Ascendant Path of a Lustful Vampire

•••

The doors of the Mage-Knight Training Classroom opened, and the waters that had been kept sealed within the room flowed outside.

"We'd better get away from here before someone spots all… this," Delia was saying, only for her to stutter toward the end.

The smile she hadn't been able to keep off her face following her moment with Caius stiffed a bit when she saw someone seated on the ground beside the Mage-Knight Classroom doorway.

Caius noticed Delia's reaction and followed her eyes and saw who she had seen. The person had their head bowed over in between their knees but Caius recognized who it was.

"Doran?" He called.

The boy raised his brown-haired head then and looked at Caius and Delia with his warm brown eyes that were slightly puffy and red in a show of tears well and long shed. Even if his face was now dry and free of moisture, the traces remained.

"Caius… You finally came out," he said.

Caius had expected the voice to come out very choked up but it sounded quite clear and level. Even a little jovial like he was accusing Caius of having taken his sweet time. Which, technically had been the case even though Caius hadn't known someone was waiting for him outside the doors.

Doran gestured at Delia and greeted her,

"Hey."

Delia looked like she couldn't even form a greeting in response. She just gave him a sharp nod and looked at Caius.

"I-I gotta go."

And with that, she was gone.

Caius felt a gust of wind and was sure she had used a movement spell. He let out a sigh and turned his eyes to Doran.

"This is about your confession, isn't it?" He asked.

Doran smiled and it looked like it hurt him.

"You heard about it already, huh," he said.

"Yeah," Caius said and walked over to sit by Doran's side on the ground as the water flowing out of the classroom began to extend through the corridor.

"Shame. I was planning on telling you about it myself," Doran said, "Whatever you've heard was grossly wrong exaggerated."

"I find that hard to believe looking at the state of you," Caius said.

"Oh, this?" Doran said and gestured at his eyes and then tried to laugh it off, "I haven't been crying…"

"Doran," Caius said, interrupting whatever cover-up Doran had prepared and was about to deliver, and then continued in a gentle voice while staring at the wall in front of him,

"What's wrong?"

Doran sighed.

"I don't know. I guess I just thought of you after- after it happened," He said.

"Huh," Caius just said, not sure how to take that.

"It's just…" Doran started and paused, looking like he was trying to find the right words, "It's just you always know just what to say to me. I needed some of that, I think."

"How did the rejection make you feel?" Caius asked, doing a mental head shake at how he was sounding like a therapist.

"Terrible… Horrible..." Doran said with a sigh, "But I expected that. I didn't think she'd accept. I just didn't expect to feel so…"

Doran tried to find the right word here and no matter how hard his brain worked, he just failed to find what he wanted. Fortunately, Caius understood him.

"You've regressed," he accurately assessed, "You've been emboldened for a week now by my words to you. You've started to feel like you belong here. But that one encounter with Aylin brought you back down to 'reality'."

This was similar to how Caius had been so sure about how Delia felt earlier. The difference was, he'd never tell her how she felt like he was doing with Doran. Doran needed to hear his own thoughts said back to him to really help him work through his self-esteem issues.

Doran laughed then. A very sad, self-deprecating sound.

"Well put. Down to reality, indeed."

"It's only your 'reality' because you feel it is. But that's fine. It was always going to take more than just a few words from me and a few weeks ruminating on those words to truly undo years of feeling let down by your status in society," Caius said, and let a few minutes of silence lapse before he added,

"You're still a work in progress."

He understood that that was why Doran came to him. Because, deep inside, he knew this wasn't really about getting rejected. Doran had just had the reality he had started to believe thanks to Caius's words—the reality that stated that he belonged at Lochxen as much as anyone else—shaken by one very public embarrassment.

"Was I wrong to do it publicly?" Doran asked.

Caius raised a brow.

"I thought we were establishing that this is not about the proposal or the rejection," Caius said.

"It's all still part of it," Doran said with a shrug, "What do you think? Was I wrong to ask her publicly?"

"I don't think you'd ever have gotten the opportunity to do it in any other way. At best, you might have caught her in the corridors but she'd still be with five of her gal-pals.

Aylin Khione is never alone so her rejection of you was never going to be private."

Doran took that in and nodded, looking a bit more relieved.

"That's true," he said.

"Still, using the word 'love' in a very loud announcement of your feelings to someone you've hardly ever even spoken to isn't very smart," Caius said.

"Do you think I should give it another shot?" Doran asked, "A different approach?"

"Try as many times as you want, Aylin's answer will never change," Caius said.

Doran's eyes went a bit wide at the first time Caius was ever telling him flat out that his pursuit was hopeless. His eyes closed halfway then in a downcast expression.

Caius still had his eyes on the wall in front of him so he may or may not have noticed the expression but he continued still,

"And it's not because you're a Commoner, by the way. She has simply given her heart to someone else and whether that person reciprocates or not, her feelings will not change."

"And that person is you?" Doran asked.

Rather than give a straight answer and appear more egotistical than he already felt, Caius just looked to the side at Doran,

"What do you think?" He asked and realized that was probably just as douchey to do.

Sure enough, Doran's eyes took in the entirety of Caius's absurdly handsome face and his heart sank even more like he was just realizing just who he had been competing with.

"I never had a chance, did I?"

"With Aylin? No," Caius said gently returning his eyes to the wall.

"Or with any girl, for that matter," Doran said with a little laugh, "Not while you're around."

"I thought we were only talking about Aylin here," Caius said lightly.

"Right, right," Doran said, having been called to order, and then let out a sigh as he rested his head against the wall,

"Aylin Khione. The perfect icy beauty who only has eyes for you."

Doran's voice sounded very sullen and a bit bitter as he said that sentence. The tone didn't escape Caius's detection, of course.

He shrugged,

"People are allowed to like and not like who they want. If I ever approach a girl and she rejects me…"

Doran scoffed.

Caius pressed on,

"… If I ever approach a girl and she rejects me, it would be within her right to do so. It's the way affection works. It should be reciprocated not forced."

Doran scoffed again like he thought Caius might not have heard him the first time.

"That's just a hypothetical," he said and there was a bite in his words as he continued,

"Because really, what would YOU know about rejection? You have that last name of yours, you have that face, you have your talent… who would ever say No?"