Poignant Couplet

"Yusuke!"

I stand there with the rest as she scopes her hands threw the water towards you, a smile on my face, forcing my eyes not to wander. She has changed so much since you left, Yusuke. I'm sure you noticed her hair, her conservative dress-no longer the high school sweetheart whom you left behind, with her pigtails and pleated skirt. Watching you, I wonder if it has registered in your mind, how much of her life you have missed. She walked down the aisle alone, on graduation day. She spent that night with your mother, instead of celebrating with friends. She where's her heart not on her sleeve, but in her eyes, and each time I saw her I noticed her heartache grow.

There was a reason though, for her waiting, a light which kept her afloat. Many times you traveled between the worlds to visit her. Because you are afflicted, by that poignant thing called love.

I wonder, are you in vexation, too?

My lips twitch.

Yes, Hiei has been bitten by the bug.

It was just a year ago, that you arrived, hopping onto my windowsill as you have always done; not an inkling of thought given to the two years that had passed between our last meeting. A flower you needed, something for Mukuro. Did you think I over looked the sentimentally of such an act? I am old Hiei; well over a thousand years and counting. I did not fish out an answer from you then because I knew, I knew what the flower was for. Any worthwhile demon can dig up the date of Mukuro's birthday. How much easier for I, who made a legend of myself by breaking seal's, forging codes.

Or have you forgotten?

Another year has passed, since our last encounter.

Or perhaps, two…

One as old as I am stops their counting, when it becomes unnecessary and I have no use for counting the days. It only makes your absence harder to bare.

There is an angel's laughter at my side and I glance to the right. Yukina is running into the sea, Botan at her heals, her hair darkened with water and heavy, falling around her face in damp curls.

I could kill her Hiei.

From here, I would only need a fraction of my power, summon the simplest of plants from ningenkai for its purpose-and send her head rolling, as you watch with the jagan. What is more, there is not a force that could stop me. Kuwabara himself now acknowledges his worthlessness as a fighter, and Yusuke…there are some fights that cannot be won with brash actions and brute strength alone. You, Hiei.

Not even you could run fast enough to stop me.

You would come then, wouldn't you?

You come for her, or to place some lost human back onto the soil of ningenkai, but not once do you spare a moment for me.

I sigh.

It is only Shizuru and I on the beach now, watching the others at play. I feel her skepticism as she looks at me, I must be the mirror image of romantic-gloom. "Hey Kurama," she begins, the sand shifting under her feet as she nears me "something, wrong?"

"Just fatigue, Shizuru-san. A lot has changed, these last few years. With the tournament at its end, I can finally live a normal life here with mother. It's quite the change for me."

"So you're telling me you're decompressing-"

"Correct."

"-and that this has nothing to do with Hiei? Or the lack there of?"

I raise my eyebrows and widen my eyes, with a subtle tilt of the head, I am the picture of clueless naivety. I have many masks Hiei, and where them all quite well. "You say it like I never see him, Shizuru." I lie with just the same skill. "On the contrary, I see Hiei frequently. As frequently as a demon of his rank can spare, that is. True, we do not spend as much time with one another as in past, but we worked together, then. We are living separate lives now."

You with Mukuro, I, Shiori.

I was not so plagued by you Hiei, until we last met. Until then, I came to the conclusion that neither of us was capable of being the 'follower'.

As for me, I chose to stay here in ningenkai until the end of my human life.



Mother would be beside herself with grief, should I leave, and this place is as much a home to me as makai. I have spent over a thousand years roaming the realm of demons and devils, Hiei. For me, to spend eighty years among humans is a break of routine, a chance to see the world from their outlook, to furnish my knowledge after all these centuries.

In my mind, you had chosen makai because it was where your heart belonged, the home you were accustomed to. To stay in the ningenkai, for you, would be like putting a dragon in a canary cage.

You proved me wrong.

The night you appeared on my windowsill is the night I started to decay. With that single act, you proved to me that you are capable of something more than loyalty. You are capable of compassion, and what's more, your capable of following.

For Mukuro you stay behind, not because the makai is a comfort zone for you, but because she is where you want to be. I recognize your connection with her. You both reside in a world built on distrust and abandonment. You started life with the same eyes, and forged your strength with broken bones.

What rots in me, Hiei, is that you never gave me the chance.

I doge questions of the past just as you do, but I will not grant you that excuse. Mukuro is the same way is she not? If you truly wanted to know, nothing would stop you from digging up my skeletons from their graves. You always get what you want Hiei.

If I had told you of Kuronue, would things have changed?

If I told you of our passion to incline your jealousy, or of his skewered corpse, haunting me on cold nights, would it have mattered? Or would you rather hear of Yomi, or Karasu and his lust of me? I have kept secrets from you Hiei, even regarding that which you think you know.

Your answer is clear; indifference.

It peels at me every day.

The sun sets behind the still sea. It's clam here in ningenkai, a gentle breeze is blowing which smells of salt and sand. My eyes ascend, not a cloud in the sky, a flock of seagulls are flying beyond the horizon. It's clam here in ningenkai, but a storm is approaching.

It must be raining in makai.