When Toya had led Kurama down the hall, Hiei had watched with slight horror. When he heard Toya whisper those two words—I'm ready—Hiei's rage had overflowed, the furniture in his room bursting into flame. But it wasn't until Toya ripped Kurama's shirt off that Hiei couldn't take it any longer. It was there that he put his foot down. He snapped his jagan closed, sliding the headband back on so forcefully it nearly ripped. Watching the two of them complete the mating ritual was not something he needed—or even desired—to see. In fact, what he wanted most in the world at the moment was to pretend that Toya and Kurama were not sharing a bed, pretend that they were not committing themselves to each other through an unbreakable, demonic bond, pretend he still had a chance.
He grimaced and stood, noting the burned furniture with a very detached sort of surprise.
And when Mukuro woke the next morning, Hiei was gone.
When Kurama woke, Toya was still sleeping soundly next to him. He smiled to himself. Perhaps their bond had not been sealed in blood, but that was only a matter of time. He would make Toya his mate, his life partner. You should love your mate, should you not? And Kurama found it hard to believe that he could love Toya more than he did at the moment.
He gently brushed his lips against Toya's cheek, stood and stretched, slightly sore from the night's activities. But once again it was the bewildering pain that brought with it a strange sense of contentment, happiness and pleasure.
As he headed to the kitchen, Kurama smiled to himself, suppressing the doubts that were already beginning to surface without even realizing he was doing so.
That night, Toya opted not to return to his room, instead staying the night in Kurama's, although neither of them felt the need to do anything more than sleep at the moment. Neither of them wore a shirt, each content to relax in his lover's bare arms.
The next morning, Kurama once again got up early to prepare breakfast for himself and Toya, not bothering to change out of his pajama pants first. Minutes later, Toya came up behind him, wrapping his arms around the man he was truly beginning to love. Perhaps not as much as Kurama would have liked, perhaps not even in the way Kurama would have liked, but he loved Kurama nonetheless. Resting his head against Kurama's bare shoulder, he said nothing. He could still not be sure if he did not regret lying to Kurama two nights before.
Kurama was pleased at Toya's actions. In the past, breaking Toya down until the man admitted his love and accepted Kurama's love in return would have been a challenge, a game, something to gloat over once completed, to revel in for a short time afterward before leaving and never coming back. But here, now, with Toya… it was something else entirely. It was still Toya admitting his love and accepting Kurama's, but Kurama felt no sense of accomplishment; only joy. Pure, unadulterated joy.
Then Toya murmured into his shoulder, "I'm going to go clean up."
The warmth around his waist and along his back vanished, and Kurama shivered at the sudden rush of cool air. But then the door slammed and he found the tip of a sword at his throat. "Hiei," he managed to say, knowing the fiery aura that was lashing out in angry waves behind him. As though the sword wasn't hint enough. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"
The answer Hiei gave was growled, his tone more angry and resentful than Kurama had ever heard it. And after knowing Hiei for so many years, through so many battles won and lost, that said a significant amount about Hiei's mood. In the lowest, most dangerous voice he could manage, Hiei hissed, "You possess something I wanted."
"Wanted?" Kurama questioned delicately. "Past tense."
"It is now out of my reach," Hiei growled, once again using the threatening tone that was nearly enough to make Kurama nervous. "But it is still within my power to kill you, and then die myself, Kurama."
Kurama frowned. Hiei had used his name, avoiding the informal fox he typically used. Hiei was far more serious about this than Kurama had first realized. Unfortunately he still hadn't the slightest idea what Hiei was talking about. "And what would be achieved by killing me?" Kurama asked mildly, continuing to make breakfast as though he was entirely oblivious to the sword tip that was poking painfully into his neck.
"Nothing," Hiei hissed. "Nothing beyond soothing my own anger."
"And would killing me not make this thing—whatever it is—yours?" Kurama asked carefully, his mind working quickly in an attempt to determine what, precisely, they were actually talking about. He could think of nothing he possessed that Hiei would be willing to kill for, let alone something Hiei could not take for himself once Kurama was dead. And forget the fact that Hiei claimed he was willing to die for it as well.
"Hardly." Kurama barely caught the bitterness hidden behind the hate and rage that otherwise filled the voice of the man he had once considered his best friend. It appeared those days were over, however.
Kurama then concluded that being more forceful with his queries was the best way to get Hiei to divulge his true reasons for appearing unannounced, and in such a foul mood. "Just tell me what the hell you're talking about, Hiei," he said. "I haven't the slightest idea what you mean by any of this, and I am really not in the mood to dance around the issue until you give me enough to guess." As an afterthought he added roughly, "And get the goddamn sword away from my throat."
Hiei gave no indication that he had heard anything Kurama said, simply repeating, "You possess something I wanted."
"Again with the wanted!" Kurama exclaimed. "Either you want it or you don't, Hiei. There is nothing I have that, were you actually to kill me, you could not take."
"There is," Hiei insisted, thinking mournfully of the ice demon he was likely going to hurt deeply in his selfishness.
"Then tell me what it is, damn it," Kurama cursed, momentarily losing his composure for real. "I'd appreciate it if you would stop with all the cryptic statements and threats, especially considering I have a guest."
The next word rolled off Hiei's tongue in a hiss that astounded Kurama, not that he allowed his surprise at Hiei's now genuinely murderous tone to show. "Precisely."
But that single word was all Kurama needed to put all the clues together. "Toya?" Kurama asked, slightly horrified that Hiei was quite possibly after the same man he wanted for himself. Hiei nodded curtly. "What do you mean, I possess—" Kurama cut himself off abruptly, suddenly aware Hiei thought Toya and Kurama were a bonded, mating pair. "Have you been watching us, Hiei?" Kurama demanded, truly angry.
"If I have?" Hiei challenged. "The two of you are now mated. I can never have him. But I can kill you for taking that chance away from me. And then I can stand by and allow him to kill me for taking his mate away from him."
"You have no right," Kurama started angrily, only to see Toya stop in the doorway, startled by the scene unfolding in the small kitchen area.
"Hiei?" Toya asked, his voice cracking slightly. Kurama winced as his doubts flooded forward, keenly aware that it was not his name Toya had asked first. "Kurama? What's going on?"
"Nothing," spit Hiei at the man before him now, the man he believed he could never have. "It doesn't concern you. I'll just be going." He glared at Kurama and threatened, "We will finish this another time." Hiei's image blurred at the same moment the door slammed, and then the image of the irate fire demon was gone entirely. As he fled, Hiei chastised himself for being too weak to kill Kurama with Toya present. He already cared for the Ice Master too deeply, and it was only going to end up hurting them both.
In the apartment, Toya stood in the doorway, staring guardedly at the place Hiei had stood moments before, his sword at the sensitive flesh just above Kurama's jugular vein. "What was that about?" Toya asked, working to sound indifferent and largely successful at doing so. He crossed the room and sat down at the table, and even Kurama could find nothing more than a mild curiosity in the bewilderingly cool features of the younger demon. Never in his life had he had so much trouble reading and interpreting the nuances of expressions, emotions and moods. Kurama was also sure this boded ill for their relationship, as smoothly as it seemed to be running on the surface.
Kurama just turned back to the stove and shrugged. "Hiei was just confused, I guess. He seemed to think I possess something I do not." Strictly speaking, that was true. Kurama and Toya had not yet performed the blood bonding ceremony, the ultimate mark of a demon's love for another. Toya was not Kurama's yet.
And Kurama's doubts prevented him from admitting to Toya the whole truth. He couldn't bring himself to say that Hiei had come here believing Kurama the blood partner, the mate, of the man who sat calmly before Kurama now. He couldn't risk losing Toya because the feelings Kurama had suspected Toya had for someone else were likely feelings he had for Hiei.
When Kurama looked over at Toya, he was bemused once again. The demon's aura was calm on the surface, but Kurama could just sense a conflict occurring beneath the surface. Yet none of it showed on Toya's face. People often accused him of being cold and never revealing his emotions. But he felt the demon before him was just as guilty of those things. Perhaps more so, since, unlike Kurama's, Toya's calm, cold gaze was natural, his emotions hidden by pure instinct rather than decades of practice.
And Kurama found this look both curiously bewitching and frighteningly unreadable, neither of which he had come across in a very long time.
Toya sat at the table, dwelling on the fire demon who had just fled the apartment he was more or less living in. Toya could feel the emotions roiling within him. He hardly knew what to think. He had been thinking that he loved Kurama, that it wasn't such a lie to say so, that if given enough time Toya could learn to love Kurama like he knew Kurama deserved.
But he had seen Hiei again. And seeing Hiei made Toya realize that the only thing allowing him to convince himself of any of that was the fact that Hiei had been at such a remove. The distance between them for so long was all that had allowed Toya to suppress his feelings.
And what mystifying feelings they were. Entering the Dark Tournament had been enough for him to know a significant change was about to occur. He had hardly needed to see the master of flames to realize that Hiei would be the reason for that change. Toya couldn't have explained it to anyone, least of all himself, but after the Tournament was over, he felt different.
And it was not arrogance that had him convinced he should have been capable of beating Kurama. It was the fact that a part of his consciousness had been ensnared by the shirtless fire demon trapped in Ruka's force field. He had been entirely intrigued and completely incapable of fighting to his fullest abilities. And he had never told this to anyone; it would make him sound self-centered and arrogant. He had lost in a fair fight; it had not been Kurama's fault he could not maintain his focus.
Although a strong argument could be made for it being Hiei's fault.
The next few weeks found Kurama and Toya together, sometimes sleeping together, sometimes not. Both pretended to be happy, but neither was. Toya was battling with the decision to leave Kurama, and it was becoming more and more difficult for Kurama to deceive himself. He was not stupid; part of him had known from the beginning that Toya wasn't entirely within his grasp. His heart was just not quite ready to let go of that hope. Hiei did not return.
One evening Kurama quietly asked Toya, "Is there something between you and Hiei?"
Toya looked startled, sitting across the table from him. "No. How could there be?"
Kurama bit his lip as he conceded that a relationship between the two men was unlikely, particularly if the rumors that had spread from the demon to the human plane were true.
The story that Mukuro and Hiei were in a relationship.
Hiei, in his anger at Kurama, Toya and himself, had returned to the demon plane with the intent of showing Toya what he had lost. And Hiei was perfectly aware that there was one person who would be all too willing to help him in that endeavor. Neither did he care that he was risking his neck by deceiving her; Toya and Kurama were blood partners. Nothing could be done except to show Toya what he had lost.
Mukuro, however, didn't need to guess at the fact that Hiei was merely using her. She hardly cared. He was nothing more than an underling, albeit her second-in-command in everything but name. She simply disliked revealing her true appearance if she could avoid it; Hiei already knew what she truly looked like and was therefore particularly suited to fulfilling her carnal desires. In the end, she was using him as much as he was using her.
In spite of the fact that he so desperately wanted to believe Toya, Kurama made the decision to visit the only person he knew that he both trusted and who had a rather unorthodox relationship. He gently woke Toya one morning and said, "I'm going to meet with Yusuke. I'll be gone for a few days."
Toya frowned. "And Yomi?"
"Easily dealt with," Kurama replied. He had already informed Yomi he was going to Raizen's palace with the intent to gather intelligence. Yomi had just nodded, acknowledging that Kurama likely knew what he was doing. He also sensed that Kurama was lying and that his trip to visit Yusuke under the pretense of a personal problem was, in all actuality, not a pretense at all. And he cared little what Kurama did in his spare time, so long as it didn't threaten Yomi's plans.
And so Kurama left the human realm, taking the week long journey to Raizen's stronghold to seek help from the hotheaded former Detective.
Left alone, Toya's inclination to leave Kurama—in addition to his training and the war as a whole—grew stronger and stronger. The one thing that stopped him were the rumors that were flying across the demon plane about Hiei and Mukuro.
