How to Bond with an Ancient.

So, things were certainly more than a little awkward between her and Ulrich now. In the following two weeks they had seen each other perhaps four times. And three of those were only in passing. It saddened her; spending time with him had become something she looked forward to every day. At least she had a lot of homework to keep her busy.

She passed Milly once, seeing the girl sparked a violent mix of emotions, fear, and anger, and hatred, and deeper down, regret and compassion. She didn't know of the other girl had seen her. Yumi had no real desire to confront her.

One pleasant surprise however, was running into William on a cloudy day in the courtyard. Ever since her 'accident' she had refused to leave the building when it was sunny. The trek to and from home was now a trek to and from the main entrance to a waiting car, with blacked out windows. The conversation about her foolishness had been uncomfortable enough.

William was sitting on a bench, humming a tune she couldn't recognize. When she stopped next to him, he stood and bowed to her. "Hello Miss Ishiyama. I see you are looking as radiant as ever." He took her hand and made to kiss the back of her hand, but she pulled it away from him. He smiled sheepishly, even though she had acquired new gloves, just like her old ones, the outline of the cross was still evident on her hand.

"My apologies. Would you like to sit with me for a moment? Perhaps we could talk?"

She nodded curtly, a little put off by his manners. "I would, that would be pleasant." In her youth, this would have been scandalous, sitting with a strange boy.

"You are very young, aren't you?"

She bit back a curt reply. He was trying to show interest in her, as opposed to just wanting to know how old she is. "yes, yes I am. My centennial is- she counted back the years in her head for a moment- a little over two years away now."

He smiled; the first one she had seen that reached his eyes. "I haven't met someone so young in a long time."

She fidgeted a little, unsure how to address that. "And you? When did you die?"

"Sometime around the beginning of the fifteen hundreds. I don't really know, we didn't keep such accurate track of time. It wasn't important."

Yumi reeled; she was talking to someone who had been around for over five hundred years. He wonder he was so strange, look at how much things had changed in the last hundred years.

"I know, it's a lot to take in. there's a point when it stops being fun." He shrugged. "I see your all cleared up. You took my advice?"

"I'm glad. It would have been a shame for you to remain like that for any longer than necessary." He shifted uncomfortably as a pair of boys walked by, laughing raucously at something. "I don't want to pry, but…"

"You want to know who?" he nodded. "Ulrich." The word was difficult to say; as it brought up once more the loneliness she had begun to feel here at Kadic.

"You have an extremely trusting friend, Miss Ishiyama."

"I think I scared him. He doesn't want to talk to me anymore it seems."

"Maybe, maybe not. Being bitten and drained has a different effect on different people. Most likely he's trying to reconcile everything. It can make things… difficult for a human."

Panic gripped at her heart. Had her selfishness hurt her only true friend? Now she knew she had to go see him. But she had to know what William had intended to do, why he seemed so interested in her.

"Why did you help me William? You could have left me in the infirmary and I would have been none the wiser."

He was silent. "Please don't take this the wrong way. But I feel drawn to you. You inspire hope in me."

That was certainly a strange thing to say.

She must have been looking at him strangely because he decided to elaborate.

He took her hand, holding it almost pleadingly. "It's been so long since I've had a chance to connect with anyone, even among our own kind. You're so young, so full of energy. You're even making friends with mortals. I haven't met someone like you in a very long time." He smiled. "It's refreshing. And, of course, I've been where you were. I know what it's like to be burned like that."

Yumi swallowed hard. Gathering her courage to ask the question that had been resting in the back of her head. She had to know if she was cut out for this life. She found she couldn't actually look at him. So she bit her cheek and pressed on anyway. She had always been told she was too headstrong when she was alive, now was the time to put that to good use.

"Was it bad for you?" he nodded, but she didn't see. "I mean, did you want it to end? Desperately?"

Her questions were greeted only by silence, which grew ever longer.

"We were born in the darkness. Exposure to the light is an anathema to us. Yumi, there is no shame in wanting release from such things; it is in the very core of what we are to fear it. It doesn't make you weak, I assure you."

She could tell that his words were heartfelt, and that they were truly intended to make her feel better about herself, but they just were not enough. There was still the darkness of that moment when she gave into despair eating away at her. She felt as if it would consume her.

His arm was around her shoulders holding her. It felt weird to her; the only other person to hold her like that in decades was Ulrich. The only person before that had been her fiancé. She bit her lip, feeling her fangs shift inside her gums. She really didn't know how to react to this, but she had to admit, the gnawing feeling had subsided again.