Chapter 7

Despite telling Kaien otherwise, Zero found himself standing outside of the same gate he had been at only a little while previous; awaiting the arrival of the night class students alongside a crowd of ecstatic day school girls. When the vampires approached, Takuma was the first to address the fans. He waved his hand with one arm and held his school bag with the other, flashing a bright smile so wide that he nearly revealed his fangs before calling out, "Hellloo ladies!" Sensing the attention being drawn away from him, Aido popped up from behind his fellow classmate and called out, "Who is excited for the homecoming ball?" A outcry came out from the horde and all the girls raised their hands at once. The roar of emotion coming out from each of the girls only made Zero's job harder as he fought alone to force them to back up. Girls were practically crawling over him, just to steal a touch of at least one of the vampire's hands or even a feel of their pristine white uniforms, before a voice cried out "Enough!" There was a halt in the madness and Zero turned around to see Yuki, who was standing among the crowd and had climbed halfway up the gate. A whistle swung from her neck and she blew it hard before yelling out, "Everyone back to your dorms!" She looked like a completely different person. Her perky personality from the year before had returned and her chubby cheeks were flushed red. Despite the look of seriousness and anger on her face, she still somehow managed to look innocent and adorable in Zero's eyes. Something inside of him wanted to smile but he instead kept a straight face and began herding the girls away so the night students to peacefully enter the school grounds. Yuki continued to scold the girls before calling out unusually cheerfully, "I'll see you later on duty, Zero!" He turned to face her, catching a glimpse of her smile before she hopped down from the gate and hurried back to Kaname's side to enter the school.

To finally see her smile again, whether it were genuine or not, was a giant relief off of Zero's chest. When he had last seen her, the tension he had created was unforgivable; especially after what he viewed to he an unbelievably intimate and special experience. He remembered the day from last year when he had almost kissed her. He had been staring at her lips and he could sense the fear on her, and something told him within "she rather this be Kaname" which caused him to simply collapse onto her shoulder and embrace her platonically instead. It was always Kaname Kuran who held him back. But after seeing that smile, the smile that was just for him even with her precious Kaname in arms length, generated inside of him to fight. To fight for her all over again, and to win this time.

Zero sat peacefully among the trees and allowed his eyes to glaze over the campus, occasionally fixating his gaze upon a group of girls who clearly knew they were out of place and having to scare them away; but besides that, he was feeling completely content. The barn was at one of his sides below and the school campus grounds sat at his other side. His head was lost in thought, something he used to do often and seemed to be doing all together too much all over again. He was gone before hearing a gentle rustling beneath the tree he inhabited. "You look like a big bird up there," she said from down below. Zero peered down from the branch he sat on and looked up into the glowing brown eyes of Yuki. She smiled up at him warmly and dug her fingernails into the bark of the tree before positioning one foot onto the bark, followed by the other. She muttered something along the lines of "looks easy enough" before climbing up along the side and finally reaching the branch he was on. "Move over!" She called out before catching a hold of his leg rather than the branch. He cringed at her touch and she quickly grabbed onto the bark instead, hoisting herself up as he moved over and then positioning herself to sit down beside him and against the trunk. "I suppose this is a nice way to keep an eye on everything," She practically sang, "You can see everything!" Zero avoided her eyes until she made it almost unbearable; he could feel her stare on his face and he had no choice but to grasp it with his own eyes. Her smile was weaker now yet more genuine than it was earlier. He opened his mouth to say something but she quickly cut him off, "Let's just forget about before, okay?" Her words cut him deeply. "It's just easier that way."

The pair sat beside each other in silence for what felt like hours. Yuki attempted several times to bring up small talk, casually asking about the day class and how he was liking this school year so far, but to no avail. She either earned herself a short response or eventually no reply at all. "You're just as quiet as I remember," the girl said in a soft voice. A smile spread across her lips and she looked down. Her expression was gentle as she said, "It's like when we just met. I even bathed and dressed you, a stranger, and you never said a word." To Zero's surprise, Yuki slowly placed her hand over his. Her small fingers gently curled around his and he started to clutch on tightly before he shook off her grasp. "You tell me to forget," he said, "and then you do such things." His body was frigid and everything in him was telling him to scream at her, but he needed to contain himself. "I've wanted to forget so many things." Yuki watched the white haired vampire intently, concern spreading across her soft features, and began to recognize the pain that was radiating through his pores. She could tell he wanted to say so much but just didn't know how, something she almost never saw on his face; he usually looked so composed and nearly said nothing at all, nor wanted to. She remembered the days where she would do all of the talking and she couldn't even tell if he were listening or not. Little did she know, he always listened. He always soaked in her words. "This," he said as he turned to face her finally. "This, and last night, is not something that I simply want to forget."

The night drew on and the two spoke more than they had ever spoken to each other before. Yuki expected that to be due to the fact that she had practically trapped Zero up in the tree before but he didn't seem to mind one bit. He talked on about how the past year had been, where he had gone and what he had done with his days; which was barely anything. Yuki told him about her past days as well, being careful not to mention Kaname Kuran too much, and spoke about the new experiences that Zero secretly envied she had not done with him. "I have met so many people who are just like us, Zero." Yuki's eyes were somewhere lost in the stars but Zero's were fixated on her face. He watched every movement of her face and the softness of all of her features, even as she spoke with such excitement and energy. "And they aren't bad. They are not monsters, I promise you." Though he didn't agree with her, the anger he would normally shed was nowhere to be found. He was just happy to actually hear her speak with happiness again. Yuki tore her gaze from the sky and turned to face Zero head on. Her eyes were swimming with a deepness and genuine expression of what the boy recognized to be sadness. "I wish you could have met them with me. I even met old friends of our father; people who once despised each other and now they can call themselves old friends." Tears began swelling in her eyes as she added quietly, "Perhaps that will be us one day. You can go from hating me to maybe calling me an old friend. Your favorite friend even." And with those parting words, the two left each others sides and left their duties to return to their separate lives, in their separate dorms, in their separate bedrooms.