The break passed, as all things did, and at last Rima was free to return to the academy. Underneath the surface, a gentle kind of excitement bubbled through her. At last, she'd be back to the relative freedom of the academy, away from her stifling parents. She'd be back to modeling, to her books, and away from the constant, all-too-close presence of both the pureblood and several particularly annoying members of the Night Class. Ichijou had left early, leaving her entirely alone with a group of troublesome people. The only exception was Kain, but she hardly knew him well enough to call him a friend, and in general he didn't interfere with his overbearing cousins. Most of all, however, she wanted to see Shiki again, even if the prospect of doing so made her a little nervous.
What had happened during the long break? Would he come back the same, as his former grey self, or as something else entirely? Would he remember the promise he'd made, to give her a taste of his blood? She shivered. Drinking Senri Shiki's blood had long passed from vague curiosity into a palpable need, aggravated by his absence. For the first time in her life, Rima felt just a trace...lonely. She hated depending on anyone, but somehow...against her will, it seemed she needed him around, just a little... At least, that little bit was all she was willing to admit to herself.
The first day of classes, the annoying Yuki Cross was on the Night Dorm premises with a clipboard, checking off an attendance list. The repetitive click of her ballpoint pen was enough to annoy the blond model, who glared at her from afar as she greeted various members of the Night Class and ticked them off her list. Rima did her best to ignore the small girl's presence, her attention outwardly turned to the magazine in her lap, although inwardly she was on the sharp lookout for the moment when Shiki's subtle scent announced his return.
At last, however, the petite human caught her attention when she paused to muse, "Let's see... Ichijou-senpai and Shiki-senpai are going to be a little late because of family matters...right." The pen went to work, scribbling down a note at the bottom of the page.
Now Yuki entirely held Rima's attention. Late..? She hadn't heard anything about that... Had something happened with Shiki's mother? She closed the magazine, setting it on the end table beside the couch, and watched the oblivious human as she finished writing whatever it was she was writing on her paper. At last approaching the girl, Rima asked in her best attempt at politeness, "Miss Disciplinary Committee, did Shiki-kun contact you?" It grated on her to be so formal, but insulting the prefect might not be the best idea when she wanted information.
Yuki glanced up, distracted. "Eh? Yes."
"Hm..." She frowned, and like a crack of lightning she was suddenly on the verge of anger. So Shiki had taken the time to send Yuki Cross a message, but not her. He'd taken the time to advise the human prefect, but not his colleague and friend. And then just as suddenly the almost-anger simmered down, and rather than irritation, what she actually felt was...concern. Ichijou hadn't contacted her, either... Neither of them had...
"Toya-chan?" Aidou asked. His concern was a surprise, especially since she'd rarely spoken to him before break. Maybe they'd inadvertently grown a little closer over the holiday, after all. Or at least, maybe Aidou perceived that they had. Rima didn't feel much, if any, differently about the blond vampire.
She shrugged, explaining, "My manager commented on it... It looks like Shiki went to work one day this week...but I haven't been able to contact him."
"Knowing him, contacting us about it is probably too much of hassle for him to bother with, right?" His bright blue eyes were very different from Shiki's. Icy and sharp, they were the polar opposite of the rainy blue that characterized her coworker's gaze. An unfamiliar feeling wormed through her chest, and quite abruptly, she didn't want to talk to Hanabusa Aidou anymore.
"Maybe..." she allowed, turning away, as the realization bloomed within her: I miss him.
Rima Toya did not miss people. She did not need people. She was independent and self-sufficient. That was the only way to bear centuries of long life without also enduring centuries of heartbreak and grief. How unlucky that she'd developed this crush... No...this attachment... Her fingers twisted up into her palm, and she instructed herself carefully not to worry. Shiki and Ichijou were just going to be a little late, surely, and then they'd be back. There probably wasn't any cause for preoccupation, or else they would have contacted her. That was the only circumstance that made sense.
With that in mind, she excused herself up to her dorm room and determined that she was overreacting. A shower would help wash away her doubts. And if it didn't, Shiki and Ichijou would be back before long, anyway, and put such worries to rest. Stepping into the bathroom, she closed the door and tugged the ribbons loose from her hair.
Glancing at herself in the mirror, a bittersweet half-smile, half-grimace pushed at her lips. Most likely, she wouldn't be wearing her hair down any time soon... Then, just as quickly she turned away from the glass, setting the ribbons on the sink and getting undressed. She wasn't going to think about anything even remotely related to Shiki right now. Even so...she couldn't seem to shake such thoughts...
Senri was floating through a landscape of oblivion, through solitary, shapeless dreams and ultraviolet nostalgia. Bodiless, untethered and weightless, he drifted through a cavernous nothing, a night so deep that it swallowed him whole. The silence choked him, besieged him, drove deeper into every crack and crevice of his skin.
He wanted to breathe again. Wanted to wring the shadows out until he could see again. In the darkness, words seemed to crawl out of his mouth like spiders, "Not bad..." An unfamiliar form fell to the ground through a haze. A body? Vaguely, he recognized the taste of blood in his mouth, and across the room for a single moment he could make out Takuma Ichijou's shocked expression.
And then he was fading out again. Smothered into nothing...
Days passed by like the slow drip of water from a leaky pipe. Bored, worried, and frustrated, Rima spent hours doing nothing. Staring out the window. Staring down at the book in her hand without processing the words. Staring down at the paper where she tried to design something new, but in the end was forced to leave blank. Staring up at the ceiling from her bed, wondering why, all of a sudden, she couldn't fall asleep so easily. Most of all, she spent long minutes staring at Shiki's empty vanity table at work. The staff mentioned he'd come in for his individual shots in an upcoming shoot, but he still hadn't come back to work with her, and most of all he still hadn't tried to contact her.
Shiki's absence alone was troubling enough, but when she paired it with Ichijou's absence, she felt increasingly unsettled. Neither had Ichijou sent her as much as a single word of explanation. She'd thought they were close friends, but maybe she was wrong. Did close friends disappear for weeks without explanation? It was almost two weeks since the new semester had started and still neither vampire had returned. If they didn't return soon, she might even become bold enough to demand explanations from Kaname Kuran himself.
It was early and she was just returning from the agency, where once again Shiki hadn't been. Most of the members of the Night Class were probably still asleep. Dusk would be coming soon enough, and Rima hadn't slept at all. Flopping down onto the couch of the common room, Rima covered her face with her arms and groaned. She was tired. More than actual, physical exhaustion, she was tired from the waiting and tired of not knowing where her friends were. Right now, she just wanted to sleep. But, she had class soon, and she should eat something, at least...
The scent of one of the Night Dorm servants disturbed her, and a cheerful voice bade her, "Welcome back, Toya-sama."
Go away. She didn't want to be bothered. Not by anyone. Rolling over to her side, she pressed her face into the couch pillow and attempted to ignore the maid.
"There are actually some guests waiting for you." There was a note of apology in the woman's voice.
Guests? Who would visit her here? Sourly, she calculated it was probably her parents. Were they actually bold enough to come here to propose a match for her? How bothersome... Keen on dismissing them immediately, she started to say, "Right now I'm-"
A familiar voice drifted across the room, causing the words to fall forgotten out of her mouth mid-sentence. "Rima-chan. I'm back."
Her eyes snapped open. That voice..! Her nose picked up Ichijou's scent immediately, but Shiki's... There was something strange. Something wrong. Sitting up, her eyes fumbled, found the pair descending the stairs. They'd come back while she was gone. Without a word, without...without anything.
She frowned as they approached. Ichijou's expression was...off. Something wasn't right. She was finally seeing her old friend again, but the vice president wasn't smiling. Instead, there was a tension lurking beneath his features, and an equally unknown expression gracing Shiki's. Something almost predatory had taken over the set of his mouth.
"Shiki-kun...what have you been doing?" She strove to keep her voice even, even as she felt her pulse spike anxiously.
He shrugged. "I had to do something. But, more importantly..." His hand touched the back of the sofa as he leaned over her, entirely unrecognizable in demeanor. Even his voice sounded different. Lower, more confident, and almost commanding. "I'm really hungry," he murmured, locking her with a voracious stare that jolted through her system. What...? Shiki was really scaring her right now. This wasn't like him. What was going on...? An icy chill crept down her spine, one vertebrae at a time.
Glancing at Ichijou, she saw that he was staring at the floor, mouth turned down in an expression she had never seen before. Swallowing down her anxiety, she turned her attention back to the person before her. One of his eyes was brown, quickly darkening to a dull crimson, hungry red while the other remained grayish blue. What had happened during the break? Was this really...Shiki? There was something revolting about his scent right now...something powerful...something...but she couldn't put her finger on what that something was.
"Hey, Shiki-kun...your eyes... What happened?" she challenged, golden eyebrows jutting down to mark her confusion.
He smirked, and she caught a glimpse of sharpened fangs. Those eyes, slowly picking over her body, settling against her neck, paralyzed her with...fear? But she had never been afraid of Shiki before... This feeling, it was almost like the sensation of compulsion she felt when a pureblood issued a direct order. "Something happened," she whispered, suddenly sure. Something, but what? Her mind was tangled, knotting up even more as Shiki abruptly leaned forward, reaching for her. Her limbs felt numb, frozen solid beneath that strangely potent gaze. Should she refuse, or let him take what he wanted? Did he really need it that much? He had never asked for her blood like this before. Even that night at the dance, he hadn't taken it until she'd insisted rather forcefully. He certainly didn't seem like he'd ever ask for it in front of anyone else. This wasn't like him at all. Not at all. And for the first time in her life, she was stricken with an uncertainty so overwhelming that she couldn't move.
Drawing in a painful breath, Rima felt a surge of resolve return to her. She couldn't let him take her blood here and now like this. Not until she knew what had happened and why he was acting this way. She opened her mouth to refuse just as Ichijou stepped forward, grabbing the mahogany-haired model's arm and stopping him before he could touch her. Plastering a falsely cheerful smile on his face, the vice president said, "Stop playing around, Shiki-kun. Don't we have important things to do?"
That unsettling smirk again. An almost fiendish glance back at her. Or rather, at her neck. And then Shiki shook off Ichijou's arm, striding away back to the staircase. "Yes, we do... Another time, then, Rima-chan." It sounded like a promise. Or...a threat.
"See you later..." Ichijou's voice sounded strained. Then he disappeared up the stairs after her coworker.
As soon as they were gone, Rima slumped back against the couch, heart pounding. What had happened over the break? This...this couldn't be Senri Shiki. But it was, wasn't it? The face was the same, and the body, but...but those horrific eyes, that terrible smile, and worst of all, the oddly repressed scent of the blood she craved... Her hands pressed down tight against the couch cushion, staring after them in disbelief.
Just what was going on?
AN: I think in the manga Rima is already watching over Yuki at this point, but for the purposes of this fic, she'll do that just a little bit later. Also, I really wanted to link this particular possession back with Shizuka's possession of Maria, and how others around her could kind of sense Shizuka as a pureblood even though they didn't know what was going on. (If you remember, Aidou and Zero especially observed this; when she touches Aidou (and Zero) his body responds to it automatically even though he isn't sure why.) I thought it should be the same with Shiki, that Rima would kind of vaguely feel the presence of a pureblood (even without knowing it).
I'm sorry this chapter took so long to get out! This coming weekend, I'll be flying out to visit family and be there a week, so it may be a little while until the next chapter. This definitely goes for the Aidori fic as well, which I'm much slower to work on... (And I do apologize for that). I'll try my best to get some more chapters out soon!
As one final note, I know Rido's eyes are supposed to be more of a red-brown and blue, but I prefer this: one crazy brown eye that keeps slipping to red from his eternal hunger. Makes him even scarier I think.