"Let's compare scars, I'll tell you whose, is worse"

~Swing Life Away by Rise Against.

I yawned, and tapped my pencil against the desk in my dorm room. Why did writing essays have to be so boring? My stomach was growling at me, as it had been for the past few hours. But this essay needed to be done with before I even considered eating. I glanced out the window, and watched the rain fall. It was pouring out. As I wrote the last sentence, a smile flicked across my face. The smile was killed and stabbed over and over repeatedly to a violent and painful death when someone knocked on my door.

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

"Yes?" I asked, slipping the essay into the front cover of my History book.

"Midori?" Yuuki asked, opening the door with the key she'd been given ever since my incident.

I sucked in air through my teeth. "What?" I whirled around in my chair.

Just in my presence, Yuuki lost her perk.

Maybe that's because I forgot to tell you something.

I'm an energy vampire. Instead of feeding off of blood, (I, anyways) fed off of others' happiness. All energy vampires are slightly different, but I fed on peoples happiness and securities. It isn't like I do it on purpose though, I can't help it. That's why people always stayed away from me. They were naturally turned away from me on their instincts. I felt bad about it, but at the same time, I didn't. Kiryuu Zero was the only person I knew who went unaffected by it, because he didn't really have any happiness and security to begin with, so he really didn't notice my difference all that much.

"I was just…um, checking on you. You know, like I'm supposed to." Yuuki said, drawing a circle on my carpet with her foot.

"Well I was finishing up my History essay, so you can leave now." My eyes narrowed. I really, really didn't want her in my room. I wanted her to go away. And not come back.

"Are you okay?" She asked, swallowing her instinctive fear of me.

"I'm fine, Yuuki. Now please leave me alone." I said, giving her my most meaningful glare.

"Of course…I was just….yeah." She twirled a piece of hair around one of her fingers.

"Yes, I know what you were doing. Now please leave." I pointed to my door.

She didn't respond, flicked her hair behind her head as a nervous thing, and left, closing my door softly. I heard her talking to someone just outside of my door, and I got a little curious.

I pranced over to my door on silent feet, and bent to my knees and pressed my ear against the door. I stared at the carpet, focusing intently on the voices. Why? Because they were probably talking about me. And I felt like I had some type of right to know what they were saying about me.

"There's something about her that scares the crap out of me," Yuuki continued from whatever she'd said before.

"I think you're overreacting," said a bored-sounding Zero.

"You ALWAYS think that, Zero…" Yuuki said lowering her voice after realizing how loud she'd gotten.

"I don't get what you find so scary about her besides the fact that she isn't very nice. But, I can't say I enjoy being nice to you either."

I tried very, very hard not to laugh. But it was difficult and I covered my mouth just in case.

"It's not that she isn't nice," Yuuki took in a deep breath. "She's been through a lot, people don't like her, so I can understand that. It's something else. Something about her is wrong." Yuuki's voice was getting rather shrill now, and louder.

"She can hear you," Zero said matter-o-factly. "She's heard every word of this."

"What?" Yuuki sounded shocked. Not so much the fact I was listening, but the fact that I knew that.

"How do you know that?" Yuuki asked, disgusted.

"Because you're being very loud."

But that wasn't it. Zero was hiding something else, I could tell by the swiftness and defensiveness in his answer. There was something else.