Author Note: I'm trying so hard to add to everything tonight, but I doubt that it's going to work out, since I have to do stuff tomorrow. I think I should be tearing my hair out right now (I need to do 50 plots in the next 4 hours and 20 minutes for my fiction work) but I'm pretty calm. Pretty much. Kain's point of view again!

Disclaimer: I don't own Vampire Knight. I make no profit from this. Promise.

"And how did you possibly manage to get into a fight with Rima?" I surveyed the burn scars across Ruka's arms and stomach. Ruka was shaking, from what I couldn't be completely sure. "They'll be completely healed in a few minutes."

Ruka didn't say anything. She wouldn't look at me, wouldn't say a word, and she was shaking. This was Ruka; she should've been trash-talking Rima by now. Instead she leaned against the wall and bit her lip, letting the blood run down her face.

"Ruka..." I hugged her tightly. "Ruka, you can tell me anything."

She made a noise like she was choking, but before I could panic, tears rolled down her face and she started to sob. "I hate her... she's everything I'm not." Ruka wrapped her arms around my neck and then fell to her knees, pulling me down too. "I hate her so much... she's confident and pretty and she has someone who loves her so much... her family is nice and she's in love and she's beautiful! Why can't I be like her?"

It hurt to see Ruka like this, especially because of Rima, someone who I thought Ruka had considered her friend. I could handle Ruka's Kaname troubles on most levels, but I wasn't experienced in her friend troubles... probably because outside of Hanabusa and I, she had never had a friend besides Rima.

"Why can't someone love me?" Ruka continued to cry, but all I could do was wrap my arms around her. "Why can't I be flawless like her, confident like her? Why can't I love myself?"

This was beyond any experience I had. I thought for a moment and then began, "Someone can't love you because I already do, you can't be flawless like her because imperfection is perfection, you can be confident because you're a wonderful person and you have nothing to be ashamed of, and you can love yourself." I paused. "Because if you think you can't love yourself, I can teach you, because I love you."

Ruka's head shot up and nearly hit me in the chin. Her cheeks were soaked with tears and she had dried blood on her bottom lip and chin. In all respects, she should've looked like hell, but when that smile crept across her lips, she looked like an angel.

"I want to love you." She whispered. "I just never thought... I was always so guarded because I thought you wouldn't go for someone like me..."

I shook my head a bit, but smiled at her anyway. It had been obvious to everyone but her, of course. That's how it always goes, right?

"Can I test a theory?" Ruka looked at me with big almond eyes, the tears finally drying. "Please?"

"Of course." I trusted her, and she'd never tried to do anything malicious towards me before.

She crawled into my lap and looked at me for a moment before softly placing her lips on mine. For just a half-second, we both stayed that way, and then she pulled away and smiled at me.

"So?" I asked.

"Yeah." Ruka got a little smirk to her and paused for a good thirty seconds. "This will work."

Author Note: I still have two more things to do on FF, and then I have to do my fifty plots. Wish me luck.