Akane didn't return to the Unfortunate books the next afternoon. Her stomach was unwilling to let her forget the names and descriptions of how those people had died. Death was a very private thing, Akane believed, and she had no interest in the thought's murderers had on causing it. But the other parts within the books, despite her revulsion, were fascinating. Unfortunates had completely stumped The Vampire Council since they'd been catalogued. Every time someone took up the baton to crack the mystery, they were met with obstacles.

It appeared that Unfortunates were practically invisible to Vampires until they reached puberty. After that, the researchers were faced with battling their instincts to do the most basic tests. A lesser Vampire would attack and devour the child, but there had been a few entries that showed there were some, who did restrain themselves and manage to study their target. They never gathered anything unusual, as the children were apparently, no different from other Human children. Their blood was the only difference.

Eventually, one Vampire had taken a sample of Unfortunate blood, and extracted components that, at the time, were thought to be the key to the Unfortunate gene. That theory had since been disproven with further testing, but he had been the only one to manage such a feat, without causing any lasting harm to the Human.

However, the twelve-year-old girl had been killed by the committee who'd come to review the research and catalogue his findings in these books, meaning he then had to move to dissection rather than observation of a living subject. He'd expressed in his journals how frustrated he'd been by this. Many Unfortunate bodies had been used for research in the past, Lex's victims among them, but this had been the first time a living Unfortunate had been at the centre of study.

Akane sighed from her seat in the lobby of The Moon Dorms. She was reading one of the books Ichijo had given her, but with her mind still filled with the mystery of her own existence, she couldn't give the characters and their story her full attention. What had bothered her most about those entries, was that the children were never treated like people. They were anomalies, food, pets, forms of entertainment to their captors, the scientist, and spectators who'd come to view them.

Akane couldn't imagine where she would've ended up if The Vampire Council had gotten their hands on her. She could have been a lab rat, or worse, the main course on the dining table for some Noble or Pureblood family to tear into. She begrudgingly admitted, Kaname may have saved her from a much worse fate than what she had endured up until that point.

Something else came from reading those books, a sad pride in her father. He'd restrained himself so valiantly when others had simply given in to their hunger. The love he must have had for her had been enormous. Akane knew, of course, her father had loved her, but to have experienced the burning, unyielding thirst herself, then reading how much more intense it was with Unfortunates, she was proud to have had such a strong man as her father and regretted the pain she'd unknowingly caused him.

Re-focusing on the book, Akane willed the thoughts of her father away. The hurt in her heart was still so fresh, that she couldn't endure thinking of him for too long, without feeling the urge to burst into tears. Years of holding back her tears over her mother, for her father's sake, helped train her to do the same now, but the pain was laced into her soul at this point, and would not yield for some time.

A sweet, syrupy scent, and a fresh, grape-like scent, invaded her nostrils then, just as footsteps from the corridor above caught her attention. Akane lifted her head to the stairs on the left side of the lobby as Ichijo and Shiki appeared from the darkened corridor.

"Miss Nakamura?" Ichijo called. "Enjoying your day off?" It was Saturday morning, so, Aido, as well as the rest of the Night Class, were still in bed. She was surprised to see the two Vampires up and about when, on their body clock, it was something like three in the morning. Akane was still getting to grips with the new sleeping schedule and often found herself waking up at random times of the day and night.

"Where are you two off to? It's only quarter to eleven?" Akane asked as they descended the stairs.
"Just an errand for Lord Kaname before we turn in for the day. Are you enjoying the book?" The Vice-President asked, gesturing to the book in Akane's lap as he and Shiki came to stand beside her chair.
"Yeah, thanks. I'm just a little distracted. I thought if I came down here, instead of my room, it'd help, but no such luck yet."
"Yes, Lord Kaname wasn't too pleased with Aido revealing The Unfortunate tale to you. I think he wanted to tell you himself, but what's done is done, and what he'd been trying to prevent hasn't happened anyway. So, no harm done."

Akane nodded. She remembered when Aido came back from school a few hours ago, he'd looked like a child scolded by a parent in front of his friends. So, dejected and righteously angry, but unable to bite back as he had done wrong. Kaname had sought out Akane to apologised if she felt at all deceived. She'd waved his apology away saying Aido had done the right thing in telling her, despite how difficult it had been to hear, she was glad he had. That had been what saved Aido a punishment, it seemed. Something he had been grateful for, which is why her slavedriver of a friend/tutor, had let her have today off.

"How would you like to come to my party this evening? I've been planning it for a few weeks now, and I'd be glad if you would attend." Akane was happy he thought to invite her, but the fluttering of anxiety in her chest reminded her that she wasn't ready for a party just yet. A room filled with people laughing, dancing, eating, drinking, dressed up in nice clothes and having fun. She wasn't the kind of person for much of that in the best of times, and right now, she certainly wasn't up to it.

"Thanks for the invite, V.P. but I'm not usually one for parties." She tried to decline gently but his eyes brightened as his face took on a pleading expression. Oh, God! He can do it too!
"Please come, Miss Nakamura. It's my eighteenth birthday party." Crap!
"I'll… think about it."

The beseeching look vanished, replaced by the blond's usual cheery smile, while Shiki remained stoic at his side, his customary poky stick between his teeth. A hand came from his pocket, holding a box of poky (strawberry this time) and offered it to Akane, like some commiseration for failing against Ichijo's take on the Kicked Puppy look.
"Thank you, Shiki," Akane acknowledged as she nibbled on the treat as the two aristocrats turned and walked to the door. Ichijo shouting a 'bye' over his shoulder as he closed the door, plunging Akane back into silence.

For a short while, Akane remained in her seat, determined to enjoy the story she was reading, but her mind was quick to start racing with questions and theories again. Something unforeseen had come from Aido revealing the mystery of Unfortunates to Akane, she was intrigued. Akane was, by no means, an avid learner, she had only done so well in her studies because she had an uncanny ability to block out reality when things became difficult, and her schoolwork had been her outlet.

Reading had never been an enjoyable pastime for Akane, but cracking a code, or working through a problem until she found the solution, that always gave her a sense of accomplishment. That feeling and schoolwork related problems, were always easier for her to deal with than her own emotions and situations, which hadn't changed since becoming a Vampire.

Her thoughts on Aido were one of the things she used schoolwork to distract herself from. The memories of her father and mother were another reason, as was Kaname. The Unfortunates were a perfect mystery for her to latch onto. Akane had the information within the books which she could use as a starting point, but she had something none of these other researchers had access to, her.

Though, her blood now held Vampire components, DNA like that just didn't disappear. With renewed vigour, Akane gathered the book in her arms and rushed to her room, where she collected a notepad and pen, then headed to the underground library to look over those books again.