Here we go! This chapter is longer, like I promised. I rather like how it turned out. It's pouring buckets outside and I've got to get up in a bit to go to school and write a Biology Exam. Wonderful.
Enjoy!
Title: Logging off Life (Chapter 4)
Author: MeteorLeopard (HoneyBadger)
The past five days were now officially renamed to The Five Most Frustrating Days of All Time. In Aidou's opinion at least.
Apparently, when Yori made a commitment, she stuck to it. A commendable trait in people, he was sure, but quite frankly it was irritating the heck out of him. Dammit, couldn't she, for once, be as fickle and easily swayed as the other specimens of her species?
Then again, had she been so easily manipulated, Aidou knew he would have never developed an interest in her. She presented a challenge to him; and he always liked a good challenge. Especially the challenges that seemed utterly and totally impossible, just like she was being right now.
HazelNut: No.
He sighed. That's all he ever got from her. Sometimes he wondered if he was into self-inflicted pain. He'd been bugging Yori for the past five days – the ones that had been renamed – to meet up with him. But apparently she wasn't interested.
HazelNut: No.
At all. It drove him up the wall, the way she was refusing him all the time. Dang it, just five days ago she'd broken into his dorm room to tell him to back off from her (something he still found rather twisted) and now she wasn't agreeing to meeting him again. True, she had told him to stop stalking her, but it wasn't stalking per se if he asked for permission, right? So he had been trying to get her permission… without success.
HazelNut: No.
He'd almost chucked his laptop at the wall. Luckily Kain had been in the room at the time to catch the thing.
Now, sitting in the classroom and tuning out the teacher's voice in favour of remembering his latest attempt of trying to convince Yori to a meeting, he had to withhold a smirk. She was a puzzle, that one. Quiet and hastily put into the stereotype of the girl easily taken advantage of but then she knocked people off their feet when they were least expecting it and proved them all dead-wrong.
Like she had done to him. She was a silent type of feisty. And full of surprises.
Aidou sighed and laid his head down on the desk, a dissatisfied scowl setting into place as his bored eyes roamed the room. Everybody was looking just as, or not more, bored as he was. In fact, most seemed to have found something constructive to do, including Kain, even if it only amounted to staring at various objects, including Ruka. He had never quite understood his cousin's fascination with staring at the female; sooner or later she'd become boring to look at.
A thought suddenly occurred to his lethargic mind: If Yori were here, he'd probably be staring at her too. It was entertaining, after all, he'd proven that to himself before during the time he'd been stalking her. And she'd been fascinating to watch. It had been interesting, he remembered, memorizing her little habits. Yori, he'd discovered, had an odd tendency to knit her slim fingers together and gently twist them in various directions, as though she folded her hands often but wasn't too particularly fond of it.
Still lying with his head on the desk, one cheek pressed to the wood, Aidou spotted his pencil lying just a short distance away. He hadn't resorted to this in a while but perhaps his levels of boredom were just reaching a new height… or he really had to distract himself. If he brewed on the subject of Yori for much longer he might just get agitated, remembering her latest rejection.
As it was, his mouth twisted slightly and he quickly banished the thought. Fiddling with the pencil, Aidou let it skim over the paper of his notebook where he was supposed to be copying down the notes that the teacher was writing up on the board for them.
Another feint line joined the mess on his page. Propping himself up on one elbow and supporting his chin in that palm, he stared listlessly down at the criss-crossing lines. If he squinted a couple of those could resemble soft, chin-framing curls. He drew a line, more defined, slanting away from them to form a delicate neck.
His eyes narrowed then and his pencil stilled. Hadn't he begun doodling all over his Calculus book so that he wouldn't think of Yori? This was entirely counter-productive.
As he stared down at the tangle of lines that he'd scrawled he shrugged. What the heck. Might as well finish what he'd started.
Setting his fingers more firmly on the pencil he set to work, drawing a few defined lines through the forest of scratches, easily forming the vague likeness of a girl's face with shortened, messily wavy hair that wrapped delicately around her jaw and eyes. He let a satisfied look enter his eyes. It had been a while since he'd drawn anything and he found, to his pleasure, that his skills hadn't deteriorated too badly. Adding the fine detail was a quick job but he took his time, not in any particular hurry to finish his picture since he'd have nothing to do afterwards.
He added light shading to his sketch, pausing at her eyes. He had to clearly remember her eyes; he couldn't get those wrong. If he messed those deep, expressive eyes of hers up he'd have to scrap the picture.
His pencil was more refined as it brushed along the outlines then, creating depth and shine in her large eyes. Her irises were particularly complex but, a few well placed pencil strokes later, he'd captured them.
He had to give himself credit; for a several minute sketch in his calculus book in a moment of boredom, Yori's likeness looked absolutely stunning.
Then his mouth thinned. He'd finished the drawing of her… but now he once more had nothing to do. And if he had to be quite honest with himself, drawing her had been oddly refreshing. Inspiring even.
So who was to say that he couldn't do it again?
Flipping the page of his calculus book, he picked up his pencil once more and began another drawing.
Yori let out a single, quiet sigh as she heaved yet another stack of heavy books onto the cart. Already the generously sized silver trolley was laden with piles and piles of books that had been returned only that day and needed to be replaced on their shelves. Normally she would have had that job done by now and been on her way back to her dorm room in good time before the night class students set foot into the building, but tonight she'd simply run late.
A shelf had collapsed earlier during the day, injuring one of the Day Class girls who had been trying to reach for a high book without the stepladder. The girl had sworn that she hadn't been trying to semi-climb the shelf and that it had simply collapsed and since there hadn't been any proof of her probable lie, Yori had had to shrug it off and put it on the damages list for the Chairman.
Not only had it caused trouble and would end up costing money, Yori had had to spend the remainder of the afternoon sorting through the piles for any that had been severely damaged and needed to be repaired. She'd also had one of the Day Class boys who was good with woodwork and similar such things come in and repair the shelf for her and then used up most of her evening sorting the books back onto the repaired shelf.
As such, the normal library duties hadn't gotten done on schedule and now she was stuck working overtime.
Normally she wouldn't mind staying a little late but Chairman Cross never really approved of any Day Class students being in the same building as the Night Class students when they were having lessons. Yori didn't question his motives – she hadn't been raised to poke her nose into other people's business – but she couldn't help but wonder. If they all stayed in their classes then there shouldn't be a problem, right?
But there was where the problem presented itself: if they stayed in class.
Focusing back on her task, she placed the last pile of books on the trolley and strained against its heavy weight for a moment before it got rolling, picking up momentum as she moved. She wasn't the strongest girl around and often found herself wishing that she was a little tougher.
Physically she knew she was really quite weak, therefore she'd had to strengthen herself in other ways; mentally for example. She'd built hard, near-impenetrable walls around her mind, not allowing people too close to her, lest they hurt her. She allowed them to a certain extent and then kept them there. She didn't allow anyone to be intimately involved with her; she'd seen how it mostly turned out.
That's why she pushed people away. Yuuki was a strange and somewhat grey-zoned exception. They both had secrets and they both didn't mind knowing that the other had secrets. Yori was comfortable like that.
Other, more persistent people however, she instinctively pushed away. People like that were trouble, her mind always told her, and she didn't want to be involved with trouble. Trouble brought attention and she hated attention.
And Aidou-senpai was probably the worst person to have struck up a relationship with, even if it was purely platonic… from her side at least. His side on the other had was obviously pressing for something more, or at least a more personal friendship; she wasn't always sure with him. She had been more than a little uncomfortable with him stalking her before she had broken into his room just over a week ago and told him to back off. Having people stalk them was normally her brother's problem, not hers, so she had absolutely no idea how to handle it. She'd hoped that by ignoring him he'd leave her alone but apparently he'd been more persistent than that, resulting to her resorting to scaling the Moon Dorm wall.
She still blushed slightly at the memory. It had been a while since she'd been so bold.
In the back of her mind Yori knew that she was being just a little harsh to him but she knew that if she let up and agreed to meeting with him then she was just setting herself up for disaster. Her brother got into disaster like that all the time, only he was that one who brought the disaster, not the one getting into it. She'd seen how those situations ended and she wasn't going to be one of those dips left crying on the sidewalk after he'd walked away.
Her eyes scanned up the shelf and frowned as she spotted two books entirely out of place. Reaching up to the eye-level shelf, she pulled them down –
"Yo!"
-and almost dropped them in shock. She did however take two very large steps back and crashed into the trolley balancing all of the books, tilting her off balance and making her stumble backwards, tripping up on her own heel. She silently cursed her lack of proper co-ordination as her body began to fall backwards to the floor.
Two hands cupped under her upper arms then, steadying her mid-fall and holding her up, preventing her from crashing to the floor.
She was quick to gather her wits and glanced up at the person who she could have sworn had been standing not two seconds ago on the other side of the bookshelf from where she'd removed the books and was now supporting her from falling to the carpeted floor.
Her eyes widened just the slightest amount as she caught sight of the blonde hair above her before she mentally scoffed. Of course. Who else would it be?
"Aidou-senpai," she greeted coldly.
"Easy there, I don't bite," he grinned.
"Right," she replied. He simply stared right back at her, still holding her suspended above the ground. He had a very firm grip, she decided as she forced her face to remain impassive. He was staring at her for longer than she would have liked and it was making her uncomfortable. His eyes were very piercing, almost harsh.
"Aidou-senpai, would you please put me back on my feet?"
She watched him blink his icy eyes once before dipping her down a little further and then flinging her upright, catching and steadying her by her shoulders. Brushing his behaviour off, Yori reached a hand down to straighten her skirt. What Chairman Cross had been thinking when he approved the uniform with these incredibly short skirts she had no idea. They were a nightmare in windy weather.
She glanced up at him again, giving him an impassive look. "Aren't you meant to be in class?"
A confidently annoying smirk made its way to his face. "I got out early."
"You're bunking?"
"That's such a horrible word for it. But yes." He shrugged, not particularly caring that he was missing part of his education.
Yori straightened her black uniform jacket, righting the sleeves and pulling it back down from where it had ridden up slightly at her fall. She fixed him with a hard stare. "I believe I told you to stop stalking me."
She was annoyed. Annoyed that he hadn't listened to her and stayed away. But of course he wouldn't listen to her; he'd just do whatever he wanted to do. She was annoyed that he was here and she was annoyed with herself for being, if only for a split-second, happy to see him.
She would be the first to admit that she enjoyed speaking with him. He could hold a decent conversation and kept her thinking quickly and on her toes. It was a stress-relief of sorts and goodness knew she needed to have some form of creative outlet these days. Just the other day Yuuki had mentioned how run down the light haired girl had looked and if Yuuki had seen it then there was no doubt some truth to the prefect's words. Yori really was tired lately and having the cyberspace conversations with Aidou to look forward to were a welcome relief from the pressure she was receiving from home.
But she'd been so careful to keep the relationship purely on the net because she simply did not want to deal with him in person. Then he'd become more real, more pressure, more of a problem than a relief.
And a worry. Because, as he'd told her himself numerous times; he was dangerous. He was the type to sweep girls off their feet in a matter of seconds and even Yori, who liked to believe had her feet firmly planted on the ground, had to admit that he was charming. So keeping her distance had seemed like the most viable solution.
Too bad he'd just ruined that. She'd have to get rid of him.
Fast.
Aidou fixed her with another icy stare before answering. "Yes, I believe you did."
He seemed to feel absolutely no shame. Yori turned away from him then, reaching for three books from her trolley and stepping back towards the shelf, picking up the two fallen books that she'd dropped in her earlier fall and slotting them back into their correct places.
"Did you need something, Aidou-senpai? Because if you don't then please kindly leave. I have a lot that I need to do and, unlike you, I do still need to sleep during the night."
She could tell that he was walking up behind her then but she studiously ignored him, reaching for another book on the trolley just behind her – only to come up empty. She glanced back and saw that he'd shifted the silver cart just a little to the side and out of her reach. Instead he held a book out to her, a subtle grin on his face.
Yori wanted to slap something. She was tired, she was irritated, she'd had a horrible day and now this charmingly nice playboy from the night class had to come and make it all the more difficult. She closed her eyes to compose herself. As annoying as he was being she didn't want to snap at him. He was mostly kind to her and he didn't deserve her yelling at him. "Aidou-senpai, I'm not in the mood for jokes. Please let me continue with my work."
"Allow me to assist you."
"You won't be any help."
"Really?" Yori opened her eyes to see him arch a skeptic eyebrow at her.
"Really," Yori replied.
"And how so, please do tell," he challenged
"Because you're already passing me a fiction book in the non-fiction section, Aidou-senpai."
Yori watched him glance down at the book in his hand, affirming what she said. Plastering a silly smile onto his face, he rubbed the back of his head. "Would you look at that? Silly me."
Yori sighed again and tucked her hair behind her ear. "Sorry," she said. She knew that her brother hated to be corrected. She supposed it had something to do with manly pride or something.
His surprised face at her apology didn't last very long as she stepped past him and pulled a book from the trolley. "If you want to, read this." She handed him the book and allowed him time to read the cover.
"Another Terry Pratchett?" he asked.
"Yes, you seemed to enjoy the last one."
"Right," he said, glancing at the cover once more and then tucking it into the pocket of his blazer without taking his eyes from her face. Yori held his gaze, not backing down from it.
When his stare was becoming increasingly persistent though Yori softly cleared her throat. "Did you need anything else, Aidou-senpai?"
An odd look crossed his face at her words and for a moment Yori thought she'd said something horribly wrong. But then he took a step towards her and angled over her. Yori only realized then that he was nearly a head taller than her and was, despite his lean frame, obviously well built. She had to tilt her head to meet his eyes at close proximity and an errant thought entered her mind that she shouldn't have backed up against the bookshelf.
It left her with nowhere to run.
She froze when Aidou bent towards her so that his head was hovering just over her shoulder, his bangs brushing the few stray strands that stood out from her own hair. He was so close and Yori felt as though the air were charged with stinging static, nicking her skin through her uniform. She focused on breathing and regulating her heartbeats. An instinct, a very basic, carnal instinct was screaming danger in her ears.
Yet the more logical side of her stood frozen. After all, this was Aidou-senpai. She trusted him – to a certain degree. He wouldn't hurt her.
Right?
She was abruptly snapped out of her silent miniature panic attack when she heard him inhaling deeply near the crook of her neck, his own cool breath blowing out over the sensitive skin above her collar.
"Aidou-senpai, are you sniffing me?"
Her less than elegantly phrased question seemed to hit its mark – hard – because he instantly stopped his motions and froze too, just as she still was.
And then abruptly he was straightening up again, but just far enough so that he was mere inches from her face. His face was carefully smooth but his eyes retained a devious glint of humour that she failed to quite grasp.
"Of course not," he breathed. He moved further towards her again, his breath blowing unevenly over her face. A hand ghosted over her arm and up towards her shoulder, trailing over her collarbone. Shivers ran through her spine as he ran a single, slim finger over the contours of her neck, flitting over her pulse point and smoothing out over her chin.
Yori bit her lower lip, stiffening completely as the tips of his fingers settled over her jaw and the shell of her ear. She was aware of the hard bookshelf pressing into her back.
Suddenly he straightened, turning his back rather quickly and striding towards the door. "Thanks for the book, I'll see you tomorrow, Yori."
She remained frozen where she was, her palms pressed tightly against the shelves behind her. She hadn't realized she'd needed to support herself until now. Her knees had never felt so useless as they did then; not even after the one occasion in gym class where she'd been forced to scale the rope hanging from the ceiling had her legs ever felt so completely jelly-like.
She remembered then, suddenly, that he'd called her by her nickname. She almost wanted to call after him at that, correcting him on so casually calling her by her nickname. But she didn't. After all, what would she ask him to call her? Wakaba-san just seemed too formal. And nobody used her full name, Sayori, since she didn't particularly like it. Her father had given it to her and still called her by her full name. So she preferred her nickname that her brother had made up for her.
Besides, she wasn't sure if her voice would work properly.
She watched Aidou walk to the door and step out of the library, shutting it behind him again with a slight creak of old hinges. A thought suddenly struck her; how had she not heard him enter the library before? The door had been closed; she'd been sure of that and the hinges would have alerted her to anyone opening or closing the door. Also, while the floorboards in the library had been covered in carpet, they by no means didn't still creak when one stepped on them.
How in the world had he managed to sneak up on her?
Aidou wanted to hit himself. Or a wall. But since he was currently sitting in his desk, out reach from any walls, it'd have to be himself.
How could he have been stupid enough to actually go looking for her? She had told him in no uncertain terms to stay away from her; at least in person. Why, he still had no idea and it was even rarer for him to actually follow a person's wishes but he had resolved to stick to hers.
But then, upon walking into the building that night for classes he'd gotten only one whiff of Yori's scent and he'd known that she was still in the library. And the impulse to go see her had been simply too great. Slipping away had been easy too. All he'd had to do was instigate an argument between Ruka and himself and then redirect the attention onto Ichijou via Kain and he'd been all set.
Of course, he hadn't quite wanted to shock her so badly that she fell over but catching her had had an added bonus of actually getting to touch her. There was just the simple problem that, because of her proximity, her scent had been stronger than usual. Good thing he'd taken his blood pills on time this evening. Disgusting things.
Her cold attitude shouldn't have surprised him either and yet messing with her had held so much charm in it that simple conversations via the online messaging service couldn't provide.
And then…
Aidou narrowed his eyes as he recalled the event in the library. He'd probably scared her a little. Or made her wary of him. The pencil in his hand currently scratching on an actual drawing pad that he'd brought with him from the dorms for the past two nights slowed somewhat and he narrowed his eyes at the picture. He was drawing Yori – again – on her own, in the library, stacking books with her right arm slightly raised to push a book onto its shelf just as she had been just two hours previously. Only he had been in the library there too…
He really hadn't meant to do it. It had been more compulsion than anything else and seeing her stiffen like she had in response to his advances had been amazingly intriguing. Amazing…
She had smelt amazing too. Her scent had been so much more concentrated in close areas to her skin, he recalled, especially her neck, that he hadn't been able to resist just taking one little sample of it. Just her scent…
Her words, wholly unexpected when he'd inhaled, had luckily snapped him out of whatever spell she had unintentionally been putting him under.
Aidou once more scrutinized the page before him. Yori's scent flooded his memories and he closed his eyes, letting himself remember. Slowly he opened he eyes again and squinted a little. Perhaps… he should try this…
With a few pencil strokes he had his own likeness on the page, standing behind Yori as she sorted the book onto its shelf, his hands hovering over her waist and his head dipping down towards the junction of her neck and shoulder.
His muscles tightened slightly, imagining the situation, fingers gripping his pencil in anticipation –
"What the hell am I doing?" Aidou muttered near silently to himself, his hand slamming over the drawing and scrunching the paper up roughly, making several heads turn his way at the sound of the crinkling paper.
What was he doing? Aidou wished he knew the answer to that himself. Certainly, he was courting a human girl.
Now why in the bloody blazes would he do that?
It was pure stupidity. She was human; he was not. She would die; he would not. She ate food; he drank blood. She was not interested; he, unfathomably, was.
With the hand not still holding the scrunched paper depicting him and Yori in the library with his fangs inches from her soft skin, he ran his fingers through his hair, letting his forehead rest in his palm.
Curse his highly advanced vampire brain and its intricate complications that went beyond his own understanding and creating an impossible desire to gain a human's affections!
Aidou let his head fall to the desk, giving up for the time being. So he was attracted to Yori; big deal. And apparently it was a three-way attraction: her body, her blood and her mind. He supposed that was both a good and a bad thing. The good thing was that he liked her completely and wasn't just after her blood. The bad thing was that, despite not only being after her blood, he still was; the picture currently scrunched in his hand proved that all too well.
He'd deal with this later, Aidou decided, and settled for simply letting his thoughts drift for the rest of the class, allowing his mind to take him where it may.
It was an odd day when Kain didn't worry about his cousin's behaviour. Hanabusa could go ahead and do the stupidest things when there was nobody around to watch him, so catching sight of him sneaking off down the corridor from where the smell of a human was coming from was somewhat worrying to Kain.
But he hadn't said anything and gone to class, as usual. He'd briefly hoped for the human's survival, though he didn't have very high hopes for them.
So it had been an immense surprise to him when, a few minutes later, Aidou had come strolling in through the door to class, a book tucked in his jacket and a silly smile on his face. And not a trace of blood on him anywhere, only the strong smell of a human female. But no blood.
None.
Aidou had begun drawing again then, as he had been for the past two nights when he began doodling in his Calculus book. Kain hadn't been able to get a glimpse on what his cousin was so focused on drawing since he sat too far away from him and Aidou had taken care to keep his work carefully covered if he wasn't currently sketching it. There was a trace of curiosity in Kain at his cousin's newfound artistic inspiration but he refrained from asking. Chances were that Hanabusa wouldn't tell him even if he'd asked.
Upon the final bell signaling their release, Kain watched his cousin stand, stretch his arms out to relieve some of the stiffness and then descend the stairs towards the door. Kain followed further behind, not paying too much attention, until he caught Hanabusa casually, yet with a vicious flick, send the crumpled piece of paper in his fist into the dustbin.
Coming to a stop beside the container, Kain debated with himself for a moment. It wouldn't be right to just look through his cousin's belongings… but on the other hand Hanabusa had just thrown that picture away so it was free for all, right?
Curiosity prevailing, Kain reached a slender hand into the dustbin and retrieved the crumpled paper. His trepidation was building. Hanabusa had been acting somewhat strange after drawing the picture and almost immediately scrapped it.
Carefully checking to make sure that he was the only one still left in the room, Kain began to even the paper out again, trying not to tear the tightly crumpled page too much.
Upon opening it, he stared.
Then his eyes narrowed and he frowned. It was that girl that Aidou had been losing sleep over. The one that he had seen with him the day that they both hid in the trees. That girl…
And here, in this picture, Aidou was about to sink his fangs into her neck.
Kain suddenly remembered why the scent earlier from the library had seemed so familiar. That girl, the girl that Hanabusa was obsessed about, had been in there. No wonder his cousin had taken off so suddenly.
But the situation was turning complicated. Aidou, a noble vampire, becoming infatuated with a human girl… The situation did not bode well for either of them, especially the girl if Hanabusa was having fantasies such as these.
Kain pocketed the picture, resolving to call an emergency meeting later with both Kaname-sama and Chairman Cross present. They would take the situation from there and see what would possibly be the best route to follow.
Because with his cousin after the human girl… Kain feared for her safety.
A/N: Another chapter down! Now Kain is getting involved... oh boy.
See you guys next Wednesday!
REVIEW PLEASE! (...pretty please?)