Chapter Text
Leo visits only on the darkest of nights, when the moon is still in its earliest phases and only a sliver of its form is visible. His arrival is always heralded by the sound of leathery wings beating against the still evening air, followed by the sharp gust that surges through Takumi’s open window.
Takumi pulls his yukata tighter around himself to brace against the chill as he watches a pair of impeccably waxed black leather shoes land with a gentle tap atop his windowsill. He glares up as Leo’s tall, lithe figure sweeps into his room, black traveling cloak billowing behind him before coming to rest just an inch above the hardwood floor.
“Would it kill you to try being just a little quieter?” Takumi grumbles.
Leo quirks an eyebrow up at that and sweeps some imaginary dust from his shoulders. “There’s no need to fuss. I’ve yet to garner any attention from either your family or the town residents.”
“Oh, really?” Takumi retorts. “Is that why my mother asked me last week if I’ve been secretly feeding my sister’s kinshi out of my window?”
Leo lets out a sound of exasperation at that. “There’s really no way of flying quietly, you know. Also, you actually do feed your sister’s kinshi out of your window.”
“Well, it’s your funeral if you get caught,” Takumi concedes with a huff, ignoring the accusation with a staunch determination.
“I’m quite capable of taking care of myself, thank you,” Leo replies. He steps forward, only to pause when the heel of his boot clicks against the floor. Quietly, and with a trace of sheepishness in the way he looks down, he removes his shoes and places them by the window.
“Oh, look. He’s finally learning his manners.”
Leo narrows his eyes and curls his lip in distaste, exposing a hint of a sharp, pearly white fang. “I didn’t come here to waste time indulging in pointless banter with you.”
“Actually, I didn’t invite you here in the first place, yet here you are,” Takumi counters. Still, he crosses to the other side of the room and, from a tall bookshelf resting against the wall, pulls out a gridded board carved from cherrywood along with a container of wooden chips painted with various characters.
He places the shogi set atop the low square table in the center of his room and motions towards Leo, only to see that the other has already seated himself on one of the cushions and is watching expectantly.
With an amused huff, Takumi takes his own seat across from him and begins placing the shogi pieces in their designated starting positions. “Someone’s eager.”
“I’ve mastered the maneuvers you taught me the last time we faced off,” Leo says. “I expect an effortless win on my part during tonight’s match.”
Takumi snorts. “It’s going to take a lot more than a couple of novice-level tactics to beat me.”
“Hmph. We’ll see about that,” is all Leo replies, and the match begins.
To Leo’s credit, he lasts a good several moves longer than he had all the previous games, but the match still concludes with a complete victory for Takumi. Predictably, this provokes a demand for a rematch from Leo, and then several more after that, but none of them end in his favor.
“You know, just because you’re not winning, it doesn’t mean you’re not improving,” Takumi says placatingly as he gathers the pieces back into their container after winning for the twelfth time and refusing to play a thirteenth match.
Leo scoffs, cheeks blotted red with frustration. “Don’t patronize me.”
“I’m just being honest,” Takumi says with a shrug. He picks the shogi board up, then pauses. “You know, if you want to get better faster, you could take a board home and practice with your siblings.”
“No, thank you,” is Leo’s near-immediate, though not unkind response. “Having something like that in my possession is bound to raise questions amongst my family members.”
“Right...we’ll keep it to just the books, then.”
“A smart course of action. Speaking of the books…” Leo’s hand disappears beneath his cloak, then reappears a moment later holding a thick, leather bound book. “I finished this one just last night.”
Takumi takes it from him. “How was it?”
“Hm...my opinions on it are somewhat mixed,” Leo admits. “While the story itself was intriguing and very cleverly crafted, I found the writing to be so insubstantial that it was difficult to immerse myself completely.”
“Fair enough,” Takumi says. “This author is a good storyteller, but his artistic sense is a bit lacking.”
“I can’t say I would be terribly interested to see what his other works have to offer,” Leo says with a light, somewhat snobbish sniff.
Takumi chuckles as he rises to his feet and makes his way across the room again. After stowing the returned book and his shogi board, he takes a moment to glance through his collection of other books before choosing one from the center shelf and bringing it over.
“How about this one?”
Leo inspects the calligraphy on the cover. “A history book?”
“It’s closer to an anthology of all the major cultural transformations that have happened throughout Hoshido’s history,” Takumi explains. “I think the writing style is really engaging.”
“I see...I haven’t read much of Hoshidan history before.”
Takumi nods in understanding. “There aren’t a lot of records left, since Hoshido technically doesn’t exist anymore. Oh, but...that’s a first edition volume, so try to be careful with it.”
“I’ll see that no harm comes to it while it’s in my care,” Leo promises with a wry smile as he rises to his feet in a single graceful movement. “I suppose you ought to get some rest.”
Leo makes his way towards the window and braces a hand on the window sill. His cloak ripples behind him, as if it is alive, and Takumi spots the glow of the magic runes embroidered onto the underside before the fabric splits and reshapes itself against Leo’s back in the form of two black, spindly wings.
“Hey,” Takumi says, stopping him for a moment. “When you get bored of learning about humans...are you going to stop coming here?”
A few seconds pass as Leo gazes out the window as though in contemplation before glancing over his shoulder to reply, “Only if you find me to be a hindrance.”
“Well, I do,” Takumi says, then regrets how harshly that had come out. He fidgets slightly with the hem of his sleeve as he amends his answer. “I mean...only sometimes. You’re all right other times.”
At that, Leo lets out a quiet huff of laughter. “I’ll do my best to stay on your good side, then. Goodnight, Takumi.”
Takumi barely gets his reply out before a heavy gust of wind spills into the room and, with a flap of his wings, Leo takes off into the air and disappears into the inky blackness of the night.
-:-
“Since time immemorial, vampires have been the natural enemy of the human race, by virtue of being the sole species to stand above us on the food chain. For millennia, humans have sought ways to protect themselves from extinction at their hand, either through evolution or through technological means…”
Takumi stifles a yawn as he tunes out his tutor Yukimura’s droning lecture, his gaze drifting out the open window of the manor’s tea room and towards the courtyard. The cherry blossoms will be in bloom soon, judging by the thin slivers of pale pinks and whites peeking out of their buds due to the unusual warm draft that had swept in at the end of the winter season.
Perhaps it would be a good time to take Leo cherry blossom viewing, he thinks, though he’s not sure how impressive it would look in the middle of the night.
“Lord Takumi, are you listening?”
Takumi snaps to attention at the sound of his name, looking up quickly at Yukimura. “I am,” he replies hastily. “You were talking about the history between humans and vampires.” Which I’ve read about only a million times by now.
“Indeed.” Yukimura clears his throat and adjusts the small, round spectacles resting atop his nose. “Despite the power they wield, many of the Nohrian vampires have chosen to go into hiding in recent years since the decline in their population following the second Hunter’s Crusade--”
“Master Yukimura, have you ever met a vampire before?”
Yukimura blinks, looking a little taken aback by the interruption--or perhaps by the question itself. “I...have not, no. Many of our generation, hunters and civilians alike, have not come into contact with vampires before.”
“Do you think you’d be scared if you came face to face with one?” Takumi asks.
“It would be natural to fear those which hunt your kind, so yes. I believe I would,” Yukimura replies. He clears his throat and takes a moment to regain his composure. “I hope I’ve satisfied your curiosity on the matter, Lord Takumi. Now, continuing on to the dissolution of the Nohrian and Hoshidan Kingdoms as a direct consequence of the Crusades…”
Takumi’s attention immediately strays again. He admits to himself (though he never would to anyone else) that a part of him tends to be on edge whenever Leo is around, but that makes him wonder--have vampires grown to fear humans too?
The second Hunter’s Crusade was ruthless; Takumi grew up on stories of what essentially amounted to mass exterminations of entire Nohrian vampire clusters, and even whole villages where humans and vampires resided together. Self-preservation is one thing, but Takumi wouldn’t be surprised if the vampires had also made themselves scarce out of a genuine fear of the creatures they’d always assumed to be their prey.
Then again, Takumi recalls that Leo never actually seems nervous when he visits. He is cautious, always, but otherwise he’s only ever projected utter conceit. In a strange way, thinking about it makes Takumi want to see Leo again. From the day they met, Leo has done nothing but contradict every preconception Takumi had about him and vampires in general--it’s difficult not to be curious about someone who is constantly proving you wrong.
Takumi watches as a soft, quiet breeze lifts some loose cherry blossom petals from their branches, sending them dancing about the courtyard, and counts the days until the next new moon.