"You don't look like you've been getting enough rest lately..." so gently I barely even felt his hand move across my skin, Kaname brushed his thumb against the spot just below my right eye, indicating the dark circles there. I believed him. His fingers felt so cool against my tired, puffy eyes that I couldn't help but lean into his soothing touch. Cradling my face in his palm, he gently stroked his thumb along my skin.
His eyes are my absolute undoing. There's sweetness, there's warmth. I'd even go so far as to say I saw adoration there. Yet there's so much pain. He's never tried to hide his heart when he looks into my eyes, or when he softly trails his thumb along my jaw. Or whenever he brushes my hair out of my face to get that clear, unobstructed view of me.
Who wouldn't feel vulnerable in the face of such raw, honest emotion. Or such a handsome face.
That he's mine wasn't even a question, not when he's looking at me like that, with those eyes. It's sad, in a way. That look made my heart ache, but I didn't want him to ever stop looking at me. Even if it did hurt.
"Is something wrong?"
Even his voice seemed softer and sweeter whenever he spoke to me, only to me. That Kaname treasured me shouldn't have ever been a question.
I shook my head, physically feeling my heart clench at those desperate words. Kaname was clearly concerned.
"I'm fine, really." forcing a smile is like second nature to me. I know I'm not the only one in the world who feels that way. I shouldn't let it make me feel so guilty. A lot of people lie so as not to cause others undo worry. "I've just been studying a lot, is all. It keeps me up late most nights."
That's an easy enough lie. Of course, it is a lie. I never study. My grades have always reflected that in the past. And Kaname knows me well enough to know that much. I guess my biggest flaw is not at least thinking a lie through before I utter it out.
A silence so heavy hung between us, bringing a familiar awkwardness along with it. I wanted to squirm under his scrutiny, do anything to get out of this conversation, but I did my best to keep that forced smile plastered across my face.
"There's nothing I could do for you?"
I used to rest my head on his chest, just so I could listen to the sound of his heart beating right in my ear and feel his warmth against me. It was like a lullaby, soothing away all my stress. Whenever I wasn't feeling well, Kaname would hold me in his arms, and I would rest my head against his chest, right over his heart. The gentle rhythm would lull me to sleep in no time at all. That, and his fingers running softly through my hair.
I didn't know how much those little moments meant to me until now, now that I couldn't bare the thought of him holding me like that. It was honestly mortifying just thinking about it, being in his arms like that. Would he compare me to a little puppy now in such a scenario? Am I still just a small child to him, when I long to be so much more?
"Really, Senpai, you don't need to worry about me so much." I stepped back, finally pulling myself together, snapping out of the spell his eyes always managed to cast over me. Kaname let his arms drop down to his sides. I ignored the disappointment in my heart at how easily he seemed to go along with my insecurities. After all, I was the one stepping out of his hands. "You actually caught me on my way to getting to bed."
I wish I could quiet my heart, at least when I'm in his presence. I knew he could hear it, my pulse racing uncomfortably, the blood flowing beneath my skin in a frenzied rush. Honestly, it embarrassed me, feeling so obviously hot for him, and not having a clue what he thought about it. I knew he could read me as easily as if I were words on paper, my emotions spelled out plainly for anyone to see. And that only embarrassed me more.
"You used to let me comfort you. When did it change, I wonder?"
Maybe he's just comfortable in his own skin, or maybe he just enjoys teasing me like this, by bringing up how close we used to be in the past. I don't know what it is that makes it so easy for him to be able to say such embarrassing things like it's nothing. He's never hesitated to call me out on a lie before now. But, for whatever reason, he just left it at that.
Turning his back on me, Kaname left without saying anything else.
That hurt.
When normally he would walk me home, hold my hand, at least bid me goodnight...
Yeah, that definitely hurt.
When did we get so awkward?
He could ask me that all he wanted to and my answer would never change. But, it's his fault that we're like this. It's his fault that I'm like this. After all, Kaname was the one who drew this invisible line between us. That line. The line that stated so clearly, so perfectly, painfully clear; we are different. I knew that. It was burned into my brain that we could never get closer than what we already are.
My brain knew that, but my heart refused to accept it.
It was that very first and only time I ever saw him drinking blood. When I close my eyes, I can still see it so clearly as if it happened yesterday; see him clutching Ruka's limp and barely conscious body against his own. Even back then I was always longing for him to embrace me like that, to wrap me up in his arms and never let go.
His eyes, they were as red in that moment as the blood that was smeared across his perfect, plump lips. I thought, in that moment, that he looked very scary, he looked like someone that I didn't recognize, and the facade fell away, as if it were paper-thin, something so weakly constructed that nothing could hold the illusion together, not even years worth of memories and love. All my ideals of him and delusions of the world were shattering right before my eyes into dust, just from that blood red moment.
It felt as if it shaped me.
Strangely enough, I found myself thinking, why her? Even all the way back then I was jealous. From that very first moment, he offered me his hand, that snowy night he saved my life so many years ago, it felt like he was mine. Even all those years ago, I felt that overwhelming possessiveness of him that drowns me even now. It still feels like he is mine and mine alone even though he has never once belonged to me...
It hurts, just being near him hurts so much it feel like my heart is being crushed.
We were so different after that one specific moment. Subconsciously, I touched him less and less after that, until the only time I was touching him at all was in my dreams.
And the distance between us continued to grow until he felt like a stranger.
It was like a part of my heart broke after that night, the night I first saw him drinking blood, the night I finally realized that he really was a vampire. I didn't understand it at the time, and I didn't want to address it, so I simply locked that part of my heart away. I just tried to ignore the hurt I was feeling inside while I focused on all the other things that were going on around me. I didn't want to have to admit to myself that he and I were far too different, too different to ever end up together, even though I knew that I was desperately in love.
I didn't want to admit that I was feeling jealous, so disturbingly jealous. Feeling jealous of someone like her felt inhuman and wrong.
Feeling inhuman was terrifying.
It was overwhelming. It made my chest ache even now. And it still keeps me up at night whenever I think about it, his lips against her neck. It was maddening. Sometimes, I would catch Kaname looking at me from across the room, and I can't help but glance quickly away, remembering that look he had on his face when Ruka's blood painted his mouth.
Frustrating as it is, I don't think I'm the type of person who can help but get jealous over something like that.
Maybe that's why doing something like this with Zero felt like some sort of escape from those painful memories. That I could just tilt my head back, close my eyes, and let him have his way with me until my thoughts dissolved into a void of nothingness. Perhaps, if he drank enough, I could forget that night completely. Maybe, things could go back to the way they used to be.
We had talked about it back then—Zero and I—about what I had seen that night. But his only assurance to me was that something like that was obvious and bound to happen. 'They're beasts', he had said this firmly, bluntly, attempting to sear it into my head so that I would never forget. It was an absolute given to Zero that I would come across Kaname doing that sort of thing sooner or later.
And it was cruel. His words were cruel, and they cut me down so deeply into my heart. The maw opened up even wider than ever before, and I fell into it like a pit of black despair.
Sometimes, I pretend he feels just as tormented by his own thoughts as I am, just as haunted by his own feelings and desires, just so I don't feel so alone. I like to pretend that he lies awake at night and thinks about me, dreams about me so vividly it's as if I'm right there at his side.
Just as I do him.
So maybe that way, maybe, we don't seem so different, maybe we won't seem so far apart.
That question, it never matters how he poses it, it always stabs into my heart so painfully. Again, I'm reminded of that night I saw him drinking her blood.
Ruka.