part two: love, too, had to be learned.

or

Saya and the Sakamaki Brothers meet Yui.

A finger entwined around a lock of her hair and gently tugged.

"Bitch-san," Laito crooned into her ear, lips so close that they nearly brushed against her skin. No warmth radiated from him. "Your hair's getting longer."

Saya turned – as far as her head could, without pulling her hair or forcing him to move – and gave him a blank look, a silent way of asking 'so what?'

He smiled, and anyone who did not know his true nature might have thought it to be a smile of seduction, one with promises of pleasures between sheets. Given his personality, it probably was, and also doubled as his default.

"No complaints," he said, like he was soothing someone. "I like women with long hair. I find they're far more fun in bed."

After giving yet another kick to Laito for that – at this point Saya weighed the possibility that he actually enjoyed the pain in her mind and began to worry she was just enabling him – she returned to her classroom. The hallway encounter with Laito had only highlighted what she had already known, that Laito – or the other two triplets, for that matter – really couldn't be relied upon.

A problem, as Saya needed to go and meet the Mukami today.

She didn't have the best track record with protecting people, but the idea of leaving Yui unprotected while she went to meet the Mukami did not sit well with her. Laito had just proven that he was incapable of learning, and without her there and the choice not made yet, Yui would be vulnerable.

Saya weighed some things in her mind before she came to a decision. The first not-disagreeable option her eyes landed on, she approached immediately.

"I need a favor," she said to the first non-triplet Sakamaki brother she'd found. Ignoring his incredulous look towards her, Saya briefly explained that she would be gone for a few hours on personal business, one she had to go to by herself, and needed him to make sure Yui was fine.

"Why me?" he asked, realizing that she would not be taking 'no' as an answer and perhaps knowing better than to protest or refuse.

She didn't really have a reason 'why him' in particular, other than the fact that despite his personality he was one of those that knew better than to try anything and she found him first, out of all her limited options. Rather than explain that, Saya just looked at him until he gave in.

"Fine," he said, the word drawn out into a sigh of resignation.

Due to the night-oriented lifestyle, 'breakfast' was what would normally be an early dinner. Yui prepared something simple, having woken up a little late.

She nearly lost her breakfast – a simple toast with a fried egg and some lettuce – when she almost ran straight into Reiji.

"S-sorry," she stuttered, clutching her breakfast tightly. A second later and there would have been a large smear on his chest, and trouble for her.

"Really," he said with a sigh, pushing up his glasses. Yui bit her lip and bowed her head a little, hoping it wouldn't lead to anything.

It didn't – at least, not in the way the triplets might have taken it.

"What, exactly, do you contribute to this household?"

Yui flinched at the question. It was a sore point for her, because it led to the bigger and more important question of – what could she do to prove her worth? Saya's kindness was something she was afraid of questioning, lest she approach to clearly and make it disappear like a mirage.

"Even Saya contributes," he continued. When Yui raised her head, eyes wide with curiosity, Reiji rolled his eyes. "Since she has arrived, the stipend being sent for the manor's spending has doubled."

Whereas, with Yui, there was no incentive. It didn't matter that she had never asked to be sent here, because she didn't have the power or the say in this. All she had was the fragile protection that Saya extended, and the future of that wasn't very clear. Yui bit her lip and didn't say anything, and Reiji, after grabbing some tea from the cupboards, left without saying another word.

He didn't have to – his point had already been made.

The low mood hung over Yui through the car ride to school. Saya didn't speak, until the car came to a stop and they stepped out. One by one, the brothers began to make their way to their destinations – which weren't necessarily, Yui had learned from her attempts at observing them, their classrooms – but Saya hung back.

"Yui-san," she said quietly. "I have to go somewhere today, after school."

It wasn't a rejection, and yet Yui couldn't help but think it felt like one.

Saya looked at her with the same blank look.

"I won't be back at the manor for hours," she continued.

The kindness hidden by what looked like indifference was familiar to her now. Would it be a stretch to think that there was a hint of apology threading through the blankness? Yui hoped she wasn't imagining it.

The hesitation before Saya continued speaking was heavy, but the words that came next were not.

"Could you cook something for me?"

At the unexpected request, Yui blinked because that was all she could do. Had her hearing suddenly been distorted?

Saya bit her lip, and added to the odd request, almost like an excuse. "I'm not a very good cook."

Yui hadn't imagined it. Saya had asked her to do something, something Yui could do. She jumped at the chance, feeling that small bit of kindness tear through her heavy mood like sunlight through clouds.

"Of course!" She might not be the skilled chef that Reiji was, but right now she felt like she could sell her soul to make Saya anything she wanted. "What would you like?"

Anxiously, Yui waited with bated breath as Saya seemed to think again.

"Tamagoyaki," she said. "And . . . something else. Surprise me?"

Yui nodded so hard that her head and neck hurt.

"Thank you." Saya waited a few more seconds, something which Yui was deeply grateful for because her head had a chance to stop spinning, before she continued. "If it's not a bother, could you go shopping for the ingredients after school?"

"Yes, of course!" It was hardly a bother, Yui thought. In fact, she probably would have wanted to go pick up something so that she could make what she felt confident in without worrying for lacking the necessary ingredients.

It was only later, after Saya had taken a separate car to her business and Yui was at the grocery store picking up what she needed – with money that Saya had pushed into Yui's hands, despite her protests – that Yui put the pieces together.

Oh. Saya sent her on this grocery trip to keep her out of the manor as much as possible, because she couldn't be around to protect Yui.

The thought warmed her heart.

Unfortunately, the feeling couldn't last.

"C'mon, it'll be fun."

Clutching the bag of groceries tightly to her chest, Yui shook her head. "I'm really not interested."

The man trying to get her to come with him wasn't as tall as some of the Sakamaki brothers, but he was taller than her, and leaning far too close for her to be comfortable.

And he wouldn't listen when she refused.

"Don't be like that," he said, and reached out for her wrist. Yui flinched and tried to pull away, but he held on.

She was stuck. Just like back when the triplets had a hold on her.

The difference here was that Saya wasn't here to save her.

"You'll like it," he was saying, and his grip hurt. She couldn't break free, even when she tugged with everything she had.

"Let go please!"

"Hey, hey, don't be so loud," he said, and some passersby glanced at them before going on their way again. Yui's chest tightened with terror. It was similar to, yet different from the kind of fear she felt at the manor. This man was a fellow human, wasn't even a vampire, and yet he was impossible to reason with.

It was different from being back at the manor, when she was stripped of the illusion of security that she had been with all this time. It was a feeling of betrayal, that for someone who didn't even know of demons that fed on humans, this nameless man could be so inconsiderate towards a fellow human.

The betrayal of a stranger stabbed far deeper than it had any right to, the blade sharpened by the anxiety and fear that had been with her all this time.

"Let me go!"

Anger clouded the man's face.

"Listen," he began to say, but Yui didn't want to listen to this man, who refused to listen to her.

"No!"

A pale hand grabbed the wrist of the man, just like how he was grabbing Yui. It made an odd chain of flesh and joints, and both the man and Yui followed the latest link up towards the third person joining in, the last person she expected to see here.

"Shu-san?"

The eldest of the six brothers looked tired. But all the more, he looked out of place, because usually he had a pretty set routine between the manor and school, and Yui had never noticed him break that path voluntarily.

"This is really troublesome," he said. That was very in-character for the blond.

"What are you doing here?" Yui asked, stunned that she wasn't somehow imagining this encounter.

"Hey, what the hell, man," said the man at the same time. Brave because of his ignorance.

"Saya," Shu said simply, answering her question with the one word that explained everything.

A lump lodged itself into her throat, and Yui had to struggle to breathe while not bursting into tears.

The man shouted in pain, and startled at the sudden loss of binding from her wrist, Yui's eyes dropped to Shu's grip just as he released his wrist. When he cradled his wrist close to his chest, she realized what Shu had done.

"What the hell?!" he howled, but he paused when Shu finally shot him an annoyed glance.

"Leave," he said simply, and that one word from him did more than what any of Yui's protests and refusals had done. It was enough to make the man back down and slink away, in a manner like a dog retreating with his tail between his legs.

Carefully touching her wrist – it would leave a mark, maybe bruise in a few hours – Yui sighed in relief. "Thank you, Shu-san."

Shu didn't reply, and when Yui looked up, he was frowning.

"Shu-san?"

"You're weak," he said, so blunt and matter of fact that it almost wasn't insulting. "So why would you step outside on your own, without your protector around?"

She flushed. "It wasn't my fault, and-"

"That doesn't change the fact that you're weak," he interrupted. "Humans are fragile beings who get destroyed easily. Why would you risk it?"

Yui wanted to retort to that, but his words were weird. No, not just his words – Shu was acting oddly, like it was more than just what had happened to her.

He wasn't saying that it was her fault, per say, but he was saying that she was weak. He was asking why a weak human would step out into a world that could be dangerous to someone like her, who was frail in comparison to someone like him, or Saya.

Yui could understand that line of reasoning, but she could not agree with it.

"It is dangerous," she admitted. After all, she'd seen for herself just now that there were terrible humans out there. Misfortune could strike any time. She could get into a car accident, die in a fire, catch a disease, be murdered. Even without considering her current situation – that of living with demons, soon to choose one to drink her blood – life could be dangerous.

She had not lived one that was fully cognizant of such threats, and she was more aware of it now, but it was true. The sense of security was far flimsier than she had ever known.

But that didn't mean she could just cower inside forever. To hide away from the rest of the world and pretend that she was safe, like how an ostrich stuck its head in the sand. Even if it was a scary world, even if sometimes she wanted nothing more than to close her eyes and pretend there was nothing wrong, if Yui weren't to do her best to face her reality and do what she could, then –

"That wouldn't be living."

It was beyond just cooking something for Saya, for all that she had done for Yui. If she was scared of all the monsters in the world – not just that of demons, but other evils in the world – and did nothing, then she would not be truly living.

Something in his blue eyes shifted, but before Yui could see what that was, Shu closed his eyes and yawned. When he opened his eyes again, they were filled with the usual lethargy.

Without another word, he turned around and began to walk towards the direction of the manor. Clutching her bag of groceries, she hurried after him. He didn't turn around, as if she wasn't even there.

"Thank you," she said again, not discouraged by his lack of a reaction. Indifferent kindness, Yui was familiar with after Saya, and it appeared that he was quite like the dark-haired girl. "For helping me."

"If you want to pay me back," said Shu, still not looking in her direction. "Do so with your blood."

. . . or, well, maybe not.

AN: Karlheinz is kind of like Saya's non-sexual sugar daddy except he's younger.