Rare (Vampire Knight)

Chapter 34

Charlotte placed the book on top of Yuki's head, frowning when it went to slide off, but she caught it and gently pushed at the small of her back and shoulder blades, signalling for her to stand straighter─stand to her full height, which was only about an inch taller than when she was slouching. The girl blushed as Charlotte had done so, but Charlotte gave a reassuring smile as she placed the book on her head once again, "Okay. What you're going to do is walk up and down the stairs without causing the book to fall, alright?"

"Okay," Yuki gave a curt nod and slowly turned her body, her movements almost agonisingly slow and cautious as she turned towards the stairs. Charlotte flinched when she noticed the girl was wearing a pair of high heels. Charlotte took in deep breaths along with Yuki, preparing herself for the possibility that she would probably have to save the girl when she would inevitably trip on the stairs.

Charlotte chewed on her bottom lip as she watched Yuki steadily make her way down the stairs, talking quietly to herself; giving herself bits of encouraging praise. For a couple of peaceful seconds, everything was going great and Charlotte's racing nervous heart was beginning to calm down and she thought everything was going to be okay. But then she realised that the clumsy girl was barely beginning to go down the stairs and still had the rest of the way to go.

Charlotte saw the mistake in her footing before Yuki even experienced the unfortunate mistake. The brunette miscalculated her steps and she lost her balance, the book falling off her head as her body was about to topple forward. But she caught herself quickly and used the rest of her footing to push off the stairs, using both her strength and her natural vampire grace to land on the ground at the bottom of the stairs before the book that had fallen off her head had landed.

"A graceful and flawless landing!" Yuki praised herself when her feet hit the ground with a soft clack of her heels. She looked back at Charlotte with a smile and the pink haired girl couldn't help but smile at her. Nothing ever really seemed to faze Yuki, or that the girl was conscious enough to push away her pain so others didn't see.

"If only your walking was as graceful as that landing," Charlotte chuckled and began to walk down the stairs, picking up the book on her way down. She could feel Yuki's eye roll and she smiled, her eyes meeting Kaname's as he approached with a fond smile as he looked down at Yuki before looking up at Charlotte with a thankful look in his reddish brown eyes.

"Yuki, you're really working hard on those exercises Ruka and Charlotte gave you." He looked down at her fondly, reaching out this his slim fingers to caress her cheek. Yuki smiled brightly at him.

"Yeah, I don't really get how to be elegant... I'm trying pretty hard in any case, though. But it's fine, I'm confident enough that I can at least avoid doing any blunder that might get people laughing at you, Oniisama." Yuki didn't look the least bit worried and Charlotte smiled at that, she didn't want the girl to stress on anything when it came to attending the gala that held all the vampires waiting to meet her because it wasn't something for her to be stressing about, they weren't worth all time the girl would take to do so. Charlotte stuck with the basics on teaching the girl. "Charlotte's a really good teacher... it's just I'm a bit clumsy, but I'm glad she's patient with me. I was afraid she wouldn't be." She gave a sheepish smile at Charlotte before turning back to Kaname, "Oh, by the way, I wanted to apologise to you for all those things... now I can finally see clearly the path I will be walking on."

-

Kaname stepped in front of Charlotte as she headed down the corridor to Shane's room and she stopped at his abrupt approach, seemingly stemming from out of nowhere. She frowned at him, raising an eyebrow in a silent question. He reached out tentatively with his hand, running his slim fingers through her now salmon coloured hair, a slight frown on his face, "What are you going to do with your hair? Surely you aren't leaving it like this?"