"Will you stop that?!" Hanabusa growled and smacked away the popcorn kernel that Charlotte had thrown at him. He glared at her for a couple of seconds before returning his eyes back to the paper he was reading. "I'm busy."
"The research is solid, Hana. I think it's time you took a break and had a nap or something," Charlotte said, getting up from her seat on the couch in Kaien's house and walking into the kitchen where Hanabusa was sitting at the table. She pulled out the chair beside him, making sure that the legs scraped obnoxiously against the tiled floor to make a God awful screeching sound that caused her brother to wince.
"No, I don't think it is..." he muttered with his eyebrows furrowed together. "The Rh levels in some of the tablets don't seem right..." He leafed through some of the papers before Charlotte took them from him. "Hey!"
"You're thinking too much into this." She kept the papers out of his reach and didn't even bother to glance at them. "The majority of the blood that is in these tablets and what is synthesised in them is mine and Yuki's blood. She and I have given a lot of our blood to produce these tablets to counteract the ones that Sara put out that are still causing problems today. There is far more vampire blood in these tablets than there is human. We vampires don't have blood types, and to put it simply, vampires are, for the most part, Rh negative. So, of course, the fucking Rh levels are going to be wonky."
He looked at her in silence for a few seconds. He saw that her hand was flat on the papers, but she didn't look like she cared much about them. He did. It had all of the chemicals of the blood tablets written down on them. It had statistics and chemical breakdowns and insights to how these tablets were different than the ones in the past. It showed that the ones that had Yuki and Charlotte's blood inside were the ones that vampires benefitted from the most, perhaps even more than they would with fresh human blood.
"But-"
Charlotte's voice was firm, "'But' nothing. I have looked over these results and gone over the research a dozen times before it even reached you. The strange Rh levels are explainable; the plasma, both human and vampire, is flawlessly infused. The haemoglobin is perfect; the results are wonderful."
Reluctantly, Hanabusa tore his eyes away from her and clicked his tongue with annoyance, "If you had given me a little more time with those papers, you wouldn't have had to waste your time to reassure me. I'll take your word for it since you seem to always be right."
She rolled her eyes, "Don't be bitter, Brother. I only told you because it looked like it was stressing you out, and now is not the time for you to be stressed out. Everything seems to be fine. I have already given the order to keep doing trials and observations, so the moment that anything becomes adverse, the production of the tablets will be halted and we'll go back to the drawing board."
Hanabusa found it strange how she was always able to calm him. He found it strange that he felt an odd sense of relief coming to him as he listened to her words. Her tone was casual, nonchalant, and she really did seem like she didn't put much thought into this crisis with the blood tablets. However, he knew that she was just as diligent in researching newer and better tablets now just as much as he was.
With a heavy sigh, he said, "Fine. Fine. I'll stop fussing over the research since you seem to have everything under control, I guess. When did you even have to time to go and do that? You've been with Takuma twenty-four seven for the last week, I only saw you without him once." He looked at her for a few seconds before he looked around, "And where is Takuma?"
She shrugged, "He went to go and clear some stuff up on the business end of things–just cleaning up the mess that Sara made. I even wrote him a letter explaining the situation and circumstances, as well as wiring some money to him to give to them."
"He has his own money."
"Yeah, but it looks better coming from me, who was against Sara in the first place. Had he offered to give them his own money, it would seem like he was paying to keep his name out of things─almost like bribing them to forgive him."
Hanabusa rose an eyebrow, "And you giving them money makes it any different?"
Losing a little of her patience, she said, "Yes, Hana. It is. You are technically now the head of the family, which means you are in charge of the assets and the businesses that were in Father's care, how do you not know this? The Ichijo family has now been seen as incompetent and easily swayed since Sara was controlling Takuma, but to have me, an Aido, someone from a family that is known to be strong-willed─and being a pureblood helps because it is unlikely that I'd be swayed to do anything 'wrong'─is willing to clean up to mess and give compensation, and showing that Takuma is in my good graces, that really says something. Takuma's name has been tainted because of Sara, so my 'forgiving' him and willing to pay for everything has a lot of weight."
Hanabusa rolled his eyes. He had never been interested in what he would inherit at the death of their father. He didn't care about being a businessman or being the one that people in the family came to for strength because they couldn't find their own and instead needed him to lend them his. None of that interested him, and had, in fact, annoyed him when his father had begun to teach him what it meant to be the head of the family. It seemed to him that being the patriarch of the Aido family was almost like being a therapist.
Hanabusa clicked his tongue with irritation, "You should have been the head of the family, not me."
"Stop moping about and come shopping with me, yeah?"
-
The only reason Hanabusa agreed to go shopping with his sister was because he thought they were going to go the shops in town. But he was wrong. He ended up accompanying her on a two-hour car ride to the nearest city because she liked the stores there better. He had to admit that they suited to her taste in clothing much more than the shops in the town, but the fact that there were more clothing stores and they were bigger made him cringe and regret his decision.
He just hoped that Charlotte would take pity on him and not shop for very long.
"That is the eighth dress that you've tried on since we've come into this store," Hanabusa muttered with very slight irritation seeping into his voice. He was sitting on a couch next to another man in the same boat as he was. Charlotte and some other woman─probably the one who dragged the man out─were standing in front two intricately designed tri-fold, body-length mirrors.
"And this is the eighth dress that has caught my attention," Charlotte hummed with a patience that he wished he had at the moment. She was examining her figure in the mirror and her doing this really gave him some insight on her. She was always very confident, wore just about anything that appealed to her, and he now realised that she only had that confident because she knew that she looked good in what she was wearing. She never bought anything blind to how she would actually look with it on.
The man beside him snorted, "Women." Hanabusa looked over to him with a curious, yet annoyed look. The man saw the movement and turned to look at him as well. Lazily, he gestured toward Charlotte, "That your girl? You struck gold, mate. You don't find fine looking women like that often." He whistled for effect and shook his head as he looked away from Hanabusa to latch his eyes onto Charlotte with an almost hungry gaze as his eyes trailed over her body.
Hanabusa's irritation spiked, as well as a familiar protectiveness welling up inside of him and he said through grit teeth, "That's my sister, mate. And she already has a boyfriend."
Oblivious to Hanabusa's almost murderous gaze, the man harrumphed, "Lucky chap, then."
He was still gazing at her and Hanabusa was going to say something, but Charlotte interrupted his planned verbal assault to say, "I'm going to buy the dresses and then we can leave the shop. Was there anything you needed?"
"Yeah," he muttered, "need to get the hell out of here." He watched her roll her eyes, hearing his words, and he scowled at her as she turned and headed back for the change rooms.
"You guys must be loaded to afford more than one of these fucking dresses. My girl is trying stuff on and has to choose wisely since she could barely afford one," the man sneered loud enough for the girl still examining herself to hear. "And it doesn't make any fucking difference which dresses she chooses. There's nothing really for her to show off."
Hanabusa caught the woman's expression in her reflection. She grimaced, her eyes cast down to the image of her body in the mirror. She had looked almost relaxed before, but now she looked stiff and uncomfortable after his words.
"Why do her choices in dresses matter?" Hanabusa asked, trying to keep his voice level through his irritation. He hated when all people cared about were looks. Being a creature of beauty really allowed him to see beauty in things other than someone's face. He was constantly surrounded by beautiful people and so seeing someone with a pretty face really didn't entice him and most of the time he was indifferent to the faces and couldn't really see the 'pretty', but rather appreciated its usual symmetry. "She may be buying the dress to please you, and the simple fact that she is doing anything for you at all should be enough. Or she may be buying the dress for herself to make her feel good because there's always some asshole like you to bring her down for no reason other than the fact that you aren't secure with yourself."
Hanabusa stood from the couch, glared down at the man as he glared up at him, and he walked towards the checkout counter. He had the scowl on his face still as he approached the woman behind the till. She greeted him with a smile, one that he, unfortunately, couldn't return at the moment.
He pulled his wallet out from his pocket and then his card from his wallet. The woman looked at him confused, but Charlotte soon joined him to place the dresses on the counter for the woman to scan, and she did this happily.
Hanabusa gave her his card before Charlotte could take out her own and he said, "For these dresses and for whatever that woman who is looking at herself in the mirror gets." Hesitantly, the sales associate took his card from him to swipe it so she could keep the account open for the unknown woman.
After Charlotte's items were bagged and Hanabusa had been given his card back, he and Charlotte were leaving the shop in silence. Hanabusa wasn't known for his altruism, so it surprised her to see what he did. It actually intrigued her and she wanted to ask him about it, but she knew that he was going to brush it off as nothing, so she didn't bother with it and just beamed at him in silence for his choices to be nice.
"Are we done now?" Hanabusa asked as she led him to the limousine that was parked down the street with the chauffeur waiting inside the car. Hanabusa and Charlotte were both carrying her bags and he got almost excited at the thought of them finally leaving.
However, Charlotte simply said, "Not yet. I want to get shoes. Just maybe forty-five more minutes, I promise. You can wait in the car if you'd like?" Seeing them approach out of the rearview mirror, the driver got out of the car and opened the boot. He took the bags from them and neatly and almost intricately placed the bags inside of it so there'd be more space for more bags.
Hanabusa snorted sarcastically, "Wait in the car and miss all of the fun of watching you try on shoes that you won't wear until maybe eight months from now? No way!"
She rolled her eyes, "Okay, come with me then. Maybe I can find you a pair."
"My shoes are fine."
"They're atrocious. You need better-looking ones. Like, what is that strap even for?" She asked, looking down at his shows with disgust as she and he turned away from the chauffeur to head back to the shops to look for a shoe store.
"They're decorations!"
"I've only seen women's boots that have straps as decoration or at the ankle, but never men's boots and to have it on the front and not going around anything. The designer of those shoes and I need to have a talk."
-
Charlotte read several articles on real estate and asked Kaien and Yagari many questions on buying a house. She needed to know how to do and what to look for before she made her decision on buying a house or enlisting an architect to build her one. She had never bought a house before and her father was dead, so she couldn't ask him for advice, and even if he was alive, she still wasn't sure if the Aido residence was bought by him or if he inherited it.
"This is very adult. Do you feel like an adult, Charlie?" Takuma asked lightly as he sat in the driver's seat of the car. He had a smile on his face as his attention was split between her and the road.
"Yes. I imagine this is what Adulting is all about, what it leads up to," she nodded. She was nervous, as they were headed to the first place that was for sale. She had made an appointment to look at a house with a real estate agent that Rima's modelling agent had recommended. "It's a dream to many humans to be able to own their own place one day rather than just renting for the rest of their lives. They work for their houses... I am fortunate enough to already have the money for it and to not have to work at all. And I'm spoilt, so I'm just taking advantage of the privilege of being filthy rich."
"Who knew you could be an adult at eighteen?!" Takuma laughed with mock excitement and bounced in his seat. He agreed to come along with her so they could spend time together and to offer her some support should she need it. He didn't know how the pick houses either, but he supposed that she had gotten some idea of how to do it and would think out-loud enough that he would get the gist of it eventually.
Charlotte laughed and shook her head with amusement. She smiled over at him, "I didn't know that you have a driving licence! I could have been using you as a chauffeur had I known!"
"You already have a chauffeur."
"Yeah, but I could have had a cutie for one─the cutie is you, by the way," she said with a playful eye roll.
He grinned back at her, "Getting to drive around someone as equally cute as me? Sign me right up." She laughed and leant her head on his shoulder. He took one hand off of the steering wheel to pat the top of her head.
"At least you're happily acknowledging that you're cute."
"How can I not?" He shrugged, "Vampires are attractive, and I'm a vampire."
"That you are," Charlotte nodded with a small chuckle. She and he had been explaining vampire beauty to the Prietos the last couple of days. They had gone into one of the shops in town and found that many of the people inside were staring at them, and one of them said something about all of them being 'so beautiful', and that had struck them as odd, especially since they didn't look all that different than they did six months ago.
She and Takuma were explaining their 'supernatural beauty' to them. However, it was just them saying that they now gave off pheromones, along with them having natural beauty from even when they were human. Everything about a vampire attracted a human, from their face to their smell. Vampires were predators, after all, with humans as their prey. Before blood tablets, vampires had to feed on humans, and it helped greatly that humans were attracted to beauty. As well as sweet words, as most vampires had a silver tongue.
Charlotte believed that the beauty that vampires possessed was not their true form. She observed through Kaname's memory and what she had witnessed through waking Alondra, that hibernating purebloods were not as beautiful as they were when they were active. The became beast-like in behaviour and appearance. Their skin was sunken and dried out, their teeth were all sharp and animalistic. Their fingernails were claw-like and their eyes were a horrid murky red that had frightened ever Charlotte when she saw it.
She supposed that that was either all vampire's natural form when going so long without blood, or just the appearance of a pureblood since they couldn't die from starvation. It intrigued her greatly, and she wished to take a look at all slumbering purebloods to see what they looked like and to see if their belief was correct. If they were able to survive such a thing, would all vampires begin to look like the 'beasts' they were when deprived of blood? Was Zero's term of 'beasts in human form' actually true on an anatomical level?
Charlotte was brought from her thoughts when Takuma pulled into the drive of a house very far into the woods. The house was huge, perhaps the same size as the Kuran mansion, but it looked more like a chateau than the Kuran's castle-like mansion. The design was almost intricate and showy, revealing that the residents inside were affluent, more so than the average person living amongst the one percent.
There was an elderly woman waiting by the front door. She had a string of pearls around her neck and a pair of matching earrings. Her hair was almost completely white, but there were still a few strands here and there that held some blonde and reflected off of the sun that was high in the sky. She had a kind smile as she waved at them when Takuma parked the car right in front of her. She wore a light pink pantsuit and pink lipstick to match.
As soon as they got out of the car, she looked surprised as her eyes fell on their young faces. Her words faltered slightly as she said, "My, you are quite young."
Charlotte offered the woman a kind smile, "Yes, I am. I hope that isn't a problem?" She rose a questioning eyebrow at the woman and she quickly shook her head, "Oh, that's great! I was afraid I'd be denied. I really need a home, you see."
"Of course," the woman nodded, the smile returning to her face. Though her happy expression did falter in just the slightest as she looked over Charlotte and Takuma again, the smile stayed strong on her face as she said, "It is not a problem at all. It's just... We never see anyone so young buying any type of home, let alone one that goes for over a million pounds."
Charlotte's smile was like a ray of sunshine, comforting and pleasant, "Well, there's a first for everything, isn't there?"
The woman chuckled and said cheerily, "Why, yes there is. You must come from a very well-off family to be able to afford this on your own." The comment was made absently as she turned around to walk into the house with Charlotte and Takuma following behind her, but the words made Charlotte's smile falter, but it wasn't for a negative reason.
Charlotte seldom interacted with humans, she mainly dealt with vampires, and every vampire knew her and her family. This woman was human and she knew nothing about Charlotte other than her credit was excellent, she was over eighteen and she was interested in a couple houses enough to consider buying one and she had the money for it. She knew nothing of Charlotte's family wealth; she knew nothing of the Aido's influence with their money and status and reputation. This woman was oblivious to the allure the Aido family held or that they even existed.
And Charlotte loved it. The human had no idea who she was, what she could do or her social status. All the woman knew was that Charlotte was a young woman coming to buy her first house, that Charlotte came from a very affluent family to allow her to buy such an expensive home. She was oblivious to vampires and the troubles that their world was currently experiencing.
"This Chateau was built nearly two hundred and fifty years ago. It has eleven bedrooms, each with their own bathrooms and there are three hall bathrooms. There are two stories to this chateau," the woman started immediately as all three of them stepped into the foyer.
Charlotte and Takuma glanced around. The inside simultaneously looked modern and like it had been built around the time the realtor said it was. There were two old wrought iron chandeliers hanging several metres above their heads, but rather than candles, there were light bulbs. The floor inside looked like cobblestone, but it was level. There was a large Persian rug in the centre of the foyer that Charlotte absolutely adored.
"This ground floor has three rooms, the first storey has three as well, and the second storey has five. There is an office on the first storey. This ground floor also houses a library and the chateau comes with all the books that are already in there." The woman led them to the left of the house and Charlotte and Takuma followed along, their eyes scanning around them.
"If you don't mind me asking, Miss Aido, why do you wish to purchase your own place? You're just a babe," the realtor asked politely, turning her head so Charlotte would be able to hear her better. It was an understandable mistake, the woman didn't know she was a vampire or that her hearing was so keen that she could even hear her heart beating in her chest.
Charlotte shrugged, "I have been on my own for quite some time now, and I've been bouncing around in the meantime because I don't have a place. I would like to have a place to call my own... something that I can pass on to my own children when I have them some day. I also like privacy, so these chateaux out in the country seem the best for someone like me─someone who has the money and the desire to have all this room. I also like the history of this place."
The woman beamed, "Oh, you did your research?" By the excitement from the old woman, Charlotte guessed that the woman was going to go over the history of the chateau at some point during the walk through. There would be no need, of course, since Charlotte had already researched everything about the place and all that the building had seen in the near two hundred and fifty years since it had been built.
She nodded with a smile of her own, saying, "Of course. I was curious and I like history. I did my research and fell in love just reading about it, I feel that I don't even really need to see the entire place because my mind already feels made up. This is just more protocol than anything."
The older woman looked to be absolutely ecstatic, a large grin on her face and her grip around a file-folder she was carrying tightened. She flushed, "Oh, that's so good to hear! I don't have to do much work then."
-
Charlotte had a flood of things to sign since she had chosen to buy the chateau, but she was ignoring it for the time being. She had a couple of weeks to get them in, especially since the chateau was pretty obscure and very pricey that whoever else found out about it being on the market most likely couldn't afford it. Charlotte had time to procrastinate.
And that's exactly what she was doing. She and Takuma were walking hand in hand along a market street in a port city. The moon and stars were out, the shops were all open and people were coming in and out of them, going about their business. Some people did coo at the couple, but other than that no one had even noticed them.
"This all feels so... human," Charlotte murmured as she leant her head on Takuma's shoulder whilst they walked. They had been sauntering around the city for a little more than an hour. They had no idea where they were exactly, but neither of them even minded. They felt so at ease, so serene.
"I imagine this is what it feels like to be human, yes," Takuma chuckled. "But how can either of us know? We've never been human."
Charlotte shrugged, "This feels so surreal to me as a vampire, but I imagine this is normal for a human." Her grasp on his hand tightened and she sighed, "Humans get to walk around in the day without side effects. They get to live their biologically short lives carefree most of the time. Well... at least they don't suffer the problems that we vampires face."
"Humans have it easy, don't they?" He hummed and gave her hand a little squeeze back. He sighed as well, and it was a lot more content that Charlotte's was.
She nodded, "They do. They don't live as long as we're capable of, so there can't be much fuss to go on in that short span of time... but us... such things─like what we had just finished─can begin to develop, and it can fester because there's time for it in our lives."
Takuma pinched her cheek, "Since things have calmed down a bit, you've gotten kind of philosophical." His voice was affectionate and he looked down at the top of her head fondly. His heart warmed when he thought of her hand encased in his and her head leaning on his shoulder. The closeness of her and just the mere thought that they could be together now that there was nothing standing in their way of each other.
"I've had time to think," she said carelessly. "I like that I've had time to think. I now have the time to think, the time to... to reflect and observe. I can do this freely rather than doing it to one-up someone or to stay several steps ahead of them."
"Do you not need to stay several steps ahead of Kaname?" Takuma asked quietly.
She shook her head, "No. I am closed off to our world and its turmoils at the moment, but if I really wanted to, I could see what he's up to and what will come of it. I don't want to do that right now. I want a break, so I've shut everything out."
Takuma looked down at her, a surprised look on his face. He hadn't been aware that she was able to 'shut the world out', to block her clairvoyant abilities. However, he supposed that she would eventually learn to do such a thing with her being as powerful as she is. He couldn't think of a single thing that she couldn't do. He marvelled at how nonchalant she had said that she shut out the world as if it was something normal and natural to do.
"You are a wonder, you know that?" Takuma complimented with an affectionate smile on his face.
Charlotte was going to say something, perhaps a thank you, but she stopped before she did. Simultaneously, she and Takuma noticed a woman coming towards them. Her skin was pale, her hair was thin and dirty blonde and she had light brown eyes. She was as tall as Takuma when she came to stand in front of them, but she had on heels that were a couple of inches high.
She bowed to them before handing Charlotte an envelope and Takuma his own. Inside the envelopes were invitations made out of Japanese linen card stock. The colour of the paper was a light bluish-grey. The words on the paper were black, thin and curly. With a little more inspection, Charlotte saw that her invitation was hand written whilst Takuma's was printed. Her invitation also had a butterfly perched on a rose petal at the bottom centre of the paper, also drawn by hand, whereas Takuma had no such drawing.
"These are invitations to Lord Isaya's masquerade in two days. Please read over the invitations and dress accordingly." The woman gave the pair another bow before she turned around and left them almost as quickly as she had come. Takuma was looking down at his invitation and feeling the paper whilst Charlotte looked after the woman.
The stress of words went over Takuma's head, but Charlotte had heard the woman's words clearly and after watching her disappear, Charlotte's eyes scanned over the words. Her invitation was hand written and also had a drawing, but Takuma's was printed and barren of any drawing. Hers was specialised and she supposed that there was a message for her and only her.
After reading the words, Charlotte hummed, "Well, I had to return to the turmoils of our world at some point."
Absently, Takuma asked, "What was that?"
Charlotte plastered a smile on her face, "Nothing, Love. I'll tell you later, let's just continue our walk."
-
Word count: 5,100.