It was the crack of dawn and the redhead greeted him from the kitchen.
"Good morning," Kurama offered. Before him was two cups of coffee, freshly brewed. He offered one to Hiei with a faint smile. "Coffee?"
Hiei looked at the redhead suspiciously. After their fight the night before, Hiei expected radio silence, fear, or hostility—not this smiley courtesy. People don't smile after they're told under no uncertain terms to fuck off. It was abnormal. It warranted caution, for such behavior usually belied some kind of ulterior motive.
"No thanks," Hiei said curtly. Kurama's eyes widened and Hiei inwardly winced. It was early morning and the pleasantry slipped out on reflex. Irked, Hiei shifted the straps of his backpack and headed toward the door. Kurama blocked the way. The rich smell of coffee clung to him. Hiei's stomach spasmed; whatever the redhead brewed smelled a lot better than the caffeinated drink he planned on getting from the downstairs vending machine.
"Move it," Hiei growled. Kurama looked at him.
"You don't mean that," the redhead said softly.
"Yes, I do," Hiei snapped.
At that moment, Hiei's stomach rumbled. He gritted his teeth. Kurama smiled. Once more, he held out a cup to Hiei.
"I learned how to make it from the best barista in town," Kurama coaxed. "You mentioned you enjoy coffee in your rooming questionnaire. This is my apology to you; I regret my behavior and I would like to start over. We will be living together for a year and it will be easier on both of us if we accommodate each other instead of antagonize each other."
The redhead stood firm. Hiei ground his teeth in frustration. It was six in the morning. He hadn't eaten since yesterday's breakfast. The coffee smelled mouthwatering and his stomach spasmed again. It will not kill him to entertain the redhead for the five seconds it would take to scarf down the drink. With a fierce scowl, Hiei snatched the coffee from Kurama's hand. After taking the first massive gulp, Hiei paused.
"…The barista has good taste," he admitted grudgingly. He couldn't help but slow down his pace to savor the excellent drink. Kurama beamed. He took a sip of his own drink and leaned against the wall.
"So," Kurama said conversationally. "What brings you up so early in the morning? If I recall, you are not a student but you specified a roommate who does not mind activity at odd hours of the morning and night. In my case, I have a questionable sleeping schedule. Do you suffer from a similar ailment?"
Hiei grunted around his coffee, making a noise that vaguely resembled "no."
"Work, then?"
"Something like that," Hiei replied.
"What kind of work do you do?"
"Dark shit."
"I assure you I'm not afraid of the dark."
"Violent shit."
"Mixed martial arts, perhaps?"
"…Yes."
"That's remarkable. From the way you took me down, I'd venture to guess you're a professional."
"Close enough," Hiei admitted. He might not be a professional on paper, but he had trained himself to meet the highest of law enforcement standards. Hiei downed the last of his coffee and placed the cup on the kitchen counter. Kurama wore a pleased expression. Hiei scowled.
"This does not make us friends." Hiei said flatly.
"Of course not," Kurama replied cheerily.
"Do not bother cooking for me again," Hiei glowered. "I simply have not had time to buy groceries yet. As of tomorrow, I cook for myself and we stay out of each other's way."
"I will keep that in mind," Kurama said. Then, he smiled kindly. "However, you are always welcome to my half of the fridge should you find yourself in need."
"Unlikely," Hiei scoffed. He headed toward the door.
"Have a nice day," Kurama said pleasantly. Hiei rolled his eyes, then slammed the door shut.
Once Hiei's footsteps faded across the hall, Kurama smiled to himself and approached the cup Hiei had used. From his pocket, he pulled out a cotton swab. On Hiei's cup, faint traces of saliva remained. Kurama wiped it up carefully, then placed the cotton swab in a small test tube. With a sharpie, he labelled the lid S-09 and slipped it into his pocket.
He looked forward to visiting his laboratory after class.
Hiei perched on the roof of a building within fifty meters of the city's police department.
It was a dull concrete building. Not the tallest skyscraper, nor the shortest house. There was a stairway that offered shelter from the elements and hid Hiei from view. He shrugged his backpack off his shoulders and buckled down. From his backpack, he pulled out his laptop, a protein bar, and various electronic equipment.
The first thing he had done upon leaving the house was stock up on food. A bland collection of meal replacement shakes, protein bars, and energy drinks would power him for a week. The next thing he did was open his laptop and link it to an assortment of electronic equipment. Within moments, he was connected to the nearby police database.
He smirked. The age of a reliance on internet, Bluetooth, and cloud sharing presented opportunities like never before.
Picking up where he left off, Hiei browsed the database for the latest crimes. In a city like York New, there were countless crimes committed each day. Hiei focused on deaths, but skimmed through crimes which struck him as plausibly connected to his suspect.
A frustrating aspect of his suspect was that no one seemed able to provide an account of their appearance. As of this time, Hiei couldn't even state whether his suspect was male, female, or other—he could only analyze subtle patterns in their criminal technique and personality.
So far, an indisputable trend was that the culprit collected trophies.
Whether a body part, a personal item, or a piece of clothing, the culprit never left the scene empty-handed.
The majority of the culprit's crimes were committed in the evening.
The culprit's preferred method of murder was strangulation or poisoning.
The culprit rarely maimed their victim, save for the precise removal their trophy.
There had been three cases of locked room murders: The victim had been found strangled in bed, locked in and undiscovered until their body began emanating odors.
In the case of murders in the public space, bodies were left in prominent locations to be discovered the next day. Thus far, a high school teacher, a waiter, and his twin had been killed in such a manner.
Hiei scowled.
He could swear there was a pattern to these kills, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.
The culprit attacked in waves.
There didn't seem to be a set number of victims, but every few months the culprit shifted locations. Hiei strongly believed that a recent attack in York New was the work of his killer; the body was left in pristine shape, save for a missing finger. Cause of death was strangulation. The body was found within 24 hours, when the businessman missed his flight, drawing the attention of his colleagues.
Given this attack that ticked off every one of Hiei's boxes, he had reason to believe that the culprit was going to be in York New for at least several months—a prime opportunity to corner them.
As Hiei looked through the database, a movement caught his eye.
A new case was uploaded.
Hiei narrowed his eyes.
The victim was a professor at the nearby university. Perhaps Hiei was biased, but the sheer proximity to the café of his twin's murder set off alarm bells in his head.
The attack had happened in the last hour. The crime scene would be almost pristine.
Rapidly, Hiei packed his bag and departed.
Sample S-09 did not test positive for any significant diseases, cancers, or allergies.
In his laboratory, Kurama smiled to himself. His subject of the year was confirmed to be viable. His experiment could continue without question. Having finished his business with the saliva sample, Kurama carefully disposed of it.
He was an undergrad student. Junior year, perfect on paper. It was child's play to beseech a professor to lend him a laboratory for personal research.
"To pad my resume," Kurama had said, smiling sheepishly. "I intend to go to medical school but the competition is fierce. I would like to set myself apart through research findings." Phrased like that, the professor—astounded by his insight within the first week of class—had all but scrambled to accommodate him.
With a benign smile on his face, Kurama couldn't help but pity the fool.
People, Kurama thought loftily, Are so hideously dull.
He was five years old when he realized the inane attachment people had to appearances.
"He pushed me!" the older boy cried. He was freckled, pudgy, and not reputed to be intelligent. His clothing was covered in mud and his face was red with rage as he pointed at Kurama's wide eyes. "He pushed me into the mud, I saw him!"
The kindergarten teacher looked up from her phone, at the pudgy boy who stomped his feet angrily, and at Kurama, who stood primly with his hands behind his back. She barely refrained from scoffing.
"Who, Kurama? Don't be ridiculous. You tripped and fell yourself, didn't you? It's not nice to lie. I'm afraid I'll have to send you to time out."
"What?!" The pudgy boy exclaimed. "But he pushed me, he did! Everyone saw it. Right? Right?"
"Keep lying and I'll have to call your parents."
"But I'm not lying! He pushed me, he really did!"
"Can you prove it?"
"Well—No, but—"
"Then that's that. Kurama's such a good boy," the teacher said, and Kurama smiled shyly. "I don't know why you would make up such lies about him. Come on, off to time out you go."
"I'm not lying!" the other boy shouted.
He was ten years old when he realized the inanity of people in general.
"You misplaced the decimal," Kurama said politely.
"Sorry?" said the teacher.
"The decimal," Kurama said patiently. "You misplaced it in the fourth step. The answer is off by a hundred."
"Ah…"
Tediously, the old man erased the board and reworked the problem. This time, he misplaced a negative sign. Kurama refrained from pinching his nose. Around him, the girls giggled while the boys murmured among themselves.
"You're smarter than the teacher," the girl closest to Kurama whispered. "Maybe you're a genius like Mr. Einstein!"
"I'm not," Kurama said, genuinely surprised. "The material is just that easy."
"No, it's not," the boy to his right snickered. "My friend here got a 40 on the last quiz. He goes to tutoring and still doesn't get decimals. Isn't he stupid?"
Kurama blinked.
"And it's not just him. Half the class failed the last quiz! You should teach us how you cheat, aye? There's no way you actually understand the material, right?"
The boy looked at Kurama expectantly.
Kurama didn't know what to say.
He was sixteen years old when he decided inane people had no place in the world.
"There was a mistake," the physician said nervously. Sitting by his mother's hospital bed, Kurama wore the coldest expression he had ever seen. "We were short-staffed, so we brought in the nurses-in-training and…well…" The physician couldn't look him in the eye. "Well, they misplaced the needle and…I'm afraid your mother got infected…"
"Get out."
"You have no right to speak to me like—"
"Get. Out."
The physician retreated.
Kurama looked at the only person he gave a damn about. She had a month to live. A month was far too short a time, even for him, to find a cure for one of the world's most renowned diseases. She was going to die and it was due to the sheer stupidity of other people.
Kurama clenched his hands into fists.
If he couldn't stop death, he must find a way to reverse it.
By the age of seventeen, he had carefully preserved his mother's body and revived the heartbeat of a dead mouse. When it came time to test on human subjects, his first choice was the nurse who misplaced the needle.
In the present, twenty-year-old Kurama scribbled in his lab journal.
Three years ago, his research came to a stalemate. He had no problem animating a body, but the body tended to be in a vegetative state. It had a heartbeat and a breath, but no memories nor personality.
To combat this, Kurama established the tradition of taking a roommate. With intimate knowledge of their physical body, behavior, and psychology, they were perfect for testing whether or not he could bring back an entire personality instead of an empty shell.
There was a burst of static.
Kurama paused his notetaking.
The emergency speaker system came to life.
"Students, there has been an incident," a gravelly voice announced. "A member of the faculty has been attacked. The suspect is still at large and we ask that you leave the campus as soon as possible. Within an hour, the campus will be locked down for police to investigate the scene of crime. Please see yourselves to a secure location and stay tuned to the university website for updates about the situation. To repeat:
A member of the faculty has been attacked. We ask you to leave campus as soon as…"
Kurama's eyebrows raised. Quickly, he organized himself and exited the lab. Outside, students hastened to leave the area. Police sirens blared toward the west side of campus. Tape was already being rolled out around the main library.
Kurama narrowed his eyes.
Such a conspicuous location, he thought. But I do not believe this matter is of my concern.
It was a big city. Accidents happen and something similar occurred in high school. Deftly, Kurama picked his way past frightened students. There were few things he feared and death was not one of them.
As Kurama calmly made his way off the campus, a pair of violet eyes followed him.
"It's been so long," a tall figure murmured. "You've grown out your hair…you've gotten taller…you're as beautiful as I remember."
The figure clasped their hands.
"I cannot wait to kill you."