Characters: Vague BotanxHiei, Kuwabara, Yusuke, brief mentioning of others
Disclaimer: I don't own YYH. Also, this was written at one in the morning.
A/N: Botan may seem a bit out of character in this one. But you gotta remember, she's mad. Most people don't think straight when they are! Botan just happens to swear a bit when she's mad, also. But hey. Artistic lincence, right? ;D (Also, don't be afraid to review or anything. It's always nice.) Questions and Answers
I want an answer. I want an answer so bad I want to kill for it. I want to kill so bad I feel and sound like Hiei. This is not a good sign, of course.
Then again, it isn't really a surprise, either. Because answers tend to elude the questions I ask, just because that's the way it works, I guess. I think that's bullshit.
I want my answers.
I want them now.
But I won't get them.
Because nobody wants to give me any of my damn answers. They're too lazy.
"Hey, Botan?"
I answer with just a curt nod, because I am not in the mood. Oh-ho, I am definitely not in the mood.
"Botan, could you tell me where Yukina is?"
I look up at him. It's Kuwabara. Not a surprise, but hey. It bothered me anyway. "No."
"Aw. Okay. Well, I'll go look for her, then."
Normally I think it's cute, his doting on the Koorime. It's normally kind of endearing. Not today. Today, it's bothersome.
I look down at my notebook. It's sitting on the shiny, sterile kitchen table at Genkai's house. I use the notebook to keep track of all (most) of the souls I ferry. It's like a tally, a bet of sorts. It's to tell who gets the ferry-girl-of-the-month award. I like to win that award, usually. But right now I hate it. I don't care if I get the lowest amount of souls ever, because I don't have my goddamn answers.
So right now the notebook only has pictures on it. The pages of my tallies are all but torn out; with scribbles and violent-looking marks obscuring the numbers from any kind of view. It is now impossible to tell how many I've gotten. Thousands of marks, standing for different souls, souls that have had lives, and families, are now blackened out with a pen mark, forever insignificant. I do not feel sorry for them. I feel angry.
The pictures on my notebook are on the page that is now open to me. I have a thick Sharpie™ brand marker in my left hand and I am attempting to become ambidextrous through crude drawings depicting bloody massacres, cannibalism, the demise of the three worlds and even people kicking puppies. Anything you can think of.
I am not becoming ambidextrous anytime soon, and the poor quality of my conceptual masterpiece is only proving to complicate matters more.
Kuwabara is giving me a strange look.
I don't care.
I tell him to shove off, go scratch, etc., as long as I can get back to what I was doing.
What was I doing? I'm not quite sure. As I look back at my work of art, I figure it's a pretty good start. I'll get back to it later, as soon as I find out what the hell is Kuwabara's problem, because he is still here and looking over my shoulder.
"Botan, you okay?"
"Yes, I am okay, now leave."
"You don't seem okay."
"Thanks. Thanks for your theory. Unfortunately, I don't care."
"Are you in… A mood?"
His language and vocabulary is A) Freaking me out and B) Absolutely retarded. Honestly. "A mood." I fight the urge to scream.
"Come on, Kuwabara, quit it! Get back in here!"
I momentarily thank the gods for Yusuke Urameshi, because Kuwabara leaves.
I continue to draw.
I begin to philosophize. Why am I here?
Where am I going in life?
What would happen if these worlds didn't exist?
What if there is no such thing as destiny?
What if there is?
What about the people I have surrounded myself with?
If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there—I stop when I realize that I am just asking questions again. Questions that apparently don't have answers.
But then I get a silly notion. Maybe there are answers to these questions. They're not as unanswered as they first appear. They are deceitful little creatures, these questions, and I'm going to find out what's going on. What their hidden agenda is. Because it's bothering me.
I soon end up convincing myself that there are answers for these philosophical questions, and people are just keeping the answers from me. It's all a conspiracy. Of course. Why didn't I think of it before?
I shake my head and scold myself. Honestly. Did they think I was that naive?
Probably.
It's raining. I wonder when it started, and I realize that maybe I actually missed it.
There's a huge crack of thunder and I jump. I didn't expect that one. My notebook and the Picasso in it are over there, on the coffee table. I have moved from the kitchen to living room, and it bothers me that I don't remember why.
The Almighty List of Questions grows longer.
I roll my eyes to myself, as there is nobody here to see it.
I hear voices laughing on the other side of the temple. I can pick out the different voices, and I find that Keiko and Yukina have arrived, and that something very funny happened in school today.
It takes some effort, but I soon bring myself to A) Not care and B) Not feel left out.
Look at all of these A)'s and B)'s that I'm giving you. It's like a multiple choice test. God.
If there's just one thing in the world that I want to do right now, it is to be properly pissed off. And I can't even do that.
The door slams, and I watch, awed, with wide eyes as Hiei walks through the entrance. He is dripping wet and creating a trail of water through the house. I notice that he doesn't even bother to announce his presence, and I also note that it is not all that shocking.
He glares at me. Daring me to say something about his pitiful appearance.
Unfortunately, he looks too deliciously sad in his soaked getup.
I take the bait.
"Hello, Hiei, you're looking chipper."
He chooses not to reply to that. "I'm not staying here long."
I nod my head seriously. "Of course not. Just enough to let the wetness dry, I imagine?"
I do not offer him a towel. I do not get up to start a fire. I do not fetch some tea. He can get it himself.
The glare has not left. I didn't think it would.
"So, what're you doing with yourself nowadays, Hiei?" I give him a pointed look and he glares back. "It's been a while."
He knows I'm not my usual self. I can tell. He isn't that dense.
But he doesn't ask what's wrong. He doesn't try to comfort me. It's killing me right now that he's not, though. I want him to say, 'what's eating you?' or something so that I can throw it back in his face. Something like with Kuwabara. But he's not. He's just standing there, looking out the window. No, glaring out the window. But whatever. The point is he's not following the script.
I sit there, seething in my own little pit of rage, waiting for something to happen. Waiting like how I've been waiting all afternoon. My eyes flick down to the open notebook on the coffee table, and I almost feel like running over there and closing it. I overcome the feeling easily and instead I stare hard at the carpet beneath me. Soon, though, my eyes trail over the floor and end up looking at the wet part underneath Hiei's feet.
Then it hits me.
Hiei never comes here. If he's ever here, it's because he's here to see Yukina. To check up on her. But this time, he's not. He's just looking out the window, waiting for the rain to let up. Could it be…? Hiei doesn't like the rain?
I feel myself start to smirk.
Hiei looks over at me. I think he has a sixth sense for this type of thing. He snaps at me. "What is it?"
"You don't like the rain?"
He sort of makes that noise he always makes when he doesn't feel like answering, or when he's feeling like being a pompous ass. This time, though, I think it was for the former. He is definitely evading the question. I should know. I have people senses.
I am thrilled that I have dirt on him. "What, you afraid of some water drops or somethin'?"
He's starting to get angry.
"Or getting wet? I mean, what's it gonna do to you?"
"At least I'm not prone to spouting asinine comments every two seconds."
…
…Touché.
"I don't like you, Hiei."
The words leave my mouth before I can stop them. I've been mad today. All day. I'm furious at the world and there is nothing that can stop it, and I am even mad enough to tell someone that I don't like them.
And it's not even true. I just want to faze him. I just want to vent my anger, and he happens to be here right now.
He just turns away from the window, looks at me.
And I hate it. I want him to look away. Go somewhere else. Because right now I feel low. I am glaring at him so hard that there are tears in my eyes. I am on the verge of a mental breakdown and by now I'm not even sure why.
"I don't believe you," He says, finally, and for some reason those were the right words to say.
My mouth starts to quiver, and I fight back the salty water in my eyes. Luckily my will is strong enough and they never come forth, but they are still there. He can see them. He knew the right words to say.
And, as I think back on it, he always has.
He is still watching me. It almost looks as if he is waiting for an explanation, but I catch myself in time. Hiei never looks for explanations.
But I decide to give him one anyway. "Why?" I am shocked that my voice is shaking. "All I ever wanted to know is why."
He raises an eyebrow.
"Why can't I help? Why can't I contribute? They don't let me, and I don't know why. I want to know why I'm useless." It's a stupid question. I know why. I've always known why. And I don't even know why today is different. I don't even know what my reason for breaking down today was. "All I wanted was an answer! Nobody responds! Nobody replies with a counterstatement, with proof, with anything."
I think Hiei is kind of freaked out by now. I mean, I would be. I never talk to him. He never talks to me. We kind of have a thing goin', you know? Like a truce, or something like that. You leave me be, I'll leave you be. That kind of thing.
But he doesn't look it. He should have looked nonplussed. Instead, he looked patient. He almost has a motherly look to him. That sentence is kind of messed up. Listen, all you gotta remember is that he looked kind of maternal-esque. Whatever.
"I want to know why." I'm finished, I think, with my breakdown.
He walks slowly over to where I'm sitting on the couch, curled up and staring at the floor, and I'm a little scared. Hiei was always a little scary. Okay, a lot. But when he stopped being scary, period, he started being only a little scary. But only a little. When I hear his footsteps (Because I'm looking at the floor), I curl up tighter, because Hiei's pretty ominous sounding, even when he doesn't want to be. Even his footsteps.
But pretty soon I see his feet where I'm looking at the floor, and I look up and there he is in front of me. He's looking at me real close, too. I feel like crying again.
"You aren't as useless as you make out to be. There are some people who rely on your support." When he's finished with his two-sentence speech, he stands up tall (as tall as he can be) and looks down at me, and for a minute I think he's going to say something else, but he doesn't.
My lungs and heart stop working for a beat when I feel his rough hand on my head. He ruffles my hair around a little, and then his hand leaves.
I blink and look up at him, but he's looking down at the coffee table. At my picture.
I silently pray for him not to react or anything, but my hopes are dashed when I see him smirking at it. He was amused. The little shrimp was practically laughing at it!
I would like to be angry, but I don't think I have any steam left. Instead, I collapse onto the couch and watch as he wordlessly takes his leave, as unannounced as when he came.
I realize that it has stopped raining.