This torturous electricity between both of us

The cafeteria was possibly even more crowded than Zero remembered it getting back when he used to come here every day. He looked down to the lunch he'd just grabbed and wished that he had not bothered. There was some stupid policy against taking cafeteria food outside that meant either Zero was stuck here, or he could throw his meal into the rubbish bin and just find somewhere quiet until next period started. He thought about it. Strangely enough, it seemed that actually making an effort to take care of himself was having the intended effect on him. After sleeping a reasonable number of hours and eating at mealtimes, Zero felt a lot better than he had done the previous week. So it seemed to him that to continue on in the same fashion would be a good idea. Even if it meant he had to endure the school cafeteria.

He scanned the busy room again and finally came across a reasonable option: Sayori Wakaba was here and she had her nose in a book and a table to herself. Zero made his way over and placed his tray down opposite the empty space beside her. Yori looked up from her book and her eyebrows shot up at the sight of Zero standing across from her. "You don't mind?" he inquired and after a second she shook her head.

"Of course not."

Zero took a seat and Yori put her book down. He gave a slight shake of his head. "You don't need to stop," he told her. "There just wasn't anywhere else to sit." Or rather, this was the only space next to someone he knew he could tolerate. "What is it?"

Yori was still watching him with a look of mild surprise, but at Zero's question she blinked then turned her gaze back to the book she'd set on the table – something for school, by the looks of it.

"I'm just surprised to see you in the school building when you don't have to be. Aren't you missing out on quality nap time right now?"

"I don't think," Zero said, in a tone just as dry as Yori's had been, "That that's a mistake I'll be making again in a hurry... Not if it's always like this in here."

"Oh it is," Yori was absently flicking through her book now and she seemed to very deliberately not look at him as she said, "Maybe you should have lunch with Yuki in the future."

Zero's eyes narrowed at Yori and she must have felt it somehow, because she looked up at him innocently. He watched her face for a few seconds and then said, "She wouldn't be up by this time."

Yori looked thoughtful. "Yuki likes to sleep through the day too? The two of you are well matched for one another it seems."

At this, Zero's jaw clenched all by itself. It was hard to tell if Yori's casually spoken words had been meant as some kind of jab, but that was how they felt. "What is that supposed to mean?" Zero was trying his best to keep his tone even, but his words came out a little sharply anyway.

Yori raised her eyebrows. "I'm just pleased that the two of you are friends."

Zero felt another prickle of irritation. Yes, okay, he had been spending a lot of time with Yuki lately. But he wasn't aware of that being anybody else's business than theirs. Just what, he wondered, had that girl been saying about him?

"It's more complicated than that."

Yori took this entirely the wrong way. Her eyes widened a little. "Then you're more than friends?"

"That's not what I said," Zero snapped. He was beginning to reconsider his earlier assessment of Yori being tolerable. He wondered if perhaps Yuki was beginning to rub off on her. How did she get 'more than friends' out of 'complicated'? Was that what it sounded like? Was that what it looked like?

Zero's thoughts flickered involuntarily back to waking up a few mornings ago to find Yuki in his bed. But before he could allow himself to dwell on it for too long Yori said, "'Complicated' was the word Yuki used too... but she wouldn't say what she meant by it."

And suddenly Zero's irritation had become too much to ignore. He got to his feet, saying angrily, "I don't know why that would be a conversation you two thought it necessary to have."

Yori looked at him in surprise, but she spoke to him quite calmly, "Because she cares about you of course. Are you really leaving? You haven't touched your food at all."

"I've lost my appetite," Zero muttered. He was frowning, but no longer meeting Yori's gaze. "See you later, Wakaba."

"Don't be silly, Zero," he heard Yori sigh as he was about to walk away. "You need to eat. Look I won't mention Yuki again if it bothers you that much."

Zero turned his eyes back to his fellow prefect. Her face was completely straight and sincere. Was he overreacting? It was possible. He knew he did that sometimes; people were idiots and Zero rarely had the patience for it. Yori tended to be less idiotic than most though and it was probable that he'd be able to get his point across to her without having to resort to storming from the room. He sat back down.

"It doesn't matter if you talk about her," he muttered, "Just don't make our spending time together into something it's not."

Yori's eyes continued to meet Zero's steadily, but now the line of her lips had tensed slightly. There was a little furrow between her eyebrows. "You know, personally, I count myself lucky to have Yuki as a friend. And she's hoped for a very long time to be friends with you too. But despite all the time the two of you have been spending together, all I've heard from you is denial of that friendship. Do you really think that's fair to her?"

The retort, 'I never asked for any of it' died long before reaching his lips. Even inside his head it sounded childish and ungrateful. There was something about Yori's calm and straight forward manner that killed all of his arguments so he simply said nothing and averted his eyes to his untouched food.

Yori sighed. "Look, I'm sorry; it's probably not my place to be butting in like this. And I shouldn't have teased you either... But I really think that if the situation was reversed somehow, then Yuki would stand up for either one of us. She wouldn't even hesitate. So I have to speak up too. And I think the least you could do is acknowledge her."

It was hardly as though Zero had been ignoring Yuki all of this time, and Yori was aware of this. Zero did not know how much Yuki had told her about the late nights in each other's company, which more and more often he had been the one to initiate. But that was not what Yori was talking about. On some level she understood something Zero had been trying to ignore. The acknowledgment she spoke of was something Zero needed to do on his own. Whatever she might have guessed beyond that was unclear, but what she was asking of him was simple: he just had to admit, to himself more than anything, that he and Yuki were friends.

It sounded simple, but it wasn't. Zero could not blame Yori for being unaware of the complexities of her suggestion. She was a normal human girl who had somehow become mixed up with a vampire and a hunter without even knowing about it.

Yori couldn't possibly know it... but wasn't it shameful, the way he was beginning to feel?

And yet...

'Do you really think that's fair to her?'

"You're right..."

But there must have been one hell of an expression on his face at that moment, because Yori did not look remotely pleased with his agreement. Instead she was regarding him with concern. But rather than asking him about it, she just murmured, "Hey, you should eat."

Zero nodded but he made no move to do as she suggested.

Zero's mother and father had never been hateful people. They had been talented hunters who took their jobs seriously but they were also devoted parents.

Raising a family in their line of work was not the easiest thing. They managed, with the help of Yagari, but Zero's upbringing had been far from conventional. While most children were learning basic rules like 'never talk to strangers',Zero and his twin brother had been taught: 'vampires can never be our friends', and: 'it's not a crime to kill one'. While those other children learned to ride bicycles, Zero – and Ichiru too, on the days he was well enough – were trained in the use of anti-vampire weapons.

The normal things came too; it was just that they had to be fitted into and around the hunter lifestyle. The Kiryu's doted on their sons every chance they got. It wasn't perfect – there certainly were a lot of things unspoken and left to fester even until this day – but as a child Zero had never doubted that he was loved.

This did not make the process of learning to hunt easy. It meant that there were some things about the nature of vampires Zero had to learn the hard way. It was thanks to Zero's childish naivety, as he tried to defend a Level E he'd known as a human, that Yagari lost his eye. Vampires won't hesitate to kill, Zero had learned. The lesson was cruelly reinforced when his parents were murdered right before his eyes.

Another thing he'd learned was that purebloods were the worst, the most deadly, kind of vampire. And he'd never had any reason to doubt it until Yuki. Try as he might, Zero could not link those words to her in any way. But that did not mean she was not dangerous. It was precisely because she was making him doubt the things he knew about vampires that she was likely the most dangerous one he'd met.

So what would Zero's mother and father think about the way he behaved around her? How he would go crawling back to her every night, even though she was a monster in his dreams... Even though she was one of them, he still felt the desire to be near her. To the point where he sometimes couldn't focus until he saw her smiling face. Only then would the blood in his veins – the blood she'd given him – cool and allow him to feel anything close to peace. There seemed to be nothing that he could do to change that. And he hated it. He hated that it had come to this.

As a child he'd been so strong. Ichiru had been sickly, born weaker than most children and somehow Zero had always known that that was his fault. There had never been anything he could do to make up for it, but still he wanted to be strong in Ichiru's place. He could do that for his brother, at least, and his whole childhood, Zero had done what he could for him. Of course Zero had failed somehow in the end, but he had never given up trying.

Ichiru had always insisted that they were only the same in looks and that on the inside they were completely different people. But the memory of the last time he'd seen his twin was stained on his mind. Zero would never forget how Ichiru had smiled as he left with that woman, and what terrified him now was the idea that whatever it was that had brought Ichiru to that point might not be so dissimilar to what was now happening to Zero. Was it so unimaginable that he might be following in the footsteps of his twin?

Zero's parents were kind people. It was possible they could have forgiven him. But that did not really change the fact that this was betrayal. He did not think he could forgive himself for it.

Nearly three weeks had passed since Zero had taken Yuki's blood. In that time, Zero had somehow made it to the point where concentrating on school was no longer the impossible task it used to be. It was not easy, by any means. There was a lot that he had to put from his mind before he could even think about school. And it was still a huge effort most days just to get out of bed in the morning. Motivation was not something that came easy to him. But he was beginning now to fall into a routine that might – if viewed from a distance – be mistaken for normal. And certainly he would not have got that far if he'd had to deal with bloodlust on top of it all.

It was something that stayed on Zero's mind because it was so different than just a few weeks ago. Being able to just be around other people, without the fear that he might lose his mind at any point and end up hurting or even killing someone, was huge. Zero had lived with that fear everyday and now it was very nearly gone. Nearly being a key word. Of course he was not fool enough to think of this as anything more than a temporary measure. Yuki's blood was powerful stuff, but it was not a cure for his condition. And there were times when he could not help but think of this. The fearful state he had become so used to living with for so long was not something that could be erased from his memory. Accidents happened often at school. Students would get paper cuts or they would fall during P.E. and Zero would always notice. These incidents were not so much a temptation as they were a reminder. Not a day went by when he could forget the terrible difference between him and his classmates.

For a good portion of the time the since the night Yuki had pulled him close and made him drink from her neck, Zero's thirst had remained satisfied. He knew this could not last forever but the first time he felt it again he couldn't help but be upset by it. He was with Yuki when it happened and though she caught the look on his face, it was not obvious enough for her to tell what it meant and he could not bring himself to explain.

The sensation of the thirst was not the same as it used to be. Maybe, left unchecked, it would grow that way, maddening, all encompassing. But somehow these days it seemed more complex. The students and their accidents in class were nothing. It was only ever enough to bother him around Yuki. He put it down to Yuki being the only one he had ever drunk from. He knew what she tasted like, he didn't like to dwell on it, but he knew. It was impossible to forget.

In any case, he had it under control. After all, he'd gone so long controlling it that it was second nature to him now.

There were too many things this week that Zero wanted to not have to think about. The reappearance of his blood thirst may have been a minor inconvenience on its own, but it added to his load. The timing was awful. He'd been doing so much better over the past few days and he worried that thinking too much would send all that progress to hell. It was enough as it was to focus on school and preparation for exams. And to make that work he had to remember to eat properly, to sleep at normal hours as much as he could. He felt that in order to do any of that he had to keep a clear head. But this, along with Yori's words, had made it a lot harder to keep that focus.

Zero still wasn't managing to sleep through some nights. Overall, he'd shifted into a more school friendly sleep schedule but it was one with a fair number of holes in it. There were still times when his dreams would turn violent and Yuki did not always need to come in to him, but sometimes she would. On those nights she'd just sit with him for a while, hold his hand, whisper comforting words and, though Zero did not quite know how to feel about it, he had to admit it helped. There were also no more incidents of the two of them falling asleep together, which helped in other ways.

If during that week Zero ever stopped to think about it, then he could never help but feel that it wasn't right. Not because of the betrayal aspect – that shame burning inside him was a constant, he was almost becoming used to living with it at this point. But now that Yori had brought up the issue, Zero had to ask himself if he was taking advantage of Yuki's kindness. It was absurd, really, that it had come this far; to the point where he was feeling guilty over the fact that he couldn't hate her and just as guilty that he wasn't being kind enough to her in return. And either way he looked at it, he couldn't seem to come to a solution. He really was a selfish creature. He didn't know why she bothered with him in the first place.

He woke too early on the day of his last two exams. Zero had managed to go a couple of nights without his usual nightmares but this morning had broken the streak. He lay silent in bed; trying to coax himself out of the dream, until eventually he began to feel like he had control over his body again. He turned his head to look at the clock on his bedside table: it was nearly six a.m. There was little point in even trying to go back to sleep now. Zero lay where he was for a short while longer and then threw off his bed covers and got up, feeling that the nightmare was too much to shake off staying in the same place.

When he got downstairs he saw the light on in the living room. Yuki, having heard his approach, was already looking up from her book as he pushed the door open.

"Hey," she murmured.

Zero just wordlessly walked over to the sofa next to her armchair and flopped into it. He rubbed a hand over his tired face and then caught the look of concern on hers as she watched him.

He didn't want to talk about it, because what more was there to say at this point? They'd been over it so many times already; she knew what the situation was. So instead Zero nodded to the book in Yuki's hands and asked, "Any good?"

It took her a moment to figure out what he meant, but then she nodded. "I haven't been able to put it down all night. I keep meaning to go to bed but now I'm so close to the end I thought I might as well finish it."

"You're almost as bad at sleeping as me... Feel free to carry on."

"That's okay. It's nice to take a break and savour the story for a while sometimes."

She grinned at him, but Zero could not manage to do more than stare sleepily back at her.

"Would you like some coffee? I could make you some if you like."

"Uh..." he was practically half asleep still but even so he felt he need to decline, his mind flashing back to those thoughts about taking too much from her. "No. I'll get around to it myself once I've finished... adjusting."

"Adjusting?" Yuki's expression was half puzzled, half amused.

"To being conscious..."

"Ah..." she smiled. "Well I'm sure that coffee would only help with that. It's really not a bother. I wouldn't mind some more tea myself actually. I've had about five cups tonight so I think that leaves room for more... I'll happily get yours while I'm at it." The look on her face was so earnest. Zero couldn't imagine her offering to do something she didn't want to when she looked at him like that. "So – coffee?"

He hesitated and then let out a small sigh. "Yeah... thanks," he accepted, feeling a little embarrassed as he did so.

Yuki just grinned again. She put her book down, leaving it open page down on the chair, and then hurried out of the room.

Zero let his head flop back against the sofa cushions. He stared up at the ceiling and wondered how long he was going to let this go on for. He should make a decision one way or another to either fully accept her friendship or to tell her clearly that he didn't need her help. And, yes, he was aware of what an ass he was to even consider the latter, as she was off making him coffee just because he was feeling like too much of a sleep deprived zombie to do it himself.

In the end, he didn't let himself get far thinking about it. It wasn't the time to be making this sort of decision when he had two exams to take, on not nearly enough sleep. Besides that, he wasn't sure he'd fully recovered from the shaken feeling he'd woken with. So instead, Zero distracted himself with thoughts about when he might have turned into such a coward. He felt he would have been pissed off with himself if he'd had the energy for it.

Eventually, Yuki returned, holding two mugs. Zero could smell coffee and what he thought might be peppermint tea. He thanked her as he took his cup and she smiled warmly back at him. It was a nice smile – well, more than nice but Zero thought it might be pushing it to use words like beautiful or radiant in his current situation. He wondered if he would be okay with giving up on that smile – if he'd come so far that distancing himself from her would cause him to miss it. It was another question he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer to.

Zero sipped at his drink and he felt the worst of his exhaustion begin to evaporate as the warmth of it settled through him. All the while, Yuki chatted to him about the book she'd been reading and he appreciated her effort not to probe into his reasons for being awake over an hour earlier than usual. Eventually he decided to start getting ready for school so that he would not have to rush later, as rushing was something he was certainly in no mood for. By this point Yuki had psyched herself up about her book so much that she could not resist going back to the last few chapters.

Zero took his time showering but even with the help of the coffee, and through the feel of the hot water against his skin, he could still sense lingering traces of something like terror left over from the nightmare earlier. It wasn't so strange though; he never felt quite right for a while after them, usually. He closed his eyes, letting the water run over his face and tried to clear his thoughts a little. But his worries simply did not want to relent at this point.

A short while later as he dried off and then started to dress, he thought to himself that at this rate he might as well have just stayed in bed; as far as his hopes for doing any coherent work went today, things weren't looking promising. But there were unfortunately too many people about who were determined to 'support' him for that option to look at all realistic to him. He figured his best bet for getting through the day ahead was probably more coffee.

After quickly changing into his school shirt and trousers, he wandered back down to the kitchen. When he got there Yuki was already leaning over the counter with her book open flat in front of her and a fresh pot of coffee steaming next to it. Yuki did not drink coffee in the mornings because, even with a vampire's higher tolerance for these sorts of things, she was still too sensitive to caffeine to even think about getting to sleep after it. So that meant she'd gone to the trouble especially for him yet again.

"You didn't have to..." Zero muttered but Yuki just shrugged.

"You're the one with exams today. I figure you could use all the help you can get."

Zero looked back at her, perhaps a little more gravely than the situation called for, and then he said, "I guess... well... thanks."

"You want some breakfast too? You know, while I'm being helpful?"

Zero shook his head. "I'll get it. Thanks but I think I've had about as much burnt toast as I can stomach for this month."

Yuki was not often around for Zero's breakfast time but whenever she was she seemed to really love this whole 'being helpful' thing and took it upon herself to make sure that Zero was fed. He probably would have appreciated it more if she were a better cook. For someone who loved food so much, she really was terrible at preparing it.

She pouted a little, but gave in easily. "Okay but have something – it's important!"

In the end there was little else to be found besides a loaf of bread and a tub of peanut butter. Thanks to Yuki's habit of snacking on cereal in the night, she'd finished the last of the box.

So toast it would have to be.

"'Important'... you say these things, but you don't make it any easier for me."

Yuki gave Zero a slightly guilty smile. "Cereal is the only thing I know how to make without burning it."

"If that's really true then I worry for you... Just please don't ever try to overcompensate for this lack of culinary talent or you'll end up like the Headmaster."

Yuki laughed and her hair shifted a little as her head tilted back, exposing more of the soft skin of her neck and the pale blue shadow of the veins beneath. Zero found himself staring a few seconds too long. The memory of how she had tasted that night flashed uninvited in his mind and he looked away, swallowing uncomfortably against the sudden soreness in his throat. He hoped she would not notice the way his hands shook a little at his sides.

Zero quickly distracted himself and began rooting around various drawers for a breadknife and wondering why the Headmaster couldn't just put things back where they were supposed to go when he was done with them instead of making Zero have to hunt for what he needed. Eventually he found the knife and started on his breakfast preparations. Yuki was looking thoughtful as she tried to list meals she could make without destroying the kitchen in the process. She was not getting very far with it.

Zero was not fully listening. He was counting on breakfast to make him feel less like he'd had only a couple of fitful hours of sleep, but in truth he wasn't really hungry. And the sudden appearance of his vampire thirst made the prospect of his chosen breakfast more unappealing still. But one slice of toast was not much in the way of sustenance and if he wanted to avoid Yuki pestering him then he figured he had better make more.

He must have been pretty out of it still because a few seconds later he felt the serrated edge of the knife slice along the side of his index finger. Zero swore as he swiftly drew his hand back from the loaf. The cut was small but surprisingly deep and blood welled up in it immediately. He had already raised his cut finger to his mouth, intending to lick away the blood there, when he registered the sound of Yuki's sharp inhale. His eyes instinctively found hers, and then he stopped breathing.

Yuki had shut her eyes tight and begun to control her breaths, making them slow and steady. But it was too late for that. Zero had looked up a second too early and that was all it took for that crimson gaze to imprint on his mind. Yuki's eyes had been the exact colour of blood. She'd been staring at him hungrily, wearing the face he'd seen so many times before in his nightmares.

A/N: eep. So one... please don't hate me for this! What a mean end to the chapter! I know... I'm sorry...

Two: who else feels that Zero and Yori's friendship is a totally underrated thing? Like I just think Yori would have this really calm way of not putting up with any shit that would work really well with Zero when he's being a grouch. I hope you liked the scene with them in this chapter.

Three: more reviews would be lovely, if you could spare the time to write one. I did feel a little disappointed only getting one last chapter. It's just, I've been working super hard on this story so if you're enjoying it then just writing a little something to let me know would mean so much! I am thankful to everyone reading this though! I should have another chapter for you all soon!

(Chapter title from Landfill by Daughter)