Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ Balance ❯ You Lie ( Chapter 26 )

Disclaimer: I…need a vacation. Oh, don't you tell mewinter break just ended, I'm already planning for the summer.

Balance

Chapter Twenty-Six: You Lie

`How can you survive not know such a thing?' the man in the mirror asked. `All things must have some purpose or they would not exist.'

He smiled. Are you trying to be supporting?

The man grinned wickedly. `Fear is not support. Fear is only fear itself. I hurt, I do not help.'

Ah, he said softly, catching Fear in a lie. But fear can be the greatest ally. Fear quickens the reflexes, raises the strength. Fear is no enemy.

The man scoffed. `You lie.'

Maybe…

He looked off into the distance, the distant nothing surrounding them. They sat on a rock, yet it was not a rock. It was what he imagined a rock to be. Any rock created in this place would be this size, have these dents and tics, this graffiti, this color, this hardness. They were all the same, and the rocks were only figments of his imagination. He looked out to a park which had no trees, at a bench where no one would sit, into a shop which had no name.

It was all rather empty, really.

Much like himself.

I am worth nothing, he said to no one. I have no real value to my team. I cannot move from the past because the past will not let me forget it. It will not let me forget anything, yet I am not even sure what I remember. I am lost…

The man in the mirror looked at him. The sun was rising slowly, and it caused a faint glimmer to shine over him. He reached out to touch, but would not. He held his hand above the skin, wary of a burn.

Why do you not touch me? he asked. It cannot be a terrible thing. Allowing Fear to touch me in the deepest recesses of my soul, allowing Fear to touch my heart, it cannot be a terrible thing. It will quicken my reflexes. It will raise my strength. It will be a good thing. It will make me better.

`You already fear enough things in your life.'

My life? he ask with a tone of bitterness. That is a funny thing to call it. A life? Do you think that is what it is?

`I do. What else would it be called?'

Then would you like to live it? I am not doing it right, it seems.

`But you have found love. That is the purpose you set for yourself, out of necessity, is it not?'

Oh, I doubt it.

And besides…

What love do you mean?

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“I. Love. Kurama,” Hiei said very deliberately to Kuwabara and Yuusuke. His arms had encircled Kurama in the meanwhile, holding the shaking fox to himself a bit closer as the two bystanders balked.

“But-but-but you're such good friends!” Yuusuke protested. “This sort of thing doesn't just…happen!”

Kuwabara raised an eyebrow. If anyone asked him, it sounded a lot like what Yuusuke and Keiko had gone through. But then, no one would ask him, of course. This was about Hiei and Kurama.

“Then why didn't you say something before?” Yuusuke challenged. “Seems to me like you could have saved him a whole lot of trouble.”

Hiei shrugged. This was getting a little too intricate for his tastes, even at the basic and surface level it was. “I didn't think it was the right time. I was afraid he would pretend to love me back because of his general emotional weakness, his vulnerability.”

Yuusuke raised his hand as if to challenge the claim, but then lowered it. “…Oh.”

“So,” Hiei asked abruptly. “What did you find?”

Kuwabara butted in front of Yuusuke slightly, raising his hand in the way a teacher might just before beginning a lecture.

“Well, it's like this…”

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Kurama, who had raised himself off of Hiei during Kuwabara's brief preaching, let his eyes fall into slits.

“Sounds like Miru,” he said softly. “Characteristic, I mean.”

Hiei half expected a dry feminine voice to suddenly chime in, “What's characteristic of me?” Fortunately, no such thing happened. But still…

“Kurama,” he whispered, “we should…talk. Alone. Just for a little while.”

The fox shook his head. “We need to discuss this eye-patterned pile of bodies,” he insisted softly. “It needs to be done now.”

Yuusuke looked over at Kuwabara, who was watching the pair of youkai intently. Then he looked back to Kurama and Hiei, who appeared to have similar expressions but for different reasons. Each looked stubborn and unrelenting, Kurama in his claim that the bodies needed to be discussed and Hiei in his that he and Kurama needed to talk alone. About what, Yuusuke couldn't quite be sure, but it was probably their newfound relationship. Or maybe Kurama's relationship to Miru in more psychological depth than the tale he had told would allow. Unless it was whether Kurama had any idea where Miru might be hiding. Or…no, no, Yuusuke was lost. Any of those choices sounded likely.

Kuwabara stepped forward slightly. “I…think you guys can afford to take a minute to yourselves. Urameshi and I can talk a little bit about that eye thing without you, we just thought you ought to know.”

Hiei passed him a flicker of a grateful look and Kurama just stared intently at the youkai opposite him. Said youkai stood and took Kurama's hand, really more by the wrist, hauling him up. The fox followed without protest, but his eyes were clearly struggling to stay behind. Neither seemed to want to put up much of a fight.

Hiei dragged Kurama off around the corner and down another hall, finally stopping. He jerked his grip to force the fox to sit. Kurama had gone limp enough in Hiei's hold that the harsh action was really unnecessary, but it didn't seem to matter. Wide emerald eyes gazed up at Hiei with resigned curiosity and Hiei knelt beside his friend.

“Kurama,” he began, his voice low. “What are you really thinking of my loving you? My admission? What does it really mean to you?”

Kurama blinked. “It means I've found someone I can be with,” he said simply. “Someone who will care for me, someone I can care for.”

Hiei let his head drop. This was not going well…though he couldn't have expected much less.

“You think it's…real? You think it's something that will last?” Hiei asked, strictly banning worry and nervousness from his voice.

Kurama nodded. “I certainly do. I've loved you for a long time, Hiei, and this is like a breath of fresh air after ages of musty darkness. I don't know how I can ever thank you.”

Hiei bit his lip. This was bad…so bad… He never should have said anything…

“Is something wrong?” Kurama asked innocently. Hiei refused to look at his partner. Things were so confused…but Kurama, he deserved an answer, and dammit, he would get one. Even if it killed Hiei, Kurama would get his answer.

“You never thought it could all be a charade?”

Kurama cocked his head in cute confusion. “Charade? Oh, dear, no. I never thought that for a second. Why, have I not responded in a way to convince you of my loyalty?”

Dammit Kurama, Hiei thought, his mind filled with raging fire. Have to make this so hard and it shouldn't be but nothing can be simple with you can it? Because you have to make everything hard don't you and I can never have a moment's reprieve with you around can I? I don't know what to say to that don't know what to say because things are so hard don't know don't know don't know.

“You've convinced me of your loyalty fine,” Hiei replied, pressing his forehead into his palm. “Don't even think about that. It'smy loyalty I'm worried about.”

Kurama rested an arm around Hiei's shoulder in a half hug, placing his own chin atop Hiei's head. He rubbed his hand down Hiei's arm in a semi-comforting gesture.

“I'm sure you'll be a wonderfully loyal lover,” he murmured. “Don't worry. It's all right, really. Everything will be fine.”

What an interesting turn of roles this was. Hiei was the comforted and Kurama was the comforting. It was all sort of bitterly ironic that Hiei was being comforted about something Kurama completely didn't understand, but he was unwilling to fill the fox in. Hiei laughed quietly.

Kurama lifted his chin and bent his head at an awkward angle to try and look at Hiei's face. “Is something the matter?”

Hiei only laughed harder, his eyes closed. It was all very funny.

Even though it wasn't.

“No, Kurama, nothing is the matter,” Hiei replied through the bouts of laughter. “Nothing is the matter, I feel fantastic. Everything is wonderfully ironic and the world is crashing and burning at my feet. What's not to love about life?”

Extreme worry fell over Kurama's expression. This was not the Hiei he knew. This person was confused, distraught, insane…not Hiei. This wasn't right. But was it Kurama's fault? What could he do?

“Hiei…?”

“Yes, Kurama, life is fantastic!” he snapped, standing to lord over the sitting man. “Truly, wonderfully, perfectly fantastic.”

“Hiei, please, I want to help, but I—”

“Can't think of what to do,” Hiei interrupted. Kurama nodded meekly. “You can't think of what to do because the problem cannot also be the solution.”

“The…problem?” Kurama tried to be comforting, tried to look on with a soft smile, but hearing that the cause of Hiei's madness, the cause of this irrational uncharacteristic rant was himself…was a little too much.

“How am I the problem?” Kurama asked bitterly, suddenly falling back into his stoic, commanding poise. Hiei matched it glare for glare.

“You don't know…” Hiei muttered, half to himself. “You don't know…don't know…”

“No, Hiei, so enlighten me.”

Hiei turned his back, walking to the opposite wall and resting against it. He continued to laugh softly to himself, a shallow sound much like the gushing you might hear in a conch shell.

“Don't know, he doesn't know…”

“No, I don't, Hiei,” Kurama growled. “So tell me if you wish to keep your sanity.”

“Love is a fickle thing, Kurama,” Hiei said. “It is not something we can truly understand or define. My love is different from your love is different from Yuusuke's or Kuwabara's love. This love that I feel for you, this love you know I harbor for you? It does not exist. I have a very different kind of love, one I don't know you could ever understand.”

Kurama stood and moved back to press himself into the wall. His eyes widened a fraction and he shook his head once. Twice. Hiei didn't mean that, he couldn't. Kurama had love, he knew he did, and it was in Hiei. It was precious and special and Hiei loved him the way he loved Hiei. Things were finally going right again for an old fox.

“You…you don't love me.”

“I didn't say that,” Hiei replied, suddenly remembering why he had said he loved Kurama, why he was putting on this façade. Panic slowly crept over him as he realized how horribly he may have just ruined the entire situation. “I do love you, Kurama, I do. I'm just…I'm…confused.”

Kurama shook his head rhythmically as he spoke. “You're not confused. You can't use that excuse this time. Not this time. You know exactly what is going on. You won't tell me. You're afraid.”

“I am not afraid—”

“Don't lie to me. You are afraid. You will not admit it but you fear what you have done to destroy all you have worked for to persuade me to talk.”

“I-it… No, I don't… I just… Oh, please, Kurama, just shut up…”

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Yuusuke paced slowly around the small portion of hall that Hiei and Kurama had left him and Kuwabara. Why had they said for Hiei and Kurama to go off and talk? Oh, right, because it would be a good thing for Kurama, and they needed good things for Kurama. And he and Kuwabara needed to be talking about that creepy eye pattern.

What had he noticed? The eye seemed to be pointing somewhere, looking at something. It was missing pieces where light was supposed to reflect.

“Urameshi.”

It had been gruesome, but leading them on somewhere. It had been pointing, he was sure of it.

“Urameshi.”

The eye told him to go somewhere, to find something, but what? He needed to go back.

“Urameshi!”

“Eh?”

Kuwabara exhaled a bothered sigh. Truthfully, he felt much the same way he suspected Yuusuke did, but if one of them was going to control the situation they had been left with, why not him? He began to walk back towards the tapestry which hid that horrible eye.

Yuusuke tilted his head slightly. Was he supposed to follow?

“Urameshi, what are you waiting for?” Kuwabara asked shortly. The whole situation was grating on his nerves.

Yuusuke yelped a reply and leapt to tail Kuwabara. The taller man chuckled under his breath. Yuusuke was certainly acting like a little puppy, wasn't he? Yipping and leaping and confused with nowhere to go. Not at all unlike how Kuwabara was feeling.

They walked in stony silence for a time, finally reaching the silk sheet. Kuwabara took a breath and lifted the very corner, allowing Yuusuke to walk through first. He did, and it was only a second or two before Kuwabara followed.

“There's got to be a clue around here somewhere,” Kuwabara said at once. “Something we're just not seeing. Can you think of what it might—”

“Got it.”

Kuwabara balked for a moment before rushing over to see what Yuusuke had “got.” Eagerly peering over the smaller man's shoulder, he blinked his eyes a few times before finally realizing that it was—

A piece of paper.

Kuwabara's eyes were half-lidded and his expression otherwise dictated annoyance. It figured, didn't it? The entire purpose of the eye was to point them to a piece of paper, of all things. A piece of fuckin' paper! He could get those at home!

Yuusuke, meanwhile, was unfolding the paper's elaborate origami and reading the white underside. Random words bordered the rim of the paper, words like “steel” and “light” and was that “ice”? The writing was not scrawled, but it was written in such a fancy manner that he found it difficult to determine if a word might be “ice” or just “water” with a fancy tail carried over from the word proceeding it. He sat on the floor with the paper flattened before him, trying to guess at the meaning of the words.

Kuwabara knelt beside him and tried to read the paper himself. He screwed up his face in confusion.

“What do you make of it?” Yuusuke asked distractedly. Kuwabara shook his head.

“I dunno. `Backwards'? Is that what that word there is?”

Yuusuke sighed heavily. “That, or…I don't know. Probably. I think it's all something like `travel backwards find a clue you'll regret you skipped…' something.”

Kuwabara nodded after a long moment. “The last word is smudged out by water or something.”

“Maybe there never was another word to begin with.”

“Hm.” Kuwabara nodded. “Yeah, maybe…”

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Youkai: demon

Note: lunarmercury, you're right, Hiei is a canon half-ice, half-fire demon. The thing is, the term “hybrid” is never used to refer to him. As far as Inuyasha is concerned, that's not relevant; I wasn't talking about any show except Yuu Yuu Hakusho.

Note: I'm reading Johnny Got His Gun, which, if you've ever read it before, explains why the thoughts are written without commas. It's good, you should check it out if you're into sickly disturbing war books. The term “moment's reprieve” is from, you guessed it, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, which I am currently playing. Reverse/Rebirth is the coolest thing ever. Yes, I know the “gushing sound in a conch shell” is not actually a sound made by the shell.

Note: okay, I promise I'm trying to make the HieixKurama as shounen-ai as I possibly can. Don't forget two things, though: one, a fic may be labeled “shounen-ai” but that does not mean it necessarily ends happily in terms of romance. Two, this is not a fairly tale and love does not always conquer all.