Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ My Downfall ❯ The Proposal ( Chapter 16 )

A/N: I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho or any of the characters herein, they are all the property of Yoshihiro Togashi (except Izumi - gah, I was hoping to avoid OCs, but this one is necessary. Minor role only, I promise!)

 

Recap: Meh, not much happened last time (considering it was 8.5K word chapter!!!). Botan recovered from her wounds suffered in the past, she shared a kiss with Hiei that ended abruptly, Botan realised she had named Hiei, and (of course) Kurama promised not to tell anyone that she had time travelled, but said that she will owe him a favour in return one day… (And it will only take him about 6 chapters to call her up on it…)

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Chapter 16: The Proposal

 

Botan was starting to feel an itch in the back of her eyeballs: the atmosphere in the sitting room was becoming far too tense, and she was still feeling a little awkward about her confrontation with Hiei earlier that morning, not to mention the fact that she had yet to get him a gift.

 

“Ooh, I think I hear my communicator, that must be Lord Koenma!” she lied a little too loudly to sound natural. “Excuse me, must dash!”

 

“I don't hear anything,” Yusuke said with a frown.

 

“Brring-brring,” Botan muttered into her hand. “There, you see! That was it again!”

 

Yusuke pulled a face at her but before he or anyone else could argue, she turned and fled from the room, running all the way out of the temple. As she crossed the lawn she jumped into the air and swung her oar under her legs, taking off in the one direction she could think of that might help her find some answers.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Shizuru was enjoying lunch at her favourite restaurant with a colleague from work that she had been admiring from afar for some time. The food was perfect, he was perfect and the atmosphere was - well, she could not think of a word to describe the atmosphere.

 

“Knock, knock!”

 

Shizuru jerked her head up as someone rapped a fist against her table.

 

“Botan!” she blurted. “Fancy seeing you here! What a really badly-timed and unwelcome surprise!”

 

“I need some advice!” Botan whispered loudly.

 

“Today is actually quite an important day,” Shizuru said slowly.

 

“Yes, that's what I need the advice on,” Botan replied. “I'm having trouble knowing how I should celebrate a day like this with a guy like Hiei.”

 

“Yes, celebrating today with someone you like would be very important.”

 

Shizuru jerked her head towards her date, but Botan missed her gesture entirely.

 

“I'm running out of time,” she said. “And I have no idea what I should do. I'm really desperate, Shizuru! You wouldn't leave a little kitty all alone at a time like this, would you?”

 

Botan pulled her most endearing cat face and Shizuru almost plucked the whiskers out of her cheeks, bunching her fists into the tablecloth to stop herself from acting out the urge.

 

“Okay,” she said slowly, lifting up her purse. “I'll tell you what I'm gonna do for you: I'll lend you - no, in fact I'll give you all the money I have here, and you can go across the street to that shop over there and buy whatever the hell you want for your special little guy.”

 

Botan watched curiously as Shizuru opened out her purse and shook the contents over the table. As she began clawing through old bus tickets, lighters, loose cigarettes and notes, Botan's attention drifted to the man sat across from her.

 

“Ooh, hello!” she said, wiggling her fingers at him. “Are you Shizuru's new boyfriend this week?”

 

“This week?” he echoed, his face dropping.

 

“Botan just take this!” Shizuru said desperately, grabbing one of Botan's hands and stuffing a crumpled pile of notes into it with her other hand. “Spend the whole damn lot, and have a great day.”

 

“This is quite a lot of money,” Botan said, looking down at the notes in her hand. “At least I think it is. I don't know that I can repay you straight away.”

 

“You don't have to repay me, just go out there and have a great day and leave me alone here so that I can have a great day too,” Shizuru said, glaring at her warningly.

 

“Okay dokay!” Botan said cheerfully. “Have fun! I hope this man doesn't break your heart again.”

 

“Get out of here, Botan!”

 

Botan grinned and skipped out of the restaurant, leaving Shizuru to groan and scrape her belongings off the table before flashing an awkward grin at her date.

 

“I guess the mental hospital lets her out sometimes,” she commented.

 

Meanwhile, outside of the restaurant, one blue-haired ferry girl took Shizuru's advice quite literally: she crossed the street and entered the nearest shop in search of a gift for Hiei. She got about three steps into the shop before she stopped, her eyes drawn upwards and all around her, her jaw falling open in wonder.

 

“Can I help you, Miss?” a young woman in an apron asked her.

 

Botan turned to her, her face still wide-eyed and awestruck.

 

“This is a lovely shop, isn't it?” she asked.

 

“Yes Miss,” the assistant replied. “Are you looking for a Valentine's gift?”

 

“Yes, I am!” Botan replied, finding her grin again. “What would you recommend?”

 

“Well that depends: do you know what your crush's tastes are?”

 

“My what?”

 

The assistant frowned a little at Botan, who looked back at her with an equally confused expression.

 

“I need the perfect gift for a sort of unpleasant guy who doesn't like anything or anyone,” Botan said slowly.

 

She placed her fist on the counter between herself and the assistant, slowly opening it out.

 

“I have that much money,” she said. “What's the absolute best thing you can get me with that amount of money for that sort of guy?”

 

The assistant poked at the crumpled pile of notes before nodding and managing a smile.

 

“I think I can find you something you'll be pleased with,” she said.

 

“Excellent!” Botan cheered, clapping her hands.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Botan's face hurt. Her hands hurt. Her whole body hurt. It was still quite cold outside, and she was especially cold because she was flying as high as she possibly could, without a scarf, hat or gloves. Her instructions from the helpful girl in the shop had been quite explicit: the box had to be kept cold at all times, otherwise the gift inside would be ruined. It was very sore flying in such conditions though, Botan thought to herself as she looked down at the pastel blue box she had tied to the blade of her oar.

 

She was almost back at Genkai's temple, though she could not see it yet as she was flying above the lowest level of clouds. She was really glad that she had found something for Hiei and she hoped that he had not gone back to demon world yet. Somehow she did not think that he would appreciate her going back to Mukuro's fortress and presenting him with a blue box wrapped with a curly red ribbon: it probably would not do his reputation there much good.

 

As Botan began to descend through the clouds she wondered what had happened at Genkai's after she had left: after all, it was the first time Hiei had been in a room with either Yukina or Kuwabara since they had all found out about Yukina's pregnancy. As far as she knew, the vine of the guilty was still lying dormant by the top of the temple steps, but that was a long way from the room the others had all been gathered in, where Kuwabara was barely a katana-length from Hiei.

 

Botan began to fly faster.

 

She rocketed towards the temple, taking a little too long to notice the black shape balanced on a tree branch by the edge of the forest. With a noise of realisation she arced around by the front of the temple and shot back towards the forest, leaping off of her oar by the base of the tree in question. She held out her hands as her oar vanished, catching the box as it fell towards her.

 

“Knock, knock!” she said cheerfully.

 

Hiei cracked open one eye to a thin slit to glare down at her. His back was rested against the trunk of the tree and his legs were spread along the branch, bent slightly at his knees. His arms were folded tightly over his broad chest, and even though he only had one eye slightly open, Botan could already see that he looked unhappy with her intrusion.

 

“Ta-da!” she tried, resting the box on her upturned palms and holding it up towards him.

 

“Kurama is inside with the others,” he said, closing his eye again.

 

“No, silly!” Botan said, rolling her eyes. “This isn't for Kurama, it's for you!”

 

Hiei's eye opened again, opening a little wider this time.

 

“It's for you,” Botan said again.

 

“You must be mistaken,” he replied. “I don't indulge in the madness of human festivities.”

 

“Well I do!” Botan said sharply, her patience starting to wear thin. “And I bought this especially for you, Mister Hiei!”

 

Hiei's other eye opened and his head turned towards her slightly. He was trying to look as aloof as always, but Botan could see the glint of curiosity in his eyes.

 

“Now come down here so that I can give it to you, Hiei,” she added.

 

He smirked for a second as though she had just said something funny, but soon regained his look of disinterest, leaping down from the branch to stand in front of her.

 

“That's better,” Botan said. “Now, here you go.”

 

She moved her hands towards him, stopping when the box was practically under his chin. He peered down at it suspiciously, his hands in his pockets, making no attempt to accept it.

 

“Hiei, please,” she said gently.

 

“As long as you understand what this means,” he said quietly.

 

Botan was confused by his reply and wanted to ask him what he meant, but she forgot all about it when he took hold of the box. She pulled back her hands and clasped them together beside her face, grinning at him in delight.

 

“This is very cold,” he said. “Where did it come from? It feels like it came from the ice village. Did it come from the ice village?”

 

“No, but it does have a sort of ice theme to it,” she replied. “Just open it!”

 

Hiei clawed one hand over the top of the box and Botan suddenly remembered how he had opened the box of pork noodles he had eaten during their first day on the mission together.

 

“Carefully!” she quickly added.

 

He sneered at her as though he considered her suggestion to be ridiculous, but took her advice regardless, grabbing just the ribbon tied around the box and tearing it loose before flipping off the lid. His eyes doubled in size as he peered inside at the contents.

 

“It's a dragon!” Botan said cheerfully. “I couldn't get it in black, I'm afraid. And because it's Valentine's Day, almost everything in the shop was either red or pink. Or both. I hope you don't mind.”

 

Hiei quirked an eyebrow at the chubby, cartoonish, S-shaped pink, red and white excuse for a dragon resting in the box in his hands.

 

“I don't understand,” he said, looking up at Botan. “What do you expect me to do with this?”

 

“Eat it!” she replied, frowning at him as though he was the one saying something stupid. “It's an ice-cream cake!”

 

“It's a what?” he echoed.

 

“An ice-cream cake! It's a cake made entirely out of ice-cream!”

 

“Ice cream?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Hiei sniffed at the box.

 

“It's very tasty,” Botan assured him.

 

“You expect me to eat this?” he asked.

 

“Yes,” she replied, looking a little hurt.

 

“It smells like one of Kurama's weapons.”

 

“It tastes very yummy though!”

 

“Don't patronise me.”

 

“Just have a little taste. You'll love it, I promise!”

 

“I don't get excited over performing what is a basic necessity to sustain life.”

 

“…What?”

 

“Eating is not an excuse to hop about and clap your hands like an idiot!”

 

Botan stopped skipping from foot to foot and put her hands behind her back.

 

“How do I know you haven't done something to this?” Hiei asked, eying her suspiciously. “How do I know that you haven't poisoned this?”

 

“Why would I want to poison you?” Botan echoed. “Really, that's very rude, Hiei! I am giving you a gift, and you are being unreasonably rude about the whole thing! You haven't even thanked me yet!”

 

“People don't give gifts unless there is some sort of motivation behind it,” he snapped back. “Gifts are given in the expectation of receiving something in return. What do you expect of me if I do eat this?”

 

“I don't expect anything from you, you ungrateful pest! Although if you do feel obliged to give me something in return, maybe you could try to be a little less abrasive and obnoxious all the time!”

 

“You see? You do have a motivation: you're trying to charm me!”

 

“Just eat the cake, Hiei!”

 

Hiei thinned his eyes and Botan sighed out a groan of despair.

 

“You are impossible, I don't know why I bother,” she grumbled, stepping towards him. “Look, I'll prove to you that this is just a gift and nothing more.”

 

Botan stuck a finger into the ice-cream and scooped up a small amount before sticking it into her mouth.

 

“Mmm!” she said as she withdrew her finger. “It tastes yummy! And not at all poisonous!”

 

A hint of something Botan could not comprehend flickered across Hiei's features. He studied the ice-cream dragon for a few seconds before lifting his eyes to her again.

 

“Well you've proved the pink isn't poisoned,” he said quietly. “What about the red bit?”

 

“Oh for goodness sake, Hiei!” she yelled. “Fine!”

 

She scooped up a lump of red ice cream with her finger, sucking it from her finger again.

 

“See, it's fine!” she said. “And before you ask, so is the white bit, look!”

 

Botan repeated her actions for the white ice-cream, and as she withdrew her finger, she could have sworn she saw a slight smile on Hiei's face.

 

“I'm still not convinced,” he said. “You only tested small amounts. I think you need to do that again. Many times over.”

 

“What?” Botan echoed, frowning at him in confusion.

 

There was definitely a small smile on his face, but Botan failed to see what was amusing him.

 

“Just eat it, Hiei!” she snapped, shoving a hand into the box and retrieving a spoon. “Here: eat it. Do it right now, before it melts!”

 

Hiei looked at the spoon, the cake and then Botan. He was still looking mildly amused despite his refusals, which was only infuriating Botan even more.

 

“You are so difficult,” she muttered, digging the spoon into the ice-cream. “Here, eat!”

 

She pushed the spoon, loaded with a lump of ice-cream towards Hiei, stopping just short of his lips, which finally dropped out of their smirk.

 

“Come on Hiei!” she pressed.

 

She withdrew the spoon again, holding it up above her head.

 

“Here comes the big aeroplane!” she said.

 

“What the fu-”

 

Hiei's outraged demand was cut short as Botan successfully rammed the spoon into his mouth. He bit down onto it, his lips peeling back to into a sneer that showed almost every tooth in his head: but Botan merely released the spoon and smiled sweetly back at him. He turned his head to one side and spat out the spoon, contents and all, but since the ice-cram had sat inside his mouth for several seconds before he reacted, some of it had melted and been left behind on his tongue.

 

Hiei swallowed, and his face changed.

 

“It's good, isn't it?” Botan said.

 

She started to reach a hand towards the box but he snatched it out of her reach, glaring at her threateningly.

 

“I thought you might like to share it,” she said.

 

“You said this was my gift!” he snapped back.

 

“It tastes sweeter when you share it with a friend,” she said, waggling a finger at him.

 

“Liar!”

 

Botan blinked and staggered back a step as a blast of wind swept past her. Looking up she saw that Hiei had scaled the tree at her side, taking himself to a higher branch than before. She bit at her lower lip and winced as he wrapped one arm around the box and used his other hand to grab up fistfuls of ice-cream and shove them into his mouth, practically swallowing them whole.

 

“Um, Hiei?” she said, raising a hand as though she was a student in class. “You shouldn't eat ice-cream so fast.”

 

Hiei spat something down at her that sounded like he was telling her she ought to go somewhere terrible, but his words were not quite clear, since his mouth was filled with pink cream. Botan pulled one sleeve over one hand and dragged it across her brow and down one cheek where stray drops of ice-cream had landed on her from Hiei's outburst. Maybe demons were immune to ice-cream headaches, she decided.

 

But barely three seconds later, she was proved wrong.

 

Hiei stopped eating suddenly, his fist poised in the air in front of his face, filled with ice-cream that was dripping down his wrist, his cheeks swollen and his eyes wide. He swallowed slowly before scrunching up his face and throwing down both the ice-cream in his hand and the box with the remains of Botan's gift. He grabbed his hands at his forehead and growled angrily before rocking slightly and then falling out of the tree completely.

 

Botan started to reach for him to break his fall, but somehow he managed to land on his feet, his eyes cracking open to glare at her.

 

“You did poison it, you bitch!” he spat.

 

“No I did not!” she yelled back defensively. “I tried to warn you: you have to eat ice-cream slowly, or else you get a headache!”

 

“What sort of madness is this?” he demanded.

 

“Just relax, it will go away!” she insisted.

 

“Why can't you just leave me alone?”

 

“Because we're friends, and this is what friends do for each other!”

 

“What, poison each other with frozen pink piles of goo?”

 

“You're so ungrateful!”

 

“And you're so damned insufferable!”

 

“If you feel that way, why don't you go back to demon world?”

 

“I was trying to, but you stopped me!”

 

“No I didn't!”

 

Silence fell and Botan and Hiei simply glared at each other, both enraged, both breathing heavily. Slowly Hiei's hands slid from his head. His scowl eased off a little. He began looking about himself. When he eventually located the remains of his gift lying in a pile of squashed cardboard and pink puddles he turned back to glowering at Botan.

 

“See what you made me do?” he snapped, pointing back at the mess behind him.

 

“You did that yourself, mister greedy pants!” she snapped back.

 

“Mister…”

 

Hiei sighed sharply.

 

“You're an idiot,” he grumbled.

 

“So are you!” Botan returned.

 

“I didn't ask you to give me a gift,” he said.

 

“That's the whole point of giving gifts!” she said.

 

“Sometimes you really, really piss me off.”

 

“Sometimes you leave me terribly irked!”

 

“You can't even get angry properly. And there's no real threat when you do.”

 

“Some of us like being happy!”

 

“And some of us like to be left alone!”

 

“Well alrighty then!”

 

“Fine!”

 

“Good!”

 

They both turned their heads from each other and folded their arms, both standing that way for some time in their own stubbornness. Botan was the first to give in.

 

“Happy Valentine's Day, Hiei,” she muttered.

 

He turned and started to tell her where she could shove the whole day, but he fell silent when she suddenly leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. He froze on the spot, so taken aback by her action he could barely even think let alone react. She started to walk off and he turned to yell something after her, but found words failing him. Instead he watched her go, torn between the urge to wipe the wet remains of her gesture off of his face and the urge to run after her and show her how she ought to kiss someone.

 

“Everything alright?”

 

Hiei cursed loudly, his voice echoing around the trees, and he spun around, finding Kurama by the splat that was his gift from Botan.

 

“Where did you come from?” Hiei demanded, inwardly cursing himself for not sensing the fox's approach.

 

“I see I'm not the only one who prospered this Valentine's Day,” Kurama said, poking a toe at the box by his feet.

 

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Hiei moodily replied, turning away from him.

 

“Hiei?”

 

“What?”

 

“Hiei?”

 

“What?!”

 

“Hiei, turn around and face me.”

 

Hiei stiffened but did not move.

 

“Turn around, Hiei,” Kurama said, his voice lower and almost threatening. “Or I will come around and look at you myself.”

 

“Stop wasting my time!” Hiei snapped.

 

“Why won't you look at me?” Kurama asked.

 

“Because you're too ugly,” Hiei replied.

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“I think you won't look at me because you're blushing.”

 

“What?”

 

Hiei's head snapped around and he fixed his eyes onto Kurama, who slowly developed an infuriatingly sympathetic smile.

 

“And it seems I'm right,” he said quietly.

 

“I am not “blushing” you fool!” Hiei snarled. “I'm just… Very pissed off!”

 

“I see,” Kurama calmly replied. “You're not blushing.”

 

“No, I'm damn well not!”

 

“You're just a little red from the intensity of your passion.”

 

“Yes, that's-wait, what?”

 

Kurama smiled again and Hiei dropped a hand to his sword, exposing the blade with a flick of his thumb.

 

“Hiei, Botan went to a lot of effort to get you a nice gift,” Kurama said, not so much as glancing at the shining metal exposed by Hiei's hip.

 

“I didn't ask her to do that,” Hiei replied.

 

“She didn't do it because she thought you wanted her to,” Kurama explained. “She did it for the same reasons that Keiko gave a gift to Yusuke and Yukina gave a gift to Kuwabara-”

 

“Leave my sister out of this!”

 

“-simply because she wanted to show you that she likes you.”

 

“Why would she like me?”

 

“Well that's a loaded question…”

 

Hiei relaxed his thumb and his sword slid back into its sheath.

 

“What do mean “like”?” he asked.

 

“I mean she likes you in a romantic way, Hiei,” Kurama frankly replied.

 

Hiei tensed at first, but then found his smile.

 

“I thought this was some sort of game she was playing,” he muttered.

 

“No,” Kurama replied.

 

“This gift is the way human females indicate their interest in a male?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Perfect. I thought I'd never get the message across. I've been watching her, I've been following her and I've tried everything to let her know what my intentions are, but this is even better. Now I know that I can have her any time I damn well want.”

 

Kurama gave Hiei a withering look, but Hiei failed to notice it, his eyes too caught up in a scheming look.

 

“Hiei, if you really have been watching her and following her and trying to convey how much you want to be with her, that suggests to me that you are in love with her,” Kurama said.

 

“This is not love, you idiot!” Hiei snapped.

 

“It's infatuation.”

 

“Almost. It's obsession.”

 

“Obsession?”

 

“Yes, obsession. But now I know I can have her it will soon be over.”

 

Kurama made a small noise of amusement and Hiei's face darkened over again.

 

“Does this amuse you, fox?” he asked. “I'm not proud of desiring a stupid, flighty, naïve ferry girl, you know!”

 

“It's not the circumstances that amuse me Hiei, but rather your attitude towards them,” Kurama replied. “Or perhaps I should say your downright denial of the facts.”

 

“What are you talking about now?”

 

“When I suggested that you were in love with Botan, you insisted that what you are experiencing is not love, but obsession.”

 

“It is obsession!”

 

“You would rather be obsessed with a woman than in love with her?”

 

“Wouldn't you?”

 

Kurama's face twitched slightly and Hiei growled at him angrily.

 

“I was just curious,” Kurama said, holding up his hands to indicate that he was not looking for a fight. “Love is not such a terrible concept, you know. It comes in many different forms, and it isn't always something ridiculous.”

 

“I'm not going to have this conversation with you, Kurama,” Hiei said flatly.

 

“For example,” Kurama continued, ignoring Hiei's response. “You clearly love Yukina, and that's not something ridiculous.”

 

Hiei clenched his fists at his sides but said nothing.

 

“Would it really be so bad to love someone else too?” Kurama asked.

 

“You're really pushing your luck,” Hiei spat back. “I haven't forgotten about your little plant trick.”

 

“Neither have I,” Kurama said with a small shrug. “That also proved the point I am trying to make. You clearly have feelings for Botan.”

 

“I have feelings for her,” Hiei said, smirking darkly. “I feel like I want to tear off her clothes with my teeth and claim every part of her body.”

 

“I don't think it's that simple.”

 

“Well you don't know what you're talking about. You've been living as a human for far too long.”

 

“My choices in regards to love are far more restricted than yours, Hiei. As long as I am in this body, I am not being true to myself. I wouldn't expect a human to understand what I really am, and I doubt any demon would appreciate my decision to remain this way. But I am contented. My life is not without love or companionship because I have good friends and a loving family. Your life, however, is lacking, but only because of your own stubbornness.”

 

“You really are pushing your luck with me today, Kurama.”

 

“I just want to be sure that you know what you're doing. I consider you a good friend Hiei, but I am also close to Botan. She is an innocent and almost as gentle as your own sister. I would not like to see her hurt.”

 

“First of all, don't you dare compare that ditzy ferry girl to my sister! And secondly, what concern is she of yours?”

 

“She's a nice girl, Hiei. She's forgiving, she's kind, she's tolerant - and she proved that today when she gave you a gift that you virtually threw back in her face-”

 

“Were you watching the whole time?”

 

“-and you've already demonstrated that you find her attractive. I don't see what the problem is.”

 

“Well if you like her so damn much, why don't you have her?”

 

“Maybe I will.”

 

Hiei stopped breathing, and his eyes grew large.

 

“You said one night was all you wanted, yes?” Kurama continued. “So I'll let you have tonight to do what you will or won't. After that I'll assume that she's fair game.”

 

“What?” Hiei hissed.

 

“You said you're not in love with her and you only need one night with her,” Kurama repeated. “So have your one night. After that, it's not your concern what she does.”

 

“You can't be serious? You would… Go in there after I'd already…?”

 

“Botan understands my predicament, my dual personas. She's very easy to talk to, I find her pleasant outlook very calming and welcome. And you said yourself, she is very pretty.”

 

Hiei's face twitched through several expressions of displeasure and Kurama smiled.

 

“Unless of course you think that you need more than one night with her?”

 

Hiei looked down at his right hand, clenching and unclenching his fist in thought. The bandages he wore were stained from the ice-cream and his fingers were sticky. He pursed his lips together and realised that they felt sticky too: great, he thought, he probably had pink stickiness all over his face too.

 

“Unless you intend to keep her for yourself?”

 

Hiei lifted his eyes, locking them onto Kurama, who was still wearing that mild yet superior smile.

 

“It's just a long-standing obsession that I haven't been able to satisfy yet,” he said darkly. “I have no interest in “keeping her”. There is no place in demon world for her, and no place in spirit world for me. And five minutes in her company infuriates me, I couldn't stomach a lifetime with her. I don't need to pair myself off with one woman like some do, but if I did, I certainly wouldn't choose that one… Maybe Mukuro, but not before I get strong enough to defeat the bitch. I couldn't be with a woman who thought she was better than me.”

 

Kurama's smile had vanished.

 

“I won't tell you what to do Hiei-”

 

“That's all you've been doing this entire conversation!”

 

“-but please don't hurt Botan. You'll upset more than the girl herself if you do. And I don't think I need to explain to you again how spirit world would react if you did something completely reckless with one of their ferry girls.”

 

“I am a reckless soul, it's how I live my life. It always has been and it always will be.”

 

“I've said what I needed to.”

 

“Then you should go.”

 

Hiei and Kurama stared at each other for a few moments longer before both turning in opposite directions and moving off, one at a casual stroll the other at break-neck speed.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Botan hesitated, the sight before her making her wonder if going back to spirit world had been such a great idea. After dealing with Hiei's ungratefulness and general bitterness she had gone back into the temple to find Yusuke and Keiko sharing a slightly too passionate kiss in a cupboard under the stairs and Kuwabara on his knees in front of Yukina reading her poetry - which, judging by how terrible it had sounded, had possibly been his own. She wanted to get as far away from the sentimentality as possible and so had taken herself back to spirit world: but inside Koenma's office she found Ayame giving a gift to Koenma.

 

“Botan!” Koenma yelped.

 

“Hello, Sir,” she replied.

 

“Do you know what day it is today?” he asked.

 

“Yes Sir, it's Valentine's Day.”

 

“So where's my gift from you? All my other ferry girls remembered!”

 

Botan sighed quietly.

 

“You never remember,” Koenma grumbled.

 

“I'm sorry Sir, I was busy,” Botan replied.

 

Koenma nodded.

 

“You're looking a lot better now though,” he said. “I thought we'd lost you. It was close. It's a good thing Hiei was there.”

 

Botan rolled her eyes.

 

“He's a strange one, but we sure can count on him in a fix,” Koenma continued. “And now although I'm glad to see you up and walking about and back to your old self, I do wonder what you're doing here, Botan.”

 

Botan arched her eyebrows.

 

“The mission is over, I'm ready to go back to work ferrying souls, Lord Koenma,” she said.

 

“You should take a few days to recover,” Koenma said, waving a hand at her as though ushering her back out of his office. “Go and enjoy Valentine's Day.”

 

“You're giving me time off?” Botan asked in disbelief. “You never give me time off!”

 

“Well I'm giving you time off now.”

 

“But I don't want time off! I want to go back to work!”

 

“Nonsense! Go and enjoy yourself! Take the ogre out to dinner or something.”

 

Botan turned to George, who was standing by Koenma's desk as reliably as ever. He grinned bashfully and Botan felt her stomach sink. When nothing intelligent came to her mind she turned on her heel and left the office again, slowly losing herself amongst the chaos of ferry girls and ogres in the hallways beyond.

 

“Hey there, big blue!”

 

Botan stopped short, looking about herself. She did not see anyone that appeared to be addressing her, but she could have sworn the voice that had spoken had been right beside her.

 

“Hey, down here, tall and lonesome!”

 

Botan looked down, blinking repeatedly before recognition set in. A short, green-haired ferry girl was grinning up at her amusedly, and although it had been many years since they had last crossed paths, Botan recognised her as the ferry girl who had coached her during her early days in the job.

 

“Izumi!” Botan greeted her. “How are you?”

 

“A lot better than you, by the looks of it,” Izumi replied. “It's not like you to look so miserable. Did Lord Koenma just chew you out about something?”

 

Botan started to make false niceties, but as she also remembered that Izumi was the one who had warned her about falling in love with a kindred soul she gave up trying to cover up her sadness.

 

“Izumi, I have sympathy for the devil syndrome,” she confessed.

 

Izumi nodded and gave her a sympathetic smile.

 

“It happens to us all at least once,” she said. “But you must have coped, you don't have the soul with you any more.”

 

“It's not a soul I fell in lo… He's still alive.”

 

Izumi looked about herself as though she was afraid that someone else might have heard what Botan had just said.

 

“You showed yourself to a human?” she asked in a voice that was barely above a whisper.

 

“No, I have the ability to take a human body when I'm in the living world, I was given that to help me work as assistant to the spirit detective,” Botan explained.

 

“You fell in love with a living spirit detective?” Izumi echoed. “Which one: the recluse, the schizophrenic or the mazoku?”

 

“The…”

 

Botan paused, Izumi's words battering around her mind.

 

“You make it sound like our spirit detectives were all deranged,” she concluded.

 

“They were,” Izumi said with a shrug. “Though I suppose they needed to be to take the job in the first place, right?”

 

“That seems like a very morbid way of looking at things…”

 

“So which is it? Come on blue, I'm busy, I can't stop long.”

 

“Oh I'm not… I wasn't talking about a spirit detective, I was talking about a demon.”

 

“You're in love with a demon?”

 

Botan saw something so amazing, she had never even imagined what it might have looked like before: every ogre and ferry girl stopped what he or she was doing and fell silent. She had seen them all part and pause when she had walked through them in her wet clothing, but this was a positive and absolute full stop to the mayhem.

 

Botan slowly turned her head in both directions, finding every pair of eyes on her.

 

“It's Botan,” she heard a voice whisper.

 

“She spends a lot of time with demons,” another one whispered.

 

“She's strange.”

 

“It's probably that mazoku, the Urameshi boy.”

 

Botan felt Izumi grab her arm and she made no complaint when the smaller ferry girl began dragging her away from the crowds towards the nearest exit.

 

“I'm sorry I shouted that out,” Izumi said once they were outside the temple. “But really, Botan, what are you thinking?”

 

“I don't know,” Botan moaned. “I just came here to get away from it all, but Lord Koenma has ordered me to go back to the living world and enjoy myself!”

 

“With the demon?”

 

“I don't know! I don't know what to do! I don't even know how I really feel about him, he's such a nasty, angry, rude… And he's very ungrateful!”

 

“He's a demon, Botan. Generally speaking, demons are nasty, angry, rude and ungrateful. They are not loving creatures. You do understand that, don't you?”

 

“But… The way he looks at his sister, I know he knows how to love…”

 

Izumi pulled a face of concern, glancing up at the sky.

 

“Look blue, I've got to go,” she said, squeezing Botan's arm. “Don't do anything until I get back. We'll talk more then.”

 

Botan nodded and Izumi leapt onto her oar, offering Botan one last reassuring smile before taking off into the sky. Botan watched her go until she was out of sight before summoning her own trusty oar and half-heartedly shuffling onto it. She hoped that she could talk to Izumi about her troubles, but until Izumi was finished with her duties, Botan had no other choice but to go back to the living world.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

After a slow flight with lots of unnecessary diversions, Botan brought herself back to Genkai's temple. The sun was setting as she arrived, a red half circle burning into the horizon. The sky was clear and already some stars were visible. It was cold, but not unbearably so, though Botan suspected that once the sun disappeared, the temperature would drop a little further and being outside flying around in the sky would be far less pleasant.

 

Botan hoped that everyone had gone to bed already. That was a terrible thing to think, she scolded herself, but it was what she wanted. She did not want to have to face Yusuke and Kuwabara and their jokes about her gift to Hiei - and she was sure that they would have somehow found out by then, so avoiding it would be impossible. She aimed herself towards the window in the roof in the hope that Yukina was already in bed there, and she could simply enter the temple through the window and go straight to bed. She was not in the least bit tired - though she thought that she ought to be after what she had been through the day before - but she was cold and the thought of snuggling into bed seemed infinitely appealing by then.

 

Thankfully Valentine's Day was over for another year, she thought to herself.

 

Botan landed noiselessly on the roof a short way below the window, banishing her oar and edging up to the window to peer inside. She smiled her first genuine smile in hours when she saw Yukina cuddled up asleep in her bed, a small, sweet, innocent smile barely gracing her lips. Botan sighed and raised one hand above the glass to knock. She felt a little guilty about waking Yukina up, but at least this way she would avoid dealing with the others.

 

Botan paused just before her knuckles reached the glass, her heart pounding hard inside her chest as she saw something from the corner of one eye. Slowly, she turned her head towards it, withdrawing her hand from the window.

 

By one side of the window was a small figure, curled around like a dog, using his own crossed forearms as a pillow.

 

Botan slowly sat back onto her heels. This was quite unexpected. She had expected Hiei to go back to demon world, or at least to go and sleep in a tree somewhere. Why was he sleeping outside Yukina's bedroom window? Botan then began to sneer at Hiei as she realised what must be happening: Hiei had yet to confront Yukina since she had announced her pregnancy, and this was probably his repressed way of showing that he cared. He was probably concerned for her, proud of her and desperate to be a part of what she was going through, but rather than go and tell her who he really was, rather than return her hirui stone and show her his, rather than do anything remotely normal, Hiei chose to spy on her from the shadows.

 

Botan sighed quietly. Now she was in quite a pickle. The window was high, and in order to reach it to open it, little Yukina would have to stand on a chair. Whilst that was not too much of a problem, it did mean that she would be on eye-level with the three-eyed demon sleeping on the roof, and she was bound to wonder why he was sleeping outside of her room. Or, perhaps even worse, Yukina would not open the window herself. Rather she would ask Kuwabara to do it, since he was the tallest person in the house, and he was making such a fuss over her and refusing to let her do anything remotely physically strenuous lately, and then Kuwabara would find Hiei lying outside of the room, and that would really complicate matters. Botan suspected that Kuwabara already had ill feelings towards Hiei after what had happened with the vine of the guilty. There was only two logical explanations for Hiei getting that angry at Kuwabara: either he was Yukina's brother or Yukina's lover, and since Kuwabara was convinced that Yukina's brother was an ice demon with blue-green hair and a soft disposition like Yukina, Kuwabara would assume the latter.

 

Botan sighed again. She was probably going to have to sleep on the roof herself, or else go through the front door and risk Yusuke's insolence.

 

“Oh Hiei,” she groaned under her breath. “Why can't you just talk to her instead of hiding out here and spying on her like a voyeur?”

 

“I'm not spying on Yukina,” Hiei replied, his eyes suddenly open.

 

Botan yelped and hurriedly clapped her hands over her mouth to stop herself from screaming out in her shock and waking Yukina.

 

“I was waiting here for you,” he continued. “I knew you'd come back eventually.”

 

Botan lowered her hands and relaxed her shoulders.

 

“Well I… You were waiting for me?”

 

He smirked at her response, pushing himself up into a sitting position, crossing his legs in front of himself.

 

“You gave me a gift earlier today, and I understand that means something in this world,” he said.

 

Botan swallowed awkwardly. There was nothing threatening about his words or his body language, but there was something just slightly sinister in his tone that made her uncomfortable.

 

“And I never got the chance to show my gratitude,” he continued.

 

Now Botan was worried.

 

“But the day isn't over yet.”

 

Botan glanced at the setting sun, which was almost as red as Hiei's eyes.

 

“I thought…” she began, turning her attention back to Hiei, the look in his eyes momentarily robbing her of her voice. “I thought that you said you didn't care for human festivities.”

 

“I've decided that I quite like this one,” he replied.

 

Botan narrowed her eyes sceptically.

 

“Are you feeling alright?” she asked.

 

“The night is coming down, and as I look at you I fall under your spell.”

 

Botan gripped at the window-frame to stop herself from falling off the roof altogether. She had hoped that when she gave Hiei a gift on Valentine's Day he might be grateful and he might even stop calling her nasty names: but she had not expected him to suddenly become romantic. This was more like the Hiei she had imagined she might manage to create if she had succeeded in returning baby Hiei to his mother: and for a brief moment she wondered if she had dreamed the last twenty-four hours, and that this was the new reality she had created after her excursion to the past.

 

“In the face of such temptation I know that I should stand and fight,” he continued. “And I'm sure that, before long, this will be my one great regret.”

 

Botan was growing increasingly confused and she could not keep the questioning look from her face: but the softened tone of his voice and the intensity in his eyes was creating havoc inside her, her heart racing, her chest flooding with bubbles and a wanton desire to feel his strong, warm hands on every part of her body was taking over.

 

“Give me your hand,” he said quietly.

 

Hiei held out his bandaged hand towards her, palm upturned. He was still sitting cross-legged and the look on his face was unchanged. Botan slowly reached a hand towards him, frightened about what might happen next but equally curious and desirous to know what he had planned. She slid her hand into his and he closed his fingers over hers, his smirk widening a little, his lips parting slightly to show his teeth.

 

“Tonight I am going to take you on a journey,” he said.

 

“Where are we going?” she asked, feeling braver at last.

 

“I am going to lead you down the slow road to your ruin,” he replied, standing up.

 

Botan let him pull her to her feet, inwardly thinking that his last few words had not sounded quite so romantic as his earlier statements had.

 

“Hn,” he continued, his smile widening again but becoming no less sinister. “You may remember me as your best kept secret and your biggest mistake, but tonight, ferry girl, you will be my downfall.”

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Next Chapter: Well no prizes for guessing what happens in the next chapter… Hiei and Botan share a romantic moment on the beach where they both discover something about each other that neither expected. Later, Botan is forced to make a painful confession to Koenma. Chapter 17: The Downfall.