Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ Life for Rent ❯ Life for Rent ( One-Shot )

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

Summary:

Focus: Kurama

POV: Kurama

Pairings: None

Baseline Plot: Kurama is thinking about his past and present - the people who trusted him, the people he betrayed, and where he could ever call home. Essentially Youko reflecting on his life from the point of view of Shuuichi's life.

I haven't ever really found a place that I call home

I never stick around quite long enough to make it

I apologize that once again I'm not in love

But it's not as if I mind that your heart ain't exactly breaking

It's just a thought, only a thought

* * * * *

Life. Easy. The two words have always gone hand-in-hand for me. It's always been so - I've never had problems with life. Stealing is my expertise, my passion, my relaxing pastime when everything else is too much to bear. When Kuronue was killed - stealing was my escape from all that. For a long time, I saw his death, and the deaths of all the others I have so heartlessly betrayed, in my sleep, the roots taking up as -

No. I cannot afford to dwell on the past. My past is gone now, and I cannot afford to allow it to resurface. It's nothing to me now. My past carries on the hard-earned skills and knowledge I have gained, nothing more.

But what of those things that I know and excel in that I have learned only in my human captivity? What of friends? What of caring? What of love? Do I even truly have love?... Has it ever been mine to know?

* * * * *

But if my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy

Well I deserve nothing more than I get

'Cos nothing I have is truly mine

* * * * *

Love is something to be felt and simply known, or so I have heard. If this is so, then perhaps I have known love in Shiori. The willingness to sacrifice my life for hers - was that love? I suppose that is the only means of explanation. I have known love in the woman's care for me.

In return for the woman's love, I have stolen her son from her. Yes, I know, the one view is that I have given her a more perfect son than any mother could ever ask for, but truly, what have I done? I have stolen the life of an unborn child, one who now shall never be born, one whom this mother who has cared for me so will never truly know. The thievery of this son and taking advantage of the love she so willingly offered me... this is worse than any murder I have committed, any priceless artifact I have stolen.

This life is not my own, and I have no right to use it so. Nothing I have in this life is mine. It all belongs to the unborn child, the boy who shall never know all he was meant to, the life I have stolen that is never really mine.

* * * * *

I've always thought that I would love to live by the sea

To travel the world alone and live more simply

I have no idea what's happened to that dream

'Cos there's really nothing left here to stop me

It's just a thought, only a thought

* * * * *

Living has never been a problem either. I could live wherever I wanted, at any time. I chose my den carefully, secluded, private, and my own sacred sanctuary. I could go where I wanted, do what I wanted, and never worry about the consequences. That's all changed now.

I have a set home now. A street, a house, a room, a bed. A family I have to stand by through all the wicked trials life puts me - us - through. I could abandon them, true. But the Shuuichi in me - or is it the me in Shuuichi? I don't know anymore, it's all such a blur - he won't let me. I can't abandon this woman. The first home I ever really had, the first set thing in a life that's always been such a carefree nothing, I can't leave it now.

Not for me; I'm used to living the carefree nothing, I did it for a thousand years and more. I could leave this life set in stone. But the knowledge that again, I had stolen this woman's son from her, I couldn't bear that. I couldn't do that to this woman who has so selflessly given me so much without even knowing who I truly am.

I could leave now. It would all be okay. I've borne much worse before and now, now I could do it again. There is nothing tying me to this set-in-stone life.

Is there?

* * * * *

But if my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy

Well I deserve nothing more than I get

'Cos nothing I have is truly mine

* * * * *

None of this is mine...

But, if I am so unworthy, why have I not been sent away by this woman, scorned as pitiful trash that does not belong? I do not belong, I can't. This is not a life of mine. This is a life I am only keeping for someone who will never have the chance to know it as it should have been.

But the woman... the woman loves me. She loves what I have shaped her son to be. She loves this entity that I am a part of.

Really, though, this woman doesn't know me. She doesn't love me; she can't. She loves the perfect little boy I have shaped her son to be.

* * * * *

While my heart is a shield and I won't let it down

While I am so afraid to fail so I won't even try

Well how can I say I'm alive

* * * * *

I've gone my whole life perfectly joyous and light-hearted, deadly and toying all at once. But for sixteen long years, I've hidden behind the mask of Minamino Shuuichi and look where I am now. I'm wondering on the reality of the love of some ningen woman.

Except really, she's not some ningen woman. She's my - Shuuichi's - my - I don't even know anymore. She's a mother. She's a ningen woman I care for, one I would willingly give my life for. She's a ningen woman I love. I suppose.

This façade has lasted sixteen years, and I can make it last a few more. I can make the woman happy with the perfect son she's never really known. But sharing in this perfect little boy's body and life - his very soul - where does that leave me?

Am I even truly alive anymore?

* * * * *

But if my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy

Well I deserve nothing more than I get

'Cos nothing I have is truly mine

* * * * *

I think, in a way...

I am alive.