And… another update! Yes!

My internet is giving me grief. There's some or other cable that needed repairing and our internet provider came to look at it a good two months ago. Since they didn't have the necessary tools with them, they did a quick, temporary fix and left, saying that they'd be back soon. And now, two months later, the freaking cable is STILL secured with Sticky Tape! STICKY TAPE!

Gah. Sometimes I wonder about the non-existant South African efficiency… Like the city I live in. It's been nicknamed the 'Call and Wait' city. I am SO not kidding.

At any rate, I hope you understand if it takes me a while to get back to your reviews and whatnot. I'll try my hardest to reply to every single one of your amazing reviews! Enjoy!

Title: Logging off Life (Chapter 3)

Author: MeteorLeopard (HoneyBadger)

"Hanabusa, this isn't healthy."

"Hn?" Somewhat slurred, Aidou managed to wring a reply from his semi-conscious mind.

Kain stared at his cousin who was currently sprawled out over his bed in the Moon Dorms, in exasperation. "You've been driving yourself stupid over this human girl, even changing your sleeping patterns or getting sometimes no sleep. Enough is enough, Hanabusa. Get a grip."

Aidou knew that Kain was probably right, but that didn't mean that he had to like it… or even listen. How could he? The human girl's, Yori he knew now her name was, scent had plagued his memories from the time she had saved his and Kain's hides by dragging her prefect friend off and away from them. It had been so tantalizing…

So he'd gone back the next day during her break time and snuck into the library where she was working. Luckily it had been empty and he'd found a good spot in the back corner where he could simply listen to her breathing and inhale her scent. Strangely, it hadn't triggered his bloodlust as it had the first time. Instead it seemed to soothe. He found it an odd concept to grasp, but not an unpleasant one. If her scent had triggered his bloodlust then he wouldn't have been able to get as close to her as he did over the past few weeks.

He'd learned her name: Sayori Wakaba. It had a pleasant ring to it. He'd found out that her only friend seemed to be the prefect, Yuuki, and that she was incurably introverted, seeing no need to talk to other people that she didn't need to. It wasn't that she was rude, it was simply that she did not see the need to. He found that fascinating.

In fact, everything that he'd found out about her was fascinating. He'd even bribed the headmaster Cross with a new blend of tea to get his hands onto her personal file. Strangely enough the headmaster had reacted quite well to this bribery about information on a girl who was nearly like a second daughter to him and freely handed him the file, exclaiming that the next time Hanabusa needed anything like this he simply need ask and bring some more tea with him.

Shallow old coot. Or a conniving one. Aidou couldn't quite make up his mind.

The contents of her file had already been committed to memory, though the facts there weren't nearly as interesting as her little habits that she had. Although, the file had helped to confirm his one greatest suspicion: Sayori Wakaba was HazelNut, the girl that he had been messaging for so long before. Quite the coincidence.

He'd even abducted one of her favourite books from her room while she'd been in class just to have her scent close by. Also, it didn't hurt that her favourite book just so happened to be an enthralling supernatural thriller. He was somewhat surprised at the unrealistic element in it; he would have pinned her down for reading more factual material. But then again, she always seemed to throw him for a loop.

Yet, as Kain had said, due to her being a human and having a different sleeping schedule, he'd even changed his, much to his cousin's worry. He'd tried to wave it off and assure his cousin that he was perfectly alright, but his yawn had destroyed that blatant lie.

Apparently though even some others of his Dorm mates had noticed the slip-up in his playboy façade; for now, standing in the doorway to his room, was their pureblood leader, Kaname Kuran. And he wasn't looking happy.

"Aidou," the pureblood began, "what is the meaning of your new fascination with a human?"

Aidou bit his tongue to refrain from snapping something about Kaname being a hypocrite. "No, nothing," he said instead, playing it safe. "It's under control."

His lie couldn't have been more obvious. If not for his clearly exhausted state, the slight rings beginning to develop under his eyes would have been proof enough of his mental stress and near insomnia.

"No it is not, but I expect you to get it under control, Aidou," Kaname said flatly. "Starting right now. To catch up on your severe lack of sleep over the past two weeks, you will miss classes this evening and instead spend it sleeping. Tomorrow you will catch up the work that you missed and recuperate." Aidou was about to open his mouth to argue but Kaname stopped him. "Understood, Aidou?"

Sensing the dangerous implications behind the statement, Aidou hung his head. "Understood."

"Good." Kaname turned and strode from the room. "Kain, make sure that he stays in bed and then come down. Crossover will be starting in a moment."

"Yes, Kaname-sama."

The pureblood left the room and Kain sighed, running his hand through his hair. "You really screwed up big time, Hanabusa."

"Hm…" Aidou found himself not really paying attention. Already his mind was slipping. Missing classes to catch up on sleep was perhaps not such a bad idea after all…

His cousin was still lecturing on about something or other. Aidou knew that Kain didn't exactly approve of his attraction towards the human girl, but he didn't care much. He was already drifting off.

Yori stood in the shade of a tree, some distance away from the passing Night Class students and the crowd of noisy fangirls. This was her first time attending the crossover and she wasn't liking it. It was too noisy, too raucous and too incredibly silly. If there wasn't something that she needed to confront a certain someone about she would be back in her room, curled up with her second favourite book.

Her eyes narrowed as she spied the Night Class students walking along the path.

Great, the one night that she came, he wasn't there. How perfect was her luck? Yori sighed, about to head back to her dorm room when a thought struck her.

All of the Night Class students were gone and except for him the dorms would be empty. Of course, she'd have to do her fair share of sneaking around but she liked to think that she'd manage it. Yuuki had always mentioned her uncanny habit of managing to disappear from right under the prefect's nose. However, Yuuki wasn't exactly the most observant of people either…

Shrugging her insecurities off, Yori watched the Day Class students disperse, Yuuki and Zero being the last to leave. She was glad that her friend hadn't noticed her still standing in the shade of the tree.

Hesitantly, Yori began to make her way towards the large, imposing structure of the Moon Dorms towering above her. The large stone gates were shut, the walls were high and she could see no side gates that she could slip through.

Steeling herself, she directed her eyes to the top of the wall. The white structure appeared smooth from a distance yet there were distinct crevices and slight irregularities in the stone wall. She took a fortifying breath; and then slipped out of her blazer, rolled up her sleeves, discarded her shoes and long socks and then hid the clothing in a bush. Glancing up at the wall once more she grasped a hold of the first irregular stone tightly, gripping with her fingertips and forming a strong hold. Images of her rock climbing instructions came to mind. Her father and older brother had gone through an outdoor-adventure phase once and hence pushed her into rock climbing lessons. Even when her father and brother's fleeting phase had passed she had continued with the lessons until she began attending Cross Academy, just because she'd liked them.

Now, climbing the wall of the Moon Dorms, she was glad that she had taken those lessons. Stopping to think about her actions for a minute, Yori was surprised at herself. She was acting like a crazed fangirl, scaling the walls to get into the idolized student's dormitory, though her reasons were somewhat different. She could have just waited for the next day to confront him but somehow the thought of having to talk to him in front of a whole large crowd was unappealing to her at the very least. And to simply expose him in front of everyone whilst he was trying to remain unnoticed… It didn't leave a good taste in her mouth. It seemed like that would deliver a public blow to his pride.

She didn't want to do that.

So up the wall it was. Since obviously the caretaker wouldn't just open up the gates for her, that much was obvious. And she'd seen the doorman. He was one creepy, hooded fellow. She just hoped that he didn't catch her.

Gritting her teeth as she tugged at another small crevice, she hoisted her light weight further up the wall. She was almost at the top. Now she only hoped that there were similar handholds on the inside of the wall too. The skin on her palms was chafing by now but she ignored the pain. She was almost there and she'd be damned if she let a bit of raw skin be the cause of her failure.

Her bare feet pattered silently along the halls. It had taken more energy than she had anticipated to scale the white wall and get down on the other side; she was more out of practice than she'd thought. But she was proud of herself. She'd managed it and she was in one piece. And now she was inside without anyone having discovered her. Now all that she needed to do was to find his room.

At every closed doorway she paused, listening against the door for any sign of movement. Finally, she came across a door from behind which slight noises sounded. This was it. This was where he was.

For a moment Yori considered knocking but then decided against it. If he could pull a break-and-enter on her dorm room then so could she. So without further ado, she pulled down the handle and pushed. The door swung open without a sound and Yori silently thanked whatever thorough caretaker it was that periodically oiled the hinges. It made her job so much easier.

She spotted the lump on the one bed by the curtains and stepped towards it. The characteristic blonde curls peeked out from beneath the covers and she almost smiled at the sight of him sleeping so peacefully. But she had to wake him up and she shied away from the idea of touching him.

So she dumped the glass of water from his bedside table over him. Luckily for Aidou the glass had been nearly empty anyways.

Spluttering and spitting, the blonde shot upright, his hands flailing and his eyes wide. "What the- Yori?" It was only after he had spoken her name and registered her slightly amused face that he remembered that he had technically never met her before and should therefore not know her name.

"Good evening, Aidou-senpai."

He just stared at her, blinking away the water droplets still currently trickling down his neck, his aqua eyes flicking back and forth between her face and the now-empty glass still clutched in her small, fragile hand.

"What… what are you doing here? I mean-" Aidou seemed totally and utterly confused. Why was Yori, Sayori Wakaba, the girl he had been all too obsessed about, standing in his dorm room? "What are you…"

Yori carefully placed his glass back onto his bedside table. "I came to tell you something, Aidou-senpai." He noted that her fingertips and palms were reddened and raw and for a moment he stiffened, fearing that she'd injured herself in whichever way her sweet, delicate hands had ended up like that. However, a tentative taste of the air around her proved that fear false. There was no blood. Merely a slight sheen of salty sweat and the oh-so potent aroma of Yori. It was making his mind go dizzy. Her actual presence was far more intoxicating than any regularly-used object of hers, even her favourite book, could supply. He took another deep breath.

"I came to tell you to stop stalking me."

Aidou spluttered as his mind was jolted out of his Nirvana. Bewildered, he stared at her perfect poker-face. Damn it, this girl was throwing him totally off balance! He couldn't even come up with a half-decent reply, let alone a comeback!

But her impassive face was infuriating. She'd gotten in here – goodness knew how – to tell him that; all with a straight face! He couldn't let it slide. So he summoned up his cocky attitude. "Really? Well, seeing as you are currently inside my bedroom only half clothed I'd say that you're the one doing the stalking, Yori-chan."

He knew, as soon as the words had left his mouth, that it had been the wrong thing to say. Oh shit. Her face remained the same, yet her caramel eyes darkened. He struggled to find some clever way to cover up, to say something shocking or debonair that would make her dismiss what he'd just said – but nothing came. Why, oh why, when it counted the most, did his genius mind decide to make use of his vampire abilities and freeze? And when Yori began to turn slowly towards the door, her eyes still hard, he still hadn't thought of anything.

So he jumped out from beneath his thick and bulky duvet, disregarding the fact that he was in pajamas, and grabbed her wrist, whirling her back around. "Hey, wait, I didn't mean it like that, sheesh."

Yori gave him a level glare, silently daring him to say anything else stupid. Privately, Aidou thought that she was being rather touchy. But then again, she'd never reacted well to his flirtatious remarks even when they had been communicating via that chatroom. He took a breath. "Look, um, about the whole, ah, stalking issue…"

"Yes?" she prompted. Aidou could feel her warm little wrist in his own larger, colder hand. It felt nice, so he didn't let go.

"Well," Aidou paused, trying to find the right thing to say. Deciding to just go with what had always worked for him before during their conversations, honesty, he steeled himself. "I'd apologize, but since I'm not really sorry and you didn't seem to mind either I'm not going to." He saw that she wasn't going to interrupt and continued. "And I know stalking wasn't perhaps the… best way to go about getting to know you in person and whatnot but it helped an awful lot, so if you would like some mint chocolate as compensation for the past two weeks I've got some here."

Yori was only slightly surprised to find that he knew what her favourite chocolate was.

She kept silent for a few moments and then let a small, soft smile spread over her lips. "No thank you, Aidou-senpai. But I would very much like my book back."

He withheld his chuckles. Figured that she'd know that he had it. She was so intuitive sometimes that it was scary. Shaking his head slightly, he regretfully released her wrist in order to retrieve her favourite book from underneath his mattress where he'd stored it along with his laptop. As he handed it to her, he noticed Yori's slightly amused stare. "What?"

A very light tugging of her lips was the only hint of her amusement. "Aidou-senpai… you wear Spongebob pajamas?"

It took a moment for her comment to sink in. And then he paled. Oh crud. "Ah, no! It's not what – I mean, my cousin got them for me for my birthday and-" he flailed for a while, realizing that he was talking himself into a corner. In actual fact, his cousin had given them to him as a joke but Aidou had never worn them… until that night when he had realized that he hadn't had any other clean pajamas to wear. He mentally cursed whatever washing machine had broken and delayed the arrival of his normal sleep-wear and now forced him to endure this suffering in the form of the object of his obsession silently snickering at him.

"Don't worry, Aidou-senpai," Yori spoke up then, cutting his ramblings short. "I have a pair of Spiderman slippers at home."

He wasn't quite sure what to make of her blunt statement but it alleviated some of his embarrassment and left him simply staring at her, nodding once. "Oh."

She gave him another smile then and turned, heading towards the door. The thought entered his mind that he should stop her.

"I'll talk to you later then, Aidou-senpai? Over the chatroom."

It took a moment to register that she even knew about that, though how exactly he didn't quite want to know. This girl was apparently more crafty than people gave her credit for. Maybe she'd used her connection to Yuuki for information… or just figured it out for herself.

"Yeah…" he found himself answering.

Flashing him a last small smile, she left the room, disappearing down the hallway soundlessly, leaving him to wonder if she had just been an apparition.

As he glanced out of his window a little later, he caught a glimpse of her petite figure hoisting herself over the wall and dropping down on the other side. He shook his head.

That girl… whatever was in store for him in the future, he couldn't wait for it to happen.

The next chapter is a total of 11 pages long on my laptop, typed in size 10 font! So look forward to it! I rather enjoyed writing it! :D *hint-hint*

THANK YOU to all of you who reviewed last week; you guys really made my day!