Rare (Vampire Knight)

Chapter 65

Dressed in a very uncharacteristically pink dress, Charlotte walked inside of Isaya Shoto's mansion with her arm looped through Takuma's. The soirée was in full swing with many guests dancing in the ballroom to the contemporary classical music being played by an orchestra made up of a few vampires that Charlotte had met one time or another. Some other guests lingered around the refreshments tables and others stood on the outskirts of the room chatting to one another.

Both she and Takuma wore masks, as the invitation had instructed. With her face covered and her pink dress, she hoped that she was unrecognisable to the other guests. Her hair was even in her natural colour of platinum blonde since she was now known to have pink hair. Takuma was dressed in a rather smart suit and his hair slicked back.

She had never known such peace in a social setting. There were guests who passed by them and nodded in acknowledgement to them that they were there, but no one stopped to fawn over them because they had no idea who she was. They had no idea that she was a pureblood because she had reigned in on her vampiric aura to make her seem more like a simple aristocrat like Takuma.

Despite that everyone was wearing a mask, she had no trouble spotting the two people she only cared to see at Isaya's party. She gave Takuma's hand a squeeze before she released him, giving him a reassuring smile before leaving him to make his way around the party dancing and munching on food.

Charlotte walked towards the only two on the balcony. Her heels clicked softly on the polished tile floor as she manoeuvred through the crowd of slow dancing couples to get to the couple outside. Her hips swayed as they usually did... well, perhaps a little stronger than usual in accordance with the music coming from the band on the podium playing their instruments. She could feel her hair swishing behind her as she sauntered onto the balcony as the two guests began to dance as well.

She approached quietly, watching as the male took the female into his arms. The height difference between the two was significant, the male almost towering over the female. The man was dressed in a black three-piece suit with leather dress shoes. His coat was black and so was his vest, but his shirt was a crisp white with a black bow tie at his neck. His mask was white that almost blended in with his silver hair that just about covered his violet eyes.

The woman was much shorter than the man and she was also dressed in almost all black with a dark grey mask. Her dress was as black as the night and was a stark contrast to her pale skin. The bodice of her dress was strapless and corset-like with white wide lace that had several ties at her back. The skirt of her dress came outward far from her small body. The skirt was layered magnificently with a flower pattern lace overlay and visible folds in the open portion of her dress that showed off the layers and their designs and folds.

"You're very similar to a precious girl who died a year ago..." the man said in cleverly concealed sadness. His body was relaxed and he and his dance partner swayed gracefully to the violins and cellos being played inside, setting the mood of the soirée.

"You too," agreed the woman in his arms, "you're similar to a guy I worried about and wanted to protect." The sadness in her voice was in no way concealed and it was even visible in her eyes as they looked at each other. "I hurt him... But you're a different person, right? He isn't someone who would dance with vampires, after all."

Charlotte couldn't block the images that flooded her head. She got fuzzy pictures of a man bringing in a small and quiet boy with a subdued expression on his face. He had a large jacket around his shoulders that couldn't cover the blood stain that soaked into the shoulder of his pyjama shirt.

Another image passed with the boy's hair in the corner of the image with a close-up of the side of his face and the feeling of his body flush against hers in a side hug-like manner. His body was warm but he was rigid. His hair that she was able to feel in her hands was soft and thin as she felt it between her slim fingers.