Chapter Two

Happily-Ever-After

"Hiei?" Mukuro whispered to her sleeping friend. "Hiei." his head jerked up sleepily and she almost laughed at the sight of the marks etched into the side of his beautiful face from the bark he had been leaning against.

"Morning?" She asked, her sarcasm slicing through his still-sleeping mind.

"Oh yes, I suppose you find this very humorous, don't you?" He shot back at her, trying to smooth out his sleep dampered cloak.

"Well it's not everyday one gets to see you in such a state."

"Hn." He rubbed his tired, bloodshot eyes and hopped down from his perch. He hadn't come in the night before because of the state he HAD been in. She would have wanted to know what had happened.

And it dosn't look like I am going to get out of questioning, anyway. He thought tiredly to himself as the amusment in her eyes turned to concern. She could read him like a book.

"Really, Hiei, what's the matter? You havn't been like this since I've known you."

That was true, before he had something to do with his time, guard the portal. Now he was done with his shift, and had too much time to think. To think about that Kitsune and the cursed day after the tournament.

He brushed past Mukuro, giving his answer in silence. He didn't want to talk. Especially not about his issues now.

She turned to watch his little, black feature disappear in the large, bleak home they shared. Since he had come there her days, ironically, hadn't been as dark, but she could tell by the little apparition's demeanor that he did not feel the same. He only felt for her as a friend, nothing more.

She worried about him, at times, though. He wasn't the kind to let himself be bothered with anything...Or was he? Truth be told, she didn't know much about Hiei. He had never let her get that close, never shared anything of importance with her. He was almost as closed to emotion as she, herself was. Wasn't that what had attracted her to him in the first place? That they had both been through traumas that had left them cold? She had relished in the thought that someone could understand her pain. And he did understand her, well, infact, but now...she was starting to wonder...did she understand him as she had once thought?

I hold my rose

In my hand

Same color as your eyes

The ruby red

Sears to my soul

My true feelings I denied...

Light streamed through Kurama's window and into his eyes, blinding him as he tried to open them. He lifted his head off the feather pillow and swung his feet down onto the floor, his eyes felt gritty from sleep, but he forced them to open anyway.

He looked to his ceiling, expecting to see there, his little fireball, but was greeted with only blinding white. He had taken it and the other stars down last night. There was no more hope of Hiei coming back and he had to face that or he would never get over the little demon.

"Shuichi, dear? Are you awake?" His mother's familiarly feminine voice rang across the hall.

"Yes, Kaasan, I am." Unfortunantly. He thought to himself, wishing that he had stayed asleep.

In his dreams, he could be with Hiei, he could escape from reality. Every morning, though, he woke disappointed to find that his love was not there, by his side. And every morning he was plummeted from his dreams into reality.

He pushed himself to his feet, willing the ankles of his all-too-human body to not give way under him. And still rubbing his tired eyes, he dressed himself and headed out of the back door.

Kurama headed toward his roses with a rare smile lightening his face as he reached down to one. His smile slowly turned to a frown as he noticed one of his precious plants dying. He ran his finger along the sagging, wilting blossom, and at his touch the petals opened and the flower became vital again.

If only everything could be fixed as simply. He sighed as he watched insects twirling on the breeze from one precious plant to another.

"Hiya!" a familiar voice boomed from behind his fence.

Kurama whipped to face the nameless intruder to his garden.

"Easy, jeez man, I aint gonna' kill ya'." Yusuke smiled as he swung his legs easily over the low chain link fence. "So man, what's been up? Haven't seen ya' in a while."

The smile on Yusuke's face was contagious, and along with embarrassment for not reconizing the voice of his friend he smiled as well.

"Hello Yusuke." He greeted back. "How have you been?"

"Fine I guess, but you didn't answer my question. What's been up?"

"Oh, nothing really." He lied, not wanting to make their meeting akward. "And with you?"

"Same, except..." A broad grin crept across his face, making him look like a small boy. "Kuwabara and Yukina...Are gettin' hitched!"

Kurama smiled, himself. Yusuke had already had his happily-ever-after wedding with Keiko, it was time someone else got a shot.

"And if that wasn't enough..." His smile grew even larger. "Guess who's going to be a dad." He waited for Kurama's answer before eventually answering himself. "Me dipshit! Me!"

He looked like a little boy at Christmas, with that silly grin smeared across his face. Kurama swore that if he smiled any larger his face would probably tear in two.

"Well, then congratulations...How long?"

"A month...She said she had wanted to make sure before she told me." So...Yuusuke was going to be a father in eight months...That was a scary thought. Kurama just hoped with all his might that the child was more like their mother than their father. Not only for their good, but for their poor, poor mother's as well.

Hiei stepped out of the hot springs, just south of his and Mukuro's bleak house. The bath had helped, somewhat to clear his mind, but not nearly enough. He desperatey needed a diversion from the thoughts pushing at his mind. Forcing him to think them.

He wrapped a towel around his slender hips and sighed, sitting on the bank of the spring, looking down into the water. There he saw the reflection of someone without sleep for almost foury-eight hours. The reflection of some poor loser fallen on hard times.

He laughed at the thought. Now he was even starting to sound like a ningen...Lovely. He rolled his eyes, rising to his feet and walking into the room that he occupied, completely unaware that Mukuro stood watching, troubled by her friend's reclusiveness as of late.

Authors Babble: Hey ppls whaz up? This is the first one that I put a part of losing you, the pair of poems that I wrote just for this fic...So tell me what you think...This is my first fan fic. Plz also if you're a DBZ fan plz read that fan fic...It's kinda weird and Vegeta's really out of character but plz review any way ...Oh and plz review I beg of you. I'll take flames and constructive critisizm(don't think I spelled that right ') And as you can probly tell by my spelling I'm in dire need of an editor so if you would be so kind as to help me w/that I would really appreciate it. Leave your review for me! Plz! BB CHOW FOR NOW!