Gundam Wing Fan Fiction / Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ A Thief in One Life, A Thief in the Next ❯ Tear Path ( Chapter 15 )

“A Thief in One Life, A Thief in the Next”

Chapter Fifteen

Tear Path

It was dinner before Heero got the chance to talk to Kurama alone. Since the two were brothers, adopted or not, the pilot figured that if anyone could figure out why the chimera did what he did, not to mention his reaction, it would be the kitsune. Especially since he hadn’t seen any traces of Kuronue since the kiss.

When he caught up to Kurama, he was heading toward the dining hall, a light book in hand. “Kurama?”

The kitsune looked up in mild surprise, taking in the disheveled expression on the stoic human’s face. “Heero? Is there something wrong?”

“There’s something I need to ask you,” Heero said, not meeting the kitsune’s eyes. Why he was so embarrassed, he didn’t really know. Perhaps the chimera’s reaction to the kiss had rubbed off on him. “About Kuronue’s species.”

Long fingers caught Heero under the chin and forced him to look up into concerned golden eyes. “What happened?”

“He kissed me.”

“That’s nothing to be worried about,” Kurama said, releasing the pilot as he tipped his head in confusion. “I’m not trying to put it off too lightly, but what Yusuke said about my brother and I when we were younger was true. To say it plainly, we kissed a lot of people, and often more than that. There’s something else, isn’t there?”

“Well, he-”

“Kurama, what’s taking you so long?” Kuronue stuck his head out from around the corner. “Dinner will get- oh. Yeah, I’ll save you a seat…” Catching sight of Heero, the winged youkai flushed and vanished back the way he had come.

“He did basically that afterwards,” Heero finished, once again finding himself staring at the last spot he’d seen Kuronue.

Glancing back and forth between Heero and the corner, Kurama drew a sharp breath. “Heero, where did he kiss you?”

“Is that really important?”

“Extremely.”

When Heero’s fingers touched the exact place on his face, the kitsune’s eyes widened. In an instant, Heero jumped back as he found himself up close and personal to Kurama, who appeared to be… sniffing him?

“Did he bite you at all?” the fox asked, drawing back, his suspicions confirmed. “Anywhere, especially around the neck?”

Utterly at a loss, Heero shook his head. “What is this all about? Why would it matter where I was kissed, and why would you think that Kuronue would have bitten me?”

“Because, if he had bitten you, then you pretty much wouldn’t have a choice in the matter,” Kurama said, running an agitated hand through his hair. “Inari, Kuronue, why’d you leave it to me to explain this to him? Heero, do you know the significance of a chimera’s tears?” The soldier shook his head slowly. “Alright then, I’ll try to summarize it for you. The only time one of them ever cries past puberty is when someone they care deeply about is being hurt and needs protecting while the one who harms them is punished. You see, the tears from a chimera’s right eye summon, or turn into, I’m not exactly sure, creatures that protect whomever the crier wishes for the duration of their life. It isn’t long. The left eye, however, creates demons worse than you’ll ever find here otherwise. They’ll attack and murder anyone left unprotected by their good twins within such a distance from the chimera that cried them. Are you following me so far?”

“I think so,” Heero said. “But what does it have to do with anything?”

“A chimera’s kiss on the tear path is a sign of ultimate trust, Heero,” the kitsune said, smiling softly. “It goes back to the tradition of drinking an equal mix of another’s tears to prove yourself true. Heero Yuy, a kiss there is the chimera equivalent of going down on one knee in front of someone. He’s asked you to become his mate.”

Heero stood there, frozen, for quite some time. Him? Sure, Kuronue was beautiful, and incredibly interesting, but… the reason Heero liked him so much was because he reminded him of Duo.

“Don’t feel like you have to decide right away,” Kurama said, briefly resting a hand on his shoulder. “It’s not something to be rushed. My brother will wait.”

-

When Wufei had pictured the lord of the underworld, he had imagined a large, imposing man with a sword, much like the paintings of the former king Enma he had seen. Somehow, the small young man with brown hair in red and blue silk didn’t quite fit the bill.

“Do the three of you realize how much paperwork all this is causing me?” he growled at the three demon lords over the cup of tea that Hiei’s overpowering staff had forced upon him upon the new king’s arrival. “And, unlike my father, I have no son to dump it on!”

“Ah, come on, Koenma, I barely had anything to do with it this time,” Yusuke said. “What was I supposed to do, let them plummet to their deaths?”

“I’m afraid that that would have created even more forms that would need to be filled out,” Botan commented helpfully from her place next to her employer. “Kurama, Hiei, why did you bring them to the Makai in the first place?”

“Kuronue was already rescuing them, so it wasn’t as though we had anything to lose by bringing them here,” the kitsune said, sprawled out over one entire couch, face pointing up toward the ceiling. Hiei sat on the rug next to him, idly toying with a silver tail. “Besides, I’m sure that it’s turning out to be a blessing. For one thing, you would have needed to track him down to correct your records anyway. Your task is a lot simpler now.”

“Speaking of Kuronue, where is Heero?” Yusuke asked.

“I’m not sure if I want to try to follow that leap of logic,” Wufei said with narrowed eyes, shooting suspicious glances between the two Youko brothers. “But Heero is in his room. He said he wanted some privacy to think.”

There was a hopeful flash in Kuronue’s eyes. Since he knew that Koenma would round on him too as soon as the other pilots had left, the chimera figured that he might as well stick around and listen in until his turn came up. In the mean time, he let his attention wander toward the slowly clearing sky outside the window, and his eyes began to drift shut.

Suddenly, they shot open again. The sky! If the weather continued like it was, it was going to be a clear night, the first he’d seen in Makai since a decade before his death. He knew exactly who he wanted to share it with.

When Wufei entered the room that he and Heero had been given to share since Kurama thought the humans might be uneasy rooming alone in the unfamiliar place, he held in his hand a folded note. The brief glance at it before Kuronue had folded the thing into the shape of a crane revealed elaborate calligraphy, but it had vanished within itself before the Chinese pilot could read what it said.

Shaking his head, Wufei handed the note to Heero, shrugging in response to the questioning glance he was sent before the bird was deftly unfolded, so that the writing was once again readable. The message was simple, though Heero’s eyes lingered on the handwriting more than on it words themselves. He didn’t need to ask who it was from. “Midnight. Courtyard. Fly with me.”