Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ Brotherly Love ❯ Meeting and Dreaming ( Chapter 3 )

Kurama was walking out to the playground in the school's front yard where Kaori was playing after school. He stopped at the gate and looked around for her. He spotted her climbing the jungle gym with a couple of her friends and waved. Kaori smiled and waved back at her brother and began to climb down. Kurama sighed at her smallness. `Six years old and she still looks the way she did when she was four.' He thought to himself.

Suddenly he pricked and turned around, sensing something behind him. There stood a man with dark hair in a black trench coat that reached all the way to the ground on the other side of the street coming out of the woods.

Kurama instantly recognized his scent to be that of a demons. And he could tell that the demon recognized him. "Who are you?" He demanded.

The man looked up at him with a startled expression on his face, as though Kurama had just pulled him out of his own little world. Then he smiled and proceeded to walk across the street to Kurama.

"Hello," he said still smiling, "my name is Kokoshka. You are Kurama, correct?"

Kurama stared at him in surprise. `How does he know who I am?'

Kokoshka smirked at his shocked silence. "I'll take that as a yes. I heard about you from the Dark Tournament. That was impressive how you killed Karasu. Too bad they gave Toguro the win though."

"What do you want?" Kurama asked suspiciously. He noticed that the demon kept glancing behind Kurama to the playground where Kaori was playing, making him slightly nervous.

"Oh nothing much. I was just curious to see how a demon like you managed to withstand the human world. And how much of their emotions you've developed." Again, the glance toward the playground. "The girl, Kaori, She's your sister?"

Kurama's eyes widened. `Kaori?'

"And adopted at that." Kokoshka continued. " You don't even share blood, so I have to wonder just how much a Yoko could possibly care about her."

"My human relations are none of your concern." Kurama said. He was now beginning to get angry. The only thing that was keeping him from attacking was the fact that they were in human public, which included Kaori. That's when she ran up behind him and grabbed Kurama's hand.

"Hey Shuichi, are you ready to go home? I'm hungry and I think mommy's making spaghetti for dinner." She looked over at the other man and asked, "Who is this guy?"

Kokoshka looked down at the girl with curiosity and Kurama stiffened. Would he try something with Kaori right there?

Kokoshka smiled and knelt down in front of Kaori.

"Hi Kaori, I'm Kokoshka. I'm a friend of your brothers." "Hi" she said shyly, moving herself back so that she was slightly behind her brother. Kokoshka noticed this and chuckled, tousling up her hair as he stood up. He met Kurama's face, which was glaring at him in suppressed anger and said, " See you later." Then he turned and went back across the street and into the woods.

That night Kurama dreamed. The scene was familiar, for he had had this same nightmare twice before. He came home late from school because he had to give tutoring sessions. He never minded the sessions because the school always paired people by gender so he never had to deal with the person he was trying to teach algebra to drooling on the book while staring lustfully at him. Plus, by the time he got to leave his fanclub of girls had already left.

This particular night he had not needed to pick up Kaori from the after school childcare center their school provided because she had gotten sick overnight.

Kurama entered the house, expecting to smell friend shrimp; Kaori's favorite food for their mother always made it when Kaori was ill. But the scent that rushed to his nose as he stepped through the doorway made him freeze in his tracks. He smelled blood. Lots of it.

"Mother?" He called cautiously. "Kaori?" A sudden noise from upstairs sent him running up the stairs, praying his mother and sister were all right, his nose telling him otherwise.

He followed the smell to his sister's room and froze in the doorway as what he saw caused bile to rise in his throat. There in the middle of the room lay the bloody and mangled bodies of his mother and his baby sister. Above them stood a figure shrouded in darkness, hiding his face and covered in his victim's blood.

Normally at this point of the dream Kurama would wake up covered in a cold sweat and panting. But this time, it continued just long enough for the killer to step into the light and for Kurama to see his face. He gasped. It was Kokoshka.