Disclaimer: Don't own anything really but in essence Mikai, Senkai, Carden, and Kubo. Cat owns Sotto; The A owns Asuka; The Last J owns Reijii; Mikey owns Lei; and Nicole owns Yuzu. Damn…I've just realized how many characters I really don't own…oh well, they're still my girls and I love 'em!
After a round of quick goodbyes, Kurama escorted his mother to the car that lay in wait outside and placed her bags in the backseat. The rain hadn't let up at all, and Kurama had to take an umbrella out to keep his mother from getting wet, she did not need another hospital scare. Again he said his goodbyes, and asked her to call when she arrived. She promised to do so, told him that she loved him, and started the car. He waved as she pulled out of the driveway and remained outside until he could no longer see the car.
I'd better head back inside…I can't leave Mikai unattended for too long.
A freezing wind blew as Kurama made his way to the house, one that made goose bumps rise on his arms and the hair stand on the back of his neck. Before walking through the front door, he shook the excess water from the umbrella and closed it, setting it beside the door in case he had run back out for whatever reason.
The minute he re-entered the house, the sounds of dishes clinking together met his ears. He looked up and spotted Mikai in the kitchen standing in front of the sink, clearing the dishes just as Shiori had asked. A soft smile came across his mouth as he approached the kitchen where a stack of drying dishes met his attention.
"Could you help me put those away? I have no idea where to put them," she said with a slight laugh.
"Of course."
He came into the kitchen and separated the dishes by what when where, and then began placing them in neat stack in different cabinets. Mikai watched where every dish went and in what order, leaving Kurama to figure that she was trying to remember where everything went.
"Are your other family members going to be all right?" Mikai asked as she scrubbed down the now empty sink.
"They should be," he answered as he placed the cups away. "I'm sure my mother will tell me more when she arrives at their house."
She grabbed a nearby towel and starting wiping down the counter. "What did your mom have to talk to you about?"
Kurama closed his eyes for a long minute, doing his best to hold back a round of laughter. "Well—"
Mikai gasped and covered her mouth with her free hand before he could finish, or start, his sentence. "I'm sorry! I shouldn't have asked…It's none of my business."
"No, no." Kurama turned to her and dismissed her worry with one of his smothered laughs. She didn't have to be so careful with her words all the time. "She wanted to make sure that I didn't do anything with you while she was gone."
A goofy grin came over Mikai's face as she burst out in a fit of laughter. She moved away from the counter as she laughed and gently hit Kurama on his shoulder. "Why would she think that? Is there something about you I should know?"
"I haven't made a habit of it," he replied with a playful glare in her direction. "But I could start…"
Mikai crossed her arms over her chest and tilted her hips. When did she get so cocky? "I look forward to it."
This was getting more and more interesting as it went on. The more the two spoke with one another, the more interested he found himself with the young woman. He hadn't seen it before, but she had a smart wit, one that would keep him on edge and would keep him busy. This would be fun.
"Would you like to see your room now?"
She uncrossed her arms and ran her fingers through her hair quickly. "I would like that very much, thank you."
"Follow me."
He whirled and walked up the stairs, Mikai following right behind him. The closer they came to the second story, the louder the rain sounded against the roof. The sound of the TV faded the further away they got, allowing the pounding rain to take over the silence left by the distant television. It was a relaxing noise, one that Kurama loved to fall asleep to and the heavy rain that was now falling from the sky promised a deep relaxing sleep for the former fox.
"Your room is right beside mine," Kurama said as they approached a door right across the hall from the flight of stairs.
"Guess that means I won't have to be walking too far."
Chucking, he turned the knob on her door and opened it for her. She bowed her head a bit and walked in the room. She moved to the middle of the room and whispered a 'wow' as she studied the room's features.
"My own bathroom?" She left the center of the room and strolled to the right side of the room where the bathroom stood. "This is so cool! I've never had my own bathroom before!"
"I hope you enjoy your stay here, even though it isn't under the best circumstances," Kurama said as he walked over to the window. Dark clouds hung over the entire city, promising a night filled with heavy rain and possible thunder storms. Hopefully the power wouldn't go out.
"Doesn't really matter, I needed a break from my boring routine anyway." She shrugged and moved away from the bathroom, to the bed where her over-night bag lay. "The thing I don't get though…is why this Kubo guy is after me in the first place."
"Well it's not only Kubo we have to be concerned about." Kurama turned away from the window. "Senkai is out there as well."
Mikai opened her over-night bag and removed a few articles of clothing. Her eyes remained locked on her wrinkled clothing, never once coming back up to meet with his. "Oh…I almost forgot about that."
Sensing her distress, Kurama walked over to her and placed his hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry, Mikai. Things are going to be fine."
Silence came over the both of them, and the sound of the rain hitting the roof became the only noise heard between the both of them. His hand remained on her shoulder, and she made no movement to remove it. She lowered her head a bit, and it appeared as if she was in deep thought but Kurama couldn't tell by her facial expression what she was thinking of. He could understand her stress and he wished he could do more, but what? He had offered up his home and protection, there wasn't anything else he could do even though he wanted to.
"Sorry." Mikai glanced over her shoulder and in his direction with a smile on her face. "I spaced out a bit. I think I'm going to hit the hay for now, I'm still really tired from healing myself earlier."
"I understand." He withdrew his hand and nodded his head. "Sleep well, and don't hesitate to wake me if you need to."
"Thanks a lot…Shuuichi. It means a lot that you let me stay here, I know it's going to be a real pain."
"I doubt it." He gave her a reassuring smile. "It's no problem, Mikai." Bowing his head, Kurama strolled over to the door and stepped out of the room. "Good night."
"Good night."
With that said, he closed the door and made his way down the stairs. He turned off the TV, grabbed the phone, and made sure the doors were locked. After checking the front and back door, he walked back up the stairs and into his own room. He wasn't too tired, but he had a better chance of hearing what Mikai was doing from his room rather than the living room. Rather than locking his door like he usually did, he kept it open in case of an emergency.
Now just to wait for Mother's call.
Sighing, Kurama moved over to the window and gazed outside once more. The dark clouds had only grown darker within the past few minutes, thunder storms were guaranteed now. He watched as the clouds loomed over the city, and prayed that they weren't some kind of omen for the upcoming battle.
Day one of Mikai living with Kurama went by very quickly, much to his surprise. After arriving home from school she declared that she was very tired, and went to bed where she remained asleep for the rest of the day. Even when he went up to inform her that dinner was ready, he found her dead sleep with the blankets wrapped around her body as if she were cold. It was a bit lonely, seeing how his mother had yet to come home from her fiancé's house because of his flu but Kurama was used to being alone even when there were others around him. He assumed that she was still very tired from the previous day's work with healing herself, but did it make her that tired? Then again, he couldn't sense much spiritual energy from her, so it must have taken what little she didn't have away from her.
It was strange, the moment Kurama came in and saw Mikai in her comatose-like sleep he felt the urge to rest his fingertips against any bare skin he could find. Was she dreaming about Youko Kurama again? The past life he had managed to keep hidden for fifteen long years. He kept himself from touching her and waking her out of her sleep, she needed to gain as much energy back as she could.
The second day she proved a bit livelier in the morning even though he could see bags underneath her eyes. They barely spoke to one another on the train and on the way to school, and Kurama could clearly see that she still hadn't fully recovered her spiritual energy. As the redhead glanced outside of the nearby window of Meiou high, he wondered how Mikai would show up later on today.
"Hey."
He perked at the sound of her voice and whirled to see Mikai standing behind him with a smile on her face, and the bags underneath her eyes gone. "I see that you're looking rested."
"Slept during class," she said as if she had planned it. "I feel a lot better now. Do you want to head home?"
"Sure."
He stood out of his desk and found that most of the other students had left the classroom all ready. How long had he been spacing out? He almost asked her, but bit it back and instead left the classroom with Mikai in tow. Again things were silent from the school to the train, and he wondered if she was going to end up falling asleep on him again. She didn't look tired anymore, so was it something else?
"Are you feeling all right, Mikai?" Kurama asked as the train rocked back and forth, but Kurama remained still. "You're very quiet."
"Uh, sorry." She gave a nervous laugh and looked up at him, a slight smile on her face. "I'm just a little…worried about Kubo that's all. I've been thinking about it…what if something happens to me and I get injured? The cut on my forehead and arms took forever to heal, I won't be able to handle a serious injury."
"Don't worry Mikai," he said with a comforting smile. "I won't allow you to get injured when we meet up with Kubo. Relax for now, Mikai, you're still in recovery."
"I know," she took in a deep breath, held it, and then released it all at once, "I just…"
She ended her sentence there, and remained quiet for the remainder of the train trip. Kurama looked down at her, and saw the distress in her posture and couldn't help but feel bad. She had, most likely, never been through anything like this before and the idea of being so weak all of a sudden must have been a blow to her. Things like that often reminded people of their mortally, something humans weren't good at dealing with, especially at her age.
But he couldn't just go assuming that.
When the train finally reached their platform, they both left the station and walked down the road in the darkening sky. Hopefully it wouldn't rain again but then again it was December, snow should have been falling instead. The weather had been odd for a while now, but it always varied from year-to-year.
"Hey check it out, herbs!"
Kurama broke from his deep thought and looked over to his side to see Mikai eyeing a selection of potted herbs underneath a bright light on display in front of a cooking supply store. Kurama had seen them a few times on the way back and forth to school, but had never paid too much attention to them.
"Its cilantro," he said as he walked over to her side. "It's an herb used to bring out flavors in many different foods when cooking."
Mikai sighed and stood up straight, clenching her schoolbag in her hands. "Aw I miss my plants so much!"
"Your plants?"
"Yeah, it's nice just to come out here and talk to them for a while."
Oh that's right, they had vanished when her apartment had been taken by Kubo. Did she really miss them that much?
"Yeah." She took a step back from the shop, her eyes lingering on the plants for a moment before she looked back over at the redhead. "Anyway, let's get going Shuuichi."
When they arrived back at his place, Mikai quickly changed out of her school uniform and in to a pair of jeans and a plain dress shirt. Kurama, in the meantime, called his mother and found that she would be coming back later on that day in order to grab some more clean clothes and catch up with him. He offered to drop her clothing off, but she insisted on stopping by for an hour or two.
"I'll be there around six or so, Shuuichi," Shiori said over the phone. "How is Mikai holding up?"
"Fine," Kurama replied just as Mikai came down the stairs, and in to the living room. She gave him a warm smile before taking a seat on the couch, the remote in her hands. "And no mother we haven't done anything."
"Oh Shuuichi!" She giggled. "I'll see you around three, all right? Love you, Shuuichi."
"I love you too, Mother. I'll see you at three."
Click.
He lowered the phone away from his ear, and placed it back on the charger that rested on the far side of the kitchen counter so the battery wouldn't die on him. Whirling, he saw Mikai on the far side of the couch, her attention on the drama playing out on the TV not too far away from her. He moved away from the kitchen and sat down on the couch, a few inches away from her. "Are you in to these kinds of dramas?"
"Sometimes," she answered, her cheeks flushing. "I know they're cheesy and all of that, but I find them strangely addicting. Drama, about something other than being hunted down by demons…"
Was that why she had been so distant in his presence? He could completely understand where she was and why she felt that way, but the more he thought about it the more he wondered why he thought she was being distant. He didn't know her that well, but he had noticed a personality change from when she was around his mother to this very moment in time. Was it because she only had two days left before he and the others met up with Kubo, and perhaps then, Senkai?
"Yusuke or I will not allow anything bad to happen," Kurama said in a gentle tone as he rested his hand on top of one of hers. "That I promise you, Mikai."
She did not respond to his touch, instead she lowered her head a bit, and gazed down at the carpet. The room fell silent, the only noise that of the people on TV and the outside traffic. Kurama waited for her to say or do something but the longer he waited the more and more apparent the depth of the situation became to him.
Was she hiding something from him? Something about her dreams? She had been sleeping more often because of the energy she had used to heal herself, had she seen something disturbing?
"There's so much more to this, Shuuichi, I'm so confused," she whispered.
"About?"
She moved her hand a bit, allowing his fingers to slip in to a tight hold. Kurama's green eyes moved from her face, to their connected hands, and then back up to the side of her face.
Knock.
Kurama turned his attention to the front door. "Mother won't be arriving for another two hours, who could that be?"
"Yusuke," Mikai answered for him. "I'm sorry, I thought that maybe going out with him would get my head out of all this demon stuff. Would you like to come?"
He shot her a smile and released her hand. "Thank you for the offer, but I'm waiting for my mother to come back. I agree, getting out will be good for you, Mikai."
"Oh, okay."
Together they got up and walked over to the front door where indeed Yusuke stood with a grin on his face. Kurama passed Mikai off, and she promised to be back by eight in time for dinner and clean up of the apartment. They left a few minutes later, and Kurama released a sigh as he leaned against the closed door. Mikai was hiding something, but what?
Perhaps I can talk her in to telling me.
He moved away from the door, and sat back down on the couch, not bothering to change the channel. If anything, the redhead hoped that she wasn't hiding something that would come back to bite the team in the backside when the fight came around. Secrets always came up during a fight, whether the person holding them in wanted to or not, that Kurama had seen too many times first hand.
Please Mikai…if you've got something important in those dreams of yours, tell me.
Hiei jumped from tree to tree, squinting to read the street signs that humans had written out. He just needed to find the right street dammit, why the hell had it taken him an hour to find it? There was no way in hell that he was about to stop and ask where the hell the street he was looking for was.
Why does she have to move every year?
He came to a rather bushy tree just across the street from a massive public library, littered with hundreds of humans moving in and out of the area. Huh, so Spirit World's secret librarian had chosen to rent an apartment across from the human's library? Not the best place for a wanted criminal to hide, but he could care less.
Hopping over to that apartment building across from the library, he entered through an open window on the highest floor and found himself inside of a hallway with crimson colored carpeting and white walls. He walked down the hallway, looking at each door until he came to one with two golden numbers on them that he had been searching for: 'sixty-seven'.
Woman better be home for her sake.
He knocked three times, paused, and then knocked twice. Almost immediately the door swung open, and there stood a young woman clad in a long-sleeved green and white striped shirt, and baggy light brown cargo pants, small knickknacks clinging to her pockets and belt hoops.
"I've been waiting, Hiei," she said in a smooth voice. "I know what you're looking for, I heard Koenma's orders."
"Then let's get this done and over with."
She nodded and stepped to the side so Hiei could enter her decent sized apartment. The minute he entered he could hear the chirping of the damn birds she insisted on having around: parakeets. The smell of bird's feather overrode his sense, and he twitched when he saw one fly across the room. Closing and locking the door behind her, she walked over to the middle of the living room and with the flick of a wrist a deep purple hole appeared on the floor, a set of stairs leading downwards flickering in a moment later.
"Follow me," she said.
He watched for a moment as she descended down the flight of stairs, and made sure that she was indeed going somewhere rather than leading him in to some kind of trap. The young woman's braided light brown pigtails swing from side to side as she took each step, and Hiei rolled his eyes at the sight. Asuka changed her hair style every single day and in the time that he had come to know her he had never seen her repeat a style. How she did it he didn't know, and he didn't care.
"I should be able to find Senkai rather easily, I was looking her up the other day…"
The stairs led to a colossal sized library, wooden bookshelves stretching up two stories, and each shelf filled with books lined side to side. Lights swung overhead, and to his surprise each of the books appeared as if they were great condition, even though most of them were older than him or any of the other people he was grouped with. The smell of ink and old paper filled his nose, overwhelming the sense.
"Here it is."
He turned to the right and watched as Asuka hopped off a ladder that stretched just as tall as the bookcases themselves. Flipping through the pages, Asuka walked over, her green eyes never leaving the book.
"Senkai was an earth demon, with a single sibling; Kubo but you all ready know all that." She waved her right hand, dismissing the known information. "Oh," her eyes widened, "here's something interesting…"
"Hurry up, Asuka."
She looked up from the book, a frown across her lips. "Come to think of it, Hiei, you have not told me what I'm getting out of all of this. You know millions of demons would love to get in to my library, you should consider yourself pretty lucky."
He growled. "Fine just tell me what the book says."
Since when did it become so hard to get information in the human world? Granted he was talking to someone who Spirit World didn't know still existed, someone who had access to billions of books hidden or 'destroyed' by Spirit World, but why did she have to be such a stubborn, cynical woman?
Smirking, Asuka redirected her attention to the book. "Senkai once belonged in Youko Kurama's thieving gang and, according to this, had ties to Yomi, one of the three kings of the Makai at this moment of time."
"What kind of ties?"
Asuka shook her head. "It's not specified. But it says that she died a little over twenty or so years ago, it doesn't say of what, however." She closed the book with a sigh. "Without knowing her death, it is more than possible that she is still alive. This isn't a record, merely notes written down through history of the Makai. But…"
Ugh, her and her buts.
"But?" Hiei urged.
Asuka turned around to face the bookcases, and placed an index finger to her chin. "I do recall seeing something more in-depth about Youko and his team of bandits. I'll search for it, Hiei and get back to you. Is there anything else you need?"
"When we were returning to her apartment from school, she fell asleep and I went to shake her in order to wake her up when I saw her dream."
As the memory came rushing back to him, Hiei crossed his arms. "What do you know about transferring dreams?"
"Like astral projection?"
"Through touch."
She paused for a long moment, and cupped her chin with her right hand as she glanced upwards. "I'm not too sure, but I'll keep a footnote of that while I'm going through the books for Youko and his team. I'm sure I have a book about dreaming somewhere, I'll keep an eye out for it."
Ugh so that meant that he had to come back to this woman? Hiding his disappointment, he whirled and eased himself on to the first step. "You know where I'll be, Asuka when you find in the information."
"By the way…"
Hiei's right foot froze, inches away from the second stair that would led him out of his place. Usually Asuka spat everything out during the visit, had she held back some kind of important information of last or what?
"How is Sotto?"
His twitched at the mention of her name, but rather then turn around and give Asuka the expression she wanted, he continued to walk up the stairs as if she hadn't said anything at all. "Just tell me when you get the information."
Damn Asuka.
