Chapter 4

With her simmering pureblood fluids coursing through his veins, Zero could feel in his core that something within him was changing. It's as if all of his organs were tingling and strings of lust zapped through each of his limbs. Though his mind has chosen to be angry with Yuki, the rest of his being continued to strongly yearn for her. The taste of her blood in his mouth was absolutely intoxicating. It was so distracting that the entire walk home, he could not focus on anything else.

The school bells rang across the campus for the universal wake up call, but this was unnecessary; Zero hadn't slept at all. The shower water had turned cold yet his head refused to emerge, even when his adoptive father started to bang on the bathroom door. "Zero?" He sang, "It's time to get your butt out of the shower and say hello to this beautiful day!" He began pounding his fist on the door harder now that Zero had stopped responding, for he would usually give in on the third knock or so, and he started to feel a bit of panic. "Zero, are you alright in there?" There was still no response. "I will break down this door, I swear I will!" And within a few moments, Kaien Cross heard the water come to an abrupt stop and the sound of a person stirring inside. Zero appeared in the doorway momentarily, a towel hanging loosely over the front of his crotch, and stared blankly at his father. The man crossed his arms and pouted out his bottom lip, jerking his head to the side and saying matter-of-factly, "This behavior of yours is unacceptable. I expect you to perform your duties to the best of your ability, and I know that you didn't do that last night. Now get dressed!"

The same brunette girl from the day previous turned around in her seat to face Zero directly and grinned as she spoke, "Where has your brother been, Zero? The homecoming ball is coming up soon and I'd just love to ask him to go with me-" Her words were cut off by a searing expression on the vampire's face. He stared at her with dark, hate filled eyes and formed a tight fist around the pen in his hand. The girl quickly spun around in her seat and muttered something along the lines of "Maybe that's why Yuki Cross switched to the night class" to the blonde beside her.

Zero ignored their petty comments and wouldn't allow himself to think of Ichiru too in depth. His mind floated toward her mention of the homecoming dance, it was approaching quickly and he dreaded having to monitor it on his own. The dances at this school were just like another job to him, only the work was doubled considering the night class students were dressed to the nine and had every single girl swooning after them on hyper mode. He usually had Yuki by his side to help but this year, she surely would be enjoying it along side the other girls. And Kaname Kuran. He thought of them together, how his hands would be on her lower waist as they would dance together. Yuki would smile that same smile that had made Zero melt only a year before (though he would never admit it), only this time, with tiny fangs perking out against her sweet crimson lips. Perhaps this year she would wear another white gown. Her dress at the last ball had nearly made him lose his mind; it hugged every curve on her frame and showed off her innocent cuteness that he desired to ravage. Her long hair would maybe be parted to the front to show off a laced down back, that hair that he knew to be so soft, and her pale skin would be so kissable. Zero suddenly snapped out of his deep thoughts and woke up to the class lecture practically over. The students were shoving their supplies into their bags and slowly his stomach began to churn. Oh shit, he thought. It's nearly time to face the night class.

"Ruka, you look beautiful day!" The one male student in the crowd chimed from the back of the raging girls. He pushed his glasses up the ridge of his nose and propped himself up straight to say, "Would you please give me the pleasure of being your date to the homecoming ball? I promise to be the perfect man!" The beautiful vampire girl simply walked past him, refusing to look in the boy's direction, and instead turned to the ginger vampire beside her and muttered, "How pathetic." Zero attempted to ignore the conversations at hand surrounding him but couldn't help to scowl. His arms were raised to block off the crowd and he felt someone bump against his back. When he turned his head, he saw the back of Kaname Kuran who had his arm wrapped around his precious Yuki. Kaname turned his head slightly and Zero could see a small smirk playing on his lips. The sweet girl beside him slowly turned her head to the side as well, not to look at Zero but instead the lover to her side. Zero could see that her cheeks were now flushed and her eyes were wide, lively. Something within him started to die.

That night, the blood hungry boy abandoned his post and instead returned his shower. The water wasn't running. He sat alone on the tile floor with his hands clutching hard onto his hair, pulling on it as he stared down at the gun by his feet. Everytime he reached for it, something told him to stop and he would suddenly jerk himself away from it. He felt absolutely disgusted with himself. He was just a blood bank for her to live, and when she lived, she didn't live with him but rather for her own brother. It's like animals, he thought to himself. She chose an animal over him and now her blood was pumping through his cold flesh. Zero slowly flicked his pocket knife from his uniform pants and pressed the blade to the prominent veins bulging on his wrist. The first slice he made was done quickly and efficiently, for nearly no blood came out. He cut himself again harder and watched her blood drain out of him. It didn't smell like her anymore. As he slunk down against the shower wall, he switched back and forth from staring at her blood pouring out of his skin to the gun that was between his sprawled legs. He was just about to reach for it before he heard the pounding at the door. "Zero?" A voice called from the other side. The voice caused him to freeze and his mouth refused to call back to it. After a few more knocks, he heard the door fly open and the small pitter-patter of small bare feet on the bathroom floor. When the sounds stopped all together, Zero began to consider that he had simply imagined it. No one could possibly be looking for him. Suddenly, the shower curtain was grabbed open followed by a loud gasp.

Yuki Cross fell to her knees in front of the bleeding Zero and flipped his arm over to expose the still-bleeding slice. "Zero, how could you?" She cried out as her eyes dropped onto the gun between his legs. She quickly pushed it away, out of reach, and began applying pressure to his wound. Zero's eyes had been rolling in his head before they met her usual large brown eyes, which were now a glowing red color. A small grin played on the edge of his lips but then when he spoke, he turned back to his usual hostile expression. "Why are you here?" He said blankly as he jerked his arm out of her grip. She was now covered in his blood, or her blood he thought, as she slunk back down on her knees. The expression on her face read that she was somehow ashamed, felt out of place. "You didn't show tonight for the night watch," she said slowly, "I decided that I would take off my last period to help you from now on." Her crimson eyes wandered back up to his gaze when she added in a small voice, "And then... I smelled it." His blood.

The two teens sat in the water-less shower in the dead quietness for what felt like hours. "Well, now you know there's nothing to worry about." Zero was the first to finally break the silence, "so you can go." Despite what he expected, the small girl refused to move. It was evident that her fragile hands were now trembling, which Zero assumed was because of her beastly desire for blood. She didn't even look at him when she said quietly, "You're not okay." The hot tempered boy bared his teeth down hard, causing his canines to pierce his lip, and quickly lunged for the gun. Yuki was about to stop him before he raised it directly at her face, the face of the gun shaking right in between her eyes. "Tell me why," he said through his clenched mouth, "why would you choose this to be your life? I could have protected you from this life." His fingers were twitching against the gun. It barely occured to him that with one small movement, he could take her life. His head was not in the real world, but instead somewhere far away. He couldn't even look her in the face when Yuki said through thin lips, "I didn't choose this for myself. I was intended to be this way, just like you were meant to be a human." Much to his surprise, the dark haired girl rested her forehead against the barrel of the gun and pinched her eyes closed. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. "I didn't choose a separate life from you. I had no choice and I think maybe deep down, you know that."

The metal of the gun pressed against Yuki's skin and she cringed as she felt it suddenly being lifted away, leaving her head with a strange tingling sensation. She hadn't cried real tears in months and the feel of them burned her inner eye sockets. She didn't close her eyes, even when she heard the gun clank down onto the shower floor. Instead there was now a strange smell in her nostrils and she immediately recognized it to be the scent of Zero's blood. The aroma was enough to force her to open her eyes and see a bleeding wrist right in front of her face. "Go on," Zero said emotionless, "I know that you want it." Something overtook the girl and she suddenly pounced onto him, sending his back against the wall again and pinning his body back with her own. Unlike him, she could make such an act still feel gentle, for the feel of her lips against his skin felt like rain kissing the leaves on the trees. Her moist touch caused Zero to stir in his seat, attempting to control himself even as her tongue rolled over and between the small fold of his deep slice. Her gentle lips puckered at his flesh and she suckled at the wound, as if she were cleaning all of the dirty secrets of the knife from his body. They were both content.

Zero found himself wishing that Yuki's fangs would penetrate his flesh, despite the pain it would bring; the ecstasy from the night before was beginning to pump through his veins. He groaned under his breath, "bite" and not even a second later, her canines sank deep into the hardness of his wrist. She seemed to begin to playfully stir her teeth inside of them before returning to her sweet suckling fashion, practically inhaling mouth fulls of blood and feeling it burn her throat. His blood was hot and tempting. It took an enormous amount of self control for the relentless Yuki to break contact from his skin and when she did, she stared up at him with innocently large red eyes. They began to return to their usual caramel color the longer she stared at the boy that she would soon acknowledge that she, too, loved. His chest heaved up and down slowly as he attempted to form a proper breath, and finally he opened his icy eyes to gaze at her. "Fuck," he whispered under his breath, "I missed you." And in one swift motion, he pressed his mouth onto hers and stole their first kiss together.