48

Nevvy: Glad to have you back! And to have ruined your laundry plans :) I am most of the way through a bottle of wine right now so I probably shouldn't be updating, lol. At least Chouko was a bit more prepared than Kurama because she's been the overprotective mom before. Kurama still has to get better at sharing information if he wants to get the most useful stuff back, so Hiei and Mukuro don't know exactly what he's looking for.

Angel of Pandemonium: Thanks so much!


"I can't get through." Goto pulls off his glasses and rubs at his eyes. Professor Tanaka sets down his tablet and looks across the room at them. Kurama had only wanted to show Goto his program to get his opinion on it, not turn it into a huge production.

"What's that, Goto?"

"I can't get through, sir. Minamino's program is too good."

"You can get into anything."

"I thought I could. I've had all of my bots probing for weaknesses, I've combed over it myself, I even asked the others to try. Nothing worked. Maybe if I took a couple months, but it's not a normal system."

Kurama had been proud of his little pet project. It had taken him weeks to work out the minutiae. It wasn't perfect, that was certain. He already knew a few flaws he planned to fix in the next version if Goto told him it was worth continuing. He'd never expected them to take to it like this though.

"And you made this in your spare time, Minamino, last month?"

"Yes sir," Kurama says smiling slightly at the professor.

Having much faster motor skills than a human and only really needing to sleep once every few days has plenty of little advantages but Kurama wonders if he will have to tone it down in the working world. He knows he could make the ideal cubicle dweller with his minimal needs for rest or social interaction, if only such work wasn't impossibly boring. Now that he's interested in something it's difficult to stop himself. The old fox's compulsion to be the best is always there at the back of his mind, pushing him, keeping him fixated on any task he decides to value.

Tanaka gets up and walks over slowly. He peers over Goto's shoulder at the record of failed attempts and pats his graduate student's shoulder.

"I think we can move Minamino off the administrative tasks, don't you?"

"Yes sir," Goto says, putting his glasses back on and giving Kurama a look. "I could use another hand on the Endo Industries project."

"Excellent. And I'll find another undergraduate to take over Minamino's projects." Tanaka sighs. "I do hate interviews."

"Did you get your security clearance yet?" Goto asks as Professor Tanaka returns to his office.


That night Kurama takes Chouko out to celebrate. She even promises to let him pay for dinner. They go back to the little restaurant where they first had dinner, the sake flows freely and she asks him to tell her all about his project. Kurama is more than happy to elaborate. Chouko listens politely and watches him intently but every time he asks if she follows she shakes her head.

"I understand the basic gist of what you're saying but all the technical details," she sighs and waves a hand. "Computers! I can use them just fine but all their fiddly little languages are maddening."

Kurama smiles. He's actually somewhat surprised, with Chouko's technology obsession he expected her to have a better understanding of them. At the same time Chouko seems to appreciate new things for their novelty and what they can do for her. How they do it is less of an issue.

"We'll I'm glad it went well," she says when he tells her how he's been switched to Goto's secret new project. "But I'm terrified that they're about to trust you with national secrets."

Kurama laughs and shakes his head. "No, I'm sure it's nothing so serious. And it's not like anyone could keep me out of them were I interested."

Chouko only shakes her head at that.

After dinner they sneak over the wall into Shinjuku Gyoen and wander the park. It's far too late for cherry blossoms but Kurama coaxes one from one of the trees they pass. He tucks it behind Chouko's ear and is rewarded with a swift kiss. The city rises up beyond the walls, throwing a pink glow in the air and the stars are invisible, but for all that it feels as if the two of them are alone together in some idealized past where he is not a monster. He slips an arm around her waist as they stroll beside the pond and is enveloped in the smell of tangerines.

This, Kurama muses to himself, must be what it feels like to be happy. Not just the passing happiness of a job well done or an enemy defeated but real contentment.

He was never happy as the King of Thieves. Often pleased, always self-satisfied, yes, but there was always so much more to accomplish. What he had was always insufficient. And as Shuichi, it had been almost worse these past twenty years, developing a conscience that kept him trapped in a dull life by a sense of duty and his weak emotions. He was not unhappy, but it was mostly due to his resignation to his fate rather than enjoyment. Listless and purposeless, he'd just sort of been. He feels alive again at last, but doesn't also feel the need to conquer the world.

"Chouko," he says, feeling the sudden need to tell her.

They're on one of the picturesque wooden bridges crossing the park's large pond. She stops and looks up at him, a puzzled smile on her face. Gods, he thinks, looking at her, what's happening to me? He takes her hand and pushes back the sudden flutter of worry and something else.

"You make me happy."

She grins and throws her arms around his neck, pulls him down until their mouths collide. She stumbles slightly as he pulls her closer and Kurama feels like he's drowning, but he's ok with that. When they finally break for air Chouko taps him on the nose.

"I hope you remember you said that the next time I do something obnoxious."

"It'll depend on what you do."

"No, no," she chides with a smile, "too late to take it back!"


Chouko lays sprawled across her bed, her hair ruffled and the sheets twined with her legs, watching Kurama try to find his pants.

"Next week I'm planning on leaving town for a long weekend," he says while checking under her bureau. He isn't really sure how they keep landing in such hard to find places.

"Oh? And who are you taking on your long weekend?" She stretches and he pauses to watch. He has to get to work but he'd much rather get back in bed and she isn't making it easy for him to leave.

"You," he says and she tilts her head. "If you'll come with me. Yusuke, Kuwabara and I have been talking about going to Genkai's temple—going to the temple Yusuke's old master left us when she died." He hasn't told Chouko about Genkai, but maybe Kuwabara or Yukina has, either way he barrels on. "That's where I was when you called about the Tokyo attack. Some of our friends live there and since Kuwabara, Keiko and I are on break we wanted to visit. It's a peaceful place in the mountains not far from the ocean."

"You're never far from the ocean on this island," Chouko says almost dreamily, which gives Kurama pause. She's staring up at the ceiling, at the long rectangles of light reflected across it. A wave of her hand sends eddies through the dust moats, swirling them in and out of the bars of light lacing the room. "I'll go, but you have to promise me something."

"Anything," Kurama says and instantly regrets his word choice, but standing naked in the middle of a woman's bedroom when you really need your clothes doesn't make for a strong negotiating position. Chouko looks him over, eyes grazing his body but he doesn't mind the attention. They've seen all each other's scars, even if she still won't explain hers.

"If I want to leave you'll let me leave."

His eyes widen but he tries to hide how much he's taken aback.

"Of course."

Chouko rolls onto her stomach and stares hard at him.

"I'm serious, Shuichi. If I want to go, you won't say a word against it, no nagging, no guilting, no threats, and no trying to force me to stay through whatever devious means you can imagine."

"I agree," he says. "I want you to want to be there."

"Your pants are under the bed," Chouko says with a languorous wave of her arm, "and it looks like your shirt is behind my chair."

Kurama lifts the fallen comforter and finds his pants.

He's starting to consider leaving a spare set of clothes at her house, but that action feels too real, too serious for him. For now. He tries not to think about the second toothbrush that appeared one day in her bathroom, still in its neat plastic shell—the toothbrush that now rests in her tree-shaped toothbrush holder. That's different than leaving clothes, he reassures himself.


Chouko still thinks toothpaste is the bee's knees.