The handle shuddered, before twisting to part the door from it's wall. Yui went in, breath frantic, and pressed her back onto the smoothened marble of the door. Breathing for comfort at her lungs, the blond felt the air more scentless than usual, then unzipped her school bag to find a rose for a more flavored smell. It was a long stalk bursting into red. The bulb large enough to be mistaken for trying to snap free from it's thorny, lanky neck by getting bigger.

It was in it's packaged state, and had been that way for a while. After the school bell done it's ringing bout, a male classmate hastily reached for her arm, asking for her time at the rooftop. It was out of her wildest expectations that she was going to receive a love confession that evening.

The boy had an uncontained smile as he let out the truth, which then slightly straightened as his feelings wasn't shared. But he nodded understandingly, and then held out a plastic-bounded flower, insisting that she could still have it. With that, he hoped out loud that maybe she wouldn't stop thinking of him for the rest of the day. He told her that that thought alone would have him pleased.

Receiving it, she was so blissfully happy, it hurt not to cry. And felt fearfully wary. Yui had been hiding her gift, painfully anxious of what the brothers might do to it if they were to see it. She was petrified of them just smelling it. Which was why she hadn't removed the packaging yet.

But now that she's in her room, it was safe to open. The brothers hadn't seen her carrying the rose from school, so they'd think she had picket it out from the garden. They would be alot more forgiving to the point of caring less about the flower at all, if they thought it was their own. Right?

Yui carefully pulled a shred of plastic, the red color seemed to glow as it was allowed to taste real air again. Leaning the bulb under her nose, the scent burst in. There was a faint hint of moist dirt that followed after the fragrance. Her confessor was patient enough to let the flower collect it's beauty, but not enough to rid of the tightening smell of buried root. It was alright, however. That just made the rose feel more heartfelt for her.

It's red color suddenly darkened as a shadow closed in.

"Bitch-chan~." Laito felt the blond's hands stiffen as he wrapped his palms around them. He giggled. "You've been staring longingly at this for a while. Are you planning to eat it?"

Yui gently wiggled her fingers, gesturing the vampire to pull his hands back. "N-no. But, I just like it's smell."

"The roses we have in the garden has a far stronger aroma than this weak thing. And the red color isn't nearly as rich." His hands were still there. They lifted slightly, the rose now eye-level with Yui's shrinking irises. "Where did you get this, Bitch-chan? There's an unfamiliar smell too. Nfu, seeing other men?"

"No- that's- I'm-" A tiny pair of red eyes, was visible at a dark corner of the ceiling, then the shadows flickered to reveal a fluttering bat wing. Yui couldn't believe she had forgotten of his familiars. Lying was no longer a good option. "A guy gave me these as a gift. A…a love confession. But I rejected him, okay? I…I hope you're not mad.."

"Uwaa, Bitch-chan thought of me! That makes me happy~"

I didn't reject him for you. Yui did not want to think of what he would do to her classmate if he was actually mad about it.

"Then, you're not angry?"

"Nfu, Bitch-chan can receive flowers from every male in campus and I'll still be okay. I don't mind sharing you~"

Hearing that, Yui wasn't sure if it was better to be relieved or worried.

A kind of coldness still followed the lines and creases of her fingers as Laito returned his palms. "But I'm very confused. Why do human men give women roses as a sign of love?"

"Um..." The girl hesitated to answer. It's an instinct that grew each time the vampire spoke. "Because girls like flowers? People tend to give presents of what the other party likes. And I guess rose-giving became a normal thing over time."

"I can see that, it's just that giving flowers in addition to a love confession…" His gaze slipped past Yui's eyes, and settled onto the rose. "Doesn't this mean that humans think that a girl's affection can be easily bought with flowers?"

The girl remembered Laito's frighteningly distorted, and frustratingly stubborn understanding of love, and found it hard to come up with an answer. "W-well…"

"See? This doesn't make sense. It's good that Bitch-chan isn't stupid enough to fall for these tropes." The said girl kept switching glances from the male to her gift. He stared at it deeply, possibly plucking out all the petals bald in his mind. "Hmph~ I'm really disappointed that your classmate thinks of you so lightly. Roses are obviously not enough. As proof, Bitch-chan didn't think twice about turning him down."

"Hey, my standards for gifts aren't high, Laito-kun." Yui lowered her sight to the flora beneath her chin. The huddle of round petals parted in a frenzied stretch and sent her a tiny calmth. Her eyes softened. "Roses like these are enough to make me happy for the entire day. I think that's what matters."

"Oh~ You're saying you like them?"

"I do. They're really pretty after all."

"They really are. And easy to wither." Laito nodded. "So Bitch-chan can relate. Of course you like them."

One of Yui's thumbs flinched, nearly pressing against a thorn. "Wh-what?"

"When you think about it, isn't Bitch-chan like a pretty rose?"

The female wondered if the vampire was attempting to flatter her. He said she was like a rose. He said she was pretty.

Repeating those thoughts over and over in her head didn't have her feel flattered. With the way Laito's eyes traveled across her body, she reluctantly knew he meant her blood. Closing in, Laito slightly dipped his neck down, humming as the sight of his prey now properly loomed over his eyes. "In the first place, roses are born beautiful to attract flies. Like how Bitch-chan is born with beautiful blood to attract vampires."

Truth be told.

The male's teeth hadn't had it's daily plunge into her skin, but it felt like they had. The spicy stings from selfishly slow healing bite marks over her skin was ignorable enough for days. Now it was slightly felt again, because Yui began imagining the grazing of fangs, and thought of it like how a child would when about to intake unsweetened medicine.

"But I don't want this." If Yui really was anything like a rose, she wished she could just collect herself to her center and squeeze herself tight through every season. "I never asked for any of this."

She held her breath when cool knuckles brushed against her jawline. "Your opinion doesn't matter Bitch-chan. It never will. Your destiny is decided after all." Laito met her forehead with his. Forest green eyes adoringly gazing into sherbert. "To be by my side."

The rose suddenly felt weak within her grasp.

A few months ago, when the blond made the outrageous request to choose who should be allowed to taste her blood, half of the brothers blew air up their nose and left the situation for the triplets to handle.

When the female looked to Ayato and Kanato, neither impressed her. One was unsympathetically agressive, and the other simply eerie. They seemed like undesirable options back then.

Laito became her vampire of choice.

Yui was a diligently patient girl. No matter what witchery the vampire bespelled, the blond held her ground and tried to blur out his words and actions with her own head, waiting for it all to end. As long as she could survive, and as long as nobody else got hurt, she didn't mind sitting through the carving of teeth. Sooner or later, father would arrive to pick her up, and she could finally be free

But as time passed, the girl wished she had allowed herself to be a little less forgiving, because maybe if she had, then maybe she wouldn't have half the wounds she had now. Or better yet, if she was a bit more stubborn, she would've forced her father to take her with him.

Then, maybe she wouldn't have to have known that she was a sacrifice. She wouldn't have known that her own church had used her. She wouldn't be placed in a world where she had no source of support. She wasn't even permitted to make friends at school. It didn't seem that he father would come for her either. She had no one.

Or, perhaps, she truly was supposed to be this way. When she was five, there was a time when a boy stole her rosary and left it to bathe in wet dirt. Returning home with hands like wearing mud for gloves, she was told to care for the boy still, to turn the other cheek. Then there was her music teacher who used to thump his wooden ruler onto the blond 's nails till they peel whenever she pressed the wrong holes of her flute. Yui sought counsel from the church, who told her to just keep respecting her elders and be thankful for the knowledge she received.

The blonde's lower lip shuddered. If there was anyone suitable for a life of a docile Sacrificial Bride, it's…it's her. Every man was born with a purpose that they'd discover at a later time. It's possible that..that Yui found out early, that her purpose was to become livestock for an obnoxious immortal.

"Oh don't look so sad Bitch-chan. Let's be honest here, don't you enjoy what you're going through?"

"I don't."

Laito's eyes opened like how lips would part to gasp. "…Hm?"

"This...th-this isn't even the first time I tell you this Laito-kun, but it's hard since you only hear what you want to hear! You...you're always frustrating!" Placing her rose on her desk, Yui didn't know what power had gathered such volume within her voice. But it was there, and all suppressed thoughts took shape with her lips. "You're the one who likes it. You're the one who enjoys it. And you keep pretending that what you feel is mutual, but it's not. I suffer Laito!"

"Suffer you say? But Bitch-chan is a liar." The vampire's tone of voice never changed, but his grin was humorless. "Your body speaks the truth, so when you say that you don't like it, I don't need to believe you."

Yui shook her head. "No, Laito, you're the one who's lying to yourself." Her heartbeat exploded till her chest hurt, as if trying to remind her to say no more, else she'd feel a more agonizing pain. And the girl knew that she should, if she wanted to survive. Yet, she didn't. "My skin is always so pale, I'm scared of looking at myself. I can't even move my neck. I feel sick, I always do, because of you. But you never notice!"

"Nfufu, that's where you're wrong, Bitch-chan."

A crushing force felt at her sides, as though Laito had mistook it for the pipe of her throat and wanted to squeeze out her vocal chords through her belly. It hurt.

"I adore absolutely everything about you. I care all of those things you said and so much more. I can't even make a list...," the violent tightening just around her stomach suddenly felt all around her body as Yui was yanked into a beastly embrace, "I also know the limp way you walk these days, your breath that weakened every passing moon. Even the fang marks that still hasn't recovered since last month. I'm an expert in these lovely little things about you, but you hate them. Therefore...," The girl went inflexible as the ghost of lips floated just over her ear, "I shall love for them for you."

The nonexistent space between the two was harshened as Laito kept a firm arm around her back, and the other slid it's fingers in laps around her pale skin, albeit overexcitably as they drew shapes on unsmoothened bite marks.

The vampire's hold kept Yui from wriggling like a hot worm at each touch. "No! Ouch, ouch- stop it! What are you doing?!"

"Recollecting memories. Ahh, these wounds and scars on Bitch-chan's skin is like my prized picture book. Stay still, and let me feel you in and out, okay Bitch-chan?"

The vampire ran the tips of his fingers over her skin to find the dot-sized gaps where new skin could not fill. The blond cried as he scraped them with his nails to see if they would redden anew. He pushed his fingers from under her shirt to search her stomach when he couldn't find anything. "The one where you screamed so hard, it's no longer music. This one is when I bit you in front of a teacher. Kanato-kun bit you here, so I bit it again to remark this part as mine- Oh! And here's my favorite!"

Eyes wet and shame creating heat on her face, Yui choked her sobs and managed to catch a feel of a hand hitching the right side of her skirt, gently and carefully taking in the softness of the expanse of her thigh, before bumping into a particular mark that would forever stay encarved across the surface.

No, please, not that one.

"The one in which you've told that you would never submit to me." A moan went from his mouth as he caressed the scar like an infant's scalp, reinvisioning a stone flooring under their feet and stained glass windows above their heads. The first place where Laito struck a portion of her pride and dignity, somewhere that was supposed to be Yui's last sanctuary.

He giggled lowly. "I've said this a hundred times Bitch-chan, and I'll say it again. The only worth you have is blood to drink and body to fill desires. You give me neither and I'll kill you."

Air was hacked back into Yui's lungs as the severe grip was loosened, but his arms were still perched at her shoulders.

"I'm sorry Bitch-chan. Sometimes, it's hard to take you seriously. You're like every other bride, losing yourself as time goes on. With that, other than your blood, you're nothing special." The girl's cheeks crammed her teeth, squished together with Laito's single hand, causing her lips to scrunch. "Today though, your mouth is extra noisy. You were just fine and tame last night, and the nights before."

Yui's face was flattened back in place when his fingers were gone. In fact, his entire presence was missing as light gushed back into her eyes, no tall body shielding her from it's brightness. She turned to see the vampire at her desk, sealing his fingers around the thorned stalk of her rose, then brushing his thumb to and fro with his index to make the flower twirl. "Did this rose give you new strength?"

The human's eyelids shot skywards. The memory of flower shreddings tearing between Laito's teeth came to mind. She didn't want the same thing to happen to her rose.

"Wait! Don't!" Yui gasped when the vampire found a pair of scissors with a delighted hum. "I…I'm sorry for talking back. I won't do it again! Please don't crush it!"

There was the sharp, heart-wrenching sound of blades parting, then joining back together, and the girl nearly fainted.

"How could-!" Laito spun around, revealing the bulb still intact, not a single petal loosened. "….you?"

His shoulders rose and fell as he laughed, before finding a mirror. He fixed the scarlet plant to the dark magenta ribbon of his fedora. "One of the things I love about roses is that they make excellent head accessories!"

The boy gestured Yui to come forward, then brushing back a curtain of her hair, almost lovingly, before attaching the recently shortened green neck along her ear.

He really liked how the deep color of the rose contrasted against her pale complexion, and the corners of his lips tugged up. "There!"

Yui took in air through gritted teeth "Ow! Laito-kun, you haven't dethorned it?"

She reached out her hand to remove the flower from her head, but the vampire snatched her wrist, and looked into her eyes darkly.

"If Bitch-chan doesn't like thorns, then she doesn't deserve any roses." Falling silent, her hand fell limply at her side. Laito's smile came back, and he cupped her cheeks. "Nfu, I really did feel like deflowering it, but I don't want to anymore since it makes you look like a princess."

"Th-thanks…I guess. But can I please take it off now?" The girl's ears began to blush, signalling that the red fluid beneath was about to leak out. The thorns were pressing into her flesh like how roots would into dirt. "I-it hurts."

No, wait.

"Oh! You poor, sweet child. Here, I'll treat it~"

Wait!

Laito pushed one of her shoulders to move her in a swift whirl, before looping an arm around her diaphragm. With his other hand entangling it's fingers into her own like how he would invite her to a dance, he opened his mouth wide enough to fit in a yawn, and dug his fangs into her skin just under her earlobe.

No!

Yui cried. This, this was what she always feared to happen. It happened to her everyday, so she thought she could get used to the slicing pain. But the more bite marks engraved to her skin, the more she was going to lose her mind.

When blood was forced out of the thin layer of skin to drop onto Laito's tongue, she wailed. There was a burning sensation at her ear, and one scorching just below. And Yui was moving her neck. Her neck that was roughened with fang marks. The family doctor told her to avoid so, and now it felt like it was going to snap from her shoulders

And then, the part that she loathed the most came. When the pain melted into a form that caused her face to flush and legs to wobble. Pleasure.

A tad more satisfied, Laito gulped a couple more sips before unfastening his teeth. He then positioned Yui's chin so she could have a good view of herself within the flat silver of the mirror.

"Open your eyes Bitch-chan, and look at your hideous reflection. Now tell me again that that face isn't one of pleasure. Scream at me that you're not enjoying this. Spit it out if you want to!"

"…Make it stop," Yui sobbed. "I can't do this. I'm going to die. I want to die!"

A giggle trickled from the vampire's freshly bloodwashed throat, and he was about to suggest helping her with that. Then he heard her crying like that of a lamenting child, her heartbeat imitating a shattered bird song, and realized that that truly would relieve her of her misery.

Was it just his imagination? He should push on.

"He~h, are you really sure with that Bitch-chan? I don't want to be left all alone. My life can't go on without you~"

"I don't want to be with you, Laito-kun. I feel worse each time we meet, each time you open your mouth. You make it too hard." Laito thoughtfully watched as the human teen forcibly grabbed the flora from her ear. "What sin have I committed to end up with someone so awful!"

"Bitch-chan." The vampire thought of licking her neck still sop wet with blood, and decided that that would rather be counterproductive. "Do you want me out of your life so badly?"

"What does it look like?!"

He took note on how that was the first time she truly yelled at him. "Alright then, nfu~ I'll leave for someone else."

"…What?"

"I'll find another girl, Bitch-chan. If you can't submit to me, then someone else will. Haven't I told you that you're nothing special to me?" The rose was taken from Yui's hand. "I'll give her all the roses, pleasure, and my bottomless love~"

The girl slowly raised her hand, cautiously touching the new wounds. This was barely even a piece of the amount of agony that she had went through. As much as she didn't want to be like how she was now, the girl wondered if it would also be okay for someone else to take her place.

No, if she was fine with that, then she was no better than the devil before her.

"W-wait."

Laito spun his heel. "Bye-bye Bitch-chan!"

"Wait!"

The blond bitterly tared at the ground as a grin broadened the auburn-haired boy's face.

"Oh, what is this? Finally have hold onto your senses, Bitch-chan?" The male moved his face so near, their noses met. "Then say it. Say that you want me."

Yui's shoulders fell. In the end, she was always living for other people.

"I…wa-..want you."

"You want me to suck your blood."

"I…want you to suck my blood."

"You want me to make love to you."

She held back a cry. "I w-want you to…to make love to me."

"And you don't want to die."

"….I don't want to die."

"Oh Bitch-chan!" Yui squeezed her eyes to suppress disgust when the vampire kissed her lips. "There's no need to fear for death. You can entrust your life to lovable Laito-kun!"

A blond brow twitched. Something did not sit right.

"Wh-what does that mean?"

"Not obvious? Tonight, I'm going to love you lots and turn you into a vampire." One of her hands were taken, and the rose was rightfully returned to it's owner. "With that, there really will be no way for you to die. At least, not on your own. Do you see how badly I want you to live now?"

Yui played Laito's words one more time, and felt ill down to her stomach. Perhaps it's because it was time for dinner. She needed to have her constant meal of spinach, liver, and tall glass of cranberry juice again, followed by drinking three pills half an hour after. She would not need to do these after she become immortal, because all she needed to sate her health was to drink blood from others, giving pain and probably still receiving pain from the youngest triplet. To live a lifestyle like that, she'd rather.. She'd rather…

The pink-eyed teen clasped her mouth with her free hand. 'Oh God, no..'

Laito let his prey run out of the room. "I need bandages!"

She slammed the door shut and went out to the corridor, knowing well that there were bandages just in the first-aid kit of her bathroom.

The vampire picked up the flower that had touched the ground. It was drowned with maroon and some of the petals disheveled, but it still looked lovely.

"Oh look, the red color isn't as dull anymore! It looks better than any rose in the garden~"

The only worth you have is blood to drink and body to fill desires. You give me neither and I'll kill you.

Roses were the most beautiful when they served their purpose, when a bit of their life was extracted. "And I must say Bitch-chan, you are blooming."

Edited on 14/3/17 (Special thanks to mythica magic's review)

2nd edit on 21/4/19 (Changed parts of the dialogue that made me cringe and some other tweaks)

There's a good reason why I dropped out the Romance genre for this fic

I miss prpr so much gah. Srsly, he brings out the best of my writing. There are so many similes here I'M SO HAPPY

I was kinda worried that I made him too vile here. Then I reread his HDB route and I was liek 'No no no, this is only more or less just a half of how rotten this perverted ass truly is.'

Imo, the thing that went wrong here is that Laito isn't being perverted enough and that he's not moaning as much as usual. Here, he's just being mentally abusive.

There's physical harassment, yes. But that scene is nothing compared to what Laitobae usually does.

The Laito fanbase is probs gonna lose some members cuz of this shot lol.

And as u guys can see, I tried to write so Yui was able to stand up for herself. Was it IC enough?

IC or not, her condition only got worse

Anyways, I'd be supremely happy if you guys leave a review. I accept anything so long it's tied to this shot c:

Remind me if I made any mistakes. I want to do better.

Thanks 4 Reading =^ ~ ^=

Popcorn. Cantaloupe. Banana squash. Creak. Don't these words sound delightful?

TheNyanTree