A/N: I have NO idea where this one came from. It was supposed to be a stand-alone, but I felt it would work here. Enjoy.
Explaining Hiei
It was all their biology sub's fault, Kurama mused. He was the one who'd decided that since their teacher had taken a month off to heal a broken bone, he needed to spend the time teaching them to love Nature and be environmentally conscious citizens. And one of the school trips he had arranged just had to be the forest where Hiei usually hung out when he was Being Gloomy and wanted to be Left Alone. Hiei's moods tended to inspire capital letters.
It was with a certain amount of apprehension that he felt his biology sub – he wasn't a youkai, but if Kurama had been a normal human being, he would have suspected some supernatural instinct at work – guide them unerringly to where he could sense Hiei's aura emitting strong vibes of 'I'm Asleep, and the Person to Wake Me Had Better Make Arrangements With Koenma Beforehand.'
Hiei slept rarely, but deeply, and he generally didn't bother to wake himself unless he sensed a demon aura. And since he was quite blasé about dropping off in Kurama's window ledge or, more rarely, on his bed (in addition to falling asleep quite coolly every time he used his dragon) he didn't really mind the redhead's presence. It did tend to wake him, though.
When he dropped from the branch of a tree right into the middle of Kurama's little group of adoring fangirls and idolisers, the fox wasn't surprised. Dismayed, annoyed, but not surprised. After all, life was a series of catastrophes. The only solution: Play it quick, play it easy. This was probably Hiei's revenge for being interrupted in his slumber: refined torture of Minamino Shuuichi, aka Youko Kurama.
The students around him had all fallen very very quiet and were staring at the apparition in front of them, complete with strange clothing, headband (at least the jagan wasn't open. A wide, blinking third eye in the forehead usually inspired screams) and sword (which looked unpleasantly real, pointy and sharp). One girl gave a little gasp and nearly fainted.
'Hiei, hi!' Kurama said cheerily, hoping to all the gods that Hiei would use his human name, and trying not to cringe at how odd the jaganshi's name must sound to the others.
No such luck. 'Kurama,' Hiei grunted. 'What the hell are these idiots doing here with you?'
Play it easy, fox. You've gotten out of stickier messes than this one. 'Why, what do you expect? I'm on a school trip,' he smiled. Green eyes narrowed dangerously behind a wide, innocent smile that would have made the most suspicious policeman say oh no, the bloody knife was just a coincidence; this boy couldn't harm a flea. There was a promise of death in those eyes. Hiei's, to be specific.
'School trip?' Oh, you mean that stupid human thing you go to. Ch. What a waste of time.'
Really going to kill him. With death flowers, or something more painful that he would come up with once his poor short-circuited brain kick-started. How was he supposed to respond?
Luckily, Hiei didn't give him the chance. 'Pah. I'll be by your room later.' And with that final devastatingly incriminating statement, he walked leisurely away. Even though most of the students were twice his size, they all made way for him. Something about him just seemed to require it. The deathly silence lasted for as long as Hiei was in sight.
The minute he disappeared, though, the questions started.
'Who the heck was that?' from their biology sub. 'Doesn't he go to school?'
'How do you know him?' from Yomiko, who had been chasing him determinedly from sixth grade.
'What did he call you?' someone else asked.
'Was that a real sword?' from one of the video-game freaks from class 3.
'……wait a minute. Your room?' they all chorused.
Oh, Inari. Kill me now. Nothing spectacular, just a bolt of lightning or an unexplained fissure in the earth.
Dimly, he could sense Hiei's aura drawing closer to him. The bloody imp settled on the same tree he had been on, and Kurama could just bet that he was waiting to see how the fox would dig himself out of this trap. He was probably laughing, Kurama thought bitterly.
Well, two could play at the game.
The nature trip was completely forgotten. Those who hadn't actually heard Hiei had seen him, and now the entire group of about fifty was gathered around him, expecting some juicy revelation about the student who was simply too good to be true.
'Hiei is……' Kurama started and let the suspense build. It looked like he was drawing it out, but that was all the time he needed to come up with a plausible response. 'A friend of mine I met online. He's wearing an RPG costume.'
'A what?' said the biology sub, thereby proving that he was not only a moron but culturally outdated.
'An RPG. A role-playing game. Except that we don't play it on a computer.' Kurama smiled, the story clicking into place now that the base lie was established. Now to pile truth upon truth on it. 'We met when I was twelve or so in a chat room, and we started playing as a team soon after that. There are more than ten of us who play it now. We have a club and all.' A temple, not a club, but it worked, right?
'He has a sword,' the video-game freak insisted stubbornly. Kurama wondered if he had a thing for phallic symbols.
'Yeah, he's really weird,' Kurama said with some relish. 'He insists on wearing his costume all the time, and I have to call him by his character's name. And he keeps calling me by mine.'
'Doesn't sound like he has much of a life,' Yomiko commented. 'Freak.' Above her, Hiei's aura turned several colours in rapid succession.
'No, he doesn't,' Kurama agreed, all pious compassion.
'So what is this RPG anyway?' the video-game freak asked. Kurama tried to remember his name and failed miserably. Oh, well. 'It must be pretty weird if the costumes are this bad.'
Pure outrage filtered through the branches to Kurama's invisible antennae. The devil that had been the cause of several – okay, most – of Youko's more infamous escapades looked around and squealed gleefully before coming up with a brilliant plan and nudging Kurama in the side and leering, "Hey, what about it?" the fox, who had believed that the best thing to do to temptation was to give in to it several centuries before Oscar Wilde had made the same statement, accepted. 'It's called Spirit Detectives,' Kurama said. Above him, Hiei made a noise of sheer disbelief, audible only to Kurama's ears.
'Spirit Detectives,' murmured through the group. Several seemed satisfied with that and drifted away to more interesting pastures. The few who remained – fangirls, mostly, although the sub hadn't given up either – looked at him with question marks in their eyes. Kurama continued, rather beginning to enjoy himself. 'Yeah. Hiei's this ex-crook demon who got caught because he slipped up on a job, and now he has to help the Spirit Detectives with their investigations of demon activity in the human world. Which doesn't make him happy, but unless he does it he won't get pardoned.' Kurama carefully didn't think about or look towards the tree. He had a bit of a hunch that he would end up a small pile of ashes if he did.
'And what's your character, Shuu-chan?' Rika cooed. Kurama, who was in some ways even touchier than Hiei about personal space and courtesy and who strongly objected to being called Shuu-chan, restrained several of his baser, more psychotic instincts and turned to her with a sweet smile.
'I'm Hiei's partner, of course,' he said, and watched wheels turn visibly in her otherwise empty head as she wondered about all the implications in that statement. Above him, seething rage had subsided. Slightly. And there was curiosity there. 'I was with him on the job where he got caught. I was actually a famous demon thief once, a fox spirit who went by the name of Youko Kurama. He died, and was reincarnated as me, but with most of his powers and all his memories. We work with the other two Spirit Detectives now, although,' he added, because Kurama had always been suicidal that way, 'I must say that my character has more grace in adversity than he does.' Kurama was really getting into this now.
'Oh, that kind of partner,' Rika said with some relief. She was cooing again. The woman was pigeon-brained.
Kurama winced. There was no answer to that question that would work. The aura above him had gone absolutely blank, and he could only guess whether it was shock or control. 'Our relationship is strictly work-based,' he said, and that was the truth, because he had never had the courage to put the moves on Hiei and he certainly hadn't tried either, although there were some moments when he saw Hiei watching him and he could swear that there was something in those red, red eyes……
'Fox spirit!' Yomiko crowed, jolting him neatly out of his thoughts. 'So that's why you've dyed your hair that ridiculous shade of red! Man, you really take this so seriously!'
'Err,' said Kurama, who had always loved his hair. The devil nudged him again, and, 'My real hair colour's quite different, you know,' he offered, since it was the safest option. Silver hair. Youko.
'Oh, I knew,' Rika said smugly, and he really did have a lot of self-control, because he wasn't laughing at all, not a bit. And neither was Hiei, but had he heard a choked snort?
Kurama shrugged. In for a penny…… 'You could say it's almost life and death for us. It's a very exclusive game, you see, and it's very absorbing. It takes up a lot of time and energy.'
'Doesn't he go to school?' the sub asked again.
'Well, he graduated early,' Kurama shrugged. 'He's kind of shrimpy, but don't let that fool you. He's older than he looks.' He could almost see the smoke now……there, one fox, deep-fried in his own juice, take it to table 43 please and serve it to the guy with the spiky starburst hair.
Luckily, before his inner masochist could get him in any further trouble with Hiei, the group lost interest and dispersed. Kurama sighed, covered his face with his hands and repressed another strong urge to giggle helplessly.
Hiei was dreadfully predictable, especially to those who knew him well – Kurama was on a short list of about three people. So he walked a short distance away from the others and waited.
Soon enough, Hiei dropped out of the branches and glared at him, arms folded across his chest. 'A shrimp, fox?' he inquired icily.
Kurama arched a red eyebrow at him in a look that said silently – you asked for it.
'Still, you didn't have to turn me into a……whatever it was.'
Kurama reflected, not for the first time, that Hiei's lack of knowledge of human technology was a good thing. 'Oh, but it was such fun,' he said and resisted the urge to bat his eyelashes insincerely. 'And you have to admit that I was as truthful as I could be under the circumstances.'
Hiei nearly choked. 'Truthful? You……' he struggled visibly for words and then gave up. Had he been anyone else he would have thrown his hands in the air.
'And you have to admit,' said Kurama solemnly, 'that this really isn't my actual hair colour.' And then it spilled out – not his usual laughter or Youko's smirk, but embarrassingly impolite chuckles and guffaws, interspersed with snorts. Hiei watched him with the What the Hell is Happening look that he usually reserved for some of Kuwabara's more outlandish antics.
'I give up,' he announced finally.
'Well, there is a good side to it,' Kurama said. 'At least you won't get in too much trouble if you're seen around my school. By this evening, this news is going to be all over the school. And most of Tokyo, perhaps. Which should give Yusuke some laughs, at least.'
A silence fell.
'What I said about being your partner,' Kurama said in a sudden rush, and then stopped as Hiei held up a hand.
'I'm not bothered, fox.' The jaganshi looked away. 'I know you didn't mean it to sound that way.'
Oh, but I did, Kurama wanted to say. Even if it was just wishful thinking. But the words stuck in his throat, along with the fifteen hundred or so other opportunities he'd had to tell Hiei and had chickened out. So he turned his eyes away as well. 'Yeah,' he forced out. 'Didn't mean for it to……'
Another silence. They had the rare gift of being able to exist in companionable quiet, but this was deep and depressingly uncomfortable. Both hated it.
'Ah,' said Hiei finally. 'Well.'
'Yeah,' the fox said, and they both jammed their hands into their pockets and stared off into the middle distance.
'Well,' Hiei said again. He seemed to be quite enamoured of that word recently.
'Would it be so bad?' Kurama asked suddenly. 'If I had meant it.' He carefully avoided Hiei's eyes, which had whipped around to stare at him in pure shock.
He waited for an answer. And waited. And waited. Realising belatedly that silence was his answer, he turned away fully and began to walk back to the others. 'Kurama,' Hiei said in a perfectly emotionless voice. He stopped, but didn't turn to look. 'Leave your window open.'
He didn't feel relief, or hope, or happiness. Those were extreme emotions, not at all suited to the tenuous hold that Hiei had extended towards him. There was a……lack of emptiness……somewhere in him, and that was all. It would do for now – this was not the place or time to be talking about this. The fox nodded once and kept walking.
Hiei flitted away.
Kurama relaxed.
Things were looking up, oh yes they were.
