Notes: 28 years after the series. Last part. Character death.
Thank you to those who stopped to look; moreso to those who really read after that, and all the more to those who dropped a message or two. As cheesy parting words I'll let you all in on a little secret: I take so long to update but I only write for one day. It's despicable how inspiration comes so infrequently to me.
The Future, Part 2
The joint efforts of Shiori and Makoto were easily thwarted. Sweating profusely, Hibi, though frail and entrenched in various life-maintaining machines, struggled as savagely as a beast against their hold, wailing, like a banshee, a message that only poured out as a barrage of misshapen phonetics. Later, she gargled her undecipherable speech with the froth that accumulated in her mouth. Mother-in-law and daughter, at a loss for a better action, only weeped helplessly as they gave all their might to pin her down.
It was only when Shuichi returned with a doctor and two nurses that Hibi was propitiated. As the doctor tranquilized her, she only looked at him with tearful, bloodshot eyes of a hysterical, fanatic love; they were relentless until they closed as the drug easily worked on her. Shuichi, well-knowing of his unworthiness of such reverence, and that he could not possibly soften his heart toward her just because of the recent dismal events, received it merely at the corner of his eyes. In his heart, he screamed for Hiei to come and save him.
When all fell quiet, and Hibi was rendered in a shallow but peaceful sleep, the doctor sat the concerned family members to inform them of his diagnosis of the patient. He made a long preface speech, and Kurama, restless at the prolonged delay and at Hiei's absence, excused himself out of the room just before the doctor announced that Hibi was afflicted with a bizaare neurological illness called by a really long name.
"She's paralyzed for life, Minamino-san."
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"There you are," Kurama said, putting a hand on Hiei's shoulder. "I thought I'd find you here." Mimicking the latter, he leaned himself on the railing.
Hiei scanned Kurama's features. His hair was messy and matted to his temples; his clothes were slightly rumpled, his smile was tired but welcome, his heartbeat was decelerating from top speed. Nonetheless, he looked unaffected. The green eyes shone brightly at him as Kurama regarded him. At that, Hiei sniffed in secret contempt and returned his attention to the overlook of the city. "And you're right, as always."
Kurama frowned. "Is something the matter?"
Is this fool really asking that? "Hn."
Kurama deliberately changed topic. "Hiei, we can go home now. I'm sorry you got held up this long. Yours or mine? It would hardly matter because we're beat!" He chuckled in good humor, but it reverberated in anxiety instead as Hiei neither delivered a word nor action for a reply.
Silence would have stretched eternally, had Hiei not sharply inhaled, as though a preparation for a perilous confrontation. Upon sensing this, Kurama started in a frightened panic, rather childish.
"'Not sorry for anything,' huh?" Hiei whispered.
Kurama felt like crying; he certainly did not need this now, especially from the one he cared for most in the world. "None at all. Please, Hiei, let's just go home."
Hiei's inflection rose in a conflation of condescension and pent-up insecurity. "Home. Where's that? My cabin? Your apartment?"
Retaliating in the same force, Kurama exclaimed, "Anywhere! If we have you and me, I don't care where it is! Let's just go home!"
"No, Kurama. The only place in this world that you haven't gone to is your real home. With your wife. With your child." Hiei brought his sleeve to his face and wiped vigorously. "So go home, Kurama. GO HOME!"
"Hiei!" Kurama shouted as he walked away. "Hiei!!!"
Hiei halted, not looking back. "Did you want me to drive you there?"
"NO! I want you to quit being stupid, and I want us to GO HOME!"
Hiei turned to him, livid. "YOU stop being stupid!"
"Hiei!!!"
"On second thought, it would leave bad impressions on anyone if I took you home. Get a cab, or walk. You know where it is anyway."
Stuffing his hands in his pockets, Hiei advanced to the door, shutting it behind him upon his exit. Kurama, devastated, was paralyzed in place; he wanted to cry harder, and his heart ached without reprise. He was instead vexed to realize that his eyes would not produce the abundance of tears he desperately preferred.
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Three armed men deemed it okay to break in Kurama's apartment after three days of observation since they noted his inactivity. They took their time in looting every nook and cranny of his residence because Kurama, slumped on his dining table and with reeking breath from nothing but beer for days, evinced no sign of attention nor care, let alone resistance. But when one of them tried to pry off his gold matrimonial ring, vines sprouted from the floor and instantly strangled the culprit to death; the other two, bewildered, aimed their guns at him. "What are these plants?! What kind of a freak are you?!" they called. Kurama only raised his eyes at them and in them they saw the essence of a much more cold-blooded murderer than they. The two remaining thieves panicked, and one of them fired at his heart. They escaped without a trace.
Seven days later of their divorce, Hiei was packing and taking down things for the Makai when Shiori phoned him about Shuichi's - Kurama's - death.
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Kurama was given a Christian funeral service(1).
"Two lives, two bullets. Fate must be laughing at you now, Kurama. You thought you got away with cheating him about your illicit Ningenkai refuge," Hiei murmured, nostalgic, tracing the polished ebony coffin with his fingers. It was closed; besides the fact that Kurama's appearance - slovenly, drunken, sneering - did not improve with much grooming, his death was graceless, that he could not be allowed for viewing, despite the overwhelming throng of visitors.
Looking up at the huge crucifix that loomed over the casket, Hiei said to the being it represented, "Kurama told me about you. Hn. I doubt you'll be expecting him there."
Behind him, a haggard-looking Shiori interrupted his reverie. She spoke with genuine maternal tenderness that she always made him feel as his, even in the absence of their common link with Kurama. "Hiei-kun... what will you do now?"
He seated her on a foremost pew, took her hand and looked at her solemnly. Hesitantly, he said, "Shiori-san... I must confess that I... I think I'm partly responsible for what happened to... Shuichi."
Hiei was surprised that Shiori was not. Her silence encouraged him to elaborate. "That night at the hospital... We fought. We didn't see each other since."
"You broke up with him?" Shiori conjectured aptly, but humbly; Hiei had long known her to be anything but offensive, at whatever circumstances. He smiled a little and squeezed her hand(2).
"Yes," he sadly admitted.
"And you think you're the reason why he didn't fight back his attackers?"
"...Yes. I'm sorry, Shiori-san." Hiei bent his head low to show her that he would bravely take whatever blow she needed to extract on him as retribution. Instead, he felt himself slowly being drawn into a soft embrace; it was the mother of the beloved embrace that he was direly mssing now. Hiei could not help break into tears.
"Oh, Hiei-kun..." Shiori started, running her gentle touch on his broad, strong shoulders, mother-like. "That may be so, but no one wanted this to happen."
"Shiori-san... I... after seeing what happened to Hibi-san, I... drove him away. Harshly... But I..."
"I know, Hiei-kun. But about that... I wouldn't know what to say without being ambiguous - or wrong, at the most. You two had my blessing all along, yet I never intended for things to end this way--..." Shiori's eyes brimmed with tears.
"But, what about Hibi-san--?!"
"Shuichi loved you more than she loved Hibi-chan, Hiei-kun."
Hiei sniffled, and smiled amidst his tears. Hiei, I love you more than I love Hibi-san. "He said that too, dumb bastard."
"I thought that was all there is to it. But even in this tragedy, Hiei-kun, when I ought to regret that seeming mistake..." Shiori's tears streamed down her face freely. "I dont. I don't regret anything at all." She patted his cheek.
None at all. "Shiori-san... He swore to that too. To the very end."
"Yes, Shuichi did, didn't he?" Shiori said, and Hiei nodded, as they held hands. Together they wept silently.
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...your eyes, your smile, your hair, your mouth, your skin, your hands, your neck, your feet, your hair, your voice, your smell, your body language, your limited vocabulary, your facial expressions, your Jagan, your intelligence, your attitude, your principles, your sarcasm, your biting remarks, your...-- Will you ever stop? You just wore me out; I want to sleep. Yes! The last one is... your fingertips. My fingertips? Kurama, they're rougher than the husk of the sturdiest Makai tree. You exaggerate! Say whatever you want, I love them. You can have them, if you want. Just... go to sleep already. You have work four hours later. Because in their roughness is so much experience and power in warfare, but when you trace me so intimately with them, my fragility is caressed, never threatened. That in my fragility, you fear to do me damage. You fear me. Kurama... Hn. I'm not one of your school reports. Well, we all need that fear of the other. Otherwise, we'll lose ourselves. Hn. Besides, I find your vested vow of powerlessness over me very sexy because I can make you Kurama! Good night, Hiei. Hn. I love you.
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Relieved, Shiori and Hiei soon got to talking about more casual matters - amusing memories of Shuichi and Kurama, secrets concerning the other that Shuichi and Kurama made them swore not to tell, what their future plans were - that the small laughter they allowed themselves to share(2) quickly became a scandal to the other wake-goers. Shiori briefly parted with her son-in-law to attend to the latter.
Left alone, Hiei immediately developed a naivete for his alien surroundings. Kurama almost drowned in the profusion of flowers and gifts sent by visitors; in fact, the small chapel itself seemed to be gasping for air from the claustrophobia that a remarkable number of friends and acquaintances inevitably caused. However, Hiei thought, if I were to identify those who really knew him, I'd be left with myself, Shiori-san, Yusuke, Kuwabara, Botan, Koenma... and Hibi-san.
Then, on the right column of pews, also on the foremost, was Makoto, letting her tears flood her face with abandon. Hiei dared to approach her and take the vacant seat on her left, convinced that even with the loathing she held toward her father, she would not be so unscrupulous as to commit an act of violence in this situation. She visibly stiffened as she recognized him from the corner of her eyes; she inched away from him, but she let him be for the longest time, even to the spectacle of her grieving over her wretched father.
Hiei observed her before he spoke. Drenched in tears, her face consisted of a melancholy pallor, and that it was turned sallow by an extended period of mourning that alternated between hatred and a lost love that was long coveted. Her green eyes dimmed, the skin under them puffed from excessive crying, and though the hard lines of anger were now blurred, an imperial frown shaped her mouth forever that Hiei thought it pitiful that he could not imagine her free from the infernal sadness. "Why are you crying?" He softly asked.
The answer was concise. "Because of my mother, because of the pain she has to bear upon herself just because this bastard died, because I wanted a father but then this bastard never really loved me. Because I'm really glad that he's finally going to hell, that son of a-- Good riddance, Minamino Shuichi!"
"...I'm sorry, Makoto."
"Don't be sorry, I don't understand you! Everyone else here wanted the love he gave only to you, and you're sorry?!"
"You're right, it's not the right thing to say. I am, after all, not sorry for anything."
"He said that too. So you're that heartless? You dare say you're not sorry for anything to the one who has suffered most from your irresponsible actions?"
"We've been irresponsible, yes. Evil, even. But I'm not sorry for anything. I don't have anything to justify it with but I shall take it to my grave as well."
"Get lost. I know what you mean. I understand everything. Leave me alone."
Hiei did as she wished, possibly forever. He was not present at the burial, and Shiori was nonchalant of it, as if she already knew beforehand. But when Makoto looked at the space he vacated she saw a red rose(3), exquisite in its fullness, perfect as though artificial. Out of curiosity, she kept it, and promptly forgot.
Days, weeks and months after Kurama was permanently put to rest under the earth, she would remember her anger and would trample on the flower viciously. It withered against her onslaught, and she would tower over its crushed remains, smug, content at the temporary revenge. However, it would always bloom to be more beautiful than ever the next day, right on the asphalt where she intended its destruction. On the nth day of this frustration, she broke down, distraught that she could not rid herself of his hauntingly beautiful memory.
In acknowledgment of her defeat, she kept the everlasting rose, and always remembered.
END
A lot of post-scripts!
1. In Kurama's Eizou Hakusho video, there was a picture of him with his back against a Christian church (or something). Christianity isn't prevalent in Japan, I know, but I like toying with the idea.
2. Hiei, holding and squeezing someone's hand and laughing with that person? Priceless. :))
3. This rose first made its appearance in The Present, though not very conspicuous. This is actually the prompt for the whole fic.
4. Hibi in Japanese is 'crack (ie crack in the wall)' and/or 'day.' Makoto, on the other hand, is 'faithful (in The Past: "Makoto. Little faithful.").' Make of that what you may.
Now a few words on this fanfic and fanfiction-writing in general:
I feel I've done Hiei and Kurama a great deal of injustice by elevating the OCs as their equals in this fic. In short I deviated from the canon and went a bit too far. However, imho, fanfiction is deviating from the and going too far with it. I don't think anyone can contest that. But oh well.
Thank you for reading.