AN: I know it isn't canon, but I like the idea of vampires just being attracted to certain people's blood. And, you know, it helps push together certain aloof characters... -cough-
In spite of the numerous other tasks Rima would rather be doing at the moment, it was unfortunately time for class. Her novels and sketches of clothing designs would have to wait. While irritating, attending the lectures was an unavoidable aspect of participating in the Night Class; but of course, just to further irritate her, the only available seat in the class was beside Senri Shiki. Rima sighed, making her way over to the table. At least Ichijou was seated there as well, at the end of the table beside Shiki. The two of them were conversing in a murmur, and Rima felt oddly annoyed. What could they be talking about? Around her at work, Shiki had the personality of a shoebox and about as much to say as one. The only positive trait he possessed was his sense of fashion. Around the dorms he was always dressed tastefully, although in class he had to wear the uniform like everyone else. Of course, recently he had been speaking to her more, but regardless she remained thoroughly vexed by him.
Nevertheless, she had no choice but to take the seat. Ichijou greeted her cheerfully, and Shiki at least acknowledged her presence with a slight nod. Fortunately, the seat they had left empty at their table was beside the wide window of frosted glass, so Rima would have plenty to distract herself with throughout what promised to be a thoroughly boring lecture. Although it was dark both inside and out of the classroom, the blond's eyes adjusted easily to the dimness and could pick out the leaves swaying on the trees, and even hear the rustle of their edges as they brushed together beyond the glass. For a moment, she entertained the notion of leaving this very moment and skipping class. She wanted to be outside, to breathe in the fresh night air and read a book in some tranquil corner of the campus. Stuffed in the classroom with the multitude of vampire nobles, Rima's nostrils were assaulted with an assortment of fragrances, few of them particularly pleasing or aesthetic.
Naturally, the pureblood Kaname Kuran's scent struck her as incomparably desirable. It's indescribable, alluring perfume appealed to her more than any other's in the room. But that was to be expected, and honestly a rather dull occurrence simply because of its predictability. Strangely, it was the person directly beside her who most peaked her interest. His scent was soothing, subdued yet pleasing, and completely... Her thoughts ground to an abrupt halt as a lightning bolt of despair burst through her eyes. No way... How could someone as grey and lackluster as Senri Shiki provoke even an inkling of bloodlust in her? She had just been on the verge of thinking he smelled...delicious. Annoyed, she attempted to disregard his presence entirely, but was rewarded instead by involuntarily tuning into his conversation with Ichijou.
"You can't hate the Night Class already, Shiki-kun," the green-eyed vampire was chiding. "Classes only started less than a month ago."
The model raised an eyebrow. "You'd never know that...considering how crazy the Day Class girls have become..."
Ichijou chuckled. "It seems like you're popular."
A pained expression crossed the mahogany-haired vampire's face. "Great," he replied sarcastically.
Rima found herself glaring in irritation. So, he would talk normally to Ichijou but not to her? And she had actually been marginally worried about this person, if he was eating well, if he was taking care of himself properly? He didn't deserve her concerns. She turned back to the window pointedly. She was done listening. Only, she couldn't seem to avoid overhearing them...
"Although...," Shiki murmured, "school is better than being home..."
Now he had her attention. She couldn't help it. She had seen every one of his mother's movies. She'd starting modeling because she'd been inspired by Hana Shiki, and wanted to expand her career to acting because of her, too. To Rima, Hana Shiki was a role model and an artist. She couldn't imagine why her colleague wouldn't want to spend more time with such a brilliant woman. He was lucky to have such an accomplished, graceful, and beautiful person as his mother...although, any mention of her apparently shut down any trickle of personality he was displaying...
But Ichijou swiftly changed the course of the conversation, a sympathetic glimmer sparking through his eyes as the corners of his mouth tilted down into a momentary frown. Rima was officially curious, and officially disappointed that the two vampires had begun to talk of other things. Like the disgusting, practically unpalatable pills that were supposed to replace blood.
"How are the blood tablets?" Ichijou asked eagerly.
Senri shrugged. They were...tolerable, he supposed. If he had to express an opinion, he might say he hated them. They tasted vile; the slimy, viscous nature of the water after they were dissolved into it made his stomach clench. But they suppressed the hunger he denied, the hunger that scratched insistently at the back of his throat. It was harder, too, to ignore that hunger when someone who smelled like Rima Toya was seated next to him. Here in the confines of the classroom, the faint, delectable perfume that wafted from Rima's veins agitated his throat. The subtle fragrance of her blood tempted him, beckoned his eyes to slip into crimson desire, and although he resisted, he could feel the pressure of his fangs as they urged him to surrender to his vampiric nature.
"You're hungry. Yeah... I think the same," her low voice shocked him out of his temporary lapse, and for a moment he worried she might have somehow gleaned his thoughts. "Here." She pulled a thin box out of her jacket pocket and extracted a stick of chocolate pocky, offering it to him.
Surprised and grateful, he accepted the sweet, distracting himself with the sugary confection instead of with thoughts of her blood. Gradually, he felt the demands of his hunger decrease and fade as he occupied himself with sucking every last particle of chocolate from the stick beneath before biting off half the cookie with a satisfactory crunch. When the last of the sweet vanished past his lips, he noticed that Rima was eating one, too. She did not offer one to Ichijou, and although the vice president didn't notice, Senri did. He noticed, and felt somehow...pleased. It was an almost disquieting sensation.
"I think the tablets are a good idea, though," Ichijou was saying. "At least, they'll prevent the Night Class from feeling an urge to prey upon the Day Class. We have to try to peaceably live side by side without incident, after all."
"Really?" Senri asked mildly. "It seems more like we're being punished considering the taste. Medieval torture..."
Rima gave a short laugh. She blinked, as though caught off-guard, and commented, "But they are effective... Even if the texture might drive some of us insane..."
"At least, I haven't felt any hunger since taking them." Ichijou's green eyes were sincere.
Rima raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Senri remained quiet, too. It was true. The tablets had effectively mollified any desire for human blood. At least, they had until this very moment.
"Is Ichijou-kun really a vampire?" Rima mused, daintily licking a smudge of chocolate from one of her fingers. Senri caught himself covertly watching the precise movements of her tongue and forced himself away from the thought. Everything was addling him today... He hadn't felt his bloodlust roused like this in a while... He shifted his head away from her, towards the green-eyed vampire. Ichijou's vibrant, heady fragrance erased every vestige of hunger the mahogany-haired model might have felt. The corner of his mouth edged slightly upward. The vice president was unappetizing.
The model shook his head, ignoring his friend's immediate protest as well as his own thoughts as he agreed, "No, he's always been pretending. He's actually..." He glanced at the vice president and said flatly, "...Just some old pervert."
Rima sniggered, and Ichijou immediately denied this statement, asking with the trace of a pout hovering around his lips, "Is that really what Shiki-kun thinks of me?"
"I'm not the one proposing indecent things to the Day Class girls..." Senri stared at the vice president, gaze unwavering as it dared the blond to refute the statement.
"There's also your questionable manga collection," Rima added noncommittally.
Ichijou looked affronted. He was about to respond when the door opened and the teacher at last arrived. Immediately, the room quieted. Senri focused his eyes on the front of the room, but in reality he was everything but attentive to the forthcoming lecture. He was distracted. Distracted by the flowery, electric fragrance of the girl beside him. He sighed. He wanted another stick of that chocolate. It was ever so slightly infused with her scent, as she had no doubt been carrying the box with her all day, and the rich taste was enough to take his mind off of his nagging hunger.
He glanced at her in spite of himself. At first, he hadn't been sure how to feel about being Rima Toya's work partner, especially given her love of his mother, which she had professed in several interviews. And in general, he found the company of other models to be tiresome. But Rima was mild and cool, at least from his observance of her. Maybe they got along well, after all...
To his surprise, a second stick of chocolate popped up before him. The blond model was impassive, expression unruffled, but once he took the sweet gratefully she extracted a second one for herself. And once again, not a single morsel passed to Ichijou. The hint of a smile traced across Senri's lips. For some reason, he was feeling just a little selfish...
"Kaname-sama manages to make our simple uniforms so fashionable," Ruka commented with pride as she brushed her honey tresses. "Yet, on half the Night Class they still look so distasteful."
Rima shrugged, generally disengaged from the current line of conversation. In the three weeks that Rima had been rooming with the pretentious vampire noble, Ruka Souen had mentioned Kaname-sama, directly or not, approximately five hundred and eighty times. The model made a mental tally. Five hundred eighty-one. Even when Ruka wasn't talking about her beloved Kaname-sama, she usually found some other way to center her existence around the pureblood. Rima sighed internally as she idly flipped the page of the magazine she was reading, making note of the recent trends and popular brands. Although she had a distinctive sense of fashion, she still kept abreast of the latest news in the industry. She couldn't afford to lose her edge, even if she was exceptionally attractive as far as human standards went.
"You don't find Kaname-sama lovely?" the other vampire inquired then, tone innocuous, although Rima ascertained her roommate was probing for potential unwanted competition.
The model bit off a comment on their leader's blood, and instead gave an uninterested reply of, "He's alright." It wasn't that Kaname wasn't handsome or charismatic, but rather that Rima held no special interest in him. She respected him as the leader of the Night Class and would obey him as a pureblood, but beyond that... She felt another shrug conquer her shoulders.
Ruka honed in on her response like a hawk, suggesting slyly, "You spend a lot of time with Ichijou-san, though..."
Rima closed her magazine and sourly regarded the girl through her lashes, denying simply, "No."
"And Shiki-san is your work partner...," her roommate tried again.
Peeved now, the model worked the ribbons out of her hair with a touch more force than was necessary. Yes, Shiki was gorgeous, fashionable, and smelled far better than most of the rabble at the academy, but... But he had only spoken to her because Ichijou had been there. And he was grey. Grey and colorless and bland, like hospital walls or plain rice.
Even though his eyes had seemed blue tonight in class. Even though he had at last come to life, if only temporarily. Even though he had made her laugh. Even though she had seen the dusty tinge of red hunger suffuse across his eyes...
Pursing her lips, she dropped the ribbons on her nightstand. So what? He didn't like her. Otherwise, he would have made more of an effort towards her. She didn't know why she'd given him the pocky. Probably because she'd needed a distraction and it seemed right to offer. She'd already determined not to worry about him anymore, after all. And if the scent of his blood roused her senses, it was because he was Kaname's cousin. Case closed.
"Shiki-san," she made careful use of the title, although in her head she usually dropped it out of her irritation with him, "is as interesting as a rock."
Ruka blinked. "He's always with Ichijou-san, though."
Rima deigned not to reply. She didn't like the bitter aftertaste their class this evening had left behind, built up like bile in the back of her throat. Shiki was a mystery she wasn't sure she had the energy to decipher. Instead, she lay down in her bed. Soon it would be dawn, and at least she would be at liberty to imbibe one of the chalky tablets and forget the itch of hunger that stuck in her mouth.
"It's a shame, don't you think?" Ruka asked, moving to lay in her own bed. "Shiki-san shares Kaname-sama's blood, after all. But they're nothing alike."
Five hunded eighty-two. Rima answered, "Yeah..."
Yet, despite her efforts to pass all her preoccupations and curiosity into oblivion, when she slept her dreams were infused with grey. And perhaps a tinge of crimson.
AN: Review!