How Cross and Yagari became friends.

Another fic for YenGirl. This is strictly Cross x Yagari FRIENDSHIP, because I am an epic fail at anything more than that. Ehehe. But to those of you who want to see shounen ai or yaoi, I suppose you can squint really, really hard to find it? Dunno.

Or just use your imagination, it's not that hard! *smile*

Disclaimer: I do not own Vampire Knight.

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.;"First Times";.

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First they were colleagues. Yagari still remembered the day he met Kaien; a pale, solemn-looking boy, his lanky build telling of a fresh adolescence. Even back then Kaien had forged a name for himself – he was revered among the vampire hunters for his skill, a boy prodigy who learned the art of killing at the tender age of six. The surname 'Cross' alone would have instigated apprehension in many of the hunter clans.

Yagari himself wasn't far behind with a clean record of successful hunts, but…Kaien just reeked of power. Everything – from his cool, controlled demeanor to the way he answered his betters – only served to strengthen Yagari's opinion of the teen.

Kaien first greeted him with detached politeness; a nod, a locking of gazes. He didn't even glance back after that. It was a good thing too, Yagari thought upon reflection, because Kaien would have seen him stealing furtive looks throughout the entire briefing.

Though with his finely-honed skills, Kaien probably noticed anyway.

They met under the waning light of dusk, armed with weapons of their choice – Yagari a gun, the latter a sword – to hunt level-E vampires. It was not a solo mission this time, the uppers said, because they were to ambush a whole group, number unknown. Yagari wanted to scoff. What did they take him for, a weakling? Level-E vampires disintegrated the instant his bullets ate into their flesh – shooting them was easy, and Yagari relished doing it with lethal accuracy.

They arrived at their destination with nary a word exchanged, stalking and watching from within the shadows. The area was silent. Heavy boughs fanned its circumference, ink-black in the dark of night. Kaien and Yagari, in a mutual unspoken agreement, leaped up and hid in adjoining trees.

Nothing broke the quiet save for that of nature's creatures, and the sound of wind playing with the leaves. Sometimes Yagari sneaked glimpses of the other boy, curious and a little awed. Kaien had eyes only for the target (or the lack thereof, at the moment), sharp and determined as he watched the clearing.

Then their prey came. A rustle; a shuffling of feet against grass. Kaien was alert at once, crouching lower on his perch as he signaled to Yagari, a hand on the hilt of his sword. Yagari slipped the safety catch off his gun.

There were about fifteen of them, shells of the humans they once were, walking with an unsteady gait and looking around with unfocused eyes that burned with longing. Quite a big group, Kaien noted, considering that coalition amongst vampires was rare regardless of duration. The hunters sat warily as they waited.

When the vampires approached the center of the clearing, Yagari struck.

Three vampires went down with his first shot. The remaining twelve sprang to the defensive, their eyes sanguine at the sight of blood, mouths yawning in angry snarls.

As one, Kaien and Yagari dropped from their trees, weapons at the ready. A split second later they had cleaved into the vampires' midst.

Kaien slashed away with deadly elegance. His sword killed whoever it struck, piercing its opponents at the slightest touch.

Yagari, on the other hand, was more flashy – he preferred style to grace, though of course efficiency took precedence. He liked being cool and it showed. Methods didn't matter as long as he killed them, right? A smirk touched his lips. This was child's play.

So engrossed was he in the flashing of his streamlined bullets, in the way it drew graceful silver arcs against the night sky, that the Level-E escaped him until it was too late. It dashed at him from behind, one rotten, mutilated arm outstretched, aimed at his face to gouge out his eyes. His heart skipped a beat.

There was still time; he could slip his gun into the space between them and shoot, just that one crucial second ago---

And then Yagari was showered with a rain of dust as the vampire fell, skewered by Kaien's sword. Yagari blinked, eyes riveted on the blade, whose tip quivered mere inches from his nose.

He breathed a shaky thank you.

Kaien grinned, his hunter persona cast away like a second skin.

"No problem." He lowered his sword, letting it slide back into its scabbard.

The two looked over the scene, lost in their own thoughts. They felt grateful for the considerably lesser evidence of their kills – vampire dust meant no cleaning up after themselves.

Kaien looked at Yagari with a smile. "Let's go, shall we?"

"…Yeah."

They seldom got paired up after that, though Yagari saw a lot more of the young hunter in the Association, shuttling here and there on various jobs. Kaien always spared him a brief, apologetic glance when they met and failed to exchange more than a few words. It became routine; more threads weaved to strengthen the bond between them with each hello.

For the first time, Yagari considered someone a friend within the Association. No one else in there smiled that way – most were full-fledged adults, too embittered by the constant killing to offer a genuine enough smile. It wasn't enough for him.

Wasn't it ironic, then, that the only one capable of it had a higher headcount than most adults?

The number swelled with each hunt, and no matter how hard Yagari tried he just couldn't beat that. It became a friendly rivalry of sorts – one which Kaien always topped without much trouble, much to the latter's chagrin.

The difference in skill was obvious. Emulating Kaien was out of the question, however, as they favoured different weapons. Kaien was perfection personified, talented, careful and somehow distant despite his apparent openness.

So it came as a huge shock when he saw Kaien – by chance, whilst strolling along a corridor – stumbling and limping, bleeding from numerous nasty wounds. He must have failed to hide his gasp of shock, because Kaien looked up and tried to smile.

"Yag---"

Yagari caught him as he fell. He held the boy carefully in his hands like he would a figurine of porcelain, or of delicate glass – quite afraid of letting it break. Kaien's breathing was disturbingly shallow, dragged and laboured with pain. The smile he had tried to nurture broke before it was even born.

Concerned, he called for assistance and brought Kaien to the infirmary (and he was far too light, he thought, frowning), where the doctors fussed over him behind thick green curtains. He waited outside, locking his fingers and unlocking them again as he kept constant vigil on the circular red light above the door, brows creasing in worry.

It was a good few hours later before he saw Kaien again. He had been nodding off, tired now that his adrenaline had bled out, but he got up upon hearing the doctors leave, boots clicking briefly on the tiled floor.

It was unnerving to see Kaien like that – frail, silent and unmoving, eyes closed in a restless sleep. Yagari felt almost hesitant to come closer at all.

He looked so small, it was scary. Kaien wasn't supposed to look like this. He was always strong, always reliable, never…weak.

"Yagari?" Kaien rasped. His voice was faint, barely audible over the monotonous beeping of the machines. Eyelids fluttered for a fraction of a second as he struggled to wake.

"You all right?" Yagari was quick to place a reassuring hand on Kaien's, noting its lack of warmth keenly. Kaien's fingers twitched.

"Mm. Was unlucky." He tried to sit up – and winced, splayed a hand on his left breast, fisting skin and bandages. A look of pain flitted across his features.

"Don't strain yourself," Yagari admonished as he helped Kaien to lie down again, propping his pillows so that they accommodated his weight better. He stared at the boy for a while. "What happened?" he said at last.

Kaien coughed before he could answer; it sounded quiet, restrained to keep it polite, but the way his face scrunched up and drained of colour told of a great pain. Yagari held his hand throughout his all, tightening his grip to let him know he was there.

Gasps tore their way through Kaien's exhausted windpipe by the time his coughs abated, frantically groping for air to replace the amount he had lost. His hand came away bloodied. With one last sigh, he closed his eyes and fell back onto his pillows.

"Sorry about that." A tired chuckle. "Wasn't expecting such damage."

Damage, he called it. Not injury, or wound, or cut – but damage. It made it sound like Kaien didn't care much for his body, like the condition of his body was nothing more than some functioning machine gone awry. Yagari didn't like that.

"Damage, hmm?" he murmured, trailing a finger up Kaien's strapped arm. He could feel muscles trembling under his touch, unused to the sensation. With mild amusement, he realised that Kaien probably felt very helpless. How long had it been since he last landed immobile in bed?

He pressed a tender wound on purpose, eliciting a startled yelp from the bedridden youth.

"Watcha do that for?" Kaien said indignantly.

"To check the extent of the damage." He continued prodding, refusing to meet Kaien's eyes.

"Oh." Kaien was sarcastic. "Have fun."

"I will."

Silence.

"…Done yet?"

"You wish." Poke-poke. "Since it's only damage I'm sure you won't mind a few more bruises."

Kaien hissed when his arm was pinched rather viciously. "That hurt, you idiot. There's a limit to everything you know!"

"And there's a limit to self-depreciation too!" Yagari snapped. "Humans don't get damaged – they get hurt. Get that into your head."

Kaien turned away at that, and if Yagari weren't more observant he would have sworn the life in Kaien's eyes just died out. It was a trick of the light, he amended.

"Sorry." The youth flashed him a smile, all traces of hostility gone. "Hurt, then."

But it didn't sound sincere.

Yagari sighed and dropped the hand he was playing with. That Kaien…. "When will you get well?"

"Hmm." Kaien tried to lift his sword arm; it failed to budge. "I wonder. The da---the injury was quite bad."

He coughed again, politely turning away from Yagari. It was brief; a minute's worth, a small chink of time, but the mysterious hacking sounds that accompanied his coughs caught Yagari's attention. Kaien breathed out carefully.

"Oi. Oi, Kaien."

"Yes?"

"How bad is it really?"

Another bout of silence.

"I wonder." Kaien smiled at him.

The chair he was sitting soon screeched as he pushed it back. "If you won't tell me I'll ask the doctors."

He hadn't taken more than a few steps before Kaien's weak fingers grasped a fistful of his coat, stopping him.

"Don't bother," Kaien said. "They don't know either."

Yagari tugged his coat free. He spared Kaien a sidelong glance, eyes blazing. "Then who does?"

Kaien managed something between a shrug and a wince. "Me?"

Yagari forced himself to take a deep breath. "You," he repeated. "In that case," he strode up to the other boy and pulled him up to eye level by his neck, uncaring of Kaien's sharp cry, "you are going to tell me everything I want to know."

"Ya-ga-ri---" Kaien choked, left hand grappling for purchase on Yagari's toned arms. Something cracked, and he drew back with a cry, letting his hand drop lifeless into his lap to join his right. Wheezing sounds rushed from his lips.

Concerned, Yagari loosened his hold and let Kaien fall back, instinctively checking his pulse and recoiling when something shifted underneath the pale skin.

"It's broken?"

"Probably," Kaien gritted out, his voice laced with agony.

Anger coiled like an angry beast around Yagari's heart, finding its outlet in a punch that shook the walls. The backlash sent electric jolts down his arm, but he ignored that, closing his eyes in emotional anguish.

"Yagari?"

"Shut up," he snapped. "Just shut up if you're not telling me how you're really feeling."

Kaien shut his mouth – his teeth clicked with the abruptness of his action – and looked away. Yagari waited for the confession to come, but nothing could be heard save for Kaien's soft, shallow breathing.

He cursed under his breath. Pivoting on his heel, ready to rebuke, he mustered a glare and---

---And saw Kaien, fast asleep. Then he could only gape.

He'd seen Kaien in many situations before – hunting, eating, talking, smiling; always with a handle of control over everything he did. But in sleep he just let it all go, sliding out of his mask into that of the child he really was. It felt different; hell, it looked different. Like he was seeing a whole new Cross Kaien.

Yagari sighed and ran a hand through his unruly black hair. Thinking about Kaien was frustrating. He was an enigma, an ambiguous case at best. How charming.

Having nothing better to do, he pulled his chair back and sat at Kaien's side, elbows on the bed. He watched the boy – the incongruous sinking and rising of his chest, the occasional hitching of his breath, the way his expression was strained, even in sleep….

Damage, huh? Yagari chuckled humourlessly. Kaien needn't suffer if his could be repaired like a machine's could. Comparing himself to an android, indeed.

It was irony at its best, really. He thought he had Kaien's full trust – they were friends, were they not? – yet in truth Kaien wouldn't impart to him even something as simple as the status of his being. Why wouldn't he?

Yagari gripped the bedcovers tightly in his gloved fists, almost bursting with hurt. The fabric stretched thin under the stress, revealing tiny, square-shaped gaps in between the threads.

Was that how weak their friendship was – punctuated with holes in every iota of its breadth?

Was it?

A silent gasp; a gurgled choke; Yagari was alert at once, and it morphed into alarm when he saw Kaien struggling to breathe, his efforts weak and futile. Froth bubbled up at the corners of his mouth.

"Hey Kaien. Wake up, Kaien!"

Kaien's lithe body curled into itself out of pure instinct. It served more harm than good – squeezed his lungs more than necessary, but a reflex was a reflex, tough to unwind. His brow creased.

His words were lost in his escaped breaths, but Yagari somehow deciphered enough from the bare movements of his lips: Kaien was asking him to stay away.

He didn't know why, and he certainly didn't dare fret over it, so he turned a deaf ear and did the exact opposite of what Kaien asked for, chair crashing to the floor at the brevity of his move.

Strong hands scooped Kaien up, forcing him into an upright position to aid respiration. It helped a little, but Kaien struggled, this time ignoring the cracks that accompanied it. Yagari growled.

"Kaien! Wake up, I say!"

"No, sor-ry, lemme go…." Kaien whimpered. Hands curled in, nails digging into the flesh of his palms. Yagari heard another sickening crack.

His breathing was ragged now, but less often, more painful. Kaien's mouth moved weakly, forming unspoken words that Yagari failed to understand. No matter; his grip was slackening, head lolling to rest on the crook of Yagari's neck---

Yagari reached up and pressed the emergency button just as Kaien became little more than a limp puppet in his arms.

Yagari himself overlooked the doctor's evaluation of Kaien's injuries this time, frowning as he sat on a chair several meters away from the bustling group of white-clad medics in the room. He'd call the atmosphere silent, but he couldn't because it was rich with tension amid the annoying, continuous clicking of shoes on marble tiles.

He looked over at where Kaien was, mostly obscured by fussy doctors and stained blankets. Yagari was given the task of restricting Kaien's autonomy should he wake. Drugs didn't work – the doctors had learned from experience earlier in the day and trashed any notion of using sedatives on him.

Already Kaien had tried to wake three times, back arching and muscles straining as he fought to free himself of the leather belts that bound him. Yagari hid a wince every time he placed a gloved hand over Kaien's nose and mouth, blocking his airways to induce unconsciousness; it was a cruel act, but a necessary one if Kaien was to live.

He would never forget the look of pain-dulled betrayal that shone in the boy's eyes.

The doctors looked grim a few hours into the check-up, and true silence descended as they got out their horrible surgical tools and used them on Kaien. He woke up in the middle of it again, and Yagari was forced to close his eyes against Kaien's screams when he felt sharp surgical knives carving into his flesh.

This time, Yagari pressed some pressure points to save him from the pain, and Kaien sank back into a fitful rest with tears streaking down his face.

They worked deep into the next morning without much respite. Within those hours Yagari batted away sleep and thirst and hunger, because what was he to do if they required his assistance while he was gone? It wasn't too high a price to pay for a friend, he thought, pinching the bridge of his nose to fend off the ague in his head.

The doctors were almost done now. A few were still stitching up Kaien's wounds, but the rest were already pulling their latex gloves off their hands. Yagari shuddered to think of the amount of blood Kaien lost – the discarded gloves and cotton balls alone filled up an entire wastebasket, all soaked in crimson.

He approached Kaien's bed the moment he was given a thumbs-up, staggering a little before his feet regained mobility. If possible, Kaien looked worse than before, swathed in so many bandages he might as well have been mummified. Yagari sighed.

The heart monitor beside the bed was beeping with a comforting steadiness, though, and with one last glance to confirm that, Yagari fell asleep.

The first thing that met his eyes was white. Lots and lots of white. It spilled from the ceiling and bleached the walls and crawled onto his skin on blankets and bandages, almost blinding him with its pristine quality. His eyelids felt heavy, glued by sleep, and he found it difficult to pry them open enough to look around at all.

The distant beeping of machines hummed in the background. Vaguely, he wondered why until he tried to lift his arm and saw thin tubes leading to them, their needle heads buried under his skin and secured with tape. He breathed – and realised he was being aided by a respirator.

Kaien closed his eyes and turned away. The memory still stung in his mind, fresh and cutting in its newborn glory. He couldn't believe he did it. How could he – him, Cross Kaien – commit such a grave error? How could he?

Why was he still alive when he certainly deserved to die?

He fisted his blankets in anger, feeling his muscles complain under the constraints of splints.

"Yo, Kaien." Yagari rubbed his eyes, awakened by the pulling of the blankets. How long had he been asleep? He glanced at Kaien, who was trying to put up a façade to hide the raw pain in his heart.

"Ah, Yagari. Hello." Kaien smiled and relaxed his fist, noticing how hoarse his voice was after his sleep. He could briefly recall flashes of what transpired over the past hours – of agony, of desperate struggling against binds, of seeing his own friend betray him….

Kaien exhaled slowly, forcing himself to show a calm face. "How long have you been here?" he asked.

"A while."

"I see."

Yagari was getting sick of the silence that kept permeating their conversations. Why was it always like this? He ran a hand through his wavy black hair, frowning.

"You could've died."

"I know." Kaien refused to meet his eyes.

"Did you want to?"

"…Yes. I did."

"Why?" He couldn't resist popping the question. Where was the cheerful, upbeat Kaien he knew? He couldn't ever recall seeing Kaien looking so subdued before….

"Ah, something happened," Kaien said nonchalantly, but his trembling shoulders belied his precarious position. Yagari noticed it right away – Kaien's smile was getting more fake by the second. Where was the smile he had come to like?

He didn't want to lose that, not after losing so much already.

"You…well," he struggled to find the appropriate words, unsure of what to say, "if you want to tell, I'm right here."

Kaien laughed, though his eyes looked haunted and empty. "Thank you. I appreciate that, but it's not needed." He set his mouth in a firm line when he saw Yagari's dubious look. "Really," he insisted.

"Right. And you're not crying right now."

"Am not!"

"Uh huh." Yagari rolled his eyes and wiped away the stray tear on Kaien's cheek. Kaien's face was warm to the touch despite its waxen appearance, a sharp contrast with the definite downturn of his mouth. He was irked. It dissipated as soon as it came, giving leeway to a sudden tiredness that left Kaien slumping deeper into his pillows, anger erased.

"Please leave," he murmured.

Yagari had a sudden impulse to reach out and muss Kaien's hair, but he refrained from doing so when Kaien shied away from his hand, eyes closed involuntarily in---was that fear? Apprehension? He didn't pry, though. He'd done enough of that already.

"Take care, all right?" he said instead.

But Kaien had turned away, lost in whatever despair he harboured within himself.

Yagari hesitated at the door, hand pausing on the cold metal handle that bit into his palm. He could almost hear Kaien's mental barriers shattering, in the way his breathing came more heavily, more harshly controlled.

After much contemplation, he turned the handle and left, if only to salvage what was left of Kaien's dignity as a hunter, and as a man.

It turned out to be the right thing to do – though the Cross Kaien that emerged from the room was never quite the same as before; sadder and less buoyant – and in return, for the first time, Yagari found himself a best friend.

. owari .

Okay, I'd better explain some things before you readers run around in confusion. Ahaha. In chronological order…firstly, Kaien woke up in the middle of his first check-up and rejected it (with threats and coercion, anyone?), hence the doctors' ignorance of the severity of his injuries. He woke up only in the middle of it, though, so some parts of his body (like his chest and sword arm) have been seen to.

EDIT (25/11/08): Okay, since YenGirl commented on the fact that I used Kaien/Yagari instead of Cross/Yagari like the norm...I just had to concoct an excuse somehow. So. Yagari already feels that he is close to Kaien, AS A FRIEND, hence his calling Kaien by his first name. Kaien, as stated in the fic, is still distant and doesn't consider himself close enough to anyone to call them on a first-name basis, so he calls Yagari by his surname. Is this explanation acceptable? Yes? Good. Lol.

Is there anything else I must clarify?

There will be a sister story to this one, explaining what exactly the Chairman-to-be regrets so much to the point of feeling suicidal. So I shan't spill any more of that one yet!

On a side note, I'll been brewing this other fic for a while, but unfortunately (or fortunately?) my dreams were dashed when most of it turned out to be canon in chapter 45 of the manga. Sob. So should I still write it and put up a notice disregarding the latest chapter, or should I ditch it altogether? Or should I modify it a bit and put up a notice?

Send feedback, people! It's much appreciated. Reviews and criticism (but please, no nonsensical flames) encourage me to write faster, hehe.