Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ Suicide ❯ Suicide: Chapter Five ( Chapter 5 )

Chapter Five
I should have found out before dragging him here! Stupid! Yuusuke paced up and down the hall for nearly the millionth time since Takenaka had taken Hiei into the empty classroom to take the tests. At first, he'd settled for biting his nails, but they were worn to nubs. The only other non-violent stress reliever he could think of was pacing, and he was doing so furiously and had been for nearly half an hour.

Kuwabara scowled at the boy that was stalking up and down the hall. He's driving me insane! "Urameshi, calm the hell down! You're making me dizzy with that damned pacing!"

"I can't help it!" Yuusuke hissed, wheeling to glare at the orange-haired ningen. "I don't even know if he knows how to read or write!"

"Nani?! You don't? Teme . . ." Kuwabara sighed, calming as he realized that there was really no other alternative. Hell . . . I'd prolly be doing the same thing . . . Though Hiei'd kill me first. "I dunno what to say, Urameshi. Not much we can do."

Yuusuke growled. "We can't exactly watch him if he's placed in primary school, can we? Plus it'd look damned suspicious to Takenaka. I told him that Hiei's been home-schooled so he wouldn't try to transfer records from somewhere. If Hiei can't even read, Takenaka's gonna know I'm lying . . ."

Kuwabara cursed under his breath. His friend was right. Chikusho . . . Isn't there anything we can do . . .? Then he sighed. There's nothing we can do right now . . . "We'll have to wait for now, Urameshi. We'll deal with that crap if it happens. And stop the damned pacing. It's getting on my nerves, and it's not gonna help anything anyway!"

Shit . . . I'm already a liar in the rest of the school's eyes . . . Takenaka's the only one who even minutely trusts me. But there's nothing we can do for now. Kuwabara's right . . . But he couldn't banish the thoughts and kept getting the nearly irresistible urge to fidget. The raven-haired boy sighed explosively. "Then what the heck are we supposed to do while we're waiting? I can't just sit here!"

Kuwabara smirked, pulling a deck of cards from his pocket. "Cards?" Yuusuke grinned. Card decks were technically banned from school, but why would delinquents be concerned with that? After all, Yuusuke wore a green uniform to school rather than a navy one, and he got away with it. They began to play. Their concern over their suicidal friend lingered, but the game helped to temporarily take their minds off it. However, both of them subconsciously devoted half of their attention to the door, waiting for news even as they erased their boredom and thus accelerated time. At least, from their point of view.

After a while, the door opened and Hiei stepped out, his face expressionless. The fire demon crossed his arms over his chest and looked at Yuusuke blandly. "He wants to see you."

Crap . . . I really hope Hiei did okay . . . Must think up excuse, just in case . . . Yuusuke winced slightly. "How do you think you did?" The question had a hopeful quality to it. Hiei shot him a 'how-the-fuck-should-I-know' glare, then leaned against the wall with an annoyed expression on his face. Yuusuke shared a worried look with Kuwabara, then walked through the door, forcing his expression into a casual grin. The door closed loudly behind him, the sound amplified by both the near-emptiness of the room and his nervousness, making him jump. He glanced at Takenaka.

The teacher smiled. "You look uncomfortable. Sit down, Yuusuke. I'm just looking this over."

That's exactly what I'm uncomfortable about . . . Yuusuke sat, waiting impatiently. After about thirty seconds, he began chewing on a cuticle. Damn . . . I haven't been this nervous since Keiko nearly missed resurrecting me! It's going to take a month for my nails to get back to normal after this . . . Takenaka finally looked up, his face giving nothing away. The teen grinned nervously. "So what's the news, Takenaka . . . sensei (1)?" He added the formality almost as an afterthought. Politeness should count for something, right?

Takenaka smiled gently, seeming to sense Yuusuke's nervousness. "Your cousin is a very intelligent individual, Yuusuke." The teen let a long breath out with a 'whoosh,' realizing only just then that he'd been holding it. "In fact, he ranked in your grade in quite a few subjects. In English, he ranked far above, which is surprising." Yuusuke blinked. Hiei knew English? "In fact, the only subject he seemed to have a problem with was mathematics."

"I know someone who can tutor him in that." Yuusuke grinned.

His sensei raised an eyebrow. "Perhaps you should utilize that resource as well, young man." Yuusuke rolled his eyes. The man frowned. "Why were you so worried?"

"Uh . . ." Yuusuke's eyes widened and he thought quickly, then remembered the excuse he'd come up with right before he'd come in the room. He gave a fake but real-sounding sigh as he began to spin his yarn. "Hiei's very depressed, Takenaka-sensei. He doesn't want to go to school. He'd rather continue to be home-schooled. But you know my mom . . . She's passed out drunk half the time, and she's no teacher. So he has to go to school." The ningen let out another fake sigh. "Hiei's not happy with that. So there was a chance that he would fake stupidity to try to get out of going to school."

Takenaka frowned slightly. "The boy is that depressed? What exactly happened, Yuusuke?"

K'so . . . Yuusuke stalled for time to think. "I don't know if I should say, sir. Hiei deserves some privacy . . ."

"Yuusuke, I need to know at least some of your cousin's background."

Yuusuke sighed, this time for real. More lies . . . Is this how Kurama feels? I'm starting to feel like even I can't trust myself . . . "Hiei was adopted from America at about the age of five. He'd been abused. My aunt and uncle adopted him and brought him here. It took a long time for him to warm up to them, and he really cared deeply for them . . . He still cares about them. He was really anti-social and moody because of the abuse, so they kept him out of school and home-schooled him until they thought he was ready to go to a public school. But when they sent him, he reacted badly, so they decided to keep him home-schooled." Yuusuke silently rejoiced as Takenaka nodded understandingly. I'm gonna pull it off! Improvisation kicks ass! "But now he's got no choice, and he's suicidal anyway, so he needs someone besides my mom watching over him since she's pretty useless. I got the job, so he has to attend school with me."

Takenaka nodded understandingly. "With these scores, I could put him in your class. He's in that level, and that way you can watch over him instead of worrying over him from a different room. Your grades are bad enough, Urameshi Yuusuke. You don't need that kind of stress to add to them." The man's eyes crinkled in amusement. "Besides . . . He might actually help to get your grades up."

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever." Yuusuke rolled his eyes. Thank Enma! He bought it! Now I just have to tell the others the story and try to get Hiei past Mom. The ningen's eyes widened. K'so! "Takenaka, I gotta go! I have stuff to do!" He headed toward the door. "When do you want him to start?"

"Today is Friday. We'll start him Monday. Should give you time to get things together."

Today's Friday? Damn . . . This whole week was pretty much spent worrying over Hiei . . . The door closed behind him as he stepped into the hallway. Hiei was leaning against the wall with his eyes closed, looking extremely annoyed. Yuusuke could almost see his eyebrow wanting to twitch. Kuwabara was pouting from his seat. "Did you guys get into an argument again?"

Kuwabara scowled in Hiei's direction. "The shrimp's being a jerk, as usual."

Hiei remained in the same position, keeping his eyes closed, and bared his teeth. "You will stay away from her or I'll kill you. Koenma can't do much if I do."

Fighting about Yukina . . . I don't even want to know how they got on that subject . . . Yuusuke winced. Hiei was right. Punishment for something like that, killing a Reikai Tantei, was death. And Koenma didn't want Hiei dead. "Would you two stop being childish? Hiei, maybe you should ask your sister what she wants before you go into protective mode. Maybe she wants the lughead around, though I can't imagine why." Hiei snorted, but seem to relax slightly.

Kuwabara scowled. "I am not a lughead." His scowl deepened as Hiei smirked derogatively. "I don't know why you had to be her brother."

Hiei opened his eyes and pushed himself away from the wall, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking away. "I don't know either," he murmured. "I certainly don't deserve to be." His tone was full of self-contempt, making both Yuusuke and Kuwabara wince.

The two exchanged a look. Hiei was definitely very depressed and filled with self-hatred, and they needed to figure out a way to reverse both.

Damn, this is gonna be really difficult. And if Koenma didn't have some sort of special agenda that included Hiei . . . we wouldn't be able to do anything, and Hiei would have just run off and killed himself at the first opportunity . . . He pushed away his curiosity at Koenma's secret reasoning. "Let's go. I need to talk to my mom while she's still drunk and susceptible to convincing." Yuusuke stepped forward, placing a hand on Hiei's shoulder. He was quickly flipped over the fire demon, and found himself on the floor, looking at Hiei upside down. "What was that for?!"

"Don't touch me." The fire demon was glowering disdainfully at the raven-haired ningen, but in the back of his eyes was a strange look that Yuusuke wasn't able to identify before Hiei turned away.

"Seesh! Fine. You coulda warned me!" Yuusuke picked himself up and began to walk down the hall, more worried than annoyed. What was that look just now . . .? It looked like . . . fear . . . Is Hiei afraid of me?? And if he is . . . why . . .?

Kuwabara sighed. "I'm gonna have to get going. Shizuru's expecting me, and I'm already late." Yuusuke nodded and Hiei pointedly ignored him. "If I don't see you guys this weekend, it'll be Monday at school." There's no way I'm gonna miss that . . . Besides, Urameshi's probably going to need help watching Hiei . . . He waved and made his departure, silently wishing Yuusuke luck as he left and smiling as Yuusuke acknowledged it with a nod.

They walked in silence for a while. Then Hiei spoke, his voice cold. "You're an idiot." Yuusuke glared at the fire demon. "You don't know a damned thing about me, not even if I could read, and you still brought me here." The youkai smirked slightly. "You two were whining too loudly in the hall. Another few octaves, and the ningen would have heard." Hiei snorted. "It would have been simple to fake illiteracy."

He's toying with me . . .? Yuusuke scowled. I'm starting to like him better when he's quiet . . . "They why didn't you?"

Hiei smirked again. "Because you worried over nothing, and almost blew your cover. If I'd failed, like you obviously expected, you would have taken it in stride. This incident has disturbed you, and you now realize that you know very little about me."

Yuusuke felt his eyebrow twitch as the level of annoyance he was feeling went up significantly. With conscious effort, he forced himself to calm down, then smiled. "Well, since you heard everything I said, I guess there's no need to tell you what I said to Takenaka." Hiei scowled, and Yuusuke grinned. "Good. Now we just have to get you past my mom and figure out where you're gonna sleep. My house is a bit of a mess, just to warn you."

He expects me to live with him?? Hiei stopped. "I'm not going anywhere."

"You have two choices Hiei." Yuusuke paused until Hiei looked at him reluctantly. "You can either walk on your own, or I can carry you." The fire demon seethed, but began walking again. You just gotta know what to say . . .

"Yuuuuusuke!" Boton came into view, dressed in jeans, a black shirt, and a leather jacket. She was running rather than flying. "Yuuusuke!"

What's Boton doing here . . .? Yuusuke blinked. K'so . . . I hope it's not another mission . . . There's no way we can let Hiei go to battle if he's suicidal . . . He shot the girl a cautious smile. "What's up, Boton?"

Boton caught the meaning behind the look. "No, it's not another mission." She grinned. "I just wanted to tell you that Koenma took what you told Takenaka and took care of your mom for you. She's expecting you guys."

Yuusuke's eyes widened. "Koenma brainwashed my mom?!" He was aware that Hiei was snickering, but he didn't care. Dammit! I knew we needed to do something, but I didn't want her brainwashed!

Boton's smiled faltered. "Anou . . . We had to . . ." She gave Yuusuke a 'please-don't-kill-the-messenger' grin. "Besides, we can undo it when this is all over . . ."

Yeah, that'd be fine and dandy if Hiei's ever going to let this be over . . . Yuusuke sulked. This is bullshit. He sighed. It's not fair to blame this on Hiei. Something's obviously hurt him . . . I just need to find out what . . . "Alright then. There wasn't much of a choice. I just don't have to like this."

"Okay . . . I'm gonna go report back to Koenma then." She grinned, directing the look at Hiei. "Have fun in school, Hiei! Mou . . . I wish I could go too. It looks like so much fun, and you get to wear those kawaii (2) uniforms. Oh, well. Ja matta!" She pulled her oar from hammerspace and flew off.

Yuusuke sighed, then smirked as he saw the annoyed look on Hiei's face. Not laughing anymore, are we, Hiei? The fire demon noticed the smirk and glowered. "Well . . . Let's go. Like Boton said, your obasan (3) is waiting." The ningen let out a long-suffering as Hiei snarled at him. This is going to be interesting . . . He wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or not . . .

I was sitting in math going over this while the instructor was going over quadratic equations (boring). I was a bit miffed because this chapter was like 7 pages long and was gonna be 8 with corrections. Got to the end and was like, "Holy crap! That's the end of a chapter!" I thought I was gonna have to write more, because I was typing part of it before class, noticed the time, and stopped and printed it out. So I get to finish this up, run it through spell-check, and post it. I printed this chapter and edited it four times, for the record. That's why my pet peeve is fics that have major spelling and grammar errors--I take the time to go through mine, and I don't get why other people neglect to bother.

(1) Sensei means teacher. Like if you have a teacher who's name is Brown, it would be Brown-sensei.

(2) Kawaii means cute.

(3) Obasan is aunt. (Grandmother is obaasan, for those who might be a bit confused by that.)