Grey Flower

"The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost."

Chapter One
 I stood in the shower, the water turned onto it's hottest setting. I took the brutal sensation of the skin on my back peeling away from my body with ease. I was still angry with Takuma about how he perceived the blood sharing between my mother and I — it had been at least two hours since we had that argument, but I was still holding up strong on my side.

He had already attempted several times to calm me and elict some sign that I wasn't actually as angry with him as I let on, but I refused to give in. The way I saw it, he had insulted me and humiliated me by rejecting my family life. So what if we were a little screwed up? What did that change, really? It had been fine before he had known about it; I didn't understand how it could have dramatically altered the way he looked at me that much... and though I refused to admit it, tears were welling up in my eyes as I recalled that look again....

Two orbs of bright emerald wide in shock as I made the confession, then slowly sliding into a screwed up disgust as they took in all I had said in realization.

"Senri... that's not right."

And I remembered that too.

His words had stung like winter wind tearing into my flesh like the searing water did presently. I didn't try to ignore the sting of the bitter, blistering water because the physical pain detracted indefinitely from the emotional bruises that I wished so much to hide. And yet, though I hardly felt it anymore — or so I told myself — tears of agony still desiccated my eyes, mixing with the steam that condensed and the sweat that the heat caused, beading and rolling down my face in a blink; and I forced myself to think that it was because of the pulsing that began in my back, pounding as it attempted to heal itself. I guess even I couldn't take that much pain....

There was a knock on the door and I nearly jumped, biting back the tears in the process. The tears were unrecognizable, wrapped amongst the other liquids, so I left them alone. There was really only one person who would want to enter the bathroom while I was showering, and I wasn't within any sort of speaking terms with him, so I stood there and stared at the door through the frosted glass that concealed everything both within and outside the shower area. Finally, as if feeling my glare through the door, he spoke. It was soft and apologetic, but I wasn't buying it.

"I'm so sorry, Senri," he pleaded gently from the other side of the door. With the shower going at its full intensity, I could barely hear him.... I stepped out, off the turquoise tiling and onto the white ceramic, wrapping a grey plush towel around my lower half. As I did, icy air rushed in around me, biting at my already tender back and drawing a quick gasp from between two full lips. I winced, reaching back to feel it; but I drew my hand away as a sharp stab ripped through my nerves. The hot water had done a little more damage than I had intended, and it would hurt alot more when I returned to the water now that it was moderating and coming back down to regular body temperature.

I finally came to the doorway where I stood, unable to lean back in the frame like I had intended. And I just listened. "Please... I didn't mean it like that.... I meant...."

Like Hell. I wanted to yell at him, but I couldn't. The memory — those words — had come back and I lost my next breath.

"It's not something that I'm used to. I don't understand, and I might not ever understand it; but I can learn to accept it. Please, just come out."

Takuma probably knew better than anyone how I reacted when I was fuming over something that obviously meant alot to me. He could probably see the steam rising as it reacted with the frigid atmosphere outside the shower and forced out through the crack under the door like clouds of smoke, almost as if I had set the bathroom on fire with myself inside. I drew in a long breath, my body frantically laboring to find the remaining oxygen in a room full of steam. I held it, but before long I was growing dizzy, so I released it, a little louder than intended.

"Senri.... Please explain it to me...."

He could tell that I was standing at the door and I knew it. This illusion never seemed to faze him, so it was unreasonable to keep trying it in hopes that one day he wouldn't figure it out. I couldn't recall a single time when I had won a game of hide-and-go-seek, despite my silent demeanor, where Takuma hadn't been 'it'. For some reason, he had that sixth sense that went along with our friendship — he could sense me whenever I was close by. Of course, that wasn't exactly all true, because I could recall at least once when I walked into him in the hallway as we rounded the same turn, going opposite directions.

"I won't," I answered, and he seemed relieved by the way the door creaked inward. He was leaning on it, and I could just imagine him at a fourty-five degree angle to the cherrywood veneer, his forehead rested on crossed arms that supported his weight. There was another long — but this time exasperated — sigh from behind the door.

"I'm trying, Senri. Isn't that enough for you?"

I considered this for a moment. It was, really. I wanted to throw open the door and take him into my arms, but then again, he had insulted my mother — the one who had always loved me as much as her broken mind allowed.... My only parent, as far as I had known. I loved her so much, and I had wanted to do anything to make her feel better.... What was so hard to understand about it?

Mirroring Takuma's current stance on the opposite side of the door, I took a breath. "No."

There was a long silence where neither of us even took a breath. I closed my eyes and tried to share my thoughts and feelings with him through the door, though I knew that it was a feature only achieved through a special Pureblood bond. I didn't care though. I didn't want to tell him — I didn't feel like it now. I just wanted him to know — as if he had been exposed to it his whole life. Somehow, Takuma was good at that. I swear, that was at least half the reason I fell for him — his deadly accurate intuition. Of course, it had it's moments where it was either completely usless or completely annoying. It was quite obvious which of it's worst qualities were shining through.

"Senri," came the whimpered reply, then a short sniffle. His father had been an actor, just as my mother had been, so it was difficult to tell whether he was just playing it up or if he was seriously starting to cry. Either way, I felt my heart wrench at a short gasp, and then another sniffle. His next words were barely a whisper. "Please come out.... I'm sorry.... Please... forgive me."

I bit my lip, trying to convince myself not to do it. And then... I had never made Takuma cry before. Hell, I hadn't even thought that it was possible for the seemingly ever-content vampire to even feel saddness.

"Takuma?" I questioned gently, my voice straining from lack of use. It was his turn to lay silent as he held back the desperate sobs. "I've let my mother feed off me since I was old enough to understand who my father was. She had been in love with him, and he just dropped her.... She must have taken his blood and become addicted to it; that's the only logical explanation...." I paused for a moment to listen for signs of my lover on the other side of my door. There was none, but I could feel his presence there. "Hold on, I'm opening the door."

I lifted up off the intruding object that was keeping me from holding Takuma. My entire will shattered as I pulled it open and he flew in to wrap long, thin arms around my shoulders and buried his face in my neck. I stood there, shocked for a moment at the reaction; but I smiled when I realized that I couldn't really blame him, and snuggled into the taller boy's warmth, my arms around his waist. But I could tell that he wasn't completely over it yet.

"What about the kisses, Senri? You can't tell me that they're utterly innocent," He choked on the word 'kisses' and I looked off to the side, feeling guilty now of doing just what I had always believed was not physically possible — making Ichijou Takuma upset enough to cry.

I didn't know what to say to him, so I settled for a simple fact that could be comforting, but there was no guarantee of that at all. "I have never returned her sexual advances."

"Well I should hope not!" Takuma nearly spat, and my eyes tightened again. Didn't he trust me at all? "She's your mother, for crying out loud!"

I heaved an aggrivated sigh, pushing him away from me rather violently. "There you go again! Would you like to say something about how horribly dirty my body must be, now?"

I glared daggers at Takuma and he shrank away visibly. "Senri, that's not what I—"

"Is it because of my career, Takuma? Is that it? Because I have to do what I'm told to get the shoots my mother wants so that she can be happy?" My eyes were stinging again, and I had more than half a mind to go jump into the searing water again. "Is it my body...? Is it ruined because of that — my mother and my employers?"

"Oh, no... Senri...." Takuma breathed as my knees buckled and I collapsed in irrepressible and uncontrollable grief. He shushed me with a quick kiss as he joined me on the floor, pulling me into his lap effortlessly and shaking his head — he had noticed that I had lost weight again. "You're so beautiful, and you know that. Anyway, you're right — I'll just stay out of your buisness, no matter how much it hurts."

I wished I didn't have to hurt him. I didn't.... But when my mother sent something in the mail for an audition, I knew how much she wanted me to get it, and I did — by any means necessary. It was unreal that, even after I had met and fallen for the Vice-President, I could still go out and work for my mother's happiness that way. I knew that the next time she saw me in a magazine on the ad that she wanted, she felt good about herself. Like she had raised the world's most beautiful and most popular male supermodel. It was that reaction that made me want to do even more for her. I loved her, and I was willing to do anything to make sure she stayed as happy as she ever could.

Why could Takuma not understand that?