Assuming everyone reading this has taken at least a middle school English class and thus has some knowledge of basic literary terms, we have left what I believe is called the exposition--the setting of the background and introduction of the main characters--the single digit chapters. Now we're entering the rising action--the double digit chapters, where we'll start to see more action, of various types … Not so much in this chapter, but we're getting there.

Jagamino
Chapter 10
August 14, 2006
Revised March 3, 2007

"We're sure this is the real Kuronue this time, right?" Yusuke pressed.

"It would be convenient were he merely a puppet or another shape-shifter," Kurama admitted. "However, this Kuronue is most assuredly real, and unfortunately, so is his story."

"Terrific," the brunette grumbled.

Suddenly Kuwabara began to laugh. "What is it?" Kurama asked.

"I know what happened to the boundary isn't good news, but at least now I know why Eikichi is still hanging around the house. I thought I was going weird from grief-." He broke off and looked away from the Fox. "Um, never mind."

His sudden discomfort was not lost on Kurama. "You thought I went weird?" the redhead asked, startled.

"Uh …" Kuwabara scratched at the stubble of his beard apprehensively. "Well, I guess a lot of things were happening, um …"

"Quit your rambling," Hiei sneered. "It's foolish."

"Hey!" the "fool" protested.

"How are things going with the kids?" Keiko asked. Hiei snorted. "Um … What does that mean?"

"It's complicated," Kurama explained. "It's difficult to think of us as parents and them as offspring; we only look a few years apart."

"Well, that's not unusual for demons, right?" Kuwabara reasoned.

"No," he admitted. "However--"

Hiei finished his sentence for him. "They're not from the Demon World. They were brought up in the Human World, by humans, and they're bound to view this from a human perspective.

"They're still your children," Keiko objected.

"He … never said it was a bad thing," Kurama said, mildly baffled at her reaction.

"Per se," Hiei grumbled. He narrowed his eyes in confusion. "But why do you care? They're not your children."

"Ahaha," Yusuke laughed weakly. "Do you think we could go see Kuronue?" he asked hastily, wanting to see the conversation pursue a different direction--any direction.

"I hope you caught whatever I had," Kenji said.

Takashi opened another salt packet and poured it over his fish. "Come on, Kenji, where's that Christian love?" he asked casually.

"Fresh out," the blue-haired boy retorted. "Since I just got over being sick--which you were oh so compassionate about--I'm concentrating on loving myself."

Snickering erupted amongst the others. "Good exercise for the right hand," Rikou commented, dabbing her mouth with a napkin to conceal a widening smirk. Kenji glared at her. "Sorry--I forgot you're a lefty."

Tohru busted up laughing, trying not to choke on his food but at the same time not send it flying across the table. He managed to calm himself, and then said to Takashi, "I might not be a doctor or anything, Flamer--hell, I don't even remember the last time I was at the doctor's office--but if your stomach is bothering you, stuffing yourself with salty food isn't going to help it." He grinned. "Besides, if you keep it up, you're going to get fat, and then you'll have to be on bottom every time--unless you want to crush Purple Pride over there during your lovemaking."

"Shut up and eat your fish!" "Purple Pride" snapped.

Their bickering went unacknowledged by Takashi, who wolfed down the rest of his meal, and glanced hopefully at Kenji's tray. "Are you going to …?"

Kenji sighed. "You know, gluttony's a sin," he muttered, though he surrendered his potato chips all the same. "Just, please lighten up on the sodium after this."

"Aw, you do care!" the redhead exclaimed, popping a handful of chips into his mouth. He tensed a little as the dull ache in his abdomen suddenly inflamed. It lasted longer every time, he noticed. Yet, it was not his stomach, which to his annoyance would not be satisfied at all today, continuing to growl hungrily. "Hey, Rikou," he said. "Are you going to …?"

"What does she look like?" Kuronue repeated, unsure he had heard correctly.

"Yeah," Yusuke said impatiently. "What does Ukime look like?"

The Bat thought about it for a moment. "Her skin had a bluish tint to it," he said slowly. "I think. Her hair might have been black."

"How precise," Hiei said sarcastically.

Kuronue gave him an agitated look. "I had a ten-second interval, at most, between when I laid hands on the mirror and when an angry mob chased after me--needless to say, I was distracted." He knotted his brows. "… There was a discoloration on her face," he added. "The entire right side looked darker."

"That ought to be helpful," Kuwabara said. His cell phone rang, making Kuronue flinch. "Um, sorry," he said, stepping outside.

Kuronue stared after him. "What the hell was that?" he demanded.

"A human," Hiei replied. "Supposedly the most intelligent of the primates. Supposedly being the key word."

"Actually, I meant the--"

"A cellular phone," Kurama told him. "It's a type of communication device."

He lay back down, shaking his head and muttering something about it being a "mad, mad world."

"And the Makai is sane … how, exactly?" Yusuke inquired.

"Hm …" Kuronue contemplated it for a moment, as Yusuke made a valid point. "It's not," he concluded. "But it's a different sort of insanity. Cursed objects and youki and the like--not 'devices' or whatever."

Kurama coughed. "If you will recall, the Makai has plenty of 'devices' now."

The reference to the laboratory resulted in a dry laugh from Kuronue. "I've been gone a long while," the Bat muttered, blowing a stray piece of hair out of his face, glaring at it as it rose only to land across his nose.

Kurama smiled and smoothed it back. His fingers lingered a little, playing with the ebony strands--resulting in an eye-rolling Hiei and a perplexed Yusuke, who only partially noticed when Kuwabara came back inside. "Um … What was that about?" Yusuke asked, distractedly.

"Oh, Yukina wants me to …" He trailed off, casting Fox and Bat a mildly befuddled look. "… Pick up some ice cream before I go back to the shelter. It seems that Takashi ate all of what was in the kitchen." Even as he said it he looked a little bewildered. "If I remember right," he said, eyeing Hiei and Kurama, "you two were light eaters. So how did you turn out a bottomless pit?"

"We didn't raise him," Hiei replied.

"Hey, you can't blame that on a human upbringing," Kuwabara shot back. "Humans don't threaten to wage war over food."

Hiei arched an eyebrow. "Demons don't have annual gluttony contests or obesity epidemics."

"At least we don't have annual death matches in a ring!"

"Um … Does the movie Gladiator ring a bell?" Kurama asked diffidently.

His comment was ignored. "Right, you Ningens are so more advanced," Hiei said sardonically. "You've achieved the fighting extreme: Two red-faced men in spandex, screaming like pterodactyls and pretending to hurt each other!"

Yusuke exchanged a look with Kurama. "When has Hiei ever watched WWE?" The Fox shrugged.

"I'm confused," Kuronue said. "What does any of this have to do with your son?"

"… Absolutely nothing," Kurama answered, shaking his head while the other two continued exchanging racial insults.

"I … think you overdid it a little," Rikou said.

"A little?" Kenji scoffed. "Takashi was like a swarm of locusts."

"Takashi can hear you," said the boy of that name. He lay curled in a ball on Tohru's couch--which for whatever reason was situated on the Yamamotos' front porch--a queasy look on his face.

"Takashi sure as hell better not heave on Tohru's couch," the aforementioned Yamamoto said. "Or Tohru is not going to be pleased."

"Everyone had better quit referring to themselves in the third person," Kenji grumbled.

"And what if Tohru doesn't?" Kenji glowered at him. "Purple Pride doesn't scare Tohru."

"Do not call me that!"

Tohru shrugged. "Okay …" He eyed Kenji's current hair color. "Little Boy Blue," he concluded hastily, jumping off the porch and running, followed by an incensed Kenji.

"Adrenaline's an amazing thing," Rikou remarked. "He almost runs as fast as you do, Takashi." Her brother groaned in reply. "You know, it's a little hard to feel sorry for you," she told him. "You kind of brought it upon yourself."

"My stomach does not hurt," Takashi growled.

"What? Then why do you look like you're in pain?"

He propped himself up on one elbow. "Something hurts, but it's not my stomach. I don't know what it is."

Tohru shot past the siblings, jumped on the porch railing, and scrambled onto the roof. A moment later, Kenji sprinted into view, looking a little winded. "Get down here!" he demanded.

"Make me!"

"Oh, that's real mature!"

"Ow!" Takashi yelped, bolting upright, clutching his abdomen tightly.

The blue-haired boy paused in his spat with Tohru and studied Takashi. "Are you okay?"

"Um …" He took a few deep breaths. "I don't know."

Shiori knocked on the door, but received no answer. Quietly, she went inside. She had been doing laundry. Though she had kept Shuichi's clothes, and they fit perfectly, but Hiei was still wanting. She had located some of the younger Shuichi's and Takashi's clothes, which should fit the Jaganshi.

She found the pair in bed, napping. They had discarded all the bedding save a sheet, as it was warm outside, and lay closely entwined. Shuichi was shirtless.

It bothered her a little. She didn't mind the two of them sleeping together—more than that had produced the pair down the hall—but … Hiei had no longer been in the picture when Shiori had found out about him and her son. Shuichi had been all hrs, just as he always had. Now, though, she couldn't seem to find him without Hiei at his heels. And Hiei wasn't the most approachable person in the world.

"Do you often watch him like this?"

The sudden breach of silence made her jump. A pair of shining garnet eyes stared at her. "What?"

"Looking in on him while he's asleep."

"… He's my child," Shiori reasoned. "I'm sure that if you had raised them, you would look in on Rikou and Takashi." Immediately, realizing what she'd just said, she froze, and gave him an apologetic look.

Hiei looked back through narrowed eyes, though he might have been contemplative versus spurned. "Hn," he muttered, lying back down. He closed his eyes while Shiori deposited the laundry on the dresser.

"What about what you used to do with Yukina?" Kurama murmured sleepily after the door closed again.

He shrugged. "I suppose … I no longer need to do that," he said, stretching out. "Kuwabara, I'm sure, takes care of her."

Kurama laughed a little. "You just don't want to happen upon the two of them—"

"Shut it," Hiei growled.

"You know, when I said maybe you should go home and lie down, I didn't mean go to my home and lie down on my bed," Kenji grumbled.

Takashi stretched out, kneading his belly. "But Kenji dearest, your home is my home away from home, and since currently my home is to say the least crowded, it's only logical that I instead come here."

"Your house is not crowded at the moment," Kenji argued. "Rikou said you could have her bed."

"True, but that would mean being alone in her room with her 'pet.'"

Kenji shuddered. "Oh, yeah." He had forgotten about the "pet."

"Yeah--And that 'pet' has disliked me since the day it was germinated. Thus, you see why your bed is the best option."

The blue-haired boy snorted. "That sounds so wrong."

"Oh, but you look so right!" Takashi exclaimed, rolling onto his side, giving Kenji and mock-sly look.

"Knock it off."

"Knock what off?"

"That bedroom eyes stare thing."

Takashi laughed, and then made an uncomfortable sound as his abdomen protested. "Don't flatter yourself, Purple Pride. I could get any guy I wanted; why should I settle for you?"

"Have you been taking arrogance lessons from Tohru?" Kenji muttered. "… You really are gay, aren't you?"

"Gay?" The redhead looked thoughtful. "Well … My family doesn't exactly label things in that fashion, but I guess you could say that."

"You guess?" Kenji said skeptically.

"Yeah, I guess. It's not some easy black-and-white subject. If you want to make it easier to fathom, you can call me bi. But why are you so fascinated all of a sudden?"

Kenji's eyes drifted back to his math homework. "No reason," he said.

The Jagamino's lips twitched ever so slightly, his eyes narrowed in such a way, giving him an inquisitive look. "Unless … You're struggling with some big question about yourself."

"Shut up," Kenji growled irritably. "I'm not gay."

"That's cool," Takashi replied, sitting up, wincing as he did. "But you know, any person I've met who was totally comfortable with whatever they were, didn't have to insist a dozen times a day that they were or weren't this or that." Kenji gave him a withering look. "Hey, I'm just saying," he defended, holding up his hands.

"Go home, Jagamino," the blue-haired boy said wearily.

Takashi shrugged, got to his feet, and giving Kenji an almost pitying look, staggered out the door.