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“So, you let him drink your blood whenever he wants to? Just like that?”
“Sure. All he needs to do is ask for it.”
“Doesn’t it scare you? I mean, as an Archiviste… He could see something he shouldn’t.”
“Not one bit. He can look as much as he wants; I have nothing to hide from him.” Dominique spoke with such conviction that Jeanne’s chest sunk ever so slightly. “Besides, Noé isn’t the type to pry into someone’s memories without their consent.”
“...I see that you two are close.”
“Well, we did grow up together! And we’ve been through a lot together.”
Dominique described their relationship as if it weren’t a big deal, as if two people knowing everything about each other was quite a plain and trivial fact. With each word, Jeanne’s bitterness could only keep growing.
Sure, she was close with Chloé and with her master Luca, but she always found it so difficult to open up to them, even though they were, in a sense, her closest friends. It was only natural that she’d end up envying two childhood friends who were inseparable; siblings in spirit who faced the same hardships and were always there for each other.
Unlike what those two had, Jeanne recollected how she had only been vulnerable in front of Vanitas, a man she had originally stated to despise. In the face of a bond that had been nurtured for years to be genuine and beautiful, with trust so strong it seemed unbreakable, Jeanne could feel nothing but shame. She had nothing akin. No one akin.
Domi looked at how Jeanne’s expression slowly darkened, and tried to lighten the mood with a joke. “Hehe, are you jealous?”
Jeanne became flustered at the accuracy of her statement, and she couldn’t utter a word in response.
Dominique simply gave her a laid back smile. “You can drink my blood too if you want!”
“Really?”
“Yeah! Why not?”
Although that wasn’t exactly what Jeanne envied about those two, she was nonetheless overjoyed to hear such an offer.
“Then, may I?”
Domi undid the first buttons of her shirt and loosened it without saying anything, exposing her neck and welcoming Jeanne to drink from it.
Jeanne answered the gesture walking closer to the chair where Dominique sat waiting for her. It was just the two of them sitting at the tea table on that large garden under the shade of a roof and a few trees, yet the openness of the area still made her feel conscious of whether someone else was watching.
Of course, there was nothing wrong with a vampire drinking her friend’s blood, but it was still an action intimate enough to make Jeanne turn red over doing it in broad daylight. However, she wasn’t about to waste the opportunity.
She got close enough to smell the sweet scent of Dominique’s blood. It was dizzying. She sank her teeth on Domi’s neck and began drinking. Jeanne felt how the other girl’s breathing became irregular as she appeared to be trying not to make a sound, then felt her wrapping her arms around her in a loving embrace. The comforting caresses of her hands on her hair and her waist were so calming, Jeanne felt like she could die then and there.
But she mustn’t.
After being lost in the warmth the black haired girl offered her until she was full, she regained her sense of self and pulled away, feeling guilty that she almost got carried away.
With traces of blood leaking from her mouth, Jeanne tried her best to compose herself and gain the courage to ask, “Miss Dominique, how can I allow myself to become close to someone? How does it happen?”
Jeanne had spent most of her life as a living tool. Once upon a time, she never even considered getting to know other people and becoming close to them. Now, she had Luca, Chloé, Vanitas, and even Noé and Dominique… The people that barged in on her life had made everything seem far more complicated, since the foreign, warm feelings that they brought with them felt so new to her.
It was all too confusing. Even so, she was willing to see things through to the end. Those feelings, although strange, were in fact rather fulfilling.
“Well… All people with close bonds begin as strangers at some point.” Dominique stated as she wiped the blood spilling from her neck and fixed her shirt. “Just take it easy, these things take time.”
Jeanne looked down as she thought things through.
Seeing her uncertainty, Domi took her hand and spoke once more in a lightheartedly mocking tone to reassure her, “Luckily we have a lot of time! We’re vampires, after all, haha...”
When Jeanne gazed at Dominique’s eyes, a pair of gorgeous golden irises stared back at her. Those eyes carried that dreaded warmth Jeanne was still not used to, and one look at them reminded Jeanne of other equally kind gazes; eyes that had countless times told her that she wasn’t a tool anymore.
But it was not just that. In Dominique’s eyes, Jeanne also caught a glimpse of concern yet tranquility; weakness yet strength; doubt, yet sincerity.
Jeanne found that those eyes reminded her of her own.
And so, looking at the person in front of her made her feel hopeful, as if everything was going to be alright. That way, Jeanne was able to smile as she knew she had the right to.