Alone with You | A Kuroken Vampire Fanfic

Visite Inattendue

Kenma Kozume analyzes the chess set before him. It's a cheap set, bought off the street most likely. The board folds into a carrying case for the pieces, convenient for anyone to simply pick up and take on a walk. He doesn't smile. Not because he doesn't want the gift but... it seems so pointless.

He barely left the house before his father's passing, much less now. Why would he ever need a portable chess set?

Taking it into his hands, feeling the weight, he grimaces. The gift's courier is staring. Waiting for some sort of response so he may tell the sender.

The house staff go about their end of the day tasks, not daring to glance in his direction. He's the heir to his father's fortune, the heir to his title. They probably feel some sort of duty to him, the now-patriarch, because of it. It's a blind respect out of years of servitude, but it was only a month ago that they were bossing him around.

He's still dressed as a kid might be in the summertime⁠—in his shorts and long stockings, with a waistcoat over his shirt instead of a light coat. The weather has been dreadfully hot lately and the townhouse doesn't keep cool all that well. His black mourning garb suffocates him.

"It is a fine gift," he says finally, eyes downcast. The courier stands at his height yet towers over his hunched form.

"Shall I send a message back to Mister Hinata?"

With a curt nod, Kenma turns to leave, not wanting to feel the courier's gaze on him anymore. He tenses as his butler rushes past to show the courier out. The grandfather clock⁠—the centerpiece of the foyer⁠—chimes out the time.

Dinner time has come and passed. Not that Kenma planned on eating, but he would have liked the time to do other tasks. But there was a knock at the door and that courier with this present. No note or letter to go with it. It wasn't even wrapped in parcel paper. One of his old friends, Shōyō Hinata, sent it his way.

Kenma tsks to himself. It's late and it was terribly inconsiderate to send a gift at this hour of the night. The courier didn't even pass on a message. He simply stated who it was from.

Not that he expected much else from Hinata. The always-too-bright young man always knew what to do or say in a bad situation. Perhaps he thought this was the best thing to do in the wake of Kenma's father dying. They had a peculiar relationship in that way; where they'd go many months without speaking outside of the occasional letter. And, when times seemed toughest, they'd somehow find the best way to make everything seem better.

Kenma was actually relieved to see one less face at his father's funeral.

He listens to the idle conversation between his butler and the courier as he makes for the study on the second floor.

His house feels haunted now... or, more than it did in the past. Not because of ghosts⁠—and especially not his father's ghost⁠—rather, the vast emptiness that opened up upon his father's passing. His mother left for the seaside a week after the funeral service, unable to live in the house her husband not only grew up in but refused to leave. He never once visited their villa in the south near Kynance Cove in Cornwall, where his mother now resides. Even with the many issues and the near-constant sickness, he never left this place.

His father died here. And now, it will become Kenma's tomb as well.

Except that his mother refuses to let him wither as his father has. He received a letter just the other day, ordering him to travel south and to grieve away from this awful place. To satiate his mother's need, he will do as he's been asked. It's the best thing he can do at the moment, help her through her grief. To be with her means she won't have to fight the emptiness.