Come Back To Me Riho!

Shido stopped at the apartment door and simply stared at it. Riho had left a spare key at his office in case she should ever need it.

“We are going to stay here?”

“Can you think of a better place?”

“Does she still live here?”

“No… at least I don’t think so.” He hesitated but he had little choice. He unlocked the door and flicked on the light switch. Everything was perfectly neat and overwhelmingly feminine.

“It smells like her.” He said softy.

“You got it bad.” Guni replied floating off of his shoulder and going to explore the apartment. “Its all clear!” Guni shouted back. Shido shut the door. Memories of a human Riho came back to him. Her smiling at him, flushing with embarrassment when he said he had already eaten, her hugging him.

“I should have never turned her.”

“And let her die instead?”

“No… no… she wouldn’t have been in that Church with Cain if I hadn’t hired her.”

“She needed someone, as much as you did.” He gave Guni a warning look. He didn’t like Guni saying things he wasn’t prepared to even admit to himself.

“It is my fault that I got her into this mess. I should find a way for her to get out of it.”

“What mess? The N.O.S or being a vampire?” Guni eyes grew large suddenly “Shido! You are bleeding on the carpet!” He picked up his foot to see a red blotch on the carpet.

“I’ll take a shower.” Shido tossed his trench coat and brief case on the couch. He finished unbuttoning his shirt as he walked into Riho’s bedroom and turned on the light. There was a picture of him and Guni on the nightstand. He picked it up as if in a trance. * She must have looked at this every night before she went to sleep.* “She hasn’t been back Guni.”

“Are you sure?” Guni floated into the room with wide spread wings.

“It’s a picture of us.” He said holding it up. “It was on her nightstand.” He smiled sadly and sat it back down. “ I won’t take too long, see if you can find a first aid kit.”

--------

Guni went through everything Riho owned. She had found a first aid kit in the bathroom under the sink, but just because she had found that didn’t mean she couldn’t explore the rest of the house. Riho was insanely organized, especially considering she always made more of a mess of the office than actually cleaned it- in Guni’s opinion anyway. Guni explored as quickly as she could not giving any one thing too much attention. Shido might not appreciate her going through Riho’s things. For now, she still heard the shower running and knew she had time.

She had found tons of photos of Riho’s friends and family, but so far that was the most interesting find. That had been in the living room. The kitchen held nothing other than dishes. The bathroom was completely not interesting- other than the first aid kit. That left the bedroom. Problem was nothing interesting was in the drawers and the closet only held coats. Guni had looked top to bottom everywhere and was rather disappointed.

She floated down on to the nightstand that held the picture of herself and Shido. *I don’t look so bad, but Shido is making a funny face.* She turned herself around so she could see her reflection in the photo’s glass frame. *I look pretty good right now too* She turned around again- or rather meant to- but instead her foot slipped and she fell onto the floor.

“Ouch” Then she realized she was staring directly at a pink box hidden neatly under the bed. Guni pulled on it until it begrudgingly slid out; with some effort, she was able to remove the lid as well. That’s when she heard the bathroom door open. “Oh no! Shido will never let me go through this now.”

“Go through what?” asked shido approaching the bed.

“Did I say that out loud?” Shido nodded. Shido was shirtless and wore purple pajama bottoms, Guni laughed and fell over within the box.

“It was the only thing that Riho owned that fit me. She must have bought the wrong size or something.” Guni held her stomach and laughed harder. Suddenly she felt like she was on an accelerating elevator as Shido picked up the box and placed it on the bed. “Is this what I am not going to let you go through?” Guni got her laughter under control.

“It’s a pink box under the bed! What do you think she kept in it?” asked Guni hoping to peek Shido’s curiosity and doubting that she could. She braced herself for a lecture on privacy.

“We can’t find out if you don’t get off of it.” Guni’s jaw dropped. Shido picked up the book Guni was standing on, once again it felt like an accelerating elevator. She floated off and onto Shido’s shoulder. He flipped a couple of pages. “It looks like a dairy.” Guni half feared him putting the book down once more. Instead he pulled the covers over himself, fluffed a pillow, pulled the box closer and started flipping to find an interesting section.

“There stop!” Guni said. “I saw your name. Turn back two pages.”

“We probably shouldn’t be doing this.”

“Turn the pages back! Its not like Riho came back for her dairy.”

“Well its not like she thought I would come into her apartment either.”

“Maybe we can find something to help Riho be her old self again.” He sighed and flipped back two pages. Guni used her best Riho impression and began reading aloud, “I don’t know how Mr.Shido feels about me or what kind of relationship we have. Its so confusing. Last night we-“ Shido closed the book suddenly and blushed so badly his ears turned scarlet.

“I don’t think anything in here will help us bring the old Riho back.”

“Last night you guys did what?! I wanna know! Open it!”

“Another section ok?” *I’ll just read it later when he is not here.*

“Ok.” Guni grumbled. Shido flipped through the later pages in the dairy. “Stop there! I see your name there!” Shido did and Guni read in her Riho impression once more. “Mr. Shido told me not to worry about him. Maybe I am being silly when I do. But I want Mr.Shido to be ok. I want there to be someone for me to spend eternity with. I want that someone to be Mr. Shido more than anything in the world. I worry that-”

“Guni, stopm a m a fool.” Shido closed the dairy again and placed his hand over his eyes like he had a headache. *Of course you are! I keep trying to tell you that! Riho looooooooooves you but you are too dense to see that! And you so have it for bad for her too! Yet all this time both of you denied it! No one listens to Guni! The world would be a better place if-*

“Its ok Shido. Try another passage. What did she write last in the dairy?” He opened the dairy to the last passage and Guni read out loud once more. “I have decided that today I am going to ask Shido what kind of relationship we have. That is the best way to ask it. I put a lot of thought into it and if he says we are friends, then he won’t know how much that hurts. He won’t know and we can keep being friends. Its not like asking if he’s my boyfriend or anything like that. At least then, I will know how he feels, I will know if I mean anything to him in that way. I really hope he says we are dating. I’m so nervous. But today is the day that I won’t have to wonder any longer. I am going to do it.” Shido flipped through the blank pages.

“That’s it. There are no other entries.” Shido said.

“What did you say?”

“Huh?” Shido sank deeper into covers.

“What did you say when she asked you.”

“I- Ah...”

“What did you say?!” Guni shouted.

“I said the wrong answer. I didn’t realize what she was asking until I had already said it!”

“What did you say?!”

“Something about her being my child, and us being friends and comrades in arms.”

“Shido you’re as dense as a concrete block.”

“Denser.” He groaned and sank deeper into the covers. Guni floated off his shoulder and landed on the edge of the pink box.

“Hey there is more stuff in here” Shido pulled the box closer to him and then dumped its contents out on the bed.

“This girl has a problem, I think its called obsession.” Guni said.

“Pictures of me, and Riho and I together.” He shuffled through the photographs on the bed.

Guni flew onto the dairy and opened it while Shido was pre-occupied after a quick skimming she said, “Shido listen to this- I started this dairy so that I can start a new life. Everything else that has happened is in my old dairies. This one is for life after my parents, my life with Guni, Yayoi and Mr. Shido. I don’t think Mr. Shido feels the same way about me as I do him. I think him and Yayoi are lovers. But I can still be happy and its ok to keep one picture of him and I together, under my bed, as long as no one knows, right?”

“Must be this one.” Shido said with a sigh and picked it up. “It looks older than the others. She was still human in this picture. I think I will get a frame for it and put it on the nightstand with the other.”

“You are just as bad as her. A love sick puppy.”

“Goodnight Guni.” Shido placed the picture next to the picture of him and Guni. Then gathered up the rest of the pictures and dairy and placed them back within the box, then ducked the box under the bed once more. He shut off the lamp and settled down into the bed. Guni made herself comfortable on Shido’s shoulder. His eyes never left the picture of Riho until they slid closed into slumber.