I am sincerely sorry for the overdue update. Lack of motivation and writers' block does not make for a pretty combination. However, I will work to get past that and update this story at least once a month until my other story, Cookies, Cakes, and Cigarettes, is concluded. Thank you for sticking with me.
Takuma was not vain. Or rather, looks did not matter much to him so long as he had someone who could hold a good conversation. Izanami was someone who fulfilled that role perfectly whenever they spent time together. And although he cared more for conversation, it was impossible to ignore her sickly expression and ashen skin, even harder still her incredibly irritable mood when she appeared several hours later than usual the next morning. Had it not been his fault he would have been surprised at the switch in roles and maybe even commented on it. But he knew better than that. Knew better even to ask her how she was, yet he still asked with trepidation as she staggered blearily into the kitchen.
"Are you alright?" he had asked innocently, concerned as she dropped down into a chair and let her head fall onto the table with a heavy thump, her eyes screwed shut against the light streaming in. She growled lightly into the wood as response and said a moment later,
"Please don't talk for a few hours." Her voice sounded weak and from what he could see of her skin, it looked very pale. He reasoned with himself that he couldn't help it, that he was starving and needed it. But seeing this strong woman look so weak was enough to shake that thought. So he found himself worrying and wondering how to help her.
The sound of a scraping chair against the floor caused Izanami to wince and after peeling open one eye she watched silently as Takuma walked over to the small doors lining the wall. After watching him go through several of the cabinets through the curtain her bangs made, she finally asked him what he was doing. He didn't respond to her inquiry, barely acknowledged her at all save for the small inclination of his blond head as he looked through the various bottles and canisters within the small spaces. Annoyed at the lack of response, she closed her eyes and turned her head to rest her cheek against the smooth surface of the table, listening as he closed and opened another door and to the slight footsteps as he approached her.
She didn't bother to raise her head when he stopped beside her, didn't even raise an eyelid when he placed a jar beside her head. "What is it?" she asked him, her mind too muddled to think of what she had in those cabinets.
"Food. You need to eat something," he said simply, patient as he sat back down in his chair.
"Not hungry," she replied.
"You still need to eat something. Just have a little," he pushed, worry coating his voice and causing Izanami to groan internally at his empathy. A single blue-green eye cracked open and eyed him for a moment, his upturned brows and anxious eyes somewhat pleasing in an unnaturally warm, fuzzy way. Wearily she pushed herself up into a sagging, seated position and looked at the glass jar and the chunky orange solid-liquid mixture inside, grimacing when she realized what it was.
"Not the apricots, I was saving them for a special occasion," she whined uncharacteristically and quite childishly.
He smiled at her, slightly delighted at the small pout she displayed. "I believe now counts as a special occasion." She glared at him a moment before begrudgingly dragging the jar towards her and unscrewing the lid.
"If that smile gets any brighter you'll end up blinding someone someday," she told him as she scooped out a slice and watched as he brightened even further. "Maybe sooner," she muttered. He chuckled as she narrowed her eyes at him, sticking the spoon in her mouth as she looked away from the obscene amount of cheerfulness. "So considering how cheerful you look, I take it you're feeling better than yesterday?" she asked him.
"I was feeling fine yesterday, too," he objected, his smile dimming down a bit for her sake as she ate.
"I wouldn't call being on edge "feeling fine"," Izanami murmured, swallowing another few spoonfuls of the slimy, gelatinous fruit. "I feel terrible. What the hell happened?" she groaned, setting aside the glass jar and spoon and laying her cheek against the cool surface of the table. Of course, Takuma knew what had happened to her, but it was impossible to tell her without either scaring her, getting shot by her, or having her think he was crazy.
"Maybe you should get some more rest," he suggested, screwing the lid back on the jar and standing up from his chair, intent on helping her to either the bed or the loveseat.
She slowly sat up and looked at him through narrowed eyes. "I've slept long enough, Mr. Prince. Why do you think you're up before me for once?"
"Regardless of how long you slept, it's important to rest if you feel this ill," he countered.
She stood abruptly, albeit shakily, and said in a very clear and firm voice, "I'm fine! It's not the first time I've been ill since coming here."
Takuma paused, unsure of what to say and how to say it so that she didn't feel offended. When he finally thought of the right words, he smiled softly at her and said, "True, but this time you're not alone." She closed her mouth, silent as she gave him a once over before rolling her eyes and walking away from him towards the back door. "Where are you going?" he asked her as she stepped out onto the unruly grass encompassing her small property.
"Care to join me outside? You could definitely use some sunlight," she replied over her shoulder as she took long strides into the golden light. "But hey, everything's a choice, so do whatever you feel like," she yelled to him as she knelt and lay down in the grass, spreading her arms wide and craning her neck towards the warm, yellow sun. Takuma stayed inside the confines of the house barely a minute before imitating her long strides and lying down beside her. "Good choice," she murmured as she closed her eyes and brought her arms closer to her body to allow for his closeness.
"It wasn't much of a choice considering how beautiful it is today," he replied happily, closing his own eyes against the blinding sunlight and delighting in the warmth touching his skin—though the warmth in his chest was growing uncomfortable each minute he lay there and after a few moments in the sun he decided to cut this endeavor short (no matter how much he was enjoying it). Though the moment he sat up he was immediately held back by a small and strong hand.
"You've been cooped up in the house for two weeks—not counting the little escapade you had two days ago—so I suggest you spend at least ten more minutes out here before heading back inside," Izanami told him, her hand clamped around his forearm while the rest of her body remained as still as stone.
He frowned to himself, worried about his healthy composition and whether or not it would start to deteriorate. The sun may not have affected him like myths and legends had led humans to believe, but he was still pretty fragile. "I'm actually feeling a bit warm, so I thought it best I go inside before it gets worse."
"Well, sunlight tends to do that. Besides, ten more minutes won't kill you and it's important for you to get plenty of vitamin D for that soft complexion of yours," she informed him. She sounded neither stern nor relaxed, she just sounded…suggestive. So much so that he didn't think twice about lying back down and closing his eyes against the harsh rays of the sun. A few more minutes wouldn't hurt…right?
Whether it was out of petty revenge or punishment Izanami was not sure. She only knew that she wasn't going to be the only one to suffer for his misguided choices. No matter how much he needed it and no matter how quickly he healed, she wouldn't let it go. Or more accurately, she wouldn't let him go before the allotted time was up.
It's a little insulting that he hasn't remembered yet, but I have two weeks left so I'll make the most of it, she thought as she let go of his arm and folded her hands behind her head. She stared up at the pale blue sky as white wispy clouds drifted over the glaring sun (though it did nothing to alleviate Takuma's discomfort), thinking on the ramblings of her fanatic father and the fact that she was doing something similar. Obsessive to the end just like you Old Man, she mused as she eased her mind and closed her eyes, giving in to the fatigue that had been plaguing her body.
Beside her Takuma reopened his, eyes as green as the forest surrounding them watched as her face relaxed and her breathing evened out. For a moment he thought about taking her inside and laying her to bed, but instead he stayed beside her and took pleasure in the rare sight of her peaceful expression.
Contrary to popular belief, vampires do not turn to ash in the sun and nor does it burn them. That said however, it was annoying to their sensitive eyes and for Takuma the light seemed all too focused on his injury—like it was trying to slowly burn a hole where a hole had once been through the thin shirt he was wearing. Even after a few days, the raised, stitched skin felt all too warm to the touch. But for now he would ignore it, because Izanami had said that she had a special treat for him. And no matter how many times he asked her she would not budge. In fact, she seemed to him to be getting impatient. But he just couldn't help feeling both excited and frightened—like a child on their way to their first day of school.
"I'm not telling you anything, Mr. Prince!" Izanami growled at him as they walked through the shrubbery of the forest to a destination known only to hunter.
"But you said it's a special treat! I can't help but feel excited," he said cheerily, rushing ahead and waiting for her to catch up repeatedly. It annoyed her, but since she was still recovering from her recent bout of anemia, everything annoyed her—the blinding sunlight, the rustling leaves—but as soon as they got to the riverbed she'd feel immensely better.
"What's the point of a treat if it's not a surprise?" she replied with a sigh, combing her fingers through her hair and pushing her bangs back, only for it to flop back down over her sweaty forehead. Slung across her back was a 14 gauge shotgun, loaded and dangerous and the first thing that prompted Takuma's endless questions. The first of which was if she was taking him along hunting, to which she replied, curtly and amusingly, 'No, you're too cute and innocent for anything like that.' He couldn't exactly agree with that statement, but the negative answer sparked his interest nonetheless.
"True…Can I ask you something, Izanami?"
"Like you haven't so far?" she snapped.
He continued, ignoring her snide remark. "What's inside this bag?" he asked, gesturing to the small backpack she had strapped to him before they left. It wasn't heavy but neither was it light and the curiosity of what was inside perplexed Takuma the longer they walked.
"It's tied together with your surprise. Just be quiet and wait a little longer." He pouted but did as she said, falling in step with her as they walked over a rise, a wall of gray stone rising up beside them as they continued on their long and arduous trip.
"Hey, Mr. Prince! What happened to all your enthusiasm?!" she shouted back to him when he had fallen behind and nearly stopped, the smell of fresh water and moss filling his senses and spiking his curiosity. Her voice brought him out of it and he hurried to her side, prepared to ask her what was near here before catching himself. His senses were stronger than a human's and it was more than likely that she hadn't caught onto the scents yet. That said, he couldn't help but wonder about what they would find.
It was a few minutes later when Takuma was glad that Izanami hadn't given in to his incessant questioning since the surprise was indeed a treat.
He stood on the edge of a large space of emerald grass, gazing awestruck at the outcropping of moss-covered rock from which flowed water as clear blue as the sky above them. The water fell into a pool of water that looked to be deep. The pit set in the middle the color of a moonlit night sky before it blurred to a clear light blue with each ripple along its silky surface.
Takuma let the backpack slide off his shoulders and onto the grass as he stepped forwards, behind him Izanami cracked a smile, finding amusement in this rare moment of silence from him. She stooped down to pick up the bag as he took in the sight before him. While she removed the shotgun from her back, propped it up against a nearby tree and unzipped the backpack, she asked him, "What do you think, Mr. Prince?"
It wasn't an exaggeration to say he had been caught by surprise. Not to mention that he had been left breathless by the beauty of it all. Even so, he still managed to muster up a response. "Izanami…it's beautiful!" he exclaimed with a short burst of laughter, a wide grin on his face as his eyes flitted over every surface.
"So you like it?"
To him it was an understatement to say the least. "Izanami, words don't even begin to descri—" He stopped short when he turned around and accidently caught another surprise from her. From the backpack she had taken out a plain pair of men's shorts and thrown it at him, deftly catching it by the waistband despite his initial shock. He looked at her confused as she took out another pair of shorts and zipped the bag closed, quickly turning away when she pulled the edge of her shirt up, revealing her bare stomach.
"Wh-what are you doing?" he stammered, embarrassed.
"Changing. You should too if you don't want your clothes to get wet," she answered him plainly. While she could not see the confused expression on his face—turned away in modesty and politeness as he was—she could hear from the prolonged silence that he did not understand what she had said. "We're not just here for the scenery, Mr. Prince," she told him as she stripped out of her pants and pulled on the shorts, crouching down to stuff the items of clothing she had shed back into the back pack. She chanced a glance at the blond-haired man, finding with amusement that he was stock-still and as rigid as a board as he continued to face the craggy rock face helping to form the waterfall. "Though it is a nice bonus, isn't it?" She added, looking over her shoulder at the crystalline pool.
She sounded a bit wistful then—although it was hard to tell since her voice had been softer than usual—and he found the need to turn and see if her expression matched her tone. True to herself she kept her face even; the only emotion that appeared was the barest hint of thoughtfulness that crossed her blue-green eyes. "Why are we here, Izanami?" he asked her, ignoring the fact that she was (for all intents and purposes) half-naked, clad only in the shorts she had brought and the black sports bra she had been wearing.
"There's a pool of water two meters from where you're standing, so I'm going to guess we're going to swim."
"In just that?" he asked, a light dusting of pink coloring the upper curves of his fair cheeks as he looked back over his shoulder at her.
"Like I told you before, Mr. Prince, I have no need of modesty," she replied, stretching her arms above her head and making a show of how little she cared as she bowed her back. Takuma murmured back a small reply along the lines of "already knowing that" as he removed his shoes and approached the quavering water. "Take your time and enjoy yourself, but keep in mind that we're leaving an hour before sunset," Izanami warned him, as he dipped his toes into the cool water and grinned childishly, quickly shedding off his button-down and—after a quick look to make sure she wasn't looking—his pants and pulling on the shorts Izanami had thrown at him.
"Why before sundown, Izanami?" he asked her as he tied the draw strings on the waist band of the loose shorts.
"I'd rather not get caught out here after dark." That single sentence caught his attention and stilled his hands. He turned back to look at her and asked,
"…What do you mean?"
She chuckled lowly while gesturing towards the gun leaning against the thick trunk of a tree oozing equally thick sap. "You didn't figure out yet why I brought that? These woods have dangerous animals lurking around and most of them have better night vision than I do. You're lucky you weren't attacked the other night."
They say humans are the most dangerous animals, but if vampires hunt humans, then that would make vampires the most dangerous animals. But as it was, it was more than alarming that there was something Izanami feared. Well…maybe fear wasn't the right word. Weary was probably a better word to apply to her ever-vigilant and careful self. So if Izanami was weary of the surrounding forest, then Takuma should be too.
Izanami was quick to notice his discomfort and hurried to reassure him. "Oh, but don't let that discourage you from enjoying yourself. If they can help it animals pretty much stay away from humans." If that was true, could the same be said for vampires? Takuma let the thought slip to the back of his mind, paying it no further heed as he slowly stepped into the small pool, his feet sinking into the soft sediment and the water chilling his skin before he sleekly dove beneath the surface.
It was no less than an hour later—and no more than ten minutes into lazily floating on his back—that he noticed something strange. Not once had Izanami dunked her head underneath the water. And even beyond that she had yet to even submerge her body save for her feet as she lay upon a large, flat rock halfway sunken into the crystalline pool.
"Izanami," he called to her, swimming closer to where she lay and tapping her shin to get her attention. "Aren't you going to swim?"
"No, I'm fine just getting my feet wet," she replied, fully ignoring his presence afterwards. Nevertheless he spoke again, trying to get her into the water with him at least once—if not for the fun of it, then at least for her own health.
"Are you sure? You've been in the sun for a long time; don't you think you should cool down?"
She sighed heavily, as if he were an annoyance and sat up, her nose barely above his eyes as she looked down at him and said, with a plain, bored expression, "Vitamin D is very important. As it is I've grown too pale from staying in the house the last few days. Any longer and I'll become as pale as you." With that she fell onto her back once more and continued her sunbathing, leaving Takuma to shift awkwardly in the water as he thought of something to say in rebuttal.
"Well," he began, his brows knitting together as he concentrated on a sound argument, "too much can be bad for you too. Just do it for a little bit—"
"No! I don't swim!" she snapped at him, sitting up again and giving him a heated glare similar to the one she had given him the night he had asked her to dance.
"…Don't? Or…can't?" he asked her slowly, testing out a small theory that this was a similar situation to that night.
She flinched, narrowing her eyes to thin slits as she continued to stare down at him before she replied curtly, "Let's just say swimming wasn't another skill my father felt important in my "studies"."
He wondered what she meant by that, if she was homeschooled or—given her arsenal in the basement—trained. Now that he thought about it, why did she have an arsenal in her home? And even further, why was she living all the way out here in the middle of nowhere? He chose to leave these questions for later and digressed to the most important issue. "There are a lot of things your father restricted," he started, slowly walking towards the edge of the shallow shore before grasping the top of the boulder and pulling himself up to sit beside her. "I can teach you while I'm here. If you want of course," he hurried to say as she watched him carefully, as if he were someone to take advantage of her weakness this close to water. He wondered if he could fix this view she had of him. His mind quickly changed when a corner of her lip turned up in a small smile and a small glimmer of something warm entered her eyes.
"A dance partner and swim teacher. Well aren't you irresistible," she snickered before kicking at the water disappointedly. "I know how to float and doggy paddle. That's already halfway to becoming an expert." The alarming thing, in Takuma's mind, was that she was fully serious. But to spare her any embarrassment (not that she would have shown it anyway) he nodded a little while adding a quick suggestion that a lot of practice was also necessary. She sulked as she mulled over this before agreeing to a few small lessons on a different day.
"You don't have to…doggy paddle if you want, but standing in the shallow end should be fine, right?" he asked her as he stood, preparing to jump into the deeper section before a sharp tug on his pants kept him from doing so.
"Hang on, let me check the bandage," Izanami said as she grabbed his hand and pulled him down beside her.
"It's fine. You don't have to."
"Would you rather get an infection and die?"
After a long moment of silence she smirked and peeled off the tape sealing the edges of his bandage, eyeing the scarred tissue with all the authority of a make-shift doctor before sighing disappointedly. "Is something wrong Izanami?" he asked her, worried, hoping that the wound wasn't corrupted despite his accelerated healing.
She hummed in response, giving a noncommittal shrug as she leaned away from him and got off the rock, splashing slowly, carefully through the shallow water until her feet touched soft mud and long grass. "It's nothing a little medicine and substance won't fix," she called back to him as she picked up the backpack she had left next to her shotgun and rifled through the few things she had packed in advance. "Grass is typically softer than stone. Why don't you come over here." It wasn't much of a question, more of a suggestive command, one he followed without hesitation.
"Here, eat this," she said as she handed him a plastic wrapped sandwich before extracting a med kit.
"I'm not that hungry though."
"True, but since the medicine needs time to soak in you might as well eat while you wait," she replied in turn as she walked away from him towards the pond, looking though the small box with furrowed brows as she sat down at the edge. She glanced back at him out of the corner of her eye and beckoned with a crook of her finger for him to come over.
"Izanami…how did you find this place?" Takuma asked her as he sat down in front of her, looking back over at the tremulous waterfall before looking back and watching as she took out a small tube and applied its contents to his marred chest.
She shrugged again, focusing more on his injury than on his question. "You spend three years locked away in the middle of nowhere and you're bound to explore the limits." He wondered what she meant by that. If despite living in the middle of acres and acres of forest and free space, she was really just a prisoner. Of course, with an arsenal in her basement and a personality such as hers, it was hard to believe she was anyone's, or anything's, prisoner.
Takuma would have asked her what she meant by this—even though she probably would have sneered and asked a rhetorical question in return—but when he looked at her, he held his tongue. She had finished spreading the medicine on his wound and was now reclining on her hands, her long legs stretched out in front of her and dipping into the water while she watched the clouds float by lazily. She looked so…peaceful. So much so in fact that he wished he could see more of this rare sight. And yet…and yet while he wished he could see this relaxed side of her more often, he did not sincerely hope for it, because then it would not nearly be as special.
