Roadside

And all men kill the thing they love,
By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

~Oscar Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Gaol

School served but one purpose for me: sleep.

This was nothing new. Back in the guardian days, that was all I ever did during class—only then, I tried to hide it a little better. Propped my book up in front of me, made it seem like I was reading—dumb stuff like that. Now, I just put my head down and let the fatigue take me to the darkness.

At first, the teachers gave me hell for it. "Stay after class, Kiryu!" I heard that pretty much every day. And every day, I'd ignore them. It got to the point where they stopped bothering; after all, I was passing the class, so why did they care if I slept? It was the only time I could sleep. Plus, I was sure that the Headmaster had said something to them.

I had become a true vampire, it seemed—sleep during the day, hunt at night. It didn't bother me as much as it used to. I resisted it at first—the way I had resisted everything since I was thirteen—but resistance was too tiring. And one day I realized: why bother? Who was I trying to impress? I never went after the students at school, so why give a damn about appearances? There was no one around who cared that much anymore. Eventually, I stopped caring, too.

Now, in the twilight of the Academy, I retreated to the stable, lying on the hay next to Lily. My back was to the horse, staring at the wall next to the door, counting the endlessly repeating cracks in the faded wood. Right before darkness fell was the hardest for me. I stared at the wood, thinking about how only an hour left, an hour before I could give in to the disease in my brain. An hour before I could hand my humanity over to the infection I had been fighting less and less. My hand crept to the gun in my jacket, caressing its metal figure, feeling the familiar scratches and bumps that had accumulated over the years. It seemed to pulse underneath my touch, responding to my lust. It was at this time—and only this time—that the vampire and hunter in me would scream for the same thing: blood.

Despite my concentration on the cracks in the wood—I had counted two hundred and thirty five, a new record for me—the images crept into my head, the way they always did; images of my hunt. I imagined how I would roam the dark, filthy streets in search for my prey; how I would find them, cowering in the dirt, where they belonged; how I would listen to their terrible screams as I put the Bloody Rose to their head and pulled the trigger. But killing level E's and rogue aristocrats wasn't enough anymore. It was too easy…too quick. A single bullet was all it took, and where's the fun in that? I wanted the thrill of the hunt. There was never a fight, never a bloodbath. I knew what I wanted; I had known for the past year.

I wanted to hunt a pureblood.

As soon as the thought crossed my mind, the picture came into being as if it had always been there: a faceless pureblood lying on the ground, pinned down by my own body. I would pull out the Bloody Rose, and I could almost hear the bullet tear through their flesh, watch the ripple of agony cross their face. I drank it all in, feeding the disease even more. The warm blood that was so coveted by humans and vampires alike would blossom under their clothes (maybe they would be wearing white, and it would be so much more beautiful) and it would take all of my willpower not to devour them, but I would hold back. My hatred, my illness, it would be all the willpower I needed. I would tear them to pieces, slowly, so slowly, maybe starting with the bullet wound, or maybe the neck. Their bare, unprotected neck; how very cliché. I would rip the flesh off to expose the meat underneath, and rip out the tendons, one by one.

The image was so vivid, so very real, in my mind—I moaned with pleasure as I returned to my body, my hands digging into the hay underneath me, as if to find the flesh I was so eager to dig into. Some distant part of me registered the nervous shuffling of the animals around me, the occasional whinny of a horse.

Then another image came to mind; it was similar to the first, but this time, the faceless pureblood was Kaname Kuran.

A shiver ran through my body. Even better.

I could rip out his beating heart, and he would still be alive for more. I could destroy him, piece by piece, while his pure blood ran in a tsunami beneath us. Would he cry for mercy, beg me to stop? No. Of course not. He would fight back, and it would be so much more satisfying if he did.

Suddenly—as if those parts of my mind which had not been rotted through were trying to stop me—she was there. Not as the victim, but as a bystander, watching as I tore through her lover. Tears streamed down her face as she begged me to stop…

But I didn't stop. I couldn't. I would kill them both.

Fresh pain exploded in my heart at the thought. It was so real that I clutched my chest, half expecting to fell the warmth of my own blood.

Stupid. It wasn't that kind of pain.

I was at war with myself, but that was nothing new. The vampire and the hunter constantly fought for control, and often a strange combination of the two was what surfaced. This, however, was a new war, another battle going on parallel to the first: the part of me that loved her, and the part that wanted her ashes. This war would destroy me. And I wished it would hurry up.

I think it'd be easier if Kaito just shot me.

I could never be with her. I knew that. I've always known that. Deep in my heart, in my broken, infected heart, I had accepted that. Even before the whole everybody's-a-vampire business, she would always love him—and perhaps it would have been better that way, regardless. Better for her. He could love her like I couldn't. Perhaps I was just too damaged to fix, even for her gentle hands.

I loved her anyway.

I hated her anyway.

The sun had almost set, and my time drew near. But the fire had gone out with her memory, leaving me cold and still.

Suddenly there was a pain in my head as someone's foot struck me. I bolted upright while simultaneously grasping the Bloody Rose, only to find my attacker smirking down at me.

"Kaito," I said tiredly, putting the gun back in my jacket. It seemed to radiate disappointment.

"Hey, Zero," he greeted me cheerfully, making me scowl, "fancy seeing you here. I was just taking an evening stroll through the grounds and thought I'd say hi to the horses."

I scoffed. "Yeah. Sure."

"Well, they sure make for better conversation than you do. Per usual." He leaned against the doorframe, outlined by the last rays of the setting sun. The sky was already melting into the deep sapphire shade of night. "And I think I should add, you are scaring the shit out of them."

"Whatever." I got to my feet, brushing the hay from my uniform while trying to ignore that last comment. "So what exactly do you want?"

"The Headmaster," he seemed to say this with an air of sarcasm, "wants to see you."

Ah. Probably with a new assignment. Some of the fire I had lost came rushing back, but it wasn't as intense as before, to my infinite disappointment.

Kaito reached over and brushed some of the hay from my hair. I knocked his hand away and stalked off in the direction of the Academy. Chuckling, he followed. We said nothing for a few minutes, following the stone path which headed to the building with Cross's office, framed by carefully trimmed grass. The sun had finally vacated the sky, leaving us to the dark skies. My skies.

Kaito continued to follow me, not quite walking beside me, but keeping back a few steps. "You need something?" I practically growled at him.

"Geez, you're cranky tonight." He came up beside me, hands stuffed in his pockets. "I've just been wondering something lately. Ever since that pitiful excuse for a party."

He must have taken my silence as an encouraging sign, because he went ahead with his question.

"So, the Kuran Princess…are you in love with her?"

Somehow, the Bloody Rose was in my hand and at his temple, while the other was knotted in his shirt, preventing him from escaping. My anger was so intense, so sudden, that I reacted completely on instinct—but it was the hunter, rather than the vampire, which had broken through my control this time. Kaito could see this, too; there was no fear, or even surprise, in his eyes at my attack, though his body was tense. "Come on, Zero," he said condescendingly, "if you really wanted to hurt me, wouldn't you have bared your fangs?"

He was right, obviously. We both knew the bullets in my gun wouldn't do a thing to him. I guess I didn't really want to kill him that badly. But why? Why would he bring that up tonight? But more importantly, how did he know?

I released my hold on him and slowly lowered the Bloody Rose. His smirk didn't waver the entire time, and I could see him relax his guard.

So he didn't have time to react when I turned the gun around and smashed it across his face.

He cried out in surprise rather than pain, landing hard on the grass. Sitting up, he wiped the blood from his mouth, his cheek already starting to swell. The smell doesn't affect me in the slightest.

Sending a angry glare in my direction, he simply said, "Oh yeah? Well, fuck you too." He spit out more blood on the grass beside him, got to his feet, and headed in the opposite direction of the Headmaster's office, not saying another word. Which was just fine with me. His words had brought back the fire in full force. At least he was good for something.

It was such a violent reaction that it almost surprised me. Almost. Kaito just picked the exact wrong moment to bring that up.

I reached the Headmaster's office without seeing many more people. There were some Day Class girls in the halls here and there (and then I need to remind myself that there is no Day and Night Class distinction anymore—even after a year, I still find myself thinking like that) and they stared at me as I stormed by. My expression must have been something to see, because they actually backed away a little.

Ever since the Night class came to an end, and most of the students' memories were erased, the girls tended to stare at me more. They rarely approached me, but I could feel them looking at me more often. It was unsettling. I brought it up with the Headmaster once—big mistake.

"Oh, Zero! How adorably ignorant you are~" He seemed to be enjoying himself at the time. "The girls like you, and not for your pleasant personality. Deal with it!"

Ugh. It was unbearable.

And of course, I remembered a similar conversation I'd had with her, so long ago.

The scene started to play out in my head: You know, Zero, you're so handsome. You'd look even better if you smiled once in—

My fist found the wall I was passing, hard enough that my blood flowed from my knuckles. The pain flared up after a second, and I concentrated on that instead of the memories.

I stood like that for a good few minutes, as the blood slowed to a trickle and eventually stopped altogether. Another reminder of my dwindling humanity. Taking a deep breath, I stepped back from the wall, flexing my half healed hand, the gashes now only pink skin, and I noticed I had actually made a crack in the plaster.

I turned away, disgusted with my lack of control (which, again, was nothing new) and continued on my way to the Headmaster's office.

It turns out there were some more Level E's roaming around the city, to my sick delight. The Headmaster probably went into some irrelevant detail about who each target was, but I didn't care. The gun in my jacket was as impatient as I was, pulsing next to my body, and I could feel it in my bones. It was a lovely feeling.

And that's how I spent another night, scouring the streets for my prey, finding them all too soon—not to mention all too easily—while the entire night stretched out before me. This was my time, this was what I lived for now: for the hunt, for the ability to slate my terrible bloodlust, part vampire, part hunter, but in no way human.

This is the only way I could go on living.

As I strode down the streets, the Bloody Rose shining like a beacon in the moonlight, humming happily in my hand, I allowed myself a thought of her.

What would you say, if you saw me like this?

Yuki.

I kind of wrote this on a whim a few weeks back, when I got really into Vampire Knight. I'm sorry if it sounds Freudian at all...I wrote half of it in between studying for my psychology exam. After exams, I read over what I had and I started to think that maybe I shouldn't be writing stuff when I've got a shit ton of psych notes in my head. Also, sorry for all the disease metaphors.

So, where did this come from? From those of you who are curious (both of you) I imagine Zero's mind as a very dark place. He hates himself even more now that Yuki is a vampire and off doing God knows what with Kaname, but he can't kill himself until he finishes his job (you know, kill all purebloods and stuff). Basically, life sucks even more now that Yuki is The Enemy. Zero is a pretty fascinating character (to me, at least) and to write in his point of view was actually a lot of fun, despite how dark it turned out to be.

A little note on Kaito-I know next to nothing about him. I only really understand his part in the novels released in Japan (if only I read japanese), but his random appearance in the manga is kind of confusing. So I cast him as a comic relief of sorts, though I have no idea if this is the way he would act in this situation. I may be totally off the mark here. Sorry about that. Just assume he's OOC in that case. :)

First person stories are awesome to write! Especially when it's just an angsty monologue! (But since I'm in love with Zero, I figured it's ok).

Reviews appreciated! Constructive criticism encouraged.

SNK