Kain felt the moment when it happened. The moment when Kiryuu realized.

The madness had begun fading from Kiryuu's eyes the moment he had orgasmed, but for long minutes the violet orbs had been filled with only a sort of hazy puzzlement, as if he were slowly waking up. The hunter had nuzzled at Kain's sweaty chest and curled up on top of him, and Kain, caught up in the swirl of sex-fueled emotion, couldn't help but stoke the boy's hair.

Kain hadn't meant to have sex with Kiryuu. He had only meant to get them both clean. He had broken into a human house that was unoccupied, with mail piled up in the box, just intending to use the shower and find some clean clothes. But then Kiryuu had knocked him down—and didn't Kain feel differently about Aidou's story now—climbed on top of him, and ridden him like a racehorse. Kain probably could have forced the hunter off, but what then? None of the possibilities seemed very pleasant, especially after seeing what Kiryuu had done to his last sex partner, and after all Kiryuu's body was very pleasant, so he let it happen, and there was no going back now.

With Kiryuu still clasped, quiescent, in his arms, Kain's mind had just begun to skirt the ragged edges of sleep, exhausted by fighting and fucking, when he felt it happen. He felt Kiryuu realize everything—what had happened, where he was, who Kain was, who he was. The hunter's body went rigid, and then he was struggling away from Kain as though he were as repulsive as the flea-infested beasts whose fluids still covered him.

"Kiryuu," Kain said in a pained voice, reaching for him.

"Don't touch me!" the hunter cried, pushing himself backward until he hit the sofa, and huddled against it, his knees drawn up to his chin, his hands held defensively before him.

"Kiryuu…you…"

"Don't!" the hunter repeated. He was shaking. He wrapped his arms around his legs and buried his face in his knees. "Don't look at me," he sobbed.

Kain bit his lip, using the pain to distract himself. "I didn't mean to take advantage of you, I—I'm sorry. Can you forgive me?"

There was a burst of hysterical laughter from the Kiryuu-bundle huddled against the couch. "That's what you wanna ask me?"

Kain paused. He considered what there was to ask about having found the hunter mid-coitus with a level E. Did you plan to do that, or was it an accident? Was that the first time, or is that how you've been handling this all along? If I hadn't found you, what would have happened when the madness faded but you were too weak to get out of there? Would you have kept pretending to be one of them? Or would you have fought them knowing it would be your death?

Kain wasn't sure he wanted to know the answers to those questions. And this wasn't the right time to ask or answer them.

"Yes," he answered Kiryuu. "That's what I want to ask you. Can you forgive me for taking advantage of you?"

Kiryuu tugged at his blood-stained silver hair, suppressing the hitching of his tears. Kain had never imagined that he would ever be allowed to see the hunter cry. He felt ashamed, as though he were violating something sacred.

"You're a fucking moron," Kiryuu growled. His voice was slurring again, as it had the other night.

Kain blinked at the non-answer. It was too soon to talk about anything, he realized. They needed to wash up and find clothing and go home and sleep for a day or so before anything could be resolved.

"Can I—can I help you get clean?" he asked the hunter hesitantly.

A pause. "Whatever," Kiryuu mumbled.

Kain moved to him, making noise deliberately to warn of his approach, and the hunter lifted his head from his knees finally, looking up into Kain's eyes for just a moment before turning his gaze away resolutely. Kain saw fear in the glassy violet eyes, and dread, distrust and suspicion, and, most of all, hatred. Not hatred of Kain. Self-hatred. Kain knew, then, that he could never ask Kiryuu any of those other questions, but that he might have to suffer knowing the answers anyway.

Kiryuu managed to stay awake, though his eyes kept falling shut before blinking open once more, until Kain had him in the bathtub. Then he drifted off for good.

The blood clung obstinately to every crack and crevice of skin, and it had to be scrubbed and scraped vigorously. Kain had been fully clothed during the fight, but Kiryuu had been naked. Worse, blood was not the only substance that had dried onto Kiryuu's skin. Between his legs was ample evidence that he had been in the warehouse for quite a while before Kain had found him. By the time the noble vampire finally got him clean, he had acquired an intimate familiarity with every last nook and cranny of the hunter's body. He thanked whatever powers might be that Kiryuu had been unconscious throughout.

Kain dressed the hunter with over-large clothing scavenged from one the humans' dressers—sweatpants and a t-shirt. Then he burned his own blood-stained clothing in the humans' fireplace until the only evidence that remained of the events in the warehouse were ashes and memories.

He had planned to take Kiryuu home, but by the time Kain finished burning the clothing, dawn had broken over the horizon, and it was too late to sneak in. Yuuki would be performing her usual patrol after class change-over, and then the Day Class students would be roaming the campus. So he tucked the prefect into a bed, and sat down on the covers on the other side, planning to watch over Kiryuu until he woke. He lay down after a few minutes, just planning to rest his eyes, and before he knew it, he was fast asleep.

When Zero woke, he did not know where he was. There had been several such occasions over the course of his short life, and none of them had been pleasant. Instinctively, he pretended to still be sleeping, though his rigidity would surely give him away, until he could ascertain the situation. Then he scented the earthy, smoky aroma of a certain noble vampire, and it all came rushing back to him, the memories overwhelming him like a bitter flood, dragging him under.

With a deliberate force born of years of practice, Zero shoved the memories into a closet deep in his mind, slammed the door on them, and nailed several planks over it.

Kain was sleeping on the bed beside him, fully clothed in cheap, ill-fitting garments. Zero's eyes lingered over him for a longer time than he would have admitted. He had never had the opportunity to observe a vampire sleeping. The noble's ridiculous tawny hair was not a dye job, he noted with mild surprise. Even his brows and lashes had a sheen of dark gold. Zero remembered the feeling of Kain inside him, filling him, driving him mad with pleasure, and he turned away abruptly, choked with self-loathing so thick and black that he wanted to die.

"Hey," a husky, sleepy voice said behind him.

Kiryuu flinched at the sound of Kain's voice, and for some reason that made Kain want to soothe him. But when he reached out to stroke the hunter's shoulder, Kiryuu smacked his hand away with enough force to leave it stinging painfully.

"Sorry," Kain offered.

Kiryuu glared at him balefully. "You tell anyone—Aidou, Kuran, Cross, anyone—and you're dead. Understand?"

Kain nodded. Kiryuu glared at him a little more, and then turned away and began ransacking the room until he found a pair of decently-fitting shoes and started lacing them up.

"Kiryuu," Kain said, trailing after him, "wait. Don't leave just yet. We need to talk, and we might as well do it here."

"I can't think of anything I want to talk about," Kiryuu said gruffly, making for the front door with a grim face.

Kain reached out and slammed shut the door just as Kiryuu opened it, putting himself perilously close to the fuming hunter. Rather than attacking, however, Kiryuu sprang away like a startled deer.

"Well, we have to," Kain told him. "Because…" He paused, gathering his courage. "Because you can't keep—handling it—that way."

He expected Kiryuu to deny the charge hotly, maybe even threaten to kill him again. In fact, he wanted the hunter to deny it. Instead, Kiryuu's creamy skin turned an even chalkier shade of pale, and his eyes darted around as if searching for an escape hatch. That was all the confession Kain needed. His stomach sank, and he exhaled gustily, sagging against the door.

"How long?" he asked, dreading the answer. "How long has this been going on?"

"It's none of your business," Kiryuu answered tightly.

"Well, I'm making it my business. 'Cause if you think I can let you do that again, you obviously don't know me at all," Kain told him.

Kiryuu stubbornly said nothing.

"I mean, I guess I understand that before, you didn't want anyone to know, but…this time…you could have asked me…or Aidou… Why did you let me give you my number if you weren't going to ask for help?"

"I was trying to get rid of you, dumbass," Kiryuu snapped.

"Are we really worse than E's?" Kain demanded.

Kiryuu's violet eyes flashed with anger. "Yes!" For a moment, Kain felt offended to the core, but then Kiryuu continued, eyes downcast, in an angry mutter. "E's are nothing. Just animals. I can kill them when I'm done with them. I can't kill you or your stupid cousin…"

"I would have thought you'd be too proud to lower yourself to that," Kain said honestly. Kiryuu had always seemed the epitome of stubborn pride to him. It was one of the things he admired about the hunter.

"Then we have very different ideas of pride."

Kain didn't know what to say to that, so he simply said, "I can't let you do it again. I can't. Just the thought of it kills me."

Kiryuu snorted. "Everyone always has some horrible thing they think they can't bear. Something so awful they think they couldn't survive it. But you know what the truth is? When those things happen? You just go on living. One stupid, pointless day after another…"

Kain bit his lip, wishing the hunter weren't so fatalistic. "Then I won't let you do it. I'll stop you, by force, if I have to."

Kiryuu stared at him with suspicion and just a hint of curiosity. "What do you care?"

Kain didn't know the answer to that question, either. Why did he care so much? The hunter was beautiful, admirable, but Kain had never taken any special notice of him before he had found him in the woods with Aidou. The reason didn't matter, however. Kain had never been one to lose himself in introspection. What was most important was stopping Kiryuu from degrading himself so appallingly again.

"I care," was all he said.

Kiryuu snorted and looked away. "Whatever. Try and stop me, then, if you think you can."

Kain decided to take that as an invitation.

"Where've you been?" Ruka asked when Kain slipped back into the Moon Dorms just in time to join everyone in walking to class.

He shrugged. "Had some stuff to do."

"In town?"

Kain nodded. She waited for an explanation, but none came. Ruka eyed him thoughtfully from time to time during that day's classes, but Kain had never been very forthcoming about his private affairs, so she let it go in the end.

There was another person with his eye on Kain. Kaname. Kain had used a charm to suppress the hunter's scent, which he knew still clung to him despite washing. Of course, vampires used that charm all the time, since it was considered rude to go around reeking of one's sexual partners. But Kaname, being extraordinarily powerful even for a pureblood, must have sensed the hunter's aroma on Kain anyway, because he glanced back and forth between the tawny-haired vampire and the silver-haired hunter several times during the class change-over.

During his lunch break, Kain went to Kiryuu's dorm room. This time he entered by the second-story window, which had been propped open almost like an invitation, instead of the door. Invitation or no, Kiryuu had that damn gun of his drawn on him before he even cleared the sill.

Kain lifted his hands in a gesture of appeasement. "Should I have knocked?"

"What do you want, vampire?"

Kain turned his back on the hunter, shut the window, and then sat on the sill, since it didn't seem like Kiryuu was going to offer him another seat. The hunter huffed and then set Bloody Rose down on the desk next to the homework he was working on. Kain smiled discreetly at that.

"Say what you're gonna say and then get out," Kiryuu grumbled.

Kain hesitated. "You never answered my question."

Kiryuu tensed. "It's none of your business!"

Kain blinked. "It's none of my business whether or not you'll forgive me?"

Kiryuu looked confused, then scowled. "You fucking idiot, you're still wasting my time with that bullshit?"

"So you won't?"

The hunter gaped at him as though Kain were too stupid for words. "Did you not notice the part where I pushed you down?" he demanded.

Finally, they were talking about it. A giddy heat rose inside Kain at the memory. "Well, yes, but I could have stopped you…I just…didn't want you to go back there…" He paused, hanging his head. "And if I'm being honest, it was really good. I didn't want to stop." He dared to look at Kiryuu again, contritely.

The hunter's face was turned away, but his ears were pink. "There's nothing to forgive, you imbecile," Kiryuu said scathingly. "I would have tied you up with hunter charms if you hadn't given me what I wanted."

That idea was both terrifying and terribly exciting. Being at the mercy of a lust-crazed hunter…that was the stuff of cheap, bawdy romance novels. Kain pushed the thought away.

"Can you do charms when you're…like that?" he asked.

Kiryuu gave the noble another withering look. "Why do you think I haven't used them to restrain myself?"

"Oh." Kain felt stupid.

"Now feel free to get the fuck out before I throw you out," Kiryuu said, turning back to his homework. It appeared to be a literary essay.

Rather than complying, Kain wandered away from the window and sat on the bed a few feet from Kiryuu. The silver-haired boy glared at him but said nothing, though his hand twitched towards his gun.

"So," Kain said awkwardly, "how much warning you get when it's…you know…about to happen?"

Kiryuu strode to the window, threw it open, and then drew his gun on Kain again. "Out," he barked.

Kain swallowed. He only had one card to play, so he played, but he felt like the scum of the earth for doing it. "I'll tell Kaname-sama," he threatened.

Kiryuu's face went very blank and cold, and for a moment Kain experienced the crawling feeling of being assessed as the potential victim of a murder. Then Kiryuu slammed the window shut, took another look at Kain, and then punched the wall so hard that his fist went right through the sheet rock.

Kain rolled his lips inward, feeling very glad that it had been the wall and not his face.

"What do you want from me, vampire?" Kiryuu shouted. "You want to fuck me? Fuck with me? What?"

Kain gazed at the distraught hunter, feeling horribly guilty for causing his distress. "I want to help you."

"Why?!"

Kain shrugged. It was the only answer he had. He wasn't the type to crawl out on precarious limbs like this, but here he was, dangling over a chasm, offering an olive branch to a mountain lion. He might have laughed at himself if he weren't so utterly serious about it all.

Kiryuu flung himself back into his desk chair and buried his face in his hands, rubbing his eyes. When he removed his hands, he simply looked tired, and lost.

"Whatever," he muttered, in a helpless tone.

Kain had learned by now that the word was Kiryuu's version of surrender. "When will it happen again?" he asked quietly.

Kiryuu shrugged. "Not tonight. It starts right after sunset, if it's going to."

"How long does it last?"

"Till sunrise. Unless it…unless I'm…"

"Satisfied?" Kain inquired delicately.

Kiryuu grumbled an affirmative.

"Then I'll come check on you tomorrow."

Kiryuu said nothing.