"Listen, I'm just saying that Mystic Falls only has Mr. Wong's, and only the nerds who watched too many Japanese cartoons used the chopsticks," Caroline said, screwing her face up.

Klaus smiled in amusement, and gently bent her blood tacky fingers around the wooden sticks clutched in her hand. "Rest that one on your ring finger, hold it with your thumb. Pinch that one between fore and middle finger, rest on thumb." He dragged his finger along her thumb, and she shivered, skin prickling. "This one doesn't move." Cupping her hand in his equally bloody one, he wiggled the fingers pinched around the other chopstick. "These do move."

Fingers lingering on her wrist for a moment as he stepped aside, he let go of her hand. "Now you try."

Caroline tried to relax her hand from her death grip on the elegant little sticks. "This seems unnecessarily complicated. Don't they have forks?"

"Forks are for tourists; you don't want to be a tourist, do you?" He needled her.

Indignant, she pinched her chopsticks open and closed slowly. "You say that like a) tourism isn't the whole reason we're here and b) you haven't been a tourist every day of your life, Mr. I Was Also Born In Podunk Mystic Falls But In The Stone Age." She was perched on the edge of the banquet table, one leg crossed over the other, dangling one broken high heel from her toes. The puddles of blood on the floor were really the only reason she was still wearing them, that and the way Klaus kept eyeing her legs.

"The desire to get out of Mystic Falls is as strong these days as it was in mine," he said, dimples a cheeky little flash, and she pursed her lips in mock irritation as they both remembered the way Caroline had shown up on his doorstep thirty-eight hours ago with one over-packed suitcase and an annotated guidebook stuffed in her purse.

"Is that offer to see the world still open?" She'd asked his delighted face, his immediate "Where do you want to go first?" a balm to the little voice that had haunted her the whole drive down to New Orleans, whispering that surely he'd moved on by now, years of college and her blossoming career eating up time, until one day she'd woken up and realized that Mystic Falls was too small a town for a girl that looked seventeen as long as she'd had. She'd packed her bag that morning, one destination in mind, words from what felt like a lifetime ago ringing in her ears.

Clearly, Klaus had not forgotten a word of his promises to her, if the speed with which he'd procured tickets and packed his own bag was anything to judge by. Whatever loose ends he'd had to tie up had been done by phone on the way to the airport, and by the time they'd taken their seats for the first leg of their flight to Tokyo, she'd had nothing but his undivided attention.

Still had, even if things had gone a little sideways.

She reached out with one foot and shoved the heartless body of the Yakuza mobster sprawled over the seat next to her. It fell to the floor with a slump. Eyebrows raised invitingly, she gestured at the many dishes of noodles, sushi and fried delicacies laid out on the table, most of them intact. "So, you were about to show me a little culture, before we were so rudely interrupted?"

The cuffs of his rumpled tuxedo were stained red, but he gave them an elegant little tug. "Allow me." Plucking up a pair of chopsticks from the table, he deftly started scooping things into two bowls. When he offered her one, she wiped her other equally bloody hand futilely on her already splattered cocktail dress, and took it in one sticky hand. The rolls of sushi were a little daunting to someone who'd grown up on burgers and barbecue, but she was here, with Klaus, and she was going to try new things, goddammit.

"You can, of course, eat these with your hands," he said, and popped a nigiri into his mouth, uncaring of the blood clinging to his fingers. Caroline wrinkled her nose at the blood smeared to her elbows, some of it drying red-brown already from the breeze that blew in through the broken wood and paper doors of the engawa. She'd thrown a body through them earlier.

"Okay, Mr. I Eat Pizza With A Fork, very brave of you to branch out." She screwed up her chin and delicately pinched a sushi piece with the chopsticks and lifted it to her mouth. Shoving it in, she chewed gamely. Surprised, she found she liked the taste.

"You don't eat street pizza with a fork," he said, offended. They had stopped to grab lunch during their layover, and his method of eating pizza in a sit-down restaurant had tickled her pink.

"Do you accept constructive criticism?" She'd asked, biting down on her Hawaiian topped personal pizza and gently kicking the carry-on suitcase at her feet.

He'd looked up at her beneath his lashes, amused, cutting one of his slices into neat little polyhedrons. "Not generally, no." He popped a bite into his mouth and chewed. "Not if those around me want to live."

Caroline had huffed out a breath and reached for his fork. "Give me that." A delighted smile had tugged across his lips as he evaded her attempt to grab his cutlery. "Eat food like a normal person!"

"I'm not accepting advice from someone that uses fruit as a pizza topping," he'd said airily, and by the time they walked to their boarding gate, she'd treated him to a bullet pointed lecture of why pineapple was clearly the savory enhancing champion of the pizza topping pantheon, and she'd quite forgotten about taking his fork. Klaus hadn't stopped smiling the entire time.

Presently, Caroline eyed one of the tempura battered items in her bowl. It was orange. Carrot maybe, or sweet potato? Gingerly, she pinched it between her chopsticks and lifted it to her mouth. It twisted out of her grasp and fell back into the bowl, and Caroline glared at it and then up at Klaus.

He gestured with his own chopsticks encouragingly. "It takes practice, you'll get it." He popped sushi into his mouth and set his bowl down, chopsticks laid across the top neatly. With a watery crunch, he lifted a bottle of champagne from the ice bucket it had been sitting in and started unwrapped the top.

A rush of delight filled Caroline. "You got us champagne?" The meal had been a planned first night in Tokyo introduction, and they'd barely been escorted to the secluded pavilion, before the group of crisply suited men had surrounded them. Klaus' face had darkened dangerously when the leader had demanded they return with them to some place-she hadn't caught the name-and he'd disinclined.

Their witch, a young man clutching a medallion, had shot something at Klaus, electric and ineffective. Klaus had torn through his heart before he'd known what was happening, and chaos had broken loose, the group attacking with stakes. They obviously hadn't thought Caroline much of a danger, Klaus' arm candy maybe, more's the pity when she'd relieved several of their hearts.

None of the rest had escaped Klaus' wrath, and when the last had fallen, he's spun his raking golden gaze to find Caroline looking in irritation at her blood covered hands. "Maybe we should just order room service," she'd grumbled, and Klaus' spine had eased its tension. "Dinner's basically ruined. Maybe tomorrow, what with…." An impatient flick of her hands encompassed the surrounding bodies.

Klaus barely spared them a flicker of his lashes. "This will be sorted by lunchtime, or I will know why." Caroline almost felt a twinge for Klaus' lackeys, but this had been one of her favorite dresses, and despite Klaus' open admiration from the limo becoming even more heated once it was a bloody mess, she did not appreciate having it ruined for some discount thugs on a power trip. One witch, honestly, a disgrace.

"Should I expect this often?"

A humorless little smile had tipped up Klaus' lips. "Not likely. Most of the supernatural world still remembers my family as royalty and pays us the respect we are due."

Caroline had huffed and rolled her eyes. "There goes that Cinderella fetish again. Your highness, I think the ball is over."

This time his smile had been genuine, teasing. "Nonsense. You just need a little… court etiquette," he'd said, picking up a pair of chopsticks.

Now, Klaus' lips played with a boyish little smile. "It's our thing," he reminded her. With a deft little twist, he popped the top off and started filling two flutes.

Caroline licked her lips a little nervously. "We still have a thing?" They hadn't addressed the elephant in the room, what her turning up had meant for them, what she was or wasn't ready for. It had been so easy to slide into the teasing flirtation they'd left off on, years ago, and not talk about it.

With solemn eyes, Klaus stepped close and handed her a gently bubbling flute. "We will always have a thing, Caroline." Holding up his own flute to her, he searched her face. "My desires have not changed." He waited.

She swallowed, that looming cliff feeling she'd felt so often in his presence before rising in her chest, scary and exciting. Grabbing her courage in both hands, she tapped her glass against his with a soft clink.

"To chances taken, then," she said, and the fierce joy that lit up his eyes made her giddy.

"Oh, love," he took a drink with all the grave air of the devout receiving a holy chalice, licked his lower lip. "You will not regret this." Shifting his weight, it looked like he was keeping himself from reaching for her by the barest of threads.

She downed her flute, barely tasting what was probably a very excellent vintage. Plucking the glass out of his hand, Caroline set them aside on the table. Reached out with one hand, catching the space between his shirt buttons and pulling him into the space between her knees.

His hand came up to cup her face, and she looked up at Klaus, at the hunger stark on his face like a pit opened behind his eyes, pupils blown wide.

"Show me," she whispered, both hands fisted in his ruined shirt.

A little noise-relieved and so wanting-escaped his lips as he bent to hers, mouth a memory of the last time on a bed of leaves, and all at once like it was the first time all over again. Her mouth opened under his teasing tongue, and she finally tasted the champagne, sweet and fruity against her senses. Lips wet from the bubbly wine moved languid and unhurried, the depth of his feeling shared between one breath and the next.

Finally, when her body was replete with desire and the seams of his shirt were threatening to pop with the strain of her grasping fingers, he lifted his mouth from hers. It took a moment for her eyes to flutter open, feeling dazed, before she focused on him and the depth of his ardor unguarded on his face.

"Of course we still have a thing, Caroline." His voice was suffused with a smug delight. "As if time could blur the recall of your kiss. Your confession has fed my hopes and dreams since I left Mystic Falls all those years ago. My love is not ephemeral, a passing devotion; I told you I would wait, and I meant it."

"Klaus," she said a little hoarsely, biting her lip while a flush of pleasure lingered on her cheeks.

His dimples creased his cheeks as he smoothed a hand down her back. "The only thing I want to know now is: where will you allow me to show you how I have longed for you over the years." his hands dropped to the table next to her hips, and he propped himself up while her hands slid down the muscles of his arms, and he leaned into her space, their noses brushing, breath mingling with every word. "Here, surrounded by the fallen of those foolish enough to underestimate us? Our hotel suite, on the balcony crowned by the stars? Where may I have you?"

Her fingers bit into his arms as heat flooded through her. "What do you have against beds, you exhibitionist?"

Smiling wickedly, Klaus leaned in and nosed her hair, the curve of her ear. "If a bed is what you desire, sweetheart…" Shifting a hand, he pulled a phone out of his pocket and rapidly tapped away with one thumb, presumably summoning the car around back. Caroline curled one hand around the back of his neck, and buried her face against his skin, his beating pulse against her lips, the teasing drag of her teeth.

With a low moan, he stuffed his phone back in his pants and then lifted her in his arms, straightening. She laughed and wrapped her legs around his waist, clutching at the lapels of his blood flecked tuxedo jacket.

"Take me to bed tonight. And tomorrow," she said, arching her eyebrows in a challenge. "Show me the world."

He looked up at her, eyes a moonlight glow. "As my queen wishes?"

Her smile was all the answer he needed.