Kiyoshi: Go. To. Sleep.
FCL64: No. This story was inspired by a video on YouTube: "Kurama and Maya's Ending" posted by PayneUranus, created by Angelic Esper (I think that's what it said…). Yeah, so that was my inspiration. I don't own anyone. Dedicated to two of my friends who I haven't seen in ages. I miss them. :(
Kiyoshi: Go. To. Sleep.
FCL64: No. Anyway, this is the first time I've used Maya as a character, and I'm not very good at writing oneshots, so here we go!
Maya sat at her desk at University, thinking about a friend she hadn't seen since junior high. She had been thinking about him a lot lately, and she didn't know why. There was something else too, breaking on the edge of her memory like a wave upon the sand, there one moment and gone the next.
She shrugged it off. She had joked to her friends that she was going crazy. None of them believed in ghosts or demons, but Maya felt differently. She had always had a little bit of a sixth sense, but it had grown stronger in junior high. She sighed and began sketching a picture of Shuichi Minamino as she remembered him. An introverted boy with red hair and green eyes, quiet but perceptive.
The class was dismissed, and she joined her friends for lunch. "Who's that supposed to be?" one of them suddenly asked, catching sight of her sketch which she had shaded in to be a reasonable likeness of him. At least she thought it looked like him, but after so many years she couldn't be sure. "You have a brother you never told me about?"
"No," she answered the girl, glancing down at the paper. "He's a friend from junior high. For some reason I've been thinking about him a lot lately. And there's something else dancing at the edge of my memory that I can't quite grasp."
"Something to do with demons and ghosts, I'm sure," the other girl teased.
But Maya didn't react. She was in her own little world. "Perhaps," she mused. "I think I'll see if he still lives where he used to when I visit home tomorrow."
"Did you have a crush on him?" another girl asked. "Were you two childhood sweethearts?"
"No," Maya responded automatically, but she also frowned. Something about the statement sounded right. "At least…I don't think it was anything like that. I think we were just friends."
The next day…
Maya walked slowly up to the door, fearful that Shuichi and his mother would have moved by now. She rang the bell and waited. A man answered the door. "Can I help you?"
"Oh, I'm sorry," she apologized. "I just…I was looking for an old friend. I thought he might still live here. But I guess he's moved in the last couple of years." Her words came quickly, and the man could tell she was upset. "I'm sorry for disturbing you. I'll just go now."
She turned and hurried toward the sidewalk. He called out to her, "Shuichi's in his room, if you really want to talk to him."
She froze. "He still lives here? But I thought…it was never…just him and his mom…" She trailed off, feeling like an idiot.
The man smiled. "I married his mother several years ago. You can come in."
She nodded and walked back up to the house and through the front door. "Shuichi," the man called out. "There's someone who wants to see you."
"Thank you," Maya said.
"No problem," he answered as he left the living room.
Maya turned to the stairs in time to see his feet as they walked down quickly, but with a purpose that didn't suggest he was trying to hurry. At the bottom of the stairs, Maya saw Shuichi stop as his eyes fell on her. He said nothing. She didn't say anything either, just looked at him in wonder.
He was no longer the boy she remembered. He was a man now, and she could only assume that the abs hidden by the t-shirt were as well-defined as his arms. He had grown his familiar red hair out so that it was well past his shoulders. There was something else that was off about him too; nothing physical, nothing that could be seen, but Maya felt it. The only thing that had truly remained the same were his green eyes. But she couldn't help but feel that there was something different there as well.
"Maya," he finally said.
"You remembered." She smiled. "I worried you wouldn't. It's been so long since I last saw you."
He nodded. "Yes, it has. How are you, Maya?"
"I'm fine," she answered, taking a seat. "And you?"
He smiled at her, but it looked tense. "I've been worse. Now, I don't mean to be rude," he said, remaining by the stairs. "But why are you here?" He sounded worried, and she couldn't understand why.
"You don't want me here," she said standing up. "I'm sorry. I should go. You probably have a girlfriend, and if she sees me she'll get the wrong impression, and life will just suck for everyone. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come." She headed for the door, but he caught her arm, stopping her.
"No," Shuichi said. "That's not it at all. I just don't think it's exactly wise for… never mind. You still haven't told me why you're here." He grinned at her.
She returned to her seat rather reluctantly, aware that the grin had seemed slightly forced. "I've been thinking about our friendship a lot lately, Shuichi," she said. "I don't understand what happened. It seems like one day we were friends and the next day we weren't. And there's something else, just beyond reach of my memory. I feel like it's the reason for that split, but I can't figure out why I would forget something so important."
Maya looked sad, but Shuichi didn't appear to notice. He looked more worried than anything. To himself he muttered, "I was afraid this would happen." He looked up at her. "What do you remember?"
"I remember that…I think I had a crush on you or something," she said quietly. Her face reddened, but she refused to look away from his green eyes. And in them, she saw something else. "I had a dream one night around the time our friendship seems to have fallen apart," she went on, speaking quickly unsure where her words were coming from. "There were…monsters. And zombies." With every word she spoke, his face became more worried. "A man who moved with the speed of light. You changed a weed into a sword. You saved me from the monsters, and you carried me back home." She shook her head and laughed in an embarrassed manner. "Listen to me. Speaking of dreams as though they're real."
"Dreams are powerful things," Shuichi murmured, more to himself than to Maya.
"The funny thing is," she replied. "I didn't even remember the dream until I saw you. It may have been what was eluding me this entire time. Silly, huh?"
"Silly?" he asked, looking straight at her. Suddenly his eyes were analyzing in a way she didn't remember, and it frightened her. They looked so detached from everything, as though he had a vague interest in the conversation but was not directly involved with it. "I think not. I find it worrisome."
"Why?" she asked. She was starting to wonder if coming here had been a mistake. Shuichi was no longer the boy she had known; it seemed he had grown out of nearly everything she remembered about him. "It's not as though it actually happened. That would be crazy to suggest, even for me."
"Even for you?" he asked.
"I have a sixth sense," she admitted. "Not a strong one, but it's there. People may think I'm crazy, but I'm not that crazy."
Shuichi nodded. "I don't think you're crazy, Maya. I just…this wasn't supposed to happen." She listened as he began talking to himself. "You were supposed to forget everything. You weren't supposed to remember any of it, at all, even as a dream. You shouldn't be sitting in my living room. You shouldn't be a target. You're sixth sense wasn't supposed to get stronger, simply by being around me. You weren't supposed to get dragged into my world."
"Your world?" she interrupted. "Shuichi, what are you talking about, I wasn't supposed to remember, my sixth sense wasn't supposed to improve?"
He looked at the ceiling, bit his lip and shook his head. "I can't tell you. It's too dangerous."
"Too dangerous?" she asked. "How?"
He shook his head. "I care about you, Maya. I've always cared about you." He suddenly looked away from her. "Perhaps more than I should. There are several people I care about more than I should." Maya watched as he looked up at the ceiling and shook his head. "And the number just keeps growing…this life is much more than I bargained for. Perhaps I would have been better off if I hadn't chosen this path."
"What path?" Maya asked. She was confused and beginning to wonder if Shuichi was crazy. All she was sure of was that coming back here wasn't anything like she thought it would be. She was older now, but she hadn't changed nearly as much as Shuichi.
Shuichi shook his head. "Just…I spent most of my life distancing myself from people, doing my best to avoid all contact. I was safer that way." He grinned and chuckled, but both the look and the sound were dark and not at all happy. They scared Maya in a way she couldn't explain. "Then about ten years ago, I learned what it meant to love someone. And ever since then, I've been forming friendships with people who would be better off not knowing me at all. My life would have been simpler if I had just left when I meant to…"
"Shuichi," Maya said, her voice worried. "What are you talking about?"
"Maya," Shuichi said carefully, "I'm not who you think I am. I never was who you think I am. The Shuichi you thought you knew never really existed. I'm…I shouldn't stay here. Shiori will get hurt. But I've always been selfish, and I love her too much to leave."
Maya blinked in surprise. Shuichi had called his mother by her first name. "Shuichi, just tell me what's going on. I'll understand, I swear I will."
He shook his head. "I don't think you will. And the less you know about me, the safer you are. I can't bear to put you in the kind of danger I'm continually putting Shiori in."
"Danger?" she asked quietly. "Shuichi, why do you call your mother by her first name?"
"Heh." He laughed as though he didn't really find it funny. "You know, one of these days, I'm going to call her to Shiori to her face, and this entire life I've built will go down in flames."
Maya stood up in anger. "Either tell me what's going on, or I'm going to leave, Shuichi."
Shuichi let out a long breath. "I'd rather you leave than learn the truth, Maya. It would be better for you to leave."
She shook her head. "You are unbelievable. You're not at all like I remembered you, Shuichi. Where is the boy who was careful not to offend anyone, who was quiet and reserved, who was my friend? Did it ever occur to you that I might have wanted you to be something more than a friend, Shuichi?" She went on, no longer in control of what she was saying. "Did it ever occur to you that I might still want you to be something more than a friend?" She didn't know where the words came from, but at the same time, she couldn't help but believe that they were all true. Every single one of them.
He stood up. Maya took a step back in surprise. The only way she could have described the look on his face was tortured. "Maya… Let's talk this over outside. Let's take a walk." He sighed. "I might try to tell you the truth. But… I'm just scared."
"What are you scared of, Shuichi?" Maya whispered.
He looked at her, and she could feel the honesty in his eyes. "I'm scared of you, Maya."
She froze. After a few long, tense moments, she whispered, "Why?"
"Because your feelings are too strong for me to erase. Because they haven't disappeared. Because my feelings for you aren't exactly what I'd like them to be. Because you'll end up getting hurt because of me. Or I'll end up hurting you." She watched as he frowned in disapproval of himself. "Because I'm selfish, so if your feelings for me don't disappear, if you keep coming to me, I won't be able to stay away from you, Maya."
He opened the door and let her step out. As they walked down the sidewalk side by side, Maya asked him, "Why would it be bad for us to be together?"
He looked up at the sky. "I've done a lot of bad things in my life, Maya. I'm a liar. I'm a criminal. I'm not good for you."
As they moved slowly forward she looked at the profile of his face, trying to read the lines in his face to see what he could possibly mean. "Shuichi—" she began.
"Heh," he cut her off. "There you go. I'm not Shuichi. Shuichi doesn't exist. Shuichi never existed. He was just a temporary mask used to keep me safe until I could manifest my power and escape back into the demon realm, where I had every intention of continuing my life as a career criminal." His voice sounded angry, and she couldn't understand why.
"You're just mocking me now," Maya accused, tears welling in her eyes. "You're making fun of me. You don't believe in demons, and you're making fun of me because I do." She pressed her lips together in an effort not to cry. "I have to go." She turned to go back the way from which they had come, but he caught her arm, once again preventing her from leaving.
"No, Maya," he said. "The dream you told me about wasn't a dream. It was real. A demon called Hiei attacked me, and I led him away from you. A boy under mind control kidnapped you and took you to Eighthands. Hiei and I came and saved you. I erased your memories of all of it, and I erased your memories of your feelings for me. I was trying to protect you."
Tears fell from Maya's eyes as she tried to pull away. "You don't believe what you're saying, Shuichi. You're being intentionally cruel. I'll just go." She fled down the street.
"Maya!" he called out. "Stop! I'll give you proof, if you'll just come back." She could hear him running after her. She slowed, allowing him to catch up.
"How could you prove that, Shuichi?" she asked. "How could you prove it wasn't just a dream?"
"I can't prove that wasn't a dream," he admitted, "but I can prove to you that I do believe in demons. I can prove to you that…I can prove to you that I am one."
She stopped, frozen in her tracks. "What?" She couldn't hear her own voice.
Shuichi reached up behind his ear and pulled something from behind his ear. He held his hand out to her, palm open. She saw a single seed resting in his palm. She watched in wonder as it slowly split open and grew, resulting in a single rose, blooming bright and beautiful in his hand. He handed it to her. "Things can seem safe but turn out to be dangerous. Every rose has its thorns."
"How?" she asked.
Shuichi smiled bitterly, walking along next to her. "I was a thief, famous throughout the demon plane. But a bounty hunter got to me, almost killing me. I was a fox demon, a shape shifter. I switched to soul form and fled to the human world. I took over a soulless embryo. I calculated that at around the age of ten in this body I would be able to manifest my powers and leave. But then I realized that I love Shiori. She would have been alone if I had left. But it's still better if I don't drag any other humans into my life. Several demons have tried to use it against me already." He stopped, and she followed suit. When he faced her, he looked sad. "I care about you, Maya. But I don't want you to become a target simply because you're close to me. Demonic politics are dangerous."
"Heh," she laughed, still trying not to cry. "You said you were a thief. Now you're a demon politician. You said you are a liar. That's the only one I can believe. You're just a lying schoolboy with a flair for magic tricks."
"No, Maya," he objected. "In the demon plane, fame most often means power. In that realm, it's still survival of the fittest and rule by the strongest. I am strong. As a result, I'm involved in politics whether I want to be or not."
She shook her head in disgust. "You were right, Shuichi. It's best if I leave. If I don't, I'll just end up getting hurt." She turned and walked away. "But it wouldn't ever be someone else who hurt me. It would just be you."
He watched her for a few moments, hurt by her accusation. "Maya…!" he called out.
She didn't turn back, she just kept walking slowly away. Coming to see him had been a big mistake. Suddenly she froze. That unseen difference she had felt when she arrived was suddenly washing over her, more forcefully than she thought was possible. She turned to look back at him, and her hand flew to her mouth.
"Do you believe me now?" the man with silver hair asked. He walked forward slowly, as though he didn't want to frighten her.
As he drew nearer, she could make out silver ears that were identical to those of a fox. Likewise a tail flicked through the air behind him. His eyes were no longer green; but their golden irises were just as sad. He was no longer wearing the close-fitting t-shirt and jeans. Instead he was wearing something that almost made him look as though he were simply wrapped in a sheet. He reached her and slowly reached a pale hand toward her face. With claws she was sure could rip out any of her organs with no problem, he brushed a strand of her hair from her eyes and pulled her hand away from her mouth. His pale hand did not release hers. And while the hands looked dangerous, no guy had ever done anything for her as gentle as the way he had brushed the hair from her face.
"Do you believe me?" he repeated, the voice no longer Shuichi's. Everything was different about him.
She nodded. "How could I not?"
He shook his head. "How could you possibly remember what happened that day? I erased your memories. Your feelings are stronger than that though. And… if I'm honest… some part of me wanted you to remember. Some part of me wanted you to come back."
"Shuichi…" Maya whispered.
The man with silver hair shook his head. "I… Maya, it's still better if you walk away. But I'm not going to fight how I feel about you any longer. If you're smart, you'll walk away. If you walk away, I won't stop you. I'm selfish, but I don't want you to get hurt."
"If I'm smart I'll walk away," she echoed. Lacing her fingers into the fingers of the man she'd never seen before but who she immediately trusted with her life, she answered, "I guess I'm not very smart then. Or maybe I am smart. I trust you not to hurt me, Shuichi. And I trust you to be able to protect me if someone does come after me."
The man with ears and a tail disappeared in what appeared to be a whirl of hair and fabric. In his place stood the red haired man she didn't quite understand. "Why do you trust me?" he asked, his hand still in hers as they walked down the street. "Everything you've ever known about me has been a lie."
"Maybe it's that you weren't pretending to care about the people," Maya answered, watching the sidewalk. "You told me the truth because you trust me not to tell everyone your secret."
"Maya…this isn't a good idea," he warned yet again. "The fox demon is a far different person than Shuichi Minamino. The fox demon has a much darker past, a much more violent present and a much more uncertain future."
"I don't care," Maya answered quietly. She rested her head on his shoulder as they walked hand in hand down the street. "What I do care about is that I don't even know your real name."
"It's Kurama," the man at her side answered reluctantly. "You can't know that you don't care, Maya. We haven't seen each other in six years. You can't know that we are still even capable of being friends."
"You said my feelings were too strong to stay erased," she reminded him, closing her eyes against the bright sun. "I think that it doesn't matter that we haven't seen each other. Some things are just meant to be."
"How can you talk like this, Maya?" he asked sounding sad. "Why don't you care that I lied? How can you be so sure?"
"I don't care," she whispered, "because I love you. Kurama or Shuichi. I don't care what your name is or what your past is. My heart was always here, I think. Even when I didn't remember." Maya felt his hand tighten on hers.
"Mine was divided between you and Shiori," he whispered. "The two human women who have somehow managed to become the center of my universe."
Maya smiled to herself. "This dream ends much better than the last one," she whispered.
"Who ever said it has to end?" he asked. He let go of her hand and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her to him. She put her arm around his waist.
"No one," she answered. "No one said it has to end. But it shouldn't be possible to be this happy in anything but a dream."
"Well it evidently is possible," he answered, "because this isn't a dream. And I'm not going to make you forget this time. If anyone is dreaming, it's probably me. I don't deserve this kind of happiness, Maya. You do."
"It doesn't matter if it's a dream or not," Maya finally decided. "If it is a dream, it doesn't matter whose dream it is. All that matters is that we're happy. And if it is a dream, it's one of the rare ones that smells nice." She felt Shuichi laugh next to her. "What she asked?"
"Nothing," he answered. "I just agree. This one does smell nice."