Disclaimer: I disclaim.

Woo, finally an update! :sweatdrop: Finally things are moving again. Sorry about the lack of updates. I’m officially one-fifth finished with my political vampire novel, which accounts for what I’ve been doing rather than updating this story.

So anyway, I’ve gotten really into writing for Ouran Host Club, so I’ve had trouble not typing “Kyouya” instead of “Kouya” XD

In the cold glass of the mirror, Kouya’s face looked unnaturally pale and sickly thin. She stared at it closely for a moment and then lifted her hand, picking at a spot on her cheek. Maybe if she could just see underneath that top layer of skin to the blood and muscle and bone beneath, she would know what made her tick, what helped her exist, and then this strange sense of fear and guilt would ebb.

Ever since that first spell battle with Beloved, things had changed considerably. She was sure Yamato hadn’t noticed; Yamato had never been the most perceptive person she knew. Kouya, however, could feel it with every breath, with every step she took. It was almost as though she now carried a giant burnt cross slung across her back, her own personal burden to bear. Even with no crown of thorns she felt as though she was always walking toward certain doom, as though around the next corner lay whatever would help karma take its course. She had almost killed Agatsuma Soubi in that battle. For all she knew, she had killed him; she and Yamato had no way of contacting him, no way of making peace.

“Look what you’ve done,” she whispered into the glass, her voice a cold, weary hiss. “Do you really think it’s okay to go about your everyday life when for all you know Agatsuma Soubi could be dead?” she picked a bit harder at her skin, still staring intently at that flesh.

The view of her face disappeared for a moment as she opened the mirrored door of the medicine cabinet and fumbled around for a pair of scissors, her fingers finally closing around the cold metal of the handles. When her face came back into view, she took the scissors to her long, wavy black hair.

It fell in silky smooth tendrils down, down, infinitely down, to rest on the edges of the sink, the floor, her toes. There was something perfect and exhilarating about the action, and she grew breathless with obsession as she cut and snipped her a kind of mindless concentration. She attacked the long, perfect locks until they were nearly gone, chopped almost everywhere to her chin, a jagged fringe that looked like ferocious teeth at the edges. Frantically, she grabbed at loose pieces still clinging to her head and threw them to join the rest in their battleground.

Still out of breath, Kouya stared blankly for a moment at what she had done before reaching down and calmly turning on the water in the shower. She slipped out of her clothes and under the warm stream of water, the scissors still clutched in her fist. Guilt, guilt, guilt, they whispered, and as hard as she tried to close her ears to them, the sound was deafening.

“Am I going crazy?” she whispered, leaning against the wall of the shower and staring blankly at the flesh of her arm. Kouya was a sensible girl. It usually took something far more than guilt to erase her normalcy. “It was our first battle. We’re bound to make mistakes!” With a loud sigh, Kouya stared down at the scissors still held tightly by her shaking hands. Was she even human anymore? She had possibly taken a life, and that in itself had the potential to make her a monster. It was as if she did not know herself at all anymore, which brought her back to the blood she could still feel pulsing past beneath the flesh. Would it still seep out if the skin was broken? Would she still bleed like a normal person?

Slowly, the scissors pressed against the inner curve of her left elbow and pushed down, puncturing the flesh. It was with a kind of detachment that Kouya dragged those twin blades down her forearm, not stopping until she had nearly reached her wrist. She had enough sense to stop there; she had no desire to die at this moment. The wound was deep, an endless trench in the pale flesh, and she could feel her frantic breathing starting to slow at the sight of the blood that dribbled out and made a fast red trail down her arm. She was still normal beneath that skin. She was still human. The wound didn’t hurt, which was both a blessing and a curse. As a Zero, it became increasingly harder to remind herself that she was alive at times like these. For now, however, she was safe, cushioned by the warm feeling of her own blood.

For a few moments there was thick silence, and then the sound of the bedroom’s door shutting startled her out of her concentration. As those frantic moments began to melt away into the past at that everyday sound, Kouya flew into a panic.

“Kouya, I’m back! I brought dinner! Where are you?” Yamato’s cheerful voice cut into her silence. Desperation set in fully, and as the full reality of what Kouya had done finally began to set in, she clenched her teeth. How could she have been so stupid?

“Kouya, are you in the shower?” Yamato’s voice asked, sounding as though it was very far away. For a moment, Kouya hoped that if she was silent, Yamato wouldn’t be able to find her, but as the bathroom door creaked open, pure terror filled her stomach. What was Yamato going to think when she saw what Kouya had done? Would she feel sadness? Anger? Disgust?

“Kouya, what are you doing?” Yamato asked.

“Taking a shower, of course,” the Sentouki croaked softly, cramming the scissors quickly behind the large bottle of shampoo, out of sight. There was little she could do about the cut, which was deep and still bleeding freely. She moved it under the warm flow of water, but as the blood was washed away, more accumulated in its place. The flow seemed endless, and Kouya did her best not to go to pieces. There was really nothing she could do to hide the wound, especially not when Yamato was so close. She steeled herself for the oncoming storm.

“Can I come in with you?” Yamato asked rather deviously, and Kouya could see her ears twitch playfully through the partially transparent shower curtain.

“N--no! I mean… it’s cramped. I’ll hurry up and you can have a shower, too! You can wait in the bedroom!” Kouya was desperate to put some space between herself and Yamato until she had the situation figured out, and she didn’t care if she sounded frantic. She was so intent on not letting Yamato catch sight of the cut she had given herself that at the moment, she would have given anything to change the course of the evening.

“I took a shower this morning,” Yamato replied, and her voice was laden with suggestion. Had it not been for the dire situation at hand, Kouya would have blushed fiercely. “I just want to take one with you.”

“There’s no room in here!” Kouya protested, squeezing the fingers of her right hand around her left forearm, concealing as much of the cut as she could. Blood dribbled out through her fingers, and she bit her lip. “Just wait. I’ll be out in a minute and we can eat, okay? Feel free to start without me.”

“Okay,” Yamato laughed softly, and Kouya could feel relief seep through her as Yamato’s figure disappeared and the bathroom door creaked shut. Kouya was always reluctant about taking the next step with Yamato, so there was no reason it should seem strange that she was apprehensive about showering together. If she could just find some way to conceal her wound before Yamato caught sight of it, everything would work out for the time being.

Kouya looked around frantically, opening the shower curtain a bit so she could peer out. A thousand unwelcome solutions to the problem floated through her head at once, and she sighed. The bleeding seemed, if possible, to be getting worse. The first aid kit was still in the bedroom from Yamato’s encounter with a rather nasty splinter earlier in the week, and at the moment, Kouya was utterly helpless. It was only when everything began to dissolve around her that she realized the true gravity of the situation.

The ground seemed to come up to meet her, and the loud thud as she hit it seemed distant, somehow. The last thing Kouya was aware of before losing consciousness was the sight of Yamato hovering over her, her bare toes stained with Kouya’s blood as she opened her mouth and screamed.

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I’ll try to update sooner this time :fails: And we’ll catch up with Soubi and Seimei soon.