Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ Balance ❯ Down to My Level ( Chapter 21 )

Disclaimer: yes, that's right.  I'm writing fanfiction for my own show.  Really.  I swear.  [/sarcasm]

Balance

Chapter Twenty-One: Down to My Level

'You will sit back and let your own life be run by someone else?' the man in the mirror questioned darkly.  'You are a fool, indeed.'

I will not be the one to taint their purity.

The man looked down on him; how, he did not know, for the impression had been that he was the more elevated of the two.  But he smiled all the same.

They are not like me.  I will not bring them down to my level, force them to be my friends.

The man in the mirror let his eyes widen, just a bit.  The man was surprised…how odd.  He smiled at that, too.

'You…are afraid,' the man said slowly.  'You are afraid they will abandon you.'

I am.

'Do you not understand that your friends stand by your side?'

His smiled wavered slightly, but did not fade.  No one was by his side who should be.  That much was clear.

I see my friends, he admitted.  And I know what will happen to them if they remain with me.  It has happened to all who came before.

A drop of black ink on a sheet of white paper will bleed, and eventually the paper will no longer be white.  No one will remember that it used to be white as snow.  They will see only the charred black, and they will think it has always been that way.  I will not be the one to taint the purity of my friends.  I will not be that ink on their beautiful souls.

The man in the mirror lowered himself to his level.

And laughed.

'You are so wrong,' the man said clearly, as though his voice and his laughter were two distinct prints.  Maybe they were.  Who was he to say?  'You are so wrong, and you make no attempt to be right.'

I am no such thing.

'Your friends do not fear you.  They are as tormented, as stained, as tainted as you are.  There is no ink here, for there is no white paper to blacken.'

You lie.

'I do not.

'I have told you before.

'We are all the same.'

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"Hey, Kuwabara.  Do you have some paper and a pen on you?"

The ningen shuffled around in his pockets and withdrew a pen, but no paper.  He shrugged helplessly, offering the utensil all the same.

"Gomen ne."

Yuusuke nodded as he took the pen.  "S'okay.  Thanks.  I'll use some bark or something."

Kuwabara nodded.  That was awfully resourceful of Urameshi…out of character, even.  It brought a smile to the nervous man's face.

"Kuwabara," Yuusuke said softly.  "What do you think is going on with Kurama?  I mean, really?"

A little taken aback at that question, Kuwabara stared ahead blankly for a few moments before answering.

"Well," he said carefully, "I don't know, really.  I can't be sure…but it seems that Hiei is the only one who can help.  If I had to guess, I would say our dear friend has finally had his past catch up with him."

"You think?" Yuusuke asked dryly.  "But…why now?  I mean, Kurama's been dealing with this for what, twenty four years, now, ne?  He's in graduate school, he's got a good life for himself.  He's the smartest guy I know, he could have any girl he wanted.  Nothing's really changed since we last left off."

"Left off?" Kuwabara asked quietly, staring off into space.  Yuusuke nodded once.

"Yeah, I guess…that's just how I think of it.  Of everything.  It's not that we were ever really gone; just that we stopped having a conversation at some point, and now we're back to pick up the pieces and rewind a little to remember where we left off."

"Ah…yeah, I see…"

The two friends sat side by side in the midst of the trees, staring up, around, left, right, anywhere but at each other.  Finally, Yuusuke broke the spell and flicked Kuwabara's shoulder, catching the taller man's attention.

"You really are a good friend, Kuwabara."

Slightly put off at the method used to attract him, followed by such a serious comment, Kuwabara narrowed his eyes and sniffed slightly.  Yuusuke smiled with all the childishness of a five year old.  He was kind of…innocent looking, for someone who had killed so many youkai in his day.  Maybe even…cute.

Kuwabara felt his resolve slide away.

"…So are you, Urameshi."

They each slipped off into a private world for a time, until Yuusuke remembered something.

"So, really.  Why now?  Why is Kurama getting so…weird?"

Kuwabara shook his head.  "I don't know…his life's just caught up with him, really.  That's what I think."

"Then he needs our help," Yuusuke reasoned.  Kuwabara smiled, but shook his head.

"Na.  That's what Hiei's for.  Leave 'em alone, ne?"

Yuusuke sighed.

"Ten more minutes."

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"Hiei?"

"Hm?"

The youkai jerked himself out of a slight reverie; he had thought his kitsune friend was asleep.  Apparently not.

"Nanda?"

Kurama toyed with the straps of Hiei's belt that lay in his reach.  Twining them around his fingers, he smiled to himself.

"Did you really mean all that you said earlier?  About people loving me?  Or was it just an excuse to get me to lighten up a little?"

Hiei coughed out a little chuckle at Kurama's lingering fears.  It was kind of cute, in a strange, strange way.

'"I love you."

'At least he's not asking me about that.'

Patting Kurama's hair as he spoke, Hiei found it strangely comforting.  "I meant it, kitsune.  I really did."  He grinned smugly as Kurama raised his slightly tousled red head.  "Though it didn't hurt you to lighten up, did it?"

The two paused for a moment, time seemingly suspended as red eyes bore down on the green that bore down on them.

Then Kurama laughed.

Right out loud, the kitsune chortled, practically doubled over on himself as he clutched his stomach.  Hiei glared at the back of his head, raising his hand in a threat the slap his friend before he remembered that he would never slap Kurama, and the threat would do no good if Kurama couldn't see it.  Which, at the moment, he certainly couldn't.

Hiei contented himself with sulking off into the distance.

Kurama slowly got out the last coughs of his giggles before looking back at Hiei, his face reddened.

Hiei was Not Pleased.

"Are you laughing at me, kitsune?" he bit out.  Kurama chuckled again.

"Yes," he admitted.  "The very idea of you telling me to lighten up…eheh…  It's quite amusing."

Hiei crossed his arms and pouted off to the side, prompting another wave of laughs somewhat less vibrant than the first.  Sickly disturbed, he suddenly realized that he liked the sound of Kurama's laughter.

'No.  By no means do I enjoy the sound of a friend laughing.  That is absurd.'

It was ridiculous.

It was ludicrous.

It was preposterous.

It was true.

'Holy Hell…'

"Yare, yare…" Kurama said softly, "arigatou gozaimashita, Hiei."

The youkai smiled, offering his hand to Kurama.  The kitsune smiled and took it, letting Hiei help pull him from his position lying across his friend's lap to a seated one, and the pair stood side by side.

"Hiei!  Kurama!" Yuusuke's voice screeched from a distance away.  "We're coming in, no matter what you guys are doing, so I would do that thing you do where you leap apart at the last second!  Except do it now, before we catch something incriminating!"

Kurama chuckled, and Hiei coughed out a short laugh.

From the sound of things, Yuusuke and Kuwabara were still about fifteen meters away.  Kurama knelt beside Hiei and whispered in his ear for a mere moment before they were interrupted.

"Do you love me, Hiei?"

"Mm-hmm," the youkai replied absently.  Kurama smiled to himself as Hiei's eyes suddenly snapped open.

'Oh, holy Hell.

'Oops.'

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"Botan finally came through with something useful!" Yuusuke shouted, waving around the compact.  Kurama straightened his tunic and nodded absently.  Hiei was sitting in a tree above the others.

"Yeah, took her long enough, too," Kuwabara added.  "But Urameshi memorized the next set of coordinates.  So we can go as soon as Hiei gets down here."

"I'll be there," came the terse reply from the crown of a tree above Kurama.  The kitsune chuckled a bit.

"Very well, then.  Do you know how to get there from here?"  He mindlessly stroked his hair as he spoke, petting the fine threads.  Hiei smiled to himself; Kurama was nearly mimicking his own previous actions, whether it was a sign that he missed it or something else.  It was kind of…sweet?  Cute?  No, no…comforting.  Yes, Hiei could handle comforting.  To a certain extent.

Yuusuke was calculating something in his head, drawing numbers in the air and muttering to himself.  Hiei casually glanced over, his skeptical expression obvious to anyone who could see through the crown of the tree where he sat.  That is to say, no one.

A moment later, the tantei proudly held up his fingers in a "Victory" sign.  "I have no idea!" he proclaimed.  Kurama leaned against the tree trunk, hand to his forehead, and Hiei leapt down to mock-comfort the poor kitsune.  That had been quite a blow, after all.  Urameshi was a real fool when he wanted to be.

"What did Botan tell you?" Kuwabara asked.  Yuusuke rattled off the coordinates for a location to the far north, and Kurama snapped out of his stupor to offer assistance.

"I know where that is," he said quickly.  "Far north."

'Just as I suspected,' Hiei thought smugly.

"About a day's walk for a normal ningen, so we should make it in an hour or two if we run."

Kuwabara audibly groaned, and Yuusuke rubbed the back of his head.  He appeared to be regretting…something.  Probably something that was out of his control to begin with.  It was no concern of the others', whatever it was.

Kurama paced about for a moment before picking up a sizeable piece of bark from the ground.  Plucking a sap-filled needle from a nearby tree, he etched a quick drawing of their location compared to the coordinates.

"I've been there before.  An old friend of mine used to live there, as a matter of fact, but he's long dead now.  On a heist or some such thing."

Yuusuke marveled at Kurama's indifference, and Kuwabara tilted his head at it.  An old friend?  Maybe he hadn't been a very good one.  Yet, Kurama spoke of the creature's death so casually…  Was he truly the heartless Youko Kurama on the inside?

Maybe.

But there was no time for that now.  Kurama was explaining how many degrees they needed to change course by to make it to the cave.

Yuusuke nodded importantly and Kurama rolled his eyes slightly.  Not enough to be noticeable.  No, that would be rude.

"This way," he added helpfully by the time he had finished his calculations.  Yuusuke followed as if he were the leader, and Kurama smiled.

Maybe things hadn't changed that much after all…

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Yuusuke turned around periodically to ask for direction and make sure he was going the right way.  Kurama and Hiei took turns explaining that he was just a shade too far left or right, or once, that he was nearly a mile off course, but neither had said anything for fear of making him look stupid and invoking his wrath.  Yuusuke had muttered to himself over that one, and Kuwabara had laughed right out loud.  Neither Kurama nor Hiei really minded, so it all went unnoticed.

One such time, he turned and stopped, looking right at Kurama.

"Did we ever get to that whip shop?" he asked seriously.  "I thought you said it might help."

Kurama nodded.  "No, we didn't.  I thought it might help locate Kurokyoui, but since Botan and Koenma have theorized that Miru is the bigger fish, so to speak, and we have a general coordinate for her, I figure it's not worth the trouble."

"…Oh.  Okay, then."

They paced on for a long while, running at high speeds and stopping for breaks every two or three dozen miles or so.  The pauses were short, mainly for Kuwabara to catch his breath, and Hiei, surprisingly, did not protest.  Maybe he had learned some restraint over the years.  Kurama found it an odd mixture of something both pleasing and painful.  It was sweet that he was making an effort, but a bit straining that this Hiei was not the Hiei who Kurama had come to know so well in his younger years.  It was a little…wrong.

Pushing those thoughts out of his mind, Kurama reconfigured the calculations to account for the time and relative speed they had traveled at.  It was nearly nineteen, from the look of the sky and the ways the light was hitting the ground; they were making better time than he had expected.  The desired location was only about fifty miles away.

"Twenty-five miles southwest, twenty miles south, and five miles southeast," Kurama rattled off quickly.  "Then we'll be there."

Kuwabara grinned and punched his own palm.  "Great," he said with a smirk in his voice.  "I feel better than I have in years, I can take on anything."

Hiei let his eyelids droop in a lethargic boredom.  "Don't get carried away," he muttered.  Kuwabara glared down at him, but nothing else came of it.

"Let's go!" Yuusuke howled, marching off at a comparatively sluggish pace.  Kurama shook his head wearily at the youth creeping into Yuusuke's demeanor, and Kuwabara yelped as he dashed off after his friend.  Hiei leaned up to whisper into the kitsune's ear.

"Don't worry.  Us two will be sane together."

Kurama smiled.

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Ningen: human
Gomen ne: sorry
Youkai: demon
Kitsune: fox
Nanda: what is it
Yare, yare: my, my…
Arigatou gozaimashita: thank you very much
Nineteen: seven o'clock in the evening

Note: earlier on, I may have said Kurama was in college.  Well, I was wrong.  Leave me alone.  -.-

Other note: I say "holy Hell" all the time.  It's a substitute for things like "holy shit," which is rather disgusting the more you think about it.  Anyway, that's why it's there.  It's not alluding to Hiei's devotion to the underworld or anything.

Other, other note: the bit about not attending the whip shop is not just random filler.  I won't say anything more right now, but you'll see later on.  (Hint, hint: Dark Inu Fan, I might use your idea.  In a way.  But then, I might not.  The idea is in its planning stages.)