Enveloping Darkness

The Meeting

Yuu was late, so very very late. Crap Yuu thought, Guren is going to kill me. He thought of all of the ways that Guren would prolong his death. It will be slow, slow and painful. He'll bleed me dry and sell me to the vampires, I just know it. Actually, that was way off the mark, Guren would never do anything that would assist those blood-suckers.

It didn't matter now, he realized as he rounded a corner to Guren's office. He stopped in his tracks and immediately did a 180. Of course he had to choose right now to take a wrong turn, how many times had he been to Guren's office? He also took this time to realize that he had forgotten one of his shoes, or one of his shoes had fallen off while he was running.

With luck, Shinya would be there to lighten the punishment, Guren was always calmer around Shinya. There was nothing that could make Guren's eyes burn with hatred and malice while he was around Shinya.

Thank God, Yuu thought as he rounded a corner and saw a singular black shoe on the floor. He maneuvered the shoe so that it was at least upright and jammed his foot into it, not thinking twice. The shoe was falling off of his foot, he could feel it, slowly slipping off, but he paid it no attention.

He barged into Guren's office-the right office this time-and was immediately confronted by the stares of five people Shinya isn't there, he noted somewhat reluctantly. He took the time to look around the room, Kimizuki was leaning in the corner, so stereotypical of him, being anti-social right off the bat. Yoichi stood next to him, and he stood as if he had just been talking to Kimizuki until Yuu had barged in. Shinoa sat cross-legged on the floor, with a dozing Mitsuba curled up on her lap. Worst of all, however was the man with violet eyes staring incredulously right into the depths of his soul.

"Sorry, Guren." Yuu said reluctantly, "I was a little side-tracked on the way here and I may or may not have overslept." He figured the last was quite obvious as it looked like he had just had sex, which he hadn't of course, but he certainly moved around enough in his sleep to give the impression that he had. And this was often pointed out by the children who would share a bed with him back in the vampire city.

"And what, do tell, got you side-tracked so that you would be this late to our Top Secret and Mandatory Meeting?" Guren asked, with no mercy in his eyes. His eyes never broke contact with Yuu's, but Yuu could tell he was taking in every single part of his appearance. Yuu tried to nonchalantly hide the half-on-half-off shoe behind his left leg and fix it without Guren noticing, which was infact useless and pointless as it only brought attention to the foot in question. "And you even came here in less than complete uniform? What is wrong with you?"

"See, now that's the funny part," Yuu started to explain, "You see, when I was running to your office, I guess I hadn't fully put on my shoe and well, it kinda fell off, then I took a wrong turn on the way here. So that and oversleeping is the main reason why I'm late." He tried to pass it all off as no big deal with one of his amazing smiles that could make anyone else smile, well almost anyone. He had yet to see it work on Kimizuki or Guren. And it didn't work this time either, if anything it made him frown even harder.

But just at that moment, the door burst open again to admit a slightly more ruffled Shinya, who also apologized for being late, later than Yuu, infact. His hair was tousled like he had just woken up, and his shoes were untied as well. It didn't seem like he had tried as hard to look presentable, but then again, he did have a higher position so maybe he didn't have to try as hard.

Guren stared at the man standing in his doorway, leaning down on his knees, trying to catch his breath. Something in his eyes seemed to soften when he looked at Shinya, and a slight pinkness appeared on his cheeks. "And why are you late, may I ask?" Guren asked, but with less malice than he had for Yuu.