colours too bright [niklaus]

[SEIJI ANTONY KIMURA]

It wasn't often he left Seattle. Even visiting his family was an activity rarely done, Seiji's rather odd proclivities driving an invisible wedge between himself and them that neither party seemed willing to address. Certainly he hadn't turned out to be the son they had envisioned when they adopted him all those years ago, and he knew that, but then again Seiji had never expended the effort pretending to be anything but what he undoubtably was, especially not after he reached his eleventh year. Still, leaving the Seattle area had never been an option, even after he had moved away from his parent's house in Fork, Washington. Money was, after all, something Seiji didn't have an abundance of, though that usually didn't bother him--he made enough doing his various jobs to keep himself in school, and he got to play his violin when the mood suited him, and really that was all he tended to care about as of late.

The opportunity to go to Jamaica had come up as a program in his university, when the instructors had explained that they were selecting ten of the top students to study abroad for a month while students from universities in Jamaica travelled back to Seattle. Personally, Seiji almost felt sorry for them, having to leave the beautiful grounds of their own school in favour of the crowded one in Seattle, but standing on top of one of Jamaica's cliffs, camera forgotten around his neck, Seiji found it hard to care.

He wasn't much of a photographer. He lacked the appreciation for beauty, many said, and while it wasn't necessarily true--he knew enough to appreciate the beauty of a lover's body, the contours and slopes of a shoulder or a particularly well-formed neck or hip--he knew his appreciation didn't go as far as wanted to document rolling hills or vast landscapes. The earth, like architecture, was something Seiji always noticed, but never particularly cared for. It was lovely, of course, but in the end there was always something else just like it, or something even better, and one could travel for years and never see enough. Obsessions with the land was something he had seen in many, and one he had watched his adoptive mother struggle with for many years. Some of his earliest memories included being dragged through old castle ruins in the London area, or standing at the gates of Buckingham, watching as his mother documented the Canadian crests adorning the stone pillars or the gold-gilded iron of the gates themselves.

Ah, but he had long since passed the point in his life where his parents would drag him anywhere. No, for better or for worse, he was alone now, save for the violin he carried with him faithfully, which remained safely locked in the trunk that had been provided for him in the rooms he occupied for the next little while. He almost wished he had brought it with him, for the rocky ledge he was perched on would have allowed the wind to carry his music down the cliffside and over the water, but it was safer away from the possible spray of the sea, and from failing prey to other damages that could be incurred when one brought something everywhere with them.

With calm, controlled movements, Seiji reached out to pluck a strand of grass from the ground before he rose to his feet, his face taking on its naturally blank expression--not a mask, merely him. There were those, he knew, who wore neutral expressions for diplomacy's sake, who spent years schooling their features to respond exactly as they wanted, but he was not one of them. It was his natural expression, for whatever reason, though many attributed it to his tendency to just not care.

And they were right. There were very fews things in life that made Seiji care, and though he knew he was capable, it was finding something worth the effort of shrugging past his own staggering apathy. So far, it had not been found, and the closest he ever came were words breathed into another's ear in dark, secluded places, where there was naught but the two of them. Sometimes they would both remain nameless to each other, and sometimes not, but it was the act that Seiji liked, as opposed to the individual he performed it with. Sex was, after all, little more than a dance humanity had been performing for millions of years, and he was hardly going to disrupt that long a tradition, now was he?

His musings finished, Seiji turned away from the cliffs, walking back towards the long dirt road, which was flanked on both sides up ahead by the large, beautiful homes that the rich kept. He could almost see them from here, the brilliant whites of the building leaping to his eyes even from such a distance, but they hardly inspired him or riled his anger like they did to others. There was the rich and there was the poor, as there had always been and as there would always be. Seiji did not spend time begrudging his financial situation, and he did not feel anger towards those better than he. After all, there would always be someone better.

It was the first lesson every musician had to learn, and he had learned it well.

[NIKLAUS LEIF ALMSTEDT]

* cut your ties love ,
• AND SAY I NEVER KNEW YOU BUT THEY'LL SEE RIGHT THROUGH YOU •

the thing about visiting other places was that you could nearly whatever you pleased - as long as you didn't return for a good amount of time, of course. for that, niklaus was lucky - he was more inclined to wait out any amount of time because it wasn't as if his body was degrading; he was still in the impeccable physical condition that he'd been in when he'd been turned (which had been rather impeccable - after all, you couldn't be a flabby viking, so to speak). point being, there were some times when he would travel to other countries to slake a thirst that had long since been put on hold.

when you grew up in an violent, angry lifestyle - a lifestyle that was, of course, bordered by brotherhood and roughness - it was often hard to let go of it. the brutality of his life before had not left him. it had been capped, yes - it had sunk deep into the marrow of his bones, staying there until it was chilled, unfreezing only in these small bouts of warmth when he let himself return to it. and anyway, it wasn't as if he went about killing people when he went to these other places. heavens, no. he had other misgivings about giving into bloodlust - misgivings that had to do with the absence of two beautiful little girls from his life - but misgivings nonetheless; no, when niklaus deigned to attend a different area of the world, often he released that roughness in a much more practical manner.

these short-lived trysts were quickly put in the back of his mind. he wouldn't see the men again; he didn't intend to revisit that place unless absolutely necessary, and of course it rarely was. they weren't forgotten, no. klaus doubted a vampire could forget anything. that they had experienced recently (or a long time ago, as the case may rest).

so then, it was only natural that, as he was returning from the ocean, he spotted the slender form a young boy that was not necessarily unfamiliar. the scent of sea salt was still on his skin, klaus' dark hair rumpled from the tangy breeze, and as he moved over the crest of the hill to see the boy moving back down the road, a crooked smile came to his lips.

a tongue swept over his lips; his gaze flickered, searching for miniscule details, for something - a name, his name is seiji, isn't it? - and he stepped forward, closing the distance between them with a blinding smile on his face as he, unthinkingly, snagged seiji's hand in his.

"seiji," he said, and it wasn't a question - because he knew it was seiji - and he swept the boy's hand up so easily in his own you'd think they'd known each other for decades.

(that was sort of how niklaus was, though - you slept with him once and if he liked you enough, he'd take your hand when you bumped into each other accidentally like you were his very own.)

the smile did not once fade from his lips; his maroon eyes flickered over the boy's lithe frame, his smile brightening, if that were possible.

"fancy meeting you here?" klaus questioned lightly, completely oblivious to the fact that his fingers were still brushing seiji's companionably - he was a touchy-feely guy, so it wasn't out of the ordinary for him - and he reached up with his free hand to rake his fingers through his curly locks, the taste of ocean air still on his lips. the warm pulse he could feel through the boy's fingertips was reminiscent of that night when the pulse was more rapid, when he'd almost dug his teeth in - "if i'd have known you were going to come to jamaica at any point, i would have offered to let you stay with me."

[SEIJI ANTONY KIMURA]

He hadn't expected to hear his name in such an isolated place, so it was only natural that his lips would part in unspoken surprise at the sound, his body turning instinctively just in time for his hand to be swept up by someone with a face he had not expected to see again, and certainly not here, of all places. After all, the last time he had seen Niklaus had been many miles from here, away from the sea's edge, and the scent of salt water hadn't clung to his skin as deliciously then as it did now. Slowly, with controlled movements, Seiji inclined his head, dark eyes assessing the man that stood before him now, the other hand resting languidly at his side.

His mind cooed gently to him, dredging up images and memories that flashed before his eyes, and memories of pure sensation that temporarily clouded his mind, resulting in the corners of his mouth quirking slightly without his realisation. Almost imperceptibly, Seiji exhaled, and this time when his eyes flickered up to the face of the other man, they were oddly focused, free of the distant sheen that often appeared there unless he was focusing intently on something, and oh, he was focusing quite intently on this man now, the roar of the sea below him giving rise to the slightly quickening of his pulse--slower than a normal person's, but still steady--though he doubted the other man would be able to tell. Even the other medical students sometimes had trouble finding the human pulse, though they, admittedly, still had years left to go in their program.

He liked the sound of his name on this man's lips, though that was something he had decided in the past, the first time he had heard it tumble from them. Still, it was something of an oddity to hear it again, so far from the environment of their first--and only, to date--run in. What was even more odd was that he was able to remember this particular man, when so many other faces had slipped into the blurriness of an apathetic memory, their entire identities mixing together until only sensations remained, the memories of their fingers on his skin, and his on theres. It was much like music, Seiji had concluded at one point in his life. Beautiful while it was there in front of you, fresh in your mind, but eventually many of them faded into the same tune.

Mmm, but there are always those tunes that play on repeat, now aren't there?

"I was not aware you lived here," Seiji replied, covering the faint flickering of surprise he felt at the man's answer by glancing down at his hand, still in the other man's grasp. He didn't bother to move it, instead letting his fingers relax, before he turned it so that he could drag one down the palm of the man's hand. A name came to him with this gesture, whispered to him as if by the sea wind. Niklaus.

A small smile curved his mouth then, and though it didn't quite reach his eyes--none of them ever did, really; smiling was a reflex gesture, something people liked to see but no one ever read into, not that Seiji's ever meant anything; very rare did his smiles appear outside of a more intimate situation, and that was how he liked it--it was no less genuine, at least coming from him, however unaware most people were of that.

"I would have had no way to contact you either way," the dark-haired man concluded simply, without any inflections in his voice. Rare was it that his tone revealed anything more than drawled teasing, especially out in the open. Idle conversation wasn't something Seiji made a lot of; he was the person who would sit there and watch, occasionally offering a comment that would doubtlessly be taken either too seriously or dismissed simply because of the tone they were spoken in.

"You say that, Seiji, but c'mon, we all know you don't really care."

Seiji could smell the sea on this man more strongly now, so much so that he could almost taste the salt, and it reminded him of another time, of controlled movements in the dark, and of experienced hands and hissed breaths.

His eyes sparked at the thought, and he his eyes focused on Niklaus again, out of their faint reverie. He wished again that he had brought his violin out, he doubted it would have served any purpose other than to ground him; to give his hands something to do. It was the lack of the violin that made him reach up with his other hand to curl it around Niklaus' wrists, his long, slender fingers closing over it in a deceptively gently but firmly controlled movement.

"You live around here, then," he murmured, absently turning Niklaus' wrist over in the hand that wasn't held. "I suppose it is a small world, in that case."