Rare (Vampire Knight)

Chapter 32

She slammed her hand down on the strings, keeping it from making anymore noise and she gave him a sharp look, "That's all this is to you; I'm disobedient because I'm unhappy, or I'm disobedient because I'm too happy, too comfortable. Kaname, I'm fine, I just don't like being told what to do and you know that. I do try and obey, I do, but that makes me more unhappy than anything else. I don't like having to be hidden. I can understand why you'd continue to hide away Yuki, I get that, but that doesn't mean that I like it. Yuki has been hidden since she was born, I wasn't. The vampire world doesn't know about her, but they know about me. There's no point in keeping me hidden, keeping me caged because I can't live like that. I won't. I'm sorry."

She placed the guitar gently down on the ground and heaved a heavy sigh, feeling a lot lighter now that she had gotten all of that off her chest. She ran her hair through her hair, pushing it out of her face and looked up at Kaname who looked down at her with a strangely unreadable emotion. She didn't like not suddenly being able to read him. She stood up, looking around the room, "I know you're just trying to protect us, but I'm not a helpless child, Kaname. I can protect myself. I'm only here because you asked me to be here... and because my dad doesn't want me home alone at the villa all the time. But please know that I am a person who doesn't like to be kept inside when it's not my own choice."

After a couple of seconds of tense silence, Kaname nodded, an apologetic look on his face, "You're right, Charlotte, I can't keep you hidden and you're not some fragile piece of glass. I just... you're so reckless and I worry about your wellbeing. I understand that you were on your own for so long and you are perfectly capable of taking care of yourself, it's not you, it's the people out there with ill intentions for you." He ran his own hand through his hair, pushing his fringe out of his face. "You don't have to apologise, I'm the one who should be. I'm sorry, Charlotte, for trying to keep you caged. But... can at least take Shane out with you when you go outside? Just take someone with you when you go, I won't have to worry so much then."

She gave him a genuine smile, one he hadn't seen in such a long time, the light of her smile reaching her dark blue eyes. She gave a tiny laugh, the sound like music to his ears. She walked over to him, patting his shoulder, "It wouldn't matter, you'll be there anyway. I know you send a piece of you to look after me when I'm gone, I just pretend I don't notice the cat... or you familiar presence that it emits. Although, I was quite surprised to see the cat, I thought you can only have bats and a wolf as familiars. But, I honestly shouldn't have been surprised."

"I'm curious to see what your familiar's would be. Bats no doubt, you've already showed that one and I know you would have more than one familiar," he said, following her as she walked out of the room and down the corridor towards her room. "You should go with Hanabusa and Yuki in the drawing room. Just to... help him teach her? I don't expect you to learn anything, I don't know why I thought it a good idea to have you take lessons as well. You are done with schooling and such."

"They're in the drawing room?" She asked, halting in her walking, looking down the corridor that the drawing room was in. When he nodded, she gave him a thumbs up before walking away from him towards the room and he watched her leave, his eyes on her back. He frowned, not believing her sudden happy act.

She walked quietly down the corridor, not bothering to knock on the door when she came to the door and she just walked right in, seeing that it was only Yuki inside the room and she sighed with content as she had her eyes closed, "It's so quiet... I can smell the snow outside. Oh, yeah... it'll be one year soon." Charlotte closed the door behind her and walked farther into the room to sit in the chair in front of the girl, causing her to open her eyes and she smiled at her. "Oh, hey, Charlotte... sorry about earlier..."

Charlotte returned the smile, "No, it's okay." She waved it off, Charlotte's reaction had allowed Yuki to relax a bit. "But... what does sound have to do with your sense of smell?" She had an amused look on her face and she laughed at Yuki's confused expression, not quite understanding what she was talking about. But then it hit her, the girl crying out 'you heard?!' and her face grew a bright red and she smiled sheepishly.