astonishment, the younger male stepped over to her and pulled her into a tight hug. "I've decided I'm not going to punish you after all. Isn't that nice?"

The hug itself felt like punishment to Yui, who could barely breathe; even so, it was a rare gesture of affection from the boy. She was touched by this change in Kanato's behaviour. "You're not?" she squeezed out of her constricted chest. "Th-thank you! You're really not going to..?"

"No, Yui-chan, I'm not going to punish you." He leaned in closer and she thought he might kiss her cheek, but instead he whispered in her ear: "I've got people to do these things for me." He squeezed her even more tightly for a long moment. Then he gave her a peck on the cheek and stepped back, smiling. He turned and began to walk quickly away.

"Are you coming in too, or will you enjoy the garden a little more?" he called back over his shoulder. "The roses smell so good on nights like this."

"The roses?" Reiji sniffed the night air; he went very still, and his expression seemed to change. "The roses," he repeated, voice low and distant. "Yes… I think Miss Komori and I will remain here for now. Goodnight, Kanato-kun." He did not look at his half-brother. His eyes were fixed on Yui.

"R-Reiji-san, I'm really getting very cold. Can't we –"

Reiji's hand shot out and seized her wrist. The roses fell from her arms and scattered at her feet as he pulled her towards him. "Careless," he hissed. "How very terribly careless… One would almost think… yes, perhaps that's it… you desire to offer me your blood…"

To her horror, Yui realized what Kanato's words had meant. His embrace had pressed the bouquet of roses between them, driving the rose thorns through the canvas, through her clothes, and through the skin beneath. The pale skin of her arm was pounced with tiny marks, welling black in the starlight. Small dark spots were starting to stain her top. It hadn't been the scent of roses that had distracted Reiji; it was the scent of her blood. This was the punishment Kanato had contrived.

She looked up into Reiji's face, now wearing a look of pure predatory intent. "Reiji-san, no! No, I didn't –"

"Be quiet," he told her, tipping her chin back. "I hope you've prepared yourself…"

Yui tried to focus her gaze on the stars, to pretend she was far, far away and lost amid those points of light; but they were blurring and melting through her tears. Reiji he ran a cool tongue over her bleeding palm before tugging down the stained fabric of her top. His arms now pinned hers to her sides as he began kissing away the blood. "No mortal will ever be able to give you this," he told her. "Accept the pleasure. Accept the bliss I can offer you. Accept my gifts."

He sank his fangs into the soft skin just below her collarbone. "Please… please… stop…" Yui sobbed through gritted teeth, pain blossoming across her chest, her vision dimming as the vampire drank. She realized that Reiji was humming softly in between gulps of her blood; humming and singing, the words almost lost amid moans and sighs, but still just audible.

"Nn... Sieben – rosen – Ahh…! roter wie – blut… Sieben – hahhh – seidene – hemden – dazu... Oh… more, I need more…!" His voice sounded thick; choked both with her life and his own emotions. A merciful darkness was clouding her mind as the cold, the terror and the loss of her blood all worked on her. Before the dark covered her completely, she heard Reiji whisper: "Accept my gifts… Yui." She felt him kiss and nuzzle at her neck, then pull back; she thought he might be stopping, but then realized he was readying himself for a deeper bite. "Accept… this… rose…"

He struck.

Yui began to scream.