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This is a alternate-universe fic. Our two heroes are living lives completely different from those in the anime, and that is pretty clear from the first few sentences. A semi-dark fic, non-yaoi and then heavily yaoi.
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"Hmm..." Kurama studied the photo of the young man who had punkish black and white hair, and took a light drag on his cigarette. The bar he sat in was filled with smoke, being that it was a smoker's bar. It was where his organization- the NightScape- met once a month. In order not to draw too much attention, he smoked one cig each time a meeting was held.
"Hey, Eio?" Asked the guy next to him. "You goin' after a new target?" The obsese man thumped him on the back with a clammy hand.
Kurama looked him over sharply. "Why? Thinking about snagging this guy before I get to him so you can take the money?"
The burly man stiffened, if that was possible under all his rolling layers of adipose. "Hey, c'mon now, Eio! Your already on the boss's good side- and I don't wanna stop you from climbin' higher on up the ladder."
Kurama supressed a growl. "Karter- get your hands off of me." He clutched the picture tighter in his own hands. When the fatter man continued to breathe down his neck, observing the picture, he whirled and dealt a sharp blow to the man's ribs. It wasn't as effective as he had hoped it would be, being that all the fat got in the way, but it sent his co-assassin flying.
"Ohh, pulled a hook on him, aye?" Chuckled MacDubh, another of his co-workers, who had come from the Nightscape Organiztion in Scotland. The tall man took a swig from his bottle of brandy, and watched his obsese co-assassin gulping for air, chest heaving, on the dirty bar floor a few meters back.
"Yeah." Kurama grinned. "Didn't quite have the effect I was hoping for, though."
MacDubh laughed. "Well, if all that cholesterol hadna been in the way, you might ha' killed ol' Twinkie-ass over there." This comment raised a round of soft laughter from the other dark figures that sat at the bar.
Kurama studied MacDubh for a moment, then snuffed out his cig in the ashtray, after having only taken two drags on it.
"Aye, Eio?" Asked MacDubh, curiosity gleaming in his eyes. "I ken privacy is one o' the policies in our group 'ere, but I was just a bit curious. How old are you? No one else 'ere is under the age 'o thirty and five... any younger would be a wee bit young, aye? For NightScape?" He winked.
Kurama snorted under his breath. "I won't tell you my age- but I will tell you this... I'm under twenty."
Laughter now roared from the bar, where other members of NightScape, an assassin-for-hire agency, lounged, smoking, drinking, and waiting for their boss.
"C'mon now, laddie!" MacDubh laughed. "That's young! Anyone that young would be just a wee thing, truly! Barely old enough to kill a man, or to know the moves you do."
Kurama scowled. "Well, I thought honesty was also another policy in our group, right?"
The bar was quiet; the laughter had ceased.
"I'll be going now." Kurama said in even, detached tones. "I've a new assignment."
"But Eio, what about the boss?" Asked a thug in the far corner.
"Screw him." Was Kurama's reply.
* * *
---Eio---
---Member of NightScape since age thirteen---
---Has no real name---
---Found as urchin on the street---
---Taken in by NightScape recruiter---
---Current age: Sixteen---
Kurama's gaze lingered on the words, 'has no real name.' He stared at his profile for one more moment, then tore his gaze away and slammed the lid of the laptop down with a crunch that probably meant a few keys would need to be unstuck on the morrow.
He dug in his pocket until his fist closed over the small, thumbnail-sized picture of his next victim. The picture reeked of smoke from the bar, but what of his few belongings didn't?
The young man was the same age as he, and had been caught on film as he gazed into a crimson sunset. He was sprawled out on a bench in a dark, deserted park somewhere, and had a frown on his face.
Kurama closed his eyes and felt a tear roll slowly down one cheek. He feverntly wished that he could live a normal life- but he dissmissed the thought as he angrily wiped away the tear.
He reached behind him and pushed a button on the wall. A speaker came on. "Yona. Give me the stats on my new target."
A female voice came on, and cleared her throat before speaking. "Sir. His name is Hiei- last name withheld by the customer. The customer gave an address, but did not name his price or reason." the speaker cackled off.
"Could be an ex or someone that just wants revenge. Could be bogus. I had better check out the motives first. Yona." The speaker cackled back on.
"Sir."
"Connect com to headquarters."
"Sir!"
The speaker gave a high pitched static whistle, then went clear. "Agent Eio. Didn't see you at the meeting."
"Yes, Sir." Kurama said. "I had some trouble with the other agents there, and left on the claim that the others were ganging against me."
"Ahh. Let me guess. Your age?"
"Yes, Sir." Kurama confirmed his Boss's guess. "But to the matter at hand- my present client is a mysterious 'anonymous.' He didn't give Yona his name, address, price, motive, anything. I request to scout before I do the job."
The intercom crackled as Headquarters thought it out. "Permission granted." the deep voive finally said, before it went to static. Kurama pressed the button again, making it clear.
"Thanks, Yona." He said dryly.
The female voice came on again. "You are welcome, agent Eio. Pleasure serving you, as always."
Kurama sighed, and rubbed his temples with his fingers. He'd go see his informant, Yona, later tonight. It had been a while since he visited.
* * *
Kurama knocked on the door to Yona's room, and it swung slowly opened.
"You know you never have to knock." Came a female voice from the back. "My door is always open for you, Eio."
Kurama smiled wearily, and stepped into the room. "How'ja know it was me?" he asked, looking around for his informant.
Yona came out of the back, wearing her usual red and white checkered dress, curly black hair up in a matching scarf. "It's been a while since you visited... I've been getting lonely."
Kurama hung his coat up and enbraced the girl. Yona was a year younger than him, also an urchin picked up off the streets by the NightScape recruiter. The two had known each other for a long time, and had sought each other's presence for consolment whenever things were bad. The relationship between them had been at times intimate, but there was never anything special about it. The one time their affair was exsposed, headquarters dissmissed it as teenage hormones acting up.
She led him to the couch, and they sat down. Yona had been a messenger while he was being trained to be an agent, and then when he was ready, his training as a professional assassin complete, they had made her his informant.
She leaned into him and traced each button on his shirt. "Tonight, Eio?"
He smiled and caught her hand. "You don't have to call me that, Yona." He brought her small hand to his lips. "Call me by my real name. Kurama."
Yona nodded, and smiled when he kissed each of her knuckles. "Tonight, then... Kurama?" She said, calling him by the name she had always known him by, ever since their days of pocket-picking on the street as urchins.
"Tonight, Yona." Kurama said, laying her back on the couch, then pulling his shirt over his head.
* * *
It was midnight when he woke again. Yona's head was cradled in the crook of his shoulder, and her wild black hair was splayed across her own, and over her chest, hiding from veiw her small, firm breasts.
Kurama slipped her head onto the pillow he had been on, and covered her with the sheet. He picked his way to the door, clothes in his arms. The night air was chilly, and he didn't pause to struggled with his clothes, trying to get back to his room as fast as possible.
Once there, he turned the heat all the way up, and the system came on with a WHOOSH that could wake the dead. He examined his clothes. Wrinkled, but fine. He had been smart enough this time to put them somewhere away from the bed, so that they didn't end up covered in ejaculate, like other unfourtunate times. Sometimes he couldn't control his own body when it was pumping with excited hormones, he thought, smirking to himself.
The shower washed off the ligerings of the night, though, and dulled his senses, willing him to climb back in bed.
After all, better follow them, because he only had three hours to sleep before departing for the his next assignment.
* * *
The alarmclock went off with a frenzied bleeping, and the young man groaned. Three am, as usual with a new target.
That night, he had dreamt. Black dreams, dark dreams; the horror still swam in his mind as he ran his fingers through his bangs and tried to blink sleep away.
He had dreamt of blood, of darkness, death, slaughter; the only things he had known since he had been picked up off the street. Kurama rubbed his temples, which seemed to be becoming a habit of late, and glanced with a bleary gaze at the small photo on the table beside his bed. He then looked at the calender, and scanned the square boxes for a red circle- he found it. It was only three days till he turned seventeen.
The cold shower was welcomed, and when he finished, he tugged on an old pair of jeans and a gray t-shirt. No sense in getting dressed for the job just yet.
Yona was outside to greet him, giving him the lowdown on the job and the facts on the victim as if last night had never happened. But when Kurama turned, walking down the alley, Yona shared a secret smile with herself.
The dark alleys stretched out in parallel strips of asphalt, beconing to him with familiar and numerous memories. They twisted, winding and luminous, through mazes of crumbling buildings, in whose dark corners lurked criminals and killers. Kurama was one of them, a crimal, a killer; but he stood apart from them. He was classy, aloof, distant from the grimy, vile likes of them; he was part of NightScape- and thatmeant that no one could touch him.
When he came out onto the streets, cars roaring by as people came home from working the night shifts at the hospital, bank, even bowling alley. To them he looked like casually dressed young man rreturning from a nightclub, bar, maybe even from a night at a friend's. But beneath this facade, this cover, was an agent of NightScape- the most feared group of men and women on Earth. No one but the damned in the corridors of Hell spoke out loud of them.
He walked along the sidewalk keeping his eyes peeled for any threats, anyone supsicious. But, hardly a soul was out at this time, not including the cars and their passengers.
When he reached the park where the photo of the young man had been taken, he found the same bench and satdown, stretching out and observing his surroundings. He was not one to people watch, but he constantly kept a lookout from the corner of his eye, scanning the scene for enemies.
Then it all came to a rushing halt as his victim appeared over the break of a hill.
How uncanny.
Kurama leaned back and pretended to be resting, but watched carefully ever movement of the young man with spiky, punkish black and white hair, as he descended into the park from atop the hill.
"Hmm... Hiei..." Kurama mused to himself. A wind suddenly blew with a harsh whistle, and whipped his hair around, blowing his cover as one emerald eye was exposed, open and sly, watching, instead of closed and resting.
The assasin-for-hire sat up, not pretending to be asleep anymore, but still pretending to ignore the other. It was not easy.
For some reason, Kurama felt his gaze being attracted, held into place by the target. He felt this strong urge to look fully upon the boy, to catch his gaze also. Then he discovered why he felt the sensation- the traget was already gazing at him.
Hiei stood transfixed. Why would anyone be out here at this hour? Of all the thousands of times he had walked to the park and lay on that bench in this hour of the morning, before even the sun had shone its glorious face, there had never been anyone else there. Now a tall young man with fiery red hair and feline green eyes stood in his place.
"Hello." Kurama said, almost a hush.
"Hi." Hiei returned.
They stood just feeling each other out, testing the atmosphere, trusting their own conscience that they could talk, communicate. neither spoke, neither moved; they stood transfixed.
"So, what are you doing out here so early?" Hiei asked, breaking the silence. "When I come, there's never anyone else."
Kurama frowned slightly. "I got sick of my apartment, and decided to go for a walk. I just kinda ended up here."
The two young men gazed silently at each other, as if both had a secret that the other must find out. And, well, they both did.
::end of part one::
~~~whadda ya think, guys? Should I continue it? Is a part 2 in order, maybe? ^__^;;