A white flower and a beautiful scent

Oneshot: First Part
Ode to Maria

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A white flower and a beautiful scent

You are a white flower pure in the sea of blood.
Your scent overwhelms
the sickening smell of iron in the liquid red,
what is it that draws me to you?

Your fair hair which brings nostalgia to my eyes,
your blue eyes that resembles the bright blue sky
for a thousand years I have not gazed at,
or the unchanging beautiful scent that your body, your voice exudes?

Maybe all that comprises of you,
That though your skin feels cold
I feel my insides burning when I am near you,


One-shot First Part: Ode to Maria

You are a white flower pure in the sea of blood

Tousled black hair swayed with the cold wind coming from the half opened glass window by the right side of the bed, his form of pale complexion outlined by the waning moon in the clear starless night sky, stark naked and only covered from slender hips down firm thighs his appearance seems almost ethereal under the hazy moonlight.

His eyes black as the moonless night traveled over the even slender form lying beside him as he rested his back to the thick wooden headboard of the bed, long fingers of the same complexion raking over shoulder length unkempt blonde hair, the shades in every strand from dark to the lightest shade of blonde it’s almost white. His hand traveled down the crook of a tanned neck as the blonde was lying on his side with his back to the brunette and the white sheet covering most of his form and exposing only his neck and narrow shoulders.

The brunette let his hand travel under the silk black sheet, the pad of his forefinger and middle feeling the cold smooth skin of the blonde’s arm down the elbow but he remained still, face unchanging with the deepness of his sleep and the brunette continued.

“Naruto…” He tilted his head up against the headboard as he sighed, eyes staring at the stark white ceiling.

Your scent overwhelms the sickening smell of iron in the liquid red

It was raining heavy that day in mid-July, the forest was dark even under the moonlight with all the thick leaves shrouding the earth and its creatures living in the shadows, one certain person though, Sasuke thought, was stupid enough to lie unconscious in a wet bed of mud and withered leaves in the middle of the night.

“What a stupid man this is.” His pitch black hair stuck against his pale skin as the heavy rain continued to pour down, sending for the weasels, the chipmunks and even the newts in the river to hide until the rain stops and until he leaves. His collared button down white long sleeve appeared transparent against his skin, exposing the paleness of his arms save for his chest and legs because of the black vest and pants he was wearing.

He squatted near the man’s head who was lying on his stomach, his face was full of bruises made from thrown stones or sticks no doubt, his blonde hair appeared blonde no more with all the mud and leaves stuck in each sticky strand and the tattered blue kimono can barely hide his thighs and back which was covered in dark violet patches.

Sasuke furrowed his brows, leaning closer and he scrunched his nose, sniffing a couple of times before blinking in surprise when the man’s lids began to move and they opened, revealing blank blue eyes appearing to stare off into space.

What is it that draws me to you?

“… Dobe.” Sasuke roughly pulled the man’s arm, surprised to find him rather heavy even for his small height and rolled the man over to lie on his back, sliding two strong arms under his back and lifting him up slowly. Those eyes, they blinked again and the corner of his lips parched and chapped rose to show the slightest of a smile before the blue of his eyes can be seen no more, he drifted soon into unconsciousness and Sasuke disappeared with the unconscious man into thin air leaving only a puff of smoke.

Your fair hair

Sasuke flopped him on one of the many unoccupied beds of the mansion, not bothering to lift the blanket since it would get wet either way and he began to shed the man off his clothing. He was not surprised too see how many bruises, scratches and lacerations that the blonde had received, no doubt it was from the townspeople outside the forest.

He knew the moment he had sensed someone’s uninvited arrival that the blonde was no human, for no human would be stupid enough to enter his territory, much less get into the middle of it and not caring of passing out, he’d get eaten before he could even shout and vampires aren’t the most delicious of meals for other creatures.

Sasuke stared long and deep on the unconscious blonde, stopping half way of undoing the knot on his obi and thinking if he should help him or not. He sat down beside the blonde entirely instead of squatting and brought his thumb to push the upper lips of the blonde up, revealing a stark white thick fang whiter than any ivory.

Vampire he may be, he’s not one to help someone just because of the same background.

… which brings nostalgia to my eyes.

His hand, he finally decided, he brought down the man’s waist, tugging the knot on it and effortlessly undoing the obi which allowed him to slip the man off the yukata completely.

He stopped.

There on the left thigh of the blonde was a tattoo of a silver snake, its narrow tail dangling on the inside of his knee and growing thicker and thicker as the tattoo snake which was made so that it would look like its entwining itself on the flesh went up, its head lying on the left hip where its mouth was open wide appearing as if its biting the flesh it was tattooed in, its eyes were two sliver of whites outline by blue.

The image made his chest tighten, and he grit his teeth so hard that two equally stark white fangs started to protrude through his thin pale lips as he did so, his black eyes swirling into violet, dark blue then blood red, a sliver of black in the middle.

“I will get my answer from you.” Sasuke muttered under his breath before completely ridding the man off his tattered robe and disappearing into thin air just as he did earlier.

Your blue eyes that resemble the bright blue sky

He was already conscious but unmoving by the time he returned, this time going through the wooden door with a change of clothes and a bucket of well water.

The blonde opened his mouth, Sasuke had realized he wanted to speak, but seeing as he had not fed for a long time his throat was as dry and parched as any part of his body.

“You’re awake.” Sasuke dropped the bucket of water on the dusty wooden floor, putting the change of dry clothes on top of the headboard as he sat on the side of the bed.

“Good, I would not have to feed you.” The brunette slid his hand under his now changed clothes, the same attire but without the vest and he produced a packet of transparent plastic and he was sure the blonde didn’t need to have a twenty-twenty vision to know what its content was, just the smell was enough to make the blonde’s eyes come back to life.

Sasuke smirked, playing with the pack on his palm by waving it on top of the blonde’s eyes. “You want this right?” His smirk went wider when the blonde’s mouth opened slightly, for an attempt to answer. “If you want this, you will have to serve me. I feed you, you stay here and you’ll do as I say. If you get that blink twice, if you don’t I’ll let you turn to ashes here.” He watched as hesitation cross the half unconscious blonde, before they blinked once, then twice in resignation and Sasuke ripped the pack on the top and poured the contents inside the blonde’s mouth.

The pair of fangs he saw earlier were now in complete display as the blonde’s head threw his head back and arched his back, gasping as if in need for air when he opened his mouth as wide as he can not even spilling a drop and gulping down the liquid content as if he had not drank for days, when he had not drank for months. Sasuke saw his eyes turn brilliant red, whisker marks appearing on each side of his cheeks and nails growing deadly sharp as it dug deep on the sheets.

His pale skin slowly reverted back to its normal golden tone, for with every ounce of blood that would wet his throat the number of bruises on his body would disappear, leaving only nothing but his bare tanned flesh and full lips tainted with dark blood. By the time he had already finished, he was panting and the sight didn’t just give Sasuke something to watch, but something interesting to see. Since it was his first time to see another of his kind feed, and the orgasmic look the blonde gave made his smirk earlier turn into a full grown grin.

“Want more?” He asked with a tempting voice, but the blonde only stared at him for a moment, before looking away, this in turn annoyed the brunette and he turned to leave.

“Clean yourself, if you go outside you can see a well, you can go take a bath in the bathhouse beside it.” Sasuke paused before entirely closing the door, looking over his shoulder he asked one last time that night. “What’s your name?”

The blonde in turn looked at him, ragged breaths filling the silence of the room before he answered, in a quiet tone.

“Naruto.”

The door closed.

… for a thousand years I had not gazed at

“I like it quiet here.” Sasuke lay cross-legged on a large red arm-chair in front of the chimney, basking on the light the dancing flames would give with every sway of the fire as he rested his head on his knuckle while bracing his elbow on the arm-chair with the quiet blonde, now dressed in a simple beige yukata and straw sandals standing in front of him.

“You will clean each and every room, when you work, you work as if you’re not here. I leave every end of the second week and sometimes on odd hours of the night, you catch my drift, during that time you can clean my room. You are permitted to use everything here except for the things inside my room. You do not need to clean my cabinets, just the carpet and the bed. Get it?” The blonde silently bowed his head and asked in that same quiet tone.

“Anything else you should need to tell me?”

“My name is Sasuke. Call me that.”

“Is that all?”

“When do you feed?” The blonde blinked in surprise, before answering with a little smile.

“… not until every three months, so you don’t have to worry.” This answer was what surprised the brunette for the first time in his two thousand six hundred and seventy three years of vampire existence.

“What?”

“I do not feed… until three months after the last time except if it’s an emergency like before.”

Sasuke remained quiet, silently contemplating his first discovery about the blonde, it’s quite unbelievable, impossible even, he would need to feed every two weeks, and that’s about his highest tolerance.

“Don’t fuck with me, are you serious?” Naruto nodded again, in a failed attempt to hide the way his eyes squinted upon hearing the expletive before explaining the less detailed reason.

“I used to live with humans. That is why it is impossible for me to feed frequently even if I wanted. Instead I accept blood donations, since in their knowledge I was anemic.” He couldn’t even imagine himself in such a state, however he despised himself from wanting blood tasting it would be better than… getting it injected to your body, that’s embarrassing.

Sasuke eyed the blonde with the colors of disbelief, hesitation and suspicion crossing over his onyx gaze before waving the blonde away from inside the family room with a tired sigh.

For days of rainy nights and humid days Sasuke observed the blonde work around the house behind the shadows, indeed he was very efficient, and he worked really quiet. The interesting part of watching him though was in how he would put all his attention to anything he wanted to do that everything around him would not matter until he had finished it.

The house Sasuke was inhibiting now had belonged to a Spanish family who migrated to Japan in the middle seventy’s, of course, killing them was out of the question. Ever since he was turned, he got used to the ways of the undead which made his stomach turn at first, and even though over thirty years had passed every corner of the house, even the room he’s now occupying still smell of the metallic scent of blood and that’s something Naruto’s cleaning can’t get rid of.

… or the unchanging beautiful scent that your body, your voice exudes

“What are you doing?” Naruto’s shoulders didn’t even grow stiff when he suddenly blurted that question out of nowhere, as if the blonde had known he’d been there all along, watching from behind.

“I am planting seeds. The soil on this particular area is very good for growing plants.” Naruto answered quietly as he continued from digging the loose soil with a trowel while sitting on his legs, days after he had began to work Naruto found some Japanese robes in the attic which he wore with the reason of them being more comfortable. He just let Sasuke watch him from the kitchen door leading to the back yard, where there used to be a thick wall of thorny vines and wild plants sticking out in every direction and covering up the entire fence surrounding the mansion. Now it was a clean expanse of dark soil, with a particular dead tree made into a log lying near the well, Naruto had made the dried vines a good source of fuel for the chimney fire.

“What kind?”

“I don’t know. Someone just gave them to me and I found them in my kimono’s sleeve pocket accidentally when I was sewing it. We’ll know once they grow up, don’t worry.” Even when Sasuke was watching from behind him, the brunette was well of the smile Naruto was wearing while he was planting each and every seedling from the plastic bag and the brightness in his eyes that seemed to go brighter in the night.

“You appear to be used to doing house chores.” He commented, crossing his arms in the process and leaning on the frame of the door.

“Is that so? I think everybody has to learn these things to survive.”

“That day, what happened to you that you had to run in here looking half dead?” The question seemed to do the trick, for Naruto had paused from digging another pocket for the seedling and he put both his hands squarely on his lap.

“I was living in the town’s temple, before they had already been suspecting of me.” Naruto began to dig again, putting two seeds inside the hole before shoving the small hill of earth to cover it with his hands. “I found a child lying near the temple, she was dropped there by another vampire. When I had picked her up the town’s people came and thought I was the one they were chasing.” He then slowly stood up, brushing off the dirt on the material of his legs and he walked in small steps towards the well, dropping the bucket there by holding the rope attached to it and pulling it after when the bucket was full.

“You knew that she’s dropped by another vampire, why’d you have to be stupid enough to look at her?” Naruto transferred the water into another bucket, putting it down the ground after, he bent down gracefully, scooping a handful of water to wash his hands carefully.

“I was checking her pulse, some vampires leave their victims alive, then they come back for them after, right?” With his hands dripping to his sides he lifted the hem of his yukata, spreading them open to reveal slender legs and soil covered feet.

“You should have just let it be.”

“Either way they’ll still think it’s me.” He scooped another handful of water, pouring it down his legs and feet, causing for the soil to darken with the water pouring over it. “They’ll ask me then, ‘what are you doing here?’ and then another, and another…” With agile fingers he began to scrub the dirt away, rinsing them after every scrub with one hand while the other was holding the hem of the yukata for it to not get wet.

“If you were aware of the risk of living with humans, why-” Both of their attentions were taken by the flock of ravens scattering about on a certain part of the forest, and the smell of human, Sasuke unbelievingly realized was strong in that area.

“This smell… I… Sasuke-wait-” Not even wasting another second, Sasuke had already disappeared, leaving a couple of palm size black feathers fluttering down the area where he was once standing.

He couldn’t believe it, that a human would actually cross the boundaries he had set in between his forest and their town. In the eyes of a night bird, he could see everything below him even though it was shrouded with thick trees, his sense of smell would never fail him. Just about two hours from the boundary he saw a man being cornered by a wolf whose fangs were already showing with its fierce moon-like eyes.

The black feathers shed effortlessly from his skin, his wings transformed into clothed arms, as well as the rest of his body before he landed safely behind the red wolf, his presence momentarily taking the wolf’s attention before it returned to the other brunette’s.

“What are you doing here human?” He crossed his arms, taking in the middle-aged man whose waist-length disheveled hair was beginning to gray, and the look of false bravado in his pale lilac eyes interested Sasuke enough for him to raise his brow at him.

“T-there’s someone…” Oh yes, his voice really gave him away, it was shivering and nearing into a gasp when he started.

“Old man, you look intelligent, and judging by your age, you must know that this forest is off-limits for beings similar to such as yourself.”

“I know…”

“You know… then are you trying to kill yourself here? Because surely… I will be more than welcomed to help you.”

“Shut up vampire!” The wolf turned towards him, growling. “He’s mine…”

“Suit yourself Kiba… their skin are as chewable as leather, I think the latter’s even better.” Sasuke turned around in aristocratic grace, putting both his hands deep in his pocket as he turned to leave.

“W-wait! T-there’s someone… I need to see! I need to see him!” The elderly man shouted in desperation but Sasuke paid no interest, muttering, “Don’t worry, you’ll about to see him… your god that is. Really… and I thought humans were a little more intelligent than most creatures arou…”

Sasuke trailed off as his senses detected a certain scent approaching his direction, but instead of a certain blonde running towards him through the bushes, what he saw was a small red fox jumping out of the said bushes and running past him. His mind barely registered the transformation he saw as the fox switched to Naruto’s form before he got past Sasuke.

“Please don’t!” Naruto dropped his weight entirely against the older man, wrapping bruised arms, no doubt from the thorny vines, around the man’s neck before Kiba could jump at the easy prey.

“Naru… to?” Sasuke turned around, eyes wide at how he couldn’t believe that Naruto would side with humans again when it was them that nearly killed him before.

“Don’t kill him… don’t kill him… please… don’t…. don’t… don’t kill him…” The man’s expression began to soften with relief as he looked down on the trembling form against his own, they were cold no doubt, but Naruto just gives the best warmth inside him just by seeing his worried face.

“Naruto… I…”

“Neji…” Naruto buried his face on the man’s chest, not wanting to let go even as the wolf growled in annoyance with his chance for food already taken away.

“Damn humans… damn friggin’ vampires…” Kiba growled under his breath as he leaped up the bushes, disappearing into the night, leaving the three of them in silence.

Maybe all that comprises of you

“How are you?” Neji slowly got off the bed, resting his back on the headboard as he watched Naruto enter the lamp lit room carrying a tray of wine and wild boar steak.

“I’m sorry… for causing you trouble.”

The blonde put the tray on the bed side table, twisting the cork with the screw and opening it with a soft pop before pouring the dark red wine in the goblet.

“We have not seen each other… for what…” There he goes, smiling that awkward smile, the silence was comforting for Naruto, since silence would mean no listening and no speaking.

“Twenty-five years…” The long-haired brunette continued, eyes intent on every move the blonde makes as if he would disappear if he should look away.

“How are you and your family?” Naruto sat facing Neji on the side of the bed, the smile earlier now tinged with a bit of sadness making the other man’s eyes harden.

“We both know that’s not what we want to talk about.”

“Really?” The blonde chuckled, reaching for the goblet on the bedside table with his hand only to be stopped when Neji wrapped a firm hand around his wrist, making Naruto in turn to look at him in puzzlement at how the man’s lilac eyes hardened towards him.

“Neji?” Neji brought Naruto’s hand to his face, feeling the coldness of the deft palm against his warm cheek as he sighed, relief seeming to take over Neji’s expression.

“You’re still the same… beautiful.” As if to emphasize the said word, Neji took the blonde’s palm to his mouth, kissing it softly and inhaling the unchanging scent on it with tightly closed eyes.

The action only made the blonde chuckle, though it was an uneasy one. “Neji it tickles…”

“I know.”

“I have not… gazed at a mirror… for years… but if it’s Neji that says it…” The blonde lowered his head, drops of liquid wetting his lap before he leaned his head on the man’s chest, his other hand clenching on the material of his shirt. “… I believe it.”

“Doesn’t it disgust you… to hold an old man like me?”

“Neji’s face may wrinkle and your hair may turn gray… but your heart stays the same, all of that doesn’t matter to me… as long as it stays as it is.”

Neji continued to hold Naruto’s hand, wrapping him into an embrace with the other as he buried his nose and mouth on blonde hair.

“I wanted to see you… even if for the last time.” Neji was aware at how Naruto’s shoulders tensed with his last words, but still he continued.

“My wife’s family wants us to migrate to England. News of you being a vampire and how we are related… they didn’t want me to be in this place… they fear you will come after me and my family, when I was the one foolishly chasing after you.” He brought his hand that was settling on the blonde’s back to rake his fingers through his flaxen hair.

“My son… misses your stories… and my daughter, she said she wants to play doll with you again…” The sobs became louder, and the trembling of his back became harder.

“Hinata’s husband, Sai, she said it’s a pity… he was looking forward to painting you and my children.”

“They all care for you. Even my wife… and I don’t believe you were the one who killed that child.”

“You have to go back now. If they find out you’ve been here… they’ll suspect you.” Naruto’s voice appeared thick and broken, he willed them to sound straight but in doing so only made it more obvious that it wasn’t. “I can’t help you in daylight so-”

“I love you.”

Naruto gritted his teeth, burying his head in his chest and not wanting for more tears to fall.

“Neji…” His grip on his shirt became tighter and Neji’s hold on his left hand as well.

“Neji…” He cried harder.

“Neji…” He shook and trembled like he had never before.

“Neji…” Naruto tilted his head up, his eyes closed in fear of showing at how bloodshot his eyes were from crying and with his right hand he outlined Neji’s soft cheek, the line on the corners of his mouth and eyes before his thumb traced thin lips, placing them against his own quivering ones, and for a long while they stayed like that.

“I love you…”

Sasuke stared in disbelief at his own trembling hands, his throat felt hot, his eyes too.

“Why is it…” And he tilted his head up against the wall, covering his eyes with a trembling hand before a streak of shimmering line ran past his temples, he stood with barely enough strength to keep his knees straight against the wall, beside a wooden door left ajar and the soft light coming from the lamp light inside casting a dark silhouette on his side.

.. that though your skin feels cold I feel my insides burning when I am near you

To be continued
Last part on the next update