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monday.
The fight happened days ago. Not long enough for the sting to fade, but just long enough for it to feel surreal, like a bad dream with jagged edges that won’t quite dull.
Kurama wakes up early, as always. The room is dim, the air cool from where he cracked the window last night. His body moves through the motions before his mind catches up: sheets pushed back, feet to the floor, stand, stretch. Don’t check your phone.
Monday is full. Class all day. Labs in the evening. At least he’s busy. He gets dressed, ties his hair back, gathers his things. Keep moving.
There’s a notification waiting when he picks up his phone.
He knows what it is before he looks. Before his mind even registers the name, his body does—something quick and cutting, like a wire pulled too tight in his ribs.
He doesn’t open the message. Doesn’t answer.
Instead, he follows the routine. Coffee before his first lecture. Sitting in his usual seat. Speaking when spoken to. The words come easily. Kurama has always been good at wearing a face that fits the moment.
He smiles when appropriate. Laughs at something forgettable. The day is full of distractions.
He lets them carry him forward.
Afternoon. The greenhouse. His hands in the soil, careful and practiced, tending to something alive. Don’t think.
Evening. Lab. The fluorescent lights buzz overhead. More small talk, but Kaito will carry the conversation. More notes. More of the same.
The day is long, but not unbearable. He gets through it. He’s fine.
He doesn’t check his phone.
He doesn’t check his phone.
He doesn’t check—
He checks.
The message is short.
I didn’t mean for it to be like this.
His stomach twists.
He doesn’t answer.
His hands are steady when he closes the app.
tuesday.
Wake up. Don’t text him.
He sleeps through his first alarm but gets up on the second. It doesn’t matter. His body moves before his mind, like it did yesterday, like it will tomorrow. Shower. Clothes. Hair. Books. Keys. Go.
Tuesday is another full day. He barely has time to think. That’s good. Just white noise and routine.
Class. Notes. Don’t check the phone.
Coffee— but not there. He goes to a different café, one with worse espresso but no associations. It doesn’t matter. The caffeine does its job.
Tuesday is a day he normally fills with texting Hiei. The realization comes sharp, unexpected, like stepping down onto a stair that isn’t there. His hands feel too empty.
The absence should be liberating. It isn’t.
By evening, it makes him angry.
It’s absurd, isn’t it? That he’s the one who should be angry—furious, righteously indignant—but instead, he’s the one with this hollowed-out space inside him, the one spending his whole day trying not to acknowledge it. He gave everything, and Hiei just—
He doesn’t finish the thought. He doesn’t let himself.
Labs run late. The sharp scent of ethanol clings to his skin, the overhead lights casting everything in that clinical, unreal white.
Someone at the bench next to his uses the same detergent as Hiei. The scent floats to him soft and sudden—amber, something floral beneath it—and it stops him cold for half a second.
He doesn’t look. Doesn’t need to. The ache settles in before he exhales.
Later, when he leaves, he hears footsteps behind him—too light to be Hiei’s, too uneven—but his heart still lifts for a second when the scent of his detergent floods his nose once more.
Stupid.
He pulls his coat tighter and walks faster.
He gets back to his dorm past eight, exhausted but still wound tight. Touya’s eyes track his movements, his mouth a familiar, solemn line. He doesn't speak as Kurama slips past to his room.
With the door safely shut, Kurama tosses his bag onto the chair, and pressed his palms into his eyes.His phone lights up when he picks it up—three new messages.
He opens nothing. Just swipes through his notifications too fast to read. Scrolls past Hiei’s name like it means nothing. Like it doesn’t scrape his throat on the way down.
He checks his email. Refreshes. Scrolls again.
Eventually, his thumb drifts back to the thread. A longer one this time. Maybe apologizing. Maybe explaining. Maybe just trying—because even now, Hiei still doesn’t understand the shape of what he broke.
Kurama doesn’t answer.
He likes that it hurts. It makes it easier not to forgive him
wednesday.
He wakes before his alarm and stares at the ceiling. Blinds half-drawn. The light unfairly soft and grey.
His hand moves without thinking. The phone is in easy reach. The ghost of a message forms on his fingertips before he catches himself. He almost asks for a picture.
Habit. Muscle memory. He stops. The phone goes face-down again.
This is the day he dreads. Wednesdays used to be theirs. The part of the week where Kurama made space—carved it out of a crowded life like he was sculpting something delicate and rare. He always made time for Hiei. Always found a way. The rest of the week was for everything else. Wednesday was for them.
Now it’s just… hours.
The ache is background noise. He drags himself through the day. Classes. Coffee—not the usual place. Greenhouse.
The air is warmer inside, green and damp with memory. The scent of earth and crushed herbs clings to his skin. A fig tree leaf brushes his arm as he walks by, and for a second, he remembers Hiei touching him there, too—deliberate, electric, always warmer than he expected.
Somewhere in the distance, a tool clinks against metal. Too sharp. Too much like Karasu’s laugh.
Kurama flinches. Just slightly. But it’s enough to make his breath hitch. Enough to remind him that grief doesn’t always show up dressed the same.
He squares his shoulders. He keeps moving.
He spends time with Touya in the late afternoon, both of them pretending it’s casual. It never is. Touya’s watching him too closely.
“You’re doing that thing again,” Touya eventually says.
Kurama doesn’t have to ask what he means. He knows. Still, he raises an eyebrow, hoping Touya will grant him the mercy of pretending. “What thing?”
“Pulling inward. Playing fine.” Touya’s voice is low and even but not unkind. “Thinking about texting someone you shouldn’t.”
Kurama looks away. He thought about it. Just for a second. Just enough to feel disgusting about it.
Touya doesn’t press. He knows better than anyone where that road leads. He’s had to scrub Karasu’s fingerprints off his own life, has had to wipe the evidence of Yomi’s presence away again and again like stains off a white countertop.
Kurama exhales, sharp. “No. I’m not that stupid.”
“No,” Touya says, “but you’re hurting. That’s when you make stupid decisions.”
Kurama’s voice gets tight. “You make it sound like I’ve always been an idiot about men.”
Touya tilts his head. “Not an idiot. Just,” he pauses, is careful with his words in a way that makes Kurama brace for the worst. “Neither of them turned on you right away. That’s what’s different about Hiei. He hasn’t turned on you yet, and you’re still not okay.”
Kurama bristles. “Because it wasn’t casual for me. I thought—” He cuts himself off.
Touya doesn’t interrupt. He knows when to leave space.
Eventually, Kurama says, quietly, “He thought it was just sex. After everything. After all I gave. After the way I—” He grits his teeth. “He didn’t see me.”
Touya nods. “That’s the problem. They never really do.”
Kurama’s phone buzzes again. He ignores it. “Can we talk about literally anything else?”
“I have to stop by the Education College tomorrow afternoon to do a follow up interview and snap some photos of the new STEM lab,” Touya offers. “Do you want to go with me?”
Later, in bed, Kurama reads the texts anyway.
They don’t help. But they do something.
thursday.
He wakes early again. Too early. The quiet hum of morning feels cruel today.
There’s no reason to get up. No early class. Nothing planned.
Kurama lets himself rot a little.
He stays in bed, scrolls without direction. Eventually, inevitably, he types in Karasu’s name, and opens his RateMyProfessor page. Again.
He doesn’t know why he tortures himself with it. Maybe it’s the outrage. Maybe it’s the bitter curiosity.
The reviews say the same things.
Weird, but brilliant.
Kind of intense, but so attentive.
Made me feel seen in the worst way possible, but I learned a lot.
Kind of hot, ngl.
Kurama wants to scream. He wants to shake them or maybe throw his phone. He knows what that kind of seeing costs. He’s paid it.
He’d thought Karasu was different. He knows better now. He should’ve known better then.
Kurama had thought the clarity he brought into it—those carefully drawn lines, that honesty—would protect him. He thought Karasu would respect the rules of the game. Not twist them.
He hates that it still makes him feel stupid.
He swipes away from the page and stares at the wall, fuming.
He could message Yomi.
Just one line. Just a test.
But he doesn’t.
Yomi would answer. Immediately. He’d offer comfort dressed as power.
And it would never end.
Worse—Hiei accused him of being easy. Said he was probably fucking other guys. That’s what he said during the fight. As if Kurama hadn’t worked for every second they spent together. Like he hadn’t rearranged everything just to keep them close.
He closes his contacts app.
Instead, he opens Hiei’s texts. Again.
Kurama knows he could just block him.
But he doesn’t.
friday.
Lunch with his mother is warm, comforting in that soft, Shiori way—sunlight through gauzy curtains, the seep of heat into his hands from a cup of hot tea, her fingers brushing over his hair like he’s still a boy.
She smiles so brightly when she sees him that something in him cracks.
“I haven’t heard from you,” she says. “You look pale. Have you been eating?”
“I’ve been busy with labs,” Kurama answers, which is technically true. He lets the lie of omission float between them. “It’s just been… a long week.”
She gives him a look—one of her gentle ones, the kind that says I won’t pry, but I’m watching you.
She believes him. Mostly. He thinks.
She doesn’t ask about Hiei. Doesn’t bring up their last shared meal.
Back in his dorm, it takes him forever to pack. Everything feels heavier than it should. He still has the black hoodie. It still smells like Hiei. Faintly. He stuffs it in the bottom of his bag like that might help.
By the time he gets to his family home, it’s late. The house is quiet. Shuichi’s asleep. His parents are up, but they give him space.
His old bedroom looks just like it used to, but it feels off. Smaller. Tighter. Like the walls remember all the people he’s been.
Tonight, finally, he lets the sadness in.
He drinks alone, alternating between staring at the ceiling and scrolling through his phone with methodical cruelty.
The messages are still there.
At first, Hiei had been angry. You’re twisting everything I said. I never meant to hurt you.
Then the tone shifted. You were right. I didn’t see it. I didn’t see you.
Then silence for a few days.
And then: I miss you.
And: I’m sorry.
And: You didn’t even try to understand me. But I still miss you. I don’t even know what I want except you.
And: Please.
Kurama still hasn’t answered.
He could block him. He could erase the entire thread—he did that with the photos, they’re all gone. Even Hiei’s contact is nothing more than a featureless grey man. A mirror of Kurama’s insides.
But he doesn’t.
Kurama tells himself it’s about control. About proof.
You want me now? Too late. You didn’t see what you had while you had it.
But beneath all that, beneath the pain coiled around his ribs like old scar tissue, he likes knowing that Hiei is hurting.
And he likes knowing Hiei can still make him feel something.
That’s the part he hates most of all.
saturday.
He doesn’t text Hiei. He wants to, but he doesn’t.
His family has planned a day out. A botanical garden—his idea, once. It used to be a place of peace for him. Today it’s just green. Too loud. Too quiet.
He walks behind his mother, his stepfather, Shuichi. The sunlight is warm. He tries to care.
Shuichi falls back and bumps into his side. “You okay? You look kind of like you got hit by a car.”
Kurama laughs once. It’s hollow. “Hangover,” he lies. Again.
His mother watches him with hard eyes, her mouth pressed into a thin line, but he doesn’t notice. Not really.
It’s Karasu’s eyes that haunt him at every turn. The way he said, You like being seen, don’t you? You like being hunted whispers through the rustling leaves.
The way Kurama had believed him flickers across the paths in fleeting, dappled light.
He hasn’t stepped foot near a bar since that night. Doesn’t stay late at the greenhouse anymore. Doesn’t trust himself.
He hates that he started to trust himself, trust Hiei, and still he got burned. Still fucked it up. He’s good for one thing and one thing only, it seems.
Third times the charm, right?
Just a pretty face with too much heart in it to play the game.
And he hates that when it got bad, he turned to Yomi for help. Hates that he nearly did it again.
He remembers the way Yomi had smiled so clearly when he answered the phone. Like he’d been waiting. Like Kurama’s vulnerability was a gift wrapped just for him.
That shame still lives in his stomach like rot. It fights for space with the gaping, acrid hole Hiei has left in him.
Later, after dinner, Kurama asks his mom if he can stay through Sunday night.
“Of course,” she says without hesitation. “We can go back together on Monday.”
He lies in bed and types out a new text. Not Hiei. To Touya.
I think you’re my best friend.
He doesn’t know why he sends it. He just wants to send something. Something that won’t twist and turn and come back to cut him open.
The message delivers. Touya doesn’t respond right away. That’s okay.
Kurama curls onto his side and stares at the wall. The shadows are soft here.
They know him well.
sunday.
His mother makes his favorite meal. There’s wine at dinner. Laughter. Shuichi plays piano after. It’s a day full of love.
He doesn’t feel it.
He smiles in all the right places. Thanks his family right on cue. Pretends the wine tastes sweet instead of sharp.
Kurama declines dessert. “Please, go ahead. I’m just tired,” he says, excusing himself early.
He climbs back into his childhood bed, but it doesn’t feel like home anymore. None of it does.
He opens his phone. Looks at the thread. Hiei hasn’t sent anything new since yesterday. That silence feels heavier than all the noise before.
Maybe he cries. Maybe he doesn’t.
He almost types something.
Just one message. I miss you too.
Or: You don’t get to do this to me.
Or: Why didn’t you love me?
But he doesn’t send anything.
He closes the conversation.
In the safety of his childhood room, wrapped in these terrible feelings, Kurama quietly turns twenty-one.
