Chapter 2: A Chance Occurrence Part 2

Hiei woke up the next morning with a full awareness of what had happened the night before. He wouldn't admit it out loud, but he was afraid to open his eyes.

He had taken a leap. True it was fueled by a three or four glasses of the punch that his sister's moronic future husband had made, but it was a leap nonetheless. He had spoken to the pretty redhead, then he had kissed the pretty redhead, and then… Well, for someone so delicate, and apparently inexperienced, the pretty redhead knew what he was doing. And he hoped against hope, that he hadn't made a mistake.

Nearly red eyes opened slowly. The splash of red hair that he had fallen asleep to was no where to be found. In it's place, however, was a folded piece of paper with his name on it. Refusing to let any hope spring up, Hiei grabbed the note and opened it.

Hiei, it began in neat writing that could only belong to Kurama.

Hmm…I am not exactly sure what to say in this, since I have never been in such a situation. Is 'thank you' appropriate? The point, I suppose, is that I left with a very drunk Yusuke and a mildly irate Keiko in the early hours of the morning only because I had to open my store. That's where you can find me, if you are so inclined.

-Kurama

A rare smile found it's way onto Hiei's face, and with the grace years of training with a sword will give a man, he vaulted out of bed. The diminutive man had given his sister free reign of his spare bedroom for the night, and while he fully expected Kuwabara to still be sleeping, he knew that Yukina would be awake.

Sure enough, Hiei found her in his kitchen washing the serving trays and glasses that had been used the night before. "I would have taken care of that." he said by way of greeting.

Yukina smiled at him. "You already let us use your house to have a party that you didn't even want to attend, Hiei. Let me do this."

The man nodded and crossed to the refrigerator. "Did you enjoy yourself?" he asked softly.

"Oh very much." Yukina replied. "Thank you for sticking around as long as you did. Were you just upstairs?" Hiei nodded and his sister continued. "I hope we didn't keep you up. I noticed that Kurama disappeared pretty early too. I'm glad he came, even if he doesn't really like parties."

"Plus someone needed to be here to help Keiko get Yusuke home."

The young woman gave her brother a sharp look. "How did you know about that? You were gone by then."

"Any friend of Kuwabara is predictable." Hiei said to cover his mistake.

"I suppose so. Though I really wish you would give him more credit." Yukina said finally.

Hiei snorted. He grabbed an orange and headed for the door. "I'm going out. Use whatever you need, just don't let the oaf break anything."

Kurama had not been entirely honest with Hiei in his note. The Wandering Rose was not often open on Sundays. Usually just during the holidays and whenever Kurama found himself in need of a distraction. This was one of the latter times.

The gardener kept playing the events of the night before over in his head and wondering what alien force had possessed his body and gave him the courage to go that far, that fast, with someone he barely knew.

He didn't regret it.

That was what shocked him the most. Yes, the smaller man was cute, there was something about the way those brownish red eyes held his that made Kurama's stomach knot. But that was neither here nor there. Kurama Minamino did not hook up. He did not have one night stands. Not even in college when that's all everyone else seemed to be doing.

But he didn't regret this.

It was so rare that the redhead was attracted to anyone, (the last person being Yusuke, which led to some awkward exchanges) that he knew he had to see Hiei again. So he had left the note. Hopefully the Hiei didn't regret it either.

Instead of sitting in his office in the back dwelling on it, Kurama decided to go tend to his flowers. The lilies hadn't been watered in a few days, so he began with them. The callas were in full bloom and looking for attention.

"Good morning." he said to them. "You look well rested. Certainly more rested than I am. I spent the night acting incredibly out of character, and then helping a very drunk Yusuke home. The latter I suppose is not that surprising." The bell over the door chimed, and Kurama's breath caught. He put the watering can down and made his way to the front of the store.

Standing there in all black again was Hiei. Kurama swallowed. "Hi." he said, nervously playing with a lock of his hair.

"Hey."

Kurama bit his lip. "So I see you got my note."

Hiei nodded. "Thanks." he said. "For not just leaving."

"I wasn't sure of the protocol of these things, but I assumed leaving without saying anything was bad manners. At least if you want to see the person again."

The raven haired man looked at the floor. "You want to see me again?"

"I do. Though perhaps not so much of you for a while. What happened last night was out of character for me. I am usually much more old fashioned."

Hiei snorted. "I figured."

Kurama blushed. "I would, however, like to work up to it with you."

Hiei met the other man's eyes and let a small smile show. "Okay." he said.

"Maybe we can have a double date with Kuwabara and Yukina." Kurama replied in an offhand manner.

"Do not push it."

A/N: And Hiei gets the last word again. One day I'll have to do something about that. I was going to wait until I got 5 reviews to post this, or at least until a day or so had gone by, but I am just too excited about this story to wait. I've been wanting to write a Hiei/Kurama story for years, but I could never get into their heads enough to write anything. Hopefully this story will reflect my new understanding of the couple. Please let me know what you think of this. I really want it to be good.