In the entirety of his collection, only one had ever been granted a veil.

The first bride had gone to Laito. The second to Shu. Kanato made sure the third would become his.

She was a dumb sort of thing. Above all else, she wanted to die. Which was precisely why he didn't kill her. Because why should he have to do what she wanted? He was not so chivalrous. And among other things, her blood was sweet.

He loved sweet things.

At first, he made sure his bites were painful. Scream worthy. Her screams weren't half bad, even if they were noisy. But she was strange. Much stranger than any human. She talked a lot, which he did not care for. She had bright red lipstick that reminded him of her blood, though it did not taste nearly as good. Her hair she wore up in the fashion of the day, making it look shorter than it actually was; curlier than it actually was.

The heels she wore always announced her presence, letting him know where she was at any given moment, always chasing after him with irritating click-clacks. Oh, it raged him. Those shoes that filled up his heavenly silence.

It made him bite harder, if only out of anger, or perhaps out of spite, eliciting a shriek that would drown out the inane clacking of her heels. If only it were enough to silence her forever. How pretty she would look, he thought, her lips pursed politely and incapable of utterance, instead of her insufferable "Won't you take more?"

She thought it was her destiny. Like she would be fulfilling some sort of greater purpose if she gave up her life to a vampire. But when she looked at him like that, looked at him with such happy eyes, when he was doing nothing more than brutishly sucking away her life, it made him fly into a blind fit of rage.

He showed her what it truly meant to wish for an end.

And the look in her eyes, the first time she honestly begged for death, or perhaps it was for her own life, he didn't know; didn't care, the words nothing but a forgotten whisper on her lips…that was the first time he thought she looked beautiful.

So he made sure that beauty never left her frightened eyes.

With such honest expressions, he did not find her so irksome, despite the insufferable clicking of her shoes, and the irritating quiet of her softly whispered words. But slowly, more and more, he began to revel in her hesitation, because those trembling lips were just as honest as those terrified eyes. And making that sweet blood rise to her cheeks in flushed embarrassment, her entire expression now so lovingly shy, it became a guilty pleasure he hadn't even realized he'd begun to indulge in.

"Fufu, can't say it? Go on," he had said, with a charming smile, cocking his head innocently, "Tell me what you like."

Desperate eyes scanned his face, and he knew she was searching for the answer that would please him most. But in the end, as always, she could be nothing but honest.

"I like…when you kiss me before. Somehow…"

He didn't dare break his gaze from her, not fully understanding, finding the request somewhat tedious, somewhat intriguing, needing to hear the rest of her sentence, would hurt her if she didn't, would make her say it, because whatever it was, something in him was screaming to know.

"Somehow I…" she had lowered her gaze, her lashes fluttering downwards, "…it makes your bites…" She looked up at him suddenly, her eyes finishing the sentence for her. Kanato smirked, leaning down to kiss her, accompanying it with soft teases because more than anything it was satisfying. And she had answered his question after all, good little doll that she'd become, shy though she was.

And he would have kept her forever, had her lips not betrayed her eyes. Or perhaps it was the fact that her lips had become too honest, making her far too real. She was a doll. Obedient and quiet. Dolls were not supposed to speak so freely.

"I love you."

He didn't understand it. His mother had loved him. He didn't want something like love.

And he hated it. He hated it. Because why couldn't she have kept quiet? Didn't she know what was going to happen? How could she betray him in such a way? She, who he'd devoted so much to, who he'd shown so much to, who knew him—

Wasn't this her fault, after all?

If she had just continued to kiss him with those soft lips, kept them quiet, nodded her head like he told her to, it wouldn't have come to this. It could have been better. She knew that. She was supposed to know—

Oh, but it was hilarious. How his laughter almost outdid her screams. Such an honest sound, those screams. He can still hear them, if he tries.

How exciting, that he still gets goosebumps from recalling the memory alone.

But those words…

Those three words that he could not define. Did not know if they were real or a lie. But the thought of his honest little doll, so shy and and with such pure eyes…

Could those red lips carry the sin of such a lie?

He hadn't believed it, back then. Couldn't believe it, didn't want to, everything beginning to blur into one, the only thing that kept him in place had been his own laughter and her tear-stained shrieks, proving to him that this was real, that this was the truth, and that it couldn't be taken away from him.

After all that time, with the insanity of fire, and the taste of her screams on his lips, he gave her what it was she had always wanted most, in nothing but a matter of moments.

And once again, Kanato had found himself in numbing silence.

She was cold. He didn't care much for it. A strange sensation had pounded in his head, another slashing at his chest.

And he had laughed, softly at first, loudly once the tears began to fall, down his cheeks and onto her limp body that fit a bit too easily in his arms, her blood spilled all over his sleeves, those honest eyes damned to remain forever open.

But Kanato still found them beautiful.

Enough to keep, he thought, to the end of time.