“NO!” I scream, racing towards Ichiru. But he hasn’t moved. He’s not on the floor, twitched or dodged. Just standing there like nothing ever happened. I stare in amazement at his tranquillity. He just had a gun pointed at him and was shot even before anyone blinked. “How? What? How are you still standing?”
“I know my brother too while, Chika. I know he would never kill me by a gun.” Ichiru smiles reaching behind him and turns to door handle. Before he goes he comments, “You better think of an excuse for that hole there.” He waves to us goodbye, stumbling down the corridor. An ass and a drunk should never combine. And he was right. There is a blatantly obvious hole in the door that must have just skimmed his head. Impressive as Zero’s shooting is did he intend to miss? I hope he did because blood would have made a stain at least we can fill up a hole.
“Oh God, what am I going to do?” I start mumbling, pacing as I become paranoid about what my dad’s going to do and say when he gets back from work. “Zero, help me here. How do you fix this?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugs, “I don’t bother to fill them in.”
“There’s more like these where you live.”
“It’s not even a nice apartment.” Zero explains, leaning against the back of the sofa folding his arms. “Surprisingly the holes add a nice touch to all the other ones.”
“Where the hell do you live?” I ask, looking for something in the kitchen, hoping that my dad has some tools and fill-in in a cupboard. Is there even anything called fill-in? Searching through the cupboard under the sink, I hear a crack. A very loud one. I turn around to see that the hole has gone. Vanished. Sckdushed. Zero is next to it looking very proud with himself. “How’d you do it?”
“Let’s just say that there’s a hole in another white wooden piece of furniture.” He replies trying to act cool about it. The only room that has white furniture is… my room. Oh no he hasn’t! I glare at him and race to my room. Just glancing you can’t see a difference with the white wooden furniture but when looking closer there is an obvious hole in my bookcase. Luckily I can put a book over it and a poster on the outside. Unless I move it over to the wall but that can wait as I look at my clock and see it’s nearly 7. I know Rima didn’t specify a time but if Zero’s up and about that means the others are too. I’d like to leave immediately so I don’t have to explain things to my dad.
Rushing around the place looking for my bags, shoes, money, perfume Zero comfortably sits down on the couch eating the popcorn I’d opened earlier. “Why are you rushing about?” He asks, leaning his head backwards, showing off his sexy sharp jaw.
“I’m going out tonight.”
“I thought you didn’t have any friends to go out with.”
“Aren’t you bluntly honest?” I glare making him laugh, “Rima phoned this morning saying that she’d help me pick out a dress for the Ball.”
“Why can’t you go by yourself?”
“It’s nice to have a second opinion.”
“I’d go with you.” Zero suggests, getting up and moving so he’s blocking me from getting back to the bathroom. I stare at him thinking is he serious. It must be showing in my face as he continues, “What? I have to get some clothes too.”
“I thought you already had a suit.”
“I could wear my uniform if it wasn’t splattered with blood.” He coldly puts, “Do you know how hard it is to get out blood from clothes?”
“Don’t want to know, thank you.” I glare, twisting around him. “You could come with us, if you like. I don’t know who else is coming but I’m sure Rima hasn’t lift Shiki behind.”
“Chika chika chika,” He smiles, shaking his head. Sudden flash back of Ichiru doing that when listening to Panic! At the Disco and I was going to turn it down. They do look alike, very much and use basically the same catch phrases. “Do you think that I’m friends with blood suckers?”
“Surely you like the company of people.”
“We aren’t people,” He snaps, “We aren’t living. We are just cold blood suckers that somehow sit in society without being spotted by humans. If Kaname hadn’t have suggested Headmaster Cross to let you come to this ‘school’ you would of just thought of us as fiction. And that’s the way it should be.”
“Okay, don’t get in a twist.”
“I’m not and you need to understand that most of us are bad. Not all of them are as nice as Aido and Takuma. You are blind in the vampire world so please get out of it before you end up like me!”
“But how about if it’s my-“
“You think being with vampires has helped you stick up for yourself?” Again Zero laughs, “You had it all along you just didn’t believe you did. And it isn’t a sanctum. Do you really think that we see you as an ally?”
“Maybe, I just wish-“
“We see you as food.” Zero shouts, his eyes become red and grab me by the arms. “Nothing more than a walking blood bank. And it’s so difficult to control myself around you.”
“Why?” I wince as his grip is clamming.
“You good well fucking know why. I heard Takuma talking about me. Level E means that a vampire has no more sanity. You are the lowest of the low. It’s bad enough that I’m a vampire vampire hunter. And human blood drives you too insanity.”
“But I thought you took blood tablets?”
Zero bursts out laughing, his grip not loosening. His eyes don’t change from the dangerous red even with laughter they still hold hunger. “Do they look like they’re working? I finish a box in one day. It’s meant to last at least a month. Chika, you just don’t understand how hard it is, right now, not to drain you.”
“What’s stopping you?” I whisper. I don’t know why I just said that but I wouldn’t mind if I am helping Zero keep fit even if it took me awhile to get back on my feet. He needs to be fit and strong for the Ball and I’ll have recovered by then, I hope. It’s not like I’m having a sex with him, is it? I’ve read books, seen films where the drinking of blood triggers off some kind of sex hormone (I think) in the both the vampires and humans brain leading to sex. Yet this pull to him, of what made me say it, stopped me thinking of the consequences and just the pleasures that would happen when he bit into my neck. It’s not like I’m illegal! I am 17.
“Snap out of it Chika.” He yells at me, shaking me and then letting me go. My knees wobble from under me making me crash to the floor not sure on what just happened. “I would never touch you in that way so don’t even think about it.”
“Am I that repulsive that you touching me just were painful? Or do you just see my blood and not a face or the feelings it has?” I shout at him, punching him in the stomach. It is happily met by a hard toned pack. Don’t know how many but who cares? I punch again and still the same. He doesn’t even budge. It’s like I’m hitting a wall that can talk. Personally I wouldn’t mind a talking wall or furniture, like Beauty and the Beast, but not one if it’s just going to criticize me.
“Can you please stop that?”
“Why?” I shout, hitting him quicker and more powerful. I don’t know what’s gotten hold of me but I’m not worried about getting a broken hand or anything. “Do my punches disgust you?”
“No, you’re going to hurt yourself.”
“Maybe, then, you realise that you are mean to me and what you say seriously hurts. ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me’ is a load of bull shit.” I punch one last time but miss, my fist going a bit lower than planned. Consciously I don’t mean for this to happen but who knows sub consciously?! Not very quick Zero bends, at the knees, so that I do hit his stomach but I hit his belt buckle. Never did I think that belt buckles could cut you, but I’m wrong. My knuckles open up, blood uncontrollably gushes out. It hurts but I’ve felt worse, trust me.
Looking up, Zero’s eyes turn red again. Even with his mouth shut his canines show as they grow. “Chika, I think I should…” He whispers. I wait for him to finish the sentence but nothing follows. “I should…” He gets closer, making me walk back until I hit the wall. Zero cages me in his arms, still not looking away from my bloody hand. “Chika, I’m so sorry.”
“About what?”
“This.”