Bitter Rose [Diabolik Lovers]

Chapter Nine: That Is Mahogany!

Translations:

Toutes les meilleures personnes sont folles - All the best people are crazy

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“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.”

- Edgar Allan Poe

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Rose could honestly say to herself that she’d never been in a more awkward situation, and she blamed the Sakamakis entirely. If they weren’t so set on these damn dinners every so often, she thought bitterly to herself as she pushed food around on her plate, not finishing the speculation.

She’d seated herself between Subaru and Shu, figuring that out of all of the bloodthirsty sociopaths at the table, they were least likely to murder her. However, based on the way Reiji was glaring at her, Rose was pretty sure she was dead either way. And while usually, that would be fine with her, she had a job to do at the moment, and dying would be rather inconvenient. Why bother? You’re going to fail anyway.

Rose shook her head slightly, trying to pull her focus away from the voices. In the two days since the “bleeding incident,” as she’d dubbed it, they had become a constant presence. They murmured to her before she went to sleep at night, distracted her when she tried to research, yelled at her whenever she came into contact with one of the brothers, and generally made her life incredibly difficult. And maybe there was a tiny, very lonely part of her that welcomed the company they brought, but it was largely overshadowed by what those voices meant. They meant strange, fearful looks, medication, hospital visits, therapy, doctors looking at you like you were a science experiment. They meant being labeled as crazy. And if there was one thing people hated, it was “crazy.”

She rubbed a finger over the tattoo she’d gotten in an attempt to spite Damien. Such a small sentence, split in two across her wrists in a simple, cursive font. Toutes les meilleures personnes sont folles. At the time, it had been something of a joke, a way to laugh at her dark past with a silly lyric from a pop song. But now? Now it made her nauseous.

“Little Violet?” The voice snapped Rose out of her reverie, and she looked up at Laito, who was sitting across from her. His green eyes were narrowed with what could be mistaken for concern, but a mischievous light glinted in them that betrayed his true intentions. He wanted to play, and Rose was not interested in being entertainment. “Why so distracted today?” Laito continued in a teasing drawl, resting his head on his hand. Dump his glass over his head. No!

“Just thinking of a good way to castrate you all in your sleep,” she grumbled without thinking, and the clink of utensils ceased suddenly. Glancing around, she noted every eye on her, some merely curious while others glinted dangerously.

“Tut, tut, Little Violet,” Laito cooed, cocking his head to the side. “There’s no need for such violence. And here I thought we were becoming the best of friends.” Rose snorted derisively, the sound echoed by one of the voices, which she tried her best to ignore.

“Ah yes, because best friends regularly sexually assault one another and drink their blood,” she hissed at him, her temper, as usual, getting the better of her. Laito’s smirk only widened, but the announcement had a much more pronounced effect on his more irritating--if that were possible--brother.

Ayato stood up suddenly, his chair tipping over and crashing to the ground. He glared down at Laito, and Rose would have been happy for the anger if she didn’t know where it came from. “How dare you? Didn’t I tell you that she was Yours Truly’s? I was to be her first,” he snarled at his brother, and Rose’s face flushed with fury at the possessiveness in his tone. They’d barely exchanged two words with one another, and yet somehow she was his?