A/N: OMG I love you all so freaking much. I decided on a whim to reread old reviews and I was literally DYING of laughter and "awwws" and feeling so touched and happy and…seriously…I just…I can't take it. You guys are like the most awesome people ever. I just want you all to know that I was cracking up laughing in my apartment at 1 in the morning bc of y'all :P.

Disclaimer: Don't own VK.

And so came to an end Yuuki's first foray outside in a whole year. Sore of heart, smelling faintly of the silver-haired hunter, and with mixed feelings of hope and despair. She was hopeful that she could regain some of the relationship Zero and she had once shared, but she also despaired, because she wasn't sure how such a thing would be possible. Regardless, she had returned to the manor determined that something had to change.

Apparently, Aidou thought so as well.

"Even now, you still don't understand much of our society," he jabbed an accusatory finger at her. He had been drilling her on boring subjects like ethics, etiquette, and history since the ball. "You're practically like a toddler stumbling around in a world of unknowns."

"I know that." She put a hand on her hip indignantly. "That's why I intend to grow up as fast as I can! I must study a lot!" With that, she sat down abruptly at her desk, eyes intent on her tutor. There really was a lot she needed to know about vampire society, but she knew that she was really only using it as an excuse. Maybe, just maybe, if she studied really well, Kaname-sama would let her go out again…

"Huh?" He seemed surprised at her sudden spark of motivation. "Okay, then…"

"There's a ton of things I want to ask Kaname-onii-sama when he gets home tonight, so let's not waste a moment! Come on, quick, teach me already!" She was practically bouncing in her seat.

Aidou stared at her incredulously. Then he shrugged, stepping over to her. He opened one of the books and opened his mouth to begin, but was suddenly interrupted by a servant who insistently tapped on his arm.

He scowled. "What's going on?"

"There's more people outside again," Yuuki answered for the servant, eyes unfocused as she listened carefully, picking up the faint sounds of muttering and shuffling beyond the front door.

Every night the manor was accosted by all manner of vampires eager to see her. It had been a month since the ball, yet their numbers had not decreased in the slightest. Perhaps they came to beg favors, or to assess how strong she was. She wasn't sure, but each night one of the servants or Aidou himself went out to send them away. Kaname-sama had forbidden her from seeing them, for which she was grateful. She wasn't sure if she had the energy to entertain so many people every evening.

"No way, again?!" Aidou sighed loudly, making an angry beeline for the door.

She heard him bang open the door, announcing, "Please forgive me, but Yuuki-sama isn't receiving any visitors at the moment, so we would ask you to kindly leave…"

Yuuki giggled. As childish as it might be, she always got a kick out of Aidou referring to her as "Yuuki-sama." On the other hand, she hoped he never had to call her that directly to her face. It seemed strange to call her that when he was both her senpai and sensei, even if she was a pureblood and Kaname-sama's fiancé.

She tiptoed to the door curiously, surveying the crowd with her senses other than sight. She could hear them murmuring excuses, asking to be let in to pass her a quick greeting or a small gift. Beneath that, however, she could sense that each one had some ulterior motive for coming to the house. It was for that reason, she knew, that Kaname-sama had forbidden her from seeing them. It was for that reason, too, that she knew she would never be able to entertain so many of them day after day.

After a few moments, however, Aidou shut the door with finality, and the two of them returned to her lessons. The vampires could stand outside all night if they wanted to; neither one of them was going to let them in.

It was much later when Kaname-sama returned home. He had given her a greeting, retreated to discuss a few things with his underlings, and returned livid with anger. Yuuki could feel the fury radiating off his body, pooling darkly in his eyes, as he surveyed her and Aidou sinisterly from the sofa.

"How many times did I tell you two not to open the door to anyone while I'm out? And yet, you're just like the baby pigs from that fairytale, who open the door to wolves. I wonder what punishment you two might have been hoping for…" Kaname smiled wanly with malevolence, the aura of rage increasing further.

At first, Yuuki had been abashed. Even though Kaname-sama had warned her against even so much as opening the door, she had still snuck over to it boldly to assess the situation. She had put herself in danger, she knew, and her brother had every right to be angry with her. Now, however, with the threat of a very real punishment, Yuuki's temper flared sharply. Why was Kaname-sama so angry?! It wasn't as if they had actually let anyone in! They'd only opened the door long enough to send everyone away, and then returned to their lessons. Moreover, she didn't like how he had placed himself so far above them on the sofa, like a distant king giving judgment to mere villagers from his throne. She glared at him.

"If you want to keep me locked in so badly," she dared, "you should have kept me hidden and not bothered to introduce me to vampire society at all!" Her chin jutted out petulantly.

"Hey, idiot!" Aidou hissed beside her in an attempt to quiet her.

It seemed the shadows had gathered around Kaname's face, clouding him. "Would you really have preferred if we'd done it that way? If I could, I would have gladly done so…"

Her fist clenched. So he really would have preferred to have kept her locked away in the house forever? Never to see anyone, never to venture beyond these walls? Never to glimpse again the violet eyes that seemed to continuously haunt her..? Her hopes of convincing him to let her out again if she studied well were disintegrating before her eyes.

"No, not really," she mumbled mechanically.

He smirked then, saying, "I know just what to do. Since you want to study so much, I'll teach you right now. I'll help you learn quite a lot of things…" Somehow, his words sent a chill down her spine. "As for Aidou," he continued, turning his dark gaze onto her teacher, "His punishment will be to count the exact number of chickpeas in the entirety of our pantry, and report back with the number."

Aidou blanched, but before he left, grew brave enough to inform the pureblood, "Kaname-sama, the Spartan style of education totally backfires with her…"

Kaname stared at the blond, who quickly retreated out of the door under the intense and terrifying pressure of that gaze. Once he was gone, her brother sighed and said, "Yuuki, I know that from now on you'll be spending increasing time in the world outside, and…I have no intention of trying to stop that…"

Her heart beat a little faster, hopes rising again. Would he give her permission to go outside, then? To see Yori? Her father? …Zero…?

"I understand that you really wouldn't be yourself at all if you were like a still doll sitting in a glass case, Yuuki. Even though… I confess that there is a part of me that wishes I could keep you away from the rest of the world just for myself. So please understand my reasons, Yuuki. That part of me finds its outlet in little things like wanting you to wear delicate shoes or not wanting you to cut your long hair. I'm sorry, Yuuki, but please allow me to impose just those little whims on you…"

She felt as if the distance were increasing between them, even now. It was growing colder. She seemed to see him over a field of ice. He wanted her to stay here, caged, forever. Unable to breathe the outside air. Unable to run because her shoes would not permit it. Unable to turn her head because he was dragging her down by her hair…

She took a breath, but when he pulled her down to sit beside him, tight against his side, she felt like she was suffocating.

"It's been a month and a half since you drank any of my blood, Yuuki…" he murmured in her ear, voice velvet and seductive.

She held back a shudder. More and more often over the past weeks, the scent of her brother's blood left a queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. She was thirsty. She wanted blood…but the thirst felt slimy in her throat when he offered. She couldn't manage to feel any of the bloodlust that she knew she should. It returned to haunt her when she was alone, imprinting kaleidoscopes of silver and violet around the edges of her thoughts, but only then. She had not wanted Kaname-sama's blood at all. Only that other, unattainable blood…

Although she knew it was wrong to keep such secrets from Kaname-sama, or to deny the needs of her body, she swallowed her thirst down and said nothing. She didn't want to hurt him. She wore her promise to him openly around her finger, but she felt its presence also in her heart. She loved this man. And yet… Despite that… Her thoughts and her thirst increasingly became tied to the other… Increasingly, that promise felt like a noose, tightening around her throat.

"I'm not really hungry, though," she murmured, feeling her gut twist with the lie. In reality, she was hungry. So hungry that she felt nothing would ever sate her… But to drink her brother's blood would do nothing to drive it back. The thought made her physically ill.

"Is something wrong, Yuuki? Vampires don't get sick…" He frowned at her.

"I'm not sure why, onii-sama. I just don't feel particularly hungry." Her tongue felt like lead.

"Perhaps last time you took more than I thought…" he mused, and seemed to push the matter aside for the moment when he told her, "In that case, there are a few things you need to know about vampire society."

Yuuki let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. He was going to accept her response.

For now.

"Sorry for waking you when the sun is up, Yuuki." Kaname smiled at her apologetically. He had woken her up early in the morning because he was leaving for several meetings relating to the vampire council. "Be good and watch the house while I'm away, okay?"

He kissed her softly, making a faint blush of shame rise to her cheeks. What was she doing? She loved Kaname-sama, she was going to marry him, and yet she refused to share blood with him because her thoughts constantly tarnished to silver when he wasn't around. The silver kept creeping back; an undeniable frost, made stronger by the brief contact she'd had with it at the ball.

"How adorable. You always get so blushy even after so much time." His voice was tender. The knife dug into her gut again.

Then his expression became more solemn as he asked, "Do you feel lonely?"

Lonely? The word couldn't come close to encompassing the emotions that churned within her. Since the ball, since she'd seen the silver haired hunter face-to-face once more, tendrils of inky desolation had curled around her, binding her into a paralysis of the heart. Every beat of that heart felt constricted, pulsing outwards against a jagged barbed wire that cut a little deeper each time and stained it with patches of rust. Her entire being felt like that now: a patchwork of emotions and bonds that would scatter her in a million directions if someone tugged out the tenuous threads that connected them.

Walking these empty halls, feeling the shadows and ghosts reverberating in every corner, the forever-ache in her chest bubbled up with ferocious force. Every window seemed to reflect that face. Every whisper of the walls sounded like his voice. When the solitude and the sorrow rushed by, they were laced with silver and violet. When she looked into the mirror, it was purple eyes edged in silver that stared back. She felt as though the edges of her being were fraying apart.

He was everywhere, and yet nowhere. She had left him there, at the academy. She had condemned him to face the blackness of his own existence, and confined herself to an equally dark one of crimson. And he had left her there, in the dim room at the ball, to feel crushed and breathless by the weight of their separation. Yet, he remained with her. He reverberated through her veins, watched her from the back of her mind, haunted her memories and dreams. He was with her almost every night, a phantom of colors that did not exist in the current palate of her world.

She had felt him again, against her shoulder. Her fingers had locked onto that scrap of his shirt as if it were her only lifeline. The longing wailed out from the recesses of her mind. And she knew that if only he were by her side again, if only she could feel his warmth in place of this everlasting cold, there would be no loneliness. Instead, there would only be…

Love?

Yuuki felt the word like an open wound. Her chest was growing numb. No, she had love, didn't she? Kaname-sama loved her, and she loved him. This was how it should be. The loneliness she felt was only the result of his absences. But she knew she was lying to herself to think so. She felt the sting of that loneliness even when he touched her, even when he was closest to her.

She should never have sought Zero out that night. If she had never spent those few moments together with him, so close to him…perhaps, then, she could ignore the part of her that remained attached to him. Perhaps she could have returned home and continued as she had been before. But now… Now the memory of those brief moments was imprinted in her flesh and she was no longer certain how much of her heart remained with Zero, and how much with Kaname-sama.

She couldn't lie to her brother. The knife was turning around and around. But she couldn't hurt him either. Her words came out uncertain. "Kind of… Just a little bit…"

He pulled away from her then, fingers trailing through her hair. "I'll be back later," he assured her. "And also, I left something for you on your desk. I hesitated about it, but… I was serious when I told you that I had no intention to stop you from being in the world." That said, he let the door shut behind him.

Excitement buzzed up inside of her. For the moment, the loneliness he had reminded her of was pushed back. She didn't wait to make sure Kaname-sama was further away. The prospect of returning once more to the outside world tantalized her. Yuuki whipped around, leaping up the stairs two at a time until she reached her desk, where there was a plain box waiting quietly for her. She opened it quickly, eyes widening when she saw what was inside.

Resting inside the box, nestled carefully in cloth, was her staff, Artemis. The same one that she had used for protection back at the academy. Giving her this was as good as giving her a pass to wander outside. Right? She thought about it carefully. He would probably still want her to ask permission to leave. However… She thought it was better to do what she wanted, and then ask for permission.

Grinning happily, she hurried to get dressed and pack a small bag, heading for the door with all due haste. She knew exactly where she wanted to go, and she wasn't going to wait to ask for Kaname-sama's approval. She had a feeling she would be refused.

"Wait, what are you up to?! And what in the world are you carrying?!" she heard Aidou shout as her fingers touched the doorknob.

She sighed inwardly. Leave it to Aidou to always be on the lookout. Kaname-sama usually asked him to guard her anyway, she knew. And although he was quite lenient with her, there was no way he would easily let her leave the manor and risk her brother's wrath, particularly after his long night in the pantry.

"Eh, 'what,' you ask…? I'm just going on a little errand with Artemis here," she smiled at him innocuously, patting the staff affectionately.

"What?! Did you lose your mind?" he demanded.

"I'm sane, perfectly sane." She patted the staff again in reassurance, fingers closing around the door handle.

"Wait," he commanded.

"I won't wait," she told him, opening the door. "Don't worry, I'll come back."

She stepped outside, ignoring him as he came out after her. For a moment, she blinked rapidly in the harsh light. It had been so long since she'd stood outside like this, particularly in the morning hours. Once her eyes had adjusted, however, she noticed an animal sitting on the ground a few feet away, watching her.

"A wolf?" Aidou asked beside her. "No way, that's actually—hey!" He broke off suddenly as she rushed forward to throw her arms around the creature. "Hey, that's-!" he tried again, only to be interrupted by her shout of, "Doggy!"

She had been cooped up for so long that she couldn't remember the last time she had seen an animal, let alone one as cute and fluffy as this. Wolf or dog, it didn't matter to her. It was absolutely adorable. She snuggled against it happily. It really was too bad that Kaname-sama wouldn't let her have a pet. It would certainly make the days more enjoyable!

"I'm trying to explain," Aidou was saying. "That's actually a creature Kaname-sama made from his body and left here."

"I know," she waved his explanation aside. She had already seen many of her brother's powers, including this one. He usually left a creature like this behind to watch over the manor and herself while he was away, though his earlier creations had never been as adorable as this one.

After a moment more of petting the wolf, she began to walk down the path, away from the manor. No sooner had she begun to do this, however, than she heard a screech. She turned around to see the wolf tearing apart into shadowy fragments that coalesced as a thousand bats, swarming towards her in an attempt to prevent her from continuing further away from the house. They were definitely not as cute as the wolf.

Feeling frustrated once more to find yet another barrier preventing her from leaving the house, she pulled back her arm. When the column of bats approached her, she yelled, "Onii-sama, sorry for this!" and punched through the bats with all of the force she could muster. The bats dispersed upon impact, and she took the opportunity to take off down the path, feeling exuberant and liberated. Finally, she could go out into the world again. She couldn't remember the last time she had felt so uplifted.

Yuuki glanced behind her once as she raced down the path. There was no one in sight. Not Aidou, not Kaname-sama. She grinned in sudden pleasure.

For the moment, she was completely free.

A/N: LOL so apparently Aidou is Harry Potter? XD. I wonder if Uncle Vernon ever made him count all the chick peas... :O

Check out more of Aidou Potter's adventures in...

Chairman Cross and the Kidney Stone

Kaname Kuran and the "Chamber of Secrets"

Zero Kiryuu and the Prisoner of the Hunter Association (aka Aidou)

Senri Shiki and the Goblet of Pocky

Ruka Souen and the Order of the Fashion Magazines

Yuuki Cross and the Vampire Prince (hohoho zeki fantasies)

Lily the Horse and the Academy Hallows

... Kay not really but somehow I wonder if I should write the most randomest FF about VK at Hogwarts... -SHOT-