TCA-I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho or any of its characters.
Though I was going to make this into a single one shot I changed my mind, it's going to be a series of one shots all tied together by a common theme (aka Kuronue/Kurama). Remember to review!!!!
"All she could see were some thorns buried deep,
And the tears that he cried as she tended his wounds,
And she knew it was love,
It was what she could understand.
He was showing his love,
And that's how he hurt his hands."
-Nickel Creek "The Hand Song"-
It was a rather nice day out, or at least in Shiori's opinion it was. It was not too humid or hot, though the sun was shining brightly. It had rained a few days before, so the plants were still thriving and the ground was soft, not muddy. What made the day into the perfect day however, was her son.
Shuichi Minamino was ten years young with a heart of ice. His mother was sure that there was actually a heart of gold in his chest, and that the ice would thaw away eventually. The ice was thawing away even now. Shiori had no clue how such a young child could hold such feelings as resentment and hatred when the only things that he had ever been given were love and compassion. It was unthinkable at times…other times her mind would wander onto the subject of her son's blatant lack of emotion.
It was a vexing subject, one that bubbled up often when Shiori went to visit friends. Even her parents and her parents-in-law had pointed out her son's cold-heartedness…much to Shiori's chagrin. Her son was just fine; he just wasn't as outgoing as the other children. Shiori had forced herself to remain calm when her mother and her mother-in-law had chastised her over Shuichi's lack of vocalization.
He had never cried as a baby and Shiori's family had assumed that something was wrong with his mental development. Shiori had refused to take him to a specialist; her son was too bright to have anything wrong with him. The boy had forgone the picture book phase and at the age of two was already reading thick novels. He had understood them perfectly, and had even started small conversations with Shiori about the books. She had always felt rather insignificant after the conversations, as if she was little more than a bug…not that her beloved son had ever said anything insulting to her. He never spoke to anyone else at all.
"Okassan, aren't the roses lovely?" Her ten year old son's emerald eyes twinkle with mischief. The roses that had once been no more than a wilted mass of drab colors were now standing at full attention. The coloration in each rose was vivacious…pigments swirling from dark tones to light. Hues of crimson, white, pink, cerulean, and gold flared dramatically from the flowers.
If Shiori closed her eyes she could imagine that the flowers were vying for the small amount of affection that her son showed. The roses were like siblings, all competing for a parent's love. Shiori momentarily felt as though she should rebuke them, her 'grandchildren,' for their immature behavior.
"Yes…they are. You have such a green thumb Shuichi! If it wasn't for you everything in the garden would be dead." Kurama shrugged his shoulders, neither confirming nor denying his mother's words.
"You just need to talk to them more Okassan," Kurama said as his fingers lightly stroked a rose's petals. He plucked one of the red ones, one that matched the startling color of his hair. "They like it when you talk to them."
Shiori nodded her head, unsure of what she should say. Her son seemed so content in the garden and yet something seemed terribly wrong with his happiness…almost as if something important was missing. The small smile on her son's face did not reach his eyes. The sparkling eyes were always devoid of happiness.
"Okassan…" Kurama's little hand clutched tightly around the stem of the rose, the thorns cutting into the delicate flesh. Shiori stifled a gasp as her son's eyes looked into hers, the fake smile still plastered on his face. For the first time his eyes were not blank. Shiori could see the emotions that had been locked away. Sorrow, hatred, loss, and…self-loathing?
"What do you do when you're heart is hurting and won't stop? It feels like I'm being ripped into little pieces, and then those pieces are being scattered on the wind." Kurama brought the rose to his nose and looked down at it despondently.
"You cry Shuichi…" Shiori wrapped her arms around her son and held him gently, the rose still buried in his small hands. "It may not completely fix the hurt, but it helps. My dear son, my poor little Shuichi-kun, what's wrong?" Shiori rocked the boy back and fourth as he began to shake.
"It's my fault Okassan. He's gone, my best friend is gone, and it is completely my fault!" Her son began to sob into her shoulder, the first tears that he had ever cried in his life (or at least the life Shiori knew about). Even though Shiori did not know who her son was talking about she now felt like she could handle the problem. A best friend must be moving away. Children had the odd tendency of blaming themselves for things that they had no active part in. This was probably the case with her son as well.
"Shhhh...Shuichi-kun you're friend's moving isn't your fault. You can still be friends with him, you can talk to him over the phone or on the computer, and you can visit him in the summer if you want…" Shiori ran a hand through Shuichi's hair.
Shuichi began to sob harder. He felt even worse now, and his human mother not knowing what she was doing to the great Youko Kurama, tried to comfort him more.
"Okassan, he's dead. Dead. Dead. Dead." Kurama pulled back and looked Shiori in the face. His eyes were wide and filled to the brim with sorrow, tears overflowing in torrents. "I loved him so much…Why am I such an ass?"
Shiori's eyes widened in shock as Kurama continued to say the word dead over and over. Some sort of note would have came home if one of her son's classmates had died…wait, had her little Shuuichi just called himself an ass? And he was blaming himself for a death!
Kurama's hand tightened noticeably on the rose. He had purposefully grown the thorns longer and sharper, the blood was the best type of tears that he could shed.
"If you love someone they're never really gone Shuichi…do you want to attend the funeral?"
"There's already been one Okassan. It was a rather small ceremony…" Kurama smiled sadly. "Let's go inside. I feel better, albeit I am rather tired." Shiori nodded and carried Kurama inside, much to the boy's frustration. Once inside he fell into a fitful sleep on the couch.
Shiori's son was an old soul. She had known it from the moment she had first looked into his eyes. Even so, the sight of her son writhing on the couch in agony was terrifying. The rose was still clutched in his hands and Shiori gently took it away, staring in shock at the stem. Several thorns were missing, the ones that were still clinging to the stem were overly sharp, and the whole thing was covered in her son's blood.
"Ku…Kuronue…koibito…no!" Kurama was shivering. Shiori rushed to get a blanket and the first aid kit. Once she returned to the living room she covered up her shaking son and began to pull things out of the first aid kit.
Out came the cotton balls, the hydrogen peroxide, the tweezers, the bandages, the Neosporin, and the stinging red stuff. Good thing Kurama was asleep; the evil red stuff wouldn't be appreciated if he was awake. Shiori took one of her son's hands and picked up the tweezers, removing all of the thorns stuck in his little palm and fingers. After removing all the thorns from the left hand she started on the right, ever mindful of her son's whimpers. Kuronue…what an odd name!
Once all of the thorns had been removed Shiori uncapped the hydrogen peroxide and pulled out a few cotton balls. She soaked the cotton balls in the peroxide and began to clean the blood off of Kurama's hands. The excess blood was removed and Shiori began to clean the actual wounds. The hydrogen peroxide bubbled and fizzed against some of the deeper and longer wounds.
Shiori recapped the bottle of hydrogen peroxide, only to uncap the bottle of disinfectant. If her son was awake he would be screaming right now…he hated the red stuff with a passion. Shiori soaked a cotton ball and began to scrub at the puncture marks. Unlike the hydrogen peroxide this actually had to be scrubbed on, and Shiori figured that was why her little boy hated it with a passion.
Finished with the task of cleaning and sterilizing Shiori got ready to bandage the deep puncture wounds. How the rose had managed to do such damage was beyond comprehension. All of her son's roses had little thorns…except this one. Smiling softly at her sleeping son Shiori began to rub dots of Neosporin over all of the wounds. She then wrapped his little hands in the bandages, just to make sure that the wounds would not get infected.
Once upon a time, back when Shiori was a little girl, she had heard a story from some far off land. Her great-great-grandmother had told it to her when she was only six. Though Shiori can't remember the details she does remember the basis of the story.
Before the reincarnation of a soul takes place they are brought into a room with a lovely fountain. The room is filled with riches and the fountain itself is carved out of the fines materials and inlayed with pearls. Before the soul is let free they are to drink from the fountain. Within the fountain is a potion and one sip of the potion erases all memories of the life they once led. This happens to prevent any painful memories from overpowering them in their new life. Occasionally however, there have been souls who have slipped through without having to go through the room. This left all former memories in tact.
Shiori glanced at her crying son and she just knew that he never went through that room. The only way she could possibly help him is if she finds out who he was…and the only hint she had is the name Kuronue, and the fact that he was her son's best friend and love. She looked over at the small form on the manila colored couch. There were little drops of blood, and Shiori knew she would have to clean it up later. So little information…to the computer then.
Shiori typed in the words Kuronue and best friend, not sure if anything was going to come up. She was surprised at the number of hits she found. All of them were from mythology sites, paranormal sights, and things of the like. All of them had two things in common. The words Youko Kurama and thieves were applied to everyone. Now very nervous and near hyperventilating, Shiori clicked on the first link and began to read.
Youko Kurama and Kuronue were vicious demon thieves, known in the Maikai for their rather extravagant and well planed heists. Kuronue was an expert with scythes and illusions while Youko Kurama was a master plant wielder and the rose was his choice of weapon. Shiori blinked rapidly and looked back at her sweet innocent son, wondering if she should continue.
"Kuro…no! I-I'll get you a new pendant…" Her son hunched up into a tighter ball, his whole frame shaking. Ten years…he had held this pain from her for ten years. How long had he actually lived with it? A thousand, a hundred, it all amounted to the same thing. Her child was in pain.
The two were sadistic and could be viewed as insane. Often times after a successful job the two would go out drinking, causing havoc in any town that they landed in. More often than not the two would take multiple lovers in celebration. The kitsune, Youko Kurama, was known to be extremely promiscuous, never staying with a lover for more than the time it took to have sex with them and leave. Shiori's eyes almost popped out of her head at that information and she looked again at her son. She quickly continued reading, learning about many of the heists that the notorious pair had pulled off. She had to say that she was impressed, if not somewhat dumbfounded. Shuichi could remember doing all of this?
Shiori's eyes traveled to a time line that displayed a fairly large amount of things bunched together. Heist after heist after heist, and if you clicked on anything on the timeline details came up.
Her eyes caught something that had nothing to do with the pair's thievery and everything to do with her son. The headline read Youko Kurama stops taking lovers. Shiori clicked on it.
Around this time the great Youko Kurama stopped taking lovers. Though there have been many different speculations as to why the king of thieves did this the most accepted one is this: The great Youko Kurama forged a relationship with his partner in crime, Kuronue. It is not known if the relationship was emotionally driven or purely sexual, though it is known that neither pursued another lover (other than Youko, Kuronue is not known to have ever taken a lover) and Kuronue constantly wore a blood pendant afterwords.
'It was a loving one.' Shiori thought to herself. Her son couldn't be as bad as everyone said he had been, he was a good boy. And right now he was having nightmares about who knows what while on the couch. Shiori clicked the back button and her eyes latched onto an event that occurred eighty years, ten months, and sixteen days after Kurama and Kuronue became exclusive.
Kuronue dies during a heist.
Shiori clicked the link, waited for the page to load, and then rushed off to throw up in the bathroom toilet. Pictures…very gritty old pictures, but pictures none the less. No wonder her son was having nightmares. Shiori threw up a few more times and then went back to the computer to read what happened... her eyes widened in shock when she realized why Kuronue had went back- he had wanted the pendant Youko had gave him. When she was done she flipped back to the timeline, understanding why her son had always been so cold. 'Kuronue…he told him to run…and he's still running to this day…'
Shiori continued to browse through the little left on the timeline. Kurama managed to die thirty two years after Kuronue, in a botched heist. Shiori noted that as soon as Kuronue died most of the heist were botched. Greif had made her son clumsy. Shiori looked at her arms, the scars still prominent, and then at Kurama. It took so much for him to open up to being loved…
Shiori looked at the main page again. She'd have to search it better later, for a picture of what her son really looked like. She turned off the computer and turned just in time. Kurama was waking from his nap.
"Okassan, I feel a bit better now. Can we make lemonade?" Kurama grinned up at her, his mask carefully back in place. "I'm rather thirsty."
"Anything you want Ku-Shuichi." Shiori smiled. He could keep his secret as long as he wanted, and she'd wait until he was ready to tell her to tell him that she already knew. The ten-year-old took her hand and led her into the kitchen, pulling out the ingredients for lemonade.
"I'll squeeze out the lemon juice; you shouldn't with the cuts in your hand. How about you get the ice tray from the fridge for me?"
"Okay Okassan." Kurama walked over to the fridge and brought back the tray.
Shiori's son had always been an old soul, he had always seemed so cold, and he had been filled with bitterness and loathing. One thing was for sure though. That was that he needed to be cared for emotionally, and that he would never be able to keep secrets from his mother. But she'd let him believe that he could, just to keep him happy.