Disclaimer: Kenshin does not own the Yuu Yuu Hakusho characters (they are the property of Togashi Yoshihiro et al), and does not make any money from said characters. Don't sue.
What Kenshin does own, however, are all the original characters
in this work. Any attempt to "borrow" these characters will be
met with the katana, or worse.
The events in Idiot Beloved take place shortly after the Dark
Tournament; Firebird Sweet directly follows that timeline. I strongly suggest you read those fics in order so that certain character traits and development make sense.
Title: A Cowboy's Work Is Never Done: C1 (Like A Rhinestone Youkai)
Author: JaganshiKenshin
Genre: Action/Adventure, Humor
Rating: K/PG-13 for anime-style fight scenes
Summary: On a commercial shoot, Hiei is surprised by not only an ill-fitting costume, but someone who poses a threat.
A/N: This story takes place within the time-frame of The Book of Cat With Moon-here we see Hiei in his role as an actor in commercials (established in Firebird Sweet and Operation Rosary, though this story isn't a 'sequel' to either Cat With Moon or OR). Thanks for reading this, and please review!
A Cowboy's Work Is Never Done (C1: Like A Rhinestone Youkai)
by
Kenshin
"It's tight." Hiei stepped out from behind the nominal privacy screen. "Really tight." In fact, he had barely been able to squeeze into the outfit.
"Sorry." The intern, Dexter, gave Hiei an apologetic glance. A scrawny kid with hair like rusty Brillo and a voice that still broke, Dexter scowled at his pencil and clipboard, as though holding them personally responsible for the mix-up. "I thought for sure we had your measurements," Dexter went on. His phone trilled. He yanked it from a pocket. "Yes?" His already-pasty complexion paled a shade or two as he listened to the other party. "Has it on now. Says it's tight."
"Really tight," Hiei added.
The company that had just hired him, Palomar Productions, was housed in an undistinguished brick building that backed up to a park. The park's proximity was nice. The costume was not.
Sometimes, Hiei needed a vacation. Sometimes, he got sick of working. Even got sick of fighting. Then he would recant, lecturing himself that he was born to fight, that anything else was a waste of time. Yet here I stand, dressed up like a-
"Costume," he reminded Dexter.
"But, Madam Fifi-" Dexter shut his eyes as Madam Fifi's coarse bellow blasted out of the phone.
Shutting his eyes sounded good to Hiei. The dusty all-purpose room resembled a cavernous church basement decorated by an evil scientist with rabies.
Bile-green cinderblock walls. A stage on the north wall ready to be set-dressed. Battered upright piano in the middle of the stage. In case of emergency, lift lid for cheap musical score. Rounding out the appointments was a jumble of sound equipment, lighting, and props half-hidden beneath gray tarps. Adjacent to the stage, an ancient, foxed mirror lurked behind the tattered 'privacy' screen.
Hiei was used to the joys of costume fittings. Countless times back in Japan, he stood like a stuffed toy surrounded by seamstresses plucking at him, apologizing for their very existence about every fifteen seconds.
This was, however, Northern California, and different.
For example, there were no apologetic seamstresses, and 'Madam Fifi,' a fat, fifty-something, hatchet-faced chainsmoker from Kansas City, had merely pointed to the rack holding Hiei's costume before lumbering out for lunch.
"B-but Madam-" sputtered Dexter.
Hiei yawned. "Useless." The day before, he had met with the producer, Chuck Casio, having gotten the job through the glories of nepotism. The screenwriter/director took the meeting, too: an unctuous blond who affected a deep British accent. In an office the size of a bathroom stall, they had explained the project.
All Hiei got out of the meeting was Blah blah blah COWBOY.
He did know they were shooting a sixty-second internet spot for Rhinestone Beer, which tasted like swamp water that someone had waved a sheaf of hops at.
Madam Fifi bellowed on. Dexter began to twitch.
Back in Japan, Hiei had a reputation as a one-take wonder. This meant struggling beforehand to divine the intent behind any given director's long, rambling and often incoherent monologues.
If you looked at it a certain way, the struggle to figure out what the guy wanted was a lot like trying to read an enemy's battle moves and out-maneuver him.
Hiei squinted at Dexter; his razor-keen instinct informed him that Dexter, half a head taller than Hiei and some 20 pounds lighter, wasn't the enemy.
An exit door a few feet to Hiei's left opened on a concrete stairwell leading first to the parking lot, then the park, where Dexter would occasionally duck out to light a cigarette.
Ducking out also sounded good to Hiei.
While Dexter mopped his sweaty brow, Hiei glanced at the windows. Low viewing angle. Couldn't see much of the park.
"Madam says come to the phone," squeaked Dexter. Prying the phone from his ear, he held it out like it was a dog toy and Hiei was the dog.
"Can't."
Dexter's lip quivered.
"They'll have to let the costume out if they want me to move," Hiei said. "Or wheel me on a handcart."
"But we're the only ones here."
"Naturally." Everyone else was off-premises on extended lunch break.
It didn't occur to Dexter to walk the phone over to him. Hiei studied the costume that kept him from crossing a few steps.
These days, when icons of courage were out of style, it wasn't surprising that the Old West had been bastardized to suit Rhinestone Beer's purposes.
The costume was rendered in a black satin-looking fabric, with white piping down the sleeves, a dozen pearl buttons, a lot of silly white fringe on the chest and outseams. There was also a gun belt and white hat.
It was a Hollywood gunslinger's outfit, not a cowboy's, but it would be expecting too much for the costume designer to know the difference.
Tucked inside the shirt, Hiei's Rosary pained him. But it was not due to the mere proximity of the Holy object.
Unblessed, a rosary is no more than an inert string of 59 prayer beads. Blessed by a priest, it can drive away demons. This particular model, hand-carved from rosewood, had been a gift from Shayla Kidd. Shayla Kidd had been given it by the uncle who wasn't the entertainment lawyer, rather the noted demonologist Thomas McNeil.
It wasn't the Rosary's Holy Light that pained Hiei, for alone of virtually all youkai, he could bear its fiery touch.
The shirt itself was so tight that the beads and Crucifix bit into him. And their outline printed clearly against the shiny fabric, as though some multi-segmented creature was stuggling to burst from his flesh.
Good thing they weren't shooting today.
Every time Hiei took a breath, not only did the Rosary hurt, but the shirt's pearl buttons strained to pop, the studded belt promised to cut him in two, and the fringed pants threatened to have him singing soprano.
Dabbing his upper lip, Dexter quavered, "Madam says the accessories will help."
Hiei jammed on the ten-gallon white hat, which was a gallon short, and left him feeling like an iron band was clamped to his head. He strapped on the gun belt. For a prop, the gun belt was heavy. For a costume, the costume looked idiotic.
"They help, right?"
"They don't."
"But Madam Fifi says the costume has to fit."
"Madam's not here squeezed into it like a sausage."
"She says it's made of a premium blend of 95 percent flexible Egyptian cotton and ten percent breathable French spandex."
"I don't care if it's made of melted diamonds. How can a substance be a hundred and five percent of itself?"
Dexter stitched his rust-colored brows. "I don't get it."
"Me neither. Hat's cutting off circulation to my brain."
"Madam Fifi says the hat is essential."
Madam Fifi was probably at that very moment glued to her copyrighted seat at the local Brew and Moo.
At least she was getting fed. Hiei hadn't eaten since leaving the Kidd Estate two hours ago, which did nothing to improve his mood. The high-wire metabolism that enabled him to move at warp-speed suddenly seemed a burden. He grumbled, thinking mostly of his empty stomach, but also of the costume.
Dexter gave him a sickly grin. "Madam Fifi says the costume will ease up once you move around."
"Move?" Hiei didn't look so much like a cowboy as a disgruntled Japanese youkai crammed into an outfit designed for a nine-year-old American girl. One who was pretending to be both Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. "How?"
"Try to look like you're itching for a fight, Madam says."
Hiei gritted his teeth. Shouldn't be difficult. I'm thinking of going ten rounds with her.
"That's the spirit," said Dexter.
"Am I supposed to be fighting with anyone?"
"You haven't read the script?"
"I find it's better that way."
"Oh, a method actor, huh?"
"You could say that." Hiei had learned from painful experience that right up until the first shot and even beyond, scripts could change at the drop of a nine-gallon hat. He had done some research on the subject of cowboys, but this shoot could morph into a chorus line of dancing beer bottles in space.
"Y'know," said Dexter, but not to Madam Fifi, "right now I'm just an intern, but what I really want to do is direct."
You and every other part-time waiter on the planet.
Also typical for an intern, Dexter was overworked and unpaid. And looking like he needed a cigarette.
I'd need one, too, if it would get me out of here.
And if divining what a director wanted could be taken as a metaphor for battle, then squeezing himself into a tight cowboy suit could be a metaphor for squeezing himself into a life that did not fit: staying in the human realm, always on patrol, with a family to both provide for and fear for.
Maybe I need a fight, and I don't mean duking it out with Madam Fifi.
Hiei gave up the battle of the costume. No use standing around waiting for the Brew and Moo to run out of cow. He turned toward the privacy screen and tried to pry open the top button of his shirt.
Ow.
A pain like an ice-pick attached to a cattle prod struck one side of Hiei's head, crackled through, and shot out the other.
It wasn't the effects of the nine-gallon hat. It was how he sensed youki.
He looked up. For a flash, there was a face pressed against the narrow basement window. A face that, in Hiei's fleeting impression, resembled a cross between a troll and an orc.
It wasn't Madam Fifi returning early from lunch. It was the youkai he had sensed.
The creature saw Hiei. It bolted. He thought, it's got nothing to do with me-let someone else handle it. Then: Well, here's your excuse to bail.
Yanking off his cowboy hat, Hiei flung it at the astonished Dexter.
"Hold this," he snapped, then tore out after the demon.
-30-
(To be continued: Who is that varmint?)