A/N: The college process is finally over and I'm going to one of my top choices. Yeah for summer!:)
Warnings: Yaoi/KxZ/Un-Beta'd-spelling and grammar mistakes
Disclaimer: I do not own Vampire Knight. This lofty piece of work belongs to Matsuri Hino
Swallowed in the Sea
Chapter 2: *~* Disclosure *~*
Those eyes stared back at me. Harrowing, sardonic and angry, but with a hint of familiarity. This situation was ironic in too many ways to count.
"You." Was a slivered haired response to my presence.
"Yes, me." I answered back, almost mocking.
We stared at each other for five more, long, drawn out minutes before Yuki cleared her throat and opted to break the growing uneasiness between us.
"W-well," she began, almost stuttering, an uneasiness growing within her for whatever reason. "Well, Zero come in, please," it was almost pleading. Poor girl.
"No." We both looked at the despondent silverette. Yuki, with a gaze of defeat. Me, with one of irritation, because of the grief he was putting my sister through.
"Why?" She was pouting.
"Because," he began, staring me down. And, well, he wasn't even blinking, That's him, the one I told you about."
It was silent
Then a loud "oh" popped out of Yuki's mouth. She nodded, as in some feigned understanding before saying, "No, no Zero, it's alright. Kaname's quite harmless when you get to know him."
"Yes, quite," I smiled at the boy before me. Trying to look as harmless as possible.
He merely surveyed me one last time before entering our home.
"So may I please show you around?" Yuki was madly excited and for what reason, escaped me. The only thing she managed to do was bring the only possible human being who could seemingly scare Ichijo Asato to death with that glare. Perhaps he wasn't so bad…
I watched as my sister pulled her unwilling victim towards the stairs, his glare still on me.
"Yuki!" I shouted as they went up the staircase, "No boys in your room."
My sister had been showing Kiryu around for the past twenty minutes and I'm sure he was getting quite bored. I don't know how she managed to stretch it that far, he wasn't moving in.
But still, I couldn't stop staring at him. That face. Where have I seen it? Somewhere, but where?
Unfortunately, for me, he caught me staring. He then turned and whispered something in Yuki's ear, causing her to turn her head and grant me with a disapproving look.
Tattling, Kiryu, will definitely not earn you points with me.
"Okay," Yuki said as she led him and herself back to the starting point. "This is the best feature of the house." She nearly giggled saying this but kept herself in check.
"Well, thank-you Yuki," I said. It's nice to be appreciated by someone.
"Kaname, show Zero how charming you can be," She nudged me. I guess she was trying to remedy any bad impressions we had of each other. I nodded.
"How's school Kiryu-kun?" He merely looked at me, or no, rather glared at me; it was steady enough to send even the strongest men slinking away.
"Hmm. Well Yuki it looks like your friend is a complete idiot." I couldn't help myself. This boy was already too frustrating.
Fortunately that did the trick. It got Kiryu talking, but perhaps not the way Yuki intended.
"At least I don't need to register in a psyche ward." He thought he was clever.
"Hmmm." I said. I shouldn't be doing this. Besting a high-schooler, but I had stress that needed to be released.
"Well you wouldn't be in a psyche ward, because you would be too busy finishing your sentence in juvenile hall." Three piercings, a tattoo, and silver hair. I know it isn't natural. Never mind the eyebrows.
"Yuki, I don't mind hobos, but I cross the line with fugitives." As one can imagine the situation plummeted from there.
"Yuki, it was mistake." My sister simply ignored me, turning the volume of the television higher. I never see her look so angry. She was angry enough to burn the world, and right now she was burning me.
"Yuki-" she snapped her head towards me cutting me off so fast I felt my skin bleed.
"No Kaname, all you had to do was act charming and harmless, but instead you," she wiped the tears from her eyes, "you made fun of him and now he said he isn't ever coming back."
And now she was balling. I'm sure she would drown the whole world with the amount of water spilling for her eyes. But, I hated to see my sister cry.
"Okay, I'll fix it you'll see." I promised.
"Yes you will." She came up to me. Tip toed, staring me down. I would've called her cute if it wouldn't have made the situation worse.
"You're going to apologize. In person." The hands on her hips measured the finality in her voice.
I would have laughed if it was any other person. Laughed right in their faces. But I had a soft spot for Yuki. She was only sister, and there registered my weakness.
"Yes, because it won't be weird if I come at his doorstep one day and-"
"Kaname, seriously, what if he really doesn't want to come back!" She grew bereaved again, and I wondered why she was all stressed out over one overly-grumpy boy.
Unless…but that would never happy. Yuki's the perky type.
"Fine. Just tell him I'll be coming." I sat down, and got back to my work, if not a bit cranky.
But Yuki's hug made it all worthwhile.
So I kept at my work. Working, working until my eyelids screamed, and my mind muddled with the ever expanding might of information. Bed time.
I got up early for work, ready to beat down any opposition. Not really ready to apologize to Kiryu. He was definitely…different. If he wasn't so disagreeable, he might've been an okay person. But he was. And my mind kept disagreeing about his friendship with Yuki.
After getting dressed I headed out the door.
"I'm leaving Yuki."
"Bye Kaname, oh and don't forget."
"Of course not."
Work, of course, was not pleasant today. It was the exact opposite, but that was usually the case.
The phones rang, the meetings ran over, and again Ichijo tried to get me to talk about the contract and again I avoided it. But it wasn't so bad, not yet. At least I had yet to run into her.
"Kaname-san" My luck's run out"
"Yes, Ruka-san." I smiled politely at the woman who has been trying to get me to go out with her ever since we stopped using binkies.
"If you're not busy tonight, perhaps..." she was waiting for me to pick up the trail and if I were a kinder a man, a less focused man I would have fallen into the trap, but I wasn't, so I didn't.
"But, I am busy tonight."
"Then maybe next time" I didn't fail to see the disappointment in her voice, but I chose to ignore it, and gave her a smile instead.
"Maybe." She seemed pleased with this answer and left me with my own devices.
The unfortunate encounter ended and head back to my office, my industrialized cage, before pulling a notebook that contained his address.
I was anxious to apologize. Not because of fear, no, maybe it stemmed from unannounced pride. My body was astringed, as if this apology was some sort of constricting device. And it was, to me, it was.
And now I was here, standing outside the door, of a possible delinquent. Yuki, why? Now I wished you had befriended a hobo.
It was weird, some strange situation I couldn't get out of. So I was stuck, stuck like that. Trapped within my sister and lavender eyes. How long will I stand? I must knock and I did once, twice, before…
"What?"
My eyebrows arched at that brash tone, and had it been a different day, a different time, some other universe, I would have left. But I couldn't because I was in this time, this universe, and I had to make amends.
"I came to-"
"Apologize. Ya, Yuki called me to warn me."
That familiar tone he used with my sister almost made me angry. Close but not quite, but it was close enough.
"So, do you?" A shrug of the shoulders and a clipped "whatever" was all the forgiveness I got before the door was slammed, slammed right in my face. No manners.
And in my consciousness some sophomoric voice was saying, telling me that I wasn't even that sorry to begin with.
I trudged to my car, giving the house and that child, a scorn-filled look before entering the vehicle.
The drive was filled with annoyance, an inertia of irritation at the scenario, and incessant rings of my phone. Ichijo was enough evil, but now this boy. This was some unearthly punishment. One I hadn't foreseen.
It kept me thinking, wondering, asking. My mind fled the thoughts of Kiryu and landed in the midst of Ichijo. "Forget the boy for now," I told myself, trying to inundate the thought into my senses. I had to uncover, unravel what Ichijo truly wanted from me. It had to be more than the company. It was bigger, I knew because Ichijo only thought on large scales.
And I ignored the cawing of the crow as it flew over me as I parked the car in the drive way.
My sister ran to me, and held me tightly, her petite arms nearly choking out my life.
"Thanks nii-san, I'm proud of you."
"You should be. Where's my award?"
She laughed, happy, not nervous. "Okay, good 'cause were trying again tomorrow."
My heart would have leapt then and there, but it was kept in my chest, so instead my mind was leaping, leaping out and in. Overthinking and overriding. Anything, anything.
"Unfortunately I won't be there. I have a meeting."
"What? No," her eyes were at the superficial level of sad, not enough to cry, but her crocodile tears were at hand.
"I have to, its important."
"Alright," she said and then she was blushing, red, bright and young. "Kaname?"
I panicked, why was she so crimson, so flushed? What was wrong? My knees found the ground. kneeling down I looked up at her, are eyes meeting, "What's wrong?"
"Kaname," her face turned into some serious contraction of itself. Her voice low.
"Yes."
"Am I," she began, her eyes darting; twisting so fast that tornadoes could have sprung from them, "beautiful?"
"What?" What?
"Pretty cute, lovely, anything."
"Of course," I began, "the most-"
"No," her head moved to side then back and to the side again, "you can't be biased. Am I attractive?"
I couldn't. No, not this…this topic with my baby sister.
"Yuki", her eyes met mine and we held it in holy matrimony, some form of understanding sprouting between us. She now understood I might know, just might figure it out and I understood that I did know, that I had figured it out. But some back part of mind, some wormhole sucked it in and destroyed it. "What's this?"
"Nothing. Gosh, never mind," her nervous laughed alerted me, and some other poor fellow out there, that she was anxious. "Forget," she was flying into the house and up the stairs, "It."
Her voice was clipped, and it was clipping my ears and I looked at her, looked at her empty space. How could I forget this? Because now some insignificant was making significance in my sister's heart.
Going to sleep was hard that night. I felt all my problems building and surmounting me and pushing me into a hard and difficult slumber. Very, very hard.
The meeting. But it felt more like I was being wrung within the Iron Maiden as my mind kept darting to Yuki, Yuki, Yuki, Kiryu, Yuki, Yuki and Kiryu. My concentration was null and void and Aido's words were going right over my head and into the trash. He then gave me an apprehensive look, his eyes darting sporadically to me.
"So Kaname-sama, how do you…"
But I just looked at him, staring not at him, but through him, through the walls, through the people. Back into my home, to my sister and to lavender eyes, "Yes."
They all jumped, but Aido jumped highest, so high he could've touched the moon, "Wha-"
"What does yes mean? Yes," I got up.
"Oh my, t-thank-you Kaname-Sama."
And if Aido might not have known me as well as he did, he would've hugged, me but he knew me to well, so instead he hugged Kain.
"Thank-you so much."
"Thank-you Aido. You are all dismissed."
Headache, headache. I felt my head burning, and the numbness digging inside me. My body retread and I stumbled into my office. The nightmare of going home to him, in my house, with my sister was causing some from anxiety to stride into me and didn't know why. Why? But the loud knock-knock made all thoughts jump out.
Before knowing, I knew, a primal knowledge told me it was him, "Come in."
"Kaname-san, may I," He looked at me and I looked him.
"I don't know may you?" He came in, despite my push to push him out.
"So it seems Aido-san's idea was to your liking, but have you…"
And the question hung there, like some foul odor and growing fouler by the second. Did I? I gave him my eyes, his eyes staring hard back at me. "You look here Asato, you look now." He stood, I stood. "Don't trick me, guile, manipulate me," one step forward, one step back "I don't need it, don't want it. My parents are old, but I'm not senile enough to sign," one more step, "sign this ridiculous contact."
And silence. Cold and sweet.
"You don't know," he began "you're too young, too green. It's for the best, but you just-just-"
"Yes, yes-"
"Nothing," the bow he gave was low and mocking, low enough to inform me how low he was willing to go. "Good bye."
I entered the house. Kiryu and Yuki were watching a movie, their eyes transfixed on the color kaleidoscope of television screen. Yuki looked up at me and smiled, and Kiryu ignored me, but I wasn't complaining. However, they were a little too close, close enough to kiss, close enough to go out. I should have just plopped myself between them, but that would set Yuki off and I didn't want to have to apologize again.
Eleven o' clock. Too late. "Yuki, tell him," I made a pointed look at the silver haired teen, who, I hard time believing that his hair was not died, "to go home."
"But Kaname, the movie is not over," she huffed, pouted, and thumped, but he only smiled.
"It's okay, Yuki you come over to my house next time and your grouch of your brother won't ruin it."
It was decided, I officially disproved of Zero.
"Alright," Yuki softened in way I never seen her do before ,and she gave me look, before getting up and, my heart stopped, hugging him, "bye Zero."
"Later," and with that he was gone. Gone and out.
"See," her eyes were sparkling, her face glowing and her smile shining. All there, all her, "He's nice, right Kaname?"
And it splashed at me. Coming at me in waves of understanding. It couldn't be, but it was, so it was. Yuki liked Zero, liked him, in a way that meant holding hands, kisses, something, anything. In a way that meant like, love, boyfriend. And I couldn't, couldn't, fathom why, I didn't know why, and it had become one terrible realization to me. Yuki liked Zero and I felt the beginning of my problem stirring. Kiryu Zero, Kiryu Zero, why? Why? Where? Where have I seen you before?
*~*End*~*