Senri squinted against the accosting, brilliant sunlight that streamed in the window and frowned at his roommate. It was far too early to be awake, and yet there Ichijou was, fully dressed and lovingly running a finger over a series of manga titles on his bookshelf. The model sighed, rolling over and pulling the blankets over his head in an attempt to shut out the blinding light.
"Go back to sleep," Senri mumbled.
"No can do," the vice president negated. "The new Love Love Miracle volume releases today!"
Beneath the covers, out of the blond´s sight, Senri rolled his eyes. Takuma Ichijou had to be the only male on the planet who would be caught dead purchasing a copy of such a blatantly shoujo romance manga.
"Then go away," the model insisted, curling up into a ball in the middle of his mattress in protest.
"But I wanted to read the previous volumes again… To refresh my memory… It´s been a month already."
"Take them out into the common room."
"The others will ridicule me," Ichijou complained.
Senri shoved his face into his pillow for a moment in exhaustion before extricating himself from the bed and standing. He and Rima had worked a particularly long photoshoot yesterday, and despite the naps he had snatched during the breaks, he was tired.
"Are you getting up now? Do you want to go with me?" the blond asked brightly.
"No," the burgundy-haired vampire denied, heading for the door.
"Then where are you going?"
"Rima-chan," he grumbled, rubbing his eyes as he shuffled out.
"Hey, wait a minute! You can´t go there!" Ichijou was staring at him…weirdly.
"Bye." And he was out the door.
"Seriously! I´m the vice president and I can´t allow that!" the blond insisted, following him out into the hall; a rather useless exercise, because Senri had no intention of turning back.
"Why not?" He paused, turning sleepy, baleful eyes towards his friend.
"You can´t sleep in any of the female dorms, it´s the rule."
Well, that was dumb. Especially given that his roommate sometimes seemed more girly than Rima. "Ruka-san isn´t there," he rationalized, and continued down the hall. "She left on a weekend shopping trip…or something…" Thankfully. Shiki had thought she would never come out of the room again after Kaname Kuran had rejected her.
At a loss, the blond attempted to detain him again, "You´re not dressed."
"Am, too." He pointed to his boxers with an exasperated sigh. Really, Ichijou was such a prude, sometimes. It was his fault, anyway… Who read an entire manga series this early?
"Hey," the vice president said, suddenly more serious. "Are you two really getting along?"
Senri blinked. "Who? Rima-chan?" When the blond nodded, he replied simply, "Of course." He didn't say it, but thought 'Now let me sleep.' He continued down the hall, ignoring Ichijou's renewed protests.
As he'd expected, Ruka wasn't in the room, so he pushed open the door and walked into Rima's dorm without a second thought. The room was blessedly dark. Shiki ignored Ichijou's hiss of, "Shiki-kun! This isn't allowed!" and climbed into bed with his coworker. Rima was a deep sleeper, but between Ichijou's whispered nagging and Shiki shifting the mattress as he adjusted a pillow for himself, there was no way that she could remain asleep.
Groggilly, Rima pushed him away, muttering, "Hey. You can't sleep here."
"Ichijou-kun is being mean," he pleaded, glancing at the vice president, who was giving him an indignant look, as though to say, 'I told you so. Can't sleep there.'
"What…" She frowned, still half-asleep, and Senri thought her sleepy expression and loose golden hair were rather adorable.
"I am not!" Ichijou protested, exasperated.
"You have the blinds open…" he grumbled, sliding under the covers despite Rima's weak protestation.
"Love Love Miracle is releasing today!" the blond cried indignantly.
"Good grief…" Rima groaned. "Fine, you can stay." Senri wasn't sure if it was because of Ichijou or because she was too fatigued to fight it.
"I can´t allow this!" Ichijou insisted from the doorway.
"Bye, Mr. Vice President." Rima rolled over, towards the model and away from the annoying presence hovering in the entryway.
"Rima-chan! Shiki-kun!"
"Goodnight," Senri mumbled, shutting his eyes and blocking his friend entirely out of his awareness. A few long moments later, the vice president gave up and left, disgusted. Senri took the opportunity to shift closer to his coworker, enjoying the warmth that emanated from her side of the bed and the unique aroma of her blood. "Rima-chan smells nice," he murmured, fading back into slumber now that he was once again wrapped in silent darkness.
"Mm," came the unintelligible reply, and Senri felt the ghost of a smile nudge his lips. His partner was already back asleep, the shadows of dreams already sweetening the darkness behind her lids with a fairy touch.
The mahogany-haired model relaxed, inhaling Rima's alluring perfume, tracing her sleeping form with half-lidded eyes. Senri had rarely seen his coworker without her trademark pigtails, but here, burrowed down in the blankets, her golden-orange hair spilled freely across her pillow like molten, yellow fire sparking across a snowy field. Cautiously so as not to disturb her, he reached out, fingertips rediscovering those tresses to be silky soft. The fragrance of shampoo clung to those burnished threads, subtle but appealing. He really did love her hair...
And then his eyelids were dragging down, and where they met dreams of thunder and Rima rolled across the black.
Rima stirred, roused from darkness by some biological mechanism hidden within her that insisted that it was time to wake. Her muscles felt lazy, peacefully curled beneath her skin, pleading with her to slumber once more... Despite the siren call of sleep, her dreams were transfiguring from sweet fantasies to muddy, vague and splintered images, but she cast them away as one might shed a skin, blinking slowly in the darkness as she stirred each muscle from sleep.
Almost immediately, memory cleared in her foggy mind, sharpening as her body encountered the shape of another. Fully awake now, Rima frowned groggily, unsettled by the form of her coworker nestled against her side, arms and legs languidly entangled with her own. As a noble vampire, she had never been asked to share a room before coming to the academy, and she certainly had never shared her bed with anyone. But she wasn't sure if she found it unpleasant. The warmth Shiki's body emitted and the slow rhythm of his heart lulled her back into drowsiness. Maybe she wasn't ready to wake after all...
Before she could fall back asleep, however, she both saw and felt her colleague stir, and a moment later his eyes opened heavily. "Evening," he mumbled after a pause, though he didn't make an effort to twitch even a muscle.
"Good evening." She sighed, extricating her limbs from his and sitting up. Her partner grumbled, rubbing his eyes before finally sitting up himself and reminding the golden haired model exactly how he'd come to her room the previous morning. "Geez... Good thing Ruka-san didn't come back today." She couldn't believe she'd let him sleep with her.
"Why?" He rubbed his head then and laid back down, evidently deciding he wasn't in the mood to get up.
"She'd throw a fit if she found you like...that...in my bed." A gesture towards him. And his scantily clad body.
"Like what?"
"Okay, bye," she retorted, ignoring the question. "Go back to your own room now."
"No." He buried his head back into the pillow he had stolen.
Rima stared at him, a touch exasperated. "Why not?"
"I like it here better," he stated simply, wrapping himself in a tangle of blankets and pillows that would be very difficult to remove him from.
"...Why...?" she asked, at a loss.
"It smells nice...it smells like you."
What? She felt her cheeks heat. Did he like her scent then? Her heart shivered. Even if he did, she undoubtedly liked his more... After all, she was the one who sometimes considered... She shook her head. She refused to pursue such thoughts. "...Fine. Stay there." And with that, she rather decisively got out of bed.
"No..." Shiki complained rather pathetically as she selected an outfit from her closet. Today she was in the mood to wear shades of emerald green and viridian. "Rima-chan..."
"When Ruka-san walks in the door, I'm feigning ignorance. I was already awake when you stole my bed," she stated, moving to her dresser now for green ribbons, socks, and undergarments. The last items she chose with a sidelong glance at Shiki, but the model wasn't paying her any attention, lost in a fortress of pillows and blankets. Anyway, even if he had seen, she couldn't really be embarrassed around him; not when they modeled together.
"Come back," he mumbled.
Without answering, she took her bundle of clothes into the bathroom and began her evening ritual. She brushed her teeth and took a warm shower, slightly irritated that she had to get dressed in the bathroom today, and changed into her green ensemble after combing her hair. Eyeing the ribbons in her hand, she debated drying her hair and immediately tying it up as she normally would have. But no, time was short today. Tucking the ribbons temporarily into her pocket, she decided to attempt to remove Shiki from the bed again before her roommate returned.
When she came out of the bathroom, she saw that her coworker had fallen back asleep. She blew out a sigh and sat at the edge of the bed, debating the best way to wake him. Admittedly...he was rather cute...asleep and hugging one of her pillows... If the Night Class hadn't had to share dorm rooms, she would have let him sleep there. It wasn't as if the thought had never crossed her mind before, given how very much time he spent in her room. He wasn't bothering her, not really, but if Ruka came back... She frowned, imagining the noble's reaction.
"Shiki-kun." She poked his cheek. When he didn't stir, she tried again, this time shaking his shoulder a little. This time, his eyes cracked open. "Come on, Ruka-san will be back any minute now."
He didn't respond to her words, instead reaching up to touch the strands of wet hair that were dripping water onto her top. "Your hair is darker," he murmured.
Rima forced herself to remain patient. She needed him to leave so she could dry her hair. She might have to change her clothes anyway, considering the damp stain the ends of her hair was leaving in the fabric. "It's wet," she told him simply.
"Don't tie it the same way today," he tried, and she rolled her eyes.
"Shiki-kun." Her tone was a warning. "You know I will." He sighed, slowly sitting up now, and she narrowed her eyes at him. "What, do you think the pigtails look bad?"
His eyebrows flicked up in unison. "Not at all."
"Then..?"
He stood, stretching lazily, and then turned to her and explained, "You said you'd only wear your hair different if it was just us."
"Yes..." She stared at him, uncomprehending. He was probably still half-asleep and didn't know what he was saying. Shiki was weird.
"So wouldn't that mean that we were spending the day alone together?"
Unexpectedly, she felt her face heat up, and straightened the covers on the bed for a moment to hide it. Truthfully, she wanted to spend the day alone with him, too... Sometimes, she felt selfish enough to want him all for herself, even though she knew that was impossible. Hearing such words, though... Rima gave herself a mental shake. She shouldn't think too deeply into it. It wasn't as though Shiki liked her, not the way she liked him. Hadn't he told her as much, the day they'd hunted the Level E together? He'd told her that he wasn't going to form any attachments...
"There's no way we could do that," she answered. "Not here on campus or in the agency."
The subtle fall of his shoulders indicated his disappointment. Distantly, both of them detected Ruka's familiar scent, and Shiki straightened. "Another time," he suggested, heading for the door.
Grateful that he was leaving before he got her into trouble, she nodded. "Another time."
Her coworker passed into the hall and Rima returned to the bathroom to dry her hair. Another time, huh..? When would that be? They were never truly alone, not on the campus or at the agency, and Rima doubted they'd be going anywhere else anytime soon. Nevertheless, as she fastened the ribbons in her hair, she had to admit...the idea was a bit exciting...
AN: Rima and Shiki don't seem to mind the school rules too much, do they? Imagine how scandalized Ruka would be if she knew? It makes me almost wish she had walked in on them hehehe.