Written by Miyu, Vampire Princess

AUTHOR'S NOTE:
This is for Merrow's challenge! *ties headband tighter* Following events from the manga, Chapter 75, I present here, a Kureno X Uo story. This part is told from Kureno's POV. The truth comes out! GAH! Will there be a happy ending? Lime Warning.

Part Nine - Confession of the Heart

It had been a long night. A very long night.

And the news...she took it so well.

She didn't laugh. She didn't make jokes. Quite honestly she didn't do anything. Well, all right, there was a little snicker when I told her initially. But after explaining things to her, she became rather expressionless.

In my opinion, she took it rather well.

Well, I was surprised that she didn't kick me out of her apartment.

I'm even more surprised to be waking up in her bed. Again!

How I'd ended up here is somewhat my doing, but mostly hers. After the scene in the shower, in which I was grateful to simply get a chance to hold her (well sort of), she gently coaxed me into the kitchen -- after changing my clothes -- for a cup of coffee. It was strange wearing an old pair of her sweatpants and a button-down plaid shirt that was big, even on me. Not the height of fashion, mind you, but they smelled like her (if a bit musty) and I didn't complain.

We sat across from each other at the kitchen table, each nursing a cup of coffee. The silence was awkward and at the same time comforting. It helped me to collect my thoughts and spill them before I lost my nerve.

"Arisa, I have...quite a bit to tell you," I began, taking a sip of my coffee as I tried to decide how to break the news to her. "Some of it isn't bad, but...well, most of it is...I think. You may...you may hate me after I tell you and you may want me to leave. That's all right. I'll live with that."

I dared a glance up at her then. She had opened her mouth as if to argue but I held up my hand to stop her. "Please let me finish."

She nodded, looking into her cup of coffee before looking back at me.

With her full attention I start at the beginning of the tale. The tale of the Chinese zodiac. I'm sure she's familiar with it, but I retell it as it had been told to me over the years. I left no detail out, including the names of my family members that are also cursed by this strange story. She looked at me wide eyed at one point, probably thinking of her classmates, Yuki and Kyo. The look of awe quickly became a smirk. I assured her that this was no laughing matter. I wait to see if she asks for proof. When she doesn't, I'm half grateful. She giggled a bit, but calmed down to listen to the rest of my story.

The story of God.

Of Akito.

She was neither amused nor frightened by this story. It blended into my first story rather well. I was not lying when I said he was ill. It's part of his curse. She seemed a bit surprised by that, but said nothing.

Then her surprise turns to horror as I recount the events of the past two days. Akito had assumed I was seeing someone without his knowledge or consent. I did my best not to give him cause or reason over the week Arisa was gone, offering no information whatsoever when asked. Instead I tried to look insulted, as if he'd just said something that truly offended me. But my act came to an end two days ago.

When he showed me a specific piece of paper that I knew very well.

The one the Honda Tohru had given me.

Arisa was flattered that her friend thought so much as to risk her safety to see me, to pass along her contact information. But that flattery, I warned her, was why I was there. Tohru may have meant well...and in all honesty I'd thought I'd shredded that piece of paper in the office...but it had, in the end, caused a world of trouble.

And it was no fault of Tohru's.

I had made the decision. It was my fault.

//TREASONOUS BASTARD.//

Words had never stung so deep, especially from Akito.

"Please don't be angry with Tohru." Arisa looks at me pleadingly. She cares very much for Tohru although I do not understand why. She always seemed like an ordinary girl to me. Perhaps I was missing something. "If I hadn't said anything to her then she wouldn't--!"

"I'm not angry with her," I answer honestly. "On the contrary I'm still very grateful to her." And I am. I can't express how much. "But Akito's wrath...you see...he may be ill, but he can still put up a fight."

Her eyes go wide and she gasps. "HE did...did THAT...to you?"

I only nodded.

"By Kami, Kureno--?! He could've killed you! That wound on your shoulder--!"

"Is from a piece of broken glass," I tell her with a sigh. "During our skirmish he broke a mirror."

"He stabbed you with a broken piece of glass?! Is he INSANE?!"

"We wonder...sometimes."

I briefly told her some of the things he'd done to the other jyuunishi. About Hatori's eye. About Yuki's abject fear. About Rin's hospital stay. Things I never thought I'd talk about with someone outside the family seemed to fall so easily from my lips.

But then, I had resolved yesterday that, when Arisa returned, I would tell her everything.

No matter the cost.

I even started to feel pity. For the first time since those events happened, I pitied my cousins. I felt remorse for them. And for the first time, understood them.

I was one of them now.

When I was finished, I looked at Arisa over my coffee cup. She looked dazed, confused. There was a touch of sadness, of hurt, but the prevailing emotion was anger. Not really directed at me, but at the situation as a whole.

"How can you...I mean...why do you...listen to him?" She was obviously confused and trying to understand. Her voice sounded as frustrated as she looked with the effort. I could see tears pooling in her eyes. I didn't want to see her crying for me, although it meant so much. "Why don't you...don't you fight back?"

I tried to smile but it's a futile effort. "I...I don't know. I don't think any of us have questioned this. This is the way it's always been in our family. And the head of the household hasn't always been...well, a devil."

"How far back...does this curse go?"

"Countless generations."

"How many know about it...within your family?"

"Not many. We try to keep a it a secret from most in the family, just as we do with outsiders."

"Why...why are you telling me then? Won't you get in trouble?"

That brought a smile to my lips. "Yes. But...you deserved to know."

She shook her head, still trying to comprehend. "I still don't understand."

Standing by the counter, I sat my cup next to the coffee pot and turned to look at her directly. "I'm telling because...because I love you, Arisa."

She blinked, understanding coming to her in short order. She looked down at her empty coffee cup then back up at me. A small smile appeared on her face. "You serious?"

I looked at her in surprise. "Yes, I'm serious!"

"Good." She stood then, walking over towards me and the counter. She sat her coffee cup in the sink, glancing at me out of the corner of her eye. "I love you too." The smile disappeared quickly. "But--"

I frowned as well. "But what?"

She turned to face me. "But what will happen once he finds out the truth? Will...will your memories be erased? Will mine?"

I cupped her face in my hands and placed a kiss on her forehead. "If I have my way, no."

"I...I don't want to forget you," she told me, placing her hands on my waist. "You're one of the few good memories I have."

"Really?" I raised an eyebrow questioningly. I didn't think her life had been that bad. Of course, she now knew more about me than I knew about her. "You want to talk about it."

She shrugged, lifting her face and reaching her lips for mine. "Maybe later." She kissed me briefly before pulling away. It's such a soft, warm kiss. My insides melted instantly. She's not throwing me out. She's not asking me leave. I'm sure I was grinning like a fool when we parted. "There's been enough storytelling for one night. Wouldn't you agree?"

"Hai," I answered before taking her lips in another, more passionate kiss.

I'm not sure how, but we managed to make it to her bedroom while lip locked. There were a few walls along the way, earning us each a bruise or two. Our clothes fell wherever we decided to throw them. I think my shirt is still in the kitchen, but the sweatpants came off after the second wall we hit. Was that in the living room or the hallway? It was the same place where Arisa's shirt fell. Quite honestly I don't remember, nor do I care.

I wanted her naked, lying under me, writhing in pleasurable agony as I fucked her brains out.

Will someone please tell me when I became a freakin' perv?

Once we're in the bedroom, I picked her up and tossed her onto the bed. She giggled as I jumped in after her. We resumed our previous petting and kissing and until her giggles turned to moans. I broke our kiss, my lips trailing down her body, paying homage to each sensitive bit of flesh between her shoulder and her breast, before my lips latch onto a taut peak and I begin to suckle. Her fingers wrap themselves in my hair as I pay tribute to her other breast in the same manner before starting a trail that leads further down, to the point of her pleasure.

We stared at each other as I placed a light kiss to the top of her mound. Her eyes narrowed, the irises growing darker with passion. Without breaking eye contact, I laid a line of kisses down her center, my tongue darting out quickly to taste her as I passed over her core. She groaned, throwing her head back in pleasure. I smiled, licking at her folds again and again until her hips began an enticing dance under my ministrations.

Holding her hips still with one hand, I slipped two fingers into her core. She's so very wet, her core's heat nearly melting in its intensity. We both groaned as I begin shifting my fingers in and out of her center. I could feel my own throbbing erection pulse in time to my strokes, wanting to be where my fingers were, setting the same pace. Fighting the urge to take her, I placed another kiss on her mound, my tongue finding and playing with her clit until she came.

"Kami! Kureno...onegai!"

I lifted myself up, positioning myself between her legs as they wrap around my middle. Very slowly, almost to the point of pure agony, I slid into her. I could hear her whimpers as she took me inch by inch at a deliberate pace, felt her fingers dig into the flesh of my shoulders. One nail scratched against a bruise there and I grit my teeth to hold back the cry of pain. But the pain is short lived as her inner walls clench tightly to my hardened state.

With as much painstaking slowness, I began thrusting, pulling all the way out before pushing back in. I felt her walls as they clutch me even tighter. She came again, screaming in her pleasure. Her eyes, once closed, opened slowly to look at me as I continued my leisurely pace.

"You trying to kill me," she asked breathlessly.

"Next time," I tell her, leaning over to kiss her tenderly. "I promise."

With that, I flipped her onto her hands and knees before thrusting into her again. My pace quickened almost immediately, causing us both to moan and groan in near satisfaction. She gasped my name when I hit that one spot and I aim for it continuously until we're both screaming in release.

Sighing happily, cradling her body close to mine, we both drifted off to sleep.

Which brings me to the present.

"Kureno?"

I look over my shoulder to where Arisa is still lying in bed. She looks rather delicious with the blankets curled tightly about her frame and her blond hair spread across the pillow like a halo. She smiled at me, beckoning me with one arm. I turn, leaning over to place a kiss on her lips. She answers in kind, sighing as we draw apart.

"Ohayo," I whisper against her lips.

"Ohayo," she says with a light blush. I never would picture her to be modest, but the light flush that tints her cheeks is very becoming. "You're up early."

"It's almost nine," I tell her. "And I have a meeting at 10:30."

"Business on a weekend?"

I grin sheepishly. "Sort of." It's actually a meeting to make arrangements for the two of us. I have no plans of dragging Arisa away from here if she doesn't want to go. She's nearly done with high school after all. I'd thought that maybe a semester away at school would do me good. Akito would readily agree to such terms if they were proposed the right way. Hatori will have to speak to him for me, as I have no intention of returning to the Honke.

And when the semester is over, she'll have graduated and we can go from there.

"A penny for your thoughts," she says, breaking me of my reverie.

"Gomen. It's just that...." And I tell her everything I'd been thinking. When I'm finished, she props herself on her elbow and leans in to kiss me lightly.

"You going to change your major?"

"Maybe."

"Now would be your chance."

"You are amazing."

She blinks up at me, surprised. "Why do you say that?"

"You didn't toss me out last night after I told you that one hug will turn me into a bird." I pause, kissing her again. "And I wouldn't recommend trying to hug Yuki or Kyo either. Actually it would be best if you didn't say anything to them."

"That doesn't answer--"

"I'm getting to that," I say, kissing her again. "You didn't toss me out on my ass. You're not cowering in a corner after the stories I told you about Akito. You're not yelling at me for wanting to go away to school. You haven't complained about a thing this entire time, nor raised a hand in objection. You. Are. Amazing." I punctuated each of the last words with quick kisses.

"You still haven't heard my story yet," she warns with a devilish glint in her eyes.

I smile, pulling her as close to me as I can without transforming. She lowers herself back down to the mattress and I follow. "You can tell me later."

And I'm going to have to reschedule that appointment, too.

~TO BE CONTINUED~