Author's Note: I wanted to play around with Yui and Laito, but instead, Laito ended up playing around with me. How very typical of him.

The Sun

Yui sat, cross-legged on the floor, in front of the windows that led out to the balcony. She couldn't see much of the early gray dawn through the rain streaming down the glass, but she forced her tired eyes to stay open just a little bit longer. While shifting her sleep-cycle from nighttime to daytime was necessary to accommodate for school, Yui had a harder time accepting it, just because it was Vampire Time. She was still a human, and she missed Human Time. For so many years, she'd taken the sun's presence for granted—even scorned it when it burned her skin or left the air too hot and dry. Now, it was all she could to to stay awake long enough to catch a glimpse of it.

Laito, of course, had his own ways of keeping her awake into the daytime, but not hardly for the same reason.

Why did I choose him? Yui brushed her hand over the marks littering her neck and cringed. She hated the way her skin felt underneath her fingers, alternating between rough and smooth like a raw potato. Laito bit her wherever he could, wherever would amuse him most or cause her the most pain; her body was covered in unseemly scars.

Panic.

Laito had been a decision pure panic.

When faced with the triplets, her heart bled. She still remembered how tight her jaw had been, clamping shut after suggesting that she only feed one of them. She hadn't expected them to agree to it, nor honor it as much as they had, but she also hadn't thought ahead far as to which she should choose. Which choice would be the wisest, let her live the longest.

Kanato had left her trembling. She didn't want to be near him, she didn't want to look in his dead eyes any longer than she had to. Something about his unsteady appearance rattled her to the core. She hadn't been able to speak his name.

Ayato had left a bad taste in her mouth from the moment she'd found him on the couch and he'd pinned her down, threatening to bite her. He was too aggressive, too forceful, and much too eager for her to pick him. She hadn't been able to speak his name either, and it might have been partly out of spite.

But that had left only Laito.

At the time, he'd seemed the lesser of the other two evils. His demeanor was considerably more relax than either of his brothers and although he lacked physical restraint, he still managed to melt into the background. Yui thought being with him might help her fade away, too.

And it did.

She'd faded right into the shadows, where Laito resided. There, he was not a background character, but the king of her own personal Hell. And now that he had her, he would do as he pleased.

Sighing, Yui pulled her legs to her chest and rested her head on her knees. A part of her wished she could go back and pick someone else—Ayato, or beg one of the others not to leave—but she was good and trapped here. All she could do now was wait for the sunrise and hang onto the hope that someday, she would get away.

She jolted when a pair of arms suddenly tightened around her waist.

"Bitch-chan," Laito's voice breathed into her ear. He chuckled when she gasped. "Were you so lost in thought that you didn't even hear me come in?"

"I-I—"

"Who were you thinking about? Hmm? Me, I hope..."

Yui lowered her eyes, biting the inside of her cheek because she knew she was blushing. He would take it the wrong way.

True to form, he whined softly and hugged her closer. "I know exactly how you feel, Bitch-chan. Being away from your body drives me crazy until its all I can think about."

Yui let her head drop a little lower in shame. It was just like Laito to run so close to her feelings, but always miss the mark. A few months ago, she'd been a normal girl in high school who had friends and crushes on boys, and who'd always dreamed of having someone say something like that to her.

You're all I can think about.

But Laito's proclamations of devotion were nothing but hollow. He could go on for hours about how much he loved her, how much he wanted her, and the expression in his eyes would never change. There was no love. There was no adoration, no promises, no anything.

Just quiet amusement, because he knew she was a fool.

Every time he opened his mouth, she wanted to believe him. She wanted to close her eyes and pretend that it was something real, not just a false, ephemeral sentiment. She wanted to believe that someone cared enough to think about her when she wasn't around. As it was, Laito was just hungry and, because she'd stupidly chosen him, he knew exactly how to fix it.

His teeth grazed her neck, digging in, but not quite hard enough to puncture the skin. Yui flinched, because it still hurt, then did everything she could to suppress the disgusted shiver that ran down her spine when he flattened his tongue against her skin. His hands subconsciously fisted and unfisted in her shirt—something Yui noticed he did occasionally when he got worked up like this. It reminded her of a cat.

Yui didn't want to think of Laito as a cat. She wouldn't be able to look at cats the same way again.

She obediently tilted her head for him when he pressed up against her, because she found that she could stay further away from him if she didn't struggle as much. It was only when she put up a fuss that he grabbed her and pinned her down and the violation felt much more like violation. She couldn't say for how long this tactic would work, though. For being so single-minded sometimes, Laito was incredibly perceptive, and also easily bored. He would see through her body language soon enough—if he hadn't already. And if he had, he was simply waiting for the perfect opportunity to pounce.

His teeth sank into her neck and she bit back a scream. No matter how many times it happened, it still hurt. The pain didn't grow less horrible, only more familiar.

"Bitch-chan... Ahhh..." he moaned through his sucking. "Your blood makes me feel... more satisfied... than anything else... and still... I want more. Hahhh... More... Give me more..."

There isn't anything I can do about it for you.

Just stop.

Please stop.

I didn't... want this...

He took his time lapping up the remainder of blood that oozed out of the punctures, and Yui endured his noisy licking and sucking with gritted teeth. Finally, he settled his chin on her shoulder. "Do you like the rain, Bitch-chan?"

"I..." Yui hesitated, unsure where this new strain of conversation was headed. "I like it well enough. It's... comforting."

"Rain, just like this... is good for crossword puzzles. It's good for sex. It's good for thinking. What does the rain make you think of?"

Yui stared out the window. "...The clouds, blotting out the sun. But... maybe the world needs to be washed clean before the sun can come back out."

Laito tittered softly. "You know," he purred, "rain doesn't just fall from the sky. It has to come from the ground first. So that means the world is bathing in its own filth, over and over. If you reused the same bathwater for the rest of your life, wouldn't you just get... dirtier?"

She snatched his wrist to keep his hand from wandering too low. Not that there was anything she could've done if he forced the issue, but he let her have her way.

"The sun is nothing but a mechanism to pull out every vile bit of the earth and smear it across the surface." His lips fell on her neck again, sucking to bruise the place he had bitten. It stung, making Yui whimper. "Like a vampire, drinking the blood of a mortal."

Yui suddenly found herself flat on her back, staring up at him. The loss of blood made her dizzy, and her chest heaved. She didn't like the way it drew his eyes down to it.

"You claim to miss the sunlight, but I'm right here, Bitch-chan." His lips and teeth were stained red, twisting his kind smile. "I'll be that unstoppable force of nature that makes you filthier and filthier until your landscapes are changed, forever. Isn't that what you wanted, Bitch-chan? The sun?"

Yes, but...

The sun. She'd chosen the sun, in the end.

...not like this.

A/N: Really, though. I may have started this, but Laito is responsible for it making any sort of semblance of sense.

Thanks for reading!

RegenesisX