Heart Aches

Vampire Knight

Cross Academy fell silent, the campus filled with the single sound of a gunshot. For a moment, the students of the day class were afraid of what had happened, but soon they started moving again. After all, it was time for the classes to change. They all wanted to see the beautiful Night Class.

"Zero!" Yuki Cross screamed at the top of her lungs, sobbing and crying uncontrollably. She cradled the young man in her arms, his blood slowly staining her uniform. "Zero don't leave me!" she sobbed. "Don't die Zero, dear god please don't die Zero!"

Yuki could not bear to see his empty eyes staring upwards, and closed his still warm eyelids. Why had he done such a horrid thing? She remembered the gun cocked at his forehead, and his finger pull on that cursed trigger. With no explanation, he had ended his own life. The life she had loved so dearly. The life she had lost countless amounts of blood over.

Kaname Kuran's voice came softly from the doorway. The vampire always had a way of sneaking up, but for once Yuki hated him. She hated the way he was standing there, just watching her huddling on the floor with Zero's limp body in her hands. "Yuki," he said taking a cautious step forward. "The headmaster has called the paramedics but . . ."

"NO!" Yuki shouted at him, holding Zero tighter to her chest. "Don't come near me! Stay away from me Kaname!" Yuki started sobbing, her bloodstained tears falling on Zero's now placid face. The cold pale one he held now seemed more at peace then it had ever been, even when he was alive. How could he leave her with all this pain? Was hers worth less than his? "Unless you can bring Zero back, stay away!"

Kaname kept walking, slowly taking the gun still clutched in Zero's hand and placing it on the bathroom sink. He loomed over her, his expression full of pity and anger. He slowly knelt next to her, forcing her arms gently from Zero. He took Yuki in his arms, and carried her from the room, a few paramedics slipping past him.

Yuki fell limp against him. She had stopped crying, but a few tears still fell from her eyes. "Zero," she whispered over again. "My poor Zero." Yuki looked up at Kaname and felt like crying again.

Kaname set her down on the Headmaster's desk. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and started clearing the tears and blood from Yuki's face. "Do you understand Yuki?" he kept his soft hand against her cheek. "There is nothing you could have done to stop him. He showed you that tonight."

Yuki was trying hard to stay strong in front of Kaname, but his words made all the pain and sadness well up inside her again. She fell into him, clinging to him as the last thing she had. "Kaname-sama," she said. "Why do people have to do such terrible things?"

Kaname wrapped his arms around her instantly without any hesitation. "I don't know," he replied, stroking her hair tenderly. "When people suffer for a long time, sometimes the pain becomes too great for them to bear any longer." He sighed heavily and pressed his warm lips against her hair. "I don't understand why anyone should bring you pain Yuki." Suddenly his arms were gone, and the door squeaked open.

The headmaster entered, looking more tired and worn than Yuki had ever seen. The regular cheerfulness and foolishness that usually occurred was gone. The Headmaster was simply business now. "This is for you Yuki," the headmaster took Yuki's bloody hands and wiped them clean before pressing a white envelope into her hands. "When you decide to read it is up to you."

Sitting there on the headmaster's desk with Kaname and the Headmaster watching, Yuki felt obliged to open the letter, her named scrawled out in Zero's handwriting. Her hands were shacking, and she did not want to tear the sealed envelope. She did not want to read Zero's farewell to her. If she did, this horrible nightmare would be real. Without another hesitation, she slid her finger under the flap and broke the seal.

Yuki's hand flew to her mouth, tears dripping between her fingers as she read. Zero wrote that he had done it for her. He was slowly slipping away and losing himself, and soon he would go crazy like the vampires that had almost killed Yuki on more than one occasion. He said that he was scared he would hurt her too, and that he rather take his life than force Yuki to take it. Somehow, he knew she would never have been able to pull the trigger on him. She handed the letter to Kaname, unable to read the last remaining lines.

Kaname scanned the page with his eyes, reading the last line aloud. "He asks me to care for you Yuki," he said looking up from the clean white page. "Zero told me that if something happened to you Yuki, he would damn me from wherever he is." Kaname sighed. "He doesn't sound too happy about it either."

Yuki smiled through the pain. "It sounds just like him," she said as she allowed her head to drop. "Zero never liked vampires, he never liked you either. He must hate having you around me all the time," Yuki laughed through the urge to cry. "I wouldn't doubt he would come back, just to spite you Kaname-sama."

Yuki heard the door close again with a squeak, the headmaster off to explain the situation to the appropriate authorities. She felt Kaname's lips again against her head, and looked up. "Yuki," he said again as he stoked the side of her face. "Even before Zero, I was always caring for you." He frowned, his beautiful face lined with the anger again. "I will only continue to care for you, and support you for as long as you need me."

Yuki felt herself blushing, but relived that she would always have Kaname. "Kaname-sama," Yuki started sobbing again, letting all that bottled up sorrow she had hidden from Kaname well up. "Thank you . . . thank you so much. You don't know how much I. . ." Yuki's sentence was cut off by more uncontrollable crying.

"Tell me that you love me," Kaname said. "Tell me what you feel for me and that is how you may repay me." Kaname brought her lips to his in a shy and gentle kiss. After the death of Zero, Kaname was moving full stream ahead. This was the only way he knew how to ease Yuki's pain. He hated to see Yuki afraid, and she was terrified of her uncertain future.

Yuki wrapped her arms around Kaname's neck and pressed her forehead against the hollow of his neck. "I love you Kaname," she sobbed. "Promise that you never leave me, never leave me all alone. I don't want to be alone anymore." She sighed deeply, tired of crying so hard. She loved Kaname, but she loved Zero more. Zero would always be her favorite. Even though he had left her behind to face the world alone, Zero would always be her favorite.

Zero Kiryu, the boy with so much heartache and Yuki, the girl who loved him more than he would ever understand. So faraway, the two had never been so close.

End: Heart Aches