Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ If Roses Are Fair ❯ Hear My Voice (As I Ask You) ( Chapter 5 )

Disclaimer: I own nothing Yuu Yuu Hakusho related except for about seven tapes of English dubs, seven DVDs, and one wall scroll.

Note: This chapter is slightly longer than the others, and involves a lot of psychological reflection.

~Kurama~

"Hiei," Kurama began softly, keeping his already strained voice hushed even more. "I think it's time we had a discussion about your…feelings for me," he finished, covering the awkward wording with graceful tones. Hiei nodded.

"Alright," Kurama began, diving straight in. "Have you ever had a lover before?"

"…Yes."

Not exactly an unexpected answer, but it still startled Kurama slightly. He didn't know exactly why, but he always saw the youkai as an innocent, freedom-loving little wanderer, inexperienced in the ways of sexual…favors, for lack of a better term. That didn't make sense, though. Hiei had grown up in a pack of thieves, and thieves took hostages, and hostages were sexually abused. In Makai, at least, ninety-nine percent of hostages taken by youkai of any sort were physically and sexually abused.

So it was logical that he would have picked up on the basics, at least, but to have taken a lover could be a dangerous game for a thief or an assassin, and especially dangerous for one of both professions. Or, the possibility existed that he had taken multiple lovers, though Kurama instantly disregarded the notion that Hiei could have taken nearly as many lovers as he had. It simple wasn't rational.

"So…" he began again, trailing off slightly after the long pause he had taken between questions. "I assume, from what you said yesterday, that you never actually loved any of them."

Not exactly a question, but not too restraining, either. Hopefully Hiei would not be offended.

"No…I didn't."

Love was new to Hiei, this much Kurama had already known.

But what Hiei did, or did not know, Kurama wasn't sure, was that love was also new for Youko, and therefore, it was new for Kurama, as well. The gorgeous Youko had been famous for his sex life in Makai, taking eager lovers left and right and disposing of them afterwards with not so much as an "I'm sorry." Love was not something he could afford, leading such a life, and as a result, he had been convinced that, as Hiei probably thought of himself, he had no heart. No heart beyond what was biologically necessary, at least, and even then, he wasn't always sure.

Kurama had fabricated what he felt for "his" ningen okaasan into full descriptions of love, both friendly and romantic, but in truth, he knew little more than Hiei. From what he knew of ningen fairytales, almost all of which dealt with love of some sort, he had been fairly accurate, but having never really experienced the emotion for himself, he couldn't say. Perhaps he was right, perhaps he was wrong.

There was that damned word again - "perhaps." Perhaps he could explain emotion to the little youkai no faia. Perhaps he knew how best to handle the situation. Perhaps he knew how not to break his friend's heart. Perhaps he knew what love was.

But perhaps he did not.

"Have you?"

"Have I what?"

Hiei looked him over carefully before continuing, his dark eyes piercing, and distracting Kurama as he tried to think. "Have you ever loved any of the ones you took?"

What interesting wording. "Any of the ones he took." Kurama had thought of each conquest as more of a game than a theft, but the little youkai had a point.

"…No. You know, I don't believe I have."

* * * * *

~Hiei~

No. You know, I don't believe I have.

They were each a game to him. Each a twisted labyrinth of a game. He never cared for how he hurt them; never cared for their feelings. He cared for the power it gave him, the sense of lust and adrenaline and the electric rush, and the ultimate control. In the end, that was what it was all about - power. It was a game, catching and taming a new toy, and it was fun, and then it was command. Power was everything; emotions were nothing.

He may have agreed with the kitsune, once. Once, until he had felt those emotions, lost that power, and wanted that prize.

Now he knew the importance of those feelings, and knew what a part they played in these games of the mind, and knew how they took control of him and yet, how he controlled them with his will.

And he hated them.

* * * * *

~Kurama~

Hiei…I want to help you…but I don't know how…

"Neither of us has ever known love…" Hiei murmured pensively. Kurama nodded. How depressing.

"So we're both new to these emotions - to this…situation." Kurama wished he could come up with a better word for it, but "situation" seemed to fit, and that wasn't his biggest problem at the moment.

It was new to them both, and uncharted territory was dangerous. Love, or the lack thereof? Emotion, or a blank metal wall? A steel wall that couldn't be climbed, a sleek, flat pane - or was it pain? It didn't matter anymore - unable to be scaled? Was that what love would bring? Would it destroy them both, before they even had the time to know what it was?

They couldn't let it, and yet, at the same time, perhaps they couldn't afford not to. They couldn't afford to let it in, to let it become a part of who they were, couldn't let it to the point where it would tear down their very souls when it all came crashing down. But at the same time, they couldn't afford not to know it, backwards and forwards, to understand it to the utmost before combating it.

And could love even be combated, and would they still survive? It was a dangerous game, one so full of variables neither understood that the turn not taken could result in both of their demises.

Kurama didn't like dangerous games when he was not the one in control.

* * * * *

~Hiei~

"Alright," Kurama said matter-of-factly. "You love me as a mate."

Hiei winced.

"I love you as my best friend." Kurama took a breath and let it out in a sigh. "Something needs to be done about this."

"Kill me?" Hiei suggested, only half joking. It would solve all their problems, if nothing else.

"Hiei, I don't want to do that," Kurama scolded, sighing again. "We just need a solution, that's all. One that doesn't result in death."

But death is so easy…

Kurama shook his head, presumably thinking something like what Hiei was. Death was easy…but death was weak. Cowardly. They could not submit to such a thing. Hiei turned away, frustrated.

"Can we even be partners anymore?" Hiei asked tensely. " I don't think I can ever look at you the same again."

"We can!" Kurama insisted. "We have to! I need you, Hiei, I need you to be there for me. I need you like I've needed no one else in over a thousand years."

Hiei looked over weakly. Don't say it, just don't say it…

"Please…"

Shit.

"Alright…" he submitted, clenching his hand into a fist at his side. Damn his inability to refuse the kitsune's pleas. Damn the kitsune. Damn it all.

"What about the ningen woman?"

"Shiori?" Kurama asked, confused.

"Yes, her. Don't you love her?"

"No."

Hiei looked at him carefully. "But you would sacrifice your life for her… Youko pays his debts, but he doesn't put himself at risk for those below him…"

Kurama looked away.

Hiei scrutinized him, going over again the facts of the incident in which Kurama had been about to sacrifice himself for Shiori, but Yuusuke had stepped in at the last moment, offering himself to the Mirror of Utter Dark in Kurama's place.

But Yuusuke had stepped in at the last moment…

Manipulator…

"You did it," he accused quietly in a sudden rush of understanding. "You meant for it all to happen. You orchestrated the entire event."

Kurama still did not look at him.

"You knew Yuusuke would sacrifice himself instead of you. You knew his judgment would be clouded and he would instinctively want you to live and do anything necessary to get that to happen. You meant for him to be there when you used the Mirror." Hiei felt as though he was suffocating, hoping vainly for Kurama to whirl on him and shout that he was a liar, that it wasn't true, that he would never do something so risky, and at the same time knowing it wouldn't happen.

"I have never known love," Kurama repeated softly. "I owed the woman, and I repaid my debt in a manner which would get me all that I needed and still leave me with all that I wanted."

"But," Hiei began again, speaking words he knew would result in nothing he wanted, and yet, needing to say them all the same, "you don't want to know love in me? I am offering you a chance to know the love you have never had, in a lover, not a friend, and still you turn me down?"

* * * * *

~Kurama~

Kurama choked slightly, feeling burning hot tears prickle the corners of his eyes, the sense rising again that he was not going to be able to successfully leave this discussion with his friend's heart in the condition it had been in before this entire mess had begun.

"Yes," he replied, his voice barely a whisper as he struggled to get the word out. "Hiei, I don't love you as any more than a wonderful friend," he began anew, spurred on by his desires to leave this entire ordeal behind them. "Maybe I could someday, maybe I could teach myself to, but would you really want that? Would you really want to go on knowing you had a lover who had to teach himself to love you? You deserve so much more than that, Hiei, so much more than I could ever give you. I don't want you to be tied down and limited by what little I could offer."

Hiei walked on silently for a long moment, apparently digesting the question, maybe forming a response, but Kurama couldn't tell. His face had taken on that flat mask it did whenever thoughts were roiling around that he didn't, or didn't want to, understand.

The wish had appeared, as it often did in these sorts of situations, for things to all go back to the way they had been before…before…no, not before anything specific, just before. He didn't know to what before, but not now, not yesterday, not last week, just…before. When they had been called off on routine missions every few weeks, when their relationships had been amicable and easy and nothing had been interfered with by these odd feelings of love and care.

But the wish was foolish, and the wish was impossible. The feelings wouldn't go away, and there was no going back to before.

"Before" was gone, and "later" was now.

"But…but I love you…"

Hiei's sudden response shocked Kurama out of his reverie.

"Hiei, I -"

"…Don't love you," Hiei finished for him. "You don't have to tell me again… I know…"

In that instant, Hiei looked less like the wickedly dispassionate assassin and Forbidden Child than he ever had. He was not dark. He was not the first thing to come to mind when the word "black" was mentioned. He was not cruel, or evil, or menacing.

He was an abandoned child who needed someone to love him.

"If you want my heart, Hiei…you can have it."

* * * * *

Oi, sorry, I threw in some new Japanese last chapter without definition, so here:

Oi: Hey

Nani: What

Onegai: Please

Okaasan: Mother ['Kaasan: i.e., "Mom"]

About This Chapter: I was greatly influenced and inspired between the time I wrote "Keep Me Sane" and "Hear My Voice" by fics written by oOKeairaOo and Larissa, who are both geniuses, by the way, and therefore there is a lot of information - albeit, opinionated information - in "Hear My Voice" that I didn't intend to be in this story when I wrote "Tell Me Now." I.e., the passages about Kurama not being capable of loving and not having a heart were influenced by oOKeairaOo's fic, The Game, and the ones about Hiei having to have picked up on at least the basics of sex were inspired by Larissa's fic, The Beginning.

Not also that I know the concept of Kurama subtly manipulating Yuusuke into saving both their lives with the Mirror has been done before, many times, and done well in many instances. I do not think I'm being original. It fits here, though, so I used it.