(A/N: Thank you so much for reading this far you guys! You've been so nice and supportive to me, it makes me feel so good ;-; You're all sweethearts!)

When Ayato was a kid, he did not like to be alone, ever. No one around him was quite sure where his abandonment issues came from, but he could be moved to tears within seconds if you left him behind. When he was playing with his brothers and his mother yanked him away by his shirt collar, he screamed and cried and wouldn't stop till she slapped him. Kanato and Laito, when they were finally able to reunite with him, held his hand and rubbed his back so he felt better. It pained them to see their brother like that.

Ayato had a stuffed rabbit that he slept with every night. He couldn't sleep without it. Ayato was a fussy sleeper and he kicked and pulled and bit things while he slept, so the rabbit was a little bit beaten up. He didn't mind in the slightest, though. The rabbit looked like it had been through a lot, which Ayato thought was kind of manly and heroic. He didn't feel any shame about sleeping with a stuffed animal. He hated feeling lonely more than anything else, and hugging onto the rabbit made him feel less lonely.

His mother did not like seeing her eldest son with a stuffed animal at all. In her eyes, Ayato was already an adult and he should be acting like one. He should be studying every day, and he shouldn't be goofing around with his brothers and getting all dirty, and he certainly shouldn't be carrying a stuffed rabbit around. She would never hear the end of it from Beatrix if she saw - she'd probably give Cordelia a sly smile and tell her how cute her son was, how cutely childish it was that he had a stuffed animal. She'd sarcastically ask, How old is he again? Four? Five? Is he still in diapers?

Cordelia could not bear that kind of humiliation. So whenever she saw Ayato carrying that rabbit around (and he would carry it everywhere: he'd lift it up by the torso and run around with it in the courtyard and even place it in a sitting position in the dirt while he dug for bugs with his brothers) she would take it away and put it somewhere where he couldn't get to it, like in a cupboard that was too high up for little Ayato to reach, for example. And, naturally, every time Ayato would cry and cry until one of the servants came along and retrieved it for him.

Cordelia might have just destroyed the rabbit, figuring that Ayato would get over it soon, but as it turns out, that rabbit had been a gift from Ayato's father. She could not, under any circumstances, get rid of a gift from Karl Heinz. But it also irritated her even more that Ayato's best gift from his father was a stuffed rabbit, while Beatrix's children had gotten more valuable, more adult-suited items, like a violin or a pocket watch. Was Karl Heinz looking down on her and her children? Was he testing her somehow? In any case, she grew to greatly resent the stuffed animal that her son wouldn't let go.

What she hated even more was the grating shrieks she had to deal with whenever she took the rabbit away. Cordelia had to admit to herself that she simply did not like kids, but Ayato was pushing the limits of how annoying a child could be.

"You are going to be king someday," she snapped at her crying child. "Do you want all your subjects to think you're a baby who sleeps with a stuffed animal? Do you?"

Ayato didn't want that, so it only made him cry harder. Now not only did he feel alone, but he felt awfully ashamed of himself as well. He was picturing a big crowd of people pointing and laughing at him because of his stuffed rabbit. But the idea of parting with the rabbit was even sadder. He sobbed pitifully and wiped away his snot on his sleeves. "You-" he choked through the tears. "You let Kanato have a stuffed animal."

"Kanato isn't going to be king, Ayato! Surely you've realized by now that you're different from the other boys. For goodness sake, when will you grow up?"

"Give him back," Ayato pleaded. Since he didn't have anything else to hold onto, he was gripping onto his own shirt.

"It's not a him, Ayato, it's not alive. It's just a bunch of stuffing!" Cordelia was furious. Admittedly, she might not have done this if she hadn't been so frustrated with Ayato. But, to demonstrate her point, she took hold of one of the rabbit's ears and tore it off with a loud rip, causing a few tufts of stuffing to fall to the ground. She held the injured rabbit in front of Ayato's face by the one ear it had left. It dangled silently, looking sad and beaten up.

It occurred to her for a moment that she had gone too far, and that now that she had hurt Ayato's precious stuffed animal, he was only going to scream louder. Much to her surprise, Ayato went completely silent. He stared at the rabbit with wide, tearful eyes, completely shellshocked.

His sudden silence made Cordelia uncomfortable. She dropped the rabbit, which crumpled to the ground like a soldier that had been gunned down. "You see," she said, turning away. "No blood, no screams of pain, nothing like that. It's an inanimate object." Having made her point, she walked away and left Ayato alone with his friend.

Ayato very quietly picked the rabbit up off the ground, with both hands, as gently as possible. Kanato and Laito poked their heads around the corner. They had been there the whole time, but they were too frightened to do anything.

"Oh, Ayato," Laito said sadly, approaching him. "That's terrible."

A little guiltily, Kanato spoke up. "You can sleep with Teddy tonight if you want."

Ayato couldn't seem to say anything. He felt anguished enough to cry, but he couldn't seem to do it. He tapped with a trembling hand at the stuffing that poked out of the wound on his rabbit's head, pushing it back in. The turned towards his brothers and showed them the rabbit. His face was still stained with tears.

"See," he said, voice shaking. "It's like a battle scar. It's really cool. If I ever saw a wild rabbit with only one ear, I would think it looked awesome. All the best rabbits only have one ear, I think."

Laito perked up a bit. "That's right, Ayato! I think so too."

Kanato hastily added, "Teddy only has one eye. Now they're matching."

Ayato very carefully hugged the rabbit, like it was a fragile object. But then, when he realized that his rabbit was much tougher than that, he squeezed it as tight as he could.

Yui adapted surprisingly fast to her new environment, because she was a rather optimistic person and moping around only tired her out. So she greeted her captors with a smile, and made breakfast in their kitchen some mornings (french toast topped with powdered sugar and strawberries - her specialty), and she studied the material she was learning at her night school. At first her sleep schedule was difficult to change, and she found herself dozing off during the night while everyone else was awake. Ruri watched her through all of this, and she thought that Yui was very charming and cute.

The two of them were good friends. Between breakfast and lunch they would often sit together drinking tea (Ruri insisted that she make it because Yui was a guest, but in secret she hoped one day she could taste the tea Yui made.) and Yui would talk about what night school was like, and what kind of material she was learning. Ruri showed profound interest no matter what the topic was.

The topic she was most interested in, though, was Yui's human life. She had grown up with her father, a Catholic priest, in a church, and the members of the church had become like her extended family. She told stories about how every Sunday, many people came to the church - enough to fill all the pews - dressed in their best clothes, and they talked and sang together and learned about God and the stories told in the Bible. She told Ruri, with a gentle smile and a distant look in her eye, that people go to the church to get married, and they wear white dresses and decorate the whole place with flowers, and the family members that gathered there often cry because there is so much love there. The priest blesses them and the couple shares a kiss and everyone celebrates.

Ruri was infatuated. She had heard of churches in her history books, and she knew in general about what happened during a marriage ceremony, but she had never actually experienced any of these things for herself. Up until now they had only been facts in a book or a proposal on paper, but Yui was bringing them to life in such a beautiful way. She seemed so sentimental about it, like it was something very dear to her heart. Ruri's imagination was running wild. She wanted to experience it.

Ruri was writing in a journal on the sofa when Laito tapped her head.

"Hey Ruri~ You look so deep in thought. What are you thinking about?"

Ruri turned her head and looked up at him. "I want to have a wedding in a church."

Laito's smile disappeared. "...Oh."

"Yui says that in weddings, there's someone called a best man and he stands with the couple while they get married. She said that the best man is someone very close to couple, who loves them very much."

Laito hesitated. "Ruri-"

"If I were to have a wedding, I would want you to be the best man."

Laito was about to tell her that, as a vampire, she would most definitely not have a wedding in a church. He was about to tell her that, even if she did, the bride typically doesn't choose the best man. He was also about to try to talk her out of it - the entire marriage idea - by any means necessary. He wanted to tell her that if she got married then it would break his heart. But as soon as she said that, his eyes started stinging with tears. To think that his own little sister, the little sister he had wanted since he was a child, loved him enough to ask him to be the best man at her wedding. He was so touched and he loved her so much that he was momentarily unable to speak.

"...Okay." He sniffed. "Okay."

"I'll wait till I'm a bit older," Ruri went on, flipping through the pages of her journal. They were full of crude sketches of flowers and long white dresses. "And I'll make sure I marry someone who makes me happy. But when that time comes, I hope you'll stand next to me."

"Okay, Ruri. Thank you…"

Later, while Ruri was helping set the table for dinner (and the triplets had tagged along), Ayato asked her straight out, "Why are you still living at the old man's place? When are you gonna come live here with us?"

Laito perked up. "That's a good question."

"Yeah, doesn't it suck over there?"

Ruri had to think about her answer, but Kanato responded for her. "It's probably not her decision. Our father is probably keeping her there till he can work out her future." Laito made an uncomfortable face and Kanato added, "It's not my fault, it's reality!"

"Where do you wanna stay, kid?" Ayato asked.

Ruri answered somewhat vaguely: "I love my brothers and my mother equally."

"Yeah, I get it. So you can't decide?" Ayato put his head down on the dinner table. "And here I was thinking you liked it here better for sure. I'm here, after all."

"I do like it here a lot, Ayato."

"What if you had to leave for a new place?" Kanato asked. "With someone else?"

"Kanato, you're rushing things," Laito said, looking uncharacteristically irritated.

"...I would be scared, I think." Ruri responded after a moment of thought.

"Ruri doesn't like strangers, huh," Ayato mused. He suddenly grinned at Ruri. "You were pretty scared when you were a baby and you met us for the first time."

"I was a baby," Ruri responded, returning his smile. "I'm not scared of strangers now."

"Like Yui?" Kanato asked, suddenly recalling Ruri's face when he last saw her with Yui.

"...Yes, like Yui." Ruri looked at her hands. "She's very nice to talk to."

"Speaking of Bitch-chan," Laito smirked over at the doorway leading to the living room. "I think she's been listening to our conversation."

Ruri heard a little squeak come from the doorway. Yui poked her head out, looking guilty.

"That's no good, Bitch-chan~ Eavesdropping isn't polite!"

"I-I'm sorry...I heard you mention my name, and I got so curious…"

"Hey!" Ayato suddenly stood up. "Good timing, Chichinashi. I just thought of something good."

"Um…?"

Ayato suddenly appeared behind Yui, and he grabbed her shoulders to keep her in place. Yui jolted, squeezing her hands together close to her chest.

"Hey, Ruri. You've never actually tried blood straight from the source, right?"

"Oh!" Laito stood up too. "Good idea, Ayato!"

Yui stammered, "What's going on?"

"Since Chichinashi is here, this is the perfect opportunity." Ayato roughly grabbed Yui's chin and forced her to expose her neck. "You're practically a mature vampire now, so it's about time you try biting a human."

Ruri hesitated, and looked at the display in front of her. Yui was restrained and wriggling in Ayato's arms, a distressed look on her face, her hair all strewn about and her white neck right in front of Ruri's eyes. She called out in a shrill voice for the triplets to let her go, but the more frantically she moved about, the stronger and sweeter her scent was. Ruri felt an odd feeling, one that she didn't have a name for.

She remembered the first day she met Yui and saw the red blood dripping down her neck. Ruri suddenly felt very, very thirsty. Every instinct in her body pushed her forward, closer to Yui, closer to the source of that sweet smell.

Yui let out a strangled noise of protest but, before she even knew what she was doing, Ruri had sank her teeth into Yui's neck.

She felt Yui's body shiver, and hot, sweet blood oozed from the wound. She licked and kissed at Yui's neck, listening to Yui's sweet voice in her ear, though she wasn't the least bit aware of what she was saying. Ruri was devoting all her attention to the taste of Ruri's blood - as she shut her eyes and blissfully drank, she even forgot that the triplets were there. She became vaguely aware that her left hand was on the back of Yui's neck, with her fingers intertwining with her hair.

Though she was still floating in her own world, she heard Yui moan out her name. It sounded so terribly nice coming from Yui's lips, and Ruri would have very much liked to hear her say her name even more, but Ruri also noticed that Yui sounded afraid.

Ruri heard another voice in the back of her head. The voice of Angela's brother. You creepy girl! Don't ever come near her again, freak!

"Ruri, sto- stop-" Yui gasped. Ruri stopped right away, taking a staggering step back.

She stared wide-eyed at the red bite marks she had made on Yui's neck. Ruri had only realized it now, but they were not the only bite marks she had. Several of Ruri's brothers had already bitten her and scarred her pale skin. Yui had nearly collapsed in Ayato's arms, and she looked like a mess. Tears were falling from her eyes, but she seemed too exhausted to really cry. Yui was looking at Ruri as if she were afraid of her. No, she was afraid of her.

"Well?" Laito disregarded Yui's tears, and he laid a hand on Ruri's shoulder. "How was that, huh? How was your first time? Did she taste good?"

Ruri didn't answer. She turned away, and briskly walked back to her room.

Kanato and Laito watched her go with a frown. "Uh oh," Laito commented. Ayato silently let go of Yui, who stumbled for a moment, and ran away back to her room once she steadied herself.

"I suppose we went too far," Kanato sighed. "Though I don't really get what her problem is."

Ayato, feeling like this whole thing was his fault, scratched at the back of his neck. "...Hell. I'll go talk to the kid."

"Oh, good job Ayato!" Laito clapped his hands. "How responsible of you."

Ayato told him to shut up, and slowly climbed the stairs up to Ruri's room, thinking hard about how to handle this. He eventually decided, though, that thinking about things would get him nowhere and he should just dive straight in. So, that's what he did. He opened Ruri's door without even knocking, and saw her sitting on her bed, flipping through the pages of her journal sadly.

"Hey, kid."

Ruri meekly looked up at him.

"What happened just now? What's got you all freaked out?"

Ruri didn't say anything, so Ayato shut the door and sat on the bed with her. They sat in silence for a while, and the only sound was Ruri flipping the pages of her journal. Finally Ayato asked, "Whatcha got there?"

"A notebook."

"What do you write in it?"

"Things that I'm thinking about."

"What are you thinking about right now?"

Ruri hesitantly responded, "I hurt Yui."

"What the heck, that's what you're upset about?"

"I really liked her," Ruri continued. "And I hurt her. I made her cry. I'm sure she hates me now."

Ayato rubbed the back of his neck again, and tried to give some advice. "Hey, look. Do you remember when you were little, and Reiji was tutoring you for a while, and every time you did something wrong he would hit your hands with a ruler or some shit like that? This was before we knew that you were hard of hearing."

Ruri had been very young at the time, but she did remember getting her palms struck so many times, so she nodded.

"Well, after Reiji did find out you were hard of hearing, he was freakin' out just like you're doing now. Because he had hurt you. Do you hate Reiji now?"

"I don't hate Reiji."

"Of course you don't! Hell, you even got the guy a birthday present. I didn't even get him a birthday present!" Ruri looked up at Ayato instead of staring down at her journal. Ayato seemed to have some trouble deciding on what to say next in order to make his point. "So what I'm saying is...Sometimes you hurt people. I don't think there's a single person in this world who hasn't hurt someone else before. But people are tough, and they heal. So if you apologize to the person you hurt and, y'know, give them some time...They're gonna heal, and they're gonna forgive you."

Ruri looked at him hopefully. "You think that Yui won't hate me?"

"She's not gonna hate you. Take it from Yours Truly. I know everything, you know."

Without warning, Ruri hugged Ayato tightly. Ayato froze up, feeling himself grow warm with embarrassment. He tousled Ruri's hair. "Okay, okay, kid. Get outta here."

Ruri stood up. "Yes. I'm going to go apologize to her right now." She headed towards the door. "Thank you, Ayato. I love you."

"Ruri!"

Ruri paused in the doorway, and turned to look at him. Ayato smiled crookedly at her.

"What did you get Reiji for his birthday, anyway? I'm looking for ideas."

"Oh…" She smiled back at him. "It's a secret, though."