Two weeks after the botanical gardens, Asato showed up on Michi's doorstep.
He let himself in, and she didn't even stir from the couch as he stomped over the threshold, shrugging out of his raincoat with an overly dramatic groan. "Damn, I'm sick of the rain."
"Shoes off on the mat," she called without looking, and his boots squeaked as he lurched to a halt, his muttered grumbles following not long after.
On her television, her avatar leapt and darted across mountainous terrain, a sword in one hand, a flame spell blazing in the other, waiting to be fired. Yet again, she'd long since finished the quest assigned for Nordic Literature, but the game had sucked her in and she'd been at it for hours. Even Asato's newfound presence didn't change that.
Still grousing, Asato flopped down beside her and kicked his feet up on the ottoman, wiggling his toes. "If my feet smell, I blame you."
She rolled her eyes. "What brings you here, Shade?"
"I can't visit my dear old cousin without facing an inquisition?"
"You can. But last I checked, you act like the rain will melt you right into your boots, so pardon me for being surprised you're out and about in the midst of a thunderstorm."
Nature seemed to agree with her sentiment, and a boom of rolling thunder cracked beyond her windows. Asato tossed the sky the bird, then slouched further into the cushions. "Well, technically, I guess you could say this is a work call."
"Why? What's happened now? Did Genkai finally clear Ryota for transition?"
"Nope." He rolled his head sideways, waving a hand in her peripheral vision. When she ignored him, he raised a leg, swinging it back and forth to block her view, splaying his toes with all the dexterity he could manage. Lavender affection and cobalt amusement warred in his threads, prodding at her territory, demanding attention. "You planning to focus? Or…"
"I can multitask." A quick jab of a joystick and smashing of a button launched her character into a killing animation, her enemy's head spinning off screen.
Asato heaved another sigh. "Fine. But I'm not repeating myself."
"You won't need to—"
He spoke over her. "I think Genkai is planning to send Ryota home with you when you next come out for training. You know, spend the morning hours working on your territory, then head straight to Itomori to settle him in. Makes sense, I guess. Saves me the train ride out."
"And Taki?"
"No change."
An identical answer to those he'd given a dozen times now, and for his patience, if nothing else, she had to give him credit. She'd asked nearly every day, unable to bottle the question up. For all she loved the change Shuichi had wrought in her territory, Taki's white threads still unsettled her. They were an abnormality she'd happily do without.
"You think he'll get back to normal?"
"I hope so. Can't guarantee it though."
At last she tapped pause and shifted to face him, drawing her knees to her chest, her controller propped atop them. "So why are you here then? Not Ryota. Not Taki. So why?"
"I filled in on your last Demon World check-in, but I'm a bit stretched thin at the moment, popping in on transplants for Genkai every waking second, so I was hoping you could return to the fold." His grin turned lop-sided. "I'm sure Hiei missed you dearly."
Well. It had to come eventually.
A fresh brush with an ex-Detective. For days now, she'd been waiting for a run-in with Yusuke. It hadn't been hard to piece together the truth about his connection to Shuichi. They weren't just old friends. They were roommates. Shuichi and Yusuke and a third guy she hadn't met. A Kuwabara who Shuichi had referenced in passing more than once.
Somehow it hadn't occurred to her that she'd see Hiei again before Yusuke. When she'd ducked out of her duties for the halfway house at the start of the semester, she'd shirked off her monthly rendezvous with the fire demon as well, and Asato had picked up the slack. In the rush of the last few weeks, she hadn't even realized the next check-in was coming up.
She scooped up her phone and confirmed the date. "It's tomorrow, right?"
Slumped as he was, Asato attempted a nod, but it resulted in little more than a creasing of the cushion, his head flopping back and forth. "Can you make it?"
She wanted to say no. To wash her hands of Hiei and his snark and his brash, unforgiving Loom. But looking at Asato, his head still rocking as if he didn't even have the energy to squelch its momentum, dark shadows lurking beneath his eyes, steely gray in his threads, she couldn't bring herself to turn him away.
"Sure can. Noon, like always?"
"Far as I know."
"Okay. I'll handle it." Setting aside her controller, she swung to her feet. "You look like you need food. Wait here. Put on a show or something." Rounding the couch, she jabbed a finger into his shoulder before breaking for the kitchen. "Don't touch my game."
Even with her back turned, she knew the precise shade of blue conquering his gray exhaustion. That particular mix of cobalt and teal so common in Asato's threads.
Still, when she returned with a bowl of udon, sleep had claimed him. Muffling a laugh against her knuckles, she tucked a blanket around his sides and left him undisturbed. He was long overdue for some solid rest, and as fresh thunder rumbled, she recognized that he needed more than a mere nap. He needed help. As much as she hated all it entailed, after everything, the least she owed him was a little assistance.
She could manage a visit with Hiei.
He wasn't that horrid.
She'd been wrong.
Hiei was that horrid. As brutish and rude and abrasive as any soul could possibly be. Somehow, two months without seeing him had dulled her recollection of his harsh edges, his acerbic Loom. Where Shuichi's colors were muted and Yusuke's electric, Hiei's shone with a sharpness that hurt her eyes. Each thread was as precise and fine as spider's silk, shining beneath the noonday sun with a glint that cut straight into her skull.
He was all crimson annoyance and sulking black anger, an undercurrent of buttercup yellow boredom falsely softening the irritation tucked in his every movement. Such a bright, innocent color ruined on such a rough soul.
"Let's get this over with," he muttered as she joined him in the park on the city outskirts where they always met. He'd chosen this place ages ago, and though it possessed no immediate subway access, as far as meeting points with nefarious demons went, it wasn't the worst.
A headache already smarting to life in her temples, she perched at the edge of the bench where Hiei sprawled, his elbows braced on its slatted back, one leg drawn to his chest. "Good to see you, too."
"Where's that cousin of yours?"
No preamble then. Fair enough. It had been her who left him in the lurch last month, after all. In that sense, perhaps a touch of annoyance wasn't unfounded.
"Busy. We've had some issues with a transplant."
He stiffened. Only a degree. But in conjunction with a flicker of lime through his Loom, it wasn't hard to spot the tightening in his jaw. "What sort of issues?"
"Taki, the first demon I brought over, if you remember him, has been having some… temperament problems. Unfounded anger." Not so unlike your own. The last bit she appended silently, content never knowing how he might react to the barb. "He's at Genkai's. She's helping him through it."
"How did Ryota's transition go?" If she hadn't known better, she might've thought an actual ripple of lavender affection wormed through his threads at the mention of her new charge.
"It hasn't. He's at the shrine, too. Genkai has been too preoccupied to proceed with his move."
Hiei's fist, level with her shoulder on the bench's backing, flexed. Once. Twice. Then he said, "When was she planning to inform me?"
"Apparently right now." Michi shrugged. "Look, I'm here because Genkai is working herself to the bone. Asato, too. So cut everyone some slack, all right?"
His gaze lanced her way, ruby red threads of annoyance disappearing over his irises, indistinguishable from their inhuman tint. "You're shirking your duties." A statement. Pointed and sharp.
She laughed, not even his vicious threads enough to silence her. "Two years in and you still don't realize how little I want to do with all this? These aren't my duties. They're a favor. For Genkai. Some semblance of gratitude, I guess. For helping me."
Laughing, it seemed, had not been the right response.
Nothing about his posture changed. His arms stayed in place, his leg remained bent, his smoldering glare persisted. But something in the air distorted. Heat rippled across her skin, sudden and out of place amongst the trees gone rust-red with the season, their leaves drifting away on the slightest breeze. And yet, despite that unnatural warmth in the air, goosebumps broke across her arms, hair prickling at the back of her neck.
Telling Yusuke she couldn't sense demon energy hadn't been a lie. In the abstract, energy of any kind was beyond her sense of perception, but she wasn't so oblivious as to miss Hiei's aura when it was aimed at her own skin.
"Hn. Watch your step, human."
Still, she didn't back down. He wouldn't hurt her. Not because he cared or because his rough exterior hid a heart of gold, but because Spirit World law would see him thrown in jail for life—if not put to death entirely—for inflicting harm on a human civilian.
Which made his threats empty.
Mostly.
Straightening her shoulders, she crossed her legs at the knees and laced her fingers atop her dark leggings. Next to Hiei's coarse trousers, their black cotton seemed fit for a ball. "What happened to getting this over with? The less you threaten me and the more you cooperate, the sooner we're both free."
The petulant jut of his chin was all the answer she needed.
Loosing a steadying breath through her nose, she tucked her bangs behind her ear. "Any new requests for transfer?"
"Six applications. Four I've already turned down. Two are still being vetted." He angled his head toward her only a degree, his predatory eyes cutting sideways. "Not much point rushing the process if you're not even going to advance those we bring through."
"Genkai will sort out the hang-up. We both know that. Pretending otherwise won't intimidate me." She picked pilled-up fabric off her tights, letting the scraps of fluff float away on a gust of wind. "What else is there? Last time I saw you, your higher ups were discussing ramping up the quotient of transplants allowed through monthly. Any decisions on that?"
"No."
"Any idea when we can expect a verdict?"
"No."
She resisted a grimace. How had this brute ever been chosen as a Spirit Detective? And who in the three worlds had possibly thought him the right pick for this job? "Has Spirit World been consulted?"
"Hn."
"An actual answer please."
He sneered. "Not that I'm aware of."
Smoothing a hand across the hem of her dress, she let her gaze skitter across the park, glancing over a trio of children playing on a distant swing set, noting a man jogging with his dog, filing each detail away, stockpiling distractions to combat her mounting frustration—and, more than anything, willing her tone to stay calm. "Is that it then? A bunch of non-answers."
"I've been preoccupied," he muttered tonelessly. "The border patrol has not been my primary concern."
Oh. Right.
Because the Detectives had been called back together. Which included him. Somehow, she hadn't quite connected that piece yet—that Hiei must have ventured out to Genkai's shrine with the rest of them, called in on Spirit Word's new case, briefed on investigating psychics whose territories were behaving strangely.
Psychics like her. Potentially. If Shuichi's muted Loom and Taki's white threads were actual signs and not mere abnormalities.
She cleared her throat, changed the subject. "What about the other end of things then? How many humans have been picked up this month?"
"Twenty-nine."
"That many?"
His lip ticked upward, a fresh snarl contorting his angular features, casting shadows along his sharp jaw and narrow, slashing nose. "Useless fools fall ass over head along the border daily. Nuisances."
The way his cutting, crimson threads chafed against her territory granted his annoyance an almost personal tinge, as if she'd earned his irritation by simply sharing a genetic history with the humans he'd processed in the preceding weeks. Then again, even knowing what little she did of Hiei, it wouldn't shock her if association by species really was enough to invoke his ire.
"You followed procedure with their returns—"
"Don't patronize me, girl. Unlike you, I haven't shunned my responsibilities. I wiped their memories, glossed over the voids left behind, and returned them to that self-important prick who considers himself Kurama's rival, not a hair on their idiot heads harmed."
Michi's heart skipped a beat.
Half of Hiei's retort she could make sense of. The 'self-important prick' had to be Yu Kaito. Like Asato, Kaito worshipped the ground Genkai walked on, and he'd been involved in the halfway house from its start-up, long before Asato had roped Michi in, though Kaito's participation hinged on the human side of the job, not on demon transfers. From what she'd gathered, he and Hiei had a rocky history, one she'd never pried too far into.
But it was the name Hiei had hissed, his tone softening the barest degree as he uttered it, that set her teeth on edge.
Kurama.
She'd heard it before. Yusuke had tossed it out, too. Back in Taki's apartment. He'd asked why Kurama hadn't told him about her, though what could possibly prompt that question, she couldn't fathom. It wasn't a name that meant anything to her—or it hadn't. Now it kept cropping up, and she wasn't so sure anymore.
A knot lodged itself in her throat, solid as a rock, but she forced words past it. "Who is that? Kurama. Should I know that name?"
"Not if he doesn't want you to."
An answer with precisely no meaning.
Which left her fumbling, questions building up against the back of her teeth, all wrong, all easily deflected, none the right way to tease out an explanation. For all the blunt fury crackling at the core of his Loom, Hiei had a tendency to hedge and circle, a propensity for controlling conversation with an iron-fisted grip. He treated dialogue like war, a tireless hunt in which he was the predator harassing his prey, nipping at their heels, goading them until exhaustion led them astray.
Now, in the midst of their present skirmish, her uncertainty had worn his patience thin, his yellow boredom melting into darkening crimson. "What of operations here?" he growled. "What's the old hag's excuse for the delays? One problematic demon is enough set her whole enterprise off the rails?"
Helpless before his threads' cutting edges, Michi pressed the pads of her fingers over her eyes. "The delay started before Taki. Genkai needs more hands, more people on this end to get apparitions settled and to perform routine appraisals once they are."
"So blame lies at your feet."
"Excuse me?" Her fingers slipped wide, allowing her a glimpse of his exasperated sneer.
"You're slacking. Skipping our meetings." He rapped his knuckles against the knee tugged up against his chest. "Kido informed me he'd taken on your cases last month. Dull human life too much for you to handle, girl?"
Her breath guttered.
Jerk.
A perilous silence built between them in the moments that followed, and she teetered, her tenuous hold on her manners waning before the mocking lilt in his voice, the over-bright jab of his threads. But she clung to poise, to an even tone and patient smile, hoping he read the signs tucked beneath, in the hard edge of her gaze and faint clipping of her words—the proof she wasn't the timid, frightened girl he appeared to think she was.
"For a final time, Hiei, allow me to remind you that I have a life beyond all this." Her hands dropped from her face, spreading wide, as if by mere force of will she could conjure up the tangled mess of the halfway house and bare it before him. "I attend university. I have friends. I… date. And every day, I aspire to rid myself of my territory. The moment I do, the moment I'm free, I'm done with all this. For good. So no, I haven't been picking up new transfers or coming to Asato's aide, but I don't have to. I've no obligation to any of this." She met his blazing glare head on, combating it with a smile as icy as any glacier. "But I help. When I can manage it. And to that end, I'll let Genkai know you're disappointed with the speed of her operation. I'm sure she'll be delighted to discuss remedies with you."
Or to pound his face in.
A fact the pinched tightness around his eyes confirmed his awareness of.
"Hn." He swung his head forward, turning his focus on the children still playing in the distance, glowering so intently she half-feared the boys might burst into flame. "That's not necessary. I'll tell her myself."
"Because you'll be seeing her soon." The words emerged as a statement rather than the question Michi had intended. "As part of your mission for Spirit World."
"What of it?"
Her pulse leapt and skittered in her veins, twisting itself into knots inside her temples, a headache spilling outward. She did her best to ignore its insidious touch as she said, "Have you made any progress? Toward working out why psychics are losing control of their territory, I mean."
The telltale press of heat announced the return of his energy. "How do you know any of that?"
"Asato filled me in."
He stared at her, nonplussed.
"Kido," she clarified.
"Idiot shouldn't have told you anything."
"Well he did. And I'm a psychic. With a territory. So it matters to me." And it did. Sort of. She wasn't afraid of her territory malfunctioning, not really, not when it was so utterly harmless—to others, at least—but if the Detectives had uncovered leads in their case, it'd give her peace of mind nonetheless. For Asato's sake, if not her own. "What have you learned?"
"Nothing that matters to you," he drawled, his monotone dripping with boredom that was nowhere to be found in his Loom. An act. A put on. Undercut further still by the way his gaze flicked away, darting back to the swing set, now abandoned, the kids run off somewhere when she'd been too distracted to notice.
Whatever nothing the Detectives had established was more absolute than what Hiei deemed relevant to her. The Detectives had unearthed no answers. That much was clear.
She coughed lightly into her fist, banishing the last vestiges of unease from her system. There were still questions to ask, puzzle pieces to sort through. "You're working with Yusuke on this, right?"
He jerked his head downward. All the confirmation he appeared willing to give.
"And… Kurama, too?" It seemed a logical leap. That name kept surfacing around the ex-Detectives. Perhaps Kurama, whoever he was, counted amongst that number.
"Yes. And the buffoon as well. Useless, driveling waste of carbon that he is."
Well then.
Best not tug on that thread any further.
She wondered, not for the first time, if Shuichi realized who he'd gotten himself tangled up with, if he'd ever glimpsed the occult world his Threadbrother was such a prominent part of.
His soul was Tied to Yusuke's, linked together by a bond that may very well only be broken in death, and that sort of friendship necessitated value. It couldn't—shouldn't—be given up easily. But that didn't alter how unbefitting such a connection was for a seemingly normal young man in line to inherit his step-father's bustling business. Therein lay another part of Shuichi's life that had come into focus over the last few days—his family's ownership of Hatanaka Properties, the company whose business card remained tucked inside her nightstand, its silken surface gone haggard with the number of times she'd traced its navy lettering.
Yusuke didn't fit into that picture. Based on personality alone, he'd already presented a jarring mismatch, as if he'd been photoshopped into Shuichi's life without being granted a shadow. And that was before accounting for his old career. A Spirit Detective. Someone as deeply rooted in the interconnections of the three worlds as a soul could possibly be.
Someone with associates—maybe even friends—like Hiei.
It was almost laughable, picturing affable, sedate Shuichi attempting even the barest of conversations with vicious, ill-mannered Hiei. But then again, it was no easier to imagine Shuichi alongside the Yusuke she'd last seen, his fists glowing blue, his wry frame towering over Taki, looking for all the world like he'd planned to beat the cowering apparition into the floorboards until nothing remained but bloodstains.
So what did she know, really?
"How often do you see Genkai?" she asked once the quiet stretched too long. Her real question stayed unspoken, caught on her tongue, anticipating his response with bated breath.
How often do I need to avoid the temple?
"I'm not discussing this with you. Get your answers from Kido." Scoffing, Hiei unfurled his leg. Dust burst from the path in a cloud as his boot hit the hard-packed dirt. "Let's get through the rest of this nonsense."
As irritated with him as his crimson threads indicated he was with her, she asked with saccharine sweetness, "Why the rush, Hiei? Have somewhere to be? Detectives to cavort with?"
The barest flicker of lime dusted the edges of Hiei's Loom, his eyes widening a degree. Then he issued one of his rough, nightmare-fuel chuckles. "Think you're witty, girl?"
"More so than you give me credit for."
He rolled his eyes, but Michi didn't miss the slight crook at the corner of his lips, nor the cobalt—sharp as fresh-forged steel—that overtook his crimson in spotty patches. And as they rolled into the rest of their briefing, batting questions back and forth with clinical precision, the blue hung around, as if somehow, without quite meaning to, she'd impressed him enough for his ire to abate. At least a smidgeon.
A small victory, but one that pleased her nevertheless.
By the time she readied to depart, the afternoon hour had grown long, heavy shadows slanting beneath the park's trees, fissuring through the dying leaves and clawing scarecrow hands across the earth. Hugging her sweater tight, she said, "I'll make sure Asato gets a full report. If he has any questions, no doubt Genkai will relay them to you when you see her next."
"Hn." He stood with an animalistic grace, his muscles flowing like smooth water. "Be here next month. I won't bother with an annoying contact."
Meaning Asato.
But not her.
If she weren't so thoroughly bemused by his sudden change of heart, she might've mustered a response, but before she could summon anything other than bafflement, his gaze tracked over her, a single sweep from the crown of her head to the toes of her brown boots. Then he huffed softly, shoved his hands in his pockets, and turned heel, stalking into the gathering night.
But before he disappeared, she caught his last words, muttered under his breath, sounding as flummoxed as she still felt: "The fox is a fool."
Then he was gone.
AN: Oh, Hiei, you prickly bastard.
I've never written a multi-chapter fic that isn't a Hiei pairing, and I have to say, it was delightful to write a character who is not charmed or drawn to him in any capacity. It's also intriguing to put him in a position of responsibility/authority and see how he handles it. All of which to say, this chapter sort of ran away with itself. That said, it starts to establish some important pieces, and Michi got more Kurama hints, so it most certainly isn't filler.
Thanks endlessly to everyone who reviewed last week: knightsqueen05, Star Charter, Addicted-to-GazettE, CrystalVixen93, E.V. Delacy, xXGemini14Xx, Dagdoth Fliesh, Aria2302. Every time I hear from one of you, it absolutely makes my day! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
