A/N: Thank you for your reviews! While writing this chapter, I've found out that I want to write sweet stories now. So I guess my muse, after being somehow revived, got insane!
A hint from chapter 3 of "Now we must part":
"As long as he's happy, I don't need to be his lover, I can be a guardian, a friend, or a servant."
Summary of Arc 1"Now we must part":
Rido revived his ancestor in his coffin to absorb his power, but things went out of his control as Kaname regained his full power as soon as he opened his eyes. Rido couldn't dominate Kaname because he was weaker. Kaname couldn't dominate Rido, because Rido was his "master" who resurrected him.
Kaname found out his lover's reincarnation was the oldest boy of the Kiryuus' twins and decided to wait until he grew up and continued their love.
Zero's parents were killed by Shizuka. Rido appeared to save him but bit him and became his master.
Kaname made a deal with Rido, in which he would let Rido drink from him and sleep with him, and Rido would give Zero to him and let Zero drink his blood to secure his condition when it's time.
As living together, little Zero gradually grew a strong attachment to Kaname and had sexual desires for him, but Kaname tried to restrain because Zero was too young, and he didn't think he deserved Zero's pure love.
One day Zero caught Kaname having sex with Rido and moved out. He then dated Yuuki, chairman Cross's daughter.
It's finally time that Zero needed his master's blood. Rido set out a new condition to feed him. He wanted to eat a half pureblood half hunter child to make him immune from anti-vampire weapon.
After a long thought, Kaname prepared himself, invited Zero to his house, drugged him and slept with him. At first, Zero resented Kaname for his act. Later on, he heard Kaname was pregnant and figured out his motive and got back to meet him.
Zero admitted that he had fallen in love with Kaname and never stopped loving him. He promised to raise their baby to be a good person in pride of their love.
Of course they didn't plan to sacrifice their child for the plan, but I can't tell full summary in case I will want to finish Arc 1 some day ;-)
Zero surely loved Kaname and nobody could replace him in his heart.
He has been trying his best to raise his son, but looks like something is wrong :-D
Maybe the son's personality took after… Rido Kuran hahahaha
Yay, there is no cute, lovely kid in an angsty story!
Now we must part (Arc 2)
Chapter 1
The boy decided to accept this servant's offer instead of taking the risk of intruding his father's underground prison which he wasn't supposed to know. However, the hunter lessons taught him it was never good to trust a vampire. He needed to make sure that he wasn't putting himself in danger and creating some stupid commotion in the family.
They sneakily returned to his room. With great caution, the boy kept a safe distance with the vampire and didn't allow him to stand behind his back. As both of them were in his living room, he took the chance to judge him carefully. It's not that he couldn't see clearly in the forest, but he had other issues to worry about. Now they were in a place which was safer for him, he couldn't say what he was seeing was a delusion anymore.
The vampire in front of him looked a lot like… his mother. If not for the lack of a pureblood aura, his shoulder length brown hair and his servant uniform, the boy would have thought it was his mother returning from death. Those dark eyes had no hint of the superior claret color, but the delicate brows, the straight nose and exquisite jaw couldn't be mistaken. Nevertheless, the vampire got a pallid complexion as though he had never stepped out of the sun all his life. It obscured his graceful features and made the others feel he had some kind of illness.
"What is your name?" The boy asked.
"My name is Kami."
"Kaname."
The vampire stared at him in shock and hastily repeated "No, Young Master. My name is Kami."
"From now on, I name you Kaname." The boy stressed.
"I can't take that name." The vampire managed to reject his idea. "It was the name of my former master."
The boy was amused. Of course he remembered it. This vampire had been accepted into his family because he used to serve Kaname Kuran. "You belong to the Kiryuus now and I will give you any name I want."
It's true. Most of servants nowadays worked for rich families under employment contracts, however, some long-standing and powerful families tied their servants in indefinite contracts with strict terms and conditions as if they sold their lives to their masters. There were reasons like debt or gratitude that one would accept to enter such a contract. Normally vampires just served higher class vampires, but this particular vampire had expressed his wish to serve Zero Kiryuu. The famous hunter immediately admitted him upon hearing his reason, however, the vampire had to comply with all decisions and arrangements the Kiryuus made for him.
Re-naming was included, yet servants were usually granted names with meanings of loyalty or reflected their inferiority status. Kaname resignedly kept silent. In his case, he was given this new name as an insulting act to the person who had originally born this name. Since living here, he was only allowed to stay outside for his gardening work and retreated to his shared room in the servant quarter when sun was high. It was the first time he stepped into the living area of the Lord's family, the first time he saw his Young Master's room.
It was indeed large and luxurious, however, it was furnished formally which didn't really suited a ten year old boy. The chamber was separated in another room. In the room where they were, there was a table and chairs for the boy to study with his private tutor. Both his chair and a settee on the opposite side looked out a large window where planted a trellis of red boat orchids. It was his father's favourite flower in memory of the person he loved.
Kaname had tried his best to take care of those flowers. Every day he checked on them carefully and stayed for a long time outside this window, hiding himself under the trellis to look at the boy. He remembered his schedule quite well to know what time the boy studied in this room, what time he went to the library, what time he stayed out to play sports with his cousins or do other physical training sessions. Every day Kaname took all opportunities possible to see him and quietly followed what he was doing. Their encounter tonight wasn't a coincidence. Since the boy left the house, he had followed him. As realising the boy was approaching the underground prison, he showed up to stop him.
Both of them looked like one particular person. The boy didn't inherit any of his father's features, he knew exactly how he was going to look as an adult. Seeing the vampire in front of him was like seeing his future self, except that he would also carry the grace and distinction of his mother, what this vampire's rank didn't allow him to have. But that look, those specific features only added on the boy's concealed resentment.
"Kaname, if a guy fucks you, will you get pregnant?" His question was abrupt as he stared at him mockingly.
The vampire couldn't believe in what he had just heard by his own ears. It wasn't what a ten year old boy might concern about. Children sometimes were curious about how they were conceived and born. One person, in his whole life, normally thought about his chance to be conceived being like a miracle, and normally talked about his mother's pregnancy with respect. But it was only disdain in this boy's voice as though conception and birth in his opinion was merely a result of a lustful act.
Kaname… The boy gave his own mother's name to a servant and raised his voice of a master to call that name. Was he questioning him or questioning his mother? The vampire bowed down. As a matter of fact, his mother didn't have the right to feel hurt. He left him as soon as the boy was born, the only thing he had done for him was to wrap him in a red blanket. He wanted to feed him with his blood but his body turned frigid and his blood frozen, in the last minute as his slight consciousness still lingered, he helplessly heard his son's flustered crying. He wasn't around when the boy grew his fangs, he wasn't around when the boy toddled his first steps, wasn't around when he endured the fevers to develop the basic of his power. A pureblood's child needed his pureblood parent to guide him. Kaname had written down what to pay attention to and what should be done in each phase of their son's growth, but didn't have a chance to hand it to Zero in person. Ten years had passed, his son had been struggling alone.
"Kaname Kuran did." The boy said with a wicked tune. "Did you see him when he was pregnant? Did he really rip his belly open to take his baby out?" The vampire's silence didn't reduce his amusement, on the contrary, he found it more hilarious. His father forced him to feel grateful that his mother had sacrificed his own life to give birth to him. But he would rather be born in an ordinary family with a man as his father and a woman as his mother. "Say, what was he thinking when decided to get pregnant? Was it in name of a sloppy love or was he fantasizing to carry a baby as a real woman even though his body was incapable of doing it safely?"
Vampires lived much longer than humans, but matured much earlier. The boy didn't have any friend nor was interested in toy and game. His father rarely took him out to show him the outside world while his inner world was the thousands of books in their library. His knowledge was better than any other ten year old kids, his thinking was deep to the extent that it's cruel. He knew a male pureblood couldn't get pregnant naturally, but needed to take a special medicine in a month to grow a womb before having sex with another man to receive his sperm.
"Answer me!"
"I… don't know." Kaname stuttered, remained looking down with resignation.
"Coward!" The boy smirked. "He must be thinking his son would worship him as a saint, and his lover would stay alone to treasure their memories for the rest of his life. But the truth is quite opposite."
The vampire didn't realise his hand had been squeezing his other elbow tightly as he struggled to subdue his emotion. Ten years ago, when Zero figured out they were going to have a baby, he said he loved him. He promised him he would raise their son to be a good man and teach him to love and respect Kaname as his mother.
"I love you." He wiped his lover's tears off while his own tears fell down.
But life continued and things were changed. Was it too selfish of the vampire to believe his lover wouldn't? Was it too greedy to harbor such a dream? Kaname had miraculously survived on that day, though it took him ten years to form a steady physical body from surviving fragments. His powers, his aura had been lost. His flesh and bones were weak and fragile as of an ill, malnourished person. Just his blood, the sacred, extraordinary blood which was slowly mending him, remained unchanged. He had sought out his lover's news, and went to his lover's home town to look for the Kiryuus residence, willingly travelled through a long distance of difficulties to call an unfamiliar region home, because in this big world, he placed his full reliance in the man he loved. He had imagined a happy reunion, his lover would be welcoming him with an open embrace, and his son would be delighted to meet him for the first time.
But in reality, Kaname Kuran had already been a page of the past. Zero was no longer an emotional teenager, but the respectful head of his family. The high walls that separated the Kiryuus residence from the outside world made the vampire's chance of meeting his lover and rekindling their relationship became impossible.
His lover was married.
All hope and dreams slipped through his fingers, tracelessly as waking up from a long sleep.
Indeed, they hadn't promised to wait for each other. They hadn't expected fate would still spare them another opportunity. Kaname couldn't blame his lover for moving on from their broken relationship and getting married. Yuuki was actually the girl Zero had dated with at the age of fifteen, if he hadn't interfered in, they would have never broken up. Since the hunter didn't marry anyone else, but her, it proved that his feeling for her wasn't shallow. Kaname thought about leaving, but couldn't convince himself to stay away from his son. At that time, the Kiryuus coincidently looked for a gardener who knew how to take care of red boat orchids. He immediately seized it to get in the family. If saying his experience of working for the Kurans didn't take away his chance to be recruited, if red boat orchid still had a meaning to Zero, Kaname could keep hope that there was still a part in the hunter's heart reserved for him. He didn't mean to disorder their lives with his return or reveal his true identity, he just wanted to stay close and quietly support his son's growth.
"I wish Aunt Yuuki was my real mother." Now the boy confirmed that he had found an important piece for his chess match after observing the interesting changes of this vampire's expression. When they met in the garden, the vampire's face was pretty calm, but the moment they entered this room, he got worse, especially when Kaname Kuran was mentioned. Loyalty could be a great part of his reason, but it proved that he had been much closer to the pureblood than it appeared. The boy realised there was a very sated feeling somehow spreading over when he said that sentence to this low vampire, as though he was throwing those blunt words into his mother's face.
The vampire's knuckles had turned white. If he still had his pureblood strength, he would have broken his own bones. The last thing he could imagine was the ten year old boy was leading him around in his game. He trusted his son's saying and felt thankful that Yuuki was kind enough for his son to think that way. He had been worrying that the boy was lack of motherly love, which he himself wasn't sure how much he could make up for. He was willing to do anything for his son, but he didn't know how to give him the love of a woman for her children. Fortunately, the boy had a good mother figure, he was loved and cared by a kind woman who didn't mind he wasn't her own son.
Maybe it was one of the reasons Zero had married her. For their son's sake.
"Young Master, could I have the honor to offer you my blood?"
"I will accept." The boy sat down on the settee and threw out a thin silver bracelet. "Put it on to make sure you won't do anything ridiculous when I'm drinking from you." Now he wanted to taste this vampire's blood, to know if it was any familiar. He had no chance to drink directly from his mother, but his father had given him a small container of his mother's blood as wanting him to keep a remembrance of their love, which he had secretly broken in an uncontrollable thirst.
Kaname picked up the bracelet on the floor and rolled it up his wrist. It was a magical bracelet to constrain a vampire when its counterpart in the hunter's hand was triggered. Hunters usually put them on the tame vampires or their vampire prisoners. Firstly, it was to give them an upper hand in case the vampires resisted them, its other function was to cover their blood scent.
After Kaname finished, the boy raised his own wrist which was wearing a similar bracelet and made a shake to activate it. Both the bracelets flashed up. The vampire immediately got a strong electric shock throughout his body and collapsed onto the floor.
"Oops, I didn't know it's that strong." The boy giggled, getting quite impressive with the effect.
His exciting sound distantly poured into the vampire's ear as a hint that he was still alive. Kaname felt like his whole body had been smashed up from the inside. There was no severe traces of damage on his skin, but the current that ran through his body almost burnt him down. He was lying motionlessly, shade covering his sight, jaw totally stiff that he couldn't say a word.
"How long do you intend to lie there? No vampire has died from having a taming bracelet activated. Come here!" The boy sounded cold. Instead of getting nervous as a ten year old should be, he was totally unconcerned after hurting an adult as though it was certain in his opinion that he had the right to decide a vampire's life.
Kaname gathered his will to sit up. He didn't mean to lie there, but his arms and legs had lost control, as much as he tried, he could only struggle to pull in a position to slowly drag himself to his son. Each move took his full strength, yet looked completely useless, sweat drops rolled down his forehead, he couldn't see clearly, just a vague shape of a little boy in front of him that he was trying his hardest to reach. It was only a short distance, but taking forever between where they were. Was it because he was injured from the shock and his body failed him or was it the ten years gap since the day he had abandoned him that he couldn't amend? There was no dignity for a person in such a difficult situation. He, as a servant, eventually stopped at his son's legs, looking up, waiting for the next instruction.
The boy gazed at him, in a close distance trying to see if there was any difference between the face in front of him and his mother's. His expression subtly distorted, but recovered the calm state in a second. He found no difference. If Kaname Kuran survived from the childbirth, he could have turned into this emaciated appearance. The idea frightened him thoroughly, no matter how impractical it was. It said that a pureblood's body couldn't heal from childbirth, because it had already been damaged from the medicine he took to get pregnant. In addition, his outside body didn't change, he couldn't deliver the baby in a natural way as a woman. The only way was to open his stomach to save his child or both of them would die together.
"My father and Aunt Yuuki are expecting their new baby." The boy whispered. He surely wasn't mistaken that the vampire's dark eyes blurred in pain. Low servants didn't know much about their Lord's personal issues. This vampire had no way to know about it before tonight, so his reaction just now was purely sincere and spontaneous.
Kaname desperately struggled to pretend expressionless, though his attempt unfortunately returned a failure. He hadn't heard that, and it would have been better to be unaware. This news was no longer involved in him, why was it so painful to hear? Zero had never belonged to him, he had always known one day the hunter would grow up and fall in love with another person. In his dreams, his goals, his future, there would be no place for him, despite of the precious words he had told him on that day.
"Did Kaname Kuran think his lover would be satisfied with the child he left for him and never have another child? Did he ever think how a half-bred can grow up in this society? People merely judged him as a defective, he isn't pure to inherit what should be his. Three months later, the hunters will celebrate the birth of the Kiryuus's heir, even though Zero Kiryuu's first son is already ten." The boy muttered. He had never told anyone that he cared, he appeared unconcerned and totally harmless, just to survive from the watchful gazes around him. His father would surely protect his life, but he had given in the strong aspiration for a pure heir of his family.
The boy stretched his tiny fingers out to touch the hot tears falling down the vampire's face. "What is it? Why are you crying?" His fangs sank into the soft skin, buried deep in his flesh to suck out pure, rich blood. He expected for a great taste, but it was even greater. His body gradually leaned on the vampire as he indulged in the satisfaction of the first time consuming real blood to his heart's content.
Sound of greedy gulps softly continued, Kaname pressed a hand on the settee to keep their balance. He wanted to hold his son, but afraid the boy would pull out. Dizziness was overwhelming him, but he struggled to stay conscious. Having his son lean on him, feeling his warmth and delight, he wished this moment would never finish.
The boy didn't really care about the vampire's status, he drank as much as his stomach allowed, and only drew his fangs out when extremely full.
"I read that vampires will start growing their power at five or six years old, but my power is still basic, it hasn't grown at all."
"You are lack of your parents' blood. I wish to offer my blood to you every week. If you also drink from Lord Kiryuu once a week, your power will grow steadily."
"I've never drunk from my father." The boy murmured "He doesn't allow it."
Zero had been turned against his will, it was understandable that he didn't want to repeat it ever again. However, their son needed his blood to grow up, which unfortunately he wasn't aware of. The vampire's letter had obviously not reached his hand ten years before, and Kaname's current condition wasn't at best to satisfy his son's blood thirst.
"You can drink from me twice." Nevertheless, he still ignored his own situation to tell the boy what was good for him. His son was in the significant phase of his growth that would affect his whole life, and supporting him through this important period was his top priority.
"Why only twice? I'm thirsty every day."
"Your system needs time to absorb the blood you received. You can't handle much more than twice a week for now." In fact, a vampire's system just had limitation for stronger blood. They could drink human and lower class vampire blood as much as they liked.
The boy trailed the dried tear traces on the vampire's face and asked "Kaname, who are you?"
The vampire was cornered in distress. If only it could help him to win his son's complete trust, to convince him to rely on him, he would like to admit that he was his real mother. But his son hated him, he didn't dare to take the risk of being prohibited from staying by his side. Yes, he had taken medicine to conceive him. Yes, he had given birth to him knowing he wouldn't be around to bring him up. In that moment, he biasedly decided to ignore his son to save his lover.
"I am a distant relative of the Kurans." It was the only possible answer to appease the boy's suspicion. Kaname couldn't say he had no relation with his mother's side. From his looks and his blood taste, the boy must recognise some similarities.
"Do you want to sleep with my father?"
-to be continued-
Posted on 30 November 2014
The continuation of this fanfic depends on your review :-D