Luca

My life is absolutely atrocious.

I live with two parents and a little sister in a roomy house overlooking a lake. I go to a prim-and-proper school with optional dorms. I've got the newest Mac Book and iPod and a huge collection of books. Why does my life suck?

It's absolutely fallacious.

You can see me hanging out with guys a lot. I'm a skater. I look like a normal human girl. Which I'm not. I am a Level B aristocrat vampire.

That's alright, I guess. Even though I'm a vampire, I have blood tablets, everything to keep my thirst under control. But then there's the other part of me that has a problem too. The part that everyone, including humans, have.

Parents.

My parents, Senri and Rima, are alright. But they're anti-me. Dad works under the pureblood Kaname Kuran, though around these parts, he's just known as one of the professors at the local college. Mom is a designer. She's mostly into lolita, but she's designed several mainstream lines that have made it into a couple of Milan shows too. They both are former models.

For as long as I could remember, Mom has been trying to make me... girly. Sorry, but I'm really not up to it. I skateboard with boys, I eat like a guy, I'm into basketball and volleyball, I fight, and I wear trunks when I swim. That's not to say,of course, that I'm not attracted to guys—I am—but I just like being friends with them more.

When I was a four, Mom actually made me take ballet and acoustic guitar. What a joke. I started skipping ballet to hang out with the guys outside where I learned to break dance, much to her dismay. As for acoustic... let's just say I traded my acoustic in for an electric bass and 600-watt amplifiers.

She just really wants me to follow in her footsteps, I guess. But I have no interest in dressing up like a doll and posing for magazines. I'm not pretty enough, even though vampires are theoretically, born pretty, and I just don't have the k ind of confidence my parents exhibit. Mom's forever telling me how I was named after her best friend, Ruka Souen (my godmother) who's amazingly feminine, and why can't I be like Ruka more instead of telling people to call me Luca?

Luckily for Mom, however, she had Aya four years after me. Aya is perfect. She's smart, confident, pretty, and doesn't mind dressing up. She's the über cute type. Mom doesn't really care that much for me anymore. Like I said, I'm an extra. Dad's the only one around for me. He nags me about grades a lot because he's a professor so the intellect is supposed to run in the family. Actually, all vampires are supposed to be naturally smart. But I don't really see why I need to use it on something I don't care about. I get straight As in English, debate, art, and music, but I'm not so much into math and French. Which is why even though I have an impressive IQ on a human scale (and alright-high up on a vampire scale), I can't convince myself to work very hard.

I slam the door as I walk into the house, my board strapped onto my West 49 backpack. Last time I came in with it in my hand, Mom freaked. Irrationally. Wow, even female vampires are infuriatingly unpredictable.

Mom looks disdainfully out the window where my skate buddies. Davie and Jameson are messing around on our driveway. Whatever. I roll my eyes and walk right past her. You can disapprove all you want. They haven't done anything bad.

"You should really start mixing with some different crowds. Maybe those nice girls at school, the big clique?"

"Ew, Mom. Those are the mainstream-based popular kids. No way in hell I'm going to stick with them."

"There's nothing wrong with changing a little to be more liked."

"I'm not selling my soul."

"Don't be so drastic, honey." She sighs.

"No, that wording would be because I'm listening to Devil on My Shoulder right now." I give her a level gaze.

She snaps. It's always like that. She just suddenly runs out of patience. "Listen to me instead of your iPod when I'm talking, Ruka Aderyn Shiki!"

"Yes, mother, whatever you say, mother." I shrug in boredom and escape the room as she shouts after me something about not slamming the doors when I enter the house.

If anyone ever looks in through the windows, I'm the bad guy. The one who's making her mother worried and acting nonchalant. I'm not, really. I just don't want to explode in her face. Yet somehow, not caring pisses her off more. And there's just that weirdest satisfaction out of pissing her off. I don't care that much anymore.

Lex

Hit harder! Focus. Look where you're punching!

I'm an orphan. When I was eight years old, my family was attacked by vampires.

Better footing! Slide, don't jump!

Only my mother, my brother Niki, and I survived. Barely. My mom was frail and sick for the rest of her life which ended seven years ago. And then Niki and I started training to be hunters, even though Niki was bitten and kept changing even after we started training.

And then five years ago, at age sixteen while I was passing my twelfth birthday, Niki left. A pureblood, Sara Shirabuki, found him amusing and took him in. Niki followed at first, just to get a bit of her blood daily because he didn't want to become a Level E so quickly. But soon enough, he grew attached to her and became her little pet. I've lost all respect for this brother. I don't even know if he's dead now. I hope he is.

Pay attention! I'm over here, Alexei! Where are you hitting?

So the Vampire Hunters Association ordered this guy, the one who's yelling at me right now, Zero Kiryu, to take me in and continue my training. Maybe at first it was an obligation, but I'm pretty sure he's grown closer now. But the last time I called him Dad, he yelled at me. But I can't really remember my own parents very much anymore. I guess I just needed someone to fill in the spot. But if he wouldn't let me, I wouldn't make him. I considered him a foe instead. An incredibly strong foe I looked up to. Someday, I might beat him, get a higher rank than him. But for now, he's my ally and teacher.

"Okay, break for now, Alexei." Kiryu hasn't broken a sweat, even at his age of thirty-something. Embarrassingly enough, I'm the one drenched in sweat, wiping my forehead.

"What's wrong with you today? Focus!"

"I know. I will."

Kiryu was supposedly a really strong hunter when he was my age. I wish I could be like him. Unfortunately, I'm pretty average. Okay, in comparison to other trainees, I'm pretty good, but in Kiryu's standards, I'm below shit. And Kiryu's standards are the ones I'm going by.

"Kid, I didn't take in a no-good cutter to have you stay a no-good underachiever," he growls. I guess that's his way of encouragement.

After my parents died, even though I was under the custody of the Association, I had started cutting. And I had to be sent to therapy. Which is probably why the Association sent me to Kiryu—because they didn't want to pay for my über expensive therapy, but they couldn't bear to throw an orphan with nobody out onto the streets.

"Hey, I heard you were an underachiever at my age." I lean back against the tree and chomp on my snack—Kiryu-made, surprisingly good. You wouldn't expect such decent cooking from a guy who's up half the night turning vampires into dust.

"Only in school." He rolls his eyes. "Besides, I didn't pass because I skipped too much, not because I didn't understand concepts. And I had problems back then."

"Sure,"

We eat silently for a bit, and I look out onto the pond we're training by. Kiryu and I look nothing alike. He's tall and lanky with silvery hair and purple eyes. I'm... as tall and lanky as him, but I have black hair that's always in my eyes and gray-green eyes. This otaku in my class two years back said my genetic coloring and body type and everything look like Gareki from Karneval, whatever that is. Except for my face, she added. Yes, that would probably be because I'm half-Russian and not fully Japanese, genius. Yippee.

Looking at the difference, I decide I won't even care that much if I don't look like him. I need a dad. A family. Good luck. There's nothing even remotely similar that I can find in Zero Kiryu.