Musings on an attachment
What is it about you that he would give his life for you so many times?
Shiori, asleep in her bed, never noticed the dark form standing outside her window. Her husband was equally unaware.
What do you have? What are you? Why does he care so much?
Still, she slept.
He'd have killed himself, and you wouldn't even have known. Hiei huffed. He's such a damn fool, your son.
You must be some woman for him to do that, he added thoughtfully. I truly hope you don't let him down. Because if you do, he'll……it'll kill him. He loves you so much. Too much, maybe.
I could almost hate you for that. The number of times he's risked his life to keep you safe and keep you happy and insulated from his world. And you don't know. Won't ever know, if he has his way. It's unfair.
What are you that he should love you so much?
'He wants me to meet you,' Hiei said aloud. Safe in the knowledge that he was alone; Kurama's ki was far to the west, near the apartment he was moving to. His old bedroom only contained a pile of neatly packed boxes now. 'Some kind of formal introduction. I don't know why.'
He trailed off. As a matter of fact, he did know. Nobody knew about them, except for Mukuro and her interfering busybody spy network. (And after their last screaming match about the issue after he'd visited with Kurama, she'd withdrawn her watch as well. Hiei was still checking for them, though.) And he had no doubts that Kurama wouldn't have told anyone. In some ways, the fox was far more secretive than he was.
It stood to reason that if Mukuro knew, then Kurama would want Shiori to know as well. And he would certainly bring up Mukuro's name if Hiei tried to object, so he'd simply given in.
Not that Kurama would allow one bit of information to get to Shiori unless he knew and approved.
Sometimes, Hiei wondered who was the parent in that relationship.
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There were three cartons of chocolate-chip ice-cream in the freezer; one half-empty, the others full.
And nobody in her house liked chocolate-chip ice-cream.
Shiori sighed.
So he was back. Again.
She'd never quite approved of her son's friends. Well, most of them. That Kuwabara was nice, very polite and sweet even if he had an……unsavoury reputation. Urameshi she wasn't so sure of, but Shuuichi seemed to like him very much, and so she didn't object. But Hiei, he troubled her.
Maybe it was just that unlike the others, he seemed to dislike her, seemed almost afraid of her; for heaven's sake, he didn't even use the door to come in like normal people did. He'd been in and out of her son's life since he was twelve, but she'd only seen him a few times. It disturbed her that she knew so little about him.
It wasn't surprising, though. After all, she didn't know her own son too well, either.
Shuuichi wasn't as good at hiding as he thought he was. Shiori was an expert seamstress, she knew how many times he'd repaired his school uniform. Then there were all those 'school holidays'; Meiou didn't even hold any martial arts training camps, but Shuuichi didn't know that she knew that.
And bloodstains didn't wash well from his clothing.
She was fairly certain that Shuuichi's friends, as nice as they seemed, were also involved with whatever her son wasn't telling her about. And so was Hiei.
Hiei. He was an unseen fifth member of her family, and Shuuichi had taken care to keep it that way. She'd respected his space in that. But it was hard to think that a friend he'd had for more than a decade was almost a perfect stranger to her. To think that someone he cared about so much was hidden from her as if she were unworthy of him.
Even if she rarely saw Hiei, reminders of him haunted her. Her son, carrying an unfamiliar black cloak to his room with the rest of his washed laundry – nonchalant, as if he'd done it for years (and he probably had). Ever-multiplying cartons of ice-cream that appeared and vanished, and she'd know that he was here again, and seeing the freezer empty and know that he was gone. Finding the window unlocked even in the dead of winter, the gaps filled with scarves and mufflers while Shuuichi wore long sleeves and high collars to make up for the cold. Meals for two carried up to his room, dishes washed neatly and replaced before she woke in the morning. Most of the time, it was quiet, calm, and she knew that even though he was there, neither of them felt any need to talk. Sometimes, those voices were raised in anger. Other times, quiet voices talking and laughing as she tiptoed past his room on the way to her own – a different kind of laughter than the one she shared with him, cold and mocking sometimes, and warm and playful at others.
Shuuichi was never cold around her, though she knew he could be. She'd seen his eyes the day her husband died, while he calmly took care of the funeral, the relatives, the paperwork and the house and allowed her to mourn in the privacy she'd needed. At the time, drowning in grief, she'd barely noticed, but now it was unmistakable. What she'd seen that day, in a child barely ten years old, was icy calculation and a fierce kind of protectiveness. Cold, cold like ice – but she'd never seen that for herself, never seen that ice turn to her, even when she was probably deserving of it. Had never seen him be anything less than the perfect son.
And that perfection was a lie.
Whatever her son was, he obviously didn't trust her with the whole of himself. And she knew, in her most honest moments, that if her suspicions were true, then she might not be capable of giving him all the understanding and love he might need, even if she gave him all she could give.
Better to be like this. Better to give him all the care and affection she could, even if what she received in return was dishonesty, an act that in its very flawlessness mocked the sincerity it was meant to convey. Better to remain silent, because somewhere in that scarred, hardened and beautiful soul she knew there was love for her. He did love her; even if he'd never actually told her that, it screamed through his eyes when he thought she wasn't looking – need and desperation and love all mixed up, so violent, so complete, she almost couldn't bear it. Better to trust that he knew what he wanted, and to be what she could for him – be what he wanted her to be – a gentle, trusting loving mother who stood back and let him hide and dodge and lie and love her from afar with a desperate kind of devotion, as if she'd break if he ever confided in her, if he dared to approach her.
If that was all he wanted, that was all she would give – no questions, no investigations. It had taken her a long time to get to that point, but she knew it by now. What he was, he was. Her only choice was whether to accept it (accept him) or not. And she loved him too much to not.
A small meeting, he'd said almost apologetically. Just the three of us, maybe? I invited Hiei over as well. I'd like you two to know each other better.
So it had finally happened – whatever they'd been dancing around for so long had been resolved. She had no doubt that her son truly wanted her to understand his friend – she had even less doubt that while any objections she could raise about the two of them would wound Shuuichi deeply, they wouldn't stop him from doing what he wanted. He'd always been the most wilful person she knew.
Their lives were so full of secrets – words unspoken, questions left unasked, ignored and unanswered. Those secrets formed a physical barrier between them, one she knew it was not her place to break down. That was for Shuuichi to do, if he ever decided to. But Hiei – he was a key to understanding that mysterious other side of her son, and if this acceptance was what that understanding required, then so be it.
And so she found herself agreeing, with something strangely like hope in her forlorn heart.
A/N: So this is my interpretation of Shiori. Shiori, who is neither a beacon of light in her lonely son's life or a fount of wisdom on tolerance, acceptance and the cuteness of Hiei and Kurama together, but simply a person, with warts, insecurities, real emotions and fears. I don't see her as the perfect mother, because Kurama won't let her be – and I don't see him as the perfect son, because he lies too much, to be brutally honest. As much as theirs appears to be the perfect relationship, it's anything but.
