Shiki knew what was happening; he had known it subconsciously for innumerable months and years. He dreamed of her when he slept, and when he couldn't, his insomniac's ideals were only of her. He was falling in love. No, hadn't fallen the entire distance: it was still taking place, still forming semi-unconsciously in the pit of Shiki's stomach, reaching achingly every so often to his heart and touching it with something more powerful than he had felt before.
He knew the taste of Rima's blood; he wasn't her master, nor the other way around. He knew the taste of her blood and afterwards he wasn't hungry. A vampire's resilient hunger can be subsided only with the blood of the one he or she loved. No, he always had loved Rima. Ever since they were little. But suddenly the thought changed in him. A vampire's resilient hunger can be subsided only by the blood of the one he or she was in love with. A parent drinking the blood of his or her child wouldn't be enough, nor would vice versa. Shiki loved Takuma as best friends do. Takuma's blood would not be substantial; in fact, since he tasted Rima's, blood tablets seemed even worse than they were already, and anyone else's had become distinctly unappealing. The smell of blood, that which didn't belong to his—what was she?—his love, was almost disgusting to him, much like a human would regard anyone's. But he had only gotten one taste. Shiki felt he had received what he didn't deserve, and was now being punished for it. With hunger, with thirst. He had been full once in his life and never could be again. He didn't have Rima's love in return, and he didn't deserve it. She left him eternally with thirst.
Sometime after sunset one night, unwelcome tears hung in his eyes, and his sanity would be questioned by the dumbest among us. Hunger like Shiki had never known tore him from the inside out, and all his thoughts turned to Rima. He felt he was dying of it, but he knew it to be more than that for it to affect him this greatly. It wasn't only hunger, but a stiller, more beautiful and more appalling form of it: lust. He didn't need her blood like he needed her herself. The sharp, cerulean eyes, the black ribbons that tied the fine, burning orange hair, the perfectly formed "model's body" that practically made his mouth water and brought on a touch of narcissism to her penetratingly brilliant gaze; upon him and only him: he needed it all more than he needed his own life. He couldn't bring his mind from his memories, and, though he hated himself for it, his delusions and wishes. Shiki's fantasies alone guided him to Rima that night. And when he saw her leaning so perfectly against the school's outer wall, he wanted to cry all over again. HeH