First Sight
by the Rurouni Idoru

Rurouni's Note: Well, none of my work's focused on Hiei yet. I figured I may as well sharpen my skills and do this. 'Sides, I'm so sick of people changing Hiei's personality so they can write the romance they want. So now, I let Hiei tell his story, his thoughts on the concept of "love at first sight."

Disclaimer: I don't own any part of Yu Yu Hakusho. But I own Bara, and my friend owns Teara, and has given me her permission to use her, oh yes. This is, by the way, dedicated to her. If she ever reads it.

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I hear her loud, obnoxious sniffling, though I try not to. Bara's watching one of her stupid movies where the man and the woman are clearly in love but they pretend they hate each other until the end of the movie, where Bara starts her obligatory crying, because apparently the soundtrack isn't complete without it. Teara's dragged me to watch these with her and Bara on more than one occasion. I usually think about what kind of sweets I can demand as payment for such torture when we leave. That way, I don't have to listen to the two in the televison spout corny dialogue that no normal person would ever say, and that's not remotely funny in the least. The woman, a blonde American with short hair and sensible shoes, tells the man that she fell in love when she first saw him. Hn. "Love at first sight," such a silly concept that only a bunch of saps could come up with so that more women would come cry at their movies. I have never met anyone who fell in love at first sight. Not real love. Oh sure, that giant orange-haired oaf liked the way my sister's appearance upon seeing her in a video, but he only knew her personality later. That was what drove him into his drooling, stuttering stupor. If, at that time when he first saw her, he had known that she was my sister, he probably would have given up on her. He's the kind for snap judgements when it comes to me. He fell in love with the way she looked, not who she was. You can't fall in love with someone with prospects of eternity in mind based on appearance. Appearance changes. Beautiful women get older, and their faces begin to crease, and their smooth hands sag and become bony. Long, shining hair turns white and sparse. It's inevitable for all who don't die young. Only when you know someone inside and out, know their flaws and their good points, and love them even with everything that can go wrong, can you truly say that it's love. For example, I love the way Bara can manipulate just about anyone into just about anything. That doesn't mean I want to marry her, far from it. Marriage to Bara is what nightmares are made of. It means I think she would make a good saleswoman. It means I appreciate her skill. I appreciate Kurama's skills, and Yusuke's skills, and even Kuwabara's skills too. You can't love one thing about a person and say you're in love. That's why love at first sight is impossible.

Bara seems to be under the delusion that my feelings for Teara were love at first sight. It doesn't matter how much I tell her otherwise. It's for reasons like these that I could never be Bara's lover. She's stubborn and annoying and I can't stand to be in the same room with her for too long if she's in one of her "I know everything" moods, which come frequently. I won't lie, I found Teara attractive when I saw her, but I didn't think of her as a possible mate for a long time. She was, after all, a human. The same species as that lump of annoyingness called Kuwabara. The same species as that filth who captured Yukina for his own profit. The same species as...well, Bara. If Bara was a good example of human females, then I wanted to stay as far from them as possible. Fortunately, Bara's a terrible example of human females, and if they all had to choose a delegate to represent them, Bara would have to manipulate the entire population if it were to be her. She likes to play on her victims' weaknesses, and there's no way she could find out the one weakness of Ningenkai's entire female populous. Teara, however, was different from Bara. Teara was afraid that I would harm her, because they had told her that I was a demon. She pretty much hid behind Bara the entire time. Bara was confused, because since she was as manipulative as she was, she knew she could render me harmless. She had neglected to tell Teara this. Teara seemed tolerable, I liked her better than Kuwabara at least. So when did tolerance mutate into friendship, and then downright love?

She offered me a place to stay, when she didn't even really have that to offer. I was forced to live in a tree anyway, and she still offered a comfortable place to be if I ever happened to need one. She didn't understand from the start just what they meant by "demon." She was told I was a demon, and wouldn't beleive it because I wasn't as fierce and angry as she had imagined me. When it came to our first meeting, I was downright gentle. She said that there was no way I could be a demon. I calmly explained to her that I was, in fact, a youkai, had three eyes, and was known to sprout more. I told her that my skin could turn green. I expected her to be disgusted. She found it absolutely amazing. You know, she said I was cute. Now, I have been described as many things, but until then, "cute" was not on the list. I suppose that tiny, neglected child in me, who had been unwanted, even hated, that was the part of me that really liked hearing that. She presented me with a new way to look at things. She looked at things more or less open-mindedly, provided she wasn't terrified of them. She saw humans, demons, anyone as someone she could maybe get along with. Now, I'm not saying this is a lifestyle I would like to try, I'm just saying that it was a perspective I hadn't thought of. Bara says Teara had a crush on me when we frist met. (When she says this, Teara usually hits her and they start having one of their little brawls, but that's beside the point.) I had never imagined anyone with a crush on me before. I wasn't the type of person young human girls had crushes on. I was the kind of person young human girls stayed away from. It was flattering that Teara looked at me as someone she would willingly spend time and energy on. What really amazed me, though, was that she was devoted enough to me that she would sacrifice herself for me. I know, she's tried. She may be a coward, but she'll do stupid things in my name. Like use herself as a bargaining chip for an old enemy who wanted revenge on me.

Every time she does one of those stupid things she does, it annoys me, and it worries me. I don't want her hurt, not for my sake. She doesn't deserve it. But I love it when she does them. Because it's for me. She's possesive and selfish, but I'm what she wants to have for herself. She's loud and obnoxious, but not in the same annoying way as Bara. She's just as irritated by Kuwabara as I am. She's a coward, until she realizes I'll protect her. Every flaw she has, every little thing I hate about her...those are the reasons why I love her.