Gundam Wing Fan Fiction / Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ A Thief in One Life, A Thief in the Next ❯ Flight ( Chapter 16 )

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

Chapter Sixteen

Flight

If he had been sharing a room with Duo, who was far too used to his sleeping habits than he necessarily liked, Heero didn’t think that he would have gotten away with faking sleep as he did with Wufei. The pilot wasn’t sure why he’d decided to keep the meeting a secret from his comrade, but something told him that an important event was about to take place, one that he didn’t want any others present for.

As it was, Heero slid silently from the sheets a few minutes before Makai midnight, casting a bare glance to the sleeping Wufei, body curled only slightly as though used to sleeping on a narrow futon. Pulling back on the shirt and tunic he’d worn to dinner, he snuck out.

To his surprise, there were still some youkai milling around the hallways as though it were mid noonday, chattering in politely quiet voices. Glancing at their larger than normal eyes, he figured that they, like many human world animals, were nocturnal.

“Are you lost, young one?” a particularly pale woman with red eyes asked in amusement, flashing fang.

Vampire? he wondered, shaking his head. “I’m meeting someone.”

“Awfully late to be meeting someone, even for a nighttime tryst,” she said, stepping rather close to him.

“I didn’t arrange the meeting,” Heero said flatly, holding back a glare. “The baka chimera did.”

“A chimera?” she asked, considering. Her smirk was somewhat disappointed. “You must mean our lord’s brother-in-law. Pity. Well then, be off. I doubt he’d like it if you were late, and I don’t want to be the cause.” Her eyes flashed subtly before she pointed down a hallway. “The courtyard’s that way.”

Thanking her, he hurried down the direction she’d indicated, not wanting to be stopped by any of the other nighttime youkai wandering around their business.

At first glance, Heero found the courtyard to be empty, lit only by rare moonlight. When one of the many shadows of statue-topped pillars rustled its wings, he turned and looked up directly into violet eyes.

“You came,” Kuronue said softly, though Heero was able to hear him clearly, as well as the almost tangible relief in his voice.

“There’s something I wanted to know,” Heero said, not once taking his eyes off of the chimera who in turned watched him intently.

“I’ll tell you everything, but first, there’s something I have to know,” the youkai said as he nimbly leapt down from his perch. Heero’s breath caught at the sight. Midnight black hair trailing behind him in the wind, left unbound for the first time since their arrival in Makai, splaying across bare shoulders as wings spread just in time to stop the chimera’s fall a bare two feet from Heero, holding him in the air. Smiling, Kuronue extending a hand toward the human. “Will you fly with me?”

“Why tonight?” the pilot asked, glancing between the hand and the face in front of him.

“The sky is clear, and I wanted to share it with you,” Kuronue said, allowing his eyes to momentarily drift upward toward the moon. “It’s too rare to miss.”

“Where will we fly to?”

A wistful smile formed on the demon’s lips. “The highest point we can find.”

Despite the fact that Heero was still a little unsure about the whole thing, he bit down on his nerves and reached for Kuronue’s hand, allowing himself to be lifted into the youkai’s embrace and from the ground. With several sweeps of powerful wings, they were leaving the courtyard far behind.

For wearing so little and being so pale, Kuronue’s arms were oddly arm, a detail Heero was grateful for as he pressed into them, resting his head against the bare chest, to fight off the chill of night and altitude as they rose higher. His own arms were wrapped around Kuronue’s neck to provide for greater stability, meaning that he could feel muscles moving under flesh as the youkai’s wings danced on the air, keeping them both aloft.

Kuronue set down in a nest that, oddly enough, appeared to be a living part of the tree upon which it rested atop. Having seen what some of the local plants were capable of, Heero worried for a trap until he noticed a single silver hair that had caught on one of the interwoven branches. The chimera followed his line of site and chuckled, letting his companion slide down him until bare feet met the sturdy bottom of the nest. “One of my brother’s spots, no doubt. Which means…” He leaned over the edge of the nest far enough that Heero wondered how he kept from falling. “Ah ha!” Triumphant, Kuronue pulled himself back up one-handed, the other holding firmly onto a thick blanket.

Before Heero knew what had happened, he’d been picked up again and then dropped, though gently, onto a now partially spread blanket that was lining the inside of the nest. Flopping down beside him, Kuronue grabbed the sides of the blanket and wrapped them both up together, pulling Heero partially on top of him and wrapping an arm around his waist underneath the blanket.

“What-” the pilot began to protest before being cut off.

“Don’t worry, I won’t try anything,” Kuronue assured him quickly, grinning at the human’s flush. “Not until you tell me I can, anyway. Promise. You just looked a little cold. Besides, you’ll be more comfortable this way, and you always want to be comfortable for sky watching.”

“Sky watching?” Heero wondered out loud.

“Yeah, clear nights are really rare in Makai,” the chimera said, turning his eyes upwards. “They only happen every thirty years or so. When I was younger, Kurama and I would climb as high as we could every time the sky was clear, just to watch the stars.”

“To rename the constellations every time,” Heero said without thinking. Where had that come from?

Oblivious, Kuronue nodded against Heero’s shoulder. “Exactly. We’d always forget between clear skies, and it was fun to name them again even if we remembered. Take that grouping there.” He raised an arm to point of a cluster of stars. “When I was little, maybe only a century or two, I named it Sakura, after a girl I’m met in a village we had passed through the night before because it reminded me of a comb she had been wearing in her hair. What does it make you think of?”

If they had been in the Ningenkai, Heero would have undoubtedly rattled off the official name of the constellation, but the Makai sky was unfamiliar to him, forcing the soldier to actually look, focusing and unfocusing his eyes a few times. If you ignored some of the dimmer stars, pretended that one was a little more to the right… “A cross.”

The body beneath him stiffened a little, and Heero thought he saw a hand reach instinctively for something around the other’s neck before closing on nothing. “A cross? What made you think about that?”

“Duo always wears one,” he said, thinking. Something about that gesture, about Kuronue’s words, seemed so familiar. The answer was just below the surface of his mind, he knew it. It was like a frozen lake. If he kept chipping, the ice layer would break and he’d be able to get at it.

“I had one, but it was left behind when we brought you four here,” Kuronue said softly, forcefully looking nowhere but the sky.

Heero raised an eyebrow. “You’re Christian? I’d have thought being a demon wouldn’t allow that.”

“No, I’m not Christian, but it belonged to a priest who was very kind to me a few years ago, and the sister of the church gave it to me when he died.” Another chip out.

Heero would have continued digging, but Kuronue didn’t seem eager to talk about anything but the bright stars above them from that point on, engaging the pilot in renaming the shapes they found. When they spotted clouds on the horizon, Kuronue sighed and sat up, dislodging Heero from his place.

“Looks like our time’s up,” he said with a touch of sadness. “I’ll drop you down on the wall. It’s closer to your room than the courtyard.”

The blanket was tucked in its safe place under the nest once again, and then they were airborne. The flight back to the courtyard was silent but comfortable, and it was with a little regret that Heero felt his feet touch down on cold stone.

“Thank you for showing me this,” Heero said, casting one last glance at the sky before turning to his host. “It was-” He has turned just in time to see pale fingers gathering hair into three sections, ready to begin a familiar weave before the owner realized what he’d been about to do. Both males froze, staring at each other before Kuronue suddenly spread his wings and leapt into the air, gone before Heero could draw breath. Said pilot had finally chipped away through the surface, and suddenly found himself drowning.