TWT. The movie doesn't really fit into the canon, and certainly not after Mukuro returns Hiei's hiruiseki necklace.

Jewelry

The room was as dark and silent as a morgue. Outside, at least, had the stars to help visibility, but the room Hiei stared into was blacker than the cloak on his back.

The silence, too, was overwhelming. Normally, when Hiei peered into the bedroom, there was music playing from a device called a 'stereo.' Sometimes it was loud and consisted of bangs and humans screeching, other times it was smooth, and consisted of plinks and the strumming of strings. But no matter what, that room was never silent.

Hiei briefly entertained the idea that the room's chief occupant was away, thereby accounting for the darkness and silence, but another scan of the room, courtesy of his Jagan, proved otherwise. Kurama was in his bedroom, lying on his bed, swinging an object from a chain before his eyes.

Hiei would have bet his best cloak that he knew what the object was.

Not quite moving at his top speed, but comfortably close, he jumped from the tall apartment building where Kuwabara lived, and plummeted briefly, before reaching the same elevation as the building next to it. He exerted what force he could while in mid-air to reach that building, and continued in this way until reaching the Hatanaka residence.

Another quick scan with the Jagan revealed that Mr. and Mrs. Hatanaka were sleeping peacefully in their bedroom, and their younger son, Shuuichi Hatanaka, while not yet asleep, had just turned down his stereo and was pulling the covers over his head.

Shuuichi Minamino, however, the elder son, was still wide-awake. In the deafening quiet and blinding darkness, he laid perfectly still, sans the minimal wrist movement required to swing the object back and forth, back and forth, back and forth…

So hypnotic, Hiei thought wonderingly, as he lighted before Minamino's bedroom window. He tapped it gently. Once, twice, but to no avail. His desired companion either did not hear him, or did not care.

The object still swung, however, and it was one of only two visible things in the room, to Hiei. His third eye enhanced his night vision, but in such absolute darkness, the only thing he could really be sure he was seeing was bright colors. The only bright color in that bedroom was blood red.

Blood red signaled the figure on the bed, and it heralded the object dangling before his eyes. The object even seemed to bleed a little as it passed to and fro…

He knocked once more, mentally swearing to shatter the fragile glass if he was not admitted this time. He tapped harder, and was finally rewarded when the figure on the bed stirred and strode to his window swiftly.

Hiei leaned back a little as the windowpane slid up; there was no screen. The room's occupant promised again and again that he would replace that screen 'tomorrow' or 'later' or 'by next Mother's Day, Mom, I swear.'

But he never did.

Hiei jumped through the passage once it had been cleared, just in time to see the wave of blood red that signified his companion return to its prior station. But the creature with blood red hair sat up, rather than lie down, this time.

"I didn't expect you to visit," he informed Hiei, barely audible.

"Neither did I," Hiei answered. "What are you doing, Kurama?"

"Nothing," Kurama answered, discreetly shoving his hand beneath… something. Hiei couldn't tell what; all he knew was that the mass on bed in the same area as Kurama's right hand – grayish without light – was moving.

His right hand had held the swinging object.

Quicker than a jackrabbit, and twice as swift, Hiei darted to the bed and reached for whatever Kurama had hidden.

"Stop!" Kurama exclaimed, reaching out in slow motion. Or it seemed like slow motion to the flying shadow Hiei.

Hiei grasped his prize and drew back towards the window, lifting up the object by its chain, studying it. Kurama sighed softly and let his hands drop on the bed. He hadn't protected the object… again… and Hiei held it now, free to do with it as he wished, free to smash, steal or melt it…

But Hiei merely studied it, noting the delicate chain, the setting, and the overly large red stone… He had no idea what sort of stone it was; he guessed a sort of ruby, but he could never be sure, not having a thief's mental catalogue of gems and trinkets. He could have asked Kurama, for the redhead did have such knowledge, but the type of jewel in his hand was irrelevant.

No, the owner of the jewelry was much more important. Hiei had seen this pendant once in his life, a month or so ago. A tall demon with long black hair had showed it off briefly, before leading Kurama into a valley of blinding mist and hallucinogenic scythes. Kurama had recognized the owner, had been deeply affected by accusations, had been deeply touched by that creature once, a long time ago…

"Is this the original?" Hiei asked softly. For the pendant he had been shown was surely a copy, a memory brought to life from Kurama's mental anguish.

"Yes," his companion whispered.

"How did you find it?"

Kurama shrugged his shoulders tiredly. "It took me a week or so. I started from where I had seen it last, asked an old, neighboring bamboo stalk if it had seen it. I was told who had carried it off, tracked them down, learned whom he sold it to, tracked them down…"

"And so on, and so on, until you finally found the current owner?" Kurama nodded. "How much did you pay?"

"A gold locket I bought off a girl at school. The precision of human metallurgy has never been equaled by demonkind, and is therefore highly prized. It was a fair trade."

"Indeed." Hiei could have asked how much Kurama had paid for the locket, but he felt that would have just been delaying the inevitable. He had come for a specific reason. Perhaps, he thought now, he had chosen a bad time, but he was sick and tired of waiting.

"Tell me: why did you want this pendant back?" Hiei asked.

Kurama looked away. "I don't know."

"Sure you do," Hiei insisted. "You went through a lot of trouble… Either you hunted up a girl who wanted to get rid of her jewelry, or you convinced one to. Then you spent, what, a week, you said? You spent a week finding this thing…" Hiei snorted a derisive sort of laugh. "You aren't stupid enough to do so much for a mere whim."

"I used to be," Kurama replied, deftly avoiding his friend's question. "I was intelligent, especially when I was younger, and I planned my thefts with goals in mind, never losing sight of them. But as I grew… so did my arrogance. My goals became meaningless. Stupid dreams I felt foolish for even wanting. I discovered that realizing them would just be boring."

"You found this thing 'cause you were bored?" Hiei prompted, jingling the chain. "I take it back. You are stupid."

"Hiei, give me the pendant," Kurama sighed. "Come on."

"The pendant?" the flying shadow asked. "Not your pendant?"

"Hiei…"

"Isn't it your pendant?" Hiei inquired, swinging it brazenly. "Didn't you trade for it fair and square?"

"Stop it, Hiei. I mean it."

"Trading fair and square…" the demon reflected. "How very unlike you…"

"Hiei, please… Just give me the stupid thing."

"Stupid thing?" The demon was taunting now. He knew it, he felt guilty for it, but it was a means to an end. It would be justified. "And a very stupid thing it is, too… It's such a stupid thing I think I may drop it out the window…"

"Please, no…"

"If it's such a stupid thing, why did you go after it?" Hiei demanded. "Tell me now, or I swear I'llbreak it into so many pieces that not even the Mirror of Darkness will be able to repair it!"

"STOP!"

Hiei dropped his arms to his sides, still holding the pendant tightly. Kurama had raised himself from the bed, livid, his wild eyes finally bright enough to be seen. Hiei turned around to lift the curtain from the window; it had not bothered his all-seeing Jagan in entering the bedroom, but now it did inhibit the entrance of the moonlight he needed to illuminate Kurama well enough to be completely seen. Simple glimpses of hair and eyes would never allow Hiei to lay all of his questions to rest.

Once the curtains no longer blocked the window, and the moon and stars poured in their light, Hiei turned back around to look at Kurama. It appeared he had frozen into his position; his eyes still held a fanatic, sorrowful gleam, his jaw was clenched as tightly as a bear trap, his hands shook ever so slightly…

With a terrible feeling creeping into his stomach… Hiei felt one of his questions had just been answered.

He looked again at the beautiful pendant, a large red stone set into tarnished brass. He tossed it back to Kurama, who caught it feverishly, and practically fell back into his sitting position, relief and agony flooding onto his pale face in equal measures.

Hiei took a deep breath and looked over the redhead critically, as if seeing him for the first time, and said gently, "Would it be because it was truly… his pendant?"

Kurama met his eyes reluctantly, the green irises pained to a degree that struck a chord deep within Hiei… A chord he had only recently realized could be struck… In just a month's time, he had realized that Kurama strummed that chord like a master musician.

But Kurama himself was completely unaware of it.

Hiei had so wrapped himself in his musings that he nearly missed Kurama's whispered "Yes," and quickly shook himself back. He nodded once, looking as if he had acknowledged Kurama's response, but merely clearing his head.

After a moment, he spoke.

"Do you still mourn Kuronue, even today?" the demon asked, forcing his voice into its softest tones, forcing it because he truly wished to yell and slash and burn… But he knew that none of it would help him now.

Kurama choked a laugh, and shook his head. "Hiei, I have not even begun to mourn him."

"Why?"

"I've never really had the time," he admitted in a soft, soft voice. "I died but a few years after he did… I spent all of that time pushing him out of my head; feeling like my heart had stopped beating… I spent those years looking for any way to die without doing it myself…" He giggled a little at the absurdity of what he was about to admit. "And when I finally did croak… I got scared."

"Scared?" Hiei repeated, inching closer to the bed.

"Scared," Kurama confirmed, "In the end, my fear of death was greater than my love for him. So… I came here instead. And I waited, intending to go back to a life of near-death experiences and trying to forget, but soon, it was too late." He looked at Hiei miserably. "Love snared me again."

"I thought you were happy here," returned Hiei. "I thought you enjoyed love."

"I do…" Kurama murmured. "I love my family, and I love my life… despite homework and missions," he joked weakly. "But… I loved him, too. And I've never given myself a chance to get over it."

"You were fine before,"the demonaccused; uncomfortable with listening to Kurama talk about whom he had once loved. Someone else. Someone who was dead and gone and definitely not Hiei…

"I could push it out of my mind before," Kurama argued. "But… It's been forced back into the forefront, and I can't stop thinking about him…" The fox spirit shook his head. "It's like a dam broke. My memories of him are so much more vivid now than they used to be, and they're all coming down at once, overpowering the present…"

Kurama knotted his fingers in his bangs. "The minion that impersonated Kuronue… I can't even remember his name. He's caused me all of this, and I can't…" He laughed humorlessly. "No. Listen to me, Hiei… I've caused myself all of this pain…"

Hiei sighed wearily. "You know, I saw Keiko today," he ventured. "She told me that you and Yukina dropped by for lunch… Certainly, with how much of a concerned busybody she is, she would have told me if you were feeling this way."

Kurama shook his head. "I can't show this to her," he whispered. "I can't show her that this affects me so much… I can't show Yukina, either… Or Kuwabara, or Yusuke, or Koenma, or Shizuru, or Genkai… I can't show my mom, or my stepdad, or Shuuichi…"

One name he did not mention… Hiei's. A long shot, the demon knew, but he was growing desperate, listening to Kurama's soliloquy. Surely, surely, he had a chance… Kuronue was dead, that had to mean a few points in his favor… With everything that had happened over the years between them…

"You're showing it to me." Stating the obvious. Always a safe tactic.

"Oh, Hiei, that's different," Kurama replied tiredly. "You're different."

Different? Dare he hope?

"Different how?" Hiei demanded.

Kurama sighed, staring at the pendant forlornly.

"Kurama, tell me!" Hiei exclaimed, a frenzy taking over, heat rising in his chest… "Tell me, I'm begging you, tell me…"

"Tell you what?"he asked delicately, still examining the jewelry in his palm.

"How I am I different?" Hiei asked again, in a softer, but no less urgent voice. "I have to know, Kurama… What makes you hide from our comrades? Why don't you shy from me in the same way?"

Hiei inhaled heavily. "What is the difference between me, and everyone else?"

"Everything."

Hiei thenexhaled with a snort, relieved. He knew how to respond to that without completely losing face. "That tells me a lot."

"It's the honest-to-God truth," Kurama told him, still refusing to pry his eyes from Kuronue's pendant. "Everything makes you different from the others; our history, your personality, your attitude, your appearance, what you think, how you speak to me… I see it all, Hiei, and… it's all part of the way I think of you."

"I see."

"Do you?" asked the fox, twisting the pendant's tarnished chain around his index finger. "Do you really?"

Hiei decided not to answer. But what Kurama had said, could it possibly…?

He reached for the cord around his neck, and, upon finding it, slid it out from under his shirt. Held on the cord was a beautiful blue jewel, a hirui stone. His good-luck charm, the one thing capable of soothing a troubled soul was that piece of jewelry.

His mother had cried it. So it was a special hirui stone. The stones his sister cried were pure white. At any other time, if his mother had cried, her jewels would have been white, too… But she had cried it while giving birth to him. Something about the process of giving birth or the hormones in her body at the time caused hirui stones to turn blue.

Hiei rolled it around in his hand for a moment. A very, very old nervous habit. He tugged the cord a little—not too hard, he was deathly frightened of breaking it again… But it was a blessing to have something for his hands to do.

"Kurama, do you see this?" he asked, brandishing the necklace before the thief. Kurama looked up briefly, and nodded. "I nearly killed myself many times over many years to find it…" He swallowed. Hiei knew he might never have such a chance to ask his question again. He was not fond of delaying the inevitable, being such an impatient person, but even with this logic, he was nervous. "If… If I were to die tomorrow, and I lost my necklace before I did, would you… Would you go find it for me?"

That was as close as Hiei ever got to baring his soul. A metaphor.

"Yes," Kurama responded instantly. "I'd track it down, and find it. I'd put it on, and take it off, and do it again… And I'd hypnotize myself with it, wondering why we were so stupid…"

Hiei closed his eyes, relieved. It was all the confirmation he needed, all he was going to get. If Kurama would treat Hiei's most prized possession as well as he treated Kuronue's…

"Look at me, Kurama," Hiei requested. "It's unsettling that you keep staring at that pendant."

"Come sit with me," Kurama retorted. "It's unsettling that you never come near me."

Hiei quietly chuckled, and did as asked. The sickening feeling seeped away, and the blaze in his chest dulled to a gentle, warm sensation. Peace permeated his thoughts. His questions had been answered positively… Kurama did regard him differently than anyone else, with a special affection reserved only for him. It was elation itself to finally realize it…

Kurama kept up his end of the deal, and turned to face Hiei. He shoved the pendant beneath his pillow again, squeezing it one last time before letting go. The same hand to reached out to Hiei and brushed his cheek gently.

Barely realizing what on earth he was doing, Hiei wrapped his hand around Kurama's wrist, holding him there. Yes – he was definitely there. It wasn't a dream, it was real, and it was—

A nightmare.

Hiei gazed into Kurama's eyes. He had been neglecting them during their most meaningful exchange, he realized with a shock. With Kurama avoiding looking at him, he missed the haunted glow that sparkled in them. Or, rather, he took for granted that their little revelations would dissipate that haunted glow. But no, that would have been ideal. As broken as ever, he appeared to be… Hiei reached out with his third eye to scan Kurama's aura, knowing that Kurama's mind would refuse him access.

Sorrow. Pain. Loneliness, he perceived with a jolt. And most terrifying of all…

Vulnerability.

That sickening feeling crashed again into the pit of his stomach, with all the gentle subtlety of a freight train. A chill of guilt crept up his spine, and a cold block of ice filled his chest.

No. Not now… I can't.

Gently, he pulled Kurama's hand from his cheek, and squeezed it, before setting it carefully on the bed between them. He sighed softly, afraid of what could have happened if he had never looked into Kurama's eyes…

Hiei, I have not even begun to mourn him.

"You don't need this right now," he murmured to the redhead. "This is the last thing you need, I think."

"Hiei…" Kurama breathed with a touch of worry. "What are you saying?"

"The hardest thing I've ever said in my entire life," Hiei answered heavily. "I can't, Kurama. Not now. Right now… you aren't thinking straight. You're too emotional. Unstable."

"Hiei, it's been a month," Kurama said urgently. "I'm fine, I swear…"

Hiei shook his head slowly. "No…" he said, hating himself for it. "I would think… I would hope… if you loved him as much as you say you did, and that if you never really got over it… It would take more than a month. Especially since you've delayed it this long… and most especially since you were heartbroken over Kuronue's death just a few minutes ago."

Kurama slumped back, lying flat on his bed, arms straight out from his sides. The stray, thicker forelocks of his blood red hair fell across his eyes, a blinder to what was going on.

"Kurama…"

Kurama didn't open his eyes, or sit up, or look at Hiei, but he heaved a pained sigh and murmured something the demon could not make out. He rolled over onto his side and reached for his pillow, pulling it to him. He went for Kuronue's pendant again, and clutched it like a lifeline.

Hiei looked Kurama up and down, as the fox put the pillow over his head. He had just realized how exhausted he felt… And he probably looked it, too, he thought wryly. Kurama certainly did. The fox looked miserable and depressed, and part of Hiei screamed at him that it was a mistake to leave him like this… It was clearer than brightest day that Kurama did not need a new lover, but an old friend might be just what the doctor ordered…

Hiei glanced at the window, his ever-trusty escape route, and then back at Kurama, his ever-trusty partner-in-crime, and the one dearest to his heart.

That moment of vulnerability… Waves of sadness flowed off Kurama's form as if from a gale at sea. It was familiar, in a way that frightened Hiei deep in his core. The same feeling had enveloped Kurama as he stood in the middle of his artificial bamboo forest, looking perfectly composed and serene to Yusuke and Kuwabara, but Hiei had seen beyond for just that one moment… Kurama had begun to tell him the story, but no. Hiei had shushed him, and reminded him that he was probably not the only with such a story to tell. It had seemed to satisfy the fox at the time, but now Hiei wondered if that had just been because they had bigger problems to deal with… rescuing Botan and defeating Yakumo.

It had been good to know, good to realize, that Kurama had a temper. Before, Hiei had only scratched the surface of the rage his desired could feel, but that one moment, that one, singular loss of self-control… It had endeared Kurama to him in a way he thought utterly ridiculous: it proved Kurama to be imperfect, and Hiei liked that. He liked Kurama better then, because Kurama had just displayed a really terrible character flaw, a character flaw that Hiei shared, even.

Hiei's logical, survival-oriented mind said very clearly that you should not like someone for his faults. That was common sense.

And yet…

The same thing was happening again. Kurama was always so poised, so composed, so unruffled. Nothing, not loud children, barking dogs or even Hurricane Botan could break through his aura of serenity. That was the image he presented.

But the image in front of Hiei's eyes… The pillow smashed over his face, the subdued voice, and the possessiveness over Kuronue's jewelry, all of it was implying that maybe Kurama was not always so in control every single minute.

Heck. Implying? It nearly screamed that Kurama was just a normal being, with the same thoughts, problems and feelings as any other…

And it was good to know. It made the fox seem more accessible, more attainable… more like Hiei.

Maybe that was what had finally smashed all of his scattered feelings together, Hiei thought. Maybe that sense that Kurama wasn't a god in fox's clothing finally brought out the depth of Hiei's affection for him.

The demon took a deep breath, and tapped Kurama's shoulder gently. He started, and nearly kicked the flying shadow in his surprise. Kurama freed himself of the pillow and rolled over to look at Hiei curiously.

"I'll stay awhile," Hiei said gruffly. "You started to tell me about what happened that day…" He tugged on the cord of his hirui stone necklace again, just to keep his hands from idleness. "Why don't you tell me now?" the demon suggested. "Maybe going through it again will help you come to terms with it."

Kurama sighed, and began his tale… And once again, he brought the old memento out to swing before his eyes, and just as before, on every pass, it seemed to bleed a little, making the jewelry look as stained and scarred as the heart that swung it.