"Thinking of something nice, bloodsucker?" a rather sour sounding voice interrupted Yomoriko's thoughts.
Yomoriko turned to face her unwelcome companion with a condescending smirk, the moonlight emphasising the shadows on her face and making her look like more than ever like a skeleton. Not far from her, standing stiffly with a face like thunder, was the white haired boy she'd seen patrolling the school grounds at night sometimes. His lilac eyes were full of a hate that she reckoned could almost surpass her own and his right hand twitched marginally every few seconds as though itching to grasp a weapon of some sort – a gun, she knew, for she'd seen him point it at that fool of a vampire, Aidou, many times already. Just how much goading, she wondered still smiling mockingly at him, would it take for him to lose his temper and shoot me?
"Bloodsucker?" she drawled, leaning back against the bridge handrail calmly and studying him with a mixture of distaste and amusement. "You're a fine one to talk, my friend. In fact if anyone's the bloodsucker here it's you; I haven't fed in many months now but you, by the smell of you, fed barely five minutes ago. Am I right, Prefect-san?"
The boy – whose name was Zero, she recalled Aidou-senpai saying once – narrowed his eyes angrily and raised his hand to the front of his blazer where she guessed his gun known as the 'Bloody Rose' was stowed. After a moment's hesitation in which she saw the conflict between his duty and his personal vendetta flash across his eyes, he dropped it again and stalked across the bridge, drawing level with her and leaning against the opposite handrail, never breaking eye contact.
"You know what I am?" he asked casually, tone mistrustful and cold.
"It's hard not to with a sense of smell as heightened as mine; small side effect of starvation in a vampire, see?" Yomoriko chuckled, closing her eyes briefly. The wind across her skin felt nice this evening – refreshing, soothing. Such a feeling made her optimistic. Perhaps tonight was the night; perhaps she was going to die this evening.
"I see." Zero murmured.
The pair sat in silence, neither having anything of consequence to say to the other, sharing a mutual contempt for one another and indeed, vampires in general. Why they sat together neither really knew. It could have been for the unobstructed view of the starry night sky or maybe – more likely if either was given to being honest about such a thing – it was the subconscious comfort derived from being in close proximity to someone who shared their thoughts and feelings regarding vampires. Thoughts and feelings only those in the particular situations Zero and Yomoriko found themselves in could ever have a hope of understanding.
"For curiosity's sake," Zero started guardedly after a silence that had stretched far beyond the boundaries of what any human would consider to be awkward. He kept his gaze directed firmly at a spot just over Yomoriko's left shoulder, something she found amusing but vetoed the urge to mention for now. "why d'you do it?"
She knew what he was referring to and couldn't help but let out a dry, humourless chuckle, her mood darkening as she was forcibly drawn into the very thoughts she was so desperate to escape.
There were many reasons for her self-inflicted purgatory – so many in fact that if she were to list them, she was sure she'd miss at least two or three. The most obvious was for Taijo, the boy whose life she'd stolen in a careless moment when her control lapsed – some twisted, self-destructive part of her felt that starving herself was not only an adequate punishment for her sin but a satisfying way of exercising the control she should have had back then. Then there was her remarkable childhood spent, for the most part, musing over a suffering that even now she believed would never have happened if she'd been born human.
However experience had taught her that it was neither healthy nor entirely possible to lie to oneself. In truth, though it shamed her – or would have had she not been so far gone already – she mostly did it to see Senri agonize over her self-immolation. It was a guilty pleasure of sorts, like being on a diet and scarfing a sly chocolate bar after the gym. She wanted him to watch as she died, wanted him to feel real regret for abandoning her all those years ago when they were children. It was cruel and sick but she didn't want to be the only tortured one anymore – she was tired of being the one who endured all life's warped jokes while Senri ambled along quite the thing, untouched by the sorrows she'd faced. So what if it was sadistic? As much as she hated it, she was a vampire. Sadism came with the territory.
"Hm... Why, you ask?" she trailed thoughtfully, glancing at her feet for a moment in contemplation. At last she looked up and her ruddy eyes locked onto Zero's icy lilac ones, a small smirk twitching on her face at words as yet unspoken. "I guess... the real reason is because I want to hurt my brother. Nothing more; nothing less."
"Spoken like a true leech," Zero commented, neither shocked nor surprised by her claim – a claim that no matter how you dressed it up, was a lunatic's line. He met her stare with equal audacity, making her feel like he was peeling apart her skull and peering into the poisonous fog of her thoughts within. "But nonetheless a lie. Hard as it is for me to admit, you don't look that heartless – in fact you look almost human. Yours aren't the eyes of a sadist vampire bitch; yours are the eyes of a sad, lonely little girl."
"And I suppose you can profess to know the difference?" Yomoriko countered slyly, covering the irritation she felt at his words with that shrewd tone she used when she didn't want people to know they were close to the truth. "No offence but your track record in judging others' characters isn't the most inspiring."
"Perhaps not. But if I'm wrong, why are you so defensive all of a sudden?"
That brought her up short. But Zero wasn't done yet.
"You know what I think? I think the reason you're starving yourself has nothing to do with hurting your brother at all, whoever he is. I think you do it because you want his attention; you want him to see you and for whatever reason, you think this is the way to do it." He paused, letting the words sink in to the now frozen girl, seeing – and to an extent, enjoying – the fury that manifested itself in her eyes. "You're like a kid, throwing a tantrum just so he'll pay attention to you."
"Yeah, well what you think and what is are opposite sides of the coin, friend." Yomoriko said coldly, her grip on the handrail tightening half from the stress of having this know-it-all Level E-to-be put such a fact – for, she realised, that was what it was – into perspective for her, and half from the familiar wave of dizziness and black emptiness that was one of her regular blackouts; or perhaps, as she had hoped not so long ago, the clutches of death. "What about you, Kiryuu-kun? What of your reasons for not starving yourself, huh?"
"What's that supposed to mean, parasite?" Zero demanded, voice dangerously low, his hands fisting angrily in his pockets. If she didn't watch her step, she'd soon find herself breathing through a new hole in her head.
"It means exactly what it sounds like. Unlike me, you were born human – you know what it's like to be one of them. Where does that leave you then, High-And-Mighty-Prefect-san? Are you Kiryuu-kun the vampire or just Kiryuu-kun the monster who feeds on his own race?"
Zero's next move was fast – faster than Yomoriko, in her blood-deprived state, could follow. The sound she made, which was supposed to have been another snide, acid soaked remark about cannibalism, was a choked, breathless gargle resulting from her windpipe – fragile enough from a long time without blood – being crushed to the critical point between completely blocked and just barely open. The blockage was, of course, caused by an ever increasing pressure exerted by Zero's tightening grip around her throat – something that contrary to logic, seemed to be combating the urge to pass out rather than assisting it.
Far from being afraid, Yomoriko watched the pale-faced prefect with some grotesque mixture of interest and enjoyment – his move, unexpected and surprising at first, was exactly the kind of thing she'd originally been aiming for.
"You don't know anything about me," he hissed, bringing her face close to his as he spoke. His rage – impressive and strong enough to rival her father's – was like a physical blow; a wall of substance crashing into her suspended form like a tsunami. "You think I chose this? You think I wanted to be a bloodsucking abomination? Drinking blood may not be the way I want to live but at least I'm not giving up!"
Yomoriko pulled at his fingers, trying to loosen them enough to make speech an available commodity once more, but she was too weak to even budge them slightly. Zero watched her struggle briefly before releasing her, allowing her to drop heavily to the bridge where the thick fog of unconsciousness threatened once more to engulf her, returning with double ferocity.
She gasped greedily at the air despite herself, taking in as much as she could and yet always feeling that it wasn't enough. When at last she felt able to talk, she glanced up at Zero through crafty eyes shaded by her rouge hair.
"I don't know anything about you? That may be true, Kiryuu-kun, but don't presume to understand anything about me either." she wheezed, fighting in earnest now against the black eating away at the corners of her vision. "Just because I was born vampire, doesn't mean I ever wanted to be one. Do you think I chose this? I no more want to be what I am than you do – the difference is, I'm doing something about it."
It was no use. The warm folds of that dark blanket were too inviting – too comfortable – to resist any longer. Unable to control it, Yomoriko slid forward, falling face first to the cold concrete of the bridge. She watched as Zero's feet first stood stationary, his pragmatic eyes no doubt studying her from high above, then approached her slowly and deliberately. Before the very last vestiges of her awareness faded into that nothingness she swore she heard him speak again.
"Idiot vampire," he said gruffly, and she felt herself lifted into the air by two strong, muscular arms. "Doing something about it and giving up aren't supposed to be the same thing."
Then... nothing.
Not much of Shiki and Rima in this one... Sorry about that – I realise that for some of you, that's the only reason you're reading this. But this scene was necessary to the story as you'll find out in a couple of chapters. The next chapter's all Shiki and Rima, so think of it as compensation.
It's official! I've completely finished this story now; all I need to do is read the chapters over and edit before I post them. This means updates will occur every 2-3 days like clock work! Isn't that cool?!