A/N: Thank you all for the faves/alerts AND reviews! I really do appreciate them. This chapter is short, 'cause I'm going to skip through some stuff in the next chappy and I wanted to give a glimpse of how Takuma is reacting at the moment. Do enjoy the read! This will make sense in further chapters, honest! ^_^

Disclaimer: I do not own Vampire Knight, it belongs to Matsuri Hino, I only lay claim to my original characters and plot bunnies.

WARNING: YAOI, boyxboy, don't like, don't read. No one is twisting your arm. Really.

Everyone else, do enjoy the read! This will be a slow-building romance and most characters from VK will make an appearance.


Takuma raced to the staircase and slowed to look down over the railing. It was a spiral staircase, meant more for style than ease of access. One trick he'd learned throughout the years involved counting the number of spirals to the respective floor and simply jumping over the edge of the railing. Certainly not the safest method, but the fastest and as the changes of death occurring should he slip was practically nil, Takuma never gave it much thought after the first dozen times.

He counted quickly, squinted to see the spot on the railing below and then vaulted over the edge to freefall downwards. He hadn't heard anything yet, so that meant he had a headstart—that was good. Seconds flew by and he caught the edge of the second floor railing and heaved himself over. Perhaps the theatrics were unnecessary, but a sudden, new urge had birthed itself the moment Aido had announced ten minutes.

Personally, he didn't care about the time limit. Kaname knew him well enough to know that when he said four hours, he meant four hours. A pointless deadline of two hours simply meant there was an understanding between them—at least, that was the way that Takuma chose to view it. He knew if the pureblood truly was angry with him, there was precious little he could do about it, but the information that had been requested would have taken a bare minimum of four hours to compile. It was a testament to his own strengths and talents to find the information, compile it and write a comprehensive report and analysis within the same four hour window.

Takuma blurred along the floor feeling his insecurities settle into a place for later thought. He was conditioned to this kind of work—a fire under pressure sort of feel. A prickle of frustration registered when he realized that the curly-headed blond was nowhere in sight. He hadn't meant to scare him, though now as he reflected, he figured that the airhead wouldn't have known that.

A troubled sigh left his lips as he dashed through the door and down another set of stairs to find himself in the private Ichijo garage. Hanabusa Aido was nowhere to be found.

Drat.

The little flighty thing had left.

Of course, he hadn't exactly been detailed in his instructions, but Takuma hadn't thought that he'd scared the boy that badly, after all, it was simply something he'd done out of necessity. His stomach sloshed happily full and Takuma wiped his mouth with his sleeve, ignoring the fact that if his mind wasn't so busy puzzling things out and together, that it was something he wouldn't ordinarily do.

Raul would be fine—he was one of his favorites, as far as a little snack went and while his appetite was something worth mentioning, he'd never drained the faithful bodyguard in all the years that the man had allowed him to feed. Allowed him—certainly—for there was an agreement between him and as long as he was able to catch the other off guard, Raul's neck and his blood was fair game.

Takuma smiled inwardly to himself as he settled into a chosen car and screeched out of the garage.

Perhaps the theatrics really were unnecessary, but he couldn't help it. There were more important things going on here at present and he wanted to have his hands in the thick of it all—Just like a certain Kaname Kuran.

The green-eyed vampire smirked.


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