He forced his glare into a smile, which (though he didn't notice) was more of a devilish baring of fangs, at which Hira backed up against the wall and stared at him. He lost his temper. "God, what woman? I smile and you get scared? What did I do??" He demanded, growling quietly.
Hira stared at him for a moment, then giggled. "Is that what you were trying to do?" She asked, bursting into a fit of laughter.

Takaji glared more. "WHAT ARE YOU LAUGHING AT??" He bellowed.

She forced herself to stop laughing and looked up into his gray eyes, which now had tinges of red in them. "When was the last time you ever smiled Taka?" She asked him playfully, her eyes still dancing with laughter.

That question caught him off guard. He stared at her for what must have been a good minute, because she raised her eyebrows questioningly. "Well?" she asked.

Takaji scoffed. "Don’t call me Taka." He stated bluntly, pushing past her and walking down the corridor.

"Hey!" Called Hira, grabbing his shoulder as she caught up with him. She opened her mouth to argue with him, but no sound came out. Annoyed, he looked down at her and realized she was staring at something.

He followed her gaze through one of the only windows in his castle, to a small courtyard. "I didn’t know you had a garden" She stated.

He rolled his eyes. "Of course I do." He said, and with a sarcastic tone he added, "Haven’t you ever read vampire books? We always have courtyards in those." Hira didn’t hear his words, and Takaji barely had time to say them, before she dragged him outside into the sunlight.

He hissed slightly and pulled back before he got to the sunlight, staying in the shade of the doorway as Hira looked around at the courtyard, awed. It was a small enclosure in the very center of the castle. Having no roof, it allowed plants to grow in it’s soil. Ivy was tangled and mossy as it clung to the side’s of the walls, and an old marble walkway was overgrown with weeds, but in the flowerbeds, though also overgrown with weeds, was roses and lilies and iris’s, all beautiful colors which contrasted the vampire completely.

Hira stared around. "It’s beautiful."

"It’s covered in weeds." He corrected.

"Still beautiful." Said Hira softly.

"Covered in weeds is not beautiful." He corrected again.

"oh shutup." Hira said, ending their argument. "How come its so overgrown?"

Takaji sighed. "My mother planted this garden. I’m not much of a gardener, and none of the maid’s like to be outside much, though I don’t know why."

Hira turned to him. "I’ll do it.." She said softly, leaning down and directing her attention to a rose, which was being strangled by the weeds. He raised an eyebrow as she carefully pulled the weeds away from the rose.

"Funny, I never thought a werewolf would enjoy gardening." He said, a hint of humor in his voice, though his face didn’t show it.

Hira looked back at him again. "We aren’t completely evil, Taka. We are half human after all, as much as we don’t show it."

Takaji smiled, letting the nickname pass. "Neither are we Ra." He said softly, making up a nickname for her as well. They both smiled at each other, lost in the perfection of the moment.
However, their perfection was broken as a gruff voice said softly

"Taka? I didn’t know you were into pet names, Takaji. Neither did I know that you were now keeping pets." The man said, spitting out the word pets as he said it. Takaji jumped and turned, fear obvious in his gray eyes.

"I didn’t know you were there, Kasai." He said, backing into the courtyard.

"and I didn’t know you were low enough to invite flea invested mutts into your home"