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Kurama tended to inspire extreme reactions from the people in his life. It made sense to him. Yoko Kurama had been infamous in the Makai before his death. He was a legend, the King of Thieves. He had been feared and sought after in equal measure. Shuichi Minamino led a charmed existence in the Ningenkai. He was beloved by his human mother and greatly admired by his coworkers.
The Kurama that currently existed as a merged mixture of fox spirit and human body inspired an appropriate mix of fear and awe. Those who drew his ire and lived to tell the tale knew that he did not believe in mercy. His friends and teammates knew that he was as brilliant, and trusted him completely. He was feared like Yoko, and loved like Shuichi.
Hiei had been his closest teammate. Kurama had earned Hiei’s respect early on. He knew more of Hiei’s secrets than anyone else. He had been the demon’s closest, and often his only, confidant for years. Yet in the end Hiei had rejected him (in favor of a woman with only half a face). Hiei had chosen Mukuro. Kurama had never before dealt with rejection in either of his lives, and he didn’t know how to handle it. It was an unbearable feeling.
Kurama had spent every moment since Hiei had left for the Mekai ignoring the fact that he had never quite actually confessed to Hiei. It was simply too pathetic to be thrown so off keel by a rejection that may not have properly existed. He had given plenty of opportunity for Hiei to confess, of course. He had kept his window unlocked. He had made a show of smiling openly and teasing gently. He had tried project the image of someone who had nothing to hide, and nothing to hold back.
“I am safe, I am not a threat. I will never discard you, give yourself to me and I will treasure you.”
Hiei had not taken the bait, if indeed he had even been aware of its existence. Kurama had found himself growing desperate as he watched the one he coveted fall into Mukuro’s (inferior) embrace. He had willed himself to tell Hiei how he felt, and found himself unable to speak. Kurama had never told anyone anything without having at least an inkling of how the other person would react.
“I need you to say it first. I need to know you love me so I can safely tell you I love you.”
When Hiei had thrust his tear gem into Kurama’s hands after the second tournament, Kurama had taken the opportunity to allude to a relationship between the two of them for the first time. Hiei had bristled at the fox’s words, but not the way Kurama had wanted him to. Kurama had wanted him flushed, stuttering, and vulnerable. Kurama had wanted to pry Hiei open like an oyster, and yet Hiei had left with his shell still intact.
Kurama’s days after the dissolution of the barrier were softly insubstantial. It was easy to keep his coworkers at a polite distance. He waved off invitations to drinking parties and offered to work overtime. He occasionally helped Kuwabara with his coursework or stopped at Yusuke’s ramen stand after work. He no longer had to sort through accounts of his days to find what was appropriate to be shared at family dinners, but he found he could share even less of his thoughts than he could when he stood as an ally of the spirit detective. It would not do to share his dissatisfaction with his work at his stepfather’s company, much less his wounded heart.
“I could have held this job when I was still a child in this body. The mediocrity of this job leaves me free to spend my time grieving the loss of a potential relationship with a criminal yokai, which, incidentally, is what I am as well.”
Kurama’s mother was to be treasured every bit as she had always been, but she did not need her son in her life to the same extent she had when he was younger. Kurama had celebrated his Coming of Age day with a meal at a family restaurant. He had watched Kazuya gently rest his fingers on Shiori’s wrist while they ate. Shiori smiled radiantly at her husband, and touched her hand to his. Kurama had felt a very human sense of relief wash over him. He was not needed at his childhood home.
Kurama had begun searching for his own housing almost immediately after his realization. He quickly settled on a six tatami apartment. He prioritized the prime location of his new den over its tiny size. All he needed was room for his plants, a tiny stove, and a futon. His new apartment came with a very short commute. His mind had been too free to wander on the more lengthy train rides into the office.
“Would he have wanted me when I was Yoko? Is it my lack of power? My merged form? Why? Why? Why?”
Kurama often found himself taking the train to the late Genkai’s temple on his days off from work. Those days were too full of time to drift in his own thoughts, and his own self loathing.
Yukina had continued to live in the temple after Genkai’s death. The temple had gradually become a destination for the injured, as well as for yokai wanting to learn the art of healing. Kurama had begun to visit out of a sense of polite obligation, making sure Yukina was alright. He kept coming back and teaching Yukina about healing plants. He had gradually progressed to helping her grow a garden full of rare and beneficial plants from all three of the worlds.
Kurama would have rather gone to his grave for a second time than admit what a balm Yukina was to his wounded, possessive heart. Looking down and meeting her eyes was familiar and welcome in a way that nothing else was. Her hair was wrong the wrong color, and her gentle smile was the wrong expression. Hiei had never smiled like that. She stood at the right height, however, and her eyes were just the right shade of red. Those bright red eyes were more right than anything else at that sad, sluggish point in the fox’s second life.
If Yukina had grown surprised at the increasing frequency of Kurama’s visits she was too polite to show it. Kurama was very deliberately refusing to track the number his visits to the temple, but he couldn’t ignore that this was third Sunday in a row that he had appeared at Yukina’s doors. He carried a new book on plant husbandry this time, and resisted his impulse of holding it out as a combination of shield and bribe.
Yukina stood outside the temple, hanging a large batch of wet sheets and towels up to dry in the sun. Kurama wondered how much muck and blood they had recently been covered in. Yukina professed to hate fighting, but she seemed supremely unbothered by even the goriest of injuries. Kurama decided not to remark on this fact. Yukina never seemed to need compliments. (He didn’t need the parts of Yukina that didn’t reflect in her brother. Hiei was no healer.)
Yukina greeted Kurama with a smile, and accepted the new book with a polite thank you. The two began to discuss the growth of their newest experimental hybrid. It was a crossbreed of Nejinkai’s chimpahila umbellata and a fast growing species of hardy Mekai vines.
Kurama examined one of the new sprouts with gentle hands, and mused “Ideally the plants natural healing properties will be greatly enhanced by the crossing, and undiluted by the process of harvest and preservation.
“Yes. You had mentioned these vines remain fresh for days after being cut. I’m hoping this translates to the medicine I make being especially potent, if the plant’s long living properties remain in this new cross” Yukina responded.
“Why don’t we take a cutting today, and you can track how long it takes to wither. I’ll find out next week.”
“Next week? I just invited myself a week ahead of time. This is pathetic.”
Yukina did not remark on the reference to the upcoming week, only smiling as she stood up and dusted off her kimono.
The rest of the morning passed with the two making quick work of the temple’s upkeep. Kurama set to withering the weeds in the garden with his youki, and watched out of the corners of his eyes as Yukina busied herself at the koi pond. She seemed to truly adore the fish, and talked to them while they fed.
“Ah, Momo, you eat too much! Leave some for your sister, she needs to get bigger! Taro, you have to eat a lot and catch up, okay? Where’s Shio? Is he resting somewhere? Ah, there you are! Eat up Shio, before Momo eats it all. Tamago is a good child, she eats just her share and no more. You all should learn from her.”
Kurama startled as Yukina turned to him. Had she caught him staring?
“It’s close to lunchtime for us too, Kurama-san. Let’s go ahead and eat.”
“I wouldn’t want you to trouble yourself, please allow me to help make lunch.”
“Not at all, it’s all prepared. I usually make extra in case I have visitors.” Yukina giggled. “I can always freeze what I don’t eat.”
The pair headed inside to the kitchen. Kurama retrieved plates and cups before he sat at his usual cushion at the low table. He was unsettled by how familiar he had become in the temple. How many times had he eaten here?
Yukina brought out a tray of food and tea. “I apologize, I would have made something more elaborate than this had I known you were coming to help me today.”
“Not at all, salmon and mayo riceballs are delicious.”
Yukina glanced through her new books index as she ate, occasionally asking a question about human botany that Kurama would have an immediate answer for. Kurama implored himself not to stare at Yukina whenever she glanced to her book. He tried not to imagine her with her hair tangled. In his mind’s eye he could see her, frowning and cloaked in black, a sword in her hand instead of a book.
Kurama was almost grateful when he was thrust out of his wretched daydreams by none other than Kuwabara. The tall man had dashed into the sitting room, hurriedly apologizing for coming in without knocking. He carefully laid out an unconscious stranger onto the floor. The stranger was badly injured, the exposed muscle and broken bone of his terribly mangled right arm and torso bleeding all over the tatami.
“This bus was going way too fast and threw him off his bike right in front of me. I caught a portal over, seemed faster and better than than the hospital and I know you can do bones better if they’re fresh-”
“It’s alright Kazuma.” Yukina had rolled the sleeves of her yukata up, and her fingers gently probed the deepest of the gashes. “I don’t have anything that would work for these kinds of wounds prepared, but I should still be able to set him right.” Yukina’s bare hands glowed with her healing powers as she traced up and down the ruin of the stranger’s arm.
Kurama ignored the sour taste of jealousy in his mouth. “Yukina-san, is there anything you need me to fetch?”
“No thank you.” Yukina’s voice was far away and focused.
Kurama turned to Kuwabara, and forced himself into a polite tone. “Kuwabara, your quick thinking has saved this man from a great deal of pain. You’ve done well. If there’s nothing either of you need, I’ll go ahead and clear up.”
Kuwabara shook his head at the offer, and Kurama excused himself to clear the table. He headed to the sink and began to rinse the dishes. He ignored the drying wrack in favor of drying each cup and plate by hand. Kurama knew he was dawdling, but he simply couldn’t bear to watch Yukina heal a stranger, or see the way Kuwabara looked at the koorime as she worked. Kurama had been very carefully avoided thinking of Kuwabara’s feelings for Yukina, and he intended to continue to do so. Kuwabara had been nothing but a loyal friend to him, and didn’t deserve any of his rottenhearted ire.
Kurama listened from the kitchen as an unfamiliar voice gasped awake. Kuwabara proudly explained Yukina’s abilities, and the stranger began to express his gratitude towards the both of them. Kurama stood very still. Only when he heard two sets of retreating footsteps did he take a deep breath and splashed his face with cold water. He took a long moment to compose himself before he exited the kitchen to go back to the dining room.
Yukina was lying prone on the floor. Did she use so much of her energy that she needed to sleep?
“Is she hibernating? Hibernating like her brother did, her brother who left forever for Alaric, and the last time he was back in this damnable world I could smell Mukuro on his skin. He stank of that woman and he didn’t even come to see me, he only came to fight Yuusuke and barely looked at me.”
Kurama’s body had continued to move across the room as his mind spiraled. He chided himself that he must make sure Yukina was fine instead of succumbing to his latest bought of self loathing.
The fox knelt beside the koorime, and tried to bring himself back to the present. He saw the slight rise and fall of Yukina’s chest with each breath. He held his hand out just above her nose, and felt the cool puffs of air she exhaled. Her breathing and temperature were regular. Yukina was simply asleep.
Had Yukina ever resembled Hiei more than in this moment? Her face was slack, wiped of any trace of the composure, joys, and sorrows that her brother refused to emote. Her hair was mussed, voluminous, spread around her face. Her hands had been wiped clean, but Kurama could smell the traces of blood that clung to them. This sleeping Yukina was truly the light haired Hiei analogue Kurama’s wounded heart wanted her to be.
Yukina’s sleeping face was the very mirror of Hiei’s. They had the same small nose, the same rounded chin, and most of all the same shape of mouth. Kurama had spent far to much of his teenage years thinking of Hiei’s mouth. Yukina’s was just the same shade of pale pink, with the same slightly plumper upper lip. Her canines were not as pronounced as her brother’s, but they were otherwise identical.
Kurama (who had always prided himself most on his layered mind and his unshakable self control) watched like a bystander as his fingers wound their way into Yukina’s green hair. He dipped until his face was only just above hers, stopping just short of brushing Yukina’s lips. He was absolutely still, barely breathing. He closed his eyes. He wanted to kiss her. If he couldn’t have what he truly wanted couldn’t he at least have this?
Kurama felt the phantom sensation of the fox ears he no longer possessed perking strait up, alerting him to danger. The sound of Yukina’s deep, sleeping breaths had ceased. The fox’s eyes shot open to meet Yukina’s. Her eyes were wide open, staring at his face, inches from hers.
Kurama froze, wide eyed and blank faced.
“I could tell her I thought she was hurt, I thought something had slipped in and taken her soul hostage, I thought I might need to resuscitate her, or should I just ignore the situation and inquire on her health with my best disarming smile?”
Kurama was stopped from selecting which story was best to tell by the sight of Yukina’s lips forming a soft, questioning “o” and then stopping before she making a sound. Her eyes narrowed, and she began to sit up as Kurama hurried to slide away from her.
Yukina smoothed her hair. The slightest trace of a knowing smirk graced her features. This smirking Yukina resembled Hiei even more than the sleeping Yukina had.
“Kurama-san”
The fox’s heart shuddered. Yukina’s voice and posture were different than any he had seen her use before. He had never seen how she held herself inside Terukane’s cell, but he imagined this must have been close.
“So controlled. So Unyielding. Icy. She is truly a koorime. I thought she was different than the others, but I see now. This is her natural state. The gentle love that she feels for her simple life, her friends, her fish, that is what she makes effort to cultivate. The warmth takes effort. This cold is effortless.”
Yukina spoke at last. “Kurama-san, forgive me if I’ve misunderstood, but are you no longer in love with my brother?”
His green eyes met hers and he suddenly understood. Yukina’s mouth formed a pleasant smile, but her eyes were heavy with understanding. Yukina knew Hiei was her brother. She knew that Kurama has been pining over Hiei. At some point she must have begun to suspect that Kurama was overlapping his feelings for Hiei onto her. She knew why his visits had grown so frequent. She had accepted his help with her plants and his gifts with a gentle smile, and she had given nothing away until she had caught him.
“I must say it is a new experience to have my face coveted instead of my tears. I would have expected you to try and sniff out a hidden stash of hiruiseki stones instead of this. A thief is still a thief, even wrapped in a new skin, right Kurama-san?”
Yukina watched as Kurama’s face twisted at her words, and smiled a cold smile. “Kazuma knows a few pieces of your story, and Yuusuke-san knows a few others. Botan-san knows a fair bit more than either of them, and she always loves to talk. I’m sure Hiei-san knows more than anyone else about you, but he really doesn’t want to visit and chat with either of us, does he?”
Kurama grit his teeth, and stood up without speaking. Yukina had more or less ran a background check him, and she had taken him completely by surprise. He would leave, and he would come back with the Flower of Forgetfulness. Yukina was not a fighter. He had nothing to fear from her. He would erase her memories of his past, cease his visits, and keep his secrets safe.
“Kurama-san. You have something I want, and I can offer much in return.”
“It’s a trap, it’s bait, I need to go and get the pollen, I need to ignore her, she has nothing I truly desire.”
Kurama turned, despite himself. He answered her cold tone with his own. “Yukina-san, what can you possibly offer to me? I know the location of all Yoko’s old dens and hidden treasures. I’ve no need for you to cry for me. You said yourself that Hiei won’t visit you. You can’t lure him here for me.”
“Yes Kurama-san, but even if I could lure him here, and even if he loved you, he couldn’t give you the life you want. You don’t long to grow more powerful by battling beside beside Hiei in the Mekai. This world and your human mother have tamed you. You want peace, don’t you? Such a tame fox. You want a peaceful life with him. Otherwise you wouldn’t have suggested growing a garden together. You would have offered to teach me to fight so you could imagine sparring with him.”
Kurama felt bile rise in his throat. He only just stopped himself from summoning his whip. “Even if you are right, it doesn’t matter. You said so yourself that I will never have any of that.”
“Not with him, Kurama-san, but you could have it with me. I am the only other creature in all the worlds who is the same as Hiei-san. We spent nine months as close as anyone could be inside of our mother’s body. I do not have his abilities, but I have his blood in my veins. I am the closest possible substitute, I would be very safe to bring home to your mother, wouldn’t I? I’m sure she worries for her lonely, tame fox of a son.”
“I’m surprised you dare to bring her into this.” Kurama snarled. “What about Kuwabara? He’s always been smitten with you. Why would you give that up for a charade with me?”
“Kazuma is truly kind. The gentlest part of me adores him. He wants to protect me forever, but he will be dead in eighty years if he lives to his maximum lifespan. I am always going to be targeted for my tears, Kurama-san. You are the most intelligent being I have ever met. I have no doubt you can unearth relics and techniques that will protect me for the rest of my considerable lifespan.”
Yukina paused for a moment, before she sighed and continued to speak, not breaking eye contact with Kurama’s tense form. “I suppose I will be honest with you, as I truly want us to come to an arrangement. My well-being is secondary. I’d never have come to Ningenkai if I valued myself most. I want your knowledge of Hiei-san You will tell me everything you know of Hiei-san, every word he has ever said to you, every scrap of knowledge you have ever gleaned about him, and everything you can use your considerable connections to find out about his past and present. If you will allow me to know my brother in this way, I will become his replacement for you. You can have your quiet human experiences with me.”
“You could ask someone to find him, and talk to him yourself. Your plan is needlessly complicated.” Kurama choked out.
“I cannot. If my brother refused me, I couldn’t bear it. And so I cannot ask him. You and I are very alike, Kurama-san. I cannot bear to give him the chance to reject me. You knew him best, at least until Mukuro-san.” There was that smirk again. So very like her brother.
Kurama left the room without speaking to Yukina. He forced himself to take unhurried steps through the hall. He slipped on his shoes at the genkan hoping he presented the very picture of calm, even though Yukina had not deigned to following him. His walk to the train was a furious blur.
“How dare she pretend to know my wants. She is nothing, and she will remember nothing of me.”
Kurama stalked into his apartment, and flooded his flowers with his youki. His plants had always fed from his emotions as well as his energy, and he knew the flowers of forgetfulness he harvested would respond to his fury with supreme potency. He would be a stranger to Yukina. She may even forget they had ever met. He would have to explain it away eventually, but it wouldn’t pose too much of a problem. It could be easily excused as an accidental effect of the plants they had grown together.
Kurama had harvested and jarred a fresh batch of pollen in a matter of minutes, and he began the journey back to Yukina’s. The fox did not announce his presence, nor did he bother to remove his shoes at the entrance. Yukina did not deserve his respect. He could sense her in the innermost room in the temple.
“She is nothing compared to him and he will be nothing to me someday and I will need nothing from either of them.”
Yukina didn’t so much as twitch in response to his bursting into her bedroom. She looked to have been getting ready for bed. Her hair was loose and damp, her nightdress clean and white. She stared at the bottle in his hands as he prepared to uncap it.
“It really is a shame, Kurama-san.”
Kurama, who prided himself as a creature who never stumbled, watched like a stranger to his own body as his fingers twitched. The bottle slipped from his hands and fell to the floor. A thick burst of pollen began to seep from a crack in the glass.
“Oh.”
Kurama rushed forward, and clamped his hand firmly over Yukina’s nose and mouth. He swept Yukina into his arms without removing his hand from her face. The air in the room was already thick with pollen. If it wasn’t already to late, it would be the moment Yukina took a breath.
Kurama rushed back down the hall. Yukina wasn’t struggling to remove his hand. Either she was asleep and the pollen had already taken effect, or she knew what he was trying to accomplish.
The fox fled from the house before he stuttered to a halt. Their hair, clothes, and skin were fully saturated with pollen. It wasn’t enough to leave the house. Water would prevent the pollen from becoming airborne, but there was no sign of rain. Precious seconds slipped by, and Kurama had no plan. Yukina was beginning to silently tremble from the lack of oxygen when Kurama finally realized the chance for his salvation. It was such a simple idea, so very clumsy. He would have laughed if he wasn’t so sure he had already done something irreversible.
Kurama kept a tight hold on Yukina as he ran across the grass. The fox took a running leap into the koi pond with the koorime held tight in his arms. The water was shockingly cold, but he barely registered it. Yukina was so terribly still. He waited just a moment to be sure the water had completely soaked them before he surfaced. He removed his hand from Yukina’s face at last, and she gasped in relief as she took in air at last.
Kurama offered silent praise to Inari that there was more to do before he had to face what he may have just done. He leapt out of the pond and then helped Yukina step out of it. He led her to the spigot at the side of the house.
“I’m going to hose myself down, and then go get you something to cover yourself while you hose yourself. Take extra care with your hair.”
Yukina nodded, still not speaking as Kurama held the hose to himself until he was fairly certain no pollen remained. He left Yukina to hose herself down as he walked to the laundry line. He selected two clean blue sheets, and returned to Yukina.
“Give me your dress. I can’t be sure there’s no trace of contamination on it. I’ll turn my back.”
Kurama handed Yukina the sheet, and turned away. Once the wet garment was slung into his hands he made his way back to the pond and stripped out of his own clothes. He knotted the whole bundle of cloth into a tight mass and weighted it with his shoes. It sank to the bottom of the pond, and he knew it wouldn’t bother the fish till he was able to retrieve it to be properly cleaned. He took a moment to count the fish. All five were swimming peacefully. None had been hurt by his intrusion into their home.
Kurama shivered in the cold night air, and wrapped himself in the second of the dry sheets he had borrowed. He returned to Yukina again. She stood, wrapped in only a sheet, watching him with impassive eyes.
Kurama stared back, willing himself not to show his fear onto his face. “Do you know who I am, Yukina?”
Yukina tilted her head for a moment, and then she laughed. “I’d thought it was poison. You were only going to erase yourself from me? You succeeded in avoiding it, Kurama-san. I remember you.”
Kurama sighed, and felt some of the tension he’d been carrying leave his shoulders.
“If I may ask, Kurama-san, what inspired your change of heart? You seemed determined until the very last moment.”
Kurama could feel his face heat up, and he hated that he knew Yukina would notice. There didn’t seem to be any use in lying. She could read him easily. “I realized I would regret it only once I thought I couldn’t stop it from happening.”
He didn’t wait for a response before continuing on.
“If your proposal is still on the table, I wish to accept it. I will tell you all that I know and all that I can learn of Hiei, and set up protections that will last you many times your lifespan. We can lick each other’s wounds.”
Yukina gazed up at him, and before he could react she tugged on his forelocks to bring him down to her height. Her cool lips grazed his.
Later on Kurama would have to appropriate more suitable garments for them both. Later he would have to find Yukina a place to sleep for the night. Later on he would have to find a plant to purge the temple of all traces of pollen. Later on he would have to examine the mixture of relief and defeat that was spreading through him, and perhaps even give it a name.
“If I am a rose, she is a killing frost. I cannot fight her any more than a flower can fight the onslaught of winter. I must be doomed to be caught in every lifetime.”
For the moment, all Kurama did was return Yukina’s kiss.