2107

(Fifty-one years later.)


The hydraulic sound of the door opening and closing on its own filled the small, clean apartment. A few seconds passed as a quick round of ultraviolet light rid him of dangerous microbiotic organisms. The soft soles of his moccasin-style shoes made hushed beats on the thick, smooth carpeting.

He entered the cramped, streamlined, bare bedroom, and stopped.

She was sitting on his bed, ankles crossed and tucked far back, one hand in her lap and the other fussing with her white pajama-like bodysuit. It fit her with a naïve, self-conscious unfamiliarity. She looked up, and smiled, but her brown eyes were somber.

Hiei said, "What are you doing here?"

More than fifty years since they had last met, he still looked about twenty-five, still wore his hair straight up. Now, he didn't have old-fashioned colored contacts to hide his red irises; cosmetic surgery made them just as plausible as any other color.

Yukina didn't look away. "I looked you up. Have you heard about Kurama?"

"No," he said obviously. "Who would I have heard from?"

"Of course." She wrung her hands for a moment, and then stood up – they were still the same height. After an uncertain hesitation, she said, "Hiei… Kurama's dying."

There was a startled silence, but then the surprised tension in Hiei's frame drained away. "How?"

"How else?" she asked, shaking her head. "Three major pandemics in a decade – the fox can't fight off disease anymore."

Hiei stared at her, deadpan. And then, feigning a vague memory on the issue, he said, "You married him, after Kuwabara."

"Yes. I sent you a message, at the time, but you didn't respond."

"How long has it been since then." There was no especial interest or inflection in his deep voice.

"Forty-three years," she answered without pause. And then she bit her lip. "But we won't see the forty-fourth."

Hiei nodded, and stepped back, needing to increase the distance. "Why have you come to tell me?"

She blinked. "Because I thought you would want to speak with him."

"I won't," he said flatly. "I won't see him on his deathbed."

"But…you were so close-"

"That was a century ago. More than. One hundred and twelve years."

Her hands made fists against her thighs, drawing the comfortable material tight. Color was starting to rise in her cheeks. But her voice was still quiet, and steady. "And that erases everything before? You were friends, Hiei."

"We aren't friends anymore."

Her back stiffened, as though he had struck her. And when she spoke again, it was breathless and forced. "And me? Is that how you see me?"

He was silent, looking away, the tension in his shoulders masked by the loose one-piece bodysuit.

She said, loudly and strongly, "How do you think I came into your house, Hiei?" She raised her hand, implying that her fingerprint was a password to all recognition systems and personal records. "In your file, I'm listed as family. Even after all these years. That has to be worth something."

Very quietly, he admitted, "It is."

"Than why won't you see Kurama?" she demanded, but more gently.

"You don't understand," he said dismissively. His arms crossed over his chest. "I always expected to watch him die – gored by some demon, in the middle of battle. I was ready for that. But not like this. Not broken and feeble and helpless."

She took several calming breaths, and then asked, "You think I don't understand? More than a century, as both friend and spouse. I can't do this again."

He still wouldn't look at her.

She set her jaw. "I can't, but I will. Because I owe him that."

She moved around him in the close space – and there was a time when she might have apologized for passing so close, since she knew how he valued space – but now she was an adult, and why hadn't he stayed to see that transformation?

She stopped, when she was almost into the cleanroom. "Oh, and a woman was here when I first came. She left her comm band for you. And she was wearing last night's dress."

Hiei said, "Fine."

"Hiei," Yukina said, and looked at him with warm, hurt eyes. "Isn't there anyone more long-term than that? Has there ever been?"

"What's the point?" he asked spitefully. "None of them can last very long. Because we will never age. They can't last any longer than a few years, at most."

"That's enough," she said hopefully. "Sometimes, that's enough."

"Sometimes it's not."

"Find someone you can trust, and it can last longer," she said simply.

And then she was in the other room, and purplish light showed around the cracks of the door. Hiei was incautious when it came to germs that he knew he was immune to.

She was immune to them, too.

But Kurama wasn't.

And now they were going to be alone with each other.

He sat in the darkening room for a long time, and then packed a few things in a small collapsible light-weight box and steeled himself to talk to Kurama for the last time.