Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ Summer Time ❯ Chapter Ten ( Chapter 14 )

Chapter Ten: Jacinth

At six in the morning...

I woke up, feeling well rested and very warm. I was still being hugged close to Kurama, although he had moved a little bit. He was laying on his stomach, his head turned towards me. One of his arms was wrapped around me, and a leg was intertwined with mine.

Kurama looked so peaceful when he was sleeping. His breathing was soft and rhythmic, and his expression was one of contentment and serenity. He still looked damn fine to me.

I watched Kurama as he slept. He had been so sweet recently, much sweeter than normal. Plus, I knew that he probably saw me as his 'mate'. I wasn't a fool. I could easily read his expressions. I didn't need to read his mind to figure out what he was thinking.

Even though I knew that Kurama was being sweet because he loved me, I felt like doing something for him. He had gone and brushed my hair, given me a rose, and even opened doors for me all the time. He was such a wonderful guy, and he deserved something special in return.

Suddenly, I came up with an idea. I slowly wiggled my way out of Kurama's embrace. I crawled out from under the covers, making sure that I didn't wake him up just yet. Being very careful, I pulled the covers down just enough so that his back was bare.

Smiling, I began to massage his back. I started at his neck muscles, then slowly began to proceed down his back. All the muscles in his back were tense, probably because he had been dealing with trap spells for the past two nights. It took me forever to get his muscles to loosen up.

When I finally started on the middle of Kurama's back, he woke up. He didn't move, but he did open his eyes.

"Good morning," I said pleasantly. "Sleep well?"

"Uh-huh," he replied softly, just barely nodding his head. He was probably still trying to wake up. "What are you doing?"

"I'm giving you a massage, of course," I told him, moving my hands to his sides and kneading the muscles there. "What else could I possibly be doing?" Kurama was being silly; that, or he was just groggy and tired.

"I honestly don't have a clue," Kurama admitted, laying perfectly still and closing his eyes. He gave a soft sigh. "Where did you learn how to give such great massages?"

"I'm self-taught," I answered, working my way down to his lower back. I could tell that was where his muscles were the tightest. "Feel good?"

Kurama took a moment to answer. It seemed like his brain was working a little slow. "Yeah. Wonderful." He moaned very softly, which was music to my ears. It meant that I was doing the massage correctly.

"Excellent." I continued to work on his lower back, as he willing subjected himself to the massage. Of course, how many guys would turn down a massage from their girlfriend? Not too many, and the ones who did were fools.

"Lower?" he suggested, his voice a mere whisper.

I smiled at him, more than willing to oblige. I moved my hands down a little bit until they were at the waist line of his boxers. "Better?" I asked as I worked on his muscles there.

Kurama nodded his head again. "Much." His eyes were still closed, and he looked like he was in total bliss.

I made a mental note to myself to give Kurama another massage soon, just so I could see that look on his face again. That look made me feel... it was hard to describe. What did I feel? Was is pride in the fact that I could make him feel good? Maybe. Happiness? Yeah, but that was a severe understatement. Everything was so perfect at the moment. I was hoping that the morning could just go on forever.

After all his back muscles were relaxed, I moved to his arms. His compact biceps and triceps were as tense as his neck muscles had been. Did Kurama not know how to relax? His manner was always so calm. Also, he had just been sleeping. Weren't people suppose to relax while they slept? Maybe full demons were different. Maybe Kurama was just always ready to fight. I couldn't think of any other explanation.

I slowly worked my way down his arms, then back up to his shoulders and neck. Since the muscles there were relaxed, the massaging became much easier.

Humming softly, I continued to knead the muscles in his shoulders and back. I was enjoying myself. Watching Kurama practically melt into the bed was fun.

"What time is it?" Kurama mumbled, voice rougher than usual.

I turned my head to glance at the clock. "Looks like it's fifteen till seven. Why do you ask?"

Kurama flipped over and sat up as I put my hands in my lap. "I'm just going to go take a shower," he answered, his voice husky and a little hoarse.

I quickly started to worry about him. Was he sick? Wait a minute... did demons even get sick?

"But you took one la-" I began, but Kurama shushed me by pulling me into a very passionate kiss. I was surprised at first, but I easily relaxed into the kiss and put my arms around his neck. Kurama pulled me closer so that I was almost sitting in his lap. The kiss suddenly became hungry, which didn't bother me, strangely enough.

Without any warning, Kurama ended the kiss. He released me like I was made of fire and rapidly got out of bed. He quickly began gathering his clothes.

I watched him, feeling very confused. Why was he acting so strangely? Had I done something wrong? I certainly hoped not. "Kurama?" I inquired, giving him a pleading look.

I continued to watch him as he walked back towards me. He paused for a moment, then gave me an apologetic smile. Right after that, he went into the bathroom and closed the door behind him.

Giving a sigh as the door closed, I rolled out of bed. If Kurama was going to take a shower, I figured I could use the time to get dressed. I put on a light blue, off-the-shoulder-strap shirt and a short black skirt.

I stuffed my nightclothes into my suitcase, which was where I had put my clothes from the other day. I had spent three hours on the suitcase, doing something very special with it. I hadn't trusted the demons to have a washer and a dryer anywhere on the yacht, so I had spelled the suitcase to clean my clothes if I stuffed them in. Of course, I did have an activation word that I had to say to get the spell to work.

Sighing, I plopped down on the bed. I was bored... very, very bored. I didn't feel like drawing, and I didn't want to read. There was no way I'd be able to take a fifteen minute nap either. What I really want to do was go find the girl who had been flirting with the guards.

I came up with an idea. I pulled out my drawing notebook, and I wrote a message to Kurama on a clean sheet of paper. In a few short sentences, I told Kurama that I would be walking around the yacht and I'd meet him in the dining room for breakfast.

I placed the note where Kurama could see it, transformed into my demon form, and left the room.

Walking down the hall, I saw quite a few demons. I guessed that demons were early risers. Kurama most certainly was.

Unfortunately, I didn't see the girl. I did get lucky after ten minutes of searching. I found Koto.

"Koto! Morning!" I greeted her cheerfully. "How are you?"

"Oh, Kaline!" Koto replied. "I'm doing pretty good. Although, I did forget to thank you for letting me take over for you. I haven't been able to officiate a match since the dark tournament. Everyone thinks that I'm a human lover."

"You're just fair," I told her. "I saw you officiate those matches with the humans. I agreed with you on every calling."

"I'm glad somebody did," Koto admitted, still her cheerful self. "They audience got so angry ever time the humans won."

"Don't worry too much about it," I said. "I just wanted to know if you could help me with something. I'm looking for a girl. I don't know her name, but she has orange hair and eyes and short blond hair."

"Does she have a tail?" Koto asked.

"Yeah. Do ya know her?" I wondered, feeling very hopeful.

"Of course," Koto answered. "Her name's Jacinth. She came on board with a guy... a buyer. They're not lovers, but I think that Jacinth wants to be - OOPS! I don't think that I was suppose to say that."

"I won't tell anyone that you told me," I promised. "So do you know where she is? I'd like to talk to her."

"She's in the exercise room," she replied.

"Um... where's that?" I inquired. I couldn't remember ever seeing that room.

"It's off of the bar and dance room," Koto told me, pointing upwards to the first floor. "She was in there just ten minutes ago."

I nodded my head in acknowledgment. "Thank you so much! See you later, Koto!" I ran off towards the stairs and the first floor.

I entered the exercise room and looked around. The demon girl Jacinth was easy to find. She was one of the very few people in the room, and she was the only one with orange skin. She was on a treadmill, and no one was around her. She was a rather pretty demon, if you considered her strange skin color and her tail. She would have looked a lot prettier if she was smiling. She looked so lonely and depressed.

I walked up to her, smiling brightly. "Hello!"

She looked over at me. "Hello." Her voice was sweet but also very sad. Her expression was sad as well.

"Are you okay?" I asked her, feeling a little worried. I hated it when people were sad.

"Um, yeah," she replied. "Oh, by the way, I'm Jacinth."

"Nice to meet you, Jacinth. I'm Kaline," I told her. "Would you mind if I joined you?" I gestured towards the treadmill next to hers.

"Not at all," Jacinth responded, shaking her head. "And I already knew your name. Everyone does."

"Oh. I kind of forgot. I guess everyone would know me. I am the officiator," I stated, giggling nervously.

Jacinth laughed softly. Even her laugh was a little sad. "You are so silly."

"Kurama tells me that every now and then," I told her, getting onto the treadmill.

"I'm sure he does," she commented, looking down at the ground.

I gave her a concerned look. "What's wrong? What's gotten you so sad?"

"I'm fine," Jacinth insisted, although she looked like she was going to break down in tears.

"You sure? You really don't look it," I said. "You know that you can talk to me... girl to girl. I won't repeat anything you might tell me, I swear." The offer was from the bottom of my heart. I really wanted to help her. She reminded me of one of my friends from school.

"Seriously?" she asked, looking very hopeful.

"Of course," I answered, giving her a kind smile. "Besides, confession is good for the soul and for making friends."

"You actually want to be friends with me?" Jacinth inquired, her expression so hopeful that it pained me.

"Why wouldn't I?" I countered. "You seem to be very nice."

"None of the other girls want to talk to me. They're jealous because I get so much attention from the guys," she told me, voice soft.

"Sounds to me like they're superficial and a bunch of idiots." I sat down on the treadmill and looked up at her. "You wanna sit down while you talk to me?"

"Ah... sure," Jacinth said, shutting off the machine and taking a seat. "So why are you being so nice?"

"Because you looked lonely, and no one likes to be lonely," I answered simply.

"Oh." She had a rather shocked expression on her face.

"Now, what are all the guys doing hitting on you?" I asked her. "Aren't you taken by some dude...?"

"Zices," Jacinth told me. "That's his name, and no, I'm not taken. He refuses to mark me. He claims that there's no reason for it. He says that I am his, but he doesn't want to mark me because no other guys want me."

"Is he blind or something?" I inquired, feeling a little ticked off on Jacinth's behalf. She was so nice. She was much nicer than many of the demons I had met. Out of all the demons that I had met, only a very, very few had been even halfway decent.

"No, he just hasn't seen any of the demons hitting on me," she replied, shrugging. "I tried getting him to mark me by flirting with the guards downstairs, but he didn't care. He just thought that I was trying to find out what they were guarding."

"There are guards on this yacht? For what reason?" I asked her, giving her a confused look.

"Well, I didn't get much out of the guards," Jacinth said. "But I do know that they're guarding three items, not humans like everyone says. One of the items is called something like the 'horn hope'. I couldn't quite catch what the guy was saying. He had a strange accent."

I couldn't remember any horn hope, but I did remember the three objects that Yusuke had to get from three demons. One of the objects had been the Forlorn Hope. The three demons had been Kurama, Hiei and some other guy that I hadn't gotten to meet. The other guy had used the Orb of Baal, while Hiei had used some sword, and Kurama got left with the Forlorn Hope. The Forlorn Hope had been used to save his human mother's life.

If Jacinth was talking about the three special items, then Koenma was going to be in big trouble. His father had been furious the last time Koenma had lost the three items. If they were missing again... well... poor Koenma.

It was definitely time to steer the subject away from what the guards were protecting. I didn't want Jacinth to think that I was a spy. That would blow my cover. Also, I wanted to help her. It was the least I could do since she was so sweet and had given me some very valuable information.

"Okay, and Zices is fine with you poking you nose into other people's business?" I couldn't believe what she had just said. The guy that she loved expressed very little interest in what she did, even though what she was doing could possibly get her in trouble.

"Perhaps if someone could drag Zices to you when a guy's hitting on you..." I drifted off, quickly forming a plan in my head.

"Then he might see the need for marking me." Jacinth brightened immediately.

"I just have to ask one thing," I said. "Do you love him?"

"Yes, without a doubt. Zices has told me many times that he loves me, but he's just a little thickheaded," Jacinth answered, nodding her head.

I thought for a moment. "So where is this Zices now?" If Jacinth needed help with her guy, she was going to get it.

Jacinth gave me a curious look. "He's at the bar, having something to drink."

"Do you think that any of your... admirers are in the bar as well?" I asked her, a small devious smile on my face. This was going to be fun.

"Most likely."

"Then we'll just take a stroll in there, and you can show me Zices," I said, explaining my plan. "After that, I'll keep and eye on you, and if anyone starts hitting on you, I'll go get Zices. How does that sound?"

Jacinth gave me a true, happy smile. "Absolutely wonderful!"

"That's Zices," Jacinth told me, pointing at a demon sitting on a bar stool. He looked very human. Much more human than I did. He had black hair that was cut short. He was wearing a business suit and a pair of sunglasses.

Lord help me, I was going to have to deal with a man who probably had an ego the size of Texas. Only men with egos wore sunglasses inside when it was already dark in the room.

"Okay. Now for step two," I replied. "Do you see anyone who flirts with you all the time?"

Jacinth looked around for a moment and finally pointed at a man in the corner. "Him."

The guy that she was pointing at greatly reminded me of a werewolf. Unfortunately, the demon was much uglier than any werewolf was ever depicted.

"Let's commence the plan then. You just go and casually walk by the guy," I instructed. "I'll be watching, and when he starts to hit on you, I'll go get Zices."

"If you're sure this will work..." Jacinth looked at the werewolf demon, then back at me.

"It'd better," I stated bluntly. "If not, then we'll just have to try something else."

Jacinth took a deep breath, nodded her head at me, and began to walk across the floor. As she passed the wolf demon, he grabbed her hand.

"Where you going, Sweetheart?" he asked her, his voice dripping with false sweetness. "Aren't you going to join me?"

"Um..." Jacinth looked a little scared.

That was all I gotta see, because I was heading straight towards Zices. The plan was going to work, and I was going to make sure of it.

"Zices," I said, walking up to the demon. "Jacinth needs your help."

"What?" Zices replied immediately. "What's happened to her?" He appeared to be very worried.

"Just follow me," I told him, grabbing his hand and dragging him towards where Jacinth was.

To Zices' credit, he didn't try to escape from my grasp. He willingly went along with me.

I took him to where he could see Jacinth. At the moment, the werewolf demon was trying to force Jacinth to sit on his lap and give him a kiss. "See?"

Zices didn't reply. He stormed up to Jacinth and the werewolf demon, full of rage.

"She is mine!" Zices roared, grabbing the hand that had a hold on Jacinth. The other demon's hand began to turn blue. "Rali, she is not yours to touch."

Jacinth pulled out of the demon's grasp and went to stand behind Zices. She looked very relieved now that she had a barrier between her and the jerk, and the barrier was a very angry demon.

"You haven't marked her yet," Rali retorted. "So she's fair game. Me and a few of the boys think that we could have some fun with her."

"If you ever even speak or touch Jacinth again, I will remove your hands," Zices threatened him darkly. "Try to kiss her again, and you'll lose your head." With that, Zices gently took Jacinth's hand and lead her away. Jacinth mouthed 'thank you' as she passed by me.

I felt pretty good after that. Zices was probably going to mark Jacinth now, which would make her happy. I had gotten some information, which made me happy; and I had helped someone out, which made me even happier. Things were really starting to look up.

"Well, that was certainly interesting," a male voice commented from nearby. I turned my head to see Hiei sitting at a table by himself, a drink in his hands.

"Good morning, Hiei," I said joyfully.

"Hn. Whatever," he replied, shrugging off my enthusiasm. "Where's Kurama?"

"Last time I saw him, he was taking a shower," I answered, sitting down across from him. "I left him a note that I would see him at breakfast."

"So you finally got the courage to leave his side for more than five minutes," Hiei commented, smiling. His voice held the normal amount of arrogance.

I shook my head at him, about ready to laugh. Hiei always did have a strange way of saying things.

"I've always had the courage," I replied, my tone of voice taunting. "I just enjoy spending time with him."

"Oh, then why didn't you take a shower with him?" he retorted. He seemed to be enjoying our little interchange.

"Because I took one last night," I responded immediately. "I saw no reason to take another one. That'd just be a waste of shampoo and soap, and the soap was a gift from my best friend back home."

"Was she trying to give you a hint?" Hiei asked, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms.

"No. I asked for the soap," I told him, smiling.

Hiei was left speechless. After a few moments, he recovered. "It's time for breakfast."

"Good. I'm hungry," I commented, getting up and leaving. Hiei followed, muttering something under his breath about silly girls.