Disclaimer: I do not own Vampire Knight it belongs to Matsuri Hino.

Ichiru and Zero age 7:

"The water won't hurt you. I won't let it," Zero said watching the nervous boy as he stood at the edge of the water. "Come on, don't you trust me?" Zero asked holding out his hand. "I won't let it hurt you, Ichiru." Zero smiled when his brother reached for his hand and nodded encouragingly as Ichiru took a step into the water. "See, the water isn't that bad is it?" Zero asked. Ichiru smiled at Zero in response, and playfully splashed him.

"Hey," Zero laughed, and soon the one, small splash turned into ten big ones. When Ichiru was tired he sat at the edge of the water and watched Zero swim. Zero had promised that Ichiru would be able to swim as well as Zero one day. That was the only promise he could never fulfill himself.

XXX

Yuuki age 13 and Zero age 14:

The little boy sat on the edge of the pool, swinging his legs into the water, and just barely splashing. When Zero and Yuuki arrived, the pool was empty, except for the little boy. "I'm sure it feels much better in the water," Yuuki said, sitting down next to the boy.

"But I don't know how to swim. My father promised me that he'd teach me this week, but he's always too busy," said the little boy shaking his head sadly.

Zero froze, why did that sound so familiar? No… the memory came back to him; that day down by the water. "Zero promises that one day soon, Ichiru will be able to swim as well as Zero."

Yuuki was trying to coax the little boy into the water promising that nothing bad would happen. The little boy wouldn't move from his place on the edge. "Yuuki, you came here to swim, so swim," Zero said, running his hand through his hair in irritation.

Yuuki glared up at him. "I'm trying to help!" She snapped.

"If you were trying to help then you'd let it go," Zero shot back. The little boy watched Zero, surprised to hear him speak.

"Fine then." And turning back to the little boy she said, "If you change your mind just let me know." Yuuki jumped into the water and began to swim.

Zero sat down next to the boy. "I'm sorry about that; she thinks she can make everything right." He shrugged, "And most of the time she can." Zero fell silent. He watched to the sun glaring off the water like diamonds.

"Didn't you come here to swim too?" asked the little boy curiously.

Zero laughed. "I came here because Yuuki left me no choice," He looked down at the boy's giant eyes. "What do you say? Do you want to learn how to swim?" he asked holding out his hand. "I could teach you. I'm not so bad myself." He smiled when the boy took hold of it.

Yuuki watched in disbelief as Zero and the little boy got into the water. "Okay now the first thing we are going to do is get wet," said Zero. "Just up to your shoulders like that." The little stepped into the water and soon enough his shoulders were wet.

"Now what?" he asked excitedly.

"Now I want you to hold onto the edge of the pool, okay?" The little boy grabbed onto the edge of the pool. "Okay I'm going to grab your legs for a moment okay?"

The little boy nodded, and Zero slowly lifted his feet to the surface. "Now I want you to kick hard just like this," Zero grabbed the wall next to him and showed him how to kick. The little boy kicked hard the first few times, but soon got tired.

He sat on the edge of the pool again and watched Zero swim. "Ready to swim some more?" Zero asked after about half an hour of swimming around. The little boy nodded and jumped down.

"Alright let's swim," said the boy with a smile.

"Okay now we're not going to hang onto the wall any more. Now we are going to swim back and forth, from this side to that side." He pointed to the wall on the other side of the pool. "But you can't touch the floor of the pool whatever you do alright?" The boy nodded, and soon he was swimming along side Zero.

"Hero, Hero time for dinner."

The little boy looked up to see his father standing at the gate. "Time to go son," he looked at Zero and smiled "I hope he didn't annoy you too much." The little boy jumped out of the water and ran to his father.

"He was helping me learn to swim!" said the little boy excitedly.

His father laughed lightly. "Well lets go home Jr. your mother has dinner waiting for us on the table." He turned back to Zero and said, "Thank you for helping him."

Zero nodded "Anytime." Zero watched them go, he couldn't help but smile at the little boy, whose name was Hero. Hero ran back to the gate.

"Hey what's your name?" he asked breathless from running all the way back.

"Zero," Zero said with a shrug.

"Maybe I could meet you here tomorrow, Zero?" he asked excitedly. Zero nodded, and the little boy ran to catch up with his father.

XXX

They're age 7 again:

"Zero when are you going to teach me how to swim?" Ichiru asked after watching Zero swim for so long.

"Soon, Ichiru, very soon" was all Zero could say. The sun sank behind the clouds and that summer, there was no more swimming for Zero either… "Soon, Ichiru, very soon."

A/N:Okay now I have no idea what type of names they really use in Japan, so I just used a name that came to mind randomly.