Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ If Roses Are Fair ❯ Catch My Soul (Keep It Safe Forever) ( Chapter 2 )
Disclaimer: I own nothing Yuu Yuu Hakusho related except for about seven tapes of English dubs, seven DVDs, and one wall scroll.
~Hiei~
Baited breath. What does that even mean?
Hiei waited silently, his breath catching and his chest tight. Whatever it meant, he knew he was feeling it now. His vision should have been dulled from lack of oxygen to his brain, but rather, it was sharp, clear, and dead-focused on Kurama. His bright red eyes began to water slightly, begging him to blink as his mind protested the exact same action. The kitsune in question was only looking up to the sky, the emerald pools hazy and unfocused as a light drizzle began to fall.
Make or break my world, Kurama. Kill me or save me. Please…
"Hiei, I…" Kurama paused, uncertain. Kurama didn't look at him, and Hiei didn't move. He was frozen in the tense pose of a tiger stalking its prey, eyes never leaving Kurama's as he listened for his friend's next words. As more time passed, he became more and more certain that Kurama would flee, giving him a cryptically unclear answer and leaving before the youkai could puzzle it out.
"You're my best friend, Hiei," he said instead, surprising Hiei, thought the youkai didn't show it. "I can be myself around you like no other. I love you for that. But Hiei," he continued, beginning what Hiei was sure would be a severely heartbreaking statement, "I don't know if you love me as a friend or in a romantic sense, but you're so new to both sensations that you can't tell me."
"They're different?" Hiei asked, sounding for all the worlds like a confused child. Kurama nodded in response.
"Slightly, yes. When one loves a person as a friend…" Kurama began, struggling to define "love" to his rather stoic friend. "When someone loves a person romantically," he began again, taking a different tack, "it's often described as the ultimatum of all emotion. You're content in all aspects of being, even if subliminally, and the love is, for the most part, unconditional. Nothing but the one you love has the power to truly hurt you, and if they take that chance, you're hurt beyond all other emotion. You're half of a whole that is completed by the one you love, but you're your own whole for the only time in your life, and when - if - the emotion is returned, that makes it worth all the risk."
"Sounds sort of fanciful," Hiei replied, finally moving to sit back on the bench, blinking furiously.
"Perhaps," Kurama allowed. "Love as a friend, in a non-romantic sense, is…sort of like love romantically, but much less intense. The beloved friend is a part of who one is, and can help or hurt them equally, but cares enough that they won't hurt. Real friends won't hurt, at least."
"Hn…" Hiei murmured dazedly, pondering his own feelings against what Kurama had just described. It sounded accurate, but it was best not to make judgment until hearing completely how one loved a friend.
"Friends become part of your soul," Kurama added softly, looking at Hiei. "They become part of who you truly are inside, very slightly shaping your personality. They leave marks on your heart that never go away…marks that can turn dark if the friend abandons you. They always change you, normally for the better, even if you don't notice it."
The feelings still indiscernible blurs spinning inside of him, Hiei compared the two explanations. He cared for Kurama in ways he had cared for no one, ever. He made him happy in ways he had never been happy before. He felt odd when he was with Kurama, and yet he felt odd without him, too.
Half of a whole…
I love him.
"I love you as one would a lover," he said quietly, his eyes still focusing on the ground. "More than a friend. A mate."
Kurama gasped inaudibly, taking quick breaths in slight gasps as he looked at Hiei. After all his years as the lover Youko, someone he cared for loved him. Someone he would gladly spend the rest of his life with.
But would he want to spend his life with Hiei as a mate? He treasured the youkai's friendship more than any, opening up to him and showing sides of himself he could show nowhere else. Hiei opened a new door for him, and with Hiei, he could truly be himself in every aspect of the words. He cherished the freedom the little youkai gave him, and adored Hiei as he had no other in a thousand years.
But mates…
It was such a delicate topic, and so precious and carefully spoken of for kitsune. Traditionally pack animals, kitsune loyally mated for life, refusing all others once one had been chosen. He knew many kitsune who had taken mates, but many more who kept the carefree life he had once known, using sex as a toy, a plaything, a tool for gaining power and poise. All the kitsune he knew of who had taken them had been friends with their mates for years upon years, and knew them better, perhaps, than even they knew themselves. He had known Hiei for a bare six years, and the little creature was still such an enigma to him. Normally Kurama loved a puzzle such as he, but in such a situation as the choosing of mates, puzzles were not the game.
"Hiei, I love you as a friend like no other," he repeated in a hushed whisper, not trusting his voice for much more. "But Hiei, mates…"
"Not mates," Hiei stated, completing his thoughts viciously bluntly.
"Kitsune mate for life," Kurama explained, still reeling from the shock. "I never planned to go that far, with anyone. It isn't your fault." For some reason he felt the need to reassure his friend that he was not to blame, though he didn't really think Hiei had heard him.
* * * * *
~Hiei~
I should have known…
"Not mates," he said flatly, his voice hollow.
"Kitsune mate for life."
He heard nothing beyond that revelation. Truth be told, he had known kitsune were lifelong maters, but hoped he would be good enough for his friend. Apparently not. And yet, Kurama insisted on fabricating the explanation, going on about how it wasn't Hiei's fault, how there wasn't anything he could have done to change Kurama's mind, how it had always been his plan. What mindless drivel. He had no interest in listening to the kitsune no baka any longer, but something rooted him to the bench and refused to let him leave.
Love.
He still loved Kurama, even if the foolish ningen-heart didn't return the feeling. There was nothing he could do to stop that. No matter how little he wanted an unrequited love, he could not shake his feelings for the kitsune. Just as he could never stop loving Yukina, his sister, his twin, he could never stop loving Kurama, his partner, his best friend.
"Hiei?"
"Nani?" His tone was sharp and cold, filled with disappointment and sadness. Kurama felt his heart break.
"Hiei, would you like to spend the night at my house?" he asked, noticing the rain begin to beat a steadily heavier pattern on his back and switching to such safe subjects as the weather. "I would expect the storm to turn to lightning and thunder later, and it wouldn't be safe to sleep in a tree."
A sharp nod. "Hn."
* * * * *
~Kurama~
Take it and run…
He knew the classic Hiei "Hn" was the only answer he would receive, and it satisfied him. Quite a different thing, however, was the direction this revelation has taken their relationship.
The two - or more accurately, Kurama - brought the conversation to something safe - weather - to purposefully stay away from the entwined and tangled emotions brought out of Hiei's confession. Hiei took and ran with it, Kurama could see, just as eager as he to escape from these confusing new feelings. Hiei and he were equally accustomed to Hiei's spending rainy nights in Kurama's bedroom, but never would the atmosphere be quite as tense as Kurama could see it would be now. Hiei often slept in Kurama's bed, sometimes with him, sometimes letting him move to the floor. Hiei would not do that tonight. Even if Kurama slept on the floor, the scents of him in his bed would torment and confuse Hiei, and he would get no sleep. Sleeping in Kurama's room at all was a risk, but when the choice is a sleepless night versus being fried to a crisp by lightning, he would easily choose the former.
Kurama began the walk back to his house, not hearing, but knowing Hiei was trailing him evenly. Kurama's walk was languid and slow, as he was accustomed to walking through the park in this manner, but it would not surprise him to turn around and see Hiei, usually lithe and ready to spring, tense and rigid. He did not turn, though. He walked forward and never looked back.
* * * * *
~Hiei~
Why?
First, he hesitated, not sure if sleeping at Kurama's house was the wisest choice. The realization soon came, however, that the rain and lightning storm would be dangerous for sleeping in a tree, and he was in no way comfortable with spending the night at Yuusuke's house. Kuwabara's was out of the question.
Somewhat reluctantly, he followed the kitsune, slightly stiffer than usual. As he walked, he thought.
Kurama had made it clear that he had never intended to choose a mate, but that didn't necessarily mean he never would. Just as clear was the fact that he loved Hiei as a close friend, but that didn't necessarily mean he would never see him as a lover. The possibilities were there, but needed to be taken advantage of. And Hiei was not ready to take advantage of them, not yet. The progression of their relationship was too new, even questionable.
As these thoughts came to him, Hiei questioned the possibility of choosing whom to love. Perhaps he could choose. Perhaps he could choose to stop loving Kurama. The more he turned the idea over in his head, though, the harder it seemed. It appeared it would be easier to choose to love someone than to choose not to love someone you did by nature alone.
Perhaps, though, was the tricky question.
Perhaps he would spend the entire night at Kurama's.
Perhaps.
Kurama…