Tonight the sidewalks veining the academy were cold and wet, echoing the drum of a consistent, ceaseless rain. Members of the Night Class passed them easily, going to class with a sense of punctuality the pair of models lacked. Unlike their peers, the two tarried over the damp walkways, listening to the rhythm of those tiny droplets on the pavement. Despite the nip in the early April air, the proximity of their bodies drove off the chill. Senri basked in the glum, tranquil weather and in his coworker's magnetic ambiance. As though she were the positive to his negative, he was compelled to remain there, bound to her side by a powerful electric current.
Her parasol fended off the rain. If he stayed beneath it, he wondered if that pastel shield could fend off his own insecurities. It was warm there, under that umbrella, sheltered by flimsy plastic and the steadiness of her small hand. The rain beyond the borders of that plastic did not touch him and he wondered if her presence similarly warded off some of his own demons. Certainly, he didn't have to remain so detached when it was just the two of them, without the hardships of home pressing down on him like a tidal wave. But it was a slippery slope, and although he didn't want to live as he had been, he also didn't want to risk the plunge into madness... The madness that dogged him, always one step behind.
The constant hunger in his heart frightened him, spreading doubt and caution tingling through his chest. The constant tight dryness in his throat tested him, starting and stopping along with the ferocious cravings of his voracious heart. When his control wavered, dismantled images flushed his brain, taunting him, horrifying him. Images of blood... Her blood. Dripping down, staining his teeth, blood spattered over her familiar, pale white throat… Images of his lips pressed against her neck, of her hand pressed over his comatose heart as though she might restart it with a single, electric shock… Only his eyelids had the power to vanquish such sinful desires. Only in sleep could he find peace. And when darkness fell once again outside it fell once again over him as well, reversing the temporary victory that the void of sleep had brought.
It wasn't slumber, but for now that halo of dry air beneath the parasol was enough. Rima's presence was solace in a world of never-ending rain. So when they passed out of the rain and into the building where their class was, he felt the residue of regret. Just a moment longer in the rain, shoulders brushing as they navigated the slick sidewalks... Yes, just a single more instant would have been welcome... But the umbrella snapped shut, the water was shaken off, and seconds later the two of them entered the classroom.
The room was thronged with vampire nobility, most of them clustered around their pureblood leader. Senri himself barely nodded in Kaname's direction. They were cousins strictly and formally by blood, but he felt little connection to the dark-haired vampire. As usual, rather than join the crowd, Rima elected to sit at Ichijou's table near the window. Senri slid between them, a touch melancholy as the scents of the Night Class mingled with Rima's and muted it. If he couldn't gorge himself on her blood, at least her scent...
His eyes flared, skin crawled. What was he thinking...? He folded himself smaller. The familiar creases of apathy and denial easily bent to his will after so many years of shaping himself to the wills of others. He had been compressed by so many hands that he was wrinkled and bent beyond repair. Carefully, he began to drain himself again. He traced the imperfections in the glass window. The grain of the wood of the table. Counted the leaves on the nearby dark trees that masked the night sky with gloom. And felt himself slip away again, hollow.
"You're late," the vice president chided.
"I don't see the teacher," Rima retorted, idly toying with one of her shoulder-length pigtails.
"Actually, our regular sensei had to do something for the Council, so we should have a substitute today," the green-eyed vampire informed them.
No sooner than that had been said, the door opened a touch forcefully and a tall, roguish man dressed in brown leather entered the classroom. His right eye was covered with a patch and on his head he wore a wide-brimmed, Western style hat. Around his waist was a wide black belt upon which was strapped what seemed to be a very real gun. The moment Senri smelled him, he knew what this man was: a vampire hunter. Immediately, the Night Class stiffened, and a few of them even stood as though ready to violently welcome this newcomer.
"I'm Yagari Touga, your substitute teacher for ethics" the rough-looking man introduced himself. "Nice to meet you?" He snorted, as though he found this amusing, and added, "Vampires..."
Rima leaned over, whispering to him and Ichijou, "Yagari... The number one vampire hunter that appeared in our news had the same name..."
"Ah... Here to play policeman, then... It would be a bad time to get hungry..." he murmured back, wondering just how the hunter would react if one of the class was to exhibit their most vampiric characteristics.
"Why don't we invite Eyepatch-sensei to dinner?" Rima suggested, eyes twinkling with quiet amusement.
Ichijou sent them both a stern look. "Rima-chan, Shiki-kun, this isn't something to joke about. Touga-san is here to promote coexistence between humans, hunters, and vampires alike."
"Boring." Rima rolled her eyes, glancing out the window, already distracted by something beyond the glassy plane.
"If you say so." Senri shrugged. Honestly, the hunter's presence seemed more like a direct threat from the Hunter Association than anything else, but he didn't want to argue with his friend over that particular point. Arguing, like everything else, required too much energy for him to trouble with. Honestly, he didn't care about the hunter, because whatever his purpose at the academy, it was unlikely to directly affect the mahogany-haired model.
"So. This is the man responsible for that gunshot the other night," Aidou muttered. Senri frowned. Vaguely, he remembered hearing something like that, just as Aidou said...something he hadn't bothered with enough to investigate further.
"Relax, everyone. I've gotten a teaching license. I'm now a qualified educator." Touga dropped his books onto the desk haphazardly and took a pencil out of the top drawer.
"Last I heard, you were in a far-off place. So you're back... Still gathering info on the Night Class? Or do you have a target among us, Yagari-'sensei'?" Kaname said in a low voice. He hadn't known the hunter was coming, either, then...
"So sorry, but I still have a clean sheet. I haven't done anything yet, but if you fall asleep in class, I'll probably add that to your record." From the tone of their new teacher's words, Senri had the sense that much more was being exchanged between the two men than mere words.
"I'll take note, sensei," the pureblood demurred.
Fall asleep in class, huh..? The idea was appealing. For a moment, he considered leaning over to rest his head on his colleague's shoulder and drift off. There, asleep, the dull lecture would pass in a flash, and once again he could stand beneath Rima's lavender umbrella and walk side-by-side across the campus through the gentle rain... And there, asleep, he could quench the soreness in the back of his throat that couldn't seem to remain forgotten...
But instead the lecture continued, oblivious to his discomforts and fears. Tediously he tracked the minutes, passed in tension and with baited breath by the majority of the Night Class, who were still mistrustfully eyeing the hunter's gun. After this one obstacle, this lecture that stood between him and the rest of the night, he would return to the dorm with Rima. And tomorrow evening, he would spend several hours with her at the agency. He didn't like all this interference, all these other clamoring aromas vying for dominance in the classroom. What he did like was the stick of pocky she shared with him and him alone.
Ah. He shut his eyes, brows pinching together for a moment as a revelation scrawled across the back of his eyelids. So that was it... He wanted to monopolize her... Well, that wouldn't do... But it was becoming increasingly harder to recall how to eliminate such a desire...
The pager on her vanity buzzed, alerting Rima that she had her coworker had fifteen minutes before the shoot began. Adding a last minute touch-up to her lipstick, the blond model glanced over at Shiki, who had passed out on his table, head pillowed on his arms and all the beauty products shoved haphazardly out of the way. A bottle of hairspray hung perilously over the edge of the table and she shook her head, thinking, Maybe this wouldn't happen if you took better care of yourself... But she knew that was a futile hope.
It was always raining within his distant grey eyes. And she wondered, vaguely, detachedly, if she put an umbrella over that cemented heart...would he smile again for her? If somehow the dark and bitter tempest that caged him passed, would she witness a tranquil azure sky in his eyes? Would his eyes be green-blue? Or grey-blue? Violet-blue? Bright blue? Magnetic blue?
Abruptly, she needed to see his eyes. Now. Sleepy and still filled with dreams. She needed to know what shade of blue the residue of those dreams might be. "Shiki-san, wake up," Rima prompted, folding her arms.
He didn't wake. She could leave him, she supposed, but...the shoot was going to start in five minutes. There was no time for her coworker to be passed out on the vanity table. But… Beneath the make-up, she could still detect the dark purple, sleepless bruises that framed his eyes… He didn't stir, breathing steady and even, and she contemplated leaving him there and telling the manager that Shiki was nowhere to be found. Doing that, however, would only grant him another five minutes, followed by a rude awakening.
She bit her lip, hesitating. She didn't understand Shiki's circumstances. How could she when he never spoke of them, when he left everything unsaid and weighing down on his shoulders? The burden must be dragging him under. Never eating, never sleeping properly, never expressing what he needed, never expressing anything at all... Aware of those things, she didn't want to shake him awake or leave him for the staff to find. Moreover, as though it might lead her to some comprehension, she wanted to see his eyes before consciousness had fully filtered through them.
"Shiki," she repeated, dropping the title and stepping forward to brush his mahogany hair away from his forehead. She should wake him gently.
On cue, his eyes fluttered open, fogged with sleep. Greedily, she drank in the misty silver-blue of those eyes. Staring down into them, she had the sensation that those eyes mirrored the starry night sky, touched by the first caress of dawn. In a word, it was breathtaking. Spellbound for a brief, whirling instant, Rima started in surprise when the model moved, breaking the enchantment that had momentarily held her in place.
He frowned. When she moved to step away his hand closed around her wrist and he tugged her back, mumbling, "You smell nice."
"Come on, we´re going to be late," she urged, free hand moving to perch on her hip, lips mirroring his as the grey-wash of wakefulness began bleaching that captivating blend of color from his gaze.
"Yeah…" he acquiesced, standing and rubbing the corner of his eye groggily with one hand. The other still encircled her slender wrist.
"You´re lucky the make-up didn´t smudge after falling asleep," she remarked, regaining her composure with a snap. She was oddly impressed with this particular brand. She´d have to make a note of it.
A sleepy nod. The corner of her mouth quirked upward. Cute. Immediately following the thought, a jolt of surprise left her ajar for a beat. That was twice in the past five minutes that he had thoroughly captured her attention without trying. Still, it was true that occasionally Shiki could be cute. Not often, but every once in a while. Right now, his expression still drowsy and adrift, his eyes an overcast teal that hadn't quite slid all the way back to blankness, he was far cuter than he normally was, when that poisonous grey muddled his features.
Shaking away such thoughts, she cautiously extracted her wrist from his hold. She didn't want to be fussed at for being late. Her colleague didn´t resist, though disappointment glimmered faintly in his eyes. Before he released her, however, his thumb brushed over her pulse point, lingering over the visible convergence of bluish veins there. That slight pressure sent a tiny shiver scuttling down her spine, heating her cheeks and pricking at her fangs.
Her breath stuck abruptly in her lungs.
Suddenly agitated, Rima whirled to open the door. It was time to go, because that was definitely not cute. Definitely not. Not when she was beginning to imagine him increasing that pressure just enough for his fingernail to slice open her skin before raising that tiny cut to his lips... She couldn't help but wonder, what color would his eyes be, inebriated on her blood..? When the scarlet had faded, what shade of blue would they be?
"I´m going ahead. And I´m not making any excuses for you if you´re not on time," she announced, exiting with a toss of her pigtails and a shudder in her heart.
She shouldn't be thinking like this. Not about Senri Shiki, her monochrome, unenthusiastic partner. Yet, she couldn't shake the residual warm spot on her wrist where his thumb had stroked over her skin...nor the abrupt dryness in her throat.
AN: Kyukyukyu -insert evil laughter- Alsoooo I didn't really introduce Yagari as a character with a purpose...he's a time marker so you know where in the manga we are :).