Disclaimer: VK and its characters don't belong to me.

A/N: I have received a review recently for my "Buying an escort" saying that fanfic wasn't well-written as my previous works, though the plot was good. Indeed, I wrote that fic in a different writing style, and I felt happy that it was recognized, because it meant I do have readers who like my writing and my fics. I appreciate all the reviews very much, and if you don't know, I'm significantly affected by the reviews I receive. I was writing another extra chapter for "Buying an escort", and it's pretty fluffy, but the recent review put it on hold! No, please don't get me wrong! I'm thankful that I received it.

And I'm getting back to my long-term interest: angst.

This fanfic below can be considered as a separate, independent fic, but I decided to name it "Now we must part (Arc 2)" because it was actually Arc 2 of "Now we must part" which has been in suspense since 2010. You will see it is loosely related to that fanfic. I can't give a good explanation why I can't continue "Now we must part", the muse just doesn't allow me (yet), and maybe it's only me who knows why it led Kaname and little Zero to the situation they are in this fanfic.

Will I complete this fanfic? I will just say I will push myself if you feed me with your reviews :-D

We will see that the ending isn't the goal, but each chapter will be entertaining by itself.

Please enjoy the prologue:

Now We Must Part (Arc 2)

Prologue

"Father, who is my mother?"

The little boy stuttered softly from his desk, his adoring chocolate eyes looked at his father with expectation. His sudden question broke the quietness in their large library, where he was staying with his father.

Every day he was required to come here to read. There was a lot of books in his family's library, which were about many categories and subjects, though nothing was interesting for a ten year old boy. Now and then his father dropped by to check what he was reading, and asked a few questions about the book, then simply looked at him in silence.

Their appearances were totally different. His hair was brown, and he had chocolate colored eyes with a glint of claret if observed carefully, while his father got silver hair, dark grey brows and amethyst eyes. All his cousins carried similar features with his father's, which made him outstanding as though he didn't belong to the family. In addition, he was a noble vampire, the only noble vampire in the longest and strongest hunter family. As his father was ex-human, the only possibility to have him conceived as a noble was his mother was a pureblood.

"Have you forgotten what I said? Your mother is Kaname Kuran. You are the spitting image of your mother." The twenty eight year old man frowned, but finally gave his son an answer.

The boy carefully looked at him. He had never seen his father's smile since he was born, and his father actually spoke very little. Many people his age out there were still single and dating, but his father was already the head of the Kiryuu family, stood in the highest rank of the Hunter Association and had a ten year old son. Perhaps he had had a difficult and painful past which he didn't want to talk about. The boy remembered his father had shown him the big portrait of a gorgeous man in his study. The man, who he was a spitting image of, had a very long brown hair and dressed in a traditional kimono. He was smiling, though his smile submersed in deep sorrow, he emitted an attraction of a natural beauty that without meeting him in flesh, one could be totally convinced that he was a pureblood.

"He was a man."

"Yes, and he died in childbirth. He gave up his life for you."

It wasn't a condemnation, but it sounded condemnatory. The boy assumed it was the reason his father was distant to him. He often came to stay with him, looked at him, touched his face, but that deep longing was wholly for the man in his portrait, who had been long gone together with his love and joy. His father sought for his mother's features in him, but they were different persons after all, no matter how much alike they looked. Many times he saw his father hastily ran away as emotion overwhelmed his senses and he couldn't look at him any longer. Many times he saw his father fell asleep in his study with his head resting on the lap of the man in the portrait, he murmured some words inaudibly as though sinking in a fitful dream.

"But how could a man get pregnant?" The boy had a very bad feeling that his real mother was someone else, who had been completely denied because there was only that man in his father's eyes. He loved him to the point that he forced his own son to recognise him as the mother. Though this theory couldn't explain why he looked so much like him, the boy vaguely harboured a rejection toward that man. Maybe everything would be better if he had a normal and living woman as his mother. His wish was simple, he only wanted a father and a mother who would play with him and smile with him, compliment him and tell him he was their treasure as all his friends and his cousins had.

"Don't ever ask me those stupid questions again." His father said sternly. "Kaname is your mother. You are honoured to be his son."

Rage flashed fiercely in his father's eyes. The boy stayed silent, not quite sure why his secret thought had slipped out of his mouth. He understood his father would reprimand his argument, but from the bottom of his heart, he couldn't be convinced. In this family, nobody could go against his father's opinion, they obeyed him, despite that they agreed with him or not.

"Go to apologise your mother in front of his altar."

The reading time was cut short by his father's order, the boy obediently made a bow to him and stood up, stepping out of the library.

A servant waiting for him outside dutifully escorted him back to his room. Light around the house had already been on, but too dim to illuminate things. The boy looked through a window, it was totally dark out there, but he knew everything was opposite on the other side of this garden. Maybe his cousins' families were gathering for dinner, maybe later their parents would be reading a story for them before bedtime. But on this side of the garden, where the head of the Kiryuus resided, it felt like a cavern, lack of breaths of life, lack of joy and love.

He took a deep inhalation after they reached his room and the servant finally left him alone. His father had set up an altar of that man in this room and requested him to talk to him regularly. Too pathetic that he didn't have a friend, and the only person who his father encouraged him to build a connection with was a dead man, who he had never met.

The two doors of the altar were opened, the boy knelt down, clasped his hands together. "Mother, Father asked me to apologise to you for having doubts on our relation. But I don't even know whether you want to be addressed as 'mother'. Maybe he loves you too much and wants to deceive himself that I am your and his son. Maybe I am actually your son and he deceives himself by thinking I am also his. Or maybe that is what I hope because I wouldn't be able to accept it if you were really the person who carried me in ten months and lost your life to give birth to me."

He had read about Kaname Kuran, and learned that he was the first pureblood on this world, he had lived his whole life to protect the humankind and build a bridge between the two races. He had fallen into a slumber after his lover's death, to be waken up by his descendant thousands of years later, when his lover was reincarnated into a young boy, at the same age with the boy now. What happened from there wasn't written in details. Ten years ago, he passed away.

Vampires didn't leave corpses after death. Their bodies shattered into ashes, for purebloods, they turned into crystal splinters and gradually vanished in the air. That was how his father had lost him. It seemed they weren't together in the pureblood's last minute, and it forever remained his father's deepest regret of this life. When he arrived, it was only the boy carefully swaddled in a red blanket which they had prepared together.

Right in that first moment, the boy imagined his father would rather see the other person, but his sole presence had put an end to his father's hope. His infant body was still covered in pure blood, the sacred blood that all vampires desired for, just the blood that coated him when he was born, because the type that was running in his veins had been lessened.

His throat became so dry. It had been happening since last month. He felt hot and suffocated, a strange, uncontrollable thirst took over him and tortured him from the inside, made him think about blood. And when he started thinking about blood, it got worse and worse. His eyes turned bright red, he wasn't able to resist his instinctive need and couldn't restrain himself from biting his own wrist.

It was a blood thirst.

As vampires reached the age of ten, they began thirsting for blood.

His father had handed him a vial of blood tablets. But its artificial taste couldn't quench his strong thirst at all. He had taken a dozen vials since, and his crave for real blood became more and more urgent. There were days he didn't dare to step out of his room, being afraid of attacking the servants. His father never asked for the reason, but coldly punished him if not seeing him in the library on time. They were a hunter family, he assumed his father wouldn't be sympathy for a blood thirst in vampire instinct.

Nevertheless, the boy figured out he had been wrong. His father didn't like those tablets either. He kept some E vampires in an underground prison as his source of real blood. Now and then he would go to the garden alone around midnight. His last time was yesterday.

The boy decided to go to the garden tonight. He had to wait until everyone in the residence had slept soundly. Most of the Kiryuus lived together in this estate for many generations. His father used to live in another place, where his past was tied to. He returned here after the boy had been born, and when he succeeded the position of the head of their family. His cousins, his relatives were living around. The garden was in the middle and surrounded their houses. It was considered a common place for all of them, but it's too large for one to wander about thoroughly everyday.

Starlit was too dim in a moonless night. The boy cautiously walked through the bonsai area to enter the deeper part of the garden, where was more like a forest, with tall and big trees. A few tiny sounds worried him, it hardly startled anyone at that time, but he couldn't help getting nervous while doing an illicit thing.

He had tried to go there twice, but in daylight. It was harder to recognize the direction at night, he had to stop to look around before picking up the right way. Luckily, he had an astute mind and a very sharp sight. After half an hour, he had reached the hatch leading to the underground prison, and eventually realised someone was following him.

"Young Master, what are you doing here?"

He turned toward the direction where that gentle voice came from. It was a young man in a servant uniform. His different aura immediately got him on alert.

"You are a vampire."

The servant maintained the distance between them and introduced himself. "Yes, I am a vampire. But I am harmless. Lord Kiryuu kindly accepted me to be his gardener last month."

The boy gazed at him as remembering something like that had really happened. Normally a hunter family wouldn't receive a vampire servant, but his father had made an exception as this vampire used to serve Kaname Kuran. In fact, the boy was with his father at that time. When their butler said a vampire had come to apply for the gardener position which they were looking for and say he used to take care of the Kuran garden, his father immediately approved to choose him. Of course he didn't take time to meet the new gardener.

"Go back!" The boy gave his order curtly. What he wanted to do wasn't the servant's business.

"Please allow me to escort you back. There is nothing you can see here at this time."

The boy narrowed his eyes. No servant had ever disobeyed him. This vampire was even not a senior one. He could punish him right now and right here if he was angry. They were about ten step far from each other, and he was ten step far from the hatch. Only ten steps.

A howl suddenly resounded in the quiet night, from deep in the underground. That howling sound had been reduced considerably before it could escape the tunnel and couldn't spread too far, but both of them were standing right there, it was quite clear for their sharp hearing. The boy's pupils instinctively turned red.

Now his intention was obvious. His father would fly in rage as knowing he had come to take the E's blood and had a servant figured out his true nature. Now an ordinary servant would run away in panic, because it wasn't normal to encounter a vampire in a hunter residence.

"Young Master, it'd be my honour to give my blood to you." Out of expectation, the servant calmly offered.

The boy glared at him in suspicion. He had read that it was common for a vampire to offer his blood to his lord in their society. As a noble, he certainly had the right to demand blood from lower ranked vampires. Those who were making noise angrily in the underground prison were actually not quite safe. Their mind had been ruined, the only instinct remained in their senses was to attack whoever had blood in their sight. He was a noble, but he's only ten years old, his physical strength couldn't be compared with them. In addition, he didn't know how many his father was keeping down there.

And he was offering a better choice, a level C was inviting him to take his blood.

to be continued?

Posted on 17 November 2014