Yuki…Yuki is a monster, that was all Zero could think about as he lay on his bed staring at the ceiling. Lying in the dark was all he could handle. She had been his rock. The one thing that had made his life worth living since his parents had died, and Ichiru…Ichiru was dead. Zero's world was crashing down around him, and he couldn't bear it. He stared at the "Bloody Rose". It was an anti-vampire weapon, so all he had to do was pull the trigger. Would it truly be enough to kill him? It had been nearly a year since she had left with him. Kaname Kuran…her brother…her lover. Zero hated him with all of his being. Kaname had used him to protect Yuki. He had been another tool that Kaname had used to play his games. He was a disgusting pureblood that should have been put down like a dog. Zero relished the idea of destroying Kaname and tearing him to pieces. To do whatever must be done to put down that bastard. But the moment his imagination took flight, his body throbbed with the memory of what Kaname gave him…his blood. The blood that nearly destroyed him, and yet it saved him. The blood that had given him the strength to continue protecting Yuki, or at least the Yuki that he had known. But that Yuki hadn't been real.
He pushed back the memories, and got off his bed, grabbed his coat, and Bloody Rose, and walked out the door. He had moved to the city since he couldn't stand being in a place that was so full of lies. Cross Academy had been the place where Zero had healed both physically and emotionally after his parents had been killed. For a time he had been able to allow him to become part of the "family", that Kaien Cross had built of their little threesome. There had been a time where he believed that they belonged with each other, and there were moments when he believed he had been happy if only slightly. That "family" had been a lie. Kaien Cross was an insane man who had a foolishly optimistic delusion of vampires and humans finding peace. Zero was a vampire who was falling to Level E. And Yuki, Yuki had always been just a bloodthirsty Vampire posing as a human girl. Their family and everything that had entailed, was a dream built on a reality of lies. Now, walking through the city in the dead of night, he tried to pretend that everything had been imagined, because it might as well have been.
Before he realized it, he found himself standing outside Cross Academy. Uncomfortable he stared at his former home. His eyes drifted to his former dorm room window, but instead of seeing darkness he saw a light. For a moment, he thought that the headmaster must have assigned a student to his old room. Then he saw her face illuminated by the light in the room. He had to be imagining, but when he met her surprised gaze, he knew he wasn't imagining anything. His mind told him that he should leave. There was nothing here for him anymore, but as he looked at her he felt himself walk towards the gate, up the stairs, and before he knew it he was standing in front of his former dorm room's door. He turned the doorknob slowly, and pushed open the door.
There she was standing framed in the window, her soft brown hair falling down her shoulders. It was so long compared to the way he was used to seeing it, and she had the ethereal beauty of those who had belonged to the Night Class. But Zero had always thought Yuki was beautiful. This beautiful stranger standing before him was not Yuki. This girl's scent was the scent of a vampire, and not just a vampire but a pureblood. The Yuki he had known was human, pure human.
"Hello, Zero," she greeted him softly, her eyes watching him cautiously. After all he had made it perfectly clear how he had felt about her the last time that they had seen one another. His hand remained on the door knob. He should close the door, and walk away. Or he should kill her. But he couldn't keep standing there staring at her.
"Yuki," he replied, "What are you doing here?"
"Am I not allowed to come home to visit my father?"
"Kaien isn't your father," Zero replied bitingly, his mind snapping back to the fact that Yuki Cross had never existed, but was always Yuki Kuran a Vampire who had pretended to be a human. Kaien was never Yuki's father.
Yuki had stayed silent at first, but then she replied, "Blood is not what makes a family, Zero. I thought you understood that."
"We were never a family," he replied. She stared at him, and then started to take a step forward. He moved backwards, and she stopped. The two of them were at a stalemate. Neither one moved any closer, but neither one was going to leave.
"How have you been?" Yuki asked, trying to smile, but it was a weak attempt.
"Why should you care?" he was about to turn around and leave. It was now or never. Before he could move, he felt her hand grip his arm, and throw him onto the dorm bed. Taken off guard by how strong she was, he didn't have time to react before she was on top of him. Her face was only inches from his face, and there was a familiar determination in her eyes. The kind of determination she used to have. He tried to struggle, but she was stronger. He could barely move. He had been living on pills for months, and he had no idea what she was living on.
"Please listen to me, Zero. I understand that everything that has happened is hard for you to accept, but why can't you see that I am still the same person I have always been? Does everything we have been through together mean nothing?"
"Our past doesn't change the truth," Zero muttered and tried to move again, but she had a firm grasp of both his wrists. He looked away from her penetrating gaze, unable to bear the tears, that he could see welling up in her eyes.
"What is the truth to you? Because to me it is the fact that we were once best friends, and that we were once a family. Please, my life is not complete without you!"
"That doesn't matter anymore."
"Why not!"
"Does he know that you are here?" he looked back up into her face, and saw her startled expression. There was something hidden underneath that startled expression. Something she was keeping back. "Isn't it all happy endings, and fairytales?"
"I love him, Zero." She said it simple and matter of fact, but it felt like she had shoved daggers through his heart. He thought that was done with. All those times he had seen how she had watched him, and he had felt the pain of knowing that her love would never be his, he had thought had been erased. But her words hurt him, and he was angry at himself for being hurt by them. There was no reason to feel that way about her anymore.
"Then why are you here?" he muttered.
"Because…I miss you." He could see the simple truth in his eyes and it just made him angrier.
"I miss Yuki Cross. But Yuki Cross is dead. No…she never really existed, except for in my memories. Get off me, Pureblood!" A single tear rolled down her face, but she didn't move. "Didn't you hear me?! Get off!" he screamed at her. Instead she lowered her face to his neck. She opened her mouth, her fangs glinting in the moonlight that slanted through the window, and paused for just a moment. For Zero, time froze. He wasn't afraid of her, but he didn't know what he should feel. Was she really going to bite him? Drink his blood? That amused him, considering all the times he had taken blood from her, when she was a human.
"What are you…" his words were cut off from the sharp pain of her fangs piercing his neck. He could hear her swallowing, and his blood pumping. There really was no pain anymore except for what he was feeling inside. All his anger was being cut away from him, and all he could think about what he said. He couldn't forget the truth. But the real truth was, that he still loved her, and yet he hated her. The truth was that there wasn't a day that went by without him thinking of her. The truth was that he couldn't bare this life, and there were days that he realized that he was just waiting to die, or fall to Level E. Whichever came first. Because in the end, the core truth was that his life wasn't worth living without her. It wasn't just that his world wasn't complete, it was that it didn't exist. His reason for living didn't exist.
She stopped drinking abruptly, and before he knew it she had jumped off of him and was across, the room, "I'm sorry," she whispered, he could hear the sadness in her voice, "I'm sure I'll see you again soon." He knew she left, but he remained lying on the bed. He wanted to just disappear. To no longer exist, and to fade away with the dream he had lived in only a year earlier with her.
