If Kurama's room in Genkai's shrine was a perfect representation of the exterior he presented as Shuichi Minamino, then the bedroom in his apartment was a literal embodiment of the soul Michi had come to know as Kurama.
A wide window formed the wall to the right of the door, but she could barely glimpse its sweeping glass panes through the veritable jungle growing along it. With meticulous care, a series of finely crafted bamboo shelves had been arranged in front the window, allowing for dozens of plants in all manner of pots to rest before the glass. During the day, Michi imagined that window must cast a swathe of afternoon sunlight over the entire room, but right now, as she slipped across the threshold, moonlight spilled through the glass instead, limning the plants in silver. The effect was almost magical, as if tiny faeries flitted about the petals of the blooming flowers, leaving behind trails of ethereal dust.
Then again, maybe there was magic in these plants.
She couldn't put it past him.
Opposite the window, Kurama's bed sat nestled against another series of shelves, but unlike their plant-bearing brethren, these cases were home to dozens—if not hundreds—of books. She recognized a mere handful: a few literary classics nearest the ceiling and some favorites of her childhood clustered on the shelf closest to the head of the bed.
Most, however, were mysteries to her. A few struck her as textbooks or gardening guides or other Human World teaching materials, but the vast majority would never be found in Mushiyori University's campus library. They were leather-bound and ancient, with titles scrawled across bindings in languages that meant nothing to her.
Without thinking, she moved deeper into the room. Soft as a whisper, the door shut beneath Kurama's steady hand, and she glanced back at him for only a second before leaning closer to the shelves and running a palm over one gilded spine.
The book's craftsmanship left her awestruck. Half-expecting him to scold her about keeping her dirty, oily hands off his precious texts, she pulled the tome from the shelf, then cradled it in one arm as she flipped through the pages. "These are from Demon World?"
"In part."
She turned back to him, looking up from the indecipherable characters on the title page in time to see him shrugging out of his black sweater with the easy fluidity so innate to all his movements. Beneath, he wore only a white undershirt tucked into his dark wash jeans, and her heart stuttered as she dropped her eyes back to the book.
"And the rest?" she asked.
"Spirit World. A few even from here in Human World, though written by psychics or demons so long past that their exact origin is untraceable."
She whistled softly, tracing a thumb over the gorgeous typeset looping across the pages of the book she'd chosen. "How'd you get your hands on all these?"
Stepping close enough to read over her shoulder, Kurama chuckled, and the hum of it crackled like electricity up her arm. His Loom hovered at the edge of her sight, flooded with contented blues. "It's late, Michi. What happened to sleep?"
"Humor my curiosities."
A burble of amethyst flickered amongst his aquamarine happiness, not nearly as dark as the indigo she'd glimpsed in the living room, but a reminder that it had been there, that stunning shade caught somewhere between blue and violet. Love. The color of love.
What an impossible thought.
"I've acquired them in my years here in Human World. More frequently in the last few than in my adolescence." He lifted the book from her hands and flipped it closed to study the cover. "It's been a matter of diligence, some curiosity of my own, and a few sticky fingers."
"You stole them?"
"Not all. And not outright." Lips twisting into a wry smile, he returned the tome to its home upon the shelf. "I merely rescued a few from owners who couldn't appreciate their merit."
Michi muffled a laugh against her wrist. "Ah, yes. All rescue missions, I'm sure."
"Have I done something to suggest I'm anything other than an upstanding citizen?"
"I don't think you want me to answer that."
Amusement and flirtation tangled in a kaleidoscope of washed-out color across his threads, and Michi realized with a start that, at some point, recognizing his faded shades and translating them to her more traditional understanding of Looms had become so second nature it rarely even tripped her up anymore. It was just another way she'd grown to know him. Little different from remembering his birthday or differentiating between his lexicon of smiles.
And suddenly, before she'd even processed the words, she said, "I know Yusuke was just giving us a hard time before, but I really mean it: I don't want you to sleep on the couch."
At once, he went still, frozen but for the barest tilting of his head. "Apologies for the pedantry, but you don't want me to sleep on the couch? Or you want me to sleep here?"
A blush scorched in her cheeks, and she peeked at his bed, unable to stifle thoughts of the chaste night he'd slept in her apartment so long ago. She wasn't sure she wanted it to be so chaste anymore. "Can't it be both?"
His gaze roved away from her, peering through the leafy wall of greenery to the skyline beyond the window. "What you said earlier… Does that mean you've decided? About—" He cut himself off abruptly and spread his palms, the gesture helpless and uncertain and so completely outside his norm that she ached to stop him from ever feeling so unsure of himself ever again.
"About us?" she finished for him. "Yeah, I think I have."
As soon as the words left her lips, a memory of Genkai rose in her mind. From that night at the shrine when Michi had learned who Shuichi truly was. But the moment she recalled had come before Kurama's arrival, before the instant when her life veered forever onto a new course—or, at least, a course she hadn't realized it had already been set on.
The memory was clear as crystal, and it brought her straight back to Taki's bedroom, to the terrible instant when she'd looked in on him and discovered his Loom had gone brittle and hard, his threads painful in their wrongness. Genkai had asked if he was a threat, and when she'd responded with thoughts instead of promises, the woman's answer had been as cutting as it was true.
Thinking and knowing are different beasts.
Yet here she was again, hedging her bets. Softening her words out of fear. Because she was scared—oh so very scared—of getting hurt again.
But if she'd actually decided, if she'd actually chosen, then it was no more fair to her than it was to Kurama to offer half-truths.
"Can I correct that statement?"
A crease crinkled his nose as a cord of forest green fear coalesced amongst his threads. Nevertheless, he nodded, forcing a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Of course, Michi."
"I don't 'think' I've decided anything," she said, easing closer to him. He watched her warily, soaking in her every movement, every tiny shift of her body, and for perhaps the first time ever, Michi got the distinct sense he was not the predator and she was not the prey. "I have decided. Honestly, I'd made this choice a long time ago. It just took me awhile to say it."
A flash of indigo shimmered through his Loom.
She snagged his hand in hers, looping her pointer finger through the crease of his palm and tugging until the distance between them disappeared. "So stay, Kurama—but only if you want to."
The indigo spread, spilling across his threads in billowing loops, and as his free hand rose, fingers stroking over the blush still burning in her cheeks, she knew what was coming—knew it and welcomed it. Buoyed by that flush of impossible color, she rocked onto the balls of her feet, rising to meet him, her lips finding his as her eyes fluttered shut.
It wasn't a verbal answer, and yet it said so much more than words ever could. His lips over hers, his fingers tangling in her hair, his Loom painted across the back of her eyelids in shades of not just indigo but imperial purple, too—all clamoring against her senses, confirming that this was here and now and real, as real as anything could ever hope to be.
She needed it. She needed him. And oh goodness, how she'd missed him.
More than that, even without his Loom, even if she hadn't possessed her territory, she'd have known he'd missed her, too. That truth seeped from his every gesture, from every press of his lips, every sweep of his tongue, every soft hum of her name.
He'd missed her—and he needed her, just as much as she needed him.
In the end, it was Michi who wanted more first. Electricity fizzing in her veins, she unclasped their hands and reached up to cup his jaw. She pressed closer, leaning into the strength of him as his newly freed hand glided beneath the loose of hem of her sweatshirt and curved along her waist.
Kissing him now was different than before.
He was Shuichi, but he also wasn't, and that truth had never been more apparent than it was then. Shuichi had always been graceful, seemingly effortlessly so. But in kissing Kurama when he no longer sought to hide bits of himself, she realized all the feigned humanity that had lived in the version of him she knew as Shuichi.
With Shuichi, there'd been the occasional collision of noses, infrequent failures to predict one another, awkward incidences of knocked limbs or unintentional separation. He'd been confident, smooth and graceful, but even still, not without failings.
Now, though?
There was none of that. In dropping his human act, he'd stopped pretending he couldn't read her body, that he couldn't predict her movements with preternatural ease. He reacted to her before she'd even realized her next intention herself, and it became too easy to lose track of which choices were hers and which were his—and easier still to forget where the divide between them had once fallen.
But then, he wasn't the only one who'd changed.
She was different, too.
She understood him in ways she hadn't as Shuichi. His scars. His callouses. His hidden muscles. Kissing him wasn't like kissing a human, because he was not a human.
But he was Kurama.
Her Kurama.
It was only when the back of her calves bumped against his mattress that they broke apart. He'd left her breathless, her sweatshirt's hem askew atop her hips. Physically, he was hardly ruffled, almost criminally put together, but that was just another mask. It couldn't hide the smoky desire clouding his eyes or the riot of imperial purple that had dyed his Loom dark as a plum, and as he dragged his thumb gently along the swell of her bottom lip, she let her eyes flutter shut again, content to float amongst his sea of purple.
"Michi," he murmured, breath ghosting over the shell of her ear.
A million meanings hung in those two measly syllables, but right then, clinging to him, her heart racing against her breastbone, she wasn't ready to confront anything more than the most immediate interpretation. Clumsy, fumbling from the thrill of his proximity, she pushed her hair behind her ears and whispered against his throat. "Have anything I can wear for pajamas?"
The laugh that thrummed through him in answer set her toes curling against the hardwood floor. "I'm afraid I lack a stash of my cousin's clothing to offer, but you're welcome to anything of mine."
A flick of his wrist drew her attention to his dresser and closet, and as he pulled away from her, intent on delivering the promised pajamas, she sank onto the edge of the bed, giving up on maintaining her unsteady footing. She couldn't look away from him as he worked, opening drawers and rifling through the contents within. The rippling flow of fluid muscle beneath his white t-shirt was mesmerizing, and even once he turned back to her, pajama pants and a navy shirt in hand, she didn't bother pretending she hadn't been staring.
A smile played across his lips, teasing and bright. "I imagine I'll be able to scrounge up a toothbrush for you, too. Tomorrow we can go back to your apartment and pack whatever you'll need while we sort the rest of this out."
Michi's euphoria tapered. Not entirely, not so thoroughly as to bring her crashing back to reality, but still enough to dampen her pulse's chaotic rhythm.
Right.
No matter what had changed between her and Kurama tonight, there were bigger machinations at work. She'd only come here to begin with because her own home had grown unsafe, and until the Unweaver was caught, unsafe it would remain. But answers were out there. Some means of understanding the Unweaver's cryptic talk of graves was waiting to be unearthed. How they'd find it, Michi couldn't yet begin to guess. But they would. Eventually.
Just not tonight.
Knotting her fingers in the soft fabric of Kurama's bedspread, Michi said, "I know there are a million pieces to discuss, dozens upon dozens of angles to explore, but just for now, could we pretend none of that is looming?"
A flush of pink bloomed at the edges of Kurama's Loom, but he nodded and handed her the make-shift pajamas, allowing his fingers to linger over hers, scarred tips playing across her knuckles. "Of course, Michi." He drew back, those long fingers delving into the pockets of his jeans. "Now let me go dig up a toothbrush. I'll leave it in the bathroom, and meet you back here—" he dipped his chin meaningfully toward the bed "—in fifteen."
Which was his very oblique way of saying that he'd stop discussing the Unweaver with her, but he couldn't let the woman rest entirely. Not quite yet.
"You're going to contact Hiei, aren't you?"
A sprig of lime darted through his threads, followed quickly by a wash of amused blue. "Guilty as charged."
"Fair enough." A shy smile tugged at her lips, but she didn't give into the instinct to duck her hide and hide her blush. She was done hiding anything from him, let alone this. "Then I'll see you back here. Take your time."
The teasing laughter crinkling around his eyes loosed a wildfire in her belly, but before she could call him on it, he swooped down in a move that no mere mortal should've been able to manage so gracefully. Then he kissed her—firm and feverish and real. Oh so very real.
"Fifteen minutes, Michi. At most. Understood?"
Every word brushed his lips against hers, and she shuddered as she nodded, wishing he need not go at all. "You bet."
Michi climbed into bed before Kurama returned.
She'd heard him in the living room, speaking to Hiei in hushed tones, but whatever news the demon might've delivered was lost on her, trapped within Kurama's phone. Not that she was complaining. She was done burying her head in the sand and ignoring the intricacies of the halfway house's operation, but that didn't mean she had to know every second of every development. She'd get answers in the morning, and that knowledge would suffice for now.
As promised, Kurama had left her a toothbrush in the bathroom, plus a washcloth and proper towel, though the notion of taking a shower now, as exhausted as she was, nearly set her into a laughing fit that surely would've convinced the boys she'd lost more of her mind to the Unweaver than she'd let on. If there was a shower in her future, it could wait until after sleep.
What Kurama hadn't accounted for was her make up. The night's panic had wreaked havoc on her eyeliner and mascara, but even still, more than mere water was needed to remove the vestiges. Lucky for her, a quick scan of the cabinet below the sink revealed cleansing wipes tucked safely way. She'd need to thank either Keiko or Yukina next time she saw them; they were lifesavers.
Her face clean, she'd lingered a moment longer to assess the scratches the Unweaver's ragged nails had torn across the underside of her wrist, then she returned to Kurama's room, flicked off the lights, and clambered between the sheets. By choice, she left the curtains open and lay on her back, staring up at the green-dappled shadows painted across the ceiling by the street lamps and moonlight seeping through Kurama's meticulous plants.
The effect was ethereal and mesmeric, like being transported into another world—into Kurama's world.
Twisting the hem of his too-long sleeves between her fingers, Michi breathed deep. The sheets smelled of him, of crisp soap and earthy loam and a scent she'd once thought might be cologne but now realized must be the subtle fragrance of the plants he held so dear.
It was almost enough to distract her, almost enough to keep her thoughts from dragging her back to the square Dai had destroyed, back to those horrible moments under the Unweaver's influence. Almost, but not quite. Only Kurama himself was grounding enough to keep those memories from writhing to the surface, and now they surged back, snagging her on sharp hooks that dug beneath her skin.
She curled onto her side, knees pressing up toward her chest, and forced a fresh breath into her lungs.
The Unweaver wasn't here. In all likelihood, she'd never dare to come close to this place. If Asato was to be believed, the ex-Detectives were too strong to be faced head on by even the most skilled fighter, let alone someone as fragile as the Unweaver. Better yet, in the morning, she could call him and ask that when he returned from Genkai's, he brought dozens of wards with him. Then they could plaster all their homes with seals—with protections that should've been in place long ago.
But even with that plan in mind, she couldn't silence the fears prying at her, niggling and worming and snaking through her veins. The creeping touch of the Unweaver's powers clung to her like oil slicking her skin, and as with a petroleum spill in the ocean, she might never be completely free of it again.
It had left her unclean. Tarnished.
Damaged.
Or maybe that was only in her head. Maybe she was fine. Maybe she was her usual self. Just as she'd promised Kurama and Yusuke and Kuwabara.
But what if she wasn't? What if the Unweaver wasn't so easily evaded? What if even Michi's territory wasn't enough to keep that woman at bay?
If any of that were true, if there was even the slightest chance she was compromised, didn't she owe Kurama honesty?
Yes. Of course. Of course, she did.
And yet, when he returned, easing the door open with nothing but a whisper of wood sliding on a well-greased track, she made no move to tell him. She couldn't force the words to her lips. Not even as he slipped beyond his racks of plants and drew the curtains closed. Not even as he stripped off his undershirt and jeans, swapping them only for a pair of pajama pants to match those he'd lent her. Not even as she lifted the blankets and welcomed him into their warm cocoon.
Instead, she curled against him wordlessly and splayed a hand across the smooth planes of his stomach, his skin taut beneath her palm. His chest rose and fell with his breathing, and in the darkness, she could make out the faintest warping of his Loom around her knuckles. Perhaps if her own Loom weren't invisible to her, she'd see its threads tangled with his now, strands of indigo and lavender blending together until she could find no hint of their beginning or end.
In her imagination, it was a beautiful sight to behold.
He lifted a hand, fingers trailing through her hair as he rolled onto his side to face her, but he said nothing, at ease in the silence. The pale blues of his Loom shone with a contentment she no longer felt—a contentment that had been hers fifteen minutes prior only to evaporate from her fingers like mist in the short duration of his absence.
Saying as much proved impossible, but softly she asked, "Hiei's okay?"
"He's well enough." Kurama chuckled so gently she sensed it more as puff of air against her cheeks than as any sort of audible noise. "Angry. More than a fair bit riled. But then, he's Hiei, and that's to be expected."
"Fair enough."
The pace of his fingers' stroking shifted, his hand winding deeper into the roots of her hair, his thumb tracking across the back of her neck. "You found everything you needed?"
"Mhmm."
"Then why the disquiet?"
"What?"
He rocked backward, head angling, hair shifting in a wave. One finger flicked out to tap her nose, then pointed to his own. "You smell as though you're about to bolt, and unless I've horribly misunderstood what's transpired this evening, it isn't because of me."
She tried for levity, reaching for a joke. "Are you suggesting I should've taken the hint and showered?"
This time, he offered not even a trace of laughter. "Are we or are we not done with secrets?"
Her eyes shuttered closed.
She didn't want to talk about this, didn't want to delve into the horrible depths, didn't want to relive the violation of the Unweaver's manipulations. Just for tonight, she wanted it to be over. Just for right now, she wanted to pretend everything was simple—that she was sleeping over a guy's apartment because they were picking up where they'd left off after a messy misunderstanding, that this was some cliché, stupid hook up from a particularly corny romantic comedy, that she'd call Runa in the morning and gush about how unfairly gorgeous Kurama was without a shirt.
It had to be that.
She needed it to be that.
"Tomorrow," she said. "I'll tell you tomorrow. In the morning. Or maybe when we get Genkai and Asato on a communicator. Please."
"Michi…"
She didn't open her eyes—knew she'd crack if she looked at him—but his pink concern lapped against her awareness anyway, soft and evanescent, yet no less inescapable. A gulp of air filled her lungs, and in a rush, she grasped for words, settling on: "Before I knew who you really were, back when you were just Shuichi, we never defined what this was between us. Not really. But I'd like to. Now, I mean."
Instantly, Kurama's Loom shifted.
The coral stayed, dim as it was, running like an undercurrent just above his core, but purples bloomed brighter, thriving in teeming coils across his threads. Wordlessly, he laced his fingers through those she'd curled over his waist and pulled their interwoven hands up between them. Light as the kiss of a butterfly's wings, he grazed his lips across her knuckles, then untwined their hands and traced his faint callouses down each of her fingers, over each curve and crease, massaging and teasing and learning.
He waited until she opened her eyes to speak, and when he did, it was with a coy warmth that set fire to her veins. "I recognize what you're doing, Michi, but—" another kiss; this time directly in the center of her palm, lingering long enough that she felt the brush of his lips as he continued, "I'll play along, anyway. For tonight only." A third kiss, now in the valley between her thumb and pointer finger. "And yes, I'd like the same."
An answer was hard to find as his lips shifted again, finding the underside of her wrist, right over the jumping stutter of her pulse. "Then when you next pick me up on campus and Runa inevitably asks if you're still just my friend…"
"You'll answer 'no.'" Deliberately, the scarcely subdued plum in his Loom proving he knew what his touch did to her, he returned her hand to his hip. His guidance sent the very tips of her fingers slipping beneath the band of his pants before his own found the back of her neck, weaving through her hair. "Provided my years of study haven't failed me, I believe the proper human term might be 'boyfriend.'"
Refusing to give into his charm completely, she squeezed his hip. "Don't pretend you're not sure. You haven't flubbed a single human concept yet. I'm not falling for it."
His next kiss landed on her brow, fleeting but firm. "Ah, yes, but Shuichi Minamino hasn't yet been a boyfriend. We've moved beyond his realm of expertise."
Stifling a gasp as his thumb stroked along the hollow of her jaw, she managed to whisper, "I don't believe that for a second."
He chuckled. "I assure you, Michi, there have been no girls invited home to meet my mother, no sweethearts brought along to work events, no introductions to my old team."
She shook her head against the pillow, bangs tumbling into her eyes. "That's not what I mean. I believe you aren't lying. But I don't think any of this—" she squeezed his waist again, letting her thumb nail nip at the valley swooping down from his hip "—is new to you, and I'd wager that's as true for Shuichi as it is for Yoko Kurama."
"Perhaps you're right." While they lay in the dark, her eyes had grown accustomed to the poor lighting, grayscale giving way to pale color, and despite the shadows, she didn't miss the smile-lines webbing out from his eyes right before he leaned in to kiss her properly. He was here and gone in a second, seemingly kissing her purely to verify he could, and as he eased back, he said, "But that doesn't change this."
"No," she agreed. "It doesn't."
When he kissed her again, the hand in her hair tilting her head to accommodate him, she stopped pretending she had any trace of composure left. With desperate urgency, she tugged him closer, and he complied with innate grace, one leg threading between her own as he rose above her.
She ceased to exist outside the places where they touched—the heated tracks left by his lips as they traveled from her own down to her jaw then lower still to her neck; the press of his fingers, roughened by callouses she forgot to anticipate even after all these months, even after learning their origin; her own hands, curved around his hips, clutching at him, one palm sliding up, up, up over the grooves of his spine until her fingers found his silken hair.
Through it all, his threads flooded her senses. They were still his threads. Still faded and pale. Still approximations of the colors plaited through most Looms. But they encompassed her everywhere, a net of lavenders and amethysts and indigos and dusky plums. Purple in all its shades.
It was instinctually, without even thinking, that she unfurled her territory.
She yearned to be closer to him, to weave her own, invisible threads through his tapestry. But she couldn't do that. She didn't know how. That skill lay beyond her, for now, if not forever. Her territory, though, didn't have to remain contained. Not anymore. And not with Kurama. Not in the presence of his soothing, impossible Loom.
No headache rose in desperate protest as she pushed the bounds of her power beyond her nerves, beyond her eyes, beyond her body. It unfurled over them, stretching to encompass the rumpled expanse of Kurama's bed.
At once, his threads grew, not brighter necessarily, but clearer. More crystalline. More beautiful still. Simultaneously, Kurama stiffened, one sharp breath rolling across her cheeks as he pulled back.
His arm came to rest beside her head, a fist curled against the pillow, bracing him above her. "Michi," he all but breathed, "is this…"
"My territory."
"I didn't realize you'd mastered expanding it."
Blushing, feeling the caress of his lavender affection and powder blue pride as if they were true cloth laid across her skin, she tugged him close. "I haven't mastered anything, but I wanted to see you. You and your Loom." His eyes flitted over her face, curious and warm, and his lips parted, but she spoke before he could. "The way it—and you—are meant to be seen."
And then she kissed him.
Again and again and again.
AN: Whelp, the whole gang was supposed to be in this chapter. In fact, a whole bunch of things were supposed to be in this chapter, but then Kurama decided it was time for some indigo threads and a whole lot of fluff, and here we are instead. So next chapter, the gang will make their appearances and then get to work solving the mystery of the Unweaver. Better late than never. (I was feel a wee bit weird writing heavy romance. I much prefer the slow burn to the actual fruition, but I rather like how this turned out.)
An update on my plans for this fic and for The Unknown Grounds: The last three weeks, I feel off the productivity wagon, so I'm all out of chapters for TUG, but I'm part way through Ch. 37 for BBL, so my new plan is that BBL will go back to weekly updates until its complete (with chapters somewhere in the low forties). After that, I'll go back to biweekly updates on TUG. I hate putting TUG on a hiatus, but I know I won't be able to keep up with both stories at once, so better to just knock out the rest of BBL first. (And since the majority of my readers are BBL fans first, I figured you'd all appreciate that prioritizing.)
I've got a moodboard going up on my Tumblr for this chapter that I've been sitting on for weeks. Check it out if you're interested.
Continued massive amounts of love to the wonderful souls who review this fic. Absolutely ludicrous heaps of thanks to: ThePersonWithTheReallyLongName, ThatOneGirl, knightsqueen05, Gwen Flaming Katana, roseeyes, Laina Inverse, o-dragon, Shell1331, MissIdeophobia, GinaLiz, Beccalittlebear, and Sidako!