A/N: I'm trying to get all my one-shot adds up super early so I don't have to deal with them later today. So here we go, in Ruka's point of view.

Disclaimer: I don't own Vampire Knight or make any profit from this.

I don't think he knew.

I did my best to hide it, after all my family wanted me to go after Lord Kaname. I was supposed to go after the pureblood, they drilled that into me for years, and I did my best to obey. Yes, Lord Kaname was beautiful, but there wasn't enough substance for me there. He had clearly fallen for someone else, though for years I didn't know who. I wanted to make my family happy, as I hadn't been able to ever before.

I couldn't tell him; after all, I was supposed to be completely head over heels for Lord Kaname. I had been rejected at every advance I made, and while I was getting nowhere, I loved someone else.

But time was making me cruel. I had to pretend to love someone who didn't even love me. Lord Kaname was never cruel to me, per say, but he did use me for his own nefarious devices, biting me to scare Yuki. I was slipping away from who I wanted to be, I was losing it, and I was turning into my Mother. My wretched, time-soured Mother, who wanted her daughter to be miserable with someone who didn't love her because he was a pureblood.

I slipped and fell of course, and there were times when I was sure he knew. I cried in his arms over and over, and he took care of me. But I couldn't tell him.

We used to say it constantly as kids. "I love you" wasn't an uncommon phrase between us as children, we threw those words around as children will do, and we found ourselves eye-deep in controversy before we knew it. Mother reprimanded me for saying it, and the phrase was frozen out by the time we were thirteen. Somewhere in my chest, a piece of my heart was frozen as well. I missed his I love yous; I missed feeling wanted, needed, simply loved.

I slipped up again on a Friday night.

We were curled together on top of his bed, holding hands and talking, a Friday tradition that we had managed to keep over years of trauma.

It slipped.

At first he looked at me in shock, he hadn't heard me say that in years unless it was directed at Lord Kaname. Then when he saw the pain he was creating with his silence and inaction, he leaned down and kissed me.

No one will understand what that kiss meant to me, ever. It meant I didn't have to lie anymore, that I was home safe.

It meant that I didn't have to be a fake anymore, and I didn't have to hide.

It meant that I had someone who loved me just as much as I loved them.

A/N: I wanted it to be longer, but it didn't work. I tried. I'll update again next week. Anyway, what did you think?