Another Drabble Wannabe.
Shattered Iridescence.
Zeki goodness. No real warnings.
Prompt - Silk.
- the soft, lustrous fiber obtained as a filament from the cocoon of the silkworm.
oOo
For as long as she could remember she loved the presents he sent her. Always beautiful, finely crafted and impossible to recreate. There was never a set time that one of these presents would arrive. They just appeared every so often; usually around a birthday, Christmas, or just out of the blue. She cherished each and every one of them and each one had a special place of their own. All because Kaname-sama gave them to her.
And if she pressed her face to them she could always smell a little of his scent lingering.
As usual she was completely overwhelmed with happiness when she found a small, silver package sitting in the centre of the living room when she came down for breakfast one morning. The chairman smiled at her reaction as he always did and bustled off to make them a, new 'special' breakfast. Yuuki couldn't bring herself to be apprehensive about that; not with one of Kaname's presents waiting for her attention.
Every nerve tingled with pleasure as she kneeled down and stared at the package shimmering in the early morning light. Her tiny, alabaster pale fingers drifted delicately across the paper in a smooth, almost reverent movement. Pressing down lightly she prodded the present and placed her ear close to it, listening. Whatever was inside was soft and gave way to her pushes.
That provoked her curiosity.
So much so that she completely forgot about the other person in the house. The silver haired boy that she woke every morning with excited chatter while bouncing on his bed. He would always grumble and push her off onto the hard, wooded floor, but she saw the tiny smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth when she leapt back up to steal his covers. A wrestling match would always ensue afterwards and he never failed to pin her morning after morning.
Zero would always roll back over and pull the pillow over his head. If it was a cold, dark morning sometimes she would crawl in with him and lie close to his side until he kicked her out for getting too close or pressing her cold feet to his warm legs. He really hated that.
As revenge for being kicked out the second time she would pull open the massive, midnight blue curtains and allow the morning light to flood in and irritate him more. He would always get up after that and she would leave him for a minute while he changed clothes and then they would trudge downstairs to the strange smells of some new concoction the chairman had made.
She would draw her chair closer to his and he would give her his slippers or socks when he saw her feet were getting too cold again.
This morning he woke up without the usual feminine voice and irritating nudges he was so used to. That would have probably been welcome except for the fact that he could not hear another sound in the entire house. Irrational fear bubbled up inside him and he had thrown off his covers within seconds. His thoughts lost all sense as the tangy smell of her blood reached his senses.
Deceptively sweet at first - drawing in like a siren's call - followed by an incomparable bitterness - the guilt, the realisation. Like a grapefruit; sweet until you were too far gone to spit it out. Her - sweet - blood - past - his - lips -running - down - his - throat.
The blood lust passed a few moments later when he crammed it down and reminded himself that he wasn't like them. He would never allow himself to become like them. Zero sprinted down the stairs two at a time before he caught sight of her. Fine, untouched and unhurt. A spray of bright, silver wrapping paper littered the floor around her and the... Blood. The blood was only a tiny cut; a paper cut none the less.
"Zero?" She looked up from the mountain of platinum wrapping paper and cream coloured crepe paper with her usual smile firmly in place.
When he saw concern light up in her eyes he moved forward to sit near her. Not too close, but not that far away that it would seem strange. The tag was written in a curling script in a pitch black ink. Waves of a strange scent came from both the paper and the present and it repelled him. The cool sweetness was all too familiar and the cloying edge to the scent choked him. He knew what she was going to say before she even opened her mouth.
"Kaname-sama sent me these."
Those words had a strange effect on him. It was almost like he was drowning.
And she didn't even notice.
oOo
A pair of milky white gloves lay nestled among the wrappings. The lush, smooth fabric slid through her fingers like liquid silk. On closer inspection she realised it was silk.
Thick and beautiful; creamy white. The edges were rimmed with white lace; delicate and perfect. Her breath caught in her throat as an equally beautiful scarf fell out onto her lap. Tiny, embroidered snowflakes were sewn into the fabric. The work was so skillful that she felt she could almost reach out and feel the cold crystals against her fingers.
She was careful not to touch the fabric with her bloody finger. The wrappings had cut her slightly when she handled them carelessly.
When she looked up Zero was watching her with calm eyes, his skin was paler than normal and his breathing was slightly irregular. Mind full of her cut finger she leaned forward and pressed her hand to his forehead. Heated, clammy skin met her touch. She rocked back on her heels and looked at him closely. The heightened temperature, slight colour in his cheeks...
If only she knew it was her blood prompting this reaction.
He closed his moonstone eyes as though he was in pain.
"Zero, you're sick!" He almost flinched when he heard those words spill from her mouth. She was up in seconds, rocketing towards the kitchen in search of the thermometer and a cool cloth.
The silk scarf and gloves were left on the floor, all but forgotten. Would it be wrong to feel happy about that? A tiny amount of her blood had wiped onto his hand and he couldn't resist it. It tasted sinfully sweet, and dark - drenched in sin. He hated himself for tasting her essence.
For liking it.
She came back in with her arms bundled with medical related things. He watched her carefully and deliberately kept his gaze away from her cut finger.
"Zero is more important than the present." Yuuki pushed the thermometer in his mouth and he silently resigned himself to a day with her hanging over him. A day with her constantly taking his temperature and force feeding him soup.
So maybe it felt more like he was treading water than drowning in it. Because she might has well have said that she liked him better.
And that wiped the bitter sweet taste of her blood from his mouth.